[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 4



EGYPT:

Egypt objects to proposal at Human Rights Council for abolishing death 
sentence----Egypt is among 37 countries in the UN System that still enforce the 
death penalty


Egypt's UN Human Rights Council member Amr Ramadan issued a statement Saturday 
objecting to a proposal made by several European countries seeking to abolish 
internationally the death penalty.

Ramadan raised concern over pressure exerted by several countries using 
economic sanctions or aid withdrawal to pressure developing countries regarding 
the use of the death penalty, describing such moves as "unethical," according 
to Egypt's state-owned MENA news agency.

Ramadan underlined that Egypt respects the decision of some countries to end 
the use of the death penalty and urged them to show equal mutual respect 
regarding Egypt's decision not to.

He added that any decision regarding the death penalty can only follow an 
internal national debate that takes into consideration cultural, political, 
religious and economic aspects, which differ from one country to another.

A resolution on the question of the death penalty was adopted Thursday by a 
vote of 26 in favour, 13 against and 8 abstentions.

In the resolution, it is stated: "The Council calls upon States that have not 
yet acceded to or ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International 
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to consider doing so."

Egypt is among 37 countries in the UN System that still enforce the death 
penalty. Others also include the United States, China and Saudi Arabia.

(source: Ahram Online)



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


Egypt objects to abolishing death sentence


Egypt rejects a draft resolution presented at the United Nations Human Rights 
Council on abolishing the death penalty.

Egypt's delegate to the UN, Amr Ramadan, said Egypt is concerned that some 
countries would impose economic sanctions or manipulate development assistance 
terms to prod developing countries to approve abolishing death penalty.

He said such "immoral" practices are categorically rejected, expounding that 
international human rights law does not ban such penalty.

(source: sis.gov.eg)

********

Ibrahim Halawa to face mass trial in Egypt for 9th time----Amnesty Ireland's 
Colm O'Gorman says "this is like some kind of horror story Groundhog Day at 
this stage"


An Irish man in custody in Egypt will face a mass trial for the 9th time this 
morning.

19-year-old Ibrahim Halawa has been held in an Egyptian prison for 779 days, 
since he was arrested at a protest in a Cairo mosque in August 2013.

His trial has been repeatedly postponed - this is the 9th trial date the Dublin 
teen has been given.

Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland, Colm O'Gorman, says even 
if Ibrahim's trial goes ahead today, he does not think it would be a fair one:

Ibriham, who Amnesty has named an International Prisoner of Conscience, is from 
Firhouse in Dublin. The organisation has warned Mr Halawa may face the death 
penalty.

He and his sisters were forced to seek sanctuary in the Al Fateh mosque in 
Cairo after violent clashes between supporters of ousted president Mohammed 
Morsi and the security forces.

They were subsequently jailed in Tora prison, before the sisters were released 
and returned to Ireland.

Ibrahim's father, Sheikh Hussein Halawa, is the imam of Ireland's largest 
mosque.

(source: newstalk.com)






IRAN----executions

Sources Confirm 6 Executions in Central Iran and 1 in the South


On Saturday September 26, a 27-year-old prisoner, Mohammad Reza Feuji, 
sentenced to death for drug related charges, was executed at Bandar Abbas 
Central Prison. On the morning of Wednesday September 23, 6 prisoners, sentened 
to death for charges unknown, were executed at Yazd Prison. Both reports come 
from several confirmed sources, including HRANA and Baluchi Activists Campaign, 
while official Iranian media and government outlets have not commented on these 
executions.

Feuji was reportedly transferred from his prison cell to solitary confinement 
before he was taken to the gallows. The 6 prisoners executed at Yazd Prison 
were reportedly 2 sets of brothers who had been imprisoned for 8 years before 
they were taken to the gallows. Their families have confirmed the executions 
and were able to retrieve their bodies for burial. 1 of the 6 prisoners has 
been identified as Haji Mohammad Nouti Zehi, also known as Haji Aziz. There are 
no details available at this time about the charges against these 6 prisoners.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






SAUDI ARABIA:

British Prime Minister David Cameron urges Saudi Arabia not to crucify 
protester


British Prime Minister David Cameron has urged Middle East ally Saudi Arabia on 
Sunday not to go ahead with the execution of a Shiite Muslim sentenced to death 
over his role in anti-government protests.

"Don't do it," Mr Cameron said when asked about the case of Ali al-Nimr, who 
was handed the death penalty after taking part in demonstrations in Saudi 
Arabia's oil-producing Eastern Province.

Not only was Nimr handed a death sentence, but the method of punishment was 
determined to be crucifixion, which human rights groups say means he will be 
beheaded and then have his mutilated body displayed publicly.

Mr Cameron said that although Britain and Saudi Arabia worked closely on issues 
such as national security, the British government had raised its concerns about 
Nimr's case and general human rights in the country.

"We never stint in telling them that we don't agree with them on this human 
rights issue," he told the BBC on the first day of his Conservative Party's 
annual conference in the northern city of Manchester.

Nimr was convicted of sedition, rioting, protesting and robbery in the Eastern 
Province district of Qatif, home to many of the Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom's 
minority Shiites, who say they face entrenched discrimination.

Nimr, who activists said was 17 at the time of his arrest in 2012, was also 
convicted of chanting anti-state slogans in illegal protests and inciting 
others to demonstrate, according to state media.

Nimr, now 21, the nephew of a high-profile Shiite cleric, was reportedly 
tortured, denied access to a lawyer before his trial and coerced into 
confessing to the charges, according to human rights experts at the United 
Nations.

The death sentence was handed down on May 27 this year and upheld in September.

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)



BANGLADESH:

Mojaheed to seek review of his death sentence


Condemned war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed will file a petition with 
the Supreme Court seeking review of its judgement that had upheld his death 
penalty for killing intellectuals during the 1971 Liberation War, one of his 
counsels said yesterday.

The review petition will be filed by October 15, Advocate Shishir Manir said 
after he along with four other lawyers had met with Mojaheed at Dhaka Central 
Jail yesterday morning.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday released it full verdict in Mojaheed's case and 
the International Crimes Tribunal, where the Jamaat leader was tried for 1971's 
crimes, issued execution warrant on the following day.

(source: The Daily Star)






PAKISTAN:

Independent UN rights experts renew appeal to Pakistan to end death penalty


A group of independent United Nations human rights experts on Friday reiterated 
their call on Pakistan to reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty and 
investigate cases where uncertain age determination processes have resulted in 
children being sentenced to death.

It is particularly appalling that in a country where only 1/3 of children are 
registered at birth and where age determination techniques remain rudimentary, 
courts can pronounce and confirm death sentences on children based on visual 
assessment by the police and refuse to take into account evidence of 
juvenility, even when provided by the Pakistani authorities themselves, the 
experts stated in a press release.

It is estimated that 8,300 people are currently on death row in Pakistan 
hundreds of them reportedly sentenced for offences committed as children.

The UN experts call comes after this weeks death by hanging of Ansar Iqbal, who 
was 15 years old when arrested and condemned to death. The execution was 
carried out only a few months after the hanging of Shafqat Hussain, Aftab 
Bahadur and Faisal Mahmood, all reportedly children at the time of their 
alleged offences.

Ansar Iqbal had obtained from the Pakistan Registration Authority an official 
birth certificate proving that he was a child when sentenced. Yet, on 15 
September 2015, the Supreme Court of Pakistan refused to either take it into 
account or review the case.

The Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, 
Christof Heyns, on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or 
punishment, Juan E. Mendez, and on the independence of judges and lawyers, 
Mnica Pinto, as well as the Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of 
Child, Benyam Dawit Mezmur, deplored the execution.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms Ansar Iqbals execution, which has 
been carried out, as the previous ones, in clear violation of international 
human rights treaties to which Pakistan is a party, and despite multiple 
interventions of United Nations human rights mechanisms, stressed the experts.

They pointed out that according to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, if 
there is no proof of age, the child is entitled to a reliable medical or social 
investigation that may establish his/her age and, in the case of conflict or 
inconclusive evidence, the child shall have the right to the rule of the 
benefit of the doubt.

They also emphasized that basic safeguards for a fair trial have been clearly 
trampled in these trials and warned that failures in the prosecution evidence, 
refusal to investigate complaints of allegations of torture of children in 
police stations and prisons despite being widely reported in Pakistan, and 
dismissal of key evidence on procedural grounds are common practice in the 
proceedings against these children.

Any death sentence executed in contravention of a governments international 
obligations amounts to an arbitrary execution, cautioned the experts.

We recall once again that by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the 
Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Pakistan 
has accepted the legally binding obligation to ensure that death sentences will 
never be imposed on a defendant who was under 18 at the time of the crime, they 
stated.

Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN 
Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a 
specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not 
UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

(source: newkerala.com)






INDIA:

A steady decline in death panalties


At a time voices against death penalty are getting louder, a government report 
has shown that the number of death-row convicts in Indian jails and awarding of 
capital punishment have decreased in the past couple of years.

At the end of 2014, Indian jails housed 318 prisoners, including 8 women, on 
death row. In 2013, the figure was 382, including 10 women. In 2012, it was 
414, which had 13 women.

Of the total 1.31 lakh convicts, the death row convicts accounted for just 0.1 
% with Uttar Pradesh (82) reporting the highest number of such convicts. 
Karnataka finds a place in top 5. Uttar Pradesh alone accounted for 25.8 % of 
the convicts given capital punishment followed by Maharashtra (36), Madhya 
Pradesh (33), Bihar (28) and Karnataka (24).

The awarding of capital punishment is also decreasing, if one goes by the 
National Crime Records Bureau's "Prison Statistics India 2014" report. While 
125 people were awarded death sentence in 2013, it has come down to 95 last 
year. In 2012, it was 97.

During 2014, Bihar had awarded the highest number of capital punishments at 17 
followed by Uttar Pradesh (16), Madhya Pradesh (12), Maharashtra (9), 
Chhattisgarh (8) and Gujarat, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh (5 each). Karnataka 
had one in this category.

Activists, however, are not seeing much in the decrease, as they believe that 
there is not much change in mindset. The latest Law Commission report had 
recommended the abolition of death penalty but the Union Home Ministry is 
learnt to be not in favour of acceding to the demand, as it feels that time is 
not ripe for such a move.

The report shows that the numbers of commuting death sentence to life is also 
increasing. While it was 61 in 2012, it rose to 112 last year. In 2013, it was 
115.

Out of 112 convicts whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 
2014, 18.8 % were reported from Bihar (21) followed by Delhi (19), Karnataka 
(15), Maharashtra (10) and Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (9 each). No convict was 
executed during the year 2014 while one - Yakub Memon - was done this year.

(source: Deccan Herald)

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

Home Ministry against abolition of death penalty


The Home Ministry is likely to reject Law Commission's recommendation for 
abolition of death penalty, maintaining that time was not ripe yet to remove it 
completely from the statute book keeping in mind the threat from terrorism.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officials had detailed 
discussions on the Law Commission's report supporting abolition of death 
penalty except in terror-related cases.

"Discussions within the Ministry as well as with the Law Ministry are 
continuing and a final decision is expected to be taken this week. In all 
probability, the recommendation for abolition of death penalty will be 
rejected," a senior Home Ministry official said.

Officials are of the opinion that time has not come yet to do away with capital 
punishment as threat of terrorism to India continues.

In its report, the Law Commission had recommended by a majority "swift" 
abolition of death penalty except in terror-related cases, noting it does not 
serve the penological goal of deterrence any more than life imprisonment.

The recommendation by the 9-member panel was, however, not unanimous, with one 
full-time member and two government representatives dissenting and supporting 
retention of capital punishment.

2 government appointees on the law panel -- ex-officio members P K Malhotra 
(Law Secretary) and Sanjay Singh (Legislative Secretary) had given their 
dissent notes.

Besides them, Justice (Retd) Usha Mehra, a permanent member of the panel too 
had opposed it.

A copy of the report was also submitted to the Supreme Court by the Commission 
as the apex court had asked the panel to examine the issue.

In 1967, the Commission in its 35th report had supported continuation of death 
penalty.

Registering his dissent, Law Secretary Malhotra had said Parliament in its 
wisdom has prescribed death penalty only in heinous crimes.

"The need of the hour is to retain it...We have a vibrant judiciary which is 
respected world-over. We should have faith in the wisdom of our judges that 
they will exercise this power only in deserving cases for which the law is well 
laid down in various judgments...," he said.

Legislative Secretary Singh had maintained the panel should not recommend 
something which has the effect of preventing the state from making any law in 
the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of the country.

The Commission had said there is a need to debate as to how to bring about the 
"abolition of death penalty in all respects in the very near future, soonest.

(source: indiatvnews.com)






JAPAN:

Ex-justice chiefs join anti-death penalty rally


Hundreds of people who rallied against capital punishment ahead of World Day 
against the Death Penalty on Oct. 10 were joined by 2 former justice ministers 
who shared their experiences wielding the authority to order executions.

At the meeting Saturday of around 200 people, Seiken Sugiura, who was justice 
minister from 2005 to 2006 under a Liberal Democratic Party government, said: 
"After becoming justice minister in October 2005, I seriously thought about 
capital punishment, and I could not come up with an answer about why we dare to 
claim lives of death row inmates, even if they committed heinous crimes."

Sugiura did not issue any execution orders during his tenure, and since 
withdrawing from politics has been involved in debates in the Japan Federation 
of Bar Associations about the death penalty.

"Through research at home as well as abroad with the JFBA panel, I am now 
convinced that we should create a society without the death penalty" at a time 
when about 70 % of nations around the world have abolished it by law or in 
practice, he said.

The JFBA urged the government in 2011 to immediately start a public debate on 
its abolition, and to suspend executions while it is discussed.

Sugiura told the meeting, organized by a civic group opposed to capital 
punishment, that he expects the lawyers' group to clearly declare its 
opposition to the death penalty in the near future.

Hideo Hiraoka, a justice minister under a former Democratic Party of Japan 
government, told the meeting, "I was not an abolitionist when I assumed the 
portfolio in September 2011."

Hiraoka, however, did not order any executions during his tenure through 
January 2012.

"I examined documents of some death-row inmates to ask myself if I could issue 
orders to hang them, and I found I could not," he said.

While a justice minister is authorized to issue the order, "It is the top 
leader of the country who can clear the way for debate on the death penalty 
system," Hiraoka said.

"To persuade the leader, ordinary citizens must be sufficiently informed of the 
situation surrounding the death penalty, including the fact that many countries 
in the world have already terminated it," he added.

The secrecy surrounding executions in Japan has been criticized at home and 
abroad, with neither death row inmates nor their lawyers and families given 
advance notice of hangings. It also remains unclear what criteria authorities 
use in deciding when inmates are to be executed.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee urged Japan last year to "give due 
consideration to the abolition of the death penalty."

But Japan hanged an inmate in June, bringing total executions by the second 
administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, launched in December 2012, to 12.

Among countries maintaining the death penalty, only 22, including Japan, 
executed inmates in 2014.

(source: Japan Times)

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

Death row inmates write about their feelings ahead of hangman's noose


1 convicted murderer, a former gang boss, wrote about his fear of climbing the 
scaffold and dropping through the trapdoor with a noose around his neck to his 
death.

And a remorseful former United Red Army terrorist, also under sentence of 
death, expressed repentance.

These are among replies from more than 70 death row inmates about their current 
states of mind to a questionnaire sent by citizens group seeking the abolition 
of capital punishment.

The group, "Shikei Haishi Kokusai Joyaku no Hijun wo Motomeru Forum 90" (Forum 
90 that seeks ratification of international treaty for abolition of death 
penalty), recently compiled the results of the survey and published them in a 
book.

"We hope that the results will be used as a cue to think about the pros and 
cons of the capital punishment system," the group said.

It conducted similar surveys in 2008 and 2011.

As of May, there were 130 people on death row whose rulings had been finalized. 
The civic group contacted 127 of them from May, along with Mizuho Fukushima, an 
Upper House lawmaker and former chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party.

3 death row inmates were excluded from the survey.

1 of them was Masaru Okunishi, 89, who was seeking a retrial over his 
conviction for killing 5 people with poisoned wine in Nabari, Mie Prefecture, 
in 1961.

The group explained that it refrained from sending a questionnaire to Okunishi 
because of his poor health condition.

Of the 127 death row inmates who received the questionnaire, 73 replied by 
July. One was Hiroshi Sakaguchi, 68, who was a member of the United Red Army 
and involved in murder cases committed by the terrorist group.

Sakaguchi, whose request for retrial was turned down in 2013, wrote in the 
questionnaire, "Even after the rulings were finalized, our lives as humans do 
not end (immediately)."

He added, "I am living my life seriously by looking squarely at the crimes I 
committed, thinking about the causes of my misconduct and hoping to break away 
from my past."

A former executive of a gangster organization wrote about his anxieties when it 
comes to be executed.

"After my death sentence was finalized, I felt fearful about being hanged. When 
I imagined climbing onto the execution platform and being hanged, I got 
scared."

Another death row inmate sounded apologetic that he was still breathing after 
having committed such a heinous crime.

"In spite of the fact that I committed a big crime, I am still allowed to live 
even today. What a big crime and an impermissible thing it is for me to 
continue to live even now!"

The results of the survey were published by Impact Shuppankai under the title 
of "Nenpo, Shikei Haishi 2015--Shikeishu Kanbo kara" (Year book, Abolition of 
death penalty 2015--From cells of death row inmates).

(source: The Asahi Shimbun)