Nov. 21
BELARUS----new death sentence
Belarusian Man Sentenced To Death On Murder Charges
Belarusian court has sentenced a man to death for 2 fatal robberies, the 2nd
death sentence this year to be handed down in the only country in Europe that
still uses it.
Judges in the court in the western city of Hrodno found Ivan Kulish guilty on
November 20 of killing 3 saleswomen during 2 robberies in 2013 and 2014.
Kulish, 28, refused to testify during the trial and didn't make any remarks
after the verdict.
In March, a court in the southeastern city of Homel sentenced a man to death
for the murder of a young woman.
According to rights groups, more than 400 people have been sentenced to death
in the ex-Soviet republic since the early 1990s.
The European Union on November 20 urged Belarus to join a global moratorium on
the death penalty as "a 1st step towards its abolition."
"The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment, which fails to act as a
deterrent and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and
integrity," the EU said in a statement.
(source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
RUSSIA:
Jewish community opposes death penalty in Russia
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) believes there is no
point in introducing the death penalty in the country, including for
terrorists.
"Terrorists are very often suicide bombers and it's stupid t scare them with
death. In the course of a big part of human history, classical assassins of the
past committed crimes when much lesser sins were punishable by death. Criminals
who commit murder are not stopped by the threat of death," Boruch Gorin, the
head of the public relations department at FJCR, told Interfax-Religion on
Friday.
He said it is important to society that a murderer should not walk free, that a
dangerous organization or group of people should be isolated and the state has
a duty to ensure this isolation.
"In this sense, I believe that situations when people who were sentenced to the
death penalty and are serving life in prison are suddenly amnesties and walk
free are unacceptable. It's unacceptable and deeply criminal," he said.
He said such precedents are more dangerous to international security in general
and "support global terrorism to a much greater degree that the abolition or
non-introduction of the death penalty, which in any case doesn't stop
anything." People who have committed terrorist attacks should spend the rest of
their life in deep isolation, Gorin said.
"Theoretically, the death penalty has a right to exist. Virtually every human
court not only potentially, but also practically cannot guarantee the
punishment of the person who really deserves the death penalty," Gorin said.
(source: interfax-religion.com)
FRANCE:
France's Jean Marie Le Pen Calls For Decapitating Terrorists
The founder of France's far-right National Front (FN) Jean Marie Le Pen has
urged France to reinstate the death penalty and commit convicted terrorists to
the guillotine, French weekly news magazine Marianne reports.
Speaking at a press conference held at his palatial home in the west Parisian
suburb of Saint Cloud, the controversial politician outlined his proposals to
stop Islamist attacks, such as the ones that claimed 130 lives last week in the
French capital.
"We must restore the death penalty for terrorists," Le Pen said, before adding
"with decapitation." Some of his other proposals included deporting illegal
immigrants and creating 100,000 more places in prison to deter further
extremist attacks.
According to French weekly news magazine Le Point, Le Pen also called for the
removal of dual citizenship and instead "force dual citizens to make a choice,"
while also making military service of up to six months compulsory.
Jean Marie Le Pen's statement mirrored those of his daughter in the wake of the
Islamist attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. At that time,
Marine Le Pen, who now leads the National Front, vowed to hold a referendum on
the death penalty should she be elected president in 2017.
She has topped several presidential polls since she took leadership of the
far-right nationalist party from her father, but the 2 are involved in a bitter
dispute at present over Le Pen senior's reference to the Nazi Holocaust as a
historical "detail." Marine Le Pen excluded her father from the party as a
result, while he mounted a legal challenge against the decision.
The death penalty has been outlawed in France for years, as the right to
execute convicts was abolished by President Francois Mitterrand's government in
1981. The last execution took place only 4 years earlier and the standard
method of delivering it was still the use of a guillotine.
The last man to be executed in France was Tunisian Hamida Djandoubi who was
convicted in 1977 of torturing and murdering a 21-year-old woman and was also
accused of assaulting and raping a 15-year-old girl, French public radio RFI
reports.
It is also currently the policy of the European Union that no states can be
accepted into the union without having abolished the death penalty.
(source: Newsweek)
PAKISTAN:
Family says Pakistan to execute paraplegic man next week
The mother of Pakistan's only paraplegic death-row inmate says jail officials
have informed her that her 43-year-old son will be executed next week.
Nusrat Perveen says jail officials Saturday asked her to have a final meeting
with her son, Abdul Basit, on Tuesday before he is hanged the following
morning. She appealed to the president and prime minister of Pakistan to pardon
her son on medical and humanitarian grounds. 2 months ago, authorities halted
Basit's execution at the 11th hour following appeals from the family.
Basit has been paralyzed from the waist down since contracting meningitis in
prison in 2010 and uses a wheelchair.
He has been on death row since 2009, convicted of murdering a man in a
financial dispute in Punjab province.
(source: Associated Press)
***************
see: ttps://reprieve.bsd.net/page/speakout/saveabdulbasit
(source: reprieve.org)
****************
Pakistan president rejects school attackers' mercy pleas----Massacre left more
than 140 people dead, mostly children
Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussein rejected the mercy petitions of 4
militants found guilty of orchestrating a gun and bomb attack on an army-run
school in Peshawar in December.
The massacre left more than 140 people dead, mostly children. All four convicts
were sentenced to death by a military court in August.
"The brutal and merciless killing of our children convinced us that the
perpetrators of such crimes do not deserve any mercy," Pakistani Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif said earlier this week.
The government had lifted a six-year de facto ban on the death penalty after
the Peshawar school massacre. Over 200 convicts have been hanged since then.
(source: aa.com.tr)
BANGLADESH:
Bangladesh leaders on death row seek clemency----The Bangladeshi leaders who
have received a death sentence have sought a presidential pardon. Human Rights
Watch has urged for Bangladesh to suspend executions
2 top Bangladesh opposition leaders who are expected to be hanged within days
sought clemency from the president Saturday in a last-ditch attempt to escape
the gallows, the country's justice minister said.
Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, facing execution
for their roles in Bangladesh's 1971 independence war with Pakistan have sent
mercy pleas to the home ministry, Anisul Huq told AFP.
"It won't be treated as a mercy petition by an ordinary condemned prisoner,
which means it will be treated on an urgent basis," the minister said.
The 2 leaders have exhausted all legal appeals to avoid execution and their
fate now rests with President Abdul Hamid, who has the power to pardon or
commute the death sentences of any convict.
Mujahid, 67, is the second most senior member of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami,
while Chowdhury, 66, is an ex-lawmaker and a top aide to Khaleda Zia, leader of
the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed their final legal appeals,
upholding the leaders' death sentences originally handed down by a
controversial war crimes tribunal in 2013.
The president will seek advice from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina before making
a decision, Huq said, adding the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the
sentences "reflected the desire of the country".
They are among more than a dozen leaders of the opposition alliance convicted
by the tribunal, which was set up by the secular government in 2010.
The convictions triggered the country's deadliest violence since independence,
with some 500 people killed, mainly in clashes between Jamaat activists and
police.
There are fears the latest verdicts could spark fresh unrest in the
Muslim-majority nation, which is reeling from a string of killings of secular
bloggers as well as the murders of 2 foreigners in recent months.
Immediately after Wednesday's verdict, authorities shut down Facebook and
messaging and voice call services Viber and WhatsApp in an attempt to stop
Jamaat supporters from mobilising to protest against the rulings.
Human Rights Watch urges halt to execution
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday urged the Bangladesh government
to halt the executions of 2 opposition leaders convicted of war crimes.
Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the final appeals by 2
opposition leaders, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury,
against the death penalty for atrocities committed during the 1971 war of
independence.
"Justice and accountability for the terrible crimes committed during
Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence are crucial, but trials need to meet
international fair trial standards," said Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director.
"Unfair trials can't provide real justice, especially when the death penalty is
imposed," he said in a statement, adding the sentences should be suspended
immediately.
(source: worldbulletin.net)
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