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

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 8


EUROPEAN UNION/IRAN:

EU blasts rise in executions in Iran


The European Union criticised Iran on Thursday for the rise in the number
of executions carried out by the state.

"The EU condemns the increasing recourse to death sentences and executions
in the Islamic Republic of Iran", the 27-nation bloc said in a statement
issued by Slovenia, the current holder of its rotating Presidency.

It urged Iran to abolish the death penalty in line with the United Nations
General Assembly resolution adopted in December 2007 on a Moratorium on
the use of the death penalty.

It highlighted the case of Zohreh Kabiri, Azar Kabiri and Abdollah
Farivar, who it said were at imminent threat of death by stoning. "Despite
the moratorium on stoning, which the EU was informed of by the Iranian
side during the 2nd round of the EU-Iran human rights dialogue in 2003,
these punishments remain on the statute books in the Islamic Republic of
Iran and sentences are still handed down by judges and carried out in
practice", it added.

"The EU urges the Iranian Government to abolish the use of cruel and
degrading punishments and to abolish immediately, in law and in practice,
the use of stoning as a method of execution - as called for in the most
recent UN General Assembly resolution on the Situation of human rights in
the Islamic Republic of Iran, adopted by the General Assembly in December
2007," the statement said.

"The EU is also deeply concerned about three cases of juvenile offenders
who have been sentenced to death. The EU notes that this is a direct
contravention of the Islamic Republic of Iran's international commitments,
specifically the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both clearly prohibiting the
execution of minors or people who have been convicted of crimes committed
when they were minors.

"The EU urges the Islamic Republic of Iran to comply with International
Law and to immediately halt the executions of Mr Mahyar, Mr Mohammad
Latif, Mr. Behnam Zare and of all other juvenile offenders, taking in
consideration alternative sentences for juvenile offenders," it said.

(source: Iran Focus)

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'Gay' executions imminent in Iran, claims Amnesty----All death sentences
in Iran must be approved by the Head of the Judiciary.


Human rights pressure group Amnesty International has warned that two men
may soon be executed by being thrown off a cliff, an Islamic punishment
for homosexual sex.

6 men were sentenced by a court in May 2007 of having abducted 2 young men
in the city of Arsanjan, to the east of Shiraz, stealing their property
and raping them.

Tayyeb Karimi and Yazdan (surname unknown) were sentenced to death by the
judge, who stipulated they be thrown from a height.

The 4 other men were sentenced to 100 lashes each.

Amnesty says that on 15th January a spokesman for the Judiciary in Iran
confirmed that the sentences had been upheld by the Supreme Court, but
that they had not yet been carried out.

All death sentences in Iran must be approved by the Head of the Judiciary.

The human rights group wants people to send appeals for clemency and
commutation of the sentences.

"Iran's Penal Code states in Article 109 that both men involved in
same-sex penetrative (anal) or non-penetrative sex will be punished,"
Amnestys international LGBT network said in a statement.

"Article 110 states that those convicted of engaging in anal sex will be
executed and that the manner of execution is at the discretion of the
judge.

"The sentence passed in this case is exceptional in its apparent intent to
inflict suffering."

According to Iranian human rights campaigners, more than 4,000 lesbians
and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979.

(source: Pink News)






CANADA:

Inquiry hears pathologist testified in U.S. death penalty case


Lawyers at a public inquiry have raised startling new evidence about Dr.
Charles Smith's activities, revealing that he testified in a 2000 murder
case in the United States that resulted in conviction and a recommendation
the accused be put to death.

Dr. Smith's gave pathological evidence at the Ohio trial of Christopher
Fuller about asphyxia and anal rape, the kind of testimony that has drawn
severe criticism for the pathologist in Canadian cases.

Though the jury urged that Mr. Fuller be executed, the judge in the case
imposed a sentence of life in prison.

A letter from John Holcomb to Dr. Smith, raised at the inquiry today,
praises the Ontario expert for his help on the Fuller file.

"I, along with my colleagues, found your work in this case to be truly
outstanding," Mr. Holcomb wrote.

"I can well imagine that pediatric forensic pathology must rank amongst
the most unpleasant fields of medicine in which to practice, but society
is indeed fortunate that a man of your caliber has chosen to do so."

Although the letter was part of the 30,000 documents released to lawyers
by the inquiry last fall, it was only just discovered last week by Julian
Falconer, a lawyer for 2 native organizations.

Mr. Falconer and lawyers for the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully
Convicted and for some of those prosecuted in Dr. Smith's discredited
Ontario cases asked Justice Stephen Goudge, who is heading the inquiry,
for permission to question Dr. James Young, former head of the Ontario
chief coroner's office, about the Ohio case.

That an Ontario pathologist working for the coroner's office would
participate in a death-penalty case, when capital punishment is illegal in
Canada, is "to say the least disquieting," said Louis Sokoloff, lawyer for
AIDWYC.

(source: National Post)