Feb. 24
BOTSWANA:
Ditshwanelo hosts Death Penalty dialogue
The Botswana Centre for Human Rights hosted a two (2) day dialogue on Access to
Justice and the Death Penalty in Botswana, from February 9-10, 2016. The
dialogue was facilitated by Justice Lovemore Paul Chikopa, Judge of the Malawi
Supreme Court of Appeal. Participants included Attorneys Kgosi Ngakaagae and
Martin Dingake, University of Botswana Law Students, Botswana Council of
Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) and the media.
The purpose of the dialogue was to promote informed public debate on the death
penalty, specifically, on the right to dignity in 21st century Botswana. This
was a civil society contribution towards the implementation of Botswana's 2013
UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) commitment, to 'hold dialogue about the
death penalty'.
Some of the key issues raised during the dialogue were:
--This year is 2016 African Year of Human Rights, with Particular Focus on the
Rights of Women. There needs to be clear State commitment to the implementation
of human rights in Botswana; --The Death Penalty is part of our inherited
colonial legislation, following 85 years as a British Protectorate (1885-1966);
It is 50 years since independence;
--It is time to reflect on where we have come from over the past 50 years,
where we are presently and where we would like to be in 50 years' time;
The criminal justice system is not insulated sufficiently to prevent
miscarriages of justice. It was noted that there is no perfect legal system
anywhere in the world;
--'Access to justice' should be guaranteed for both the rich and the poor.
Currently the poor lack true access to justice;
--Pro Deo attorneys are under-resourced and therefore unable to adequately
represent indigent clients who are charged with capital offences which may lead
to the death sentence;
There should be effective representation for those who could be sentenced to
death;
--There is a need to involve the Judiciary when holding dialogues and
conversations about the death penalty;
--There is a need to focus on the rehabilitation aspect of the criminal justice
system within a restorative justice. This is in contrast with focus only on
punishment, within a retributive justice system;
--Alternative sentences to the death penalty need to be thoroughly explored;
--The deterrent factor of the death penalty ought to be verifiable. Currently
it does not appear to prevent murder (not a deterrent);
--There is need to locate, analyse and understand death penalty discussions
within a broad socio-political and economic context;
--In determining the moral blameworthiness of the accused persons, their
personal upbringing and influential factors which shaped their person should be
considered by the court;
--Sentencing should have the dual purpose of punishment and addressing the
cause of the offence;
--Where applicable in law, the death penalty should not always apply, but
should be limited to certain circumstances - for most serious crimes such as
murder;
--There is need for the Judiciary to be exposed to the realities of the death
penalty;
--There are no known procedures or transparency concerning the clemency
process; and
--There is need for more information about what the penalty of death actually
entails.
DITSHWANELO was encouraged to engage in more public awareness raising
activities with different stakeholders about the death penalty in Botswana.
We would like to thank our sponsors, The British High Commission, and friends
of DITSHWANELO for participating in the dialogue. We appreciate all the
support.
Ditshwanelo
Gaborone
(source: Letter to the Editor, mmegi.bw)
ZIMBABWE:
Zimbabwe Considers Scrapping Death Penalty
Zimbabwe's vice president, who once faced the death penalty, says the country
will consider scrapping capital punishment.
Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also the justice minister, called it
"a flagrant violation of the right to life and dignity." Mnangagwa was
sentenced to death during Zimbabwe's colonial era, only avoiding it because he
was too young at the time.
The state-run Herald newspaper said Mnangagwa was speaking at an international
meeting of justice ministers in Rome.
Last month, a group of death row inmates approached Zimbabwe's Constitutional
Court bid to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The country of
13 million has nearly 100 death row inmates.
Zimbabwe's constitution says the death penalty only applies to males aged
between 21 and 70 convicted of "murder committed in aggravating circumstances."
(source: Associated Press)
AUSTRALILA:
Barrister Julian McMahon speaks in Canberra on the death penalty
Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen was in a Singapore cell facing the
end of his life, one of his lawyers, Julian McMahon, offered him some solace in
words written by Sir Thomas More as he awaited his own execution almost 500
years earlier.
Mr McMahon, a Melbourne barrister who was a national finalist in the 2016
Australian of the Year awards for his human rights work, is due to speak on
Wednesday night at the Saint Thomas More Forum in Canberra.
While representing Van Nguyen, who was hanged in Singapore in 2005, Mr McMahon
referred back to the case of Sir Thomas, the Lord Chancellor of England,
beheaded in 1535 after standing firm in his Catholic faith and refusing to
swear that the Crown had supremacy over the Church.
"In the last year of Van Nguyen's life, he had become much more interested in
his Catholic faith so I had actually given him copies of a few pages written by
Thomas More while More was in his cell awaiting his execution," Mr McMahon
said.
"And those few pages of reflection on how to think about your imminent death,
how to think about the people who were about to kill you - they were very
gentle and wise words."
Mr McMahon said there was still much to learn from the case of More, who was
made a saint by the Catholic church in 1935.
"He's a fascinating character to study on the question of conscience and the
right to silence and the clashes between truth, the power of the state and, in
that instance, the failure of the rule of law," he said.
Mr McMahon has been working on death penalty cases for 13 years and is the
president of Reprieve Australia, which is dedicated to ending executions around
the world.
He represented Bali 9 members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, both convicted
of drug smuggling, and was within earshot as they were gunned down by a firing
squad in a field on an Indonesian island in April last year.
Mr McMahon said the final meeting with his clients facing the death penalty was
never easy.
"Firstly, it's very difficult but, secondly, we lawyers are there as
professional assistants and that fact makes it easier for us to be detached and
support the client and family," he said.
"In the last visit of the Chan and Sukumaran families with their son and
brother, although it was extraordinarily difficult, there was both signs of
profound familial love and support.
"Everybody knew when they separated at that moment, when they were peeled
apart, Myuran and Andrew, still had to cope with the next 10 hours and in order
to help them cope, everybody understood that each person there had to be
strong."
He said the number of countries who had the death penalty had steadily fallen
since World War II, with fewer than 30 now carrying out executions.
"Some of these countries are slowly improving. For instance, Singapore used to
execute an enormous number of people, now it executes very few, so that's a
positive change," he said.
"Other countries like Pakistan and Iran and Saudi Arabia are rapidly going
backwards and descending into large-scale executions. And it's like any other
cancer across the world - sexual abuse of children or women, destruction of the
environment, slavery, which is a rampant problem in today's world - each
generation has to fight these things or they re-appear as cancers.
"We should speak the truth to [these countries] and we should demand better
from them and that includes our close allies, ranging from America to China
right through to countries in the Middle East which show such little regard for
human life."
Mr McMahon said the death penalty "brutalises all involved".
"It debases the society which kills, that consciously plans to kill someone
rendered helpless," he said.
"It perpetuates violence and a disrespect for life, it removes all hope of
remorse and rehabilitation. These days it's always political.
"It's just a delusion to call 'killing' justice when jail is enough punishment.
We should never punish more than is necessary."
Mr McMahon said it was impossible for him to sit back and do nothing, even when
taking on cases that appeared hopeless.
"Lots of people maintain an interest in issues which need an active engagement
and at times it's easy and at times it's hard,'' he said.
"It's just part of my professional life. I had a very privileged education and
I'd rather do something useful with it than play computer games."
(source: The Canberra Times)
BANGLADESH:
Supreme Court irked with war crimes tribunal's investigators, prosecutors
The Supreme Court has expressed its displeasure with the work of the
investigators and prosecutors of the International Crimes Tribunal in the 1971
war crimes cases.
The top appeals court's annoyance was made known during the appeal hearing of
death-row convict Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali on Tuesday, Attorney
General Mahbubey Alam told reporters.
State counsel Alam, who expects to finish his arguments on Wednesday, said the
court observed that the investigators and the prosecutors were not doing their
job properly in Mir Quasem's case and other cases.
The court felt that they were not correctly investigating and prosecuting even
though enough money was being spent on them, he said.
"The court was of the opinion that this (Mir Quasem's) case could have been
investigated and prosecuted more efficiently," he added.
The Appellate Division had earlier disapproved of the work of the tribunal's
investigation agency and so had the war crimes tribunal.
Apart from the courts, the attorney general had himself questioned the skills
of the prosecutors and negligence in the investigation on Jamaat-e-Islami
Nayeb-e-Amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee.
The government-appointed prosecutors run the cases at the ICT. After the
tribunal delivers a verdict, the defendants appeal at the Supreme Court.
The attorney general then joins the prosecutors to represent the State.
The tribunal gave Mir Quasem, a known top financier of the Jamaat, the death
penalty on Nov 2, 2014 for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971
Liberation War.
He filed an appeal seeking acquittal on Nov 30 that year. The hearing started
earlier this month.
Mir Quasem is said to have been the 3rd man in vigilante militia Al-Badr's
command structure during the war.
Replying to a question, Attorney General Alam, however, told reporters on
Tuesday that 'inefficiency of the investigation agency and prosecutors' will
not affect the appeal verdict.
The 5-strong Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha
is hearing Mir Quasem's appeal.
This is the 7th war crimes case set to be resolved by the top appeals court.
************************
3 killers of RU professor Mohammad Yunus get death sentence reduced to life
term following retrial
The death sentence handed down to two militants of banned outfit Jama'atul
Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the murder of Rajshahi University professor
Mohammad Yunus has been reduced to life imprisonment.
Rajshahi Speedy Trial Tribunal judge Golam Ahmed Khalilul announced the verdict
on Wednesday following a retrial.
Their sentences have been reduced to life imprisonment from death penalty. They
have also been fined Tk 5,000, inability to pay which will lead to another year
in prison, State counsel Entajul Haque Babu said.
Yunus, a professor of economics at Rajshahi University, was hacked to death
with sharp weapons while he was on his morning walk in Binodpur on Dec 24,
2004.
The 2 men, Safiullah and Shahidullah, were present in court on Wednesday.
They were handed the death penalty by a speedy tribunal at Rajshahi in 2010 but
the convicts appealed for a stay on the verdict, pleading for another trial.
Shahidullah aka Mahbub is son-in-law to Rafiqul Islam, elder brother to top JMB
leader Siddikur Rahman better known as Bangla Bhai who was executed in 2007.
He hails from Naogaon and Safiullah aka Tarek is from Satkhira.
Professor Yunus was president of Bangabandhu Parishad at Rajshahi University.
Police's Criminal Investigation Department charged 8 JMB militants in 2007.
The professor's murder was ordered by Shaykh Abdur Rahman, who headed the JMB,
Safiullah said in a testimony after his arrest on Apt 13, 2006.
Shahidullah was later arrested in Bogra.
In 2009, the case was transferred to a speedy trial tribunal. The following
year, Judge Md Monjurul Basid acquitted 6 and handed down maximum penalty for
the 2 men.
Shaykh Abdur Rahman wanted the professor dead, said the earlier verdict.
The case did not have an eyewitness but the testimonies provided by the 2 men
proved their involvement.
(source: source for both: bdnews24.com)
************
Verdict in Mir Quasem's appeal against death sentence Mar 8
The Supreme Court has fixed March 8 to deliver verdict in an appeal filed by
death row convict Mir Quasem Ali, a senior leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami
party.
The 5-member panel of judges headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha came
up with the decision as hearing into the appeal petition concluded Wednesday,
court officials said.
Quasem, also a financier of the party, was awarded death penalty for crimes
committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war of liberation from Pakistan.
International Crimes Tribunal, a specialised war crimes court set up in 2010,
handed down the penalty on November 2, 2014. The defendant filed the appeal
petition with Supreme Court challenging the verdict later in the year.
The court began hearing into the petition on February 7, 2016.
Quasem, 64, was one of the founders of the al-Badr force commissioned by the
Pakistani military to thwart the voices of unarmed civilians during the war.
The group aided the Pakistan military responsible for atrocities on unarmed
civilians.
10 out of 14 allegations against Quasem was proved beyond doubt. He was awarded
death sentence for abduction, killing and dumping bodies of several people in
Karnaphuli River in south-eastern district of Chittagong.
He was also handed down 72 years of imprisonment for other crimes he had
committed during the war.
Quasem, a director of private Diganta Media Corporation that owns a newspaper
and a television (now defunct), was arrested on June 17 2013. He was indicted
in war crimes on September 2013 and his trial ended on May 4 2014.
According to the investigators, Mir Quasem Ali was elected president of
Chittagong Government College unit of Islami Chhatra Shangha, the student wing
of the then Jamaat-e-Islami, in 1970.
He was the president of Chittagong City unit of the organisation between March
25 and November 6 of 1971. He was made the general secretary of the East
Pakistan Chhatra Shangha that helped the Pakistan army to unleash
indiscriminate attacks.
The organization re-emerged in 1977 as Islami Chhatra Shibir with Quasem as its
founding president. He was made director of Rabeta Al Isami, a foreign founded
organization in Bangladesh, in 1980, and become member of the Jamaat-e-Islami's
policy-making Surah in 1985.
He is the founder of Diganta Media Corporation that owns pro-Jamaat newspaper
Naya Diganta and now defunct Diganta Television. Quasem supervised a number of
torture cells in the port city of Chittagong to punish freedom loving people
during the 9-month war that left an estimated 3 million people killed, more
than 200,000 women raped and numerous homesteads torched in the then Eastern
wing of Pakistan.
Jamaat-e-Islami party opposed Bangladesh's liberation.
(source: newsnextbd.com)
MALAYSIA:
Amnesty wants moratorium on death penalty----Amnesty International Malaysia
executive director Shamini Darshni says Putrajaya should consider imposing a
moratorium for those on death row while deliberating on plans to abolish the
death penalty.
Human rights group Amnesty International Malaysia, in welcoming Putrajaya's
plan to push for the abolishing of death penalty, has urged for a moratorium
for those currently on death row. Its executive director Shamini Darshni said
the announcements by Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali and de facto
Law Minister Nancy Shukri in November, were positive and most welcome.
Apandi had said he plans to propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death
penalty be scrapped while Nancy said Putrajaya plans to table a bill in March
next year to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences.
"But what is missing is that in the mean time, since the announcement was made,
there is no moratorium, so people are still being sentenced to death by the
courts.
"We are urging the Malaysian government to seriously impose a moratorium on the
use of death penalty as well as execution," she said, when presenting The
Amnesty International Report (AIR) 2015/16 - The State of the World's Human
Rights in Petaling Jaya today.
She said Malaysia imposed death penalty for murder, drug-trafficking, the use
of firearms as well as kidnapping in certain circumstances.
Last November, Nancy had said the plan to abolish the mandatory death penalty
in drug-related offences would allow judges to use their discretion to choose
between sentencing a person to jail and the gallows in non-criminal cases, such
as drug-related offences. Apandi in an interview with The Malaysian Insider had
said he would propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be
scrapped.
Meanwhile, on the report which was released today, Shamini said there were 6
areas of concern in Malaysia's human rights record - freedom of expression,
freedom of assembly and association, arbitrary arrests and detentions, police
and security forces, refugees and migrants on death penalty.
"Last year, we saw how repressive and outdated legislation were being used to
clamp down on basic rights.
"In the first few months of 2016, we are seeing the same pattern persist, much
to the detriment of basic freedoms,: Shamini said.
Earlier, Amnesty International released a report on the State of the World's
Human Rights where it said Malaysia has "intensified" its crackdown on freedom
of expression and other civil and political rights last year. The report for
2015/2016 said this was evidence from the use of the Sedition Act to silence
government critics.
(source: themalaysianinsider.com)
GLOBAL:
Pope's reasoning wrong on death penalty ban
Pope Francis is wrong in asserting the death penalty always violates the
Bible's command not to murder, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore says.
In a Feb. 21 blog post, Moore responded to the pope's call the same day for a
worldwide ban on capital punishment. The president of the Ethics & Religious
Liberty Commission (ERLC) took issue with the reasoning used by the leader of
the Roman Catholic Church in his abolitionist appeal.
Pope Francis referred to the 10 Commandments in telling tens of thousands of
people in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, "The commandment 'You shall not
kill' has absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty." He
appealed to "the consciences of those who govern to reach an international
consensus to abolish the death penalty," according to Reuters News Service.
The Bible, however, distinguishes between the innocent and guilty, Moore wrote
in his post.
The pope's argument is not just practical but an across-the-board application
to every use of capital punishment, Moore said.
"On that, I believe he is wrong. We may disagree, with good arguments on both
sides, about the death penalty. But as we do so, we must not lose the
distinction the Bible makes between the innocent and the guilty," he wrote.
"The gospel shows us forgiveness for the guilty through the sin-absorbing
atonement of Christ, not through the state's refusal to carry out temporal
justice."
The Mosaic Law the pope appeals to in calling for the death penalty's abolition
actually "draws a distinction between murder and lawful execution by the
state," Moore said.
Also, capital punishment approved by God predates the Ten Commandments and the
rest of the Mosaic Law, Moore wrote. "In the covenant with Noah [in Gen. 9],
God forbade murder and simultaneously made provision for the death penalty in
some instances. Humanity, created in the image of God, is of such value that to
murder is to bear the most awful consequences imaginable, the forfeiture of
one's own life."
Moore also cited the Catholic Church's centuries-long defense of "just war"
theory in at least some circumstances. "If one believes the state can order the
military to kill opposing combatants in war, one does not, by definition,
believe that every instance of the state killing is a violation of the
commandment not to murder," he said.
Biblical support for the state's use of capital punishment continues in the New
Testament, Moore said. The apostle Paul refers to the Roman government "bearing
the sword" in Romans 13, shortly after he urges Christians not to take
vengeance, he wrote.
"Some have argued (unconvincingly, in my view) that this 'bearing the sword' is
police power, not [the] death penalty," Moore said. "But police power, if armed
with lethal arms, always carries at least the possibility of the death of the
evildoer. If that is always and everywhere murder, then it deserves the full
sanction of God's moral judgment."
Paul does not offer any divine sanction, however, he said.
The understanding that the Bible draws a distinction between murder and the
death penalty "does not settle the question of whether we ought to have capital
punishment," Moore acknowledged. "There are, in many places, serious problems
with the application of capital punishment."
These include "racial and economic disparities" in the use of the death penalty
in many locations, disparities that exist in other aspects of criminal justice,
he said.
"Christians can debate whether a state should declare a moratorium on capital
punishment while reforming unjust sentencing practices," Moore wrote.
"Christians can debate whether the death penalty is effective as a deterrent or
whether the death penalty is meaningful at all in a world in which legal
systems delay for years the application of the penalty. These are prudential
debates about how best to order our political systems, not debates about
whether every act of state killing is murder and thus immoral and unjust."
Moore said he agrees with the pope regarding "the value of human life" and his
opposition to the "culture of death."
"He is also right about the church's responsibility to prisoners, to remember
those who are jailed, to minister to them, and to work against policies that
violate human dignity or harden criminals in their criminality," Moore wrote.
The pope issued his call for a ban on capital punishment the day before a
Catholic-sponsored international conference opposing the death penalty began in
Rome.
(source: Tom Strode is the Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press, news
service of the Southern Baptist Convention----Baptist Press)
JAPAN:
Pachinko parlor arsonist loses appeal against death sentence
The nation's top court has upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of
arson in which 5 people died.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Sunao Takami's appeal against a lower
court ruling in the 2009 case, in which he poured gasoline on the floor of an
Osaka pachinko parlor and set it alight. The sentence is now set to be
finalized.
The presiding judge, Toshimitsu Yamasaki, said the 48-year-old Takami carries
an "extremely grave liability for committing a premeditated, indiscriminate
murder that targeted a pachinko parlor on a Sunday, when it was expected to
draw a large crowd."
The top court's 5-justice No. 3 Petty Bench said the death penalty is justified
for Takami, despite certain circumstances being in his favor. These include the
fact that he surrendered to authorities on the day following the attack.
According to rulings by the Osaka district and high courts, Takami set the
gaming parlor in Osaka's Konohana Ward on fire on July 5, 2009, killing 5
people and injuring 10 others.
Takami's defense counsel argued that execution by hanging is a cruel punishment
that runs counter to the Constitution. The country's supreme law forbids cruel
punishments and torture by public officials.
But the top court's petty bench dismissed this argument, noting that the
Supreme Court has in the past upheld the constitutionality of capital
punishment.
In a 1955 ruling on execution by hanging, the top court declared that it was
constitutional and is not considered a cruel punishment for most serious
crimes.
In handing down the ruling on Takami's case in October 2011, the Osaka District
Court's presiding judge, Makoto Wada, noted that there is "controversy" over
whether death by hanging is the best way to punish a person, but he added that
"the death penalty system in the first place entails that a person pay for his
or her crime with death. Agony and cruelty to some extent are inevitable."
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court played down the defense counsel's assertion that
Takami was delusional at the time of the attack and in a state of diminished
capacity, saying that while such a state of mind does affect the motives of
someone accused, it cannot be considered a major factor in this case.
It was the 1st time lay judges participated in a decision regarding the
constitutionality of capital punishment.
The Osaka High Court upheld the lower court's ruling in July 2013.
(source: The Japan Times)
PAKISTAN:
APS convicts' appeals case referred to CJP
A 3-member Supreme Court bench on Tuesday referred the petitions of convicted
terrorists against death penalty awarded by military courts to the Chief
Justice of Pakistan (CJP) for the formation of a larger bench.
The bench headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar heard the petitions of terrorists
Taj Muhamamd and Ali Rehman involved in Army Public Army (APS) attack, Qari
Zubair involved in Noshewara mosque bomb blast and Muhamamd Imran in a
terrorist incident in Bajur Agency against their conviction by army courts.
During the course of proceedings, the Attorney General for Pakistan informed
the court that the hearing of a similar case was continuing in the larger
bench.
The bench asked whether legal questions were same in both the cases and the AGP
replied in the affirmative.
Later the apex court referred the matter to the CJP for the formation of a
larger bench.
(source: Samaa.tv)
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