[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 19



EGYPT:

UN chief expresses concern over Morsi death sentence



UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has voiced serious concern over the death 
sentences handed down to Egypt's ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, and more than 
100 others.

Ban's deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said on Monday that the UN chief is worried 
about the death penalties, adding, "The secretary general understands that the 
verdict is still subject to an appeal."

On May 16, an Egyptian court sentenced Morsi, Egypt's 1st 
democratically-elected president, along with the other 105 defendants to death 
for a mass prison break during the country's 2011 revolution against long-time 
dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

Haq also noted that the UN chief will precisely monitor the appeals process.

"The secretary general underscores the importance of all parties taking steps 
to promote - and avoiding those that could further undermine - peace, stability 
and the rule of law in the region," he stated.

(source: Press TV)

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

Calgary holds rally condemning 106 death sentences handed out by government in 
Egypt



About 15 people gathered in front of Calgary's Municipal Complex Monday to 
protest death sentences recently handed to more than 100 people in Egypt.

The group stood holding signs of protest while chanting messages such as "Down, 
down, military coup," and "Why why, innocent people have to die."

An Egyptian court recently recommended ousted president Mohamed Morsi, along 
with 105 others - which includes senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood led 
by Morsi - be sentenced to death.

They were found guilty mass prison breaks which took place in the country's 
January 25 revolution of 2011.

Morsi had been elected president in summer 2012.

A military backed government ousted him from power a year later.

His recent death sentence, issued Saturday, will be sent to the grand mufti 
(highest religious authority) for advice - mandatory in Egypt.

Earlier, in April, Morsi was handed a 20-year prison sentence for clashes that 
took place outside the presidential palace in Dec. 2012.

(source: Calgary Sun)

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

Turkey to take Egypt's Morsi verdict to UN----Egypt''s ousted Islamist 
president Morsi and other 106 defendants were ordered by a court on Saturday to 
face the death penalty for their role in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 
uprising.



Turkey will take to the UN Human Rights Commission the verdict of death 
sentences on former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and 106 supporters of his 
Muslim Brotherhood, Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said on 
Monday.

"We are continuing our consultations firstly with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other 
Gulf countries. We are reviewing current mechanisms for international 
initiatives. We plan to start necessary initiatives soon, to at the UN Human 
Rights Committee at first hand," Kalin told reporters in a press conference.

"We call on the Egyptian administration to reverse the sentence," Xinhua quoted 
Kalin as saying.

Those sentences and carrying them out will push the Middle East into further 
chaos, the spokesperson said, calling on international community to speak out 
more strongly against the verdicts.

Egypt's ousted Islamist president Morsi and other 106 defendants were ordered 
by a court on Saturday to face the death penalty for their role in a mass 
jailbreak during the 2011 uprising.

Morsi was also accused of escaping prison with the assistance of domestic and 
foreign militants during the January 25 uprising that ousted former president 
Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan on Saturday condemned Egypt for sentencing 
Morsi to death.

"Egypt is returning to ancient Egypt," Erdogan said, adding that "the West, 
unfortunately, is still turning a blind eye to (Egyptian President 
Abdel-Fattah) Sisi's coup."

Erdogan is a vocal supporter of Morsi, and relations between Turkey and Egypt 
have been strained since Morsi was ousted by the army in July 2013 after mass 
protests against his 1-year rule.

Ankara accused the army, and new Egyptian president of carrying out a coup 
against Morsi from Muslim Brotherhood, a political organisation with close ties 
to Erdogan's Justice and Development Party. However, Egypt condemned the 
Turkish government for interfering in its domestic affairs.

(source: greaterkashmir.com)

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

1 sentenced to death, 3 to life in prison for forming 'terrorist cell' in Egypt



An Egyptian court sentenced a man to death and 3 others to life in prison 
Monday on charges of forming a terrorist cell, state news agency MENA reported.

The case stems back to when security forces arrested the 4 defendants in August 
2014 in Egypt's Nile Delta city Mansoura, accusing them of forming a terrorist 
cell that aims to kill all those against ousted Islamist president Mohamed 
Morsi.

The Mansoura criminal court issued its verdict on Monday after referring the 
death penalty to the Grand Mufti in March 2015.

Life in prison sentences carry up to 25 years in jail, according to the 
Egyptian penal code.

The 4 convicted men were described by MENA as members of the banned Muslim 
Brotherhood.

The defendants were also accused of the "use of force, receiving military 
training outside the country and damaging the property of a Bahraini real 
estate company."

The verdict came a day after Egypt's prison authorities carried out 6 death 
sentences early Sunday in the case known as "Arab Sharkas," where the convicted 
were tried over connections with the Sinai-based Islamist militant group Ansar 
Beit Al-Maqdis.

The men were charged with planning terrorist operations, shooting at security 
forces, attacking military facilities and naval ships and being members of 
Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis.

The death penalty in Egypt have been met with widespread criticism especially 
after another Egyptian court issued a preliminary death sentence to former 
Islamist president Morsi and 105 other defendants. The trial is known in the 
Egyptian media as the Natroun jailbreak case.

However, Egypt insists all of its convicts were given fair trials.

(source: Albawaba news)

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

Sudan describes death sentence against Egypt's Morsi as "internal matter"



The Sudanese government has described the decision by an Egyptian court to 
refer the ousted president Mohamed Morsi to Egypt's top religious authority to 
consider death penalty against him as an "internal affair".

On Saturday, a court in Cairo sentenced to death Morsi and 105 co-defendants 
for allegedly taking part in a mass jailbreak during Egypt's January 2011 
uprising that ousted then president Hosni Mubarak.

Sudan's foreign ministry spokesperson, Ali al-Sadig, said in press statements 
on Monday that "ongoing trials in Egypt are an internal matter and the 
[Sudanese] government does not interfere in the internal affairs of other 
countries".

The government's reaction contrasted sharply with that of the opposition 
Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Hassan al-Turabi who denounced the court's 
decision and warned that Egypt would witness a strong internal strife if Morsi 
and his companions were executed.

In 2013, Khartoum sought to strike a neutral tone following the move by the 
Egyptian army to overthrow Morsi after unprecedented multi-million strong 
demonstrations against him before it returned and described it as an "internal 
affair" that concerns Egypt's people, national institutions and political 
leadership.

Morsi is the 1st president to be referred to the mufti in Egypt's history. The 
opinion of the mufti is not binding to the court, but Egyptian law makes it 
necessary for judges to seek a religious point of view on any death sentence.

The court decision against Morsi and his aides drew condemnation from US, 
Turkey, Germany and the European Union (EU) with the rights group Amnesty 
International describing it as "nothing but a charade based on null and void 
procedure".

(source: Sudan Tribune)








BANGLADESH:

4 get death penalty for Gazipur murder



A Gazipur court has sentenced 4 men to death for killing one Morsheda Akhter 7 
years ago over conjugal dispute.

1 of those convicted is the victim's husband Abu Ayub Lalon.

Gazipur Additional District and Sessions Court and Special Tribunal-2 judge Md 
Fazle Elahi Bhuiyan delivered the verdict on Tuesday.

The others convicted are Mulluk Hossain Bhuiyan, 30, Md Rana, 34, and Hanif 
Mia, 32. All of them have been fined Tk 10,000 each.

They can challenge the sentence in a higher court within 7 days.

The plaintiff, Akhter's uncle Shawkat Ali, said he was satisfied with the 
verdict and demanded its swift execution.

But the defence counsels said they had been denied justice.

They said they would move the High Court against the death sentences.

According to case details, several years after their marriage in 1998, Lalon 
started demanding dowry and physically abusing Akhter regularly.

He even threatened to kill her.

Ali said Lalon had an extra-marital affair with his neighbour's wife that led 
to conjugal discord.

"Lalon's friends hacked her on the night of Nov 5, 2008 at his behest. She 
succumbed to her injuries the following day at the Dhaka Medical College and 
Hospital," he added.

Akhter, a mother of 2, was 5 months into pregnancy at that time.

He filed a case with Joydebpur police on Nov 8.

Locals nabbed Hanif and handed him over to police while the law-keepers 
arrested the other 3 later.

(source: bdnews24.com)








IRAN:

Iran Is Executing Hundreds For Drug Crimes -- And The U.N. Is Backing Its 
Anti-Drug Efforts



In the first five months of the year, Iranian authorities may have executed 
nearly 250 people for drug offenses, according to multiple human rights 
organizations. That's almost 2 people a day. And despite the alarming frequency 
with which alleged drug offenders are being put to death in the country, the 
United Nations is readying a multimillion-dollar package to continue helping 
Iranian authorities with their anti-drug efforts -- a move that critics say 
stands in violation of the U.N.'s own human rights policy.

Of the estimated 347 executions Iran has carried out since the beginning of the 
year, between 220 and 241 have been of people accused of drug-related 
violations. Many of those people were low-level and nonviolent drug offenders, 
the human rights groups say. Drug-related executions appear to be on the rise, 
with at least 41 -- but possibly as many as 50 -- taking place in April alone, 
according to data provided to The WorldPost from the groups Amnesty 
International and Reprieve, as well as the most current public data from Iran 
Human Rights.

If Iran continues to execute people convicted of drug-related offenses at this 
rate, the country will by the end of the year have put nearly twice as many 
people to death for such charges as human rights groups say it did in 2014.

Much of the data on this issue consists of unofficial estimates, because 
Iranian authorities generally announce far fewer executions than actually take 
place, the rights groups claim. Iran has only officially acknowledged about 100 
executions so far this year, and in 2014, while rights groups counted as many 
as 753 people put to death in Iran, the state only officially acknowledged 291 
executions.

Iran has a long history with the death penalty, especially for drug crimes, and 
for years it has been a leading executioner in the Middle East and the world. 
China is believed to be the only country that executes more people than Iran, 
with most rights groups estimating more than 1,000 total executions in 2014 -- 
but China keeps its death penalty program shrouded in secrecy, so exact numbers 
are, again, difficult to come by.

Iran's draconian Anti-Narcotics Law levies the death penalty against offenders 
who have been convicted multiple times of planting opium poppies, coca plants 
or cannabis seeds with the intent to produce drugs. Execution is also imposed 
after multiple convictions of smuggling more than 5 kg of opium or marijuana 
into the country, or for buying, possessing, carrying or hiding more than 5 kg 
of those drugs. Other acts that carry the death penalty include smuggling, 
dealing, producing, distributing or exporting more than 30 grams of heroin, 
morphine, cocaine or their derivatives.

In close proximity to Afghanistan and its booming opium supply, Iran has become 
a key transit route for narcotraffickers moving the crop into Europe and the 
United States. Iran also has one of the highest drug addiction rates in the 
world, with opium, meth and heroin among the most popular drugs of choice.

And while Iranian authorities claim that many of the people put to death are 
involved in organized crime or armed smuggling, human rights groups contend 
that the country's judicial system -- which is marred by corruption and a lack 
of transparency -- frequently targets members of the most marginalized and 
vulnerable groups in the nation. According to various rights groups, the system 
is particularly unforgiving toward poor people and ethnic minorities, 
particularly Afghans, who arrive from countries where employment opportunities 
are limited and who are sometimes coerced into confessions.

"It is pretty murky exactly what involvement in the drug business a lot of 
these defendants have," Elise Auerbach, an Iran specialist for Amnesty 
International, told The WorldPost.

Faraz Sanei, a researcher with the Middle East and North Africa Division of 
Human Rights Watch, said these alleged violations of due process, combined with 
a "very low threshold for drug possession, which may qualify a defendant as a 
'trafficker,'" has raised serious alarm among rights activists. Some activists, 
he said, suspect that Iranian authorities may be using drug prosecutions in 
part "to target and execute political dissidents or others who speak out 
against the government."

One case that's fanned the flames of those suspicions involves Zahra Bahrami, 
an Iranian-Dutch woman who was arrested in 2009 for her participation in a 
protest over that year's presidential election, which protesters claimed was 
rigged.

After Bahrami's initial arrest and charges over protesting, she was later 
charged with possession of large amounts of cocaine and opium -- an offense 
that is punishable by death in Iran. Human rights groups claimed the drug 
charges against Bahrami were fabricated, but she was nevertheless executed in 
2011, with the state maintaining that she'd been part of an international drug 
smuggling gang.

In addition to putting adults to death, Iran remains one of the few countries 
that executes juvenile offenders and executes adults for crimes committed while 
they were juveniles.

Hamid Ahmadi, 24, is 1 such adult. According to Amnesty International, Ahmadi 
is at imminent risk of execution, although his case is currently under judicial 
review and concerns a crime he was allegedly involved in when he was only 16 
years old.

No human rights groups could confirm to The WorldPost that any juvenile 
offenders have been executed in Iran this year for drugs, but according to an 
Amnesty International report, Iran executed at least 14 people in 2014 for 
offenses they allegedly committed as juveniles.

As Iran continues to execute citiziens for drug-related charges, the United 
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has offered support to the country to 
fight drug trafficking. UNODC and Iran are in the final stages of developing a 
multiyear, multimillion-dollar program aimed at combating the country???s 
illicit drug trade, The Guardian reported in March. It's a move that Reprieve 
says is in conflict with the U.N.'s stance on the death penalty, because those 
funds, Reprieve says, are likely to lead to more arrests -- and some of those 
arrests will likely lead to hangings.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the U.N. opposes the use of capital 
punishment for drug crimes. The U.N.'s own human rights guidance is clear on 
the issue as well: "If, following requests for guarantees and high-level 
political intervention, executions for drug related offences continue, UNODC 
may have no choice but to employ a temporary freeze or withdrawal of support."

Still, the U.N. carries on with its anti-drug program in Iran, though it's 1 of 
more than 30 countries around the world that put people to death for drug 
offenses, according to the Lawyers Collective, a human rights group based in 
India.

"If the UNODC followed its own human rights policy it would have ended funding 
for Iranian drug raids years ago," said Dan Dolan, who works with Reprieve's 
death penalty team, in an email to The WorldPost. "Instead it is lining up a 
generous 5 year funding deal for Iran's brutal drug police, despite a near 
doubling in the rate at which Iran is hanging drug offenders. This represents a 
shameful disregard for human rights on the part of the UNODC, which publicly 
claims to oppose the death penalty while funding aggressive raids which send 
drug mules to death row."

In February, Yury Fedotov, executive director of UNODC, championed what he 
described as the anti-drug efforts Iran has made over the decades. He added 
that UNODC and Iran were partnering in the fight against drugs in the region.

"The UNODC and Iran will finalize a 5-year anti-drug plan in the next 2 
months," Fedotov said, according to Fars News Agency.

Fedotov also said that UNODC would try to supply Iran with various equipment 
needed to fight against narcotraffickers -- equipment that the country hasn't 
been able to secure for itself due to Western sanctions.

David Dadge, a spokesman for Fedotov, declined to confirm the details of the 
U.N.'s 2015 anti-drug program with Iran. He did, however, refer The WorldPost 
to the organization's public documents about the multifaceted anti-narcotic 
program that the U.N. pursued in Iran between 2011 and 2014.

Dadge declined to confirm the dollar figure of the more recent Iran plan or say 
whether it's been finalized. The U.N.'s current anti-trafficking program in 
Iran is due to end in early June, and most human rights groups and other 
observers expect the new program to be in place by then. Between 2011 and 2014, 
the U.N. spent roughly $5.5 million to secure Iran's borders and fight drug 
trafficking in the country. That money came from multiple European partner 
nations. Dadge declined to name the European nations funding the 2015 program.

"If [international donors] are to avoid direct complicity in grave human rights 
abuses, donors should make their support to UNODC programs strictly conditional 
on recipient states abolishing the death penalty for drug offenses," Dolan 
said.

Earlier this month, 2 U.N. human rights experts sharply condemned Iran's rising 
execution tally. They called on the Iranian government to cease executions 
immediately and fall in line with the U.N.'s 2007 urging that member nations 
suspend the death penalty.

"When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of 
executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human 
dignity and international human rights law," said Ahmed Shaheed, a U.N. special 
rapporteur on human rights in Iran, in a statement.

Iran has flatly rejected the allegations of an increase in executions, with 
Marzieh Afkham, the spokeswoman for Iran's foreign ministry, calling the U.N. 
criticism a "downright lie" and claiming that Iran only uses capital punishment 
for the "most serious crimes, including narcotics trafficking."

(source: Matt Ferner, Huffington Post)