May 12
IRAN:
Teenager tortured into confessing is days away from execution in Iran
The Iranian authorities must urgently halt the scheduled execution this Sunday
of a teenager who was just 15 years old at the time of his arrest, said Amnesty
International.
Alireza Tajiki, now 19 years old, was sentenced to death in April 2013 after a
criminal court in Fars Province, southern Iran, convicted him of murder and
rape primarily on the basis of "confessions" extracted through torture which he
repeatedly retracted in court. His execution is due to take place on Sunday,
May 15 in Shiraz's Adel Abad Prison in Fars Province.
"Imposing the death penalty on someone who was a child at the time of the crime
flies in the face of international human rights law, which absolutely prohibits
the use of the death penalty for crimes committed under the age of 18. It is
particularly horrendous that the Iranian authorities are adamant to proceed
with the execution when this case was marked by serious fair trial concerns and
primarily relied on torture-tainted evidence," said James Lynch, deputy
director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International.
"Iran's bloodstained record of sending juvenile offenders to the gallows,
routinely after grossly unfair trials, makes an absolute mockery of juvenile
justice and shamelessly betrays the commitments Iran has made to children's
rights.The Iranian authorities must immediately halt this execution and grant
Alireza Tajiki a fair retrial where the death penalty and coerced 'confessions'
play no part."
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Iranian authorities to
establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death
penalty.
Tajiki was arrested along with several other young men in May 2012 on suspicion
of murdering and raping his friend who was stabbed to death. He was denied
access to lawyer throughout the entire investigation process. He was placed in
solitary confinement for 15 days, without access to his family. During this
period he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, he said, including
severe beatings, floggings, and suspension by arms and feet, to make him
"confess" to the crime. He later retracted the "confessions" both before the
prosecution authorities and during his trial, and has since maintained his
innocence consistently. However, despite this, his "confession" was admitted as
evidence during proceedings against him.
In April 2014, a year after Tajiki was first convicted his verdict was quashed
by a branch of the Supreme Court which found the investigation incomplete due
to a lack of forensic evidence linking him to the sexual assault. It ordered
the Provincial Criminal Court in Fars Province to carry out further
investigations and to examine his "mental growth and maturity" at the time of
the crime in light of new juvenile sentencing guidelines in Iran's 2013 Islamic
Penal Code.
The Code allows judges to replace the death penalty with an alternative
sentence if they determine that there are doubts about the juvenile offender's
"mental growth and maturity" at the time of the crime.
In November 2014, the criminal court resentenced him to death, referring to an
official medical opinion that found he had attained "mental maturity." However,
the court's decision made no reference to concerns the Supreme Court had raised
about the lack of forensic evidence, suggesting the investigation that had been
ordered was not carried out. The court also relied once again on Tajiki's
forced "confessions" as proof of his guilt, without conducting any
investigation into his allegations of torture and other ill-treatment.
Despite these flaws, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence in a paragraph-long
February 2015 ruling that relied on the principle of "knowledge of the judge,"
which grants a judge discretionary powers to determine guilt in the absence of
conclusive evidence.
More than 970 people were put to death across Iran last year. In January 2016
Amnesty International published a report which found that despite piecemeal
reforms introduced by the Iranian authorities in 2013 to deflect criticism of
their appalling record on executions of juvenile offenders, they have continued
to condemn dozens of young people to death for crimes committed when they were
below 18, in violation of their international human rights obligations.
(source: Amnesty International USA)
******************
The List of the Names of 56 Death Row Prisoners in Uremia Prison
At least 100 prisoners with charge of murder are kept in wards number 4 and 5
in Uremia prison. HRANA is trying to gain public attention in order to save
them from execution by publicizing their identities. For this reason the
identities of 56 death row prisoners is being published in this report.
After the authorities called more than 100 death row prisoners in this prison
and said that they were trying to "decide their faiths" in next 3 months the
identities of 56 prisoners who are mainly charged with homicide and are kept in
wards 4 and 5 of the prison, are being published by HRANA. Need to be mentioned
that three prisoners on this list has been kept in prison for the past 27
years.
The list of 56 death row prisoners of Uremia prison is as following including
respectively the Name and Family Name, serving time, and city that prisoner is
from:
Saeid Tanha, 13 years, Mahabad
Abdullah Banayi, 8 years, Sardasht
Khalil Agushi, 5 years, Maku
Ramazan Sabzi, 5 years, Maku
Naser Kakazadeh, 3 years, Mahabad
Faisal Abdi, 6 years, Uremia
Taimoor Asoobar,3 years, Uremia
Salim Khazri, 5 years, Mahabad
Kamal Soltani, 2 years, Boukan
Kamal Molla Vaisi, 3 years, Mahabad
Salah Javanmard, 3 years, Mahabad
Abat Javanmard, 3 years, Mahabad
Kamal Khakzad, 5 years, Oshnaviyeh
Hossain Rahimi, 7 years, Boukan
Osman Sahraei, 27 years, Uremia
Saeid Armad, 27 years, Uremia
Jafar Esmaeili, 27 years, Uremia
Rahim Barin, 7 years, Mahabad
Afshin Khorshidi, 7 years, Uremia
Ghader Mohammad Hasan, 3 years, Mahabad
Tayeb Shaikhnejad Mokri, 3 years, Piranshahr
Ibrahim Taghe, 5 years, Naghadeh
Daryush Darvishzadeh, 3 years, Uremia
Rahman Darvishzadeh, 3 years, Uremia
Danesh Darishzadeh, 3 years, Uremia
Osman Gholtafi, 8 years, Boukan
Hasan Bahrami, 2 years, Boukan
Naji Omarzadeh, 7 years, Uremia
Saji Omarzadeh, 7 years, Uremia
Hamdollah Hamd Mohammadzadeh, 4 years, Uremia
Mohammad Taimoori, 5 years, Naghadeh
Mojtaba Kahrizi, 5 years, Uremia
Akbar Choopani, 3 years, Naghadeh
Khalil Salehi, 6 years, Uremia
Idris jabarzadeh, 7 years, Mahabad
Rasoul Kavani, 3 years,, Oshnaviyeh
Himan Bonavand, 2 years, Piranshahr
Mohammadreza Mohammadnejad, 16 years, Uremia
Hamid Parvizi, 3 years, Uremia
Gholamreza Amiri, 7 years, Uremia
Fardin Byrami, 3 years, Miyandoab
Sayad Khanian, 3 years, Miyandoab
Mahdi Hajizadeh, 7 years, Miyandoab
Behnam Hasanzadeh, 7 years, Uremia
Ali Amoozadeh, 4 years, Uremia
Ramazan Shaikhloo, 14 years, Uremia
Ramazan Ahmadipoor,4 years, Sardasht
Aram Rasouli, 3 years, Oshnaviyeh
Daryush Farahzad, 2 Daryush Uremia
Jafar Ardashiri, 14 years, Uremia
Reza Farmanbordar, 5 years, Uremia
Jahandar Shokrollahi, 4 years, Uremia
Ali Abdi, 3 years, Kermanshah
Alireza Alinejad, 14 years, Mahabad
Afshin Shoukati, 4 years, Uremia
(source: HRA News Agency)
BANGLADESH:
Man gets death for murdering wife in Bagerhat
A court in the southern district of Bagerhat has awarded the death penalty to a
man for murdering his wife.
21-year-old Sharifa Akter Putul was killed by her husband Shikder Mahmudul Alam
in 2013 over a conjugal feud.
The court of Bagerhat's District and Sessions Judge delivered the verdict on
Wednesday in absence of the convict.
Prosecutor Sheikh Mohammad Ali said that on the night of May 13, 3 days after a
reception for the couple's marriage, Alam slit his wife's throat following an
argument between them.
The victim's family filed a case against the husband the next day and charges
were pressed against him in November the same year.
Alam has been absconding since the murder.
(source: benews24.com)
INDIA:
Only downtrodden get hanged
The findings of an investigation done on the death row prisoners in the country
by the National Law University, Delhi, reveal how badly they are treated and
how poor their conditions are. The report is based on interviews with 373 of
the 385 prisoners who are in condemned cells waiting for their execution. The
majority of them are from the economically and socially depressed strata of
society and have little education. Most have not completed secondary education.
This may be an indication of the biases that go into criminal investigation and
prosecution, and perhaps into the working of the entire system. It is a damning
thought that the failures and prejudices of the system lead to the ultimate
punishment for many people. No society can claim to be fair and humane if the
weak stand a greater chance of ill treatment and punishment than the strong.
But that is the case in the country.
While state legal aid is mandatory for those who cannot afford it, 169
prisoners who were interviewed for the study did not have a lawyer. Even among
those who had legal aid, most had not spoken to their lawyers at the high court
level and many did not know the lawyer's name. Legal aid is very important in
defence. The inadequacy of the legal aid system shows that many of those on the
death row might not have been awarded the death penalty, or any penalty, if
they had sound legal defence. It is also revealing that the majority of the
people on the death row were first time offenders and many were juveniles when
they committed the offence. The "rarest of rare" norm for death penalty is
vague, and judges understand it differently and use different standards for
rarity. Only 5% of the death sentences pronounced by the lower courts are
confirmed on appeal. That shows that the lower judiciary is given to making too
liberal a use of the death sentence.
The report says that those on the death row are regularly subjected to torture
and ill treatment. This goes against the generally held notion that those
waiting for their death are shown some compassion and consideration. Death
penalty is a crude and vengeful form of punishment. It is no deterrent against
crimes. A person who has been hanged but is later proved innocent cannot be
brought back to life. Most countries have abolished capital punishment and many
have suspended it. The report adds some more to these reasons, which should
push India also towards putting an end to this cruel and inhuman form of
punishment.
(source: Deccan Herald)
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