Aug. 20
GLOBAL:
'Hang a few, crime will disappear'
Countries such as Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland have abolished the practice
of capital punishment and have a low crime rate, Hong Kong is a country that
has retained the death penalty but is also ranked 10th in the world when it
comes to crime rate.
Pakistan is a 'death-penalty' nation. In my own view, execution is the most
barbaric sentence and no state should be allowed to take a citizen's life. For
the first, the possibility that justice would be miscarried --- especially in
Pakistan where the judicial system can be manipulated by the rich --- remains
high. Secondly, the criminal justice system is governed by human beings and
mistakes are possible while administrating the system even when no ill
intentions are involved.
In view of such considerations and following centuries long debates, 92
countries in the world have abolished the death penalty completely. But still
62 countries maintain it. However, ten of these countries retain it for the
crimes committed during the war times. France abolished the death penalty in
1981while Britain abolished it for all crimes in 1968.
In Pakistan, death penalty can be awarded on 27 counts. At the time of
Partition, there were only 2 death penalty-crimes. Consequently, death sentence
has become a norm especially in lower courts. The judges award death penalty
without considering the evidences with due diligence. However, the popular
discourse in favor of death penalty impedes any serious discussion on the
topic.
Those who support death penalty base their arguments on certain cliches and
myths. The following paragraphs will consider certain such myths and cliches
about death penalty that are crucial to be addressed in Pakistan.
The most commonly cited/referred cliche/myth holding a hegemonic sway over
public discourse is: hang a few, crime will disappear. In view of terrorism,
its urgency is stressed even forcefully. Not merely conservative mediamen such
as Ansar Abassi, even otherwise liberal columnists such as Amir Zia have
advocated death penalty to combat terrorism and crime.
My contention is: severe punishments do not help bring down crime. There is a
mix of evidence on the correlation between the death penalty and the rate of
crime in a society.
In the case of Europe, most countries have abolished death penalty while ratio
of crime is minimum. On the contrary, in the USA the rate of crime is high in
relation to Europe despite the fact that many US states have maintained the
death penalty. Likewise, had beheadings been the solution, the 'public ritual'
on Fridays would have come to an end.
While countries such as Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland have abolished the
practice of capital punishment and have a low crime rate, Hong Kong is a
country that has retained the death penalty but is also ranked 10th in the
world when it comes to crime rate.
These examples validate Fyodor Dostoevsky's contention, made in his famous
novel Crime and Punishment, 'Crime is a protest against abnormalities in the
society'. It can be argued that a society should address economic and social
problems to control crime. Therefore, in my view the cliched argument in the
favor of capital punishment to arrest crime is not strong enough.
The higher rate of crime in Pakistan owes to the brutalisation of our society
as a result of misplaced state policies, bad governance, utter lack of state
welfare. We cannot remove these structured causes of criminality, militancy,
and extremism by executing individuals.
The core element in the pro-capital punishment argument is: criminals cannot be
reformed. This standpoint flows from another clich???d philosophical position
that human beings are 'by nature' evil, cruel and deceitful. Therefore,
criminals should be eliminated from society. Again, one can cite the example of
Scandinavian states where the 'evil nature' underwent a radical transformation
as the welfare system expanded its reach.
In culmination it is submitted that if the state of Pakistan is really serious
enough about preventing crimes in society, the best deterrence is social and
economic development, establishment of the rule of law, equality and social
justice. All of these conditions can be best met under a democratic
dispensation. Hence, I also argue for continuation of democracy. Let us not
brutalise our society any further by executing people in the name of crime-free
society.
(source: Sarmad Ali is an attorney based in Lahore and lecturer in Law of
International Trade; Viewpointonline.net)
NORTH KOREA:
Daily executions, torture at North Korea prison camps, UN inquiry told
Testimony of daily public executions and torture inside North Korea's prisons
have been given by former inmates at a United Nations inquiry.
The Commission of Inquiry, which will scrutinise the North's human rights
record, has opened in South Korea's capital.
The North, ruled by a 3rd generation of the founding Kim family, denies it
abuses human rights, refuses to recognise the Commission and has denied access
to investigators.
On the 1st day of the inquiry the expert panel heard harrowing accounts from
defectors now living in South Korea.
Shin Dong-hyuk, who was born in a prison called Camp 14, said he was forced to
watch the execution of his mother and brother whom he turned in for his own
survival.
Describing his punishment for dropping a sewing machine he said: "I thought my
whole hand was going to be cut off at the wrist, so I felt thankful and
grateful that only my finger was cut off."
"Because the North Korean people cannot stand up with guns like Libya and Syria
... I personally think this is the first and last hope left."
There are up to 200,000 people in North Korean prison camps, according to
independent estimates, and defectors say many inmates are malnourished or
worked to death.
Mother 'forced to kill own baby'
After more than a year-and-a-half ruling North Korea, Kim Jong Un, 30, has
shown few signs of changing the rigid rule of his father, Kim Jong Il, and
grandfather, state founder Kim Il Sung.
Jee Heon-a, 34, told the inquiry how a guard forced a mother to kill her own
baby.
"A security guard came in and told the mother to turn the baby upside down into
a bowl of water," she said.
"The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the
mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water.
"The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died."
She told the Commission that from the 1st day of her incarceration in 1999, she
discovered that salted frogs were one of the few things to eat.
"Everyone's eyes were sunken. They all looked like animals. Frogs were hung
from the buttons of their clothes, put in a plastic bag and their skins peeled
off," she said.
"They ate salted frogs and so did I."
Few experts expect the Commission to have an immediate impact on the human
rights situation but Bill Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex
University in the UK, said it was a way of increasing the pressure on North
Korea.
"The UN has tried various ways to pressure North Korea over the years in the
field of human rights, and this is a way to raise the pressure a bit," he said.
"It's obvious that North Korea is a tough nut to crack and the UN's means are
limited. There would need to be profound political changes in North Korea to
make headway in the field of human rights."
On its website, the Commission said it was "not appropriate" to comment on any
ICC jurisdiction over potential crimes against humanity as North Korea had not
signed the statutes that would enable the court to prosecute.
(source: Reuters)
QATAR:
American Christian couple accused of killing adopted child in Qatar
A Los Angeles couple are fighting for their lives in a Qatar courtroom, where
they are standing trial on charges they killed their 8-year-old adopted
daughter. But the California Innocence Project said the case is based on faulty
science and racial misunderstandings - the Christian couple is of Chinese
descent and their three adopted children are from Africa, which led Qatar
officials to suspect the couple trafficked the children for their organs.
If convicted, Matthew and Grace Huang could face the death penalty. Officials
detained the Huangs in January and banned their two other children from leaving
the country.
"Since moving to Doha, Matthew and Grace have not only experienced the loss of
their daughter, but they are now left to struggle through a foreign court that
doesn't seem to understand why they would have even adopted special needs
children from Africa," said Daniel Chin, Grace Huang's brother, in a statement
released by a family spokesman.
The Huang family relocated to Qatar in 2012 when Matthew, a Stanford-trained
engineer, began working on a major infrastructure project for the 2022 World
Cup. In January, 8-year-old Gloria suddenly died from what coroners said was
dehydration and wasting disease. The government claims the couple starved the
child.
But Gloria, who was severely malnourished in early childhood in Ghana, had a
history of eating problems, according to a report prepared in the United States
by Janice Ophoven, a pediatric forensic pathologist who reviewed the case for
the family. Gloria periodically refused food for several days and then binged
or took food from bizarre sources, such as garbage cans or from strangers - a
behavior her parents traced to her impoverished upbringing and were trying to
address.
When Gloria died, she was in an anorexic episode and had not eaten in as many
as 4 days, Ophoven wrote in her report. The behavior is not uncommon in adopted
children who have suffered from severe malnutrition in their past, the report
said.
Gloria also had been treated for an intestinal parasite, and recent blood tests
showed severely low levels of a certain type of white blood cells that could
have been a sign of an underlying bone marrow condition, as well as a vitamin D
deficiency.
The medical examiner did not check for other possible causes of death. Instead,
the investigative report by Qatari police raised questions about why the Huangs
would adopt children who did not share their "hereditary traits" and raised
concerns that the children were part of a human trafficking operation or were
"bought" for organ harvesting, according to the family's website.
The police cited unnamed sources that said the Huangs did not let their
children out in their neighborhood and that Gloria vanished from sight a week
before she died. But those allegations were provably false: The parents
homeschooled the children and they socialized with many people in Qatar.
Friends also testified that they saw Gloria sitting with the family and walking
around the night before her death, which would not be typical for a starving
child.
The Huangs are being kept on separate floors of a jail and see each other only
during court proceedings, which have been intermittent. Their two other
children are being cared for by their grandmother.
In a letter to Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, Calif., last Easter, Matthew
wrote "The power of Jesus' work on the cross gives us new life. I am reminded
that Easter is a time for rebirth, renewal, and restoration. My family needs to
be restored together. My emotions are tired and weary. Jesus brings
restoration, and we are reminded of that this Easter."
(source: worldmag.com)
PHILIPPINES:
Pinoys still being nabbed for drugs abroad despite executions
The grim news about the execution last July of a 35-year-old Filipina caught
carrying at least 6 kilos of heroin in China in 2011 brought to the fore once
again the issue of Filipinos being recruited in the trade and trafficking of
illicit drugs.
After the Filipina drug courier's execution, Vice President Jejomar Binay
warned Filipinos not to risk their lives attempting to smuggle illegal drugs
into foreign countries. He said modern equipment can now detect now easily
detect drugs, and authorities may not necessarily accost a drug mule
immediately after detecting drugs.
However, just 3 weeks after the Filipina was executed in China, another drug
trafficking case involving Filipinos made it to the headlines once again.
On July 31, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said 2 Filipino sisters
were found carrying 14.5 kilos of methamphetamine - known in the Philippines as
shabu - in Hong Kong a few days earlier.
Citing a report from the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong, DFA
spokesman and Assistnat Secretary Raul Hernandez said the 2 Filipinas were
bound for Clark, Pampanga when they were arrested at a Hong Kong airport on
Sunday. They are scheduled to appear in court in October.
Based on DFA records, the number of Filipinos detained around the world for
drug-related offenses has reached 696 as of August 2013, with 212 Filipino drug
couriers imprisoned in China.
In a text message sent last week, Hernandez said 49 of the Filipinos involved
in drug trafficking charges all over the world are on death row, with their
cases still subject to appeal.
He assured Filipinos, however, that DFA is continuously providing consular and
legal assistance to Filipinos in drug-related cases who are awaiting their fate
while in jail.
"The DFA ensures that the safety and rights of these Filipinos are protected by
having our embassy officials regularly visit them. We also continue to provide
them consular and legal assistance," he said.
High risk, high returns
Despite the enormous risks to life and safety associated with drug trafficking,
some Filipinos continued to participate in the trade because of its lucrative
financial returns.
For instance, the 35-year-old Filipina drug courier executed in China earned
$3,000 to $4,000 - or roughly P129,000 to P172,000 - per trip after
successfully smuggling drugs from Dubai to Hong Kong and China, according to
information from DFA.
In a country where one in four people live on less than $1 a day, getting paid
more than a thousand dollars for a job is an enticing prospect.
While many are lured to smuggle drugs abroad for the money, some continue in
the trade because they have no other choice but to remain drug couriers. There
have been reports in the past where foreign drug syndicates coerce Filipinos -
usually women - into becoming drug couriers by threatening to harm their
families if they do not agree.
In a recent press conference, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said known
foreign drug smuggling groups such as the West African Drug Syndicate (WADS)
"seem to prefer" recruiting Filipinos because many of them go abroad for work.
But in exchange for a princely sum, Filipino drug couriers expose themselves to
harm and possible death by using their own bodies as conduits of illegal drugs.
Gone are the days when drug syndicates smuggle drugs into foreign lands by
hiding them in discreet compartments in suitcases. To minimize the risk of
detection - especially in airports with less-sophisticated X-ray machines, WADS
and other groups have shifted to placing packets of methamphetamine and other
illicit drugs inside a person's body.
Drug couriers are either made to ingest several plastic capsules containing
illegal drugs or often-untrained doctors recruited by the syndicate sew drug
packs inside a person's abdominal cavity - to be retrieved by opening him or
her up when he or she has reached his or her country of destination.
In both cases, drug couriers are put at risk of contracting a serious infection
or dying because the parcel inside them might burst and they will be poisoned
by several kilograms of illegal drugs.
Imprisonment or death
According to the 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR)
released by the United States Department of State Bureau for International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, drug trafficking continues to be 1 of
the 3 major illicit drug activities in the Philippines, the other 2 being drug
manufacturing and cultivation.
At present, the illegal drug trade in the country is currently valued at over
$8.4 billion, with a huge chunk coming from drug smuggling activities.
Out of 42 countries that still impose death penalty for serious and heinous
crimes, 11 mete it out for drug-related offenses. These are China, India,
Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen.
Despite its stringent anti-drug trafficking laws, China continues to be a
popular destination to smuggle illegal drugs because of its huge market for
narcotics.
"As the Chinese economy has become more integrated in the world economy, drug
crimes and drug users in China have increased.
In 2010, 611 cases were uncovered with the seizure of more than 1,500 kg. of
drugs, representing a 50% increase compared with 2009. Large-scale organized
criminal groups traffic drugs to certain major cities in northern and south
eastern China," the US State Department said in 2012.
Unfortunately for drug couriers, the invention of high-technology X-ray
machines has made it easier for Chinese officials to detect smuggled drugs at
airports even if it is inside the human body. The 35-year-old Filipina executed
in China, as well as the 3 Filipinos who died through lethal injection there in
2011 - Ramon Credo, Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, and Elizabeth Batain - were
caught carrying illicit drugs at different provincial airports in China.
Under Chinese law, the possession of at least 50 grams of illegal drugs is
enough to warrant a death penalty, usually through lethal injection.
There have been some instances, however, where Filipino drug convicts in China
were able to commute their sentence from execution to life imprisonment.
In light of the growing number of Filipinos being nabbd by foreign authorities
for drug trafficking, the Philippine government has vowed the stricter
implementation Republic Act 9165 - also known as the Comprehensive Dangerous
Drug Act of 2002 - that penalizes drug trafficking.
Under RA 9165, drug couriers might face life imprisonment if they are caught
carrying more than 50 grams of illegal drugs.
While the US State Department has noted in its latest release of the INCSR that
the Philippines has made significant gains in addressing the issue of drug
trafficking in the country under President Benigno Aquino III, the government
needs to do more to drastically reduce the number of Filipinos lured into the
drug trade.
"Although the Philippine government takes the problems of drug trafficking and
drug abuse seriously, the lack of resources and effective investigative tools,
combined with a high degree of law enforcement corruption, continued to make
the Philippines vulnerable to exploitation by transnational criminal
organizations," it said.
(source: GMA News)
GAZA:
Palestine: Halt Execution of Gaza Child Offender; Hamas Should Fix Broken
Justice System, End Death Penalty
Press release
Imposing the death penalty for a crime committed by a child makes the
executions under Gaza's abusive justice system especially atrocious. If the
authorities want to deter criminals, they should make sure people are convicted
for what they did, not what they are tortured to confess.
Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip should halt the planned execution of a
prisoner who was a child at the time of a capital offense. Hamas should impose
an immediate moratorium on capital punishment, and move toward outright
abolition.
In an interview published on August 14, 2013, Gaza's prosecutor general, Ismail
Jaber, said that the Hamas council of ministers had approved the execution of a
convict "in the coming days." Jabr did not name the convict but his description
of the case indicates that the man to be executed is Hani Abu Aliyan, 28, whom
civil courts in Gaza convicted of 2 separate capital offenses. Abu Aliyan was
14 at the time of one of the crimes, and his lawyer told Human Rights Watch
that Abu Aliyan had confessed under torture. Jabr said that more executions
would follow and justified them as mandated by Islamic Sharia law to deter
"would-be criminals."
"Imposing the death penalty for a crime committed by a child makes the
executions under Gaza's abusive justice system especially atrocious," said Joe
Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "If the authorities
want to deter criminals, they should make sure people are convicted for what
they did, not what they are tortured to confess."
Human Rights Watch has previously documented that Hamas authorities in Gaza
executed prisoners who were convicted despite severe due process violations and
unfair trials. The convictions included cases of prolonged arbitrary detention,
credible allegations of torture, and convictions based primarily on coerced
confessions.
In his August 14 interview, published on the Gaza Interior Ministry website,
Jabr said that a number of officials and others would witness the execution,
which would be carried out "in a special place." He claimed that "the public is
very satisfied about [the death penalty]" and that "the only complaints come
from some of the human rights organizations." To these, he said, "we will not
pay attention" because "our religious tradition" requires capital punishment as
a deterrent. The authorities would carry out other executions "soon," once
appeals in the cases are exhausted, he said.
In separate hearings in May 2010, a first instance court in Khan Yunis
sentenced Abu Aliyan to life in prison for killing a boy and 14 years in prison
for sexually assaulting him in 2000, and to an additional life sentence for the
"involuntary murder" of an acquaintance to whom he owed money in 2009. Human
Rights Watch spoke briefly with Abu Aliyan in Gaza's central prison in
September 2012. He told Human Rights Watch that in the 2009 incident, he turned
himself in to the police in Khan Yunis after killing the acquaintance, Hazem
Ibrahim, during an argument.
The court noted that Abu Aliyan, born in 1985, was a child at the time of the
first 2 offenses and therefore could not be sentenced to death, in accordance
with article 13 of Juvenile Offenders Law of 1937. Abu Aliyan's lawyer, Ghazi
Abu Warda, contended that his client had confessed to the crime under torture,
but the court refused to exclude the confession, Abu Warda told Human Rights
Watch. "There were scars and bruises on his body," Abu Warda said. The
prosecutor general's office appealed both sentences as too lenient.
The appeal court sentenced Abu Aliyan to death for both killings in September
2012, and the Court of Cassation, Gaza's highest court, upheld the sentences in
July 2013.
If the Gaza government were to execute a person who was 14 at the time of his
crime, it would not only be violating its own law, it would also join the tiny
handful of countries that still execute child offenders, Human Rights Watch
said. Only 4 countries - Yemen, Sudan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia - are known to
have executed child offenders in the last 5 years.
The Hamas-run Gaza government is not internationally recognized as a state and
therefore cannot ratify international human rights treaties, but it has
repeatedly pledged to uphold human rights standards. The Convention on the
Right of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
specifically prohibit death sentences for anyone who was under 18 at the time
of the offense.
The Independent Commission for Human Rights, the official Palestinian rights
ombudsman, which monitors violations by the Palestinian Authority in the West
Bank and the Hamas authorities in Gaza, provided Human Rights Watch with a list
of 36 people sentenced to death in Gaza from February 2010 to June 2013. Of the
total, Gaza authorities have executed at least 6 men. Another 5 were sentenced
by military courts in absentia. Gunmen who have so far escaped punishment
publicly murdered 7 of the others, who were last seen in custody, in November
2012.
Human Right Watch believes that 14 of the men on the list are currently
awaiting appeals hearings, and two are on death row with no further appeals,
including Abu Aliyan and Jamil Zakariya Juha, 27. On December 6, 2010, a
military court sentenced Juha to death for being an accessory to murder during
fighting between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza in 2007. The Gaza military appeals
court upheld the sentence on February 14, 2012. Hamas authorities should
convert Abu Aliyan???s and Juha's sentences to prison terms, Human Rights Watch
said.
A military appeals court is scheduled on August 28 to hear defense witnesses in
the case of one of the 14 prisoners, Faraj 'Abd Rabu, 27, whom a military court
sentenced to death for collaborating with the enemy and being an accessory to
murder, on March 24, 2013. Abu Warda, who also represents 'Abd Rabu, told Human
Rights Watch that his client said he was tortured in custody by the Internal
Security Service.
The lawyer said that he did not observe bruises or other evidence of torture on
'Abd Rabu's body, but that inconsistencies in his client's confession indicated
that it was made under coercion.
Hamas authorities have executed at least 16 men in Gaza since 2010, according
to the Independent Commission for Human Rights and cases documented by Human
Rights Watch.
Gaza authorities have executed at least 3 of the 24 men sentenced to death by
military courts since 2010. On June 22, 2013, the Interior Ministry executed
Emad Mahmoud Abu Ghalyon and Hossein Yusif al-Khatib, for collaboration with
the enemy. According to Amnesty International, al-Khatib "reportedly confessed
after being tortured." On April 7, 2012, authorities executed by hanging Walid
Khaled Ismail Jerbo'a, for treason and complicity in murder.
Gaza authorities have also executed at least three of the 12 men sentenced to
death by civilian courts, including Na'el Jamal Qandil Doghmosh, on July 17,
2012, allegedly after "confessing" under torture by police investigators. On
April 7, 2012, the Interior Ministry executed by hanging Mohammed Baraka, 49,
for murder, and Mohamed Jamil 'Abdin, 20, for raping and killing a child.
(source: Human Rights watch)
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