July 8
INDIA:
Madhya Pradesh court pronounces death penalty to man who raped 9-year-old
girl----The trial in the case was completed within 46 days in a local court in
Rehli block and the accused convicted for the crime. The police investigation
into the case too was completed in just 72 hours.
In a significant development, a man who was accused of raping a 9-year-old girl
in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh, was convicted for the heinous crime and
awarded capital punishment by a local court on Saturday.
Importantly, the trial in the case was completed within 46 days in a local
court in Rehli block and the accused convicted for the crime. The police
investigation into the case too was completed in just 72 hours.
The shocking incident happened in Khamaria village of Rehli block of Sagar
district on May 21. The accused was arrested and booked under Sections 376-A,
376-B of IPC and provisions of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act
2012, said SP of Sagar district Satyendra Kumar Shukla. The court of additional
district and sessions judge in Rehli block Sudhanshu Saxena held the accused
Narayan Patel guilty of the crime and awarded him death penalty.
This is perhaps the 1st case in Madhya Pradesh, where capital punishment has
been pronounced to a man convicted of raping a minor, after the amendments were
made to the criminal law by the Narendra Modi governent to provide death
penalty as the maximum punishment for those convicted for raping minors aged up
to 12 years.
Meanwhile, a 5 year old girl was allegedly assaulted sexually by the driver of
the auto-rickshaw by which she daily went to school in Katni town of MP.The
matter which was reported by the girl's kin to Katni police on Saturday
happened 3 days back.
According to a officer of Katni police, the 37-year-old auto-rickshaw driver
Rajkumar Kol daily dropped school students from home to school in his
auto-rickshaw. On July 4, the auto-rickshaw driver dropped all children at
school, excepting the 5 year old girl. He drove the minor from school to a
desolate spot and assaulted her sexually. The girl reported the matter to her
parents on Friday night and family reported it to police on Saturday morning,
after which the accused was arrested.
In a related development, the Congress workers staged a demonstration on
Saturday outside Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's residence in Bhopal
over rising incidents of crime against women and children in the state. The
police later arrested 31 Congress workers, including 19 women activists and
sent them to jail from where they were released on bail.
(source: newindianexpress.com)
IRAN----executions
Execution of 8 Prisoners over 2017 Isis Attacks in Tehran
8 prisoners who were sentenced to death over the Isis attacks on Tehran's
parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were executed today.
Some of them were not directly involved in the attacks.
According to IRNA news agency, on the morning of Saturday, July 7, eight
prisoners who were convicted over the Isis attacks in Tehran were executed.
None of the official reports mention the execution site, however, since the
prisoners were held at ward 209 of Evin prison, it is most possible that their
execution was carried out at Evin Prison.
The prisoners named as Soleiman Mozafari, Esmail Sufi, Rahman Behrouz, Seyyed
Majed Mortezai, Sirous Azizi, Ayyoub Esmaili, Khosro Ramezani and Osman
Behrouz.
The prisoners were arrested after the 2017 terrorist attacks on Tehran's
parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. However, according to
several reports, some of those executed were not directly involved in the
attacks and were sentenced to death on the charge of having information about
the operation and, in some cases, providing the attackers with logistic
support.
There is no information regarding the process of the interrogation, hearing,
and trial of those prisoners. It is also not clear if the defendants had any
lawyers or public defenders.
Iran Human Rights condemns the execution of those citizens. Mahmood
Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson for IHR, said, "Execution is an inhumane form
of punishment which is imposed by the government as a way of terrifying people
and it will only result in the spread of violence."
(source: Iran Human Rights)
NEW ZEALAND----book review
This Mortal Boy.
In 1955, New Zealand's 2nd-last execution occurred. The victim was a hapless
young Irishman, Albert Black, who had knifed a man in a bar-room brawl. Public
revulsion at his execution was a major force in abolishing the death penalty in
1961.
Black was convicted of murder and summarily executed. Yet there were clear
signs that his trial was a severe miscarriage of justice. At most, he should
have been charged with manslaughter but the trial itself should have been
declared a mistrial.
Kidman's story, beautifully and clearly laid out for us, is of an outsider,
recently arrived here. A bit of a mother's boy from Protestant Belfast, he is
lost and homesick. He falls in with the wrong crowd after he moves to Auckland.
The brawl itself was a drunken mess, erupting after Black was taunted. In
court, he does not really stand up for himself, not questioning the clearly
biased statements of "witnesses", many of whom did not see the assault.
We have come to expect a high level of research in all of Kidman's novels. She
does not disappoint here. The conservative 1950s, with Teddy boys, bodgies and
widgies, milk bars, and a heavy blanket of social repression, are well
recreated. It was the era of a National government, who instigated the
Mazengarb Report. This fear-fuelled study took extreme fright at a perceived
tsunami of juvenile delinquency and immorality. The epicentre of this social
upheaval was seen as the Hutt Valley - to where Black initially was sent as an
assisted immigrant.
While retaining most of the factual elements of the murder and the trial,
Kidman has fictionalised others. The jury and its discussions are sketched in,
revealing a nest of bourgeois bigotry. In Kidman's eyes, they have been
terrorised, not by the delinquency, but by the Mazengarb Report itself.
Kidman is very clear, without any tendentiousness, that Black struck out in
self-defence. The argument was over a girl and Black had already been beaten up
by the man he attacked, Johnny McBride. McBride, knowing Black's gentleness,
went out of his way to provoke him. The fatality of the attack was probably
caused by others manipulating McBride's injured body.
The trial judge was clearly at fault. He made a statement to the press before
the jury's decision, that evidenced his "prejudice against the outsider",
Black, as "not one of ours". That alone should have stopped the trial.
The most impressive aspect of this deeply moving novel is Kidman's control of
the facts. She lets them speak for themselves, never intruding an authorial
viewpoint. She does not sentimentalise Black or his situation. Nor does she
condemn the judge or jury. That heightens the strength of this expose of the
vulnerability of capital punishment to the pressure of public opinion, and of
its ineffectiveness as a deterrent.
(source: stuff.co.nz)
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