Nov. 10
NORTHERN IRELAND:
Northern Ireland MPs demand death penalty debate----Tory MP wants death penalty
vote
The government is facing fresh demands to bring back the death penalty.M
Five Democratic Unionist MPs from Northern Ireland have signed a motion calling
for a full debate in the Commons on the matter.
More than 23,000 people have signed a government e-petition urging the return
of capital punishment, but more than 30,000 have signed a counter-motion
rejecting the idea.
The death penalty was last used in Britain in 1964.
Neither petition is close to the 100,000 signatures needed to trigger
consideration for a Commons debate.
The motion has been signed by David Simpson, Sammy Wilson, Jim Shannon, Gregory
Campbell and Jeffrey Donaldson.
They say the subject was last discussed in Parliament in 1998 and it is now
time for the debate to be reopened.
Mr Donaldson said earlier this year he was in favour of capital punishment for
convicted terrorists.
"One of the reasons why I think it should be debated is because I want to hear
the contrary arguments," he said.
A number of Conservative backbenchers have also called for the issue to be
discussed by MPs.
While those in favour of a reintroduction are in the minority in Parliament -
and the death penalty is opposed by the European Union - Commons leader Sir
George Young has warned that it would damage democracy to ignore strong
opinions among members of the public "or pretend that their views do not
exist".
(source: BBC News)
CHINA:
Lenders wary after illegal fundraisers get death penalty: China
The first ever death penalty on illegal fundraising in Lishui, Zhejiang
province, has sent a chill across the underground banking markets in Wenzhou, a
eastern commercial hub haunted by shadow lending, and several other cities
around China.
The Intermediate People's Court of Lishui on Monday sentenced three men
convicted of fraud to death for illegally soliciting funds from the public. One
of them, charged also with flight of capital contribution, was to be executed
immediately while the other 2 were given a 2-year reprieve.
3 others, convicted of fraudulent fundraising and illegal pooling of savings
deposits, were given sentences ranging from life to 3 years' imprisonment.
The culprits were said to have raised a total of more than 5.5 billion yuan
(S$1.1 billion) from about 15,000 families. They admitted to have defrauded
more than 1.4 billion yuan of the capital raised.
Although court precedents do not apply in China's legal system, judges usually
defer to past court rulings on major cases.
"Although there is no precedent in the current law in China, the judges will
tend to defer to follow the case as a reference judgment to be applied in
future cases with similar details at other courts," said Ren Ningning, a judge
from a court in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province.
She added that more attention would be paid to analyze the cases of illegal
fundraising, especially after the outbreak of the credit crisis in Wenzhou in
the past months.
By the end of October, 39 suspects were arrested in 38 cases concerning illegal
fundraising in Wenzhou and involving 3.6 billion yuan, according to the local
police.
"The number of illegal fundraising cases in the city increased rapidly in the
last 2 months and is expected to grow till the end of this year," said Zhou
Qingchun, a lawyer from Zhejiang Zhenan Law Firm in Wenzhou.
Zhou added the illegal fundraising cases in Wenzhou would still be judged with
respective evidences and details instead of blindly following the judgment in
Lishui.
The private sector in Wenzhou recently experienced a severe capital shortage
amid the country's tightening economic policies and a downturn in overseas
orders. As a result, many cash-starved factories and small businesses have
turned to underground banks to raise money at exorbitant interest rates.
As business continues to deteriorate, more and more borrowers have failed to
repay their lenders, who are facing the possibility of getting pulled up by
their jittery depositors.
The huge underground banking sector in the city nearly collapsed when more than
90 local companies closed down and a considerable number of businessmen
committed suicide by the end of September.
"I've already stopped lending money to those small- and medium-sized
enterprises in Wenzhou since September as it is too risky to collect a huge
amount of money from individuals and lend them out," said Liu Jianxiu, a
private lender who used to collect high-interest loans from individuals at a
monthly rate of 3 to 4 %.
Liu added that most of the city's private money collectors have adopted a
wait-and-watch policy until the market turned favorable for them to get back in
the business.
(source: Asia One)
INDIA:
VHP leader calls for decapitation of those who convert Hindus to
Christianity--Praveen Togadia, secretary general of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP), has called for a new constitution. “Such attempts fuel social tensions
for the sake of political and economic power,” says Sajan K George, president
of the Global Council of Indian Christians.
Praveen Togadia, secretary general of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu
extremist group, has called for the death penalty by decapitation for anyone
who tries to convert Hindus to other religions. He made the demand when he
addressed the Akhil Bharatiya Dharmaprasar Karykarta Sammelan, a three-day
event in Ahmadabad, in which he also called for changes to the Indian
constitution.
“What Togadia has said is nothing new,” said Fr Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit and
director of Prashant, the Ahmadabad-based Centre for Human Rights, Justice and
Peace. “His words are against the spirit and the freedom enshrined in the
Constitution of India, which guarantees every citizen the right to preach,
practise and propagate his/her religion and for that matter choose his/her
religion”.
Togadia’s “hate propaganda has so often resulted in considerable violence
against India’s Muslim, Christian, and Dalit minorities,” said Sajan K George,
president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC)
“Violence and other abuses against marginalised groups in India are part of a
concerted campaign of these Hinduvta organizations—whose leadership is
dominated by upper-caste Hindus—to promote and exploit communal tensions in
order to retain political and economic power,” he explained.
Togadia “has long been in favour of discriminatory measures against other
religions. He has long been advocating anti-conversion legislation in all
states to curb conversion from Hinduism to Christianity,” George said.
Togadia, George added, has began to distribute systematically ‘Trishuls’,
warning brochures that, using clever rhetoric, tell Hindus to ‘beware’ of the
imminent danger and get ready for violence. For the GCIC president, trishuls
are “a brazen attempt to militarise society under the garb of a religious
programme.”
Recently, “Togadia opposed the ‘Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence’,
a bill drafted by the National Advisory Council (NAC) chaired by Sonia Gandhi,
which, if enacted, would, in Togadia’s words, ‘oppress’ Hindus, and reduce them
to second class citizens by making them into a criminal tribe”, Sajan K George
explained.
(source: Asia One)
**************
Bhullar case: What about human rights of security men killed by terrorists,
asks SC
Virtually ticking off those championing the human rights cause of law-breakers,
the Supreme Court today wondered why nobody talked about those who die of
starvation, farmers' suicide and security men getting killed in terrorist
violence.
A bench of justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhya felt human rights violation
cannot be the prerogative of a few privileged as it was as much available to
other marginalised sections of the society and victims of violence.
"What about the psyche of the victims of violence? So many security people gave
up their lives in defending Parliament. Those brave people have been forgotten
in a day.
In this case too, 9 people were killed and 29 injured. Has any one found out
about their feelings? What about their human rights"? the bench said.
The apex court made the remarks while dealing with the appeal filed by Punjab
terrorist Devender Pal Singh Bhullar who was awarded death penalty for
triggering a bomb blast here in September 1993 killing nine people, challenging
the government's 8-year delay in dealing with his mercy petition. (source:
Indian Express)
***************
No mercy for delay: SC
The Supreme Court today scoffed at blast convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar’s
plea to commute his death sentence on the ground of inordinate delay in
deciding his mercy petition, focusing instead on the attack’s victims.
“9 people were killed in this blast, 29 were injured. Has anyone tried to find
out what they think? What about their human rights?” a bench of Justices G.S.
Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhyay said when Bhullar’s counsel said the eight-year
delay amounted to mental torture.
Bhullar was convicted for his role in the 1993 blasts in Delhi targeting
Congress leader Maninderjit Singh Bitta, who survived but lost a limb.
Bhullar had sent his mercy petition on January 14, 2003, to the President, who
rejected it on May 25 this year, after the apex court asked the Centre to
explain the delay.
The court also referred to the 2001 Parliament attack to underscore the
importance of the human rights of the victims of terror strikes. “So many
security people gave up their lives in defending Parliament. Those brave people
have been forgotten in a day,” Justice Singhvi said.
Bhullar’s counsel, K.T.S. Tulsi, questioned the “arbitrary” way in which
clemency petitions were disposed of. “There should be fair and equal treatment.
There are a number of cases in which within weeks and months, death sentence is
commuted. In other cases, they are kept pending for years. This is cocking a
snook at the rule of law.”
Referring to an earlier apex court judgment that such delays could not be
quantified, Tulsi said the government had come to interpret it as “going into
slumber for decades.” He added that the Constitution mandated fair procedure
even after the judicial stage.
The government, which will present its arguments tomorrow, has earlier said
such constitutional processes “take time”.
Bhullar’s wife and mother have claimed that waiting for the gallows had made
him a “wreck” and he has been in a Delhi mental care institute for the past
year.
The bench wasn’t convinced. “He’s mentally ill not mentally retarded,” the
bench said, when the counsel tried to argue that mentally challenged persons
are usually not executed.
The judges were also not impressed when Tulsi cited instances of the growing
global opinion against death penalty and pointed out that India had hanged only
50 people since Independence while other countries had executed many more
convicts.
“They (other countries) did not have Mahavir and Buddha. We did. But we are so
benign that thousands die of hunger every day. Fifty-seven farmers commit
suicide every single day. What about their human rights?” Justice Singhvi
countered.
When Tulsi argued that making death-row convicts wait for years “is cruel”,
Justice Singhvi brushed aside the contention saying that such delay also gives
them hope that some favourable political dispensation may at some point take a
decision in their favour.
(source: The Calcutta Telegraph)
NIGERIA:
Lax Laws Fail to Punish Drug Counterfeiting
Head of Nigeria's food and drug regulating body says the country's laws are lax
about treating drug counterfeiting as a crime and punishing it appropriately.
Dr Paul Orhii, director-general of National Food and Drug Administration and
Control, NAFDAC, called it a "curious paradox that while distant countries are
giving severe punishment to people engaged in counterfeiting, we who are at the
receiving end are curiously the most lenient when it comes to punishing
offenders."
His comments came shortly after officials from NAFDAC and their Chinese
counterparts from China's State Food and Drug Administration, SFDA, agreed to a
memorandum that will see China clamp down on unregistered drugs leaving its
territory.
China stipulates death penalty for counterfeiting. In India, offenders face
life sentence upon conviction along with possible confiscation of their assets.
6 Chinese nationals involved in a recent shipment of fake antimalarials were
sentenced to death in 2009, said Orhii, but their Nigerian partners, fearing
sentences in China and India, returned to Nigeria because of lenient laws.
"They came back into our waiting hands," said Orhii. "The very next day, they
were out on bail."
Since then, he added, the suspects have filed what he called "spurious motions"
to frustrate the agency, forcing it to call for a review of anti-counterfeiting
laws.
Unfashionable death
Existing laws stipulate a 15-year jail term, but NAFDAC has never secured
maximum sentence "despite millions and millions of naira in prosecution," said
the agency's head.
He admits the agency has managed to secure sentences of fines ranging up to
N500,000 in some cases.
Orhii observed that campaign to get death penalty for counterfeiting--as in
China--met with opposition from "civil rights activists [who] believe death
penalty is no longer fashionable globally."
As in India, NAFDAC now wants a life sentence and asset confiscation for
counterfeiting, which will be considered "non-bailable" offence.
Orhii argued that people mostly involved in counterfeiting were wealthy and
allowing them access to bail meant they would "keep on frustrating the judicial
process."
"If we can prove that the fake products proximately caused death or severe
bodily injury of the victims, then in such situations we are asking that some
of the assets that will be confiscated from the offenders should be used to
compensate the victims," he explained.
"We are also asking for a whistleblower clause in the new law that will enable
us to legally reward people who come forward with info that leads to the
interception of these fake products."
(source: All Africa News)
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