October 10
UNITED KINGDOM:
Lord Ahmad marks World Day Against the Death Penalty
Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad reaffirms the UK's long-standing policy on
the death penalty.
Minister for Human Rights, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon said:
On World Day Against the Death Penalty, we reaffirm the UK’s long-standing
policy to oppose the use of the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter
of principle.
The death penalty undermines human dignity, there is no conclusive evidence of
its deterrent value, and any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition
is irreparable.
With the Magna Carta Fund we work globally through our diplomatic network and
with international experts to reduce use of the death penalty and to work
towards its abolition.
We call on the 73rd session of the General Assembly of the United Nations to
vote in favour of the Resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the
death penalty. We will continue to work with other states, parliaments and
civil society groups who share this goal.
(source: www.gov.uk)
BELARUS:
I didn't know my country had the death penalty - until they executed my father
My father was sentenced to death in Belarus in 2016. 10 months later, he was
executed. We were only notified 1 month after his death, as is usual in
Belarus.
I used to visit my father in prison once a month. He was escorted to our
meetings by 5 prison guards. His hands were tied together and he couldn't see
where he was going. He was always stressed when he came to see me. He knew he
was either going to see me, his lawyer or he was going to be shot.
The prison guards would stay with us, listening carefully to what we were
talking about. We never spoke about what he did or about his case. We only
spoke about personal matters.
I remember the last time I saw my father. It was on 5 November 2016. He was
saying:
'Everything is fine, we have enough time, don't worry.'
One prison guard was joking ironically: 'Yes, you have a bit of time. Just a
bit left.'
The guard was making it clear that my father's execution was going to happen
sooner or later. He wanted to crush my father's morale while I was there. I can
only imagine how they acted one on one, with no relatives or loved ones
present.
I gave my father a parcel, thinking I would go again a month later. Just as I
was planning to visit him again, we got the letter. He'd been shot the day I
went to see him.
We didn't ask for any of his personal belongings. My mother was scared they
would send us his prison uniform. But it's a shame because he had personal
photographs. I think they threw them out or burnt them - they could have
returned them to us.
My father had been accused of killing his girlfriend but the whole trial was
very strange. It was more like a circus. 1 witness turned up drunk. His
testimonies were contradictory, even the judge questioned it. The witness was
saying: 'Oh, I can't remember exactly.'
The entire case was built on such testimonies and evidence. 'Nobody else could
have done it' was the main line of argument in the case and the fact that my
father had a criminal record. The court didn't care about who else could have
done it.
It's bizarre but that's how it was - our government decided the outcome.
The death penalty is a longstanding practice in Belarus. It’s thought that
during the Soviet times up to 250,000 people were executed and buried in a
place called Kurapaty.
It might seem like a long time ago, but it's still happening today. People are
executed and nobody is notified. Families have no idea where their loved ones
are buried.
For us, it's hard to come to terms with what's happened because we didn't bury
my father, we didn't see his body - so it's like he's still out there
somewhere, alive and well.
We do have a plot for his grave. We've kept it very plain, but it doesn't stop
us from praying for him. It's harder for my mother because some people keep
telling her he's still alive. Others call and say they can show her where he's
buried - if we pay.
There are few people who pay attention to the fact we still have the death
penalty in Belarus - so I am grateful to organisations such as Amnesty
International which continue to draw public attention to the problem and which
campaigned for my father's death sentence to be commuted.
After he was sentenced to death, nobody ever discussed it with me in our small
town in Belarus. However, people on the internet had a lot to say.
People didn't understand why my mother and I supported him. Some said we should
be shot as well or placed in a psychiatric hospital. People also said things
about my 4-year-old daughter. That's what hurt me the most. They said she
should be shot because she will grow up to be the same.
People often ask me why I tell my story. I don't talk about political issues,
I'm not interested. I am telling my personal story, how it affected my family.
Despite the tragedy that struck our family, we are moving on - I need to,
especially for my daughter.
I have a great creative job, which I love. It's helping me to heal, move on
from my problems and forget all the difficulties we've faced.
I didn't even know the death penalty existed in Belarus - the 1st time I heard
about it was in court. When the public prosecutor demanded the death penalty, I
was shocked. I thought he was mistaken. That's the problem. Before you face it
yourself, you don't think about it.
There are at least 4 prisoners known to be on death row in Belarus. To mark
World Day Against the Death Penalty, Amnesty International is launching a
campaign highlighting cases in Belarus, Ghana, Iran, Japan and Malaysia, where
the death penalty is commonly used. To find out more, visit www.amnesty.org
(source: metro.co.uk)
SOMALIA:
Somalia's al Shabaab executes 5 men accused of spying
Somalia's al Shabaab Islamists on Tuesday shot 5 men in a public execution,
including a Somali British citizen accused of spying, a sign of the insurgents'
control of southern swathes of the country, even as authorities step up efforts
to combat them.
Al Shabaab's grip on the Horn of Africa nation has been weakening since it was
pushed out of the capital by African Union peacekeepers in 2011, but the
government and the U.S. military are beefing up an offensive against it.
"5 of them were publicly shot to death this afternoon after they admitted
espionage before the court," said Mohamed Abu Abdalla, al Shabaab's governor
for the Jubba regions.
"Awale Ahmed Mohamed, 32 spied for MI6 and he came from Britain to Somalia to
establish Islamic State," he told Reuters late on Tuesday.
3 of the men spied for the United States and helped guide drones to carry out
strikes in Somalia, while a 4th spied for the Somali government, he added.
The government did not return telephone calls from Reuters to seek comment.
The U.S. drones often carry out strikes against the Somali militants, with the
U.S. military saying it killed 1 militant in an air strike in southern Somalia
over the weekend.
Al Shabaab is trying to overthrow Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed government and
impose a strict form of Islamic law. The country has been torn apart by civil
war since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator before turning on each
other.
(soruce: Reuters)
KENYA:
It's time Kenya abolished the death sentence
Death is the most controversial topic in many cultures and societies. Some
believe life is cyclical; it doesn't have an end. Others believe life is
lineal; there is an end to it.
While some talk about it freely, in most African cultures death is usually
spoken about in hushed tones and whispers. In some communities, it is an
abomination to talk about death. They believe it is an enemy of life and life
should be preserved by all means, even if the case is hopeless.
I take 'hopeless' to mean those suffering from incurable diseases, habitual
offenders, murderers or other people or conduct that disrupts, or terminates,
life.
DEGRADING
Most human beings fear death. We can tell from the many inventions and products
churned out on a daily basis to prolong life, prevent ageing and delay death.
If this is the case, what about that person who knows that on a certain date
they will meet their death in the most inhumane way?
No matter how hard we try to justify the death penalty through religion,
culture and laws, it still is inhumane. Death is barbaric, inhumane and
degrading. Why should one human being condemn another to such cruelty?
In Kenyan laws, the death penalty is prescribed in the Penal Code for offences
of murder, robbery with violence, attempted robbery with violence, treason and
administration of oath to bind a person to commit a capital offence.
MITIGATION
Until recently, the courts did not have discretion to consider mitigation when
meting out the death penalty unless where the accused was mentally ill,
pregnant or a minor.
The death penalty is a residue of the colonial laws imposed on Kenya by the
British colonial master, who used it to uphold "good governance, justice and
civilisation". Violence and death were tools to control the African and
facilitate operations of the State.
The application of the death penalty in Kenya was heightened during the
Independence struggle. Records show that 280 of the 3,584 people sentenced to
death were executed in 24 years - 1963 to 1987.
Around the world, 106 countries have abolished the death penalty for all
crimes, seven for ordinary crimes, 29 are abolitionist in practice (including
Kenya) and 56 retain the practice.
HUMANITY
The death penalty, whether in law or practice, deprives a person of their
humanity. Living on death row is a two-pronged punishment: Psychological
torture for waiting to die and the death itself.
But how can a regional economic power and democratically progressive nation
such as Kenya keep such a heinous punishment in its laws? The penalty has not
deterred crime. The threshold in some of the capital offences that attract the
death penalty are low.
Further, Kenyan prisons are congested due to limited infrastructure.
While the prisons authorities might try to offer good living conditions, the
high numbers of inmates make it hard to manage the wards, especially in regard
to personal hygiene. This usually leads to infections and diseases. This
further threatens their rights to life, dignity and privacy.
REINTEGRATION
I have spent time with inmates who had been condemned to death before the
sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.
I have seen them making use of their time in prison in many useful ways:
Studying for degrees, teaching their colleagues in the prison school and using
their technical skills in the workshop, among other vocational programmes.
I have witnessed some of these people, who had a date with the hangman,
supporting fellow inmates to access justice and even challenging
unconstitutional laws in court.
I have talked to people who, in my opinion, have reformed and are ripe for
reintegration. I have seen people who were on death row released either through
acquittal on appeal or the presidential pardon moving on to provide immense
service to the community.
EFFECTIVENESS
I do not even want to get to those who, for whatever reason, have innocently
found themselves in prison.
I wonder what loss we would incur if these useful members of society had been
killed.
The British, who enjoy a cordial bilateral relationships with Kenya, have a
moral obligation to advocate against death penalty in their former colony too.
They introduced this heinous law and should, therefore, come out to condemn it
and support the abolition movement.
As we mark the 16th World Day Against Death Penalty today, it is time Kenya
looked at the effectiveness of the death penalty and whether we need to
continue having it in our books or not.
(source: Mr John Muthuri is a legal aid manager at African Prisons
Project----nation.co.ke)
IRAN:
World Day 2018: Death penalty; an inhumane punishment for death row prisoners,
their families and society as a whole
Every year several hundred people are executed by the Iranian authorities.
According to reports by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and other human rights groups,
death row prisoners have often no access to a defence lawyer after their arrest
and are sentenced to death following unfair trials and based on confessions
extracted from them under torture. These are issues which have been addressed
in IHR’s previous reports. The current report is based on first-hand accounts
of several inmates held in Iran's prisons and their families. The report seeks
to illustrate other aspects of how the death penalty affects the inmate, their
families and, as a consequence, society.
How does a death row inmate experience his final hours?
Speaking about the final hours of a prisoner prior to his execution, Saeed
(name changed), who has been on death row for a while and has even been taken
to the gallows once, told IHR: "Recently, there has been an increase in the
number of the days inmates at Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj are kept in solitary
confinement ahead of their execution and so you can no longer really speak of
an inmate's final hours. Generally, the prisoners have their hands and feet
cuffed in this period to make sure they harm neither themselves nor their
guards and to avoid any trouble during their transfer. Prisoners sentenced to
death are moved to solitary confinement on Saturdays and usually executed on
Wednesdays. There have been cases where the execution was postponed to
Wednesday in the following week. During this time, prisoners are given only
government food to eat. And that food is absolutely inedible. While still in
their ward, they do their own cooking, making their own meals and throwing away
the government food.
The final visit is the most awful thing there is and, to my mind, worse than
the execution itself. A prisoner who is taken to his final visit hasn't cleaned
himself and eaten in days and has had to wash his hands in the toilet bowl of
his solitary confinement cell. As the windows are sealed shut, the solitary
confinement cell is steaming hot in the summer. I could virtually see the sweat
coming out of the cells of my skin. Imagine, in these conditions, the prisoner,
whose hands and feet are cuffed, is brought to the last visit and given 10
minutes to say goodbye to his family. Granted, in some cases, they do uncuff
the prisoner's hands. The families weep, they cry out in anguish, then the 10
minutes are over, and they hold on to the prisoner's hands and feet and won't
let him leave the visiting room. The male guards forcefully separate the women
from the prisoner as there are no female officers to do that.
These are frantic and reprehensible moments for the families, and most
prisoners whose hands and feet are tied become angry and, frequently, they are
subjected to electric shocks and beaten with truncheons once they have left the
room. The final visit is usually held after office hours because that is when
the visitors' section is closed.
On the one hand, the blankets which are given to prisoners in the solitary
confinement cell reek of vomit. When they moved me to solitary confinement,
there was a blanket under the dustbin and slime was dripping on it from the
waste in the bin. The officer told me to pick it up. I told him it was dirty.
The officer said that the other blankets were even dirtier, and he was telling
the truth. All the blanket smelled of urine, excrement and rubbish.
There is no fixed time for taking a death row inmate to his execution. Usually,
it is between 5 and 6 in the morning. But there was a case where an inmate,
Mohammad Ghiasvand, who was convicted of a murder under a group fight was held
in solitary confinement for a week and was executed at 8 in the morning. When
he was picked up to be executed, he thought they were taking him to meet his
lawyer. He didn't know that he was going to be executed on his own. Unless
someone has pity on you, no one gets to know (about the execution) and you are
not told when you are going to be executed individually or in twos.
As in the nights before, the prisoner is kept in solitary confinement for the
last night. His hands and feet tied together, he lies on the floor of the cell
with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Sometimes, if the prisoner is lucky, his
hands are tied in the front and he gets to masturbate."
Drugs: a refuge for death row inmates
Prisoners wait between several months and several years before their death
sentence is carried out. Anxiety, depression and, in many cases, suicide is
rampant among death row inmates and as no specialised healthcare provider and
adequate medication are available in prison, most of the prisoners revert to
the use of narcotic drugs. To procure drugs in prison, you need money.
Generally, maintaining good relations with the guards and other prison staff is
helpful. To make money, addicted prisoners are forced to sell drugs, and to be
able to sell drugs in the prison environment you need some kind of power
structure to protect yourself and this kind of power can be acquired in group
structures. For this reason, most prisons have gangs consisting of death row
inmates who traffic drugs.
Ali (nicknamed Black Ali ) was one of the prisoners at Rajai Shahr Prison in
Karaj. He was imprisoned after having been found guilty of murder for having
killed someone in a street fight. Soon after being throw in prison he became
addicted to drugs and started to peddle drugs in order to cover his expenses.
As it happened, prison officers discovered drugs in his cell and this time he
was sentenced to death for possessing and dealing drugs. After having been
convicted to death, Ali began to shoot heroin and soon infected with HIV. In
order to earn money, he then became a "fall guy" who, every time drugs were
found in the prison facility, would report to the prison guards and say: "Those
drugs belong to me". In return for doing so, the actual owners would give Ali
drugs or pay him money to buy more drugs. As a result, he was convicted to
death in 8 more cases of drug possession. In 2011, Ali put an end to his life
at the Rajai Shahr Prison facility.
Sexual relations between death row inmates
Sexual relations between prisoners, particularly between death row inmates who
have no hope of ever coming out of prison alive, is very common. Although, for
the most part, the prisoners engage in such relations voluntarily and based on
mutual consent, sometimes weak prisoners engage in such relations with strong
prisoners and drug sellers for the protection they afford and in return for
drugs.
Execution: The punishment inflicted on an inmate's family
A prisoner incarcerated at Urmia Prison who faces the death sentence reports:
"In truth, my execution is punishment for my family. My mother will lose a son,
my wife her husband, my sister her brother and, most important of all, my
daughter will never get to see her father again. But me, after I'm dead, I will
no longer be around to be punished.
Alongside the psychological aspects and the behavioural issues that death row
inmates need to come to terms with, the prisoners' families also have their
burden to bear. For families of prisoners, especially of prisoners who are
married and have children, this is particularly agonising. It appears that
there are some similarities in what children of death row inmates experience in
society. In the knowledge that their father or mother have been put to death on
account of the society’s laws, they are confronted with the concept of death
and need to find a way to move on with their lives. Having been marked while
they are still children, they will have to suffer the stigma of being the child
of someone who has been executed for the remainder of their lives. As a result,
these children are much more likely to develop anti-social behaviour,
personality disorders and other mental issues.
Gholam (name changed) was executed in 2017 at Urmia Prison after being found
guilty of drug trafficking. He had received 300 thousand tomans, a paltry sum,
for the job of carrying the drug. The person who had hired him was never
arrested although Golam disclosed his identity. Fellow inmates report that
Gholam was called out for execution on a Friday morning at 8 Am. Moments before
he was going to be executed, he gave the attending judge a picture of his
children and said: I did it to fill their empty stomachs, don't make my
children orphans. Gholam's wife now lives in Urmia with her two children and
receives an insignificant allowance from welfare, which hardly suffices to make
ends meet. The family had been renting a place and when Qolam was executed the
landlord found out and demanded that Gholam's wife and children vacate the
premises. Gholam's wife and children lived with relatives for roughly one year
until they finally found a room to rent in one of Urmia's poorest
neighbourhoods. The people of the neighbourhood have been told of Gholam's fate
and the two children are sometimes made fun of at school. Also, ever since he
was executed, Gholam's wife has been routinely harassed by men wanting sexual
relations with her. A family friend says: Even the local cleric went after her
once he found out that she has no husband.
Depression, anxiety and even suicide are prevalent among the family members of
the death row inmates. The families of inmates who have been put to death, most
of whom are from the lower social classes, do not receive any psychological
support and counselling.
The story of a 52-year-old mother's suicide in Kermanshah after her son had
been executed in 2013 was even reported by the State media. After two years in
prison, Fereydoon was sentenced to death at Dizel Abad Prison (Kermanshah) for
carrying drugs. He, too, had agreed to act as a courier for a small fee due to
money problems. Fereydoon was married and up until he was incarcerated he had
also cared for his mother. 3 days after Fereydoon's execution, his mother took
her own life by hanging herself.
Whether guilty or not, the outcome of the death penalty is the same. In Iran,
the death penalty is by hanging, and it takes from several agonising seconds to
several harrowing minutes for death to occur and for everything to be over.
However, before their death sentence is carried out, the inmates spend some
time in prison or the detention centre. Many death row inmates do not consider
these few minutes of struggle on the threshold to their death the main
punishment, but rather the days and nights they spend in prison awaiting their
death.
It is undeniable that the families of those condemned to death, and
particularly the children, also suffer from the profound impact this experience
has on their lives; so much so, that these children and families themselves, in
enduring this punishment, can be said to experience a death of their own. The
effects appear at the time of the actual execution and last for many years
thereafter. The indifference or hostility shown by society is capable of
exacerbating the trauma that the families of prisoners suffer on account of the
execution of a loved one or even just the risk of execution. That is why, until
the death penalty is completely abolished in Iran, civil society organisations,
need to pay particular attention to the families of death row inmates,
especially to their children.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
