[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 30




IRAN:

FACING EXECUTION AFTER HASTY, UNFAIR TRIAL


Shahram Ahmadi, a Sunni Muslim man from Iran’s Kurdish minority, is at imminent 
risk of execution.
He was sentenced to death for “enmity against God” after a grossly unfair 
trial, and his death
sentence has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case 
information,
addresses and sample messages.

Shahram Ahmadi, aged 28, learned in October 2015 that his death sentence had 
been upheld by the
Supreme Court. The judge overseeing the implementation of sentences in Raja’ 
Shahr Prison in Karaj,
where he is held, has apparently told him that his execution could be carried 
out any moment Shahram
Ahmadi says that he has not been able to obtain a copy of the verdicts against 
him and know the
evidence and the legal reasoning on which they rest.

Shahram Ahmadi was arrested in April 2009 in Sanandaj, Kordestan Province, on 
his way home. He has
said he was shot and beaten on the street by men from the Revolutionary Guards, 
and taken to
hospital, where he was interrogated. He spent almost three years in pre-trial 
detention, without
access to a lawyer or his family. He has said he was tortured and otherwise 
ill-treated to make him
“confess”: this included prolonged solitary confinement, kicking and punching 
and being denied his
medication. He met his state-appointed lawyer for the first time at his trial 
before Branch 28 of
the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, on 2 October 2012, which he says lasted only 
five minutes. He was
told in April 2013 that the court had sentenced him to death for “enmity 
against God” (moharebeh)
because of his alleged membership of Salafist groups. He has denied the charge, 
saying that he was
targeted because of his faith.

The Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2015 and sent his case back to 
Branch 28 of the
Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The court resentenced Shahram Ahamdi to death. 
The sentence has now
been upheld by the Supreme Court. No investigation into Shahram Ahmadi’s 
allegations of torture are
known to have been carried out.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Shahram Ahmadi was arrested during a wave of arrest of Sunni Muslim men, mainly 
from Iran’s Kurdish
minority, by Ministry of Intelligence officials in the western province of 
Kordestan in 2009 and
2010. The factual circumstances leading to these arrests and the evidence used 
in the men’s
convictions and sentencing remain unclear to Amnesty International.

Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format.

Name: Shahram Ahmadi
Gender m/f: m UA: 272/15 Index: MDE 13/2952/2015 Issue Date: 27 November 2015

Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact!

EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with “UA 272/15” in the subject 
line, and include in the
body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent,

OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action.

Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office 
if taking action after
the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please 
forward it to us at
uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Please write immediately in Persian, English, Arabic, Spanish, French or your 
own language:
  *  Urging the Iranian authorities to halt any plans to execute Shahram Ahmadi, 
quash his conviction
     and death sentence and order a retrial that complies with fair trial 
standards, without recourse
     to the death penalty;
  *  Urging them to conduct an impartial and independent investigation into the 
allegations that he
     was tortured and otherwise ill-treated, bring those responsible to justice 
and exclude from
     trials any evidence that may have been obtained through torture or other 
ill-treatment.
  *  Reminding them that fair trial rights during appeals entail the right to 
obtain public reasoned
     judgments for each appeal and trial transcripts within a reasonable time.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 8 JANUARY 2016 TO:

Leader of the Islamic Republic
Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader Islamic Republic Street- End of Shahid Keshvar 
Doust Street
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: via website http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php?
p=letter
Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English) Salutation: Your Excellency

Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
c/o Public Relations Office
Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info at humanrights-iran.ir
Salutation: Your Excellency



And copies to:
President’s Special Advisor on Minorities Affairs Hojjatoleslam Ali Younesi
The Office of the President Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran


Also send copies to:
Iran does not presently have an embassy in the United States. Instead, please 
send copies to:
Iranian Interests Section
2209 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington DC 20007
Phone: 202 965 4990 I Fax: 202 965 1073 I Email: info at daftar.org

Please share widely with your networks: http://bit.ly/1SsbBRY

We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When 
you share with your
networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward 
this email to a friend"
link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism!

UA Network Office AIUSA │600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003
T. 202.509.8193 │ F. 202.509.8193 │E. uan at aiusa.org │amnestyusa.org/urgent




TRINIDAD & TOBAGO:

Trinidad and Tobago to resume hanging


Trinidad and Tobago wants to resume hanging. This is according to new Attorney 
General Faris al Rawi who said he intends to apply the death penalty and to 
this end he has set up a "tracking committee" to deal with the systemic clogs 
to ensure the effectiveness of enforcing it.

"I certainly intend to apply the death penalty which is the current law in 
Trinidad and Tobago, through due process. The point is making sure that due 
process works efficiently. The death penalty is the law," he told reporters 
after the funeral of Trinidad and Tobago Regiment Corporal Shervaun Charleau 
who was gunned down while "liming" at Ft. George, Port of Spain recently.

He said whether the death penalty was an efficient measure to deal with crime 
that was a different issue.

"That is something as a society we must look at, but the laws of Trinidad and 
Tobago will be applied by this government," he said.

Al Rawi questioned why the death penalty has not been applied in recent years.

The move to resume "executions" in T&T comes at a time when Amnesty 
International is calling on Caribbean governments for a moratorium on hangings 
in the region.

There are more than l00 convicted killers on death row, but they are unable to 
be "executed" because they had spent more than 5 years on death row and would 
soon have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

So far for this year 359 people were murdered.

The last hanging in Trinidad and Tobago took place in l999 when notorious drug 
lord Dole Chadee and his gang of 8 were "executed" for the murder of a South 
family of 4 under former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj.

Since then, several killers have escaped the gallows after the London-based 
Privy Council, in a landmark ruling more than a decade ago (Jamaican Pratt and 
Morgan case) said the excessive delay to hang a condemned killer after spending 
5 years on death row amounts to a cruel and inhumane punishment.

That ruling resulted in hundreds of prisoners then on death row in the 
Caribbean escaped being hanged as their sentences were commuted to life 
imprisonment.

(source: Caribbean Life)






ITALY:

Italian cities against death penalty----Tuscany governor says still long way to 
go from 1786 abolition


Rome, November 30 - Cities around Italy and internationally will be illuminated 
on Monday as part of the Cities for Life initiative, organised by the 
Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio for the International Day of Cities Against 
the Death Penalty.

The initiative has been observed every November 30 since 2002 to mark the 
anniversary of the first abolition of the death penalty on the part of a state, 
that of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on November 30, 1786.

"Cesare Beccaria said in 1764 that the death penalty hasn't made us better. It 
isn't a solution, rather, it represents the failure of a community," said 
Ettore Rosato, MP and head of the Democratic Party (PD) in the Lower House, on 
his Facebook page, adding that Italy was the 1st to propose an international 
moratorium on the death penalty at the UN General Assembly in 1994, which was 
approved in 2007.

"Capital punishment is still legal in 94 countries in the world, but only 
practiced in 40," Rosato wrote.

"The side of countries renouncing (the death penalty) is growing day by day, 
thanks to the contribution of many associations and NGOs for human rights, and 
Italy is by their side".

In Tuscany, Governor Enrico Rossi presided over the yearly solemn session of 
the regional assembly marking the anniversary of the 1786 abolition of the 
death penalty by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

"In the declaration of human rights there is the right to life but there's not 
an explicit ban on the death penalty," Rossi said.

"That means we still have a long way to go ahead of us if we consider that 
there are still states that commit veritable massacres every year".

(source: ANSA)