Aug. 25
INDIA/PAKISTAN:
Human rights lawyer calls Indian spys confessions 'unsustainable'
A human rights lawyer has requested Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to
pardon an Indian facing execution in Pakistan, saying that a confession
taken from him for his alleged involvement in spying and bomb blasts is
"unsustainable" in law.
"I have written in the petition to Musharraf that the death sentence given
to Sarabjit is wrong. It is based on a confession at the police station is
unsustainable in the eyes of law. Such a confession can be taken from any
citizen form India and Pakistan. If on such a piece of evidence you are
giving him death sentence, then its not a judicial judgement, its
political judgement. In such a case President of Pakistan should interfere
to save an innocent man," said Rajan Lakhanpal, the President of World
Human Rights Protection Council.
Pakistans Supreme Court last week upheld a death sentence handed out to
Singh in 1991 for spying for India's intelligence agency, the Research and
Analysis Wing, and involvement in bombings in the central province of
Punjab.
Singh was convicted of involvement in 3 bomb blasts in the Pakistani
cities of Lahore and Faisalabad and a case linking him to another in
Multan was still pending.
While Pakistans Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri had said it was
up to President Pervez Musharraf to decide the fate of Manjit Singh,
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Reuters Television
categorically that only the heirs of people killed in the bomb blasts
could do so.
The Supreme Court decision stirred emotions in India after Singh's family
threatened to commit suicide if the execution was carried out.
His family says he is innocent and a farmer in India's northern Punjab
state who wandered into Pakistan in 1990 while drunk.
The call to save the convicted man comes at a time when relations between
India and Pakistan have improved since they re-launched a peace process in
early 2004.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is due to meet Musharraf in New
York next month said on Tuesday he would speak to his Pakistani
counterpart Shaukat Aziz to try to stop the execution.
(source: New Kerala)
IRAN:
2 teenagers face execution in defiance of international law
Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to prevent the
execution of two teenagers in Iran sentenced to death in defiance of the
international ban on executing child offenders. Iran has reportedly
already executed at least 7 child offenders so far this year.
The boys - Mostafa (surname unknown), a student, aged, 16, and Sina
(surname unknown), a musician, aged 17- are at risk of imminent execution
for murder.
Their sentences have reportedly been upheld by the Supreme Court, and
could be carried out at any time.
According to the Iranian daily newspaper E'temad, Mostafa was convicted of
killing a drunken man in the Pars district of Tehran.
The drunken man was reportedly harassing a girl when Mostafa intervened to
stop him. The man reportedly started hitting Mostafa, who eventually
killed him in the ensuing scuffle.
E'temad also reported that Sina, a musician and music teacher in Tehran,
was convicted of murder after a dispute with a man over cannabis in
October 2004.
Sina reportedly told the court that he was addicted to drugs and had gone
to a park in Tehran on the day of the incident to try and obtain cannabis
from a drug dealer.
He allegedly stabbed the drug dealer to death during a fight.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
"The Iranian authorities should act immediately to prevent the execution
of these 2 teenage boys.
"Iran's defiance of the international ban on executing child offenders is
a growing concern and calls into question Iran's willingness to abide by
international human rights standards.
"By halting these executions, suspending all other death sentences imposed
on child offenders and abolishing all such executions, Iran would be
signalling its willingness to respect its own human rights commitments."
As a party to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights,
Iran has undertaken not to execute anyone for an offence committed when
they were less than 18 years old.
For approximately four years, the Iranian authorities have been
considering legislation that would prohibit the use of the death penalty
for offences committed under the age of 18.
Iran has executed at least 7 child offenders in 2005. Most recently,
Kayhan newspaper reported that a 17-year-old was among 4 men under the age
of 23, named only as A.P., B.K., H.K. and H.J., who were executed on 23
August in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran.
They were reportedly convicted of kidnapping, rape and theft. A.P. and
B.K. reportedly received 74 lashes each before they were executed.
In 2004 Iran executed three child offenders, including a 16-year-old girl
- Atefeh Rajabi - who was publicly hanged in the street for "acts
incompatible with chastity".
In total there were at least 159 executions in Iran in 2004, the
second-highest figure for any country in the world.
(source: Amnesty International UK)
