May 4
INDONESIA:
Indonesia is preparing to execute prisoners, police official confirms ----
Spokesman says firing squad has been in training, risking backlash from foreign
governments with citizens on death row
Indonesia is preparing to execute several prisoners, a police official has
said, confirming reports that a year-long pause in the death penalty could be
nearing an end.
Authorities have not said how many prisoners will face the firing squad or if
foreigners will be among them. 2 Britons, Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth
Cashmore, are on death row in the south-east Asian nation, which has a
notoriously hardline attitude towards drug offences.
"We have had a warning since last month to prepare the place," said the Central
Java provincial police spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.
"We carried out some rehabilitation of the location, like painting and repairs,
because there will probably be more people who will be executed," he said,
adding that the firing squad had been training and receiving counselling.
He declined to say how many prisoners would be executed, or when, or if there
would be foreigners among them.
After 14 prisoners were executed in January and April 2015, drawing widespread
international condemnation, scheduled executions were postponed, with officials
saying the government preferred to focus on reviving the economy.
But President Joko Widodo's administration has pledged to resume executions by
firing squad at an island prison on Nusa Kambangan, claiming they are a
necessary response to the country's "drug emergency".
The most recent round of executions, in which eight men, including seven
foreigners, were shot dead in April last year, sparked condemnation from
Australia and Brazil, which had pleaded for their nationals to be spared. 2
Australian men, the Bali 9 pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were
executed, prompting the temporary withdrawal from Jakarta of Canberra's
ambassador.
Authorities have not given a breakdown of the numbers of people sentenced to
death, but according to Amnesty International, there were at least 165 people
on death row at the end of 2015, and more than 40% of those were sentenced for
drug-related crimes.
Many of them are foreigners, and citizens of France, Britain and the
Philippines are known to be among them.
Sandiford, from the UK, was sentenced to death after being convicted in 2013 of
trying to smuggle almost 4kg of cocaine into Bali.
Cashmore was sentenced to life imprisonment - later raised to death by firing
squad - after he was caught with 6.5kg of crystal meth in his luggage at
Jakarta airport in 2011.
A Philippine maid, Mary Jane Veloso, got a last-minute reprieve in April last
year in response to a request from Manila after a woman whom Veloso had accused
of planting drugs in her luggage gave herself up to police in the Philippines.
Her lawyer said he hoped she would not be in the next batch of prisoners to be
executed. "The execution of Mary Jane should be delayed because we are waiting
for the legal process in the Philippines," said the lawyer, Agus Salim.
A lawyer for Serge Atlaoui, a French national, said authorities had not
contacted the French embassy on whether his client would be executed in the
next batch. Atlaoui, who denies being the "chemist" for an ecstasy factory
outside Jakarta, exhausted all legal appeals in mid-2015.
The government typically informs the embassies of foreign convicts only days
before their executions.
Indonesia imposed a moratorium on executions for 5 years before resuming them
in 2013. It has executed 14 people, most of them foreigners, under Widodo.
Indonesia's representative at a UN narcotics conference was jeered last month
when he defended the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a penalty
that is contrary to international law.
(source: The Guardian)
******************
Death penalty calls for schoolgirl's rapists
The mother of an Indonesian schoolgirl killed following an alleged gang rape
has called for the death penalty for the youths accused of the attack.
Prosecutors have called for sentences of 10 years for the 7 youths, but the
girl's parents and activists say tougher penalties need to apply and parliament
must address violence against women.
Yuyun, 14, left school at around lunchtime on April 2 when she was allegedly
set upon by a group of 14 males in her village in Bengkulu, Sumatra.
The gang had drunk palm liquor or 'tuak' before snatching her, raping her and
strangling her, Bengkulu Provincial Police spokesman Sudarno told AAP on
Wednesday.
The schoolgirl's bound body was found 2 days later, dumped near the crime
scene. Some of the alleged perpetrators are believed to have taken part in the
search.
Sudarno said prosecutors have called for the 7 youth - aged 16 and 17 - who are
currently facing trial, to be jailed for 10 years for the offences of 'forced'
sex and violence causing death.
But the teenager's mother Yani said she wanted to see her daughter's attackers
receive the death penalty or life.
'All of you other mothers, please take care of your daughters. Let Yuyun be the
only victim ... There shall be no more other than Yuyun.'
5 men, aged up to 23, have been arrested with a search underway for the
remaining 2 alleged perpetrators.
The case was pushed into the national spotlight this week after activists waged
a social media campaign.
1 such Jakarta-based activist, Kate Walton, said she first heard of Yuyun's
case last week and had been 'shocked' to discover it had garnered so little
attention.
Utilising local media reports, Ms Walton has been gathering data on cases like
Yuyun, and by her count 44 women and girls have been killed by men in Indonesia
since the start of the year.
'We are trying to demonstrate that cases like Yuyun are not isolated,' she told
AAP.
Adriana Venny, from the women's group Komnas Perempuan, said they had placed a
draft bill before parliament more than 2 years ago to tackle sexual violence,
but it had been languishing in the 'temporary list'.
The bill seeks to increase penalties, widen Indonesia's limited definition of
rape and include further sex offences, she said.
Venny hopes parliament will finally listen.
'It's time to push and to pass this bill immediately because we can wait no
longer,' she told AAP.
On Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo tweeted: 'We're all in grief for
the tragic departure of YY. Catch and punish the perpetrators ... Women and
children must be protected from violence.
(source: skynews.com.au)
**********
3rd round of death penalty a matter of choosing a day: Attorney General
It is now only a matter of choosing the day on which the 3rd round of
executions of drug convicts will be carried out, Attorney General Muhammad
Prasetyo said on Tuesday.
The Attorney General's Office ( AGO ) has begun preparations for the
executions, set to take place on the notorious prison island of Nusakambangan
in Cilacap, Central Java.
"There is only the choosing of the specific date. That's what I haven't been
able to decide," Prasetyo said on Tuesday as quoted by newsportal Kompas.com.
He refused to disclose any details about what was delaying his decision. He
also refrained from answering questions from reporters regarding the number of
convicts who are to be executed.
The Attorney General has confirmed that Filipino Mary Jane Veloso and
Indonesian drug kingpin Freddy Budiman are not on the list.
Veloso exclusion is due to an ongoing legal process in a separate but related
case in her country.
Meanwhile, Freddy, who was found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills
from China to Indonesia in 2012, has filed for a case review, Prasetyo said.
The prosecutors will execute convicts whose verdicts are final, he added.
Prasteyo said he hoped the third round of executions would be carried out
without any public uproar, such as that which has previously arisen after the
executions of death row convicts.
"We do not want any racket. I have said many times, this is not something that
is fun, but we have to do it nonetheless. Because no matter what, it concerns
the well-being of the nation," he said.
Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen Condro Kirono said he had prepared the
firing squad, doctors as well as clerics and priests for the executions. He
said a firing squad of 14 personnel was deployed to execute 1 convict.
However, he did not know the exact date either, as coordination between the AGO
and police had been made prior to the execution.
There were 65 drug convicts on death row as of 2015, according to AGO data.
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration has executed 2 groups of
death-row convicts, both of which were carried out last year and comprise a
total of 14 people.
The 1st round was conducted on January 18 with 6 drug convicts executed.
The 2nd round shortly after, on April 29, especially dominated media headlines,
since several of the 8 people who were executed were foreigners whose deaths
caused tensions between Indonesian and the respective home countries of the
convicts.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
**************
Gang Rape, Murder of Indonesian Girl Sparks Call for Reform
The rape and murder of a teenage girl by 14 men has reignited calls in
Indonesia for a sexual violence law that is languishing in Parliament to be
enacted.
The attack on the girl in Bengkulu province in western Indonesia occurred April
2 and went largely unnoticed at a national level until social media users began
highlighting its brutality.
Activists from the Alliance for Community Care of Victims of Sexual Violence
called on the government on Tuesday to urgently pass the Elimination of Sexual
Violence Act.
Half of the suspects are less than 18 years old and the maximum sentence they
can receive because of Indonesia's child protection law is 10 years.
A local police chief in Bengkulu, Eka Chandra, said trials have begun for the 7
minors and prosecutors are seeking 10-year sentences.
Local media reported the girl was dragged into a forest by 1 of the
perpetrators on her way home from school. She was found 3 days later.
Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection,
said the adult suspects could receive the death penalty if there is evidence
the girl's murder was premeditated.
2 of the men are still at large.
(source: Associated Press)
TAIWAN:
Cheng Hsing-tse freed from death row----5,231 Days in Jail: Cheng was happy to
be reunited with his mother in time for Mother's Day after 14 years in prison.
He is to be retried after new evidence surfaced
The Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled that death-row
inmate Cheng Hsing-tse should be released on bail pending a retrial on the
charges that have seen him imprisoned for 14 years, including 10 on death row.
The 49-year-old Cheng, who has always maintained his innocence, walked out of
the Taichung Prison in the afternoon and was met by family members and
supporters, including representatives of the Taiwan Association for Innocence
and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.
After 5,231 days of incarceration, Cheng said: "This taste of freedom is a
really great feeling."
"I have been imprisoned for the past 14 years, but now I am so happy that I can
spend this Mother's Day with my family," he said as he embraced his mother.
Some supporters came with sunflowers and handed one to Cheng, as they hailed
his release as a victory for human rights and shouted: "Cheng is innocent of
the crime" and "We don't want to have any more wrongful convictions."
Cheng's attorney Law Bing-cheng said the day has been late in coming because
his client is innocent and has been jailed for too long.
"Today he is set free, and for this we have to thank the prosecutors and the
judges. This case has also set milestones in Taiwan's judiciary, because it is
the 1st time that a man whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court is
going to receive a retrial. I am certain Cheng has the courage to face the
retrial so that he can clear his name," Law said.
Yesterday's decision barred Cheng from leaving the country or going out to sea.
Cheng's case has gone through 7 trials and 7 retrials, including the Supreme
Court upholding his death sentence in 2006.
A retrial was ordered after Cheng's defense team presented new evidence raising
doubts about his conviction for the death of police officer Su Hsien-pi during
an exchange of gunfire at a KTV parlor in Taichung in 2002 and prosecutors
concurred.
The prosecutors' application in March for a retrial was the 1st time in the
nation's history that a retrial has been sought in a case where the Supreme
Court's final ruling upheld the original death sentence.
Cheng is the 5th death row inmate to be released from prison for a retrial,
including the Hsichih Trio case of Su Chien-ho, Liu Bin-lang and Chuang
Lin-hsun, who were found not guilty in 2012.
Human rights groups have long highlighted what they said were defects in the
original investigation and questionable evidence used by prosecutors, including
a confession that Cheng had been tortured and coerced into making.
After re-examining the forensic evidence and findings from a new investigative
report, Taichung prosecutor Wu Tsui-fang decided a retrial was needed because
the evidence indicated that another suspect had fired the fatal gunshot that
killed Su, not Cheng.
(source: Taipei Times)
SINGAPORE:
See:https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-republic-of-singapore-cabinet-of-the-republic-of-singapore-savejabing-grant-clemency-to-sarawakian-kho-jabing
(source: change.org)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime hangs another 5 prisoners
The mullahs' regime in Iran on Tuesday hanged 5 prisoners, including a man in
public.
4 death-row prisoners were hanged in Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj, west of
Tehran.
They were identified as Ahmad al-Tafi, Abdolhamid Baqeri, Majid Imani, and Reza
Hosseini.
Another prisoner, identified only by his first name Avaz, was hanged in a
public square in the port city of Nour, northern Iran, on Tuesday.
The hangings bring to at least 62 the number of people executed in Iran since
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Commenting last week on the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran,
Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: "In the month of April, during and
after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy
chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran."
"The increasing trend of executions indicates that the visits of senior
European officials to Iran not only have failed to improve the human rights
situation; rather, they have given a message of silence and inaction to the
mullahs. This has emboldened the clerical regime in stepping up executions and
suppressing the Iranian people. This is the regime that has been the record
holder of executions per capita globally in 2015. This bitter reality is not an
issue of pride for any of the guests of the religious fascism," he added.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with 7 EU
commissioners for discussions with the regime???s officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.
Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."
"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.
There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."
(source: NCR-Iran)
****************
3 Prisoners Hanged in Iran
On Sunday May 1, 1 prisoner was reportedly hanged at Nahavand Prison (in the
western province of Hamadan) and 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Mashhad
Central Prison (in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan).
According to a report by the Judiciary in Hamadan, the prisoner hanged at
Nahavand was executed on murder charges. The report identifies the prisoner
only by the initials, M.R.
The state-run news site, Rokna, reported on the executions of the 2 unrelated
prisoners in Mashhad, but did not publish their names or initials. According to
the report, 1 of the prisoners was hanged on murder charges while the other was
a 25-year-old hanged on rape charges.
***************
2 Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges
2 unrelated prisoners with drug related charges were reportedly hanged at
Ardebil Central Prison on the morning of Tuesday May 3. According to the press
department of the Judiciary in Ardebil, 1 of the prisoners was charged with
possession of 70 grams of heroin and crytal meth while the other was charged
with trafficking 1 kilogram and 700 grams of heroin.
**************
4 Prisoners in Danger of Execution on Drug Charges in Ghezel Hesar Prison
4 prisoners on death row on drug related charges have been reportedly
transferred to solitary confinement cells in Ghezel Hesar Prison in preparation
for their executions. The prison is located in the city of Karaj (northern
Iranian province Alborz).
According to close sources, 3 of the prisoners were transferred from Unit 2 of
Ghezel Hesar Prison and 1 of the prisoners was transferred from Tehran Central
Prison (also known as Fashafouye). These prisoners have been identified as:
Majid Imani, Abdolhamid Bameri, Ahmad Altafi, and Reza Hosseini (from Tehran
Central Prison).
According to IHR's annual death penalty report, Iranian authorities executed at
least 638 people in 2015 on drug related charges. After China, Iran is home to
the most executions in the world. IHR reported at least 969 executions carried
out in 2015 alone.
(source for all: Iran Human Rights)
INDIA:
Soumya's mother hits out at delay in execution of rapist
Sumathi, mother of 23-year-old Soumya who was pushed out of a train and raped
and murdered on the tracks in 2011, said delay in execution of the man
convicted in the case contributed to the recurrence of the similar rape and
murder of the law student at Perumbavoor.
Govindachami, the convict, was awarded death penalty by a fast track court in
November 2011 and the sentence was subsequently upheld by the high court in
December, 2013. "But he is still alive as his appeal is pending in the Supreme
Court. The government has not yet appointed a special prosecutor in the case.
Legal experts say an advocate closely familiar with the case should be arguing
the case in the Supreme Court as the conviction was largely based on
circumstantial evidences and not on the basis of the testimonies of
eye-witnesses,'' Sumathi said.
"We must ensure that no more mothers have to wet the earth with their tears for
their daughters. The accused in such cases must be handed out quick and extreme
punishments, which will have a deterrent value. In fact, the public must be
allowed to handle such cases,'' Sumathi said. She, however, pointed out that
the investigations in the Perumbavoor case had several lapses. The brutality
came to light only after 2 or 3 days of the incident and the accused is still
absconding, she said.
In the Soumya case, the investigating team led by DSP Radhakrishnan Nair and CI
Sasidharan as well as the Special prosecutor A Suresan had meticulously
followed up the case and this led to the awarding of death sentence to
Govindachami, She said.
(source: The Times of India)
*************
Listening to the Unheard: The Experience of Interviewing Death Row
Prisoners----Student researchers who interviewed death row prisoners in India
and their families spoke to The Wire about their experiences.
In May 2013, a group of people based out of the National Law University in
Delhi decided to try and fill a big data gap in India - information on the
death penalty and death row prisoners. Their aim was to conduct a research
project that would look at the socio-economic background of death row
prisoners, their experiences in the criminal justice system, what their
families went through and so on. A comprehensive empirical base for talking
about the death penalty in India.
Led by Anup Surendranath, a teacher at NLUD, the project tied up with the
National Legal Services Authority, making it easier for them to gain access to
the death row prisoners. In spite of that, there was 1 state that gave them no
access at all and another that did not let them meet a section of prisoners.
Though the project hired a few lawyers and legal researchers, a majority of
those doing the fieldwork and data entry were student volunteers from NLUD. In
the 2 1/2 years that a project lasted, close to 90 student researchers worked
on it at different points in time. Some of them stayed for close to the entire
period.
For most of these students, these experiences were different from ones they'd
ever had before. Not only did they go to various prisons, speaking with
prisoners who had been sentenced to death and faced perhaps the harshest side
of the criminal justice system, they had also travelled to extremely remote
locations across the country looking for the families of the prisoners,
speaking to them about their experiences. About a week before the release of
the report that contains all their work, they sat down with The Wire to talk
about their experiences, what made them keep working with project and what they
had learnt about India's criminal justice system.
"(The students) have given up on a lot of their internships for this project.
Sticking with the same thing for so long is very rare among competitive law
school students, because it's still only 1 line on your CV - whether you worked
for 24 months or two," Surendranath said, smiling at the student researchers
present in the room.
Research experiences and stories from the fieldwork
"I joined the project almost as soon as I joined college," said Gale Andrews, a
3rd year student who worked with the project for 2 1/2 years. "Since we were
just starting out, it seemed like a really exciting thing to do, and I think
Anup sold it very well."
"There is this one family I keep taking about. It was a completely remote area,
a tiny mud house with a thatched roof. I had met the prisoner about a week
before that and he was 2 years older than me. He seemed like a sweet, friendly
guy. I remember that I was taking notes during his interview, translating from
Hindi to English simultaneously. When we asked him how much he had studied, he
said proudly that he could write his name. When we asked if he could write it
in English, he said 'No, I'm not that good yet, I can only write it in Hindi'.
The idea that he was 2 years older than me and he's so proud of just writing
his name - whereas it didn't even occur to me that it's so natural for me to be
so literate," Andrews said. "When I went and met the family, the thing that
struck me was when we asked them for the lawyer's contact details. This was a
question we always asked. They pointed to the wall - they'd written lawyers
number in chalk because they don't keep paper or a pen at home. They also don't
have a telephone; they just use the village phone. Just seeing how disconnected
they were - they didn't know anything about the case, they don't have the money
to visit the prisoner. They didn't even know what the case was about, they only
learnt things from rumours in the neighbourhood. It was impossible to get
information from them for the project because they're so alienated from
everything, they had no access to information. It just hits you then how unfair
things are when they play out."
"For me, that's why I stayed on with the project," she added, explaining her 2
1/2-year stint with this project instead of going for other internships. "Every
time it kills you that you're staying up till 2 am filling up a sheet, you
think okay, you're filling up this sheet because eventually it will come out -
and that's what they wanted, they wanted their stories to come out. So what
kept me going was knowing that we were the only ones willing to listen to them,
and for them that was so valuable."
"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them, and no one
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of
responsibility."
Some of the students had trouble explaining to their parents why they wanted to
travel across the country, meeting not only death row prisoners in jails but
also their families, spread across states. "We're in the same batch, but I
didn't join the project the same time as Gale did," said Jagata Krishna
Swaminathan. "I joined it later because my parents were wary of sending me off
into different parts of the country. I'm from Bangalore and at one point the
project was look for Kannada speakers to do the interviews in Karnataka. That's
when my parents agreed, because they said 'Okay, Karnataka we know'."
"I don't think I've ever worked this much for anything else in my life, and if
you ask me I don't think I could give you a clear answer," Swaminathan added.
"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them and no one
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of
responsibility."
"I think it's fair to say that even though we remember the entire experience,
everyone has that one story that you carry with you. For me it was to do with a
female death row prisoner," she said, remembering the case of a prisoner she
met just after the landmark Shatrugan Chauhan judgment. Before this judgment,
death row prisoners were kept in separate barracks. "For a female prisoner,
what being kept in a separate barrack translates into is basically 1 or 2 women
being completely isolated from everyone else, unlike the men's death row
barracks in the state, which had about 30-35 prisoners. The isolation that the
prisoner we met felt was then far greater. I also met her husband on death row
and he was talking about how he was only allowed to meet her once in every 15
days. She didn't really have much contact with people, so every time he met her
he felt that she was deteriorating, that he could just see her giving up
slowly. When I went in to meet her, she was eating breakfast so I was waiting
for her to finish. While waiting I was talking to other people there - some of
the prisoners and the prison guard. The guard pointed to this dark room at the
very end of a hall, saying that's where she had to stay before, though now
she's is allowed to stay with the others."
"The 1st prisoner interview I did was someone in solitary confinement," said
Chinmay Konjia, relating the experience that shocked him most. "It was quite
shocking. Our proximity to the prisoner was such that the person was inside the
cell and we were standing outside. It was horrific. People had told us about
certain other states and the prison authorities being extremely cooperative -
letting the prisoners out so that they could sit down and talk face to face. I
was absolutely not prepared for something like this. This was also the 1st
female prisoner that Anup interviewed. For solitary confinement, you're taken
in through doors after doors. She was allowed to leave their rooms for about 15
minutes a day, and looking at the size of their room that was just unimaginable
for me. Everything from eating to going to the toilet happened within that
room. Even when you go out for those 15 minutes, there is nobody except the
prison guards. Such things really got to me."
"Of course the interviews went well despite us not being prepared for
everything that we saw, because people want to share their stories. Later we
met the husband of this prisoner, who was in the male solitary confinement. He
explained to us how we wouldn't be able to comprehend their lifestyle - from
small things like mosquitoes in the jail to things like they can't be given
thick blankets, because it's too hot, but they can't be given given thin
blankets, because then there's a danger of them hanging themselves. It was all
so surreal. Every time the people in solitary confinement would hear even a
small thing like a lock being turned, they think today's the day that
everything is going to come down. These things were extremely tough, at least
for me," he added.
"Also, for some of the prisoners we met, the number of years that they had
spent inside the jail was unthinkable. People often use the 5% number to argue
for the death penalty, saying it's really the rarest of rare cases," he
continued, referring to the fact that less than 5% of people sentenced to death
by trial courts are finally sentenced to death by the Supreme Court. "What you
are forgetting in this whole debate is the 15-20 years that a person has spent
on death row. You could see the impact of those years once you meet these
prisoners. It's not the same thing those in life imprisonment go through. The
minute you are accused the rules in prison change for you. There'll be solitary
confinement, shorter meeting period, etc. Everything changes because you're on
death row. You're not even allowed to work, meaning that the little bit of
money you could send to your family is also gone. Families told us about how
they've had to keep living off debt, since one of their only earning members
had been locked up. But even then, these families somehow get you a bottle of
Thums Up to drink."
The sensitivities of family interviews
Given what they wanted to talk about, interviews with prisoners' families also
had to be dealt with extremely carefully. The researchers did not use a set
survey-like questionnaire. Though they had guidelines, they were encouraged to
allow the conversation to progress naturally. "When we went out to talk to
people, we were very aware that the fact that someone from their family has
been sentenced to death will probably be constantly playing on their minds. So
the 1st effort was always to try and make them comfortable with us, talking to
them a little, trying to get to know them, introducing ourselves. If you just
go question by question, like a survey, not only are they less comfortable, I
think you also give up on a lot of valuable information," said Lakshya Gupta.
"In a way I think we were well-placed to conduct these interviews - we're just
law students, so harmless I guess, and people are more comfortable talking."
Surendranath agreed that allowing families and prisoners to speak naturally was
very important. "They often wanted to talk about things that weren't relevant
to our project, like how they didn't do it, for example. This was never a
question, but since it was the 1st time they were getting to talk about it,
prisoners wanted to express themselves. We understood that we should let them
talk, not say things like 'we don't want to listen to this, it's not why we're
here'. We learnt to slowly guide them into conversations you do want to have. I
think emotionally it was a huge challenge to explain the utility of any of
this, or why they should give you their time. I guess a lot of that went into
making this permanent - just confronting that repeatedly," he said, referring
to the full-time Centre on the Death Penalty that emerged out of the project,
working on litigation as well as research.
Students also talked about the dual risk while preparing for family interviews
- if you did all the background research, there was the chance you could form a
bias on the case and perhaps against the family, whether you wanted to or not.
But go in blind, and you can come across as completely ignorant, as if you
haven't done your homework.
Difficult to be prepared for everything
"I think in some ways we were really unprepared," Surendranath added. "I don't
think any of us could envisage the intensity of some of the reactions from
families who didn't want to talk to us. The sensitivities around them having
moved because of the case - we predicted it to some extent, that families might
have moved, there might be stigma. You can't just go around asking neighbours,
'Jinke bete ko phaansi ki saza mili hai woh kahaan milenge? (Where is the
family whose son has been sentenced to death)'. There are a lot of sensitive
things to care of."
Shreya Rastogi, a legal researcher with the project and now a litigator with
the centre, echoed Surendranath's sentiments on some things being impossible to
prepare for. "Sometimes it was something as simple as the fact that you would
expect, at least for family interviews, that you're going to into someone's
house, to sit down and have a conversation. But then you realise the situation
in which some of these families are placed. Like for instance, this one family
interview I was a part of, the family had been thrown out of their house
because of the kind of the media pressure that was built around that case. They
were basically living on the street outside the jail. There's a culpability
that's attached to the family as well - they weren't even allowed to gather
their things. Let alone if the prisoner is guilty, the family is facing the
punishment too. This is in Bombay and we did the interview in July, so if you
know Bombay at all you know that it's always pouring. So we couldn't even find
a dry place where we could sit down and talk to them. Those are the kinds of
situations where you find yourself doing these interviews and then you're
supposed to cover their socio-economic circumstances, which is staring at you
in the face while you do the interview. The part of that interview that will
really stick with me was that even though they had absolutely nothing on them,
at the end of the interview they offered if they could take me to the nearest
chaiwallah and buy me some tea. How can you have nothing and still have
something to offer?"
Each case and each state was also extremely different, making it harder for the
team to know what to expect.
Thinking about the criminal justice system
Going through this process, students felt they had a new perspective on the
criminal justice system, the people in it and cases they read.
"I want to talk about the jail and police authorities. There are usually 2 ways
we speak about them, 2 narratives, both of which are very black and white. One
is about how they're great, how they're authorities so they must be respected,
all of that. Not criticising them at all. The other is to see them as
adversaries, imposing an oppressive system. While there's merit to both, 1
thing that struck me is that they're just cogs in a much larger oppressive
system" said Pawani Mathur. "I think we forget that they're also human beings
who are also affected by this process, though they may not show it. There were
jailors that we met who were extremely sympathetic. One of the cases in
Chhattisgarh, for instance, the jailer would call me up voluntarily and ask,
'What's happening in the case? Tell me because I want to tell him.' That was
very important for me, to appreciate the grey in all these situations. They
also say things like, 'He's not that bad, there's no need to hang him. But we
have to do what we have to do'."
Mathur also talked about an encounter with the legal system that left her
surprised. "We discovered some new facts on a case during out research process,
which weren't on record during the trial. It was about the age of the accused.
So then Anup sent us back looking for proof, we did some more research. We
collected all their school certificates, got it all verified by the sarpanch.
We did so much groundwork, as a student I didn't even know all of that was
necessary before you could file a case. We didn't have any litigators at that
time so we gave the case to somebody outside. One thing that really struck me
was that when the case went before a court, some of us were standing at the
back when the judgment was to be announced. We couldn't properly hear what was
going on. Then suddenly there was a commotion and everyone walked out. We had
no idea what happened, so we went outside and asked the lawyers. He told us
'Dismiss ho gaya (It got dismissed)'. And we didn't even hear it. Before all
the commotion happened, one of the judges at the bench made a reference to a
Sanskrit shlok (he only gave the meaning, not the shlok itself). And the
meaning was something like if a king doesn't ensure adequate punishment, then
the sin of the offender is passed onto him. And I thought okay, it's
problematic, but okay. But this was before I knew he'd dismissed the case and
was then saying it. In my head it was just that all of that work, that journey,
all of that came down to one Sanskrit shlok. It really showed how the judge
views himself, and how he viewed the justice system and his position in it."
"I think working on the project has had an impact on how I read cases," added
another student researcher, Devina Malaviya. "Because earlier I used to read
cases as very matter of fact documents. But after going through this entire
process and doing this analysis, you start viewing cases very differently. You
realise its not just about that 1 case, there's probably a back story to it
that hasn't been mentioned here. Its about the family of the accused as well,
and of course the victim. It's not just 'X vs. State of Maharashtra', that X
has a life, a backstory."
"So many of the prisoners have told us they had no idea what happened in
courts. And nobody explains anything to them."
Seeing the accused and how their case is handled is something others took away
from the project as well. "For me, the impact it's had is what can we do
different as lawyers or law students," said Swaminathan. "You're seeing how no
one is paying attention to the accused, one of the parties present with the
biggest ramifications. But the focus is always on other things. The prisoner
always looks so lost about everything. They don't know what's happening, what
they're supposed to do. They're supposed to plead with the judge, saying my
lawyer isn't here, I don't have their number. So many of the prisoners have
told us they had no idea what happened in courts. And nobody explains anything
to them."
"So when I did my internship elsewhere, with a lawyer, in my head I would keep
going through the lawyer's questionnaire for the project that asked did you do
X, Y and Z, and the answer was almost always no," added Andrews. "It plays in
my mind, how much is the lawyer actually doing for the accused, how much are
they talking to them? That one rare lawyer, who may not be very senior, but you
can see is not ignoring the accused, actually interacting, is the one you know
you want to work with. I just can't get over the image of the prisoner saying I
don't know anything that's happening in my case."
The intricacies of how cases are handled was also brought into question.
"Another thing you start to really question is the quality of evidence," said
Rastogi. "The evidence used to sentence people to death is largely
circumstantial, to use that to sentence people to death is so bizarre. They
have a witness who isn???t very sure, who just identified a figure. Or when you
meet the prisoner they tell you they were made to sign blank sheets of paper
and then stories written on them on the basis of which the weapon is apparently
discovered. You have that evidence along with the medical evidence, and the
decal evidence in some cases is also just post mortems with signs of rape,
maybe some clothes with blood recovered that could be the accused's. And that's
about it. So one of the most baffling things is that there is so much
side-stepping in the system. Even if you might have the right person, the
investigation is so flawed. And that procedure goes through our courts,
unchallenged."
"I think 1 assumption people seem to have is that the accused is equally placed
with the state, without taking into account instances of torture, etc. You
can't expect prisoners to say 'I won't sign this document because it doesn't
exactly match what I said'. There's also almost blind reliance on 'expert
evidence'. Sometimes with blood stains all they do is match the blood group -
which could belong to 1/4 of the population - and call that expert evidence,"
added student researchers, in agreement with Rastogi.
"The more you look at this system and hear the prisoners' stories, it just
seems like a weird, absurd, dark comedy," said Maitreyi Misra, head of the
research unit at the Centre on the Death Penalty. "With DNA evidence, judges
are just so taken in because its some new-fangled science, that must be true
because its science. You're explaining things to prisoners in a language they
don't know. Nobody is understanding each other, but somehow they all think
they're in it together."
The Death Penalty India Report will be released on May 6.
(source: The Wire)
SRI LANKA:
5 Charged with Death Penalty
5 suspects who were found guilty over a murder in Lunawa, Moratuwa were given
capital punishment today.
The order was given by Panadura High Court judge Vikum Kaluarachchi.
The 2nd defendant of the case was released from all accusations while the other
5 were charged leveled against 13 indictable offenses.
The death penalty receivers are residents of Lunawa, Panadura and have
committed the murder of Pradeep Kumara who resided in the same area on 7th
January 2002.
(source: hirunews.lk)
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