Feb. 25
INDIA:
Death or mercy, decide in time-bound manner 26
Undue delay on the part of the President to settle petitions seeking the
commutation of death sentence has given the convicts an opportunity to approach
the Supreme Court and ask for waiver of capital punishment
By granting a 6-week stay on the death sentence of four aides of ivory and
sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, the Supreme Court has heightened emotions in
Jammu & Kashmir over the hanging of Afzal Guru, and strengthened feelings in
some quarters that the President did an injustice by rejecting the mercy
petitions of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has
also come under a shadow for not giving the 2 an opportunity to seek relief
from the apex court.
Given the sensitivity of the matter, Parliament should urgently fine-tune the
law and settle whether the judicial mind should be applied afresh to cases
where clemency petitions have been decided by the President, on any pretext.
Currently, the court is hearing some high-profile cases which essentially
involve reviewing its own judgements; the Union Home Ministry's recommendation
to the President and the latter's decision; and perhaps overturning the same.
This could have a potentially explosive impact on the judicial system,
especially in cases unduly politicised by activists and politicians.
In the present case of Simon & Others versus State of Karnataka, in 2001, a
Tada court in Mysore held four members of Veerappan's gang - Simon, Gnana
Prakash, Madhiah and Bilavendra - guilty of the killing of 22 persons in a
landmine explosion on April 9, 1993. They were convicted under relevant
sections of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987,
Indian Penal Code, Explosive Substances Act and Indian Arms Act, and sentenced
to rigorous imprisonment for life, besides fine and further imprisonment in
default of payment of fine. It bears mentioning that the Veerappan gang is
officially responsible for 120 murders at least, mostly of policemen and police
informers.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices YK Sabharwal and BN Agrawal decided
their appeals on January 29, 2004. Examining the record of the case, the court
noted that the special jungle patrol led by superintendent K Gopalakrishnan was
searching for the gang when 1 of the 2 buses in which they were travelling was
hit by a landmine laid by the criminals. This shattered the 1st bus in which
policemen, foresters and informants were sitting; in all, 22 persons died and
several were injured.
After the explosion, the gang fired upon the police party, but retreated when
the latter returned the fire. Cases were filed against 121 persons; 50 were
arrested and prosecuted, but all barring 4 were acquitted during trial. In the
apex court, the convicts challenged their presence at the crime scene and
involvement in the crime. The record, however, showed that several persons,
including police officers in the second bus, and survivors in the 1st bus,
identified the 4 men as present at the scene.
The Supreme Court observed that the Veerappan gang had unleashed such a reign
of terror in the area that even the police needed an escort party to move
about. The crime was brutal, a 'rarest of the rare case'. Asserting that
punishment must be commensurate with the crime committed, the Supreme Court
held that, while ordinarily the Appellate Court does not enhance punishment,
this was "such a gross case that nothing but maximum sentence stipulated in law
deserves to be awarded".
The Court said, "We are conscious of the fact that the power to enhance death
sentence from life should be very rarely exercised and only for strongest
possible reasons...The question of enhancement of sentence to award death
penalty can, however, be considered where the facts are such that to award any
punishment less than maximum would shock the conscience of the court".
In Machhi Singh & Others versus State of Punjab [(1983) 3 SCC 470], the Supreme
Court observed that one of the categories of rarest of rare case may be when
the collective conscience of the community is so shocked that it will expect
the holders of the judicial power to inflict death penalty irrespective of
their personal opinion as regards desirability or otherwise of retaining death
penalty. The community may entertain such a sentiment when the crime is
committed in an extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting or dastardly
manner so as to arouse intense and extreme indignation of the community.
The pre-meditated planting of landmines en route the police party, and firing
after the blast at the State police personnel and Special Task Force, was
diabolical. The Court ruled that the appellants were a grave danger to society
and had made normal life impossible for those living in the area. Asserting
that it would be mockery of justice if extreme punishment were not imposed, the
Court dismissed the appeals, confirmed the convictions, and enhanced the
sentence of each convict from life imprisonment to death penalty.
President Pranab Mukherjee rejected the mercy petitions of all four on February
13. In the light of the quick executions of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru, the 4
men appealed to the Supreme Court on grounds of inordinate delay in executing
their sentences. This is a valid irritant which has been upsetting citizens
enraged by the depredations of such marauders.
But can executions delayed for political reasons (even Delhi Chief Minister
Sheila Dikshit told the Union Home Ministry that Afzal Guru's hanging could
pose law and order problems in the city), be overturned by invoking delay after
the President has rejected the plea for clemency?
The Supreme Court stayed the execution of Veerappan's aides to await the
verdict by a bench headed by Justice GS Singhvi on the question of whether
inordinate delay in deciding mercy petitions could entitle a convict to relief.
Hearing the petition of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar and Narender Nath Das, the
bench sought records of all cases of death sentences that were pending for
several years, and reserved judgement in April 2012.
For ordinary citizens, a judicial verdict must satisfy their sense of justice.
If the Supreme Court first upholds the death penalty and then goes into the
merits of the President's giving or denying clemency, and overturns or
undermines his decision on any count, it will make a travesty of justice and
the judicial process itself.
In the light of recent experiences, the Supreme Court should rule (and
Parliament should enact into law) that clemency petitions must be forwarded to
the President within 6 months of the award of death penalty, and decided within
another 6 months. In no circumstances should there be an appeal after the
President's decision.
(source: The Daily Pioneer)
**************************************
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
----------------------------------
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa04113.pdf
UA: 41/13
Issue Date: 18 February 2013
Country: India
EXECUTION OF FOUR MEN IMMINENT
Four men are at imminent risk of execution after India's president rejected
their petitions for
mercy. They were sentenced to death in 2004 for their involvement in a landmine
explosion that
killed 22 people.
Indian president has rejected four men's petitions for mercy, putting them in
imminent danger of
execution. Meesekar Madaiah (aged 66), Gnanprakasham (aged 56), Simon (aged 46)
and Bilavendran
(aged 62) are held in Hindalga Prison, Belgaum, Karnataka. Their last names are
not known.
The four men were convicted of involvement in an April 1993 landmine blast that
killed 22 and
injured several others at Palar, in the state of Karnataka. The explosion blew
up vehicles carrying
police officers and police informers, on their way to arrest a sandalwood
smuggler known as
Veerappan and his accomplices. They were originally sentenced to life
imprisonment, by a special
court in Karnataka established under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities
Prevention Act (TADA
Act), for offenses under the TADA Act, the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Arms
Act, and the Explosive
Substances Act. Their sentences were increased to the death penalty on appeal
to the Supreme Court
in 2004. The Indian president has now rejected their petition for mercy. Trials
under the TADA Act,
repealed in 1995, did not meet international fair trial standards.
Since assuming office in 2012, the president has rejected at least three other
petitions for mercy,
after which two men were executed. These executions were carried out in secret,
and the public was
only informed afterwards.
Please write immediately in English or your own language:
-Acknowledging the seriousness of the April 1993 landmine blast, and the
suffering caused, but
urging the authorities to stop plans to execute Meesekar Madaiah,
Gnanprakasham, Simon and
Bilavendran, and expressing concern that the TADA court, which tried the men,
did not meet
international fair trial standards;
-Urging them to commute all death sentences to terms of imprisonment;
-Reminding them that the UN General Assembly has called repeatedly for a
moratorium on executions,
with a view to abolishing the death penalty, and pointing out that India's
decision to resume
executions has set it against the global trend towards abolition.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 1 APRIL 2013 TO:
President
President Pranab Mukherjee
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi 110 004
INDIA
Fax: 011 91 11 23017290 -OR- 011 91 11 23017824
Email: (via form) http://www.helpline.rb.nic.in/
Salutation: Dear President Mukherjee
Chief Minister of Karnataka
Jagadish Shivappa Shettar
Vidhana Soudha,
Dr. Ambedkar Veedhi,
Bangalore 560 001, India
Fax: 011 91 80 22281021
Email: [email protected]
Salutation: Dear Chief Minister
And copies to:
Minister of Home Affairs
Sushilkumar Shinde
104, North Block,
Central Secretariat
New Delhi 110001
INDIA
Fax: 011 91 11 23094221
Email: [email protected]
Salutation: Dear Minister
Also send copies to:
Ambassador
Nirupama Rao
Embassy of India
2107 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC 20008
Tel: 1 202 939 7000
Fax: 1 202 265 4351
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Network office if sending appeals
after the above date.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The Indian Supreme Court on 16 February declined to hear the four men's plea
for a stay of
execution, on the grounds that an execution date had not yet been fixed. Their
lawyers petitioned
the Karnataka High Court and the Supreme Court on 18 February. The Supreme
Court has now stayed the
executions until 20 February. In 1989, the Indian Supreme Court allowed
prisoners to approach courts
to challenge decisions on their mercy petitions on the grounds of inordinate
delay in the disposal
of a mercy petition. The Supreme Court held that “Undue long delay in execution
of the sentence of
death will entitle the condemned person to approach this Court under Article
32". but this Court
“will only examine the nature of delay caused and circumstances ensued after
sentence was finally
confirmed by the judicial process and will have no jurisdiction to re-open the
conclusions reached
by the Court while finally maintaining the sentence of death. This Court,
however, may consider the
question of inordinate delay in the light of all circumstances of the case to
decide whether the
execution of sentence should be carried out or should be altered into
imprisonment for life. No
fixed period of delay could be held to make the sentence of death
in-executable”. At least five men
whose mercy petitions were rejected in recent years have filed applications
before the Supreme Court
on these grounds, and have had their executions stayed.
Since assuming office in 2012, President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected at least
three other mercy
petitions (Ajmal Kasab, Saibanna and Afzal Guru), and has commuted another
death sentence (that of
Atbir). India has executed two of them: Ajmal Kasab on 21 November 2012, and
Afzal Guru on 9
February 2013. Before these, the last execution in India had been that of
Dhananjoy Chatterjee in
August 2004. This move to resume executions after an eight-year hiatus has set
the country against
the regional and global trend towards abolition of the death penalty. Formerly
the authorities made
information about the rejection of mercy petitions and dates of execution
available to the public
before any executions. In resolution 2005/59 the UN Commission on Human Rights
called upon all
states that still maintain the death penalty "to make available to the public
information with
regard to the imposition of the death penalty and to any scheduled execution”.
In Afzal Guru’s case,
the family were informed about the execution only after it had been carried out
and the body was not
returned to the family for burial.
In total, 140 countries are abolitionist in law or in practice. In 2011, only
21 states in the world
carried out executions, meaning that 90 percent of the world was
execution-free. Out of 41 countries
in the Asia-Pacific region, 17 have abolished the death penalty for all crimes,
10 are abolitionist
in practice and one – Fiji – uses the death penalty only for exceptional
military crimes. Over the
past 10 years, four Asia-Pacific countries abolished the death penalty for all
crimes: Bhutan and
Samoa in 2004, the Philippines in 2006 and the Cook Islands in 2007. UN bodies
and mechanisms have
repeatedly called upon member states to establish a moratorium on executions
with a view to
abolishing the death penalty, including through the adoption of four UN General
Assembly
resolutions, in December 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012. India voted against all
four resolutions. In a
general comment on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, to which
India is a State Party, the UN Human Rights Committee stated that Article 6
"refers generally to
abolition [of the death penalty] in terms which strongly suggest ... that
abolition is desirable.
The Committee concludes that all measures of abolition should be considered as
progress in the
enjoyment of the right to life... ".
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases as a violation of
the right to life and
the ultimate cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, regardless of the nature
of the crime; guilt,
innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the
state to carry out
the execution.
Names: Meesekar Madaiah, Gnanprakasham, Simon, Bilavendran (m)
Issues: Imminent execution, Death penalty
-------------------------------
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----------------------------------
END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL
----------------------------------
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Jordanian beheaded for drug trafficking; His execution brings to 16 number of
people beheaded in kingdom this year
Saudi Arabia on Sunday beheaded a Jordanian man convicted of drug trafficking,
the interior ministry said.
Faris Salam Salama Al Maghrebi was arrested while attempting to "smuggle a
large amount of amphetamine" stimulant capsules into the kingdom, the ministry
said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.
He was beheaded in the northern Jawf province, it said.
His execution brings to 16 the number of people beheaded in Saudi Arabia so far
this year.
In 2012, the kingdom executed 76 people, according to an AFP tally based on
official figures. The US-based Human Rights Watch put the number at 69.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable
by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Sharia, or Islamic law.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
CHINA:
Man Who Had Mother Executed Wants Tomb Honored; Zhang Hongbing says officials
should allow him to mark the dark chapter in the country's history, but they
refuse
"I am willing to humble my soul and publicly confess to my mother who died
because of my tip-off," says Zhang Hongbing.
The 60-year-old, who was among the most radical Red Guards during the
tumultuous 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, describes his life as one full of
regret.
"I see myself as part of a history of shame and a negative example to others,"
he says.
For years, Zhang has sought to have the tomb of his mother, who was killed
during the Cultural Revolution due to information he provided, recognized as a
cultural relic. He says this is an effort to help more people understand the
turmoil of the period.
However, the authorities have constantly rejected his requests. On February 20,
a court in Bengbu, Anhui Province, turned down Zhang's latest lawsuit, which
like others sought to force the government to honor his wish.
Afterward, Zhang said he wanted to make his story known to the public "to let
people know that the Cultural Revolution made family members turn against each
other."
A Lingering Memory
Zhang, now a lawyer in Beijing, traces his actions during the Cultural
Revolution to his youth. "The education I got from school when I was little was
just like being bred by wolves," he says.
Zhang was a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, and Bengbu authorities at
the time said he was a model Red Guard. The latter was a mass movement of young
people that espoused Maoist principles and attacked anything Mao Zedong deemed
a threat.
Zhang's father, Zhang Yuesheng, then a minor Communist Party official in the
eastern province of Anhui, was accused of taking a "capitalist road," a
dangerous accusation that meant he was suspected of seeking to turn the country
away from socialism.
Zhang's mother, Fang Zhongmou, was a doctor in a local hospital. She suffered
harsh denouncement for her family's "landlord" background.
Zhang said he wrote articles critical of his father to prove his loyalty to the
Red Guard movement. He was also the person in his family to criticize his
mother the most.
The family tragedy started one February night in 1970 when Fang privately
expressed support for Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, top party officials who
fell out of power and were purged. Liu, the former president of China, is a
good example of the viciousness of the period. He died in a dirty prison cell
in late 1969 while being denied medical care.
Zhang said his mother also burned a picture of Mao, and he and his father
reported her behavior to the authorities. 2 months later, Fang was executed for
her "anti-revolutionary" crimes. The teenager was applauded by local authority
for "upholding justice."
Zhang says he knew what the outcome of his accusations would be. "Surely I knew
the result. According to the laws of that time, it had to be like that."
Perhaps most painfully, he recalls that in the report he submitted he
recommended the death penalty for his mother.
Battling Ignorance
Not long after his mother was executed, Zhang and his brother were forced to
leave Bengbu and live in a rural area. Many years later he returned to work in
a factory, he says.
In 1979, an aunt who had cut ties with him, found Zhang. She wanted to seek
official rehabilitation of Fang, something that was increasingly common as Deng
took power.
Zhang says he realized his mistake and made appeals on his mother's behalf to
courts. In 1980, a court in Anhui said the case against her was unjust and
granted rehabilitation.
2 years later, Zhang and his relatives erected a tombstone for his mother in
the place they believed she was buried.
Zhang says he kept the family history private, but in 2009 he saw online
writings that argued the Cultural Revolution was good for the country. This
changed his mind, and he decided to "use the true story to refute the ignorance
of history."
A Typical Case?
In 2010, Zhang decided to apply to the provincial government to have his
mother's tomb treated as a cultural relic, a permanent reminder of the Cultural
Revolution that would mean it could never be moved. But he has encountered many
difficulties.
The next year he submitted reports and applications to county and provincial
officials responsible for protecting cultural relics. None agreed.
Zhang then turned to the courts. During the last hearing, the debate in the
court in Bengbu over the historical and educational value of the tomb was
fierce. Local cultural officials said there were many similar cases, and
because it was built after 1949, it was not a cultural relic.
But Zhang argued that Fang's story was significant because it was recorded in
local historical documents. Further, the bureau's standard of judging relics
fell short of legal requirements.
Ding Dong, an independent researcher, says the episode shows that feelings in
the country about the Cultural Revolution remain complicated.
A 1981 government document says the party made mistakes during the period.
However, researchers say the public does not clearly understand the Cultural
Revolution because officials and state media avoid talking about it.
One departure from this official silence came at a press conference for the
National People's Congress in 2012, when Premier Wen Jiabao warned that the
mistakes of the period could be repeated. He then called for deepening reforms
of the political system.
There have been some efforts among members of the public to remember dark
chapter in the nation's history. In 1986, the writer Ba Jin called for a museum
to be dedicated to the Cultural Revolution. This has not happened, but 2
decades later a private exhibition was set up in Sichuan Province.
Nearly 1,000 people were, like Fang, executed during the troubled decade for
their thoughts and words, Ding said. However, the public has little knowledge
of this. For this reason, he said, Fang's story had special meaning.
He called on the government to treat this period of the country's history
fairly.
(source: Caixin ONline)
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