Oct. 31
PAKISTAN:
Save Asia Bibi from execution in Pakistan
http://www.amnesty.org.au/action/action/35932/
(source: Amnesty International)
************************
Plan to return death row man Mohammad Asghar to UK
An Edinburgh man on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy could be transferred
back to the UK, the governor of the state of Punjab has said.
Mohammad Asghar, who suffers from a mental illness, was shot by a prison guard
earlier this year and is recovering in hospital.
Mohammad Sarwar, the former Glasgow MP who is now governor of Punjab, said "all
necessary measures" were being taken to guarantee Mr Asghar's safety and
regretted the ordeal he had suffered.
Mr Sarwar said: "We are trying to find some kind of middle way where we can
resolve this situation within the constitution and the laws of this country."
Mr Asghar, 70, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and was sentenced to death
under Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws after writing letters in which he
claimed to be the Prophet Muhammad. He has appealed against his sentence.
Mr Asghar's family have repeatedly called on Prime Minister David Cameron to
intervene and bring the grandfather home, including hand-delivering a
70,000-signature petition to Downing Street.
(source: Edinburgh News)
LEBANON:
18 suspected ISIL militants indicted in Lebanon
Lebanon has indicted 18 suspected members of the ISIL Takfiri militant group on
charges of planning to set up an emirate in the north of the Arab country.
The suspects, who were not identified and whose nationalities remain unknown,
are also accused of attacks on Lebanese army soldiers besides plotting to
occupy villages in the northern Dinniyeh region to establish an emirate. The
charges are punishable by the death penalty.
15 of the individuals are on the run.
Among the suspects is 46-year-old Ahmad Salim Miqati, who is a high-level
operative for the ISIL; he goes by the noms de guerre Abu Bakr and Abu al-Hoda.
He is accused of "taking part in operations against the army, inciting the
murder of its troops, stirring sectarian strife and possessing arms and
explosives."
Miqati's arrest last week sparked 3 days of deadly clashes between Lebanese
armed forces and gunmen in Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli, situated 85
kilometers (53 miles) north of the capital Beirut.
On Wednesday, Lebanese security forces exchanged fire with al-Qaeda-linked
militants in the Bekaa Valley near the border with Syria. Local sources said
the clashes erupted outside the towns of Deir al-Ghazal and Qusaya on Wednesday
when al-Nusra Front militants tried to infiltrate into Lebanon from Syria.
Over the past months, Lebanon has been suffering from terrorist attacks by
al-Qaeda-affiliated militants as well as random rocket attacks, which are
viewed as a spillover of the conflict in Syria.
Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with the ISIL Takfiri
terrorists currently controlling parts of it mostly in the east and north.
(source: Press TV)
IRAN:
55 executed in less than 2 weeks
Along with the anti-human crime of throwing acid into the faces of defenseless
women in Iran, the wave of executions in the cities across the country has
increased.
In the span of 12 days (October 18 to 29) at least 55 prisoners have been
executed in Iran. The real figure is much larger as the Iranian regime does not
provide information on every execution being carried out in numerous prisons
throughout the country.
A group of 17 prisoners were secretly hanged on Monday (October 27, 2014) in
city of Taybad in northeastern Iran and 47 others are on death row. These
executions followed the hanging of a group of 8 inmates on October 18 in the
same prison
10 more prisoners were secretly hanged in the central prison in the western
city of Orumiyeh, including Ebrahim Choupani, a severely mentally disturbed
prisoner who was hanged on October 29.
4 other prisoners were also hanged early in the morning of October 27 in the
same prison after another group of 5 were hanged on October 18 in a different
prison in the city known as Darya.
At the insistence of regime's officials, Rayhaneh Jabbari, a 26-year-old
student and decorator was executed on October 25 in Gohardasht Prison in the
city of Karaj after suffering 7 1/2 years of imprisonment. Mohammad
Ghorbanzadeh, a male prisoner, was also hanged along with Rayhaneh.
In Rasht, according to the official website of Gilan's province's judiciary, 9
people were executed between October 18 and 25 in that province, including a
citizen of Afghanistan who was hanged on October 18.
A group of 6 prisoners were secretly hanged on October 23 in Adel Abad Prison
in the city of Shiraz and 2 prisoners, including Dadkhoda Narouei, were
secretly hanged in city of Kerman's Shahab Prison.
On October 19, Fardin Ja'afarian, 18, was hanged in Tabriz. At the time of his
arrest and alleged crime he was 14. This unlawful hanging severely violates
many international conventions, including the Convention on the Rights of the
Child.
On that same day, a group of 8 prisoners were hanged in Ghezel Hessar Prison in
Karaj. Also, on October 21, 8 other prisoners were transferred to isolation to
await their execution.
The Iranian regime - known by the people as the "Godfather of ISIS" - faced
with the people's wrath and revulsion of the intensifying suppression in the
country and particularly following the recent wave of throwing acid onto
Iranian women and girls, has resorted to a surge in executions to increase
intimidation and fear in society
The executions are carried out with the approval and insistence of the most
senior officials of this regime.
Reacting to reports by international bodies condemning the violation of human
rights in Iran, Sadegh Larijani, the head of the regime's Judiciary, said: "The
more they attack us on the issue of human rights, the more resolute we become
in carrying out the verdicts," to state-run YJC.ir affiliated to the
Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) on October 15.
In an interview with CNN, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the regime's
Supreme Council for Human Rights, brazenly said: "The report by Ahmed Shaheed
[The UN Rapporteur on Situation of Human Rights in Iran] is neither credible
nor objective. Yes, we do have executions in Iran, but the majority of them
relate to narcotics and all the world, including the United States, and other
Western communities, benefit from Iran's combat against narcotics. Therefore,
the Western world should appreciate Iran's unilateral unrelenting war with
narcotic crimes."
Once again, the Iranian Resistance emphasizes that turning a blind eye to the
international community regarding the catastrophic situation of human rights in
Iran, will only embolden the criminals ruling that country. The only way to
confront this savagery is through the adoption of a firm policy with regard to
the religious dictatorship ruling Iran.
(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)
******************
Iranian official blames Western media for woman's execution
Iranian Human Rights Commissioner Mohammad Javad Larijani named Western media
campaigns as one of the chief reasons that the Iranian judiciary failed to
obtain consent from the family of the victim in the Reyhaneh Jabbari case.
Larijani, who is in Geneva to attend the Human Rights Council Universal
Periodic Review, told CNN on October 30 that Reyhaneh Jabbari's case was
investigated for 7 years. The case was brought before several judges who were
never convinced by her claim of self defence.
"All the judges that sat on her case in the past 7 years have ruled that she
has committed premeditated murder and her claims of self defence were not
convincing," Larijani said.
Jabbari was arrested at the age of 19 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali
Sarbandi. She was hanged last Saturday after a series of mediation sessions
with the family of the victim failed to yield a consent from the deceased's kin
to forego their right to Qesas and release her from execution.
Human rights activists had launched a campaign to stop her execution, drawing
widespread media attention to Jabbari's case.
(source: Radio Zamaneh)
FIJI:
Fiji to axe death penalty in military
Fiji's Chief Justice says the newly elected government will abolish the death
penalty from its military code next year.
Anthony Gates told the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva the
punishment has indirectly remained in the military code as a legacy of the
country's colonial history under the 1955 United Kingdom Army Act.
He says Fiji the death penalty was abolished in relation to all criminal
offences in 2001 and no one had been executed since the country's Independence
44 years ago.
"I am pleased to announce today that in the next session of parliament in the
new year the military code will be amended as a matter of priority to remove
the reference of death penalty altogether."
(source: Radio New Zealand)
BANGLADESH:
Amnesty International: Overturn Nizami's death penalty
The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and
can never be a way to deliver justice Amnesty International has urged
Bangladesh to overturn the death sentence against Jamaat Chief Motiur Rahman
Nizami. The UK-based rights group's Bangladesh Researcher Abbas Faiz made the
call in a statement published on the organisation's website on Wednesday.
Abbas Faiz said: "Bangladesh must overturn the death sentence against Motiur
Rahman Nizami and all others." "The death penalty is the ultimate cruel,
inhuman and degrading punishment and can never be a way to deliver justice."
On Wednesday, the International Crimes Tribunal awarded the death sentence to
Jamaat Chief Matiur Rahman Nizami for committing crimes against humanity during
the Liberation War in 1971. The statement said: "The crimes committed during
the independence war were horrific, and there is no question that victims
deserve justice. But the death penalty only perpetuates the cycle of violence."
"The death penalty is not only a violation of the right to life, but it is an
irreversible punishment, if it leads to execution, and leaves no room to
correct any possible judgment errors or fair trial violations from the
proceedings."
According to the statement, the verdicts, delivered by the ICT, targeted mainly
those linked with the Jamaat-e-Islami, while the trials themselves were
observed to be unfair.
"The ICT is a unique opportunity for justice and reconciliation in Bangladesh.
But in the face of consistent concerns raised by the defense team about the
trials not being fair it will only have the opposite effect and create more
resentment," the statement added.
(source: Dhaka Tribune)
INDIA:
Voices against death penalty, from 1931
On October 30, 86 years ago, Lala Lajpat Rai received lethal blows at the hands
of the British Police while protesting against the Simon Commission in Lahore.
In less than a month, Rai succumbed to injuries, and the nation plunged into
mourning. Some, like Bhagat Singh, vowed to do more than just mourn. To avenge
his death, Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev plotted and killed John Saunders, a
British police officer. For this, and other 'acts of terror', the radical
patriots were sentenced to death stoking a raging debate back home in Madras.
According to reports in The Hindu, the city???s intelligentsia strongly lobbied
against capital punishment, making it one of the few centres which championed
this progressive stance so vociferously as far back as 1931.
In a public meeting convened by the Madras Mahajan Sabha (MMS) on February 22,
a resolution was passed seeking the commutation of Bhagat Singh's death
sentence. More importantly, a plea to abolish judicial executions was put forth
by S. Muthulakshmi who was chairing the meeting. She said, "One act of
injustice cannot correct another, and (I) consider it a wrong and unjust law
that takes away a life of a man because he had taken that of another." S.
Narayanaswami Aiyar added "... as a people evolving towards a more humane and
civilised state of existence, they must also see the relic of barbarism removed
from the statute book."
The reportage of the vernacular press brought up the question of fair trials.
The Tamil newspaper Swadesamitran, for instance, wrote, "...the public demand
is not without justification. The accused have been convicted by a Special
Tribunal on the evidence of the prosecution alone. The accused did not get a
chance to defend themselves or cross-examine the prosecution witnesses."
Despite widespread support, Bhagat Singh and his comrades were sent to the
gallows on 23 March 1931.
In a public conclave organised on Tilak Ghat (Triplicane beach), Krishna Bai of
the MMS underlined that by upholding the death sentence, the British Government
was complicit in an act of brutality. "It means that the British Government
stands for violence...the government stands self-condemned in this act."
While the anti-death penalty campaign gained momentum in the State in an
institutionalised way in the early 1990's (in the aftermath of Rajiv Gandhi's
assassination), the precedent had been set much before independence.
(source: The Hindu)
CHINA:
China upholds death penalty for 3 who led mass stabbing in Kunming;
Intermediate court rejects appeals by terrorists convicted over railway station
incident in which 31 people were killed
A Chinese appeal court has upheld death sentences for 3 people convicted over a
mass stabbing this year in which 31 people were killed, say state media.
"The higher people's court of Yunnan province rejected Hasayn Muhammad's appeal
and upheld the penalty meted out by the Kunming municipal intermediate people's
court last month," Xinhua said in a dispatch from Kunming.
The intermediate court in the south-western Chinese city had convicted and
sentenced to death Muhammad and 2 others, Iskandar Ehet and Turgun Tohtunyaz,
for "leading a terrorist group" that planned and carried out the attack at the
city's railway station on 1 March. Though Xinhua mentioned only Muhammad's
appeal, it said the court upheld the sentences of the other 2 men as well.
In a separate report on its website, Xinhua said the court upheld a term of
life in prison for a pregnant woman also convicted for taking part in the
attack.
The next step in the judicial process is for the death sentences to be reviewed
by China's supreme court.
More than 140 people were injured during the incident in Kunming, in the
south-western province of Yunnan; state media called it "China's 9/11".
Beijing blamed the mass knifing on "separatists" from the resource-rich far
western region of Xinjiang, where at least 200 people have died in attacks and
clashes between locals and security forces over the past year. It was the
biggest ever violent incident against civilians outside the region. Incidents
have grown in scale and sophistication and have spread outside the restive area
since late last year.
Rights groups accuse China's government of cultural and religious repression
which they say fuels unrest in Xinjiang, bordered with central Asia. China
defends its policies, arguing that it has boosted economic development in the
area and that it upholds minority and religious rights in a country with 56
recognised ethnic groups.
(source: The Guardian)
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