[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 23



INDIA:

5 get death penalty for rape and murder of Odisha minor


A local court in Odisha's Keonjhar district today pronounced death sentence to 
5 accused in the rape and murder of a minor girl in Beklundi village in the 
district in 2012.

Pronouncing the quantum of sentence, Champua Additional District and Sessions 
Judge court today awarded death sentence to the 5 accused.

On the day of the crime, the victim did not return home from morning tuition at 
Barbil basti. Following this, the family members launched a frantic search and 
found her body with injury marks on her body about 1 kilometer from the 
village.

According to reports, the deceased, a Class VIII student of a high school in 
Barbil, was attacked by some persons earlier also but her family had not taken 
the matter seriously.

While 5 of the accused were awarded death sentence, 2 others accused in the 
case are yet to be apprehended by the police.

The convicted are Mata Munda, Mangal Prusty, Jiten Munda, Harjit Singh and 
Biswanath Munda.

(source: Odisha Sun Times)






IRAN----executions

Iranian Authorities Hang 5 Prisoners Including Afghan Citizen


According to confirmed sources, Iranian authorities have executed at least 5 
prisoners in the span of 4 days.

Close sources and the human rights group HRANA report that 3 prisoners were 
hanged by Iranian authorities on Wednesday November 18 at Zahedan Central 
Prison (Sistan & Baluchestan) for alleged drug related offenses. The names of 
the prisoners have been reported as Hassan Doroiee Moghaddam, Morteza Lakzaie, 
and Nazir Ahmad Reigi. A confirmed source who asked to be anonymous tells IHR: 
"Nazir Ahmad Reigi is an Afghan citizen who was held in prison for 6 years 
prior to his execution."

According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, two prisoners were hanged at 
Miandoab Prison (West Azerbaijan). One of the prisoners has been identified as 
Ali Latini, a man who was sentenced to death for an alleged drug related 
offense. No confirmed information is available about the other prisoner.

Official Iranian sources have been silent on these 5 executions.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






INDONESIA:

Moratorium or not, Indonesia could be abandoning the death penalty


A number of news outlets reported last week that Indonesia had placed a 
moratorium on the death penalty. Indonesian's co-ordinating security minister, 
Luhut Panjaitan, was said to announce this by saying:

We haven't thought about executing a death penalty with the economic conditions 
like this.

However, Panjaitan later denied this meant an end to capital punishment in 
Indonesia:

No, I told them we will not carry out executions for the time being because we 
are now focusing on the economy.

What is a moratorium?

A moratorium means the suspension of executions. It may be official and 
announced, or simply practised.

Therefore, on the face of it, Indonesia has entered a moratorium of an 
indeterminate period. The dozens on death row in Indonesia may eventually see 
their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

The last - unofficial - moratorium in Indonesia ran from 2008 to 2013 under the 
presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). SBY is reported to have deeply 
disliked capital punishment. But his replacement, Joko Widodo, embraced 
executions as part of a hardline stance against drug offending.

Capital punishment globally

140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. 58 retain 
the death penalty.

Many jurisdictions have abandoned capital punishment in recent years. A 
moratorium is a well-established step along the path to full abolition.

However, capital punishment remains a global human rights concern. In 2014, at 
least 22 countries carried out 607 or more executions. At least 2,466 people 
were sentenced to death around the world.

The 5 countries responsible for the most executions, according to confirmed 
data, were Iran (289), Saudi Arabia (90), Iraq (61), the US (35) and Sudan 
(23). These statistics do not include the suspected thousands of executions in 
China, which does not report statistics.

Are the reasons for a moratorium important?

There are many persuasive arguments against capital punishment. The death 
penalty violates the right to life, inflicts torture and is especially wrong 
where it is carried out in discriminatory ways or for crimes that are not 
really serious.

Further, the death penalty risks the lives of innocent people wrongly 
convicted. It has no proven special deterrent value.

Where a country introduces a moratorium or abolishes the death penalty, it 
might seem reasonable to assume that public and political opinion has 
identified the practice as wrong. However, capital punishment has often been 
abandoned for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the ethics of the 
practice.

31 American states retain capital punishment in law but only about 8 states 
currently practise it. The number of executions has dropped significantly in 
recent years. Oklahoma introduced a moratorium in 2014, following the botched 
and torturous execution of Clayton Lockett.

Similar incidents have led doctors to refuse to participate in executions, and 
pharmaceutical companies to refuse supply of the most-tested lethal injection 
drugs.

In the US, as in Indonesia, moratoriums have come in response to the high costs 
of death-penalty prosecutions and executions.

A win for death penalty opponents?

This is not Indonesia's 1st moratorium on capital punishment. And the practice 
could easily be reinstated. This may depend on whether the current moratorium 
is purely motivated by the economy, or whether it is also an indirect response 
to international condemnation of the most recent executions.

The 2 factors are possibly related. Foreign investors are more cautious about 
Indonesia due to the controversy caused by its recent executions of foreign 
nationals.

Whether Indonesia's new moratorium is genuine or temporary, this is an advocacy 
moment for Australia to seize.

Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs responded to the executions of 
Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia in 
April with a call for abolitionist lobbying across Asia and the Pacific. Triggs 
noted that the death penalty has been abandoned in New Zealand, Cambodia, Timor 
Leste, the Philippines, Bhutan and Nepal. De facto moratoriums are operating in 
Fiji, Thailand and Laos.

Philip Ruddock is chairing a federal parliamentary inquiry into Australia's 
advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. Asked whether Indonesia's 
economic justification for the moratorium might be a strategy to mask its 
desire to respond to international pressure, he said:

My view is that any change is desirable ... There are a very large number of 
Indonesians on death row in other countries that [the Indonesians] work hard to 
have released, so they have an interest in seeing a more just outcome in 
relation to dealing with these issues around the world.

During his recent visit to Indonesia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull refrained 
from raising capital punishment. But in line with the parliamentary inquiry's 
objectives, Turnbull could capitalise on the moratorium by renewing dialogue 
with Indonesia on the issue.

(source:Amy Maguire, Lecturer in International Law, University of 
Newcastle----The Conversation)






PAKISTAN:

Hanging of wheelchair-bound Pakistan prisoner to go ahead despite no new 
guidelines----Abdul Basit due to be hanged on Wednesday despite fears that 
execution of disabled prisoner could mean prolonged and cruel death


Abdul Basit, 43, who is paralysed from the waist down, had received a 
last-minute reprieve in September after the duty magistrate said the execution 
was impossible under prison rules as he was unable to stand on the gallows.

But a fresh death warrant for Basit was issued by the Faisalabad district court 
on Friday after the provincial government insisted the execution can proceed 
without waiting for new guidelines.

Campaigners fear that any attempt to hang Basit could see him either facing 
decapitation or prolonged strangulation as the procedures set out in prison 
rules for assessing the length of rope only cover prisoners able to stand.

A prison official told the Telegraph that a letter requesting new instructions 
for carrying out executions for disabled prisoners had been sent to the 
interior ministry in September, but that none had been received.

"In our report from jail authorities, we clearly mention that Abdual Basit is 
paralysed," said the official, under condition of anonymity.

The duty magistrate will now decide if the execution goes ahead on Wednesday.

Basit's mother Nusrat Perveen said she had been asked to pay her son a final 
visit on Tuesday before his execution the following morning.

"I was shocked when jail officials asked me to have a final meeting with my 
son," she said. "He is still paralysed and unable to move himself, he is unable 
to stand on the gallows-board."

"I sent a mercy petition to the president weeks ago to pardon my son but 
received no reply. I appeal to the president and prime minister of Pakistan to 
pardon my son on humanitarian grounds."

Sara Belal of Justice Project Pakistan, a non-profit law firm representing 
Basit, said: "Nothing has changed since Basit's execution was halted earlier 
this year, on the grounds that his disability could mean that he might suffer 
from a prolonged, needlessly cruel execution."

International human rights groups reacted with outrage to the decision, which 
they claim violates Pakistani and international laws.

Reprieve, the international human rights group, described the decision as 
"bewildering".

The group says Basit's paraplegic condition is the result of mismanagement of a 
tubercular meningitis infection he contracted in prison in 2010.

Basit, a former administrator at a medical college, was convicted in May 2009 
of the murder of the uncle of a woman with whom he was allegedly in a 
relationship. He has always maintained his innocence.

(source: The Telegraph)