March 30
MALAYSIA:
Report: PHL Embassy rep meets with 8 detained Kiram followers
A representative from the Philippine embassy managed to meet this week with 8
followers of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III presently detained by Malaysian
authorities, Malaysia's home minister said Saturday.
Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the meeting took place last
March 27, Wednesday, when the embassy representative visited Tawau prison.
"The Philippine embassy representative was given very opportunity to meet with
the eight people detained under SOSMA. Feedback received said the
representative was satisfied with the treatment given by the prison authority,"
he said, according to a report on Malaysia's state-run Bernama news agency.
He did not give further details on the meeting.
Malaysia earlier charged 8 Kiram followers with terrorism over the 3-week
standoff and deadly clashes that prompted Malaysia to conduct offensives
against them since March 5.
Of the 8, 2 face additional charges of waging war on the King, a charge that
carries the death penalty upon conviction.
Hishammuddin said the prison authorities also told the Philippine embassy
representative the detainees would be provided with counsel.
"We are transparent. Even if he wants to appoint counsel, there is no problem.
The guilty still remain as guilty," he was quoted in the Bernama report as
saying.
On the other hand, Hishammuddin said there is no reason to doubt the
"professionalism" of Malaysian prisons, especially via social media.
He said the 1,085 prison officers in Sabah can control the 4,530 inmates.
Also, he said he was satisfied with the capabilty of the SOSMA in handling the
Sabah clashes.
"People said repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA) left us powerless.
However, with SOSMA as replacement, we can balance human rights with national
interests," he said.
On the other hand, the Bernama report said the Internal Security Division has
opened an operations room in Kota Kinabalu to "disseminate correct information
on current developments." It can be accessed at 088-488850.
Offensives to continue
Meanwhile, a Bernama report posted on Malaysia's New Straits Times quoted Sabah
police commissioner Datuk Hamza Taib as saying the offensives that started
March 5 will go on until all Kiram followers are flushed out.
"It depends on the security situation in the targeted areas and the operations
involved," he said, referring to when the operations will end.
Malaysian authorities said security forces have killed 68 Kiram followers and
arrested 121 under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma).
(source: GMA News)
ZIMBABWE:
Zimbabwe hangman raises execution fears; Hiring of new executioner ignites
debate on fate of 77 death row inmates and country's dormant capital
punishment.
In Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe's
capital, there are 77 convicts who have been condemned to death by hanging.
Held in solitary confinement in cells close to the gallows, some of those
condemned to death have been there for more than a decade, their appeals
rejected by President Robert Mugabe.
Although the death penalty is still on the books in Zimbabwe, there have been
no executions since 2004, in part because there was no hangman.
But a macabre development could potentially activate the dormant penalty. Years
of unsuccessful headhunting by the country's Justice and Legal Affairs ended
last September with a sombre announcement by Justice and Legal Affairs
secretary David Mangota: the government had secured a hangman who was "raring
to go".
Little is known of the hangman, who is rumoured to be from Malawi. Authorities
have refused to clear any interviews with him.
The announcement came as a surprise, given the ambivalence within the
Zimbabwean criminal justice system about executions. Although capital
punishment was codified during British rule, which ended in 1980, evolving
jurisprudence and new sensitivities within Zimbabwe have limited the actual
practice to the barest minimum.
The recruitment has sharply divided the government - formed between President
Robert Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai, who is now prime minister.
"Whoever sanctioned the hiring of a hangman at this juncture of Zimbabwe's
jurisprudential history is obviously of unsound mind." - Obert Gutu, deputy
justice and legal affairs minister
The Justice and Legal Affairs ministry is a shared portfolio: minister
Chinamasa belongs to Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) and his deputy Obert Gutu is a member of Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
Chinamasa says in a country with high levels of violence and regular reports of
grisly rapes and murders, the perpetrators of such crimes are "worthy" of death
sentences.
However, his deputy Gutu is staunchly opposed to the recruitment.
"It's bizarre and odious in the extreme," the deputy minister said. "Whoever
sanctioned the hiring of a hangman at this juncture of Zimbabwe's
jurisprudential history is obviously of unsound mind. For how else can you
describe such an absurd decision to engage the services of a hangman when the
draft constitution has made it quite apparent that the death penalty is on its
way out?
Gutu added that there will not be any executions taking place in the near
future.
Abolishing capital punishment
With 77 prisoners on death row, there is a growing clamour to abolish capital
punishment through the ongoing constitution-making process.
Zimbabwe's new constitution prohibits the death penalty for all women, as well
as men who were under 21 at the time of the crime and those over 70. It also
bans using the death penalty as a mandatory punishment.
The new constitution, overwhelmingly approved by Zimbabweans during a national
referendum on March 16, puts greater limits on the use of capital punishment. 2
women on death row recieved stays on their proposed executions after the draft
constitution won support in the referendum.
Human rights group Amnesty International said while the proposed limitations to
applying the punishment are welcome, it called for the death penalty to be
abolished fully in the new constitution, regardless of gender and the
circumstances in which a crime was committed.
"This macabre recruitment [of a new hangman] is disturbing and suggests that
Zimbabwe does not want to join the global trend towards abolition of this
cruel, inhuman and degrading form of punishment," Noel Kututwa, the southern
Africa director for Amnesty, said.
Human rights groups and other non-governmental agencies have been circulating
petitions calling for the abolition of the death penalty for some time now.
Women's Coalition of Zimbabwe chairperson Virginia Muwanigwa said: "We want the
death penalty to be removed from our constitution and our laws completely. One
important reason for this is that it is mostly poor people who often get
hanged."
She spoke as the UN chief Ban Ki-moon stepped up calls for a global moratorium
on applying the death penalty. "A global moratorium is a crucial stepping stone
towards full worldwide abolition," Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
Kyung-wha Kang said in a speech delivered at the UN Human Rights Council in
Geneva last month on behalf of Ban.
Revived national debate
"Look at the Zimbabwean context and the level of funded political violence, but
also the emergence of ritual killings. I think the issue of capital punishment
should be maintained." - Sydney Chisi, civil rights campaigner
Within Zimbabwe, opinion is sharply divided, and the possibility of resuming
executions has stoked a national debate.
Former national director of the Zimbabwean National Constitutional Assembly
Earnest Mudzengi believes that capital punishment must be abolished. "It is
degrading, and is against God-endowed values of humanity," he said.
Mary Moyo, a vendor in Harare, holds the same views, believing that "only God
has the right to take life".
But Samson Marecha, a self-employed motor mechanic, says abolishing capital
punishment will foment crime. "There are times when you need an eye for an
eye," he argued.
His views are similar to those of civil rights campaigner Sydney Chisi, who
backs the death penalty as a deterrent for crime and political violence. He
spoke as Christpower Maisiri, the 12-year-old son of a district organiser and
aspiring legislator for the MDC, died in what the party called a "politically
motivated attack" by alleged militants of Mugabe's Zanu-PF.
"Look at the Zimbabwean context and the level of funded political violence, but
also the emergence of ritual killings. I think the issue of capital punishment
should be maintained," Chisi said. "The constitution should allow that
provision so as to manage the violence we are engulfed in."
Meanwhile, men on death row such as convicted murderer Shepherd Mazango, who
robbed and hacked a man to death, have raised constitutional arguments in a
Supreme Court challenge against the death penalty.
Convicted to die by hanging in November 2009, Mazango's presidential mercy
petition fell through. He has filed an emergency motion with the courts, but
because court cases have been known to take ages without judgments, Zimbabwean
defence lawyers have raised arguments that forcing someone accused or even
convicted of a capital offence to wait for years before an execution amounted
to cruel and unusual punishment - which the constitution says is illegal.
Mazango wants his sentence commuted to life in prison, and says he has suffered
anguish on death row because of the delay in execution.
"This [delay in execution] has caused severe trauma on the inmates that some of
them are losing their mind," Mazango said in his constitutional challenge in
the Supreme Court.
"The very thought that I am dying steals all my hope for the future, makes me
restless and the delay traumatises me. It causes me emotional and psychological
trauma. Worse still, to think that I can spend 13 years before execution like
my colleague George Manyonga crushes me."
(source: Aljazeera)
SOMALIA:
Disquiet about death penalty for man convicted of journalist's murder
Reporters Without Borders deplores the death sentence that a military court
passed yesterday on a man found guilty of radio journalist Hassan Yusuf
Absuge's murder last September in Mogadishu.
"It is not up to us to decide the nature or severity of the sentences imposed
on those convicted of murdering journalists, but we cannot regard the
application of the death penalty as a victory," Reporters Without Borders said.
"We hail the measures taken by the authorities to identify and punish
journalists' killers, and thereby end the vicious circle of impunity that has
gone on for too long. But taking people???s lives by applying penalties that
violate the most fundamental human rights is unacceptable."
The death penalty was passed on Adan Sheikh Abdi Sheikh Hussein, a member of
the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab, who confessed to Absuge's murder in the hope
of receiving a less severe punishment.
Employed by Radio Mantaa, Absuge was gunned down as he left the station on 21
September after covering a suicide bombing the day before that had killed
around 10 people including 3 fellow journalists.
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), the Reporters Without Borders
partner organization in Somalia, released a report last November condemning the
impunity enjoyed by the enemies of news and information and reporting that 44
journalists had been killed in Somalia since 2007.
A total of 18 journalists were killed in Somali in 2012 alone, which was the
deadliest year for media personnel in the country's history.
Last month, the government offered a reward of 50,000 dollars (37,500 euros)
for information leading to the arrest of anyone who had murdered a journalist.
Yesterday's conviction of Hussein and the arrests of 3 people suspected of the
murders of the journalists Mohamed Mohamud Turyare and Abdihared Osman Adan
suggest that the authorities really are determined to end the impunity.
(source: Reporters Without Borders)
MALDIVES:
Amputation for theft added to draft penal code
The draft penal code bill has been amended to include punishments as prescribed
in the Quran, such as amputation for theft.
The new article added during a parliamentary committee meeting Thursday (March
28) states that if someone convicted of a crime requires legal punishment, as
specified in the penal code, that person will face punishment as stated in the
Quran.
Criminal punishments are detailed for murder, fornication, thievery and
drinking alcohol.
The committee's chairperson, MP Ahmed Hamza, told Sun Online the new draft
penal code will require amputating persons convicted of theft, while a person
convicted of apostasy (renouncing Islam) will also face punishment.
The bill does not include apostasy as a crime, therefore someone found guilty
of this offense cannot be subjected to Quranic punishment, committee member MP
Ahmed Mohamed clarified.
Gambling is also not criminalised, according to committee member MP Abdul Azeez
Jamaal Aboobakuru. He told local media that the bill does not "state a manner
in which such crimes can be convicted".
The penal code draft bill does include factors that must be considered before
convicting a person of murder; for example, any contradictory evidence would
prevent such a conviction.
Imposing the death penalty cannot be subject only to the confession of the
accused.
The parliamentary committee's additions to the bill follow its rejection of all
but one amendment suggested by the Fiqh Academy of the Maldives.
Speaking to local media on Monday (March 25), Hamza said the committee had
decided to accept only a suggestion concerning the offence of theft. Other
amendments, he said, were merely changes to the wordings of the bill and
carried little legal weight.
"They have submitted amendments to abolish certain sections. These include
certain legal defences. When we looked into removing those defences, we found
this impacted fundamental principles embedded to the draft penal code. So we
decided to reject their suggestions," he stated.
Following the decision, Vice President of the Fiqh Academy Sheikh Iyas Abdul
Latheef told local newspaper Haveeru that the academy had informed parliament
that current draft penal code should not be enforced in the country.
"The current draft does not include the Hadds established under Islamic Sharia.
There is no mention of the death penalty for murder, the punishment of stoning
for fornication, the punishment of amputation for theft and the punishment for
apostasy. We proposed amendments to include these punishments," Latheef stated.
Comments submitted by the United Nation agencies in the Maldives, Human Rights
Commission of the Maldives (HRCM), and Attorney General are being considered
and incorporated into the draft text.
The initial draft of the penal code was prepared by legal expert Professor Paul
H Robinson and the University of Pennsylvania Law School of the United States,
upon the request of the Attorney General in January, 2006. The project was
supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Professor Robinson's team have published 2 volumes (Volume 1 and Volume 2)
consisting of commentaries on sections of the draft bill.
The bill was first sent to the Majlis (parliament) in 2006 and will replace the
1961 penal code.
The penal code bill is being forwarded to the parliament floor this upcoming
week, according to local media.
False preaching regarding rape and fornication
The parliamentary committee slammed the "false preaching" of the Chair of
Adhaalath Party's Scholars Council Sheikh Ilyas Hussain over the bill earlier
this week.
Sheikh Ilyas declared that the new penal code does not recognise fornication
with mutual consent as an offence.
MP Nazim Rashaad contended that whether sheikh or not, nobody could
misinterpret the clause and claim that the bill did not recognise "mutually
consented sexual intercourse" as an offence, and accused the Sheikh of lying to
discredit the bill and parliament.
Briefing committee members on the sections concerning sexual offenses, Rashaad
stated that under the draft penal code, both fornication and rape are offences
under section 411 of the draft bill.
The existing penal code does not explicitly recognise "rape" as a crime, and
cases are handled under provisions for sexual offences.
(source: Minivan News)
NIGERIA:
NBA, LEDAP oppose death penalty for crude oil thieves
The Senate President had earlier suggested the death penalty as a punishment
for oil theft.
The Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association and the Legal Defence and
Assistance Project, LEDAP, on Friday opposed the Senate President's proposal of
the death penalty for oil thieves and pipeline vandals.
Both groups made this known in separate interviews in Lagos.
The Senate President, David Mark, suggested that oil theft should attract the
death penalty while inaugurating the Senate Joint Committee on the Petroleum
Industry Bill (PIB) on March 27. Mr. Mark had decried the increasing pillaging
of Nigeria's crude oil, adding that the nation needed to have a law that would
provide for severe sanctions to serve as deterrent.
Nigeria is estimated to lose crude worth about $6 billion to oil thieves
annually.
The Ikeja Branch Chairman of the NBA, Onyekachi Ubani, said that prescribing a
severe punishment like death for stealing the nation's crude oil would not stop
the scourge.
"If we are to be seen as being sincere with the Nigerian project and to
Nigerians, our senators should first make corruption in public office a capital
offence. Corruption is the bane of our country's socio-economic and political
development," he said.
He said the international community was working assiduously to discourage
nations from further putting felons to death for whatever crime, and "our
lawmakers are aware of this global mood."
Chino Obiagwu, the National Coordinator of LEDAP, a human rights group, said it
was not justifiable to punish property crime with capital punishment.
He said the severity of the punishment for illegal deeds like pipeline
vandalism was not the solution to the problem of oil theft. He noted that acts
that contradicted the expectations of Nigerians from the oil sector would not
abate if the death penalty was attached to them.
"Oil thieves are a reflection of our decadent economic system. Finding the cure
for that decadent system is what our senate should be focusing on," he added.
(source: premiumtimesng.org)
SINGAPORE:
Man nabbed, drugs seized at checkpoint
Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers arrested a Malaysian national and
seized about 745 grammes of heroin and 279 grammes of cannabis from the man at
the Woodlands Checkpoint on Saturday.
The estimated worth of the haul is more than S$87,000.
The 19-year-old man was stopped for routine checks at about 5.25am at the
checkpoint.
While conducting a thorough search of the man's motorcycle, CNB officers
spotted a missing screw on the fuel tank. They then found 3 black bundles
hidden under the fuel tank compartment.
CNB officers recovered about 745 grammes of heroin from 2 of the bundles and
about 279 grammes of cannabis from the 3rd bundle. The man was immediately
placed under arrest.
The man is being investigated for drug importation, and if convicted, he may
face the death penalty.
(source: ChannelNewsAsia)
GLOBAL:
When and Why Did We Stop Crucifying People? The slow death of an ancient
torture method.
Sado-masochist Robert Garrison will be nailed to a cross in public view in Los
Angeles on Easter Sunday. Garrison says the display will honor the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ, while others say it's offensive to Christians. Is that why
crucifixions disappeared from the Christian world in the first place?
Maybe. At the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, eventual Roman Emperor
Constantine saw a vision in the sky: a cross of light accompanied by the words,
"In this, conquer." The sign not only brought Constantine to Christianity but
also gave him a special reverence for Christ's suffering and death. According
to the conventional explanation, Constantine allegedly prohibited crucifixions
shortly after the revelation.
A couple of doubts about this story continue to linger, though. Most
significantly, there are reports that official crucifixions continued in the
Roman Empire throughout Constantine's reign. Julius Firmicus Maternus, for
example, claimed that crucifixion was still a lawful punishment at least 2
decades after Constantine's alleged proscription. Our oldest unambiguous record
of a crucifixion ban is the Code of Theodosius, published more than a century
after Constantine died.
Even if Constantine did, in fact, end the practice of crucifixion, it's not
clear that he did so out of respect for Christ's execution. Aurelius Victor,
the earliest historian to claim that Constantine banned crucifixion, explained
that the emperor was motivated by a sense of humanity rather than piety.
Crucifixion is a pretty gruesome way to go - significantly worse than the New
Testament makes it seem. Although Christ reportedly expired in a matter of
hours, many crucifixion victims clung to life for days. Even in Roman times, it
was considered an exceptionally cruel punishment, reserved mainly for those who
challenged state authority, such as insurgents and enemy soldiers. (Joel Marcus
of Duke described crucifixion as "parodic exaltation," because it gave rebels
the fame they sought, albeit in a grotesque form.) By some accounts,
Constantine replaced crucifixion with hanging, a less painful execution method.
Constantine's supposed ban on crucifixion came as part of a package of reforms,
further suggesting that he was merely exercising human mercy. Branding
prisoners' faces, for example, was also prohibited around the same time - a
reform that had nothing to do with Christ's execution.
Whether or not Constantine put a stop to Roman crucifixions, he definitely
kicked off the Christian fascination with crucifixion and the cross. Before
Constantine's reign, it appears that images of the crucifixion were mainly used
by pagans to taunt Christians. The 3rd century Alaxamenos graffito depicts a
worshipper standing next to a donkey-headed man on a crucifix. The inscription
reads, "Alexamenos worships god." Not until the 5th century did Christians
widely adopt the crucifixion as their own symbol, and the faithful then sought
out pieces of Christ's cross.
Crucifixions have been relegated to history in much of the world, but they
still happen elsewhere. Saudi Arabia seems to lead the world in crucifixions
these days, occasionally applying the penalty to rapists and other serious
offenders. The kingdom crucified a murderer just this week. Yemen has also
crucified criminals in recent years. In the modern Middle East, criminals are
typically beheaded or otherwise killed before being publicly displayed on a
cross or stake. (Execution prior to public crucifixion was also widely
practiced in the ancient world.) Rural Russians crucified women thought to be
witches during a famine in 1921.
American lawmakers sometimes suggest bringing back crucifixion, usually in
jest. In an ironic take on the idea of parodic exaltation, a state legislator
in Florida in 1999 suggested crucifying a death-row inmate who believed he was
Jesus Christ.
(source: Slate.com)
JAPAN:
Okayama woman's murderer drops appeal; death penalty finalized
A 30-year-old man's death sentence for the 2011 murder of a woman in Okayama
has been finalized after he dropped his appeal, a branch of the Hiroshima High
Court said Friday.
Koichi Sumida, who was sentenced to death in February by the Okayama District
Court for killing his former colleague, Misa Kato, 27, a temp staff worker,
submitted a document stating he was dropping his appeal Thursday night to
Okayama Prison's warden, who accepted it, according to the Okayama branch of
the high court and his lawyer.
The lawyer had appealed the Okayama District Court sentence handed down on Feb.
14 in a lay judge trial.
The district court ruled that Sumida, on Sept. 30, 2011, robbed Kato of about
Y24,000 in cash and personal belongings at a warehouse in Okayama where they
worked.
He then sexually assaulted Kato, stabbed her to death, dismembered her corpse
and dumped her remains in the city of Osaka. The district court sentenced him
to death, saying he "was self-centered as he committed the cruel crime to work
off sexual frustration" and was not likely to be rehabilitated.
(source: Japan Times)
UGANDA:
Activists Ask MPs to Abolish Death Penalty
Human Rights activists have urged MPs to expedite the passing of a law
abolishing the death penalty because it does not lead to reform or deterrence
of crime.
Livingstone Sewanyana, the executive director of the Foundation for Human
Rights Initiative, said the death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and degrading. He
made the remarks during a conference for MPs on penal code reform at Speke
Resort Munyonyo, on Wednesday.
Serere Woman MP Alice Alaso made a presentation on her Private Members Bill, in
which she seeks to restrict the penalty to the "most serious of crimes".
The law in its current form contains several provisions that prescribe
mandatory death penalties.
"The death penalty should be excluded in cases of political and economic crimes
like economic sabotage, treason and espionage," Alaso said, adding that it
should, however, be retained for most serious crimes like murder, rape and
aggravated defilement.
She was supported by other MPs like Medard Sseggona.
Baroness Nuala O'Loan, a Member of the Upper House of Lords in UK said death
penalty is neither correctional nor does it stop crime.
"Most often the people convicted of the death penalty are the poor, the
minority and the vulnerable. It is difficult to create criminal justice systems
which don't make mistakes," she said.
(source: New Visions)
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