[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 30



MOROCCO:

Activists hope Morocco will abolish death penalty


Rabat will host the third congress for the World Coalition Against the
Death Penalty in February. Organizers say many of the country's political
parties support the abolishment of the death penalty.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty will hold its 3rd world
congress on Thursday (February 1st) through Saturday in Rabat. Activists
hope the event will persuade Morocco to become the first Arab country to
abolish the death penalty.

According to Michel Taube, spokesman for the World Coalition, the
execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a cloud with a
silver lining. He hopes the images from the execution "will make people in
the Arab world realise the horror and futile violence of the death penalty
So if we condemn this execution we also have to condemn the death penalty,
because if it was unacceptable for Saddam Hussein, one of the worst
tyrants history has ever known, we have to recognise that its unacceptable
for people who have committed less serious crimes," he told Magharebia.

Taube believes it is very important that the coalition seek to persuade at
least one Arab country to move towards abandoning the death penalty.
According to the organisers of the World Congress against the death
penalty, no North African or Middle Eastern country has abolished it to
date; in 2006 the number of executions rose sharply.

Campaigners are hoping that Morocco will become the first of these
countries to abolish the death penalty. The last execution in Morocco took
place in 1994. In January 2006, the Equity and Reconciliation Commission
asked for the death penalty to be abolished. Recently, many of those
sentenced to death have had their sentences commuted to a life sentence by
King Mohammed VI. At present, 127 Moroccan prisoners, including 5 women,
are on death row. Four of these were sentenced in 2006. Under the Moroccan
penal code, 36 articles call for the death penalty, and 563 crimes are
punishable by this sentence.

The Moroccan Coalition Against the Death Penalty, founded in October 2003,
has been working to get the support of political parties, according to
Youssef Madad, the co-ordinator of the coalition.

"All the political parties we met during our visit to Morocco -- the
Istiqlal Party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, the Party of
Progress and Socialism, the Islamic Party and the Justice and Development
Party -- confirmed they will support us," Meryem Kaf, the Moroccan press
officer at the Paris-based Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort, told
Magharebia.

"This also signalled that they support the abolition of the death penalty
in Morocco, with or without prior ratification of Protocol 2 of the UN."

"The death penalty is a law in the penal code, so we need more and more
Moroccan politicians to take up the issue so that it will be discussed in
parliament. Thats where the struggle against the death penalty will end
and be won," Taube said.

(source: Magharebia.com)






GLOBAL:

Death penalty - MEPs set to back International moratorium----Death row -
an ominous wait


Death by beheading, electrocution, hanging and a firing squad: all deeply
repulsive and legal ways to die in many countries around the world.
Amnesty International reports that in 2005 over 2,100 people were executed
in 22 countries. This week MEPs are set to add their support for a UN
sponsored international moratorium on executions. A debate and resolution
on Wednesday and Thursday are likely to demand an immediate and
unconditional halt to executions.

2007 Congress against the death penalty

Later in the week a cross-party delegation of MEPs will attend the "World
Congress Against the Death Penalty" in Paris. This is the 3rd such meeting
- the first being held in the Parliament in Strasbourg in 2001.

The aim is to discuss ways of persuading countries to end executions and
put pressure on them to halt executions. The organisers have organised a
petition to the Chinese government asking them to show an "Olympic spirit"
and halt executions prior to the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing.

Ahead of the visit one member of Parliament's delegation - Roberta
Anastase of the European People's Party said the Parliament is "acting
today to promote human rights, to impose a ban on the death penalty...to
envisage the value of every human being".

International pressure

The foundation stone of the anti-death penalty case is the UN's 1948
Universal Declaration on Human Rights guaranteeing the "right to life,
liberty and security of person..." On the 50th anniversary of this
declaration in 1998 the EU reaffirmed its commitment to these principles.
None of the current 27 states of the Union currently has the death
penalty.

Just last week MEPs unanimously voted to support a resolution that called
for the overturning of death sentences against 5 Bulgarian nurses and 1
Palestinian doctor in Libya. They were convicted in 2004 for allegedly
infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus in a Benghazi hospital. The
medics have always said they are being made scapegoats for failures in the
Libyan health system.

A world divided over death

The international community is roughly divided into four groups towards
the death penalty.

The 1st group are the 88 states that have abolished the penalty. The 2nd
are the 11 countries that retain it for "special" crimes such as those
committed under military law for example.

The 3rd group - 29 countries - such as Morocco and Algeria - that retain
the penalty but have not executed anyone for 10 years.

Finally, the last group of 69 states and territories that maintain and
carry out the death penalty. This includes the US, China, Saudi Arabia and
Afghanistan.

(source: European Parliament)






BRITAIN/ITALY:

Britain blocks Italy's bid to ban death penalty


The Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, was in the Ethiopian capital,
Addis Ababa, yesterday, trying to persuade African heads of state to sign
up to a global moratorium on capital punishment after Britain sank an
effort to have the EU back the initiative as a bloc.

At the summit of the African Union, Mr Prodi called on the continent's
leaders to endorse "the defence of life, the supreme and undeniable right
even though it is often trampled underfoot". He went on, "We cannot remain
indifferent in the face of this moral imperative. We must be for life and
against death, as we are against injustice and suffering."

Italy's latest attempt to galvanise the world into rejecting the death
penalty began when Marco Panella, an MEP and civil rights campaigner, went
on hunger strike after hearing that Saddam Hussein was to be executed.
Abolishing capital punishment is one of the few issues on which all
parties in Italy's ruling centre-left coalition agree, and Mr Pannella's
campaign prompted Mr Prodi to take up the challenge of putting the
proposal before the UN's General Assembly. But when his Foreign Minister
and Deputy Prime Minister, Massimo D'Alema, tried to obtain backing for
the proposal at the EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels last week,
Britain shot it down.

British diplomats said privately that they did not wish to create
difficulties for the United States at a delicate time and they did not
believe it was possible to do it now. Holland, Denmark and Hungary
subsequently took the same view.

It is the 2nd time that Tony Blair's government has torpedoed Italian
efforts to spread Europe's confirmed aversion to capital punishment across
the world. The 1st was in 1999, when a last-minute British "no" killed the
initiative.

While in Ethiopia, Mr Prodi revealed he had met the Libyan leader, Muammar
Gaddafi, to appeal to him to spare the lives of 5 Bulgarian nurses and a
Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for infecting hundreds of children
with HIV. He said Col Gaddafi had told him there were still "problems of
reparations and compensation" but he would "reflect" on the issue.

(source: The Independent)






AUSTRALIA:

Last man hanged remembered


CAMPAIGNERS opposed to the death penalty will gather outside Melbourne's
former Pentridge Prison on Saturday to remember the last man executed in
Australia.

Exactly 40 years ago on February 3, Ronald Ryan was hanged for the murder
of prison warder George Hodson during an attempted escape from the jail.

Among those expected to gather outside Pentridge will be Ryan's 2 defence
counsels, Phil Opas QC and Brian Bourke, together with Victoria's
Attorney-General Rob Hulls and others opposed to state-sanctioned
killings.

2 of Ryan's grandchildren will also place a wreath at the prison gates to
mark the 40th anniversary of his death, before a memorial service at St
Ignatius Church, Richmond.

The anniversary of Ryan's death would be a chance to draw parallels with
the December 2005 execution in Singapore of convicted Australian drug
trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van, and 6 of the Bali 9 who are on death row in
Indonesia, former Pentridge chaplain and anti-death penalty campaigner
Father Peter Norden said.

(source: The Advertiser)






INDONESIA:

Drug mule challenges death penalty


BALI 9 heroin courier Scott Rush has lodged a Constitutional challenge to
his death penalty, part of legal manoeuvres that could outlaw all
executions in Indonesia and save the 3 Bali bombers on death row.

Rush, alleged smuggling ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, and
3 other couriers - Matthew Norman, Si Yi Chen, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen - are
lodging separate pleas to Indonesia's Constitutional Court.

Rush's lawyer, Harry Ponto, finalised his application today, following an
application from Chan and Sukumaran last week. A preliminary hearing is
scheduled for Thursday and all the applications are likely to be joined
together.

Lawyers compiling the cases stated a successful Constitutional challenge
would set a precedent for all Indonesian death penalties. Adnan Wirawan,
lawyer for Amrozi and the other Bali bombers sentenced to death, today
agreed a Constitutional ruling against capital punishment should flow on
to his clients.

The moves took place as Michelle Condon, a Melbourne woman also imprisoned
in Bali on drugs charges, learnt she was likely to walk free within days,
as prosecutors called for a maximum three month sentence including time
served.

Condon has spent nearly 2 1/2-months behind bars after being arrested
carrying 0.2 grams of crystal methamphetamine. Her lawyers claim she was
an addict who deserved treatment, not punishment, and judges will deliver
a final verdict next week.

Mr Ponto said Rush's application argued his death penalty was invalid as
the Constitution guarantees a right to life. "The Constitutional Court
should grant our proposal because the death penalty clearly is against
1945 Constitution.

"Besides, Indonesia is member of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, it was ratified in October 2005," Mr Ponto said. "So, I
think as a member Indonesia must abolish the death penalty (the covenant
opposes executions).

"I think the new law - if it's granted - must be applied to all cases not
only to drugs-related ones," he said.

Mr Wirawan agreed that a decision in favour of the Bali nine should apply
to all, including terrorists. "It means all death penalties must be
abolished, Amrozi cannot be executed," he said.

The Constitutional Court does not have the power to overturn existing
sentences. Its finding would be referred back to the Supreme Court to
reconsider its verdicts.

Head of Rush's Australian legal team, Colin McDonald, QC, also said a
successful Constitutional challenge should have wider implications,
although the International Covenant also states that countries that
imposed the death penalty should only do so in the most serious cases -
which involved crimes of violence, not drugs offences.

Meanwhile, the Indonesia Foreign Affairs Ministry has said it is lobbying
4 other countries against carrying out outstanding death penalties imposed
on 19 Indonesian citizens.

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)