May 8
UNITED KINGDOM:
Student inspired by death row injustice wins music competition
The case of a man condemned to death for the murder of a police officer in
America could be considered an unusual source of inspiration for the Higher
Music composition of an Edinburgh student.
However, for Isla Ratcliff, the conviction of Troy Davis and his subsequent
execution were subjects she felt passionate about enough to reflect through
song.
Now the 16-year-old City of Edinburgh Music School student has won a
prestigious award from the human rights organisation Amnesty International for
her work, entitled death row.
Davis was given the lethal injection in September, 2011 for the murder of
off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail.
MacPhail was shot dead in 1989 after trying to help a homeless man who was
being attacked in the car park of a Burger King branch in Georgia.
Davis always maintained his innocence and campaigners continue to highlight the
many flaws in the case against him.
Isla heard about Davis' case on the radio as she was considering her higher
music coursework. She subsequently composed a work for chamber choir and bass
drum.
Both of Isla's parents are supporters of Amnesty and Isla read about the
Amnesty International UK Power of Our Voices competition in a magazine from the
group. She decided to make a haunting arrangement of her piece for piano and
solo voice.
"I've always been against the death penalty in all circumstances," said the
teenager.
"I thought it was best to focus on one particular case. I found Troy Davis'
case particularly chilling because of the doubts over it.
"I thought I would write a song, and I wanted it to have a message so I thought
Troy Davis case was a good story to base it on.
"I had already written the composition and I thought this was the perfect
opportunity to showcase it and see where it takes me.
"When I began writing that piece back in 2011 I had no idea where it would take
me. I am delighted to have won."
Isla has been musical throughout her life. She has been learning violin since
she was five, piano since she was 11 and has been song writing for the past 2
years.
She won the Power of Our Voices competition at an event in the London Human
Rights Action Centre last month.
Around 700 students from 70 schools across the UK took part in the contest,
which was judged by music writer Dorian Lynskey, producer Steve Brown, rapper
Kate Tempest and music teacher Jonny Slater.
Isla, who lives in Inverleith, won the 'Lyrics' section, with Adam Bojelian of
the capital's Forthview Primary School one of three runners up. Isla also
finished runner up in the 'Performance' category.
The teenager is no stranger to the limelight. In 2010, she performed a violin
duet with classical music superstar Nicola Benedetti in the Usher Hall in front
of 2000 people after she was chosen by her school, which is part of Broughton
High School.
Her family also has a personal connection to the death penalty. Her
great-great-great-great-uncle Robert McIntosh was hanged in 1822 for murder.
According to the National Archives, McIntosh was sentenced to death at a court
in Aberdeen following the death of Elizabeth Anderson.
Following her win in London, Isla performed death row at a gig about peace and
struggle with the Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart in Teviot Row House
in Edinburgh as part of TradFest. You can listen to a section of this
performance in the video above.
Now Isla is set to appear on Radio 1 as part of the Amnesty International win
and she has been accepted for a week's course at Oxford University's music
summer school.
But there is the small matter of her school work to get through first. Isla
will be concentrating on passing her exams, with Advanced Higher Music this
Friday and Higher exams in English, Maths, Chemistry and History over the next
month.
She said: "I hope the song will raise awareness of the issue. For me, it has
given me confidence in my song writing skills."
(source: STV Edinburgh)
UGANDA:
Biryomumaisho gives prisoners new lease of life
He had been sentenced to death by hanging, having been found guilty of murder,
and thus awaited the hangman every other day. But, Pascas Munana's life took an
unexpected turn one day.
Munana's death penalty was overturned after he spent 8 years in the Condemned
Section, and he would spend the rest of his life in jail instead. The judge
changed the penalty because Munana had acquired skills while schooling in
prison.
Appearing at the Court of Appeal, Munana had presented his academic transcripts
and appealed to the judge to consider them as mitigating factors to commute the
death sentence.
In 2007, Munana sat the Uganda Certificate of Education examinations and scored
Aggregate 30. In 2012, he sat the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education
examinations and got 23 points.
He emerged the best candidate of Upper Prison Inmate's Secondary School with
3ABBA in general paper, history, economics, geography and entrepreneurship
respectively.
Munana, who had dropped out in Senior Three, now proudly says his prison term
has been a blessing in disguise because it opened up opportunities for him to
attain education, which would not have been possible outside jail.
Munana is currently pursuing a certificate course in small business enterprises
management at Makerere University Business School.
Munana is just one of the imprisoned students, who have benefited immensely
from the outstanding and humble service of Anatoli Biryomumaisho, a 44-year-old
geography teacher at Luzira Maximum Security Prison and head teacher of Upper
Prison Inmate's School.
BIRYOMUMAISHO'S JOURNEY
Biryomumaisho is an extraordinary teacher, who tutors people who are not only
in conflict with the law, but also scorned by the public.
Biryomumaisho's love for others and his conviction that all people can always
learn from their mistakes and later become better people in society, has
inspired him to offer his teaching services to inmates.
"I enjoy seeing someone reform from criminal tendencies to civility. Their
loyalty to education brings to mind the adage about life giving humans a 2nd
chance to pass in the lives of those who find themselves on the cusp of
despair," says Biryomumaisho.
But helping inmates to acquire life-long skills comes with challenges. But as
the old adage goes, for Biryomumaisho and his fellow teachers in prison
schools, when you do something you love most, you do not care about the pay.
Despite the challenges, his love for teaching adults, more so those in conflict
with the law, keeps him going.
Biryomumaisho, who is a university graduate teacher and social worker, has
worked for Uganda Prison Service for 17 years as a social welfare and
rehabilitation officer in-charge of Upper Prison and heads Upper Prison
inmate's schools.
Biryomumaisho says he derived interest in teaching from his father, a former
primary teacher. In 2009, he started teaching prisoners and has held the
position as the pioneer head teacher of the inmates' school to date.
"I love working with prisoners and do not look at them as captives. My aim is
to ensure that the individual attains what he is supposed to achieve as a
person, realising that he is someone who is in conflict with the law," says
Biryomumaisho.
Prison rules and regulations require that authorities engage inmates in various
rehabilitation programmes to ensure that they reform so that they are accepted
as responsible citizens, upon discharge.
CHALLENGES
Biryomumaisho points out that challenges affecting education behind bars
include lack of enough scholastic materials, inadequate furniture, space and
funding of the school's activities.
He is grateful that the education and sports ministry took over responsibility
for the secondary section. However, he notes that the primary school section is
still supported by donations, leaving it prone to inadequate funding.
Biryomumaisho also notes that the unavoidable interference by court proceedings
affects the teaching programmes.
He notes that the students (prisoners) usually fail to concentrate in class
because they get stressed thinking about their fate.
Biryomumaisho, however, explains that inmates, who leave after their penalties,
have turned out to be responsible citizens in society.
Some of them, he says, return to prison to give motivational skills to those
still in detention.
(source: New Vision)
NIGERIA:
Nigeria: Court Remands 20 Kogi Polytechnic Students in Prison Over Murder of
Lecturer
A Lokoja Chief Magistrates' Court 1 has on Tuesday remanded 20 students of Kogi
State Polytechnic, Lokoja, in prison, over alleged rioting and murder of their
lecturer, Nathaniel Abimaje.
The Chief Magistrate, Levi Animoku, gave the order when the accused persons
were arraigned before him.
He said that the offence of culpable homicide with which they were charged
carried death penalty under Section 221 of the Penal Code and was not bailable.
The Police Prosecutor, Samuel Ikutanwa, told the court that the accused were
armed with dangerous weapons.
He listed the weapons to include axe, guns and cutlasses.
He said, "On April 19, the accused incited some unidentified students of the
institution to riot.
"They were protesting the setting up of a panel to look into the cases of
examination malpractice.
"During the rampage, the accused allegedly beat and stabbed Abimaje severally
and left him in a pool of his blood.
"The lecturer was rushed to the Specialist Hospital, Lokoja, but died before he
could receive medical attention," Mr. Ikutanwa said.
He urged the court to remand the accused in prison pending the conclusion of
the investigations.
Mr. Ikutanwa said that investigations had revealed that a long-standing dispute
between Igala and Ebira students in the institution also fuelled the crisis.
The accused were also charged with criminal conspiracy, inciting, disturbance
of public peace and rioting. He said the offence was contrary to various
sections of the Penal Code.
The students, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Leading other counsel for the accused, J.E. Usman made oral application for
their bail.
He asked the court to exercise its discretion "judicially and judiciously" on
the presumption that they remained innocent until proven otherwise.
In his ruling, Mr. Animoku said that he had no discretion to exercise in the
matter as the offence was a capital one.
He said that section 35(7) (a) of the 1999 Constitution (Amended) provides that
presumption of innocence was not absolute, especially in a case of culpable
homicide.
Mr. Animoku ordered that the accused be remanded at Federal Prisons, Kabba.
He adjourned the case to May 21 for further mention.
(source: Premium Times)
INDIA:
Akali Dal gives 2-day ultimatum to Govt on Sajjan Kumar
A 5-member delegation of Shiromani Akali Dal leaders today met Home Minister
Sushilkumar Shinde and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna and put
forward their demands.
Akali Dal leaders, protesting the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in
a 1984 riots case, gave 2-day ultimatum to the government to accept their
demand of death penalty to Kumar and an SIT probe failing which they will
intensify the agitation.
A 5-member delegation of Shiromani Akali Dal leaders today met Home Minister
Sushilkumar Shinde and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna and put
forward their demands.
"The LG had called us for a meeting and told that the government was worried
over the way protests were happening in Delhi. He said that we should take back
our protest," National Vice President of Shiromani Akali Dal, Omkar Singh
Thapar said.
The capital has been witnessing protests since last Tuesday after a court
acquitted Kumar in an anti-Sikh riot case.
"We asked him to accept our demands, which are death penalty to Kumar and a
probe into the 1984 riots by the Supreme Court monitored special investigative
team, to which, LG assured us that he was speaking to higher ups and soon
arrive at a solution and asked us to stop the protests," Thapar claimed.
"We have assured him that we would keep protests -- like one that happened at
Vijay Chowk, Rajpath or outside Sonia Gandhi's house yesterday -- on hold for 2
days.
"But if it (assurances by the government) is an eyewash then Akali Dal would be
helpless to take the agitation ahead," said Thapar.
The delegation told LG that at the moment, protests were happening at local
level but if the government did not take action the entire Akali Dal
leadership, including Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Deputy CM
Sukhbir Badal will join the protest in Delhi.
"All the Akali MPs, MLAs, including Punjab CM and Deputy CM are likely to meet
the President, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister," he said.
Over 200 Sikhs yesterday staged a protest near Parliament House and blocked
traffic for about an hour against the acquittal of the Congress leader and
demanding capital punishment for him.
Holding placards and shouting slogans against Congress, the protesters,
including women, squatted at Vijay Chowk which is just a few metres away from
Parliament House where a large number of police personnel were deployed.
(source: Daily News & Analysis)
******************
Don't execute my husband, Bhullar's wife tells SC
Navneet Kaur, the wife of death row terror convict Devenderpal Singh Bhullar,
Tuesday moved the Supreme Court for suspension of the execution of her jailed
husband in the 1993 Delhi bomb blast that killed nine people.
The apex court bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, Justice Vikramajit Sen and
Justice Kurian Joseph declined to pass any order as senior counsel Ram
Jethmalani mentioned the matter before it but agreed to consider the plea
later.
Jethmalani told the court that preparations were being made to hang Bhullar
like the Mumbai attack convict and Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab and
parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
Bhullar was given capital punishment and sent to Tihar Jail for the 1993 blast
at the Indian Youth Congress office, a stone's throw from the parliament
building in Delhi, which left nine dead. The attack was allegedly targeted at
Youth Congress leader M.S. Bitta, who escaped with injuries.
Kaur sought a review of the apex court's April 12 order dismissing her
husband's plea for quashing the rejection of his mercy petition by the
president. The convict's mercy plea sought commutation of his death sentence to
life imprisonment.
She contended that the rejection of the mercy petition by the president after a
gap of over eight years was based on "lack of application of mind,
non-consideration of relevant circumstances and presumably made on extraneous
grounds and/on irrelevant facts".
Bhullar filed the mercy petition Jan 14, 2003 which was rejected by the
president May 25.
Kaur said when in 2005 and 2011 Bhullar's mercy plea was sent to the president
it was not disclosed that the apex court's Justice M.B. Shah (since retired) in
his minority judgment in 2002 had acquitted Bhullar.
Justice Shah had said that there was no evidence against Bhullar and it was
"unsafe to solely rely upon the alleged confession recorded by the
investigating officer", she said.
While Justice Shah acquitted Bhullar, his two colleagues on the bench Justice
Arijit Pasayat and Justice B.N. Agrawal (both since retired) dismissed his
appeal against the award of death sentence by the trial court.
Justice Shah noted that "...when the rest of the accused who are named in the
confessional statement are not convicted or tried, this would not be a fit case
for convicting the appellant solely on the basis of the so-called confessional
statement recorded by the police officer...", Kaur said.
She said Justice Shah also cast doubts over the manner in which the
confessional statement was recorded.
The petition also referred to the poor health condition of Bhullar.
The death penalty judgment against Bhullar "seeks to send to gallows a severely
mentally ill man who is experiencing intense mental suffering from inter alia,
acute psychosis, hallucination, delusion, suicidal tendencies and who has lost
all sense of reality", the petition said.
(source: twocircles.net)
INDONESIA:
Lindsay Sandiford launches appeal against death penalty for drugs smuggling;
Grandmother Lindsay Sandiford has launched an appeal against her death penalty
for drugs smuggling into Bali at Indonesia's Supreme Court today.
The 56-year-old has launched her 2nd bid against the ruling after losing her
initial appeal at the Bali High Court last month.
Sandiford, who was refused legal funding by the UK Government, is facing death
by firing squad for bringing 1.6 million pounds worth of cocaine into
Indonesia.
Zoe Bedford, from human rights campaigner Reprieve, said: "We understand that
Lindsay's lawyer filed her full grounds of appeal with the Supreme Court today.
"We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will take into consideration the
compelling mitigating evidence in Lindsay's case and award her a sentence that
is proportionate both to the offence and to her role in it."
Sandiford was arrested at Bali's airport last May after 4.8kg of cocaine was
found in the lining of her suitcase during a routine customs check.
The Gloucestershire grandmother claims she was forced to transport the drugs to
protect her children whose safety was at stake.
She was accused of damaging the image of Bali and sentenced to death, despite
prosecutors asking only for a 15 year jail term.
Her legal fund was supported by over 10,000 pounds worth of donations from the
public from her JustGiving page.
The donation page was set up after Sandiford lost her appeal over the British
Government's refusal to fund her legal challenge.
Ms Bedford added: "We expect the Supreme Court to make a decision in Lindsay's
case within 96 days from today.
"Lindsay remains extremely grateful to the generosity of the public in raising
the funds to allow her to file this appeal."
(source: The Express)
******************************
7 Suspected of Murdering Pregnant Teen in Yogyakarta May Face Death Penalty
7 men, including a police officer, who were allegedly involved in a brutal rape
and murder of a teenage girl in Sleman, Yogyakarta, may face the death
sentence, a policeman said Wednesday.
"We have transferred the case to the attorney's office. They are charged with
the violation of multiple articles in the criminal code with the death sentence
as the maximum penalty," Sr. Comr. Agus Riyanto, a spokesman for the National
Police, said.
A 17-year-old high school student was found dead in a rice field in Kringinan
village, Sleman, on April 15, after being reported missing for a week by her
family.
An autopsy revealed the girl was pregnant and that she was raped before she was
murdered.
Agus said according to 1 of the suspects, the murder happened after the girl
admitted she was pregnant.
The suspect, who panicked, brought some friends to kill the girl in order to
escape the responsibility of being a father.
"On April 9, she was hit on her chest and head with a log. They also cut her
genitals, and a day after that they burned the corpse to erase the evidence,"
Agus said.
The suspects allegedly returned the following day after to burn the corpse
again.
(source: The Jakarta Globe)
********************
Drug trafficking case goes to High Court
A drug trafficking case involving a jobless man from Batu Kawa has been
transferred to the High Court by Magistrate Maris Agan after the chemist report
was tendered yesterday.
Chan Kim Seng, 33, from Batu Kawa, is now charged with trafficking in 78.031g
of methamphetamine at a house in Taman BDC at about 12.30am on Jan 22 this
year.
No plea was recorded from Chan who faces the death penalty. He is being
remanded in prison, pending trial as the offence is non-bailable.
Drug trafficking comes under Section 39B(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952
which provides a mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
The brief facts of the case stated that a police team from the investigation
unit led by Inspector Thomas raided the house and detained a man identified as
Chan.
He was carrying a black plastic bag. Inside the bag, police found 32 plastic
packets containing a crystalline clear substance suspected to be syabu. Chan
was represented by defence counsel Shankar Ram while DPP Samira Khalili
prosecuted.
(source: Borneo Post)
BELARUS:
New death sentence imposed on inmate
EU High Representative, Catherine Ashton today issued a statement condemning
the death sentence imposed on a detainee of Mahilyow prison in Belarus after he
murdered his cellmate.
According to the statement: "(The High Representative) is conscious of the
serious nature of the crime for which this individual has been convicted.
However, she does not believe that capital punishment can ever be justified.
The European Union opposes capital punishment under all circumstances. The
death penalty is considered to be a cruel and inhuman punishment, which fails
to act as a deterrent and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity
and integrity".
Finally, High Representative Ashton called on Belarus to join a global
moratorium on the death penalty with a view to move towards its abolition.
On April 24, the Mahilyow Regional Court imposed the death penalty on an inmate
of a Mahilyow prison after he murdered a cellmate. The 43-year-old man, a
native of Ukraine's Zhytomyr province who was earlier convicted of killing
three people, reportedly played a game of dominoes with his cellmate and the
winner would get to live and the other would die. Since he won, he strangled
his cellmate with a scarf back in July 2012 with the help of a young
accomplice.
Belarus is the only European country that still exercises the death penalty. As
a result, the EU has repeatedly called on Belarus to join a global moratorium
on the death penalty.
Amnesty International is worried over this situation and indicates that
"executions are carried out by shooting the condemned person in the back of the
head. Prisoners are only informed hours, or even minutes, before they are
executed." In addition, prisoners' bodies are not returned to their families
for burial, and families are not told where the bodies are buried.
(source: New Europe)
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