JANUARY 1





SAUDI ARABIA:

Saudi beheadings soar in 2015 under discretionary rulings


Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in the kingdom in 2 decades, according to several advocacy groups that monitor the death penalty worldwide.

Coinciding with the rise in executions is the number of people executed for non-lethal offenses that judges have wide discretion to rule on, particularly for drug-related crimes.

Rights group Amnesty International said in November that at least 63 people had been executed since the start of the year for drug-related offenses. That figure made for at least 40 % of the total number of executions in 2015, compared to less than 4 % for drug-related executions in 2010. Amnesty said Saudi Arabia had exceeded its highest level of executions since 1995, when 192 executions were recorded.

But while most crimes, such as premeditated murder, may carry fixed punishments under Saudi Arabia's interpretation of the Islamic law, or Shariah, drug-related offenses are considered "ta'zir", meaning neither the crime nor the punishment is defined in Islam.

Discretionary judgments for "ta'zir" crimes have led to arbitrary rulings with contentious outcomes.

In a lengthy report issued in August, Amnesty International noted the case of Lafi al-Shammari, a Saudi national with no previous criminal record who was executed in mid-2015 for drug trafficking. The person arrested with him and charged with the same offenses received a 10-year prison sentence, despite having prior arrests related to drug trafficking.

Human Rights Watch found that of the first 100 prisoners executed in 2015, 56 had been based on judicial discretion and not for crimes for which Islamic law mandates a specific death penalty punishment.

Shariah scholars hold vastly different views on the application of the death penalty, particularly for cases of "ta'zir."

Delphine Lourtau, research director at Cornell Law School's Death Penalty Worldwide, adds that there are Shariah law experts "whose views are that procedural safeguards surrounding capital punishment are so stringent that they make death penalty almost virtually impossible."

She says in Saudi Arabia, defendants are not provided defense lawyers and in numerous cases of South Asians arrested for drug trafficking, they are not provided translators in court hearings. She said there are also questions "over the degree of influence the executive has on trial outcomes" when it comes to cases where Shiite activists are sentenced to death.

Emory Law professor and Shariah scholar Abdullahi An-Naim said because there is an "inherent infallibility in court systems," no judicial system can claim to enforce an immutable, infallible form of Shariah.

"There is a gap between what Islam is and what Islam is as understood by human beings," he said. "Shariah was never intended to be coercively applied by the state."

Similar to how the U.S. Constitution is seen as a living document with interpretations that have expanded over the years, more so is the Quran, which serves as a cornerstone of Shariah, he said. The other half to Shariah is the judgments carried out by the Prophet Muhammad. Virtually anything else becomes an interpretation of Shariah and not Shariah itself, An-Naim said.

Of Islam's four major schools of thought, the underpinning of Saudi Arabia's legal system is based on the most conservative Hanbali branch and an ideology widely known as Wahhabism.

A 2005 royal decree issued in Saudi Arabia to combat narcotics further codified the right of judges to issue execution sentences "as a discretionary penalty" against any person found guilty of smuggling, receiving, or manufacturing drugs.

HRW's Middle East researcher Adam Coolge says Saudi Arabia executed 158 people in total in 2015 compared to 90 the year before.

Catherine Higham, a caseworker for Reprieve, which works against the death penalty worldwide, says her organization documented 157 executions in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia does not release annual tallies, though it does announce individual executions in state media throughout the year.

Saudi law allows for execution in cases of murder, drug offenses and rape. Though seldom carried out, the death penalty also applies to adultery, apostasy and witchcraft.

In defense of how Saudi Arabia applies Shariah, the kingdom's representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Bandar al-Aiban, said in an address in Geneva in March that capital punishment applies "only (to) those who commit heinous crimes that threaten security."

Because Saudi Arabia carries out most executions through beheading and sometimes in public, it has been compared to the extremist Islamic State group, which also carries out public beheadings and claims to be implementing Shariah.

Saudi Arabia strongly rejects this. In December, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in Paris "it's easy to say Wahhabism equals Daesh equals terrorism, which is not true." Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the IS group.

Unlike the extrajudicial beheadings IS carries out against hostages and others, the kingdom says its judiciary process requires at least 13 judges at three levels of court to rule in favor of a death sentence before it is carried out. Saudi officials also argue executions are aimed at combating crime.

Even with the kingdom's record level of executions in 2015, Amnesty International says China, where information about the death penalty is a "state secret," is believed to execute more individuals that the rest of the world's figures combined.

Reprieve says that in Iran, more than 1,000 people were executed in 2015. Another organization called Iran Human Rights, which is based in Oslo, Norway, and closely follows executions, said at least 648 people had been executed in the first 6 months of 2015 in the Islamic Republic, with more than 2/3 for drug offenses.

Reprieve says Pakistan has executed at least 315 people in 2015, after the country lifted a moratorium on executions early last year following a December 2014 Taliban attack on a school that killed 150 people, most of them children. Only a fraction of those executed since then have been people convicted of a terrorist attack.

(source: Associated Press)






IRAN:

The Names Of 27 Death Row Sunni Prisoners In Rajai Shahr Prison


The following list is the names of 27 Sunni death row prisoners in Rajae Shahr in whose sentences have been confirmed by the Supreme Court.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), after transferring many Sunni prisoners of hall number 10 to other halls, all of the remaining prisoners are death row prisoner.

The fact that all of the prisoners of hall number 10 in ward number 4 are death row prisoners, has concerned the families of these prisoners.

These Sunni prisoners are sentenced to death on the charges like propaganda against the regime, membership in Salafi groups, corruption on the earth and belligerent, and details of their cases are not transparent.

Most of these prisoners are arrested by the intelligent service between 2009 and 2010 in Kurdistan, and have been kept in solitary confinements for months before the trial, without having access to lawyer, or having contact with their families. There is a concern that they might have been tortured or been under pressure during that time.

According to available information, prisoners have rejected the charge of armed protest and said that they were prosecuted because of their beliefs and attendance in religious sessions or distributing religious materials.

Need to be mentioned, at least 1 prisoner with the name Barzan Nasrollahzade was under 18 years old at the time of arrest.

The list below is the names of these prisoners:

1) Kaveh Vaisi

2) Behrooz Shanazari

3) Taleb Maleki

4) Shahram Ahmadi

5) Kaveh Sharifi

6) Arash Sharifi

7) Varia Ghaderi

8) Kayvan Momenifard

9) Barzan Nasrollahzadeh

10) Alem Barmashti

11) Pouria Mohammadi

12) Ahmad Nasiri

13) Idris Nemati

14) Farzad Honarjoo

15) Seyyed Shahoo Ibrahimi

16) Mohammad Yavar Rahimi

17) Bahman Rahimi

18) Mokhtar Rahimi

19) Mohammad Gharibi

20) Farshid Naseri

21) Mohammad Kayvan Karimi

22) Amjad Salehi

23) Omid Payvand

24) Ali Mojahedi

25) Hekmat Sharifi

26) Amr Abdullahi

27) Omid Mahmoudi

(source: HRANA)






PHILIPPINES:

Death penalty and exasperation


If and when he becomes President, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte wants more criminal courts and the restoration of death penalty.

We may not be so het up about his stand on the death penalty, but we understand where he's coming from.

"Rampaging man gayud ang problem sa drugs ug dili jud ma serious (The drug problem is rampaging, if it's not contained it can become a) national threat and that will give me an excuse to use the military. I will have to convince congress to create something like 30 criminal civil courts to try down cases only para mabilisan and I will recommend to congress the restoration of death penalty by hanging in public," Duterte said.

While we agree that nationwide, the drug problem is on a rampage, our hesitation to support such a proposal is also rooted on our lack of confidence on the justice system.

Admit it, this is all about exasperation. We have seen how the justice system can be corrupted such that the New Bilibid Prison has become the kingdom of the crooks.

From initial discoveries that high-profile convicts have been allowed to go in
and out of the national penitentiary, this soon became worse as it was later discovered that rich prisoners were actually living the good life complete with sexual services and the state-of-the-art music studio, a mansion, aside from regular supplies of drugs, and a cache or arms.

Now there is even a rooftop swimming pool. Who wouldn't itch to just snuff off these low life forms? But, no, we can't do that. It will anger the Church and the pro-lifers.

After all, these men can still change for the better. But only if there is indeed a justice system that works and not one that allows the rich to just go on a guarded vacation that limit the number of guests to their parties.

It is this same justice system that can send to the gallows the innocents, especially the poor.

Indeed, a lot has to be done and only a committed citizenry can get it done. For as long as the people will let things pass, or maybe express outrage only when it's still being shown as a Senate or Congress investigation aired live on television and then forget all about it once the live coverage is over, then we will have the same justice system that will allow the rich to live their rich lives behind bars and the poor to be all stacked up one on top of the other in cramp prison cells, and be the first to be led off to the gallows.

The way the moneyed are getting away with their crimes can be exasperating, but the root cause that we should attack is the impunity by which those in power are allowing these to happen.

Let's focus on that.

(source: Editorial Sun Star)






JAMAICA:

Human rights body closes doors to public - To continue giving legal advice via phone


The Independent Jamaica Council of Human Rights (IJCHR) has all but closed its doors to the public.

The council, which is the oldest non-governmental human-rights organisation in the Caribbean, no longer has an office that is open to the public but now only accepts calls to give legal advice.

In its heyday, the IJCHR was very active in taking on cases pro bono, which dealt with human-rights and constitutional issues.

One of its most famous cases was a 2005 Privy Council appeal which challenged the constitutionality of a bill which sought to establish the Caribbean Court of Justice as Jamaica's final appellate court.

As the chief advocate against the death penalty in Jamaica, IJCHR was heavily funded by the European Union (EU). The EU, which had launched a global campaign for the abolition of the death penalty, provided funding to organisations which advanced this cause.

Since that time, the death penalty issue has reached as far as it can go with litigation. The likelihood of anyone being hanged in Jamaica has been reduced to zilch, and the two men who remain on death row are proceeding with what are expected to be successful appeals.

Success lead to funding cuts

In what can perhaps be considered an ironic twist of events, this successful advocacy of the council against the death penalty has led to a crippling reduction in its funding particularly from the EU.

"We did other things; we did educational things; we did represent people in other matters - lots of court matters (and) lots of advocacy. We have not been able to get necessary funding for that ... so we don't have an office for people to go to," council member Nancy Anderson explained to The Gleaner.

Although the council still meets on a regular basis, the operational functions once carried out by its administrative office have ceased.

When it was fully operational, the IJCHR formed part of a legal ecosystem which advised citizens on their human rights, provided support to the legal-aid sector and made referrals to other lawyers in civil matters. The office was a place where people could go with complaints and get solid legal advice. However, that no longer obtains. According to Nancy Anderson, the scale-down in operations has left a gap in human-rights advocacy, particularly as it regards legal matters.

Anderson agreed that the lack of funding continues to be a threat to human-rights organisations.

"I have not done any study of it, but I think there is a gap. Some other organisations have taken up giving legal advice but we still get referrals from the individual attorneys from those organisations ..., but I really think there is a gap," she said.

(source: Jamaica Gleaner)






PAKISTAN:

Army courts in Pakistan sentence 9 militants to death


Pakistan military courts have sentenced 9 men to death for terrorism-related offences or attacks on minority Shiites, the army said on Friday.

Pakistan has hanged more than 300 people since lifting a moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014, many of them convicted in closed military courts which critics say fail to meet fair trial standards.

"Today, (the) Chief of Army Staff confirmed death sentences (were) awarded to another 9 hardcore terrorists, who were involved in committing heinous offences relating to terrorism," an army statement said.

They include Muhammad Ghauri, a Pakistani Taliban member linked to an attack on a garrison mosque in Rawalpindi which killed 38 people and injured 57 in December 2009.

Also sentenced were Harkatul Jehad-e-Islam activist Abdul Qayyum, who was linked to a car bomb suicide attack on the Inter Services Intelligence headquarters in the central city of Multan which killed 7 people and wounded 72 in December 2009.

2 others were linked to attacks on soldiers, while 5 were said to be members of the Sunni sectarian outfit Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan who had killed 5 Shiites in the eastern city of Lahore.

Their trials took place behind closed doors, with no information on where or when they were held, how proceedings unfolded and scant details about their crimes.

Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for over a decade following its decision to side with the US-led coalition against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Its troops have been engaged in a full-scale offensive against Taliban and other militants in North Waziristan and Khyber tribal districts since June 2014.

The fight gained renewed impetus following a massacre at a Peshawar school in December 2014 in which 134 children were killed, leading to widespread outrage and a series of measures aimed at combating terror.

After the school attack the government ended a 6-year moratorium on executions -- initially only for people convicted of terrorism but later for all capital offences.

Pakistan also amended its constitution to allow military courts to try terror suspects for a 2-year period.

Supporters of the courts say cases previously dragged on for years and many suspects escaped punishment due to legal loopholes or intimidation of witnesses.

(source: Hindustan Times)


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