June 13
SAUDI ARABIA----executions
Saudi beheads trio for drug trafficking
Saudi authorities beheaded 2 of its nationals and a Syrian on Tuesday after
convicting them of drug trafficking, the interior ministry said.
Massud al-Dossari, Daij al-Dossari and Syrian Ahmed Balji Oghlu were executed
in the Hasa region of the Eastern Province, the ministry said in a statement
carried by SPA state news agency.
The trio were arrested when Oghlu was delivering drug capsules to the 2 Saudi
men, it said, without specifying the type of the narcotic.
Their beheadings bring to 35 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia so
far this year, according to reports.
At least 76 people were beheaded in 2011, while rights group Amnesty
International put the number of executions last year at 79.
The death penalty in Saudi Arabia applies to a wide range of offences including
rape, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking, as well as murder, as
stipulated by Islamic sharia law.
(source: Decca Chronicle)
IRAN:
5 political prisoners in Ahwaz including 3 brothers are in death row
Clerical regime of Iran inhumanely intends to hang 5 political prisoners in
Ahwaz. They include 3 brothers, Abdul-Rahman, Taha and Jamshid Heidari, as well
as their cousin Mansour Heidari and another prisoner Amir Osameh.
They were transferred from general ward to solitary confinement of Karoon
prison in Ahwaz on Saturday June 9.
Death sentence for these prisoners, who were arrested in the protests in Ahwaz
in April 2011, was confirmed by The mullahs' Supreme Court in March 2012.
The most hated clerical regime resorts to execution of political prisoners,
their elimination or making them suffer to death in order to prevent the spread
of protests by Iranian people and to intensify the atmosphere of fear in
society especially in the 3th anniversary of the uprising 2009. On May21,
Mansour Radpour, a political prisoner and an activist for the People's
Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), after 5 years in prison, passed away
suspiciously in Gohardasht prison while his entire body was bruised.
2 weeks later, Mohammad Mehdi Zalieh, a Kurdish political prisoner, after
suffering 2 decades of imprisonment and torture, passed away in the same prison
due to denial of medical treatment.
The Iranian resistance calls on all international human rights organizations
and bodies to take urgent action to save 5 prisoners facing execution, and
urges them to send a fact-finding mission to investigate prisoners' conditions
especially political prisoners.
(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)
NAMIBIA:
Kaukungwa Against Death Penalty
A veteran of the Namibian national liberation struggle and Swapo Party stalwart
Simon Mzee Kaukungwa disagrees with a call for the reintroduction of the death
penalty in Namibia.
Speaking at Oshakati last Friday during the launch of the Nationhood and
National Pride Campaign by Information and Communication Technology Minister,
Joel Kaapanda, Kaukungwa demanded heavy punishment instead of the death penalty
for acts of murder.
Some Namibians, including a section of those who attended the launch at
Oshakati, want the death penalty reintroduced in the country to serve as a
preventive measure to the increasing brutal killings of women and children.
Namibia outlawed the death penalty at independence.
Instead of the death penalty, Kaukungwa suggested that murderers be given a
punishment of daily lashes with a whip on the buttocks throughout the years of
their prison sentence.
The 93-year-old Kaukungwa argued that Namibia, with a small population of about
2 million people, cannot sentence her citizens to death.
"The country will end up with less people because of the death penalty,"
Kaukungwa noted.
He also expressed dissatisfaction with what he termed the "luxury hostel-style
of delicious meals" being accorded to prisoners by the Namibian authority.
The provision of pleasant food to prisoners, Kaukungwa said, should be done
away with if prison sentences are to serve as a deterrent to would-be
offenders.
According to Kaukungwa, religious education, whereby children are taught the
Biblical 10 Commandments, should be reintroduced in schools, if Namibia is to
have law-abiding citizens.
In his speech, Kaapanda called on traditional leaders in the country to
introduce a law prohibiting children of school-going age from visiting cuca
shops in villages.
The same law, Kaapanda said, must also prevent married women from staying at
cuca shops until very late in the evening, while their children are alone at
home.
The Nationhood and National Pride Campaign launched at Oshakati was for the
regions of Kunene, Ohangwena, Omusati, Oshana and Oshikoto.
It aims to, among others, instill the spirit of nationhood and national pride
in all Namibian citizens, consolidate peace and stability, address violence
against women and children, curb alcohol and drug abuse and instill a spirit of
belonging.
President Hifikepunye Pohamba launched the campaign officially last year on
April 27 in Windhoek, under the theme "My Namibia, My Country, My Pride".
(source: All Africa News)
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