Aug. 21
UGANDA:
Criticism of Uganda's Government Leads to Harassment of NGOs
In the face of rising public criticism over a range of controversial political
manoeuvres, the Ugandan government has become increasingly hostile to the work
of non-governmental organisations, particularly those advocating for the rights
of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, according to a new
report from Human Rights Watch.
The report, released on Aug. 21, said that intimidation and obstructionist
tactics have, over the last year, been used against NGOs working across a range
of issues.
The report, "Curtailing Criticism: Intimidation and Obstruction of Civil
Society in Uganda", draws on interviews with 41 NGO officials, government
representatives and donors in Kampala. HRW found that some civil society groups
have started self-censoring in order to protect their staff, reflecting wider
concerns that criticism of the government can be increasingly dangerous.
"The attacks on freedom of expression appear to coincide with increasing
criticism of the ruling party's governance," Maria Burnett, a senior researcher
for HRW's Africa division and the author of the report, told IPS.
"At various times since President Yoweri Museveni took office in 1986, there
has been some tolerance for critical or divergent voices. But since the
February 2011 elections, government actors have been tightening the controls on
both access to information and people's abilities to express themselves, to
obstruct the public's understanding of the causes of the economic and political
turmoil," Burnett said.
Museveni, who has been in power for 27 years, is expected to run for another
term of office in 2016.
"Since his re-election in 2011, political tensions have been running high and
public criticism of government has escalated. To better control this
environment, the ruling party's high-ranking government officials are
increasingly scrutinising NGOs and the impact they might have on public
perceptions of governance and management of public funds," HRW said in a
statement on Aug. 21.
The report's release comes on the heels of several clashes between the
government and local and international NGOs. Officials threatened in May to
kick Oxfam International out of the country if the British charity did not
retract and apologise for allegations it made the previous September that more
than 20,000 Ugandans were the victims of land grabs by a British multinational.
And in June the government ordered the Advocates Coalition for Development and
Environment - a local think tank - to stop all political activities.
At the time, State Minister for Internal Affairs James Baba told Uganda's Daily
Monitor that his ministry, which has oversight of the country's NGO Board - the
government-run institution that currently oversees the non-profit sector in
Uganda - was "working within its mandate."
These moves come in the wake of increasing civil society analysis, research and
criticism on a range of issues. This includes charges - raised by opposition
politicians in parliament last year - of corruption in the fledgling oil
sector, high inflation, and poor delivery of education and health services.
Efforts to highlight these issues, including a widely covered Walk to Work
campaign organised by Activists for Change, have drawn international attention
and - in the case of Walk to Work - violent crackdowns by police.
HRW reported that some of the civil society workers they interviewed said they
had received anonymous phone calls encouraging them to stop researching certain
issues. Others suspected their phones were tapped or their homes were under
surveillance.
Though the number of high-profile incidents has increased in 2012, the
government has had a history of obstructing NGO activity in the past -
especially groups working around the LGBT and commercial sex worker (CSW)
communities.
In 2009, Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), a pan-African women's advocacy
organisation, attempted to hold a leadership training workshop in Uganda for
CSWs. Although AMwA organisers said they informed government officials that
they were planning the workshop and sent them a proposed agenda, the meeting
was shut down the day before it was supposed to happen. The organisers had to
shift the workshop to Nairobi.
The workshop was "not about promoting sex work," Vivian Ngonzi, AMwA's
executive assistant, told IPS. "These were very learned women. They were
discussing self-help, learning about their rights... I don't know what's
illegal about that."
The government has continued to close down workshops, specifically those
focused on members of the LGBT community. HRW's report highlights the
"aggressively homophobic agenda" of Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity
Simon Lokodo who ordered the closing this year of 2 workshops that included
LGBT activists.
In February, he closed down a 5-day meeting in Entebbe, Central Uganda, after
participants, who included LGBT activists, were told that it was an illegal
gathering. After the incident, 4 of the attendees filed a case against him in
the constitutional court, charging him with denying them their constitutional
right to assemble.
Declaring the fight against homosexuality a "national priority," Lokodo also
told HRW that groups like Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) were "on a mission to
destroy this country."
Lokodo's efforts have been made at the same time that a proposed
Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda seeks to criminalise homosexual activities
and introduce the death penalty in some cases.
The bill - originally introduced in 2009 by member of parliament David Bahati,
who claims that homosexuality has been imported from the West - listed the
death penalty as punishment under an offence called aggravated homosexuality.
This, according to the 2009 draft of the bill, was defined as "repeat
offenders" of homosexuality, or when one of the participants in a homosexual
relationship is under 18, or has a disability, or is HIV-positive.
The bill was allowed to lapse during last year's parliament, and was
reintroduced by Bahati in February, this time without the death penalty clause.
Pepe Onziema, the advocacy and policy officer at SMUG and one of the plaintiffs
in the case, told IPS that the situation is getting "harder and harder" for
LGBT-focused NGOs.
Onziema said, in the case of LGBT activists, the government is focusing on "a
particular group of organisations to intimidate the rest of society" -
something HRW also concluded.
"After the threats of closing down NGOs... things are getting worse," Onziema
said.
Local media organisations reported that Lokodo planned to ban 38 organisations
that were sympathetic to the LGBT cause, though no action has yet been taken.
HRW's report found, even among groups not working on LGBT issues, that there is
growing concern that any precedent established in closing those groups could
later be applied to them.
HRW has called on the Ugandan government to reverse course "to change and
improve its terms of engagement with all NGOs." It noted that NGOs were forced
to scale back their work, especially on controversial topics such as LGBT
rights, in order to continue operating.
"One LGBT organisation had a small project to distribute brochures which
carried the message that LGBT people are like everyone else and that God loves
them. Because of the government's obstructions to the work of LGBT groups, the
organisers of this project felt that their volunteers would be unsafe and have
stopped this work. In order to continue operating and providing services to
their community, they have since limited the scope of their work," the report
says.
Specifically, HRW is calling for autonomy for the NGO Board. The organisation
is also urging the government to investigate instances of unlawful
interference, harassment or intimidation of NGOs, like the workshop closures.
(source: All Africa News)
SWEDEN:
Sweden: If Assange faces death row in US we won't extradite him
The Swedish government will not extradite Assange to the US should he face the
death penalty there, as any possible extradition request from Washington is
then subject to strict conditions, an official from the country's Justice
Ministry declared.
"We will never surrender a person to the death penalty," the deputy director of
the Service for Criminal Cases and International Cooperation of Sweden's
Justice Ministry said in an interview with the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper
on Tuesday.
This means there should be strict guarantees from the US government that "the
prisoner will not be executed in any case," added Cecilia Riddselius. But, she
added, so far her country has not received any extradition request from
Washington.
In June, Cecilia Riddselius admitted there were opportunities for countries to
request different types of guarantees in relation to extradition. Sweden may
request that an extradited person will not be sentenced to the death penalty,
he or she will not be tortured, should not be prosecuted for offences other
than those which he or she was delivered for and not to be charged before a
special court.
However, Riddselius then stressed, Sweden cannot guarantee in advance that
Assange will not be extradited.
The WikiLeaks founder is wanted in Sweden for questioning over sexual
misconduct. He and his supporters, however, fear that if extradited to Sweden,
he may be further extradited to the United States, where he could then face the
death penalty for espionage following the publication of thousands of
classified documents, including secret cables of the US State Department.
Last week, the Ecuadorian government announced it has granted the world-famous
whistleblower political asylum. The decision came almost 2 months after Assange
took refuge in the country???s London embassy seeking protection from
extradition to Sweden.
The decision has already become the epicenter of a diplomatic row between
Ecuador and Great Britain, with London threatening to storm the embassy.
Ecuador has already taken the issue to the Union of South American Nations
(UNASUR), which unanimously backed the country's right to grant Assange asylum
and condemned British threats to raid a sovereign state's embassy in order to
arrest him.
Ecuador also promised to appeal to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) if
the UK refuses to grant Julian Assange safe passage out of the country.
According to WikiLeaks, all of this could be avoided if they managed to obtain
a guarantee of no re-extradition from Sweden.
A spokesperson for WikiLeaks stressed that Assange would "gladly go to Sweden
for questioning if they were able to guarantee that [he] wouldn't be extradited
to the United States."
While deciding on Assange's political asylum Ecuador also offered Sweden the
chance to question him at the embassy, but Stockholm brushed away the
possibility.
(source: RT News)
CHINA:
China web users say sentence too light----Accuse her of receiving special
treatment
Chinese web users posted angry reactions to Gu Kailai's suspended death
sentence on Monday, with many saying she was given special treatment as the
wife of a former political leader.
More than a million posts on Gu could be seen on Sina Weibo - a microblog
similar to Twitter, which is banned in China - after she was found guilty of
murder but spared immediate execution on Monday.
"Bigwig gets death sentence with reprieve for murder, while common people get
immediate execution. Where's the justice?" posted one user of Sina Weibo,
China's most popular microblog.
"If a well-planned murder doesn't deserve a death penalty, then what other
criminal deserves immediate execution?" demanded another of the court's
decision to give Gu a suspended sentence with a 2-year reprieve.
The large number of posts suggested China???s censors had relaxed restrictions
that had been in place since the wife of former leader Bo Xilai was 1st placed
under investigation in April for killing a British businessman.
Searches for Gu's name had been blocked under the online censorship system
known as the Great Firewall of China, but on Monday it was possible to search
under her name, and censors appeared slow to delete even critical posts.
As the wife of a high-profile Communist party leader, Gu had been expected to
be spared execution, especially after state media reported that she killed
British businessman Neil Heywood to protect her son from unidentified threats.
Suspended death sentences are typically commuted to life in prison in China,
but the actual length of time served varies.
Political analysts say her trial would have been carefully stage-managed to
minimise embarrassment for the party, and her husband's name was never
mentioned in connection with the charges against her.
Beijing's efforts to block online discussion of Bo and Gu have been strenuous,
reflecting the huge sensitivity of the case ahead of a power handover due to
start later this year.
Microblogs have become wildly popular with members of China's booming middle
class, who often use the site to share news stories. Sina says it has at least
350 million registered users, mostly in mainland China.
China executes more criminals than the rest of the world combined, according to
rights group Amnesty International, although the actual number of people the
country puts to death remains a state secret.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
AUSTRALIA:
Condemned live on in The Doomsday Book of Victorian death row prisoners
They are pictures from a bygone era, haunting images of men and women whose
lives were terminated abruptly at the end of a rope.
Killers themselves, they were Victoria's condemned prisoners.
Their photographs have for years been kept in a musty old journal, in the
Public Record Office.
To the casual eye, its contents bear no description.
The title is embossed on the spine, and this simply reads: "Register of
Offices. No 3."
But a closer examination reveals it as Victoria's very own "Doomsday Book" - a
glimpse into a period of our history where the ultimate criminal sanction was
carried out on the hangman's scaffold.
Not everyone hanged in Victoria is in this journal. Some of the photographs are
of murderers and rapists who were on the cusp of execution before their
sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.
(source: Herald Sun)
INDIA:
Parliamentary panel okays piracy Bill, wants death penalty review
The Standing Committee on External Affairs has recommended reviewing the
provision of death penalty for pirates involved in killing or attempt to murder
cases in the proposed Piracy Bill, saying the extradition of the accused may be
difficult if the maximum punishment is not reversed.
Approving the Piracy Bill 2012, the Standing Committee said the government may
review the penalty considering the international nature of the crime,
involvement of foreign actors and refusal by certain foreign governments to
extradite criminals in view of the existence of the death penalty clause in
Indian law.
The panel, in the report tabled in the Lok Sabha last Tuesday, recommended
having legal immunity for acts done in good faith so that security personnel,
duly authorised by the government to deal with the problem, get protection. It
also recommended changing the name of the bill to 'Anti-Maritime Piracy Bill'
saying the word piracy may be confusing.
The Bill has been brought as India does not have a separate domestic
legislation on piracy and prosecution for piracy as a crime has not been
included in the Indian Penal Code, 1860 or the Code of Criminal Procedure,
1973.
The Bill was tabled in Parliament in the budget session. According to the Bill,
whoever commits an act of piracy shall be punished with imprisonment for life
except where the accused has caused death in committing the act of piracy or
its attempt thereof in which case he may be punished with death.
The Bill, brought in the backdrop of rising incidence of piracy including
within India's Exclusive Economic Zone, is aimed at bringing "certainty" and
"clarity" in the law and provides sound basis for effective prosecution of
pirates held by Indian authorities irrespective of their nationalities.
(source: The Indian Express)
******************
A case against the death penalty -- The Supreme Court's admission of error in
the sentencing to death of 13 convicts revives the debate over abolishing the
death penalty.
Within a few weeks of Pranab Mukherjee assuming office as the 13th President of
India on July 25, 14 former judges of eminence signed an unusual appeal
addressed to the President. The appeal, in the form of separate letters, sought
his intervention to commute the death sentences of 13 convicts, currently
lodged in various jails across the country, using his powers under Article 72
of the Constitution.
The President would refer the appeal to the Ministry of Home Affairs for its
due consideration and advice, but what is so special about these 13 convicts
that made the former judges come together and make an impassioned appeal for
commutation?
The unusual appeal does not stem from their principled opposition to the death
penalty, though some of them may believe in its abolition personally. They have
appealed to the President because these 13 convicts were erroneously sentenced
to death according to the Supreme Court's own admission and are currently
facing the threat of imminent execution. The Supreme Court, while deciding 3
recent cases, held that 7 of its judgments awarding the death sentence were
rendered per incuriam (meaning out of error or ignorance) and contrary to the
binding dictum of "rarest of rare" category propounded in the Constitution
Bench judgment in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980) (2 SCC 684). The 3
recent cases were Santosh Kumar Bariyar vs State of Maharashtra (2009) (6 SCC
498), Dilip Tiwari vs State of Maharashtra (2010) (1 SCC 775), and Rajesh Kumar
vs State (2011) (13 SCC 706).
The former judges also informed the President in the appeal that two prisoners
who had been wrongly sentenced to death, Ravji Rao and Surja Ram (both from
Rajasthan), had been executed on May 4, 1996, and April 7, 1997, respectively,
pursuant to the flawed judgments. These, they said, constituted the gravest
known miscarriages of justice in the history of crime and punishment in
independent India. The Supreme Court's admission of error had come too late for
them, they wrote.
They told the President that the concerns expressed in the appeal had nothing
to do with the larger debate over the desirability of retaining the death
penalty. "Rather, they pertain to the administration of the death penalty in a
conscientious, fair and just manner. Executions of persons wrongly sentenced to
death will severely undermine the credibility of the criminal justice system
and the authority of the state to carry out such punishments in future," the
appeal explained.
The judges also annexed an explanatory note to their appeal so as to convince
the President that the sentences of these 13 convicts indeed deserved to be
commuted. In this, they cited the landmark Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab,
which laid down the "rarest of rare" doctrine, and said it emphasised giving
sufficient weight to the mitigating circumstances pertaining to the criminal
along with the aggravating circumstances relating to the crime.
They then explained how this Bachan Singh dictum laid down by a Constitution
Bench had been reversed in a later case.
In Ravji @ Ram Chandra vs State of Rajasthan (1996) (2 SCC 175), a case which
was decided by a Bench of 2 judges, the Supreme Court held that "it is the
nature and gravity of the crime but not the criminal which are germane for
consideration of appropriate punishment in a criminal trial" (paragraph 24).
This aspect of the decision in the Ravji case directly conflicts with the
Bachan Singh ruling. Thereafter, the Supreme Court repeatedly invoked the Ravji
precedent in death penalty cases so as to limit the focus only to the
circumstances pertaining to the crime and exclude the circumstances pertaining
to the criminal until another 2-Bench judge of the Supreme Court discovered
this folly in Bariyar, in 2009.
In Bariyar, the Bench held that in all cases, including the most brutal and
heinous crimes, circumstances pertaining to the criminal should be given full
weight. In this case, the appellant had killed his victim, a young boy, whom he
had kidnapped for ransom. Yet, the Bench commuted his death sentence, imposed
by the Bombay High Court, to rigorous imprisonment for life as, in its view,
the mitigating factors in the case were sufficient to take it out of the
"rarest of rare" category. The Bench believed that though the socio-economic
backwardness of the convict might not dilute guilt it was a mitigating
circumstance and held there was a potential for reform. Relying on Bachan
Singh, the court in Bariyar held that the prosecution must prove, as a
precondition for awarding the death penalty, that reform and rehabilitation of
the criminal would not be possible.
Dayanidhi Bisoi, 1 of the 13 whom the court admitted was wrongly convicted. The
Odisha Governor commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
The key issue here is Section 354(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
This provision states that when the conviction is for an offence punishable
with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment
for a term of years, the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence
awarded, and, in the case of the sentence of death, the special reasons for
such sentence.
'Special reasons'
In Bachan Singh, the Supreme Court explained what the phrase "special reasons"
meant in this provision. It said: "The expression 'special reasons' in the
context of this provision obviously means 'exceptional reasons' founded on the
exceptionally grave circumstances of the particular case relating to the crime
as well as the criminal" (paragraphs 161 at page 738 of the judgment). In
paragraph 163, Bachan Singh further noted: "....in fixing the degree of
punishment or making the choice of sentence for various offences, including one
under Section 302 of [the] Penal Code, the court should not confine its
consideration 'principally' or merely to the circumstances connected with the
particular crime, but also give due consideration to the circumstances of the
criminal". The circumstances of the criminal would include, as the Supreme
Court held in one case, the mindset of the criminal and whether he was under
the grip of social factors such as caste.
In Bariyar, the Supreme Court got an opportunity to explain this further: "The
rarest of rare dictum serves as a guideline in enforcing Section 354(3) and
entrenches the policy that life imprisonment is the rule and death punishment
is an exception. It is a settled law of interpretation that exceptions are to
be construed narrowly. That being the case, the rarest of rare dictum places an
extraordinary burden on the court, in case it selects death penalty as the
favoured penalty, to carry out an objective assessment of facts to satisfy the
exceptions ingrained in the rarest of rare dictum."
Having understood the Bachan Singh judgment clearly, the Bariyar Bench had no
compunction in exposing the flaws in the Ravji judgment. The Bench said in
paragraph 63: "We are not oblivious that Ravji case has been followed in at
least 6 decisions of this court in which death punishment has been awarded in
last 9 years, but, in our opinion, it was rendered per incuriam."
The Bariyar Bench went further in identifying 6 cases where the Supreme Court
had erroneously applied the precedent laid down in the Ravji case, and held
that the court had wrongly decided them. They were
Shivajji vs State of Maharashtra,
Mohan Anna Chavan vs State of Maharashtra,
Bantu vs State of Uttar Pradesh (President Pratibha Patil commuted the sentence
of this convict),
Surja Ram vs State of Rajasthan (Surja Ram was executed),
Dayanidhi Bisoi vs State of Orissa, and
State of U.P. vs Sattan (this case also includes another convict, Upendra).
The Bariyar Bench held: "It is apparent that (in these cases) Ravji has not
only been considered but also relied upon as an authority on the point that in
heinous crimes, circumstances relating to the criminal are not pertinent"
(paragraph 63).
The Bench observed that the Supreme Court had not brought on record and
considered any of the circumstances relating to the seven convicts in these 6
cases during the sentencing deliberations. Despite the binding precedent of
Bachan Singh, Ravji's decision and the decisions in the aforementioned 6 cases
have narrowed the sentencing considerations to circumstances relating to the
crime alone, as noted in Bariyar.
The Bariyar Bench, therefore, declared the judgments in the above 6 cases per
incuriam for having followed Ravji. Another case, Ankush Maruti Shinde and Ors
vs State of Maharashtra (2009) (6 SCC 667), which explicitly followed Ravji's
reasoning, was decided just a few days before Bariyar and was, therefore, not
noticed in that decision. In this case, the Supreme Court confirmed the
conviction and death sentence of 6 convicts, one of whom was declared a
juvenile recently and, therefore, should not have been sentenced to death (see
box). The former judges have appealed to the President to commute the death
sentence of these convicts also.
Commutation justified
In addition to the 6 cases which Bariyar faulted for having followed Ravji's
wrong precedent, it identified another case where the commutation of the death
sentence is justified. The case is Saibanna vs State of Karnataka (2005).
Saibanna was a life convict. While on parole, he killed his wife and daughter.
The Supreme Court sentenced him to death on a reasoning which effectively made
death punishment mandatory for the category of offenders serving life sentence.
However, the Supreme Court had in Mithu vs State of Punjab (1983) already
struck down Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code, which provided for mandatory
death punishment for offenders serving life sentence. The reason is that if the
death sentence is mandatory, then it is meaningless to hear the convict on the
question of sentence, and it becomes superfluous to state the reasons for
imposing the sentence of death. The ratio decidendi (the legal principle which
forms the basis of the judgment) of Bachan Singh is that the death sentence is
constitutional if it is prescribed as an alternative for the offence of murder
and if the normal sentence prescribed by law for murder is imprisonment for
life. In Bachan Singh, the court also insisted that a court could impose the
death penalty only in the rarest of rare cases when the alternative option is
unquestionably foreclosed. (The ratio decidendi of a 5-judge Bench would be
binding on other Benches of the Supreme Court, unless overruled by a Bench
comprising more than 5 judges. Bachan Singh was delivered by a 5-judge
Constitution Bench.)
In Saibanna, the court was doubtful whether a person already undergoing
imprisonment for life could be visited with another term of imprisonment for
life to run consecutively with the previous one. Rather than resolve this doubt
through constitutional means, the Supreme Court opted for the easy way out by
imposing the death penalty on Saibanna. In Bariyar, therefore, the Supreme
Court declared its own ruling in Saibanna as being inconsistent with both the
Mithu and Bachan Singh judgments and, as a result, per incuriam. Of the 13
convicts who have been identified in the judges' appeal, Bantu's death sentence
was commuted by President Pratibha Patil in June this year. Another convict,
Ankush Maruti Shinde, has been declared a juvenile and has been removed from
death row. Dayanidhi Bisoi's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment
by the Governor of Odisha in 2003. President Pratibha Patil commuted the death
sentences of Sattan and Upendra in July 2011.
Thus, there are now only 8 convicts whose death sentences ought to be commuted
in line with the Supreme Court's judgment in Bariyar. Of these, only Saibanna's
mercy petition was pending in the President's Secretariat when Pratibha Patil
completed her term. It is inexplicable why the Ministry of Home Affairs did not
recommend the commutation of Saibanna's death sentence even though his case was
brought to the notice of the President more than a year ago. Going by Pratibha
Patil's illustrious record in commuting the death sentence of 35 convicts in
just 2 1/2 years of her 5-year tenure, she might have commuted Saibanna's
sentence, too, had the government recommended it.
The mercy petitions of the remaining seven convicts have not yet reached the
President. Most of them have got their mercy petitions rejected by the
Governors of the States where they are lodged in jails awaiting execution. When
Pratibha Patil completed her term on July 24, she left a fascinating record and
a legacy that none of her successors can ignore easily. She began with a
backlog of 23 undecided mercy petitions from her immediate predecessors and
received nine fresh petitions, involving 40 convicts.
Of these, she accepted 18 petitions (involving 35 convicts), rejected three
(involving 5 convicts), and passed on 11 undecided petitions (involving 16
convicts) to her successor, Pranab Mukherjee. One of the 35 convicts whose
sentences she commuted on June 2 this year, Bandu Baburao Tidake had died on
October 18, 2007, while waiting for her decision, but the report about his
death apparently did not reach the Home Ministry when it recommended his
commutation. It is a moot question whether Tidake would have lived longer had
the President commuted his sentence before his death.
But Pratibha Patil's legacy should not be just seen in quantitative terms. It
also has a qualitative dimension. The Home Ministry had often changed its
recommendations with regard to the rejection of mercy petitions whenever there
was a change of Minister with a new government or with a Cabinet reshuffle, and
agreed to a review of the pending recommendations with the President. If one
Home Minister recommends the rejection of the mercy petition of a convict, it
does not follow that his successor would recommend rejection, if reconsidered.
Thus, it appears that in many cases of commutation recommended by Home Minister
P. Chidambaram, his predecessors Shivraj Patil or L.K. Advani had recommended
rejection.
Rightly, Pratibha Patil decided to wait during the first part of her term in
office and used the opportunity provided by the formation of the new government
after the 2009 general elections to get the pending mercy petitions reviewed
afresh by the new Home Minister. Legally, the President is bound by the advice
of the current government and not the one preceding it. Therefore, it can be
inferred that she thought it fit to delay decisions on those mercy petitions
which the government wanted her to reject. She perhaps thought that if
successive Home Ministers had recommended rejection of the same mercy petition,
then probably her options were closed.
Her aide told Frontline: "She saw to it that the government has applied its
mind, and due deliberations have taken place on every pending petition."
It clearly suggests that she was dissatisfied with the quality of advice
tendered by Chidambaram's predecessors on the pending mercy petitions. As her
aide explained: "She took note of the extenuating circumstances in every case,
as advised by the government."
More clarity is expected on the merits of her and the Home Ministry???s
handling of mercy petitions when the Supreme Court, which is currently hearing
the pleas of the 5 convicts against the rejection of mercy petitions by her,
gives its verdict. Meanwhile, there is enough reason to believe that the legal
safeguards aimed at avoiding the miscarriage of capital punishment have failed
to deliver, and public opinion in India can no longer ignore the global
movement in favour of the abolition of the death penalty.
(source: Frontline----India's National Magazine)
PAKISTAN:
Christian Girl's Blasphemy Arrest Incites a Furor in Pakistan
The arrest and imprisonment of a Christian girl accused of violating Pakistan's
blasphemy laws stoked a public furor on Monday, renewing international scrutiny
of growing intolerance toward minorities in the country.
The police jailed the girl, Rimsha Masih, and her mother on Friday after
hundreds of Muslim protesters surrounded the police station here where they
were being held, demanding that Ms. Masih face charges under Pakistan's
blasphemy laws. A local cleric had said Ms. Masih had burned pages of the
Noorani Qaida, a religious textbook used to teach the Koran to children.
By Monday night, as Pakistani Muslims celebrated the feast of Id al-Fitr, Ms.
Masih and her mother were being held in Adiala jail, a grim facility in nearby
Rawalpindi, awaiting their fate. Meanwhile, a number of the girl's Christian
neighbors had fled their homes, fearing for their lives, human rights workers
said.
Senior government and police officials agreed with Christian leaders that the
accusations against Ms. Masih were baseless and predicted that the case would
ultimately be dropped.
Still, the case has already grabbed global headlines and inspired a hail of
Twitter posts, even though several details are in dispute.
Christian, and some Muslim, neighbors said Ms. Masih was 11 years old and had
Down syndrome. Senior police officers dismissed those claims; one described her
as 16 and "100 % mentally fit."
Whatever the truth, experts said Ms. Masih's plight highlighted a wider
problem. "This case exemplifies the absurdity and tragedy of the blasphemy law,
which is an instrument of abuse against the most vulnerable in society," said
Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch.
While non-Muslims have long been vulnerable to persecution in Pakistan, the
state's ability to protect them is diminishing. Last week, gunmen executed 25
Shiites after taking them off a bus near Mansehra, in northwestern
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. On Saturday, Hindu leaders in Sindh called on the
government to protect their community from forced conversions by Muslim
extremists.
But it is the emotionally charged blasphemy issue that has most polarized
society. Ever since the governor of Punjab Province, Salmaan Taseer, was gunned
down by his own bodyguard in January 2011 for his support of blasphemy reforms,
the space for public debate has narrowed in Pakistan.
Violent mobs led by clerics have framed the argument, as appears to have
happened in Ms. Masih's case.
Neighbors said the girl's family were sweepers - work shunned by Muslims but
common among poor Christians - and lived in a slum area in Islamabad.
Malik Amjad, landlord of the family's rented house, said the controversy
started early last week after his nephew saw Ms. Masih holding a burned copy of
the Noorani Qaida. The nephew informed a local cleric, Khalid Jadoon, Mr. Amjad
said.
Desecration of Muslim holy texts is illegal in Pakistan and punishable by
death. But Mr. Amjad said the incident bothered few local residents initially
and caught fire only at the instigation of the cleric and two conservative
shopkeepers.
"He tried to shame people by saying, 'What good are your prayers if the Koran
is being burnt?'" Mr. Amjad said.
Mr. Amjad said he handed the girl over to the police for her own protection and
criticized the cleric's role. "He exaggerated the incident and provoked
people," he said.
It was not clear how, or even if, Ms. Masih had come across the burned
religious book. One neighbor, Malik Shahid, said it might have simply become
accidentally swept up in a trash pile she was collecting.
The Pakistani police often are forced to register blasphemy cases against their
wishes, human rights campaigners say, either to save the accused blasphemer or
their own officers from attack.
In July, a large crowd, prompted by inflammatory statements from local mosques,
swarmed a police station in Bahawalpur district in southern Punjab, searching
for a blasphemy suspect who was being interrogated by police. The mob seized
the man, beat him to death and burned his body outside the station.
A similar mob attack occurred in June in Karachi, Pakistan's most populous
city, although in that case the police beat back the protesters.
The turmoil comes just days after Pakistanis marked the country's 65th
independence anniversary amid muted ceremonies and considerable soul-searching
across the political spectrum.
"Desecrating graves, arresting 11 year old with Down syndrome, targeting of
Shias - the list goes on. This is not what religion is about," Shireen Mazari,
a staunch nationalist commentator, said on Twitter.
The adviser to the prime minister on national harmony, Dr. Paul Bhatti, said he
hoped to defuse Ms. Masih's situation through talks with moderate Muslim
leaders. Dr. Bhatti is the brother of Shahbaz Bhatti, a minister for minorities
who was gunned down outside his Islamabad home in early 2011, weeks after Mr.
Taseer's death.
Even if Ms. Masih avoids blasphemy charges, her family is unlikely to ever
return home. Although nobody has been executed under Pakistan???s blasphemy
laws, even suspected blasphemers are in danger for the rest of their lives.
Several have been killed by vigilantes; others have been forced to flee
Pakistan.
(source: New York Times)
ZAMBIA:
Zambia's constitution should not identify 'Christian nation,' bishops argue
The Catholic bishops of Zambia are opposing a plan to identify the African
country as "a Christian nation" in the preamble to a new proposed constitution.
In explaining their stand, the bishops said that "a country cannot practice the
values and precepts of Christianity by a mere declaration." The bishops'
statement, circulated in response to a call for comments on the draft
constitution, continued:
The principle of separation between State and Religion must not be lost. If
Zambia is a multi-religious Country, a fact that was recognized in the preamble
of the 1st draft of the Technical Committee, to say that Zambia is a Christian
nation would be in contradiction with this fact. In other comments, the
Catholic bishops objected to language that would allow for the death penalty
and for legal abortion.
(source: Catholic Culture)
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