[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 14



CANADA:

Saying no to all executions


Last fall, the federal government said that it would not ask U.S.
authorities to send back to Canada Ronald Allen Smith, an Alberta man who
has spent more than 20 years on death row in Montana for 2 murders.

That announcement marked a significant departure from the decades-old
practice of lobbying foreign governments to show clemency to Canadian
citizens facing capital punishment abroad. Canada routinely requested that
a convicted person either have his sentence reduced to life in prison or
be allowed to serve the time in a Canadian prison.

The Conservative government indicated that the issue was one of trusting
other democratic governments to administer justice. Public Safety Minister
Stockwell Day said for Canada to seek clemency for Smith after he had been
tried and sentenced in a U.S. court would "send a wrong message."

Unfortunately, the only message that got sent was that Canada trusts some
countries more than others to administer justice. And today, as Canada
tries to persuade Saudi Arabia not to execute 2 Canadian citizens,
brothers accused of a school-ground killing, the Saudi authorities can't
have much doubt about what camp they are in.

This double standard leaves Canadian citizens who are facing the death
penalty in non-democratic countries pretty much high and dry. Canada can
hardly urge Saudi Arabia to hand over two citizens on the basis that the
Arab kingdom is incapable of administering justice. No country will admit
that its justice system is primitive and unreliable.

Canada's traditional policy of seeking clemency for all its citizens no
matter whose jurisdiction they are in gave Canada's interventions a moral
consistency. We were acting out of a conviction that capital punishment
was wrong, no matter where it is carried out.

With that principled consistency now abandoned, Canadian officials abroad
will be hard-pressed to convince foreign justice departments that Canadian
citizens should be released into our care or spared the death penalty.

Some Canadians in this predicament abroad are vile characters, who fully
deserve a true life sentence. But other Canadians abroad will inevitably
face trumped-up charges.

Montreal brothers Mohamed and Sultan Kohail might be beheaded, if found
guilty by Saudi authorities in the death of a Saudi teenager. The Kohails
insist they are innocent and they might well be. But any effective
advocacy on their behalf has been undermined by Day's new policy. It
should be reversed.

(source: The (Victoria) Times Colonist)






ISRAEL:

Revisit the Death Penalty


Arab murderers serving long jail sentences create an incentive for other
terrorists to kidnap soldiers. Should Israel institute the death penalty?

In light of the agonizing release of a brutal murderer as part of an
exchange to gain the return of the bodies of 2 slain soldiers, it's time
for Israel to reconsider the use of the death penalty.

The legal system allows for it. Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of
the Nazi extermination of the Jews, was executed in 1962 after being tried
and found guilty of crimes against humanity. No one else has been put to
death by Israeli courts since then. But if the underlying principle is to
protect human life, it may well be argued that more lives would be saved
by taking the lives of murderers whose aim is to kill civilians guilty of
nothing but being Jews.

Israeli society recently endured the scene of Samir Kuntar being welcomed
back to Lebanon as a hero by government officials there and throngs of
ecstatic citizens. He won a place in their hearts by brutally slaying a
young Israeli father in front of his 4-year-old daughter during a 1979
terror attack and then crushing the little girl's skull.

Never mind the obvious statement this makes about values in much of the
Arab world. Kuntar told the crowds that he was proud of his actions and
looks forward to killing more Jews in the future.

Much of the debate in Israel leading up to the swap focused on the painful
dilemma over whether or not to release terrorists "with blood on their
hands" in return for 2 Israeli soldiers no longer alive. But there has
been relatively little discussion about making use of the death penalty in
the case of terrorists like Kuntar as a means of preventing kidnappings of
Israeli soldiers and civilians, to be used as bargaining chips in future
exchanges.

Palestinian murderers serving long jail sentences create an incentive for
their fellow terrorists to kidnap soldiers and others. Most dramatically,
Hamas is demanding the release of about 1,000 terrorists for the return of
Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped and held since June 2006.
Israel need not look up to any other country when it comes to valuing
human life, as indicated by its willingness to release convicted killers
for the bodies of its soldiers. And unlike the U.S., where the debate over
the death penalty primarily is about mistakes resulting in the execution
of innocent people, Israel would be putting to death only those who
clearly have committed horrific crimes against innocents.

As Rabbi Shmuley Boteach concludes in an essay calling for the death
penalty in Israel for convicted terrorists, "just governments must
sometimes take the lives of unrepentant terrorist mass murderers in order
to protect and uphold the infinite value of human life."

It's an issue too important to be avoided, and should be discussed and
debated in Israel, where every citizen is a potential target.

(source: Editors, Jewish Week)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Death sentence commuted


A Saudi court overruled the verdict of a lower court and sentenced a
Kuwaiti girl and her brother to 20 years in jail for killing their sister
in a desert in Saudi Arabia before surrendering themselves to Saudi
authorities, reports Awan daily.

It is reported that a lower court sentenced the brother and sister to
death for the murder that took place 10 years ago. Allegedly, the duo
suspected the victim of immoral behavior and strangled her. Their mother
was sentenced to 10 years jail and she is said to have already served 7
years.

(source: Arab Times)






EUROPEAN UNION:

Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the EU following the execution
of 3 people under sentence of death in Japan


The European Union is deeply concerned at the Japanese authorities'
announcement that 3 people under sentence of death  Mr Yoshiyuki Mantani,
aged 68, Mr Mineteru Yamamoto, aged 68, Mr Isamu Hirano, aged 61  have
been hanged.

The acceleration of executions in Japan confirms a particularly disturbing
trend at a time when there are more than 100 prisoners waiting on death
row.

The EU reiterates its longstanding opposition to the death penalty,
whatever the circumstances, and is striving to achieve its universal
abolition, seeking a global moratorium on the death penalty as the first
step. The EU considers that the elimination of the death penalty is
fundamental to the protection of human dignity and to the progressive
development of human rights. Any miscarriage of justice in the application
of capital punishment represents an irreparable and irreversible loss of
human life. No legal system is immune from mistakes and there is no
irrefutable evidence that the death penalty provides added value in terms
of deterrence.

(source: ISRIA)