July 23
ZIMBABWE:
Amnesty International urges Zim to follow trend and abolish the death penalty
Zimbabwe on Wednesday marked a decade without executions of prisoners on death
row, something Amnesty International (AI) described as a "milestone" towards
protection of the right to life and the eventual abolition of the death penalty
in the country.
Although the country carried out its last execution on 22 July 2005, there are
still 95 prisoners on death row.
In a statement, AI said it was high time Zimbabwe declared an official
moratorium on executions and totally abolished capital punishment.
Deprose Muchena, the organisation's director for Southern Africa, said the
death penalty was a violation of the right to life, adding that Zimbabwean
authorities must take urgent steps to abolish it.
"10 years without an execution is a notable milestone on the road to the
abolition of the death penalty, but the shadow of the gallows still looms for
95 prisoners currently on death row," he said.
Speaking at an even to mark the Anti-Death Penalty Day last October then
Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said no executions would be carried out
under his watch.
"I want to pronounce myself clearly that the death penalty is the ultimate
denial of human rights and a cold blooded and abhorrent killing of a human
being by the state in the name of justice." he said.
Mnangagwa has since been promoted to vice president but still retains charge of
the justice ministry.
His strong position against the death penalty probably stems from the fact that
he came within a whisker of being hanged by Ian Smith's regime during the
liberation war, only to be saved by his age.
The new Constitution, enacted in 2013, abolished mandatory death sentences and
limited capital panishment to cases of murder "committed in aggravating
circumstances".
The Constitution bars death sentences for women and men aged under 21 or over
70 at the time of committing a crime.
Muchena said there is no evidence that the death penalty is more of a deterrent
to crime than other forms of punishment.
"The world is moving away from the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading
punishment," he said.
"Zimbabwe should permanently dismantle its machinery for execution and join the
majority of the world's countries by abolishing capital punishment.
"More than 100 countries around the world have abolished this cruel form of
punishment and many more countries are abolitionists in practice.
Seventeen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, Burundi, Cape
Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritius, Madagascar,
Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, South
Africa and Togo have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
In addition several other African countries have also taken legislative steps
towards abolishing death penalty for all crimes.
(source: newzimbabwe.com)
ZAMBIA:
Experts praise death penalty amnesties
2 UN human rights experts have welcomed a decision by Zambian President Edgar
Lungu to commute the death sentences of 332 prisoners to life terms.
The UN Special Rapporteurs on summary executions, Pretoria University professor
Christof Heyns, and on torture, Argentine lawyer Juan Mendez, urged the Zambian
authorities "to take a step further by removing all reference to the death
penalty in the country's laws".
Lungu commuted the sentences after his visit to Mukobeko Maximum Security
Prison, which has a capacity of 51 inmates, but houses hundreds.
"This decision is in line with the trend in Africa - as in the rest of the
world - to move away from the death penalty. As the secretary-general of the UN
has said, there is no room for this form of punishment in the 21st century,"
Heyns said. Mendez said:
"By commuting these death sentences, Zambia puts a stop to mental and physical
pain and suffering."
However, the experts warned of continuing areas of concern regarding the death
penalty in Africa.
In Egypt, they noted, hundreds of defendants at a time are sentenced to death
in unfair mass trials.
"Even though the execution rate is lower, these trials clearly do not meet
international standards," they said.
Gambia also has a worrying situation, they observed, after abruptly ending a
longstanding moratorium and hanging 9 people in 2012, it has now been proposed
that the number of offences punishable by death be expanded.
"This proposal, if adopted, would be in stark contrast to the trend away from
capital punishment elsewhere on the continent," the 2 experts stressed.
A ruling of the Constitutional Court led to the abolition of the death penalty
in South Africa on June 6, 1995, following a 5-year and 4 month moratorium from
February 1990.
South Africa carried out its last execution with the hanging in November 1989
of Solomon Ngobeni who was convicted of robbing and stabbing a taxi driver.
The last woman executed was Sandra Smith, on June 2 that same year, along with
her boyfriend Yassiem Harris, after a murder conviction.
The UN independent experts noted that Lungu's decision supports previous steps
towards the abolition of capital punishment in Zambia. A presidential
moratorium on the death penalty has been in place since 1997.
However, they called on Zambian authorities to vote in favour of the UN General
Assembly's resolution calling for a global moratorium, rather than abstaining,
as they have in the previous 4 votes.
The special rapporteurs said 3/4 of world states have abolished the death
penalty in law or in practice.
The same applies to Africa. Last year, only 4 states are known to have
conducted executions.
Earlier this month, Togo became Africa's 12th state party to the 2nd Optional
Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at
the abolition of the death penalty. The African Commission on Human and
Peoples??? Rights has consistently called for the abolition of the death
penalty for the past 2 decades and has drawn up a protocol to this effect.
"If it is adopted soon by the African Union and opened for ratification, it
will give new emphasis to putting the death penalty era behind us," the UN
experts said.
(source: IOL news)
THAILAND:
Koh Tao murder trail: Lawyer claims police failed to check CCTV----The defence
lawyer in the Koh Tao murder trial said police had not examined CCTV footage
near where 2 Brits were killed in September.
Thai police failed to check CCTV footage from the only pier on the island where
a pair of British tourists were murdered last year, a lawyer for the 2 Myanmar
nationals accused of the killings said Thursday (Jul 23).
Migrant workers Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun are on trial for the murder of
24-year-old David Miller and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on
southern Koh Tao island in September.
Both men have pleaded not guilty and face the death penalty if convicted over a
case which has tarnished Thailand's reputation as a tourist paradise and seen
the police accused of bungling the investigation.
Under cross-examination Thursday a senior investigating police officer, Colonel
Cherdpong Chiewpreecha, told a Koh Samui court that CCTV footage from the pier
had not been examined after the double murders.
The pier is close to the beach were the battered bodies of the British
holidaymakers were found and is the main route to and from the resort island.
"I asked whether police checked CCTV footage. He (the witness) replied no and
that police had collected the footage but investigators thought it wasn't
relevant," defence lawyer Nakhon Chomphuchat told AFP after the morning
session.
The defence also alleged that a small boat was seen leaving the island shortly
after the killings but the officer was unable to confirm this information.
Prosecutors have argued that DNA evidence implicates the two Myanmar migrants
but the defence says an under-pressure police force have coerced confessions,
later retracted, from the pair.
Attempts by the defence to independently test some of the key forensic evidence
against their clients were thwarted after police told an earlier hearing that
the samples had been used up.
The battered bodies of Miller and Witheridge were found on the sleepy diving
island of Koh Tao on September 15.
Police say Miller had been struck by a single blow and left to drown in shallow
surf while Witheridge had been raped and then beaten to death with a garden
hoe.
Among a litany of apparent mistakes in the hours after the grisly discovery,
Thai police were criticised for failing to secure the crime scene or close the
pier.
The Myanmar pair are being tried on Koh Samui, near to Koh Tao. Reporters are
not allowed to take notes during the trial which is expected to reach a verdict
in October.
(source: channelnewsasia.com)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime hangs 10 prisoners collectively
The clerical regime in Iran on Wednesday hanged 10 prisoners collectively in
Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, west of the Iranian capital Tehran.
This shocking group execution in Gohardasht, also known as Rajai Shahr Prison,
comes a week after the henchmen of the religious dictatorship raided and
harassed inmates in the notorious prison.
The Iranian regime's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is trying in vain to make up
for the retreats he was forced to make last week in the nuclear projects, by
severely violating human rights in order to to salvage his hegemony and grip on
power.
Since mullah Hasssan Rouhani took office as President, more than 1,800
prisoners have been executed in Iran.
Turning a blind eye by the international community, especially the European
Union and the United States, regarding the catastrophic human rights situation
in Iran emboldens the mullahs' regime to step up suppression and slaughter the
Iranian people. Any relations with the Iranian regime have to be contingent
upon improvement of the situation of human rights in Iran, including the
release of all political prisoners.
(source: NCR-Iran)
***********************
Post Iran Deal and Ramadan: Nine Prisoners Charged with Murder Executed in
Rajai Shahr Prison
According to close sources, on Wednesday morning 9 prisoners charged with
murder were hanged to death in Rajai Shahr Prison.
On the same day in Rajai Shahr 14 prisoners from various wards were transferred
to solitary confinement. It is believed the Iranian authorities intend to
execute them next. According to IHR's sources, some of the prisoners
transferred to solitary confinement were pardoned by the plaintiffs on their
respective cases while 2 more had their death sentences called off pending a
retrial. Iran Human Rights is aware of the names of 3 of the prisoners sent to
solitary confinement: Hossein Yazdani (from Ward 1), Albolalhassan Mousavi
(from Ward 2) and Amir Salehi (from Ward 6).
Iran Human Rights and other human rights NGOs had feared the Iranian
authorities would resume with the execution of prisoners after the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan.
Wednesday's group executions demonstrate no signs of change in improvement for
the human rights situation in Iran post Iran Deal. The Iranian authorities are
continuing with their policies of executing prisoners and spreading fear and
terror among Iranians.
"We call on the international community to put human rights, particularly
executions in Iran, at the top of their agenda in talks with Iran," says
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, executive director of Iran Human Rights.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
**************
Executions in Iran could top 1,000 this year, says Amnesty International ----
Human rights charity says 694 people have been put to death in the last six
months, nearly matching the toll for the whole of 2014
Iran is thought to have executed nearly 700 people in the 1st half of 2015,
according to reports compiled by Amnesty International that far exceed the 246
deaths officially declared by authorities in Tehran.
The human rights charity says "credible reports" put the true toll for the
period up to 15 July at 694 people, the equivalent of 3 executions a day, and
nearly as many as were put to death in Iran in the whole of 2014.
Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and
North Africa programme, said: "Iran's staggering execution toll for the 1st
half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state
carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale.
"If Iran's authorities maintain this horrifying execution rate we are likely to
see more than 1,000 state-sanctioned deaths by the year's end.
"The use of the death penalty is always abhorrent, but it raises additional
concerns in a country like Iran, where trials are blatantly unfair."
Even during the month of Ramadan, when executions are usually suspended,
Amnesty reports at least four people were put to death.
According to a report published in March by Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special
rapporteur on Iran, at least 753 people were executed in 2014, a 12-year high.
Shaheed called for "a moratorium on executions", noting that most executions
were for drug-related crimes, as well as adultery, sodomy and "vaguely worded
national security offences".
Amnesty said such charges did not meet international legal standards, which
permit the death penalty only for the "most serious crimes". Most of those
executed so far in 2015 had faced drugs charges, the charity said.
China carries out the most executions each year, but Iran puts to death more
people per capita than any other country.
Several thousand people are believed to be on death row in Iran, although
authorities there do not release exact figures.
In June, Atena Daemi, an anti-death-penalty activist who had engaged in
peaceful protests, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
(source: The Guardian)
GLOBAL:
The death penalty is a Commonwealth problem ---- The Commonwealth lags behind
global trends on abolition, but taking an official stance against the death
penalty would put it back on the international stage.
Last year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared: "The death
penalty has no place in the 21st century."
But it appears that many leaders of the 53 Commonwealth countries - who will
gather in Malta for their biennial meeting in November - didn't get that memo.
9 of these leaders head governments that regularly execute their own citizens.
26 more hail from states that are abolitionist "in practice" but retain capital
punishment in their legal code. The organization's most-populous countries -
India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh - have all hanged prisoners in the past
3 years.
The Commonwealth consists largely of former colonies of the United Kingdom - a
nation that, while expanding its empire across the globe, sanctioned hundreds
of executions under the infamous "Bloody Code". Yet, while the UK itself
abolished capital punishment in the 1960s, the brutal legacy of imperial
justice lives on in the legal systems of dozens of now-independent countries.
This group of states has lagged markedly behind global trends towards abolition
of the death penalty. While 19 countries have barred capital punishment in the
past decade, bringing the total number of abolitionist states to 103, only 2
were members of the Commonwealth. The share of fully abolitionist countries is
nearly 45% lower within the Commonwealth than outside it.
The Commonwealth Caribbean is particularly at odds with regional norms. Nearly
2/3 of the countries with death penalty laws in the Western Hemisphere are
members of the Commonwealth.
The picture is not exactly encouraging elsewhere in the world. In Asia, not a
single member state has abolished the death penalty. In Africa, the region with
the highest number of Commonwealth countries, only 1/3 have abolished it.
This year may prove to be the deadliest in recent memory. Last December, in the
wake of the Peshawar school massacre, Pakistan partially lifted its moratorium
on executions for terrorism charges; in March, the ban was ended entirely. The
country has executed more than 100 individuals since December, making it one of
the world's most-frequent executioners.
In addition, the Maldives and Papua New Guinea, neither of which has executed a
prisoner since the 1950s, have both taken legislative steps to resume hangings
this year. The government of Trinidad and Tobago has also announced its desire
to reintroduce executions.
But could there be a Commonwealth remedy to this disproportionately
Commonwealth problem?
Anti-death penalty activists should look to the continent hosting the Heads of
Government Meeting this autumn for inspiration. Europe leads the world in
abolitionism: of its 49 independent states, all but one has ended the use of
capital punishment.
This remarkable accomplishment is due in part to a decades-long effort to make
opposition to the death penalty a pan-European value - and to enshrine that
commitment at the intergovernmental level. In 1983, the European Convention on
Human Rights was amended with a protocol barring the death penalty except in
wartime. In 1998 this prohibition was made total. Abolition of the death
penalty is a prerequisite for membership in the Council of Europe, which led
directly to the moratorium on its use in Russia in 1996. Additionally, EU
members are now legally bound by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the
European Union to refrain from capital punishment.
While Europe has led the way, intergovernmental efforts in other regions of the
world have confirmed this growing global consensus. In the Americas, the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has been a prominent pro-abolition
voice, and was responsible for the removal of capital punishment from
Argentina's military code. In Africa, where the use of capital punishment has
declined markedly in recent years, the African Commission on Human and People's
Rights is slated to propose a protocol to the African Union???s primary human
rights document, which would call for full abolition on the continent. Few
abuses strike at the core of 'the dignity of all human beings' and the
'universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated' human rights outlined
in the Commonwealth Charter like capital punishment. Few abuses strike at the
core of "the dignity of all human beings" and the "universal, indivisible,
interdependent and interrelated" human rights outlined in the Commonwealth
Charter like capital punishment. Moving towards an official Commonwealth stance
against the death penalty would put it back in the vanguard of
intergovernmental organizations and make it - for the 1st time in years - a
bold, principled presence on the international stage.
This need not entail a demand for immediate abolition. Building on the approach
of the UN General Assembly, the Commonwealth Secretary-General could instead
encourage retentionist member states to take the intermediate steps of
implementing a moratorium, reducing the number of offences eligible for death
sentences and ensuring minimum due process in capital trials.
The Commonwealth could also leverage its global platform and technical
expertise in legal affairs and governance to help make abolition a norm for
member states, much as it has done in recent decades for elections. In many
countries, the death penalty debate suffers from a lack of information; in
India, for instance, the 1st major national study of capital punishment (which
found extreme bias in the application of sentences) was only completed last
year. The Commonwealth, in partnership with member states like the United
Kingdom and New Zealand, that include abolition as a foreign policy goal, could
provide both a forum and assistance for policymakers seeking justice system
reform.
Finally, the organization needs to support and coordinate efforts among its
most underutilized resource: civil society and professional organizations. The
Commonwealth's list of accredited organizations alone includes 3 broad-based
human rights organizations, multiple NGO networks and associations of lawyers,
magistrates, law reform agencies and legislative drafters.
These groups (some of which are already engaged in anti-death penalty work)
would be natural partners in a pan-Commonwealth drive to end capital
punishment. While the Commonwealth Secretariat often talks of a "Commonwealth
Family", it limits its own reach, capacity and relevance by - as CHRI finds in
a forthcoming report for the Malta summit - failing to sufficiently engage the
vibrant web of civil society actors in member states. This campaign would be an
excellent opportunity to put its relationship with the "Commonwealth of the
People" on a more productive footing.
Ultimately, the Commonwealth will not be the primary vehicle for anti-death
penalty activism. This is a fight that will be fought and won at the domestic
level. But as we've witnessed in Europe and in other regions, making capital
punishment anathema at the intergovernmental level can have a profound effect.
If the Commonwealth wants to be the values-driven organization it claims to be,
one that earns the respect of citizens by standing for their human rights, it
must work for a 21st century in which the death penalty truly has no place.
(source: opendemocracy.net)
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