The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area Sergey Ivanov, then Chief of the Kremlin Administration, said in November 2015 that it would be premature to introduce capital punishment for terrorists. Also, the presidential Human Rights Council has unanimously rejected calls to re-introduce the death penalty for terrorist crimes, saying the measure would be both inhumane and ineffective. Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was asked in December 2015 whether the stance of the Russian Federation President’s opposition to the death penalty has changed; he stated that the President had “not come up with any alternative points of view”.153 There have been various reactions from stakeholders in the OSCE region. By way of example, on 20 March 2016, the general rapporteur of the PACE on abolition of the death penalty publicly stated that she was disturbed by reports alleging that a working group at the Russian Federation’s State Duma is preparing legislation to introduce capital punishment for certain crimes relating to terrorism. The general rapporteur condemned all attempts to re-introduce the death penalty and stated that the Russian Federation, which is the only member of the Council of Europe that has not ratified Protocol No.6 to the ECHR on the abolition of the death penalty in time of peace, must urgently take steps to abolish the death penalty once and for all, in order to not find itself increasingly isolated in Europe, where there is a relatively broad consensus that the death penalty has no place on the continent.154 The situation in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan has not changed in the reporting period. Both participating States maintain an indefinite moratorium on executions, with Tajikistan likewise applying a moratorium on death sentences. No new laws have been adopted by either country on the matter. Kazakhstan continued to observe an official moratorium on the death penalty. Through its reply to the ODIHR questionnaire dated 24 March 2016, it listed the gradual reduction of the grounds for the imposition of the death penalty as a key objective of the country’s legal policy framework, and that, although Kazakhstan did not accept the recommendation on ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, on the grounds that there is a need to complete the process of humanization of legislation and law enforcement practice while taking into account public opinion, in fact the Protocol is being implemented. Similarly, the Tajikistan used its National Report submission for the “2nd Cycle of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review” to list a number of measures taken in the country towards complete abolition of the death penalty. These include an interdepartmental Working Group focused on conducting public-information and public-education campaigns, organizing conferences and awareness-raising meetings, conducting analysis on the crime situation before and after the moratorium, and ultimately considering various options and procedures with respect to abolition. Two possible ways forward have been identified to date: complete abolition could be achieved 153  Ibid. 154  Parliamentary Assembly, op. cit., note 121. 38