[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

August 2



UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

UAE to try 41 on 'terror' charges----Emiratis among 41 to be tried in Federal 
Supreme Court on charges of setting up terrorist group


The Public Prosecution has referred 41 men of various nationalities, including 
Emiratis, to the Federal Supreme Court on charges of setting up a terrorist 
organisation, Salem Saeed Kubaish, UAE's Attoney General said on Sunday.

"The defendants were charged with setting up and running a terrorist 
organisation named Shabab Al Manarah "The Minaret Youths" which upholds 
terrorist thought with the intent to terrorist acts inside the country and 
endanger its security and peace and lives of its people including their 
leaders," Kubaish said in a statement carried by state news agency WAM.

Kubaish assed that the suspects were also charged with intending to inflict 
damages to private and public properties to eventually take over authority to 
set up a so-called Caliphate State in line with their extremist thought.

"To carry out their terrorist acts, the suspects procured fire arms, 
ammunitions and explosives necessary, using funds they collected for this 
purpose and got in touch with foreign terrorist organisations and groups. These 
groups provided these suspects with funds and people to achieve their goals 
inside the cpuntry," Kubaish said.

Convicted terrorists will face capital punishment, life imprisonment and fines 
of up to Dh100 million, according to a federal law to combat terrorism, which 
was endorsed last year.

The law ushered in new security measures to counter a sweeping range of crimes 
deemed acts of terror at a time when international efforts are being mustered 
to fight the global menace.

The law defines a terrorist offence as "any action or inaction made a crime by 
this law and every action or inaction made a crime by any other law if they are 
carried out for a terrorist cause".

Provoking terror among a group of people, killing or causing harm to people or 
property, and opposing the state are also considered violations under the law.

It also rules capital or life imprisonment for actions such as impersonating a 
public figure and wrongfully claiming to be on assignment for a public service. 
A person found guilty of attacking or endangering the life of the President, 
Vice President, or any of the rulers and their families could also receive the 
death sentence.

A terrorist intent is established by a direct or indirect terrorist result or 
when an offender knows that the action or inaction leads, in its nature or 
context, to terrorist results.

Kubaish said the suspects set up an organisational structure including 
committees and cells with specific tasks. "A leader was appointed to oversee 
the terrorist organisation, issue orders, instructions, roles and duties for 
each committee. He was also assigned to set policies. His deputy was assigned 
to follow up implementation of these policies," Kubaish said.

The Attorney General added these committees were assigned to recruit young 
Emiratis and instill extremist thought into them and train them on militant 
acts and manufacturing of explosives at certain camping sites.

They suspects, the Attorney said, also disseminated audio and video materials 
ton the internet to spread their terrorist thought.

According to the anti-terrorism law, terrorist results include inciting fear 
among a group of people, killing them, or causing them serious physical injury, 
or inflicting substantial damage to property or the environment, or disrupting 
security of the international community, or opposing the country, or 
influencing the public authorities of the country or another country or 
international organisation while discharging its duties, or receiving a 
privilege from the country or another country or an international organisation.

The law also establishes counselling centres where convicted terrorists will 
receive intensive religious and welfare counselling in jails in a programme 
targeted against future threats posed by those holding extremist views, 
according to the law.

Every legal person whose representatives, managers or agents commit or 
contribute to the commission of any of the terrorist offences provided in the 
law, would receive a fine ranging from Dh1 million to Dh100 million.

A committee to be named The National Committee for Combating Terrorism will be 
established, and a decision towards its establishment will be made by the 
Cabinet.

"Whoever seeks or communicates with a foreign state, terrorist organisation or 
with anyone who works for their interests, to commit any terrorist act, shall 
be punished with imprisonment for life while the death penalty will be imposed 
if the terrorist act has been carried out," the law says.

(source: Gulf News)






PAKISTAN:

Waiting to die for decades in Pakistan ---- Convicts on death row in Pakistan 
are in double jeopardy, having to spend decades behind bars before the eventual 
executions, a wait made torturous because of the slow-moving legal process, 
weak prosecution and police investigation system riddled with corruption


Aftab Bahadur Masih spent more than 2 decades of his youth inside the tiny and 
dark cells of a Pakistani prison, before a final walk to the gallows this 
summer.

Masih, who was 38 when he was hanged, was arrested in Lahore in 1992 for 
murdering a woman and 2 of her children. In the 23 years between his arrest and 
hanging, the man was shuttled from cell to cell, waiting for his trials and 
appeals to conclude.

Even towards the end of his life, he was hoping that the government would 
commute the death penalty to life imprisonment, according to his family and 
British charity Reprieve.

The decades of uncertainty, the waiting and then the eventual execution - this 
is what haunts Pakistan's death row inmates and their families.

"This is the worst thing that can happen to a person," said Rizwan Khan, a 
human rights lawyer in Islamabad.

"It is like punishing people twice for one crime," said Khan, who deals with 
scores of similar cases. One of his clients, Mohammad Saleem, has been on trial 
since 1999.

There are 8,500 death row convicts in prisons across the country, and the 
government has made clear that it wants to hang them all.

Complicated process

Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on executions after a Taliban massacre of 
136 children at an army-run school in the north-western city of Peshawar in 
December 2014.

Since then, some 180 convicts have been executed over seven months, a move that 
has drawn sharp criticism from the United Nations, European Union and human 
rights groups. Khan blamed the complicated judicial regime and legal process 
that moves at a glacial pace, coupled with weak prosecution, for the fact that 
so many of these inmates have to languish behind bars for decades before their 
executions.

"The convict and the family not only go through mental agony but also have to 
spend loads of money in courts and jails as fees and bribes," Khan said.

Hours before his execution in June, Masih wrote a moving narrative about his 
life in jail and explained how the fear of death had shackled him twice.

"I just received my death warrant," Masih wrote. "I am innocent but I do not 
know whether that will make any difference. I die many times before my death 
... I doubt there is anything more dreadful than being told that you are going 
to die and then sitting in a prison cell just waiting for that moment," he 
continued.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has recorded thousands of 
cases of families suffering because of the protracted trials and delayed 
executions. "Some families sell their assets to pay for litigation," commmision 
spokesman Zaman Khan said. "But they get nothing after the decades of 
struggle."

The commission advised the government to commute capital punishment cases to 
life imprisonment if the convict had spent 15 or more years in jail because of 
delays in the trials and executions, Khan said.

Pakistan's slain former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, commuted the death 
sentences to life in prison for all prisoners as a one-time concession when she 
first came to power in 1989.

But analysts said Pakistani society has become far more radicalised than in 
1989 and such a decision today would trigger a fierce backlash from hardliners. 
"No government will ever risk its popularity among the right-wing majority by 
abolishing the death penalty," said Roohul Amin Khan, a political commentator.

It was the clerics who were leading the chorus to welcome the government 
decision to end the moratorium on executions in December.

Poor defendants are represented by public lawyers, who often don't show up. 
Naval officer Zulfiqar Ali Khan was hanged after being convicted of a double 
murder 16 years ago. His lawyers said he was defending himself during a 
robbery. But his court-appointed lawyer did not meet him once outside of court, 
present evidence in his defence or challenge witness statements, said legal aid 
group Justice Project Pakistan.

(source: Gulf News)

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

The wrong hangings


The European Union (EU) in a statement issued recently, while sharply reacting 
to the lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty in Pakistan, reminded 
Islamabad that it is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention 
against Torture, which affirm the right to fair trial, prohibit the death 
sentence for crimes committed by persons under 18 years of age and require 
prompt and impartial investigation where there is reasonable ground to believe 
that torture has been committed to get a confession. The EU statement pointedly 
cautioned that the effective implementation of these conventions was a 
requirement under the GSP Plus scheme, a concession granted to Pakistan in 
2014. On the same day, the UN urged Pakistan to reinstate its moratorium on the 
death penalty, condemning a recent surge in executions.

The moratorium on the death penalty that had remained in place in Pakistan 
since 2008 was lifted in a state of national anger over the Army Public School 
massacre in which at least 132 students lost their lives. Though taken when the 
grief-stricken nation at large was full of rage, the decision, nevertheless, 
was meant to send to the gallows mainly the perpetrators of terrorism. However, 
since the lifting of the moratorium, the majority of the around 188 people who 
have been hanged were sentenced for being involved in non-terror related cases. 
Amnesty International has estimated that there are more than 8,000 such 
prisoners on death row in Pakistan.

The age-old controversy over whether the practice of hanging murderers serves 
as an effective deterrence sounds almost like a non-debate in the current 
context of the esteem now being globally attached to fundamental human rights. 
Most democracies in the world have abandoned the death penalty. The US, Japan, 
India and South Korea are the major exceptions here. Of course, many 
dictatorships, monarchies and theocracies in the world continue to enforce the 
death penalty. The most common and most cogent argument against capital 
punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed because of 
mistakes or flaws in the justice system. Witnesses, prosecutors and judges can 
all make mistakes. When this is coupled with serious flaws in the criminal 
justice system itself, which is the sad reality in Pakistan's case, it is 
inevitable that innocent people will be convicted of crimes they have not 
committed. Where capital punishment is used, such mistakes cannot be corrected 
after the victim has been executed. There could be many among the 8,000 waiting 
on the death row, who deserve mercy rather than execution.

Among the many sentenced to death in non-terror related cases, there are those 
who suffer from serious psychosocial disabilities, and mental and physical 
disorders. There are those who may have been under-age at the time when they 
are said to have committed their crimes. There are those who may have suffered 
through a miscarriage of justice because of their poverty or because of the 
incompetence or corruption of our criminal justice system. One wonders how the 
cause of justice will be served by executing such persons.

The decision to lift the moratorium on the death penalty was accompanied by a 
suitable amendment to the Constitution for setting up military courts to 
speedily try those caught indulging in acts of terrorism. The amendment was 
justified on the grounds that the entire system - from the law-enforcement 
agencies to the prosecutors, to the judges - had been terrorised into a state 
of dysfunction, therefore, the need for military courts. But this amendment has 
been questioned in the Supreme Court. So, paradoxically, while murderers from 
among non-terrorists are being hanged without any regard to the various UN and 
EU Conventions that the country has signed, the lifting of the moratorium on 
the death penalty seems to have made no difference to those who indulge in acts 
of terror.

(source: Editorial, The Express Tribune)






INDIA:

Haryana, Punjab, Delhi decline death row inmate's transfer plea


Balbir Singh, 52, who was sentenced to death 6 months before 1993 Mumbai blasts 
convict Yakub Memon and behind bars in West Bengal, had a last wish: to return 
to his home state of Haryana to spend the rest of his time before being hanged. 
Despite the West Bengal jail authorities' efforts, he is yet to find a place in 
the jails of Haryana, Punjab or Delhi.

The reasons range from lack of infrastructure to carry out the death penalty to 
overcrowded prisons.

Balbir Singh, a head constable with the Border Security Force (BSF), was found 
guilty of murdering 2 of his seniors during his posting in Tripura and was 
sentenced to death on March 2, 2007, by a BSF court.

At present, the case is being heard in the Supreme Court.

"He (Balbir) wanted to be shifted to a jail in Haryana, which is his native 
state, or near it so that he could be close to his family. Our department tried 
its best communicating with the jail authorities in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi 
but there was no positive response. Some said they had no infrastructure to 
execute the death penalty, others cited overcrowded jails," said Adhir Sharma, 
additional director general state prisons, who intervened on Balbir Singh's 
request.

"There should be a protocol for prisoner transfer throughout the country," 
Sharma said.

HARYANA SAYS NO FACILITY FOR DEATH PENALTY

Balbir Singh, who is lodged at Dum Dum central jail, has spent the longest time 
behind bars as compared to the other death row inmates in West Bengal's jails. 
It has been 8 years since his death sentence was announced. He has been 
confined to a high-security cell.

For the past 3 years, Balbir Singh and his family have been appealing to the 
jail authorities in West Bengal besides constitutional heads such as the prime 
minister for his transfer to a prison near Haryana.

The West Bengal jail authorities took up his plea recently.

First, they approached the Haryana director general of prisons' office, which 
turned down the request, saying there was no infrastructure for carrying out 
the death penalty and, therefore, they would not be able to keep Balbir Singh.

TIHAR TOO CROWDED, SAYS DELHI

Thereafter, the West Bengal jail authorities wrote to Tihar authorities in 
Delhi, who turned down the request saying that the jail was overcrowded. Later, 
they asked the West Bengal authorities to pursue the request with the Delhi 
government.

AGAINST POLICY, CLAIMS PUNJAB

The jail authorities in West Bengal approached their counterparts in Punjab, 
who also turned down the request. They said that it was against their official 
policy to keep prisoners from other states, more so if the prisoner was on the 
death row.

At present, there are 8 prisoners on the death row in West Bengal. Half of them 
have been awarded the sentence this year.

NO TAKERS FOR HIM

"Balbir Singh, a head constable with BSF, found guilty of murdering 2 of his 
seniors in Tripura, sentenced to death on March 2, 2007, by BSF court. At 
present, case being heard in Supreme Court.

"Last wish to return to home state of Haryana or nearby Delhi or Punjab to 
spend rest of his time before being hanged.

*Despite West Bengal jail authorities' efforts, he is yet to find a place in 
jails of Haryana, Punjab or Delhi. The reasons range from lack of 
infrastructure to carry out the death penalty to overcrowded prisons.

(source: Hindustan Times)

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

Selective Conscience And The Death Penalty


In a 1.2 billion population[1] when out of 477 people on the death row[2], in 
the last 5 years 3 were actually executed, the number sounds small- after all 
it is just a number to most readers- because once you are convicted of a 
heinous crime, your selective conscience decrees that this person has ceased to 
be human. Kasab, Guru and Memon constitute these "small numbers" who were 
judged in the "rarest of the rare" category. Evidence, process inconsistencies 
and the fair trial debate aside- what is the simplest pattern one can draw from 
this? - All of them were convicted in cases of terror, all were Muslims. In a 
communally divided country like India, a decision on their lives can never be 
independent of politics and interference by the executive which by design is 
permitted at different stages of the case. Does it make a difference whether 
the government at the centre is BJP or Congress? I doubt it since 2 of them 
were hung during the Congress rule.

If I were to go by official statistics- death penalty would be restricted to 
these small numbers which were thrown open for public debate, had an 
opportunity for human rights activists, lawyers and journalists to intervene or 
cover the entire process going into the most intricate details to weave a 
gripping terror story that ended with the tightening of the noose. What about 
extra judicial killings carried out with complete impunity? Between 2010-2012, 
there were about 429 cases of fake encounters registered according to 
government statistics[3]. The National Human Rights Commission had in the year 
2013, declared 44 cases of fake encounters in the state of Manipur alone 
between the years 2005-2010[4]. In the year 2010, the NCRB records[5] state 
that between 2006-2010, there were 276839 complaints of against the police for 
"illegal detentions" "fake encounters" "extortion" "torture" etc. whereas 
inquiry was instituted for only 35% of them.

Human rights activists would see these numbers as grossly underestimated 
figures, even then, those of us who would still look at these 429 fake 
encounters as "numbers" must contrast this with the number of victims in the 
1992-93 Bombay riots- over 900, the 1993 Bombay serial blasts- i.e. 257, the 
number of people killed in the 1984 riots - 2800, the number of Muslims killed 
in Gujarat 2002 riots - 790[6] and then ask themselves after studying the 
trends of convictions and sentencing, whether each of these incidents- be it an 
encounter, be it a riot or be it a blast- have had similar if not the same 
consequence. A pogrom and a fake encounter chooses selectively -whom to kill in 
cold blood. Would this not amount to some form of terror as well? Ask further 
whether or not we must, irrespective of the numbers, irrespective of who the 
murderers are or who are being killed, be raising our voices against each one 
of these killings? Why is our outrage so selective and biased? Why do we in 
certain instances, vehemently propose the harshest punishments while in others, 
just look the other way believing that the accused were "doing their duties" or 
the victims "asked for it". Do we realise that our selective outrage translates 
into a collective conscience that chooses to hand-pick people to be killed by 
the state- based on their religion, their access to the most powerful lawyers 
in the country, their class, caste, political back up and other significant 
stratifications that precariously decide who gets to live and who gets executed 
by the state. Nothing is black and white after all!

In Prakash Kadam vs. Ramprasad Vishwanath Gupta (2011) Justice Markandey Katju 
and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra held:

"in cases where a fake encounter is proved against policemen in a trial, they 
must be given death sentence, treating it as the rarest of rare cases. Fake 
'encounters' are nothing but cold blooded, brutal murder by persons who are 
supposed to uphold the law. In our opinion if crimes are committed by ordinary 
people, ordinary punishment should be given, but if the offence is committed by 
policemen much harsher punishment should be given to them because they do an 
act totally contrary to their duties."

Colossal amounts of data and testimonies emerging from various parts of India 
substantiate how these encounters are carried out with so much ease and 
impunity. Taking into perspective the precedent quoted above, what precisely is 
being demonstrated through the lack of active discouragement of such unlawful 
killings? Our very understanding of terror can be challenged through these 
incidents of killings.

Contrast the aforementioned incidents of violence with instances of neglect and 
state apathy towards the poor which is by design and not by default. Think 
about the number of people who are homeless and take shelters on pavements only 
to be crushed in the night by the death vehicles of the rich who shall have 
enough protection under the laws of our land. If not that, they could die of 
hunger or lack of access to health facilities. These victims are the "underdogs 
of the city" which the state wants to wipe clean anyway and while they garner 
votes through their "Poverty alleviation programmes", they are actually 
eliminating the poor by strategically ignoring their existence. Think about the 
3000 victims killed in the Bhopal gas tragedy. Do our hearts wrench for these 
victims? Does our blood boil at the thoughts of the rich and powerful people 
who must be held accountable for these deaths? No of course not- they are 
civilized people who need protection by the laws- they are likely to reform as 
opposed to these terrorists who need to be sent to gallows without discussion, 
why even debate a fair trial or fair sentencing for them?

I personally disagree with death penalty in principle not only because of the 
arbitrary way in which it is allotted, not only because of the levels of 
inconsistencies as demonstrated above compounded by the influence of the 
executive over the judiciary, not only because I support restorative justice 
over retribution, not only because I do not associate with the culture of 
barbaric blood thirst; I disagree because it is fundamentally wrong to kill. In 
my analysis, it does not serve any purpose other than demonstrating to the 
general public that something has been done about an instance of violence 
thereby excusing the state of the responsibility and accountability to resolve 
or address the structural factors underlying that violence.

Notes

[1] Census of India, 2011

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-20708007

[3] 
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/555-fake-encounter-cases-registered-across-india-in-last-four-years/article4916004.ece

[4] 
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/most-fake-encounters-are-by-police-not-army-nhrc/article5368133.ece

[5] http://ncrb.nic.in/CII2010/cii-2010/Chapter%2016.pdf

[6] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4536199.stm

(source: Salina Wilson, countercurrents.org)

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

Capital Punishment a Shame: Varun


After BJP MPs Shatrughan Sinha and Babul Supriyo, it was the turn of party MP 
Varun Gandhi to denounce capital punishment, calling it a national shame. The 
ruling party, however, was quick to distance itself from Varun's remark.

Strongly arguing for abolition of death penalty, Varun in an article said, 
"Capital punishment can have a socio-economic bias too... In India, 75 % of the 
convicts on death row belong to the socially and economically marginalised 
classes; 94 % of death row convicts are Dalits or from the minorities.

The poor consistently get the short end of the legal stick. The death penalty 
is a consequence of poor legal representation and institutional bias. The 
gallows remain a poor man's trap."

Though, Varun did not refer to Yakub Menon's hanging, his denouncement of the 
death penalty comes at a time when his party had supported the court's action 
and it shows not everyone in the party was on the same page. He went on to add, 
"India, as one of the 58-odd countries where death penalty is retained, needs 
to recognise the changing global scenario...For the largest democracy, death 
penalty is an anomaly. It needs correction. Many that live do deserve death. 
And some that die, deserve life."

As the controversy raged, the BJP distanced itself. "These are his personal 
views," Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Hanging Dealt with Humanly: RSS

An RSS leader on Saturday said the hanging of Yakub Memon was dealt with 
humanly by the government by allowing his family access, which ensured peace in 
the aftermath. "There was an atmosphere of an incident about to take place in 
the country (because of the hanging). The Judiciary did its duty. Its duty is 
not to tackle the situation emerging out of it (the verdict). Who has to tackle 
the problems that arise after the decision?

"The Government, while tackling with the decision of the judiciary, followed 
the basic structure of Indianness, which was that when a person is being 
hanged, his family is given access," he said taking an obvious dig at the UPA 
government, which denied Afzal Guru's family a chance to meet him.

Senior leader Indresh Kumar, said "All humane behaviour that is expected of a 
democracy was displayed 100 % by the government."

(source: The News Indian Express)

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

DEATH PENALTY DOES NOT DETER TERRORISM


The oft quoted example to prove that death sentence does not deter terrorism 
comes from Saudi Arabia. On November 13, 1995 a three storeyed building used by 
US military personnel in Riyadh was destroyed by Jehadi car bombing. This was 
the first terrorist attack against US targets in Saudi Arabia in 50 years. 5 
Americans and 2 Indians were killed. 4 Saudi bombers who confessed were 
decapitated in May 1996. On June 26, 1996 a huge truck bomb in Khobar, Dhaharan 
killed 23 US soldiers. Philip Shenon, writing in New York Times on the same day 
said that terrorists had warned the Saudi government that they would retaliate 
if the November bombers were killed.

Jessica Stern, a known authority on terrorism and a former staff member of the 
US National Security Council (1994-1995) had said in her piece "Execute 
Terrorists at Our Own Risk" (New York Times, Feb 28, 2001): "One can argue 
about the effectiveness of the death penalty generally. But when it comes to 
terrorism, national security concerns should be paramount. The execution of 
terrorists, especially minor operatives, has effects that go beyond retribution 
or justice. The executions play right into the hands of our adversaries. We 
turn criminals into martyrs, invite retaliatory strikes and enhance the public 
relations and fund-raising strategies of our enemies".

However many governments ignore this advice and often fall into a cliche trap 
by codifying capital punishment for terrorists. Yet we see that global opinion 
on death penalty is sharply divided. The United States, often considered as a 
model of human rights and free thought has death penalty in 31 of their 50 
states and also at the federal level. On the other hand, Israel which is often 
quoted as the target of global terrorism had abolished this extreme punishment 
even for murder (de facto) since 1954.

78 countries including India and Pakistan enforce death penalty. Pakistan which 
suspended death penalty for 7 years resumed executions in March this year. 98 
countries including United Kingdom, France and Uzbekistan, which are affected 
by terrorism, do not have this penalty in their criminal law. 7 countries 
including Israel and Kazakhstan do not allow death sentence for "ordinary" 
crimes. 35 countries like Russia, Tajikistan and Sri Lanka have imposed de 
facto ban on death penalty. The Russian moratorium was ordered by President 
Yeltsin in 1996 although it was affected by Chechen terrorism later. An October 
2011 Gallup poll in USA found that support for death penalty was at its lowest 
(61%) since 1972(80%). New York Times ( Oct 14, 2011) said: "It is evident in 
the greater part of America's counties where people realize that, in addition 
to being barbaric, capricious and prohibitively expensive, the death penalty 
does not reflect their values".

Why is death penalty more expensive? The only country which had done studies on 
this is America. The figures are astonishing. A "Forbes" report( May 1, 2014) 
quoted the Washington State Bar Association saying that a death penalty trial 
entails $ 470,000 as additional cost for the prosecution than a similar case 
without death penalty. A 2014 Pennsylvania study found that they had spent over 
$350 million during the prosecution ending with just three executions. Around 
the same time Maryland State found that only $1.9 million was spent in cases in 
which the death penalty was not sought. These figures include lawyers' fees, 
special prison arrangements and the cost of executions. Have we ever attempted 
to study the humongous amount our governments had spent over the years on 
special public prosecutors' fees and court expenses during Yakub Memon's trial 
and hanging, not to speak of the monetized cost of thousands of man hours in 
deploying over 30,000 policemen in Mumbai and a proportionate number in Nagpur 
whereas no such expenditure would have been incurred had he been imprisoned for 
life?

However many of us still feel that terrorism has to be punished through death 
sentence. In June 1995 US Senate majority leader Bob Dole (Republican) 
introduced a bill to prescribe death penalty for terrorism, which is a "federal 
crime". This was in the background of the first World Trade Center bombing in 
February 1993 by Kuwaiti- Pakistani terrorist Ramzi Yousef which killed 6. 
Besides the Okalahoma city bombing by Timothy McVeigh had taken place in April 
1995 killing 168. Democrats tried to kill the bill by introducing 67 
amendments. Bob Dole then appealed to President Bill Clinton to prevent the 
bill from being bogged down with amendments. He also chided him for trying to 
take all the credit for the bill! The law was finally passed as "Anti-Terrorism 
and Effective Death Penalty Act 1996" (AEDPA) and signed by President Clinton 
in April 1996.

But this did not deter terrorists from attacking United States. At least 36 
serious attacks against America had taken place within and outside the mainland 
beginning with the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. In 1998 US missions in Nairobi 
and Dar-es-Salaam were attacked and in 2000 USS Cole was bombed. The terrorists 
took the battle into the heart of US in 2001(9/11) killing 2,992 persons. Since 
then it has been an unending battle between foreign and domestic terrorists 
with the totally reformed US counter-terrorist (CT) machinery which is trying 
to keep terrorism away at least from the mainland. However 1 thing is certain: 
Bob Dole's death penalty law of 1996 has had no effect in deterring creeping 
terrorism into America.

On the other hand the overwhelming global trend is against state executions. No 
better example of this line of thinking can be found than from Israel. In June 
2014 Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi David Lau of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the 
supreme spiritual authority, told the grieving nation that only God can punish 
the assailants of the 3 Israeli teens, abducted and killed by Palestinians: 
"Individuals do not have the right to take revenge for the death of the 
innocent. Revenge is not a license given to the hot-blooded for 'action.' 
Revenge is a strong, destructive weapon, and if there is such a concept in the 
world, it does not belong to humans."

Unfortunately our saffron groups who celebrated Yakub Memon hanging and who 
often quote Israel don't read such views as they are pure Gandhian.

(source: Vappala Balachandran; The Citizen)

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

No death penalty even for terrorists, says Shashi Tharoor----Unfazed by 
criticism, former union minister Shashi Tharoor today opposed death penalty 
even for terrorists saying it was an "obsolete practice" and they should 
instead be put behind bars for the rest of their lives without parole.


Unfazed by criticism, former union minister Shashi Tharoor today opposed death 
penalty even for terrorists saying it was an "obsolete practice" and they 
should instead be put behind bars for the rest of their lives without parole.

???Terrorists should be put behind bars throughout their life without parole. 
In earlier days, there was a belief that if a person murders someone, he should 
be killed. Why do we need to follow the old obsolete practice ...," the 
Congress MP said.

"When we implement capital punishment, we are actually acting like them. They 
are the murderers and the state should not act like them," the Congress MP told 
reporters here on the sidelines of a function, organised by 'Tree Walk', an 
environmental organisation.

On the recent controversy over his tweet on the execution of Mumbai terror 
attack convict Yakub Memon, he said: "I have not said a word on Memon case. 
What I tweeted was that I was not going into the merits of an individual case 
and it was the responsibility of the Supreme Court. I had tweeted against the 
death penalty which is an obsolete practice."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had also said that "we don't have the right to 
take anyone's life."

The Congress MP from Thiruvanathapuram said not only he, but several leaders, 
including Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, Kanimozhi, Shatrughan Sinha and Varun Gandhi 
had also supported the abolition of death penalty.

"As many as 143 countries have already abandoned the practice of death penalty. 
Another 25 countries are not practising it though the capital punishment is 
there in their law. Only around 35 countries are practising it at present. Why 
should our country follow such a practice?," Tharoor asked.

Tharoor had earlier faced BJP???s ire for saying that he was "saddened" by the 
news that "our government has hanged a human being. State-sponsored killing 
diminishes us all by reducing us to murderers too".

(source: The Indian Express)

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

37 people in Maharashtra have noose around their necks; managed to escape 
gallows so far on legal technicalities----Though the President has rejected 
their mercy petitions, the death row convicts have managed to escape gallows on 
legal technicalities


Maharashtra has 37 pending cases of executions. Though the President has 
rejected the mercy petitions of all these 37 convicts, including the oldest one 
of Gavit sisters, the cases are still stuck in technicalities. Some of them 
have even secured an indefinite stay on execution, top home department sources 
said. "While some have procured a stay, others are still exhausting legal 
options like filing appeals and reviews," said a senior home department 
officer.

The Gavit sisters were convicted and sentenced to death much before Yakub Memon 
and Ajmal Kasab, but the 2 have escaped the gallows on some pretext or the 
other.

It was in 2001 that a Kolhapur sessions court awarded death penalty to the 
sisters - Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde -- for abducting and killing a 
dozen-odd children aged between 1 and 4 years. In the next 14 years, their 
appeals were turned down and death penalty was upheld by all authorities, 
including the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. In April 2014, the 
President rejected their mercy petition.

However, in August 2014, the sisters filed a fresh petition before the Bombay 
High Court citing "delay in execution". Since then, there is a stay on their 
execution. The last hearing on the case was in April 2015 and it will come up 
for hearing again in October 2015.

In the last 3 years, President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected 24 mercy pleas 
(till July 2015). Of this, only three convicts - Yakub Memon, Mohd Ajmal Kasab 
and Afzal Guru - have been hanged till date. All convicts facing death sentence 
in Maharashtra are moved to the Yerwada jail in Pune or the Nagpur jail - the 
only 2 prisons in the state which have gallows.

Awaiting death

--Gavit sisters: Kidnapped 13 children, under the age of 5, forced them to join 
a gang of thieves, and murdered at least 5 of them.

--Status: Mercy plea rejected by President in July 2014. Moved a fresh petition 
before Bombay High Court. Execution stayed.

--Shivaji Shankar Alhat: Lured Hemalata Nanavre, a minor, to a hill in Junnar, 
Maharashtra, on the morning of January 14, 2002. Raped the victim before 
stabbing her 21 times, and then strangulated her to death with a rope.

--Status: Mercy plea rejected by President in April this year. Has moved a 
fresh plea.

--Vijay Jadhav/Kasim Bengali /Mohammed Salim Ansari: Gang-raped a 19-year-old 
girl in the Shakti Mills compound, Mumbai, on July 31, 2013. Gang-raped a 
22-year-old woman at the same location on August 22, 2013. Also convicted of 12 
other offences, including gang-rape, unnatural sex, assault, wrongful 
restraint, criminal conspiracy, criminal intimidation, and destruction of 
evidence.

--Status: Sentenced to death by a lower court. Case pending before Bombay High 
Court.

(source: dnaindia.com)

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

Amnesty International responds on Yakub Memon: Why India doesn't need the death 
penalty


R Jagannathan's article "Yakub Memon hanged: Why India still needs capital 
punishment" lays out a case for retaining the death penalty in India, with some 
pointers on how it can be applied more narrowly.

Much of Mr Jagannathan's argument doesn't hold water.

For one, he argues that the right to life is not sacrosanct when it comes to 
people guilty of terrorism, serial murders, or rape. The right to life, though, 
is the most fundamental of human rights, and like all human rights, it is 
something that inherently belongs to people not because of what they do, but 
because of the human beings they are.

The article claims that "keeping deadly killers alive in jail can tempt their 
compatriots to indulge in more killings". But counter-terrorism officials 
around the world have often pointed out that individuals who are executed may 
be seen as martyrs, whose deaths can become a rallying point. Groups can also 
use executions as justification for retaliation, continuing the cycle of 
violence.

Second, Mr Jagannathan questions the argument that the death penalty must be 
abolished so that innocents are not executed. He suggests that rules for 
applying the death sentence be tightened so that it is imposed only when there 
is strong evidence. This is far-fetched. Even in countries such as the United 
States, which have well-resourced criminal justice systems, several innocent 
people have been sentenced to death. At least 155 death row prisoners in the US 
have been exonerated since 1973 - proof that no justice system is free from 
error, and the risk of executing the innocent can never be eradicated.

In India, the risk of executing someone in error is not minor. The Supreme 
Court has itself acknowledged that death sentences are handed out in a 
subjective and inconsistent way. Research by Amnesty International and PUCL has 
shown that whether people are sentenced to death depend on factors ranging from 
the quality of their lawyers to the idiosyncrasies of judges. Even the 
'rarest-of-rare' test (which refers to the possibility of reform, and not as 
many believe, the gruesomeness of a crime) is by the Supreme Court's own 
admission not always applied correctly. Former judges have pointed out that at 
least 2 people have been executed in India following faulty judgments.

Mr Jagannathan acknowledges that many people languishing on death row are from 
vulnerable backgrounds - something empirically proven recently by a National 
Law University study which found that over 75 % of those on death row came from 
economically weak sections of society. No doubt, poverty and arbitrariness can 
affect any criminal case. But this injustice is particularly unacceptable when 
there is a question of life and death.

Thirdly, the argument that the death penalty is not a deterrent, Mr Jagannathan 
claims, is weak because no punishment deters crimes involving killing. In this, 
he is partly right, because deterrence lies not in the severity of punishment, 
but its certainty. When the Constitutional Court of South Africa abolished the 
death penalty, it said: "The greatest deterrent to crime is the likelihood that 
offenders will be apprehended, convicted and punished. It is that which is 
presently lacking in our criminal justice system; and it is at this level and 
through addressing the causes of crime that the State must seek to combat 
lawlessness."

Take the case of crimes involving sexual violence against women in India. When 
only 1 % of these cases are estimated to even be reported to the police, of 
which a fraction go on to be investigated, prosecuted, and end in conviction, 
the likelihood that any potential offender will be punished is miniscule. And 
it is here that we truly fail victims of violence, not in failing to impose 
death sentences at the end of a long and uncertain process.

Further, there is no compelling evidence that the death penalty deters crime 
more effectively than a life sentence. If authorities are serious about 
preventing crime and terrorism, they should strengthen the administration of 
justice as whole. Public safety is not delivered through executions.

Finally, the death penalty is needed to send a message to society, says Mr 
Jagannathan, and as retribution for wrongs inflicted. But the sending of this 
signal itself has nothing to do with the kind of punishment inflicted. 
Countries across the world send out this signal by handing out prison terms, 
the most serious punishment on their books. And we don't even need to look to 
Europe or Scandinavia, as he suggests. India's neighbours Nepal and Bhutan have 
abolished the death penalty. Neither has seen the 'chaos and disaster' which Mr 
Jagannathan warns of.

Mr Jagannathan admits that the death penalty must be used for a more specific 
set of crimes. While international law clearly sets abolition as the goal for 
countries which retain the death penalty, international standards say that 
where the death penalty does exist, it must only be imposed for crimes that 
involve intentional killing. In India however, the death penalty can still be 
handed out for offences including abetment of mutiny and kidnapping for ransom. 
Pending abolition, the government must ensure, at the very least, that crimes 
which don???t involve intentional killing are no longer punishable with death.

"We need the death penalty for our own reasons at this stage in our development 
as a civilised society", concludes Mr Jagannathan. Here he underestimates 
India. As a society, it is time for us to stop pretending that revenge is 
justice. It is time to do away with the death penalty.

(source: Shailesh Rai is the Senior Policy Advisor at Amnesty International 
India----firstpost.com)

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

The Problem With Those Opposing Death Penalty In India


Lawyer activists never actually help out at the trial stage. Only when the case 
comes to their neighborhood in the Supreme Court will they go all out and 
denounce and cast aspersions on the trial court proceedings. They gain 
publicity for their rants through a willing media. Why don't they go to the 
district magistrate courts - pick a criminal case - stay in a hotel and help 
fight the trial for free?

The probability that a criminal is caught depends on how much money the state 
is able to allocate to catch him.

>From this flows the basic problem with imitating western arguments in 
criminology into a poor or developing country like India. Indian Liberals are 
tossing around "certainty" of catching a criminal nonchalantly as if this comes 
for free. If you see the anti capital punishment literature in the United 
States they almost always compare themselves with other advanced, developed, 
OECD, countries. It is not even clear that the following three components of 
criminology - catching a criminal, a fair judicial process, a mature system of 
incarceration - are all that accessible to a poor third world country. 
Especially one like India where the rule of law is vitiated by extraneous 
considerations and identities.

Beneath the visible layer of law and police there exists strong societal 
currents with their own instincts and expectations. The grand project has 
always been to collect these instincts, see if any common threads can be teased 
out into a code or rules, and invest the state with enforcing the replacement 
code. The replacement provided by the state is visible to us as a system of law 
and punishments represented by Khakis and Blacks that merely substitutes these 
instincts. There are compromises to be made by all groups while accepting this 
code. Biological instincts are among the most important.

A physically weak person whose child was murdered would want nothing more than 
death for his child's killer. But without allies. he on his own steam may not 
be able to apprehend a murderer. The weaker person is therefore likely to 
consider attractive the certainty of the state catching and jailing the 
perpetrator for 1 year.

His basic instinct flowing from the Amygdala (the part of the brain that guides 
emotion) is all the time screaming "..revenge you wimp!". Invariably after the 
initial flood the Amydgala's screaming is overwhelmed by chemicals flowing from 
the Cerebral Cortex (the calculating part). The Cerebral Cortex probably goes 
"Look man, I know my friend the walnut sized Amydgala's idea is the honorable 
response that befits a dad, a man, but look at you - you have no weapons, your 
limbs are weak, your allies are unreliable. Why not take the state's deal - let 
them catch him and jail him for a year".

The stronger guy may never encounter this biological tete-a-tete - because he 
fancies with good reason that he has the resources to catch the killer himself 
and exact retaliation. However, even the strongest guy is aware that entering 
into a feud is a very costly affair. These pulls and pushes guide and balance 
the law of retaliation just below the surface of formal legal processes.

This long digression was needed to show that behind violent crimes there exists 
real victims and families who deal with these raging chemical reactions in 
their heads on a daily basis. Neither you nor I can understand what it feels 
like to be Rimpa Halder's dad - nor the parents or children of modestly dressed 
folks whose naked limbs and torsos were stuck to buildings in the aftermath of 
bomb blasts. The real evaluation of the Indian state is happening as we speak. 
Not just in CAG reports or by politicians but by millions of common folk. 
People watching how other folks experience interacting with police and law. The 
arguments these common people seek are not what international think tanks offer 
about ???uncivilized Indians' but what folks who have the ability to put 
themselves in someone else's shoes are able to see.

Jaideep has an excellent article on Retribution, so I wont repeat his points 
here. Suffice to say that India is no different from anywhere else. Every kid 
in Tamilnadu learns in school about Kannagi who took revenge on the entire city 
of Madurai for an incorrect judgment from the Pandiyan king. This does not 
automatically lead to an eye-for-eye doctrine of course, but the deep rooted 
instinct has to be recognized.

To wrap up - here are more practical questions that Indian activists and think 
tanks are evading. They interest me less than the meta issues involved, but 
just stating them here.

?Mr Tharoor "proved" on a NDTV blog that capital punishment had no deterrent 
effect, quite a remarkable achievement considering scholars from across the 
world have struggled with it for ages. The argument goes: In 1990-2000 there 
were 10 executions but murder increased - but between 2000-2010 there was only 
1 and murders decreased. Quite a stunning conclusion. These are complex multi 
variable issues that cant be naively analyzed like this. What if the deterrent 
effect kicks in only after a certain threshold? Say 500. What about the fact 
that encounter killings increased in that same period (2000-2010) that replaced 
the deterrent effect of formal execution? What if fewer prosecutors push for 
capital punishment because of the costs involved?

?The rarest-of-rare doctrine is actually a serviceable or workable sentencing 
guideline. It is clear that murders of passion, routine cases of which there 
are numerous of, even cold blooded murders arising out of feud etc fall on the 
other side. If you cant even service this guideline it is not sure what else 
can be done. Any guidelines has to have enough headroom so as to accommodate 
enough individual cases into categories. Tharoor says, criminals who commit 
crimes in heat of moment rarely pay attention to punishment schedules. On the 
other hand, cold calculating conspirators that carry out terrorist activity 
surely pay attention to the prevailing penal landscape. After all, they have to 
go out and recruit willing folks who carry out attacks on the ground. So it is 
not a true statement that criminals are never aware of these things. One can 
even argue that taking capital punishment off the table makes it easier for 
terrorists to recruit minions to carry out their diabolical plans.

Tharoor (CON) and Varun Gandhi (BJP) castigate the judicial process itself for 
being biased. I fail to see how this is a fair argument. Is it okay if a broken 
judicial process docks an innocent guy for 45 years in jail? These are 
tangential and shallow arguments. The clinching point they fail to mention is 
that capital punishment convicts receive a FAR more thorough hearing through 
the appellate process than life convicts ever will.

Lawyer activists never actually help out at the trial stage. Only when the case 
comes to their neighborhood in the Supreme Court will they go all out and 
denounce and cast aspersions on the trial court proceedings. They gain 
publicity for their rants through a willing media which these days are ready to 
take up anything anti-national. Why don't they put their money where their 
mouth is? Go to the district magistrate courts - pick a criminal case - stay in 
a hotel and help fight the trial for free?

Copying western arguments on deterrence. In western countries with a high 
standard of living, there is a huge disincentive not to be in jail. Outside you 
have wine, bars, beaches, the Riviera, jobs, a $50,000 per capita income, clean 
air, public services - inside you have a stainless steel mug. In poor 
countries, the deterrence effect of jail is highly debatable. Can anyone say 
that the squalor of a slum on the edges of a sewage river with uncertainty of 
income, food, petty rivalry, oppression is desirable compared to jail ? You are 
guaranteed food, safety, clean clothes, some work, exercise which so many can 
only dream of outside.

The thing that bothers me most about think tanks and liberals in India is that 
they completely skip inconvenient material. They decry the sentencing issues 
but keep quiet on the mercy process. The real moral hazard is the following.

A and B are both sentenced to die after the culmination of a long judical 
process.

A is pardoned by politicians.

B is not.

This is a sure fire way to take the winds out of the pro-DP crowd sails. I am 
speechless personally and am forced to concede all points. Upon closer 
inspection, this argument is alarming. What they are really saying is: We, the 
politicians, using the mercy process will hold the system hostage until you 
concede.

In effect they are using an arbitrary political process to vitiate the legal 
process and then use that very subterfuge to attack the judicial process itself 
as arbitrary! A lot of everyday folk are busy with their own lives and are 
unable to see bogus justifications. For example: a lot of young right wingers 
repeat that Rajiv killers case was different because they had a 11 year delay 
on mercy petition. The question you should be asking is "Okay, why didn't Yakub 
also get a 11 year delay?"

I cried hoarse when Pratibha Patil and P. Chidambaram of the Congress Party 
commuted death sentences of most gruesome criminals. This is a kind of sneaky 
behavior that must be caught early on and politicians who ran these programs 
made to account for it.

(source: swarajyamag.com)

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

Poll | Is it time for a larger debate on capital punishment?


Close on the heels of BJP leader and actor Shatrughan Sinha signing a petition 
to the President against Yakub Memon's execution, the party's general secretary 
Varun Gandhi took a position against the death penalty in an article published 
in a weekly news magazine.

Gandhi, however, clarified that the article was not connected with the Memon 
hanging and was just a point of view on the larger debate about capital 
punishment across the globe. "The write up has tried to shed some light on the 
historicity of death penalty," he told HT.

Memon's execution has sparked a debate over death penalty with prominent 
opposition leaders joining activists in calling for a ban and the government 
saying it cannot afford to take the leap at present.

Writers and opinion makers who spoke out against the noose mainly said the 
state should not be a party to taking precious lives and that death is never a 
deterrent for terrorists.

A large section of the media stuck to the argument that it was time for India 
to rethink the capital punishment laws.

More than 160 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice 
and 98 of those have abolished it altogether. India is one of the 58 countries 
which still hands out the death penalty, according to a UN reports. Do you 
think it's time we hold a larger debate on capital punishment?

(source: Hindustan Times)

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

Is humane execution really possible?


Yakub Memon's hanging once again put the spotlight on whether death penalty 
should be abolished and, if not, whether it can be made more humane. Globally, 
a wide range of methods of state execution are used - hanging, decapitation, 
firing squad, lethal injection, stoning - with hanging being the most common 
and used in 60 countries. Electrocution, gas chambers and 'pushing off a great 
height', the last being only used in Iran, are the least used. Since most 
methods of state executions are chosen for historic and cultural reasons, 
here's a review of what science has to say on death without discomfort.

Lynching is far more complicated than spaghetti Westerns would have us believe. 
India's official method of execution is largely dependent on the hangman's 
skill, which involves complicated calculations that factor in the prisoner's 
weight and the length, thickness and quality of the rope. Executioners use the 
'long-drop' method of hanging that causes almost instantaneous death from 
'hangman's fracture', a colloquial term for traumatic spondylolisthesis of axis 
vertebrae, which snaps the C2 vertebrae in the neck.

The preparation for the hanging must be exhaustive, as any miscalculation in 
the length of the drop can rip the prisoner's head clean off. The prisoner is 
weighed the day before the hanging and a rehearsal is done using a sandbag of 
the same weight, to ensure a quick death. Too short drop would not break the 
neck at all, and would result instead in death by strangulation, which can take 
several minutes. In almost all cases, however, asphyxiation from the pressure 
of the rope on the windpipe and the blood vessels that feed the brain results 
in the prisoner losing consciousness within 10 seconds of being hanged.

Lethal injection was adopted in the US in 1977 as a humane alternative to the 
electric chair, with 3 drugs being used, the anaesthetic sodium thiopental, to 
numb the prisoner, followed by pancuronium, to paralyse the lungs and stop 
breathing, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Several states were forced to consider other forms of execution after the 
botched execution of Clayton D Lockett last year, who writhed in pain for 43 
minutes before his heart finally stopped. One identifiable reason why Lockett 
was in pain for so long was that he was administered the sedative midazolam 
instead of sodium thiopental, the latter being unavailable because of bans on 
the export of lethal drugs among European countries opposed to the death 
penalty.

Accidental electrocutions at home involving low voltage usually cause death 
from the heart stopping (arrhythmia), with a person losing consciousness within 
10 seconds. The electric chair was designed to make the brain and heart stop 
instantly, by conducting a high-voltage currents directly through the person. 
But there have been several cases of the prisoner taking more than a few 
minutes to lose consciousness. In one case, the synthetic sponge attached to 
the electrodes was such a bad conductor that it went up in flames and the 
prisoner's head caught fire. Most visible burns in such executions, however, 
are on the head and legs, where the electrodes are attached, and occur after 
death. If the voltage is insufficient, the prisoner is likely to die of the 
brain overheating, or of suffocation from the paralysis of the lung muscles.

Beheading is a gruesome way to be killed. If the executioner is skilled and has 
a sharp blade - like Ilyn Payne or The Hound from Game of Thrones - it is among 
the least painful ways to die. When the infamous guillotine, designed by the 
French physician Dr Joseph Ignace Guillotin, to make beheadings painless and 
error-free, was first officially used for public execution in France in 1792, 
the crowd baying for blood were reportedly disappointed by the speed of death.

A study of rats in 1991 found it takes 2.7 seconds for the brain to use up all 
the oxygen in the blood in the head, which is the duration of the consciousness 
of pain. In humans, it is about 7 seconds. In the absence of the guillotine, 
the skill of the beheader comes into play. In 1587, a clumsy executioner could 
not behead Mary Queen of Scots in 3 attempts and finally used a knife to finish 
the job.

A shortage of drugs for lethal injection last year prompted several 
death-penalty states in the US to look for alternatives, and Oklahoma zeroed in 
on nitrogen gas asphyxiation as the most painless way to die. Nitrogen gas 
causes asphyxiation by depleting oxygen in the blood. Though this inert gas is 
yet to be put to test as a method of capital punishment, accidental inhalation 
does not cause any symptoms and people do not experience the suffocation 
associated with carbon monoxide poisoning or the hydrogen cyanide used in gas 
chambers. Deep-sea divers exposed to nitrogen gas report feeling mildly 
euphoric - called the 'raptures of the sea' or the 'Martini effect' - because 
of narcosis triggered by the anaesthetic effect of the inert gas at high 
pressure.

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

'Ban death penalty'


Members of the All India Lawyers Union (AILU) staged a demonstration in front 
of the Coimbatore Combined Court on Saturday seeking ban on death penalty in 
India. They also condemned the hanging of Yakub Memon.

Lawyers, who took part in the demonstration, also condemned alleged 
interference of the Union Government in executing his death sentence and that 
he should have been given the order for executing his death sentence at least 
30 days before he was hung.Citing that over 140 countries have banned death 
penalty, they urged the government to ban death penalty in India. AILU District 
Secretary V. Sundaramoorthy presided over the demonstration in which lawyers 
from People's Union for Civil Liberties, Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI 
(ML) and other organisations participated.

(source: The Hindu)

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

Plainspeak: Keep death penalty for terrorists----Discuss and decide on the 
advisability of retaining walking to the gallows on the statute, but in cases 
of terror, keep the element of retribution on hand. Terrorists do not require 
punishments with the aim of reforming them. They need to be punished to end 
their participation in the continued low-intensity war, says Mahesh Vijapurkar


It is not as if a person is hanged every day in India. Between 2004 and and 
2014, only three hangings took place - though subsequent ones like Yakub 
Memon's alter the picture a tad in the longer time line of nine years. In the 
seven years, as many as 3,751 death sentences were commuted to life terms. 
Unless otherwise specified, these convicts could be free after 14 years.

This means the courts and the President take due care to ensure that the 
extreme punishment is avoided, and the unprecedented manner in which a Supreme 
Court bench was constituted past midnight to sit into the wee hours to hear a 
plea from Memon also testifies the effort to ensure no wrong is done even to a 
convict. Memon was only hours away from the noose.

Having said that, the demand for a review of death sentence on the statute 
cannot be ignored though, as it is said, it is meant only for the 'rarest of 
the rare cases'. It is possible that even judicial minds can make mistakes and 
reviews of orders by higher courts have led to so many death sentences turned 
into life sentences. However, the debate is sullied because the subject is 
taken up at the wrong time.

Here is how. The debates raged when a rapist who also killed in Kolkata was 
given the death sentence. Also, when the Nirbhaya case was foremost on public 
mind which led to some changes in statutes. The outrage against hanging 
surfaced when Yakub Memon was told that he had to forsake his life for the 
crimes committed. These were not ordinary crimes.

It would be useful if those who disfavour capital punishment lobby hard, 
persuade lawmakers to discuss it in parliament. Or help draft private members' 
bills to make it a sustained campaign, not, as is seen by the common man, a 
cause they give life to when a terrible crime is to come to a closure by the 
death sentence. They would carry conviction enough to persuade the common man 
that theirs was a valid plank.

Judiciary should not, and hopefully are not, influenced by public opinion. When 
eminent persons take up the cause to repeal capital punishment as a means of 
punishment, expectedly the public outrage only multiples. The half-informed 
(thanks to the shallow 'debates' on TV and trolling by biased minds) see it as 
an effort to protect the guilty without taking into account the principle they 
canvass. The timing detracts from the cause.

Having said that, I advocate death for terrorists. It is a different kind of 
crime not envisaged when we made our laws. Those coming across the border are 
waging a war, even if of low intensity. Those who connive with them, and as in 
the Mumbai's March 12, 1993 blasts, for which Memon was convicted, are 
treacherous and deserve the appropriate punishment. Not being awarded the death 
sentences would actually weaken the fight against terrorism.

Imagine Ajmal Kasab being spared the noose. Even during his trial, the 
law-enforces were in trepidation that Pakistan could attempt to rescue him. 
This apprehension translated into decisions to disallow any high rise buildings 
around the jail where he was locked up, and the trial was held inside the jail 
which was further fortified. Attempts, successful or not, to rescue them would 
only upgrade the level of terror.

That alone is not the reason why death penalties are of some import in the 
fight against terror. Terror is fought in several ways, and all of them 
together help stave it off. One is to prevent it; we do not have a sterling 
record in this department, mostly with non-specific alerts from the 
Intelligence. Two, we are not prepared to deal with it because of the absence 
of a culture that requires the utmost, not excuses.

Three, terror is spread through violence of the extreme nature, and even the 
smallest IEDs are not Diwali crackers. When those involved are captured, logic 
says that after a judicial process, they should be paid back in the same coin. 
If an innocent can be a victim of terror, even the foot soldier of the 
masterminds should pay for it, and pay adequately. There is no such thing as 
major or minor role. There is lot of deliberate planning in the mad plots.

There is a convention that even in conventional wars, the civilian should be 
spared, and in such wars, certain weapons like mustard gas, and after Vietnam, 
Napalm was banned from use. These weapons are not like a gun; its impact is 
felt on a wider arc and takes in the innocent civilian bystanders. In such a 
world, terror's aim is to kill and maim the innocent. Such attacks require 
strong counter steps. Death sentence is one of it.

Would it reduce terror attacks? Unlikely, but it keeps the fight against terror 
visibly alive. Gives the others - in a vulnerable security scenario like ours, 
anyone anywhere can be a potential target - a sense of confidence that terror 
is not countenanced. The talk of "zero-tolerance" has become trite because of 
the inability to check terror. Those who participate in terror attacks are 
anyhow those who know their lives are expendable. That is why they got into it.

However, this is no case for retaining the walk to the gallows as a means of 
punishment for all other cases for which it is prescribed. Discuss and decide 
on the advisability of retaining it on the statute, but in cases of terror, 
keep the element of retribution on hand. Terrorists do not require punishments 
with the aim of reforming them. They need to be punished to end their 
participation in the continued low-intensity war.

(source: sakshipost.com)