death penalty news June 7, 2004
INDIA: India's new government to introduce law to protect religious minorities India's left-leaning government said on Monday it planned to introduce a new law aimed at protecting religious minorities from outbreaks of violence. President Abdul Kalam said in an address to parliament the government was determined to fight the sort of religious strife seen in Hindu-nationalist dominated Gujarat two years ago where 2,000 people died in riots. "The government will adopt all such possible measures to promote and maintain communal peace and harmony so that minorities feel completely secure," said Kalam, reading the speech written by the cabinet. "My government will enact a model law to deal with communal violence and encourage states to adopt it," Kalam said without giving details of the proposed legislation. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Sikh who is India's first premier from a religious minority, heads a communist-backed coalition that ousted a Hindu nationalist-led government in April-May elections. The election showed voters' "rejection of the forces of divisiveness and intolerance," Kalam said. Repeal POTA The speech also confirmed the new government would scrap the Prevention of Terrorism Act which the Hindu nationalists pushed into law in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks due to the law's "misuse." The act expanded the use of the death penalty and allows authorities to detain terrorist suspects for three months without charges. "The government is of the view that existing laws could adequately handle the menace of terrorism," Kalam said. He said the government would encourage an "amicable settlement" over India's most protracted religious dispute in Ayodhya, where Hindu zealots in 1992 tore down a mosque they said stood on the birthplace of the god Ram. The riots in Gujarat broke out when a train of activists campaigning to build a temple over the mosque ruins in Ayodhya was torched by an allegedly Muslim mob, killing 59 people. (source: AFP / The Khaleej Times) ============================== PHILIPPINES: Kidnapping down to all-time low in Philippines: Arroyo President Gloria Arroyo said on Monday kidnapping for ransom had fallen to an all-time low in the Philippines after an intensified crackdown launched last year, when officials said it was at a 10-year high. Arroyo said an anti-kidnapping task force headed by former armed forces chief Angelo Reyes and set up seven months ago had effectively neutralized nearly all of the country's top crime gangs. "Kidnapping today is at an all time-low," Arroyo said. "For almost three months now, there has been zero kidnapping and I congratulate everyone involved." Arroyo was apparently referring to kidnapping by criminal gangs, as suspected Muslim militants are holding three telecom workers snatched this month and a group of Malaysians and Indonesians taken in April. The president said the task force had killed or arrested a number of high-profile kidnappers, including gang leader Roberto Yap who was killed shortly after Reyes' force was activated. Yap, a licensed physician, had led a kidnap gang that preyed on his fellow Chinese-Filipinos, mostly wealthy businessmen and members of their families. Arroyo on Monday met with two civilians who tipped off the authorities about Yap's whereabouts, and gave them some 26,880 dollars in reward money. In December she was forced by public pressure to lift a four-year moratorium on the death penalty in a bid to stem the rising tide of kidnappings. Officials had said that kidnapping reached a 10-year high in 2003, with at least one victim every three days. Among those kidnapped last year was Coca-Cola executive Betti Sy, a 32-year-old Chinese-Filipino whose body was later found stuffed in a trash can on a Manila roadside. Sy's death caused a public uproar and dampened investor confidence by fuelling a rising perception of lawlessness. This prompted the government to crack down on crime. Troops have also been pursuing Muslim Abu Sayyaf kidnappers, who have been linked by Manila and Washington to Al-Qaeda, in the southern Philippines. (source: AFP / The Khaleej Times)
