[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 17


PAKISTAN:

Over 300 executed in Pakistan since December


The government of Pakistan has executed at least 300 people in the past 11 
months, it's emerged.

In a rare admission, an anonymous Interior Ministry official said yesterday 
that Pakistan's total for hangings "now stands at 311" since the country 
resumed executions 11 months ago today. Setting aside the religious holidays, 
during which no executions took place, according to Pakistan's own figures they 
have executed at least one person a day for the last 11 months.

The figure was revealed amid confusion over the scale of Pakistan's death row, 
believed to be the largest in the world. 2 weeks ago, the Pakistani government 
said that some 6,000 people were facing execution in the country; however, this 
contradicts another government estimate, of 8,000, made by the Interior 
Ministry at the beginning of the year.

Reprieve has collated all of the publicly available data on the executions that 
have taken place since the moratorium broke, and has identified 300 
individuals. Among these, Reprieve has found just 16 individuals (less than 
0.06% of all executed) with known links to a prescribed terrorist organisation. 
Reuters revealed in July that to date, more than 83% of those executed had no 
links to militancy.

Police torture and forced 'confessions' are common in Pakistan, and there are 
concerns that many of those on the country's death row were sentenced after 
unfair trials. Since more than 73% of births are unregistered in Pakistan, 
there are also fears that many of those who have been executed may have been 
juveniles when arrested. Among those killed so far was Aftab Bahadur, who was 
15 at the time of his arrest for a crime which all eye witnesses in the case 
said he was innocent.

Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "The 
Pakistani government has no idea how many people it has on its death row, let 
alone how many are innocent or were sentenced to death as children. It is 
appalling that the authorities are proceeding with executions at this rate. If 
they continue to execute one person a day, by the end of next year they will 
have killed nearly a thousand people - among whom there will almost certainly 
be a large number of juveniles, and innocent people tortured into 'confessing' 
to crimes they didn't commit. This senseless massacre will not make Pakistan 
any safer, and must be stopped."

(source: reprieve.org.uk)






SAINT LUCIA:

"We should not be fearful of abolishing the death penalty"


Human Rights Activist and Attorney-at-Law Mary Francis said she plans to 
continue advocating for the abolition of the mandatory death penalty in Saint 
Lucia and the Eastern Caribbean region.

Francis told St. Lucia News Online (SNO) today in an interview that while the 
law has been bypassed for almost 2 decades here, she still believes that it 
should be removed entirely from the constitution. The attorney said the 
European Union (EU) has been pushing the Caribbean to become part and parcel of 
the world-wide movement against the death penalty for a number of years.

The UN General Assembly had also adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the 
ICCPR. This was aimed at encouraging the abolition of the death penalty.

Francis maintains that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to 
crime, but rather a a form of revenge.

"We understand that the crime situation in the Caribbean is very high, but this 
death penalty is part of our pre and post independence law and by virtue of how 
our constitution was written," she told SNO.

She reminded that Saint Lucia's laws were adopted from England and it's been 
more than a quarter of a century since that country has abolished the death 
penalty.

"It must be recognised that 1994 was the last time we had an execution. So in 
fact most of the Caribbean and the OECS they have actually put a hold on 
hanging which is our form of death penalty."

But Francis has advised that the government amend the laws and have it removed 
and replaced with an alternative such as life imprisonment, stating that 
killing is wrong whether it is by the state. She continued: "In Saint Lucia I 
think there are about 50 men right now awaiting trial for murder. If all those 
young men had to be hanged, what would happen?" she questioned.

While she admitted that they have done vicious crimes and deserves to face the 
full brunt of the law, she believes that the government must look at the root 
of crime.

"We have to attack it from societal level, to ensure that young men don't turn 
into to those types of individuals who commit serious crimes, especially 
murder," she asserted.

Francis recalls that her advocacy work began in 1999, when she worked on a case 
alongside a few other prominent lawyers to have the 1st death sentence case 
committed to life imprisonment. She said the perpetrator was due for execution 
when the judge decided to stop the prosecution of the individual and accepted 
the application for the person to be put on life imprisonment.

In the same year, Francis got 5 persons who were on death sentence to be 
committed to life imprisonment.

"I have done work in the past and continue to believe that maybe in terms of 
building a more humane society we should set the example and move to do that. 
We should not be fearful of abolishing the death penalty because it could 
increase more vicious crimes. There is no scientific evidence to prove that," 
she told SNO.

Francis, who is very vocal about several other human rights issues here, has 
been invited to attend a special conference organised by the EU to discuss the 
death penalty in Georgetown, Guyana this month end.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have long criticised 
Caribbean countries mandatory death penalty as too harsh and in breach of 
international law.

Even though the capital punishment is on the books in a number of 
English-speaking Caribbean states and polls have shown strong support for the 
death penalty, executions are rare in the region. The last execution took place 
in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2008, when Charles Laplace was hanged for murdering 
his wife. That was the region's 1st outside Cuba since an execution in the 
Bahamas in 2000.

Politicians of former British colonies have long complained that the 
London-based Privy Council, the highest appeal court for many Caribbean 
countries, has stymied their attempts to execute murderers. The regional 
Caribbean Court of Justice is the highest court of appeal for Barbados, Belize 
and Guyana.

(source: stlucianewsonline.com)


NEW ZEALAND/CHINA:

NZ Government willing to deport murder suspect if death penalty ruled out


The Chinese Government wants New Zealand to deport a murder suspect back to 
China to face charges and Prime Minister John Key says it's possible, if the 
death penalty is ruled out.

It was a decision to be made by Justice Minister Amy Adams.

Speaking with reporters last night in Manila, Mr Key revealed more details 
about the case ahead of his meeting today with China's president Xi Jinping at 
the Apec summit.

He revealed in August that the Government wanted the return of a person to face 
trial. That person was not a Chinese national.

Yesterday Mr Key said the suspect was accused of killing another person.

"It's a long and complicated case."

Mr Key said there had been no deportations of Chinese suspected of fleeing to 
New Zealand with the proceeds of corruption, although background work had been 
done on the issue, and it was raised during the official visit of President Xi 
to New Zealand a year ago.

Mr Key said he would raise at the meeting the issues of China's territorial 
disputes (with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei) in the 
South China Sea.

China has recently expanded atolls through reclamation in the Spratly group and 
built airfields.

"We will be doing and making the same consistent comments that we make which is 
we don't arbitrate with these issues," said Mr Key. "We don't pick sides but it 
is a very important passage of waterway to us and we do want to see a peaceful 
resolution to the issue.

"To a certain extent it is the elephant in the room. It is there and the 
reclamations have been fairly significant, so it is raising the temperature on 
that issue."

The Vietnamese Prime Minister had raised the issue when Mr Key had talks with 
him in Hanoi on Monday.

Mr Key laughed off a newspaper article on the English language newspaper Viet 
Nam News in which he was described in a photo as the president of the Senate of 
the Czech Republic, Milan Stech.

"It is all part of my global master-plan to increase my sphere of influence and 
make you all believe I have so many more people under my control."

(source: New Zealand Herald)






IRAN:

Is the Obama administration aware that it is trusting and dealing with a 
country that has just broken the world record in executions? Of course the 
President is aware of that, and it seems that he has decided to turn a blind 
eye to Iran's increasing aggression and oppression inside and outside of its 
own country.

According to the recent and 5th report by the special United Nations 
investigator of human rights, human rights violations in Iran are rising even 
since the nuclear agreement was reached. Accordingly, execution rates have been 
increasing at "an exponential rate" in Iran. In 2014, 753 were executed and at 
least 694 people (including women and juveniles) were executed from January 
2015 till mid-September. This is reported to be the highest rate of execution 
the Islamic Republic has had in 25 years.

If we take the ratio of the population into consideration, the Islamic Republic 
breaks the world record in number of executions per capita. As Ahmed Shaheed, 
the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, pointed out, "The Islamic 
Republic of Iran continues to execute more individuals per capita than any 
other country in the world. Executions have been rising at an exponential rate 
since 2005 and peaked in 2014, at a shocking 753 executions[.]" According to 
the UN analyst, Iran is on track to execute more than 1000 people by the end of 
this year. Of course, these are only the official numbers being reported by the 
Iranian regime, the unreported number of executions by the government is likely 
much higher.

An execution may be ordered over many things, such as insulting the Supreme 
Leader, enmity toward Allah, and other non-violent offenses. According to the 
U.S. State Department's Human Rights report on Iran, "the law criminalizes 
dissent and applies the death penalty to offenses such as ....'attempts against 
the security of the state,' 'outrage against high-ranking officials,' 
....(moharebeh), and 'insults against the memory of Imam Khomeini and against 
the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.'"

In addition, when it comes to journalists, social media activists, and women, 
political rights, discriminatory laws, as well as arbitrary detentions have 
been on the rise as well. According to the global gender gap index of the World 
Economic Forum, the Islamic Republic is ranked 137 out of 142, followed by 
Mali, Syria, Chad, Pakistan and Yemen.

In contrast to the report, a more liberal, softer and open image of the Islamic 
Republic has been repeatedly projected to the international community by 
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Western-educated 
foreign minister, and his technocratic team.

There was an assumption by liberals that several developments, including the 
improving ties between the West and Iran, the nuclear agreement, and the 
presidency of a moderate political figure would translate into improving civil 
liberties, social justice and removing restrictions on political critics in 
Iran. However, the real picture inside the country suggests a much different 
landscape. As Azita, an Iranian human rights activist and teacher from the 
ethnically Azeri-populated city of Tabriz said, "This is similar to, or even 
worse than, the period of Khatami where Basij, moral police, and IRGC increased 
suppression in order to tell the young people particularly that the laws will 
not changed."

The State Department report clearly highlights the notion that the superficial 
illusion of a softer image projected by Iran belies the social, political, and 
economic reality inside the country.

This explains three phenomena. First, although President Rouhani promised that 
he will improve several critical issues such as civil liberties, social 
justice, freedom of expression, assembly, and press, and women's rights, he 
decided to instead solely focus on the nuclear deal in order to get Iran out of 
the financial sanctions that restrained its growth.

Secondly, one can make the argument that President Rouhani has also decided not 
to cross the boundaries of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by 
cooperating with them and allowing them to have full control over domestic 
social and political policies, as well as foreign policy (Syria, Hezbollah, 
etc.).

Third, the hardliners are increasing their repressive tools and cracking-down 
on civil liberties in order to send a message to the Iranian young people and 
the West that the nuclear agreement does not mean Tehran is going to open up 
its political system and loosen Sharia law.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, and his social base (the 
hardliners) are very concerned that Iranian youth might become a source of 
revolution. As a result they attempt to keep the country closed and they fear 
Western political and cultural influence on young people.

As Mr. Khamanei warned the senior cadre of the IRGC, "The main purpose of the 
enemies is for Iranians to give up on their revolutionary mentality...Enemy 
means global arrogance, the ultimate symbol of which is the United 
States....Economic and security breaches are definitely dangerous, and have 
dire consequences...But political and cultural intrusion by the enemy is a more 
serious danger that everyone should be vigilant about."

Finally, the nuclear agreement seems to have overshadowed the human rights 
conditions inside Iran and the repressive Shiite Islamist laws. European 
countries and the Obama administration appear to have been turning a blind eye 
and have been becoming less critical of the Islamic Republic's human rights 
record since the nuclear negotiation began and after the nuclear deal was 
signed.

It is time for the Obama administration to draw attention to the real face of 
the so-called moderate president of Iran who contradicts the truth by depicting 
himself and his country in a softer image to the world while simultaneously 
allowing executions and egregious, appalling and atrocious human rights abuses 
on his watch.

(source: Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist and 
scholar, is president of the International American Council and serves on the 
board of the Harvard International Review at Harvard University. Rafizadeh is 
also a former senior fellow at the Nonviolence International Organization based 
in Washington, DC and is a member of the Gulf Project at Columbia 
University----frontpagemag.com)






VIETNAM:

Russian arrested at Vietnam airport for smuggling 6.5 kilos of cocaine from 
Dubai


Customs officers at Tan Son Nhat Airport on Sunday arrested a Russian man for 
smuggling around 6.5 kilograms of cocaine from Dubai into Vietnam.

The officers said they found the suspect luggage of the 25-year-old and 
demanded to check it. They then found a quilt and three jackets and the large 
amount of drug inside them.

The suspect, whose identity has been withheld, said a strange man paid him 
US$1,000 to carry the drug from Chile through different countries including 
Russia, Brazil and the UAE, before Vietnam.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those convicted of 
smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine face the death penalty.

The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal 
narcotics is also punishable by death.

(source: Thanh Nien News)






INDONESIA:

Airport Police arrest 2 drug traffickers with drugs worth Rp 39 billion


The Soekarno Hatta Airport Police seized drugs worth Rp 39 billion after 
capturing 2 drug traffickers, identified by their initials N and S, on November 
10 and 11.

"N was the courier, whereas S was the supplier. The evidence includes 1,012 
grams of meth, 2,944 grams of ketamine, 61,251 ecstasy pills, and 4,196 strips 
of happy 5. The monetary value of these drugs altogether is Rp 39 billion," 
said Soekarno Hatta Airport Police Chief Roycke Langie, as quoted by Warta Kota 
today.

The police first arrested N after carrying out a drug deal in Terminal 1A of 
the airport. The police then followed N to another transaction in Grogol, West 
Jakarta, and arrested him there.

The next day, N led the police to his supplier, S, in Tambora, West Jakarta. 
After arresting S, the police located his kost and found the motherload of his 
drugs stored there, thought to be worth Rp 39 billion in total.

Drug traffickers in Indonesia may face the death penalty if proven guilty.

(source: Coconuts News)