March 27
GLOBAL:
Death Penalty In 2011: Report Shows Executions By Country
Fewer countries worldwide used capital punishment in 2011, however those that
did carry out executions did so at an "alarming rate," according to a new
report by Amnesty International.
Amnesty International's annual review showing the use of the death penalty
worldwide found a 28 percent increase -- from 527 to 676 -- in known executions
between 2010 and 2011.
In addition to the increased total of 676 executions last year, it is likely
that many executions went unreported in China, Syria and Iran. Amnesty has not
published execution estimates for China since 2009, stating that the figures in
the public records are grossly inaccurate.
Iran is a similar case; the Amnesty report says that it has "credible reports
of a large number of unconfirmed or even secret executions in Iran, which would
almost double the number of officially acknowledged executions." The report
states that the death penalty was used for all kinds of crimes, from adultery
to "crimes against the state." Amnesty also expressed concern for an increase
in the use of the death penalty by military courts and tribunals in Bahrain,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority
(West Bank and Gaza), Somalia and the United States.
According to the report, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates were the only
two countries that resumed executions. After two years of no reported
executions, Afghanistan reported 2 in 2011.
However, there has also been a decrease in the number of countries carrying out
executions compared to a decade ago, according to Amnesty. "Only 10 % of
countries in the world, 20 out of 198, carried out executions last year," the
report notes. There were a few other notable developments; Sierra Leone and
Nigeria both placed moratoriums on executions, and there was progress toward
abolition of executions in every global region, Amnesty notes. For the 1st time
in 19 years, no executions were reported in Japan.
(source: Huffington Post)
INDIA:
Rajoana row: M S Gill wants abolition of death penalty
Even as Congress has disapproved of demands for clemency for death row convict
Balwant Singh Rajoana, its MP M S Gill has said death penalty was a "barbarian
concept" and should be abolished immediately through a legislation.
Gill, former Chief Election Commissioner and Union Minister, said the provision
for death penalty needed to be done away with "to avoid the tensions" which
arise every now and then.
"The civilized world gave up the death penalty in the last century. India too
rejected this barbarian concept. Unfortunately, it was brought back, through a
judicial approval in, 'the rarest of rare cases'. Since then, judges give it
frequently. It is difficult to see any consistent philosophy in their
decisions," he said.
His statement came against the backdrop of the clemency demands for Rajoana who
has been awarded death sentence for killing former Punjab Chief Minister Beant
Singh in 1995.
"I oppose death penalty totally. I call upon the government to put an immediate
stop to this form of justice, if necessary by a parliamentary change of the
law," Gill said.
"I am of the view that death penalty be replaced by a very long life sentence
in jail in appropriate cases. This will avoid the tensions which arise every
now and then," he said.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Sikh body SGPC has been leading a
campaign for clemency for Rajoana.
This was disapproved by Congress yesterday, with its spokesman Abhishek Singhvi
saying, "There is no role given to the Assembly and this (hanging of Rajoana)
is a culmination of the legal process. These issues proceed under a legal and
constitutional process and reach up to a certain point."
He said, "Whatever any Assembly may say, it cannot have any legal or
Constitutional impact."
(source: The Indian Express)
CHINA:
China’s Death-Row Reality Show
Until it was taken off the air last December, one of the most popular
television programs in China’s Henan province, which has a population of 100
million, was “Interviews Before Execution.” The presenter was Ding Yu, a pretty
young woman, always carefully dressed with colorful scarves and blouses; in
each episode, she would interview on camera a condemned murderer who was about
to face a firing squad or a lethal injection.
While Beijing has long been known for its use of capital punishment, the
practice has usually been kept out of official media apart from exceptional
cases. For some years, the Chinese government has been charged by Amnesty
International and other human rights groups with having executed thousands of
people—far more than all other countries combined, according to human rights
groups. (Iran is a distant second, although with its far smaller population it
has a higher per capita death rate, followed by Yemen and the United States.)
There are 55 different crimes (recently reduced from 68), ranging from tax
evasion to unspecified “crimes against the state,” that now qualify as capital
offenses. The number of people executed for committing these crimes is a state
secret.
With Ding Yu’s five years of interviews, however, capital punishment was
brought directly into Chinese homes—and with government endorsement. As the BBC
explained in its airing of a recent Chinese-made talk show about the program
that will soon air on PBS, the channel on which it appeared is supervised by
the state; the State Propaganda Department and the judges who handed down the
sentences also had to approve each program. The interviews were launched in
2006, and there were over 200 in the program’s 5-year run. Of the 55 capital
crimes, Ding Yu chose only clear-cut cases of murder: out of over 200 condemned
murderers only 5 refused to be interviewed. She claims most wanted to have
their say. Her director says, smiling, “If you feed someone a banana, they will
follow you.”
Ding Yu says that her object in doing the interviews is to show harsh
punishment for evil deeds, and to urge viewers to be “reasonable and tolerant.”
By the time they appear on her program, Ding’s capital offenders have gone
through the Chinese justice system with no presumption of innocence and been
sentenced, often in a quick court-room procedure without legal representation
or witnesses, the BBC noted.
She asks the convicted killers to apologize on camera. A man who stabbed his
wife to death tells his daughter he is sorry for killing her mother. The
daughter, with her back to the camera, sees this. Such scenes, says Ding Yu,
“lift a stone from their [the murderers’] hearts.” Very young children are
shown in an orphanage for the offspring of murderers. They do not speak of
their parents’ crimes “because they are ashamed. “
The only details of the execution process omitted from Ding Yu’s programs are
the executions themselves. The BBC states that although the practice is
illegal, on their way to the place of execution the condemned are paraded
through city streets in open trucks with placards around their necks stating
their names and crimes. We see this. We are shown an officer exhorting a firing
squad to do their duty well and remember this is a dangerous business. They
shout in unison that they are ready.
Moments before they are killed, we see Ding’s murderers signing a document and
providing their fingerprints to show they are not appealing against their
sentences. Then they have a chance to meet their families. This is also filmed.
With a guard gripping each shoulder and their chains and manacles clanking,
they loudly apologize to their relatives. The program’s boss choreographs this
final scene and Ding Yu asks questions. One weeping mother apologizes for
having beaten her murderer son once.
For the actual interviews, after Ding Yu has her face made up and her hair
styled, her subjects are dragged before her handcuffed and manacled. She
usually smiles throughout the program, occasionally reminding the condemned
that they had done a terrible thing and asking them how they feel about it. All
except one trembles, collapses, weeps, and apologizes. One program, about a man
who killed a child kidnapped for ransom, makes Ding Yu weep—she says this
happened twice in four years. During the interview she puts a finger to her
moist eyes and then examine the finger. She tells him, “Everybody should hate
you.” He agrees.
One subject who doesn’t weep is a gay man who murdered his mother. He is the
first openly gay person Ding Yu has ever met. Until 1999, homosexuality in
China was a serious offense and in this episode, the program explains that Ding
will explore this “mysterious world.” Her most “controversial” subject—she
devoted four programs to him—it was also the most popular. “He spoke to me in a
feminine tone,” Ding Yu says, “..I couldn’t accept his views. I felt awkward.”
She asks the man if he killed his mother because she disapproved of his
same-sex relationships. He replies, “It was about money and sex.” In her final
interview, just before he is shot, he asks her if he will go to heaven. She
doesn’t answer. He asks to shake her hand and extends his. She says to the
camera that she didn’t know what to do, but is then shown “moving her middle
finger across his palm.” Ding Yu observes later that his nails were dirty, and
that her finger felt strange.
A woman who killed her husband for allegedly beating her, is filmed burying her
face in her handcuffed hands and collapsing in front of Ding Yu. According to
the BBC commentary Chinese courts now have the power to determine whether an
inner-family murder sentence should be reviewed. In the case of this woman it
took several years. Her 14-month-old daughter was cared for by a sister-in-law,
who initially wanted the woman executed but later forgave her; the rest of the
in-laws hadn’t. During a court scene we see the murderer on her knees before
the judges, howling out her repentance. The victim’s father also kneels and
howls and demands the death penalty.
Eventually the woman’s family pays the in-laws $8000, a substantial sum in
China, and her sentence is commuted for two years. If she behaves well, she may
be kept in prison for years and then perhaps released. She is introduced, on
camera, for the first time in five years, to her daughter, who up to then
thought that the sister-in-law was her mother. They hug briefly, the mother
tells the child to study hard, and the daughter, whose face is blurred out on
camera, gives a little wave goodbye. The mother thanks Ding Yu for having
helped bring all this about. Ding urges her to behave well for the next 2
years.
Capital punishment has been part of Chinese life for centuries and most
Chinese, like a majority here in Britain, favor it. But turning these
executions into a reality TV show strikes me as pornographic, partly because of
the drawn-out and explicitly filmed anguish of the murderers, partly because of
Ding Yu’s self-regard, her primping, and her giggle of pleasure at her own
celebrity when a child in the street recognizes her while she is buying a fish
for her family’s dinner. (“Sometimes,” she says, “I am so busy [traveling
hundreds of miles for interviews] I have to do my makeup in the car.”)
A senior Chinese judge who has been dealing with capital cases for many years
says it is a great strain. She observes that while the murderers have done
evil, taking their lives is also evil. She hopes that capital punishment will
be abolished, but notes that China is not yet ready for that. At the end of the
program Ding Yu advises viewers that if everyone behaves patiently and
tolerantly there will be no more murderers on death row. Earlier in the film
her boss says of her, “She is the beauty with the beast.”
(source: New York Review of Books)
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