Nov. 13
MONGOLIA:
The Future of Capital Punishment
A man, or woman, apparently commits a horrible crime that is deemed “capital”
by society and is arrested shortly thereafter. A 10 year long court process
attempts to appeal, to avoid the death penalty, only to lose the case and the
person is executed. But then, lo and behold, new evidence surfaces that proves
the man, or woman, was in fact innocent.
Of course, as per tradition, the public is upset, protesters increase, media
outlets flame the responsible parties, controversial books are published and a
posthumous pardon is granted, along with a compensation for the “victim’s”
family. It is not nice to sentence someone to death based on obviously
unsatisfactory evidence (reasonable doubt) or punish someone in a very unusual
way – which includes stoning (yes, stoning) – and especially not nice to take
someone’s life away as a punishment then tell the family that he/she was
actually innocent. This may sound like a mockery to the family, but
unfortunately it certainly seems so. Capital punishment, in my opinion, is an
unnecessary burden in any society, especially today.
The idea of the capital punishment issue is very simple: whether one should die
for his/her crime. The answer should be simple, too. A human life should be
valued above all, no matter what that person did. In short, killing someone for
his/her deeds are simply brutal and barbaric. There are multiple cases where an
innocent person was wrongly accused, convicted and executed – this alone can
serve as the sole reason to abolish capital punishment entirely. The system has
failed.
The trend that’s happening in the world today is that slowly, state by state,
nation by nation, capital punishment is being abolished. By comparing this
progression with fast development of nations, we can conclude that as we
develop, we leave capital punishment behind. But unfortunately, the developed
US, the defender and promoter of human rights, is still one of many countries
that practice capital punishment.
Nevertheless, I know in the future that capital punishment will be abolished
completely, and I know two wrongs definitely don’t make a right.
(source: B.Byambadorj, UB Post)
CHINA:
3 receive death penalty over hotel fire
A court in northeast China on Saturday sentenced 3 people to death for setting
fire to a bar which spread to a budget hotel on the upper floors, leaving 11
dead and 2 others severely injured.
The Intermediate People's Court in Tonghua city, Jilin province, convicted 5
prime suspects of arson, sentencing three of them to death. They were accused
of setting fire to a basement bar in the wee hours of May 1 this year to
retaliate the bar's owner who they had disputes with, the court found.
11 people, including hotel tenants and firemen who came to rescue, were killed
as the fire spread to a Karaoke bar and later the guestrooms of budget hotel
chain Home Inns. The fire also caused about 1.8 million yuan ($283,464) in
economic losses.
(source: China Economic Net)
PHILIPPINES:
Rape-slay victim’s dad wants death penalty restored
The father of the minor, who was raped and killed near her school in Catarman,
Northern Samar, wants a death sentence for the suspect.
In an exclusive interview, Ruben Mangada, father of the 14-year-old minor,
called on the government to restore death penalty for perpetrators of heinous
crimes.
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boxing champ.
He said criminals like the one who sexually abused, strangled and hacked her
daughter to death on November 8 have no right to live.
“I want the death sentence to be restored what they did to my daughter was not
a doing of a normal man, but of the devil. The criminal should be hanged; he
must not be given a chance to reproduce. He will only breed criminals like
him,” the father said in vernacular.
Last November 8, the victim was found dead under the coconut trees, some
hundred meters away from the Catarman National High School (CNHS) where she was
a 3rd year student.
Results of the autopsy conducted on the victim by Police Superintendent Pierre
Paul Carpio of the Police Crime Laboratory Office showed that the victim was
hacked several times on the head, neck and left ankle.
It was confirmed that the victim was raped.
The Catarman Police already arrested the suspect, a 21-year-old former
drugstore helper, Jayson Maravilla, through a hot pursuit operation.
Maravilla was allegedly seen by two witnesses carrying a bolo and walking from
the crime scene.
Police Officer 2 Leo Magpayo said Maravilla has already admitted of committing
the crime a day after his arrest.
However, the suspect’s “confession” was told to a civilian and was not made
under oath reason why the police had to call for a lawyer, Attorney Bernabe
Figueroa, to assist the suspect in making his extrajudicial confession.
But after a “one-on-one talk” with his lawyer, Maravilla refused to make any
confession before the police.
“He changed his mind and did not want to confess, he said he was just pressured
by the civilian visitor who was able to enter his cell,” Figueroa said.
On Wednesday night, Magpayo submitted the charges of “rape with homicide” for
inquest proceedings before Provincial Prosecutor Rosario Diaz.
The victim was the eldest of four children. Her father is a pedicab driver
while her mother is a laundrywoman.
Her mother, “Inday”, expressed too much grief for the loss of her daughter.
She described her daughter as a good child and obedient child, and very caring
of her siblings. She could not imagine, she said, how their family could cope
with life now that her eldest daughter is gone.
(source: Sun Star)
UGANDA:
Uganda Convicts Gay Activist’s Killer as Parliament Debates Anti-Homosexuality
Bill
A Ugandan man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of gay
rights activist David Kato. The high profile case concludes as the Ugandan
parliament debates a controversial bill that would make some homosexual acts
punishable by the death penalty.
The murder of gay rights activist David Kato at his home in Kampala last
January focused international media attention on the plight of gays and
lesbians in Uganda. Kato’s killer was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison
for the crime, though the future for the country’s homosexual community remains
difficult.
Sidney Nsubuga Enoch admitted to killing Kato with a hammer. But he was only
convicted of second-degree murder, having claimed that he acted in
self-defense. Enoch told the court Kato was making sexual advances, and that he
had no choice but to kill him.
The conviction came shortly after the Ugandan parliament voted to re-open
debate on a controversial bill that would make some homosexual acts punishable
by death. The bill, which was first presented to parliament in 2009, would also
make it a criminal offense to “promote” homosexuality, or to fail to turn
homosexuals in to the police.
The bill has drawn intense criticism from Western governments and international
human rights groups. Boris Dittrich, of the New York-based rights advocacy
group Human Rights Watch, explains his organization’s position.
“The anti-homosexuality bill is a draconian law, and it needs to be defeated.
It violates all kind of human rights,” he said.
Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, as is the case in most African
countries, and can be punished by up to 14 years in prison. Public hostility to
the gay and lesbian community is widespread, with many Ugandans believing that
homosexuality is an anti-Christian import from the West.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told reporters he refused to promote
homosexual rights because it was not part of his country’s cultural traditions.
“There were a few homosexuals before colonialism which we were aware of. They
were not killed, nor were they persecuted, but they were not promoted,” he
said.
Kato’s murder came shortly after a local newspaper published the names and
photos of several members the homosexual community, under the headline, “Hang
Them.” Kato’s face was among them.
Some people blame the rise of Evangelical Christianity in Uganda for this
violent homophobia.
At Kato’s funeral last January, a local priest used the occasion to rail
against homosexuals, calling on them to repent or be “punished by God.”
But others blame the new bill being debated by parliament. Activist Joanitah
Abang, of the lesbian rights organization Freedom and Roam, says that before
the bill, homosexuals were largely left alone. But now, she says, those in the
lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender (LGBT) community are being accused of any
number of crimes.
“Before the bill, not many Ugandans knew that there were LGBT people in Uganda.
Gay people lived their lives, although there were a few instances of
harassment, abuse, but it wasn’t so much like today," Abang said. "But when the
bill was tabled in Parliament, it brought in a lot of issues - issues of
recruiting children, issues of rape, issues of homosexuals being pedophile. It
caused a lot of discussion in people’s homes, communities and workplaces.”
Even if the bill does not pass, few people expect homosexuality to be legalized
in Uganda in the near future. In the mean time, many Ugandan gays and lesbians
are hoping that the public attention will die down, and they will be left to
slip quietly back under the radar.
(source: Vice of America News)
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