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

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 29



UNITED NATIONS:

UN draft resolution against death penalty to be heard Monday


The UN General Assembly will hear on Monday a draft resolution proposed by
European Union and other countries on a worldwide moratorium on the death
penalty.

This is the 3rd attempt by the countries opposed to capital punishment to
pass a resolution. The previous attempts failed, due in part to U.S.
opposition. However, the present resolution has softened its tone, calling
for a moratorium rather than abolition.

General Assembly resolutions are not binding, unlike those adopted by the
UN Security Council, but they have political and moral force.

The authors expect at least 106-108 members of the 192-nation organization
to back the draft.

While 146 countries have banned or imposed a moratorium on the death
penalty, 51 states continue to carry out executions, often in public,
according to the draft resolution.

The vast majority of executions are carried out in China, which puts more
people to death each year than the rest of the world combined. Other
countries in which the death penalty is carried out include Iran, Iraq,
Pakistan, Sudan, and the United States, where capital punishment is
applied in some states.

The draft says at least 5,628 people were put to death in the world in
2006.

Belarus was cited as the only country in Europe that has not rejected
capital punishment. The report, to be presented at the General Assembly on
Monday, says the state executed 3 people in 2006 and 4 in 2005. As death
sentences are qualified as a state secret in the ex-Soviet state, the data
is based on media reports and information provided by rights organizations
and the families of those people put to death.

(source: RIA/Novosti)






RUSSIA:

Russian `Chessboard Killer' Gets Life for 48 Murders


A Russian mass murderer known as the "chessboard killer'' was sentenced to
life in prison for the murders of 48 people, most of whom he bludgeoned to
death with a hammer in a Moscow park.

The Moscow City Court also today ordered Alexander Pichushkin, 33, to
undergo psychiatric treatment in prison. A jury convicted Pichushkin last
week of the murders and 3 attempted killings.

A life sentence in a high-security prison colony was the "maximum
penalty'' for Pichushkin, since Russia suspended capital punishment in
1996, the prosecutor, Yury Syomin, said in comments broadcast by state
television.

Pichushkin, who claims to have killed 60 people and left 3 others for
dead, expressed no remorse for his actions. In his final statement to the
court, he said he was the ``judge, prosecutor and executioner'' of his
victims, Russian media reported.

Pichushkin told prosecutors he had marked 63 of the 64 squares on a chess
board, one for each murder, leading Russian newspapers to dub him the
"chessboard killer.'' The country's most notorious serial killer, Andrei
Chikatilo, was convicted in 1992 of murdering 52 people and was executed 2
years later.

Judge Vladimir Usov was quoted by the Interfax news service as saying
Pichushkin had a "mental disorder'' but was sane and couldn't avoid
criminal responsibility.

'Restore Justice'

At a hearing attended by relatives of the victims, the judge added that
Pichushkin posed an "extreme danger'' to society and was given a life
sentence "to restore justice and prevent new crimes,'' Interfax reported.

Pichushkin was defiant from behind a glass cage as the judge read out the
sentence in televised footage. Asked if he understood, the convicted man
replied: "I'm not deaf.''

Pavel Ivannikov, who represented Pichushkin during the trial, said on
state television he would decide whether to appeal the sentence within 10
days after consulting with his client.

Prosecutors say the first murder took place in 1992. After a nine-year
break, Pichushkin went on a killing spree in southwestern Moscow's
Bitsevsky Park that lasted until 2006. Many of his victims were elderly
men whom he lured to their death by saying he wanted to show them the
grave of his dog and offering to drink vodka together before killing them,
state television channel Vesti-24 said.

First Victim

Pichushkin's first victim was a male schoolmate, whom he killed at age 18
and buried in Bitsevsky Park.

Police detained Pichushkin last year after the murder of a female
colleague at a grocery store where he worked. Russian media reported that
she left Pichushkin's phone number with her son before going on a walk
with her killer.

The spate of murders in Bitsevsky Park revived memories of Chikatilo, who
killed and mutilated his victims, mostly women and children, over 12 years
until his capture in 1990. A married man with children who lived in the
southern Russian city of Rostov-on- Don, he was executed by firing squad.

The U.S. serial killer with the most victims was John Wayne Gacy, who was
executed in 1994 after being convicted of murdering 33 men and boys in the
1970s. The victims' bodies were found under Gacy's suburban Chicago home.

(source: Bloomberg News)






INDIA:

Sikhs Worldwide Campaign for Death Penalty Abolition


On March 23, 1931, an Indian Sikh named Bhagat Singh attained martyrdom
when he was hanged by the British for his role in the militant freedom
struggle against the colonial rulers.

About 75 years later, Professor Jagmohan Singh, a nephew of the liberation
hero, preaches peace and mercy as he joins a worldwide campaign,
especially in Europe, by his Sikh community against death penalty.

The life and work of Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and his death by
hanging in Lahore (now Pakistan) at the hands of British imperialism has
been a great saga of patriotism for generations of Indians.

But while Bhagat Singh trod a path of violence to achieve freedom, his
Sikh community, though known as a courageous warrior race, today believes
more in the non-violence preaching of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who brought
India independence from British rule by peaceful non-cooperation. Gandhi
was vocal against death penalty, saying: "An eye for an eye makes the
whole world blind."

"We wish to argue that our country can honour Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle
of peace and non-violence and (the) martyr Bhagat Singh by doing away with
the death penalty altogether," says Professor Singh, a Sikh politician,
and in the forefront of the current campaign.

"A civil society should not descend to the status of murderers by
preferring revenge over far better forms of justice. All investigations,
however meticulous, are subject to human error. Such errors become
irreversible in a case where the death penalty is imposed. All over the
world, there have been cases of executed people being proved innocent
after their death."

Since early 2006, Sikhs in France have joined the campaign, organising
protests and lodging petitions with the Indian embassy in Paris expressing
their opposition to the death penalty. They are also calling for release
of all Sikhs they claim have been jailed "unjustly" for political reasons
in India. In August 2007, a Europe-wide protest by Sikhs calling for an
end to the death penalty in India commenced in Brussels outside the
European Commission headquarters and the European Parliament building.

The Sikhs then urged European Parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering
and the EC Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner to
link future trade with India with abolition of the death penalty and
respect for the rights of minorities, such as the Sikhs.

The EU is India's largest trading partner, responsible for about 25
percent of its exports.

Although India's highest courts have ruled that the death penalty can only
be applied in the "rarest of rare" cases, there are believed to be as many
as 700 people on the death row in India awaiting execution. Last July,
death sentences were handed down to six convicted of involvement in the
1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, India's financial capital.

The EU did lobby strongly, but unsuccessfully, before the execution of
Dhanonjoy Chaterjee on Aug. 14, 2004. This was India's last execution, and
ended a 9-year-long moratorium on executions in India.

Bhai Amrik Singh, chair of the Sikh Federation (UK) comments: "The ending
of the moratorium was a backward and retrograde step by the Indian regime,
and a show of defiance to the EU."

The current campaigning in Europe is highlighting the case of Professor
Davinderpal Singh Bhullar where Germany, a prominent EU member, is
directly involved.

The Bhullar affair is one of the most controversial and high profile death
penalty cases in recent Indian history. Almost 12 years ago, Bhullar, a
Sikh political activist, was deported from Germany to India on the basis
that he had nothing to fear on his return.

But Bhullar was arrested immediately he landed in Delhi. In prison he was
allegedly tortured to obtain a false confession, and in 2001 he was
sentenced to death by hanging for a crime he allegedly did not commit.
Sikhs say Germany's deportation of Bhullar to a country still retaining
the death penalty was a violation of the European Convention on Human
Rights.

The latest death sentences to be handed down by Indian courts were on Jul.
30. Jagtar Singh and Balwant Singh, both Sikhs, were convicted of the
August 1995 assassination of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and 17
others. The sentences triggered worldwide Sikh protest, including leading
figures in the community in the Punjab province of India.

The European Commission, European Parliament and Council of the European
Union are now being urged to press for the death sentences to be lifted.
According to Professor Jagmohan Singh, in a country like India, where
there is a huge gap between the privileged and the dispossessed, the death
penalty becomes the final method for implementing class injustice.

"A cursory glance at the list of all those executed in our country will
reveal that almost all of them were poor. The rich are rarely found
guilty, and even if they are, they are rarely executed.

"There is no international evidence to suggest that the death penalty is a
deterrent to violent and heinous crime. Countries like Britain that did
away with the death penalty did not see a rise in such crimes, while
countries like the U.S., which continue to impose the penalty, show no
decline," Jagmohan Singh says.

To underline that the current anti-death penalty campaign is not only
about Sikhs on the death row, Singh also calls for the sparing of another
high-profile death row inmate in India, the alleged terrorist Mohammed
Afzal, also known as Afzal Guru, a Muslim from India's trouble-torn state
of Jammu and Kashmir.

Afzal was convicted of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on the
Indian Parliament. In 2004, he was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court
of India, but his sentence was stayed after his family filed a mercy
petition to the President of India.

"If Afzal is a terrorist today, he was surely not born one. And he need
not die one. Circumstances made him what he is. And circumstances may
change him. The death penalty will change no one. Far from being a
deterrent, martyrdom, as some will surely perceive his death, can only
achieve the opposite effect," says Singh.

He adds: "I believe that the Sikh ethical approach of compassion,
forgiveness and scope for reformation of one's life is a prerequisite for
a progressive civil society. It is significant to mention that Maharaja
Ranjit Singh, the famous Indian Sikh ruler, in his 40-year-reign
(1799-1839) did not use the death penalty, even in cases where he was the
subject of attack. It is high time we end this inhuman practice."

(source: IPS News)






TURKEY:

MHP, BBP urge reintroduction of death penalty


The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Grand Unity Party (BBP) and some
nongovernmental organizations have been making preparations for the
reintroduction of the death penalty, removed from the Turkish Constitution
in 2002.

Citizens condemning terrorism in nationwide protests call on the
government to reintroduce the death penalty.

The MHP argues that capital punishment should be included in the new
constitution currently being drafted, for wartime crimes, massacres and
similar crimes. BBP leader Muhsin Yazicioglu was the first politician to
propose the reintroduction of the death penalty, particularly after 47
people were killed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Yazicioglu maintains that the removal of the death penalty has encouraged
terrorist crimes; he also noted that the frequency of general pardons in
Turkey, a country going through trying times, has created risks for the
security of the country, which could be minimized under the deterrent
effect of the death penalty.

Turkey had abolished capital punishment on Aug. 2, 2002, soon after the
capture of the PKK leader Abdullah calan. This constitutional amendment
had caused disputes among the members of the coalition government, at that
time composed of the MHP, the Democratic Left Party (DSP) and the
Motherland Party (ANAVATAN), and during the voting on the abolishment of
the death penalty, the MHP did not back the amendment. Another party which
did not back the abolishment of capital punishment was the Justice and
Development Party (AK Party), which was a newly established party at the
time. Turkey had ratified Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerning the
abolition of the death penalty in peacetime.

Having assumed office as a single party government following the general
elections in 2002, the AK Party ratified Protocol No. 13 to the Convention
for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerning the
abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances on Jan. 9, 2004.

Professor Burhan Kuzu, the chairman of the parliamentary Constitution
Commission, speaking to Todays Zaman, said: "Reintroduction of the death
penalty is open to discussion. There are groups that seek reintroduction
of a restricted death penalty. However, we must discuss it thoroughly and
arrive at a healthy conclusion. We have ratified supplementary protocols
no. 6 and 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights. The death penalty
may be introduced for multiple killings. Capital punishment is implemented
in the US. Some states abolished it, only to reintroduce it later. Having
legal references to the death penalty may have some deterrence; but
terrorism would continue its bloodshed if there was a death penalty in
Turkey. We did not execute anyone under the death penalty after 1984. Well
think about it when the proposal is made."

(source: Today's Zaman)