[Deathpenalty] death penalty news------worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 13



KYRGYZSTAN:


First step toward the abolition of the death penalty


Last year's abolition of the death penalty in the Constitution of
Kyrgyzstan was an important step under the country's international human
rights commitments. Yet its successful implementation requires prompt
amendments to the country's penal law and reforms of the correctional and
judicial systems. A failure to carry out such reforms could result in the
deterioration of prison conditions and thereby lead to other forms of
inhuman treatment or punishment.

These are the conclusions of a roundtable entitled "Alternatives to the
Death Penalty in Kyrgyzstan: Further Steps toward the Humanization of the
Criminal and Correctional Legislation and the System of Punishment
Implementation" which was organized by the IHF in Bishkek on 28 May 2007.
While its participants voiced support to legislative initiatives already
taken to improve penal policies and the execution of sentences, they
expressed concern that commuting death sentences to prison terms can only
be successful if the Kyrgyz penitentiary system is prepared for it.
Otherwise the positive step may lead, for example, to the overcrowding of
penitentiaries; reduced security; overburdened, under-funded and
unmanageable prison administration; and other problems that may result in
inhuman treatment of prisoners.

The roundtable participants recommended the following measures as crucial
for a successful transition from the death penalty to more humane penal
policy:

* Prompt ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the
death penalty;

* Revision of current (and pending) regulations on life sentences and
bringing them in line with international standards by reducing the current
30-year sentence to 20-25 years imprisonment with a right to review
detention conditions every 5 years;

* Respect of international standards with regard to extradition practices
to ensure that extradited persons will not face torture and death penalty;

* Establishing public control over conditions prisons and detention
facilities to make sure that they meet international standards that are
binding to Kyrgyzstan;

* Reform the judicial system in order to ensure its efficiency and

* Review all the cases currently on death row (174 in May) under
international due process standards.

The roundtable was organized by the International Helsinki Federation for
Human Rights (IHF) jointly with the Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights and
the Batiya Rehabilitation Center, with assistance from Citizens against
Corruption and support from the European Union. Its participants included
representatives of the government, the judicial system, the ombudsmans
office, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the OSCE, and
representatives of international and local NGOs.

(source: HREA - Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an
international non-governmental organisation that supports human rights
learning; the training of activists and professionals; the development of
educational materials and programming; and community-building through
on-line technologies)






PHILIPPINES:

34 more Pinoys abroad face death penalty


After the beheading of Filipino worker Reynaldo Cortez in Saudi Arabia on
Wednesday, at least 34 other Filipinos abroad face the death penalty for
various offenses.

Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs
Esteban Conejos Jr. said Wednesday they are closely monitoring these
cases, though he did not give details.

"We are monitoring 34 death penalty cases. These are potential death
penalty cases, because the crimes for which they were charged carry the
death penalty," Conejos said in an interview on dzBB radio.

He neither identified the Filipinos by name nor mentioned the countries
where they face execution, but said the DFA is monitoring these cases on a
weekly basis.

Conejos made the revelation even as a militant overseas workers' group
scored the Philippine government for not doing anything to help Cortez.

The 41-year-old Cortez was beheaded in Saudi Arabia Wednesday morning for
the killing of a Pakistani national in 2002. Conejos said Cortez was
sentenced in 2005.

But Migrante International chair Connie Regalado claimed she regularly
received text messages from Cortez asking for help.

"Hindi lang ngayon nagte-text sa akin, nagmamakaawa pa ang tono ng kanyang
text na iligtas ang buhay (It's not just now that he sent me text
messages. He had been sending me text messages begging us to help save his
life)," she said in a separate interview.

Regalado did not say how Cortez managed to send her text messages, or if
he did so through friends and relatives.

But Conejos said the Philippine government did all it can to help Cortez,
even trying to arrange an audience with the family of the Pakistani taxi
driver whom Cortez killed.

He said the family of the victim refused to see Philippine government
officials.

"If the family insists not even the highest authority (not even the king)
can do anything. That is the uniqueness of Islamic law," he said.

Conejos said Cortezs family was aware of the steps the government had been
taking, though he admitted the government did not know the exact date of
the execution.

He also said there are no plans to bring home Cortezs body. "If you have
been executed you are buried in Saudi Arabia," he said. (source:
GMANews.TV)






CHINA:

Corrupt Chinese drug official appeals death penalty


The former director of the country's State Food and Drug Administration
(SFDA) has lodged an appeal against the death penalty slapped on him after
a corruption conviction.

Many observers believe his fight for life, however, will be fruitless.

Zheng Xiaoyu was found guilty last month by a by a Beijing court for
taking over $850,000 (632,000) worth of bribes in the form of cash and
gifts when inappropriately approving hundreds of drugs and medical
devices, at least six of which proved to be fake. When he reigned as
China's chief drug and food official between 1997 and 2006, dozens of
people were killed by fake and inferior products.

Zheng has now filed an appeal to the provincial supreme court, within the
mandatory seven day period, and will now await a second trial. Should this
fail, his death sentence will likely be carried out immediately.

As part of his appeal for leniency, lawyers have pointed to Zheng's
"voluntary confessions" and "confessions of good attitude" and his
initiative to return some of the cash and gifts he received as bribes,
according to a translated version of the Beijing Times.

Although some believe the appeal will succeed in having his sentence
commuted to life imprisonment, the consensus appears to be that the appeal
will fail.

"The chances of him not dying are zero," Zhuo Xiaoqin, a Beijing lawyer
and consultant to the Ministry of Health, told the South China Morning
Post. "He was causing immense health hazards."

Bloggers in China are also having their say, with one writing on
chinablogtoday that the "appeal is meaningless," and others believe he
will be used as a scapegoat or a warning sign to deter others.

China is no stranger to the death penalty and the communist country is
believed to carry out more executions than any other country. In 2005,
around 4,000 people were sentenced to death with 1,770 subsequent
executions taking place, according to human rights group Amnesty
International.

However, if his appeal fails, Zheng will become the 1st senior official
during the presidency of Hu Jintao, and only the fourth senior official
since the Cultural Revolution to be executed, even though corruption is
known to be rife amongst a plethora of high-level Chinese officials and it
appears that he may be being 'made an example of' by the Chinese
government.

The fact that China has of late been waging a concerted clean-up campaign
on its pharmaceutical industry may have something to do with it. The
country has been trying to remedy its international reputation as a
producer of unsafe and counterfeit drugs, and subsequently attract
lucrative international investment and business deals. This hard line
approach with Zheng may be a signal to the West of its sincerity to make
changes.

China has been strengthening its commitment to reform since 2001 when it
agreed to adhere to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS) agreement as part of its entry into the World Trade
Organization (WTO) has been taking steps to make sure its companies follow
manufacturing standards such as the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) and good manufacturing practice (GMP).

More recently the country has been stepping up efforts to improve its
image. In September last year the SFDA carried out 35 unannounced
inspections of drug manufacturing facilities and revoked the Good
Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Certificates of 15 companies and imposed
fines, while ordering 13 others to rectify production defects.

Only last week, China's top administrative body, the State Council has
announced a series of regulatory reforms, vowed to place new controls on
drug (and food) imports and exports by 2010 and to increase the proportion
of such products that are subject to random inspections to 80 %, up from
the current figure of 30 %.

The country is wise to do so - China is a big market with a lot of
potential and many multinational drug companies are looking to exploit the
growth of China within the pharma industry as escalating competition in
the global drug market is driving them to seek new strategies such as
outsourcing research and production or setting up operations in low-cost
destinations.

Many already have manufacturing facilities in China and drug giants such
as Novartis, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Lonza, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline
(GSK) are among those who have more recently taken the plunge and set up
highly commercially-sensitive R&D centres in the country, heightening
China's need to operate professionally.

Over the next 3 years, China is predicted to become the joint 5th largest
pharma market, alongside the UK with an estimated value of $24bn,
according to data from the Boston Consulting Group and China's medical
device market is currently worth approximately $3.5bn and also said to be
growing at a rapid pace.

Furthermore, India and China now hold the potential to capture 35-40 % of
the outsourced market share in the $50bn global pharmaceutical
manufacturing industry, according to recent market research by Frost &
Sullivan.

And it is India that China knows it has to contend with in the race for
Asian supremacy. However, China is currently trailing in regard to
reputation and many pharma industry firms still avoid doing business in
the country because of fears that their intellectual property (IP) cannot
be protected and that corruption and bureaucratic red tape will hinder
viable business relationships.

In a report last year by Ernst & Young, more than half of pharmaceutical
executives surveyed saw counterfeiting and data security as a business
risk to their company operations in China while 42 % saw counterfeiting as
a problem in India.

In addition, when asked to rank individual risks, patent protection was
the most significant issue for a majority of pharmaceutical companies
doing business in China and India. More than 70 % of pharmaceutical
executives said that threats to intellectual property pose a business risk
in China, with 62 % considering patent protection in India an issue, the
survey revealed.

At a London conference on IP in China last October, Todd Dickinson, VP and
chief intellectual property counsel of General Electric (GE), whose
Healthcare, among other divisions is operational in China, advised those
thinking of doing business in the country that "China offers Western firms
a huge opportunity, but those operating in the country should be very
mindful of introducing key technologies."

During the conference, speakers also heard the challenges international
companies faced in China in light of widespread corruption at many levels
of power, including the regulatory and judicial systems.

Clearly the West wants to see extensive reforms in China, including the
abolishment of such corruption, although most will agree that executing
corrupt officials is not an appropriate way to go about it, nor will it do
the country's international reputation any favours.

(source: Outsourcing-Pharma.com)

********************

Former official pleads against death sentence


Chinas former food and drug safety chief, facing execution for corruption
amid a series of health scandals, has appealed against the death penalty,
media said yesterday.

Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, was
convicted in May on charges of taking bribes and dereliction of duty.

It was an unusually harsh sentence, reflecting the weight China is giving
to the issues of corruption and food safety as they grapple with the
fallout overseas from a series of safety breaches involving toxins in food
and other products.

A Beijing Intermediate Peoples Court imposed the death penalty on May 29
after convicting Zheng of taking bribes worth some 6.5mn yuan ($850,000)
from 8 companies.

"Zheng said in the appeal statement that he had taken the initiative to
confess and had a good attitude of admitting crimes, which deserved
leniency," the Beijing Times said, quoting unidentified sources.

Investigators found Zheng, 62, had lowered standards in renewing drug
production licences, leading to manufacture of fake drugs in a system
already plagued by corruption and regulatory loopholes.

It was the 1st time China had sentenced an official of Zheng's rank to
death since 2000. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said it reflected
the governments "determination to fight corruption". The Beijing High
Peoples Court, which is supposed to hear appeal cases from the
intermediate court, had no immediate comment.

(source: Reuters)

*******************************

Death sentence for teacher who raped 18 school girls


A teacher in north-western China has been sentenced to death for raping 18
primary school girls aged 9 and 10, state media reported today.

Xinhua News Agency said Cheng Laifu, a teacher in Changhe township in
Dingxi city in Gansu province, was convicted of raping the 18 students on
70 separate occasions between September 2001 and March 2005.

The ruling from the Dingxi Intermediate Peoples Court said Cheng even
raped several of the girls at the same time.

(source: The Evening Echo)



RWANDA:

UN tribunal requests transfer of genocide case to Rwandan court


The UN-backed Rwanda genocide tribunal has for the first time asked that
the case of a suspect in the 1994 mass-killings be transferred to a
Rwandan court, judicial sources said Tuesday.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) prosecutor requested
Monday the transfer of the case of Fulgence Kayishema, who worked as a
police inspector in the northwestern town of Kivumu during the genocide,
the office of chief prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow said in a statement.
Kayishema, one of 18 ICTR defendants still at large, was officially
indicted on July 3, 2001 for genocide, complicity in genocide and
extermination in connection with the 1994 Hutu-led mass murder in which
some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus are estimated by the United Nations
to have died. The tribunal judges will rule on Jallow's request after
hearing arguments from the prosecution and from a lawyer who will be
appointed by the court to defend Kayishema's interests. Jallow has called
for the tribunal to "issue a new warrant of arrest requiring states to
cooperate in arresting Kayishema and transferring him to Rwandan
authorities." According to the charges, the defendant "conspired with
Father Athanase Seromba and others to prepare and carry out a plan to
exterminate the Tutsi population in Kivumu commune and elsewhere in the
Kibuye" region.

"In implementing their plan, thousands of Tutsis, including those that had
sought refuge at Nyange Parish (in Kibuye), were exterminated," according
to the allegations.

The Rwandan government "has expressed its willingness and readiness to
accept and prosecute the accused, with assurances that he will receive a
fair trial, that in the event of conviction, the death penalty will not be
applied," the statement said.

One of the conditions laid down by the ICTR for the transfer of genocide
suspects to Rwandan courts was that the country abolish the death penalty.

Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama said last month that the
death penalty could be abolished by the end of July.

Last week the lower house of parliament voted to abolish the capital
punishment, but the text still needs to be approved in the Senate.

The Tanzania-based ICTR has so far convicted 28 suspects and acquitted 3
others.

(source: Agence France Presse)






IRAN:

DEATH PENALTY REQUEST BY NOBEL LAUREATE ATTORNEY SPARKS CRITICISM


The news that a young man has been executed in Tehran for raping and
killing a woman has been met with surprise and criticism by progressive
Iranians not because of the sentence - Iran ranks second after China for
the number of executions carried out - but because the attorney who
reportedly demanded capital punishment on behalf of the victim's family is
Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, an anti-death penalty campaigner.
Mohammed Safar was hanged a few days ago at Tehran's Evin prison.

Iranian blogs, mostly those of women's rights activists, have harshly
condemned Ebadi.

"Someone like her who is a campaigner for peace and justice cannot support
the request for the death penalty asked by the family's victim," wrote on
her blog women's rights activist Assieh Amini.

Ebadi's office in Tehran contacted by Adnkronos International (AKI)
refused to comment the reports.

A graduate of Tehran University, Shirin Ebadi, 60, was the 1st female
judge in her country, serving as president of the Tehran city court, from
1975.

However, after the 1979 Islamic revolution she was forced to resign when
it was decided that women were not suitable for such posts.

Ebadi then established a law practice, taking on politically sensitive
cases many Iranian lawyers were afraid to touch.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to stop
among other things political imprisonment, gender discrimination and the
death penalty in Iran.

(source: AKI)

****************************

Death penalty for porn video makers


Iran's parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of a bill that could lead to
death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of
pornographic movies.

With a 148-5 vote in favor and 4 abstentions, lawmakers present at the
Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that "producers of
pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered
corruptors of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corruptors
of the world."

The term, "corruptor of the world" is taken from the Quran, the Muslims'
holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individual's
criminal offenses. Under Iran's Islamic Penal Code, it carries a death
penalty.

The "main elements" referred to in the draft include producers, directors,
cameramen and actors involved in making a pornographic video.

(source: Associated Press)