June 26
SRI LANKA:
Death Penalty to 3 individuals who involved in Homicide in Nuwara Eliya.
The Nuwara Eliya High Court has imposed death sentence on 3 persons accused and
convicted of a homicide.
The death sentence has thus been imposed on 3 persons found guilty in
connection with a killing that had taken place in an estate in Lindula in
Nuwara Eliya in 1993.
The person thus killed was a 35 year old mother of 2, resident at the Lindula
-Logi estate.
While the relevant case was called for hearing yesterday before Nuwara Eliya
High Court Judge W. M. Lalith Ekanayake, the verdict was given with the
unanimous approval of the 7-member Tamil jury.
While 10 persons were charged with regard to the murder, 3 more defendants were
sentenced to imprisonment with heavy labour.
(source: Hiru News)
EGYPT:
Sexual assault trial adjourned to June 29----12 suspects are to be tried on
charges of kidnapping, rape and attempted murder
An Egyptian court Wednesday adjourned a trial of 12 suspects in a series of mob
sexual assaults that occurred earlier this month in Cairo's iconic Tahrir
Square. The trial was pushed to June 29. The suspects, tried in 5 separate
cases, are charged with kidnapping women, trying to rape them, physical
beating, attempted murder and forcible theft during mass celebrations held in
Tahrir to mark the election win and inauguration of former defence minister
Abdul Fattah Al Sissi as a president.
Following a procedural session, chief judge Mohammad Al Fiqi of the Cairo
Criminal Court ordered the hearing held behind closed doors to cross-examine
witnesses.
The defendants are aged between 16 and 49 years. They pleaded not guilty at the
beginning of the session.
If convicted, they could face the death penalty.
The attacks, which occurred on June 3 and 8, triggered an outrage inside and
outside Egypt and prompted Al Sissi to visit one victim at a hospital where he
vowed a tough crackdown on sexual harassment.
The assaults occurred days after Egypt made sexual harassment a crime
punishable by a maximum 5 years in prison.
Egypt has experienced a sharp increase in street sexual offences since the
police system collapsed at the peak of a 2011 revolt against the regime of
president Hosni Mubarak. Tahrir, the epicentre of the anti-Mubarak uprising,
has since seen several mass sexual attacks.
A UN report released last year found that 99.3 % of women in Egypt have been
subjected to sexual harassment.
(source: Gulf News)
IRAN----executions
11 hanged in Ghezelhessar prison
A group of 11 prisoners were hanged on Thursday in A prison in Karaj.
The 11 men were between 25 to 40 years old. They have been identified as Mehdi
Aalaie, Karim Azizzadeh, Bahram Rezvan Panah, Karim Ghorbani, Davood Karami,
Khosravi, Gholami, Islam and Siamak Heydari.
Nearly 800 recorded executions in the 1st year of Hassan Rouhani's presidency.
The high rate of arbitrary group executions in Iran during the past year shows
that the so-called 'moderation' of the Iranian regime is nothing more than a
mirage.
(source: NCR-Iran)
***********************
2 Prisoners Hanged in Iran Wednesday-
2 prisoners were hanged in the prison of Rajaishahr (Karaj, west of Tehran)
early yesterday morning. According to sources Iran Human Rights (IHR) has been
in contact with, the prisoners were identified as Mehrdad Bagheri (from ward 6)
and Benjamin (ward 4). Both prisoners were convicted of murder. These
executions haven't been announced by the official Iranian media.
According to the "Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran" (HRDAI) 12
prisoners of the Ghezelhesar prison (Karaj) have been transferred to solitary
confinement and are scheduled to be executed today. Some of the prisoners had
visits from their families for the last time, said the report.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
********************************
U.N. appeals to Iran not to execute woman for crime as a teenager
The U.N. human rights chief appealed to Iran on Thursday not to execute a woman
convicted of murdering her husband at age 17.
Razieh Ebrahimi, imprisoned in Ahwaz, is among some 160 people thought to be on
death row in Iran for crimes committed before they turned 18, U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement.
More than 250 people are believed to have been executed in Iran this year,
Pillay said.
"The imminent execution of Razieh Ebrahimi has once again brought into stark
focus the unacceptable use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders in
Iran," she said.
Ebrahimi was married at 14 and gave birth to a child a year later. She says
that her husband subjected her to domestic violence, according to the
statement. She was arrested in 2010.
"Regardless of the circumstances of the crime, the execution of juvenile
offenders is clearly prohibited by international human rights law," said
Pillay, a former international judge.
Jannat Mir, a 17-year-old Afghan, was hanged in April in Isfahan prison in Iran
for drug-related crimes, she said, raising concerns about whether he had a fair
trial, because he was said not to have had access to a lawyer or consular
services. Five other Afghans were executed with him for similar offences.
4 "political prisoners" from the Kurdish minority - named as Hamed Ahmadi,
Kamal Malaee, Jahangir Dehghani and Jamshed Dehghani - are also at imminent
risk of execution, Pillay said.
They were convicted in 2010 on charges of Moharebeh (enmity against God) and
Mofsid fil Arz (corruption on earth) after trials that fell short of the
international fair trial standards, she said.
At least 6 political prisoners are among more than 250 people believed to have
been executed in Iran this year, while some sources suggested a "considerably
higher figure", she said.
Most of the executions were for drug-related offences, which do not meet the
threshold of "most serious crimes" for which the death penalty may be applied
in international law, Pillay said.
At least 500 people are known to have been executed in Iran in 2013, including
57 in public, she said.
President Hassan Rouhani has failed to fulfil campaign promises to allow
greater freedom of expression and there has been a sharp rise in executions
since his election, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in March.
The U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday called on all states to ensure that
the death penalty is not imposed for crimes committed by under-18s and to work
toward abolition of the death penalty.
China, India, Japan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were among member states voting
against the resolution brought by the European Union on behalf of a group of
sponsors at the forum.
It was adopted by 29 states in favor, with 10 against and 8 abstentions. Russia
and the United States abstained.
"We cannot agree with the slant of this resolution in favor of a moratorium or
abolition, nor with the generality expressed that use of the death penalty
inevitably leads to violations of human rights," U.S. ambassador Keith Harper
told the talks.
(source: Reuters)
NIGERIA:
Death Penalty For Rapists Won't Work - Ibitara
A human rights activist, Adenike Ibitara, on Wednesday declared that the
recommendation of death penalty for persons guilty of rape of minors by the
National Conference would not stop perpetrators of the crime from committing
such.
Ibitara, who is the Head, Human Rights Unit, Justice Development and Peace
Commission (JDPC), stated this in an interview with newsmen in Ibadan.
"I doubt if death sentence will prevent the crime of rape, especially as it has
not stopped armed robbery, which the law says should be punished with death,"
she said.
She said that instead of focusing on punishment for the offence, the weak
processes of apprehending offenders should be strengthened.
According to her, rapists get away with the crime because it is still very
difficult to prove a rape case in the country.
Victims are rarely interested in pursuing the case, probably because of the
stigmatisation attached and the monetary involvement of settling medical bills.
"Before the crime is reported, evidences are erased as the victim must have had
her bath, and again, family members hardly support the crime being reported to
the police.
"At the end, rapists get away scot-free and it is who you apprehend that you
will sentence," she said.
Ibatara therefore called for improvement of medical investigation to help solve
rape cases.
"The DNA of the semen sample and other related evidences can be resolved
through medical investigation, but unfortunately, we still have a long way to
go on this," she said.
(source: Daily Times)
******************
2 Juveniles On Death Row In Lagos Set Free
After spending 10 years in prison and 5 years on death row, the Court of Appeal
in Lagos, on Thursday discharged and acquitted Sopuruchi Obed and Otobong
Sunday Edet who were convicted and sentenced to death for armed robbery by the
Lagos State High Court on 29 August 2009.
They were barely 17 years old when arrested on September 30, 2004 on
allegations by Police at Igando police station that they were part of a group
of young men seen by a police informant spending lavishly at a beer parlour,
and overheard boasting of their unlawful escapades.
No one testified of being robbed by any of them. On those allegations, they
were arrested, charged and eventually convicted.
Following the appeal against their conviction and sentence filed in 2011 by
LEDAP - Legal Defence & Assistance Project, a panel of Justices of the Court of
Appeal, Lagos Division unanimously allowed their separate appeals and set aside
their conviction and sentence. The court resolved 2 out of 3 issues raised for
determination in the appeal in their favour.
In particular, the court found that the evidence of the prosecution witnesses
were mere hearsay and that the vital evidence required to prove the charges
were not provided by the prosecution. Moreso, at the time of the incident, Mr.
Obed and Mr. Otobong were under-aged persons who ought to have been taken to
Juvenile Court rather than a High Court. The justices of the Court of Appeal
decried the High Court for not making detailed inquiry into the ages of the
appellants.
Under the Nigerian law, persons under the age of 17 years have diminished
criminal responsibility and those under the age of 18 years must be treated as
children and only tried at the Family or juvenile courts in accordance with the
Child Rights Act or Laws.
Incidents of charging and trying juveniles in adult courts are rampant in
Nigeria, and there is little or no hesitation with many trial courts sentencing
them to death, despite provisions of the law prohibiting sentencing persons
under the age of 18 years, insane persons or pregnant women to death.
In a 2008 joint report by LEDAP and Amnesty International titled "Nigeria:
Waiting for the hangman" it was reported that nearly 46 of the 1200 or so death
row prisoners in the country's 10 maximum security prisons could be children at
the time the alleged offences were committed and at the time of their
convictions. The situation remains the same today. Most of the condemned
juveniles have been convicted based on questionable confessional statements
obtained by the Police upon their arrests.
Commenting on the judgment today, and deprecating the continued use of death
penalty in the country with its high risk of mistaken convictions, Mr. Chino
Edmund Obiagwu, the lawyer to Mr. Obed and Mr. Otobong, said that "this case
presents another opportunity for deep soul-searching by our criminal justice
leaders and legislators on continued imposition of death sentences in the
country with such imperfect criminal justice system, which range from poor
police investigation to inefficient prosecution and unduly protracted trial
processes. Nearly 7 out of every 10 death penalty appeals that LEDAP has
handled in the last 2 years have resulted in the acquittal of the appellants,
suggesting a very high rate of wrongful capital convictions."
LEDAP called on the Nigerian Government to reconsider its stand on the use of
capital punishment by abolishing the death penalty and replacing same with life
imprisonment or other humane alternatives.
(source: channelstv.com)
GHANA:
Ghana referendum will abolish death sentence, weaken President's war powers
Ghanaians would soon be called upon to decide in a referendum on the three
critical reviews of portions of the 1992 constitution which are abolition of
the death penalty, declaration of war by the President and the swearing-in of
the President before parliament by the chief Justice.
The proposed amendments will replace the death penalty with life imprisonment
whilst the declaration of war by the President will be subjected to
parliamentary approval within 72 hours with two-thirds majority endorsing and
that the President, under certain circumstances, should be sworn-in anywhere
not before Parliament but by a high court judge.
Mrs. Estelle Appiah, a member of the Constitution Review Implementation
Committee (CRIC), said this at the Central Regional edition of CRIC's regional
stakeholder briefing on the recommendations for amendments of the constitution
held at Elmina.
Mrs. Appiah said the referendum would be held alongside the local and district
assembly elections to cut down cost and at least 40 % of the total voting
population was expected to take part out of which 75 % votes would validate a
particular position.
The entrenched constitutional provisions required a referendum where the
general public would have a say, while those made under the non-entrenched
clauses only required representatives of the people in parliament to endorse.
Other recommendations for amendment under the entrenched clauses are that the
Prerogative of Mercy in offences such as high treason, armed robbery, murder
and narcotic related offences would no longer be a reserve for the President
but be determined by an independent committee to reduce favouritism and abuse
of that power on the part of the President.
The Director of Programmes of the National Commission for Civic Education, Mr.
Samuel Akowah Boateng, said the review was to strengthen the constitution to be
practicable and urged the public to go out in their numbers and vote during the
referendum.
Some participants at the briefing raised concerns about certain aspects of the
review such as the abolition of the death penalty and the declaration of war
arguing that the abolition of the death penalty could lead to high armed
robbery cases.
(source: VibeGhana.com)
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