April 12
AFRICA:
Amnesty International: Death sentences on the rise in Africa
More than 1,000 death sentences were handed down in Africa in 2016. That's
according to the latest report by Amnesty International. Botswana was singled
out for resuming executions.
DW: Could you briefly tell us the components of your report with a focus on the
African countries?
First of all, it's quite important to highlight the major elements of the
report itself. In 2016, Amnesty International recorded a 37 % decrease in the
number of executions carried out globally. In 2016, we found that China was the
world's top executioner. And progress towards abolition was recorded in all
regions of the world.
In terms of sub-Saharan Africa, the use of the death penalty was mixed. On one
hand, we recorded fewer executions; on the other hand, the number of death
sentences rose dramatically to a staggering 145 % increase. At least 22
executions were carried out in 5 countries compared to 43 executions in 4
countries in 2015. In 2016, the countries that carried out executions included
Nigeria, Botswana, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia. Death sentences rose from
443 in 2015 to at least 1,086 in 2016. And this was mainly due to an increase
in the number of dead sentences handed out in Nigeria. Nigeria handed down 527
death sentences and that's the highest we recorded excluding China in the
world.
What could be the reason for this rise of the death sentences in Nigeria?
We are not exactly sure of the reason for this dramatic sharp increase in the
number of death sentences handed down in 2016. However, I must note that we
recorded a similar number of death sentences for Nigeria in 2014. So in 2015,
there was a decrease and then it's gone back up again. It's very possible that
a lot of [capital punishment] cases came to a conclusion in 2016 and judgments
were handed down.
Amnesty says there is progress in abolishing the death penalty but more needs
to be done
Botswana has been described as a model for democracy and good governance. Why
do you think they have resumed executions?
Botswana is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa that still hangs on to
the use of the death penalty. Although they do not carry out as many executions
as some other countries like Somalia, they still hold steadfastly to the death
penalty. It's unclear why they have resumed executions; they carried out 1
execution last year. It's a country that consistently uses the death penalty
and has refused to stay away from this cruel and inhuman degrading punishment.
Amnesty International works to end executions and opposes the death penalty.
What's being done at the moment to scrap the death penalty?
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception,
regardless of the nature of the offence or the characteristics of the
individual or the methods used by the states to carry out the executions. Since
1977, we have been calling on all countries in the world that are yet to
abolish the death penalty, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa to establish an
official moratorium on executions as a fast step towards abolishing the death
penalty.
(source: Oluwatosin Popoola is Amnesty International's Nigeria
researcher----Deutsche Welle)
NIGERIA:
Nigeria Records 2nd-Highest Number Of Death Sentences In 2016----According to
the human rights organization, 2016's figure represents a "massive and
worrying" spike from 2015, when the country recorded 171 death sentences.
Nigeria handed down 527 death sentences in 2016, tripling 2015's figure and
placing it 2nd only to China in death sentences recorded throughout the world
in 2016.
Amnesty International Nigeria announced the figure in its 2016 global review of
the death penalty published on Tuesday.
Lagos State recorded the most executions in Nigeria in 2016 with 68, followed
closely by Rivers State with 61.
According to the human rights organization, 2016's figure represent a "massive
and worrying" spike from 2015, when the country recorded 171 death sentences.
The group emphasized that Nigeria's sharp increase in death sentences puts the
country at odds with the global decline in death sentences. In 2016, there were
1,032 executions recorded worldwide, down from 1,634 in 2015 (a 37 % decline).
"By handing down more death sentences last year than any other country except
China, Nigeria has tripled its use of this cruel and inhuman punishment and
skyrocketed up the shameful league table of the world's death penalty
offenders," said Damian Ugwu, Amnesty International's Nigeria Researcher.
"The danger of people being executed for crimes they may not have committed
remains ever-present. Investigations show many death row inmates live in
constant fear of execution in some Nigerian prisons."
The group stated that on December 23, 2016, for example, Apostle Igene, an
inmate of Benin Prison, Edo State, was executed after being sentenced to death
in 1997 by a military tribunal. He was never permitted to appeal the sentence.
The report also pointed out that Oyo State passed a law in 2016 making
kidnapping punishable by execution and that Lagos and Bauchi States passed
similar laws in 2017.
The group condemned such laws, saying that there is no evidence demonstrating
that the death penalty deters crime more than any other punishment. It also
pointed out that Nigerian security authorities have been ramping up police
training with a view towards improving crime detection and prevention. These
measures, the group said, "are likely to have a greater impact on the crime
rate than any moves to expand the scope of the death penalty."
The organization concluded its report by calling on the Nigerian government to
establish an official moratorium on death penalties and to eventually abolish
it altogether.
"For years, the federal government has claimed to have a voluntary or
self-imposed 'moratorium,' but executions have happened nonetheless. This
demonstrates the urgency of formally establishing a moratorium," the group
said.
(source: saharareporters.com)
ZAMBIA:
Zambian opposition leader charged with treason: Mwamba----Reportedly for
failing to move off the road for the president's motorcade.
Zambia's main opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema, has been arrested and
charged with treason for failing to move off the road for the president's
motorcade at a weekend ceremony, his deputy said.
The charge allows no bail and can carry the death penalty.
Police raided Hichilema's residence late Monday, firing teargas and breaking
down doors, while the president of the United Party for National Development
sought refuge in a safe room in the house. Police used teargas to try force
Hichilema and his family out, and he emerged when his lawyers were allowed on
the property, according to his wife, Mutinta.
The police work independently and the presidency won't interfere in Hichilema's
case, Amos Chanda, President Edgar Lungu's spokesman, said in a statement
posted to the ruling Patriotic Front's Facebook account. "Several crimes" were
committed during the motorcade incident, he said. The police haven't confirmed
the arrest or charge and said a statement will be issued Wednesday.
"He was not interviewed, he was only told that you have been charged with a
treasonable charge which is treason itself," Geoffrey Mwamba, the UPND's vice
president, told reporters Tuesday. The allegations are "trumped up" and
Hichilema "has not committed any offense whatsoever," he said.
Election dispute
The latest arrest marks a spike in the confrontation between HH, as the
opposition leader is known, and Lungu, whom Hichilema refuses to recognize
because he says the election he lost in August was fraudulent. The UPND
challenged the results in the Constitutional Court, which didn't hear the case
after the 14-day period allowed for the petition lapsed before it could even
begin.
Yields on Zambia's $1 billion of Eurobonds due April 2024 rose 4 basis points
on Wednesday to 8.08 percent.
Police in the Southern Province arrested 4 people for attempting to hold a riot
in response to the arrest of Hichilema, the police commissioner for the
province, Bonny Kapeso, said in a text message Wednesday.
Hichilema, 54, was last arrested in October over allegations of unlawful
assembly, and says he's been detained at least 16 times in the past 5 years.
"This time they were so brutal," Hichilema said by phone Tuesday after he
arrived at the police station. "They tortured my workers. My lips are swollen,
my eyes are swollen, my skin is itching."
(source: moneyweb.co.za)
PAKISTAN----executions
2 militants hanged in Sahiwal Jail
Police authorities confirmed that 2 militants were hanged in Sahiwal jail
today, reported Waqt News. According to reports both militants were involved in
several terrorist activities. Both had been convicted by military courts and
had been kept in Sahiwal jail for a long time.
Their dead bodies were handed over to their relatives.
On March 7, execution of terrorists already convicted by the military courts
was resumed with five hardcore terrorists sent to the gallows at District Jail
Kohat on Wednesday.
According to ISPR, the executed terrorists include Shaukat Ali, Imdad Ullah,
Sabir Shah, Khandan and Anwar Ali.
The convicted terrorists were involved in attacks on Pakistan Army and other
law enforcement personnel.
All the 5 terrorists had confessed to their crimes before the military courts.
Execution of these terrorists comes at a time when the government is on the
verge of extending the term of the military courts, which came to end earlier
this year after lapse of the Sunset Clause.
These courts were established under the 21st constitutional amendment after the
2014 terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS), Peshawar.
Military's top brass on January 11 lauded the role of military courts for
greatly helping in bringing the heightened wave of terrorism down across the
country.
According to the ISPR, 274 cases were referred to the military courts.
Out of 274 cases, 161 convicts were awarded the death penalty, 12 were executed
and 113 were awarded imprisonment of varying duration.
The cases were dealt through due process of law in the military courts.
(source: The Nation)
******************
US experts cite 'flimsy' evidence in Kulbhushan case, question slow 26/11 trial
Top US experts have expressed concern over Pakistan's decision to give death
penalty to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav as they warned that Islamabad
wants to send a "strong message" to India against isolating it on the world
stage.
Jadhav, 46, was awarded the death sentence by military Field General Court
Martial under the army act for his alleged involvement in terrorism and
espionage. The death sentence was confirmed by army chief Gen Qamar Javed
Bajwa.
"Apart from the gross irregularities in the Jadhav situation, such as the lack
of consular access and the secrecy surrounding the surprise court-martial, what
struck me the most is the contrast between the speed of Mr Jadhav's trial set
against the endless postponements for that of the Mumbai attackers," Alyssa
Ayres, a former senior State Department official in its South and Central Asia
Bureau said.
"The latter case, by contrast, has been in a continual state of prolongation
for nearly 9 years,"Ayres told PTI.
She is currently senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the
Council on Foreign Relations, a top American think-tank.
Bharat Gopalaswamy, director of South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, a
Washington-DC based top US think-tank, believes that the evidence warranting
Jadhav's conviction "is rather flimsy" and the story by the Pakistani
authorities "do not add up".
Without furnishing further evidence, this conviction as it stands, "seems to be
politically motivated" in order to counter India's aggressive diplomacy against
Pakistan in combating terrorism, he said.
"This whole story is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, but it seems clear
that Pakistan wants to send a very strong message to India, whether to warn New
Delhi against meddling in Pakistan or to push back in a big way against India's
efforts to isolate Pakistan on the world stage," said Michael Kugelman, deputy
director and senior associate for South Asia at the prestigious Woodrow Wilson
Center.
"At the same time, given how much India will want to ensure that Yadav isn't
executed, Pakistan now has a very large bargaining chip at its disposal.
Pakistan may want to use Yadav as a trump card to get some type of major
concession from India," Kugelman said.
"The bottom line is that India-Pakistan relations are on life support. We can
kiss goodbye any immediate prospects for resuming dialogue, though that wasn't
a very strong possibility even before the announcement about Yadav's death
sentence. Ultimately, India and Pakistan face some very dark and dangerous days
ahead," he said.
According to Sameer Lalwani, senior associate and deputy director for Stimson's
South Asia programme, said the decision and timing of Jadhav's execution
sentence "appears puzzling" because in many ways it does not seem to work in
Pakistan's self-interest.
"If Jadhav posed a threat and Pakistan wanted to send a deterrent signal to
potential saboteurs of CPEC and Gwadar, they could have executed him months ago
after his intelligence value had been exhausted," Lalwani said.
"If Pakistan wanted to exploit Jadhav's capture for diplomatic purposes by
showcasing evidence of Indian sub conventional aggression, Pakistan still has
yet to convince the international community and an execution raises
suspicions," Lalwani said.
"Finally, if the Indians care that much about Jadhav, Pakistan could have used
him as a bargaining chip. Perhaps the sentence is an opening bargaining gambit
but actually executing Jadhav may not be reaping much of a deterrent signal for
Pakistan while foreclosing on diplomatic or trade value," he said.
Both the State Department and the White House refused to comment on the
sentencing of Jadhav.
"We have seen these reports. We refer you to the governments of India and
Pakistan for further information," a State Department spokesperson said.
(source: Hindustan Times)
************************
Pakistan is home to the 'world's largest death row'
Exhausted from a full day's work, 25-year-old student Sohail Yafat knew he had
one last stop to make before heading home: a visit to a colleague's ailing
father at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology hospital, in his native Lahore,
Pakistan's second city.
Yafat never expected the police to be there, waiting for him. He was arrested,
and bundled into a police van.
"There was no warrant. This was all purely on suspicion," he says. "I was
blindfolded, and I was brutally tortured and beaten on the way. I had never
even entered a police station, so I had no idea of this world."
That was the summer of 2001. The police and a complainant had named him as an
accomplice in a murder case in the town of Sahiwal, about 150km south. What
followed for Yafat was harrowing: 10 years of imprisonment during which he was
tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2011, a court
exonerated him, acquitting him of his crimes for want of evidence.
"I was subjected to 3rd-degree torture. They beat the soles of my feet with
bamboo sticks. I was beaten with whips. I was kept awake, bound so that I was
positioned bolt upright and unable to sleep," he recalls.
The maximum punishment for murder suspects in Pakistan is the death penalty -
Yafat says he was terrified of receiving it. In the 10 years he spent in
prison, having seen the conditions under which death row prisoners lived, he
was determined to work for their rights, "to ease their pain", he says.
In 2014, the government lifted a 6-year moratorium on executions as part of a
counter-terrorism plan. It then expanded the use of executions to include
non-terrorism offences in 2015, saying the measure was needed to combat crime.
Last year, Pakistan executed 87 people, making it the 5th most prolific
executioner in the world, according to an annual report on the global use of
the death penalty released by Amnesty International on Tuesday.
Together, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan accounted for 87 % of all
recorded worldwide executions, the report said. China is widely believed to
execute thousands of people every year, but data on executions "is classified
as a state secret", according to Amnesty.
In total, 1,032 executions were recorded in 2016, down by 37 %, but death
sentences were at the highest level since Amnesty began compiling statistics,
with 3,117 people sentenced to death worldwide.
Of those, more than 360 people were sentenced in Pakistan, and are currently
living on the world's largest recorded death row, home to more than 6,000
prisoners.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry had not responded to a request for comment by the
time of publication.
Pakistan's prisons are chronically overcrowded, partly owing to an overloaded
justice system that incarcerates a large proportion of under-trial prisoners.
As of April 2015, the country's prisons held at least 80,169 prisoners, against
a capacity of just 46,705, according to World Prison Brief.
Within the prisons themselves, special areas are designated for death row
prisoners. As many as eight prisoners will be forced to share an 8-by-10ft
cell, says Yafat, who spent years at the Sahiwal Jail tending to fellow
prisoners.
(source: Yahoo News)
MALAYSIA:
1,122 Still On Death Row
Malaysia is ranked 10th among 23 countries that apply the death sentence
worldwide, according to the 2016 Death Sentences and Executions Report by
Amnesty International Malaysia (AIM).
AIM executive director K. Shamini Darshni said Malaysia recorded 9 executions
as of last year with 1,122 individuals currently on death row.
"The Home Ministry had in October, last year, informed Parliament that Malaysia
executed 6 people in 2014, 1 in 2015 and 9 as of September 2016.
"The disclosure was the 1st time the annual breakdown of executions has been
given in recent memory and has provided an insight into the magnitude and true
extent of Malaysia's use of the death penalty," she told reporters during the
presentation of the report here today.
According to the report, 829 have been sentenced to death since 2010, while 95
others had received pardons or had their death sentences commuted during the
same period.
The government had stated that as of April 30, 2016, 1,042 people comprising
629 Malaysians and 413 foreign nationals were sentenced to death due to murder,
drug trafficking, firearms trafficking or kidnapping.
"Of these, 649 prisoners had legal appeals pending, while 393 were seeking
pardon," she said.
Shamini further said despite draft legislation to reform death penalty laws in
the country which was announced in November 2015, it has yet to be introduced
in Parliament.
"On March 23, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Azalina
Othman Said had announced that the government was looking to allow judges
sentencing discretion in drug trafficking cases where the mandatory death
penalty is currently applied.
"However, while the move could result in a significant reduction in the use of
the death penalty, the authorities should not limit reform to drug trafficking
offences only," she said.
Citing the hurried execution of brothers B. Rames and B. Suthar on March 15
while their clemency applications were still pending, Shamini called on the
government to establish a moratorium on all executions as a 1st step towards
full abolition of the death penalty.
(source: malaysiandigest.com)
***************************
Court to hear evidences in Siti Aisyah`s trial
The court session for the Kim Jong Nam murder case involving Indonesian
national Siti Aisyah on Thursday, April 13, in Malaysia will be held to listen
to proofs and evidences presented by the prosecutor.
"Tomorrow, the court session will be held to only hear the evidences that
strengthen the prosecution side, and the judge will review those proofs before
deciding whether it should brought to the High Court," Head of the Indonesian
Protection Team and Indonesian Law Body of the Foreign Ministry Lalu Muhammad
Iqbal noted in a text message in Jakarta on Wednesday.
The lawyer, along with the Indonesian Protection Team from the Indonesian
Embassy and Foreign Ministry, will accompany Aisyah in court, Iqbal remarked.
Iqbal stated that the team of lawyers appointed to accompany Aisyah will not
contest the charges in court tomorrow.
"The defense will present its side in the High Court," Iqbal pointed out.
Aisyah became the defendant in the murder case of King Jong Nam, a relative of
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and will appear for the 2nd time in the
Magistrate Court in Sepang, Kuala Lumpur, on Thursday, Apr 13.
At the Magistrate Court in Sepang on Mar 1, Aisyah and a Vietnamese citizen
Doan Thi Huong were accused of the murder of Kim Jong Nam.
At the indictment reading in the Magistrate Court, both were accused of
murdering Jong Nam and were charged under law Section 32 Kanun Keseksaan or
regarding planned murder along with Section 34 from the same law and could face
a maximum of death penalty if convicted.
The police have accused Aisyah, 1 of the 2 women suspects, of smearing Jong
Nams face with a deadly poisonous chemical on Feb 13.
Aisyah was arrested 3 days after the incident.
While speaking to the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Aisyah said she was
paid 400 ringgit to take part in a show that she believed was a prank reality
show. Aisyah also thought that the chemical used was merely baby oil.
(source: Antara News)
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