[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 31


PAKISTAN:

Save Asia Bibi from execution in Pakistan


http://www.amnesty.org.au/action/action/35932/

(source: Amnesty International)

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Plan to return death row man Mohammad Asghar to UK


An Edinburgh man on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy could be transferred 
back to the UK, the governor of the state of Punjab has said.

Mohammad Asghar, who suffers from a mental illness, was shot by a prison guard 
earlier this year and is recovering in hospital.

Mohammad Sarwar, the former Glasgow MP who is now governor of Punjab, said "all 
necessary measures" were being taken to guarantee Mr Asghar's safety and 
regretted the ordeal he had suffered.

Mr Sarwar said: "We are trying to find some kind of middle way where we can 
resolve this situation within the constitution and the laws of this country."

Mr Asghar, 70, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and was sentenced to death 
under Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws after writing letters in which he 
claimed to be the Prophet Muhammad. He has appealed against his sentence.

Mr Asghar's family have repeatedly called on Prime Minister David Cameron to 
intervene and bring the grandfather home, including hand-delivering a 
70,000-signature petition to Downing Street.

(source: Edinburgh News)






LEBANON:

18 suspected ISIL militants indicted in Lebanon


Lebanon has indicted 18 suspected members of the ISIL Takfiri militant group on 
charges of planning to set up an emirate in the north of the Arab country.

The suspects, who were not identified and whose nationalities remain unknown, 
are also accused of attacks on Lebanese army soldiers besides plotting to 
occupy villages in the northern Dinniyeh region to establish an emirate. The 
charges are punishable by the death penalty.

15 of the individuals are on the run.

Among the suspects is 46-year-old Ahmad Salim Miqati, who is a high-level 
operative for the ISIL; he goes by the noms de guerre Abu Bakr and Abu al-Hoda.

He is accused of "taking part in operations against the army, inciting the 
murder of its troops, stirring sectarian strife and possessing arms and 
explosives."

Miqati's arrest last week sparked 3 days of deadly clashes between Lebanese 
armed forces and gunmen in Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli, situated 85 
kilometers (53 miles) north of the capital Beirut.

On Wednesday, Lebanese security forces exchanged fire with al-Qaeda-linked 
militants in the Bekaa Valley near the border with Syria. Local sources said 
the clashes erupted outside the towns of Deir al-Ghazal and Qusaya on Wednesday 
when al-Nusra Front militants tried to infiltrate into Lebanon from Syria.

Over the past months, Lebanon has been suffering from terrorist attacks by 
al-Qaeda-affiliated militants as well as random rocket attacks, which are 
viewed as a spillover of the conflict in Syria.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with the ISIL Takfiri 
terrorists currently controlling parts of it mostly in the east and north.

(source: Press TV)






IRAN:

55 executed in less than 2 weeks


Along with the anti-human crime of throwing acid into the faces of defenseless 
women in Iran, the wave of executions in the cities across the country has 
increased.

In the span of 12 days (October 18 to 29) at least 55 prisoners have been 
executed in Iran. The real figure is much larger as the Iranian regime does not 
provide information on every execution being carried out in numerous prisons 
throughout the country.

A group of 17 prisoners were secretly hanged on Monday (October 27, 2014) in 
city of Taybad in northeastern Iran and 47 others are on death row. These 
executions followed the hanging of a group of 8 inmates on October 18 in the 
same prison

10 more prisoners were secretly hanged in the central prison in the western 
city of Orumiyeh, including Ebrahim Choupani, a severely mentally disturbed 
prisoner who was hanged on October 29.

4 other prisoners were also hanged early in the morning of October 27 in the 
same prison after another group of 5 were hanged on October 18 in a different 
prison in the city known as Darya.

At the insistence of regime's officials, Rayhaneh Jabbari, a 26-year-old 
student and decorator was executed on October 25 in Gohardasht Prison in the 
city of Karaj after suffering 7 1/2 years of imprisonment. Mohammad 
Ghorbanzadeh, a male prisoner, was also hanged along with Rayhaneh.

In Rasht, according to the official website of Gilan's province's judiciary, 9 
people were executed between October 18 and 25 in that province, including a 
citizen of Afghanistan who was hanged on October 18.

A group of 6 prisoners were secretly hanged on October 23 in Adel Abad Prison 
in the city of Shiraz and 2 prisoners, including Dadkhoda Narouei, were 
secretly hanged in city of Kerman's Shahab Prison.

On October 19, Fardin Ja'afarian, 18, was hanged in Tabriz. At the time of his 
arrest and alleged crime he was 14. This unlawful hanging severely violates 
many international conventions, including the Convention on the Rights of the 
Child.

On that same day, a group of 8 prisoners were hanged in Ghezel Hessar Prison in 
Karaj. Also, on October 21, 8 other prisoners were transferred to isolation to 
await their execution.

The Iranian regime - known by the people as the "Godfather of ISIS" - faced 
with the people's wrath and revulsion of the intensifying suppression in the 
country and particularly following the recent wave of throwing acid onto 
Iranian women and girls, has resorted to a surge in executions to increase 
intimidation and fear in society

The executions are carried out with the approval and insistence of the most 
senior officials of this regime.

Reacting to reports by international bodies condemning the violation of human 
rights in Iran, Sadegh Larijani, the head of the regime's Judiciary, said: "The 
more they attack us on the issue of human rights, the more resolute we become 
in carrying out the verdicts," to state-run YJC.ir affiliated to the 
Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) on October 15.

In an interview with CNN, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the regime's 
Supreme Council for Human Rights, brazenly said: "The report by Ahmed Shaheed 
[The UN Rapporteur on Situation of Human Rights in Iran] is neither credible 
nor objective. Yes, we do have executions in Iran, but the majority of them 
relate to narcotics and all the world, including the United States, and other 
Western communities, benefit from Iran's combat against narcotics. Therefore, 
the Western world should appreciate Iran's unilateral unrelenting war with 
narcotic crimes."

Once again, the Iranian Resistance emphasizes that turning a blind eye to the 
international community regarding the catastrophic situation of human rights in 
Iran, will only embolden the criminals ruling that country. The only way to 
confront this savagery is through the adoption of a firm policy with regard to 
the religious dictatorship ruling Iran.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)

******************

Iranian official blames Western media for woman's execution


Iranian Human Rights Commissioner Mohammad Javad Larijani named Western media 
campaigns as one of the chief reasons that the Iranian judiciary failed to 
obtain consent from the family of the victim in the Reyhaneh Jabbari case.

Larijani, who is in Geneva to attend the Human Rights Council Universal 
Periodic Review, told CNN on October 30 that Reyhaneh Jabbari's case was 
investigated for 7 years. The case was brought before several judges who were 
never convinced by her claim of self defence.

"All the judges that sat on her case in the past 7 years have ruled that she 
has committed premeditated murder and her claims of self defence were not 
convincing," Larijani said.

Jabbari was arrested at the age of 19 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali 
Sarbandi. She was hanged last Saturday after a series of mediation sessions 
with the family of the victim failed to yield a consent from the deceased's kin 
to forego their right to Qesas and release her from execution.

Human rights activists had launched a campaign to stop her execution, drawing 
widespread media attention to Jabbari's case.

(source: Radio Zamaneh)



FIJI:

Fiji to axe death penalty in military


Fiji's Chief Justice says the newly elected government will abolish the death 
penalty from its military code next year.

Anthony Gates told the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva the 
punishment has indirectly remained in the military code as a legacy of the 
country's colonial history under the 1955 United Kingdom Army Act.

He says Fiji the death penalty was abolished in relation to all criminal 
offences in 2001 and no one had been executed since the country's Independence 
44 years ago.

"I am pleased to announce today that in the next session of parliament in the 
new year the military code will be amended as a matter of priority to remove 
the reference of death penalty altogether."

(source: Radio New Zealand)






BANGLADESH:

Amnesty International: Overturn Nizami's death penalty


The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and 
can never be a way to deliver justice Amnesty International has urged 
Bangladesh to overturn the death sentence against Jamaat Chief Motiur Rahman 
Nizami. The UK-based rights group's Bangladesh Researcher Abbas Faiz made the 
call in a statement published on the organisation's website on Wednesday.

Abbas Faiz said: "Bangladesh must overturn the death sentence against Motiur 
Rahman Nizami and all others." "The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, 
inhuman and degrading punishment and can never be a way to deliver justice."

On Wednesday, the International Crimes Tribunal awarded the death sentence to 
Jamaat Chief Matiur Rahman Nizami for committing crimes against humanity during 
the Liberation War in 1971. The statement said: "The crimes committed during 
the independence war were horrific, and there is no question that victims 
deserve justice. But the death penalty only perpetuates the cycle of violence." 
"The death penalty is not only a violation of the right to life, but it is an 
irreversible punishment, if it leads to execution, and leaves no room to 
correct any possible judgment errors or fair trial violations from the 
proceedings."

According to the statement, the verdicts, delivered by the ICT, targeted mainly 
those linked with the Jamaat-e-Islami, while the trials themselves were 
observed to be unfair.

"The ICT is a unique opportunity for justice and reconciliation in Bangladesh. 
But in the face of consistent concerns raised by the defense team about the 
trials not being fair it will only have the opposite effect and create more 
resentment," the statement added.

(source: Dhaka Tribune)






INDIA:

Voices against death penalty, from 1931

On October 30, 86 years ago, Lala Lajpat Rai received lethal blows at the hands 
of the British Police while protesting against the Simon Commission in Lahore.

In less than a month, Rai succumbed to injuries, and the nation plunged into 
mourning. Some, like Bhagat Singh, vowed to do more than just mourn. To avenge 
his death, Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev plotted and killed John Saunders, a 
British police officer. For this, and other 'acts of terror', the radical 
patriots were sentenced to death stoking a raging debate back home in Madras.

According to reports in The Hindu, the city???s intelligentsia strongly lobbied 
against capital punishment, making it one of the few centres which championed 
this progressive stance so vociferously as far back as 1931.

In a public meeting convened by the Madras Mahajan Sabha (MMS) on February 22, 
a resolution was passed seeking the commutation of Bhagat Singh's death 
sentence. More importantly, a plea to abolish judicial executions was put forth 
by S. Muthulakshmi who was chairing the meeting. She said, "One act of 
injustice cannot correct another, and (I) consider it a wrong and unjust law 
that takes away a life of a man because he had taken that of another." S. 
Narayanaswami Aiyar added "... as a people evolving towards a more humane and 
civilised state of existence, they must also see the relic of barbarism removed 
from the statute book."

The reportage of the vernacular press brought up the question of fair trials. 
The Tamil newspaper Swadesamitran, for instance, wrote, "...the public demand 
is not without justification. The accused have been convicted by a Special 
Tribunal on the evidence of the prosecution alone. The accused did not get a 
chance to defend themselves or cross-examine the prosecution witnesses."

Despite widespread support, Bhagat Singh and his comrades were sent to the 
gallows on 23 March 1931.

In a public conclave organised on Tilak Ghat (Triplicane beach), Krishna Bai of 
the MMS underlined that by upholding the death sentence, the British Government 
was complicit in an act of brutality. "It means that the British Government 
stands for violence...the government stands self-condemned in this act."

While the anti-death penalty campaign gained momentum in the State in an 
institutionalised way in the early 1990's (in the aftermath of Rajiv Gandhi's 
assassination), the precedent had been set much before independence.

(source: The Hindu)






CHINA:

China upholds death penalty for 3 who led mass stabbing in Kunming; 
Intermediate court rejects appeals by terrorists convicted over railway station 
incident in which 31 people were killed


A Chinese appeal court has upheld death sentences for 3 people convicted over a 
mass stabbing this year in which 31 people were killed, say state media.

"The higher people's court of Yunnan province rejected Hasayn Muhammad's appeal 
and upheld the penalty meted out by the Kunming municipal intermediate people's 
court last month," Xinhua said in a dispatch from Kunming.

The intermediate court in the south-western Chinese city had convicted and 
sentenced to death Muhammad and 2 others, Iskandar Ehet and Turgun Tohtunyaz, 
for "leading a terrorist group" that planned and carried out the attack at the 
city's railway station on 1 March. Though Xinhua mentioned only Muhammad's 
appeal, it said the court upheld the sentences of the other 2 men as well.

In a separate report on its website, Xinhua said the court upheld a term of 
life in prison for a pregnant woman also convicted for taking part in the 
attack.

The next step in the judicial process is for the death sentences to be reviewed 
by China's supreme court.

More than 140 people were injured during the incident in Kunming, in the 
south-western province of Yunnan; state media called it "China's 9/11".

Beijing blamed the mass knifing on "separatists" from the resource-rich far 
western region of Xinjiang, where at least 200 people have died in attacks and 
clashes between locals and security forces over the past year. It was the 
biggest ever violent incident against civilians outside the region. Incidents 
have grown in scale and sophistication and have spread outside the restive area 
since late last year.

Rights groups accuse China's government of cultural and religious repression 
which they say fuels unrest in Xinjiang, bordered with central Asia. China 
defends its policies, arguing that it has boosted economic development in the 
area and that it upholds minority and religious rights in a country with 56 
recognised ethnic groups.

(source: The Guardian)