[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 4



HUNGARY:

Hungary Will Not Re-Introduce Death Penalty Despite Growing Debate



Hungary has no plans to introduce the death penalty, "it is only a matter up 
for debate," Prime Minister Viktor Orban told European Parliament president 
Martin Schulz. Orban and Schulz discussed the issue over the phone, cabinet 
chief Janos Lazar said. Viktor Orban also told European People's Party leader 
Joseph Daul and group leader Manfred Weber that a debate is ongoing in Hungary 
about the death penalty but European Union laws will be respected, Lazar added.

The cabinet chief repeated Viktor Orban's comments in connection with the 
recent brutal murder of a shop assistant in Kaposvar, stating that the 
introduction of the "3-strikes" law and real life sentences did not have 
sufficient effect to prevent crime and therefore the death penalty should be 
"kept on the agenda". "The unbelievable social outcry that has emerged in 
connection with serious crimes might not be heard in Brussels but it is heard 
in Budapest," Janos Lazar added. Hungary respects the EU legal system, but the 
EU in turn, as an important guardian of democracy, should not reject any debate 
that concerns its citizens, he said. Later PM Viktor Orban told commercial Echo 
TV that a decision on the death penalty was premature, but the debate on it 
should continue. He said the loud critical response from Brussels showed that 
"some people in Brussels do not want to allow debate."

Meanwhile the radical nationalist Jobbik party said it would initiate a day of 
debate in parliament about the reintroduction of capital punishment, party 
leader Gabor Vona said. Vona said international treaties do not ban the death 
penalty, but there are even some members of Jobbik who oppose it. He called the 
death penalty "justifiable," citing brutal murders as examples where it would 
be a just punishment. Concerning the planned free trade agreement between the 
EU and the US, he sharply criticised the government for "not raising hell" 
about the possibility of large US companies "ripping off Europe". Commenting on 
migration, he said Jobbik would support the government if it indeed took action 
in this area. He said Hungary needed no refugees at all but it should make 
preparations for granting safe haven to ethnic Hungarian asylum-seekers from 
Ukraine.

(source: Hungary Today)






PHILIPPINES:

More Filipinos on death row in Malaysia, Saudi, China



Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and China top the list of countries where there are 
Filipinos on death row with 34, 28 and 21 Philippine nationals, respectively, 
according to Malacanang.

Citing a report by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Palace on Sunday said 
there were also 2 Filipinos on death row in the United States and one each in 
Indonesia, Kuwait and Thailand, bringing to 88 the total number of Filipino 
facing the death penalty.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. told the Inquirer, however, that 
"no case is imminent for execution."

"All death penalty cases are either already given a reprieve or are on appeal," 
Coloma said in a text message.

"The death penalty with a 2-year reprieve could be commuted to life 
imprisonment for good behavior," said Coloma, quoting Foreign Affairs Assistant 
Secretary and spokesperson Charles Jose.

Assistance

According to Coloma, all Philippine embassies and consulates had been directed 
by Malacanang to extend all the help necessary to Filipinos on death row under 
the DFA???s Assistance to Nationals program, including legal assistance and 
appeals coursed through diplomatic channels.

"On the preventive side, extensive education and information are conducted by 
the Department of Labor and Employment and its attached agencies in 
collaboration with the Philippine Information Agency and other government media 
organizations," Coloma said.

Massive

Already, he said, a massive information and education campaign against drug and 
human trafficking was being conducted in the country's regions and provinces to 
educate overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) while they are still in the country.

He also raised the need to increase awareness on the perils posed by human and 
drug trafficking syndicates, particularly an intensified information drive on 
the issue among OFWs and other Philippine nationals based abroad. It is 
necessary for OFWs to know and comply with the laws of their host countries, he 
said.

In China, trafficking in illegal drugs is punishable by a prison terms of at 
least 15 years, life imprisonment or death, the DFA said.

In most Muslim countries, the offense is punishable by death under Sharia law.

Coloma said the government was doing everything to protect the rights of 
Filipino citizens in trouble in the various parts of the world.

Citing the case of drug convict Mary Jane Veloso, he said a criminal syndicate 
had duped the Nueva Ecija native into "being an unwitting accomplice or courier 
in their human and drug trafficking activities."

Last Wednesday, Veloso was given a last-minute reprieve after President Aquino 
brought up her case with Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

(source: Philippine Daily Inquirer)








PAKISTAN:

Halt executions please! ---- The investigations of the police before the 
commencement of a criminal trial fabricate the whole scene in order to mislead 
the courts and to save the people with power and money

Initially, executions were carried on terrorism related charges but, in the 
wake of the Peshawar tragedy, the government of Pakistan decided to lift the 
moratorium on March 10 of this year and reinstated this heinous punishment for 
all death penalty offences. The PPP-led coalition government, in 2008, had 
placed a moratorium on executions following pressure on the government by the 
European Union and human rights' groups.

On April 21, 17 inmates were executed in Pakistan, the highest number of 
executions in a single day since the reversing of the country's self imposed 
ban. The prisoners were executed in different jails in Punjab and Balochistan. 
16 inmates were executed in cities like Faislabad, Gujranwala, Gujarat, Lahore, 
Multan, Sialkot and Rawalpindi while 1 execution was carried out in Machh Jail, 
Balochistan. According to different news agencies, Iqbal and Latif were hanged 
for shooting 4 people, including 1 woman. 3 men, Muhammad Hussain, Nizamuddin 
and Azam, were hanged in the central jail in Faisalabad. The first 2 were 
convicted for the murder of 3 people in 1998 while Azam was convicted for 
murdering 7 people from one family in 2004. Another 3 persons were hanged in 
Rawalpindi's Adiala jail for murder. Separately, in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail, 
2 convicts were hanged for murder. 2 men were hanged in Sialkot jail for the 
gang-rape of a minor in 1999 while 1 person was hanged in Multan's central jail 
for committing murder in 2000. Another man was executed in Sahiwal's central 
jail for murdering a man in 1998, while convict Azhar Mehmood was hanged in 
Gujarat's district jail for murder in 1995. A convict named Riaz Ahmed was also 
hanged for murder in Machh jail. There are about 8,000 death row prisoners in 
Pakistan. Out of 8,000 death row prisoners many of them are innocent and have 
been falsely implicated in criminal cases but are still languishing there. This 
is all due to the ineffective criminal justice system of Pakistan where people 
with deep pockets easily manipulate prosecution evidence, implicating innocent 
people. The investigations of the police before the commencement of a criminal 
trial fabricate the whole scene in order to mislead the courts and to save the 
people with power and money.

Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan say that it is the only way 
available for the government to deal with the scourge of terrorism and 
militancy in the country. However, human rights groups across the world and 
within Pakistan categorically oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty in 
Pakistan. They have further contended that executing prisoners is no answer to 
dealing with terrorism in Pakistan. There is a need to revise national and 
international policies in order to deal with terrorism and militancy.

My contention on the opposition to execution is that right to life is embodied 
as a natural right in Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan and in plain 
wording it can be said that no one can take that right to life, not even the 
courts that provide justice. Taking away the right to life by execution is 
unnatural and inconsistent with the principles of natural justice. In any 
civilised society execution is seen as barbaric and inhumane. Since the lifting 
of the moratorium the ratio of crime in Pakistan lies at the same level where 
it was before the lifting of the moratorium. Advanced countries now have 
reached the conclusion that capital punishment is no answer to decreasing the 
crime ratio.

My 2nd contention is that the death penalty is irreversible; once a prisoner is 
executed, it is all over. Pakistan is a country where a number of legal 
mistakes can happen and the courts can also commit mistakes while conducting a 
criminal trial. The prevailing corruption in society has also belittled the 
criminal justice system in the country whereby chances of the innocent being 
declared guilty have increased manifold.

My last and biggest contention is that there is a need to develop non-penal 
social engineering in Pakistan. Instead of executing prisoners, all 
stakeholders should come together to a point where they provide rehabilitation 
to prisoners, even to condemned prisoners in jails so that when they are 
released from jail they play a positive and responsible role in society. 
Keeping them in jail for years actually makes them hardened criminals and puts 
them under immense mental torture. Advanced countries like the UK, Germany and 
France are no longer party to the death penalty. They abolished the death 
penalty years ago and now do not intend to reinstate it in their criminal 
justice systems. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and China are amongst those 
countries that execute thousands of prisoners every year. The non-penal social 
engineering doctrine in Pakistan - even in countries where the death penalty is 
a part of the criminal justice system - makes the system of punishment a bit 
more humane. Prisoners languishing in violent and notorious jails are denied 
basic rights and jail staffs treat them like animals. They should have dignity 
too.

In culmination, I submit that government officials seriously reconsider their 
decision of lifting of the ban on the moratorium. Executing condemned prisoners 
is no answer to defeating terrorism. There is a need to revise national and 
international polices pertaining to foreign policy and internal security. The 
state of Pakistan now also has to realise that only secularism is a solution 
for the sorting of extreme forms of militancy and terrorism. Pakistan's action 
plan to combat terrorism seems plausible to the general public but it has no 
ingredient for bringing peace and harmony to Pakistan in the long run. It is a 
mere political slogan that the national action plan will bring peace and 
harmony.

(source: Editorial, Sarmad Ali; the writer is an advocate of the High 
Court----The Daily Times)

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

To the benefit of nobody



Judicial killing has taken many forms down the ages, none of them pretty and 
all of them grotesque to a greater or lesser degree. The Indonesian government 
executed 8 drug traffickers in the last week. They were tied to crosses before 
being shot, were reported to have refused to be blindfolded and sang "We shall 
overcome" together before the firing squads did their work. Pakistan recently 
hanged its 100th man since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in 
the wake of the massacre at the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar last 
December. The moratorium was initially only lifted for those convicted in 
terrorism cases but later it was lifted for all cases in which the death 
penalty had been awarded.

There are thousands on death row in the country and Pakistan, complete with its 
deeply flawed judicial system, has 27 offences which carry the option of the 
death penalty. There is ample evidence, anecdotal and empirical, that the wider 
population supports the death penalty, and there are elements of that 
population which even support the public execution of criminals by methods 
which much of the rest of the world regards as barbaric.

Looking at the list of those executed thus far there are few who have been 
hanged for acts of terrorism, and most of those hanged had committed acts of 
domestic violence, often killing multiple people. Their convictions are for the 
most part long-standing and they had exhausted all roads of appeal. There have 
been a handful of 'high-profile' executions but thus far there is not a lot of 
evidence that the lifting of the moratorium has done much to deter terrorism. 
Indeed, the converse effect may be in play - those who commit terrorist acts 
often do so with the desire for 'martyrdom' at the forefront of their minds so 
it is questionable whether the death penalty has played the role of an 
effective deterrent in such cases.

The Pakistan legal system, as noted above, determines 27 offences that are 
punishable by death. These go far beyond what most of the rest of the world 
regards as the threshold for 'most serious crimes' as described in Article 6 of 
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In Pakistan, a person 
may be sentenced to death for sabotage of the railway system, gang-rape, drug 
smuggling, trading arms - the list goes on. What is really problematic is that 
the determination of guilt in respect of any or all of these offences is flawed 
from top to bottom, and given that many of those recently hanged were convicted 
at a time when police procedures were even more lax, primitive and corrupt than 
they are today; the chances of innocent men having had their necks stretched is 
disturbingly high.

A few cases where men are condemned to die have attracted international 
attention, that of Shafqat Hussain who is due to hang on May 6 being one of 
them. His case is an example of the inherent flaws in the system - judicial, 
investigative and custodial. The dispute surrounding Shafqat Hussain is less 
about his guilt or innocence and more about his age at the time of his 
conviction and whether he was a juvenile at that point, thus making the death 
sentence inappropriate. As of today, it appears he will hang, as will unknown 
numbers of others, some of whom will not have been truly guilty of a capital 
offence - and that is wrong.

The lifting of the moratorium after the APS atrocity today looks like little 
more than a knee-jerk reaction with a strong element of populism deeply 
embedded. The government was quickly able to take and implement a decision that 
gave the impression of 'doing something' in response to the APS killings. In 
reality, the hanging of a succession of men who for the most part have 
committed what may be classed as 'crimes of passion', does absolutely nothing 
beyond satisfy a public that is under the illusion that it does. And that is 
also wrong.

(source: Editorial, Express Tribune)