Dec. 14
CHINA----execution
China executes mafia-style gang leader
The leader and 2 core members of a mafia-style gang that terrorised people in
southwest China's Kunming city were executed Tuesday, court officials said.
Gang leader Jiang Jiatian, his mistress Yang Jufen and Xie Mingxiang were
executed after the Supreme People's Court approved their sentences, said Ma
Yukun, vice president of the Kunming Intermediate People's Court.
Jiang, 58, made a fortune from drug trafficking in the mid-1990s and invested
his earnings in at least 10 teahouses, Internet cafes and hotels in Kunming. He
organized a gang of 41 members and nearly all of his businesses were used as
dens for prostitution, extortion, racketeering, and the sale of drugs and
counterfeit banknotes, Xinhua quoted Ma as saying.
Jiang and other core gang members were sentenced to death by the Kunming local
court in 2009, but the father of Jiang's mistress won a two-year stay of his
execution after appealing.
(source: IANS)
******************
US rights group: China executes about 4,000 people a year, half its previous
rate
China executes around 4,000 people a year, the most in the world but half the
number it did before ordering Supreme Court reviews of all death penalty cases
in 2007, a U.S. human rights group said Tuesday.
Chinese officials revealed the decline in executions during a seminar with
United Nations officials and international experts in the eastern city of
Hangzhou earlier this month, the San Francisco-based Dui Hua foundation said in
a statment.
The group said the Chinese officials refused to say how many people were put to
death annually but revealed the number fell 50 % after 2007. In 2006, state
media and Dui Hua estimated there were 8,000 executions a year.
The government says it is trying to ensure the death penalty is used less often
and for only the most serious criminal cases.
“China has made dramatic progress in reducing the number of executions, but the
number is still far too high and declining far too slowly,” Dui Hui founder
John Kamm said.
Kamm also urged China to be more open with its execution statistics, saying
that transparency would help China achieve its goal of eventually abolishing
the death penalty.
“When officials and the public know the full extent of the death penalty in
China, abolition will be achieved more quickly,” he said.
Chinese officials also revealed at the seminar that the Supreme Court currently
overturns about 10 percent of the death sentences it reviews each year.
The China Daily newspaper has reported the Supreme People’s Court overturned 15
percent of death sentences handed down in 2007 and 10% in 2008.
(source: Associated Press)
IRAN----execution
Drug trafficker executed in Iran
A drug trafficker, convicted for selling 44 kg of heroin, was executed Tuesday
in the Iranian city of Rasht.
The Herana human rights agency said that with Tuesday's execution of the man
named Mohammad Reza Tal, Iran has executed more than 600 people in the last 2
years.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, US and Yemen are the countries that annually execute
large number of people, according to human rights group Amnesty International.
(source: IANS)
SOUTH AFRICA:
Apartheid prison becomes a historic site .By Crystal Van Wyk
During the dark apartheid days, Pretoria's Central Prison was a place families
and members of the then banned ANC avoided at all costs. It was a place where
combatants who were found guilty of terrorism were sent to die.
This week, hundreds of families of mostly political prisoners who were executed
in the 1960's were allowed to visit the once feared prison.
The gallows were dismantled in 1996 after the Constitutional Court abolished
the death penalty. The refurbished gallows at Pretoria Central Prison have been
out of use since 1989, the year of South Africa's last execution.
This week, more than 200 family members were allowed to visit the brutal site
to try and make peace with the past.
South Africa has since the demise of apartheid in 1994 been hard at work to
reconcile and make peace with its brutal past.
Correctional Services Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, ordered that the
gallows be restored and opened to the public to preserve its history. And
according to the orrectional services, the Gallows Memorialisation Project is
government's "attempt to bring closure to the families of struggle cadres".
Prison authorities say at least 4 300 prisoners were executed. It is estimated
that at least 130 political prisoners were executed there. Among them were
Umkhonto we Sizwe cadre, Solomon Mahlangu, who was hanged on April 9 1979.
Mahlangu's death sentence sparked an international outcry, but even that was
not enough to convince the apartheid government to spare his life.
Mahlangu's brother, Lucas, said he was happy that the site is being turned into
a museum.
Several ANC veterans and member of its military wing, Umkhonto WeSizwe also
welcomed the refurbishment and conversion into a museum of the gallows at
Pretoria Central Prison.
Family members were also be given the opportunity to perform cleansing
ceremonies and were taken to the grave sites of their loved ones. The
Department of Correctional Services said the names of all 4 300 inmates will be
engraved on plaques and displayed at the gallows.
There will also be murals and pictorials telling stories of what happened.
The project will be launched in Pretoria later this week at the notorious CMAX
Prison, where the place of hanging will be converted to a national heritage
site. President Jacob Zuma will officially open the museum, which will be
called the Gallows Memorial.
On Friday, South Africa commemorates National Reconciliation and Armed Forces
Day. Prior to the end of apartheid 16 December was celebrated largely by
Afrikaners as The Day of the Vow, a public holiday commemorating the
Voortrekker victory over a Zulu army during the Battle of Blood River in 1838.
According to the Reconciliation Barometer, a survey conducted by the Institute
for Justice and Reconciliation, about seven in ten of South Africans feel they
are ready to forget about the past and move on with their lives.
However, others still feel that moving forward as a country without addressing
the lasting trauma and consequences left by apartheid would be a mistake.
(source: The Africa Report)
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