[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 9




IRAN:

Stop the execution of Amanj Veisee - a juvenile offender in Iran


At his retrial in December Juvenile offender Amanj Veisee was resentenced to 
death for the murder of his cousin - despite an official forensic report 
concluding that he had not attained 'mental growth and maturity' at the time of 
the crime.

Amanj had originally been sentenced in 2008, following the fatal stabbing of us 
cousin during a fight. He was just 15 at the time of the stabbing and has 
always said he did not intend to kill his cousin.

He says they had grown up together and he loved him deeply. He claims to have 
stabbed him only in a frightened reaction to his 23-year-old cousin strangling 
him.

Demand that the Iranian authorities commute Amnaj's death sentence

Questionable 'mental growth and maturity'

Amanj was originally sentenced to death in 2008 but was granted a retrial due 
to concerns that he did not understand the nature of the crime or its 
consequences.

The retrial was granted in 2015 on the basis of a then new Islamic Penal Code 
which allowed courts to replace the death penalty with an alternative sentence 
for juvenile offenders under these circumstances, or if there were doubts about 
his or her ???mental growth and maturity' at the time of the crime.

Despite a state forensic institution, the Legal Medicine Organisation, 
concluding that Amanj had not attained "mental growth and maturity" at the time 
of the crime, the court has resentenced him to death.

The verdict is less than one page long. It dismisses the forensic report as 
'non-binding' and concludes: 'there is no doubt about his mental maturity at 
the time of the crime.'

Juvenile offender in Iran

Iran's use of the death penalty on juvenile offenders has been criticised by 
bodies including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, who in only 
January of this year noted their serious concern that the exemption of juvenile 
offenders from the death penalty is 'under full discretion of judges who are 
allowed, but not mandated to seek forensic expert opinion and that several 
persons have been resentenced to death following such retrials'

Act now!

We're urging you to write to the Iranian authorities demanding that they 
immediately commute Amanj's death sentence and commit to not carrying out 
executions upon any person who was below aged 18 at the time of the crime.

Please write immediately in Persian, Arabic, English or your own language:

-- Urging the Iranian authorities to immediately commute Amanj Veisee's death 
sentence and not carry out the execution of any person who was below the age of 
18 at the time of the crime; and

-- Urging them to take legislative measures to completely abolish, without any 
discretion for the courts or other exceptions, the use of the death penalty for 
crimes committed by people below the age of 18, in line with Iran???s 
obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and 
the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Please send appeals to:

Supreme Leader

Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei

Islamic Republic Sreeet - End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street

Tehran

Islamic Republic of Iran

Emaill via website

Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English)

Salutation: Your Excellency

Also send copies to:

Head of the Judiciary

Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani

c/o Public Relations Office Number 4,

Deadend of 1 Azizi

Above Pasteur Intersection

Vali Asr Street

Tehran

Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: info at humanrights-iran.ir

Salutation: Your Excellency

And to:

Prosecutor General of Tehran

Abbas Ja'fari Dolat Abadi

Tehran General and Revolutionary Prosecution Office

Corner (Nabsh-e) of 15 Khordad Square

Tehran

Islamic Republic of Iran

(source: Amnesty International UK)






TURKEY:

Survey: 93 pct favor reintroducing of death penalty


Apublic survey conducted with 4,176 people found that 92.6 % of respondents 
supported reintroducing the death penalty for crimes such as rape, terror and 
treason. The survey was conducted from March 2 to March 6 in 36 provinces using 
the method of computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).

The survey also asked participants who they would vote for if an election were 
held, and 54 percent said they would vote for the Justice and Development Party 
(AK Party). The closest rival to the AK Party in the results of the poll was 
the Republican People's Party (CHP) with the support of 21.7 % of participants 
while the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) had support from 11.6 %. The 
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) received the support of 7.8 % of survey 
participants, below the nation electoral threshold.

The survey further found that 57 % of respondents support a presidential system 
while 43 % thought it was not necessary to abandon Turkey's current 
parliamentary system.

(source: Daily Sabah)






PAKISTAN----executions

Pakistan hangs brothers for murdering 6 people----The execution comes just days 
after Amnesty International called out Pakistan for being the world's 3rd most 
prolific executioner


Pakistan on Saturday, April 9, hanged two brothers convicted of murdering 6 
people from the same family, just days after Amnesty International criticized 
the country for becoming the world's 3rd most prolific executioner after China 
and Iran.

Nasir Mehmood and Tahir Iqbal were hanged in a jail in the eastern Pakistani 
city of Sialkot early Saturday for the 2002 murders, senior prison official 
Chaudhry Arshad Saeed Arain told AFP.

The hanged men killed 6 members of a family over a land dispute, jail officials 
said. No further details were available.

A 6-year moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in Pakistan after Taliban 
attackers gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at an 
army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014.

Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but 
in March they were extended to all capital offences.

Executions in the Muslim-majority nation have helped fuel an increase 
worldwide, Amnesty International said in a report this week, with at least 
1,634 people put to death globally in 2015, the highest figure recorded since 
1989.

"Over the past year, Pakistan has vaulted to the number 3 spot for recorded 
state executions in the world - a shameful position no one should aspire to," 
Champa Patel, director of Amnesty's South Asia office, told AFP.

Pakistan executed 326 people last year, Patel said.

The overwhelming majority of those hanged since Pakistan fully restored the 
death penalty in March 2015 had no links to terrorism, said Sarah Belal, 
director of the Justice Project Pakistan, which advocates the abolition of 
hanging and represents death row convicts.

(source: rappler.com)

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

Does the death penalty target criminals or the poor?


A damning report places Pakistan as 3rd in the list of countries where the most 
number of executions took place in 2015, after China and Iran and before Saudi 
Arabia and the United States. In other compelling statistics, in 2014, the 
Global Slavery Index, Pakistan ranked 3rd in a list of 167 countries where the 
problem of human slavery is most severe.

In 2012, we had the most number of people (28 million) affected by war and 
conflict. Along with other South Asian countries, Pakistan ranks high in hunger 
and malnutrition statistics, with about 41 million people undernourished in the 
period 2014-16, a whopping 22 % of the population.

The state is responsible for much of the violence perpetrated upon its citizens 
whether it is oblivion to a pattern of sustained and systematic hunger, 
condoning violence against women because of inadequate preventive and 
responsive measures, or perpetuating abysmal labour protections for vulnerable 
workers.

The death penalty is yet another form of state enforced violence. It appears as 
the particularly cruel and whimsical working of a state that has abdicated its 
social responsibility toward its citizens, and yet wants to maintain the 
illusion of law and order through swift and draconian, though flawed, justice.

Ironically, most of the people susceptible to execution in Pakistan's criminal 
justice system are indigent defendants who cannot afford competent lawyers or 
settle their cases through the (infamous) Qisas and Diyat laws - and caught in 
the system in the first place as opposed to powerful killers who escape 
unscathed.

It can be safely assumed that the state is at war with the poor. One only has 
to look at the massive (and often concealed) crackdowns on the working-poor 
protesting evictions or labour conditions to confirm this. The state is also 
not shy of using its massive and prejudicial anti-terrorism legislative arsenal 
against poor labourers and residents of katchi abaadis when they stand up 
against illegal evictions and unfair labour practices and threaten real estate 
expansionism and corporate impunity. They are then slammed with FIR's with 
trumped up charges of terrorism or penal code violations.

The death penalty in Pakistan is but a continuum of the state's war on the 
poor, with 1 difference - many people support the death penalty in Pakistan; 
but most people will not support water jets and lathi (baton) charges against 
the poor. Most Pakistanis will not approve of brutal violence against and the 
criminalisation of people fighting elite housing projects of Bahria Town to 
preserve their two room homes, or school teachers demanding salaries.

People know these are not the rifle wielding terrorists. These are the poor and 
the terrorised.

This is probably why there is a tangible media control in the ways in which 
poverty, hunger, housing and labour woes are presented. They are either 
obliterated from discourse, presented as emotional fillers rather than within 
the context of a violent neo-liberal political economy that disrupts the lives 
of the poor, or distorted within a larger liberal narrative of necessary 
economic development.

But coming back to the death penalty.

With its emotive appeal for instant justice for murderers and terrorists, the 
death penalty finds support it seems, in a large section of society. Never mind 
that some of the executed were juveniles at the time of the crime and that most 
were not terrorists, and the country is not necessarily safer because the 
murderer of Salman Taseer is dead. Never mind that the Human Rights Conventions 
we have ratified and even Islamic jurisprudence which we often aspire to 
condemn the death penalty, or prescribe due process parameters for it, or allow 
for discretion and forgiveness, are ignored.

It is a great indicator of (false) progress of a pro-active and concerned 
government. Children in Sindh, Balochistan, South Punjab and FATA will continue 
to die of hunger, but at least people are supposedly safer in their homes with 
more than 300 people hanged in 2015.

The US, with its notorious legacy of Guantanamo, impunity for torture, 
imperialist wars are no bastion of human rights; it was among the top five 
countries that executed the most number of people last year. However, compared 
to Pakistan's 300 plus figures for 2015, the US executed 28 people. 19 states 
have abolished the death penalty, and some that have yet to outlaw it, have 
imposed moratoriums.

Last year, Nebraska's legislature voted to abolish the death penalty. In 
disappointing contrast, Missouri executed Cecil Clayton, a 74-year-old man 
diagnosed with dementia. While in Pakistan, there is a little publicised debate 
around or litigation against the cruel and barbaric nature of the method of 
execution - hanging - in the US, there was a robust litigation around lethal 
injection protocols. In Glossip v Gross, while the Supreme Court allowed the 
use of a drug used in the deadly injection, 2 dissenting judges found that the 
death penalty is probably unconstitutional, unreliable and arbitrary.

Also among the top 5 countries for capital punishment was Iran, which gave 
cause for moral outrage when it reportedly executed the entire male population 
of a village in the South for drug offences. China retains secrecy on carrying 
out the death penalty, but it did amend its criminal law last year reducing the 
number of crimes punishable by death from 55 to 46. Pakistan, in the meanwhile, 
carries the death sentence for, just a little behind in the horrible race to 
the bottom, 27 offences. By the middle of the year, Saudi Arabia had executed 
at least 102 people and along with, in China, Iran and Pakistan, it accounted 
for 90 % of the 1,614 executions in 2015. Saudi Arabia is known for its unfair 
trials, lethal intolerance for drug offences, and many Pakistanis executed for 
being drug mules do not have adequate access to consular services or a fair 
trial.

Stoning, shooting gas chambers, hanging, beheading or lethal injections are the 
methods states currently employ to execute people. They are all inhumane and 
barbaric; and it is pointless to label stoning barbaric, which it is, beheading 
uncivilised, which it is, hanging quick, which it is not, or lethal injection 
sanitised, which it is certainly not. But what is indicative of a democratic 
and humane civil society is how it contests these death methodologies through 
litigation under constitutional and human rights principles banning cruel, 
inhumane and degrading punishment - and the number of meaningful chances at 
appeal available to those facing capital punishment.

The sanctity of life commands that every possible route to appeal a draconian 
sentence of death is explored. In 1982, ex-Black Panther Party member Mumia Abu 
Jamal was unfairly convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a racist 
trial. His sentence was confirmed by the highest court of Pennsylvania in 1989. 
In 1990 the Supreme Courts denied his writ of certiorari and then in 1991 his 
request for a review of their decision. In 1995, Mumia applied for 
post-conviction relief and new witnesses were called to testify in a renewed 
trial. Losing that battle, he pled before the Supreme Court again only to have 
his 2nd cert petition denied. More appeals later, in 2001, a federal district 
court of the third circuit vacated his death sentence citing to irregularities 
during his sentencing and ordered new sentencing proceedings. His final 
vindication was in 2011 when prosecutors announced that they would not pursue 
his execution.

If Mumia's trial was marred by the institutional racism of the American 
criminal justice system, Shafqat Hussain's trial was marred by how courts, and 
in fact all state polices, are stacked against the poor in Pakistan - be they 
oppressed ethnicities, slum dwellers, migrant labourers, Dalits, the young, or 
Christians. While, Mumia (although still in jail) benefitted from almost 3 
decades of legal battles to save his life from what could have been a wrongful 
execution, Shafqat Hussain, a lower income juvenile at the time of his crime, 
was illegally executed despite international pressure.

With over 300 assembly line executions in 2015, almost an average of 1 per day, 
in the state has shown that it can't be bothered too much by legal safeguards. 
But it should be. All life is sacred and there are no short cuts if the result 
is the potential death of an innocent person. And given the flaws in our 
system, many of those 300 were probably innocent if not of the crime itself, 
then as victims of unfair trial.

The death penalty should be evaluated in the general landscape of the war 
against the poor. The state's rapid drive toward draconian laws, over 
criminalisation and incarceration, in its effort to mimic other states, like 
the US, with its massive prison apparatus and Patriot Acts, should be seen in 
light of the fact that those countries may have more developed history of 
capital defence and habeas corpus litigation.

(source: The Tribune)






INDIA:

In a first, drug dealer gets death penalty in West Bengal


Almost 14 years after he was arrested, a Barasat court has ordered Karaya 
resident Anwar Rehman - who was found guilty of supplying heroin in Kolkata and 
was arrested with over 53.5 kg of it- to be hanged till death. For the 1st time 
a court in Bengal has awarded death sentence in a NDPS case.

Rehman was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of India. Anirban 
Das, the sixth additional district session judge gave death sentence to Anshar 
Rahaman (62) and sentenced his accomplice Dipak Giri (47) to 30 years of 
rigorous imprisonment.NCB officials explained that a death penalty is usually 
awarded in rarest of circumstances - gene rally when the quantity recovered is 
huge and the accused is a repeat offender. In 2002, the cost of the confiscated 
drug was estimated to over Rs 53.5 crore.

Officilas in the NCB said that their chargesheet carried enough evidence that 
prove Rehman had links with some "influential people" in the city. His supplies 
would come from Pakistan through Rajasthan. While carrying out the probe, the 
NCB officials got in touch with narcotic officials in Bangladesh, Nepal, 
Australia some other countries.

Officials said that Rehman had once gone to Switzerland in early 2002 and 
stayed there for 6 months. "He claimed that he had gone on a holiday with his 
son but had no evidence to suggest that he had he met drug dealers 
there,''explained an officer.

Rehman had reportedly , invested Rs 1.5 crore to procure the heroin that was 
seized by the sleuths. NCB officers said Rehman had paid the money to his 
Rajasthan contacts in mid-September in 2002. "We are trying to find out how he 
got so much money to invest," the NCB director said.

(source: The Times of India)


BANGLADESH:

OHCHR urges halting all executions


The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has urged the Bangladesh 
government to halt all executions and institute a moratorium on the use of the 
death penalty.

Raising question in relation to international due process and fair trial 
standards, the OHCHR expressed concerns about the fate of Motiur Rahman Nizami, 
who filed a review petition against his death warrant which is due to be heard 
on Sunday.

"The trials conducted before the International Crimes Tribunal have not met 
international standards of fair trial and due process as stipulated in the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)," OHCHR 
spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a press briefing note issued yesterday.

"The UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, no matter 
the gravity of the crime committed and even if the most stringent fair trial 
standards were respected," the note said.

Ravina, in her message, said, "We renew our call to the Government of 
Bangladesh to respect its obligations under the ICCPR, to which it acceded in 
2000. Article 14 of the ICCPR details the right to a fair trial," the release 
said.

It adds, "The imposition of a death sentence following a trial in which these 
provisions have not been respected constitutes a violation of the right to 
life."

(source: The Daily Star)

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

UN: Halt death penalty of Nizami, Mir Quasem


The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged Bangladesh government to 
halt the death penalty to condemned war criminals Motiur Rahman Nizami and Mir 
Quasem Ali.

The OHCHR made the call in a statement issued on Friday.

Expressing concern about the death sentences to the duo, the OHCHR also raised 
question in relation to international due process and fair trial standards.

It stated that the UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all 
circumstances, no matter the gravity of the crime committed and even if the 
most stringent fair trial standards were respected.

"While recognising Bangladesh's determination to tackle past crimes, the trials 
conducted before the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal have 
unfortunately not met international standards of fair trial and due process as 
stipulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 
(ICCPR)," it says.

The statement reads: "We renew our call to the Government of Bangladesh, as a 
1st step forward, to halt all executions and institute a moratorium on the use 
of the death penalty."

Bangladesh's 1st war crimes tribunal handed Nizami death on October 29, 2014 on 
4 charges and life imprisonment on 4 other charges. He challenged the verdict 
at the apex court.

On January 6, a 4-member Appellate Division bench upheld the tribunal's 
sentence for the Al-Badr chief for masterminding the killing of intellectuals 
and involvement in 2 incidents of mass killing of over 500 people in Pabna in 
1971.

The Supreme Court on March 8 upheld the war tribunal's death sentence awarded 
to Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali for committing crimes against humanity 
during the 1971 Liberation War.

Top Jamaat-e-Islami financier Quasem, now 64, was awarded capital punishment by 
the tribunal on November 3, 2014. (source: Dhaka Tribune)

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

Nizami review hearing on Supreme Court's cause list for Sunday


The Supreme Court's business agenda for Sunday includes the matter of a 
petition by war crimes convict Motiur Rahman Nizami for a review of the verdict 
upholding his death sentence.

After being deferred once, the matter has been listed as the 19th issue on the 
agenda at the 4-member appeals bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

The other members of the bench are justices Nazmun Ara Sultana, Syed Mahmud 
Hossain and Hasan Foez Siddique. On Apr 3, the court deferred the matter for a 
week after Nizami's counsels pleaded for time.

Nizami, who heads the Jamaat-e-Islami, filed a petition for a review of his 
death sentence over his 1971 war crimes on Mar 29.

In January this year, the top court rejected Nizami's appeal to overturn the 
International Crimes Tribunal's 2014 verdict.

As the head of the Jamaat's then student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha, Nizami 
commanded the Al-Badr, a militia known for its ruthless mass murder, rape, loot 
and killing of Bengali intellectuals in complicity with Pakistani soldiers 
during the 1971 war.

Review is the last legal recourse for a death row convict after all other 
judicial means have been exhausted.

The option to seek presidential mercy provides the only remaining hope ahead of 
execution in case the review is rejected.

On Mar 16, the death warrant issued by the ICT was read out to Nizami after the 
Supreme Court published the full copy of his verdict.

Nizami's case is the 6th among all war crimes cases so far to have reached the 
stage of a review petition after the publication of the full verdict.

The 72-year-old is the 3rd former minister facing the gallows for war crimes.

Nizami, industries minister in the 2001-06 BNP-led coalition government, was 
also handed the death penalty in 2014 for arms trafficking in the sensational 
Chittagong 10-truck arms haul case.

(source: bdnews24.com)






SUDAN:

Khartoum sentences 22 South Sudanese to death


An anti-terrorism court in Khartoum has sentenced 22 South Sudanese nationals 
to death and 3 others to life in prison on Wednesday for belonging to a 
militant group in Darfur.

"The judge sentenced them to death by hanging on charges of terrorism, fighting 
the state, bearing arms against the state and undermining the constitutional 
order," Mahjoub Dawoud, defense attorney, told Reuters.

The defendants belong to the Justice and Equality Movement, a rebel group based 
in Darfur that took up arms against the Sudanese government in 2003, 
complaining that their region was being marginalized.

The group, led by Bakhit Abdul Karim (Dabjo), signed a peace agreement with the 
Khartoum government in 2013.

Shortly after the agreement, the group handed in its weapons to the government 
and in return the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, pardoned members 
of the group.

However, the presidential pardon did not include the 25 South Sudanese 
nationals. The government considered them foreign fighters and brought them to 
trial for bearing arms against Sudan.

Lawyers of the defendants said they will appeal the court decision next week, 
calling the Sudanese authorities to treat their clients as prisoners of war.

Sudan regularly accuses its neighbor of backing insurgents in its Darfur, Blue 
Nile and South Kordofan regions.

South Sudan, which split away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of civil war 
fueled by ethnicity and oil, dismisses the allegations and accuses Khartoum of 
arming militias in its territory.

(source: Reuters)