August 8
INDIA:
Supreme Court should re-consider death penalty: Tarigami----Kashmir shuts
down to protest Afzal's death sentence
MLA and Secretary General Communist Party of India, for occupied Kashmir,
Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami has said that the death sentence decreed against
Afzal Guroo could hamper the peace process between India and Pakistan,
while hoping that President of India will have a considerate look at the
death penalty.
Kashmir Media Service said Tarigami was quoted as saying that peace
process between India and Pakistan involves many intricacies and has been
initiated with utter difficulties and in these situations, if Guroo was
hanged it might tell badly upon the process.
He took an appeal before President of India to have a considerate look
over Supreme Court verdict and save the peace process.
Tarigami said that Guroo wasn't directly involved in any murder but was
found guilty on the basis of emotions.
Meanwhile, a near-total strike Monday to protest the death sentence
against Muhammad Afzal for his role in the December 2001 terror attack on
the Indian parliament crippled life in the Kashmir valley.
The general strike was called by the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq led-Hurriyat
group and the hard-line Hurriyat Conference of Syed Ali Geelani following
the upholding of his death sentence by the Supreme Court.
Shops were closed, businesses shut and traffic was off the roads in the
Kashmir summer capital of Srinagar where authorities have ordered a
massive security beef up. Troops mounted on bullet-proof mobile bunkers
were seen patrolling the streets.
Reports from other towns said the strike was complete. State government
offices, banks and educational institutions remained closed in Kashmir.
The separatist Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and the Kashmir
bar association have also called for a complete shut down Monday.
Yasin Malik, JKLF chairman, said that the death sentence would not
suppress the ongoing freedom movement in Kashmir.
"India on one hand is boasting about the dialogue process and at the same
time it is conspiring to kill Kashmiris."
Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) chief Shabir Ahmad Shah called upon the
presidents of India and Pakistan to stop the execution of Muhammad Afzal
which he said "will bring catastrophe".
"The freedom movement will continue and people of Kashmir will fight for
the right to self determination notwithstanding the oppression and
suppression," Syed Ali Geelani told IANS here.
The family of Afzal has decided to petition President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
for mercy.
While upholding Afzal's death sentence last week, the Supreme Court had
let off Delhi University teacher S.A.R. Geelani.
The court had also commuted the death sentence of another accused, Shaukat
Hussain Guru, to 10 years imprisonment and Rs.25,000 fine, stating he was
not a part of the criminal conspiracy behind the parliament attack.
It had upheld the acquittal of Geelani and Navjot Sandhu alias Afsan Guru
(Shaukat Hussain's wife) by the Delhi High Court in 2003.
Nine people were killed in the Dec 13, 2001, attack that was believed to
have been masterminded by Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.
(source: Pakistan Tribune)
CHINA:
China execution policy keeps fugitives safe abroad
China's lack of key extradition treaties and heavy hand with the death
penalty is allowing many escaped corrupt officials to stay far from the
arm of Chinese law, the state-run Xinhua Daily Telegraph reported on
Sunday.
The report cited a Chinese Commerce Ministry report of last year that said
4,000 officials had escaped the country in recent years and taken 5
billion yuan ($617 million) in embezzled funds with them, giving China the
world's fourth-most serious problem with capital flight.
"It is very difficult to get cor rupt officials back from their main
'destination countries', such as the United States, Japan and Canada,
because China has not signed extradition treaties with those nations," Chu
Huaizhi, a law professor at Beijing University, was quoted as saying.
One of China's most wanted fugitives, accused smuggling kingpin Lai
Changxing, has been able to stay in Canada since fleeing there in 1999.
The Canadian government has said it supports China's bid to have Lai
returned to face charges, but he has avoided that so far as the case moves
slowly through Canadian courts.
Corruption, virtually wiped out in China in the years after the Communists
came to power in 1949, has roared back in the wake of economic reforms
introduced in the late 1970s.
Many of those living abroad and accused of corruption were bank officials
or managers of state-owned enterprises.
Chu said China's use of the death penalty for non-violent crimes makes the
extradition process even more difficult, as many countries refuse to send
back foreign nationals who could face possible execution.
Canada traditionally is one such country. Beijing has pledged Lai
Changxing would not be executed if he was returned and found guilty, but
Lai argues Beijing would simply ignore its promise if he was extradited.
For years, some Chinese legal experts have called for limits on death
sentences in non-violent cases, Chu said, adding if corrupt officials were
not afraid of facing execution, many of them might not choose to flee the
country.
"But Chinese people's cries for severe punishment of corrupt officials are
very loud and you have to consider the country's needs to stem graft. A
decision on whether or not to keep imposing the death penalty for
non-violent crimes will require further debate and experiments," he was
quoted as saying.
Rights groups say China executes 5,000 to 12,000 people every year -- more
than any other country.
The government in July asked courts to think twice before handing down the
death penalty, though Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said earlier in the year
that "national conditions" would not allow China to abolish executions.
Last August, Beijing passed a new regulation requiring senior officials to
check in with superiors before leaving the country in an attempt to stem
the tide of massive graft.
China's leaders have warned repeatedly that the Communist Party faces
self-destruction if it fails to crack down on corruption, a scourge that
toppled imperial dynasties.
(source: Reuters)
