July 4
INDONESIA/SAUDI ARABIA:
Indonesian freed from death penalty in Saudi returns to Indonesia
Nurkoyah, an Indonesian female worker from Rengasdengklok, Karawang, West Java
Province, awarded death penalty by the Saudi Court for the death of the child
of her employer, was released and finally returned to Indonesia.
Nurkoyah Marsan Dasan departed from the King Fahd Dammam International Airport
on Tuesday night (July 3) and is scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Wednesday
(July 4) at 15:40 local time, Indonesian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia Agus Maftuh Abegebriel noted in a statement received by Antara here on
Wednesday.
The Dammam City General Court granted pardon to Nurkoyah, who had been charged
with murdering her employer's son.
Following a lengthy legal process lasting 8 years, Nurkoyah was finally freed
on April 3, 2018.
According to Ambassador Abegebriel, during the trial, Nurkoyah received full
assistance from the Embassy team in Riyadh and Mish'al Al Shareef, as the
lawyer from the Mish'al Al Shareef Law Office.
The Indonesian ambassador, Legal Attache of the Indonesian Embassy Muhibuddin,
Police Attache Fahrurrazi, and Counselor Sunan Jaya Rustam facilitated the
process of returning Nurkoyah to Indonesia.
They accompanied Nurkoyah from the Dammam prison until she arrived at the King
Fahd Dammam International Airport, some 500 kilometers east of Riyadh City.
Nurkoyah thanked President Joko Widodo for the special attention given to all
Indonesian citizens in Saudi Arabia facing legal problems and to the Embassy of
Indonesia in Riyadh that had provided advocacy to secure a pardon from death
penalty.
Ambassador Abegebriel said Nurkoyah's return to Indonesia was special as she
was accompanied by Consul of the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Riyadh
Makki Nahari and was escorted to her hometown by Mish'al Shareef, who is a
well-known lawyer in Saudi.
During this time, Shareef conducted intensive advocacies for several cases of
Indonesian citizens in Saudi Arabia, including in Nurkoyah's case.
Ambassador Abegebriel affirmed that the Embassy in Riyadh will remain
consistent in serving and helping every Indonesian citizen in Saudi Arabia.
(source: Antara News)
CHINA:
Man sentenced to death for drug trafficking, homicide in China
Chen Shixuan was seized in May 2016 by police. The court said he was a leader
of a criminal gang who had engaged in illegal activities in Bomei Township, of
Lufeng City in Guangdong.
He illegally made and sold a large amount of methamphetamine, the court said.
In a raid on an apartment in the township on August 16, 2015, police seized
over 1,929 grams of methamphetamine and a large amount of ingredients. In the
same year, he sold around 3 kilograms of methamphetamine to 2 buyers surnamed
Tang and Lai.
According to the court, on September 29, 2015, Chen was responsible for the
death of a man surnamed Li whom he illegally held in a carwash. Chen also
kidnapped another man surnamed Zhou in an attempt to exhort a ransom.
Chen was a convicted felon and served time in prison before the trial. His
repeated offence and leading role in the gang led to him being sentenced to
capital punishment, the court said.
Other gang suspects are under investigation.
(source: xinhuanet.com)
TAIWAN:
Presidential Office demands retraction of report on planned execution
The Presidential Office on Wednesday demanded the retraction of a report
claiming the government is looking into the possibility of carrying out
executions as a way of boosting the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP)
chances of winning the local elections in November.
ETtoday, an online news outlet, published the report Wednesday, in which it
said Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san was called to the Presidential Office
recently for a discussion about the use of the death penalty amidst a spree of
serious crimes.
The discussion came to a tentative decision that Chiu would order an execution
in November, before the local elections on Nov. 24, partly to preserve social
order and partly to appease public anger over the delay in carrying out death
sentences, the report said.
The report contained no named sources.
Asked to respond, the Presidential Office issued a statement saying that any
suggestion President Tsai Ing-wen asked to meet Chiu to discuss the use of the
death penalty was false.
The office said no such meeting had been held nor had the issue been discussed
with Chiu and demanded the immediate retraction ofthe report.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice also issued a statement on the report which
it said was a "serious error" and factually incorrect.
Taiwan observed a moratorium on the death penalty from 2006-2009. During former
President Ma Ying-jeou's administration, 33 death row inmates were executed
from 2010-2016.
Since Tsai came to office in May 2016, no executions have been carried out.
There are currently 43 convicts on death row in Taiwan.
(source: focustaiwan.tw)
AUSTRALIA:
Myuran Sukumaran's death-row paintings come to Bendigo
The portrait of Indonesian President Joko Widodo faces the wall; its outline,
lit from behind, frames the artist's signature and a simple inscription:
"People can change."
Myuran Sukumaran was executed on April 29, 2015, for attempting to smuggle
drugs out of Indonesia. But his message remains very much alive.
The anguish, guilt, regret and horror of living with a death sentence in a
foreign prison is laid bare in an exhibition of more than 100 of Sukumaran's
paintings which comes to Victoria for the 1st time this week.
"[The exhibition] brings up a lot of memories," says Archibald Prize-winning
artist Ben Quilty, who taught Sukumaran to paint while on death row. "But it's
a positive memory, really, of how much the work meant to Myuran and how much he
hoped that people would see his work and continue to talk about the
senselessness of the death penalty.
"We discussed that in depth and I promised to do my best get it out there ...
I've posted the [exhibition] catalogue around the world to different leaders
who I thought needed to see it. They don't respond. I sent one to [President]
Jokowi."
The context in which Sukumaran's art was produced is a visceral thread
throughout the exhibition, which premiered last year at Campbelltown Arts
Centre as part of Sydney Festival. Many of the works contain overt references
to their creator's imprisonment and impending execution.
"I can't think of a more powerful anti-death penalty image made in the history
of humankind," says Quilty. But, he argues, the works hold their own.
"I think I probably underestimated how good the work was. It wasn't until I
opened the crates [of paintings] in my studio that I realised the possibility
of how big a show this could be.
"People were saying [Sukumaran's interest in painting] was made up to try and
gain sympathy, to try save his own life. It???s such a load of crap. You can
see in the exhibition how much work he did and how he was obsessed with his own
art practice, like I am obsessed with my own art practice."
Quilty's influence is apparent Sukumaran's paintings. But Campbelltown Arts
Centre director Michael Dagostino, who co-curated the exhibition with Quilty,
says Sukumaran was clearly beginning to establish his own style in the last 6
months of his life. The pieces produced in his final hours - as he painted all
through the night - are the most powerful.
"About 20 works were painted in his last 72 hours, the majority of them
self-portraits," says Dagostino. "It's kind of weird, [this selection] doesn't
feel rushed, it doesn't feel unfinished. They are quite settled as paintings
and there is a real sadness to them, because he???s always looking back at
you."
The exhibition also features works from other artists responding to Sukumaran's
story, including Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Jagath Dheerasekara, Khaled
Sabsabi and Matthew Sleeth.
Myuran Sukumaran: Another Day in Paradise is at Bendigo Art Gallery from
Saturday until September 16.
(source: canberratimes.com.au)
INDIA:
Punjab CM suggests death penalty for 1st-time drug offenders
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday asserted that the
state government would wipe out the menace of drug abuse.
The chief minister wrote to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, recommending death
penalty for 1st-time drug offenders.
"Have today written to Home Minister Rajnath Singh ji conveying my Government's
recommendation for approving death penalty to drug-related-offenders on 1st
conviction only. We are firm in our resolve to wipe out the menace of drug
abuse from Punjab," Singh wrote on Twitter.
Yesterday, the Punjab Chief Minister had shared a video message on Twitter
wherein he had warned the drug smugglers to give up or get ready to face
stringent actions, even death penalty.
On July 2, Singh had recommended to the Centre to formulate a law that awards
death penalty to those convicted for drug peddling and smuggling, amid the
growing drug menace in Punjab.
Meanwhile, he had also said that they have set up a committee to look into the
matter.
"In last few days, there has been a spurt in deaths due to drugs. We've made a
committee which is going to meet every day. On Mondays, I'm going to meet the
committee to see what action has been taken during the week. What is happening
here is unacceptable," the chief minister had said.
Singh had earlier also acknowledged that drug menace is a major social problem
of Punjab and that his party is going to take stringent actions in the regard.
(source: aninews.in)
OMAN----female gets death sentence
Omani woman sentenced to death for killing husband----Woman plotted and
executed the murder along with her lover, who was also sentenced to death
An Omani woman and her lover have been sentenced to death for murdering her
husband, according to the Public Prosecution.
The court recently sentenced the woman, in her 40s and her lover, another
Omani, 50s, to death for the premeditated murder of her husband in Oman's
northern Barka province.
The duo had plotted and executed the murder in 2016.
The woman's lover jumped over the fence of the adjacent house and shot her
husband in the neck with a gun.
According to the public prosecution, the woman stood over her dying husband and
watched him take his last breath.
The duo then disposed of the body in a nearby wadi and later returned to the
house to clean up and erase all evidence of the murder.
The next day the woman filed a missing person complaint with the police and
even participated in a search for her husband with her neighbours.
The victim's body was found 2 days later in the wadi.
After a detailed forensic report and autopsy, police confirmed the man was
murdered.
The woman later confessed to the crime after intense police interrogations.
The death penalty is rarely exercised in Oman, but such sentences are usually
handed out in drug-related crimes and premeditated murder.
(source: gulfnews.com)
IRAN----execution
Prisoner Hanged in Tabriz
A prisoner was executed at Tabriz Central Prison on murder charges.
According to a close source, on the morning of Tuesday, July 3, a prisoner was
executed at Tabriz Central Prison. The prisoner, charged with murder, was
identified as Mohammad Aali, 52, from a village near Tabriz.
The prisoner, having been in prison for 5 years, was transferred to the
solitary confinement from ward 9 of Tabriz Central Prison on Monday.
The execution of this prisoner has not been announced by the state-run media so
far.
According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 240 of the
517 execution sentences in 2017 were implemented due to murder charges. There
is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in
issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and
intent.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
***********************
HDP joins calls on Iran to stop Kurdish prisoner's execution
Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), an opposition faction in Turkey,
on Tuesday urged the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately stop the imminent
execution of Kurdish prisoner Ramin Hossein Panahi.
In a letter penned to Iran's ambassador Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian Fard, HDP
Co-leaders Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli said Panahi's detention and trial
process was "carried out far from the basic principles of the international
law."
"On behalf of millions of Kurds and democrats who voted for HDP, Buldan and
Temeli called on the Islamic Republic of Iran to reverse the death penalty for
Panahi in no time, stating the [need] for an appropriate fair trial process
based on universal legal standards,??? a statement on the HDP website read.
"Buldan and Temelli also asked the Islamic Republic to heed calls not to
execute Panahi," it added.
Panahi was wounded last year by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during
a clash with the Komala, an armed Kurdish opposition group.
He was subsequently placed in custody and held in solitary confinement until
January this year.
His family received no information about his fate or whereabouts for 4 months
following his arrest.
His attorney Hossein Ahmadi Niaz told Kurdistan 24 Tuesday that he and 5 other
lawyers had also sent letters to Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, pleading to
stop the execution.
Niaz said officials were to allow Panahi's father to see his son 1 last time, a
sign that the execution could be carried out soon.
United Nations rapporteurs, Amnesty International, and other human rights
organizations, as well as Kurdish groups, have urged Iran not to implement the
capital punishment on Panahi.
UN officials voiced "serious concerns" in an April statement that Panahi did
not receive a fair trial and was mistreated and tortured in detention.
"Executing Mr. Panahi, following his torture, and unfair trial and on the basis
of charges that do not meet international standards for the use of death
penalty, would be unconscionable," the experts Agnes Callamard, Dainius Puras,
and Nils Melzer said in a joint statement released in Geneva.
Iran, along with Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and China, is one of the top countries
that execute political prisoners.
(source: kurdistan24.net)
******************
Iran reduces death penalty, life sentence against 1700 drug convicts
Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi, the Tehran prosecutor general, announced on Tuesday
that 1,700 sentences of narcotic-related cases have been commuted from capital
punishment and life sentence to less severe forms of punishment.
The change in the law on narcotics-related punishments have revolutionized the
country's policies in fighting against narcotics, Jafari-Dolatabadi told a
meeting on social harms caused by narcotics, IRNA reported.
He further said out of 3000 requests made to commute narcotics-related
sentences, 1700 have been reviewed and 1300 remain to be reviewed very soon.
(source: Tehran Times)
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