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March 20 SOUTH AFRICA: The call for the death penalty is getting louder South Africa needs a justice-based capital punishment, which should come with an automatic appeal process to ensure that if the death penalty is implemented, it is to deserving offenders and it will only apply to repeat offenders. The nation’s demand for justice for the brutal murder of the teenager Thoriso Themane and the call to bring back the death penalty symbolise the desperation and hopelessness of its citizens. This is a clear indication of a government that has lost the battle against crime. In the same week that the community of Limpopo marched for justice for Thoriso, days later another murder was reported. A rising star Sibusiso Khwinana, who was a lead actor in the locally-produced movie Matwetwe, had been stabbed to death over a cellphone in Pretoria, sending shock waves across the nation. On average, 57 people are killed in South Africa every single day. Defenceless and impatient South Africans who constantly live in fear of crime, are making a call to their government to deal decisively with serious crime by bringing back the death penalty. This is a call that cannot be ignored. This is because many believe that a lot of murderers and criminals often get away with murder. Even after being locked away, many would argue that too often the sentences handed down against these criminals do not match the crimes committed. Some even point to the fact that many unrepentant criminals who have committed these crimes get released, but only to commit more crime not long after they have been released. At the core of the communities’ anger against criminals being released is the feeling that the convicted criminals after being released from prison don’t own up to what they have done, and often don’t give back to the same communities they have wronged. A US’s award-winning author and preacher Rev Renee Pittelli, says a lot of offenders stop at repentance, but there is restitution which requires offenders to make amends, by giving back to the person or the community they have wronged. Pittelli writes: “Restitution is unfamiliar and often uncomfortable to many. It comes as a quite surprise to offenders to be told that they are expected to undo the damage they did.” There’s an important lesson that we can take from Pittelli’s argument as far as restitution is concerned. With the average population of more than 160,000 prisoners locked away in South African prisons, the country has consequently locked away potential. The state should make it compulsory and mandatory for all the ex-offenders to work for the state free of charge, for at least up to a year after being given parole. As opposed to the current dysfunctional model, where ex-offenders are only required to volunteer to do community work at their “spare-time”. To deal with serious crime such as murder, what needs to happen urgently is the immediate review of the parole system. This would include, making use of labour convicts as a means of them earning their way back into society; by contributing to the welfare and economy of the country. There also needs to be a justice-based capital punishment which should come with an automatic appeal process. This is to ensure that when the death penalty is implemented, it is to deserving offenders and it will only apply to repeat offenders. (source: dailymaverick.co.za) NIGERIA: Abolish death penalty in Nigeria - Okowa tells FG Delta state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, has called for the abolishment of the death penalty in the country - The governor also called for the reformation of prisoners to make them better citizens of the country - Okowa further disclosed that the state government would give starter packs to those leaving prisons, to enable them start up their own businesses Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state on Monday, March 18 called for the abolishment of death penalty in Nigeria. The governor made the call when members of the Presidential Committee on Prisons Reforms led by its chairman, Justice Ishaq Bello, paid him a courtesy visit in Asaba, NAN reports. Atiku tells tribunal Legit.ng gathers that the governor stated that the death penalty should be abolished and those who are already sentenced to death should have their sentences converted to life imprisonment; more so now that most state governments are unwilling to sign the death warrant. He also called for the reformation of the prisoners to make them better citizens of the country. Okowa condemned a situation where prison inmates coordinate criminal activities such as kidnapping from the prisons, adding that reforming the prisoners was apt for a sustainable crime-free society. “We need to reform the minds of the prisoners, a programme to reform the mind of prisoners is very important because once you are able to reform their minds, they will become better citizens. “As a
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March 19 INDIA: Gujarat HC Sets Aside Death Penalty Imposed On A Woman For Lack Of Inquiry About Her Mental Condition The Gujarat High Court has set aside the death sentence imposed by the Trial court on a lady accused in a double murder case and directed it to ascertain her mental condition before conducting re-trial. Manjuben was accused of murder of her mother and sister. Perusing the evidence on record while hearing her appeal, the bench comprising of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice AC Rao noted that though plea of insanity was not raised before the Trial Court, and no evidence was led in that regard, the FIR itself stated that the mental condition of the accused was quite unstable and she was undergoing treatment in this regard past 2 years. Thus, the bench observed that the Trial Court had an obligation to undertake an inquiry under Section 329 of the Criminal Procedure Code so as to ascertain whether the accused was capable of making her defence. The bench observed: "The case on hand is quite unusual. As noted above, neither the Public Prosecutor nor the Investigating Officer including the defence counsel invited the attention of the trial court to the materials on record as regards the mental ailment of the accused. However, as it has come to our notice, as an Appellate Court, it is our duty to rectify the error so that no doubt remains of any nature in our mind." Directing the Trial court to conduct an inquiry, the bench said that, if the trial court is convinced that the accused is capable of making her defence, then it shall resume with the trial by framing the charge afresh. Inquiry Even If No Plea Of Insanity Is Raised Explaining the scope of Section 329 CrPC, the bench observed that even if the accused had not raised such a plea and even if the defence counsel had not bothered to look into it, still if the materials on record in the form of the documents disclose something about the mental condition of the accused, then it is the duty of the trial court to look into the materials and ascertain the capacity of the accused to enter the defence in accordance with the provisions of Section 329 of the Code. The court said: "The satisfaction of the trial court should be recorded in so many words. The provisions of Section 329 do not embrace an idle formality but are calculated to ensure to an accused person a fair trial which cannot obviously be afforded to an insane person and the non-observance of those provisions must be held to convert a trial into a farce. The courts must, therefore, guard against dealing with the matter of suspected sanity of an accused person in a perfunctory manner as such a course is bound to result in the trial Judge, more often than not, coming to an incorrect conclusion about the sanity of the accused before him" Appoint Experienced Criminal Lawyers The court said that, if the trial Judge is of the view having regard to the serious nature of the crime that the assistance of a seasoned and experienced criminal side lawyer is required, then it would be the duty of the trial Judge to appoint one by fixing appropriate remuneration one befitting to the stature of the said lawyer concerned and thereafter recover the amount from the State Government and pay the same to the concerned lawyer. The bench further said: "If inexperienced advocates alone are available to defend such unfortunate accused, the court has a primary duty to come to the aid of the accused by putting timely and useful questions and warning the advocates from treading on dangerous grounds" The bench also issued these general directions: Whenever any accused person is arrested and there is any history or the conduct of the accused indicating that he is not mentally sound, it is the duty of the Police Officer who has arrested him to produce him before the Medical Officer for his examination with regard to his unsoundness of mind and to obtain the necessary certificate. If he is suffering from any unsoundness of mind, he should be forwarded to a mental hospital for treatment and until certificate of his fitness is received, the matter cannot proceed further. If the Investigating Officer fails to perform his duty of getting the accused person examined, it is the obligation of the Judicial Magistrate before whom he is produced for the first time. If he finds at the time of first remand that there is history of insanity or symptoms of the accused showing insanity, he should refer the accused for medical examination and find out whether the accused is suffering from mental or legal insanity or not. In case of mental insanity, he should be provided with appropriate medical help. It should be also borne in mind by the trial Judges that, no criminal case particularly inviting the substantial sentence should be conducted without appointment of advocate. If the accused is not represented, appropriate legal assistance should be
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March 18 IRANexecutions Iran hangs 12 prisoners on the eve of Persian new year Since the beginning of March, Iranian regime has executed more than 13 inmates in various prisons. A prisoner identified as Jalaluddin Mosala Nezhad was publicly hanged in Jahrom, south of Iran, the state-run Tasnim news agency reported on March 14. Also on March 13, the state-run IRNA news agency reported that 3 men charged with killing 2 armed agents of the regime, were executed in South Khorasan province. There is no mention of the exact date and place of execution. The state-run media did not elaborate the victims by name. A day prior to that, the Iranian regime executed another prisoner in Zahedan Central Prison, southeastern Iran. He was married and a father of 2 children. Some sources have mentioned that he was a former member of Iran’s national kickboxing team. On Tuesday, March 12, a prisoner was hanged in Tabriz Central Prison. He was identified as 42-year-old Eslam Farsi. On March 11, 2 prisoners Shir Mohammad Naroui and Younes Naroui were executed on drug related charges in Birjand Prison, northeastern Iran. They were father and son. These executions are carried out after Ebrahim Raisi, one of the men in charge of the mass executions in 1988 massacre, was recently appointed as the head of Iran’s judiciary by the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. During his speech at the inauguration ceremony, Raisi emphasized on the course of massacre, execution, and suppression to safeguard the regime in the past 40 years. He said that he would consider Khamenei’s recent “2nd phase” statement as his covenant and that the regime’s security is his absolute priority and that justice is subsidiary compared to it. The UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, have expressed concerns over the increasing number of executions, demanding the regime to stop public hangings. According to the annual report by Iran Human Rights (IHR), at least 13 public executions have taken place in Iran in 2018. During the 40th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Javaid Rehman, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said, “Many of the Iranian people have voiced their concern through protests, demonstrations, and strikes. People from diverse sections of society – from truck drivers to teachers to factory workers – across the country have protested. It is in this context of increased challenges that concerns are mounting about human rights, including the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and to association in Iran.” “Worrying patterns of intimidation, arrest, prosecution, and ill-treatment of human rights defenders, lawyers, and labor rights activists in Iran signal an increasingly severe State response to protests and strikes in the country,” Rahman said, calling on the Iranian regime to release all those detained for exercising theirrights. Rehman also spoke of the poor conditions of prisoners with dual citizenship, the suppression of ethnic and religious minorities, and the fact that since 2013 at least 33 minors have been executed and 85 are in prison awaiting execution. (source: Iran Human Rights) IRAQ: Iraq to hang 2 on terror charges for 2013 assassination in Tikrit The Iraqi judiciary issued a ruling on Monday to execute 2 individuals convicted of participating in the assassination of a police chief in the Salahuddin province, along with his aide, 5 years after the incident. Brigadier General Ahmad al-Batawi and his assistant, Hamada al-Dukhi, were killed in late 2013 after an explosive device detonated on their convoy in the town of Shirqat, north of Tikrit. Following this, the security forces arrested a number of suspects. The Supreme Judicial Council in a statement claimed the two individuals, during their trials, admitted to being involved in the assassination of Batawi and Dukhi along with “other defendants.” The Salahuddin Criminal Court sentenced the two to death by hanging under article 4 of the Iraqi Anti-Terrorism Act, the judiciary added, without giving further details or mentioning the number or fate of the other defendants. Authorities have yet to disclose the number of terrorism suspects in Iraqi jails, nor the number of people facing execution or life imprisonment related to terrorism charges. International groups and human rights organizations, including the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, say efforts by Iraqi authorities to accelerate the implementation of death sentences could lead to the execution of innocent people, pointing to the nation’s deficient justice system. The death penalty in Iraq was suspended on June 10, 2003, but was reinstated the following year. (source: kurdistan24.net) PAKISTAN: Man awarded death penalty in murder case A court sentenced an accused to death and
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March 17 IRANexecution Man Hanged at Tabriz Central Prison A prisoner was hanged at Tabriz prison for a murder charge last Tuesday. According to IHR sources, a prisoner was hanged at Tabriz Central Prison on the morning of Tuesday, March 12. IHR could identify the prisoner as Eslam Farsi, 42. Kurdistan Human Rights Network website has also reported that the prisoner was arrested and sentenced to death 15 years ago for murdering his wife. The aforementioned execution has not been reported by Iranian media so far. According to the Iran Human Rights statistic department, the majority of executions in 2017 and 2018 in Iran was for murder charges. At least 188 prisoners were executed for murder charges in 2018. Only 33% of executions were announced by Iranian authorities in 2018. 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) Iran Had No Legal Reason to Detain Eco Activists It has been over 400 days since a group of 9 environmental activists were arrested and charged with espionage in Iran. Now, one has died under suspicious circumstances in prison and 8 are facing trumped-up national security charges, some of which result in the death penalty. Back in February 2018, Iranian-Canadian professor Kavous Seyed-Emami, the founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), was declared to have committed suicide by the authorities, who refused to allow an independent investigation and barred his wife Maryam Mombini, also a Canadian citizen, from leaving the country. Mombini has never been given a reason for this ban. Seyed-Emami’s 8 colleagues remain behind bars, without access to lawyers of their own choosing, and suffering from very poor health, including Morad Tahbaz, who has cancer and is not receiving medication and treatment despite promises from officials. This is despite the fact that the brother of defendant Amir Hossein Khaleghi determined, following extensive studying of the case and the indictment, that their lawyers have concluded that all 8 are innocent and must be released. Four are charged with “corruption on earth”, which can carry the death penalty, 3 were charged with espionage, and one was accused of “cooperating and collusion with a hostile country. Katayoun Rajabi, the sister of defendant Sam Rajabi, said that the families remained hopeful that their loved ones would be released, but advised that the so called judiciary does not care about justice. She said that none of those arrested had done anything wrong, reminding us that while two of them had confessed under torture, they retracted their statements in front of the judge. Rajabi said: “As we know, forced confessions are not legally valid and since [Niloofar] Bayani declared in court that she had been forced to confess, then there is nothing in the case to support charges against these detainees.” Yet still, the 8 remain in prison and Rajabi does not think that the recent appointment of Ebrahim Raeesi, known for his role in sentencing thousands of dissidents to death in the 1988 massacre, as head of the Judiciary will help matters. Rajabi, who lives in Germany, said that the families of the defendants are actively trying to raise awareness and lobby officials, but the government is often ignoring them. She noted that her letters to President Hassan Rouhani and member of Iranian parliament Mahmoud Sadeghi “received no answer”, so she has contacted United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman and Germany’s Green Party representative on foreign affairs Omid Nouripour who have both promised to act in this case. (source: iranfocus.com) MALAYSIA: Death penalty has no place in modern legal system The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) is disappointed by the government’s decision to abolish the mandatory death penalty only rather than a total abolition of the death penalty across all laws as originally announced following a cabinet meeting in October and during the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva last year. Although a good first step, a discretionary death penalty is still a barrier in the upholding of human dignity and the right to life. Suhakam is of the view that the death penalty is not an effective nor even the best crime prevention mechanism within the system of justice. There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than a prison term. Furthermore, no justice system throughout the world is fool-proof. There always remains the possibility that an innocent person is on death row due to any number of reasons, which range from an inadequate defence to a misapplication of forensic science. The Innocence Project in the US has exonerated 364 death row inmates alone through DNA
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my news posts to this listserve will resume on either March 15 or 16 ** March 7 TANZANIA: Tanzania teacher sentenced to death by hanging for killing pupil A court in Tanzania has sentenced to death by hanging a 51-year-old school teacher who beat to death a 14-year-old pupil. Respicius Mtazangira caned and hit Sperius Eradius with a blunt object at their school in Bukoba town in north-western Tanzania last August after accusing the boy of a stealing a handbag that had gone missing. Sperius denied the allegation, but Mtazangira still proceeded to assault him. In his ruling on Wednesday, High Court Judge Lameck Mlacha convicted Mtazangira of murder, but acquitted fellow teacher Heriet Gerald. According to BBC, 9 witnesses – including pupils – testified during their trial. A medical report presented to court showed that the beating had caused the child’s death. Mtazangira’s lawyer was quoted by local media as saying that he did not rule out an appeal against the verdict. Tanzania last carried out the death sentence in 1994. President John Magufuli indicated in 2017 that he opposed executions. “I know there are people who convicted of murder and waiting for death penalty, but please don’t bring the list to me for decision because I know how difficult it is to execute,” he said. (source: The Maravi Post) SOUTH AFRICA: Prayers and politics: Gabola Church wants to bring back death penalty The Gabola Church United National Front Party recently launched its election manifesto. The Leader, Pope Tsietsi Makiti, said that the party would reintroduce the death penalty and instate real change, should they win the majority. The Gabola Church United National Front Party recently officially made their promises to constituents ahead of the upcoming election, in their strongly-worded manifesto. A political drive event in Evaton drew out church and party members; with beer and expensive bottles of liquor on display. According to the Daily Sun, Pope Tsietsi Makiti, leader of the party, promised to bring about real change: “The Constitution is not suitable for our country. If we win the majority, we will make amendments and bring about proper change.” A major point of the manifesto was the reintroduction of the death penalty, something that seems to have picked up momentum following other political parties also campaigning for its return. Briefly.co.za reported earlier that the IFP's Chief Whip, Narend Singh, had written to Parliament in the hopes that the serious punishment would be considered for South Africa. IFP's Narend Singh is convinced the death penalty will reduce crime in SA. Prominent issues like high crime rates, corruption and state capture would be tackled to bring about the change Makiti spoke of. The party wishes to improve security at schools in South Africa, with the Pope saying they would protect them as if they were prisons. (source: briefly.co.za) INDIA: For these 6 men on death row, freedom has been a 15-year-long waitIn an unprecedented judgment, the SC has set free 6 men accused of murder and rape in Nashik but not before they spent nearly 2 decades in prison. The Supreme Court Tuesday acquitted 6 men, taking them off death row — an unprecedented judgment which overturned its own order of 2009. The six men had been held guilty of killing 5 members of a family during a robbery and raping 2 women, including a 15-year-old girl who died. On Tuesday, however, the apex court pointed to flaws in the prosecution’s case and ordered the immediate release of the accused. For the six men, all poor labourers from nomadic tribes, the path to an acquittal has been a 15-year-long journey involving four different investigating officers, convictions at all 3 levels of the judiciary and 10 years of death row. ThePrint traces the case that has led to an unprecedented judgment. 5 murders and a rape The incident dates back to 5 June 2003, to an incident at Belatgavhan Shivar in Maharashtra’s Nashik district. The prosecution had stated that Trambak Satote and his family of five, along with his sister-in-law’s son Bharat More, were chatting after dinner when at around 10.30 pm, seven or eight unknown people entered their hut, demanding money and ornaments. They allegedly snatched the mangalsutra that Satote’s wife, Vimalabai, was wearing, jewellery from their daughter and son and Rs 3,000 in cash. They allegedly re-entered the hut after a while, having consumed liquor, with weapons such as a knife, axe, sickle and a spade. They assaulted the family members till Satote and his three sons — Manoj, Sandeep and Shrikant — as well as More fell unconscious. 3 of the dacoits allegedly dragged Satote’s daughter to the guava orchard nearby and brought her back naked and with injuries on her body. 2 others allegedly dragged Vimalabai to the well, assaulted her and then brought her back.
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March 6 MALAWI: Malawi Adopts Death Penalty Law for Killers of People with Albinism, Opposition DisapprovesThe callous murder of Albinos for diabolical purposes in Malawi must stop, we hope this helps. The increase in the number of cases involving the brutal and gruesome murder of people living with Albinism in Malawi for money rituals and other diabolical purposes is an issue of concern which has painted the beautiful South-East African country in negative colors. The menace got to his peak after news made headlines that a group of men traced and murdered a 54-year-old albino man, identified as Yasin Phiri in front of his 9-year-old son at their home in Kande Trading Centre in Nkhata Bay on New Year’s Eve. This prompted the United Nations to release a statement in January this year warning that if not checked, the about 10,000 albinos currently living in Malawi are at the risk of extinction. The government of Malawi through its Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Samuel Tembenu has invoked the country’s Death penalty Law which hasn't been used since 1994 on any murder case including people found guilty of killing persons with albinism. Speaking during an SDG debate organized by the Nation Publications Limited (NPL) in conjunction with Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) and United Nations Malawi; the minister said: The debate focused on human rights in juxtaposition to the upcoming May 21 elections. Tembenu also disclosed during the debate’s Questions and Answers session that the government had set aside 30 cases for prosecution under the existing laws. The false belief that body parts of people living with albinism can bring wealth and also help in making potent charms have made Albinos endangered species in Malawi. In an interesting shift, however, the spokesman for the United Democratic Front (UDF), Ken Ndanda in his response during the debate said that imposing the death penalty for murder is a contentious one. On her part, UTM Party’s representative Hellen Chabunya said: “An Eye for an eye will make us all blind but we need to stop the silencing of the people who are about, to tell the truth on the killings and abductions.” Malawi Congress Party (MCP) representative Edgar Chimanjira concurred with Chabunya and said: “What is disheartening is that people are being arrested but when they want to reveal the truth they are being killed right inside police custody.” (source: africanexponent.com) SAUDI ARABIA: Bishop objects to death sentence for Filipino woman in Saudi Arabia A bishop in the Philippines is speaking out against the death penalty of a Filipino woman who has been condemned to death in Saudi Arabia. “We turn to God in prayers that He may move the [Saudi] government to be merciful and grant clemency,” said Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, head of the Filipino bishops’ Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People, in a statement this week. “She has to be helped and assisted. Let us try everything to save her,” he said, according to the Manila Bulletin. On Feb. 28, the Saudi Court of Appeals upheld the death sentence of an unnamed Filipino woman, who was convicted in 2017 for killing her employer. The woman claimed to have acted in self-defense against an abusive employer. Santos encouraged the Philippine government to do whatever it can to save the woman and conduct a “thorough investigation” behind the woman’s arrival in Saudi Arabia. Reports suggest that she arrived in the country as a minor. “Placement agencies should be made accountable for whatever happens to [Filipino workers] sent to other countries,” the bishop said, according to the Manila Bulletin. He stressed that agencies and recruiters should be held liable for abuse of the employees they place. ABS-CBN News reported that the case has also been directed to the chair of the Inter-Agency Committee Against Trafficking, which is part of the Philippine Department of Justice. The Department of Foreign Affairs said Friday it would do all it could to save the woman, who has so far been assisted by Consul General Edgar Badajos. The department released a statement saying it “will exhaust all diplomatic avenues and legal remedies to save a Filipina in Saudi Arabia after the Saudi Court of Appeals affirmed her death sentence on Thursday.” The case followed an execution in January, when a 39-year-old maid from the Philippines received the death penalty for a murder that took place in 2015. Details about the case were not released. About 500,000 Filipinos are believed to be working in Saudi Arabia, a country that has long been accused of poor work conditions and inadequate religious freedoms. In 2016, Bishop Santos had encouraged the Philippine embassy in the country to protect Filipino workers. That year, a Filipino woman had died as result of the injuries she received from rape, allegedly at the hands of her
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March 6 CHINA: ‘Politically biased’: China rejects UN recommendations on death penalty, freedoms in Xinjiang and Tibet China has not accepted 62 of the 346 recommendations made at the United Nations (UN) 2018 Universal Periodic Review (UPR), saying they are inconsistent with national conditions and laws, “politically biased or untruthful.” Of those not accepted, the majority addressed China’s continued use of the death penalty, restrictions on individual freedoms, or the subjugation of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet. Countries delivered recommendations during the 3rd cycle of the UN’s UPR in Geneva last November, covering areas including poverty alleviation and international law. The majority of the points were accepted. During the assessment – which all 193 UN nations must undergo approximately every four years – the Chinese delegation was grilled on the detention of an estimated one million Muslim Uighurs and other minorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region. According to NGO reports, offences such as having a long beard or reading religious texts can land non-Han Chinese residents in extrajudicial “re-education” centres. China said in its responding report that the accepted recommendations demonstrate its “active, open attitude toward promoting and protecting human rights,” while criticising those it did not accept as interfering in its “sovereignty and internal affairs.” Patrick Poon, a researcher at NGO Amnesty International, told HKFP that Beijing’s response is superficial: “It’s clear that the Chinese government doesn’t respect the comments from other states. It only picks those favourable comments and rejects all important and valid criticisms,” he said. “The Chinese government should show its willingness to follow the international standards which it also endorses at the United Nations. That is the only way to show its determination to improve its human rights record but not to turn the UN mechanism as window-dressing.” Hong Kong recommendations 7 of the UPR recommendations related to Hong Kong. Of those made, China accepted all but Indonesia’s suggestion to ratify the UN’s migrant worker’s rights treaty in the territory, saying: “The specific date of ratification depends on whether relevant conditions in China are in place.” The Hong Kong UPR Coalition – an alliance of 45 civil society organisations – said on Tuesday that they were pleased to see the majority of recommendations accepted, but were disappointed by the refusal to ratify the migrant workers’ rights treaty. In the 2nd UPR cycle in 2013, China accepted recommendations from Egypt, Ghana and Guatemala on acceding to the UN’s migrant worker’s rights treaty, neither of which mentioned Hong Kong. China accepted France’s recommendation to guarantee freedoms in the country and in Hong Kong, saying that measures had already been implemented to do so. No such recommendations were made about the city during the prior iteration of the UPR in 2013. An inter-agency mechanism, led by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and comprised of over 40 legislative, judicial and administrative departments, was established to consider the recommendations, according to Beijing. After the review, each state is expected to implement the recommendations it accepts before the next UPR in around 4 years time. (source: hongkongfp.com) * China accuses detained Canadian of stealing state secretsClaims against Michael Kovrig follow Canada’s approval of Huawei executive extradition China has accused the detained Canadian citizen Michael Kovrig of stealing state secrets, in the latest escalation of tension between the 2 countries after Canada approved the extradition of the senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou to the US. Chinese authorities said Kovrig, who has been in detention in China since December, was passed intelligence by the Canadian businessman Michael Spavor, according to a statement released on Monday night by the Chinese Communist party’s central political and legal affairs commission. Spavor has also been in detention since December. The statement said Kovrig, a former diplomat, had often entered China using an ordinary passport and business visas, “stealing and spying on sensitive Chinese information and intelligence via a contact in China”. “Kovrig’s actions, suspected of stealing, spying on state secrets and intelligence, have seriously violated Chinese law,” the commission said, describing Spavor as his “main contact”. On Friday, Canada’s justice department approved the beginning of extradition proceedings for Meng, who has filed a civil lawsuit against Canada over her arrest. She is free on bail and denies the charges against her. Kovrig and Spavor, a businessman with North Korean ties, were detained on 10 December, 10 days after Canadian police arrested Meng at the request of the US, where she faces charges of
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March 4 INDONESIA: French drug suspect faces death penalty in Indonesia A French man faces execution under Indonesia's strict drug laws after he was caught using a false-bottomed suitcase to smuggle narcotics into the Southeast Asian nation, an official said on Monday (Mar 4). Prosecutors have accused Felix Dorfin of trafficking 4kg of cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines. The 35-year-old from Benthune in northern France was arrested after arriving at Lombok island's airport from Singapore in September. "We are charging him with drug possession, carrying drugs to Indonesia from abroad, and trafficking drugs," lead prosecutor Ginung Pratidina told the court. He faced a potential death sentence if convicted, Pratidina added. Dorfin was read the charges with the aid of an English translator. The Frenchman escaped from jail in late January by sawing through bars on the 2nd floor window of the prison and rappelling to freedom with a sarong. He spent nearly 2 weeks on the run before he was captured again in a forest in North Lombok. Police said Dorfin tried to bribe officers to let him go. A female police officer was arrested for allegedly helping Dorfin escape from jail in exchange for Rp 14.5 million (around US$1,000). Indonesia has some of the world's strictest drug laws - including death penalty sentences for drug traffickers. It has executed several foreign drug smugglers in the past including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, which sparked diplomatic tensions between the 2 countries. Indonesia has not executed anyone since 2016, but a number of foreigners are still on death row. Serge Atlaoui, a convicted French drug smuggler, has been on death row since 2007, while British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford has been on death row since 2013. (source: channelnewsasia.com) SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka’s Drug Scourge – AnalysisSri Lanka’s recent move to bring back capital punishment for convicted drug offenders has put a spotlight on growing narcotics related crime in the country. The government’s apparent tough stance is in response to concerns that Sri Lanka is re-emerging as a transit hub for global drug trafficking networks. Sri Lanka has announced it will start to hang convicted drug offenders, ending a near-half-century moratorium on executions, in a move that closely mirrors the controversial tactics employed by Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte in his country’s war on drugs. During a state visit to the Philippines in January, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena acknowledged the pro¬liferation of illegal drugs in Sri Lanka and lauded Philippines’ strategy in dealing with the issue. His praise of the “decisive action” of President Rodrigo Duterte and characterisation of his counterpart’s efforts as “an example to the whole world,” was met with criticism from international human rights groups. Duterte has run a controversial law-and-order operation which has seen at least 5,000 drug offenders killed since 2016. More than 200 people in Bangladesh have also been killed by police in a similar campaign. In Sri Lanka, President Sirisena, who has been in office since 2015, has indicated that the government will shift its stance and also deploy the military in anti-narcotics operations. Authorities say a tougher approach is required to deal with drug-related crime, amidst concerns international drug smugglers are using Sri Lanka as a transit hub in Asia. The re-introduction of capital punishment is also significant as although criminals are regularly given death sentences for murder, rape and drug-related crimes, until now, their punishments have been commuted to life imprisonment. Nobody has been executed in the country for 42 years. Regional Distribution Hub Although not a major producer of contraband drugs, Sri Lanka’s strategic location along important maritime and aviation shipping routes between Europe and Southeast Asia has made it an attractive gateway for international drug trafficking cartels. Law enforcement officials say organised gangs seek to conceal their shipments to Australian and European markets by bringing them into Sir Lanka, before switching the cargo into Sri Lankan containers and sending them onwards. The high volumes of traffic in the Colombo port and lack of effective security checks on cargo, makes it an attractive trans-shipment point. According to government officials, a recent spike in large scale cocaine seizures, a drug previously uncommon to Sri Lanka, is a clear indication that the country is emerging as a key transit point for drug-smugglers. Counter-narcotics operations had traditionally focused their efforts on heroin and synthetic drugs. In December 2016, 928 kilograms of cocaine – the largest cocaine haul in South Asia – was discovered in a container of timber aboard a Colombian ship bound for India, one of several high value cocaine seizures in recent
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March 3 BANGLADESHexecution Bangladesh hangs man for 2012 murder of Saudi embassy official Khalaf A condemned killer of Saudi embassy official Khalaf Al Ali was hanged at Kashimpur High Security Central Jail here on Sunday night. Saiful Islam Mamun was hanged at 10:01pm, said jail super M Shajahan Ahmed. Later, an ambulance carrying his body started for his village home in Bagerhat, he said. Earlier, Mamun's relatives met him at the jail, the jail super said. On October 7, 2018, the Supreme Court dismissed a review petition filed against its judgment that upheld Mamun's death penalty in the murder case. The SC upheld the High Court verdict that gave death sentence to Mamun, and life term to 3 others -- Md Al Amin, Akbar Ali Lalu and Rafiqul Islam -- for killing the Saudi embassy official. Khalaf Al Ali, 45, a non-diplomatic official with the consular section of the embassy, was shot to death near his Gulshan residence on the night of March 5, 2012. A murder case was filed with Gulshan Police Station against 5 people, 2 days after the killing. On December 30, 2012, a Dhaka court sentenced all the 5 accused of the case to death. However, the decision was overturned when the convicts' appeal and death sentence were sent to the HC. In 2013, the High Court acquitted fugitive Selim Chowdhury, commuted the sentences of Md Al Amin, Akbar Ali Lalu and Rafiqul Islam to life in prison and upheld the death sentence of Saiful Islam Mamun. The state then filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in 2014. (source: Dhaka Tribune) PHILIPPINES: 3 Senate bets want death penalty for plunderers 3 senatorial candidates want to punish politicians found guilty of plunder with the death penalty. During the “Fast Talk” round of ABS-CBN’s senatorial forum on Sunday, March 3, 5 Senate bets were asked whether or not they would support reviving the death penalty for plunderers. Here’s how the candidates answered: YES Gerald Arcega (Labor Party Philippines) Jonathan Baldevarona (Filipino Family Party) Emily Mallillin (Independent) NO Jesus Caceres (Independent) Melchor Chavez (Labor Party Philippines) Both Caceres and Chavez want to maintain the current punishment for plunder, which is reclusion perpetua or imprisonment of at least 20 years and one day up to at most 40 years. (READ: Plunder cases in the Philippines: Was anyone punished?) Through Republic Act (RA) Number 7659 signed into law by former president Fidel Ramos, RA 7080 or the plunder law was amended to punish convicted public officers with "reclusion perpetua to death" in December 1993. But through RA 9346, the Philippines abolished death penalty in 2006 under then-president and now Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who remains opposed to the restoration of capital punishment. Under RA 9346, the effects of RA 7659 and other laws, executive orders, and decrees imposing the death penalty were "hereby repealed or amended accordingly.” In 2017, the House of Representatives’ initial draft of the death penalty bill included plunder among the list of punishable crimes. But it was later removed due to strong opposition from lawmakers. Only drug-related crimes were included in the final House bill seeking to reimpose the capital punishment. The measure remains pending at the Senate. (source: rappler.com) IRAN: Iran Vehemently Rejects U.N. Human Rights Report The Iranian Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights has lambasted the United Nations’ special rapporteur for human rights in Iran for his latest report on the country. In his latest report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on February 27, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman voiced concern over human rights violations in Iran, in particular the way the death penalty is implemented. A British-Pakistani legal scholar and professor of Islamic law and international law at Brunel University, Rehman expressed deep regret that children as young as 9 years old can still be executed, noting that at least 33 minors have been executed since 2013. Retaliating, the Iranian judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights rejected the report as baseless, saying Rehman is "misusing his position to spread propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” Once again, Tehran has responded by targeting the UN rapporteur rather than the facts reflected in his report, according to human rights activists. In a statement issued on March 2, the High Council for Human Rights said Rehman’s numerous "interviews" with various media outlets including the BBC, which is “well known for its hostile reports against Iran,” are “a blatant violation” of the UN framework, within which he has been chosen as special rapporteur, local news outlets reported. The High Council for Human Rights is led by the brother of the judiciary and parliament speaker Mohammad Javad Larijani, who cautioned that if
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March 2 GLOBAL: Global war on drugs could harm efforts to abolish death sentences - study; Iran reforms drive 90% fall in death penalty worldwide, but report warns hardline approach to minor cases violates human rights Global efforts to abolish the death penalty are in danger of being undermined by anti-drug governments that use capital punishment to enforce a zero-tolerance approach, experts have warned. The caution comes even though the number of people sentenced to death for drug offences around the world has actually fallen by nearly 90% over the past four years, according to a study by Harm Reduction International, with 91 known deaths last year compared with 755 in 2015. Giada Girelli, HRI’s human rights analyst and the report’s author, welcomed the decrease in deaths but warned people are still being killed for minor drug offences. “The fall in executions is undeniably positive, but far too many people are still sentenced to death row, where they suffer serious human rights violations, for low-level drug offences,” said Girelli. “There is simply no evidence that the death penalty serves as a deterrent, and this inhumane practice must be abolished immediately.” With populist anti-drug rhetoric resurgent around the world, the study raises fears that global progress on abolishing the death penalty could be reversed. Bangladesh has instituted a brutal anti-narcotics crackdown, with the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, ordering police to deal with the drugs trade using tactics similar to those they would employ to counter violent extremism. In Sri Lanka, where the death penalty has not been used since 1976, President Maithripala Sirisena – who has praised the brutal campaign against drugs in the Philippines as an “example to the world” – recently announced that convicted drug dealers will be hanged. Donald Trump has talked up the prospect of capital punishment for drug traffickers in the US, while the Singaporean government, having previously pursued a zero-tolerance policy that earned the US president’s approval, is discussing whether to abolish the death penalty following an international outcry over disproportionate punishments. All executions carried out in the island state last year were for non-violent drug offences. Although drug offences can still be punished by death in at least 35 countries and territories, only four states carried out such sentences last year. At least 59 people were killed in Saudi Arabia, while a minimum of 23 died in Iran and nine in Singapore. Death sentences were also imposed in China, but the country’s figures are shrouded in secrecy, said Girelli, who warned the actual number of deaths in 2018 was probably far higher than the 91 noted in the study. The sharp global reduction in death sentences was largely driven by landmark reforms in Iran, where the threshold for capital punishment owing to drugs possession was raised amid a growing sense that mandatory sentences fail to deter drug use and trafficking. “The truth is, the execution of drug smugglers has had no deterrent effect,” said Mohammad Baqer Olfat, the deputy head of Iran’s judiciary. The number of people put to death in Iran following criminal justice proceedings went from 725 a year in 2010, to 221 in 2017. Globally, at least 7,000 people – many illiterate and from impoverished backgrounds – are on death row after being forced to act as “drug mules”, according to the study. “In short, it appears that the death penalty for drug offences is primarily reserved for the most marginalised in society,” wrote Girelli. Experts say the death penalty fails to impact the drug trade, inflicting misery on poverty-stricken families while failing to ensnare key players because they can afford expensive legal defences. “Those sentenced to death for drug offences are often people at the lowest level of the trade, a number of whom may have entered it out of coercion or simply having no economic choice,” Professor Adeeba Kamarulzaman, dean of medicine at the University of Malaya, said. “In these scenarios, the legal system will only exploit their indigence, as stories of no access to legal aid and sham trials are all too common.” (source: The Guardian) Death penalty examined at Belgium forum At the World Congress against the Death Penalty in Brussels, the use of capital punishment is considered a political and human rights issue. Education campaigns, art exhibits and petition signing have all been part of the World Congress against the Death Penalty in Brussels. More than 20,000 prisoners are on "death row", but 114 countries have abolished capital punishment and 32 others have introduced a moratorium. Just this week, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi defended his country's use of execution by saying that his country had a "different culture", but abolitionist campaigners see it as a political and
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March 1 GLOBAL: Governments use death penalty to crackdown on religious minorities Various countries that include China and Iraq are disproportionately using the death penalty against people from religious minorities, not for any criminal misdeeds, but merely based on their faith and religious beliefs, according to Raphael Chenuil-Hazan, the Executive Director of Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (Together Against the Death Penalty), a French NGO that aims to abolish capital punishment around the world. The list of communities who have been victimised by the crackdown includes Tibetan Buddhists, the Uighurs (the Turkic-speaking minority in China’s western Xinjiang province and who are Sunni Muslims with close ethnic and cultural ties to Central Asia), and Chinese Christians. Each of the communities has seen a number of their followers sentenced to death solely for their religious identities. “It’s a disgrace that some regimes, including China, Iraq, and Iran, are using the death penalty against people from religious groups who are condemned merely for their religious beliefs…This cannot be allowed to continue,” said Chenuil-Hazan, who added, “These people have been condemned not because of any criminal wrongdoing or misdeeds, but because they believe in something that a particular regime does not agree with. They are being targeted for their beliefs and the international community needs to wake up to what is going on and take appropriate action.” According to Chenuil-Hazan, the security services’ crackdown on religious minorities has now extended to their legal representatives, who are also often imprisoned and tortured for having taken on cases dedicated to human rights. Recently in China, up to 500 lawyers representing human rights activists were detained for acting as legal counsel to individuals who have been targeted by their respective governments. “They are still in prison and we know little or nothing about their whereabouts or their welfare,” Chenuil-Hazan said, adding, “We have to be brave enough to raise these issues so that the wider community knows what is going on.” Chenuil-Hazan made his comments while speaking at the 7th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, which is co-hosted by the European Union and the Kingdom of Belgium. Held every three years, the 4-day event brings together prominent activists, both public and private, who are actively attempting to have capital punishment banned across the globe. Among those voicing their concern for the plight of the religious minorities was Audun Halvorsen, the State Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, who said that “even in 2019, people can be sentenced to death because of who they love, because of their faith, their sexual orientation. This is not acceptable.” The congress heard that support for the death penalty was lowest among Hispanic (24%) and Black Protestants (25%), 68% of each preferred handing out life sentences without the chance of parole. The two communities’ views on capital punishment were backed by their fellow Christians in the Catholic Church, as well as by Jews, other non-Christian religions, and those who identify as religiously unaffiliated. Pope Francis has spoken more forcibly about the issue, saying that life imprisonment is a form of torture and “a hidden (form of the) death penalty”. The Holy See’s abhorrence of the capital punishment is rooted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which proclaims that “in the light of the Gospel” the death penalty is “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”. Religious faith and capital punishment have always been intertwined. Christianity’s primordial event was the execution of its founder, and the same fate was suffered by many of its early teachers. At the same time, putting “wrong thinkers” to death has generally been presented – and remains to be – a sacred necessity that began with the Inquisition in 15th century Europe and continues to this day through the actions of terrorist groups and radical Islamist movements that include ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Afghan Taliban. (source: neweurope.eu) ** Belarus attending 7th World Congress against Death Penalty Belarus' Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Oleg Kravchenko is in Brussels, Belgium on a visit from 27 February to 1 March to take part in the 7th World Congress against the Death Penalty, BelTA learned from the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “On 28 February, the deputy minister attended a side event on the death penalty in Belarus. Chairman of the Standing Committee on Human Rights, National Relations and Media of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus Andrei Naumovich shared the country's position on the work of the parliamentary working group studying death penalty as an instrument of punishment, and also scheduled events and
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February 28 GLOBAL: 7th World Congress Speaks Against Death Penalty Brussels is hosting the 7th world congress against the death penalty this week, with politicians and activists arguing their case in the main city of the 28-nation European Union, the largest zone to end the capital punishment. The gathering at the European Parliament hemicycle was therefore naturally welcome in the Belgian capital. It was launched officially on Wednesday and will continue into Friday. Over 1,500 delegates, diplomats, nonprofit representatives and others will deliver testimonials and proposals and take part in discussions at workshops and debates, which will include speakers of countries that still apply the death penalty. The abolition of death penalty in Europe is not that old. In France, it is only in 1981 then Justice Minister Robert Badinter put an end to deaths by guillotine under President Francois Mitterrand. Norway abolished it in 1948, while the Czech Republic had its last execution in 1989. On the European continent, only Belarus still applies the capital punishment. In the world, 4 countries represent some 84 % of the total of executions worldwide. China leads the tally, followed by the United States, Iran, India, and Saudi Arabia. Africa has seen the most rapid process over the last few years. The justice ministers of Congo, Guinea, Gambia and Burkina Faso presented their legal decisions and application procedures. Burkina Faso was the latest country to abolish the death sentence in the fall of 2018. The inaugural address was delivered by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini who explained why no country that still applies the death penalty would ever be part of the bloc. She made a passionate case for taking it off the books. "Every life matters. The state should never dispose of the life of anybody. We believe in Justice, not revenge. The death penalty is incompatible with who we are. No country could become a member of the EU if it applies the capital punishment. It is not necessary, it is not a deterrent, and there is no coming back once the life is taken, if a mistake has been done. But it is impossible to avoid mistakes," she said. Robert Badinter, in a video from Paris, praised progress in championing the abolition cause worldwide, with 140 countries having ended it. He warned of persisting attempts to reimpose the capital punishment. "In our strained world, often cruel, the abolitionist cause has made huge progress... We have become a majority in international bodies. With lucidity, we must face the fact that many great powers are still supporters of death penalty and keep it in their legislative arsenal. Some hesitate like Japan... So our task is yet unfinished," he said. He warned of continued opposition to abolishing the death penalty. In France, he recalled, 69 % of the French population was in favor of the ultimate punishment when it was scrapped. "The combat is not finished yet; we must make our voice heard for each execution. The death penalty is the absolute negation of the first human right, the right to live," he concluded. French barrister Richard Sedillot, one of the conference's organizers, an expert on international penal law and director of the abolitionist nonprofit called Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), explained to Sputnik that the death penalty had no impact on crime levels. "The death penalty has no deterrent effect, and countries that have abolished it never see an increase in crime. The more a country practices the death penalty, the higher its level of crime. We are supporters of justice, not revenge," he said. A country is considered abolitionist when it no longer applies the death penalty for more than 10 years. Many countries opt to impose a moratorium on the death penalty instead of voting a law because of internal resistance, he noted. "We are obviously asking for universal abolition. We say that the death penalty is illegal under international law. There is a series of texts, international instruments that any country should ratify. Abolition is now part of the international criminal custom... The meaning of history is abolition," he argued. But not everybody agrees, and during the first day of the world congress abolitionists were careful to propose to delegates of countries that are still applying the death penalty - the so-called retentionists - to come and discuss this moral and legal issue. Nicolas Tournay, communications director of Belgium's center-right People's Party, argued that those opposing the capital punishment did not care about what the voters thought. He pointed to opinion polls in France where 52 percent apparently want it back for the worst felonies. Turkey is considering reintroducing the ultimate punishment after a long string of bloody terrorist attacks. "Can a politician simply brush away the majority rule because he or she 'knows
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February 27 BELARUS: Death penalty: Filling Europe’s black hole The 47-nation Council of Europe is co-organising a round table on capital punishment in Belarus on Thursday 28 February as part of the World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Brussels. Belarus is the only country in Europe to still use the death penalty. Executions are usually carried out in secret and relatives may only be informed weeks or months later. However, Belarus has made a number of positive statements on the death penalty in recent years and the number of executions in the country has fallen from 47 in 1998 to 4 in 2018. The round table will focus on historical aspects of capital punishment in Belarus, the current situation and future strategies to move towards abolition. The event, which will take place from 11.30am to 1.30pm in the Orange Room of the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels, is being organised by the Council of Europe together with NGOs Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Viasna. Participants will include Anaïs Marin, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus and representatives of the Belarusian authorities. Through the European Convention on Human Rights, the Council of Europe has created a death-penalty free zone covering more than 830 million people across 47 countries. (source: coe.int) GLOBAL: Death-penalty backlash - Support amassing against executions globally At least 1 abolitionist is raising the alarm that there is increased scrutiny on countries seeking to reintroduce the death penalty. Speaking at a forum in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday, Sandra Babcock, the founding director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, did not give further details but said that her organisation was committed to continuing to find creative methods in its fight against the death penalty. Babcock is among 1,500 abolitionists gathered in Europe’s epicentre for the 7th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, which officially opened this Wednesday morning at the European Union Parliament. On Friday, they will take to the streets of Brussels to march for an end to the death penalty around the world. In 2018, the United States alone carried out 25 executions. There were believed to have been hundreds more in China, but the figures are not disclosed by the government. Many other countries, like Jamaica, did not impose the death penalty but kept it on their books. The last hanging here was in 1988. At Tuesday’s panel discussion, attorneys championing the fight against the death penalty detailed their struggles in Indonesia, Nigeria, India and Pakistan. “A part of the narrative in India is that we need to execute more to see if it is a deterrent,” said attorney Maitreyi Misra of the National Law University India, citing the problem of crime, particularly sexual offences, in India. Some 396 people are now on death row in India, which carried out its last execution in 2015, when Yakub Memon was hanged following his conviction of financing the 1993 Mumbai bombing. Misra said a major issue attorneys have identified are the prison conditions of death-row inmates, who are denied the opportunity to work and access to mental-health treatment. “Sometimes the issue of justice becomes tied to the bureaucracy of access to resources,” she said. Just outside the Brussels meeting room from which Misra spoke, a giant globe was suspended in the hallway, with Caribbean countries like Jamaica, The Bahamas, St Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, and St Vincent and the Grenadines painted in red, similar to other territories where the death penalty remains on the books. “Mandatory death penalty erodes the principle of separation of powers,” argued Angela Uwandu, the head of Advocats Sans Frontières, Nigeria. She said the retention of the law compels judges to impose executions even when, based on discretion, they are inclined to do otherwise. It is realities like these why Sarah Belal, the executive director of Justice Project Pakistan, says that at times, it becomes frustrating for abolitionists. “You just have to be shame-proof,” Belal said. To compound things, she says donors do not fund litigation for death-row inmates and it can be an expensive process to keep their appeals in a court saddled with delays. At the same time, Belal said that in the past 5 years, 85 % of death-penalty convictions in Pakistan have been overturned. “You just don’t quit, you just have to exhaust the government and the justice system and the stakeholders,” she said. * 1,500 to march against death penalty More than 1,500 abolitionists will take to the streets of Brussels, Belgium on Friday to march for an end to the death penalty in several countries. The anti-death penalty advocates are in the European capital for the 7th World
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February 26 BELGIUM: Belgium continues to argue for universal abolition of the death penaltyDidier Reynders raised the inextricable link between poverty and the death penalty owing to the costs of legal proceedings, or the lack of legal knowledge of the criminal justice system. The death penalty “disproportionately” affects disadvantaged and minority groups in the places where it remains in force, noted the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Didier Reynders. He was speaking on Tuesday to the United Nations in Geneva. “This should not exist in the 21st century,” he stressed. During a UN debate around discrimination linked to the death penalty, the Minister spoke on behalf of the 8 author countries that drafted the resolution forming the basis for the panel. These were in particular France, Switzerland, Mexico and even Benin. Despite the increase in the number of states abolishing the death penalty, capital punishment still applies in some parts of the globe, he regretted. He expressed special concerned for those parts of the globe where apostasy (abandoning or renouncing a particular religious or political belief), blasphemy (the action or offence of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things), adultery or homosexual relationships are capital offences. “The application of the death penalty in these cases takes on a particularly discriminatory nature. It exclusively targets some segments of society, owing to them exercising their fundamental rights,” he said. Didier Reynders raised the inextricable link between poverty and the death penalty owing to the costs of legal proceedings, and the lack of legal knowledge to face the criminal justice system. Racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, foreign nationals as well as women are particularly affected by the “disproportionate” application of this sentence. "Above all, the death penalty is a serious violation of human rights, in particular, the right to life,” continued the Minister. “It is a cruel and irreversible punishment which infringes human dignity.” Its abolition is not a matter of culture but of political will, said the Minister for Foreign Affairs. "We have to move on from the position of simply a form of justice based upon killing.” Belgium and its partners have even gone as far as criticizing the use of arguments of “based purely upon security” to justify capital punishment, notably the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, who the Minister met before this debate, is pleased with the progress of the abolitionist movement, and called upon states to “get on the right side of History.” Currently, some 170 have abolished the death penalty, instituted a moratorium on its application or suspended executions for more than 10 years. From Wednesday, Belgium will hold the 7th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, the most significant global capital punishment abolitionist event. (source: Christopher Vincent, The Brussels Times) NEW ZEALAND: Capital Punishment for prisoners under guise of euthanasia A recent study in Belgium has revealed that 23 prisoners in Belgium requested euthanasia between 2011 and 2017. Capital punishment is unlawful in Belgium. It is not permitted to give a prisoner a lethal injection as a punishment for his crimes, however it is lawful to give a prisoner who does not have a terminal condition a lethal injection as “health care”. The Belgium prisoners were long term prisoners convicted for serious violent crimes and were unlikely to ever be released. Many would be without hope and considered that their lives were not worth living. Capital punishment was abolished in New Zealand in 1961. Right to Life believes that if Parliament passes David Seymour’s End of Life Choice bill we could follow the example of Belgium, which allows prisoners being given a lethal injection for experiencing psychological suffering. The Minister of Justice is concerned at the increasing numbers of prisoners in New Zealand prisons, the current number being over 10,000. The Minister has pledged to reduce this number by 30 per cent. Might it be tempting for a future government to accept allowing long term prisoners to be given a lethal injection as a solution to their psychological suffering? Certainly it is cheaper to kill than to provide care. Right to Life believes that once we accept that there are some lives not worthy of life there will be no end to the killing of the vulnerable. Assisted suicide for psychological suffering is permitted in Holland and is currently being considered in Canada. This raises the question as to what grounds will be next? Right to Life requests our Parliament to uphold the total prohibition of the killing of an innocent human being as the bedrock of the law and of medicine by voting against the dangerous End of Life Choice bill at its 2nd reading.
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February 25 CAMEROON: Cameroon opposition leader faces death sentence CAMEROON’S main opposition leader and more than 100 supporters face the death penalty following their arraignment for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Maurice Kamto, leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, and the 130 followers, were arbitrarily arrested last month and charged by a military court. The arrest is part of a crackdown on critics of the October 2018 elections that the opposition believes President Paul Biya rigged. A judge is to rule on the charges they face, including “rebellion, hostility against the homeland, incitement to insurrection, offence against the president of the republic and destruction of public buildings and goods.” Human rights organisations said it was horrifying that the government considered sentencing Kamto and others to death for participating in a peaceful protest. “As well as having their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly crushed, many of Cameroon’s opposition members are now facing unfair trials by military courts,” said rights advocate, Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry. “We are calling on authorities to end this ruthless assault on dissenting voices. Civilians should not be tried by military courts and should not face the death penalty for exercising their human rights.” Some 12 opposition members also arrested in January appeared before an ordinary court earlier this week. Prosecutors charged them with attempting to participate in a banned demonstration. The hearing was postponed until Monday. Biya (86), Africa’s oldest sitting president, has been power since 1982. Critics accuse him of rigging polls to sustain his reign. (source: cajnewafrica.com) EGYPT: Egypt Judges’ club condemns UN rights agency for criticising executions Egypt’s Judges Club, an informal association whose current leadership is known for its support of Sisi’s regime, criticised the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for its statements condemning the recent executions of nine death row inmates in Egypt. The Judges Club’s spokesperson Reda Mahmoud Al-Sayed said that the association “followed with much sorry” the OHCHR statements on the sentences handed down after the 2015 killing of Egypt’s Prosecutor-General. The statements constitute an “unacceptable intervention in the work of the esteemed and independent Egyptian judiciary,” Sayed said. The Judges Club also described the OHCHR’s statements as an attack on the Egyptian state’s sovereignty and a breach of international measures and treaties that seek to preserve the judiciary’s independence. “The Judges Club stresses on the independence of the Egyptian judiciary and its rejection, throughout its history, of any intervention from any internal of a foreign entity.” It also noted that Egyptian laws include the death penalty and allow for it to be issued in cases that relate to the most serious crimes. In its statement, the club defended the recent hangings, noting that the Egyptian legal system guarantees for defendants fair trial before a just an independent judiciary, in addition to the right to appeal sentences in higher courts up to the Court of Cassation. Last Friday OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville criticised the death sentences handed down and carried out in Egypt against defendants in the prosecutor general’s assassination case. “They are all killings for which the death penalty is permissible under international law although we urge, as you know, our common position at the UN is to advocate the abolition of the death penalty. But the issue here is a fair trial, use of torture, forced confessions and so on,” he said. The execution of nine Egyptians on Wednesday over their alleged involvement in killing the country’s top prosecutor in 2015 has sparked a major outcry in Egypt and internationally. Videos of the trial went viral on social media featuring the defendants telling the judge that they were innocent and that they confessed to the crime under torture. The judge ignored the defendants’ plea and sentenced 9 of them to death. (source: Middle East Monitor) *** Egypt executions 'unacceptable' says ErdoganTurkish president says Egyptian executions justify his bitter relationship with Egypt's Sisi Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the UN have both criticised a surge in executions in Egypt marked by the deaths of 9 men last week. Erdogan said on Saturday that the executions and arrests of political opponents, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, which was ousted in a 2013 coup by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, explain why the Turkish president refuses to speak to Sisi. "They killed n9 young people recently. This is not something we can accept," Erdogan said in an interview with Turkish TV channels CNN-Turk and Kanal D, referring to the men who were
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February 24 IRAN: International watchdog urges Iran to stop execution of 3 Kurdish teenagers Amnesty International said on Friday that Iran must immediately halt the execution of 3 teenagers found guilty of crimes that were committed when they were under the age of 18. One teenager was found guilty of waging war against God, allegedly under torture including electric-shocks and the 2 others were found guilty of murder. “The Iranian authorities must act quickly to save these young men’s lives. Failing to stop their execution would be another abhorrent assault on children’s rights by Iran,” said Saleh Higazi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International. International human rights law strictly prohibits the application of the death penalty for offenders under the age of 18 when the crime was committed. Iran is often criticized by the UN and the international organizations for human rights violations. The Islamic Republic is 1 of only 4 countries known to have put child offenders to death since 2013. The United Nations Secretary General reported in early 2015 that “at least 160 juvenile offenders were reportedly on death row at December 2014.” One of the teenagers, Shayan Saeedpour stabbed a person to death in August 2015 when he was 17 while under the influence of alcohol. He surrendered at a police station voluntarily and was sentenced to death in October 2018. “Shayan was under the age of 18 when he committed murder, his lawyer and we were shocked when we heard the Supreme Court had upheld the ruling,” Shayan’s father Salahaddin told Human Rights Activists News Agency, HRANA, a respected Iranian human rights organization on February 17. “Shayan had no understanding of what he had done…moreover he was under the influence of alcoholic drinks when he committed the crime.” He was also sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking alcohol. The 2nd teenager Barzan Nasrollahzadeh was 17 when he was arrested and later found guilty of ‘enmity against God’ which carries the death penalty. He says he was tortured by the agents of the intelligence ministry during his pre-trial detention including being suspended upside down and electric shocks applied on his body. The 3rd teenager Mohammad Kalhori was 15 when he was arrested in late 2014 for the alleged stabbing of one of his school teachers. He was found guilty of murder in March 2016 and sentenced to three years in prison on the basis that he did not have a ‘mental growth and maturity.’ But the decision was overturn by the Supreme Court in January 2017 and his family have been told that he would be executed soon. Under international and internal pressure in 2013 Iran revised its Islamic Penal Code limiting the execution of minors. However article 91 still allows the judges to pass the death sentence in the case of a minor. If offenders “under eighteen years do not realize the nature of the crime…or there is uncertainty about their full mental development…” the death penalty does not apply but the court “may ask the opinion of forensic medicine or resort to any other method that it sees appropriate in order to establish the full mental development.” “Instead of sending more juvenile offenders to the gallows the authorities must commute all death sentences and immediately reform Iran’s Penal Code to abolish the use of the death penalty against all those who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime,” Saleh Higazi of Amnesty said. “This should be a first step towards abolishing the death penalty completely.” (source: rudaw.net) ___ 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
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February 23 EGYPT: Court recommends death sentence to Monks accused of killing Bishop Epiphanius Damanhur Criminal Court ruled on Saturday to refer 2 Coptic Christian monks to Egypt's top religious authority for consideration of the death penalty against them over killing Head of St. Macarius Monastery in Wadi El-Natroun, Bishop Epiphanius in July 2018. The expelled monk Ash’eyaa, whose birth name is Wael Saad, and Monk Faltaous al-Makary, whose birth name is Raymond Rasmi Mansour, were charged of deliberate murder of Bishop Epiphanius. During the trial, Ash’eyaa pleaded not guilty, claiming that he was framed, al-Dostor newspaper reported. Bishop Epiphanius was found dead on July 29 inside the monastery and 2 monks, who were kept in detention pending investigation since then, confessed their crime. Monk Faltaous al-Makary tried to commit suicide via slitting his wrist and then jumping off a high building inside the monastery. On August 21, he was hospitalized due to a degraded case of gangrene in his leg. Also, Ash’eyaa tried to commit suicide a day after the murder. Following the death of Bishiop Epiphanius, Pope Tawadros II issued new monasticism laws, topping which is the deactivation of the social media accounts of all monks and bishops. The death of Bishop Epiphanius revealed the struggle between the school of late Pope Shenouda and the ecclesiastical school of late Matthew the poor. “We should look at it [the incident of the murder] as a wake-up call for all of us... the death of Bishop Epiphanius was like an alarm call,” said Tawadros II, pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, during a mass marking the 40th day of the bishop’s death. (source: Egypt Today) PHILIPPINES: Buhay Party-list dares candidates to bare stand on death penalty The Buhay Partylist Saturday dared senatorial and congressional candidates to declare their respective stand on the death penalty issue. In a press statement, Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Buhay Partylist Rep. Lito Atienza said candidates must make clear to voters their “exact position” on the Duterte administration’s move to restore the death penalty in the country’s penal system. “Voters deserve to know the clear-cut stance of every Senate and House aspirant – whether they are for or against the return of capital punishment,” said Atienza. “It would be unfair – even deceitful – for candidates to court the support of voters who are opposed to the death penalty, only to betray them later on,” Atienza, former 3-term mayor of Manila, said. Buhay Partylist is a staunch critic of the death penalty. It will be recalled that the Lower House voted 217 in favor and 54 against the bill reinstating the death penalty for drug related offenses. However, the Senate leadership has failed to act on its version of the bill. As a result, the death penalty measure may no longer be passed and may be re-filed in the next Congress. Atienza fought against the passage of the House bill reviving judicial executions on the grounds that they violate the sanctity of human life. Atienza introduced a substitute bill that seeks to impose the new penalty of “qualified reclusion perpertua” on the worst criminal offenders. The penalty is equal to imprisonment for 40 years, or until the convict reaches 70 years old, without the benefit of early release. The results of a Social Weather Stations survey in March 2018 showed that less than 40 % of Filipinos believe that the death penalty should be the punishment for people convicted of grave drug-related offenses. Among those who disagreed with the death penalty, 42 % invoked religious reasons for opposing it, 21 % believe it is possible for offenders to reform, 14 % believe in alternatives to executions, 10 % cited the country’s corrupt and unreliable criminal justice system, 7 % mentioned humane reasons, and 3 % disputed the policy itself. “The certainty of capture and punishment is the best deterrence to crime, more than the penalty itself. And the modern world has come to accept that prolonged imprisonment is just as effective,” Atienza said. “The death penalty leaves no room for rectification. A dead convict cannot be brought back to life even if somebody else later on confesses to the crime,” Atienza said. Congress revived the death penalty for 13 heinous crimes in 1993, only to abolish it in 2006 due to mounting flaws. (source: Manila Bulletin) INDIA: Pune activists oppose capital punishmentThe event was organised by forum for medical ethics society, centre for mental health and policy and was held at ILS Law college City-based activists who are against capital punishment came together for a conference titled ‘death penalty in India, legal, ethical and health issues’. The event was organised by forum for medical ethics society, centre for mental health and policy and was held at ILS Law college.
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February 22 PAKISTAN: India fails to answer critical questions in Jadhav case: Pakistan Thursday was the last day of the Kulbhushan Jadhav case hearing at the Peace Palace in The Hague. Khawar Qureshi, representing Pakistan, began his final rebuttal before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by an unapologetic explanation of why Pakistan had to resort to “trenchant observations” in its rejoinder regarding India. Articulate and not one to mince his words, Qureshi once again chastised India for living in “wonderland” and persisting to the very end in seeking to “distract and deflect attention from its failure to answer critical questions by levelling accusations against Pakistan”. India claims this case is only about denial of consular access whereas “it’s far from it”, claimed an uncharacteristically unrushed Qureshi. He found it absurd how India was reduced to equating the words of the Lahore High Court Bar Association secretary to the official position taken by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. He addressed what he termed as India’s “Kidnap Fiction” by highlighting Dr Mittal’s failure to identify any attempt by India to engage with Iranian authorities regarding Kulbhushan Jadhav’s alleged kidnapping. “Providing explanation will expose the fiction,” claimed Qureshi. The Queen’s Counsel spoke of yet another attempt by India to mislead the court with the mention of “photographs” of its officials. There was only one photograph shown by Pakistan in the court, that of Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval. It was “illuminating” how India never denied the contents of his February 2014 speech at any point. India’s confusion with regards to whether there were 18 or 40 MLA requests was another example of its deflection. Another instance of “playing fast and loose with words”, according to Qureshi, was India referring to words such as “clinching and convincing and unimpeachable” for Indian journalists; words never used by Qureshi at any point. “Have we come to so what?” inquired a bewildered Qureshi with reference to India’s consistent disregard of the passport issue and claiming it has no legal consequences. According to Khawar Qureshi, “submissions were based on clear, compelling, un-contradicted evidence”. It was in fact, rhetoric that has been used by India “by way of pure and hollow response on this issue”. It’s a “catch me if you can” mindset, said Qureshi, whereby “India seeks to twist the facts and break the law to suit its purpose, brazenly trampling on red lines”. Qureshi clarified that Pakistan in no way wants what India contends it wants, a reading down of VCCR to exclude espionage. “Unless India contends that Article 5(a) (compliance of international law) of VCCR and Article 55 (non interference in the internal affairs of a state) have no meaning” which would be consistent with India’s core stance of “behaviour of state is irrelevant,” added Qureshi. Rebutting all of Indian counsel Harish Salve’s arguments from Wednesday, Qureshi sought to make it clear the preamble to the VCCR makes it clear that the position as at Customary International Law was unaffected in the absence of express provisions to the contrary in the VCCR. “Affirming that the rules of customary international law continue to govern matters not expressly regulated by the provisions of the present Convention”. Throughout his hour-long rebuttal, Qureshi mocked Harish Salve’s use of the nonsensical word “studied moderation”. Pakistan has “maintained dignity and not allowed itself to be provoked” in the face of “linguistic gymnastics” of India, claimed Qureshi. India had claimed on Wednesday that Pakistan had sought to mislead the court by hiding the fact that the Supreme Court had a pending appeal against the Peshawar High Court judgement against military court executions. An exasperated Qureshi wondered how a judgement becomes irrelevant or loses value by being the subject of an appeal, “in all legal systems a court’s decision is valid until declared otherwise by a superior court”. Earlier, Pakistan’s Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan took exception to the “very strong and uncalled for criticism” made on the judicial system of Pakistan, in an “attempt to show that it has no review or reconsideration process”. In expanding on the “very robust system”, Khan continued to clarify that “the entire courts, whether regular civil/criminal courts, special courts, specialised tribunals or the military courts are created through the various Acts of Parliament, as prescribed by the Constitution”. With regards to India’s scathing criticism of secret proceedings held in Pakistan, he pointed out that “for reasons of state security, confidentiality and state secrets, some of the trials cannot be made public. This is true in almost all jurisdictions, including India”. Khan went on to defend Pakistan’s military courts as being “governed by the Constitution
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February 21 TRINIDAD: Why bother with death sentence? THE EDITOR: Our justice system is such an a-- with the implementation of one law for the rich and another for the poor, which is used here on a daily basis. It is at times difficult to believe we have a justice system at all. For instance, what is the point of sentencing a murderer to death here when there is no likelihood of that murderer ever being executed. This is now a certainty as, despite all the murders, which keep rising, the Government obviously has no intention of restoring the death penalty. It is hell-bent on obeying the ruling of the Privy Council and keeping in the good books of the human rights organisations at the expense of the innocent lives of many of our citizens who are now living in daily fear of their lives. GA MARQUES via e-mail (source: Letter to the Editor, trinidad.co.tt) CAMEROON: Opposition leader and more than 100 supporters face the death penalty Opposition leader Maurice Kamto is today due to be summoned by a military court on charges which carry the death penalty, as the Cameroonian authorities intensify their post-election crackdown on critics. Kamto, the president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun-MRC) is the first of a group of 131 people arrested last month and charged by the military court with rebellion, hostility against the homeland, incitement to insurrection, offence against the president of the republic, and destruction of public buildings and goods, to be summoned by an investigating judge. They all face the death penalty. Amnesty International considers the death penalty as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and a violation of the right to life. Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry, Amnesty’s West and Central Africa regional director, said: “It is horrifying that the Cameroonian authorities are considering sentencing Maurice Kamto to death simply for daring to participate in a peaceful protest. He is one of many people who have been caught up in a wave of mass arrests as authorities attempt to silence their critics. “As well as having their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly crushed, many of Cameroon's opposition members are now facing unfair trials by military courts. We are calling on authorities to end this ruthless assault on dissenting voices. Civilians should not be tried by military courts and should not face the death penalty for exercising their human rights.” International and regional human rights bodies including the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights consider that military courts should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians. Following his arrest on 28 January, Maurice Kamto, who was also a presidential candidate, spent two weeks in detention, during which time his lawyers and family saw him only once. He is detained at Yaoundé Principale Prison along with 6 MRC supporters and officials. The rest of the 131 are detained in a different prison. Amnesty believes that they should have never been arrested in the first place. On 19 February, 12 of another group of 15 opposition members arrested on 26 January in Yaoundé appeared before an ordinary court. According to the prosecutor they had been arrested for attempting to participate in a banned demonstration. The hearing was postponed until 25 February. (source: amnesty.org.uk) SRI LANKA: Amnesty International Secretary General Kumi Naidoo writes to Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena OPEN LETTER BY KUMI NAIDOO ON THE DEATH PENALTY Your Excellency I am writing to plead for the lives of prisoners who may soon be put to death if executions resume in Sri Lanka. More than four decades ago, your country stopped the implementation of this ultimate, cruel, in human and degrading punishment, becoming one of the few South Asian countries to do so. The death penalty is now only applied by a shrinking minority of countries around the world. In December 2018, Sri Lanka was among the 121 states that voted in favour of a resolution on the “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty” at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly. Only 35 states voted against the resolution. Implementing the death penalty for drug-related offences is unlawful. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Sri Lanka is a state party, restricts the use of the death penalty – in countries that have not yet abolished it – to the “most serious crimes”, or intentional killing. Executions are never the solution. As criminologists have extensively demonstrated, including in studies for the United Nations, the death penalty has no unique deterrent effect. If we look around the world, there are many examples that bear this out. Consider the contrast between Hong Kong and Singapore, 2 similar-sized cities. Hong Kong stopped
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February 20 EGYPTexecutions Egypt hangs 9 for 2015 murder of top prosecutor Egypt hanged 9 men on Wednesday for the 2015 assassination of the prosecutor general, judicial sources said, bringing to 15 the number of executions it has carried out this month. Hisham Barakat was killed in June 2015 when a car bomb struck his convoy in Cairo following jihadist calls for attacks on the judiciary to avenge a crackdown on Islamists. The 9 men hanged on Wednesday were among 28 people sentenced to death in 2017 for involvement in his murder. Their death sentences were upheld in November by the Court of Cassation, which commuted the sentences of 6 others to life imprisonment. The sentences of the other defendants were not considered because they had been sentenced in absentia. The hangings came despite an 11th-hour plea by human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday for a stay of execution. "There is no doubt that those involved in deadly attacks must be prosecuted and held accountable for their actions but executing prisoners or convicting people based on confessions extracted through torture is not justice," said Amnesty's North Africa campaigns director, Najia Bounaim. "At least 6 men have already been executed earlier this month after unfair trials. Instead of stepping up executions the Egyptian authorities should take steps to abolish the death penalty once and for all." Last week, Egypt hanged 3 people convicted of the 2013 murder of senior police officer Nabil Farag. The previous week, it hanged three young "political detainees" convicted of the September 2013 murder of the son of a judge, Human Rights Watch reported. No one claimed the 2015 attack against Barakat but the authorities pointed the finger at members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. Since Morsi's overthrow by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013, Egypt has struggled to quell a jihadist insurgency and cracked down on Islamists who backed him. Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been sentenced to death, while the former president and top Brotherhood figures have also faced trial. The Muslim Brotherhood was outlawed and branded a terrorist organisation in December 2013, just months after Morsi's ouster. Many of the death sentences have been handed down at mass trials involving hundreds of defendants and lasting just days. (source: france24.com) PHILIPPINES: Jinggoy Estrada wants plunder to be punishable by death penalty Former Senator Jinggoy Estrada, who is accused of amassing 183 million in connection to the multibillion "pork barrel scam," wants plunder to be among the heinous crimes punishable by death penalty. Estrada—who is running for senator in the May elections—said he is for the reimposition of capital punishment, but only for heinous crimes, including plunder. "Kung magnanakaw ka sa kaban ng bayan, eh di isama na sa heinous crimes 'yan," he said on CNN Philippines' Politics As Usual. [Translation: If you steal money from the country's funds, might as well include it in the heinous crimes] "When I was still a senator nagbotohan kami dyan sa (we voted on) death penalty during the time of President Gloria (Arroyo). I abstained from the votation to abolish the death penalty because I still had an existing plunder case which was punishable by death," he said. Estrada is currently out on bail for a plunder charge and 15 counts of graft. The same charges were filed against former Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. The 3, who are all running for the Senate, allegedly diverted portions of their Priority Development Assistance Fund to fake non-governmental organizations in exchange for kickbacks. Revilla had been acquitted by the Sandiganbayan, but was ordered to return 124.5 million. The plunder trial of Enrile, meanwhile, was canceled and indefinitely put on hold. Estrada maintained his innocence over the charges, saying he "has nothing to hide." He said he is confident that he will be acquitted of the charges. "I'm quite confident that I will follow suit. Actually my case is still on trial but it is already on the later stage. We already filed a formal offer of evidence and we have already commented to it, and the court will still have to rule on it," he said, adding that he hopes the ruling on his plunder case will come before the elections. Estrada said his acquittal "will not lessen the campaign against corruption by this administration," and will only show that the 3 of them were just "handpicked" by the previous administration. "There were a lot of congressmen or legislators, so to speak, who also endorsed the same thing we did. Bakit hindi nila kinasuhan 'yung mga nag-endorse din sa mga NGO? Bakit tatlo lang kami?" he said. [Translation: Why didn't they file charges against those who also endorsed the non-government
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February 19 YEMEN: Yemen Urges UN Intervention to Save Detainee from Houthi Execution The legitimate Yemeni government called on the United Nations and its envoy Martin Griffiths to intervene and halt the execution of a female detainee held by the Iran-backed Houthi militias. The Yemeni Human Rights Ministry condemned the sentence against Asmaa al-Amaisy, who is being held in a Houthi jail. It deemed as a “farce” the sentence against her, explaining that it was issued by a judiciary that had lost its legitimacy and that has been transformed into a tool to be abused by the militia to violate the rights of the people. It said that the execution violates all red lines and local and international laws, treaties and agreements. It added that Amaisy was kidnapped by the Houthis and held in complete isolation from the world. Along with other prisoners, she was held in appalling conditions for several months before being put on trial. The prisoners, revealed the ministry, were subject to extortion and repeated degradation by the militias. They were deprived of their basic rights, including contacting an attorney and enjoying family visits. It stressed that Amaisy’s execution would be considered a war crime according to international laws and it will deal a blow to an anticipated prisoner exchange between the government and Houthis. It therefore, called on the international community to exert pressure on the Houthis to make them commit to the swap deal that was reached during consultations in Sweden in December. For four years, the Houthis have issued death sentences against dozens of their opponents, including activists. Many have been falsely accused of treason, backing the legitimate government or belonging to terrorist organizations. The death sentence against Amaisy is the 1st against a woman. She is being held on fabricated charges of belonging to terrorist groups in Sanaa. (source: aawsat.com) IRAN: 2 Juvenile Offenders at Risk of Imminent Execution in Iran 1 young Iranian prisoner, who was sentenced to death at just 15, is set to be executed soon, according to what his family was told by prison officials. Mohammad Kalhori was sentenced to death even though the medical examiner’s report says that he was not mentally mature at the time that he allegedly committed murder, due to a mental disorder, and was suffering from depression. His attorney, Hassan Aghakhani, said: “Unfortunately, Mohammad’s family were informed that the verdict will be carried out soon.” The Criminal Court initially sentenced Kalhori to seven years in prison and ordered him to pay blood money to the victim’s family, but this was overturned by the Supreme Court after an appeal and letters from a Government official and a Member of Parliament. So, in September 2016, shortly after he turned 18, Kalhori was sentenced to death for the murder of his teacher in 2014. Back in June 2018, two UN human rights experts urged Iranian authorities to halt the execution. Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, and Renate Winter, who heads the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, wrote: “Iran has committed itself to prohibiting the use of the death penalty for all those under 18 by its ratification of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As such, this execution is unlawful and arbitrary.” Another juvenile offender Shayan Saeedpour, who was sentenced to death, has been transferred to a different prison in Kurdistan Province and the fear is that he will soon be executed as well. Saeedpour was convicted of murder at the age of 15 or 16 and has been in jail since 2015. He has also been under psychiatric care whilst in prison and has attempted suicide on numerous occasions. At the time of the murder, Saeedpour was under the influence of alcohol, for which he was additionally sentenced to 80 lashes, according to his family. He turned himself in to police 2 days later. Iran is one of a small number of countries that continues to execute juvenile offenders. It is illegal to execute someone for crimes committed under the age of 18, according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Convention on the Rights of the Child, both treaties that Iran is party to, but the Regime has shown no sign of stopping. In February 2018, the UN human rights chief called on Iran to halt executions of juveniles. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said: “The execution of juvenile offenders is unequivocally prohibited under international law, regardless of the circumstances and nature of the crime committed.” There are believed to be at least 80 juvenile offenders on death row. (source: ncr-iran.org) CANADA: Sentenced to hang in '75, cop killer looking for love The cop killer says he doesn’t remember a thing.
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February 18 INDIA: In 2:1 verdict, SC upholds constitutional validity of death penaltyHas death penalty in the statute served as a deterrent for heinous crime? A 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court in a verdict on Wednesday expressed different opinions on this with one saying that the provision of capital punishment has failed to become a deterrent and the other 2 holding that a larger bench had already decided its continuance in the rarest of rare cases. A 3-judge bench comprising justices Kurian Joseph, Deepak Gupta and Hemant Gupta commuted the death sentence of a man and awarded him life term for murdering 3 persons including 2 women. Though the 3 judges differed on the applicability of death penalty, they were unanimous in commuting the death sentence of Chhannu Lal Verma. Justice Joseph, who is to superannuate on Thursday, while pronouncing the verdict, read his views on the applicability of death sentence. Referring to the 262nd report of the Law Commission, Justice Joseph said, “The constitutional regulation of capital punishment attempted in Bachan Singh versus State of Punjab in 1980 has failed to prevent death sentences from being ‘arbitrarily and freakishly imposed‘ and that capital punishment has failed to achieve any constitutionally valid penological goals, we are of the view that a time has come where we view the need for death penalty as a punishment, especially its purpose and practice.” He also said that till the time death penalty exists in the statute books, the burden to be satisfied by the judge in awarding this punishment must be high. According to Justice Joseph, the irrevocable nature of the sentence and the fact that the death row convicts are, for that period, hanging between life and death are to be duly considered. “Every death penalty case before the court deals with a human life that enjoys certain constitutional protection and if life is to be taken away, then the process must adhere to the strictest and highest constitutional standards. Our conscience as judges, which is guided by constitutional principles, cannot allow anything less than that,” Justice Joseph, who wrote judgement for the bench, said. Justices Deepak Gupta and Hemant Gupta gave divergent opinion on the views expressed by Justice Joseph on applicability of death sentence and said a 5-judge constitution bench in Bachan Singh versus State of Punjab in 1980 had already held the constitutional validity of death penalty provided in Indian Penal Code. “In our view, since the Constitution Bench in Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab, has upheld capital punishment, there is no need to re-examine the same at this stage,” justices Deepak Gupta and Hemant Gupta said. Justice Joseph, who wrote the verdict for the bench, also voiced his “anguishing concern” with regard to public discourse on crimes which have an impact on the trial, conviction and sentence in a case. “The court‘s duty to be constitutionally correct even when its view is counter-majoritarian is also a factor which should weigh with the court when it deals with the collective conscience of the people or public opinion. After all, the society‘s perspective is generally formed by the emotionally charged narratives. Such narratives need not necessarily be legally correct, properly informed or procedurally proper,” he said. Justice Joseph, while referring to the law commission report said that the court plays a counter-majoritarian role in protecting individual rights against majoritarian impulses. “In this context, we may also express our concern on the legality and propriety of the people engaging in a ‘trial‘ prior to the process of trial by the court,” he said. Justice Joseph said that it has almost become a “trend” for the investigating agency to present their version and create a cloud in the collective conscience of the society regarding the crime and the criminal. “This undoubtedly puts mounting pressure on the courts at all the stages of the trial and certainly they have a tendency to interfere with the due course of justice,” he said. The three judges were unanimous on their view that the Chhattisgarh high court in the case at hand has erroneously confirmed death penalty on the man without correctly applying the law laid down in Bachan Singh and other cases. “The decision to impose the highest punishment of death sentence in this case does not fulfil the test of rarest of rare case where the alternative option is unquestionably foreclosed,” the bench said. It said that no evidence as to the uncommon nature of the offence or the improbability of reformation or rehabilitation of the appellant has been adduced. It noted that the superintendent of the jail has given a certificate that his conduct in jail has been good during the pendency of his appeal in apex court for past 4 years. “Thus, there is a clear indication that despite having lost all
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February 17 PAKISTAN: Pakistan submits reply before ICJ in Kulbhushan Jadhav case Pakistan on Saturday submitted its reply in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) before the Monday’s hearing where India will contest the convicted spy’s death row. Kulbhushan, who India says was kidnapped from Iran, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court. Kulbhushan, 46, was charged convicted of espionage and sentenced to death in April 2017, following which India moved The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ). A 10-member bench of the ICJ had in May 2017, restrained Pakistan from executing Kulbhushan till adjudication of the case. Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Kulbhushan from Balochistan on March 3, 2016, after he allegedly “entered Pakistan from Iran”. India, however, maintains that Kulbhushan was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy. India’s lawyers will present their arguments on Monday to the top UN court, which was set up after World War II to resolve international disputes. This will be followed by Pakistan’s lawyers presenting their case on Tuesday. Islamabad reacted to the ICJ’s urgent order to stay Kulbhushan Jadhav’s execution at the time, but said it “has not changed the status” of Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case “in any manner”. The case comes at a time when the already-strained ties between India and Pakistan took a further plunge following the terror attack in Kashmir’s Pulwama. More than 44 paramilitary troops were killed as explosives (RDX) packed in a car ripped through a convoy bringing 2,500 soldiers back from leave. The terror attack happened less than 25 kilometres from Srinagar. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that the public hearing of Kulbhushan Jadhav will commence from Monday. However, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar declined to go into the details of it. WHAT INDIA NEEDS TO ANSWER: According to sources, Pakistan has submitted 6 key points which India will need to answer. These include: India says Commander Jadhav was an innocent Indian national who was kidnapped from Iran to make him confess to being an Indian RAW agent. Why has India failed to make good this allegation despite repeated requests for evidence that he was kidnapped? India says Commander Jadhav retired from the Indian Navy. Why has India failed to explain when/why he retired as he was only 47 years old when arrested? India refuses to explain how Commander Jadhav was in possession of an authentic Indian passport issued in a false ‘cover’ Muslim name ‘Hussein Mubarak Patel’ which he had used at least 17 times to enter/exit India. India has been asked this question many times (even by highly respected Indian senior journalists such as Praveen Swami and Karan Thapar) but simply says this is “irrelevant” or “mischievous propaganda”. India eventually said the passport was “clearly a forgery” but refuses to explain this statement, or why a highly credible independent UK expert is wrong when he says it is an authentic Indian passport issued by the Indian authorities. Why not? India demands that the ICJ orders the “return” of Commander Jadhav to India. However, the ICJ has repeatedly stated it is not a criminal court of appeal. It has always so far made it clear in all its decisions that, even if consular access was denied, the proper order is for there to be effective review and reconsideration by the local Courts. Commander Jadhav and his family have been able to seek this at any time since 10th April 2017 in accordance with Article 199 of the Constitution of Pakistan. Instead, India launched proceedings in the ICJ 14 months after he was arrested and a month after he was convicted to seek a ‘stay’ order without a hearing. Why is India asking for an order for “return” in the face of the ICJ’s decision and the independent expert evidence confirming Pakistan has effective review and reconsideration before the high court and Supreme Court? India has failed to explain why the Agreement on Consular Access between India and Pakistan dated 21 May 2008 (which India drafted), and which provides (at Article (vi)) for either State to be entitled to consider a request for consular access “on its merits” where it involves a person implicated in national security matters, does not apply in this case? India fails to explain why highly respected UK-based military law experts are wrong when they say that Pakistan’s high court and Supreme Court provide an effective review and reconsideration of the military court process. BACKGROUND: The salient aspects of the case are: On 3rd March 2016, Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav was arrested in the Balochistan province of Pakistan, having illegally and clandestinely entered Pakistan from Iranian territory. India has said that Commander Jadhav was “kidnapped” from Iran – but has
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February 16 ZIMBABWE: Granny killer sentenced to death A BEITBRIDGE man, who waylaid a 65-year-old flea market trader in the driveway of her house in the border town before fatally stabbing the woman and robbing her of 2 cellphones, was yesterday sentenced to death by hanging. Maxwell Chadiwa (25) of Dulivhadzimu suburb pounced on Ms Muchaziva Gonorashe while she was about to leave her house in Dulivhadzimu suburb for Musina, South Africa, in the early hours and stabbed her with an okapi knife. He was arrested after police tracked the victim’s stolen mobile phone to another person who subsequently led detectives to the accused person. Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Maxwell Takuva convicted Chadiwa of murder with actual intent. In his judgment, Justice Takuva ruled that the murder was committed in aggravating circumstances. “It is clear that the accused person acted with an actual intent. Looking at the depth of the wound it is evident that excessive force was used. We are satisfied that the murder was committed in aggravating circumstances,” said the judge. Justice Takuva said the courts have a duty to protect the sanctity of human life. “Serious crimes call for the courts to be retributive in passing sentences as opposed to taking a rehabilitative approach. Lenience in such circumstances would not reflect the core principles of sentencing as the courts have a duty to uphold the sanctity of human life,” he said. In passing a sentence, Justice Takuva said Chadiwa’s conduct was motivated by greed. “What is aggravating is that you stabbed an innocent and helpless 65 year-old woman who intended to go to South Africa to buy wares for resale back home. “If such an old woman can wake up in the early hours to work what would prevent you, a 24-year-old person, from doing that? Instead you chose to waylay the woman and rob her of her cellphones after refusing to disclose where she kept her money. It shows you are a cruel and wicked person who allowed greed to overpower you,” he said. Justice Takuva said those who disregard other people’s lives deserve to be permanently removed from society. “The court is in agreement with the State that death is the most appropriate sentence for you. We would have betrayed society if we are swayed into passing a sentence other than a death penalty. Those who don’t respect other people’s lives should also have their lives terminated and the sentence of this court is that you be returned to custody and that the sentence of death executed upon you according to the law,” ruled the judge. On being asked why a death penalty should not be imposed on him, Chadiwa who appeared unfazed said: “There is nothing that I can say since I have already been convicted of a charge of murder, which I did not commit. However, I wish to tell this court that it is only God who knows that I am being sacrificed for the sins that I did not commit because my hands are not dripping with blood.” Justice Takuva reminded Chadiwa of his automatic right of appeal against both conviction and sentence at the Supreme Court. Prosecuting, Mr Nqobizitha Ndlovu said on January 11 this year, the deceased woke up at around 3.30AM intending to travel to South Africa for shopping using her car, a Toyota Aphard. She drove out of the yard, left the engine running and went back to close the gate. “The deceased, who intended to go to Musina drove her car out of the yard and stopped at the driveway to close the gate behind her when the accused person, who was armed with a knife, pounced on her,” said Mr Ndlovu. Chadiwa pulled out an Okapi knife and stabbed Ms Gonorashe on the left collarbone and she collapsed and died. Chadiwa went to the car, searched it and took a handbag containing 2 cellphones, a Samsung Galaxy S4 and a Blackberry. He emptied the bag before he threw it away. The woman’s body was discovered by 2 other tenants who heard dogs barking in the yard. They reported the matter to the police who recovered an empty handbag and a blood stained knife near the woman’s body. The body was later taken to Beitbridge District Hospital mortuary. Shortly after committing the murder, Chadiwa sold the woman’s cellphone to another resident. The cellphone was tracked and it was recovered from a person who had bought it and he led detectives to Chadiwa’s place leading to his arrest. Chadiwa, in his defence, through his lawyer, Mr Arnold Ncube of R Ndlovu and Company, said he bought the cellphones from a suspected border jumper who was desperately in need of money to pay people to assist him illegally cross the border to South Africa. (source: chronicle.co.zw) BOTSWANA: 4 CONVICTED MURDERERS TO HANG The Court of Appeal on 8 February 2019 confirmed the death sentences of four men convicted of killing a cab driver in Gaborone and a Gantsi farm owner respectively. The killers, Matshidiso Tshidi Boikanyo and Moabi Seabelo
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February 15 GLOBAL: Executions for gay sex: 13 nations threaten it, 4 do it. How many countries execute people for being gay? This blog’s best estimate: The laws of 13 nations call for the death penalty for gay sex, but only four countries go through with it. This blog’s updated list of 13 nations with such harsh anti-gay laws is a decrease from the previous tally, which had included Daesh/the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL. At its height, ISIS repeatedly executed men accused of homosexuality. (For example, from 2015: ‘Islamic State’ has reported 15 LGBTI executions.) Now that violent extremist Islamist enterprise, thank God, has been eradicated as a government controlling territory and administering laws. So now it’s off the list. Here’s a summary of the complete list, which is more fully discussed in the article “13 nations have death penalty for gay sex; 4 carry it out.” Nations with such laws on the books; executions have been carried out in the recent past: 1. Iran Iran is No. 2 in the world for frequency of executions of any kind, behind China. Those include executions for homosexual activity, although the facts are often unclear or misrepresented in media reports. (See, for example, “Bogus hanging in Iran, bogus tweets in Egypt” and “Series of public hangings in Iran, including 2 for sodomy.”) When a man in Iran is hanged after being convicted of rape and sodomy, media coverage often wrongly describes the punishment as execution for homosexuality. The most recent example of such mislabeling appears in the Jerusalem Post, Gay Star News and Jihad Watch. Each states that an unidentified man was executed on Jan. 10, 2019, on “homosexuality charges,” which sounds like consensual same-sex activity. But the articles make clear that the man was actually convicted of kidnapping and rape. 2. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is No. 3 among the world’s most avid executioners, with 90+ in 2014. At least in the past, beheadings were imposed for homosexual behavior, including three men in 2002. Imprisonment and lashings are a more common punishment for same-sex activity. Nations with no such law on the books; executions are carried out by militias and others: 3. Iraq The ILGA report of 2015 noted that “Iraq, although [the death penalty is] not in the civil code, clearly has judges and militias throughout the country that issue the death sentence for same-sex sexual behaviours.” For example: Iraq has become a death trap for gay men (September 2012) 4. Somalia The Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab, which controls large areas of Somalia, reportedly killed two individuals in 2017 because of their sexual orientation. The deaths were described as murders, but they might better be labeled as executions since they were done by the governing power of that region. Nations with such laws on the books; no recent executions reported: 1. Sudan 2. Yemen 3. Nigeria (Muslim northern part of the country only) Nations with such laws on the books; no executions reported: 1. Afghanistan 2. Mauritania 3. Pakistan 4. Qatar 5. United Arab Emirates (Some interpretations of existing law would provide for the death penalty; no executions have been reported.) 6. Brunei Darussalam The country has had a de facto moratorium on executions since 1957. According to news reports, it has not yet implemented a harsh new Syariah Penal Code Order, which includes the death penalty for consensual same-sex sexual behavior, at least on paper. (source: 76crimes.com) IRANexecutions 3 inmates executed in Raja’i Shahr and Ardebil Prisons At least 3 prisoners were executed on Wednesday, February 13, in Raja’i Shahr and Ardebil Prisons. Ali Shakouri, 34, father of 3, was hanged in Ardebil prison, northwest Iran. 2 other prisoners identified as Behrouz Bayat and Mohammad Hedayati were also executed on the same day in Raja’i Shahr Prison. All the 3 inmates had been found guilty of murder. Absence of classification of undeliberate murders in Iran lead to capital punishment for everyone committed murder, intentional or un intentional. On January 29, a prisoner identified as Omran was executed in Maragheh Prison, also in northwest Iran. He had been on death row since 2015 and had denied intentional murder charges saying it was a case of self defense. Omran argued that he reacted to the irate man who began beating him with an iron rod. Iran is 1 of the 23 countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty. Executions in Iran are mostly the result of grossly unfair trials which are usually held behind closed doors without the presence of a defence lawyer. Activists believe that many of those on death row were convicted on the basis of “forced confessions”, a method believed to be commonly used in the country at the moment. Moreover, when a death sentence is handed down, families are often not given prior notice of the execution. At least 285 people
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February 14 MALAYSIA: Group says death penalty in the way of seeking truth behind Altantuya’s murder A group campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty says doing away with the punishment would help bring to justice those responsible in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case. Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) was referring to Australia’s refusal to release Sirul Azhar Umar, one of two men sentenced to death for the murder of the Mongolian citizen in 2006. Sirul has since sought refuge in an immigration centre in Sydney, with Canberra saying it is not allowed by Australian laws to deport him due to the death sentence awaiting him in Malaysia. Australian laws prohibit the extradition of anyone to face the death penalty in his home country. Madpet said cancelling Sirul’s death sentence would allow him to be returned to Malaysian authorities to assist investigators in shedding light on the brutal murder of Altantuya. “The abolition of the death penalty will make those who ordered or paid others to do the crime be identified, as those caught or convicted will more likely help make this happen if their assistance can reduce the sentences imposed,” Madpet spokesman Charles Hector said in a statement today. He also questioned the delay in amending the laws to do away with the death sentence despite Putrajaya’s promise. Madpet said supporters of the death penalty appeared unaware of the “just reasons” for its abolition, or could be furthering a political strategy. “They may also be people who fail to appreciate the suffering of the children and families, simply because a parent or sibling is executed. “They fail to appreciate that even the mandatory death penalty has failed to reduce murder or drug trafficking in Malaysia,” Hector said. (source: Free Malaysia Today) ** Death penalty repeal could reach Parliament in March, says minister The proposed repeal of the death penalty could be tabled in Parliament next month if the Cabinet agrees to it, said Datuk Liew Vui Keong. The legal affairs minister said the government has taken everything into consideration for the Cabinet to decide on the matter. “If the Cabinet agrees to it, then it will be brought to the Parliament in March,” he said after visiting the proposed site of the new Johor Baru Court Complex in Kota Iskandar here today. The next Parliamentary sitting will take place from March 11 to April 11. The abolition involves 33 offences provided for under 8 Acts including Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder. At present, there are some 1,200 people on death row for crimes including murder, kidnapping and drug trafficking in Malaysia. On a separate matter, Liew said the government has no intention to introduce lese majeste laws, similar to Thailand’s to protect the Malay rulers here. He said that Malaysia has adequate laws to protect the Malay rulers and the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, or King, who is also the supreme head of the country. However, Liew did not rule out the possibility that the government may amend or introduce new laws to further protect the rulers. “We practise a constitutional monarchy system here where we have a Parliament and the King is the supreme authority based on the constitution. “People are free to voice out their views but there must be a limitation and not go against the law by making allegations or defaming our rulers,” said Liew. Earlier this month, a trader was arrested in Kuantan, Pahang for allegedly insulting Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah on Facebook. The 45-year-old man is being investigated under the Sedition Act of 1948. Aside from that, 3 social media account owners have also been arrested under the same Act after posting comments insulting Sultan Muhammad V in relation to his decision to step down from the position of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. Despite Malaysia only having a constitutional monarchy system since 1957, several of Malaysia's 9 royal families have their roots in centuries-old Malay kingdoms that were until they were brought together by the former British colonials. Although largely seen as a ceremonial post, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong still signs off on most laws and appointments, including that of the country’s prime minister. (source: malaymail.com) PAKISTAN: Man awarded death for honour killing A court on Wednesday awarded death penalty to a person for killing his wife for honour. Additional Sessions Judge, Nowshera, Zahid Mehmood awarded death penalty to Raza Ali Khan of Kheshgi Payan and freed his brother, Amroz Ali Khan, giving him benefit of lack of evidence against him. According to the FIR, Raza with support of his brother had killed his wife after exchange of hot words with her on suspicion that she had illicit relation with another person. However, the killer had stated that his wife had
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February 13 IRAN: Iranian environmentalists fear death penalty after a year behind bars A campaign poster showing environmental activists, Taher Ghadirian, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Houman Jokar, Sam Rajabi, Sepideh Kashani, Morad Tahbaz and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh. #anyhopefornature campaign. A version of this article was originally published by the freedom of expression organisation ARTICLE 19, as part of a content-sharing agreement. Eight environmental activists in Iran have been in detention for over a year after they were arrested and charged with “espionage” and “spreading corruption on earth”. They were finally brought to trial on January 30, 2019. The corruption charge they face, under Iran's penal code, carries a possible death sentence. The 8 activists, Niloufar Bayani, Sam Radjabi, Houman Jowkar, Taher Ghadirian, Morad Tahbaz, Sepideh Kashani, Amir Hossein Khaleghi and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, all worked for the Tehran-based Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), and were arrested in January 2018, along with Kavous Seyed-Emami, the managing director of PWHF. Seyed-Emani died on 8 February 2018 while in custody in Evin prison. While the judiciary says Seyede-Emani died by suicide, both the domestic and international community have called for an independent investigation into his death, which has not yet taken place. The government’s case against the activists focuses heavily on the group’s work to protect the Asiatic cheetah, a wild cat native to eastern Iran that is nearing extinction. Most members of the group had studied outside Iran, mainly in Canada and the US, and had ties to international environmental expert groups, some of whom have visited Iran in an effort to learn more about the cats and potentially help in their preservation. Iranian officials have seized on the defendants’ connections with foreign universities and used them to support accusations that the activists are foreign intelligence agents masquerading as environmental experts. All defendants were initially accused of “espionage” and detained while awaiting trial, but Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi announced on 24 October 2018 that charges against 4 of them had been changed to “spreading corruption on earth,” which is punishable by death. Public prosecutors built much of their case against the group from a forced confession made by one of the activists, which has since been retracted. On 30 January and 2 February 2019, the eight conservationists faced trial at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court, presided by Judge Salavati, who has a history of issuing disproportionate and oppressive sentences to human rights defenders. According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), half of the 300-page indictment was read in these sessions, all of which was based on the confessions of 1 of the 8 defendants, Niloufar Bayani. Bayani interrupted the court multiple times to object, saying that her confessions were made under duress, are false and that she had retracted them. Other serious and concerning allegations have been made about the trials, including that the trials are being held behind closed doors, the defendants were not given the right to choose their lawyers, and that not all the judiciary-appointed defence lawyers were present in court. The defendants say they have been subjected to months of solitary confinement and psychological torture, including being threatened with death, threatened with being injected with hallucinogenic drugs, and threatened with arrest and the death of family members. The treatment the defendants have faced has violated their rights to life, freedom of expression, fair trial and due process of law. It also marks part of a trend of silencing those speaking out on environmental issues in the country using espionage charges. ARTICLE 19 and other human rights organizations have called for their immediate and unconditional release, and for a thorough, immediate and impartial investigation into allegations of torture and other ill-treatment. (source: globalvoices.org) SAUDI ARABIA: The Farce of Justice in Saudi ArabiaThe kingdom wants the death penalty for my father, and its judiciary is being pushed far from any semblance of the rule of law and due process. Despite the claims of Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his enablers, Saudi Arabia is not rolling back the hard-line religious establishment. Instead, the kingdom is curtailing the voices of moderation that have historically combated extremism. Numerous Saudi activists, scholars and thinkers who have sought reform and opposed the forces of extremism and patriarchy have been arrested. Many of them face the death penalty. Salman Alodah, my father, is a 61-year-old scholar of Islamic law in Saudi Arabia, a reformist who argued for greater respect for human rights within Shariah, the legal code of Islam based on the
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February 12 BOTSWANA: Death penalty not a deterrent- Chief Justice The newly appointed Chief Justice, Terrence Rannowane says the death penalty has not worked as a deterrent to murder. Rannowane said this when delivering his maiden speech at the opening of the legal year on Tuesday at the Gaborone High Court. Weighing in on what he described as a disturbing increase and alarming prevalence of murder cases in the country, the concerned CJ noted that, “What is also troublesome and worrisome is that the hovering and imminent presence of capital punishment seems to be of no deterrence to the perpetrators.” Rannowane further observed that, “This issue cannot be treated with sleight of hand and left to the courts alone but instead requires the concerted efforts of all concerned stakeholders as it is now an albatross and if allowed to simmer any further will morph into a national crisis.” Statistics has indicated that although murder incidents declined from 2017, still remain at an all time high with 278, cases reported in 2015, 305 cases in 2016, 315 in 2017 and 294 in 2018. “As a country we are recording unprecedented horrid, gruesome and shocking incidents of murder cases, even beheadings with some bodies being buried incomplete. The situation has become endemic. One rhetorically asks, what has become of us,” he said. The CJ however cautioned against mob justice, even when the perpetrator is alleged to have committed a horrible crime as that of murder. “Intricately linked to the concerns of high levels of murder cases, are instances where members of the public take justice into their own hands, we cannot and must not allow ourselves to entice others to take the law into their own hands, irrespective of the circumstances. We are governed by the rule of law and not the law of the jungle,” Rannowane warned. The Chief Justice has also vowed to commit to resolving murder cases at the earliest convenience. “On our part as the courts, we commit to resume circuit court in murder cases not only to expedite such cases but for deterrence and closure to take root in the community where the heinous crime was committed, subject to the availability of financial resources,” he said. Rannowane further said that they are looking into moving murder cases to the High Court from the moment of arrest of the accused persons. “This will afford magistrates more time to manage their own cases,” he said (source: thevoicebw.com) INDIA: Divergence on death penalty: The legislative expansion and judicial restriction of capital punishment in India The recently published statistics on the state of death penalty in 2018 is an indication of the confusion that besets use of death penalty in India. Drastically different treatment by the legislature, trial courts and the appellate judiciary further intensifies competing tensions in administration of the death penalty. Calls for death penalty began early on in the year in the backdrop of incidents in Kathua and Unnao. 2018 also saw the prime minister encouraging the death penalty in his Independence Day speech and amendments to IPC and Pocso introducing the death penalty for rape of children. As far as its judicial treatment is concerned, trial courts in 2018 imposed a record number of 162 death sentences – the highest in nearly 2 decades. The Supreme Court, on the other extreme, commuted 11 out of the 12 death sentence cases it decided and continued to signal concerns with administration of the death penalty by courts below. The legislative expansion of death penalty is not new. In the last five years, Parliament passed two other laws introducing death penalty. The Delhi gang rape prompted amendments to IPC in 2013 introducing death penalty for certain sexual offences. In 2016, the Anti-Hijacking Act was passed prescribing death penalty as well. The legislature guided by political and public reactions has immense faith in death penalty as a response to heinous crimes. But, irrespective of public notions, the law requires courts to consider aspects beyond just the crime when imposing death sentence. Socioeconomic circumstances of the individual, age, past history, time spent in prison, and the probability of reformation are some factors, which the Supreme Court itself has declared as integral to the sentencing process. However, in reality all levels of the judiciary have for long struggled with using their own terms of reference in administering the death penalty uniformly. Given this context, expanding the use of death penalty in an already constitutionally suspect framework threatens to weaken the criminal justice system even further. Lack of cohesion within the judiciary is evident from multiple instances when the appellate judiciary has pushed back against the eagerness of trial courts in imposing death penalty. The Supreme Court has time and again indicated that death sentence is
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February 11 GREAT BRITAIN: Sajid Javid accused of evading questions about suspects facing death penaltyHome secretary delayed to answer questions by Caroline Lucas about fate of British citizens allegedly part of Isis cell A senior Conservative MP has reprimanded the home secretary, Sajid Javid, for failing to answer parliamentary questions about the government exposing British citizens to the death penalty overseas. Charles Walker, chair of the Commons procedure committee, wrote to Javid describing his failure to respond to written queries from the Green MP Caroline Lucas as an “unacceptable discourtesy to a fellow member”. Lucas has asked three questions since 18 October last year relating to the fate of El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, two British Islamic State suspects, who could ultimately be executed if extradited to the US. Behind the Isis ‘Beatle’ Elsheikh is a story of breakdown and despair Elsheikh and Kotey, who were raised in Britain, are alleged to have been part of an Isis terror cell known as “the Beatles”, which is thought to have carried out 27 beheadings of US and UK citizens in Isis-held territory. Both have since been deprived of their UK citizenship and are being held by Kurdish forces in Syria. In a high court case last year it was revealed that Javid decided to cooperate with US authorities over their prosecution without assurances they would not face the death penalty in order to avoid “political outrage” in the Trump administration. Subsequently, the Home Office security minister, Ben Wallace, stated that cooperation with foreign states in other cases involving the death penalty was not unprecedented. He declined to identify the countries or individuals concerned. Wallace told MPs: “A review of available records dating back to 2001 has been undertaken and I can confirm that this has occurred on two previous occasions that have been identified, under successive governments. “Due to the potential to harm ongoing criminal investigations or future prosecutions, and the confidentiality attached to mutual legal assistance, it would not be appropriate to share further information.” Caroline Lucas, the MP for Brighton Pavilion, then put down a series of parliamentary questions for Javid asking for more information about the two previous occasions. The Green MP believes the refusal to answer is part of a wider pattern of Home Office evasion. Questions about undocumented migrants dating back to May last year remain unanswered, her office said. Walker’s letter, seen by the Guardian, was sent to Javid on 5 February. It says: “All members are entitled to expect a response from ministers to questions which have been tabled and as you know the procedure Committee monitors the timeliness of answers provided by government departments. “The failure to respond to the question, and the failure to respond to the subsequent questions tabled, is in my view an unacceptable discourtesy to a fellow member.” Jihadist 'Beatles' complain they will not be given fair trial Lucas told the Guardian: “It’s completely unacceptable that ministers are so brazenly refusing to answer my basic questions about government failures to protect people from the death penalty. This lack of transparency around serious breaches of human rights denies families the right to seek justice. “That this is part of a wider pattern of Home Office failures to respond to MPs’ questions is deeply worrying. It is our job to hold the government to account, and by fobbing us off Sajid Javid is undermining a core function of parliament. He must listen to the chair of the procedure committee and urgently come clean about the government’s record on the death penalty.” A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have responded to the first of the parliamentary questions from Caroline Lucas MP. It is our intention to reply to the supplementary questions in parliament as soon as practicably possible.” The death penalty for murder was abolished in Britain in 1969. (source: The Guardian) MALAYSIA: Government May Punish MPs Who Say No To Abolishing Death Penalty Law Minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong is determined to abolish the death penalty in the upcoming Dewan Rakyat sitting In a recent exclusive interview with Sin Chew Daily, Liew revealed that he plans to put the bill to remove the death penalty to vote in the Second Term of the 14th Parliament Session, which will commence on 11 March. The bill is pending approval from the Cabinet. Liew added that government Members of Parliament (MPs) who vote against the bill may face disciplinary action The Law Minister also remain unfazed by critics of the bill. "Everyone has the right to talk (about it), I can't explain to each of them," Liew was quoted as saying by Sin Chew Daily. "Malaysia has to move towards being a humanitarian state. If we don't abolish the death penalty, it means we support
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February 10 BANGLADESH: Bangladesh makes record drugs seizure amid crackdownThe country has struggled to control a surge in yaba imports crossing the border from Myanmar, where the pills are manufactured by the millions Bangladesh seized a record 53 million methamphetamine pills in 2018 – up 33% in a year – amid a deadly nationwide crackdown on the trade, officials said Sunday, February 10. Nearly 300 suspected drug dealers were killed last year, according to authorities, who insisted the seizure figure was proof that their campaign was working. Rights groups said the record haul showed the deaths had failed to make an impact on the trade. The government Department of Narcotics Control said the drug – popularly known as 'yaba', a Thai word meaning 'crazy medicine' – was seized across the South Asian nation of 165 million people. "It is the highest amount seized in a year," Bazlur Rahman, a department deputy director, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Masum-e-Rabbani, another senior official at the department, said the record haul was proof that a crackdown launched in May last year was yielding "positive" results. He said there has been a significant decline in the use and sale of yaba. Nearly 300 suspected drug dealers were killed by security forces in the campaign and some 25,000 arrests made, according to Rabbani. Human rights groups say many of the deaths amount to extrajudicial killings however. More than 40 were killed in the town of Teknaf, which borders Myanmar's troubled Rakhine state and is close to the refugee camps housing about 1 million Rohingya Muslims. Bangladesh has struggled to control a surge in yaba imports crossing the border from Myanmar, where the pills are manufactured by the millions. The pills have become an easy source of income for the Rohingya who poured across the border after the Myanmar military launched a clampdown in Rakhine in August 2017. The refugees act as carriers, handing over the pills to dealers on the Bangladesh side of the border who then take them to major cities, according to police. In October, authorities made yaba a class-A banned substance and parliament passed a law allowing the death penalty for dealing the drug. A top rights activist said the record yaba seizure meant the hundreds of deaths had failed to make a serious dent in the drug trade. "It proves that the police crackdown is not working. They need a different approach," an Nur Khan Liton, a former head of rights group Ain O Salish Kendra, told AFP. (source: rappler.com) ISRAEL: Justice minister urges death penalty for suspect in Jerusalem murder A senior Israeli minister told prosecutors on Saturday to pursue the death penalty for a Palestinian suspect in the grisly murder of an Israeli teen in Jerusalem last week. Arafat Irfayia, 29, was arrested Friday on suspicion of killing Ori Ansbacher, 19, in a wooded area of southern Jerusalem on Thursday, in a case that has sparked outrage across the country. Authorities suspect Irfayia may had a nationalistic motive, according to Hebrew-language press reports, but are also probing if the attack was sexual in nature. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told Channel 13 news Saturday that “the military prosecution needs to ask for the death penalty.” Shaked and other ministers have insisted that the murder was a terror attack, though most details of the incident have been kept under gag order. “We should not hide the truth,” she told the news channel. “He killed Ori because she was a Jewish girl.” Ansbacher, from the settlement of Tekoa in the West Bank south of Jerusalem, was found dead in the woods at the Ein Yael nature center in south Jerusalem late Thursday, with what police said were “signs of violence,” after she was reported missing earlier in the day. Citing the suspect’s own account under questioning, the police and the Shin Bet said in a statement Saturday night that Irfaiya left his home in Hebron on Thursday armed with a knife and made his way toward Jerusalem, where he spotted Ansbacher in the woods and fatally attacked her. He was arrested Friday during a raid in Ramallah but has not yet been charged. Irfayia had previously served time for being in Israel illegally and for possession of a knife, Channel 13 reported. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Saturday that authorities should treat the case as terror no matter what. “When a Palestinian in Israel illegally murders a Jew in the State of Israel, there is no doubt that it needs to be considered as nationalistic murder,” he told Channel 13 news. “It does not matter what he says or doesn’t say in the interrogation. I hope the relevant authorities understand this and if not, we need to legislate it.” Although the death penalty formally exists in Israeli law, it has only ever been used once — in 1962 in the case of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, one of the
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February 10 VIETNAM: Australian detained in Vietnam, Chau Van Kham, investigated for crime that carries death penalty When Chau Van Kham abruptly stopped responding to messages on a trip to Vietnam in January, his prolonged silence led to a seeping dread. His family, based in Australia and the UK, feared he had been spirited away. Mr Chau, 69, is an Australian citizen and retired small businessman from Sydney who fled Vietnam by boat in 1982. He once fought alongside US troops during the Vietnam War and is a long-time pro-democracy and human rights activist. It is a devotion that led him to cross from Cambodia into Vietnamese territory in what would prove to be an ill-fated "fact-finding" mission. "I was most worried about him disappearing," his son Dennis Chau, 29, told the ABC from the United Kingdom. "[My mum] always tries to be strong … but I can tell how she's breaking down." Mr Chau was arrested in Ho Chi Minh City on January 15 after meeting with a civil society activist. Now, he is under investigation for alleged activities against Vietnam's communist Government — an offence that can carry the death penalty in the most serious cases. He is also being denied access to a lawyer. Dennis said the news his father had been detained, however distressing, was a slight relief as at least he hadn't disappeared. Mr Chau's family suspected he was on some kind of Government watch list for his pro-democracy activities. In fact, it was something they used to joke about, when the concept of arrest was inconceivable. "I just didn't imagine it would ever happen — I was shocked," Dennis said. In a statement, Vietnam's Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Le Thi Thu Hang confirmed that "Chau Van Kham is currently detained and under investigation for violating Vietnamese laws", but declined to specify which laws had been breached. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) told the ABC it was providing consular assistance to an Australian man detained in Vietnam, but for privacy reasons was unable to provide further details. 'Operations to overthrow the Government' But a DFAT report to the family following Mr Chau's sole consular visit on January 28, seen by the ABC, reveals the Australian retiree is being investigated under Article 109 — which refers to alleged operations to overthrow the Government. Nestled between "high treason" and "espionage" in Vietnam's criminal code, Article 109 says that a person who joins an organisation that acts against the people's Government can be punished with 12 to 20 years behind bars, life imprisonment or death. Suspected accomplices face lesser penalties, ranging from 12 months to 12 years in prison. Mr Chau is also being investigated for allegedly breaching Article 341, which pertains to fabricating documents. Vietnamese authorities allege he used a fake Vietnamese identity card to enter the country. As Mr Chau's alleged crimes fall under national security breaches, he will be denied legal representation until after the investigation is already complete in late May, purportedly "to protect the secrecy" of the process. Mr Chau was videotaped during the consular visit, prompting concerns that he wouldn't be able to speak freely with Australian officials. The family is also concerned about his ongoing health issues, including high cholesterol and prostatitis. Dennis said he and his family were grappling with the reality of having their father incarcerated under a judicial system that seems so far removed from Australia's. "It's not a law system that you're used to. You don't know what to expect … [is he] going to be mistreated in jail?" Dennis said. "If he does eventually come home, is he going to be the same? Or is he going to be frail or broken? I just don't know." Fleeing war, facing prison In a YouTube clip, Mr Chau shares his experience of surviving the 1968 Tet offensive as a 19-year-old student in Hue, where thousands of civilians were killed en masse by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces. But to his sons, Mr Chau is simply known as dad. Arriving on Australian shores in 1982, Mr Chau became a citizen the following year. He met his wife, Trang, who came to Australia in 1983. They married in 1986 and had 2 sons, Daniel, 31, and Dennis, 29. The family lived above the Sydney laundry shop Mr Chau ran until he opened a bakery. "When he came to Australia, he thought it was all about opportunities he wouldn't get in Vietnam," Dennis said. "He was always working ridiculously long hours, and it was always a bit of a struggle." But weekends were for spending time with his sons — taking them to the beach, playing tennis and going swimming. In his retirement, Mr Chau became an active member of Viet Tan, a group branded a "terrorist force" and outlawed in Vietnam. But the chairman Do Hoang Diem rejected any suggestion of terrorism, saying the group
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February 9 IRAQexecutions ISIS executes 3 brothers after kidnapping in Iraq’s Salahuddin Islamic State militants on Friday killed 3 brothers after kidnapping them in the north of Salahuddin Province, a local security source has confirmed. The 3 brothers were abducted 3 days ago while reportedly picking truffles on Makhoul Mountain, not far from the village of Mishak, from where the young men came. The security source told Kurdistan 24 that members of the jihadist group took the 3 young men on Wednesday but called their relatives on Friday morning claiming they had been released. “It looks like it was a trick to deceive the family… so that the security forces would not go looking there, allowing the jihadists to hide,” the source said. The security forces later found the bodies lying on the ground near the mountain, where the Islamic State remains active. The victims were handcuffed, according to another source, adding 2 of the brothers were university graduates while the 3rd was a middle school student. The victims were reportedly shot dead. The brothers left for the mountain by car to look for truffles but stopped to rest in a remote area before they were attacked by the jihadist group, a family member said. Locals in the provinces of Salahuddin, Kirkuk, Anbar, and Nineveh have repeatedly warned Iraqi military officials of growing activity by Islamic State militants in the area. The jihadist group uses the mountainous areas as a base and hiding spot, making it challenging for security forces and the US-led coalition to find or track them. Over the past year, they have carried out insurgency attacks, kidnappings, and ambushes in the country despite Iraq declaring victory against the Islamic State in Dec. 2017. (source: kurdistan24.net) TUNISIA: Tunisia awaits verdicts on jihadist massacre suspects A Tunisian court was holding final hearings on Friday in 2 trials over jihadist attacks in 2015 on a museum and a tourist resort that left dozens dead, lawyers told AFP. 21 defendants, including 2 women, appeared in the Tunis courtroom for a closed hearing on the March 18, 2015 shooting at the Bardo museum in Tunis, which killed 21 foreign tourists and a Tunisian security guard. "Only 3 defendants still have to give their pleas, and the verdict will be announced this evening," lawyer Monia Bousalmi told AFP. Victims' family members in France and Belgium watched the hearing via a live video feed. Bousalmi said a verdict was also expected Friday evening on 44 suspects in a separate trial on the June 26, 2015 shooting rampage in the Sousse tourist resort, which killed 38 people, most of them British tourists. The court has heard that the 2 attacks, both claimed by the Islamic State group, were closely linked. Several defendants pointed to the fugitive Chamseddine Sandi as mastermind of both. According to Tunisian media, Sandi was killed in a US air strike in neighbouring Libya in February 2016, although there has been no confirmation. Defendants in the 2 trials could be sentenced to death if found guilty, although Tunisia has had a freeze on capital punishment since 1991. 4 French nationals, 4 Italians, 3 Japanese and 2 Spaniards were among those killed in the Bardo attack, before the 2 gunmen themselves, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, were shot dead. One suspect questioned in court, Tunis labourer Mahmoud Kechouri, said he had helped plan the attack, including preparing mobile phones for Sandi, a neighbour and longtime friend. Other defendants accused of helping prepare the attack said they had only discussed ideas with friends. Several alleged they were tortured in detention. Since a 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, jihadist attacks in Tunisia have killed dozens of members of the security forces. The Bardo and Sousse attacks dealt a heavy blow to the vital tourism sector in Tunisia, already suffering high unemployment. (source: news24.com) ZIMBABWE: Govt Removes 34 From Death Row To Life Imprisonment As Death Sentence Phases Out. Government has shown its commitment towards abolishing the death penalty in line with international human rights obligations after it commuted sentences of 34 inmates on death row to life terms, a Cabinet minister has said. There are 81 prisoners on death row while the total number now serving life terms is now 127. The process of commuting the remainder on death row to life terms is now ongoing. The moratorium on execution will pave way for the total abolition of the death penalty, according to a paper presented on behalf of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi by a senior ministry official, Mr Charles Manhiri, at the Zimbabwe Staff College yesterday. Government is in the process of implementing strategies and policies aimed at abolishing the death penalty. Minister Ziyambi
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February 8 SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka President Confirms Death Penalty For Drug Convicts Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena had declared war on drug traffickers in the country, as he insisted on imposing a death penalty on convicted drug traffickers within the next 2 months. The President addressing the local media vowed to free the country from the drug menace by 2020. Sirisena informed the parliament on Wednesday that he was determined to impose capital punishment by hanging the convicted drug criminals as part of his anti-narcotics drive. Sri Lanka’s Justice Minister Thalatha Atukorale informed the parliament on Tuesday that her ministry had complied with the president’s request to restart capital punishment. Atukorale added that 5 names of drug convicts had been sent to the president between Oct. 12 and the end of January. However, Sirisena was yet to sign the warrants and fix the execution dates. Although capital punishment is a legal penalty in Sri Lanka, there have been no executions carried out since 1976. (source: concisenews.com) A vacancy announced for the post of the executioner The Department of Prisons states that applications for the post of executioner will be called from next Monday (February 11). Applications will be accepted until the 25th. The Department of Prisons stressed this decision is set in motion in order to support the strong stance taken by President Maithripala Sirisena in imposing capital punishment on infamous drug peddlers. Additionally, the Department of Prisons has announced that necessary steps have been taken to acquire all equipment required for the functioning of the gallows following the request from the Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms. The list of prisoners related to narcotics on death row was handed over to the Presidential Secretariat on January 25. The Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms stated that the list was handed over consequent to the recommendation of the Attorney General. According to the list, 17 detainees have been sentenced to death. (source: newsfirst.lk) INDIA: Man gets death penalty for sexually assaulting, killing 6-year-old girl The Gwalior Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Wednesday confirmed the death penalty awarded to a man for the rape and subsequent murder of a 6 year old girl child. The verdict came following an appeal by the accused Jeetendra Kushwaha, challenging the order of the Additional Sessions Judge, Archana Singh who had earlier convicted and sentenced him to death for the rape and murder of the little child. Agreeing with the Sessions Court’s verdict the High Court said that the case comes under the category of the rarest of rare cases and that the enormity of the heinous crime of the man had shocked the conscience of the society. The HC further observed that such people are a menace to society and as such do not deserve any mercy. According to the prosecution, on June 20, 2018, a 6 year old girl child had gone missing from a marriage function at the Community Hall situated behind the Ayurvedic College. Her parents and relatives frantically searched for her before informing the police. During search operations the mutilated body of a girl was found in the bushes near the Ayurvedic College. The subsequent post mortem report pointed towards rape before the murder. The CCTV footage that was installed at one of the houses in the locality helped the police to catch the culprit, Jeetendra Kushwaha within 24 hours. According to the police, the culprit was living illegally in the college premises. Taking serious view of the matter, Gwalior SP, Navneet Bhasin formed a special team and directed the officials to complete the investigation as quickly as possible and file charges. It took only 36 days for the Sessions Court to hear the case and pronounce the verdict. Now, with the High Court rejecting the appeal, the convict and his family are planning to approach the Supreme Court for clemency. (source: dailypioneer.com) *** Court Awarded Death Penalty to a 29-Year-Old Man for Killing his Girl Friend in Imphal In what is being hailed as one of the fastest-ever trial in the history of Manipur, a court has awarded death penalty to a 29-year-old man for the murder of his 26 year-old-girl in Imphal East in August last year. The convict, Yumkhaibam Rohit, will be hanged till death, the court pronounced. Hearing the case of the victim, Pukhrihongbam Memi Chanu, who went missing on August 14 last year and was found murdered on August 17 the same year, the court of district and sessions judge in Senapati completed the trial in 20 days from the starting of proceedings on Jan 17 this year. On Monday, the court had convicted 4 persons in connection with the abduction and murder case, after hearing 28 prosecution witnesses. Apart from Rohit, the court also sentenced his
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February 7 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: MEPs want to prohibit trade with countries that still have death penalty Speaking at the opening of seventh World Congress Against the Death Penalty on February 5, a number of European Parliamentarians took the opportunity to demand that the EU prohibit trade with countries who still retain capital punishment. Members of the European Parliament political parties, the Socialist & Democrats and Greens/EFA, said Brussels should apply the principle of conditionality with respect to a country’s human rights record when distributing EU funds in African, Caribbean, and Pacific, or ACP, states. “As EU citizens, we say ‘No’ to the death penalty…this message must be heard across the world. The EU should make it easier for authorities to block trade, for example, to countries which still retain the death penalty,” Alex Mayer, a Member of the Committee of Economic and Monetary affairs said. The initiative to make the abolition of the death penalty a prerequisite for trade relations with the EU was also endorsed by Klaus Buchner, a member of the sub-committee on human rights, who said trade is a primary tool to encourage states to respect both the rule of law and an individual’s fundamental rights. The initiative, however, has little chance to attain any legal framework in the near future as in the run-up to the unpredictable economic and political consequences posed by Brexit, few in the EU have the appetite to risk trade relations with any state linked to the EU by the Cotonou Agreement that covers over 100 countries with a total population of some 1.5 billion people. The ACP-EU Partnership Agreement was signed in Cotonou, Benin in 2000 and expires in 2020. It is the most comprehensive partnership agreement between developing countries and the EU. At present, there are 53 states in the world who still have the death penalty, including China, India, the US, Japan, and Singapore. (source: New Europe) NIGERIA: Court sentences NURTW chairman to death for killing Lagos policeman The world currently clamours to eradicate capital punishment due to the notion that punishment should give room for rehabilitation – in other words, the death sentence is giving up on a human being. But on the other hand, Positivists minds clamour equal punishment for people who simply kill others. That argument is due to arise again as the chairman of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Boundary/Aiyetoro Unit, Saheed Arogundade has been sentenced to death by hanging. His offence, he killed a Police officer, Gbenga Oladipupo, at Gbara junction, Ayetoro, Ajegunle, Lagos around 8am on April 10, 2010. According to Instablog9ja, Arogundade was sentenced to death by Justice Olabisi Akinlade of Lagos High Court, Ikeja, yesterday. after he found Arogundade guilty of murder. In November 2011, the prosecution arraigned Arogundade alongside Mustapha Layeni, Adebayo Abdullahi, Seyi Pabiekun, Sikiru Rufai and Yusuf Arogundade on a 2-count charge of conspiracy and murder. When Oladipupo was reportedly stabbed to death by the convict and his cohorts in 2010, he was reportedly going to Olayinka Street, Ayetoro, to visit his mother. His corpse was later deposited at Isolo General Hospital morgue. The deceased was stabbed to death for limiting the NURTW’s income around Aiyetoro area, Lagos by encouraging the operation of tricycles. (source: pulse.ng) MALAYSIA: RESPA: Death penalty should remain The Retired Senior Police Officers Association of Malaysia (Respa) supports the stand of families of murdered victims who want the death sentence to remain. Its president Tan Sri Ismail Che Rus said that no crime should go unpunished, whatever the degree of punishment. “In respect of the death penalty, the sentence should depend on the severity and circumstances of the crime. “We support the stand of families of murdered victims that the death sentence should remain while also supporting the views of cross-sections of the public that the death penalty should be reserved for serious crimes so that justice will truly be served,” he said in a statement on Thursday. The association also feels that those currently on death row can have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment after due and careful evaluation of their sentences, taking into consideration that they have truly repented, he added. “For drug trafficking cases under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, there are instances where the mandatory death sentence is warranted due to overwhelming grounds. “There are also other cases under the Act, in which the accused is sent for rehabilitation. We support the principle that sentencing of offences should be more in favour of rehabilitation and be an avenue for a person to turn over a new leaf,” Ismail said. He was commenting on the government’s plans to amend and repeal a total 117 laws on punishment for serious
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February 6 BANGLADESH: 4 receive death penalty for murdering minor in Sylhet 4 people have been sentenced to death for killing a schoolboy in Chatak upazila of Sunamganj district in 2015. Sylhet Divisional Speedy Trial Tribunal Judge Rezaul Karim passed the order on Wednesday. The condemned convicts are: Imam of the local mosque Suwebur Rahman Sujon, Rafiqur Rahman, Zahid Ahmed, and Saleh Ahmad. Saleh was tried in absentia as has yet to be arrested. The court also fined the convicts Tk20,000 each. According to the prosecution, Mostafizur Rahman Imon—of Batirkandi village under Chatak upazila of Sunamganj upazila—son of Zahur Ali, a Saudi expatriate, was kidnapped by the convicts on March 27, 2015. Later, the kidnappers killed him after receiving the ransom money. The victim's father filed a case in this connection. On April 8, 2015, police arrested Sujon from Kadamtoli Bus stand area, in Dhaka, after tracking his mobile phone. Upon further interrogation and investigation police recovered a knife— plus the skull and bones of Imon—from a haor area in Batirkandi village. On November 21, 2016, police submitted a charge sheet against 7 people. (source: Dhaka Tribune) INDIA: Judge breaks nib, signs death sentence for murder convict Session Judge, Senapati, A Nou-tuneshwari Devi has awarded death sentence to the main convict involved in the murder of Pukrihongbam Memi Chanu in August last year, apart from awarding life imprisonment to a co-convict and 3 years and 6 months imprisonment respectively to two other women convicted in connection with murder case. The Court also directed a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to be paid to the victim’s family. The quantum of punishment was announced today after the sentence hearing of the case against the main convict Yumkhaibam Rohit alias Rajesh (29) s/o Y Ri-jauddin of Khergao Makha Leikai, Kshetrigao, co-convicts Md Farish Shah (18) s/o (L) Faruk Shah of Kshetrigao Thambalkhong Makha Leikai, Rehana (50) d/o Abdullah of Khergao Makha Leikai, Kshetrigao, Farjina (23) d/o Habi of Khergao Makha Leikai, Kshetrigao, as well as another individual (who has since been acquitted from the case) Leishangthem Nungchanba alias Ramesh (35) s/o Yaima of Leishang-them Awang Leikai. It may be recalled that yesterday, the Court convicted Rohit under section 302 (murder) and 201 IPC (for causing disappearance of evidence) and Md Farish Khan under section 302 (murder), 201 IPC (for causing disappearance of evidence), 34 IPC (common intention) and 213 IPC (taking gift to screen an offender from punishment). The Court also convicted Rehana under section 201 IPC (for causing disappearing of evidence) and Farjina under section 202 IPC (for intentional omission to give information of offence by person bound to inform). All the convicted individuals were brought from Sajiwa Central Jail and Manipur Central Jail for the sentence hearing today before the Court. During the sentence hearing, Koshia Mao, Additional Public Prosecutor, submitted that Rohit was convicted for murder which is heinous offence and mentioned that one can hardly imagine what torture and brutality, the victim must have faced during the crime. The APP continued that Rohit hit the victim on her head with a wooden stump and then hit her several times on the head and face with a stone pestle while the co-convict Md Farish Khan strangulated her using a rope. The APP conveyed that this has to be taken into consideration while granting punishment to Rohit and added that not only this, after the commission of the murder, he (Rohit) removed all the gold ornaments worn by the victim before packing the dead body inside the gunny bags. He then went to Rashid & Sons Jewellery Store, Masjid Road, Imphal and sold off the gold ornaments for Rs 59, 000. After selling off the ornaments, Rohit came back to his locality and on the way he met Farish and gave him Rs 7000 so that Farish would remain silent and refrain from disclosing about the crime to anyone. The APP continued that thereafter, in the midnight of August 14, at about 11.30 pm, Rohit and Farish brought the dead body on a bicycle (with Rohit steering and Farish pushing the cycle from the back) and headed towards Iril river and dumped the dead body into the river. The APP prayed for awarding capital punishment to the prime convict explaining that if he is made to live in this society, other innocent woman will become his prey and he will continue to outrage the dignity of other women. The APP further prayed for awarding proper punishments to the co convicts Md Farish Shah, Rehana and Farjina as per the law. On the other hand, the defense counsels of the main convict Y Rohit and co-convict Md Farish Shah submitted that both the convicts are orphans and their family (wife and children) are living in miserable and pitiable conditions. Claiming that there are no previous
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February 5 UNITED KINGDOM: UK, Stand Firm against Data Demands in Death Penalty CasesUS Could Use Data Demanded from UK – But Pretend It Didn’t After heated debate, the United Kingdom has just inched closer to adopting laws that would allow the United States to demand and obtain digital evidence – such as e-mails, texts, and chats – directly from companies that are storing it in the UK. This would do away with important rights protections under the existing treaty and policies, which require the UK authorities to scrutinize US demands for data on a case-by-case basis. The US has already similarly undermined rights safeguards by adopting the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, which Human Rights Watch opposed. Some members of the UK Parliament tried to put the brakes on these developments, pointing out that the US could demand British-held evidence in US prosecutions that could lead to a death sentence – a punishment the UK government opposes. Last Wednesday, the House of Commons responded by approving an amendment requiring the UK Home Secretary to ask the US – and any other country that allows capital punishment and hopes for a data-access agreement with the UK – for written assurances of the “non-use” of information from the UK in connection with a death-penalty case. However, the Home Secretary would not actually need to receive such assurances. This is a problem. Even if Parliament strengthened the amendment to require assurances, the UK is poised to remove the most important means of ensuring US authorities stick to their rights commitments in every case: review and approval of each data demand. Our research also prompts concerns that if the US does offer assurances that it won’t “use” data from the UK in death penalty prosecutions, it may decide for itself what “use” means – potentially in a way that allows it to take advantage of evidence from the UK, but conceal how it was actually used. Through the practice of “parallel construction,” US police and prosecutors can avoid revealing the true origins of information in a criminal trial by deliberately re-obtaining it in some other way. And as we reported last year, we have specific concerns that the US government may employ a non-obvious definition of the word “use” to avoid revealing that it has taken investigative steps it prefers to hide. As we have also urged regarding the UK’s potential extradition of ISIS suspects to the US, the UK should stand firm in not facilitating executions. This means preventing the US from grabbing UK-held data without strong, clear safeguards to protect against capital punishment. This isn’t an arcane debate about ones and zeros. It could be a life and death matter. (source: Human Rights Watch) INDIA: 162 death penalties imposed by trial courts in 2018, highest in 2 decades In 2018, 162 death penalty verdicts were pronounced by Sessions Courts, the highest since the turn of the millennium, according to a report. The trend dipped slightly in 2014 and began climbing, reaching a record high in 2018. The report, titled 'Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report 2018', also notes that the Supreme Court moved in the opposite direction, commuting 11 death sentences it heard in 2018 to life imprisonment. Of the 114 death penalty cases handled by the High Courts that year, the majority (50%) were commuted. Here's a breakdown of the number of cases heard by all courts. The highest number of death sentences between 2015 and 2018 were given for cases involving both sexual violence and murder. The year 2018 saw the legislative expansion of the death penalty, introducing it as a possible punishment for rape of girls below 12 years of age. 9 persons were convicted under this new law in 2018. On August 1 2018, the Union Cabinet approved a bill providing death penalty or life imprisonment for crimes involving maritime piracy or piracy at sea, according to the report. However, the Supreme Court's concern about the death penalty was observed on 2 fronts: 1st, the commutation of 11 out of 12 death sentences to life imprisonment; and 2nd, Justice Kurian Joseph’s dissenting opinion in Chhannu Lal Verma v. State of Chhattisgarh, calling for the need to reconsider the death penalty as a punishment. A State-wise analysis shows that of the 426 persons on death row in the country (as on December 31, 2018) the highest number of convicts are from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. No.of death row convicts: Maharashtra 66, Tamil Nadu 14, Bihar 22, Uttar Pradesh 66, Madhya Pradesh 66, Karnataka 25 Of these, the status of 11 persons convicted under the Army Act is unknown. (source: The Hindu) SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka ready for landmark hanging of drug convicts: Minister Sri Lanka is ready to execute 5 drug convicts and end its 42-year capital punishment moratorium once President Maithripala Sirisena
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February 4 JAMAICA: Crime, punishment and reform I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who goes out to commit crimes with a lethal weapon. Anyone who has no respect for life deserves anything that he/she gets. But I don’t believe in capital punishment. Even killers can be reformed. Capital punishment has proven to be an ineffective deterrent. And, in the same way that criminals have no right to take a human life, neither does society.Killing killers only sends the message that killing is okay on some level. And, unless a malicious murderer is caught in the act, there is oftentimes doubt regarding his/her guilt. Furthermore, in a country such as ours, no well-connected, famous, rich or upper-class murderer will ever face the death penalty. Only lower-class, disenfranchised, misdirected youth will swing from the gallows.That said, I always avoid being judgemental or prejudicial towards convicts or ex-convicts. We never know what fate awaits us just around the corner. No one can tell for certain if he/she might end up behind bars. A mistake, a lapse, an accident, a bad decision, a wrong move at the wrong time or being wrongly accused can land any of us in jail, and even prison. Prison should not only be punishment.I believe that all prisoners should be rehabilitated/reformed and made fit to rejoin society. Otherwise, we are only producing more hardened criminals. Prison should not only be punishment, it should be a place where people can improve themselves and come out better than when they went in.I also believe that, for there to be genuine reform, convicts should do some sort of reparation. Some sentences require monetary compensation, but others require that fines be paid to the State only. Consequently, the victim(s) sometimes go away empty-handed and the pain and animosity continue. I believe that a convict who wrongs someone should be required to apologise directly to his/her victim or to the ones left behind.Convicts are whisked away and are usually totally separated from the rest of society. Of course, there are strange exceptions. Popular dancehall artiste Vybz Kartel continues to enjoy chart-topping hits while incarcerated in a maximum-security penal institution. The women of Fort Augusta prison were able to broadcast their grouses on the Internet, not just once but twice. Lax System We are also told of criminals who continue ordering ‘hits’ (contract murders) from behind prison bars.lack of accountabilityWhat really bothers me about such failures is the absolute lack of accountability, especially to the nation. I have never heard of anyone directly or indirectly responsible for inmate security being made to answer to their superiors. If there is so much ease of influence from behind prison walls, which of us is safe? If some prison inmates can apparently carry on the important facets of their lives, where is the punitive aspect and reform of their incarceration? It should never be business as usual when one is imprisoned.As for Buju Banton. His involvement in the conspiracy to traffic cocaine was really crazy. He knew darn well that hisBoom Bye Bye song earned him loads of enemies, especially in North America. That’s the very last place that he should break any rules. And, cocaine is frowned upon by the vast majority of Jamaicans. If he had transgressed by conspiring to traffic ganja, it would be wrong, but more in keeping with his cultural circumstance.Anyway, he did his time, and we understand that he furthered his education. He has been welcomed home with wide open arms and overt adulation. I think it’s excessive but, more importantly, if Mr Myrie is truly reformed, he should help others by speaking out against the use of hard drugs and against the indiscriminate use of ganja. I’m certain that many would benefit from it. (source: Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practiceJamaica Gleaner) INDIA: 1st rapist to be hanged till death under child rape law on March 2 A district court in Madhya Pradesh issued a death warrant against a school teacher who was convicted of raping his four-year-old student. The criminal, Mahendra Singh Gond, will be hanged till death in Jabalpur jail on March 2. This would be the 1st execution under the new law of death penalty for child rapists. Gond had kidnapped and raped the girl on June 30 last year. The gruesome crime that shook the nation prompted the police to act quickly. Gond was arrested within a few hours. Gond had dumped the child in the jungle assuming that she was dead. After the girl's family found her, she was rushed to a hospital. The girl was violated so brutally that the state government decided to airlift her to Delhi so that she could be traded at AIIMS. The minor girl underwent several injuries to get her intestines realigned. The survivor's statement which was recorded through video conferencing was crucial in proving
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February 3 IRANexecutions Secret Executions at Rajai Shahr Prison 2 prisoners were executed secretly last Wednesday at Rajai Shahr Prison, Karaj city. According to IHR sources, 2 prisoners were executed on the morning of Wednesday, January 30, at Rajai Shahr prison. IHR could not yet identify them by name. “Probably they had been transferred to Rajai Shahr for the execution from other prisons or IRGC special wards,” the source added, “recently, executions are carried out in Rajai Shahr prison under strict secrecy measures. Authorities try their best not to reveal information related to the executions, even to the common soldiers who serve as the prison guards.” Of note, ward 8 of Rajai Shahr prison is under control of IRGC security forces; and political detainees who are under interrogation, are held there. Last year, Rajai Shahr prison was at the top of prisons where executions were carried out. * Man Hanged at Tabriz Prison A man who was sentenced to death for murder charges, was hanged at Tabriz Central Prison last Tuesday. According to IHR sources, on the morning of Tuesday, January 29, a man identified as Karim Mohebbi was executed at Tabriz Central Prison. Kurdistan Human Rights Network has also reported that Karim Mohebbi was arrested 4 years ago and since then he was held in Tabriz Prison. 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 for both: Iran Human Rights) INDIA: Most death sentences since 2000: NLUD Project 39A's report on Death Penalty in 2018 The tendency of trial courts to impose death sentences is on the rise, if the 3rd edition of the Death Penalty report by Project 39A of the Centre on Death Penalty at National Law University, Delhi (NLUD) is any indication. As per the Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics report, the year 2018 witnessed trial courts handing out 162 death sentences, a jump from the 108 awarded in 2017, and the highest number since 2000. This tendency is also apparent in the legislative changes made last year, whereby the scope for imposition of the death penalty was expanded, particularly in the face of public outcry following the Kathua rape case. On the other hand, the report notes that the Supreme Court chose to go in a different direction, commuting all but one of the death penalty cases that it heard in 2018. The annual report provides an overview of the trends discernible as far as Indian courts are concerned, in addition to legislative changes and political developments. Key highlights in this regard include the following. Imposition of Death Penalty at different levels Trial/Sessions Courts: 162 death sentences awarded, of which two prisoners died while undertrial. The highest number of death penalties were handed out in Madhya Pradesh (22). This is followed by Maharashtra (16) and Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh (15 death sentences each). No death penalties were reported from Jammu and Kashmir in 2018. 426 prisoners remain under the death sentence throughout the country as of December 31, 2018. High Courts: 23 death sentences were confirmed by High Courts in 2018. 58 death sentences were commuted, whereas 10 cases were remitted. In 23 cases, the accused was acquitted. Supreme Court: 12 death penalty cases were heard by the Supreme Court in 2018, of which 11 were commuted to life imprisonment of different kinds. In the remaining 1 case, the Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty for the 3 convicts in the December 2016 Delhi gang-rape case. The report also states that in the last year, President of India Ram Nath Kovind rejected one mercy petition to commute a death sentence. The petition was made in January 2014. Concern for administration of Death Penalty in the Supreme Court Overall, the report notes that the Supreme Court has indicated a growing concern for the judicial administration of the death penalty, as evident from the number of death penalties it has commuted in the last year. In this regard, the report also notes that Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who assumed office in October last year, made the hearing of death penalty cases a priority. To this end, he constituted four 3-judge benches sitting simultaneously for over 6 weeks to decide death sentence cases. “The investment of such judicial resources in deciding death sentence cases was missing during the tenures of Chief Justices Dipak Misra (August 2017 to October 2018) and Jagdish Singh Khehar (January 2017 to August 2017),” the report points out. Another noted development as far as death penalty jurisprudence is concerned is the Supreme Court’s decision in Babasaheb Kamble v. State of Maharashtra. With this case, in November 2018, the Court did away with ‘in limine’ dismissals of Special Leave Petitions in death penalty
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February 1 SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Female Activist Spared Death Penalty Amid Outrage Authorities in Saudi Arabia have confirmed that its public prosecutor is no longer recommending the death penalty for female activist Israa al-Ghomgham, who has been held since 2015 after participating in peaceful anti-government protests. The Saudi Arabian embassy in London confirmed the shift in approach to Newsweek on Thursday in response to a request for information about al-Ghomgham’s case. The 29-year-old was arrested in 2015 for her role in protests in the eastern region of Qatif. The area is predominantly Shiite, and al-Ghomgham became well-known for demanding an end to persecution of the country's Shiite minority by the autocratic government, which is controlled by the Sunni royal family. She was 1 of 6 people, including her husband, arrested in connection with the demonstrations. Their alleged crimes included traveling abroad to attend courses on organizing rallies and protests, using social media to promote and document events, and using Facebook groups to disseminate videos. Initially, the Saudi public prosecutor called for death sentences for 5 of the accused, including al-Ghomgham. This was seen by international observers as a striking recommendation given the nonviolent nature of their offenses. Until Thursday, al-Ghomgham was believed to be the first woman facing beheading for nonviolent activism. As such, her case received significant international attention from media and human rights organizations. But the Saudi Embassy in London told Newsweek that the public prosecutor is not seeking the death penalty for al-Ghomgham. Instead, authorities are calling for a prison term, fines and the confiscation of anything found to have been used in her alleged crimes. The European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights, a human rights nonprofit group based in Germany, and Reprieve, a nonprofit group based in the U.K., confirmed to Newsweek they had received a new indictment that did not recommend the death penalty for al-Ghomgham. There is no indication that the Saudi authorities have dropped the capital punishment recommendations for the other four detainees. This may suggest the Saudis have dropped their wish for her death to dodge the intensifying international scrutiny of al-Ghomgham’s case. Though prosecutors will no longer pursue beheading, al-Ghomgham could still face a lengthy prison sentence and restrictions on her personal freedoms when she is freed. In the past, human rights activists have been handed long-term travel and internet bans even after spending many years in prison. Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, told Newsweek, "This decision serves to underline just how arbitrary and unjust the use of the death penalty is in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom must cease imposing the death penalty on individuals whose only ‘crime’ is the exercise of freedom of expression and assembly." Foa called on the international community to "hold Saudi Arabia to account and call for a review of the cases of all of those on Saudi Arabia’s death row and the commutation of death sentences handed down in violation of domestic and international laws." All 6 of the accused are being tried in the opaque Specialized Criminal Court (SCC). Nominally an anti-terror body, the SCC is part of the Ministry of the Interior rather than the Ministry of Justice, placing it firmly within the national security sphere. It is used by the Saudi government to crush dissent from human rights and pro-democracy activists far from the prying eyes of the outside world. Al-Ghomgham was scheduled to appear before the court again on January 13, but at the last moment the SCC canceled the session. This marked the 4th time the hearing had been postponed. The court cited departmental restructuring and reorganization for the delay. Ali Adubisi, the director of ESOHR, explained there remain "serious concerns" over the Saudi government's conduct despite the removal of the death penalty recommendation. "Replacing the death penalty is a continued violation as she is charged with offences relating to the expression of peaceful opinion," he explained. "Therefore, the request for imprisonment instead of execution is a form of continuous pressure on peaceful activists." Indeed, that death penalty recommendations remain against the other co-defendents raises "serious concerns about their fate," Adubisi added. He noted there are 58 detainees facing death sentences in Saudi Arabia, most of whom are not accused of serious charges. (source: Newsweek) BAHRAIN: Bahrain Re-Sentences Terrorist Suspect to Death A Bahraini court re-sentenced to death a defendant charged with killing a security officer after a Cassation Court had annulled the ruling. In an unprecedented move on Thursday, the Fourth High Criminal Court sentenced in a re-trial the defendant to death for establishing and
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January 31 INDIA: On death row, prisoners turn over a new leaf Datta was 20 when he was arrested for the rape and murder of a minor girl. Following a trial, he was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. He has been serving time awaiting his execution ever since. He is now 32. For most people, serving time in jails awaiting death is a scary proposition. However, Datta is using this time on death row to fulfil his childhood ambition of attending school. Also the youngest prisoner in the barrack, he spends most of his time studying and working. He goes to school every day in the morning at 8 and returns to his barrack by the evening. He is proud of the fact that he has learnt so much despite being an inmate in a prison. According to a report released by the National Law University, Delhi, Datta has learnt to read and write Hindi and is satisfied that he can now write his own name. He is currently enrolled in Class 5. Like Datta, Harkishan also was convicted for rape and murder and sent to the gallows. He is currently lodged in a jail awaiting execution. When he was 31, Harkishan attempted suicide in his cell. The report says that he was very disturbed at the thought of his imminent but unclear death after the President rejected his mercy plea. He had slashed his genitals with a tile claiming that he preferred death over execution for a crime he had not committed. However, in the 12 years that he has been on death row, Harkishan has had a renewed sense of life. He told the authors of the report in an interview that he wanted to work hard now till his execution so his family remembers him for good deeds. He works in the jail’s carpentry department and library. A graduate dropout, he has taken to reading in a big way and says his only wealth today is the knowledge he has garnered working in the jail library. Lawyers say that convicts on death row generally either accept their fate or work with renewed strength. “In the case of the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, who confessed to killing and raping 36 women a day before his execution, most death row convicts do the same. There are some others like Datta and Harkishan who accept their fate and look at life in a different perspective,” a senior lawyer, requesting anonymity, said. She said that the death penalty is given taking into account reform ability of the convict. (source: The New Indian Express) SRI LANKA: Death for drug traffickers soon - President President Maithripala Sirisena said he will ensure the death sentences passed on drug offences are carried out soon. Addressing the Matara district national programme on drug prevention themed Mathin Nidahas Ratak held at the Sanath Jayasuriya stadium last morning (30), the President said the death penalty is carried out for drug offences in the Philippines. It is also carried out in India and even in America. “Sri Lanka will follow suit very soon,” he said. The President also said he had entrusted the Armed Forces and the Police to eradicate the narcotics menace as they had destroyed the LTTE. The President said the main reason for holding the programme in Matara was because the largest detections of narcotics in the recent past had been made in the Southern Province and mainly in Matara. The Southern Province leads the other provinces when it comes to education and health but is sadly in the largest detections of narcotics.” Students are the main target of narcotic dealers and therefore we conduct awareness programmes in schools,” President Sirisena said. He said that when the ‘National drug eradication week’ was announced, a student had questioned at one of these programmes if the drug menace could be eradicated in one week. Another student had wanted to know why the government does not ban the sale of Alcohol and Tobacco while another had said that it was because the government earns a revenue from taxes imposed. “Sadly all these students are correct,” he said. The Presidential Task Force, together with the Navy and Armed forces conducted drug prevention awareness programmes in five districts at 51 schools and the President handed over certificates of appreciation to the best contributors. The Ruhuna University received a cash award for establishing a research unit to eradicating narcotics. The President said that the mobile phone has become a challenge to eradicate the nation of drugs and narcotics and emphasised that parents should pay more attention on how their childrens use the device. The Presidential task force for drug prevention has been conducting programs for drug prevention since 2015 under the guidance of President Maithripala Sirisena and 11 conferences have been held district wise to make the public aware.”Narcotic eradication units should have been established in every state institution by now if the programmes have been implemented properly and those students would not have
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January 30 GREAT BRITAIN: The death penalty is a brutal relic – Britain must seize today’s chance to make that clear to Donald TrumpThe government is not being sufficiently robust in its dealings with the US, for fear the president might hold a ‘grudge’ It was more than half a century ago, on 21 December 1964, when Sydney Silverman spoke in the House of Commons in favour of his private member’s bill to abolish the death penalty. He had a guiding moral purpose in removing the gallows from the UK’s criminal justice system: “In this darkness and gloom into which the 20th century civilisation has so far led us, we can at least light this small candle and see how far its tiny beams can penetrate the gloom.” The bill reached the statute book the following year and, since then, successive governments have shone its rays of hope around the world. The UK’s bipartisan policy over decades has been to retain the abolition of the death penalty at home and to argue for its abolition abroad. As recently as 31 October 2018 the prime minister, Theresa May, told the House of Commons: “Our longstanding position on the death penalty is well known: we call for its abolition globally.” The ability of the UK to continue to use its considerable soft power to buttress this call depends – always – on its own conduct, and that will be in sharp focus this week. Today, the House of Commons will debate the Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill. Labour supports its aim: a quicker and more efficient exchange of information with other countries to assist criminal investigations and proceedings. This will require treaties with other countries in due course, and the one that looms into view is with the United States, which holds substantial amounts of electronic data. Labour’s position is that the government should not provide information in death penalty cases. Whilst they are likely to be extraordinarily rare, this is a key principle. Indeed, the House of Lords passed an amendment to this effect before Christmas. The government is claiming that if it does put this principle into law, then the US will refuse to agree a treaty at all. This analysis is misguided. It is well-established practice that the UK has been securing death penalty assurances from the US under the current arrangements created by the 1994 Treaty of Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters. In addition, the available evidence shows this government is not being sufficiently robust in its dealings with the US. In recent days, the High Court judgment in the case of the “foreign fighters” El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, who are to face justice in the US, has been published, opening up internal government documents to scrutiny. Labour has supported measures to tackle the issue of foreign fighters, and will continue to do so, but this whole issue laid bare the government’s failure to seek death penalty assurances at all. This was despite a Foreign and Commonwealth Office warning that: “It could leave HMG [her majesty’s government] open to accusations of western hypocrisy and double standards, which would undermine HMG’s death penalty policy globally, including in the US.” Meanwhile, the UK embassy in Washington was warning of the possibility that making a request for assurances would “wind the president up to complain to the PM and, potentially, to hold a grudge”. But the UK position on the death penalty – settled for so long – should not be compromised for fear of the reaction of any American president; it is far too precious for that. If we wish to continue to penetrate the gloom of the most barbaric of judicial punishments around the world, the House of Commons should put into law that no UK government will ever be complicit in the application of the death penalty. (source: Commentary; Nick Thomas-Symonds is Welsh Labour MP for TorfaenThe Independent) SINGAPORE: Parliamentary Sec Amrin Amin meets death penalty escapee who now has his own company On January 28, Senior Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs Amrin Amin met a certain Jabez Koh when he visited Industrial & Services Cooperative Society’s (ISCOS) newly renovated space iCosy Hub. Mr. Koh was an ex-offender who nearly escaped the death penalty after being charged with trafficking heroin. If he had trafficked a mere 1.85g more, he would have met the minimum requirement of pure heroin being trafficked which would lead to the death penalty. After 24 years in prison and 20 strokes of the cane, Mr. Koh is a changed man and a living inspiration to ex-convicts everywhere. Found love, got married and owns a business He is now happily married and with 3 children and even started his own business. It was after his release that Mr. Koh met ISCOS, a non-profit organization which specialises in helping ex-convicts get a job. The organization also provides skills training and peer
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January 29 BANGLADESH: Death penalty handed to wife of murdered lawyer Rathis Bhowmik The wife of Rathis Chondro Bhowmik, the lawyer whose body was found buried in a construction site last year, has been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. Dipa Bhowmik was present in court on Tuesday when District and Sessions Judge ABM Nizamul Haque announced her verdict. More than 100 lawyers from the Rangpur Bar Association were in the courtroom when police produced Dipa in handcuffs before the judge. On Mar 30 last year, Rathis went missing after leaving his home at Babupara on his motorcycle with another person in the morning, his family had said. The disappearance of Rathis, who had been a prosecution witness of the International Crimes Tribunal, had caused a stir, leading the police to investigate possible links to militancy and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The Rapid Action Battalion then arrested Tajhat High School teacher Dipa and her 2 colleagues, Kamrul Islam and Motiar Rahman. Following their arrest, Rathir’s body was found buried under sand in a construction site for a building owned by Kamrul’s brother on Apr 3. The 55-year-old had been buried there for 4 to 5 days, officials said. Dipa told law enforcers that she had been involved in an affair, which was the cause for Rathis’ murder. Police then filed charges in court against Dipa and Kamrul, saying the 2 killed Rathir so they can get married. Both were teachers at Tajhat High School. Kamrul, who had been ill from diabetes and heart disease, died in jail on Nov 10, according to authorities. Rathish was a special public prosecutor in the murder trial of Japan national Hoshio Kuni, law secretary of the ruling Awami League’s Rangpur District Committee, president of the district unit of Bangladesh Puja Udjapon Parishad, a trustee of the Hindu Welfare Trust and general secretary of Sammilita Sangskritik Jote in Rangpur. The couple had 2 children, a son and a daughter. The son is a law student while the daughter is studying at night grade. (source: bdnews24.com) CHINAexecution China executes man who killed 15 people in car attack Chinese authorities on Tuesday executed a man who killed 15 people after ramming a car into a crowded square in central Hunan province last year. Last September, Yang Zanyun ploughed a Land Rover into pedestrians at a public square in Hengdong city before slashing at people with a shovel and dagger. 15 people were killed and 43 others were injured. The Hengyang Intermediate People's Court in Hunan province said Tuesday it "carried out the death penalty" on Yang Zanyun for "endangering public security through dangerous methods". Local police had called him a "vengeful repeat offender" at the time, naming drug charges, theft and intentionally causing hurt as previous offences in their statement. China has experienced a spate of similar incidents in recent months. In late November, a car ploughed into a group of children crossing a street in front of an elementary school in northeastern Liaoning province, killing five people and injuring at least 19. The driver said he "chose his victims at random" and had reportedly been contemplating suicide due to domestic troubles before the tragedy occurred. In December, 8 people were killed and 22 injured after a man hijacked a bus and crashed into pedestrians in eastern Fujian province. He had killed a local official and police officer before commandeering the bus, according to reports by Chinese media. (source: timesnownews.com) INDIA: The Big Bloody Year: 162 Death Sentences in 2018 Make it Highest in Nearly 2 DecadesThe data form part of the 3rd edition of ‘The Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics 2018’, which has been released by Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi under the guidance of its executive director Dr Anup Surendranath. The year 2018 saw 162 persons sentenced to death by trial courts — the highest in nearly 2 decades. With 22 death sentences, Madhya Pradesh topped the list, using the capital punishment mostly in cases of sexual assaults on children. Courts in Madhya Pradesh applied the 2018 amendments to the Indian Penal Code for handing out death penalty for the rape of girls below 12 years. There were 16 death sentences in Maharashtra, followed by Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh that witnessed 15 capital punishments each last year. The data form part of the 3rd edition of ‘The Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics 2018’, which has been released by Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi under the guidance of its executive director Dr Anup Surendranath. While the trial courts handed out death sentences highest in number since 2000, the Supreme Court, in contrast, commuted death to life term in 11 cases. In its review jurisdiction, the apex court, however, confirmed death penalty for 3 convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case.
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January 28 SAUDI ARABIAexecutions Saudi Arabia executes 4 Yemenis for guard's murder Saudi Arabia on Sunday executed 4 Yemenis found guilty of murdering a security guard, the kingdom's interior ministry said. The 4 men robbed and killed a Pakistani man who worked as a security guard at a company, said a ministry statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The execution took place in Mecca, the statement added. 20 people have been executed in the kingdom since the beginning of the year, according to the authorities. The ultra-conservative kingdom has one of the world's highest rates of execution, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking facing the death penalty. In 2018, Saudi Arabia carried out the death sentences of 120 people. (source: nation.co.ke) CHINA: Canadian drug trafficker has likely appealed China death sentence: Lawyer A Canadian sentenced to death in China for drug trafficking likely appealed the ruling Monday (Jan 28), his lawyer said, in a case that has further strained relations between Ottawa and Beijing. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, was handed the death penalty at a one-day retrial two weeks ago after a high court decided that his previous 15-year sentence was not harsh enough given the severity of his crime. The ruling dramatically raised the stakes in China's diplomatic row with Canada sparked by the arrest in Vancouver of a top Chinese telecom executive. Schellenberg said during a consular visit last week that he planned to submit his appeal to the northeastern Liaoning High Court, his lawyer Zhang Dongshuo told AFP. "Today (Monday) is the deadline... so based on what he previously told us, he's likely to have submitted the appeal," said Zhang, who has to wait to be notified by the court to know if the paperwork was filed. Schellenberg is likely to lose the appeal and the case will go to the Supreme People's Court where it could languish for years, experts say. 'TOO MANY UNKNOWNS' China says that he was a key member of an international drug trafficking syndicate which in 2014 planned to ship some 222 kilogrammes of methamphetamine to Australia hidden in plastic pellets in rubber tyres. Schellenberg claims that he was visiting China as a tourist and had chosen the industrial port city of Dalian, where he was unwittingly swept up in a drug smuggling ring by a Chinese man recommended as a translator. In the retrial earlier this month, prosecutors painted him as having especially flown in to oversee the drug shipment, visiting warehouses and hardware shops instead of the usual tourist sights. Canada has urged China to grant clemency to Schellenberg. The case comes amid a clash between Ottawa and Beijing over the arrest of Huawei senior executive Meng Wanzhou, who was detained in Vancouver on request of the United States, which says she violated American sanctions on Iran. In a move observers see as retaliation, Chinese authorities detained 2 other Canadian citizens - a former diplomat and a business consultant - on suspicion of endangering national security. Over the weekend, the row led to Canada's ambassador to China getting sacked after he suggested it would be "great" for Ottawa to release Meng. Even if the upper court in Liaoning upholds the death sentence, it would need to be confirmed by the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, said Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University. There are no time limits for how long this can take, and there are points during which the case can stall, including having the sentence downgraded to a suspended death sentence, she added. "There are simply too many unknowns at this point to assess with any certainty how events will play out from here. "The case is formally in the courts' hands, but it is highly politicised," she said. (source: channelnewsasia.com) INDIA: Indian Court Convicts 15 Persons Over 2008 Bombings An Indian court on Monday convicted 15 people over serial bombings in 2008 in the northeast state of Assam in 2008, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, local media reported. A special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Guwahati convicted the people, including Ranjan Daimary, founder of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), designated a terrorist group by India. In October 2008, multiple blasts took place in the state, killing at least 88 and wounding nearly 500. "Special public prosecutor TD Goswami said the state has demanded the death penalty. The CBI special court will pronounce the quantum of punishment on Jan. 30," the Hindustan Times reported Monday. According to the report, a total of 22 people are accused in the case, including 7 fugitives from the law, 2 of whom are believed dead. Local media reported that the state government in 2017 set up a special court in 2017 exclusively for putting
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January 27 PAKISTAN: 1 given death penalty in triple murder case The Additional Sessions Judge Fatehjang Saturday given death penalty and 10-year imprisonment to one Khalid Mehmood in a triple murder case. The culprit, Khalid Mehmood of Mirza village a year ago had shot dead his wife, sister-in-law) and an aunt and injured another relative woman over a domestic disputeIt may be added that Khalid Mehmood had killed a woman some years ago in his village and was imprisoned. (source: urdupoint.com) PHILIPPINES: Roque says no to death penalty in drug crimesFormer presidential spokesperson Harry Roque contradicts the Duterte administration on death penalty for drug-related crimes Former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Sunday, January 27, that he opposes the reimposition of death penalty for drug-related crimes, contradicting the Duterte administration he once served. Roque put up the sign "no" when asked about it on Sunday during CNN Philippines' 2nd senatorial forum, "The Filipino Votes." Roque, a former human rights lawyer, fought against the death penalty during his time as Kabayan party-list representative. The House of Representatives has passed a bill on capital punishment covering drug pushers and drug lords. Of the 7 participants in Sunday's forum, only former interior secretary Alunan said he is in favor of executing drug convicts. Opposition candidates Neri Colmenares, Samira Gutoc, Florin Hilbay, Harry Roque, Mar Roxas, and Erin Tañada all voted no. The forum's format does not allow the candidates to explain their answer, but a succeeding question allowed Alunan to expound. Saying that reforming the criminal justice system is one way to solve the country's drug problems, Alunan said: "Society takes care of its addicts, while the government takes care of the syndicates. I would like to impose the death penalty for drug-related crimes especially against the syndicates who undermine the society, and undermine the government." In a recent interview on ANC, Alunan said he is hoping that Duterte could endorse him to boost his chances. Duterte has teased his own lineup, but has not mentioned Alunan, even Roque, so far. (source: rappler.com) IRANexecution Iran publicly hangs man on homosexuality chargesIranian media reported that the 31-year-old kidnapped 2 15-year-olds. The Islamic Republic of Iran publicly hanged a 31-year-old Iranian man after he was found guilty of charges related to violations of Iran’s anti-gay laws, according to the state-controlled Iranian Students’ News Agency. The unidentified man was hanged on January 10 in the southwestern city of Kazeroon based on criminal violations of “lavat-e be onf” – sexual intercourse between two men, as well as kidnapping charges, according to ISNA. Iran’s radical sharia law system proscribes the death penalty for gay sex. “The LGBT community in Iran has lived in terror for the last 40 years,” said Alireza Nader, CEO of Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization New Iran. “Next time Foreign Minister Zarif speaks in Washington, the host and audience should ask him why his regime is one of the top executioner of gays in the world.” According to a 2008 British WikiLeaks dispatch, Iran’s mullah regime executed “between 4,000 and 6,000 gays and lesbians” since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. “Iran is not only the most dangerous threat to Israel’s security, it is also a champion in the state murder of actual or perceived homosexuals,” said Volker Beck, a German Party Green Party politician and a lecturer at the Center for Studies in Religious Sciences (CERES) at the Ruhr University in Bochum. “It would be desirable for the federal government to make Iran’s human rights violations more of an issue.” Beck played a key role in bringing about marriage equality in Germany for gays and lesbians. Germany is slated to appoint a banker, who would work in France, to administer a financial mechanism to bypass US sanctions against Iran’s regime. The EU seeks to circumvent US sanctions against Iran to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal. The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018 because of its alleged deficiencies, including the regime’s destabilizing policies in the Middle East. The US government has highlighted the widespread human rights violations in Iran. Kazeroon is the capital of Kazeroon County, where the execution of the 31-year-old man was carried out, and is located in Fars Province, Iran. The city has population of 143,869 as of 2017. The ISNA report said “the citizens of Kazeroon expressed satisfaction and thanked the judiciary.” The statement about citizens of Kazeroon could not be independently verified. In 2016, The Jerusalem Post reported Iran’s regime had executed a gay adolescent that year – the 1st confirmed execution of someone convicted as a juvenile in the Islamic Republic. Hassan
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January 26 THAILAND: Woman who laundered drug money gets death penalty The Criminal Court has handed down a death sentence to a Myanmar woman for laundering dirty money and her connection with the methamphetamine trade. The court passed sentence on Myint Thein Aye, 43, after finding her guilty of several counts including laundering money from meth that she possessed, trafficked and financed. She was arrested in November 2017 when Narcotics Suppression Bureau officers intercepted her van in Bangkok. Investigators had been tracking the gangs she led for years. She claimed she had travelled from Myanmar for medical treatment in Bangkok and ran a foreign-exchange business in Thailand and her country. However, police believed Myint Thein Aye was a key figure in a drug gang, handling the money from the meth trade. Her name had been on the wanted list after NSB officers busted a gang in Mae Sai district in Chiang Rai in 2016 by posing as drug buyers. They agreed on a price of 13.5 million baht and were told to transfer the money into a bank account under the woman’s name in Mae Sai. The money was laundered to open jewellery and gold shops, as well as a hotel business in the 2 countries, according to the NSB. Police also cracked down other members of the gang when they raided a house in Samut Prakan in December 2017. (source: Bangkok Post) CHINA: Fatal bus attacker convicted of homicide, given death penalty A court in northwest China's Shaanxi Province sentenced a man to death Friday after it found him guilty of homicide for starting a deadly bus attack in June 2018. The ruling was handed down by the Intermediate People's Court of Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province, in a first-instance trial. The court heard that Xin Haiping, 40, who claimed that he had been infected with a serious disease after being stabbed by someone with a needle while traveling on a bus, harbored a grudge against members of the public and started an attack with a preempted knife against passengers on an east-bound bus for Line 302 in the city of Xi'an on June 22, killing 4 people and leaving 7 others slightly injured. The court said out of revenge against members of the public, Xin launched the fatal bus attack, causing multiple deaths and injuries, and committed a crime, posing "extremely great threat" to the people. The court decided that Xin should be sentenced to death for the crime of homicide and be deprived of political rights for life. Xin said at the court that he would file an appeal. (source: xinhuanet.com) IRANexecution Man hanged at Tabas Prison A prisoner was hanged yesterday at the prison of Tabas, South Khorasan Province, Iran. According to Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), on the morning of Thursday, January 24, at Tabas central prison. He was arrested in the summer of 2017 for murdering 2 people. Ebrahim Ramezani, the judge of South Khorasan first branch criminal court, said: “the man was a young worker who killed the employer and his wife.” However, the identity of the executed prisoner was not revealed in the report. 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) ___ 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
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January 25 AUSTRALIA: The story of the only woman hanged in Queensland Ellen Thompson lived in the Douglas Shire region and became the only woman hanged in the state of Queensland. In Australia’s early settler days, capital punishment may have been common practice but in Queensland, there was only ever one woman sentenced to hang and she was from here in Douglas Shire. Ellen Thomson’s life begins similarly to many earlier settlers but it ends in a rather ghastly way as she met her death in the gallows. According to some, for a crime, she may not have committed. Born in Ireland in 1846, Ellen Thompson migrated to New South Wales in 1858 and at the age of 19, married William Wood. Together the couple had 5 children before Wood passed away 9 years later. The widowed Ellen moved to Cooktown where the Palmer River gold rush was in full swing, however, conditions were tough and she struggled to support her children. In 1878 Ellen moved to the Douglas Shire region where she took up work as a housekeeper to William Thomson who had a farm on the Mossman River. A year later, Ellen gave birth to William’s daughter and in 1880 she married him to legitimise the baby. William was 24 years her senior and by all reports was a difficult man to live with. The marriage was strained and there are suggestions that William was jealous, violent and a drunk. On one occasion he hurled a kerosene lamp at his stepdaughter and a knife at Ellen. The 2 eventually took up separate dwellings on the property and Ellen began a friendship with John Harrison, a young marine deserter working on the adjoining "Bonnie Doon" property. The 2 were rumoured to be lovers, which caused further tension in her marriage that would eventually lead to all their deaths. On 22 October 1886, William was found dead, lying next to his gun with a bullet wound to his head. Ellen told police that her husband must have taken his own life after she had heard a gunshot and moans coming from his house. However, a more sinister outcome was discovered when the body was examined revealing 2 holes in the skull, indicating that William had been shot twice. Police concluded that William Thompson was murdered. Suspicion and gossip quickly arose that Ellen and her lover were at fault and they were soon arrested and charged with murder at a committal hearing in the old Port Douglas courthouse. They were taken to Townsville to be tried where the odds were stacked against them from the start. They were not allowed to take the stand during the trial to defend themselves and their lawyer was inadequate, even apologising to the jury for his lack of experience in such cases. The judge, Justice Cooper, was also known for his harshness in criminal cases. The notes he made throughout the trial show his clear bias and disapproval of the pair, describing Ellen as a "loose woman" and John as "her latest fancy man,” while the victim was portrayed as vulnerable and helpless. Ellen was not a demure woman, as was the norm in those days, but was rather outspoken with a sense of justice it was easy for the press to portray her as a harlot. Media of the day made references to the number of children she had, never once mentioning that she was a widow when she arrived in Port Douglas, rather implying they were all illegitimate. Ellen was deemed a monster and the community quickly ignored William's faults and condemned his long-suffering widow. While the evidence was not enough to prove the pair’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by today’s standards, it was enough to convince the jury of the day. Ellen claimed her innocence until the end but Harrison reportedly confessed to one of his gaolers the night before his execution. He claimed he had been the one to shoot William at Ellen’s encouragement, adding he didn’t care about her; he just wanted her sugar cane farm. Some historians and descendants of Ellen believe she was innocent and that a huge miscarriage of justice was served. Whatever the truth, the pair were hanged on 13 June 1887 and Ellen went down in history as the 1st and only woman to be hanged in the state of Queensland. (source: newsport.com.au) TAIWAN: Murderer’s death sentence commuted by High CourtOUTRAGE:The decision to sentence Sun Kuo-huang to life in prison was condemned by the father of Chang Chih-tien, who Sun killed in November 2010 to steal his identity Sun Kuo-huang was spared the death sentence yesterday in favor of life imprisonment in the 4th retrial for 2010 murder of a graduate student in Kaohsiung. The Kaohsiung Branch of Taiwan High Court found the 42-year-old Sun guilty of the murder of Chang Chih-tien, a doctoral student at National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, but overturned the previous convictions that had sentenced him to death. The judges’ ruling said that while Sun had admitted to the murder in the
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January 24 VIETNAM: 3 detained for trafficking drugs from Laos to Vietnam Border guards and police of Vietnam's central Ha Tinh province have arrested 3 Vietnamese men for transporting 120 cakes of heroin from Laos to Vietnam, local media reported on Thursday. On Wednesday, when searching a suspected car with 3 men inside at Cau Treo international border gate in Ha Tinh, the border guards and police found heroin hidden in cartoons and then arrested the trio, online newspaper VnExpress reported. 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) MALAYSIA: Families of 30 death row prisoners submit memorandum to Liew Families of 30 prisoners on death row have submitted a memorandum to Datuk Liew Vui Keong, stating their support for the abolition of the death penalty. About 50 of them, together with a few NGO representatives, met the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of legal matters at the Legal Affairs Division here on Thursday (Jan 24) to hand over the memorandum. (source: thestar.com.my) SRI LANKA: Ministry issues timeline on death penalty convicts In response to President Maithripala Sirisena’s recent comments that the files of convicted drug dealers have been withheld or disappeared from prisons, sabotaging his decision to activate death penalty on them, the Justice and Prison Reforms Ministry today issued a time line on the process it adopted to implement the death penalty on death row prisoners on drug related crimes. The Ministry said a list of convicts on death row was requested on July, 12, 2018 after President Sirisena declared that he had decided to activate death penalty on drug convicts. On July 13, a list of 13 who were on death row was sent to the Justice and Prison Reforms Ministry. On July 25, cabinet approved a proposal to put convicted drug dealers who are on the death row to death if they continue to do the crime and on July 4, the list of death row inmates was sent to the Attorney General. On October 2, 2 out of 18 were confirmed for immediate implementation of death on October 3, the list of death row prisoners recommended for immediate implementation of death was sent by the Ministry to Additional Secretary Ms. Jayawickrama of the Presidential Secretariat. Another name of a death row prisoner was confirmed for death on October 13. A discussion was held by President Sirisena with officials of the Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms on the death row prisoners list. The Justice Ministry has sent another list of 48 death row prisoners who have been convicted on drug related crimes to Presidential Secretariat on December 31 while 30 out of them have filed appeals against the convictions. Justice and Prison Reforms Minister Talatha Atukorake explained the action take by the Ministry to carry out death penalty on convicts of drug related crimes who are on death row to the cabinet on last Tuesday. (source: dailymirror.lk) CHINA: Urgent Action Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian national, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of drug trafficking at his re-trial. First arrested in 2014, he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment by the Dalian Municipal Intermediate People’s Court on 20 November 2018. Schellenberg subsequently appealed the verdict and on 14 January 2019 at his retrial, he was found guilty of a more serious drug-related offense and sentenced to death. Announcing a death sentence at the same time of the conviction was unprecedented, according to Mo Shaoping, a partner of the law firm representing Schellenberg. Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to one or both government officials listed. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them. Procurator-General, Zhang Jun 147 Beiheyandajie, Dongcheng Qu, Beijing Shi, 100726 People’s Republic of China Email: w...@spp.gov.cn Ambassador Cui Tiankai Embassy of the People's Republic of China 3505 International Place NW Washington DC 20008 Phone: 202 495 2266 I Fax: 202 495 2138 Email: chinaembpress...@mfa.gov.cn Salutation: Dear Ambassador *** Dear Procurator-General, I write to express my grave concern regarding the case of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian national convicted and sentenced to death for drug trafficking on 14 January 2019. First detained on 3 December 2014, Robert Schellenberg was eventually sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment after being convicted for drug trafficking on 20 November 2018. Schellenberg appealed the conviction and sentence. The Liaoning High People’s Court heard his case on 29 December 2018 and considered new evidence. It ordered a full retrial on the grounds that the
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January 24 IOWA: Death penalty back on the Iowa legislative agenda Capital punishment would give the Iowa justice system another “tool” to use in prosecuting offenders who kidnap, rape and murder juveniles, according to proponents of reinstating the death penalty after a 54-year absence. “It’s one of the things I ran on in ’96 and I still think it’s an appropriate punishment for capital murder,” said Sen. Jerry Behn, R-Boone, who plans to introduce a death penalty bill for the 22nd consecutive year. He said his bill will be narrower in scope than House File 62, which was introduced Wednesday by Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Orange City, and would allow courts to apply the death penalty if the “aggravating circumstances established beyond a reasonable doubt outweigh any mitigating circumstances” in 1st-degree capital murder cases. In either case, Tom Chapman of the Iowa Catholic Conference said “the state should not commit violence to protect Iowans from violence.” Wheeler, Behn and Sen. Julian Garrett, R-Indianola, argue that the possibility of a death sentence would give law enforcement, prosecutors and courts more leverage in dealing with heinous crimes. Under current law, they said, the maximum penalty for kidnapping, rape and murder are all the same – life without parole. Iowa lawmakers debate reinstating death penalty Bringing the death penalty back to Iowa likely will get debated but probably not approved during the 2018 legislative session, key lawmakers say. “So there’s a perverse incentive for someone who kidnaps and rapes to kill their victim so there is no witness,” Behn said. Sen. Kevin Kinney, D-Oxford, who is retired from a career in law enforcement, said he has no sympathy for people who kidnap, rape and murder, “but I don’t know if this is the right policy.” (source: The Gazette) KANSAS: U.S. Supreme Court Mulls Kansas Inmate's Appeal Regarding Insanity Defense An appeal filed by a Kansas man on death row has caught the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court and could change how Kansas and other states prosecute people who commit crimes while mentally ill. Nobody disputes that James Kahler murdered 4 family members in 2009. But Kahler’s attorneys argued at trial and in subsequent appeals that he had spiraled into a mental health crisis in the months preceding the murders and was psychotic during the attack. The murders took place in Burlingame, about 30 miles south of Topeka. The Kansas Supreme Court upheld Kahler's conviction. In September, his attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, arguing that Kansas has effectively abolished the right to use insanity as a defense in criminal cases. That, they say, is unconstitutional because it violated Kahler's right to due process and resulted in excessive punishment. 3 other states — Utah, Montana and Idaho — have also banished the insanity defense. From a statistical perspective, the petition faces long odds: Only about 80 out of 7,000 or more such petitions filed annually with the Supreme Court are granted. But last week the court requested more documents from the trial and subsequent appeals, which experts say may be a sign the court is ready to take on the case. All states require that defendants know what they were doing when they committed an offense. But most states also require defendants to understand that what they did was wrong, said Elizabeth Cateforis, a University of Kansas law professor who specializes in capital punishment and criminal procedure. If a defendant doesn't meet both conditions, he or she can invoke the insanity defense, which, if accepted, typically leads to mental health treatment instead of a prison sentence. In Kahler's case, a Life Alert recording device worn by one of the victims captured sound during the attack. At one point Kahler can be heard proclaiming, “Oh s**t! I am going to kill her… G*n it!,” according to court records. In a brief opposing Kahler’s Supreme Court petition, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt wrote that the state hasn’t abolished but rather “redefined” the insanity defense. He also argued that the audio recording proves Kahler “knew at the time that what he was doing was both momentous and wrong.” Such a claim “rests on a thin reed,” Kahler’s attorneys replied in their brief. “A psychotic person’s use of profanity hardly suggests he knows right from wrong and has chosen freely to do wrong.” “For centuries, the insanity defense has protected those who cannot choose between doing good and doing evil,” they wrote. “Either because they cannot tell the difference or because they cannot control their conduct.” It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will decide whether to take the case. But if it does, Cateforis thinks the justices might be more interested in the narrower angle of capital punishment than the broader question of the insanity defense. The court in
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January 23 ZAMBIA: The European Union has contributed €100,000 to support the campaign towards abolition of death penalty in Zambia implemented by the Human Rights Commission. The funding is approximately K1,358,841. According to a statement, the nation-wide campaign which started this week aims at increasing public understanding, appreciation and support towards abolishing death penalty both in practice and in law in Zambia. And the EU stated that it had a long-standing relationship and cooperation with civil society organisations and had recognised their importance as partners in democracy, inclusive growth and sustainable development processes. “In Zambia, the European Union decided in 2018 to contribute to this EU commitment towards civil society by enhancing the role and capacity of CSOs as actors in the promotion of governance and accountability interventions at local and national levels, and by promoting inclusive sustainable growth through skills development in favour of incarcerated populations and strengthening community response systems for their reintegration,” it stated. It stated that a call for proposals was launched in 2018 under the “Civil Society and Local Authorities” budget line with two key priorities: the citizen engagement in deepening democracy and the re-integration of inmates in correctional facilities. The EU stated that 6 projects were eventually contracted for €3.8 million. The EU named the organisations and project as Alliance for Community Action who partners with Caritas Zambia under the project Ask Project! Growing civil society and citizen ability to demand public resource accountability, Mansa District Land Alliance who partners with People in Need under the project Strengthening citizen action to improve democratic governance in Luapula and Western provinces, Centro Laici Italiani per le Missioni Associazione (CeLIM) partnering with Prisoners Future Foundation under the project Abilitation and Reintegration of Offenders for a Sustainable Growth, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) with Chreso Ministries under the Zambia Inmate Skills Training for Successful Reintegration (ZISSR) project, Development Aid From People To People In Zambia (DAPP) with partners PANOS Institute Southern Africa under the Incarcerated Populations Rights to a Productive Future is their Human Right project and the Undikumbukire Project Zambia (UP) with partner Build It Zambia under the Rise again: Supporting juveniles in conflict with the law for a successful reintegration into society project. The EU stated that a direct award was also given to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for the support to refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo and host communities at Mantapala Settlement in Nchelenge District of Luapula Province. It stated that €1 million would be channelled through civil society organisations that would provide a substantial support to the people in need in the education and water and sanitation sectors. (source: themastonline.com) SRI LANKA: Sri Lankan president reiterates decision to impose death penalty on drug traffickers Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has reiterated the government's decision to impose the death penalty on drug traffickers, a government statement said Wednesday. Sirisena said although certain organizations had raised their voices against the government's decision, these organizations had failed to assess the damage and trauma caused to the nation if drug traffickers were left to continue the illegal activities. He said he would soon release information to the drug dealers and the parties behind them. Sri Lanka's cabinet of ministers had taken a collective decision in July last year, to impose the death sentence considering the recent rise in drug-related murders and a large number of drug imports planned by drug traffickers who have been jailed. The government said the island country had become a transit point for major drug cartels as a consequence of the prolonged illicit activities of the Tamil Tiger rebels, who were defeated by government troops in May 2009 following a 30-year civil conflict. On Tuesday, the Police Special Task Force and Anti Narcotics Unit busted an international drug smuggling ring in capital Colombo, arresting five suspects along with 90 kg of heroin. (source: xinhaunet.com) SCOTLAND: University to host death penalty forum Hannah Cox, the National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, will be the main speaker at 6 p.m. during a QEP Forum on Jan. 28 at Campbellsville University. Cox will be discussing the conservative case against capital punishment. “I am one of an increasing number of conservative Christians who have changed our views on the death penalty because we want to be consistent in our ethic of life – that life is precious from its beginning to its
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January 20 MALAYSIA: Abolishing death sentence not made in haste: Coalition Against the Death Penalty The Malaysian Coalition Against the Death Penalty today refuted former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor’s statement that the government’s decision to abolish the death penalty had been made in haste. In a statement here today, the coalition said the issue had been brought up as early as 2010 when the then Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz publicly stated that the death penalty was not suitable for Malaysia. It said since then, studies were carried out to review the efficacy of laws relating to the death sentence, including one commissioned by the government and undertaken by the International Centre for Law and Legal Studies in Malaysia that in 2016 recommended to the Cabinet the total abolition of the death penalty. “For the former IGP to say that no proper study had been undertaken or that the present Cabinet’s decision to totally abolish the death penalty for all crimes is premature has certainly failed to take into account the existing facts in relation to the question of the abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia,” it said. On Wednesday the former IGP expressed his objection to the government’s proposal to abolish the death penalty and had urged the government to review it. Rahim also suggested that a referendum be held at the Dewan Rakyat to decide on the matter. The coalition also lauded the government for showing leadership in deciding to abolish the death penalty. The statement said that there was also no credible empirical evidence to show that the abolition of the death penalty in a particular jurisdiction had led or would lead to an increase in the crime rate in that jurisdiction. “The ineffectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent was initially recognised in the amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 effected in 2017 which removed the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences. The then Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of law said that this was a ‘baby step’ towards the eventual total abolition of the death penalty. “As the former IGP will himself be personally familiar, the existence of even harsh punishment does not deter a person from commiting a crime, be it for an offence of causing hurt or for murder,” the statement said. The coalition also stressed that abolition of the death penalty as a form of punishment did not mean that the perpetrators of crimes would be set free, and that they would still be punished for the crimes they had committed. (source: thesundaily.my) INDONESIA: 2 Indonesians who escaped Malaysian death penalty return to families The Foreign Affairs Ministry has returned Siti Nurhidayah and Mattari, 2 Indonesians, who escaped death penalty in Malaysia, to their families. The ministry`s Director for Indonesian Citizens Protection Lalu Muhammad Iqbal noted in a statement that both Indonesians were returned to their families on Thursday. "We have provided counseling and advocacy for them," Iqbal stated here on Friday, Jan 18. Siti Nurhidayah, a woman from Brebes District of Central Java, was arrested on November 6, 2013, for carrying methamphetamine when she transited in Penang, Malaysia, on her flight from Guangzhou, China. An investigation by the Indonesian Citizen Protection Team found that Nurhidayah was a victim of fraud. During the court sessions, Nurhidayah`s lawyer presented key witnesses, who testified that she had been defrauded. Nurhidayah was released from all charges on November 15, 2018. Mattari, a Madurese man, was arrested on December 14, 2016, in a construction project where he worked in Selangor, Malaysia, for allegedly killing a Bangladeshi. A lawyer provided by the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Gooi & Azzura, have convinced judges in the court that they did not have adequate evidence nor witnesses in the case. On November 2, 2018, Mattari was released from all charges, but the permit from the Malaysian Immigration Office to deport him was only received on Jan 8. "During the legal process, the Indonesian Embassy has provided counseling for both of them, including to facilitate communication with their respective families," an official of the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur Galuh Indriyati stated. Since 2011, some 442 Indonesians have been charged with death penalty in Malaysia, of which 308 were acquitted, while the remaining 134 are still awaiting further legal process. (source: antaranews.com) TAIWAN: KMT to propose death for child abuse The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) legislative caucus yesterday unveiled proposals for amendments to the Criminal Code, including that murderers of children should be given the death penalty. In the wake of several high-profile child abuse and murder cases, lawmakers across
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January 19 SAUDI ARABIA: Secretive Khashoggi Murder Trial Begins in Saudi Arabia, Five Face Death Penalty The trial of 11 people accused of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has begun in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, state media report, with 5 of the defendants facing execution. Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for the 5 during the 1st court hearing in the Khashoggi case Thursday, saying the journalist was murdered in a “rogue” operation by agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom. Scant information was released by state media—no names of the defendants have been officially released. Saudi Arabia has refused Turkey’s request to extradite 18 suspects for trial, including a hit squad of 15 alleged agents who Turkey alleges flew to Istanbul to carry out the killing. Khashoggi, a prominent U.S.-based critic of the Saudi royal family, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October of last year. (source: thedaioybeast.com) JAPAN: The toll of 50 years on death row Every day, in any weather, 82-year-old Iwao Hakamada walks around the small Japanese city of Hamamatsu for up to 6 hours. A volunteer follows a few steps behind to be sure he doesn't get hurt and can find his way home. Hakamada suffers from a mental condition diagnosed as "prison psychosis," the result of spending nearly 5 decades on death row — thought to be the world record — for a quadruple murder that evidence suggests he did not commit. In 1966, he was a 30-year-old former professional boxer working at a miso factory, when the manager, along with his wife and 2 children, were found stabbed to death in their home, which was then set on fire. Hakamada lived on-site and was the only suspect. No one could corroborate his alibi that he'd been in his dorm room and rushed to the fire to help put it out. Police detained him for about three weeks and according to records from the detention center, interrogated him for up to 14 hours a day. He alleged they beat him with nightsticks, pricked him with pins to keep him awake and denied him adequate food and water until finally he confessed. He later retracted the confession in court. "It's striking, almost stunning, how long the interrogations went. Day after day after day, before finally on day 20, Hakamada confessed," said David Johnson, professor of sociology and an expert on the Japanese justice system at the University of Hawaii. He said false confessions are a major source of wrongful convictions in Japan. Overall, Japan's conviction rate is above 99 percent, meaning almost every criminal case that goes to trial ends in conviction. In part, that's because prosecutors only bring cases they think they can win, said Johnson, and many of those cases are built on confessions. Hakamada was imprisoned for 48 years — 30 of them in solitary confinement. Every morning, he awoke at 7 a.m. to find out whether that would be the day he would die by hanging. Japan does not give prisoners advance warning of their executions. The U.S. and Japan are the only G7 countries that still have capital punishment. The UNHRC has urged Japan to consider abolishing it, pointing to the large number of crimes that can carry a death sentence, the lack of pardons and the execution of elderly and mentally ill convicts. For Hakamada, decades of living in existential limbo took a toll on his mental health. His decline can be charted in the letters he wrote his family that his sister Hideko keeps in a box at her house, where he now lives. The earliest letters from the 1960s, are written in neat rows of Japanese characters and filled with hope. "The report about the first trial showed evidence was faked and the court misinterpreted the facts, so I truly believe there will be a retrial and I'll be cleared," one reads. "I'm doing okay, so don't worry." Then in 1980, after 12 years of appeals, the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence. Hideko says that was a turning point for her brother. "Not long after that, he told me the man in the cell next to his had been taken away and on the way out, he said, 'so long, hope you stay well,' then never came back. And that was when the death penalty became real to him, and it was very scary." His letters from that time show his mind starting to unravel; he writes about devils tormenting him in the shower. "I could tell he was getting seriously mentally ill," said Hideko. "So I visited every month, but sometimes he refused to see me. I kept going though, to tell him his family hadn't abandoned him." Then nearly 50 years after he was first imprisoned, Hideko filed for a retrial based on new DNA evidence: Hakamada's lawyers said his blood did not match blood from the crime scene. A district court granted the retrial in 2014, writing it was "possible that key evidence had been fabricated by investigators" and that it was "unjust to
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Janaury 18 MALAWI: Malawians have called for death sentence for anyone found guilty of killing people with albinism. This comes after the police in the country admitted that they were unable to track the market where body parts of people with albinism are sold. Malawians expressed their feelings about the killing of people with albinism in a Malawan24’s Facebook post. The news source asked for people’s views on the solution to end this scourge in the country. “That’s a good idea but my worry is for those who are still young under 18 how would it work. Let us approve death penalty for those who kill person with albinism,” commented Jekel Khalani Lwazi. It is a known myth that body parts of people with albinism are used for traditional medication that brings luck and for making people rich. Some commenters blamed traditional doctors for the killings. Yolam Nyirenda said superstitious beliefs should be uprooted in most people. He suggested that people needed to be taught that a person only earn money through hard work. “Witch doctors should be licenced. Anybody who contravene stipulated laws the license be revoked, everybody should be taught about love to one another thus including albino. “Stiff punishment for those found to be in business or harassment of albino. The whole society should be alert in protection of albino,” wrote Nyirenda. Northern Region Police Commissioner, Hannings Motha recently addressed the community in a campaign against killing people with albinism. “For now, we can admit that we cannot say where these body parts are. But we are working hard to get as many leads as possible,” he said. Local Chief, Inkosi ya Makhosi M’bwelwa who was present during the event disagreed. “There is no way bones would make someone rich,” said Inkosi ya Makhosi M’bwelwa. According to reports, 26 people with albinism have been killed since 2013 in Malawi. The recent incident was of Yasin Kwenda Phiri (54) who was killed at his home in Kande Trading Centre on New Year’s Eve. The brutal murder happened in front of Phiri’s 9-year-old son. (source: africandailyvoice.com) INDIA: Kerala man sentenced to death for rape, murder of woman, daughterHe was also sentenced to lifetime imprisonment and fined Rs 50,000. The Thodupuzha second additional sessions judge KK Sujatha on Thursday awarded death penalty to Jomon, of Peruvelipparambil house, Kumily, who raped and killed a woman and her daughter at Vandiperiyar in Idukki 12 years ago. He was also sentenced to lifetime imprisonment and fined Rs 50,000. “Though Jomon pleaded innocence, the prosecution proved the case on the basis of scientific evidence following which the court awarded capital punishment to him under section 449, 376 and 302 of the IPC,” said special prosecutor A E Rahim. The murder happened on the night of December 2, 2007. “Jomon, who was heavily drunk, along with his co-accused Rajendran broke into the house where the victims Moly (55) and her daughter Neenu (22) lived. (source: New Indian Express) CHINAexecution Former Party Chief Of China's Drug-producing Village Executed A former Communist Party chief of Boshe Village, once notorious for its drug production, was executed on Thursday, according to a court in south China's Guangdong Province. Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court said the death sentence of Cai Dongjia had been reviewed and approved by the Supreme People's Court. Boshe, under the jurisdiction of the city of Lufeng, used to supply over one-third of the nation's crystal meth. About 20 percent of its households had been involved in drug production and trafficking. In December 2013, over 3,000 police officers raided the village, seizing 3 tonnes of crystal meth and capturing more than 180 suspects, including Cai who was then the village's Party chief. After a trial in 2016, Cai was sentenced to death for smuggling and manufacturing drugs and covering for criminals. The court found that Cai had colluded with others to manufacture 180 kg of crystal meth and offered bribes in attempts to free his accomplices who had been detained by police. Cai's appeal against the verdict was rejected by Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court in August 2018. (source: urdupoint.com) China executes notorious drug lord billed as the 'godfather of crystal meth' A Chinese drug lord known as the 'godfather of crystal meth' was executed today. Once a Communist official, Cai Dongjia was the former chief of Boshe village in Guangdong Province. He used his political power to make crystal meth, also known as methamphetamine, and provide protection to local drug dealers, according to Xinhua News Agency. During Dongjia's 6-year tenure, Boshe grew to be China's infamous 'village of drugs' and produced 1/3 of the country's crystal meth supply at one point. (source: daiymail.co.uk) **
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January 17 GLOBALbook review BooksIs the threat of capital punishment really the foundation of good behaviour?; Richard Wrangham argues persuasively that fear of the ultimate punishment has always been the source of law and order, however much we may wish it otherwise The Goodness Paradox: How Evolution Made Us More and Less Violent Richard Wrangham profile, pp.382, £25 Richard Wrangham embraces controversy, and appears to enjoy munching apples from carts he upsets himself. While his new book seems to be the history of an amalgam of moral and political virtues and vices, its thesis is actually the large claim that these have evolved; and he has no compunction about writing that the foundation stone of good behaviour is the possibility of capital punishment (against it though he is in today’s world). It’s not just that the logic of his argument requires this hypothesis; he has found examples of premeditated (‘proactive’), co-operative (‘coalitionary’) killing in the Pleistocene record, providing an empirical basis for his claims about our evolution. Chimpanzees have (reactive) murderous rages. There are also many attested examples of male chimpanzees bullying their most frequent sex partner, and of them committing infanticide, enough to cause us to look for the adaptive value of such behaviour (in both cases such proactive aggression increases the male’s chances of perpetuating his own genes). Proactive aggression, Wrangham argues, provides a necessary evolutionary curb on the reactive sort. Wrangham is British, and holds the chair of biological anthropology in the newish department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard. Like his fellow anthropologist, the late Sidney Mintz (also Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and Matthieu Ricard), Wrangham’s academic work changes our ideas about everyday life. In Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), he made the once startling, now easy-to-accept, claim that the mastery of fire allowed our ancestors to evolve bigger brains by reducing the larger digestive apparatus needed to extract nutrition from raw food — that learning to cook (meat and grains) was essential to the evolution of our hunter-gatherer species. (What would be the consequences for the future development of H. sapiens of adopting a vegan diet?) The Goodness Paradox takes the further step of looking at matters that are normally the province of philosophers — ethics and politics — from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology. That is, Wrangham is asking questions about how we behave to each other, in pairs, families, tribes, states and even larger groups, not from the ethicist’s perspective of how we ought to behave, or what some political philosophers see as their task of justifying how we do behave. He is attempting to determine how the way we in fact do behave had adaptive value for our species in the course of our ‘descent’ (as Darwin dubbed it) from primate ancestors. Although John Rawls, another great Harvard thinker, who dealt with moral and political philosophy, doesn’t even get an entry in the 38-page bibliography or the 12-page index, Wrangham seems to accept parts of Rawls’s argument invoking the ‘original position’ — presumably when our African ancestors acquired language 250,000 years ago. Though it would enhance the value of this magisterial work if he had engaged more directly with contemporary philosophy, Wrangham’s goodness paradox boils down to the conflict between the positions of two philosophers. He characterises the followers of Rousseau as saying, ‘We are a naturally peaceful species corrupted by society’, whereas ‘Hobbesians see us as a naturally violent species civilised by society’. He regards H. sapiens as a chimera — the mythological beast with the body of a goat and head of a lion. His view is that,with respect to our tendency for aggression, a human being is both a goat and a lion. We have a low propensity for reactive aggression, and a high propensity for proactive aggression. The subject of this book is: ‘Why did this unusual combination evolve?’ How, in the course of evolution, were genes selected for which gave their bearers an advantage from being a reflectiveantagonist rather than an impulsive, easily provoked destroyer? ‘Reactive aggression’ leads individual humans to murder, and to lesser crimes, some categorised as manslaughter. Reactive killing of their own kind is common in chimpanzees, but less so in bonobos. The key to its opposite, proactive aggression, is premeditation. Obviously, there are some solo proactive aggressions, such as violent acts of revenge, or sadistic sexual fantasy. (I imagine this would include the duel, as honour killings pose no problem for Wrangham’s argument.) Note that ‘successful aggressors initiate action only when they perceive they are likely to achieve their goals at appropriately low cost’ — emphasising that repeated aggressive
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January 16 VIETNAM: Vietnam school teacher gets death sentence for drug trafficking A school teacher in northern Vietnam has received the death penalty for drug trafficking, state media reported Wednesday. Vu Ba Xenh, 40, was arrested in June 2018 in Nghe An province with 15 kilograms of drugs following a police shootout, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. On the day of his arrest, Xenh, who was offered 200 dollars to transport drugs around Nghe An, had been meeting smugglers on the Vietnamese side of a forested border area to transport the drugs onward within Vietnam, but the group was intercepted by police. Although Xenh was successfully apprehended, other members of the group opened fire on the police and fled. 2 police officers were shot, with one permanently confined to a wheelchair as a result of his injuries. Police found 20 packages of heroin, 7 kilograms of methamphetamine and 12,000 pills of an undisclosed "synthetic" drug at the scene, including the 15 kilograms of drugs found on Xenh's person, as well as 1 gun. While it was unclear from the court ruling the type of drugs specifically found on Xenh, trafficking more than 100 grams of either meth or heroin warrants the death penalty in Vietnam. (source: gulf-times.com) TAIWAN: Wu Feng supports death penalty in wake of child abuse cases in TaiwanTurkish entertainer Wu Feng comes out in support of death penalty in wake of recent child abuse cases in Taiwan In the wake of 2 brutal cases of child abuse seen in Taiwan in recent days, Taiwanese-Turkish TV show host Ugur Rifat Karlova, better known as Wu Feng issued a comment today in which he came out in support of the death penalty for particularly heinous cases. In response to Yahoo News article about an 18-month-old toddler who was beaten to death by her mother and those around her and the news of a father beating his son for not adding hot peppers to his meatballs, Wu Feng posted a comment below expressing his support for the death penalty in extreme cases of child abuse, quickly gaining thousands of likes by Taiwanese readers. In the comments section of the article about the beating death of the tiny toddler, Wu Feng wrote the following comment: "I have never publicly shared my support for the death penalty! But for the first time since the recent spate of child abuse, I sincerely support very serious punishment that includes the death penalty! This kind of behavior should definitely not be punished lightly! I feel that we as influential entertainers are also responsible for helping Taiwan's society progress, and the world to improve." Within 1 hour alone the comment gained 1,150 likes and has garnered many thousands since. Many netizens echoed their support for Wu Feng's comments: "I support heavy sentences." "We need entertainers to help voice our concerns, and we need the whole nation to pay attention to the issue." "I support whipping first, and then the death penalty." "My idea is the same as yours, chaotic times call for heavy punishments." While others expressed doubts that substantive action will be taken: "Most people have lost confidence in Taiwan's judiciary." "Everyone shouted for half a day and did not see the government do anything." "But we shouted again and again. Did it work?" (source: taiwannews.com.tw) MALAYSIA: Death penalty: Rahim Noor suggests referendum Former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor has suggested holding a referendum before the proposed abolishment of the death penalty is brought to the Dewan Rakyat at the next Parliamentary sitting. “This is a very important and serious decision to be made, hence it needs to be thoroughly studied by the Government. “Personally, I disagree with the idea of abolishing the death penalty. I strongly appeal to the government to review this matter,” he said at a news conference here today. Abdul Rahim said abolishing the death penalty would have serious impact, including emotionally, on a victim’s family. Last Nov 13, the Cabinet proposed the death penalty for 32 offences under eight Acts, including Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder, be abolished. The Bill on abolishing the death penalty is reportedly expected to be tabled at the next Dewan Rakyat sitting and the Attorney-Gneral’s Chambers is now in the final stage of preparing a paper for the purpose. According to Parliament’s official portal, the next Dewan Rakyat sitting will be from March 11 to April 11, 2019. (source: theedgemarkets.com) *** Govt urged to stick to plan to abolish death penalty Prominent human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen has called on the government to stick to its plan to abolish death penalty in the country, and not to heed calls to abandon it. The Lawyers for Liberty co-founder said while public opinions were important when drawing up policies, human rights issues should not depend on
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January 15 CHINA: China sentences Canadian to death for drug smuggling A Canadian citizen in China has been sentenced to death after a court convicted him of drug smuggling on Monday, a move likely to further inflame tensions between Ottawa and Beijing. The Dalian Intermediate People's Court in northeastern China said Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was given a death sentence based on the nature and severity of his crime and in accordance with the Chinese criminal code. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized the ruling, which comes as relations have strained between the 2 countries following the arrest of a senior executive from the Chinese tech firm Huawei in Vancouver last month. According to the court, Schellenberg was dispatched to Dalian by drug traffickers in November 2014 to orchestrate the smuggling of more than 222 kilograms (489.4 pounds) of methamphetamine from the Chinese port city to Australia. Schellenberg and an accomplice bought tools and tires in an attempt to repackage the drugs before shipping them out in containers, according to the prosecution. The Canadian was said to have inspected the cargo, assessed the workload and decided on a shipping date. After his accomplice turned himself into the police, Schellenberg fled Dalian and was arrested in southern China on December 1, 2014, when he tried to fly to Thailand, the court said. "I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist," Schellenberg said Monday before the verdict was announced, the AFP news agency reported. The court said Schellenberg is entitled to appeal his verdict and sentencing within 10 days. The court added that his rights to defense and translation were protected during the trial and officials from the Canadian embassy were in attendance. Trudeau 'concerned' amid rising tensions Trudeau said the Chinese court's decision was "of extreme concern." "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty in cases facing, as in this case, facing a Canadian," Trudeau said in a news conference following Monday's ruling. Schellenberg was first tried in March 2016 and was convicted of being an accessory to drug smuggling in November 2018. Upon receiving a sentence of 15 years in prison, he appealed the verdict. A high court ordered a new trial in late December 2018 when the prosecution said they had uncovered new evidence to prove Schellenberg's principal role in the case. Schellenberg's conviction and sentencing came amid worsening diplomatic tensions between the two countries after Canadian police detained top Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on December 1. Meng, who is also the daughter of the Chinese tech company's founder, has since been released on bail pending an extradition hearing to the United States on charges of violating sanctions against Iran. Since her arrest, multiple Canadian citizens have been detained in China. In an opinion piece on January 9, the Chinese ambassador to Canada Lu Shaye effectively confirmed that the detention of 2 Canadian academics was in response to Meng's arrest, raising further questions around Schellenberg's case. "I have recently heard a word repeatedly pronounced by some Canadians: bullying. They said that by arresting two Canadian citizens as retaliation for Canada's detention of Meng, China was bullying Canada," the ambassador wrote last Wednesday in The Hill Times, a Canadian publication. "To those people, China's self-defense is an offense to Canada. If someone slaps you on your left cheek, give him your right cheek, they told us. But I have never seen them doing as they said." China severely punishes those caught smuggling or trafficking drugs, including foreigners. Anyone found with more than 50 grams (1.76 ounces) of a controlled substance can face the death penalty. In 2009, Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen convicted of carrying up to 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) of heroin, was executed by lethal injection despite fierce protests from the UK government and his family, who said he suffered from a mental disorder and was tricked into carrying the drugs. According to China.org.cn, a government-run website, at least 12 foreign drug dealers have been executed in China since 2000, "and other foreigners were sentenced to death for other serious crimes." China remains the world's top executor, according to international monitors, though the country does not publish detailed statistics. (source: CNN) * Death sentence for Canadian in China 'of extreme concern': PM A Canadian man who was convicted of being an accessory to drug-smuggling in China has been sentenced to death in what appears to be the latest escalation of the ongoing diplomatic hostilities between the 2 countries. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was first arrested in China
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January 14 IRANexecutions 17 Men Hanged in 1 Prison in 1 Week According to IHR sources inside Iran, 17 prisoners have been hanged for murder charges between January 2. and 9. at the Rajai Shahr prison of Karaj (West of Tehran). According to the IHR sources, on the morning of Wednesday, January 9, 2019, at least 12 prisoners were executed at Karaj city’s Rajai Shahr prison for murder charges. 3 of the prisoners were identified as “Mohsen Rezaei" from ward 1, "Reza Farmanjou" from ward 6, and "Baratali Rahimi" from ward 10 of the prison.” Mohsen Rezaei was sentenced to death for killing his wife. According to a close friend of Mohsen Rezaei, he had always emphasized that he was innocent and his confessions were extracted after 1 year of torture. Of note, on January 2, five other prisoners were secretly executed for murder charges at the same prison. None of the prisoners have been identified by name yet and the Iranian authorities have not announced these executions so far. IHR has previously received many reports regarding the use of torture to extract confessions in Iran. In many cases, prisoners are sentenced to death only based on their own confessions. In 2013, Iranian media wrote about a death row prisoner who was proved to be innocent 48 hours before the execution. When he was asked why he had confessed to a murder he didn't commit, he said: "I was beaten so much that I thought if I don't confess to the murder I will die as a result of the beating". According to the Iran Human Rights statistic department, the majority of executions in 2018 were for murder charges. According to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code (IPC) murder is punishable by qisas which means “retribution in kind” or retaliation. In this way, the State effectively puts the responsibility of the death sentence for murder on the shoulders of the victim’s family. In qisas cases, the plaintiff has the possibility to forgive or demand diya (blood money). In many cases, the victim's family are encouraged to put the rope is around the prisoner's neck and even carry out the actual execution by pulling off the chair the prisoner is standing on. (source: Iran Human Rights) PAKISTAN: UN experts urge Pakistan not to execute mentally ill prisoner UN experts have urged Pakistan not to carry out arbitrary execution of mental illness prisoners. The execution of Khizar Hayat, sentenced to death in 2003 for killing a colleague, was suspended by Pakistan's Supreme Court on Saturday, just 3 days before the 55-year-old was due to be hanged. Government doctors had diagnosed Hayat as suffering from schizophrenia in 2008. Agnes Callamard, UN expert on extrajudicial executions and disabled rights said, the imposition of capital punishment on individuals with psychosocial disabilities is a clear violation of Pakistan's international obligations. Pakistan's Supreme Court will on Monday hold a hearing into whether the execution of Khizar Hayat can go ahead. The UN experts said, Hayat, who has spent more than 15 years in custody, has been kept in solitary confinement since 2012, urging the government to halt the execution and questioning the veracity of his conviction. (source: newsonair.com) CHINA: Canadian Fights Death Penalty Case in China, Raising Stakes in Rift China’s diplomatic clash with Canada reached its highest stakes on Monday, when a Canadian man vigorously denied that he was a knowing participant in a drug smuggling operation at a retrial in northeast China that could lead to his execution. Last month a court ordered the Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, to be retried after he appealed a 15-year prison sentence for smuggling methamphetamines. Against a backdrop of sharply increased tensions between China and Canada, the court sided with prosecutors who called for a stiffer sentence at a new trial. In China, that sentence could mean the death penalty. At the trial on Monday, the prosecutors and Mr. Schellenberg offered starkly different accounts of his role in the smuggling operation. Prosecutors told the court that they “now have evidence that highly suggests Schellenberg was involved in organized international drug crime,” China’s central television broadcaster said in an online report. “Schellenberg argued that he was a tourist visiting China and framed by criminals.” Mr. Schellenberg’s unusually swift appeal hearing and retrial came after the Chinese government was incensed by the December arrest in Vancouver, British Columbia, of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer. Mr. Schellenberg’s family fears that he has become a bargaining chip for Beijing to seek Ms. Meng’s release, said his aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones. “He’s become a pawn,” she said. “We can only guess, but that is definitely what it looks like, and that is incredibly worrisome. We’re just worried
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January 11 IRANexecution Man Hanged in Public A prisoner was hanged in Public at a square in the southern Iranian city of Kazerun. According to the Mizan News Agency, the prisoner was sentenced to death on kidnapping and rape charges. He was reportedly kidnapped and raped 2 15-year old boys 3 years ago. This is the 1st reported case of the public executions in Iran in 2019. UN human rights experts, including the former Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, had previously drawn particular attention to continued reports of public executions. “A dehumanising effect on both the victim and those who witness the execution” and ultimately reinforced the “already cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty,” UN experts said. (source: Iran Human Rights) VIETNAM: Death penalty handed to 2 heroin transporters The Hanoi People’s Court pronounced the death penalty for 2 defendants charged with the illegal transportation of drugs at the first instance trial on January 10. They are Vi Trung Hien (born in 1988, from the northern province of Lang Son) and Luong Thi Huan (born in 2000, from the northwestern province of Dien Bien). Huan was also given 1-year imprisonment for the illegal possession of drugs. According to the indictment, in February 2018, Hien knew a man named Thang who lives near the Vietnam-Laos border area. A few months later, Thang agreed with Hien to transport drugs with the payment of 15 million VND (646.9 USD) per brick. On June 5, 2018, Hien received a call from Thang asking to meet at a hotel in Dien Bien city in the evening to receive 10 bricks of heroin (each brick equals to around 350g), then transport them to a petrol station in Cao Loc district, Lang Son province. Hien later hired Huan to transport the drugs to Lang Son, paying 10 million VND per brick. On June 7 morning, upon her arrival at My Dinh bus station in Hanoi where she was waiting for a taxi to Lang Son, Huan was busted by the police. Hien later gave himself over to the police for confession. Apart from trafficking 10 bricks of heroin, Huan also stored a small amount of synthetic drugs. She confessed that she had transported drugs for Hien multiple times. Considering this is a particularly large quantity of drugs, the court decided to apply the heaviest punishment for the 2 defendants. (source: vietnamplus.vn) MALAYSIA: My cousin was murdered, reveals law minister at death penalty forum Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law) Datuk Liew Vui Keong said he can empathise with families of victims of violent crimes, as it strikes a personal note with him. He said as a student studying law in the United Kingdom almost 40 years ago, one of his cousins was brutally murdered back home in Sabah. “I received a letter from home three days after it occurred, informing me that his mutilated body was found floating in a river. He was only 17 years old,” said Liew during a conference on the death penalty organised by the Malaysian Coalition Against the Death Penalty. He acknowledged his inner turmoil in the days following the murder, ranging from feelings of anger, sadness, numbness and emptiness. “You just do not known what to do. You would demand answers on why your loved one, your son or daughter, was killed. “But then again no answers can be forthcoming. Bear in mind that even until today my cousin’s killer has never been found,” Liew said. Yet he said with the passage of time he moved on, even if it still grieved him, eventually returning to Malaysia to practice law. “I remember meeting my aunt and uncle, who were close to fainting when they saw me since I reminded them so much of their son. “It is important for the process of forgiveness to take place, even as we are aware it is not easy for those who have lost their loved ones,” Liew said. Forgiveness is also important for those sentenced to death by hanging, as he said if the death penalty is abolished it will give them a chance to save their lives, even if it means having to spend the rest of it behind bars. On Tuesday, Liew had said a new law is expected to be tabled sometime this year to abolish the death penalty. He explained the proposal to abolish the mandatory death penalty would take into account the views of all stakeholders, given the complexity and sensitivity of the issue. The move to abolish has drawn mixed reaction from the various layers of Malaysian society, with civil rights groups largely welcoming the move but conservatives arguing that it be retained for particularly heinous crimes. (source: Malay Mail) ** Government meets with death row prisoners and families of victims The Government has met with the families of victims and prisoners on death row in its process to gather views and perspectives over the abolishment of the death penalty. De facto Law Minister Datuk
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January 9 CHINA: Chinese court gives revenge killer death penalty A man from Hanzhong, Shaanxi province, was sentenced to death on Tuesday for killing 3 neighbors in revenge for his mother’s death, a local court said. Zhang Koukou, 36, stabbed Wang Zixin and two of his sons, Wang Zhengjun and Wang Xiaojun, to death on Feb 15 and then set fire to Wang Xiaojun’s car, according to the Hanzhong Intermediate People’s Court. Zhang was detained two days later when he turned himself in to police. “The defendant committed the crimes of intentional homicide and property destruction,” the court said. “Although he surrendered, we still decided not to give him lenient punishment for his cruel behavior, which have had great negative effects on society.” Zhang said he was unhappy with the ruling and would appeal to a higher court. The case aroused public attention after it was reported in the media that Zhang acted in revenge for the death of his mother, who had been seriously injured with a stick by Wang Zhengjun, the 3rd son of Wang’s family, during a quarrel in August 1996. 4 months later, Wang Zhengjun, then 17, was sentenced to seven years in prison for intentional injury and was ordered to pay more than 9,600 yuan ($1,510) in compensation. Standing trial on Tuesday, Zhang confessed that for two decades he never gave up the idea of getting revenge for the attack on his mother. “If Wang Zhengjun hadn’t beaten my mother, I wouldn’t have lost her. I was dogged by her death over the years,” he said. “My mind went blank and I couldn’t control myself when I saw the brothers on Feb 15 last year. They reminded me of my mother’s death.” Prosecutors said during the public hearing that Zhang followed the brothers as they made their way home and used a knife to stab the two men several times. He later went to the Wangs’ residence and killed the father, Wang Zixin, 70, and set Wang Xiaojun’s car on fire with gasoline, prosecutors said. “The defendant was upset and angry with the Wang family,” the court said in the ruling, adding he committed the offenses with sufficient preparation. Members of Zhang’s family said they had not been satisfied with the sentence given to Wang Zhengjun more than 20 years ago. Zhang Furu, the defendant’s father, added that it was the Wang family that let the son, who was a minor, take the blame and get a lenient penalty because of his age. Zhang’s family had applied to the intermediate court and the provincial high court last year for a retrial of the 1996 assault, but the application was rejected. (source:newsinfo.inquirer.net) INDIA: Mane's death penalty to life term On January 25, 2012, Mane, a Maharashtra state transport driver, had hijacked a bus and mowed down 9 persons. The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to bus driver Santosh Mane, convicted for killing 9 people in 2012, by mowing them down in Pune. On January 25, 2012, Mane, a Maharashtra state transport driver, had hijacked a bus and mowed down nine persons. He was awarded the death sentence in 2013 by a sessions court, which had termed Mane's crime “rarest of rare”. Mane appealed the verdict in the Bombay High Court but in September 2014, the Bombay HC upheld the death penalty. Mane's laywer had urged to court to acquit his client of the murder charges because he was “mentally unsound” when he committed the crime. Mane's lawyers then approached the SC against conviction and argued that his case be considered under provisions of Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code, which grants immunity to a person who “commits a crime while being in a state of unsound mind, thereby not knowing the nature of the act.” (source: india.com) * Bill in LS for death under POCSO20-yr jail for penetrative assault on below-16 victims The government today introduced a crucial Bill in the Lok Sabha to provide for death penalty in cases of aggravated sexual assault on children and a minimum of 20-year rigorous imprisonment for penetrative sexual assault on children below 16 years. The law defines aggravated sexual assault as assault by people in positions of authority and trust like police personnel, soldiers, principals, heads of child shelter homes, hospital staff, among others. The new Bill amends The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2015 to enhance punishments for a range of sexual crimes against children and empower the Centre to make rules to check pornography, besides providing for higher prison sentences for convicts of pornography. The POCSO Amendment Bill 2019 for the first time talks about the need to provide for capital punishment to deal with the rarest of rare crimes (aggravated assault) against children, besides extending jail terms for all sections related to child sexual assault. The most important amendment has been proposed to Section 9
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January 8 SOMALIA: 2 Al-Shabaab Assassins Executed For Killing Chief In Somalia 2 al-Shabaab assassins, convicted of killing traditional chief, have been executed in Somalia on Monday. The 2 were trying to escape from the scene of the killing of chief Hilowle Heefow Hussein in 2016 when they were nabbed by police. 25-year-old Hassan Al Hassan, and 22-year-old Abdirahman Isse Ali, were executed 2 weeks after 41-year-old Abdul Kadir Shaa’ir, described as a Seril Al-Shabaab bomber, was executed by firing squad. He was convicted of a series of bombings in 2017. Activists have challenged the death penalty in Somalia. The country is one of a few African nations that still apply the capital punishment. Most African countries usually commute death penalties to life imprisonment. (source: Africa News Network) PAKISTAN Military courts award death penalty to 345 terrorists since their establishment Since the establishment of military courts, cases of 717 accused terrorists were sent to them by the federal government and 646 of them have been finalized. The swift trial courts were set up through a constitutional amendment for a period of 2 years in January 2015 to stem the growing tide of militancy and terrorism. Their term was extended for another 2 years in January 2017, which has also ended now. According to the details available with this news agency, out of the 646 finalized cases, 345 terrorists were given death penalty and 296 rigorous imprisonment of varied durations, ranging from life imprisonment to a minimum duration of 5 years. 5 accused were also acquitted. Out of 345 sentenced to death, 56 terrorists have been executed after completion of legal process beyond military court decisions, which included their appeal in superior civil courts and rejection of their mercy petition both by Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and the President of Pakistan. Those, who have been given death penalty, included masterminds, executers and abettors/facilitators. (source: brecorder.com) INDIA: Govt introduces amendments to POCSO Act in Lok SabhaThe Sections 4, 5, 6 of the Act are proposed to be amended to provide the option of stringent punishment, including death penalty, for committing aggravated penetrative sexual assault on a child. The Government on Tuesday introduced in Lok Sabha amendments to the POCSO Act, which provides for the death penalty for aggravated sexual assault on children, making it gender neutral and introducing provisions against child pornography and for enhancing punishment for certain offences. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2019, seeks to protect children from offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography and provide for the establishment of Special Courts for the trial of such offences. The POCSO Amendment Bill, introduced by Minister of State in Ministry of Women and Child Development Virendra Kumar, also provides for stringent punishments for other crimes against those below 18 years of age. “The said Act is gender neutral and regards the best interests and welfare of the child as matter of paramount importance at every stage so as to ensure the healthy physical, emotional, intellectual and social development of the child,” said the statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill. The Sections 4, 5, 6 of the Act are proposed to be amended to provide the option of stringent punishment, including death penalty, for committing aggravated penetrative sexual assault on a child. The Act defines child as any person below the age of 18 years and the amendments are aimed at discouraging the trend of child sexual abuse by acting as a deterrent. Besides, Section 9 of the Act is being amended to protect children from sexual offences in times of natural calamities and disasters and in cases where children are administered any hormone or chemical substance to attain early sexual maturity for the purpose of penetrative sexual assault. The Bill proposes a fine of not less than Rs 1,000 for not destroying or deleting or reporting the pornographic material involving a child. In case of subsequent offence, the fine would be not less than Rs 5,000 crore. The offender can be further penalised with 3-year jail term or fine or both for transmitting, propagating, administrating such material. “In the recent past incidences of child sexual abuse cases demonstrating the inhumane mind-set of the abusers who have been barbaric in their approach towards young victims is rising in the country. Children are becoming easy prey because of their tender age, physical vulnerabilities and inexperience of life and society,” the Bill said. It said there is a strong need to take stringent measures to deter the rising trend of child sex abuse in the country. The proposed amendments make provisions for enhancement of punishments for various offences so as to deter the
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January 7 ENGLAND: Leeds nostalgia: A hanging A hundred years ago today, the Yorkshire Evening Post carried a report of an execution at Armley Gaol. It was that of Een Hindle Benson, who was sentenced to death at Leeds Assizes for the murder of Annie Mayne, a woman with whom he lived in Hunslet prior to joining the Army. The report ran: “During the whole of the time he has been incarcerated, Benson has shown fortitude and the news that the petition for his reprieve had failed did not appear to surprise him greatly. Indeed, on learning that, in the event of a reprieve being granted, the alternaitve would be a long term of imprisonment, Benson replied he would far rather suffer the full penalty of the law.” It went on to describe how the condemned man had “interviews” with his family and close friends, to bid them farewell. As the hour of execution approached, Benson showed no sign of fear, said the report. It went on: “This morning, as usual, he ate a healthy breakfast and walked quite calmly from the condemned sell to the shed where the execution took placed, a distance of some 20 or 30 yards.” Benson was 41 and had been in the Army about 18 months when, in July the previous year, he heard that the woman, Mayne, had been “carrying on” with another man. He confronted her on August 26 after finding her drunk and with another man. She was said to have taunted him, he cut her throat with a razor. Two more executions, that of Percy George Barrett and George Walter Cardwell, were also reported upon, they being planned for January 8. The pair had earlier been found guilty of the murder of Pontefract jeweller, Mrs Rhoda Walker. Cardwell vociferously protested his innocence. (source: yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk) MALDIVES: Naifaru court sentences woman in absentia to death by stoning Naifaru magistrate court has sentenced a 25-year-old woman from Naifaru island to death by stoning, after she confessed to having extramarital sex. Magistrate Judge Mohamed Moosa passed the sentence in absentia solely based on her confession; that she had committed 'fornication' and had once before been married. The case was reported to the police in May of last year by the health center after they delivered the woman’s child, believed to have been conceived in the ‘unlawful sexual act’, the sentence says. The sentence makes no mention of the child's father, although RaajjeMV understands that he is native to an island in the same atoll and the family has 'no way to contact' him. Judge Moosa referred to Hudud Offenses, in 1205 of the Maldivian Penal Code, which allows him to pass sentences predetermined in the Quran, under Islamic Sharia. In his sentence, Judge Moosa refers to the woman as a ‘muhsana’, a person who is or had been in a valid and consummated marriage and is so subject to the punishment of death by stoning. While women and men who have never been married are sentenced to flogging, as opposed to death by stoning or ‘Rajm’ as it called in Islamic law, the woman herself had been divorced at the time of the act. The current government, which took office in November of last year, has expressed its commitment to upholding the moratorium on the death penalty, until adequate judicial reform. If the sentence is to be carried out, the case must have exhausted the entire appeal process. (source: raajje.mv) CHINAexecution China executes knifeman who attacked children because he wasn't happy with life China has executed a farmer who attacked a dozen children with a knife because he wasn't satisfied with the way his life had turned out. Qin Pengan, 43, used a vegetable knife to slash and stab the youngsters at a kindergarten in January 2017 until a teacher fought him off and called for help. Chinese state media claim Qin launched the frenzied attack in the southern city of Pingxiang to extract revenge for his life not going as he wanted and a dispute with a neighbour. A local court in Pingxiang sentenced Qin to death, and the sentence was carried out on Friday after it was approved by China's Supreme People's Court, state media announced on Monday. (source: mirror.co.uk) ** Chinese man executed for kindergarten knife attack A court in southern China has put a man to death after he injured 12 children in a knife attack at a kindergarten, the state broadcaster said on Monday. Violent crime is rare in China but there has been a series of knife and axe attacks in recent years, many targeting children. China Central Television said that in January 2017 Qin Pengan stabbed the children with a vegetable knife in order to extract revenge for his life not going as he wanted and a dispute with a neighbour. None of the children died from their injuries. A local court in Pingxiang city in south China's Guangxi province sentenced Qin to death, and the sentence was carried out on Friday after being
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January 6 IRAN: Iranian MP says corruption convicts ‘must be executed in public squares’ The head of an Iranian parliament committee to combat economic corruption, Amir Khojasteh, has called for the public execution of those found guilty of corruption. “Thirty one people have been identified as behind Iran’s economic corruption and must be executed in public squares,” Khojasteh said, according to local news sites. “The death penalty has been handed out to four of them and the rest must also receive the same punishment,” Khojasteh said, not naming those who have been accused or convicted of corruption. In recent months, Iran has executed three people found guilty of economic corruption. One of the executed men was Vahid Mazloumin, dubbed the “sultan of coins” by media, a trader accused of manipulating the currency market, according to Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary. Mazloumin was allegedly caught with 2 tons of gold coins, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA). The second man was part of Mazloumin’s network and had been involved in the sale of gold coins, Mizan reported. Both of them were convicted of “spreading corruption on earth”, a capital offence under Iran’s Islamic laws. Legal analysts have pointed out that the Islamic Republic of Iran's penal code does not include the death penalty for those convicted of economic corruption, but that Iranian authorities are using it to control the diving currency market in Iran. Observers also believe the aim of these executions is to silence labor protests and repeated factional strikes. (source: alarlabiya.net) SOMALIA: Somali troops executed 6 militants in Gedo region Colonel Guhad Mohamud Moalim Omar known as [Tima-Jilac], one of the Somali security officials in Bardere town said several Al-Shabaab members were executed on Monday. He added that the city’s military court sentenced 6 militants to death and then publicly executed on Monday after SNA commander General Indha Qarshe ordered. Somali security forces have carried out a series of anti-Al-Shabaab operations in Gedo region over the past few weeks in an attempt to improve the security after a string of attacks. The execution of the 6 militants came after Al Shabaab killed 2 top Somali military commanders in a bomb attack outside Somali capital, Mogadishu last month. (source: radioshabelle.com) ___ 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
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January 5 AUSTRALIAbook review Mary Lee: The Irishwoman who became a leading light in Australia’s suffragist movementActivist campaigned into her 80s against war in Africa and to abolish Australia’s death penalty; Mary Lee went to Australia at the age of 58 after being widowed while living in England Book Title: Mary Lee ISBN-13: 978-1743055960 Author: Denise George Publisher: Wakefield Press Guideline Price: £20.00 “A list should be taken of all openly disloyal and traitorous individuals. What is so truly revolting is the venomous spite and hatred ventilated through the public press by renegade English, or by Irish of the wrong sort - the ‘Mary Lee’ type”. South Australian Advertiser, January 13th, 1900. The above quote refers to one Mary Lee, born Mary Walsh in Co Monaghan, who went to Australia at the age of 58 after being widowed while living in England. While in Britain, she and her Armagh husband, George Lee, had taught the 3 Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic, to poor children. After her husband’s death, Mary and her daughter Evelyn sailed on the Orient, heading off to nurse her ailing son, who died soon after their arrival in Australia. They never did return to this side of the world, either because they didn’t have the money or perhaps because Mary wanted to live away from the site of her bereavement. Evelyn settled into her job, being a flume for telegraphs, words travelling by sound on wire, words about all sorts of things: ships arriving, gold being found, children being born, miners revolting. Mary threw herself into socio-political life in her new place, becoming a leading light in the suffragist movement, and more. I first came across her name when I stumbled on a pamphlet in a library while researching the 4,440-plus Famine orphan girls shipped to Australia between 1848 and 1850. Now there’s a word, “shipped”. It’s fraught with contentious weight, you’re not allowed to say “transported” because that suggests they had done something wrong. Equally, it’s a tad disingenuous to say “sailed”, as if they had all woken up in their various workhouses and thought, “gosh I’d like to go to Australia”. The word for their journey lies somewhere else, injured by the manner of their going. (I wonder did Mary ever meet any of them, or come near the periphery of their hurt?). Activism This is a book full of historical nuggets, casual references to all sorts of fascinating facts, to chimney children covered in soot and Mary’s own son working as a clerk at the age of 13. This in the English part of her life, because there are three, Irish, English and Australian. Born in 1821, her obituary written 10,000 miles away and 88 years later, states that she was born in Kilnock Estate. The author of this book has, like myself, spent time trying to pinpoint where exactly this might be. I’m erring towards the Monaghan/Tyrone border, but it is also possible that the name got entangled with another, as happened frequently on that long journey from here to there. If we agree that there are 3 parts to her life, it’s hard to decide which is the most important. Certainly the part that makes her remembered is the last, which is a fine compliment to give the woman. When many others might have folded into their grief, she grabbed injustice by the lapels and shook it vigorously. In today’s terms she lived, as some activists do, a life of unpaid public service. She spearheaded many campaigns, most notably the right for women to vote and be elected to parliament, but also ones to improve wages and working conditions. She was well into her 80s when she fought to abolish the death penalty, publicly opposed Australia’s involvement in war in Africa and supported the abolition of bans on public bathing for minors, all contentious issues that left her open to fierce criticism. About the latter, she showed some admirable wit and common sense. “I wish Mrs Grundy would retire into comfortable seclusion . . . and leave us alone. Those youngsters - Heaven keep them - are enjoying their mixed ‘splash’ without a notion of harm. Why should they not? Some of them are from homes with floor too near the ceiling to be comfortable in weather like this . . . But the bathers! I don’t believe that Eve ever had petticoats and if Adam had britches they left us no pattern – and they were both naked and not ashamed. Does not half the moral dirt of the world spring from dirty suggestion? Let our youngsters be taught to swim. Will our State Schools look into this?” In 1994, to mark the centenary of the enfranchisement of women in South Australia she was accorded recognition as a national hero, marked by a special proof coin being issued by the mint in her honour. This book adds to that honour. (source: Irish Times) VIETNAM: Vietnam arrests 2 female drug traffickers Police of Vietnam's northern Son La province said on Friday that they have
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January 4 BANGLADESH: Kaberi murder convict given capital punishment The lone convict in the college teacher Krishna Kaberi murder was sentenced to death in absentia. Dhaka's Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 Judge Shahed Nur Uddin announced the verdict on Thursday. Convict Zahirul Islam Palash was a business associate of Krishna's husband and BRTA official Sitangshu Shekhar Biswas, says case record. The judge also fined Zahirul Tk 100,000 under Section-302 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In addition to death penalty, he was given life imprisonment for assaulting Sitangshu and his children. The inability to pay the fine will add another year to his imprisonment term. On Mar 30, 2015, Palash went to the couple's home at Mohammadpur's Iqbal Road to greet Krishna's husband Sitangshu on his birthday with cake, sweets and flowers. Biswas lost consciousness after drinking fruit juice which Palash had spiked. He then assaulted him with a hammer. When Krishna tried to save her husband, she was also battered mercilessly along with Sitangshu. Her saree caught fire from the candle's on the cake and she was burnt badly. When their daughters 'Shruti', 14, and 'Atri', 8, shouted for help, they were also attacked by Zahirul. Krishna, who taught at the Mission International College in Dhaka's Adabar, succumbed to the burn injuries at hospital the next day. Kaberi's husband Sitangshu Shekhar Biswas is a director at BRTA. His brother Shudhangshu Shekhar Biswas had filed the murder case with Mohammadpur Police Station making Zahirul the lone accused. Sub-Inspector Delowar Hossain, the case's investigating officer, submitted the charges to court on May 30, 2016 after a year of investigation. Sitangshu Shekhar Biswas had opened a Beneficiary Owner Account or BO account through Haji Ahmed Brothers Securities with Tk 800,000, said the charge sheet of the case. Zahirul attempted to kill Sitangshu over the money. After being indicted on April 2017, Zahirul gave a confessional statement in a court. At least 22 witnesses testified in the case. (source: thedaiynewnation.com) IRAQ: Report: Jihadist born in Switzerland risks death penalty in Iraq An alleged jihadist born and raised in Switzerland is facing trial in the capital of Iraq, according to an investigation conducted by the 10vor10 programme and the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. Iraqi troops captured the 24-year-old man, a Turkish national who grew up in Switzerland, as they regained territory from the Islamic State group. The man has been brought before a specialised tribunal in Baghdad where he faces the death penalty, according to an Arabic article published in a magazine of the Iraqi judicial authorities. The article describes the man as a native from the northeastern Swiss town of Arbon who used the battle name "Obeida" and had a Turkish 1st name. The Swiss attorney general told public broadcaster SRF that criminal proceedings were brought against this man in Switzerland in 2015 over his suspected membership in a terrorist group. The proceedings were suspended in December 2016 but as a precaution he has been banned from entering Switzerland. Federal police spokeswoman Catherine Maret told SRF: "We can do that if we have the feeling that there is a threat to internal security - which is the case here". The Iraqi authorities apparently quote from interrogation records in the article and refer to him as an IS member. The man from Switzerland had been trained in the use of weapons in a training camp in Syria. Afterwards, according to his testimony, he was sent to Iraq where he was asked what type of training he had. "I said that I worked in the field of electricity and electricity," the Iraqi judiciary quoted him as saying. Then follows his explosive confession: "For nine months I built the circuits for explosive charges". He is accused of working as a bomb maker for ISIS. An investigation into his childhood in Switzerland found that “Obeida” only completed elementary school and that the electronics training related to an internship of several months in this field. In Arbon, “Obeida” was apparently part of a group of jihadis. Rights group stress that criminal trials in Iraq do not meet Europe's constitutional standards. Judgments are usually handed down without sound evidence, trials are often very brief, the accused might not be heard, and confessions are extracted under the force of torture. “Obeida” reportedly has a lawyer but he has never been allowed to speak to his client. The lawyer is working to avert the execution of a death sentence. The man from Arbon had a C residence permit in Switzerland but no citizenship. As such, the Swiss foreign ministry has not offered him consular assistance. (source: swissinfo.ch) IRANexecutions 12 Prisoners Executed For Drug Charges Last month IHR and several other rights groups and news websites received
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Jan. 3 CHINAexecution Serial killer executed in northwest China A man convicted of killing 11 women was executed Thursday in northwest China's Gansu Province, local authorities said. Gao Chengyong, 53, killed 11 women between May 1988 and February 2002 in Gansu Province and neighboring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Gao killed the victims after committing a series of robberies and rapes in the city of Baiyin in Gansu and the city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia. Police had been hunting the criminal for 28 years until one of Gao's relatives committed a crime and underwent DNA testing in 2015, which led to his arrest in August 2016. He was sentenced to death by the Intermediate People's Court of Baiyin City on March 30. Gao's death sentence has been reviewed and approved by the Supreme People's Court, the country's top court. (source: xinhuanet.com) ** China’s ‘Jack the Ripper’ executed for rape & murder of 11 women and girls A serial killer known as China’s ‘Jack the Ripper’, who killed 11 people – the youngest being only 8 years old – has been executed, a Chinese court has announced. Gao Chengyong, a married father of two who ran a grocery store in Baiyin, China, killed his victims (women and girls) between 1988 and 2002. He received the gruesome nickname for the way he mutilated the bodies of his victims. The killer targeted young women wearing red and followed them home, where he would rob, rape, and murder them. In several cases, Gao also cut off parts of his victim’s reproductive organs. His youngest victim was 8 years old. Dating back 30 years, the string of murders was left unsolved until police were literally handed the evidence they needed to crack the case. Gao was unmasked after his uncle provided a DNA sample to police while being processed for a minor crime. The sample revealed that he was related to the elusive killer, and a subsequent investigation led to Gao’s arrest. In March 2018, the Baiyin City Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Gao to death after he was found guilty of homicide, robbery, rape, and dishonoring corpses. In a statement released after his sentencing, the court denounced Gao’s “perverted desire to dishonour and sully corpses” and described his actions as “despicable.” It’s not clear how the execution was performed, although China typically uses lethal injection or a firing squad to carry out death sentences. The original Jack the Ripper is believed to have murdered and mutilated at least 5 women in east London in 1888. The string of heinous killings was never solved. (source: rt.com) MALAYSIA: Court upholds death sentence of China drug smuggler The Court of Appeal yesterday upheld the death sentence imposed on a Chinese woman for trafficking 2,156.8gm of methamphetamine inside 3 pillows in her luggage at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in Sepang. A three-man panel chaired by Justice Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid unanimously dismissed the appeal by Yan Lanhua, in her 30s, to set aside her conviction and death sentence passed by the Shah Alam High Court on Sept 28, 2017. Justice Umi Kalthum, who presided over the appeal with Justice Rhodzariah Bujang and Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, said the panel found that the appeal had no merit. “We, therefore, affirm the appellant’s conviction and sentence imposed by the High Court,” she said. Yan was found guilty of trafficking the methamphetamine at the Passenger Inspection Branch 2 at the LCCT upon arrival from Shenzhen, China, on Nov 15, 2013. According to the facts of the case, Yan had carried a blue luggage containing children’s items, among them three small pillows, shoes and clothing and, during an inspection, the drugs were found in the pillows. During the trial, Yan denied she had knowledge of the drugs and had alleged that the blue bag was given to her by an African named “Baba” at the airport and she had a quick glance but did not see any suspicious item in the bag. She said “Baba” requested her to deliver the bag to his friend in Malaysia and he (Baba) had paid for her air ticket and given her some pocket money for her stay in Kuala Lumpur. In another case, the Court of Appeal also affirmed the conviction and death sentence passed on Sharin Abu Bakar, 41, for trafficking 27.30gm of mixed heroine and monoacetylmorphine at Jalan Kembia 10, Taman Puteri Wangsa, Pelangi Indah, Johor Baru on March 12, 2016. Justice Mohtarudin Baki, who led a 3-man bench comprising Justice Rhodzariah and Justice Mohamad Zabidin, held that the panel unanimously found that the issues raised in the appeal had no merit. “The evidence is solid and the conviction is safe. As such, the appeal is dismissed, and the conviction and sentence retained,” he said after hearing submissions from lawyer Andrew Lourdes, who represented Sharin, and DPP Dhiya Syazwani Izyan Mohd Akhir. (source: thestar.com.my)
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Jan. 2 SAUDI ARABIAexecution Saudi national executed in Madinah for stabbing man to deathSaudi uses the death penalty for several offences including murder, drug-related crimes and terrorism A Saudi national was executed in Madinah on Wednesday for stabbing a man to death, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. Ahmed bin Ali bin Samer al-Mutairi was found guilty of killing another Saudi national, Khalid bin Mohammed bin Fahad al-Mutairi, by stabbing him with a knife multiple times in different parts of his body after a quarrel between them. Security authorities arrested the accused, and following an investigation, he was charged with the crime and brought before the criminal court. The weapon he used was also produced in court as evidence and, after he was found guilty of the charges, he was sentenced to death, the report said. The death sentence was upheld by the appeals court and the Supreme Court, and a royal order was issued to carry out the verdict. Ahmed bin Ali bin Samer al-Mutairi was executed in the general prison in Madinah, SPA reported. The interior ministry asserted the keenness of the government “to maintain security and achieve justice” and punish violators of such heinous crimes. Saudi Arabia uses the death penalty for several offences including murder, drug-related crimes and terrorism. Earlier this week, a Pakistani national and two Egyptians were executed in the kingdom for smuggling drugs. Read more: One Pakistani national, two Egyptians executed in Saudi for smuggling drugs In November, a Saudi national was executed in the country for shooting to death another citizen, while another Saudi national was executed in October for shooting and killing a man in the region of Asir. 3 Saudi nationals were also executed in the kingdom’s Qatif region for robbing and killing 5 Indian nationals in October. (source: gulfbusiness.com) ZIMBABWE: Man to hang despite condom provocation defence A man of Ndola will spend the rest of his life in jail after the Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge against a mandatory death penalty for murdering his wife when he found female condoms in her hand bag. The Court of Appeal dismissed Malangisha Kapwepwe’s appeal against a mandatory death penalty for killing his wife. Facts are that on June 28, 2017, Kapwepwe killed his wife, Susan Chipulu, after a fight when she returned home drunk with condoms in her hand bag. The arresting officer told the court that during investigations at Kapwepwe’s home, the convict was found hiding under a bed.' (source: daily-mail.co.zm) MALAYSIA: Court upholds death sentences on Chinese woman, M'sian man The Court of Appeal today upheld the death sentence imposed on a Chinese woman for trafficking 2,156.8 grams of methamphetamine found inside 3 pillows in her luggage bag at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in Sepang in 2013. A 3-member panel chaired by Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid unanimously dismissed the appeal by Yan Lanhua, in her 30s, to set aside her conviction and death sentence passed by the Shah Alam High Court on Sept 28, 2017. Justice Umi Kalthum, who presided over the appeal with justices Rhodzariah Bujang and Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, said the panel found that the appeal by Yan had no merit. “We, therefore, affirm the appellant’s conviction and sentence imposed by the High Court,” Justice Umi Kalthum said after hearing submissions by lawyer Mak Kah Keong, who represented Yan, and deputy public prosecutor K Mangai. Yan was found guilty of trafficking 2,156.8 grams of methamphetamine at the Passenger Inspection Branch 2, LCCT, in Sepang, Selangor, upon arrival from Shenzhen, China, at 4.15 pm on Nov 15, 2013. The offence, under Section 39(B)(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, carries a mandatory death penalty upon conviction. According to the facts of the case, Yan had carried a blue luggage bag containing children’s items, among them 3 small pillows, shoes and clothing and, during an inspection, the drugs were found in the pillows. During the trial, Yan denied she had knowledge of the drugs and had alleged that the blue bag was given to her by an African named “Baba” at the airport and she had a quick glance but did not see any suspicious items in the bag. She said “Baba” requested her to deliver the bag to his friend in Malaysia and he (Baba) had paid for her air ticket and given her some pocket money for her stay in Kuala Lumpur. In another case, the Court of Appeal also affirmed the conviction and death sentence passed on a man, Sharin Abu Bakar, 41, for trafficking of 27.30 grams mixed of heroine and Monoacetylmorphine, in Jalan Kembia 10, Taman Puteri Wangsa, Pelangi Indah, Johor Bahru in Johor at 10.30 pm on March 12, 2016. Justice Mohtarudin Baki, who led a 3-man bench comprising Rhodzariah Bujang and Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, held that the panel unanimously found that the issues
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January 1, 2019 SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi seeks death penalty for 5 Khashoggi murder accused Saudi's deputy public prosecutor, Shalaan al-Shalaan, says 5 Saudi officials face the death penalty over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a press conference in Riyadh. Meanwhile Turkey says the Saudi statement over Khashoggi's murder is "insufficient" and insists that the killing was "premeditated." (source: Deccan Chronicle) JAPAN: In retaliation for the death penalty: the 21-Year-old driving in Tokyo, with car in crowd In Tokyo, is a 21-Year-old in the new year lot of dangers night with a car targeted in a people. In the case of the incident 10 minutes after midnight on a busy shopping street in the Japanese capital, 8 people were injured, local media reported. The young man attacked on the road another people and injured. A student was injured, according to police difficult and had to be operated on in the hospital. The driver was arrested. He was killing with the “intent to” in the crowd of the dangers, said a police spokesman. The 21-Year-old had told the police that he wanted to commit a terrorist attack, reported the Japanese news Agency Kyodo. Therefore, he wanted to avenge himself “for an execution”. The Japanese broadcaster NHK, according to the driver, the police said he did not want to practice “in retaliation for the death penalty”. More detailed information on his subject of the man made accordingly. It is unclear yet whether the alleged anger of the husband against a single execution, or against the System of death penalty was addressed. Against him is now being investigated for attempted murder. As the 3rd largest Economy in the world, Japan ranks as one of the few industrialised countries to retain the death penalty. Only last week, the conservative government had to death 2 convicted murderers executed in July, several members of the apocalyptic sect Aum Shinrikyo end of the strand, which had shocked 23 years ago, with a deadly poison gas attack in Tokyo’s subway to the country. the International criticism of the death penalty makes the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to bounce off. Human rights activists have decried for years dealing with executions and prison conditions in Japan – so the death is not communicated to the candidate, the date of their execution. The prisoners Condemned to death, often live for years in solitary confinement. Since Abe took office in December 2012, 36 people have been executed. (source: newsarticleinsiders.com) INDIA: Poor convicts on death row get a new year gift In 2019, poor and marginalised litigants approaching the Supreme Court can expect quality legal aid to fight their cases. This came about after an in-house study by the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee (SCLSC), that concluded that poor litigants on death row or facing harsh punishments are getting a raw deal on account of poverty. While this mechanism could take time to set in, 2 recent judgments by the apex court, both given in early December, did factor the poor socio-economic condition of prisoners while commuting their capital punishment to life term. One such case was death row convict Antony alias Antappan who wiped out 6 members of a family in Kerala in 2001. The other was Rajendra Wasnaik from Maharashtra, who brutally raped and murdered a 3-year-old in 2007. Quoting from the report prepared by the SCLSC in its judgment, a bench of justices Madan B Lokur (since retired), S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta said, "The poor are more often than not at the receiving end in access to justice and access to remedies available, as is evident from a fairly recent report prepared by the SCLSC which acknowledges, through Project Sahyog, enormous delays in attending to cases of the poor and the needy." For 2019, the judges resolved, "Quality legal aid to the disadvantaged and weaker sections of society is an area that requires great and urgent attention, and we hope that a vigorous beginning is made in this direction in the new year." For impoverished prisoners in the country, the court's judgment must come as welcome relief. Statistics compiled by the National Law University, Delhi, in its Death Penalty India Report based on interviews with 373 death row prisoners across the country, found out that 3/4 of these prisoners (numbering approximately 274) were economically vulnerable, with most of them being the sole or primary earners in their families. Even educationally, almost 225 prisoners didn't complete secondary schooling, while 84 never went to school at all. As trials in their cases progressed, they were forced to borrow loans or sell valuable assets in order to engage lawyers. By the time their appeals reached the high courts or the Supreme Court, they were financially drained and relied on anything the court gave by way of free legal aid. It is this legal aid that the Supreme
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December 31 IRANfemale execution Woman Hanged in Iran Iranian authorities have executed a woman on murder charges, according to reports by several Iranian media outlets. No information regarding time and place of the execution was revealed in the reports. On December 26, the state-run news website Young Journalists Club reported that Noushin, a 25 years old woman, has been executed on the charge of murdering her husband. However, Rokna website had published a similar story on December 22, and the format of the news implies that the execution took place on the same day, that is, December 22. According to the reports, Noushin who was interviewed just before the implementation of the death sentence, said: “I was seeing Soheil. He seemed a nice guy to me and I believed that his claimed-wish to marry me is real. I started a relationship with him. However, he was not the person I thought I knew. After a while, he asked me to have sexual relations with his friends and threatened that he will publish our private pictures on social media if I refuse to do so. I could hardly tolerate his dirty demands more than a month. Finally, I decided to kill him and I did.” Noushin was reportedly executed shortly after the interview was made. 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) IRAQ: Iraq sentenced 616 foreigners for IS links in 2018 Iraq sentenced more than 600 foreigners including many women and dozens of minors in 2018 for belonging to the Islamic State group, the judiciary said on Monday. Iraq declared "victory" over IS at the end of 2017 after a 3-year war against the jihadists, who once controlled nearly 1/3 of the country as well as swathes of neighbouring Syria. Around 20,000 people suspected of links to IS have been arrested since 2014. Judicial spokesman Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar said Monday that "616 men and women accused of belonging to IS have been put on trial" in 2018 and sentenced under Iraq' s anti-terrorism law. They comprised 466 women, 42 men and 108 minors, he said. Bayraqdar did not, however specify the punishments. Under Iraq's anti-terrorism law courts can issue verdicts, including death sentences, against anyone found guilty of belonging to the jihadist group, including non-combatants. In April, judicial sources said that more than 300 suspects linked to IS had received death sentences and more than 300 others were sentenced to life, which in Iraq is equivalent to 20 years. Most of the women sentenced for IS links were from Turkey and republics of the former Soviet Union. 3 French citizens -- 2 women and a man -- have been sentenced to life imprisonment while a German woman, a Belgian man and a Russian man have been sentenced to death. Many women had travelled to Iraq with their children to join their husbands who fought in the ranks of IS. Some are still waiting to be repatriated to their home countries. On Sunday, 30 Russian children whose mothers are in prison in Iraq for links to IS were flown from Baghdad to Moscow as part of a repatriation programme championed by Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. (source: al-monitor.com) ___ 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
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regular news postings to this listserve will resume on December 30Happy Holidays to all! ** December 17 SRI LANKA: List of inmates with death penalty sent to the President A high ranking officer at the Ministry of Prison Reforms confirmed that a list of 20 drug dealers sentenced to death, has been submitted to the Presidents office once again. The spokesperson further said that over eight of the listed inmates have appealed against the death penalty. Among the 20 drug dealers are 2 Pakistan nationals and a female inmate. He added that a list with names of inmates sentenced to death had been submitted to the Presidents office on a previous occasion as well. (source: newsfirst.lk) IRANexecution Prisoner Hanged at Mashhad Prison A Prisoner was hanged on murder charges at Mashhad Central Prison last Wednesday. According to the Iranian website, Rokna, a 50 years old man was executed on the morning of December 12, 2018. He was sentenced to death for murdering his wife 8 years ago. The plaintiffs were his daughters but he could not win their consent. According to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code (IPC) murder is punishable by qisas which means “retribution in kind” or retaliation. In this way, the State effectively puts the responsibility of the death sentence for murder on the shoulders of the victim’s family. In many cases, the victim's family are encouraged to put the rope is around the prisoner's neck and even carry out the actual execution by pulling off the chair the prisoner is standing on. 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) KENYA: Courts to review over 400 death sentences in 2019: CJ David Maraga At least 400 inmates have applied for a review of their death sentences since the Supreme Court did away with the penalty in December last year, Chief Justice David Maraga has said. Mr Maraga said that the Judiciary will embark on the process of resentencing in 2019 and give a chance to several inmates to persuade the courts to review their sentences. “I don’t have the exact numbers right here but they are quite many. There are about 400 but we will deal with them. Even when we were making the judgment at the Supreme Court, we knew that there will be quite a number,” said Mr Maraga on Sunday during a visit at Kamiti Maximum Prison. LANDMARK RULING In a landmark judgment in December 2017, 6 judges of the Supreme Court found that the mandatory nature of the death sentence as provided for under Section 204 of the Penal Code was unconstitutional. The judges, led by Justice Maraga, said a person facing the death sentence deserves to be heard in mitigation because of the finality of the sentence, adding that during mitigation the offender’s version of events might evoke pity, necessitating the court to consider an aspect that might have been unclear during the trial. Justice Maraga said that during the resentencing process they will take into consideration other factors such as rehabilitation success of an inmate based on reports from the prison management before finalizing the new sentencing. “Resentencing is not a long process. It is a question of coming and one is given an opportunity to say why his sentence should be reviewed,” he said. 'EXECUTION HISTORY' Although Kenya has not executed anyone on death row since 1987 when Hezekiah Ochuka was convicted and hanged for the 1982 attempted coup, the sentence is still handed to offenders. Documented reports indicate that from 1963 to 1987, 280 persons out of 3,584 people sentenced to death were executed in Kenya. But since 1987, those on death row have been kept waiting for the hangman’s noose. It was not until 2009 when President Mwai Kibaki commuted the sentences of more than 4,000 convicts on death row to life. According to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, a total of 6,058 prisoners have been sentenced to death since 2011 with the majority of persons on death row mainly convicted for robbery with violence. In March, the Attorney-General (AG) named a 13-member task force chaired by Maryann Njau-Kimani, Secretary for Justice at AG’s office, to gather views from Kenyans on life sentencing, and establish a framework to deal with the resentencing of persons on death row as directed by the Supreme Court. The task force will define life imprisonment and whether Parliament should come up with minimum and maximum sentences for capital offences. This followed a suggestion by lawyers that Parliament should come up with minimum and maximum sentences for serious offences such as murder, robbery with violence and
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December 16 PAKISTAN: Pakistan army chief confirms death sentence for 15 militants Pakistan's army chief has approved death sentences for 15 people convicted by military courts of involvement in attacks that killed 32 security forces and 2 civilians. A military statement issued Sunday says Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa also approved prison terms for 20 alleged militants. It says they were involved in attacks on security forces and Christians, and the destruction of educational institutions. It did not say when the men would be executed. Military trials are not open to the public in Pakistan, but defendants can hire their own lawyers. Pakistan lifted a moratorium on the death penalty after a 2014 militant attack on an army-run school in Peshawar that killed more than 150 people, mostly schoolchildren. (source: Associated press) * So far 310 terrorists awarded death penalty: ISPR updates on military courts’ performance Special military courts have so far decided a total of 546 cases out of 717 sent to them for trial by the government, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Sunday. The army’s media wing in a statement updated on the military courts’ performance, saying since the establishment of these courts, the cases of 717 suspected terrorists were sent to them by the federal government out of which 546 have been decided thus far. It said the military courts awarded death penalty to 310 terrorists while 234 others were handed rigorous imprisonment of varied terms ranging from life imprisonment to a minimum prison term of five years. Two accused were also acquitted. Out of the 310 death row convicts, 56 have been executed after completion of the legal process following military courts decisions which included their appeal in superior civil courts and rejection of their mercy petition both by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and the President of Pakistan. The remaining 254 terrorists on death row are awaiting completion of the legal process, including their appeals pending in higher courts. Those who have been awarded death penalty included masterminds, executers and abettors/ facilitators of major terrorist incidents, including the Dec 16, 2014 Army Public School (APS) Peshawar attack (5 terrorist executed), Marriot Islamabad terrorist attack (September 2008), Parade Lane terrorist attack (December 2009), attack on the ISI office Multan (December 2009), a terrorist attack on 4 SSG soldiers including 2 officers( April 2009), attack on the ISI office Sukkur (November 2010), Bannu Jail Break (April 2012), Mastung Sectarian terrorist attack (April 2012), killing of foreigners in Nanga Parbat (June 2013), a terrorist attack on civilian and security officials at Chalas (August 2013), an attack on SSP Chaudhary Aslam (January 2014) Other incidents of terrorism include Karachi Airport attack (June 2014), terrorist attack on Sabin Mehmood (April 2015), terrorist attack Safora Ghot Karachi (May 2015), Bacha Khan University attack (January 2016), and terrorist attack on Amjad Sabri (June 2016). (source: arynews.tv) INDIA: HC abolishes solitary confinement for prisoners facing death penalty The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday abolished the practice adopted by the jail authorities in Punjab to segregate convicts immediately after the pronouncement of death sentence by the trial court and its confirmation by the High Court. The ruling came as a convict escaped the gallows with the High Court commuting to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to him by a Mansa court for raping and murdering a minor. Directing the state to modify the Punjab Jail Manual, the Bench of Rajiv Sharma and Justice Gurvinder Singh asserted that the convict would not be segregated or isolated till death ntence becomes final, conclusive and indefeasible and could not be annulled or voided by any judicial process. The period to keep a convict sentenced to death in segregation or isolation was also required to be for “shortest possible time” of 2 to 3 days. Dubbing solitary confinement as unconstitutional, the Bench asserted there was no scientific reason why the convict sentenced to death should be kept in isolation for indefinite period till he exhausted all his constitutional and legal remedies. It caused immense pain, agony and anxiety to the condemned convict. It was also violative of Articles 20(2) and 21 of the Constitution of India. “A man, even if he is sentenced to death, has certain privileges and rights which cannot be denied to him due to a colonial mindset. The provisions of the Punjab Jail Manual are anarchic, cruel and insensitive,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bench added. Referring to the Punjab Jail Manual, the Bench said a warder would not allow any person to go near or communicate with the prisoner except by an authorised person. He was supposed to be in isolation
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December 15 IRAN: Billionaire To Be Hanged After Government Collects Its Money A senior official of Iran’s Judiciary has said on December 13 that former tycoon, Babak Zanjani will be executed after he returns what he owes the Islamic Republic. Zanjani who was arrested in 2013 on charges of embezzling money earned from black market oil exports sanctioned by the government, was sentenced to death in 2016. Hadi Sadeghi, a deputy to the all-powerful Judiciary head told reporters in city of Bojnourd, that part of Zanjani’s money is abroad and currently it is not possible to repatriate it, according to major Tehran news agencies. “People should not be impatient with carrying out Zanjani’s death penalty. The Judiciary does not want to lose the connection to his assets abroad.” It is not clear why the government is unable to collect Zanjani's money abroad. Is he refusing to pay or the funds are out of reach because of U.S. banking sanctions on Iran. Zanjani was a middleman, selling Iranian oil through companies, mainly affiliated with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), in the years when international sanctions restricted Iran oil exports and banking relations, during Ahmadineja’s second term, 2009-2013. Under international sanctions, ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s blessing, allowed the private sector, as well as security organizations such as the police to sell oil in international markets, as proxy to the embattled Islamic Republic of Iran. Zanjani and other individuals set up elaborate networks for selling oil and laundering the money around the world, including in Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Central Asia. But in many cases the scheme turned into a fiasco, as many plots were uncovered, and people were pursued by the United States. In Zanjani’s case, it was the Iranian government that went after him, because he allegedly pocketed a lot of the money from the oil sales instead of returning it to the government. The amount of money involved is in billions of dollars, but no one exactly knows how much. The Iranian government fixed the amount at $2.7 billion for Zanjani and confiscated his assets in Iran, but apparently that covered only 20 % of the debt. President Hassan Rouhani’s Oil Ministry has accused Zanjani of receiving “1 million barrels” of oil from Iran’s National Oil Company (NIOC) for more than $3 billion, but only payed back $190 million, pocketing the rest. Zanjani’s debt was earlier estimated roughly at $1.8 billion. Nevertheless, Iran Oil Ministry officials have demanded a compensation for “damages”, as well. Oil Minister, Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said in July, “Zanjani’s total debt, including its interests, amounts to $3.5 billion.” Given Zanjani’s high-level connections and the involvement of the IRGC, many Iranians believe there is more to this case that meets the eye. Who else in the upper echelons of Iran’s leadership benefited from the sanction-busting schemes? Will Zanjani ever be hanged if he has compromising information on powerful people? The Islamic Republic’s prosecutor-general insisted in July that Zanjani will “definitely” be hanged. But these kinds of statements should be seen in their political context. Iran has been rocked by serious protests since last December and one major grievance of protesters has been corruption. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has repeatedly called for punishing speculators and those who harm the economy by illegal activities. Dozens of forex traders have been arrested and 2 were hanged in October; but no one from the powerful state or military elite, despite widespread belief that state officials and institutions are mired in corruption. (source: radiofarda.com) BELARUS: Lukashenko: Decision on capital punishment should be made by people Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko spoke about the topic of death penalty at the meeting with representatives of the Russian media on 14 December, BelTA has learned. According to Alexander Lukashenko, he is keeping an eye on the situation in western countries where they say that the death penalty issue should not be put to a referendum. However, in a conversation with the Belarusian leader representatives of the West acknowledge that 2/3 of the population would have supported the application of death penalty in certain cases. "They are used to saying that it is not up to people to decide. But I believe it is,” the president stressed. He reminded that there was a referendum in Belarus, and the majority of people voted against the abolition of death penalty. “There was a referendum in Belarus. I cannot abolish death penalty,” Alexander Lukashenko added. In his opinion, people in Russia, where a moratorium on death penalty is implemented, would have also been against the abolition of this form of punishment. The head of state said that the
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December 14 INDONESIA: FACING FIRING SQUAD British designer faces DEATH PENALTY in Bali after being found with cannabis oilThe 45-year-old man, named only as PMH, was reportedly arrested after receiving a package containing CBD oil from an address in Thailand A Brit is facing the death penalty in Bali after being accused of smuggling drugs into the country, Indonesian officials say. The 45-year-old man, who has not been named, was collared after he received a package containing bottles of cannabis oil from Thailand, it is claimed. The man appeared at a Bali police station on Thursday alongside 4 other foreign men accused of trafficking drugs. His initials were given as PMH and he is reportedly a designer from England. The other men paraded for the cameras were from China, Germany, Malaysia and Peru. The man, who has only been identified as PMH, is reportedly a designer from England All 5 were arrested separately over the past fortnight and were made to wear orange jumpsuits and black masks during the press conference. Indonesia has strict drug laws, and it routinely executes people convicted of smuggling or dealing. Local media said the Brit was arrested after a package from Thailand was intercepted at a post office in Renon, Bali, on November 30. Police claim the package was addressed to the British man, and an X-ray revealed that it contained two bottles with a yellowish, thick liquid, Merdeka reports. The liquid, weighing over 30kg, was tested and it was confirmed to be cannabis, according to Balinese cops. CBD cannabis oil is a substance extracted from the cannabis plant by steam distillation. Cannabis oil is usually consumed orally, and has a very distinct taste. This low-concentrate version of the oil is available to buy in the UK and is not illegal. Products in the UK are required to contain less than 0.05% THC. THC (or Tetrahydrocannabinol) is the psychoactive component in cannabis that makes users feel "high". There have been high profile calls for higher concentration oil to be made legal. Cannabis oil can be beneficial in a variety of ways, from helping promote sleep to boosting appetite and reducing stress, anxiety and depression. It is also said to have skincare benefits, such as preventing signs of ageing and protecting against eczema and psoriasis, so can also be applied to the surface of the skin. Doctors in England, Wales and Scotland have been able to prescribe cannabis-derived medicine from November 1, 2018. Earlier this year Holland and Barrett recently started stocking Dutch brand Jacob Hooy's CBD (cannabidiol) oil. They advise on their packaging: "CBD+ Oil has a 'distinctive' taste - have a small drink of water after taking the oil and the taste will be gone within 30 seconds." Officers said the package was sent by someone with the initials HP. The 44-year-old Peruvian national, named as Jorge Rafael Albornoz Gammara, was arrested after he arrived at Ngurah Rai international airport from Dubai last week. He was hiding 4.08 kilograms of cocaine inside the interior of his luggage, AFP reported. Frank Zeidler, 56, of Germany, is accused of smuggling 2.1 kilograms of hashish inside his luggage on a flight from Bangkok. Cui Bao Lin, 29, from China was arrested at the airport on Saturday with more than 200 ecstasy pills and more than 160 grams of ketamine found in his bag, police said. Hamdi Izham Hakimi, from Malaysia, was arrested the same day with a bag containing nearly 15 grams of marijuana and 11 ecstasy pills, according to authorities. (source: themirror.co.uk) SOUTH SUDAN: Execution spree targets even children and threatens nursing mothers Between 7 and 10 December 2018 in various media articles, South Sudan’s government denied Amnesty International’s findings on the use of the death penalty. In one article, government spokesperson Ateny Wek Ateny said that no one had been executed in South Sudan since 2011 and that the government had put a moratorium on the death penalty since 2013. In the same article, he however said “If you kill a person, you will be executed.” In another article, Ateny said “the South Sudan government cannot carry out executions because it has signed the international charter.” In response to Amnesty’s finding that a person who had been a child at the time of the crime was among the seven people executed in 2018, Ateny said that "the culture of South Sudan cannot accept it." Amnesty International received credible information from multiple independent sources that these executions took place. Our findings are based on interviews with legal professionals and government officials working in the justice sector in South Sudan as well as desk-based research. Our research also uncovered violations of national and international law by the South Sudanese government. Amnesty now urges the South Sudanese authorities to use these findings
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December 13 BELARUS: Prisoner executions in Belarus ‘simply unacceptable’, says UN rights body The continued use of the death penalty in Belarus has been condemned by an authoritative UN rights body after 3 men were reportedly executed there, despite its requests for clemency. The Human Rights Committee, one of 10 UN treaty bodies that meet regularly in Geneva, had appealed to Belarus not to carry out sentencing on Aleksei Mikhalenya, Semyon Berezhnoi and Igor Gershankov, while it examined their cases. Since 2010, Belarus has executed 13 people whose cases were under examination by the UN panel, it said in a joint statement with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, and the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. “The repetitive failure of Belarus to respect the Committee’s procedures …is simply unacceptable,” said Yuval Shany, committee chairperson. “The fact that such failures occur in the context of capital cases which implicate the right to life, and which the Committee considers to be the ’supreme right’, is particularly unconscionable.” The prisoners were executed in May and November this year, according to the committee. All 3 had been found guilty of murder, although “all 3 cases contain allegations of torture in detention and forced confessions”. In line with standard practice, relatives of the dead were “ignorant of the time and circumstances” of their death, the committee said, while their bodies were also not returned to their families – “an additional, useless pain”. Belarus remains the last country in Europe and Central Asia that applies the death penalty, according to the Human Rights Committee. In its latest report on Belarus published in November 2018, the UN panel emphasized that Belarus “should consider establishing a moratorium on executions as an initial step towards legal abolition of the death penalty”. The country should also commit to abolishing the death penalty by ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it urged, “commute all pending death sentences to imprisonment and increase efforts to change public perception about the necessity of maintaining the death penalty”. (source: un.org) INDIA: Man gets death sentence for rape, murder of minor A special POCSO court on Wednesday awarded death penalty to a man for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in Dehradun district in January 2016. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) judge, Rama Pandey, held Azhar Khan guilty and slapped a fine of Rs 90,000. Khan was convicted under section 376 (rape), 302 (murder) of IPC and relevant sections of POCSO Act. The minor girl’s body, who was studying in class 9, was found hanging from a road side tree, about 157 km from Dehradun. It was later found that the girl was raped before murder. During investigation, police found out that the girl was last seen on January 1, 2016 with Khan, who was a driver by profession, on his motorcycle. He was later arrested from Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh on January 5, 2016. During interrogation, Khan confessed of committing the crime. (source: The Times of India) *** SC rejects plea for immediate execution of 4 death-row convicts in Nirbhaya case The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a plea seeking directions for immediate execution of the 4 death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case. "What kind of prayer you are making?," a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta told the petitioner. "You are making the court a joke," it said. The 23-year-old paramedic student was raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in South Delhi by 6 persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. 1 of the accused Ram Singh had hanged himself in the jail and another, a juvenile, was convicted of rape and murder. He was given the maximum sentence of 3 years' imprisonment in a reform facility. On July 9, the apex court dismissed the pleas of 3 convicts -- Mukesh (31), Pawan Gupta (24) and Vinay Sharma (25) -- seeking review of its 2017 judgement upholding the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case. The 4th death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh (33), has not filed a review plea in the apex court. During the hearing on Thursday, advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, the petitioner in the case, told the bench that though provision of death penalty was there in cases of rape-cum-murder, it was not acting as a deterrent due to delays in execution of such convicts. "Is death penalty acting as a deterrent? Please do not file cases like this otherwise we will ask the registry not to accept it," the bench
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December 12 TRINIDAD: Moving away from the death penalty As chair of the Greater Caribbean for Life (GCL), an independent not-for-profit organisation devoted to working towards the abolition of the death penalty in our region, I was invited to present a paper on the death penalty in the English-speaking Caribbean at a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington DC on December 6. The president of the IACHR is Justice Margarette May Macaulay, a Jamaican. Joining me were Kevin Miguel Rivera Medina, president of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP) and Jessica Corredor Villamil, programme manager of the WCADP. (source: Trinidad Express) SYRIA: Court In Damascus Sentences Leaders Of Terrorist Groups To Death - Reports The criminal court of Damascus on Tuesday issued in absentia death penalty to the leaders of several terrorist groups, including Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, outlawed in Russia), local media reported. According to al-Watan newspaper citing court's decision,?the death penalty list includes over 40 militants, mostly from the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. The leader of the Jaysh al-Islam is among the sentenced, according to the newspaper. The militants were accused of shelling residential areas of Damascus - which has resulted in casualties among many civilians, including children and women - and other crimes. The court's decision can be reversed if the accused will confess and surrender to the authorities, a Syrian lawmaker told the newspaper. Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with the government forces fighting against numerous opposition groups and militant and terrorist organizations. (source: urdupoint.com) IRANexecution Man Hanged at Urmia Prison A Prisoner was executed at Urmia Central Prison on December 10, 2018. According to the IHR sources, Younes Azizi was hanged on Monday, December 10, at Urmia Central Prison. He was sentenced to death for drug offenses. “Younes was sentenced to death for possessing 100 kilograms of morphine. His case was sent for the revision under the new anti-narcotic law, but the verdict was upheld because he had three other drug-related sentences,” the source told IHR. Younes Azizi was transferred to the solitary confinement a day before the execution. The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned execution so far. (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
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December 11 PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Father gets death penalty for murder of boy, 14 A father of 3 has been given the death penalty after being convicted of killing a 14-year-old boy in a revenge attack in West New Britain 3 years ago. In the the National Court in Kimbe, acting Judge Nicholas Miviri described the killing by Wesley Yanduo as “merciless and horrific”. “West New Britain and Kimbe is riddled with killings as if there is no rule of law and sanctity of lives even though it is predominately a Christian province,” Miviri said. “The court will not downplay nor will it pass this as an ordinary case. Rather, the act and circumstances are extreme and call for a stern deterrent and decisive sentence that is enough. “It is a brutal killing committed in cold blood upon an innocent, defenceless 14-year-old boy. A very sharp knife was used and this is not the first time the veracity of this weapon was used against a helpless young boy.” The court on Oct 18 had convicted Yanduo, from Kubalia, East Sepik, for the wilful murder of Naegel John Las at Galai Oil Palm settlement on Dec 6, 2015. Yanduo first cut the victim on the wrist then continued cutting him on the head, causing him to bleed to death. The court heard that Yanduo attacked Las in retaliation to the fatal assault of a youth by the name of Issac Vitalis, who was attacked by boys from Section 16. Afterwards, a meeting was held for compensation to be paid to the relatives, but when the compensation was not paid, a fight started. Las and others were escaping when he was ambushed by Yanduo, who was hiding in bushes. “It would appear that he laid in ambush ready as they came,” Justice Miviri said. “He (Yanduo) tried correcting another criminal wrong with another authored by him. Two wrongs do not make a right.” (source: The National) SRI LANKA: President makes push to impliment death penalty on drug traffickers President Maithripala Sirisena says necessary steps should be taken immediately to implement the death penalty against persons who continue to engage in drug trafficking even after they had been convicted and sentenced to death. President Sirisena said that a failure by the relevant institutions to submit the required documents related to the convicts on death row still engaged in drug trafficking has resulted in a delay to implement the death penalty. He said that an investigation will be launched in this regard in the near future. He made these remarks during a meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat, yesterday (10) on making the necessary changes to the laws to control of drug trafficking and minimize criminal activities. Attorney General Jayantha Jayasooriya, Secretary for the President Udaya R. Senevirathne, Secretary of the Ministry of Defense Hemasiri Fernando, Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara, Commissioner General of Excise Department and secretaries of ministries were present at the meeting. (source: menafn.com) *** Failure to submit documents of death row inmates: Prez to launch probe President Maithripala Sirisena today said an investigation will be launched to look into the failures of several institutions to submit relevant documents relating to those will be facing death penalty should be implemented. He said this failure has delayed the decision to implement the death penalty. The President made these remarks during a meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat today to discuss about instituting necessary changes to the laws to control drug trafficking and minimizing criminal activities. He said necessary steps should be instantly taken to implement the decision to enforce death penalty against the convicts who are still engaged in drug trafficking in spite of being sentenced to death. “No one should weaken the laws to suppress drug trafficking. It is important to enforce laws without having any loopholes that allow the smugglers to escape,” he said. Attorney General Jayantha Jayasooriya, Secretary to the President Udaya R. Senevirathne, Secretary of the Ministry of Defence Hemasiri Fernando, Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara, Commissioner General of Excise Department and secretaries of ministries were present in this event. (source: Daily Mirror) *** Reason for the delay to execute capital punishment on drug racteteers revealed President Maithripala Sirisena said that the execution of the death penalty on convicted drug racketeers, who operate the racket from prison cells, has been delayed due to the lackadaisical approach of the relevant institutions to provide the necessary documents in time. Addressing a meeting held at his office, President Sirisena said that he expects to initiate an investigation soon to such delays. The discussion was held with regard to introducing new laws to overcome narcotic rackets and related crimes. Addressing the relevant
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December 10 MALAYSIA: Death penalty: Get public feedback first, urges Perkasa Perkasa has urged the Pakatan Harapan government to obtain public feedback regarding its move to abolish the death penalty. Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's administration should not rush to abolish the death penalty as this has caused concern among the rakyat. "The government should actually be focusing on efforts to lessen the rakyat's cost of living as they promised. "The government should not bow down to the voice of the minority and that is why we suggest they hold a referendum or a survey so that the community can voice their opinion about the abolition of the death penalty. "Through the survey, anyone can campaign (to support or not) [...] the Bar Council can also campaign," Ibrahim told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today. Home Minister Muhyidddin Yassin said on Oct 27 that the government was currently collecting feedback from various parties before finalising its decision on the abolition of the death penalty. "We are getting feedback from all parties. The media has also done their research, some agreed, some don't. The final decision has yet to be made. "This matter will be brought to the attorney-general to be examined and after that to the cabinet before being brought to the Parliament stage. "So we do not have a final decision yet," Muhyiddin said. The abolition of the death penalty is one of the promises in Pakatan Harapan's election manifesto.,P> Ibrahim said the suggestion to have a survey is aligned with democratic principles where the voice of the majority should be accepted. He said efforts to abolish the death penalty in the name of "humanity" would be unfair towards the families of fatal crime victims. He also believes that abolishing the death penalty would "encourage" people to commit crimes without worry. "Currently there are 1,281 convicts waiting to face the death penalty. Every month, RM19.2 million is spent and in 30 years, it would be RM575 million. "Imagine that RM500 million being used for the benefit of the rakyat," Ibrahim said. On a separate issue, he also insisted he was not a racist as portrayed by certain parties. To back his point, he said that his business partner was a Chinese and his driver an Indian. "I am a good person. To know Ibrahim Ali is to fall in love with Ibrahim Ali," he argued. (source: malaysiakini.com) IRANexecutions Prisoner Hanged at Karaj Central Prison A prisoner was hanged at Karaj Central Prison (Nedamatgah) on murder charges. He was denying the accusation during the whole trial process. According to the IHR sources, Behzad Adib was hanged at Karaj Central Prison on the morning of December 4, 2018. “Mr Adib had denied the accusations all the time during the trial. He and the supposed victim were injecting drugs together at the time of the incident. Adib told the court that his friend was died because of the drug overdose,” the source told IHR. IHR had previously received a couple of reports reflecting the same story. In a similar case, there were 2 addict friends helping each other in injecting drugs, and one died of an overdose. In the end, the court sentenced the injector to death on the charge of murder. There is a lack of a clear classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent. The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned execution so far. Prisoner Hanged at Qazvin PrisonAn unnamed prisoner was hanged on the rape charges on the morning of December 9, 2018. A prisoner was hanged at Qazvin Central Prison yesterday. According to Iranian media outlets reports, an unnamed prisoner was hanged on the rape charges on the morning of December 9, 2018. According to the Qazvin chief prosecutor, Mohammad Qasemi, there are 5 defendants in the case and the first defendant was sentenced to death for rape and robbery. “The rest of the defendants were sentenced to flogging and long-term prison terms,” Qasemi said. (source for both: Iran Human Rights) ** Supreme Court upholds death verdict against Baqeri Darmani Iranian Judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Eje'i announced on Sunday that the Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence against Hamid Baqeri-Darmani for bribery and fraud which was issued in a lower court. In October, the Judiciary announced that Baqeri-Darmani and Vahid Mazloumin, a mogul known as the lord of gold coins in Iran, had been sentenced to death. Mazloumin was executed in November. Speaking at a press conference, Mohseni Eje'i also said the special courts for economic crimes have handed down prison sentences to a number of individuals for disrupting the economy, ISNA reported. (source: Tehran
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December 9 MALAYSIA: Perlis DAP breaks ranks, wants Putrajaya to retain death penalty The federal government, of which the DAP is part of, may be planning to abolish the death penalty. However, the party is facing objections from within, with Perlis DAP today approving a motion against the abolition of capital punishment. The motion was approved unanimously at the Perlis DAP convention, according to Kwong Wah Yit Poh. Perlis DAP chief Teh Seng Chuan said the abolition of death penalty would be unfair to the families of murder victims. "We are the 1st state within the party to object to the abolition of the death penalty. "Even though the abolition of the death penalty came from the federal government but we will object to any policy that we feel is unsuitable," he was quoted as saying. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Liew Vui Keong, who is in charge of law, had said Putrajaya had plans for the total abolition of the death penalty. However, there had been some public pushbacks. Human rights groups have urged the government to stay the course. (source: malaysiakini.com) INDIA: CJI Dipak Misra spotlights the law on death penalty A series of Supreme Court decisions after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi took over as top judge has seen the Supreme Court veer away the death penalty and point out lapses in the way justice is administered in death penalty cases. For one, Chief Justice Gogoi has been heard repeatedly admonishing frivolous Public Interest Litigation (PIL) litigants for wasting the time of the court. The CJI has expressed annoyance at how his court is straddled with such PILs when judges ought to hear the under-100 pending death penalty references. Uncertain prisoners “Every morning, these people wake up wondering when the court will hear them,” the Chief Justice said, expressing the uncertainty of prisoners in death row. The CJI said such cases are the priority for the court. Recently, the apex court put an end to its own practice of dismissing death penalty appeals in limine, without even assigning a reason for the decision. Death row convicts deserve an explanation as to why the highest court of the land had concluded that they deserved to hang for their crime. “Special leave petitions filed in cases where the death sentence is awarded by the courts below should not be dismissed without giving reasons, at least qua death sentence,” a three-judge Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri, Ashok Bhushan and Indira Banerjee observed in a recent judgment. Reasons for remission not beyond judicial review: experts The Bench’s decision came in a review petition filed by Babasheb Maruti Kamble, who was condemned to the gallows for murder. ? Kamble had filed a review against the apex court’s earlier dismissal of his appeal against death with a 2-line order which merely said: “Delay condoned. Dismissed.” The apex court also laid down that in death penalty cases, the court was obliged to independently examine the case, “unbound by the findings of the trial court and the High Court." 'Time-honoured' "Such an approach is the time-honoured practice of this court,” the Supreme Court has observed. Justice Kurian Joseph, in his last solo opinion before retirement as Supreme Court judge, questioned the way courts decide that a person cannot be reformed and thus sentenced to death. “His good conduct in prison or the fact that he has engaged in studies inside the prison walls is not considered a mitigating factor against death penalty,” Justice Kurian told The Hindu. (source: The Hindu) ___ 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
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December 8 GAZA: Gaza military court sentences 6 to death for collaboration A spokesperson for Gaza’s interior ministry announces the death sentences against 6 Palestinians convicted of collaboration by a military court on 3 December. Ashraf Amra APA images A military court in Gaza this week sentenced 6 Palestinians, including a woman, to death and 8 others to prison terms with hard labor for collaborating with Israel. Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza decried the “unprecedented” number of death sentences issued in a single day and called for the abolition of the death penalty. According to Al Mezan, a human rights group in Gaza, 5 persons were sentenced to death by hanging and one by firing squad. “The court also issued 8 other sentences of imprisonment with hard labor, ranging from 6 to 15 years,” Al Mezan stated. Authorities in Gaza, where the resistance faction Hamas oversees internal affairs, have issued or approved nine death sentences since the beginning of 2018, the rights group said. Al Mezan stated that despite “the seriousness of the criminal acts committed by the convicted, the death sentences issued should not be carried out but replaced by alternative penalties in line with Palestine’s international obligations.” The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, also based in Gaza, stated that any death sentence carried out without the approval of the Palestinian Authority president, as required by Palestinian basic law, would amount to an extrajudicial killing. Nearly 30 death sentences have been carried out in Gaza without the PA president’s approval since 2007, when Hamas seized control of the territory after winning legislative elections held the previous year. Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, stated that “No one should be sentenced to death. Supposedly collaborating with Israel is no excuse.” He added: “And given Hamas’ unfair courts, its sentencing of 6 for execution smacks of militia rule, not the rule of law.” European Union officials also condemned the death sentences. The body’s missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah stated that “The EU considers capital punishment to be cruel and inhuman, that it fails to provide deterrence to criminal behavior, and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity." A Hamas spokesperson said that the 6 sentenced to death on Monday were not directly connected to an Israeli commando unit uncovered in Gaza 3 weeks ago, triggering more than 48 hours of intense fire over the boundary with Israel. The spokesperson told the AFP news agency that the convictions were linked “to a communications and eavesdropping device planted by the occupation.” AFP added: "6 Hamas members were killed when the device apparently exploded after detection near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza in May." Israeli commandos posed as medical aid workers Meanwhile more details have emerged regarding the Israeli commando unit exposed in Gaza last month. Hamas officials said that undercover forces posing as medical aid workers used forged ID cards of actual Palestinians living in Gaza who were unaware that their identities had been used. Their cover was blown because the Hamas fighters who checked their IDs were “suspicious as their accents and voices did not match the areas where they said they were from,” a Hamas official told the UK publication The Independent. Citing a Hamas source, The Independent reported that the undercover unit was in Gaza “to replace listening and surveillance devices that had been laid before.” An Israeli lieutenant-colonel, a Hamas military commander and 6 other fighters were killed in a gun battle when the undercover unit was discovered in Khan Younis on 11 November. The Israeli military launched air strikes to provide cover for the retreating commandos and the forged IDs were found in the destroyed vehicle used by the Israeli agents. 7 more Palestinians were killed during intensive Israeli bombardment after armed groups in Gaza launched hundreds of rockets towards Israel, killing a Palestinian man in a home in Ashkelon. PA detains and tortures woman activist Meanwhile Amnesty International has called on Palestinian authorities to “urgently investigate the torture and other ill-treatment” of a woman detained in the occupied West Bank. Suha Jbara, described by Amnesty as “a Palestinian, US and Panamanian citizen and social justice activist involved with Islamic charities,” told the rights group “that she was beaten, slammed against a wall and threatened with sexual violence by her interrogators." Jbara was arrested during “a violent raid on her home” on 3 November, according to Amnesty, which said “she was asked about collecting and distributing money in illegal ways, an accusation she denies.” The activist told Amnesty that she had a seizure and lost consciousness during her arrest and was taken to a hospital. There security
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December 7 IRANmass executions Mass Execution of 12 inmates in Kerman Central Prison Iran on Thursday executed 12 prisoners in Kerman Central Prison, most of them convicted of drug charges. 4 of the executed prisoners were identified as, Abdolghani Ghalandarzehi, Yaghub Ghalandarzehi, Jalil Khodabakhsh and Yousef Jalaledin, all from Iran’s ethnic Baluch minority. According to witnesses, the bodies of 12 people executed today were handed over to their families. More recently, on November 21, the Iranian authorities, hanged three prisoners collectively in public in Shiraz on charge of moharebeh (fighting with God). In yet another case on November 14, Iran carried out a mass execution of 10 prisoners in in Gohardasht Prison of Karaj. National Council of Resistance of Iran in November called on all international human rights advocates, in particular the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, and the Working Group on arbitrary death penalty, to condemn these executions. (source: Iran Human Rights) MALAYSIA: Make death sentence non-mandatory and subject to judges' discretion In Malaysia, the death sentence has been an integral part of the Penal Code since the time of independence. It was even made mandatory for certain offences, including possession of firearms and drugs. However, a bill to abolish the death sentence may be presented to Parliament next week. The arguments for and against abolishing the death sentence are many. I would like to state beforehand that I am against the mandatory death sentence as practised at the moment in this country. However, I am also against the total abolishment of the death sentence as suggested. As we can see, there have been many heinous crimes that cause public outrage, from serial murders or sexual abuse to the death of an infant recently. The common arguments against the death sentence are that: 1. A state has no right to take away the life of an individual Every individual’s life is his or her basic human right that is recognised worldwide. Cases where death sentences were overturned on appeal, or upon the emergence of new evidence, were always quoted as the reason why innocent lives might be lost. However, the “individual” loses this right once the person oversteps into the forbidden areas of crimes defined by laws that may result in the death sentence, especially if he or she took away the lives of other people. Ironically, many countries in the world that ban the death sentence have also legalised abortions. What gives these states the right to say it is acceptable to take the lives of unborn children? It is certain that these aborted foetuses were 100 % innocent and had no chance to do any wrongs whatsoever. Yet those who claim to defend the innocent can condone abortions that are performed for non-medical reasons. The 2nd scenario is that our soldiers are required to kill when commanded. An enemy soldier can be killed even if he has not fired a shot. His only “crime” is that he was born in an enemy country. The 3rd scenario is that our police are to shoot if necessary to stop a criminal that can be a danger, like one who is brandishing a knife. A person who has yet to commit a crime may be killed before he is even given a chance to be tried in court. In Malaysia, a person who is found to have murdered many people in a terror attack with multiple witnesses and evidence will go through a full trial, with defence lawyers, appeal process and appeal process to the highest court, and many years on the death roll with no new evidence emerging. To say it is wrong for the state to consider the death sentence is bending the arguments too much to the other extreme. 2. The death sentence has proven not to deter criminals from committing crimes The death sentence definitely will not deter determined criminals. However, it does deter many people from breaking the law. Similarly, life sentences and caning will not deter would-be criminals as well. The death sentence was not enacted as a deterrent; it was enacted from ancient times to be the punishment for the most heinous of crimes. It was also the justice and closure needed by families of the victims for them to move on after the loss of their loved ones. The judges can always take into account the wishes of the families concerned. 3. A life sentence is a worse punishment for the wrongdoers than a death sentence This is contradictory in the way that people who claim to be concerned about human rights want to impose a worse penalty on the wrongdoers. Certainly, some wrongdoers will be worse off with a life sentence. However, all ordinary criminals would prefer a life sentence to a death sentence. Those who suggest that a life sentence is worse appear not to be in tune with the common people at all. In summary, I am supportive of the idea to
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December 6 CANADA/IRAN: Canada “Deeply Concerned” over Fate on Environmental Researcher in Iran The Canadian government says that it is “deeply concerned” about the continued detention of environmental researcher Niloufar Bayani, who is facing the death penalty in Iran on vague security charges. On Friday, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Richard Walker said the Canadian government “is deeply concerned” about Bayani’s detention and remains “committed to holding Iran to account for its violations of human and democratic rights”. Bayani, who is being held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, was arrested back in January by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), alongside eight other environmental activists who were monitoring the endangered Asiatic cheetah with motion-activated camera traps. The arrests have been condemned by scientists, environmentalists and human rights activists, with anthropologist Jane Goodall being just one of 350 conservations, scholars and researchers from 70 countries calling for the environmentalists to receive “fair and just” treatment. Bayani’s friends and colleagues, especially those who knew her from her biology degree at McGill University or her work at the United Nations Environment Program in Geneva, have also criticised her imprisonment in an effort to attract public attention and pressure for her release. Anthony Ricciardi, a McGill University biologist for whom Bayani was a research assistant, explained that he is “worried about her safety”. Sadly, he has good reason to be. Professor Kavous Seyed-Emami, 63, the Iranian-Canadian head of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation that Bayani works for was one of those arrested with her. He died under suspicious circumstances in Evin prison just 3 weeks later and, while officials claim it was suicide, his family and the United Nations want an independent investigation. The IRGC has said the cheetah research was cover for espionage on behalf of the US and Israel, which even the Iranian Parliament have dismissed, but the environmentalists have still been held. Now 5 of them have been charged with “sowing corruption on earth”, a “crime” punishable by death, with no evidence presented to support this theory. Ricciardi said: “They’re field ecologists and in this particular case they were trying to track a declining species. If you want to find something rare you can’t sit there all day waiting for the animal to come by, and it might be spooked by you. So you set up cameras instead.” Of course, the truth is that the environment has become a contentious political issue in Iran and anyone seeking to tell the truth about the Regime’s disregard for it is risking their lives. After all, the Regime can ill-afford any more popular protests against it. Ricciardi said: “[Bayani] must have known some of the risks (or working in Iran) but she did it anyway. That’s courage. From what I’ve seen of her here, I’m not surprised.” Human Rights Watch reported that the environmentalists have not been allowed access to lawyers of their own choosing and no trial date has been set. (source: ncr-iran.org) GAMBIA: 'New Constitution Should Make Provision for Stronger Death Penalty' Lamin Ceesay of Jarra Japineh village in the Lower River Region of the Gambia, said the death penalty should not be abolished in the proposed new Constitution, because it is a deterrent to the crime rate and killing of people without any genuine reasons. Ceesay said this in response to questions posed by Commissioner Yankuba Manjang, on the death penalty in the 1997 Constitution, during the engagement of the people of Japineh with the CRC on the 3rd of December 2018. "The death penalty should not be eliminated, but the manner in which it is conducted, needs to be looked at," he said. Ceesay said that during the previous Government, the death penalty was in the Constitution. But that people thought it was Government that was killing convicted people. He suggested that the proposed new Constitution should make provision for individuals to be jailed for the rest of their lives, when they commit such crimes," he said. Ceesay contributed further that election dates should be determined by National Assembly Members, and not by the president. "The president is a politician. He may decide to choose a day that will not favour opposition parties in order to stay in power," he said. Commissioner Manjang further explained that in the 1997 Constitution, citizenship is captured under different categorizes; that it explains that citizenship can be acquired by birth, when either of or both parents of the person are Gambians; that the other is by naturalization; that it explains that when one spends fifteen years in the country and fulfils all his or her requirements of qualification, the person can become a citizen. Manjang further added that there is citizenship by marriage, and
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December 5 GAZA: EU Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemn death sentences issued in Gaza The European Union Representative and the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah Tuesday condemned the death sentences issued in the Gaza Strip on Monday against 6 Palestinians convicted of collaborating with Israel, according to a statement. A Hamas military court found the 6 Palestinians guilty of collaborating with Israel, mainly in the botched operation that took place in Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, on November 11, which resulted in the death of seven Palestinians. The commander of the undercover Israeli force was also killed after the operation was uncovered. The EU Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah recalled in their statement their firm opposition under all circumstances to the use of capital punishment. The statement said the EU considers that abolition of the death penalty contributes to the protection of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights. “The EU considers capital punishment to be cruel and inhuman, that it fails to provide deterrence to criminal behavior, and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity.” The EU Missions called on the de facto authorities in Gaza to refrain from carrying out any executions of prisoners and comply with the moratorium on executions put in place by the Palestinian Authority, pending the abolition of the death penalty in line with the global trend and following the signing of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. (source: wafa.ps) SAUDI ARABIA: Urgent Action SAUDI ACTIVISTS FACE THE DEATH PENALTY Saudi activist Israa al-Ghomgham and 4 other individuals on trial at the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) face the death penalty for charges related to their participation in peaceful protests. Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet: * Urging the Saudi Arabian authorities not to hand down the death sentence to the 5 defendants; * Urging them to release Israa al-Ghomgham, Ahmed al-Matrood, Ali Ouwaisher, Mousa al-Hashim, Khalid al-Ghanim and Mujtaba al-Muzain immediately and unconditionally, as they are held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association; * Urging them to immediately establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Friendly reminder: If you send an email, please create your own instead of forwarding this one! Contact these 2 officials by 14 January, 2018: King and Prime Minister His Majesty King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud The Custodian of the two Holy Mosques Office of His Majesty the King Royal Court, Riyadh Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Fax: (via Ministry of the Interior) +966 11 403 3125 (please keep trying) Twitter: @KingSalman Salutation: Your Highness Ambassador Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia 601 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington DC 20037 Phone: 202 342 3800 Contact Form: https://bit.ly/2KScqag Twitter: @SaudiEmbassyUSA Salutation: Your Royal Highness (source: Amnesty International) MALAYSIA: Bill to abolish death penalty will only be tabled later, says MP A Bill to abolish the death penalty will not be tabled at this parliamentary sitting, said Bukit Gelugor MP and vocal critic of the death penalty Ramkarpal Singh. Last October, de facto law minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong had confirmed that the death penalty would be abolished for 33 offences, including murder. “This is obviously not going to happen at this sitting and there is no official reason being given as to why,” Ramkarpal said at a forum on the abolition of the death penalty, organised by the Bar Council’s human rights committee. “We hope to see it being tabled at the next sitting in March,” he added. Crimes against kids Ramkarpal said the abolition of the death penalty, as promised in the PH manifesto, was “all-encompassing”. It was for offences which carry both the discretionary and mandatory death penalty. “Certain offences such as crimes against children and sexual offences have raised debate as to whether or not the country is ready to totally abolish the discretionary death penalty,” he said. He said this had resulted in the government taking a step back to consider the views of all the stakeholders who have an interest in the issue. “We have to accept the fact that not everybody is anti-death penalty. A responsible government has to take into account the views of all the stakeholders.” Ramkarpal had previously stated that the death penalty could be retained in certain cases. “When I said the death penalty could be retained in certain cases, I meant it in the context of new identifiable offences. I don’t mean this discretion should be applied to the current offences that we
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December 4 MALAYSIA: Family members of death row prisoners hope for 2nd chance Families of several prisoners on death row are hoping that the government goes ahead with the plan to abolish the death penalty even though there is a lot of opposition against it. They hope that society can forgive their family members for the crimes they committed and that they are given a 2nd chance. Yong Wong, 80, hopes that she is able to see her 57-year-old son Chong Yun Fatt walk free one day after he was convicted of trafficking drugs 31 years ago. She said her son admitted to what he did but said he did it because he wanted to help his family after his father walked out on them. Yong said she had worked as a rubber tapper and that her son only wanted to see her have a better life. Her son is currently in the Simpang Renggam prison. "He was a good son and he loved me very much. He only wanted the best for me. He has regretted his actions very much," she said with tears during a press conference on Tuesday (Dec 4). A total of 6 families spoke at the press conference, which was organised by the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall and the Geha Bodhi Buddhist group. 4 cases were drug-related, one was for kidnap while another was for an accident case. Chandra Segaran, 68, admitted that his son Senguttawan, 33, was guilty due to his involvement in an accident case that resulted in the death of a 2-year-old child. He, however, questioned why his son was charged with murder and not under the Road Transport Act. He claimed that his son was fleeing the police at the time and in his panic, crashed into a wedding party, causing the death of the child 5 years ago. "It's a mistake but couldn't he be given 10 to 15 years in prison? That would be fair. He didn't have any intention," said Chandra. For the other families, the cases were not so clear, as they claimed their family members were framed. The family members of G. Selvam, 41, and Rizalmi Mohd, 42, refused to accept their guilt for drug-related crimes, claiming that they were wrongly convicted. Ng Ah Kwai said her son Chew Wai Keong was wrongly accused in a kidnap case that resulted in the death of a man. She claimed that her son's boss had used his identity card to rent a room where the dead person was found. "My son didn't know what was going on. No one seemed to believe that he could be involved in such a thing. He always was with me and never stayed away," she said. She added that she wanted her son to get another trial in court. In October, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Liew Vui Keong said that the Cabinet had decided to abolish the death penalty, with a moratorium for those on death row. A proposed Bill to abolish the death penalty is expected to be tabled at the next Dewan Rakyat sitting. However, in a recent survey of 3,600 respondents conducted by The Star Online, almost 1/2 of Malaysians surveyed were against the Cabinet’s plan to abolish the death penalty. About 45% felt the death penalty was needed to keep hardcore criminals at bay while 32% said it was still needed for violent crimes, especially crimes against children. Recently, several family members of murder victims had come out to say that there would be no justice should the death penalty be abolished. (source: thestar.com.my) *** What happened to bill to abolish death penalty, asks rights group Rights group Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) has questioned the delay in tabling a bill to abolish the death sentence despite the government’s recent assurance that the capital punishment would be axed for 33 offences. LFL adviser N Surendran said no such bill had even appeared in the parliamentary order paper, whether in the list for first reading or in the orders of the day. In a statement, he said this was cause for concern as the current session of the Dewan Rakyat would end by next week. “We understand that the bill to abolish the death penalty has been given to the Cabinet for approval. Who, or what, is then holding it up?” On Oct 10, de facto law minister Liew Vui Keong said the death penalty would be abolished, with a bill on the matter to be tabled in the current Parliament sitting which began on Oct 15. He later said inmates on death row would serve 30 years’ life imprisonment under the proposed abolition. There were 1,267 prisoners on death row as of October, about 900 of whom were convicted of drug offences, including trafficking in dangerous drugs. Surendran said the decision to table the bill must be made at the Cabinet meeting this week. He urged the government leaders not to forget the ideals they fought for during their time in the opposition, warning that any backtracking or compromise in their decision to abolish the death penalty would paint them as “weak, indecisive and untrustworthy”. “Another U-turn would be devastating for public
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December 3 GAZA: Gaza court sentences 6 people to hang for 'collaborating' with Israel A military court in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Monday sentenced 6 people, including a woman, to death by hanging for "collaborating" with Israel, authorities said. In total 14 people were sentenced for "collaborating with the occupation," with 6 sentenced to be hanged, the interior ministry in Gaza said. The rulings come 3 weeks after 8 people were killed when an alleged Israeli army cell in Gaza was uncovered, leading to a vicious fire fight. Hamas fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in response, wit h the Jewish state striking dozens of targets in Gaza before a ceasefire agreement. The 6 sentenced to death Monday were not related to the November 11 flareup. The woman, named only as Amal, was sentenced in absentia and is alleged to have encouraged her nephew in Gaza to collaborate with Israeli intelligence. Iyad al-Bozum, the spokesman of the interior ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, hailed the rulings. "Collaborators must realise the (Israeli) occupation will not be able to protect them," he told a news conference. Hamas and its allies have fought 3 wars with Israel since 2008. (source: al-monitor.com) IRANjuvenile execution Execution of the 6th Juvenile Offender in 2018 A juvenile offender who had been sentenced to death for committing an alleged murder at the age of 16, was hanged at Rajai Shahr prison. Iran Human Rights (IHR) had previously reported about the execution of 10 prisoners at Rajai Shahr Prison on November 14, 2018. New documents obtained by IHR show that one of the executed prisoners was a juvenile offender identifies as Omid Rostami. Omid Rostami is the 6th juvenile offender executed by Iranian authorities in 2018. IHR strongly condemns Omid Rostami's execution and calls for strong international reactions. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: " The international community must not tolerate Iranian authorities' continuous executions of juvenile offenders. We expect stronger reactions by the EU and the Norwegian government which have ongoing dialogues with the Iranian authorities and which are regarded as the world leaders in the fight against the death penalty. Attempts to save the nuclear deal must not lead to closed eyes on juvenile executions and other serious human rights violations by the Iranian authorities ". Omid Rostami's birth certificate shows that he was born on July 10, 1996. He was sentenced to death for a murder committed on July 12, 2012, 2 days after his 16th birthday. Omid had been subjected to additional psychological torture by being taken to the gallows 4 times earlier. Each time, the plaintiffs (victim's family) had said that they wanted to rethink about carrying out the execution or forgiving him. According to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code (IPC) murder is punishable by qisas which means “retribution in kind” or retaliation. In this way, the State effectively puts the responsibility of the death sentence for murder on the shoulders of the victim’s family. In many cases, the victim's family are encouraged to put the rope is around the prisoner's neck and even carry out the actual execution by pulling off the chair the prisoner is standing on. “On September 4, 2018, the prosecutor told the plaintiffs that they have the maximum of 1 month time to take their final decision to forgive Omid or carry out his execution. Otherwise, Omid should be released on bail,” the juvenile offender’s mother told IHR. Finally, the plaintiffs went to the prison and carried out Omid's execution on the early morning of November 14, 2018. The Islamic Penal Code (IPC) puts the age of criminal responsibility for males at 15 and 9 for females. In case of murder and other offenses punishable by Hadd or qisas, article 91 of the amended IPC of 2013 allows judges to use their discretion and not issue a death sentence against a child who was not able to understand the nature and consequences of the crime at the time. The amended law also allows the courts to rely on “the opinion of a forensic doctor or other means it deems appropriate” to establish whether a defendant understood the consequences of their actions. However, according to Omid's family, he didn't have a lawyer, and the family's request for a forensic examination of Omid was not accepted by the judge. According to Omid’s mother, the juvenile had 2 previous records of robbery and convictions, and the Court took that as a proof of his maturity and therefore, didn't send Omid's case to forensic medicine. Despite ratifying the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child which bans the death penalty for offenses committed at under 18 years of age, Iran stays the world's top executioner of juvenile offenders. According to reports by IHR, Iranian authorities have executed at least 40 juvenile offenders since 2013.
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December 2 PHILIPPINES: Death penalty can help put an end to country’s drug problem: Bato Death penalty for drug traffickers? If former Philippine National Police director Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa is elected senator, that’s exactly what he will propose--to reinstate the death penalty, especially for convicted drug traffickers. He admitted that the illegal drug problem in Cebu City seems to be never-ending, but he thinks that there has been a major improvement. The former police chief, who was in Cebu on Saturday, Dec. 1, for the Anti-Drug and Peace and Order Summit 2018 in Tuburan, said that many policemen and narcopoliticians turned over a new leaf because they didn’t want to be killed. Over the past months, especially in Cebu, suspected drug personalities were killed by unidentified men even though not a single case was filed against many of them. Dela Rosa, though, believes that summary execution is illegal and the people behind it should be punished. The only legal way to kill criminals is to reinstate the death penalty, he said. He said this is an appropriate punishment for drug lords who allow the entry of illegal drugs in the country and who distribute shabu in the communities. The senatorial candidate told reporters that when he was the director general of the Bureau of Corrections, he talked to several Chinese drug traffickers. That was when he realized how weak the country’s laws on drugs are. He said that drug lords from Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China said it’s easy to flood the Philippine market with illegal drugs because of the country’s weak laws and the absence of the death penalty. That might also explain why, in Cebu City alone, millions worth of drugs were seized last month. “So in less than a month it’s almost P90 million siguro,” said Senior Supt. Royina Garma, the director of the Cebu City Police Office, referring to the illegal drugs seized by city operatives recently. “So that means many are still using. That’s what I meant when I said there is a market. So we should do something to eliminate the market.” Based on the data collated by Superbalita Cebu, Cebu City operatives seized around P95 million worth of shabu in November. The latest was the P36.3 million worth of illegal drugs seized during a drug bust in Barangay Sambag 2 last Friday night, Nov. 30. Four people were arrested in the operation by the Drug Enforcement Unit of the Guadalupe Police Station in Sitio Tambis on Urgello Road past 9:30 p.m. The operation was the result of a 3-month surveillance. The suspects were arrested in the middle of repacking illegal drugs. One of those arrested was Michael Pacilan Carabaña alias Mike, 28, of Barangay Pardo. He was a surrenderer of Barangay Pardo’s Oplan Tokhang (approach and talk). Another suspect, 24-year-old Jemuel Enrile of Barangay Cansojong, Talisay City, is in Talisay’s drug watchist. Also arrested were Arnold Pacong Arquiza, 37, and Agustin Regis Quijano, 34, both of Barangay Quiot, Cebu City. Guadalupe Police Station Chief Dexter Basirgo said that Carabaña had only been renting in Sitio Tambis for 3 weeks. He reportedly transferred after his name came up in Pardo as among those involved in the sale of illegal drugs. An informant reported to the Guadalupe Police Station that illegal drugs were sold in bulk in Sambag 2. A poseur-buyer transacted P12,000 worth of illegal drugs with Carabaña. When the sale was consummated, Carabaña was immediately arrested. When police entered Carabaña’s house, they found 3 other men repacking what looked like shabu. Police confiscated over 3 kilos of shabu with an estimated worth of P36,344,000. They also recovered P105,000 in cash, an expensive cellphone, 3 motorcycles, a Toyota Avanza and a weighing scale. According to their investigation, the supply of shabu came from Luzon. Carabaña directly receives the supply and then distribute it to street pushers. Carabaña reportedly supplies drugs in Sambag 2 and Pardo in Cebu City as well as the cities of Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue. “Based on their narration, the drugs came from Manila. They have been in the illegal drug trade for some time and their transactions are already in bulk,” said Basirgo in Cebuano. Police also recovered notebooks, which contained names that police believed to be Carabaña’s colleagues in the illegal drug trade. The names are now under background investigation. Garma urged boarding house owners to get to know their boarders so they wouldn’t meet any problems in the future. Garma was disappointed by the large haul despite their continued drug operations. (source: sunstar.com.ph) PAKISTAN: Man awarded 3 death penalties for raping, killing minor girl in DI Khan Additional sessions judge Usman Wali Khan on Saturday awarded 3 death sentences and slapped a Rs900,000 penalty on Muhammad Bilal for raping and murdering a 6-year-old girl last year. The
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December 1 UNITED KINNGNDOM: Andover’s outcast dead: Exploring an Anglo-Norman execution cemetery Between the 7th and 12th centuries, criminals who were put to death in Anglo-Saxon England were often interred not in community graveyards, but in separate burial grounds. Archaeological evidence of such sites is relatively rare, but traces of a recently discovered example have been uncovered on the outskirts of Andover. Jeremy Clutterbuck reports. South of the River Anton, the chalky Hampshire landscape is rich in archaeological remains. There, in the mid-1970s, excavations by the Andover Archaeological Society (AAS) revealed a virtually complete Anglo-Saxon cemetery, dating from the late 5th to 6th century. It was dubbed Portway East. In 1981, part of a 2nd cemetery, a few hundred metres away, was also uncovered by the AAS. This site – Portway West – dated from the 7th to 8th century, and is thought to be the successor burial ground to its neighbour. At first glance, these appeared to be conventional early medieval cemeteries: most of the burials at both sites had been interred respectfully, and according to traditional contemporary rites, but 2 men, found at Portway West, were more unusual. Not only had both individuals been consigned to the same grave, but both were missing their heads. ‘Deviant’ burials like these are sometimes associated with capital punishment; indeed, there are a number of Anglo-Saxon execution cemeteries known across the chalk downland – at Guildown (Surrey), at Stockbridge Down (Hampshire), and 2 at Winchester. Early medieval law codes included the death penalty for crimes including theft and absconding from penal slavery, although nonlethal punishments like mutilation, ransom, and being ‘sold beyond the sea’, as well as a system of paying compensation known as wergild, were also provided for. 2 other Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are known in the immediate area of the Weyhill site: one, Portway East, dates from the 5th-6th century; the other, Portway West, from the 7th-8th century. This plan, based on the 1876 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, shows the execution cemetery’s prominent location on both the parish boundary and the route of a Roman road. The definitive study of execution sites was carried out by Andrew Reynolds of UCL (in 2009 he proposed that there are 27 known examples in this country; Alyxandra Mattison of the University of Sheffield has since suggested refining this number to 9), who outlined a number of distinctive characteristics. They are often found beside routeways, barrows, or other landmarks, and stand out because of strikingly unusual burials – bodies that have been laid in their graves face down or in other, often contorted, positions; bodies with their heads removed or with signs of their hands or feet having been bound; and multiple bodies crammed into the same grave cut. 2 clusters of such graves have been found at Sutton Hoo, one on the cemetery’s eastern fringe, the other scattered in the shadow of one of the royal barrows (see CA 331). During the earlier Anglo-Saxon period, we find these kinds of burials among more conventional graves. It appears that, at that time, wrongdoers who had been put to death could still be buried in community graveyards. But it has been suggested that the adoption of Christianity, the growth of kingship, and the formation of the English state led to the evolution of separate cemeteries for executed criminals. As the parish church became the dominant hub of community interaction and exchange in the late Saxon period (c.AD 850- 1066), and the churchyard effectively became the ‘proper’ passage to the afterlife, a mix of emerging Christian belief and residual Germanic lore is thought to have provoked a superstitious reimagining of the edge of settlements – and any associated earthworks or barrows – as having more negative spiritual connotations. These liminal places were geographically and ideologically ideal for formal executions, and there criminals could be buried, cut off from the rest of the community, in a phenomenon that spanned the 7th to approximately the 12th century. Portway West’s apparently long chronology led Nick Stoodley of the University of Winchester to suggest, in 2006, that as this cemetery had seemingly not developed into a formal late Saxon execution site, then one might perhaps lie undiscovered close by. His words would prove to be remarkably prescient. A CEMETERY EMERGES In 2016, archaeological work began on a brownfield site about 500m from the Portway cemeteries – the planned location of a new Aldi store on Weyhill Road, on the western edge of Andover. Cotswold Archaeology had been commissioned by Aldi to carry out a watching brief during the construction process, and as work commenced, it quickly became apparent that the south-west corner of the site was home to a dense cluster of graves. It was decided that, while the
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November 30 IRANexecutions Public Execution of a Person with Mental Illness A prisoner was hanged in public at Iranian city of Taft (Central Iran) on Thursday, November 29. The man was suffering from mental disability and had previously been hospitalized in a Psychiatric hospital, according to the Iranian media reports. According to Iranian media, the man whose first name identified as Kamran, was suffering from mental disability and was hospitalized in a Psychiatric hospital before committing a murder. Kamran was 19 when he murdered a 36 old woman; and told the prosecutors that he loved the victim. “I expressed my love to her and she refused. I decided to take revenge,” the prisoner had said in his confessions. According to the Yazd Province Judiciary Courthouse’s Public Relations department, Kamran was hanged in public in Taft city, on the morning of Thursday, November 29. UN human rights experts, including the former Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, had previously drawn particular attention to continued reports of public executions. “a dehumanising effect on both the victim and those who witness the execution” and ultimately reinforced the “already cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty,” UN experts said. Iran Human Rights (IHR) warns against the new wave of executions in Iran and urges the UN, EU, and countries with diplomatic relations with Iran to react immediately and accordingly. "We demand the halt of all executions, especially public executions which are inhumane and disdainful, and increase the level of violence in society, ”IHR spokesperson and director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, emphasised, “At the 1st anniversary of the nationwide protests in Iran, we are concerned that the Iranian authorities will use more executions and terror to avoid new protests." IHR has previously reported about other cases where people with mental illness have been executed in Iran. *** Man Hanged at Tabriz Prison A prisoner was hanged at Tabriz Central Prison on murder charges. According to the IHR sources, Hassan Fakhri, a citizen of Sarab city, was executed on the early morning of Tuesday, November 27. Kurdistan Human Rights Network, Hassan Fakhri was held in ward 9 of Tabriz prison. The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned execution 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 for both: Iran Human Rights) *** Iranian tribunals send executives to gallows Special Iranian anti-corruption courts established this summer have in recent weeks handed down harsh sentences, including the death penalty, against businessmen who allegedly took advantage of worsening economic conditions caused by U.S. sanctions on Iran. The tribunals, established by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in August, are part of a high-profile government crackdown on corruption amid growing public anger over high unemployment and other economic ills. The Trump administration this month reimposed a near-total embargo on Iran's economy, sanctioning everything from oil sales to bank transactions,to pressure Tehran to give up its ballistic missile program and abandon its support for armed proxy groups in the Middle East. The economic woes have given rise to mounting calls inside Iran for corrupt businessmen and officials to be tried and punished. Authorities this month hanged two prominent currency traders for hoarding gold coins as the rial plunged to record lows against the dollar this summer, causing gold prices to surge. At least three others have also recently been sentenced to death for similar crimes - and scores more arrested - according to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, which has tracked the prosecutions. "Some people who've been enraged feel relieved," said a Tehran-based legal scholar named Mohsen, who declined to use his full name for fear of retribution from authorities. But he added that the public also wants to see high-level government officials put on trial for economic crimes, and many Iranians have little faith that senior officials will be prosecuted. "The judiciary is one of the most loathed institutions of the Islamic Republic," he said. The new courts were set up by special decree after judicial officials asked Khamenei to grant them more flexibility to go after "enemies" they said had sabotaged Iran's economy and currency in recent months. Khamenei approved the use of revolutionary courts - which try security and other crimes against the Islamic Republic - for 2 years to take "swift and just" legal action
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Nov. 29 PAKISTAN: Pakistan Should Remove People with Mental Disabilities From Death Row Imdad Ali, who is aged around 50, was sentenced to death for the murder of a religious cleric in 2002 and is set to be hanged tomorrow. This week, a medical board confirmed that Saleem Ahmad, a prisoner on death row for 14 years, has chronic schizophrenia. Ahmad, 50, had been scheduled to be executed in November 2017, but a court suspended his execution and ordered a medical board to assess his mental health. Ahmad – who was convicted of murder – has been in prison for more than 17 years. This is a scathing indictment of Pakistan’s criminal justice system and should be used as an opportunity for reform. While the death penalty is inherently cruel and should be abolished, executing an individual with psychosocial disabilities violates Pakistan’s international legal obligations. The United Nations Human Rights Committee and UN special experts have determined that the execution of a person with a psychosocial disability violates the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. Ahmad is one of many prisoners with psychosocial disabilities on death row. In April, the Supreme Court of Pakistan reviewed the death sentences of Kaniz Fatima and Imdad Ali, death row convicts with psychosocial disabilities. During the proceedings, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court remarked: “Neither reason nor sensibility allow me to believe that we can execute a mentally ill or disabled person.” Kaniz Fatima and Imdad Ali remain on death row. Kaniz Fatima is one of the few women on death row in Pakistan. According to her lawyers, she has not spoken for 12 years and is unable to eat, drink, or take care of herself without assistance. She has been in prison for 29 years. She is among more than 8,000 prisoners on death row in Pakistan – one of the world’s largest populations of prisoners facing executions. Pakistani law mandates capital punishment for 28 offenses, including murder, rape, treason, and blasphemy. The arbitrariness, unfairness, and high risk of error in capital prosecutions in Pakistan has been documented extensively. The death penalty is inherently cruel – but even more so for those who may not recognize their crimes. It good to see Pakistani authorities beginning to realize executing people with psychosocial disabilities is an affront to human decency and serves no criminal justice purpose. Pakistan should strengthen its justice system and work towards a complete moratorium on death sentences, rather than sending people like Saleem Ahmad to the gallows. (source: Human Rights Watch) ___ 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
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November 29 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Man knifes boss for withholding salary for sex, gets death penalty in UAE Municipal workers discovered the victim's body in a parked car and informed the police. A worker accused of killing his boss for refusing a salary increase has been sentenced to death. The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance has handed down the execution sentence to the man after he was found guilty of premeditated murder and theft. He had been earning Dh1,000 a month, but attacked his employer after the man delayed the Dh500 salary increment which he had promised him for a long time. Official court documents stated that the defendant had been brought by the Pakistani victim to work at his workshop in Musaffah area. He had promised to pay him a monthly salary of Dh1,500 but when he reached here, he instead paid him Dh1,000. After working for many months, the employer informed the defendant that his monthly salary had been increased from Dh1,000 to Dh1,500. But the boss didn't fulfil his promise. Upon seeing that the employer was reluctant to include the salary increment of Dh500 to his pay in the months that followed, the man planned his revenge. He went to a shop with his friend and bought a meat cleaver. He then phoned his boss for a meeting. He told him that he wanted to go to a remote area in the city outskirts to pick something from a friend but needed his help because he didn't have transport. The boss drove him in his car. And while on the way in a quiet area, the worker pulled out the meat cleaver and hit him with it on the head and neck. He then drove the car and parked it on the roadside, leaving the dead man inside. The worker also took two mobile phones from the victim and his laptop and fled the scene. The following morning, he went to his workplace as usual, pretending that nothing happened. Municipal workers discovered the victim's body in a parked car and informed the police. Police later arrested the worker after investigations revealed that he carried out the murder. The CCTV cameras at the store from where the victim bought the murder weapon (meat cleaver) in the company of his friend had helped the authorities to identify the killer. Upon police questioning regarding the meat cleaver, the worker said he bought it for personal safety. Later, he admitted to using the meat cleaver to murder his boss. He said he did it out of anger because the man wanted to have sex with him so that he would increase his pay, but he never intended to kill him. The Abu Dhabi public prosecutors charged the man with premeditated murder and theft. In court, the accused retracted his earlier confession and denied planning to kill his boss. He said the man wanted to have sex with him by force and that he attacked him in self-defence. Prosecutors had demanded that he be given the death penalty. The death sentence can be appealed within a period of 2 weeks after the issuance of the ruling. (source: Khaleej Times) IRAN: Kurd in Iran put on death row as teen has days to live unless more money raised: report An Iranian Kurdish (Rojhilati) family of a 21-year-old youth on death row for the alleged murder of a classmate is struggling to acquire the sum demanded by the parents of the victim for a pardon, according to a local report. In late 2013, Milad Azimi had been in class when he got into an altercation with another student, during which he reportedly injured the other boy who later passed away in the hospital due to the severity of his wounds, Hamdeli Daily reported on Monday. Shortly after the incident, the local court issued Azimi an arrest warrant and eventually handed him a death sentence based on the confession the teen had made under interrogation saying he had caused the fatal wounds to his classmate. However, he later told the court that he had only admitted to the crime under the pressure of his interrogators. Azimi had added that due to the chaotic and crowded fight, he was actually uncertain if he had been the cause of the injury. It is unclear how the wound was inflicted during the fight or if the use of a weapon was involved. After years of work, Azimi's parents only recently convinced the family of the victim to pardon their son, but this on the condition of a hefty payment in Iranian Tomans, equivalent to nearly USD 130,000. "By selling all our belongings and the aid of charitable people, we collected a sum of 150 million Tomans [USD 36,250]," Fariba Bakhshi, Azimi's mother, was quoted as saying in the paper's report. She added they had received about USD 47,500 more from another charity organization, totaling nearly USD 83,750. Should Azimi's family fail to deliver the amount in question, the 21-year-old will be executed on Tuesday. Early October, Iran executed a woman who was arrested and put on death row as a teen for the murder of her husband. "Not only
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November 28 IRAN: 5 wildlife conservationists held by Iran could face the death penalty Up to 6 conservation researchers accused of spying by the Iranian government could face the death penalty if convicted, according to multiple media reports. Conservationists Niloufar Bayani, Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jowkar, Sepideh Kashani and Morad Tahbaz work with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation on the conservation of different wildlife species in Iran, which includes monitoring animals such as Asiatic cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) with camera traps. The country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which reports to the country's supreme leader, alleges that the team used camera traps to collect information on Iran's missile program, Science magazine reported Oct. 30. The 8 environmentalists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation currently being held in Iran on charges related to espionage. The 5 are among a group of 8 - which also includes Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh and Sam Rajabi from the same organization - being held in custody, according to The Guardian newspaper and other media reports. A sociologist and manager of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Kavous Seyed Emami, who was arrested in early 2018, died under suspicious circumstances in February while in custody, observers said according to a report in The New York Times. "This is a very bizarre charge to bring against environmental activists," Tara Sepehri Far, a researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Science. After months of confinement, 5 of the 8 conservationists were charged with the crime of "sowing corruption on Earth" in early October, The Guardian wrote. (Science reported that only 4 of them - Bayani, Ghadirian, Jowkar and Tahbaz - were charged with the capital offense.) "9 months of pre-trial detention with no clear charges and no access to a lawyer is an unusually long time even by Iran's dismal due process standards. It's hard not to conclude that the authorities are struggling to gather enough evidence to charge them with any recognizable crime," Sepehri Far wrote in a post for the Atlantic Council, a think tank, before the revelation of the charges. The Asiatic cheetah, likely numbering fewer than 50 individuals, is found only in Iran. Image by Tasnim News Agency via Wikimedia Commons (CC 4.0). She said an investigation at the behest of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani did not find that the accused environmentalists were spies, which put them at the center of a "domestic power struggle" with hard-liners in the judiciary and the Revolutionary Guard. If convicted, the environmentalists could face sentences ranging from six months up to the death penalty. "It is hard to fathom how working to preserve the Iranian flora and fauna can possibly be linked to conducting espionage against Iranian interests," a group of experts calling on the Iranian government to have the charges dropped said in a statement from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Jon Paul Rodríguez, a biologist at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and chair of IUCN Species Survival Commission, highlighted the value of the work that the researchers had been doing. "As far as I am aware, practically the only information we have on the Asiatic cheetah comes from camera traps," he said. Asiatic cheetahs likely number fewer than 50 individuals, based on a 2017 study co-authored by Jowkar, 1 of the people charged in this case, and the IUCN has considered the subspecies critically endangered since 1996. Because cheetahs live at low densities, the traps represent a much more efficient and economical tool to get an accurate picture of their population. In Botswana in southern Africa, scientists have used camera traps to demonstrate to ranchers that a cheetah on their property isn’t as dangerous to their livestock as they might think. An Asiatic cheetah in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge in Iran. Image by Behnam Ghorbani via Wikimedia Commons (CC 4.0). The detentions and the charges leveled have rattled the international scientific community. "IUCN is deeply alarmed by the charges," Rodríguez said. First reported by Science, hundreds of scientists have signed a letter asking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to ensure a fair and "transparent" trial for the 8 researchers. CITATION Khalatbari, L., Jowkar, H., Yusefi, G. H., Brito, J. C., and Ostrowski, S. (2017). The current status of Asiatic cheetah in Iran. Cat News, 66, 10-13. (source: mongabay.com) MALDIVES: Maldives pledges to uphold moratorium on death penaltyThe moratorium was lifted by former president Abdulla Yameen in 2014. A 65-year moratorium on the death penalty will be maintained by the new administration of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the foreign ministry announced Tuesday. It also announced that the
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Nov. 27 ZIMBABWE: 3 men sentenced to death Finally, the Zimbabwean hangman has got work to do. 3 men were last week condemned to hang by the High Court after being convicted of murder with actual intent. Justice Chitapi failed to find any extenuating circumstances to save them from capital punishment. (source: bulawayo24.com) PAKISTAN: Pakistani doctors say man on death row is mentally ill A rights group says court-appointed doctors have confirmed that a death row prisoner in Pakistan suffers from chronic schizophrenia and requires regular medical treatment. Justice Project Pakistan, which campaigns against the death penalty, says the findings were submitted to a court in Lahore with the suggestion that Saleem Ahmed be transferred to a mental health treatment facility. Ahmed, 63, was convicted of fatally shooting his sister during a financial dispute in 2001. He has been on death row since 2004. A judge delayed his execution in November 2017 following a petition from the Justice Project. Pakistan is a signatory to international conventions that bar the execution of mentally ill prisoners. (source: daiyjournal.net) *** Pakistani Christian death row inmate awaits appeal hearing Blasphemy convict Pakistani Christian Sawan Masih awaits justice as his appeal case is due to be herd by the Lahore High Court on November 27. He has been on death row since 2014, after accusations of committing blasphemy were leveled against him. His case remained in the limelight as Badami Bagh arson budded from it. Blasphemy cases against Pakistani Christians On March 9, 2013 Shahid Imran a non-Christian friend of Sawan Masih accused him of committing blasphemy. Consequently, an FIR was registered and Section 295-C was invoked against him. He was tried in the jail and in March 2014 the judge handed him Capital punishment. Sawan Masih father of 3 has consistently maintained his innocence since being accused of blasphemy. He claimed that the accusations were fabricated. "We will appeal the sentence in the Lahore High Court," Sawan Masih's lawyer said at that time. An appeal was filed against his death punishment. On November 27, his appeal is scheduled to be heard by the divisional bench before the Lahore High Court. The case is notoriously remembered as a charged mob of about 3,000 men attacked Lahore's Joseph Colony - a predominantly Christian neighborhood. This attack was a reprisal to Sawan Masih's alleged blasphemy. Sawan Masih resided in Joseph Colony, and the mobsters looted Christians' houses, shops and churches afterwards set them on fire. No less than 180 houses, 75 shops, and 2 churches were set on fire. The police stood as spectators while the vandals were ransacking and torching Christians' houses. Sensing the looming attack by radicals, Christian residents of Joseph Colony fled from their homes therefore no one was killed in this arson. The alleged mobsters were arrested by the police, who were tried by the anti-terrorism court. However, last year an anti-terrorism court acquitted very one of suspects accused of involved in the Joseph Colony arson. Sawan Masih is still behind the bars awaiting justice. (source: christiansinpakistan.com) MALAYSIA: Govt should not abolish death penalty in a hurryMember of Parliament for Teluk Intan Nga Kor Ming at Parliament, today. The cabinet has been asked to work with the parliamentary select committee on the abolition of the death penalty for 32 offences under 8 Acts, before making a final decision. Member of Parliament for Teluk Intan Nga Kor Ming said any decision to abolish the death penalty must not be done in haste, and a careful study and consultation should be done before a decision is made. He said the select committee on the reconsideration of the death penalty bill was approved by Dewan Rakyat in August and the cabinet should work hand in hand to make a decision. "The cabinet and the select committee can have a round table meeting, followed by a road show to get feedback from the public on the act," Nga, who is also the Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker, said this at a press conference he called at the parliament lobby here today. Early this month, the cabinet had collectively decided to abolish the death penalty for 32 offences under 8 Acts. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Liew Vui Keong said this also included Section 302 of the Penal Code (punishment for murder), adding that the government had taken into consideration the recent death of an 11-month-old girl recently. Last Friday, the nation was rocked by the death of 11-monthold Nur Muarzara Ulfa Muhammad Zainal at Serdang Hospital after being allegedly abused by her babysitter's husband. Nga is of the opinion that the death penalty bill should not "be done in a rush as many of the acts have been there since independence. Public and stake holders feedback is
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November 26 INDIA: In fix on death penalty abolition A Delhi court's verdict awarding death penalty to one Yashpal Singh for killing 2 Sikhs during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots is likely to trigger a fresh debate on the contentious issue. The verdict came days after the Supreme Court recalled its six-year-old order that dismissed a review petition against confirmation of death penalty awarded to a man from Maharashtra for killing 3 persons. The issue has been hotly debated in India for decades. But successive governments have favoured retaining capital punishment on the statute book. Earlier this month, once again India voted against a UN resolution that called for a moratorium on death penalty, saying it went against its statutory laws. New Delhi maintained that it had a sovereign right to determine its own legal system. Murder, gang robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, waging war against the government and abetting mutiny by a member of the armed forces attract capital punishment. This year, Parliament passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018, which prescribes death sentence for those raping children below 12 years. While Parliament continues to add to the list of crimes prescribing death penalty, the SC has been attempting to restrict its scope by a series of verdicts starting in 1983 when it propounded the doctrine of "the rarest of rare cases". This exposes the dichotomy in India's approach to death penalty. In Bachan Singh versus State of Punjab, a Constitution Bench ruled in 1983 that in capital crimes life sentence was the norm and death penalty an exception. "Death penalty should be imposed when collective conscience of the society is so shocked that it will expect the holders of the judicial power centre to inflict death penalty irrespective of their personal opinion as regards desirability of otherwise of retaining death penalty," it said. What is "the rarest of rare" depends upon facts and circumstances of a case. But brutality of the crime, conduct of the offender, his/her criminal antecedents and chances of reform are generally taken into account. Pre-planned, heart-less, brutal, cold-blooded and sordid nature of the crime have to be considered besides the magnitude of the personality of the victim. After execution of Auto Shankar in Salem in 1995, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in Kolkata in 2004. Since then, only terror convicts such as Ajmal Kasab (2012), Afzal Guru (2013) and Yakub Memon (2015) have been sent to the gallows. In the rest of the cases, either the SC reduced the sentence to life term or the President used his power under Article 72 to save them from the gallows. Even in the case of former PM Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, the Supreme Court in 2014 commuted the death sentence of 3 convicts to life imprisonment on the ground of inordinate delay in deciding their mercy pleas. According to the Amnesty International, there are 106 countries, mostly from Europe, which have abolished death penalty for all crimes while seven have done so for ordinary crimes only. There are 29 others that are abolitionist in practice, taking the total number of abolitionist countries to 142. There are 56 countries - including India, Japan, the US, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia - which retain death penalty. Punishment is quite a natural response to a crime and quantum of punishment must be proportionate to the degree of offence committed. Often deterrence is cited as justification for capital punishment and that not awarding adequate punishment to convicts can lead to vigilantism. But the moot argument against death penalty is that if the state can't give life, it should not be entitled to take it away either. Also, death penalty is irreversible. What if a convict turns out to be innocent, his execution cannot be undone. An ideal situation would be where New Delhi joins the abolitionist club. But India is not like Iran, Saudi Arabia or China where the sheer number of executions raises many an eyebrow. It has a robust judicial system that works independent of the Executive and ensures that executions are rare. Given the challenges posed by terrorism and internal security, the government appears unlikely to abolish death penalty even as the popular mood is against it. Of late, there has been a consensus of sorts to execute death row convicts only in terror cases. With the Supreme Court upholding death penalty awarded to 4 convicts in July in Nirbhaya case, this consensus would be put to test very soon. Dichotomy in approach Murder, gang robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, raping children below 12 years of age, waging war against the government and abetting mutiny by a member of the armed forces attract capital punishment While Parliament continues to add to the list of crimes prescribing death penalty, the SC has been attempting
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November 24 EGYPT: Egypt Sentences 17 Islamic Militants to Death for Coptic Christian Church Killings 17 Islamic militants were sentenced to death on Thursday for their role in multiple church bombings in Egypt that killed scores of Coptic Christians. It was reported that another 19 defendants were issued life sentences by a military court, while 9 others were given 15 years in prison for terror-related charges. Several were found guilty of being involved in a suicide bombing at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo in December 2016, where 25 people died. Others were found guilty of being involved in the twin suicide bombings in churches in Alexandria and Tanta on Palm Sunday in April 2017, where 45 were killed. Coptic Christians, who make up only 10 % of the population, have of continuous Islamist attacks in Egypt, some which have been claimed by the Islamic State terror group. Human rights group Amnesty International posited that the verdict on Thursday was rushed, and argued that the defendants need a fair hearing before a civilian court. "There can be no justification for the utterly reprehensible attacks which targeted worshipers in Coptic Christian churches across Egypt in 2017. There is no doubt that the perpetrators of these horrific attacks should be held accountable for their crimes. But handing out a mass death sentence after an unfair military trial is not justice and will not deter further sectarian attacks," said Najia Bounaim, who heads the North African section of the human rights group. "Egypt has a shocking track record of unlawfully trying civilians in its notorious military courts and sentencing scores to death after grossly unfair mass trials, often based on 'confessions' extracted through torture. Those accused of involvement in these heinous crimes must be retried in a civilian court in proceedings that comply with international human rights law and fair trial standards," Bounaim added. Coptic Christians have in the past cried out for justice and demanded that the Egyptian government does more to protect them from attacks. Church leaders have opposed previous death sentences, however. When former president Mohamed Morsi was sentenced to death in May 2015 for his role in the killings of Christians at the hands of Muslim radicals, the Coptic Catholic Bishop of Assiut spoke out against it. Anba Kyrillos William said at the time the Church does not compromise on defending life, and cannot back the death penalty. "The Church respects the independence of the judiciary, but believes that life is an inviolable right, and remains opposed to the death penalty. The fact is that this type of sentence is still contemplated in the Egyptian legal order," William at the time. Anba Angaelos, the General Bishop in the United Kingdom of the Coptic Orthodox Church, said in a statement earlier this year when marking the anniversary of the attacks that for the families of the victims, the anger and pain remains deep. "As the situation facing Christians and minority groups in the Middle East increasingly spirals to new and dangerous levels of exclusion and dehumanization, the need is intensified for both the unified Body of Christ within the Christian family, and the global community as a whole, to stand in solidarity with those suffering, condemn acts of brutality, and provide whatever assistance may be needed, while at the same time, explore every possible means of healing, rebuilding and restoring of communities and lives," Angaelos on his website. "We continue to hold those suffering great struggles, indignity and the loss of precious human life in our prayers, that grace, healing and strength be bestowed upon them all at this time. We also pray for those committing these atrocities, that they will one day realize the sanctity and dignity granted equally by God to every human life," he added. (source: essexcaller.com) SOMALIAexecution Ex-Jubbaland cop executed for Murder A former member of the Jubbaland armed forces was today executed in Kismayo for the killing of a prominent elder. Abdirizak Omar Abdullahi's date with the hangman came after he was found guilty of killing prominent peacemaker Abdirizicak Omar Abdullahi in Kismayo on 27th October 2018. Golo was one of the prominent elders and peacemakers in Jubbaland State and his killing drew widespread anger. It is not the 1st time a Jubbaland military court is sentencing to death members of the armed forces for killings. (source: kismaayo.com) JAPAN: Reduce the burden on lay judges The proceedings of lay judge trials - in which randomly selected citizens join professional judges to deliberate on criminal cases - are taking increasingly longer to conclude. The average period from the opening of a lay judge trial to the ruling, 3.7 days when the system was first introduced in 2009, has stretched out to 10.5 days as of September
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November 23 INDIA: Rajasthan: Man gets death penalty for raping a minor Father of an infant girl was awarded the death sentence by the Jhunjhunu (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Court in on Friday for raping a minor on August 2. This is the 4th case in the state where the accused under POCSO were handed out death sentence. Nand Kishore, Special Public Prosecutor, POCSO Court, said this is the first case when the death sentence has been given to a rapist within 20 days of presenting the charge-sheet in a court. Accused Vinod Banjara, 23, is a resident of Dausa and used to sell utensils, Kishore said. On August 2, he raped the minor in a village when her maternal grandparents were away. The police formed a special team to investigate the case, Kishore said. "Through CCTVs, the accused was identified and arrested on August 3. He was remanded into custody where he confessed to the crime," he said. According to DGP Rajasthan, after death sentence was incorporated in the POCSO Act for the and killing of minors under 12 years, all police officers were directed to speedy investigation and filing of charge sheets in the court had expedited conviction. He said an accused in the rape of a 6-year-old in on February 14 this year was handed out death sentence. He said the investigation was completed within 16 days and the court convicted for death on August 24 this year. Similarly, in another case where a 6-month old baby was raped and killed at Laxmangarh in Alwar on May 10, the court awarded death sentence to the accused on July 21. In this case the charge sheet was filed within 26 days after the incident. An accused in a similar case reported at Barmer women's police station was given death sentence on August 7 for raping a 12-year-old girl, he said. (source: Clayton Caller) * PIL in SC for execution of death penalty awarded to 4 in Nirbhaya case A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court Thursday seeking directions to immediately execute the death penalty awarded to 4 convicts of the sensational Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. The 23-year-old paramedic student was gangraped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in South Delhi by 6 persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She succumbed to injuries on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. The apex court, on July 9, had dismissed the pleas of 3 convicts -- Mukesh (31), Pawan Gupta (24) and Vinay Sharma (25) -- seeking review of the apex court verdict which had upheld the judgements of the Delhi High Court and the lower court in the case. The 4th death convict Akshay Kumar Singh (33) so far has not filed the review plea in the apex court. The apex court in its 2017 verdict had upheld the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case. The fresh PIL, filed by lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava, said despite a lapse of more than 4 1/2 months from the date of dismissal of the review petitions of 3 convicts, the death penalty has not yet been executed. The plea said that in rape-cum-murder cases, the fate of the accused must be decided in a period of 8 months from the lower court to the apex court. Such delay in execution of death penalty is acting as a bad precedent and has resulted in increasing incidents of rapes being reported on daily basis, it said. The plea said the fact that the death row convicts have not yet been hanged despite elapse of more than 5 years of their initial conviction "apparently gives an impression in the minds of the rapists that they would also be harmless if they commit such heinous crimes". The plea also sought guidelines to prescribe strict timelines for speedy execution of death row convicts in rape-cum-murder cases, so that the remedies of appeal in high court, appeal, review, curative petition in the apex court and mercy petition before the president are exhausted by the convicts within maximum period of 8 months. (source: business-standard.com) IRAN: Iran Lobby Silent on Rising Executions Iran is the world leader in terms of execution per capita and execution of juveniles, but especially frequent are the public hangings of political, ethnic and religious prisoners from a construction crane. Recently, they have increased their execution rates in response to widespread domestic protests, international pressure and returning US sanctions, which all mean that the mullahs are losing control and facing an economic crisis, brought on by decades of mismanagement and corruption, which has seen the currency dropped 70% against the dollar and led to inflation. The latest example was the execution of Vahid Mazloumin, also known as the "Sultan of Coins", a gold dealer who was accused by Iranian authorities of contributing to dramatic price rises by hoarding gold, which was a warning
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Nov. 22 CHINA: Xinjiang Authorities Sentence Uyghur Philanthropist to Death For Unsanctioned Hajj Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have sentenced a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist to death for taking an unsanctioned Muslim holy pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, according to his brother. Abdughapar Abdurusul, of Bakyol district in Ili Kazakh (in Chinese, Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture's Ghulja (Yining) city, "was arrested in July or August," his brother Abdusattar Abdurusul recently told RFA's Uyghur Service, citing Abdughapar's Kazakh business partners living in Kazakhstan's Almaty city. "The latest I heard is that my brother has been given a death sentence and he is waiting for his execution to be carried out ... The reason is that he went to perform hajj on his own [instead of joining a state-sanctioned tour group]," he added, referring to the annual Muslim holy pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. According to Abdusattar Abdurusul, his brother was provided with "no lawyer" during a "group trial," suggesting he had been illegally sentenced to death. All death sentences should be reviewed by China's Supreme Court in Beijing, but it is unclear whether Abdughapar Abdurusul's case has been examined. Abdughapar Abdurusul, a 42-year-old father of four, owns several shops and businesses, and multiple properties, his brother said, and had used some of the money he earned to build a mosque for the local community in recent years. Abdughapar Abdurusul had also sold an old family home for around 1 million yuan (U.S. $144,000) in April or May, and was living comfortably before he was arrested and all of his family's assets - totaling around 100 million yuan (U.S. $14.4 million) - were seized, he said. "He is a philanthropist who enjoyed helping society ... [but] now the government has taken away everything and destroyed his family's lives completely," Abdusattar Abdurusul said. Abdughapar Abdurusul's eldest son Awzer was detained in 2017 after returning home from studying in Turkey, and his wife Merhaba Hajim was taken into custody in April this year, he added. Abdusattar Abdurusul said his sister Sayipjamal has been missing for "a long time" and is thought to also have been detained, while several of Abdughapar Abdurusul's friends "have been sentenced to more than 18 years in prison." Death in custody Staff members at the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture's Public Security Bureau and local police stations in Ghulja city refused to answer questions or hung up the phone when contacted by RFA about Abdughapar Abdurusul's case. But a long-time associate who worked with Abdughapar Abdurusul in Ili Kazakh's Qorghas (Huocheng) county and is now living in exile told RFA he had also heard of the businessman's sentence from local sources, and that his wife had died in custody. "A friend of mine called me, saying that our mutual friend Abdughapar Hajim had been sentenced to death," the associate said, speaking on condition of anonymity and using an honorific title to denote that Abdughapar Abdurusul had completed a pilgrimage to Mecca. "[I also heard] that his wife had already died in prison," he added. The associate said that "more than 50' people in Abdughapar Abdurusul's circle of friends - including several police officers - had been arrested and imprisoned before him, but that he was the only to have been sentenced to death. When asked why Abdughapar Abdurusul might have been given such a harsh sentence, the associate said he was unsure, "but the Chinese government is killing Uyghurs for no particular reason." A former close neighbor of Abdughapar Abdurusul's named Turghunay, who is now living in exile in Turkey, also told RFA she had heard of his sentence and that Merhaba Hajim had died in detention. "I heard that Abdughapar Hajim was arrested in May or June and, prior to that, his eldest son Awzer had been arrested, followed by his wife, Merhaba Hajim," she said. "I don’t know if he was arrested because of his wealth or having gone on hajj, but when I heard the news about his death sentence ... I was devastated." Turghunay said that Merhaba Hajim had "died in a [political] re-education camp," where authorities have detained Uyghurs accused of harboring "strong religious views" and "politically incorrect" ideas throughout the XUAR since April 2017. "The death certificate was given to the family by the authorities," she said, adding that "no one knows what has happened to their young children." Camp network While Beijing initially denied the existence of re-education camps, the Uyghur chairman of Xinjiang's provincial government, Shohrat Zakir, told China's official Xinhua news agency last month that the facilities are an effective tool to protect the country from terrorism and provide vocational training for Uyghurs. Reporting by RFA's Uyghur Service and
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Nov. 21 IRANexecutions 3 Men Hanged in Public- IHR Warns About a New Wave of Execution in the Coming Weeks 3 prisoners were hanged in public at Iranian city of Shiraz this morning. Several children were observed among the crowd watching the executions. Iranian authorities have executed at least 15 people during the last 8 days. Iran Human Rights (IHR) warns against a new wave of executions in Iran and urges the UN, EU and countries with diplomatic relations with Iran to react immediately to stop these executions. The IHR spokesperson and director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said: "We demand the halt of all executions, especially public executions which are inhumane and humiliating, and promote violence in society,". IHR spokesperson emphasised, "At the 1st anniversary of the nationwide protests in Iran, we are concerned that the Iranian authorities will use more executions and terror to avoid new protests. Adequate and prompt international reactions can stop these executions". According to Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), Siamak Eslaminia, Kourosh Gholizadeh and Foad Ghanemi were hanged in public at Payam square of Shiraz city. All 3 were convicted to death on Moharebeh charge (waging war against God) for armed robbery. The 1st defendant was also accused of killing a policeman. "Tens of children between 3 to 10 years old were among crowd along with their parents," Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. UN human rights experts, including the former Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, had previously drawn particular attention to continued reports of public executions. "a dehumanising effect on both the victim and those who witness the execution" and ultimately reinforced the "already cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty," UN experts said. (source: Iran Human Rights) JAPAN: Death penalty sought for man accused of killing Osaka teens in 2015 Prosecutors on Wednesday demanded the death penalty for a man accused of killing 2 junior high school children in Osaka in 2015. During the trial at the Osaka District Court, prosecutors said Koji Yamada, 48, murdered by suffocation 12-year-old Ryoto Hoshino and 13-year-old Natsumi Hirata with "evident" intent. Yamada has denied intending to kill Hirata and says Hoshino died after experiencing a health problem. "It was evident that the defendant choked the 2 with an intent to kill," a prosecutor said, claiming that Yamada did so as a result of an incident involving Hoshino and later to silence Hirata, despite the alleged killer having had no apparent relationship with either child. The prosecutors said bruising found on Hirata's neck proved the act of choking, and other injuries on her body showed the extent of Yamada's "cruel and violent acts." They also denied the defense team's claim that Hoshino died as a result of a health problem, citing security camera footage that showed the boy walking through a shopping mall shortly before his death. Arguing that Yamada's mental state was not impaired at the time, the prosecutors said a capital sentence is unavoidable as the accused "showed no regard for life ... killing both teens in 1 day." 2 lawyers representing the victims' families also called for the death penalty at the trial, saying Yamada "has not shown remorse." Yamada's defense counsel admitted that the accused was involved in the death of Hirata, but claimed he should have been charged with causing injury resulting in death rather than murder. The defense team also argued that as Hoshino died of a health problem, Yamada should have been charged with failure to offer necessary care. According to the indictment, Yamada choked Hirata and Hoshino to death somewhere in or near Osaka Prefecture around Aug. 13, 2015. Prosecutors said during the trial that Yamada met the teens for the 1st time at a deli in Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture, on the morning of Aug. 13, and lured them into a car. He then headed to the city of Kashiwara in the same prefecture. Hirata's body was found at a parking lot in the Osaka Prefecture city of Takatsuki soon after the 2 went missing, and the partially skeletal remains of Hoshino were discovered a week later in the mountains in Kashiwara. Parts of both bodies were found bound with adhesive tape. The 2 children, who attended the same city-run junior high school, went missing after spending hours together at a shopping arcade. (source: Japan Times) INDIA: SC to review death penalty awarded to man killing his family In a rare decision, the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday decided to review its final decision of awarding a man death penalty for the murder of 4 children and a woman with whom he was living as husband and wife. A bench headed by Justice Kurian Joseph also directed that the order to suspend the death sentence of the convict, Sudam alias Rahul Kaniram
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Nov. 20 SOUTH AFRICA: Calls for death penalty after man in court for woman's 'murder' The National Educational, Health and Allied Workers (Nehawu) is calling for the death penalty to be brought back to show that crimes against women will no longer be tolerated within South African communities. The trade union sent out a clear message as they protested outside the Pretoria Magistrate's Court ahead of the appearance of a 34-year-old Mamelodi man accused of murdering a 28-year-old woman. The man allegedly murdered the victim and dumped her body in the chimney inside the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries offices in Pretoria in December 2017. According to information the woman was reported missing on December 22, a day after she was last seen during her tea break. She was employed by a private company rendering cleaning services to the department. Her badly decomposed body was discovered by a security guard during the department's Christmas break on December 28. Sunnyside SAPS spokesperson, Captain David Mavimbela, said the investigating officer, conducted a "meticulous investigation" which led to the arrest of the man in Mamelodi on Friday. "The Sunnyside police management commends the investigating officer for his outstanding professionalism in dealing with the investigation that followed." Lindiwe Sibeko, a Nehawu shop steward, said they were happy that progress was realised especially ahead of activities that will be part of 16-days of activism against women abuse. Sibeko said workers still did not feel safe and people were afraid to work after hours. "We want to see this person and know that he is going to pay for his crimes. But we wish that the death penalty can be brought back especially when the evidence is as compelling." "The family is crying and her children are without a mother who was the sole parent left and yet this man will continue living in prison with our tax funds which is not right." The man appeared briefly in court with the matter being postponed to November 26 , for further investigation. (source: iol.co.za) MALAYSIA: Keep the death penalty, says former MACC advisor PhangFormer MACC advisor Robert Phang (centre) is running a campaign to keep the death penalty, saying criminals should not be allowed to do as they please. Robert Phang says Putrajaya should not have decided on the abolition of the death penalty without consulting the public. The former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) advisor said the Pakatan Harapan government seems to have forgotten about the victims of those on death row. (source: themalaysianinsight.com) ** Activist: Let's have more forums on death penalty Sociologist and human rights activist Denison Jayasooria has called for a step-up in public discussions on the proposal to abolish the death penalty. Speaking to FMT, he said he would like to see politicians in power, as well as the media, take the lead in encouraging such discussions. Recently, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Liew Vui Keong said the Cabinet had agreed to propose abolishing the death penalty for 32 offences, including murder. 8 pieces of legislation will have to be amended and the government is expected to table a bill for the purpose at the next Dewan Rakyat sitting. Liew’s announcement prompted vigorous discussions among social media users and many have expressed opposition to the proposal. Jayasooria said the negative reactions were to be expected because the public had yet to get used to a strong government commitment to human rights. He said those supporting the death penalty would change their minds if they became victims of human rights abuses. He noted that it had become a global human rights norm to abolish capital punishment and he urged the government to persist in "doing the right thing". "Political leaders must have the courage to lead and explain to the public why the government wants to abolish the death penalty," he said. "If 1 innocent person gets sentenced to death, that would already be too much. In some cases, people are sentenced to death for possession of firearms or drugs, but the items may have been planted on them. Sometimes, they just happen to be in a room where the items are kept when the authorities raid the place." Criminologist Geshina Ayu Mat Saat of Universiti Sains Malaysia said the government, if it was intent on abolishing the death penalty, must ensure that prison resources were sufficient to manage violent criminals during their incarceration. She said these would include human resources, infrastructure and provisions for institutional rehabilitation and pre-release risk assessments. "Secondly, the government and other stakeholders in support of abolition need to guarantee public safety from current and future violent criminals," she added. She warned of the possibility
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Nov. 19 IRANexecution Man Hanged at Zahedan PrisonMilad Nouri was arrested around a year ago by security forces. A Prisoner was hanged at Zahedan Central Prison on Monday, November 12. According to IHR sources, Milad Nouri was hanged on the morning of November 12, 2018. IHR could not yet obtain information about what he was accused of. Baluchi civil activist, Habibollah Sarbazi, told IHR, "a night before the execution, authorities called his family to go to the prison for the last meeting. We have heard that he was executed on rebellion charges, but we cannot confirm it yet." According to the Baluchi Activists' Campaign, Milad Nouri was a married man with 2 children. He was arrested around a year ago by security forces. The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned execution so far. (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
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November 18 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Man given death penalty after killing colleague with iron bar--Worker attacked victim during argument at breakfast time A man has been sentenced to death for killing a colleague with an iron bar after arguing at breakfast in Ajman. The 30-year-old Arab man launched a brutal assault on his Asian colleague in front of 15 fellow workers after lashing out in a fit of rage, Al Bayan newspaper reported. Ajman Criminal Court was told that during a workers' breakfast period, the killer and the victim got into a heated row over work issues, leading to the accused hurling abuse before he grabbed an iron bar and struck the man on the back of the head. Police and the ambulance service were alerted and the man was taken to hospital, where he died as a result of severe head injuries. The assailant was found guilty of murder and handed the death penalty. (source: thenatnional.ae) IRAQ: In Iraq, bloody tribal custom now classed as ‘terrorism’The practice of ‘warning’ competing tribes via shootings, including in residential areas, threatens to undermine state agencies A bloody, age-old custom used by Iraq’s powerful tribes to mete out justice has come under fire, with authorities classifying it as a “terrorist act” punishable by death. For centuries, Iraqi clans have used their own system to resolve disputes, with tribal dignitaries bringing together opposing sides to mediate in de facto “hearings.” If one side failed to attend such a meeting, the rival clan would fire on the absentee’s home or that of fellow tribesmen, a practice known as the “degga ashairiya” or “tribal warning.” Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories But in an age when Iraq’s vast rural areas and built-up cities alike are flooded with weapons outside state control, the “degga” may be deadlier than ever. A recent dispute between 2 young men in a tea shop in the capital’s eastern district of Sadr City escalated to near-fatal proportions, leaving a 40-year-old policeman with a broken hip and severely damaged abdomen. His cousin Abu Tayba said the policeman was “wounded in a stray bullet during a ‘degga’ on a nearby home.” “Weeks after the incident, he’s still in the hospital, hovering between life and death,” Tayba told AFP. Even in Baghdad, disputes often involve machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the city’s military command warned a top Iraqi court recently. That body, the country’s Superior Magistrate Council, issued a decision last week classifying “deggas” as “terrorist acts” — and therefore warranting the death penalty — because of their impact on public safety. A few days later, it announced it would take legal action against three people accused of targeting a home in Al-Adhamiyah, north of Baghdad, with the deadly custom. ‘Iraq is like a jungle’ In Iraq, a country of 39 million people, clan origin and family name can carry weight in securing a job, finding romance, and gathering political support. They can also interfere in the work of the state, as tribal structures in some areas can be more powerful than government institutions. Last year, Iraq’s tribes and the ministries of interior and justice pledged to work closer together to impose the law, but “deggas” seem to have hindered such cooperation. Raed al-Fraiji, the head of a tribal council in the southern province of Basra, told AFP the warnings have become commonplace. “This happens every day. Yesterday it happened twice. The day before, three times,” he said. “2 months ago, a domestic dispute between a husband and wife turned into an armed attack on the husband’s home. The exchange of fire killed 1 person and wounded 3.” Fraiji said tribal influence and practices were growing because the state was seen as unreliable. “For an Iraqi citizen, the law has become weak. Meanwhile, tribes impose themselves by force.” “Iraq is like a jungle — so a citizen will turn to a tribe to find solutions to their problems.” The country has been ravaged by years of conflict since the US-led invasion in 2003 that removed strongman Saddam Hussein and led to the rise of militias. A decade later, the Islamic State jihadist group overran much of Iraq and was only ousted from its urban strongholds across the country late last year. Taking on tribes Years of instability have left many of Iraq’s communities flush with weapons and largely out of the state’s reach, contributing to a preference for tribal mediation methods. “The government is responsible for the increase in tribal conflict and of ‘degga’ cases,” said Adnan al-Khazaali, a tribal leader in Baghdad’s Sadr City. “Most of the young men today are armed and even the security forces cannot stand in their way.” Tribal leaders and government officials alike are clinging to the hope that the new ruling could change things. “These incidents are
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Nov. 17 NIGERIA: Nyame: Corrupt public officials deserve death penalty – Appeal Court judge An Appeal Court judge, Emmanuel Agim, says public office holders convicted of fraud deserve the death penalty for the effect of their crimes on the society. Mr Agim expressed this view while delivering judgement in an appeal brought by a former governor of Taraba State, Jolly Nyame. Mr Nyame approached the appellate court after a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory presided over by Adebukola Banjoko in May convicted him of fraudulently diverting N1.64 billion and sentenced him to a total of 14 years imprisonment. Nyame’s Request Mr Nyame had asked the appeal court to rule that he was not a public servant and so was not bound by public service rules. He also argued that the lower court agreed with the submission of the prosecution, despite the alleged failure of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to prove a valid case of fraud against him. In the appeal court ruling, read by Mr Agim, the court said since the crux of Mr Nyame’s appeal borders on the lower court’s alleged failure to properly execute its judgement from evidences before it, the appellate court can only access the merits of the judgment delivered at the lower court. Illegal Payment To Firm After assessing the various evidences provided by the prosecution on millions of fund transferred to a private company, Salvan Global, on the instructions of Mr Nyame, the judge said the former governor made several transfers to the company despite obvious failure of the private company to provide the requisite services. “At that time, Salvan Global had not provided even a pin,” Mr Agim said while noting another payment made to the company’s account after previous ones not accounted for. Mr Agim added that while Mr Nyame claimed he did not partake in the diversion of the said fund, government officials under his watch confirmed receipt of various sums in fraudulent transactions and Mr Nyame ratified the actions of those government officials by describing them as competent and above board. “That amounts to ratification of the fraud they committed,” Mr Agim said. Admission Of fraud Mr Agim further affirmed the decision of the trial court that the statement accredited to Mr Nyame where he offered to enter into a plea bargain with the prosecution, amounted to his admission of the crime. “The trial court held that the statement amounts to admission. I have looked at it. My view is that it amounts to an admission,” Mr Agim ruled. Fraudulent Rice Purchase From Lagos Mr Agim also assessed information contained in the lower court’s document regarding a fraudulent contract with a rice supplier in Lagos. “He also said that the cash was given to him and that the rice supplier supplied the rice. “He was asked what the name of the rice supplier was, and he said he didn’t know.” The judge added that records before the court showed that there was no evidence that rice arrived from Lagos from the unknown supplier. “The court found it reasonable to disbelieve him and I think that disbelieve was a sound judgement,” Mr Agim ruled. Mr Agim noted another illegal transaction to the tune of N101 million and questioned the mode of transfer as well as its purpose. Regarding Mr Nyame’s submission about security votes, Mr Agim had this to say. “He said that the security votes given to him as governor does not need to be accounted for and cannot be stolen. The trial court did not agree with that.” Warning On Public Fund “For any public office holder; if you are given funds; whether for security votes or however so called, you have a legal duty to account for the money. “If you fail to account for it, you have a duty to return it to the state coffers as unused. If you fail to neither do both, it amounts to a criminal breach of trust. “He admitted to keeping the money. That is one clear case of admission of guilt.” Public Servant? On Mr Nyame’s submission that he is not a public servant, Mr Agim said the provisions of the law have proved beyond argument that a sitting governor is a public servant. Capital Punishment The judge added that activities of mostly fraudulent officials which have caused massive cases of poverty, unemployment and increase in crime rates among other things, make it justifiable for them to be awarded capital punishment. “This should go as a notice to all of us; we have a penchant for appropriating to ourselves funds that are meant for public purposes. “A lot of us are guilty of that. The long arm of the law does not expire. It will take on all those found guilty. “The fact that the crimes were duly committed by public servants; their impact on the people and security of Taraba State justifies a capital punishment. “The appellant is a Christian religious leader; a preacher and therefore a man of God. The manner of diversion shows a callous
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November 16 ISRAEL: As Knesset advances death penalty bill, Israel at UN joins calls to end practiceJerusalem one of 123 nations voting for resolution hailing the ‘possibility of moving away from capital punishment through domestic decision-making’ As the Knesset advances controversial legislation calling for the death penalty for convicted terrorists, Israel this week voted in favor of a United Nations resolution calling for a global moratorium on capital punishment in an effort to abolish the practice altogether. Jerusalem on Tuesday was 1 of 123 countries that supported Resolution A/C.3/73/L.44, which “expresses its deep concern about the continued application of the death penalty” and “welcomes the steps taken by some states to reduce the number of offences for which the death penalty may be imposed.” 36 countries, including the US, opposed the motion. 30 abstained. The resolution, discussed biannually by the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, welcomes “initiatives and political leadership encouraging national discussions and debates on the possibility of moving away from capital punishment through domestic decision-making.” It also hailed the fact that an increasing number countries decided to “apply a moratorium on executions, followed in many cases by the abolition of the death penalty.” The resolution calls on states to “progressively restrict the use of the death penalty” and to decrease the number of offenses punishable by death. At the same time, the resolution passed included an amendment reaffirming “the sovereign right of all countries to develop their own legal systems, including determining appropriate legal penalties.” Israel has supported a similar resolution on the moratorium of the death penalty in the past, but Tuesday’s vote appears to contradict efforts by its coalition lawmakers and comes just one day after a bill was discussed in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, which calls to make it easier to impose the death penalty on convicted Palestinian killers of Israeli civilians and soldiers. Championed by outgoing Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and his hardline Yisrael Beytenu party, the so-called Penal Bill passed a preliminary vote on the Knesset in January. It is currently being prepared in committee for final plenary votes to pass it into law. At this point it is unclear whether the governing coalition, which may fall apart soon due to Liberman’s resignation Wednesday, will advance the bill before new elections are called. Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer said Thursday that he expected the bill to be passed into law before the Knesset votes to dissolve itself and trigger snap elections. “It can go very quickly because it’s a very simple law. It could be passed within 2 weeks,” he told the Knesset Channel. On November 4, Netanyahu gave lawmakers green light to advance the legislation, reportedly rejecting the advice of the security establishment. Although the death penalty formally exists in Israeli law, it has only ever been used once — in 1962 in the case of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust. It is technically allowed in cases of high treason, as well as in certain circumstances under the martial law that applies within the IDF and in the West Bank, but currently requires a unanimous decision from a panel of three judges, and has never been implemented. Yisrael Beytenu’s bill would allow a simple majority of 2 to 1 judges to impose the death penalty. In July 2016, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that killed 3 Israelis, Netanyahu for the 1st time publicly supported the death penalty. “The death penalty for terrorists — it’s time to implement it in severe cases,” he told members of the Salomon family, who had lost three loved ones in a brutal stabbing in the West Bank town of Halamish. “It’s anchored in the law. You need the judges to rule unanimously on it, but if you want to know the government’s position and my position as prime minister — in a case like this, of a base murderer like this — he should be executed. He should simply not smile anymore,” Netanyahu said, referring to the terrorist, 19-year-old Omar al-Abed. During his trial, the judges seriously discussed sentencing al-Abed to death, but ultimately handed him 4 life terms in prison. The Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday did not respond to numerous queries as to whether Netanyahu’s still supports the controversial bill and what his position on capital punishment is in general. (source: The Times of Israel) MALAYSIA: Malaysia says no 'U-turn' in death penalty abolition Some 32 offences currently carry the death penalty, but government says punishment is no deterrent to crime. Fast Facts: 1,279 inmates on death row 710 Malaysians, 569 foreigners (118 from Nigeria) 932 for drug offences, 317 for murder 143 women As a lawyer,
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November 15 IRANexecutions 10 Prisoners Hanged at Rajai-Shahr Prison in 1 Day 10 prisoners were executed at Rajai-Shahr Prison on Wednesday, November 14. According to the IHR sources, Vahid Mazloumin and Mohammad Esmaeel Ghasemi who were hanged on economic corruption charges were among them. 8 others were executed on murder charges. Vahid Mazloumin, dubbed the "sultan of coins" by media, was a trader accused of manipulating the currency market. Mohammad Esmaeel Ghasemi was allegedly part of Mazloumin's network and had been involved in the sale of gold coins, Mizan reported. Of note, Iran Human Rights (IHR) had strongly condemned the executions for the charges of economic corruption. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the Director and spokesperson for the organization, said: "The death penalty is an inhumane punishment, and the international law prohibits death sentence for economic corruption, which is not considered as the most serious crimes. Besides, the prisoners were sentenced to death as a result of an unfair trial in an illegal Court. The primary purpose of the execution of these 2 people is to create fear in society, not to combat corruption. Iranian authorities know that the system, with corrupt organs such as the Judiciary and the Supreme leader who has absolute power and zero accountability, are the main sources of corruption in the country. We call on the Iranian authorities to put an end to the policy of using the death penalty as a solution to all its problems". Among those who were executed on murder charges, IHR could identify four as Saman Yamini, Ali Iranshahi, Ali Amindokht and Sam Sagvand. The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned executions on murder charges so far. ** Man Hanged at Zahedan Prison A Prisoner was hanged at Zahedan Central Prison on Monday, November 12. According to IHR sources, Milad Nouri was hanged on the morning of November 12, 2018. IHR could not yet obtain information about what he was accused of. Baluchi civil activist, Habibollah Sarbazi, told IHR, “a night before the execution, authorities called his family to go to the prison for the last meeting. We have heard that he was executed on rebellion charges, but we cannot confirm it yet.” According to the Baluchi Activists’ Campaign, Milad Nouri was a married man with 2 children. He was arrested around a year ago by security forces. The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned execution so far. 2o Prisoners Executed for Economic Corruption 2 Prisoners were hanged on economic corruption charges in Tehran this morning. They had been sentenced to death by the newly established Special Court on the Economic Corruption. Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly condemns today's executions for the charges of economic corruption. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the Director and spokesperson for the organization, said: "The death penalty is an inhumane punishment, and the international law prohibits death sentence for economic corruption, which is not considered as the most serious crimes. Besides, the prisoners were sentenced to death as a result of an unfair trial in an illegal Court. The primary purpose of the execution of these 2 people is to create fear in society, not to combat corruption. Iranian authorities know that the system, with corrupt organs such as the Judiciary and the Supreme leader who has absolute power and zero accountability, are the main sources of corruption in the country. We call on the Iranian authorities to put an end to the policy of using the death penalty as a solution to all its problems". According to a statement by Tehran Prosecutor's Office, this morning (Tuesday, November 14), two prisoners were executed in Tehran. The 2 prisoners were sentenced to death on charges of "corruption on earth" through the formation of a network of corruption disturbing the country's currency through illicit and large-scale smuggling of gold coins. The prisoners were identified as Vahid Mazloumin and Mohammad Esmaeel Ghasemi. Vahid Mazloumin, dubbed the "sultan of coins" by media, a trader accused of manipulating the currency market, according to Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary. Mazloumin was allegedly caught with two tons of gold coins, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA). The second man was part of Mazloumin's network and had been involved in the sale of gold coins, Mizan reported. The executions were carried out in the presence of a number of people in Tehran, said the report. The Tehran Prison Statement did not mention the exact location of the two prisoners' execution. Death penalty on the charges of economic corruption in Iran is not unprecedented. Mahafari Amir Khosravi was executed on such charges n 2014. Several people have recently been sentenced to death for economic corruption.
