Sept. 18
IRAN----execution
A prisoner hanged in public in Roodbar
A prisoner was publicly hanged in the city of Roodbar, north of Iran, on
Tuesday, September 17, according to the reports.
The prisoner identified as ShahabMa'afi, spent 17 years in prison.
The clerical regime ruling in Iran has executed at least 27 prisoners including
one woman and 2 youngsters, 18 and 23 years of age in past 2 weeks in various
cities of Iran. 5 of them including 2 youngsters were hanged in public in
Ghaemshahr, Ilam and Dehdasht.
(source: NCRI)
BANGLADESH:
'Khaleda's silence threat to democracy'
Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu deems the opposition BNP's silence over
the Supreme Court verdict sentencing Jamaat-e- Islami leader Quader Molla to
death is a threat to democracy.
Inu shared his thoughts on the issue with journalists at his Secretariat office
on Wednesday afternoon.
"The opposition leader Khaleda Zia???s silence following the Appellate
Division's verdict is mysterious. She has shown thumb to the rule of law. This
silence is a sad news for democracy and also a threat to it," observed Inu.
The Supreme Court turned the life term of Quader to a death sentence on
Tuesday.
Molla was given life term on Feb 5 for war crimes by International Crimes
Tribunal-2. Pro-liberation general people felt the verdict was lenient given
the severity of his war crimes. The verdict triggered a huge protest that led
to the amendment of ICT Act.
The death sentence was celebrated by almost all except the BNP and its allies.
Many even called for prompt execution of the verdict.
Referring to an article in the Constitution, Inu said 'subordinates' are bound
to accept a verdict delivered by the Appellate Division.
"She (Khaleda Zia) has shown her shameless support for war criminals by keeping
silence after the verdict. She has proved she does not care about the
sacrifices made by the martyrs, mother and sisters; she does not care about
justice."
Inu reminded people of the opposition leader's effort to render the tribunal
controversial nationally and internationally.
"The opposition leader's stubborn favour of war criminals can only be likened
to that of Pakistan's refusal to apologise for the 1971. She is also trying to
shelter the cleric who is an enemy to democracy, humanity and women."
"Break your (Khaleda Zia) silence, support the trial of the war criminals," Inu
asked the BNP chief.
(source: bdnews24.com)
PAKISTAN:
Pak clerics seek death penalty for false blasphemy accusations
Pakistan's top religious clerics today supported the continuance of the
country's controversial blasphemy law while proposing death penalty for people
convicted of making false accusations.
"Blasphemy law remains but we have decided to fix the same penalty for the
person who falsely accuses of blasphemy," scholar Allama Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi
told reporters.
Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan, where 97 % of the population
are Muslim.
Critics say the law is often used to settle personal scores and had suggested
that it be repealed.
The country's Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) suggested the government should
bring in the death penalty for people convicted of making false accusations of
blasphemy.
Ashrafi said this was done keeping in view the suggestions of human rights
activists and civil society members. This ruling he said will also silence the
critics.
Ashrafi said the proposed amendment would ensure that "nobody dares to use
religion to settle personal scores".
In 2011, Punjab governor Salman Taseer and Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti
were assassinated for demanding that the blasphemy law be reformed.
The council also reversed an earlier decision about the use of DNA as evidence
in rape cases, which it had refused to accept.
"The council has now left the matter of DNA evidence for the courts," Ashrafi
said.
(source: Business Standard)
INDIA:
Reap the whirlwind
Now that 4 of the men who were convicted for the Delhi gang-rape have been
sentenced to death, it is time to take the debate over punishment for rape to
the next stage. What if the victim had survived her ordeal? The law would not
have allowed the judge to sentence her rapists to death.
So, should we now amend the law to award the death penalty in cases of brutal
rape even when the charge stops short of murder? Also, what about the 5th
convict? While four of the rapists will go to the gallows, the fifth man will
spend less than 3 years in jail. Is it time to revise a system that allows
sexually active teenagers to commit rape with only the mildest of punishments?
The problem with any discussion about sentencing rapists to death is that it
quickly folds into the much larger debate over the death penalty itself.
Liberals argue that firstly, the State has no right to take life. The gift of
life may or may not come from God, but it certainly does not come from the
State and so, the State has no right to take it away. Secondly, there is a
utilitarian argument. There is no evidence that the death penalty is a
deterrent, so why kill convicts if it does no good?
These arguments are red herrings. Even if liberals oppose the death penalty,
the Constitution of India does not. Criminals and terrorists continue to be
hanged so the argument for executing rapists is not one about the death
penalty. It is an argument about the competing seriousness of crimes. When we
hang murderers but refuse to hang even the most brutal rapist, we are saying
that murder is much worse than rape.
But is it? My sense is that few Indians would argue that had the Delhi rape
victim survived, her rapists were guilty of a much lesser crime. Society has
now come around to the view that rape and other brutal crimes against women are
at least as serious as murder.
Besides, even the arguments against the death penalty can be challenged. If we
say that the State has no right to execute people because it did not give them
life then we are also admitting that our personal liberty is a gift from the
State.
If we grant the State the right to send people to jail then does this not
suggest that our personal liberty must be a gift from the State? Otherwise, how
could the State take it away from us? So, the philosophical argument against
the death penalty is a tricky one.
Even the utilitarian argument has its flaws. Opponents of the death penalty
usually show us statistics from European countries to demonstrate that murder
rates have not gone up after the abolition of the death penalty. Or they point
to the US where there is no significant difference in murder rates between
states that have the death penalty and those that do not.
The problem with this is that you can marshal similar statistics to demonstrate
that even prison is not a deterrent. Studies carried out in the US show that
prison does not even deter those who have been jailed once. Levels of
recidivism (repeat offences) are so high that it is clear that imprisonment is
not a deterrent. If we were to use the argument about the lack of deterrence
favoured by opponents of the death penalty, then we would have to abolish
prisons on exactly the same grounds.
That leaves a final argument against hanging rapists. Those who oppose hanging
argue that at present, rapists do not necessarily kill their victims. But if
they felt they might be hanged for rape, then they would murder the victims to
make identification difficult.
This is a curiously self-defeating argument. It suggests that a rapist will
leave his victim alive if the worst that can happen is that he will go to jail.
But the moment he fears that he might be hanged for the crime, he will take
steps to protect his identity.
For this argument to be valid, you have to accept that rapists fear the death
penalty more than they fear jail. And once you do that, you end up accepting
that death penalty must surely be the deterrent that its opponents deny that it
is. Clearly, rapists are more scared of being hanged than they are of going to
jail.
Having opposed the death penalty for rape for much of my life, I am now coming
around to the view that we must return to the traditional belief that
punishment is essentially retributive. Those who commit heinous crimes against
society must be punished. Perhaps, their punishment will deter others. Perhaps
it won't. But society must ensure that criminals get a punishment that is
proportionate to their crimes.
Which leaves us with the case of the juvenile rapist/murderer. Can anybody
think it is fair that he will be out on the street in under 3 years? The basis
of the law that protects juveniles from adult punishment is that children are
too immature to be responsible for their actions and that juvenile detention
offers scope for rehabilitation.
But can it be anybody's case that the teenage murderer was not as responsible
for his actions as his fellow rapists?
So, the law must be amended to prevent teenage rapists from escaping the
punishment that is their due. There are many ways of doing this: lowering the
age of responsibility to 16; making an exception for sex crimes; or allowing
the courts to decide if a juvenile can be tried as an adult.
We must recognise that one reason why crime is on the rise in our society is
because between police bungling, judicial delays and inadequate laws, criminals
rarely get punished. And a society that cannot punish those who damage it ends
up punishing itself.
(source: Vir Sanghvi; The views expressed by the author are
personal----Hindustan Times)
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