[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 15



JAPAN:

Japan should adopt death penalty moratorium


3 men were executed in Japan on Thursday. Amnesty International has called
for the government to immediately adopt a moratorium on executions.

The organization called on new Japanese Minister of Justice Yasuoka
Okiharu to conduct a thorough re-examination of the country's death
penalty policy after Mantani Yoshiyuki (68), Yamamoto Mineteru (68) and
Hirano Isamu (61) were killed by hanging.

Their executions bring the total this year to 13. They are the 1st
executions since Yasuoka Okiharu took office on 2 August and are further
evidence of Japan's intent to continue sanctioning the state taking of
life.

There are currently around 102 people on death row in Japan. The prison
authorities usually carry out executions in secret. Officials notify death
row inmates just hours before the execution and inform family members only
after the execution has taken place.

Once the appeals process is complete, a death row prisoner in Japan may
wait for years or even decades before execution. This practice means that
these prisoners can be executed at any time and live in constant fear of
execution.

When the UN Human Rights Council reviewed the human rights situation in
Japan in May 2008, they expressed particular concern about the death
penalty. A number of states urged Japan to adopt a moratorium on
executions in accordance with the UN General Assembly resolution (62/149),
which calls for a global moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

(source: Amnesty International)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Unholy row as Saudi clerics slam Ramadan TV


The sanctity of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan has been spoiled for
some in the Arab world by an unholy row over "depraved" TV comedies and
serials that have led Saudi clerics to demand the death penalty.

Saudi Arabia's powerful religious establishment has complained for years
about what they see as brazen attacks on them and Islam by liberals who
dominate Arab media.

Saudi royals and business allies have set up pan-Arab news and
entertainment channels outside Saudi Arabia that aim partly at influencing
Saudi Arabia's domestic politics. Liberals and conservatives are engaged
in a low-level war over the future of the key U.S. ally and world's
biggest oil exporter.

But television this year has seemingly pushed some clerics to apoplexy
with romantic soaps showcasing liberal lifestyles, dramas that fan the
flames of ancient tribal hatreds and slapstick comedies that have captured
the public's heart.

Ramadan, which ends around Sept. 30, is a month of fasting when Muslims
are supposed to focus on God. But across the Arab world it has become an
orgy of food and TV consumption once the fast ends at sunset and
advertisers have a captive audience.

"If they continue airing depravity and shamelessness they should be
banished from this place and others brought in their place," senior Saudi
cleric Sheikh Saleh al-Fozan said in comments published on Sunday,
referring to TV executives.

He suggested purveyors of horoscopes and "sorcery" should face the death
penalty, and head of the Islamic sharia courts Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan
said last week channel owners should be tried and face possible death for
"indecency and vulgarity".

Arab TV producers aren't laughing. "I haven't seen anything that
approaches depravity," said Abdelkhalek al-Ghanem, a producer of a comedy
show on Saudi Arabia's more staid state-run Channel One. "There's dancing
and things but that's been there for a long time, it's not new. Some
dramas have discussed tribal extremism, but depravity, no."

The United Arab Emirates last week pulled a Syrian serial, "Saadoun
al-Awajy", after Saudi tribal leaders complained that it was stoking
ancient rivalries.

Saudi Arabia has had difficulty carving out a national identity since it
was formed in 1932 as an alliance between the Saudi family and puritan
clerics who administer sharia law.

Saudi television critics have attacked what they called "foul language" in
2 Saudi comedies on pan-Arab entertainment channel MBC1 that air in early
evening after the sunset prayer.

Arab comedy and drama is generally more tame than its Western counterpart,
avoiding everyday street language, and this conservatism is even more
pronounced in Saudi Arabia.

In one much-criticised scene on "Bayni wa Baynak" (Between Us), for
example, one character insulted another by telling him he could stick his
mobile phone chip "in your you-know-where".

FIGHT FOR AUDIENCES

Odwan al-Ahmari, who writes in the daily al-Watan, said it was the
religious media that was provoking clerics to attack the entertainment
channels, which have bigger audiences.

"It's the fatwa programmes that are trying to stir trouble with the
entertainment channels by asking these questions. The sheikh is bound to
say these programmes are sinful," he said.

Popular Turkish soap operas dubbed into Arabic have provoked a storm of
anger among Saudi conservatives who fear the spread of secular
culture.They see Turkey as the West's fifth column into the Islamic world.
The attacks have raised eyebrows because the owners of Arab entertainment
channels, including MBC, ART, Orbit, Rotana and LBC, are members of the
Saudi royal family or businessmen allies. A spokesman for MBC declined to
comment.

One TV official who did not want to be named said religious conservatives
could not push back the tide in Arab entertainment television, which
already pays attention to social and religious mores. "You can't put the
consumer back in the box," he said.

Statistics compiled for MBC indicate that one episode of Turkish soap
"Noor" reached an audience of 85 million, half of whom were women, in
early August. There are around 300 million Arabic-speakers throughout the
Middle East and North Africa.

(source: Reuters)