[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 17



IRAN----executions

Prisoners hanged in Qom and Uromiyeh cities


As the wave of executions in Iran continue unabated under Hassan Rouhani, the 
Iranian regime henchmen hanged a prisoner in city of Qum on Tuesday. Another 
prisoner was hanged in city of Uromiyeh in north western Iran on Monday.

The prisoner hanged in the main prison in city of Qum was identified as Q.S., 
state-run news agency IRNA reported. He had been arrested on drug related 
charges. The execution in Uromiyeh prison has not been covered by the media.

On Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's said in his annual report to 
the General Assembly expressed alarm at the recent increase in executions in 
Iran.

The report said: the promises made by Hassan Rouhani "have not yet led to 
significant improvements, and restrictions on freedom of expression continue to 
affect many areas of life."

He also criticized Tehran for carrying out death sentences on juveniles. 
"According to information gathered from reliable sources, more than 160 
juveniles are currently on death row and at least 2 have been executed in 
recent months for crimes that they committed when they were younger than 18," 
Ban's report said.

Under so-called 'moderate' Hassan Rouhani the country has faced highest number 
of executions in a year compared to any Iranian regime's president for the past 
25 years.

(source: NCR-Iran)

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

Death Sentence for "Insulting the Prophet" on Facebook


A blogger found guilty of insulting the Prophet Mohammad in his postings on 
Facebook has been sentenced to death. An informed source told the International 
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the blogger, Soheil Arabi, will be able 
to appeal the decision until September 20, 2014.

Agents from the Revolutionary Guards Corps' (IRGC) Sarallah Base arrested 
Soheil Arabi, 30, and his wife in November 2013. Arabi's wife was released a 
few hours later, but he was kept in solitary confinement for 2 months inside 
IRGC's Ward 2-A at Evin Prison, before he was transferred to Evin's General 
Ward 350. Branch 76 of the Tehran Criminal Court, under Judge Khorasani, found 
Arabi guilty of "sabb al-nabi" (insulting the Prophet), on August 30, 2014.

"The way he was arrested was illegal. It is not clear how the agents were able 
to enter their home at that time in the morning. All the doors were locked and 
family members were asleep. Agents entered his home and bedroom. He and his 
wife were arrested and some of their photographs and personal belongings were 
taken after their home was searched," said the source.

"Soheil had 8 Facebook pages under different names, and he was charged with 
insulting the Imams and the Prophet because of the contents of those pages. He 
has accepted his charges, but throughout the trial, he stated that he wrote the 
material without thinking and in poor psychological condition," the source told 
the Campaign.

The source noted that the Tehran Penal Court issued its ruling without regard 
for Article 264 of the Islamic Penal Code. "Article 262 of the Islamic Penal 
Code states that if a person insults the Prophet of Islam, his punishment is 
death. But in Article 264, it explicitly says that if a suspect merely claims 
in court that he said the insulting words in anger, in quoting someone, or by 
mistake, his death sentence will be converted to 74 lashes. I would like to 
emphasize that if only the suspect claims this, he will not be eligible for 
death, and there is no need to even prove his claim," added the source.

"Unfortunately, despite this Article and the explanations provided, the judges 
issued the death sentence. They didn't even take any notice of Soheil's 
statements in court in which he repeated several times that he wrote the posts 
under poor [psychological] conditions, and that he is remorseful. 3 of the 
judges ruled for the death sentence, and 2 ruled for imprisonment," said the 
source.

According to the source, Soheil Arabi has another judicial case. On September 
4, 2014, Branch 15 of Tehran Revolutionary Court under Judge Salavati sentenced 
Arabi to the maximum punishment of 3 years in prison on charges of "insulting 
the Supreme Leader" and "propaganda against the state," through his writings on 
Facebook.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






PAKISTAN:

Restore Death Penalty Moratorium----Planned Execution a Cruel Step Backward


Press release

The Pakistani government should immediately halt a planned execution and 
officially reinstate its moratorium on the death penalty, Human Rights Watch 
said today. The execution of Shoaib Sarwar, scheduled for September 18, 2014, 
will end Pakistan's unofficial 6-year death penalty moratorium by civilian 
courts and return Pakistan to the dwindling ranks of countries imposing capital 
punishment.

The Jail Department scheduled Sarwar's execution following President Mamnoon 
Hussain's rejection of Sarwar's clemency plea. The execution would be the first 
of a civilian in Pakistan since 2008. Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on 
death row, one of the world's largest populations of prisoners facing 
execution.

"Pakistan is about to revert to the odious practice of sending people to the 
gallows after a six-year unofficial moratorium," said Brad Adams, Asia 
director. "The government should declare an official moratorium, commute all 
existing death sentences, and then join the international trend by abolishing 
the death penalty once and for all."

The Rawalpindi District and Sessions Court sentenced Sarwar to death on July 2, 
1998 for murder. The Lahore High Court's Rawalpindi bench rejected Sarwar's 
appeal on July 2, 2003. On April 3, 2006, the Pakistani Supreme Court confirmed 
the sentence.

The Pakistani government's move toward resuming the death penalty began on July 
4, 2013, when the government of the newly elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, 
refused to renew a 2008 Presidential Order imposing a moratorium on executions. 
Pakistani law mandates capital punishment for 28 offenses, including murder, 
rape, treason, and blasphemy.

In June 2008, Human Rights Watch had written to then-Prime Minister Yusuf Raza 
Gilani, and met with him the following month urging action to abolish the death 
penalty and impose a moratorium pending abolition. Soon after the military 
ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was ousted from the presidency in August 2008, 
the government imposed a de facto moratorium on judicial executions. The only 
exception was executions carried out by a military court.

During military rule, Pakistan each year executed among the highest number of 
people of any country. In 2005, for example, according to Amnesty 
International, Pakistan sentenced more than 241 people to death and executed at 
least 31, the 5th-highest total in the world.

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an 
inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. A majority of countries have 
abolished the practice. On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General 
Assembly passed a resolution by a wide margin calling for a worldwide 
moratorium on executions.

The government's decision to end its unofficial moratorium on the use of the 
death penalty occurs in the wake of the government's approval on July 8, 2014, 
of an overly broad and draconian counterterrorism law, the Protection of 
Pakistan Bill.

"Shoaib Sarwar's execution would undo one of the Pakistani government's most 
tangible human rights successes," Adams said. "With such vague and overly broad 
criminal laws on the books, it could open the door to irreversible miscarriages 
of justice."

(source: Human Rights Watch)






NIGERIA:

Mutiny: TUC, Falana, Agbaje, others oppose death sentence on Maiduguri 12


The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, has called on the Federal Government 
and the military authorities to rescind the death sentence passed on the 12 
soldiers accused of mutiny.

The soldiers were in the early hours of yesterday sentenced to death by a 
special court over allegation of criminal conspiracy to commit mutiny, 
disobeying lawful orders and various acts said to be inimical to military 
service.

TUC in a statement by its National President, Bobboi Bala Kaigama, and 
Secretary-General, Musa Lawal, stated that instead of shedding more blood, the 
military hierarchy should rather fish out the Boko Haram apologists among its 
ranks.

The union questioned the military authorities' approach to the matter, 
insisting that there were more to the issue than being told.

The statement said: "To us, the issues are clearly more and the congress makes 
bold to say that the approach adopted on the issue that is already at the 
public domain is very incorrect.

"We reiterate that we abhor the temperamental response of the tried soldiers to 
the needless loss of lives of their colleagues due to needless orders from 
above, and do urge the military to put its house in order and fish out all the 
Boko Haram apologists within its ranks.

"It will be recalled that His Excellency the Pesident, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan 
had earlier said that there are Boko Haram members in his cabinet.

"Also, we recall that the Bornu State government had cried out that the sect 
had more sophisticated weapons than our military.

"If that is the case, it therefore means that members of the sect are 
everywhere, including the military.

"We would not want to mention names but the dailies have it that there were 
senior military officers who before the Boko Haram crisis were poor but have 
now suddenly become billionaires overnight while the innocent rank and file of 
the military is killed by the sect due to their superior weapons.

"The death sentence is not only a special gift to the Boko Haram terrorist, but 
the surest means of demobilising the rank and file of the Nigerian soldiers.

"Our position is that the Federal Government and the military leadership should 
look into the grievances of soldiers, especially now. "We say no to death 
sentence because we cannot afford to lose more soldiers."

All the convicted and sentenced soldiers, including those that were discharged 
and acquitted of all the charges are within the rank and file.

The 12 soldiers found guilty of mutiny are Cpl Jasper Braidolor, Cpl David 
Musa, LCpl Friday Onun, LCpl Yusuf Shuaibu, LCp-lIgomu Emmanuel, Pte Andrew 
Ngbede, PteNurudeen Ahmed, PteIfeanyiAlukhagbe, PteAlao Samuel, 
PteAmadiChukwudi, Pte Allan Linu, and LCpl Stephen Clement

The court martial found 5 other soldiers innocent of all 5 counts of 
insub???ordinate behaviour, false accusation, mutiny, AWOL and conduct to the 
prejudice of service discipline.

Therefore, they were discharged and acquitted.

The 5 acquitted soldiers are Cpl David Luhbut, CplMuhammedSani, PteIsehUbong, 
PteSabastineGwaba and PteInama Samuel.

The 18th soldier, Private Ichocho Jeremiah, was found guilty of going AWOL 
(absent without leave) and was sentenced to 28 days in prison with hard labour.

Jeremiah was also found guilty of conduct to the prejudice of service 
discipline, but he was only reprimanded for this offence.

Meanwhile, prominent lawyers a have also condemned the verdict.

In his comment, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Rotimi 
Akeredolu, urged that the death sentence should be commuted in view of the 
circumstances surrounding the mutiny.

Human rights lawyer, Fred Agbaje, said the verdict did not come as a surprise 
to him, adding that he had han???dled several cases emanating from court 
marshal. "In most cases, their verdict is against the constitution."

He pointed that just recently, a Colonel in the Nigerian Army that was 
convicted by the Military Court Marshal was set free by the Court of Appeal and 
was asked to be reinstated to his rank but the military is yet to obey court 
order.

According to Agbaje, the verdict of the Court Marshal must be subjected to 
strict judicial scrutiny by the Court of Appeal.

For his part, another human rights lawyer, Jiti Ogu???nye called for a commuter 
of the sentence and the reconsideration of the matter by the President as the 
Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces.

Ogunye recalled that the children and spouses of some soldiers recently blocked 
the barrack insisting that they would not allow the military to send their 
husbands to death.

According to him, even if the military sentenced 100 soldiers to death for 
mutiny, it would not solved the problem.

Also reacting, Fiery lawyer, Femi Falana, said if the death sentence of the 
Maiduguri 12 is confirmed by the Army Council, the convicted soldiers should 
take the case to the Court of Appeal.

Falana remarked that the Court of Appeal is likely to follow its decision in 
the case of Yussuf and 21 others versus Nigerian Army (2003) 36 WRN 68 "wherein 
the sentence of life imprisonment passed on the appellants who had rioted at 
the Cairo Airport in Egypt was quashed.

"It was the finding of the Court that the offense of mutiny complained of by 
the respondent was instigated by the officers who had diverted the medical 
allowances which ought to have been paid to the convicts while receiving 
medical treatment in Egypt", he stated.

Falana argued that the facts and circumstance of the mutinous act of the 
convicted soldiers should be taken into consideration.

"Before the incident, the soldiers at the Maimalari cantonment had complained 
of insufficient ammunition, food and allowances.

"The visit of the GOC was said to have coincided with the arrival of the 
corpses of soldiers killed in an ambush in Chibok on the night of May 13, 2014. 
It was the tragic situation which reportedly infuriated the soldiers. Having 
investigated and confirmed the circumstances which led to the mutiny in 
question the military authorities removed the GOC."

Falana pointed out that while mutiny cannot be condoned by the armed forces 
because it strikes at the foundation of discipline in the military, he 
emphasised that the 18 soldiers were erroneously charged under section 52(1) of 
the Armed Forces Act Cap A20 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

In the circumstance, the 12 convicts should have been charged under section 
52(2) of the Armed Forces Act which provides for life imprisonment.

He noted that the General Officer Commanding whose car was shot at was not 
killed, which explains why the soldiers were charged with attempted murder 
which does not attract the death penalty.

The lawyer recalled that in the case of the Akure 27, the convicted soldiers 
were equally charged with mutiny but convicted and sentenced to life 
imprisonment.

He said the Army Council reduced the sentence of life imprisonment to seven 
years and later pardoned the convicts, after it considered that the allowances 
of the convicts who had served in Liberia were diverted by some military 
officers.

(source: Daily Post)






SUDAN----executions

Darfur rebels convicted of murder executed


On Sunday, the management of the federal Kober prison in Khartoum North 
carried-out the death penalty of 2 rebels, accused of killing Chinese workers 
in West Kordofan.

The members of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) were sentenced to death 
on charges of murdering the 5 Chinese who were working at the Abu Dafra oil 
field in West Kordofan in 2008. 17 others were acquitted.

On 18 October 2008, a group of 35 JEM rebels kidnapped nine Chinese oil workers 
and a Sudanese driver at the Abu Dafra oil field. The bodies of 5 workers were 
found a few days later.

JEM strongly condemned the execution of the "freedom fighters" in Kober prison, 
stressing that "no JEM combatant had anything to do with the assassination of 
the Chinese in Abu Dafra".

Jibril Adam Bilal, the spokesman for the movement, told Radio Dabanga that the 
trial, in which the two were convicted, was politically motivated. "It was 
directed by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), and has 
nothing to do with the judiciary in the country."

He stressed the need to investigate and document "this crime committed against 
innocent people" by human rights organisations.

(source: radioabanga.org)

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

Killers of Chinese oil workers hanged


Sudan has hanged 2 people convicted over the killing of Chinese oil workers and 
damaging an oil pipeline in troubled South Kordofan State 6 years ago.

The Sudanese ministry of Justice confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that the 
management of the Federal Kober Prison in Khartoum has executed the death 
penalty on the 2 convicts.

They were fighters of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) found guilty of 
killing the Chinese workers who were working at the Abu Dafra oil field in West 
Kordofan in 2008.

17 others Chinese workers were freed after spending a long time in captivity, 
the ministry added.

JEM has strongly condemned the execution of the convicts whom he described as 
freedom fighters claiming none of its ex combatants were involved in the death 
of the Chinese.

JEM spokesman Jibril Adam Bilal described the trial of the pair as politically 
motivated.

On 18 October 2008, nine Chinese oil workers and a Sudanese driver were said to 
have been abducted from the Abu Dafra oilfield.

The bodies of 5 Chinese workers were found a few days later near the area where 
they were abducted.

(source: StarAfrica.com)




CZECH REPUBLIC:

Babis walks back death penalty comments----Finance minister says his answer to 
a radio interviewer was misinterpreted


Czech Deputy PM, Finance Minister and ANO leader Andrej Babis would be for 
death penalty's reintroduction, when he thinks of the recent murder of a 
schoolgirl in northern Bohemia and when he puts himself in the position of the 
girl's father, he told Impuls Radio today. "I definitely would, as if I put 
myself in the role of her father, I, too, would probably want to kill him [the 
murderer]," Babis said in response to the interviewer's question.

Later he told journalists that he does not support the reintroduction of death 
penalty. He can only imagine what the killed girl's family feels, he said.

"I said nothing like that. I reacted to a situation if I were the father of the 
girl who was raped and killed, I'd probably kill the murderer," Babis said, 
adding that he does not want to support death penalty's reintroduction.

"I have 4 children and 2 granddaughters, I can put myself in the role of that 
mother, it is horrible," Babis said.

The 9-year-old girl from Klasterec nad Ohri was found dead last week. The 
police say she was raped and murdered by a 25-year-old man, a distant relative 
of hers.

The suspect has stayed in custody since Friday.

Death penalty was abolished in the then Czechoslovakia in 1990, shortly after 
the fall of the communist regime.

Since then, prison sentences from 20 to 30 years and life imprisonment have 
been viewed as exceptional punishment.

The death penalty is banned by the Charter of the Fundamental Rights and 
Freedoms that is part of the constitutional order of the Czech Republic, one of 
Czechoslovakia's 2 successor states since 1993.

The death penalty is banned by the European Union's Charter of Fundamental 
Rights, but it is applied in some African countries, almost all over Asia and 
in a majority of U.S. states.

In the Czech Republic, debates over its reintroduction usually flare up in 
reaction to brutal crimes. By reintroducing capital punishment, Prague would 
violate international agreements it joined in the past.

(source: Prague Post)