[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 3



KUWAIT:

Nepali woman slapped death penalty in Kuwait, rights activist claim
innocence


A Nepali woman domestic help has been slapped death penalty in Kuwait on
the charge of murdering a local woman, according to rights activist
working for women's welfare. In a programme on Nepali migrant labourers
organised in the capital Wednesday the right activists also called upon
the government to ask the Kuwait government to grant an amnesty to the
accused woman.

According to representatives of Maiti Nepal, United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM) including various NGOs, Dolma Sherpa of
Sindupalchowk was handed down the death penalty by the Kuwaiti court. A
mother of a 3 year old son, Sherpa's husband is reported to have been
working in Iraq.

"After Kuwait-based rights activist Raju Nagpal informed us through email
about the court verdict this week we sent letters informing about Sherpa's
plight to Embassy of Saudi Arabia, the labour department and the concerned
ministry," said Bijaya Rai Shrestha of Paurakhi, an NGO working for women,
"We are awaiting its reply."

Sherpa has been languishing in the central jail in Kuwait for the last 5
months for allegedly murdering a wife of her employer.

"Charging that hair strands found on the hand of the deceased woman were
that of Sherpa, the police had filed a case against her. Based on this
evidence the court slapped the death penalty after investigating Sherpa's
finger prints," Shrestha said, adding that she still doesn't have any idea
what kind of court handed down the sentence or whether there was a
provision for appeal against the court's verdict.

Claiming that Dolma was innocent since her blood test report did not
establish proof, Nagpal in an email he wrote to Shrestha has said, "She is
crying, thinking the fate of her child back home and pleading for her
life."

It must be mentioned here that the government had imposed a ban in 1998
against Nepali women working in the gulf after Kami Sherpa, a Nepali women
domestic help, killed herself while fleeing a rape attempt in Saudi
Arabia.

Meanwhile, 3 Nepali women are languishing in the central jail of Saudi
Arabia from the past few months.

Those who are serving time in the Riyadh located jail are Kavita Karki of
Jhapa, Hira Thapa of Kaski and Bimala Timalsina of Chitwan. It was not
immediately clear on what charges they were put in jail.

Despite the government ban, an estimated 10,000 Nepali women work in Saudi
Arabia mostly as domestic help.

(source:  Nepal News)






CHINA:

China to expand use of lethal injection


China will expand the use of lethal injections to replace execution by
gunshot, state media said on Thursday of a country which kills more
convicts than anywhere else.

China executes about 10,000 people a year, according to the New York-based
group Human Rights Watch. Other estimates of China's annual executions
range between 5,000 and 12,000.

Lethal injections were considered "more humane and will eventually be used
in all intermediate people's courts", the China Daily quoted Jiang
Xingchang, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, as saying.

China has been slowly reforming the death penalty system after several
high-profile wrongful convictions raised public anger.

The Supreme People's Court last year took back its power of final approval
on death penalties, relinquished to provincial high courts in a
crime-fighting campaign in the 1980s.

But the China Daily did not suggest any quick end to China's use of the
death penalty.

"We cannot talk about abolishing or controlling the use of death sentences
in the abstract without considering ground realities and social security
conditions," it quoted Chief Justice Xiao Yang as saying, adding that
there was a strong belief in the concept of "an eye for an eye and a life
for a life".

The death penalty is imposed for dozens of crimes, including non-violent
offences such as corruption and tax fraud.

Among those executed last year was Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the food
and drug safety watchdog, who was put to death for taking bribes to renew
drugs licenses.

(source:  Reuters)


******************


Beijing chooses lethal injection for death penalty: "it's more humane"----
The country has no intention of abolishing the use of capital punishment.
According to leading Party figures, there are at least 10,000 executions
per year. And a florid trade in the organs of the condemned.


China has no intention of halting the use of the death penalty, but it
wants to overhaul it: it will use lethal injection, instead of the firing
squad.  The move was announced by Jiang Xingchang, vice-president of the
Supreme Court in a declaration to China Daily. The lethal injection "is
considered more humane and will be used in all intermediary courts."

Execution by lethal injection was introduced to China in 1997, yet to date
the most common method of killing condemned is by firing squad.

China is the number 1 in the world for the number of executions.  In
2007, of the 1,591 executions via firing squad carried out worldwide last
year, at least 1,010 people were executed in China.

Since November 2005 Beijing has overhauled its capital punishment system,
the Supreme Court is the only court with the power to give out death
sentences.  This has led to a reduction in official deaths, even if party
leaders confirm that over 10,000 death sentences are passed each year
in the country.  However China has no intention of abolishing the death
penalty. In an interview with the China Daily Xiao Yang, president of the
Supreme Court, declared that "We cannot talk about abolishing the use of
death sentences in the abstract without considering ground realities and
social security conditions." He explained that most Chinese have an
"eye-for-an-eye" mentality.

Currently China condemns people to death for crimes ranging from tax
evasion, corruption, drug trafficking to murder.

Jiang Xingchang noted that the use of the lethal injection has been
welcomed "above all by the condemned and their families."

Human rights organisations however that the use of the lethal injection is
of greater benefit to China, in order to trade the organs of the
condemned, given that it damages them less.

In 2006 The British Transplant Society,(Bts) warned that there is
"increasing evidence" that "organs of those who have been put to death are
being used in transplants without family consent".

(source:  AsiaNews)






AUSTRALIA:

The death penalty is wrong, always


THE Catholic Church in Australia is right to call on the Australian
Government to unconditionally oppose the death penalty, a punishment that
has a corrosive effect on the justice system.

Consider the situation in Texas last year when a computer crash led to
Michael Richard being killed. Convicted of murder, he was executed by
lethal injection on September 25.

Earlier that same day, the United States Supreme Court had agreed to
consider appeals by two Kentucky men on the grounds that execution by
lethal injection was a cruel and unusual form of punishment and therefore
prohibited under the US constitution. Richard's lawyers raced to file a
request in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that their client's
execution be stayed until the Supreme Court's decision was known.

At that point, the lawyers' computer system crashed. They called the court
and pleaded for the clerk's office to stay open 20 minutes past its usual
closing time of 5pm. However, presiding Judge Sharon Keller refused to
vary the closing time; the vital document could not be filed and Richard
was strapped to a table and killed by lethal injection.

There have been no executions in the US since. All courts have stayed
pending executions in light of the Supreme Court's decision, just as
Richard's lawyers tried to ask the Texas court to do.

We can only guess what motivated Keller. Like all members of her court,
she is an elected official. In 1994, she was elected on the promise that
she would bring the "perspective of a prosecutor" to her work, arguing
that there had been "too many times when defendants get too good a deal".
There is no evidence that Keller's decision to refuse the request to keep
the office open was politically motivated but it certainly wasn't in the
interests of justice or humanity that she prevented Richard's application
from being filed. Keller's decision to refuse to allow the application to
be filed late is now the subject of an ethics complaint.

Reprieve volunteers all have similar stories to illustrate the damage that
the death penalty does to a society. We have met the families of murder
victims who have found no solace in the execution of the killer. We have
taken statements from jurors who were appalled to discover that they had
sent a person to his death. We've also heard too many stories of people
such as Sunny Jacobs, a woman who faced execution but whose innocence was
ultimately proven.

In 1974, the US Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment, at least as
then imposed, was unconstitutionally "cruel and unusual". There was
immediate public outcry in favour of capital punishment and the knee-jerk
reaction from politicians was swift. Just 4 years later, 35 of 50
states had adopted new capital punishment laws designed to circumvent the
ruling.

It is obvious why some politicians feel compelled to support capital
punishment, or at least to not speak out against it. Those subject to the
death penalty have been convicted of serious, often shocking, crimes. Any
politician who argues against the death of a murderer, a terrorist or a
dictator can be painted as out of touch or weak.

Yet the problem with this punishment is equally obvious: life is devalued
and can hang on a capricious decision not to stay open for 20 minutes, or
on a computer crash. One thing is certain: when politicians support the
death penalty to gain political advantage, human beings die.

Life-and-death decisions should not be a matter of politics. Australia has
had a long, proud history of bipartisan opposition to the death penalty
and this opposition remains part of the official platforms of both the
Liberal and the Labor parties. We have ratified the second optional
protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
pledging support for an "international commitment to abolish the death
penalty".

This commitment cannot stop at our borders. It cannot be ignored when
Australian citizens are not at risk.

When Australian politicians offer support for capital punishment as long
as Australian citizens are not executed, they act hypocritically. This
behaviour undermines any plea to save the lives of citizens caught in
contravention of foreign laws, or the lives of political opponents of
repressive regimes. Human life is not and should never be a matter for
political points scoring.

The Catholic Social Justice Commission is to be commended for highlighting
the harm done to the cause of human rights generally and to our own
international reputation when we fail to take a firm and consistent
opposition to the death penalty.

(source:  Opinion, Rachel Walsh is a Melbourne lawyer and president of
Reprieve Australia; The Age)

**********************

Death row pleas for citizens only


The Australian Government will intervene to oppose the death penalty only
in the case of Australian citizens, acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard
says.

Responding to suggestions by the Catholic Church that Australia should
oppose capital punishment everywhere under all circumstances, including
the Bali bombers, Ms Gillard yesterday said Australia would not intervene
in death penalty sentences for foreigners.

"Our position is perfectly clear. We support global moves against the
death penalty (but) we only use our diplomatic resources on behalf of of
Australian nationals who are at risk of the death penalty overseas," she
said. "I think that that's entirely appropriate. Obviously our obligations
are on behalf of our citizens and nationals. We intervene on their
behalf."

Her comments move away from Labor policy as articulated by
Attorney-General Robert McClelland during the election campaign.

The then shadow minister for foreign affairs said: "Labor in government
will initiate a regional coalition against the death penalty by drawing
abolitionist states together."

Australian religious leaders were yesterday divided over the death
penalty. Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen said official church
doctrine in the 39 Articles of 1662 endorsed it: "The Laws of the Realm
may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and grievous offences."

Dr Jensen said Christians were concerned about the abuse of capital
punishment for crimes that did not merit death. "But I cannot absolutely
rule out capital punishment in all circumstances, since the Bible itself
allows it."

Victorian Presbyterian moderator Graham Bradbeer said he opposed capital
punishment, but the church did not have an official position. "There would
be support among many of our clergy for the concept of capital punishment,
but also widespread abhorrence at the possibility it could be misapplied."

Uniting Church president Gregor Henderson said taking human life was never
justified, even in the case of terrorists.

"We believe in justice, but life imprisonment is the way to go with
dreadful crimes," he said.

Rabbi Fred Morgan said the Jewish position mirrored the state of Israel,
that the death penalty was justified only in extreme situations such as
crimes against humanity. Israel has formally executed only one man  Adolf
Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust.

Australian National Imams Council spokesman Imraan Husain said Islam
allowed capital punishment provided certain preconditions were met. He
said the death penalty for converting from Islam in some countries was a
misunderstanding of the Prophet Muhammad's teaching.

"We should respect each country's laws. Some Muslim countries where
capital punishment is applied base it on cultural traditions which are not
fully Islamic," he said.

(source:  The Age)




SOUTH KOREA:

Human rights activists celebrate abolition of death penalty 'in practice'


Even a temperature of minus-7 degrees Celsius did not stop 200 human
rights activists from going outdoors to celebrate South Korea's entry
into the ranks of countries that have abolished the death penalty "in
practice."

Nonetheless, they asked lawmakers to abolish capital punishment
officially.

On Dec. 30, the country marked 10 years since its last executions, thus
becoming an abolitionist country "in practice" as defined by international
human rights monitor Amnesty International. The last executions, of 23
death-row inmates, took place on Dec. 30, 1997.

The activists held their public celebration of the occasion in the
courtyard of the National Assembly in Seoul. The Preparatory Committee for
the Celebration of the Abolition of the Death Penalty, which brings
together campaigners from religious, political and civic groups, organized
the event. Participants demanded that lawmakers pass a pending bill to
abolish the death penalty.

Catholic Bishop Boniface Choi Ki-san of Incheon told the gathering, "South
Korea has become the 134th country to abolish the death penalty in
practice or in law. This shows that our country has become 'developed' in
human rights." The president of the bishops' Committee for Justice and
Peace, a main organizer of the event, pointed out, however, that the law
allowing the death penalty "is still in effect, and the bill to abolish it
is still pending."

The bill that would substitute life imprisonment without parole or
commutation for the death penalty has stalled since 175 lawmakers
introduced it in the National Assembly in November 2004. It remains with
the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, which must discuss and approve
any bill before a plenary vote can be taken, according to the National
Assembly Act.

Reverend Kwon Oh-sung, secretary of the National Council of Churches in
Korea, said at the celebration, "God-given human life should be protected
in any circumstance, and no one and no law can take away that life." He
also expressed the hope President-elect Lee Myung-bak of the conservative
Grand National Party would follow the practice of his two predecessors in
not having any executions carried out.

After the speeches, 64 pigeons symbolizing the current 64 death-row
inmates were released.

Organizers also arranged for 2 trucks equipped with large video screens
to travel around Seoul that day televising a video documentary advocating
abolition of the death penalty.

The next day, outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun reduced the sentences of 6
death-row inmates to life imprisonment.

Father Thomas Lee Young-woo, president of Seoul archdiocese's Social
Correction Apostolate, told UCA News that although capital punishment has
not been formally abolished, "we have achieved a big result." Regina Pyon
Yeon-shik, chairperson of the Korean Catholic Human Rights Committee, said
South Korea has set a good example for countries still retaining the death
penalty.

(source:  The Indian Catholic)





IRAN:

Iran hangs convicted child abuser


Iran hanged a man on Thursday who had been found guilty of severely
torturing and raping a 12-year-old boy in the western city of Hamedan,
the state news agency IRNA reported.

The 23-year-old man, identified only as A., was hanged in a prison in
Hamedan for raping and torturing the boy, named as Behzad, in February
2007, it said.

The Etemad Melli newspaper said the man was named Ali and an acquaintance
of Behzad's family who was apprehended by a hospital guard when he tried
to drop off the child after 4 days of "physical and sexual abuse".

"They took drugs and burned my body and tongue with cigarettes and a hot
skewer. In these four days, we went around in the car in the morning and
at night they tortured and raped me," Behzad told Etemad Melli.

Behzad was picked up from his house by Ali and his friend Mehdi in the
absence of his divorced mother who "knew Ali and trusted him", the report
said.

"The accomplice is also sentenced to death but his verdict has not yet
been approved by the supreme court," IRNA said.

The execution brings to 14 the number of people hanged in Iran so far this
year. On Wednesday, Iran executed 13 convicted criminals, including the
mother of two young children who had been found guilty of murdering her
husband.

Last year, Iran carried out at least 297 executions, according to an AFP
count compiled from press reports.

The total was a sharp increase on 2006, when 177 executions were carried
out, according to Amnesty International.

Iran currently makes more use of the death penalty than any other country
apart from China. Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed
robbery, serious drug trafficking and adultery.

Human rights groups have accused Iran of excessive resort to the death
penalty, but the authorities say capital punishment is an effective
deterrent that is only used after an exhaustive judicial process.

(source:  Agence France Presse)