[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 16



IRAN:

Iran Putting Its Children on Death Row


"I am a murderer!" The young voice trembled on the other side of the
telephone line. "I was 15 when I committed the murder. I regret what I
did. It was an accident. Please save me! I want to live. I want to be
free. I am living the last days of my life. Any day now they may take me
to the noose. I want to survive. Is there anybody there who can save me?"

The short conversation fades into the distant tumult of Adel Abad Prison
in Shiraz, a city in southwest-central Iran, where Behnam Zare' has been
awaiting execution for 3 years.

In the spring of 2005, Behnam was a freshman in high school when a scuffle
over pet pigeons broke out between him and his friend Mehrdad. Minutes
later, Behnam had become his buddy's murderer. He says he still has no
recollection of how it really happened.

Behnam, still a minor at the time he was arrested, landed in prison. Not
long after the judicial process began he was convicted of murder in the
primary court and sentenced to death.

"We tried hard to reverse the death sentence during the past 3 years. But
all the efforts have so far been in vain," said defense lawyer Mohammad
Mostafaei, who advocates Behnam's case. "In spite of every effort we made,
the verdict has been approved both by the High Court of the Islamic
Republic, and the head of Iran's judiciary."

(source: World Press)






AFGHANISTAN:

Condemned Afghan Journalist Wins Right to Appeal Death Sentence


A young Afghan journalist, sentenced to death in January for spreading
feminist criticism of Islam, has been granted an appeal, according to one
of the international organizations monitoring his case.

The writer, Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, 23, was transferred on March 28 from
prison in the remote province of Balkh, in northern Afghanistan, to the
capital, Kabul, according to Jean MacKenzie, program director in
Afghanistan for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. The London-based
Institute is an international advocate for press freedom.

The move, Mackenzie said in a telephone interview, was accompanied by
promises from officials in the government of President Hamid Karzai that
Kambakhsh would be freed.

MacKenzie credited international protests in the wake of the death
sentence as a key factor in getting Kambakhsh out of the control of
regional religious and secular authorities. She also said that within
Afghanistan, protests in several cities organized by the Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), a banned group, had made
local citizens aware of the case.

"There is a belief that the charges were trumped up as a political move,''
MacKenzie said. She added that Kambakhsh and his brother, also a
journalist, had been outspoken about the rise of warlords in the north and
the breakdown of centralized government authority. The transfer to Kabul
effectively removed Kambakhsh from local jurisdiction.

Release Planned

"Privately, sources in the government have assured the family that Parwez
will be released, but the family are not yet certain of that,'' MacKenzie
said.

Kambakhsh, a journalism student at Balkh University and correspondent for
Jahan-e-Naw (The New World), a local daily newspaper in the Balkh city of
Mazar-i-Sharif, was arrested Oct. 27, 2007. The National Directorate of
Security charged him with downloading and distributing anti-Islamic
propaganda, according to the Institute and reports from other
organizations reporting on the case.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that the material in question
concerned the role of women in Islamic society. A report from PEN, the
international organization of writers and editors, reported that the
material "allegedly said the Prophet Mohammed ignored women's rights.''

"He was also reportedly accused of possessing allegedly anti-Islamic books
and starting un-Islamic debates in his classes.''

Denied Charges

Kambakhsh has vehemently denied downloading or distributing the material.
A local trial was held on Jan. 22.

"It was about 4 p.m. when guards brought me into a room where there were
three judges and an attorney sitting behind their desks,'' Kambakhsh
reported to the institute at the time. "There was no one else. The death
sentence had already been written. I wanted to say something, but they
would not let me speak.

"They too said nothing,'' Kambakhsh continued. "They just handed me a
piece of paper on which it was written that I had been sentenced to death.
Then armed guards came and took me out of the room and brought me back to
the prison.''

News of the "trial'' and death sentence sparked protests from human rights
and journalists' organizations, including International PEN, the Afghan
Independent Human Rights Committee and Reporters Without Borders.

On Jan. 31 Kabul demonstrators, organized by RAWA, marched in support of
Kambakhsh, shouting "Long live democracy!'' and demanding his release,
ending up in front of the United Nations Assistance Mission to
Afghanistan.

"This case is not an anomaly,'' MacKenzie said. "It is symptomatic of what
is happening in Afghanistan, the weakening of power at the center and the
rise of local powerbrokers.

"It's entirely possible that if things continue this way,'' she continued,
"Afghan society will not look that different from the way it was under the
Taliban.''

(source: Bloomberg News)






JAPAN:

Japan Radio Station to Air Execution Tape as Hangings Rise


A Japanese radio station will broadcast a 1955 tape of an execution in a
special program next month, a rare move to raise public awareness as the
government increases the frequency at which it hangs death row inmates.

The tape, from a prison in Osaka, western Japan, includes voices from the
condemned prisoner and a prison guard, and the sound of the rope
stretching when the inmate was hanged, said Katsuhiko Shimizu at Nippon
Cultural Broadcasting Inc, a private radio station.

Educating the public about executions was becoming important before the
start of a lay judge system next year in which citizens would help hand
down verdicts and sentences for serious crimes together with professional
judges, he said.

"Some people support executions from the standpoint of victims, while
those opposed say human rights of death row inmates should be respected,
but we can't form an opinion unless we really know what executions are
about," said Shimizu, a programming supervisor.

It is not clear when the inmate in the tape was hanged, and he will be
introduced only by his initials.

The 55-minute program will also include interviews with prison guards,
public prosecutors and journalists who have covered executions.

Japan executed four convicted murderers just last week, in line with
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama's policy of reducing the number of
prisoners on death row.

The hangings brought to 10 the number of executions under Hatoyama, who
took up his post last August, and came only two months after the last
round of executions, an unusually short period in Japan. Opinion polls
show most Japanese support capital punishment although human rights groups
such as Amnesty International condemn the practice.

The government began revealing names and details of those hanged from
December in a new policy aimed at bolstering support for executions.

(source: Reuters)