July 7
SINGAPORE:
Nuclear-related offences criminalised ---- The amendment to the Radiation
Protection Act will allow for the imposition of the death penalty for
nuclear-related offences that cause fatalities, said Environment and Water
Resources Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan.
A Bill to amend the Radiation Protection Act was passed in Parliament on Monday
(July 7). With the amendments, the Act will criminalise nuclear-related
offences, such as threatening to use nuclear material to harm the public, said
Environment and Water Resources Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan. He added that
the Government is most concerned about acts of sabotage against nuclear
facilities with the intention to cause harm or death.
Dr Balakrishnan said the Act allows for the imposition of the death penalty if
the action causes fatalities.
"Our view is that these punishments send an appropriately strong signal that
the government regards these as very grave offences. The provisions are
tightly-scoped and I want to assure the House that it does not extend the death
penalty beyond Singapore's existing legislation," he said.
There are no nuclear facilities in Singapore at the moment, so this aspect of
the Act prepares for future scenarios. It can also be used in a situation where
an incident happens in the region but the resulting radiation affects
Singapore.
The amendments move Singapore towards its accession to the Convention on the
Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, and its 2005 Amendments. Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the Republic would do so during his visit in
March to the 3rd Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague. Amendments to the
Radiation Protection Act are necessary for accession to the Convention.
The bill will make all nuclear offences extraditable crimes under Singapore's
Extradition Act. It will also give the National Environment Agency's
Director-General of Environmental Protection the power to request for
information from a transaction involving nuclear materials.
Some non-convention-related amendments have also been made to the Act, to
include the screening and decontamination of suspected "contaminated" inbound
passengers by authorised personnel.
The Act now formally requires Government agencies which possess and use
radioactive material and irradiating equipment, such as x-ray devices, to
obtain licences. Government agencies previously were required to obtain
licences administratively, but there was no legislative framework requiring
them to do so.
(source: Channel News Asia)
LEBANON:
Judge seeks death penalty for Syrian terror suspects
Military Investigative Judge Fadi Sowan demanded the death penalty Monday for 2
Syrian brothers charged with forming a gang linked to an Al-Qaeda-affiliated
terrorist group, the National News Agency reported.
The NNA said 1 of the suspects, Issam Mohammad Rabii, was in custody, while his
brother, Mahmoud Mohammad Rabii, was at large.
The 2 are accused of belonging, along with four other Syrians, to a group
linked to the Ziad Jarrah Brigades. They are accused of setting up a rocket
factory in Lebanon, preparing explosives and channeling arms to Syria.
If convicted, the suspects could face capital punishment.
Sowan referred the case to the military tribunal after issuing arrest warrants
against the 2 brothers and search and investigation warrants to discover the
identity of the four other Syrians.
(source: The Daily Star)
SURINAME:
Suriname moving to abolish death penalty
Suriname is moving to abolish the death penalty and has introduced legislation
it hopes would be approved in October to coincide with World Day Against the
Death Penalty.
The vice-chair of the National Assembly, Ruth Wijdenbosch, told the annual
general meeting of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in Puerto Rico
that the Dutch-speaking Caribbean Community (Caricom) country "will soon
abolish the death penalty".
"We are convinced that this bill will be adopted," Wijdenbosch said, stressing
that the abolition had bipartisan support.
The meeting in San Juan highlighted several key regional developments in the
fight against the death penalty, which remains on the criminal codes of many
countries in the Caribbean. There are currently 108 people on death row in
eight Caribbean countries.
Raphael Chenuil-Hazan of the Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty
reported that the authorities in Haiti, which has abolished the death penalty,
gave him assurances during a country visit in June that Port-au-Prince would
fast-track the ratification of the UN Protocol on the abolition of the death
penalty.
Suriname has not implemented the death penalty since 1927, but capital
punishment is still included in the country's Criminal Code.
Last March, Justice Minister Edward Belfort said that there was no need for the
death penalty, because as far as he could see, capital punishment was not
having the desired effects in the countries where it is applied.
"We leave the crimes people commit to their consciences; in the meantime we (do
our best to) catch them and bring them to justice," he said.
(source: Jamaica Observer)
ZIMBABWE:
10 months on death row: Man gives chilling account----A senior game ranger with
the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Maxwell Bowa (53) who escaped the
gallows after the Supreme Court quashed his death sentence is still to believe
that he is indeed a free man.
Bowa was convicted of shooting and killing poacher Lennon Nkosana (29) by the
High Court in Gweru in September last year.
But the Supreme Court last week set aside his conviction on appeal.
The Standard tracked him down to his rural home in Zvishavane where, after
expected skepticism and fear of being thrown back into the high walls of
prison, he opened up and shared his harrowing experiences while on death row at
Whawha prison.
For 10 months, Bowa waited with untold trepidation for his turn to face the
hangman's noose.
"I had never been in trouble with the law before and suddenly I was not only in
jail, but facing a death sentence," he said.
A pale shadow of his former self, Bowa is yet to come to grips with the fact
that he is now a free man.
"I'm still very afraid and worried that they will come and drag me back saying
it was all a mistake," he said.
Bowa, who is still suspicious of strangers, was initially unwilling to meet
with us for an interview.
"I was not sure of your intentions and was convinced they had sent you here to
just find ways to take me back," he said.
The soft-spoken Bowa is haunted by the ghosts of Whawha prison where he was in
solitary confinement 23 hours a day for almost a year. He still has nightmares
of the jail guards rattling his door and he wakes up in a cold sweat.
"Most of fellow inmates on death row have lost their minds. Many no longer have
hope nor the will to live," he said.
Bowa said there are some who have been on death row for 17 years.
"Most of the inmates committed their crimes in cold blood and it was scary when
they openly boasted about how they killed people during robberies or
carjacking," he said.
A typical day in his tiny cell started at 8 o'clock in the morning.
"We were given a 5 litre empty container to use as a toilet pan and early in
the morning we would queue up and dump our excrement in a toilet," Bowa said.
He experienced this dehumanising act for 10 months.
Bowa was also worried by the number of sick inmates and the neglect they
suffered.
"To be able to get medical attention, you needed to make a written application
to the officer in charge and if he sees it fit, you would then be granted
permission to be attended to," he said.
Bowa said many death-row prisoners were sick and he suspected the majority
suffered from HIV and Aids-related illnesses.
"There is gross neglect of prisoners especially those on death row. It is like
they are saying you will die anyway so why bother," he said as tears welled in
his eyes.
The loneliness and uncertainty of each day almost cost him his sanity.
"I prayed every day despite the fact that prior to my arrest I used to drink
and never acknowledged that there was God," Bowa said.
Breakfast consisting of porridge was served in the morning while lunch of
tasteless boiled cabbage or half-cooked beans was served at 11am.
The prisoners are allowed a few minutes to stretch their limbs in a small
concrete covered courtyard.
"We constantly grazed our knees on the hard concrete as we tried to jump around
and unwind. The exercise was critical as we spent a long time cramped in our
tiny cells," he said with a heavy tone.
"Supper would come at 2pm and that was when you said goodnight to each other
until the next morning,"
With no bed to sleep on but thin, lice-infested blankets, the prisoner sit or
squats in a corner seeking warmth from the cold cell.
"The cell is suffocating because it is so small and at times I would feel like
the walls would just squash me while I slept."
Bowa dreaded any sound from his door as that could mean that it was time to
face the hangman.
"After every 2 or so hours the guards would come and check if our doors were
locked and we always thought they had come to get us."
While in prison, he said the person he missed most was his youngest daughter
who was only 7 years old at the time of his arrest.
"I wondered how my family was faring in my absence and at times I would totally
give up on ever seeing my children again," Bowa said as he broke down and cried
openly.
Taking over the tale, his wife Elneth said she was allowed to see him after
every 2 weeks.
"On the day that he was sentenced, a part of me died. I do not know how I
crossed the busy roads because my mind was playing tricks on me," she said.
Elneth was to shoulder the burden of looking after their children while her
husband was in jail. Although she is grateful for the support from her fellow
church mates and relatives, she is saddened by the lost time and the strain it
put on her family.
"I remember being told to come and see him for the last time and he requested
that I also bring our youngest daughter," said Elnath.
That was the most traumatic visit for her and she returned home dejected and
without hope of ever seeing her husband again.
Her children were not doing so well and the tell-tale signs of stress began to
show. The youngest girl at some point refused to go to school, convinced her
father had been killed.
"My son who is doing A' level actually developed a mental problem because he
could not handle it," said Elneth.
Besides having nightmares about his time in prison, Bowa is angry that he was
treated like a hardcore criminal when he was only a family man fending for his
family.
"It is really not a question of how you react, but a question of survival. I
love my job but I also know of the dangers that come with it," he said.
According to the state outline, last year in June, Bowa and 10 other rangers
accompanied by police swooped on a hut that was believed to be housing poachers
in possession of ivory.
Nkosana bolted from the hut and Bowa pulled the trigger, shooting him at least
10 times as he fled, killing him.
The High Court convicted him of murder and sentenced him to death. However,
Supreme Court judge, Justice Paddington Garwe, sitting with Justices Vernanda
Ziyambi and Ben Hlatshwayo, last week found Bowa not guilty and acquitted him.
Currently, 97 inmates are on the death row after being convicted of various
offences but no execution has taken place since 2005 when armed robbers and
convicted murderers Edgar Masendeke and Stephen Chidhumo were hanged.
Death penalty has remained a hotly debated issue and during the crafting of the
new constitution human rights activists tried to get it scrapped saying it was
inhumane.
(source: The Standard)
SOUTH AFRICA:
Death penalty is wrong
The issue of whether SA should reintroduce the death penalty will always be in
the public discourse. Supporters of this vile form of punishment find
themselves faced with the eternal dilemma once again when confronted with the
Clive Derby-Lewis case: who must live and who must die?
As opponents of the death penalty, it was very easy for us to forgive
Derby-Lewis, his accomplice, Janusz Walus, and all others who have committed
unspeakable atrocities. But if supporters of it now want to lecture us about
forgiveness and mercy when they call for them to be paroled, it just reveals
their hypocrisy.
All over the world where the death penalty is practised, one can see the high
levels of violence.
This paper should be commended for reprinting the leading article, "Some sanity
on death row" (June 23), which appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Here one
could read where the death penalty can take a country.
Apparently, the San Quentin penitentiary in the state of California is creating
a 40-unit psychiatric ward for 37 out of 720 death row inmates going insane
after long periods of torturous incarceration.
Our country took the morally correct decision to abolish the death penalty once
and for all.
Koert Meyer----Welgelegen
(source: Letter to the Editor, Business Day Live)
ISRAEL:
Rabbi Levanon: Death Penalty for Killers of Arab Boy----Rabbi Elyakim Levanon
said that it would be proper to impose the death penalty on the killers of
Mohammed Abu Khder
Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, head of the Elon Moreh Yeshiva, said Sunday night that
the murderers of Mohammed Abu Khder should be given the death penalty - even if
they turn out to be Jewish. "Unfortunately it appears that Jews were involved
in this matter," Rabbi Levanon said to students on Sunday night. "Jewish law
has no mercy for the perpetrators of crimes like murder, whether of Arab or
Jew, whether by Arab or Jew."
While capital punishment exists under Jewish, law, it has not been customary
for Jewish courts in Israel to sentence convicts to capital punishment, ever
since the sentencing of Nazi extermination mastermind Adolf Eichmann in 1961.
However, said Rabbi Levanon, "even during a period like ours when there is no
authorized Court of Jewish Law to carry out capital punishments, it is possible
for an average court to impose a death sentence when there is a crime that
affects the public.
"In this case, it would be proper to impose the death penalty on the murders of
Abu Khder," Rabbi Levanon said. "We will thus fulfill the precept of 'You shall
remove the evil from your midst,' a Biblical command. Israel and its army and
security services, are required to fight terror mercilessly, until it is
removed from the world," he added.
Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi David Lau said that if anyone was to avenge the deaths
of Israeli teens Eyal Yifrah, Naftali Frenkel, and Gilad Sha'ar, it would be
G-d Himself. "Individuals do not have the right to take revenge for the death
of the innocent. Revenge is not a license given to the hot-blooded for
'action.' Revenge is a strong, destructive weapon, and if there is such a
concept in the world, it does not belong to humans," he added.
(source: Israel National News)
UGANDA/CHINA: Ugandans on death row in China named; parents weep
Relatives of Ugandans jailed in China are in a state of panic following reports
that more of them could be executed anytime soon.
Last week Uganda made news after two of its citizens were executed in China
over drug trafficking which fetches a death penalty once convicted.
A parent to 1 of the Ugandans on death row in China intimated to this reporter
that they had received news that 7 others would be executed soon.
The parent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said those in jail in China,
when contracted on phone, tell them they do not know their fate as they are not
informed of anything.
The worried parents are now beseeching government to intervene and save their
children who are still in their youth and losing them also hurts the country.
The list of Ugandans on death row includes the following:
1. George Bosco Tugumisirize, sentenced on October 16, 2012
2. Robert Baluku sentenced on Dec 13, 2012
3. Alfred Ssempewo sentenced on Feb 21, 2011.
4. Bako Maria Piara, sentenced on July, 5, 2010
5. Robinah Nakato- sentenced on March 10, 2011
6. Sandra Nalumansi sentenced on April 15, 2011
7. Josephine Mulimbi Kaczorowski sentenced on June 10, 2011
23 Ugandans serving life imprisonment
1. Jimmy Sendigya Kaboba jailed on December 21, 2011
2. Yasin Mahamood Bukenya jailed on December 22, 2011
3. Faridu Kalema jailed on April, 29, 2011
4. Tadoo Kirwana jailed on April 21, 2009.
5. Felix Robert Nsubuga Kabatoro jailed on May, 9 2012
6. William Nsubuga, jailed on Dec 21, 2011
7. Peter Bogere jailed on August 27, 2009.
8. Reagan Ssekajja jailed on Nov 17, 2009
9. Anthony Kalule jailed on Nov 19, 2009
10. Joseph Mulindwa Mukasa jailed on November 19, 2009
11. Isaac Jaggwe jailed on Oct 25, 2010.
12. Bonitor Naggayi jailed on Dec 12, 2008
13. Jean Ndawula Kirunda jailed on March 13, 2009
14. Lucy Awor Ocen jailed on April, 17, 2009
15. Annet Namisango jailed on May 20, 2009.
16. Habiba Musa jailed on May 20, 2009
17. Nalukwago Nambi jailed on Aug 13, 2009
18. Lillian Deborah Nakungu jailed on December 22, 2009
19. Gertrude Ndagire jailed on Oct 20, 2009
20. Sera Musoke jailed on March 11 20011
21. Stella Sewagaba jailed on Nov 11, 2011
22. Alex Nanyange jailed on Nov 11, 2011
23. Hindu Nantamu jailed on Dec 7, 2011
11 Ugandans serving sentences
1. Christine Nalubwama sentenced on May 15, 2008 is left with 6 years and 11
months.
2. Lucky Bako sentenced on April 17, 2009 is left with 17 years and 9 months
3. Sarah Nakayiza sentenced on December 24, 2009, is left with 18 years.
4. Aminsi Maliro sentenced on December 21, 2011 is left with 12 years
5. Jason Mukiibi sentenced on September 3, 2007 is left with 17 years.
6. Val Musa Kisa sentenced on June,2 2008 is left with 15 years and 3 months
7. Ausi Muyibwa sentenced on June, 2, 2008 is left with 16 1/2 years.
8. Nassur Salim sentenced on June 3, 2008, is left with 16 1/2 years
9. Ssaalongo Ibraimu Kaweesa sentenced on June 3, 2008 is left with 15 years
and 1 month
10. David Maria sentenced on May,6 2010 is left with 17 years and 2 months
11. Ayub Bisaso sentenced on June, 30, 2010, is left with 17 years and 2 months
Convicts jailed in Guangdong and Dongguan
Isaac Jjagwe is serving a life sentence for drug trafficking
Mildred Natuhumuza, a daughter to Justus Byamuhangi and Robinah Byamuhangi of
Kigango, Karuhembe, was arrested in Hong Kong in February 2011 and sentenced on
November 23, 2011. She is expected out of jail in 2015.
She is serving her sentence at a Correctional Service Department, Wanchai
Tower, 12 Harbour Road, Hong Kong
Aggrieved parents beg for help
Jane Nantale has 2 children; Tonny Kalule and Angella Nanfuka serving sentences
in China.
"My children had finished studies and were told they were going to work but the
next thing I knew they in jail. I cannot express the pain I am going through as
a parent but I am beseeching the government to intervene so my children are
spared.
Some parents have sought the help of MPs like Betty Nambooze to be heard.
Nambooze says all she can do is ask government to feel the parents' pain and
dialogue with their Chinese counterparts to help Ugandans jailed there.
Conservative Party president and Lubaga central MP John Ken Lukyamuzi however
has expressed discontent towards government following the execution of Andrew
Ngobi and Damulira and others on death row in China.
He also condemned parliament for not doing enough to help Ugandans abroad yet
when one of the MPs was arrested in India they were quick to swing on action.
In the wake of the execution of 2 Ugandans last week Justice and Constitutional
affairs minister cautioned people to respect the sovereignty of other countries
because they have their own laws.
How Ugandans get trapped
Like all employment agencies that connect those seeking greener pastures
outside the country, most Ugandan youth venture into China after their studies
to teach English which is a well-paying job.
However they unsuspectingly carry luggage concealing drugs to deliver to
people's relatives in China.
Some have been fortunate to arrive in China and their final destination without
incident while others have been unlucky as was the case of singer Iryn
Namubiru.
Those who are arrested in China are confronted by language barriers and failure
to access lawyers. Before you know what is happening you are arraigned in court
and sentenced.
Death row survivor speaks out
Patrick Lwanga Zizinga who spent 12 years on death row narrates his ordeal:
"The judge told me I was guilty and sentenced me to death. While I was still
digesting those words the judge told those in court to rise and pray for me.
As prayers commenced I suddenly felt my head swelling and I burst into tears as
I realised my end had come.
I thought of my children, mother, friends and every achievement I had made in
my young life.
For 2 months, I cried every time that damning sentence of the judge rang in my
head. I cannot explain that feeling in words but what I certainly understand
what those Ugandans in China on death row are going through.
To date I still suffer the splitting headache and ulcers I felt the day my
sentence was read to me.
(source: New Vision)
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