Dec. 31
IRAN:
Iranian Womens Group Hits Out at Death Sentence on Teen Girl
Defaazzanan, an NGO supporting and defending womens rights in Iran, has
joined the protest against the execution of Delaraa Daraabi (she was
reported as Delaraam in our 1st report)
It is now clear that sexuality is not a factor in this case. However, if
the sentence is carried out, Iran will again be acting against the United
Nations International Convention on the Rights of the Child which the
country not only signed, but ratified (only the USA and Somalia have not
ratified).
We make no apologies that is is not a gay or lesbian story. The plight of
Delaraa has to be brought to the attention of all sections of the global
village.
The following is the translation from Persian of Defaazzanans call for
further national and international support against Delaraas execution:
A young girl by the name of Delaraa has been sentenced to public execution
of hanging in the Northern city of Rasht (a port city of the Caspian Sea).
Since coming to power of the Ahmadinejaad, the regimes atrocious
suppressive machine has accelerated the torturing and killing of Iranian
youths and women.
The young Delaraa, who is convicted of murdering a relative, said that she
was engaged to a young man and together they attempted to burgle a rich
relatives house in order to provide for the expenses of their upcoming
marriage. During the burglary, the rich relative woman was murdered. The
court sentenced her to hanging whereas her fianc only received a few years
imprisonment.
Delaraa, at the time of the incident, was only 17 years old and her fianc
had told her that because of her age she would not be punished and that is
why she admitted to the murder. However, she has consistently denied the
allegation and states with sadness and sorrow how could she have killed a
close relative when she has never even hurt a fly before? Delaraa, an
artist who has been painting since childhood, has been kept in Rasht
prison.
The International Committee against the death sentence is protesting
against this sentence and demands the quashing of the sentence.
We plead to all the international organisations and defenders of human
rights to take immediate actions and officially protest and condemn the
Islamic regime.
During the last year, seven young Iranians, whether under 18 or committed
their alleged crime when under 18, have been executed and many more have
received such sentences.
The hanging of children and teenagers in Iran is an appalling and horrible
atrocity, which must be met by the strong reaction of the international
community.
Delaraa, at the time of the committing the alleged crime - even if she was
the perpetrator - was only 17 years of age and does not deserve such a
sentence under any law except the anti-women laws of the Mullahs in Iran.
The executions of children and teenagers are a savage breach of human
rights, which is abolished all over the world. However, everyone knows now
that the Mullahs regime is trying to further suppress the Iranian youths
and women by their atrocities and create fear amongst them.
We must actively protest against this inhumane sentence and call out
everywhere for what crime the deprived-of-rights teenage girls and women
of this land should be tied to the hanging poles? And call out to the
world that the young Iranian women are being sentenced to torture,
imprisonment by a bunch of hateful and anti-women freaks who at night do
their supererogatory prayers and in the day engage in their corrupt
conducts an thievery of the nations wealth.
We, the freedom loving and resistant Iranian women will fiercely
demonstrate our protest if this sentence is carried out. So, let the
regime of Mullahs know that they cannot continue their savage atrocities
and we, the young and aware Iranian women are not prepared to stay silent
or inactive.
(source: UK GayNews)
********************
2 executions, 6 death sentences, including three stonings, in 1 week
The state-run IRNA news agency reported on December 28 the public hangings
of 2 men in Ahwaz, Iran (capital of the southwestern province of
Khuzistan). The 2, identified as "Naim Abdoullah Kh." (a.k.a. Rahim) and
"Jalil H.", had been condemned to death on charges of "warring against
God" by the Ahwaz Revolutionary Court.
The clerical regimes judiciary also issued a death sentence for a 22
year-old woman according to the Etemad daily on December 25. The daily
Joumhouri also reported that 3 men were each given 2 death by hanging
sentences and 1 death by stoning sentence in the northern Iranian province
of Mazandaran.
The daily Hamshahri reported on December 22 that the death sentence for a
man identified as Taghi had been upheld. The same day, IRNA reported that
a prisoner named Jasem Chak had been condemned to death in Shiraz on
charges of "hooliganism".
These bring the number of hangings and death sentences in the past week to
2 and 6 respectively.
The Iranian Resistance condemns the unprecedented rise in the wave of
brutal executions in Iran since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office as the
regimes new president. The executions are meant to intimidate and
terrorize the general public. The Iranian Resistance calls for the
clerical regimes record of gross human rights violations to be referred to
the United Nations Security Council. The international communitys silence
and inaction has only emboldened the ruling theocracy in Iran to continue
its crimes against the Iranian people.
(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran,
December 29)
NEPAL:
Appeal to revoke death sentence of Nepali
Several human rights organizations on Friday urged the government to take
diplomatic initiative in saving the life of Indra Bahadur Tamang, who has
been convicted of drug trafficking and been given death sentence along
with other four Nepalis in Indonesia.
Speaking at a program in the capital on Friday, General Secretary of the
National Human Rights Academy Bhawani Kharel asked the Government to urge
the Indonesian government to reconsider death penalty slapped on him.
Tamang was sentenced death penalty for implicating in drug trafficking
case.
The Indonesia government has reviewed the case and sentenced life
imprisonment to 4 others arrested along with Tamang but upheld Tamang's
death punishment.
Speaking at the same programme Tamang's sister Phool Maya urged all to
initiate effort to save her brothers life.
(source: Nepal News)
TAIWAN:
Taiwan mulls conditional moratorium on death penalty: newspaper
Taiwan plans to introduce a conditional moratorium on the death penalty as
part of its preparation for abolishing the punishment entirely, according
to a newspaper report.
The United Daily News (UDN) quoted Justice Minister Shih Mao-lin as saying
that Taipei is studying the possibility of following China's example of
issuing a 'death penalty with 2 years' suspension' to give criminals a
chance to repent.
'In 1979, China introduced 'death penalty with two years suspension'. If
the convicts behaved well during the 2 years, their death sentence can be
changed to a life sentence and later changed to shorter jail terms,' UDN
quoted Shih as saying.
'We have asked scholars and experts to study the possibility of
introducing 'death penalty with 2 years suspension' to prepare for the
eventual abolition of the death penalty,' he said.
But the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty blasted the Ministry of
Justice's plan, saying it contradicts President Chen Shui-bian's 2000
inauguration promise to abolish the death penalty.
'Under the measure of 'death penalty with two years', only those who have
behaved well are eligible for having their death penalty converted to a
life sentence. We demand a moratorium on all executions and the eventual
abolition of the death penalty,' association secretary Yeh Ting-chun told
the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Saturday.
Although Taiwan still hands down the death penalty, very few executions
are carried out. The number of executions has dropped from 32 in 1998 to
17 in 2000 and 3 in 2005. Currently there are about 70 convicts awaiting
executions in Taiwan jails.
Public opinion polls have shown that 80 % of Taiwanese oppose abolishing
the death policy but 40 % can accept it if Taiwan toughens jail terms for
criminals and makes it hard for them to receive parole.
Among the 193 countries in the world, about 124 countries have abolished
the death penalty in law or practise, according to Amnesty International.
As abolishing the death penalty has become the world trend, on average, in
the past decade more than 3 countries a year have abolished the death
penalty for all crimes, the London-based human rights group said.
(source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur)
****************
A joke so bad that it kills you
No amount of smarmy rationalization and rabble-rousing alters the fact
that the death penalty is a vicious affront to a civilized society. But
capital punishment is not the preserve of autocratic governments.
Perfectly democratic processes in countries around the world have
instituted capital punishment and many of these states show no signs of
removing it from their books. So opponents of the death penalty should not
be too hard on Taiwan in this respect.
Yet the executions of 2 brothers in Kaohsiung this week, together with the
complicity of most of the media in refusing to report on the matter in
meaningful detail, suggest that there remains an obliviousness to the
killing of prisoners in a society in which courts are laughably
inconsistent and the law is sneered at by the opposition party that wrote
most of it in the first place.
Most of all, however, the deaths of Lin Meng-kai and Lin Hsin-hung remind
us of the inability of President Chen Shui-bian to deliver on his promises
-- even when he is unfettered by spoiling maneuvers in the legislature.
In 1996, when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou was
justice minister, he impressed many with his refusal to sign the piece of
paper that would have had the luckless members of the Hsichih Trio shot,
all because, as Amnesty International said, "he will not order the
executions while doubt remains about the men's guilt."
Good gracious, many marveled at the time, behold this politician's
conscience! Despite his adherence to a suicidal "Greater China" ideology
and the dubious ethics of his associates, Ma attracts traditional DPP
voters on the basis of his sincere image and ability to occasionally stand
up and be counted at the most surprising of times. And that was one of
those times.
10 years later, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is in power, but
the power of the conscience has apparently evaporated and death remains an
attractive option for the nation's prosecutors. Imagine the surreal scene
when Chen met international human-rights activists in the Presidential
Office in September. He had to account for the retention of a weapon of
state whose traditional victims were political, and in countless instances
innocent of the crimes with which they were charged. One can imagine Chen
barely keeping a straight face as he told International Federation for
Human Rights delegates that he was working to end the death penalty. Which
begs the question: What work, exactly?
Perhaps Chen was too busy licking his wounds from the DPP's loss of
long-held county electorates earlier this month to notice this week's
killings. Perhaps being president is such an onerous task that one forgets
the years spent as a lawyer working on behalf of democracy activists
threatened with death -- including Vice President Annette Lu. Or maybe
it's just too darn taxing to engage the public on the niceties of granting
mercy to callous and ghastly criminals. Maybe commuting a death sentence
or declaring a moratorium on the death penalty requires a degree of
courage and principle that no one in the executive possesses, let alone
the Presidential Office's phalanx of "advisers" and its bumbling
human-rights committee.
If a president with Chen's background lacks the conscience to intervene on
a matter such as this, and lacks the courage and ambition to face the
public and explain why he has intervened, yet has all of the
constitutional power and time he needs to do both of these things, then
what is he doing in the Presidential Office?
(source: Editorial, The Taipei Times)
CHINA:
Rule by Law----In Worker's Death, View of China's Harsh Justice
>From the prison cell where he contemplated an executioner's bullet, a
migrant worker named Wang Binyu gave an anguished account of his wasted
life. Unexpectedly, it rippled across China like a primal scream.
A RECORD OF A SON'S EXECUTION Wang Liding showed the cremation certificate
of his son Wang Binyu, with the time of execution noted.
[RULE BY LAW----Swift Execution
Articles in this series are examining the struggle in China over the
creation of a modern legal system. Previous articles examined flaws in the
system and the lack of legal protections in criminal and civil cases, as
well as pressures faced by judges and lawyers who question the system.]
For 3 weeks, the brutal murders Mr. Wang committed after failing to
collect unpaid wages were weighed on the Internet and in Chinese
newspapers against the brutal treatment he had endured as a migrant
worker. Public opinion shouted for mercy; lawyers debated the fairness of
his death sentence. Others saw the case as a bloody symptom of the harsh
inequities of Chinese life.
But then, in late September, the furor disappeared as suddenly as it had
begun. Online discussion was censored and news media coverage was almost
completely banned. Mr. Wang's final appeal was rushed to court. His
father, never notified, learned about the hearing only by accident. His
chosen defense lawyer was forbidden from participating.
"All of you are on the same side," Mr. Wang, 28, shouted during the
hearing, his father said in an interview here in the family's home village
in northern Gansu Province. "If you want to kill me, just kill me."
On Oct. 19, they did. Mr. Wang was executed so quickly, and quietly, that
it took weeks for the word to fully trickle out that he was dead.
China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined.
By some estimates, the number of executions is more than 10,000 a year.
The government's relentless death penalty machine has long been its
harshest tool for maintaining political control and curbing crime and
corruption.
But it has now become a glaring uncertainty about China's commitment to
the rule of law. There is widespread suspicion, even within the
government, that too many innocent people are sentenced to death. This
year, a raft of cases came to light in which wrongful convictions had led
to death sentences, or, in one well-publicized case, the execution of an
innocent man.
Reforming capital punishment has become a priority within the Communist
Party-controlled legal system, partly because of international pressure to
reduce abuses. Within the party-run legislative system, there is a broader
debate about how to improve criminal law.
But achieving those reforms is hardly certain. Hard-liners are loath to
restrict the power of the police and the courts to take a tough line.
Death penalty reforms announced by the People's Supreme Court - and
broadly trumpeted in the state news media - are mostly just a return to
the status quo of 1980.
The case of Wang Binyu lacked the moral clarity of an innocent man wrongly
convicted. He killed 4 people in a rampage after a final dispute over
wages. But his saga of abuse and disdain from his bosses resonated deeply
with a public disgusted with corruption and inequality and resentful of a
legal system perceived as favoring the wealthy and well connected.
"Wang was forced to fight against those who exploit and tread on the
poor," one person wrote at a Chinese Web site. "Why is the law always
tough on the poor?"
Mr. Wang's case also illustrates how a system built for convictions has
few safeguards or protections for a defendant facing death. Officials in
the High Court of Ningxia Autonomous Region, the area in western China
where the case was heard, refused several requests for interviews. But Wu
Shaozhi, the Beijing lawyer who tried to represent Mr. Wang, said the
Ningxia courts obviously wanted fast results.
Before the appeal, the Wang family signed power of attorney to Mr. Wu. But
Mr. Wu said court officials had initially lied, telling him the appeal was
over. Then they refused to let him enter the case. Instead, Mr. Wang was
represented by a lawyer approved by the court.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wu noted, the same judges who heard the appeal also
concurrently handled a mandatory final review of the case. It meant that
judges were reviewing their own ruling - a practice that legal experts
said is not uncommon and provided little real check and balance on the use
of the death penalty.
"An unjust procedure will undoubtedly lead to unjust results," Mr. Wu
said.
China is wary enough about its death penalty system that it has long
designated its number of executions as a state secret. A hint at the
number came last year when a high-level delegate to the National People's
Congress publicly estimated that it was "nearly 10,000." In 2004, Amnesty
International documented at least 3,400 executions - out of 3,797
worldwide that year - but cautioned that China's number was probably far
higher. Outside scholars have put the annual number as high as 15,000.
A FATHER AND BROTHER REMEMBER Wang Liding and his surviving son, Wang
Binyin, at their home in Yujiagou, China, spoke of Wang Binyu, 28, who was
executed in October for killing four men at his workplace in a dispute
over unpaid wages.
In late October, the People's Supreme Court announced that it would
reverse a decision from the early 1980's that ceded the final review on
many death penalty cases to provincial high courts. Legal analysts say
Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader, ordered the move out of anger
that courts were moving too slowly to crack down on crime. The shift meant
that provincial courts could often operate without any oversight.
Under the new policy, the People's Supreme Court will reclaim
responsibility for reviewing all capital cases. The state news media have
estimated that executions could drop by as much as 30 percent - an
estimate that could not be proved but that implied deep flaws within the
current system.
"They feel that mistakes were made in so many cases," said Yi Yanyou, an
associate professor at Tsinghua University Law School, in explaining the
motive for the change. Mr. Yi said the new changes would be meaningful,
but did not represent reform, because they merely re-established central
control. One idea for a change that he offered was to require unanimous
consent among judicial panels making final reviews.
He Weifang, a liberal constitutional scholar at Beijing University, said
the new changes should improve the review process, but argued that only
deeper constitutional reform, to establish a more independent judiciary,
could remove the political pressures that can seep into many high-profile
death cases.
Out in the arid hills of southern Gansu where farmers scratch a living
from soil that seems as fertile as chalk, Mr. Wang's family is unaware of
such legal debates. At age 15, Mr. Wang left home for migrant work after a
childhood marred by poverty and tragedy. When he was a young child, his
mother died after an infection from a botched sterilization. Family
planning officials had ordered the procedure after she gave birth to Mr.
Wang's younger brother. The family sued, without success.
Mr. Wang worked at a succession of migrant jobs until he took a job 3
years ago wrapping steel pipes in the power plant of a factory in Ningxia.
His younger brother, Binyin, who also worked at the factory, described the
bosses as brutal men who beat Binyu and later mocked him when he became
sick with ulcers.
The bosses also withheld Binyu's salary for two years, a problem common to
migrant workers. This spring, his father called to say he urgently needed
surgery for a leg fracture. The brothers decided to quit and return home.
But first they needed to collect more than $1,000 in unpaid wages.
For weeks, Wang Binyu approached the bosses to collect the money. At one
point, Wu Hua, a foreman, promised to pay the brothers if they would work
a few more weeks. They did so, but still were not paid. "Once, my brother
went to the bosses and began crying and begging them to pay him," Wang
Binyin said.
Finally this May, the factory boss, Chen Jiwei, relented and paid the 2004
salary, but only after making large deductions for fees and boarding
expenses. He then refused to pay the 2005 wages until next year.
Frustrated, Wang Binyu sought help from the local labor bureau, but was
told it had no jurisdiction. He went to the courts, but was told a legal
case would take months. He then returned to the labor bureau, where a
senior official agreed to intervene and persuaded a boss, Wu Xinguo, to
pay the back wages within five days. It seemed like a victory.
But after leaving the labor bureau, Wu Xinguo barred the brothers from
their dormitory. Later that night, locked out of their room, the brothers
began beating on Wu Xinguo's door to demand payment. Wu Hua, the foreman,
and others soon arrived and tried to run off the Wang brothers. The group
began pushing and slapping Wang Binyu until a fight broke out. Wang Binyu,
who was carrying a fruit knife, exploded in a rage that would end with
four people dead and one injured.
Wang Binyin said he tried to pull his older brother away. He recalls
saying: "You can't do this. We still have an old father at home. What am I
going to do?" When the rampage ended, Wang Binyu tossed his knife in the
Yellow River and turned himself in at a local police station. As it turned
out, the two top bosses - Mr. Chen and Wu Xinguo - escaped harm.
Mr. Wang's initial trial, on June 29, ended with a death sentence. His
family was not notified of the trial date and did not attend. He seemed
destined to be one of the thousands of people executed each year with
little public notice. But on Sept. 4, the New China News Agency, the
government's news service, published a jailhouse interview with Mr. Wang
that was astonishing for its content and for the mere fact that it was
printed.
"I want to die," Mr. Wang said. "When I am dead, nobody can exploit me
anymore. Right?"
Of his crime, Mr. Wang said, "I just could not take it any longer. I had
taken enough from them." But, he later added, "I should not have killed
the other people. I did not mean to let it happen."
Finally, he offered a lament for his fellow migrant workers. "My life is a
small thing," he said. "I hope that society will pay attention and respect
us."
Chinese journalists say the authors of the article picked the case because
they thought it dovetailed with a campaign by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to
help peasants. Newspapers, assuming the interview signaled official
approval, jumped on the story.
Interviews with legal scholars followed, with some arguing that the system
should be nimble enough to give Mr. Wang a more lenient sentence. Internet
discussion boards were filled with indignation.
But the coverage was put to a sudden stop. Internet search engines were
ordered to censor Wang Binyu's name, and newspapers were told to drop the
story before the appeal was heard in late September. Most likely, the
public outrage had alarmed central government officials who did not want
to see a death sentence so openly questioned. From his jail cell, Wang
Binyu told his younger brother that he thought local officials were eager
to execute him, because a reversal of the death sentence could harm their
careers.
The appeal was held in secret. Mr. Wang's father, Wang Liding, happened to
bring his son a pair of shoes a day earlier. Otherwise, he would not have
known. At one point, the father said that he shouted out during the
proceeding because prosecutors said his son's wages had been fully paid.
The elder Mr. Wang was briefly removed after the outburst.
Now, the family has still not collected the unpaid wages owed the dead
son. Donations have helped them build a new room on their crumbling house.
The father has wrapped the green booklet certifying his son's cremation in
folded paper. It is his last record of his son.
In October, before the execution, court officials in Ningxia called the
father with what he thought was good news. He was told he could come
collect his son's unpaid salary. He traveled for more than a day to
Ningxia from Gansu. But when he arrived, he found that the lure of wages
had been a lie. Officials wanted him to sign his son's execution warrant.
Illiterate, the father could only smudge the paper with his thumb.
"It was wrong of him to kill people," the father said. "But there was a
cause."
(source: The New York Times)
