death penalty news June 2, 2004
TAJIKISTAN: Tajik Lower House Passes Moratorium On Death Penalty Tajikistan's lower house of parliament has unanimously adopted a moratorium on the death penalty. The lower house, the Majlisi Namoyandagon, set no end date for the moratorium, which is to take effect immediately after becoming law. The bill sets the maximum sentence for a crime at 25 years in prison. The moratorium must still be approved by the upper house of parliament, which is considered a formality, and must be signed by President Emomali Rakhmonov, who proposed the moratorium in April. However, parliamentarian Shermahmad Shoev said the courts are already abiding by the moritorium. "Keeping in mind the experience of most of the countries in the world that have abolished or suspended this kind of punishment, Tajikistan has also chosen this path," Shoev said. "In Tajikistan, the death sentence will be not carried out anymore and this kind of punishment has been already suspended [in the courts]." Last year, Rakhmonov reduced the number of crimes punishable by death from 15 to five and revoked its use against women and minors. Amnesty International has strongly criticized the death penalty in Tajikistan, but the number of executions carried out in the Central Asian country is unknown. (source: AP / AFP / Radio Free Europe) ============================= AUSTRALIA: Terrorism may force us all behind walls Gated communities designed to protect inhabitants from the outside world exist in Australia but are extremely rare. Most of us live comfortably in streets with free access and feel relatively safe from intrusion. In the United States gated estates are not the norm but exist in greater proportion than here. In Washington DC, where I lived in the late 1980s and early '90s, there were a number. The city in those days was out of control. Crack wars were raging and drug-related crimes were so prolific that DC had become America's crime capital. Our inner-city neighbourhood on the edge of Capitol Hill had the highest murder rate in the country. Police helicopters hovered most nights as automatic gunfire peppered the air. Snipers occasionally took pot shots at passers-by from the roof of the nearby housing project. Getting in the house at night involved first taking the car up and down the street to seek out muggers, parking, then running for the front door. All windows carried heavy metal grates. Under such pressure liberal attitudes to law and order are severely tested. Capital punishment becomes a more reasonable option. My wife requested that I buy a gun for our protection. (I refused on the basis that she would probably shoot me, not the intruder.) Gated communities started looking like commonsense, not an extreme choice. This is not a world Australians, or the vast majority of Americans, understand. We have been protected from such disorder and fear because of the general success of our society and the harmony in which most of our communities live. But for how long? Terrorism is a threat that unless definitively addressed has the power to unravel all that we take for granted. Just this week Jack Roche became the first Australian convicted and jailed under anti-terrorism laws. It is feasible to consider this as just the beginning of an assault that could push us into the creation of not merely gated communities but a gated society. In his forthcoming book The Lesser Evil Michael Ignatieff, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, warns of the consequences of not successfully combating the menace of radical Islamist terrorism. "Consider the consequences of a second extensive attack on the mainland of the US - the detonation of a radiological or dirty bomb, perhaps, or a low-yield nuclear device or chemical strike in a subway," he wrote in The Age last week. "Any of these events could cause death, devastation and panic on a scale that would make 9/11 seem like a pale prelude." Ignatieff argues that once the initial mess is cleaned up "we might find ourselves living in a national security state on continuous alert, with sealed borders, constant identity checks and permanent detention camps for dissidents and aliens". "The worst of it," Ignatieff says, "is that government would not have to impose tyranny on a cowed populace. We would demand it for our own protection." Fear would change us, reshape our values and leave our children a lesser society than we inherited. It is why there is a war on terrorism and is why it is secondary whether the US was right or wrong to go into Iraq. What Ignatieff tackles is the more fundamental issue of what sacrifices to democratic values we should make now to secure those values in the longer term. He says it is time that we "step outside of our cosy conservative and liberal boxes" and grapple with how exactly we can live without fear inside free institutions. He argues the radical proposition that to win against terrorism our societies could legitimise the use of torture, detention, secrecy, deception and the violation of rights. But he says that it is not acceptable that these actions just creep into the system as they did in Abu Ghraib prison. Ignatieff maintains this legitimisation be strictly controlled through the rule of law, that our legislators take responsibility for establishing these new terms of engagement. Only then, with full transparency of these new, more brutal security arrangements - that over time are capable of reversal - can our values not be terminally infected. Certainly it is a debate worth having. Who knows where the war will go, how frightened we will become? In Australia we still seem strangely disengaged from the terrorism threat. It remains something of a political plaything, a remote issue more of concern to Americans and being fought in the distant Middle East. Our hope is that it remains so. But if the horrific Ignatieff scenario comes true we will have some hard decisions to make. (source: Sydney Morning Herald) ====================== IRAN: Iran's Judiciary Revokes Death Sentence For Blasphemy On Academic Iran's Supreme Court has revoked a death sentence for Hashem Aghajari, a pro-reform university professor convicted of blasphemy. Aghajari was sentenced to death in November 2002 for a speech in which he said Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" religious leaders. Aghajari's sentence sparked major student protests in Iran, prompting the supreme leader to order a review of the case. A spokesman for Iran's judiciary today confirmed media reports the Supreme Court has revoked a death sentence for Aghajari, a university professor and a member of the pro-reform Organization of the Mujahedin of the Islamic Revolution. The decision follows reports of a decision by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that a speech by Aghajari which triggered the death sentence cannot be considered apostasy. Aghajari, a history professor at Tarbiat Modaress University in Tehran and a disabled veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, was convicted of blasphemy in November 2002 for a speech in which he called for "religious renewal" within Iran's clergy. Aghajari in the speech said Muslims were not "monkeys" who should blindly follow senior clerics. A number of conservatives in Iran viewed such comments as a direct challenge to the country's Islamic establishment. The verdict sparked mass student protests, with thousands of young Iranians throughout the country calling for his release. Iranian President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami and Iran's then-reformist parliament likewise denounced the decision. The death sentence sparked also international outcry, with several human rights groups calling on Iran's judiciary to drop all charges and release Aghajari. The wave of protests prompted the supreme leader to order a review of the court decision. Aghajari's sentence was sent back to the provincial court that handed down the original conviction. But the court recently announced the conviction and the sentence had been upheld. Aghajari himself has refused to appeal his sentence. Some observers doubted Iranian authorities would carry out the execution in the end, saying the case highlighted the power struggle between conservatives and reformists in Iran's government. Hossein Bagherzadeh, a London-based human rights activist who closely follows events in Iran, said: "It seems that the whole case has been political from the very beginning. Mr. Aghajari seems to have been used as a pawn in the struggle between the two factions of the government. And it seems that, now that the election has been won by the conservatives and the reformists have been barred from the Majlis [parliament], that Aghajari's case has served its purpose, and that maybe that's the reason why they have decided to revoke the sentence." Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, today said he has not yet been informed of the Supreme Court decision. But he said his client is likely to remain in prison for convictions on other charges, including the spreading of lies and inciting public opinion. Aghajari, who lost a leg during the Iran-Iraq War, was sentenced on those convictions to eight years in prison, 74 lashes, and a 10-year ban on teaching activities. Bagherzadeh told RFE/RL he is relieved by the news of the death-penalty revocation. But he said Aghajari's case is a bitter reflection of the workings of Iran's judiciary: "The question remains: Why had this gentleman been put in prison for his beliefs for the last 22 months, and why has he been threatened with the death sentence, and why is he still going to be kept in prison for other charges? So the whole saga is quite a shameful event which has happened in the Islamic Republic and I think it is against all principles of human rights." Iran's judiciary spokesman said today Aghajari's case is still due to be fully reviewed by a court in Tehran according to a Supreme Court request. (source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)
