Scores of people, including students and retired workers, were detained briefly following a strike and a peace march. Five retired workers remained in detention. Some of those detained appeared to be prisoners of conscience. Six people were sentenced to death. A former President of Mali and five other prisoners remained under sentence of death. No executions were reported. In March, a ceremony known as the Torch of Peace, presided over by President Alpha Oumar Konaré and the President of Ghana, Jerry John Rawlings, Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, took place in Timbuktu, in the northern part of the country. The ceremony symbolized the end of the rebellion led by armed opposition groups in the north of Mali; they promised to disband and pledged never to take up arms against the state again. In October, more than a thousand former armed opposition group members were integrated into the army. Mady Diallo, a minister in the government of former head of state Moussa Traoré, and seven soldiers were arrested in October and charged with "inciting an attack on the legitimate Malian Government with the aim of overthrowing it by force, and with complicity in a conspiracy against the internal security of the state, by donations, promises and supplies of means". In January, at least 40 students, including Operi Berthé, Secretary General of the Association des élèves et étudiants du Mali (AEEM), Association of Malian students, and Koré Toumou Téhéra, Nohoum Togo and Alassane Touré, all AEEM members, were arrested and charged with "causing offence to rightful authority, violation and assaults and for undermining the freedom of work". All were released provisionally after two weeks. The students were arrested after they launched a strike for payment of scholarships and for better conditions of study. In August, Youssouf Traoré, an opposition party member in the National Assembly, was arrested in San, in the south of Mali, after repeatedly criticizing the local administration of corruption. He was later charged with defamation and insulting a civil servant in the course of his duties. Youssouf Traoré was released provisionally after three months. In September, more than 30 members of the Association des travailleurs volontaires partant à la retraite, Association of Voluntarily Retired Workers, including 23 women, were arrested after police broke up a peace march in protest at what they said was the authorities' failure to keep their promises. They were charged with participating in an armed gathering and damaging state property. Twenty-five of them were provisionally released after being held for between three and 10 days, but five were still detained at the end of the year. Some of the five were believed to be possible prisoners of conscience. In June, six people were sentenced to death by the Cour d'Assises, Court of Assizes, in Ségou. Diango Sissoko, Daouda Traoré and Karim Koné were convicted on charges of theft of public property and armed robbery; the others were convicted of arson, aggravated theft and possession of drugs. Former President Moussa Traoré and Boubacar Dembelé, former head of the National Tobacco and Match Company, as well as three other former government officials, remained under sentence of death (see Amnesty International Report 1996). There were no reports of executions. In March, President Konaré made a statement in which he mentioned that he opposed the death penalty.

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