Nov. 10
KENYA:
Death sentence, if effected, could become victim of corruption
There is no doubt that theft of public funds ranks among the most important
concerns for Kenyans. Corruption takes away resources meant for public
services, enriching a few usually well-connected individuals with access to the
national till.
Estimates indicate that 1/3 of Kenya's annual budget is lost to corruption.
Essentially, this weakens the country's ability to fight poverty, terrorism,
and disease.
Kenyans are, therefore, justified to be outraged at the slow pace in bringing
the perpetrators of grand thievery to justice.
The anger has been so great that some people have even suggested that the law
be changed to allow the death penalty for the thieves of public resources.
Coming at a time when ordinary Kenyans everywhere are alarmed at the lack of
action on grand corruption, this suggestion must not be taken lightly or
brushed aside as some sort of joke.
The death penalty, irrespective of the crime involved, is archaic, cruel,
inhuman, and degrading. The world is moving towards eliminating the death
penalty, with nearly 2/3 of countries having removed it from their statutes.
IMPORTANT STEP
On Mashujaa Day this year, President Uhuru Kenyatta took the important step of
commuting 2,700 death sentences (virtually all who were waiting to die by the
hangman) to life in prison. This is a step in the right direction. Countries
that execute criminals claim that the death penalty is a way to deter crime,
but this has been discredited and there is no evidence that it is any more
effective in reducing crime than imprisonment.
The idea behind punishment is to correct, to send a message to others, and to
save the majority from the suffering occasioned by crime. I do not believe
executing offenders serves any purpose other than to cause pain to the affected
families and psychological distress to the executioner. Life in prison without
the option of parole is a better option. The prospect of never being allowed to
walk free again is dreary.
It is instructive that we have never really exploited all the options available
to us to protect public money from thieves, who are often let free due to the
loopholes in our criminal justice system. Sometimes they are shielded from
punishment by the very people who are supposed to champion justice. We have
failed, but only because those who benefit from the proceeds of corruption are
the same ones who control the levers of State power and are not keen to do
anything about it.
A VICTIM
The death sentence, if it were to be effected, could become a victim of
corruption, with the main perpetrators being set free while innocent people or
those who play minor roles being sentenced to death.
Runaway corruption will not stop if there is no political will to end it. As
long as the sponsors of corruption, drug barons, and purveyors of impunity
finance election campaigns and pass themselves off as well-heeled business
people running the economy, corruption will only get worse.
The President should get serious about fighting corruption. We all know that
corruption bleeds the economy, that health care suffers because people steal
from the sick, that the current hunger in several parts of the country could
have been prevented if stolen money was channelled to irrigation and
agricultural innovation. Kenyans who are watching helplessly as their
children's inheritance is stolen with impunity have a right to be angry. These
Kenyans have been restlessly waiting for the President to say: "Enough is
enough, stop it, you thieves!"
(source: Opinion; Justus Nyang'aya is country director, Amnesty International
Kenya----Daily Nation)
IRAN----executions
2 Prisoners Hanged In Western Iran
2 prisoners were hanged in the prison of Qorveh (Iranian Kurdistn province)
early Tuesday morning November 8.
Iran Human Rights had yesterday reported about the scheduled execution of these
prisoners.
The prisoners were identified as Mohammad Rasoul Heydari, from Qorveh, charged
with murder, and Babak Hassan Zadeh, from Sardasht, charged with possession and
trafficking of 350 grams of the narcotic drug crystall.
According to close sources Heydari was arrested 4 years and 8 months ago and
Hassan Zadeh 4 years ago. Both the prisoners had been kept in Hamadan Prison
and were transferred to Qorveh 20 days ago.
The executions have not been reported by the official Iranian media.
************************
2 Prisoners Executed- One Hanged In Public
2 prisoners were hanged in 2 different Iranian cities reported the state run
Iranian media.
According to Mehr News Agency one man was hanged in the prison of Qazvin
(western Iran) Monday morning November 7. The prisoner who was identified as
"Hassan Kh." (24) was sentenced to qisas (retribution in kind) for murdering 2
people in 2 separate cases 5 years ago.
Iranian State Broadcasting (IRIB) reported on the execution of a prisoner early
Wednesday morning (November 9). The prisoner was identified as "Mostafa K.",
also known as "Saeed", charged with raping a person one year ago, said the
report. The hanging was carried out publicly on Payam Square of Shiraz
(Southern Iran).
(source for both: Iran Human Rights)
*******************
Horrible crime of blinding both eyes of a prisoner; 21 executions during the
first 8 days of November
In a brutal and horrific crime, the mullahs' henchmen blinded both eyes of a
prisoner on November 8. Mohammad Shahriari, the criminal head of Tehran Court,
said in this regard, "The dossier had been sent to Tehran Criminal Court in the
form of proxy; on the current day and with the presence of the head of Tehran
Criminal Court and related experts, Qesas (retaliation) was conducted on both
eyes." (FARS news agency affiliated to IRGC-November 8). Currently, at least 7
other prisoners held in Iran prisons are awaiting the brutal punishment of
blinding their eyes.
On November 8 2 Kurds in the prison of Qorveh, and on November 7 3 prisoners in
Mahabad and Qazvin were sent to the gallows. Accordingly, the number of
executions just since the beginning of November reached 21.
The implementation of these savage rulings, which are only a tiny fraction of
the catastrophic dimensions of human rights violation in Iran, shows very
clearly that the crisis-stricken Velayat-e Faqih regime shall never relinquish
killing, execution and brutal rulings of hand amputation and blinding eyes on
its own will.
Silence and inaction in the face of these horrible crimes that have hurt the
conscience of the contemporary humanity is violation of human rights
principles. The dossier of human rights violation in Iran should be referred to
the UN Security Council. Engagement and appeasement of this regime is only an
incentive to barbarism in the twenty-first century. Continuation and expansion
of relations with this regime must be postponed to a moratorium on executions
and cruel punishments.
(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)
MALAYSIA:
Aust mum faces death penalty in Malaysia
An Australian mother has faced her 1st day on trial in Malaysia over drug
trafficking charges that will see her sentenced to hang if convicted.
Almost 2 years after Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto was arrested for drug
trafficking, the 52-year-old appeared thinner as she was brought into Shah Alam
High Court near Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
She stands accused of trafficking just over 1.1 kilograms of crystal
methamphetamine.
If convicted the charge carries a mandatory death sentence.
Customs official Mohd Noor Nashariq told the court he was manning the scanning
machines on December 7, 2014 when at around 3.40pm he saw a female passenger
travelling from China.
Upon scanning her bags they saw one of the items inside a black backpack
appeared "green" so he took it to be checked again.
It was then, he said, that a second officer noticed odd pink and brown
stitching at the back of the backpack Exposto was carrying.
When they opened the stitching, grey packages were inside, Mr Nashariq said.
Exposto's lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah sought an adjournment after this
evidence was given, saying there were some "differences" between the custom
official's testimony and that of his client.
He asked Exposto be able to inspect the 2 bags tendered to court as evidence.
Exposto's lawyers have previously said the Australian mum had fallen victim to
an internet romance scam and believed she was in Shanghai to execute documents
for her online boyfriend's retirement from service in the US army.
She has said she was handed the black backpack at the last minute and thought
there was nothing but clothes inside.
Mr Abdullah recently represented the 9 Australian men who were arrested at the
Grand Prix after stripping down to budgie smugglers which had the Malaysian
flag emblazoned on them.
He has also represented Australian man Dominic Bird, who was acquitted in 2013
of trying to sell methamphetamine to an undercover police officer. That case
also carried the death penalty.
According to Amnesty International, Malaysia has earned a reputation for meting
out death sentences in secrecy, saying at least 2 were carried out in 2013
without announcement or posthumous information about the executed individuals.
A further 3 men were hanged for murder in March this year.
Exposto is expected to return to court next week.
(source: Australian Associated Press)
*******************
27 Pinoys in death row in Malaysia
27 Filipinos convicted of drug charges are in the death row here, Philippine
Ambassador to Malaysia Jose Eduaro Malaya said on Wednesday.
Malaya, however, said not one of the 27 convicted Filipinos is scheduled for
execution.
"To the good fortune of our concerned countrymen and women, there is an
informal moratorium here in Malaysia on carrying out death penalty
convictions," said Malaya.
He added this is because the Malaysian government is currently reviewing its
policy with respect to imposing and carrying out the death penalty on drug
offenses.
The envoy likewise said there has been a number of commutations given by the
Sultans or Governors of the State, thus some Filipino death convicts are like
to serve life sentences instead.
According to Malaya, the conviction of the Filipino drug offenders goes to show
how important addressing and eradicating the drug menace is to Malaysia, which
has a very strict policy against drug cases.
Given certain amount of illegal drugs confiscated or involved, there is also a
mandatory sentencing guideline for the magistrates and judges that would compel
them to impose the death penalty, he added.
"So drug trafficking, drug smuggling are strictly prohibited and severely
punished by Malaysian law," said Malaya.
The good thing, however, with respect to Filipinos is the fact that a lot of
these cases took place a few years back and that of conviction in recent years
here in Malaysia has gone down.
(source: Manila Bulletin)
ASIA:
Asia's Mentally Ill on Death Row----Pakistan rules schizophrenia does not
preclude the death penalty. It is far from alone in executing mentally ill
prisoners.
On October 20, the Pakistani Supreme Court ruled that schizophrenia is "not a
mental illness," once again proving the country's judiciary is not playing with
a full deck. The ruling - the result of a desperate and final appeal by the
wife of death row inmate Imdad Ali - flies in the face of both Pakistan's own
laws and its obligations under international treaties.
The global uproar resulting from Pakistan's latest human rights blunder led to
the Supreme Court issuing a stay on Ali's execution on October 31. But the
dangerous and, frankly, erroneous precedent set by the case has become larger
than Imdad Ali himself.
By declaring that schizophrenia is "not a mental illness" because it is "not a
permanent mental disorder" due to its treatable nature, the State of Pakistan
has proven once again not only how hopelessly mistaken its decision makers can
be. Worse, it has also demonstrated a shockingly callous disregard toward any
hope of reform for the thousands of mentally ill languishing in
prisons-turned-mental wards across the country.
On paper, Pakistan has ratified all manners of obligations under international
human rights law. At the turn of the millennium the UN Commission on Human
Rights adopted resolutions urging countries that retain the death penalty to
not impose it "on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder." To this
day, Pakistan continues to "observe" these resolutions.
In 2011 Pakistan ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD). The country also remains party to the UN International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that no one be subjected
to torture, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Of course, international treaties are frequently overlooked at the behest of
domestic laws. Yet, even on the domestic front, there are built-in provisions
for society's most vulnerable. As an example, Pakistan's Penal Code explicitly
excludes from criminal punishment any person demonstrating "disorder of his
mental capacities."
But even though Pakistan is signatory to all the right laws and protocols, ever
since the state lifted its unofficial 4-year death penalty moratorium following
the tragic Peshawar school attack of 2014, the list of those to be executed
while mentally unsound is only growing.
Just last year Pakistan sent to the gallows Khizar Hayat, a convict whose
paranoid schizophrenia had been very well-documented by jail authorities. In
fact, records indicate that by 2012 Hayat had become so delusional that
authorities did not know how to handle him, and so he was placed in solitary
confinement for the final 3 years of his sentence leading up to his execution.
There are extensive jail records that clearly describe Hayat as "suffering from
active symptoms of severe psychosis." There are logs indicating that prison
officials followed a schedule of dispensing antipsychotic medication to Hayat.
Yet, at the end, jail authorities remained steadfast that Hayat be executed on
the grounds that he had some "orientation in time and place." And so, in July
2015, following the 1-month break in executions observed during the holy month
of Ramadan, Hayat was hanged. By that point, his faculties were so diminished
that that until his very last moments, Hayat continued to believe he had been
granted reprieve and was being prepared for release and to be sent home.
Around the same time as Hayat's march to the gallows came the execution of
Kaneezan Bibi. Convicted of murder in 1991, Bibi was Pakistan's 9th female to
be hanged. Her mental health was so deteriorated that throughout much of her
lengthy imprisonment, Bibi was institutionalized at Punjab Institute of Mental
Health (widely known as Lahore Mental Hospital). Much like Hayat, despite
extensive records indicating Bibi suffered from schizophrenia, her execution
remained inevitable.
Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch has described
"executing people with mental illness [as] a barbarous affront to decency which
serves no criminal justice purpose."
And unfortunately the practice is not confined to the borders of Pakistan.
Today, across South Asia, there are countless Imdad Alis. With ever-increasing
economic and political insecurity, unemployment, poverty, and terrorism, it
comes as no surprise that mental illness is on the rise across the region.
As an example, consider first the state of Pakistan. A country of 182 million,
till this day the country hosts only 5 mental hospitals and just 27 % of
medical doctors train in mental health. And then there's Pakistan's war-torn
neighbor Afghanistan. Home to 30 million people (of which 60 % suffer from some
form of mental illness), Afghanistan has just one mental hospital.
The list continues. Indonesia: home to 250 million people, the comparatively
developed nation has just 48 mental hospitals staffed with 600-800
psychiatrists. That is one trained psychiatrist per 300,000 to 400,000 people.
Like Pakistan, Indonesia has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which guarantees equal rights for all persons
with disabilities, including the right to liberty and security of the person,
and freedom from torture and mistreatment. Yet it continues to be nowhere near
its goal of providing security to its mentally ill.
India, home to 1.3 billion people, is reported to have 70 million people living
with psychosocial disabilities (which includes schizophrenia). However, the
world's 2nd most populous country has just 43 state-run mental hospital and
records indicate there are 4 psychiatrists and 0.47 psychologists per million
people. Ironically, amongst South Asian countries, India was the first to
ratify the CRPD.
All these countries - from India to Indonesia - have the death penalty in
common. And all of them have, and continue to, execute convicts diagnosed with
severe mental illnesses like Imdad Ali.
In 2015 Indonesia executed Rodrigo Gularte, a 42-year-old Brazilian, who was
sentenced to death in 2005 for smuggling 6 kilograms of cocaine into the
country, sealed inside surfboards. Psychological assessments, which took place
while Gularte was in prison, confirmed he was suffering from paranoid
schizophrenia - the same diagnosis as Imdad Ali. However, his official
diagnosis, which was commissioned by Indonesia's attorney general, was not made
public.
As is the case with paranoid schizophrenics, Gularte suffered from delusions.
One of his main delusions was a steadfast belief that Indonesia had abolished
the death penalty. Even when he was not granted his right to a fair trial, even
when the courts failed to establish whether or not he had a mental condition,
and even when Gularte was to be executed by firing squad in April of 2015,
Gularte continued to have no idea he was to be killed until his final few
minutes.
Returning to the present day, what has happened in light of the case of Imdad
Ali and its shocking verdict is not a simple, clear-cut case of prisons
becoming mental wards.
What has happened with the Imdad Ali case is far more sinister.
By denouncing schizophrenia as a mental condition, what the Supreme Court of
Pakistan has done is, in effect, a lot worse than its usual practice of simply
letting forgotten mentally ill inmates languish on death row. As Pakistan's
prison population continues to soar, so does its number of incarcerated
offenders with mental illnesses.
But prisons were never intended as facilities for the mentally ill.
And the case of Imdad Ali confirms this single, sad truth: that rather than
confront the inherent cruelty and injustice of capital punishment, Pakistan's
highest court of the land is more interested in conjuring egregious legal
loopholes so that it can execute a man who most likely has no understanding of
why he is being punished.
(source: Maria Kari is a U.S.-based freelance writer and lawyer; The Diplomat)
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