Oct. 12
PHILIPPINES:
Philippine bishops press for end of death penalty
The Catholic bishops of the Philippines have renewed their appeal to
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to abolish the death penalty.
In an October 11 statement, the bishops said that the government should
find another way to protect society from criminals, rather than execution,
"which only brings out the worst in all of us."
"We believe that we should give lawbreakers a chance to repent,
rehabilitate, and truly pay for their crimes," the bishops said. They
asked the government to suspend all executions, and impose alternate
sentences.
President Corazon Aquino abolished the death penalty in 1987, but it was
reinstated by President Fidel Ramos in 1994, in response to an increase in
crime. In 2000, under pressure from the Church and human-rights groups,
the government agreed to suspend executions indefinitely. But in the wake
of another surge in crime-- particularly kidnapping and extortion--
President Arroyo ended that suspension in December 2003.
(source: CWNews)
IRAN:
Execution demanded as child killer trial opens
The trial of 2 Iranian men accused of kidnapping, raping and murdering 20
people -- most of them children -- began in Tehran on Tuesday with the
prosecutor and victims' relatives demanding the death penalty, Agence
France Press (AFP) reported.
Mohammad Bijeh and his alleged accomplice, Ali Baghi, were arrested last
month for the killing and raping of 17 children, 2 men and a woman in the
desert south of Tehran.
According to Iranian media the 2 men were judged to be in their "full
faculty", meaning they could stand trial.
The trial of the two men, who worked in a brickworks in Pakdasht, an
impoverished town south of Tehran, is taking place behind closed doors due
the horrific nature of the crimes, state television said.
No further information on Tuesday's proceedings were available.
If convicted, the pair face execution, and reports said the prosecutor and
relatives of those killed called Tuesday for "the harshest possible
sentence".
The case has drawn huge media attention, with one reader writing to a
newspaper asking for the alleged killers to be burned alive in a brick
furnace.
The press has dubbed them "hyenas" or "vampires of the Tehran desert", and
President Mohammad Khatami has ordered his interior minister to personally
investigate the case.
Over a period of more than a year, the men allegedly lured children into
the desert by saying they were going to dig out rabbits or foxes from
their burrows.
They then allegedly stunned their victims with blows from a stone,
sexually abused them and buried the bodies in shallow graves. They also
allegedly placed dead animals near their victims' bodies to cover up the
smell of the rotting corpses.
An announcement seen on the Iranian police website Monday said 19 officers
have been reprimanded for "shortcomings" in tackling the case, with 7 of
those reprimanded also referred to the judicial body dealing with the
police. The statement did not say what punishment the officers faced.
An Iranian judiciary spokesman, Jamal Karimi-Rad, was quoted on student
news agency ISNA as saying "2 inspectors, an assistant public prosecutor
and Pakdasht prosecutor also evidently had some shortcomings in dealing
with this case."
(source: IranMania News)
