Sept. 20
SUDAN:
Sudan's sovereign council decides to drop death penalty against 8 militants
Sudan's Sovereign Council on Thursday decided to drop the death penalty against
8 members of an armed group in Darfur.
"The council decided to drop the death penalty against 8 members of Sudan's
Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Abdul-Wahid Nur," Mohamed Al-Faki Suleiman,
spokesman of the council, told reporters.
According to him, the council also decided to release 18 prisoners of armed
groups.
He added that a committee assigned by the Sovereign Council has been in contact
with the armed movements from Sudan's Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile
regions to implement the agreement reached prior to a round of peace talks.
On Sept. 11, Sudan's government and the armed groups signed a declaration of
principle and agreed to hold peace talks on Oct. 14 to address the war issues
in the country.
The declaration was reached after talks held in South Sudan's capital Juba
between representatives of the Sudan government and the armed groups, under a
mediation initiative by South Sudan's president.
The 2 sides also agreed to form specialized committees to arrange for the peace
negotiations, follow up procedures of releasing the prisoners of war, as well
as supervise measures of cessation of hostilities.
(source: xinhuanet.com)
PHILIPPINES:
Reform or execution
I have been wanting to write about the Bucor (Bureau of Corrections)
controversy. There are questions in my mind that I have been meaning to ask
because what I read in newspapers or online articles are never that complete.
What I know for a fact is that controversy or scandal is a recurring event in
New Bilibid Prison. The very place where criminals are imprisoned, both as a
punishment and a way to protect the public from them – ironically appears to be
a major headquarters for ongoing criminality around the country. It can even
seem that there are no bigger organized crime organizations than the ones being
run from the NBP. Reviewing historical events that have marked Bilibid as a
persistent source of controversy or scandal, it is inevitable that we reach one
conclusion. If major criminals can run their organizations from prison, then
prison officials have either been neglectful or complicit. The latter is more
probable. Constant neglect is easier to correct than systemic corruption –
anywhere. The mess in Bilibid has not been corrected, but its corruption has
been quite effective.
If I had more time and inclination, I would do more detailed research of the
thread of controversies and scandals that have accompanied the New Bilibid
Prison in its long history. Fortunately, I have neither more time or
inclination. What I remember is enough. And not so much about the details, but
more of the bitter aftertaste. Somehow, when the gory details of corruption are
momentarily forgotten, the filth sticks to the soul.
What does one do when something has become an uncontrollable menace to society?
Well, many leaders in government that are mandated to address the menace, like
illegal drugs, simplify matters and push for the return of the death penalty.
Even before the reinstatement of the death penalty, the official war on drugs
by the national government is already very bloody. Like the New Bilibid Prison
history, I do not have the time or inclination to research on the body count.
Whether it is 10,000 or 30,000, is it really more important than the fact that
people are killed? When the details are forgotten, the stink of blood is
retained by the nostrils.
My thoughts simply associate a solution that is copied from the official
recommendation of the Executive Branch – the death penalty. Why not apply the
death penalty to the New Bilibid Prison. If the corruption is more powerful
than any appointee, why not execute the New Bilibid Prison? If no
administration has the fortitude of waging a relentless and winnable war
against an establishment and system that has become a monster, why not sentence
it to death? If reform has become an impossibility, what other option is there?
It is important to choose between reform or execution. Whichever direction we
take will demand its own pathway, very different pathway. History, however,
favors the death penalty in the case of the New Bilibid Prison. The rate of
failure of reform is not only dismal, it is total. The monster has not been
tamed, it has grown stronger and more innovative in corrupting the appointed
reformers. It can even be speculated, from the long line of failed reformers,
that the monster influences even the many layers of appointing powers.
Reform is not impossible, but it is improbable considering everything. It is
difficult to bring a crucial part of our society’s security on a path of
improbability. Organized crime is supposed to be dismantled, not nurtured. Let
us look at how it has been over the last several decades, whether the NBP has
become more disciplined or more corruptive. Sadly, corruption has won every
battle, and every victory has allowed it to become more powerful and
innovative. It used to be that the food budget was the most tempting source of
corruption. Now, it is drugs, or drug lords.
But if we decide on the death penalty on this incorrigible monster, I am sure
that brilliant ideas can come from both the private and public sector. It can
become a national project where ideas can be sourced from anyone and prizes
given to the most outstanding of concepts and proposals. Execute New Bilibid
Prison without executing a penal and reform system for the whole country. Of
course, the more we probe the options on a new system, physical and
operational, the Bureau of Corrections itself will have to be revisited – from
concept to the very people running everything.
The need for a correctional system is any society is unavoidable. So is the
need for a group to collect taxes. And, of course, another to watch over what
and who comes in our port of entries. All need reform in the most radical of
manner, the BIR, the Customs, and Bureau of Corrections. Because they cannot be
dispensed with. And because they have to be kept clean in order to keep society
clean as well.
If these are institutionally infected, the illness is not like an ordinary cold
that we can expect to experience in the course of life. If corruption has grown
systemic, it is as deadly as cancer. And cancer needs a radical protocol before
it metastasizes the whole body. Cancer, too, has found alternative routes of
treatment, less violent and more humane. These alternatives, though, need great
and consistent organic support to the immune system. In people terms, they need
lots and lots of good people, lots and lots of ethics and morals.
So, which is it for us? What direction and manner has the greater probability
of cure? The radical protocol needs political will and consistency. The
alternative needs even more of the same political will and consistency.
(source: Jose Ma. Montelibano; Opinion, Philippine Inquirer)
INDIA:
Do we need death penalty in India? Many judges agree, find researchers --
Project 39A, a part of National Law University, Delhi, recently organised a
panel discussion on ‘Judicial Attitudes to Death Penalty in India and
Bangladesh’ in Bengaluru.
The global discourse has been moving away from death penalty for years –
according to Amnesty International, there was a 31% decline in the number of
executions recorded worldwide from 2017 to 2018; and by last year end, 142
countries had abolished capital punishment in law or practice, and 106, for all
crimes. However, India is not yet in that list.
On Thursday, Project 39A, a part of National Law University, Delhi, organised a
panel discussion on ‘Judicial Attitudes to Death Penalty in India and
Bangladesh’ in Bengaluru. The initiative describes itself as being named after
section 39A of the Indian Constitution that “furthers the intertwined values of
equal justice and equal opportunity by removing economic and social barriers”;
and provides free legal aid to those on death row in India.
The panel discussion was based on studies conducted by interviewing former
judges in India and Bangladesh as well as research carried out by the UK-based
Death Penalty Project on public opinion on death penalty. It was found in both
the Bangladesh and India that most judges favoured retention of capital
punishment because they believed it was a deterrent, despite lack of empirical
evidence to support the same.
What the studies found
60 former Supreme Court judges were interviewed for the study in India, while
30 retired district and sessions court judges were interviewed in Bangladesh.
“While all judges recognised the crisis in the criminal justice system, they
should high confidence in death penalty for deterrence,” said Dr Anup
Surendranath, Assistant Professor at NLU.
The “crisis” here refers to rampant custodial torture of the accused,
malpractices like planting of evidence by investigating authorities, and how
the poor and underprivileged are often the ones who get trapped in the system.
“The Bangladeshi judges we interviewed expressed frustration with the criminal
justice system – especially with police and public prosecutors where they said
corruption was rampant,” Dr Muhammad Mahbubur Rahman, a professor in the
Department of Law, Dhaka University said.
Experts said that this disproved Marshall’s hypothesis, developed by Thurgood
Marshall, an associate justice who was in the United States Supreme Court from
1961 to 1991. He said that people’s support for death penalty had to do with
their lack of knowledge about it. “However, here we had people who knew the
criminal justice system in and out, and yet were favouring capital punishment,”
Dr Anup observed.
Some judges even justified the use of custodial torture of the accused by
police and investigating officials – the same proportion in India and
Bangladesh incidentally, pointed out Professor Carolyn. In Bangladesh, six of
the 30 judges interviewed justified it; in India, the number was 12 out of 60
judges.
Life and death depend on judge’s discretion
The studies also found that whether an accused will get death penalty will
depend entirely on the judge’s discretion. For instance, Dr Rahman revealed
that of the 237 death sentences given by 28 of the 30 judges interviewed, one
single judge awarded 100 of the death penalties. “61% of the death penalties
were given by just three judges,” he noted. Findings were similar in India.
This is in violation of the principle that death penalty should only be given
in the rarest of rare cases. Referring to Bachan Singh v State of Punjab case
here, where Supreme Court said that life imprisonment should be the norm, and
death, an exception, the panellists argued that India was seeing a breakdown of
the rarest of rare doctrine.
The doctrine lays down mitigating and aggravating factors for awarding death.
Circumstances that would mitigate death penalty are factors like extreme
emotional and mental disturbance of the accused, the accused being very young
or very old, the possibility of him/her being rehabilitated and so on.
However, panellist Supreme Court Justice (retd.) V Gopala Gowda noted that
instead of the above factors, it is the background of the judge, his/her
mindset and personal inclinations are what influence their decision to award
death in a case. “Without knowledge of human rights discourses, it is left to
their discretion,” he said.
Public opinion on death penalty
Carolyn Hoyle, professor of criminology at Oxford University; further pointed
out that while public opinion should not have a bearing on the decision to give
a death sentence, it has been found that many judges refer to the “collective
conscience” of the people to justify it.
Death Penalty Project co-founder Saul Lehrfreund shared that in their dialogue
with retentionist countries, many governments had justified death penalty on
grounds that the public was in favour of it. Unlike the judges though,
Marshall’s hypothesis was found to apply in public opinion surveys taken by the
UK-based organisation in several retentionist countries.
“In China, out of the 4,500 people surveyed, only 3% said they had a lot of
interest in death penalty. In Malaysia, of the 1500 people interviewed, only 6%
claimed to be well-informed on the issue,” Saul said. “Public support for death
penalty is predicated on the assumption that there aren’t any wrongful
convictions and that the system works.”
Per Marshall’s hypothesis, public opinion in favour of death penalty was found
to reduce significantly when people were made aware of the flaws in the
criminal justice system, and that innocent people could be sent to the gallows
in wrongful convictions, surveys showed. “In China, the opinion in favour of
death penalty reduced from 58% to 25% when they were given this information. In
Malaysia, it dropped from 91% to 33%, and in Trinidad, from 89% to 35%,” Saul
said.
When a question was raised in the audience on whether abolishing death penalty
would impinge on victim rights, the panellists agreed that people had been
found to accept the next severe punishment - life imprisonment - fairly easily
when countries have done away with capital punishment. “We cannot retain victim
rights by taking away accused rights. It’s a false dichotomy,” Professor
Carolyn said.
(source: thenewsminute.com)
VIETNAM:
4 Vietnamese arrested for trafficking 80 cakes of heroin
Vietnamese police have detained 4 local people, including 3 women for
trafficking 80 cakes of heroin, Vietnam News Agency reported on Thursday.
The drug traffickers, including a 38-year-old female resident of northern Dien
Bien province named Nguyen Thi Le Anh, were arrested on Wednesday.
According to an initial investigation, Anh bought a large amount of heroin from
a Lao drug trafficking ring, and then a 56-year-old woman in Dien Bien
transported the drug to another old woman in northern Nam Dinh province.
According to the Vietnamese law, those convicted of smuggling over 600 grams of
heroin or more than 2.5 kg of methamphetamine are punishable by death. Making
or trading 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal drugs also faces
death penalty.
(source: xinhuanet.com)
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