[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 20



SAUDI ARABIA:

Woman Faces Death Penalty For Witchcraft In Saudi Arabia


A Sri Lankan woman could be beheaded for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia.

Reuters reports that the woman was arrested for allegedly casting a spell on a 
13-year-old girl.

In a report filed by The Daily Okaz and cited by Reuters, the girl's father 
claimed she "suddenly started acting in an abnormal way, and that happened 
after she came close to the Sri Lankan woman."

Witchcraft is a crime punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, according to 
Reuters.

The story comes just 1 month after the Times of India reported that villagers 
in Lohardaga, India lynched an elderly woman and man, allegedly for practicing 
witchcraft.

Last year the Times also reported on a string of elderly women killed in 
Guwahati, India for performing dark magic.

But the killings reported in the Times were not conducted by the government, 
whereas the woman in Saudi Arabia faces a state-sanctioned death penalty.

(source: Huffington Post)






TAIWAN:

President vows to work toward ending death penalty


President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday said his administration would reduce the use 
of the death penalty as part of efforts to protect human rights, and promised 
to seek public consensus on the issue to move toward the abolition of capital 
punishment.

Ma made the remarks while presenting the 1st national human rights report since 
signing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and 
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under the UN in 2009.

Since 2006, the government has revised regulations and banned courts from 
sentencing citizens under 18 years old to death. Prosecutors are also advised 
to avoid seeking the death penalty in trials.

International human rights organizations have been urging Taiwan to abolish the 
death penalty, and the issue of the death penalty gained attention again 
yesterday as the Ma administration presented the report on human rights issues 
at the Presidential Office.

According to the report compiled by the advisory panel on human rights under 
the -Presidential Office, Taiwan executed 9 death-row inmates in 2010 and last 
year since the 2 covenants took effect in 2010. No death penalty was carried 
out between 2006 and 2009.

Last year, 15 people were sentenced to death, the highest number in the past 10 
years, the report said.

Ma said that while the abolition of the death penalty was a global trend, 
Taiwan still has capital punishment because there remained a lack of consensus 
on the issue among Taiwanese.

“The two UN covenants do not ban capital punishment, but encourage all 
countries to move toward the abolition of it … We’ve discussed the nation’s 
situation with the international community and let other countries understand 
that we haven’t been able to abolish the death penalty because of divided 
opinions on the issue domestically,” Ma said.

Citing examples in Europe, Ma said both France and Germany spent more than 100 
years to completely abolish the death penalty.

“What we can do, and have already been doing now, is to reduce the death 
penalty,” he added.

(source: Taipei Times)