March 14
SAUDI ARABIA:
EU Criticizes Saudi Arabia For Executing Seven Death-Row Inmates
The European Union on Wednesday strongly criticized Saudi Arabia for executing
seven men convicted of theft, looting and armed robbery despite repeated
appeals by the European bloc as well as United Nations experts and rights
groups to spare their lives.
The seven men were reportedly shot to death by a firing squad on Wednesday
morning in the city of Abha, south of the oil-rich Gulf Kingdom. Rights groups
have since suggested that two of them might have been juveniles at the time of
the alleged crime.
EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement issued late
Wednesday that she was appalled by the executions, stressing that the European
bloc had recently made several appeals to Saudi authorities to commute their
death sentences.
"With regard to this particular case, taking into account the nature of the
crime and the age of the perpetrators, I sincerely regret that the opportunity
was lost for the Saudi authorities to exercise their powers to spare them from
the death penalty," Ashton said.
She said the European Union continues to oppose the use of capital punishment
in all cases and under all circumstances and calls for a global moratorium as a
first step towards its universal abolition.
Incidentally, Saudi Arabia has one of the highest rates of execution in the
world. In 2012 alone, at least 69 people were executed in Saudi Arabia. The
oil-rich Kingdom applies the death penalty for a wide range of crimes,
including drug offenses, apostasy, sorcery and witchcraft.
(source: RTT News)
INDIA:
After 9-day trial, MP man gets death for raping, killing minor
Calling it the "rarest of rare case", a court in Bhopal on Thursday awarded
death penalty to a man convicted for raping and killing an 8-year-old after a
trial that lasted for 9 days. The victim's mutilated body was found near the
state home minister's bungalow last month.
After examining 33 witnesses, the court convicted Nandkishore, 50, for
abduction, rape and murder under the IPC as well as under the Protection of
Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
The Opposition had held several protests outside Home Minister Umashankar
Gupta's residence, saying the incident exposed the deteriorating law and order
situation in the state, where minors were not safe even in a protected area.
Prosecution officer Rajendra Giri told The Indian Express that a senior
scientific officer from Sagar's forensic laboratory had been specially called
to depose in the court.
Nandkishore, a neighbour of the victim, was arrested on February 6, a day after
the incident that came to light when a passer-by saw a dog carrying what looked
like a child's limb.
Nandkishore was arrested after the victim's 4-year-old brother narrated how his
sister had been lured by him. The 4-year-old also identified the accused.
Nandkishore had first claimed innocence but the police later recorded his
confession under Section 27 of the Evidence Act.
(source: The Indian Express)
*******************
Death row convict bags gold medal in exam
A.G. Perarivalan, 1 of the 3 convicts facing death penalty in the Rajiv Gandhi
assassination case, has bagged a gold medal by topping a diploma course
examination conducted by the Tamil Nadu Open University.
In May last year, Perarivalan stood first among prisoners by scoring 1,096 out
of 1,200 in the Plus Two examination. Family sources said he was aiming to
pursue Ph.D.
According to Prison department sources, Perarivalan sat for the Diploma in
Desktop Publishing examination along with general candidates and scored the
first mark. He was among the 185 prison inmates who appeared in different
examinations conducted by the university recently.
“It would be wrong to say that I am happy on hearing this news. It has only
saddened me further…my son has been consistently demonstrating academic
excellence. He scored 91.33 % in Plus Two examination, which is the highest
ever among prisoners. 22 years of incarceration has not bogged down his urge to
excel in studies,” Perarivalan’s mother Arputhammal told The Hindu on Thursday.
She said that her family was confident that Perarivalan would return home one
day. “We hope that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa would take steps for the early
release of my son. He has suffered enough for no fault of his. Every time he
achieves something on the academic or sports front, I find it so difficult to
face my son. How can I congratulate him...,” Ms. Arputhammal said.
A senior prison official said a large number of inmates were enrolled in the
Mahatma Gandhi Community College that was affiliated to the TNOU.
“Opportunities for inmates to pursue education are plenty. From basic literacy
to post-graduation, a number of courses are being offered. The objective is to
make them employable,” he said.
(source: The Hindu)
BELARUS:
After death, the cruelty continues as bodies of two executed men still hidden
•Belarus is the only country in Europe and Central Asia that still carries out
executions.
•Prisoners risk being tortured into “confessing”.
•Condemned prisoners do not have access to an effective legal appeal.
•Executions are carried out by shooting the condemned person on the back of the
head.
•Prisoners are only informed hours, or even minutes, before they are executed.
•Prisoners’ bodies are not returned to their families for burial, and families
are not told where they are buried.
The bodies of two men executed a year ago in Belarus must be released to their
relatives for burial or the burial site should be revealed, Amnesty
International said today.
Uladzslau Kavalyou and Dzmitry Kanavalau were executed in March 2012 in Minsk,
capital of Belarus. They had been sentenced to death on 30 November 2011 after
being found guilty in connection to a bomb attack in Minsk that killed 15
people and wounded more than 300 in April 2011.
Their trial has been criticized for failing to meet international fair trial
standards.
According to the death certificate received by his mother, Uladzslau Kavalyou
died on 15 March 2012. On 16 March, she received a letter from the Belarusian
Supreme Court informing her that her son had been executed.
“The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and
a human rights violation. Failing to return the bodies of these two men
compounds that cruelty,” said David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International's Deputy
Director for Europe and Central Asia.
“The letter sent to Lubou Kavalyoua is unusual practice. In most cases,
official notification of executions is not sent to the relatives until weeks or
months after the event. The complete secrecy surrounding the death penalty
denies families the opportunity to bury their relatives according to their
traditions and religious beliefs.”
Article 175 of the Criminal Executive Code of the Republic of Belarus allows
for the government not to communicate the place of burial of those executed to
their relatives.
“It is unacceptable that authorities in Belarus would not even reveal the
burial site to the families, and ban them from saying goodbye to their loved
ones,” said Diaz-Jogeix.
“Article 175 is outrageous and must be immediately amended. President
Lukashenka should also immediately declare a moratorium on executions, pending
the eventual full abolition of the death penalty.”
Belarus is the only country in Europe that still sentences people to death.
Executions are carried out by shooting the individual in the back of the head.
Prisoners are only informed hours, or even minutes, before they are executed.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception.
(source: Amnesty International)
TRINIDAD:
Trinidad Pressured to Drop Mandatory Hanging
Ruth Dreifuss, the former Swiss president and chancellor of the University for
Peace, may never have heard of Dennis Ramjattan, and vice versa, although they
occupy opposite sides of a longstanding debate in this twin-island state.
“My mother didn't deserve to die like this," he told IPS shortly after
70-year-old Carmen Ramjattan was bludgeoned to death on Feb. 20. "My mother
never got into any trouble with the law, never even a parking violation. I
would like them (the government) to stop talking and put their money where
their mouths are."
The brutal killing was just one of many in Trinidad and Tobago, where drugs and
gang-related violence prompted the government to declare a state of emergency
in August 2011, and the national security minister ordered the police to stop
releasing murder statistics last fall.
While capital punishment remains popular, no one has been executed here since
1999.
But opinions could be slowly changing, at least as far as mandatory application
of the death penalty is concerned.
At a debate on abolition at the University of the West Indies (UWI) organised
by the British High Commission this week, Dreifuss noted that that “for 100
years slavery was accepted, for 100 years forced labour was accepted, for 100
years torture was accepted.
“If a country is part of an international treaty which does not accept the
mandatory death penalty, then it’s something the government of that country
should look at,” she added.
The coalition People’s Partnership government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad
Bissessar needs the support of the opposition to revamp existing legislation so
it can try to bypass the London-based Privy Council, the country’s highest
court, on hangings.
“The Privy Council has been viewed by some critics as a court that actively
frustrates the execution of the death penalty, which, at least nominally,
remains on the books of most Caribbean territories, despite very few hangings
in recent decades," said David Rowe, an adjunct professor of law at the
University of Miami School of Law and a member of the Jamaica Bar Association.
"In a sharp contrast to Europe, capital punishment often finds wide support
from Caribbean voters due in part to high murder rates in the region,” he said.
Writing in the Miami-based Caribbean Journal on Tuesday, Rowe argued that some
commentators regard the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ),
established in 2001 to replace the Privy Council, “as an institutional strategy
to re-introduce hanging”.
In 2011, the Trinidad and Tobago government tabled the constitutional amendment
(capital offences) bill which would have provided for different categories of
murder.
“It was intended to reserve the death penalty for the most heinous of murders,
which is similar to what obtains in the United States where you have murder in
varying degrees. So for example, crimes of passion and so on and where you have
extenuating circumstances could be dealt with in a different way," said
Attorney General Anand Ramlogan this week.
A 2011 study found that 89 % of the population in Trinidad and Tobago supports
the death penalty, although a majority also believes that judges should have
discretion in sentencing. 26 % favour the current law, which makes the death
penalty mandatory for all murders, whatever the circumstances.
Interestingly, 36 % of those who supported the mandatory death penalty and 54 %
of those in favour of a discretionary system also said that more executions
were the least likely policy to reduce violent crime.
UWI Law Faculty lecturer and a member of the Rights Advocacy Project, Professor
Arif Bulkan, said that 3/4 of those interviewed did not support the mandatory
death penalty after it was explained to them.
The researchers concluded that the findings of the survey, taken in conjunction
with 2 previous studies, strongly supported the abolition of the mandatory
death penalty and its replacement by a discretionary system.
The European Union is lobbying countries impose a moratorium as a first step
towards abolition. British High Commission political officer here Matt
Nottingham acknowledged the EU is on a worldwide campaign to abolish the death
penalty, with a strong focus on the Caribbean. Nottingham told the conference
the EU’s drive is tied in with its human rights objective.
Law student Antonio Emmanuel strongly opposes the death penalty. “I believe if
we have proper sentencing, proper prison systems, proper reform systems in
place we can take a better handle on crime,” he told IPS.
(source: Independent European Daily Express)
JAPAN:
The criminal justice system should be urgently reformed
22nd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council
March 14, 2013
FIDH and CPR deeply regret that the government of Japan refused to accept
important recommendations related to the criminal justice system, in particular
a moratorium or abolition of the death penalty and reform of substitute
detention in police stations (known as daiyo kangoku system), which have been
reiterated not only in the framework of the UPR but also by other UN bodies
such as the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture.
Since last March, Japan has regularly conducted executions. In 2012, 7 inmates
were executed by the government led by the Democratic Party of Japan. In 2013,
prior to this 22nd session of the Human Rights Council, Justice Minister
Sadakazu Tanigaki, former President of the Liberal Democratic Party, ordered
the executions of 3 death row inmates on February 21.
It is obvious that the death penalty is one of the most serious problems which
Japan faces today. Despite a very law homicide rate, there has been an increase
in the number of death sentences; at the same time, more death sentences are
executed. This partly results from the impossibility for many inmates to
exercise their rights of appeal, especially under the new trial system which
requires involvement of citizen judges in decision-making for capital
punishment cases, while the government has denied the need for introducing a
mandatory appeal system.
Concern about expanding use of the death penalty has become even more serious
considering the absence of reform or repeal of the daiyo kangoku system, which
allows investigative authorities to detain a suspect in a police cell up to 23
days without charge, and makes it possible for the authorities to have total
control on the life of a suspect for 24 hours, enabling them to extract
confessions. This system, combined with lack of presence of defense lawyers at
the interview and video-taping of the whole process of interrogation, is a
hotbed of false confessions which could lead to ultimate punishment, as
typically seen in a case of Mr. Hakamada, who is widely believed to be actually
innocent but has been facing the threat of executions more than 30 years (he
was initially convicted in 1968 and the Supreme Court of Japan upheld his death
sentence in 1980).
FIDH and CPR urge the Government of Japan to establish a moratorium on death
penalty and take further steps towards abolition.
(source: FIDH)
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