[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 23




ZIMBABWE:

Amnesty International urges Zim to follow trend and abolish the death penalty


Zimbabwe on Wednesday marked a decade without executions of prisoners on death 
row, something Amnesty International (AI) described as a "milestone" towards 
protection of the right to life and the eventual abolition of the death penalty 
in the country.

Although the country carried out its last execution on 22 July 2005, there are 
still 95 prisoners on death row.

In a statement, AI said it was high time Zimbabwe declared an official 
moratorium on executions and totally abolished capital punishment.

Deprose Muchena, the organisation's director for Southern Africa, said the 
death penalty was a violation of the right to life, adding that Zimbabwean 
authorities must take urgent steps to abolish it.

"10 years without an execution is a notable milestone on the road to the 
abolition of the death penalty, but the shadow of the gallows still looms for 
95 prisoners currently on death row," he said.

Speaking at an even to mark the Anti-Death Penalty Day last October then 
Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said no executions would be carried out 
under his watch.

"I want to pronounce myself clearly that the death penalty is the ultimate 
denial of human rights and a cold blooded and abhorrent killing of a human 
being by the state in the name of justice." he said.

Mnangagwa has since been promoted to vice president but still retains charge of 
the justice ministry.

His strong position against the death penalty probably stems from the fact that 
he came within a whisker of being hanged by Ian Smith's regime during the 
liberation war, only to be saved by his age.

The new Constitution, enacted in 2013, abolished mandatory death sentences and 
limited capital panishment to cases of murder "committed in aggravating 
circumstances".

The Constitution bars death sentences for women and men aged under 21 or over 
70 at the time of committing a crime.

Muchena said there is no evidence that the death penalty is more of a deterrent 
to crime than other forms of punishment.

"The world is moving away from the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading 
punishment," he said.

"Zimbabwe should permanently dismantle its machinery for execution and join the 
majority of the world's countries by abolishing capital punishment.

"More than 100 countries around the world have abolished this cruel form of 
punishment and many more countries are abolitionists in practice.

Seventeen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, Burundi, Cape 
Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritius, Madagascar, 
Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, South 
Africa and Togo have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

In addition several other African countries have also taken legislative steps 
towards abolishing death penalty for all crimes.

(source: newzimbabwe.com)






ZAMBIA:

Experts praise death penalty amnesties


2 UN human rights experts have welcomed a decision by Zambian President Edgar 
Lungu to commute the death sentences of 332 prisoners to life terms.

The UN Special Rapporteurs on summary executions, Pretoria University professor 
Christof Heyns, and on torture, Argentine lawyer Juan Mendez, urged the Zambian 
authorities "to take a step further by removing all reference to the death 
penalty in the country's laws".

Lungu commuted the sentences after his visit to Mukobeko Maximum Security 
Prison, which has a capacity of 51 inmates, but houses hundreds.

"This decision is in line with the trend in Africa - as in the rest of the 
world - to move away from the death penalty. As the secretary-general of the UN 
has said, there is no room for this form of punishment in the 21st century," 
Heyns said. Mendez said:

"By commuting these death sentences, Zambia puts a stop to mental and physical 
pain and suffering."

However, the experts warned of continuing areas of concern regarding the death 
penalty in Africa.

In Egypt, they noted, hundreds of defendants at a time are sentenced to death 
in unfair mass trials.

"Even though the execution rate is lower, these trials clearly do not meet 
international standards," they said.

Gambia also has a worrying situation, they observed, after abruptly ending a 
longstanding moratorium and hanging 9 people in 2012, it has now been proposed 
that the number of offences punishable by death be expanded.

"This proposal, if adopted, would be in stark contrast to the trend away from 
capital punishment elsewhere on the continent," the 2 experts stressed.

A ruling of the Constitutional Court led to the abolition of the death penalty 
in South Africa on June 6, 1995, following a 5-year and 4 month moratorium from 
February 1990.

South Africa carried out its last execution with the hanging in November 1989 
of Solomon Ngobeni who was convicted of robbing and stabbing a taxi driver.

The last woman executed was Sandra Smith, on June 2 that same year, along with 
her boyfriend Yassiem Harris, after a murder conviction.

The UN independent experts noted that Lungu's decision supports previous steps 
towards the abolition of capital punishment in Zambia. A presidential 
moratorium on the death penalty has been in place since 1997.

However, they called on Zambian authorities to vote in favour of the UN General 
Assembly's resolution calling for a global moratorium, rather than abstaining, 
as they have in the previous 4 votes.

The special rapporteurs said 3/4 of world states have abolished the death 
penalty in law or in practice.

The same applies to Africa. Last year, only 4 states are known to have 
conducted executions.

Earlier this month, Togo became Africa's 12th state party to the 2nd Optional 
Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at 
the abolition of the death penalty. The African Commission on Human and 
Peoples??? Rights has consistently called for the abolition of the death 
penalty for the past 2 decades and has drawn up a protocol to this effect.

"If it is adopted soon by the African Union and opened for ratification, it 
will give new emphasis to putting the death penalty era behind us," the UN 
experts said.

(source: IOL news)






THAILAND:

Koh Tao murder trail: Lawyer claims police failed to check CCTV----The defence 
lawyer in the Koh Tao murder trial said police had not examined CCTV footage 
near where 2 Brits were killed in September.


Thai police failed to check CCTV footage from the only pier on the island where 
a pair of British tourists were murdered last year, a lawyer for the 2 Myanmar 
nationals accused of the killings said Thursday (Jul 23).

Migrant workers Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun are on trial for the murder of 
24-year-old David Miller and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on 
southern Koh Tao island in September.

Both men have pleaded not guilty and face the death penalty if convicted over a 
case which has tarnished Thailand's reputation as a tourist paradise and seen 
the police accused of bungling the investigation.

Under cross-examination Thursday a senior investigating police officer, Colonel 
Cherdpong Chiewpreecha, told a Koh Samui court that CCTV footage from the pier 
had not been examined after the double murders.

The pier is close to the beach were the battered bodies of the British 
holidaymakers were found and is the main route to and from the resort island.

"I asked whether police checked CCTV footage. He (the witness) replied no and 
that police had collected the footage but investigators thought it wasn't 
relevant," defence lawyer Nakhon Chomphuchat told AFP after the morning 
session.

The defence also alleged that a small boat was seen leaving the island shortly 
after the killings but the officer was unable to confirm this information.

Prosecutors have argued that DNA evidence implicates the two Myanmar migrants 
but the defence says an under-pressure police force have coerced confessions, 
later retracted, from the pair.

Attempts by the defence to independently test some of the key forensic evidence 
against their clients were thwarted after police told an earlier hearing that 
the samples had been used up.

The battered bodies of Miller and Witheridge were found on the sleepy diving 
island of Koh Tao on September 15.

Police say Miller had been struck by a single blow and left to drown in shallow 
surf while Witheridge had been raped and then beaten to death with a garden 
hoe.

Among a litany of apparent mistakes in the hours after the grisly discovery, 
Thai police were criticised for failing to secure the crime scene or close the 
pier.

The Myanmar pair are being tried on Koh Samui, near to Koh Tao. Reporters are 
not allowed to take notes during the trial which is expected to reach a verdict 
in October.

(source: channelnewsasia.com)



IRAN----executions

Iran regime hangs 10 prisoners collectively


The clerical regime in Iran on Wednesday hanged 10 prisoners collectively in 
Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, west of the Iranian capital Tehran.

This shocking group execution in Gohardasht, also known as Rajai Shahr Prison, 
comes a week after the henchmen of the religious dictatorship raided and 
harassed inmates in the notorious prison.

The Iranian regime's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is trying in vain to make up 
for the retreats he was forced to make last week in the nuclear projects, by 
severely violating human rights in order to to salvage his hegemony and grip on 
power.

Since mullah Hasssan Rouhani took office as President, more than 1,800 
prisoners have been executed in Iran.

Turning a blind eye by the international community, especially the European 
Union and the United States, regarding the catastrophic human rights situation 
in Iran emboldens the mullahs' regime to step up suppression and slaughter the 
Iranian people. Any relations with the Iranian regime have to be contingent 
upon improvement of the situation of human rights in Iran, including the 
release of all political prisoners.

(source: NCR-Iran)

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

Post Iran Deal and Ramadan: Nine Prisoners Charged with Murder Executed in 
Rajai Shahr Prison


According to close sources, on Wednesday morning 9 prisoners charged with 
murder were hanged to death in Rajai Shahr Prison.

On the same day in Rajai Shahr 14 prisoners from various wards were transferred 
to solitary confinement. It is believed the Iranian authorities intend to 
execute them next. According to IHR's sources, some of the prisoners 
transferred to solitary confinement were pardoned by the plaintiffs on their 
respective cases while 2 more had their death sentences called off pending a 
retrial. Iran Human Rights is aware of the names of 3 of the prisoners sent to 
solitary confinement: Hossein Yazdani (from Ward 1), Albolalhassan Mousavi 
(from Ward 2) and Amir Salehi (from Ward 6).

Iran Human Rights and other human rights NGOs had feared the Iranian 
authorities would resume with the execution of prisoners after the Muslim holy 
month of Ramadan.

Wednesday's group executions demonstrate no signs of change in improvement for 
the human rights situation in Iran post Iran Deal. The Iranian authorities are 
continuing with their policies of executing prisoners and spreading fear and 
terror among Iranians.

"We call on the international community to put human rights, particularly 
executions in Iran, at the top of their agenda in talks with Iran," says 
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, executive director of Iran Human Rights.

(source: Iran Human Rights)

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

Executions in Iran could top 1,000 this year, says Amnesty International ---- 
Human rights charity says 694 people have been put to death in the last six 
months, nearly matching the toll for the whole of 2014


Iran is thought to have executed nearly 700 people in the 1st half of 2015, 
according to reports compiled by Amnesty International that far exceed the 246 
deaths officially declared by authorities in Tehran.

The human rights charity says "credible reports" put the true toll for the 
period up to 15 July at 694 people, the equivalent of 3 executions a day, and 
nearly as many as were put to death in Iran in the whole of 2014.

Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and 
North Africa programme, said: "Iran's staggering execution toll for the 1st 
half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state 
carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale.

"If Iran's authorities maintain this horrifying execution rate we are likely to 
see more than 1,000 state-sanctioned deaths by the year's end.

"The use of the death penalty is always abhorrent, but it raises additional 
concerns in a country like Iran, where trials are blatantly unfair."

Even during the month of Ramadan, when executions are usually suspended, 
Amnesty reports at least four people were put to death.

According to a report published in March by Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special 
rapporteur on Iran, at least 753 people were executed in 2014, a 12-year high.

Shaheed called for "a moratorium on executions", noting that most executions 
were for drug-related crimes, as well as adultery, sodomy and "vaguely worded 
national security offences".

Amnesty said such charges did not meet international legal standards, which 
permit the death penalty only for the "most serious crimes". Most of those 
executed so far in 2015 had faced drugs charges, the charity said.

China carries out the most executions each year, but Iran puts to death more 
people per capita than any other country.

Several thousand people are believed to be on death row in Iran, although 
authorities there do not release exact figures.

In June, Atena Daemi, an anti-death-penalty activist who had engaged in 
peaceful protests, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

(source: The Guardian)






GLOBAL:

The death penalty is a Commonwealth problem ---- The Commonwealth lags behind 
global trends on abolition, but taking an official stance against the death 
penalty would put it back on the international stage.


Last year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared: "The death 
penalty has no place in the 21st century."

But it appears that many leaders of the 53 Commonwealth countries - who will 
gather in Malta for their biennial meeting in November - didn't get that memo.

9 of these leaders head governments that regularly execute their own citizens. 
26 more hail from states that are abolitionist "in practice" but retain capital 
punishment in their legal code. The organization's most-populous countries - 
India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh - have all hanged prisoners in the past 
3 years.

The Commonwealth consists largely of former colonies of the United Kingdom - a 
nation that, while expanding its empire across the globe, sanctioned hundreds 
of executions under the infamous "Bloody Code". Yet, while the UK itself 
abolished capital punishment in the 1960s, the brutal legacy of imperial 
justice lives on in the legal systems of dozens of now-independent countries.

This group of states has lagged markedly behind global trends towards abolition 
of the death penalty. While 19 countries have barred capital punishment in the 
past decade, bringing the total number of abolitionist states to 103, only 2 
were members of the Commonwealth. The share of fully abolitionist countries is 
nearly 45% lower within the Commonwealth than outside it.

The Commonwealth Caribbean is particularly at odds with regional norms. Nearly 
2/3 of the countries with death penalty laws in the Western Hemisphere are 
members of the Commonwealth.

The picture is not exactly encouraging elsewhere in the world. In Asia, not a 
single member state has abolished the death penalty. In Africa, the region with 
the highest number of Commonwealth countries, only 1/3 have abolished it.

This year may prove to be the deadliest in recent memory. Last December, in the 
wake of the Peshawar school massacre, Pakistan partially lifted its moratorium 
on executions for terrorism charges; in March, the ban was ended entirely. The 
country has executed more than 100 individuals since December, making it one of 
the world's most-frequent executioners.

In addition, the Maldives and Papua New Guinea, neither of which has executed a 
prisoner since the 1950s, have both taken legislative steps to resume hangings 
this year. The government of Trinidad and Tobago has also announced its desire 
to reintroduce executions.

But could there be a Commonwealth remedy to this disproportionately 
Commonwealth problem?

Anti-death penalty activists should look to the continent hosting the Heads of 
Government Meeting this autumn for inspiration. Europe leads the world in 
abolitionism: of its 49 independent states, all but one has ended the use of 
capital punishment.

This remarkable accomplishment is due in part to a decades-long effort to make 
opposition to the death penalty a pan-European value - and to enshrine that 
commitment at the intergovernmental level. In 1983, the European Convention on 
Human Rights was amended with a protocol barring the death penalty except in 
wartime. In 1998 this prohibition was made total. Abolition of the death 
penalty is a prerequisite for membership in the Council of Europe, which led 
directly to the moratorium on its use in Russia in 1996. Additionally, EU 
members are now legally bound by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the 
European Union to refrain from capital punishment.

While Europe has led the way, intergovernmental efforts in other regions of the 
world have confirmed this growing global consensus. In the Americas, the 
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has been a prominent pro-abolition 
voice, and was responsible for the removal of capital punishment from 
Argentina's military code. In Africa, where the use of capital punishment has 
declined markedly in recent years, the African Commission on Human and People's 
Rights is slated to propose a protocol to the African Union???s primary human 
rights document, which would call for full abolition on the continent. Few 
abuses strike at the core of 'the dignity of all human beings' and the 
'universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated' human rights outlined 
in the Commonwealth Charter like capital punishment. Few abuses strike at the 
core of "the dignity of all human beings" and the "universal, indivisible, 
interdependent and interrelated" human rights outlined in the Commonwealth 
Charter like capital punishment. Moving towards an official Commonwealth stance 
against the death penalty would put it back in the vanguard of 
intergovernmental organizations and make it - for the 1st time in years - a 
bold, principled presence on the international stage.

This need not entail a demand for immediate abolition. Building on the approach 
of the UN General Assembly, the Commonwealth Secretary-General could instead 
encourage retentionist member states to take the intermediate steps of 
implementing a moratorium, reducing the number of offences eligible for death 
sentences and ensuring minimum due process in capital trials.

The Commonwealth could also leverage its global platform and technical 
expertise in legal affairs and governance to help make abolition a norm for 
member states, much as it has done in recent decades for elections. In many 
countries, the death penalty debate suffers from a lack of information; in 
India, for instance, the 1st major national study of capital punishment (which 
found extreme bias in the application of sentences) was only completed last 
year. The Commonwealth, in partnership with member states like the United 
Kingdom and New Zealand, that include abolition as a foreign policy goal, could 
provide both a forum and assistance for policymakers seeking justice system 
reform.

Finally, the organization needs to support and coordinate efforts among its 
most underutilized resource: civil society and professional organizations. The 
Commonwealth's list of accredited organizations alone includes 3 broad-based 
human rights organizations, multiple NGO networks and associations of lawyers, 
magistrates, law reform agencies and legislative drafters.

These groups (some of which are already engaged in anti-death penalty work) 
would be natural partners in a pan-Commonwealth drive to end capital 
punishment. While the Commonwealth Secretariat often talks of a "Commonwealth 
Family", it limits its own reach, capacity and relevance by - as CHRI finds in 
a forthcoming report for the Malta summit - failing to sufficiently engage the 
vibrant web of civil society actors in member states. This campaign would be an 
excellent opportunity to put its relationship with the "Commonwealth of the 
People" on a more productive footing.

Ultimately, the Commonwealth will not be the primary vehicle for anti-death 
penalty activism. This is a fight that will be fought and won at the domestic 
level. But as we've witnessed in Europe and in other regions, making capital 
punishment anathema at the intergovernmental level can have a profound effect. 
If the Commonwealth wants to be the values-driven organization it claims to be, 
one that earns the respect of citizens by standing for their human rights, it 
must work for a 21st century in which the death penalty truly has no place.

(source: opendemocracy.net)