[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 18



PAKISTAN:

Christian couple sentenced to death for sending 'blasphemous' texts to an 
Islamic cleric in Pakistan say they were tortured into confessing to the crime


A disabled Christian man and his wife sentenced to death in Pakistan for 
blasphemy have claimed they were tortured into confessing.

Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, from Gojra, east Pakistan, were found 
guilty of sending a text message which 'blasphemed' against the Prophet 
Mohammed to their local imam in 2013.

Mr Emmanuel, who is paralysed from the waist down, claims the only reason he 
confessed to the crime was because he could not stand watching his wife be 
tortured by police.

'There is no man who can stand to see his wife being tortured by police, so to 
save my wife, I confessed,' Mr Emmanuel said in an appeal for bail lodged this 
week.

The couple were arrested in July 2013 after their local imam, Maulvi Mohammed 
Hussain, claimed Mr Emmanuel had used his wife's phone to sent him a text 
insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

The couple, who have 4 children, denies ever sending the text, saying the phone 
had been stolen from them months before the message was supposed to have been 
sent.

"There was no evidence that the text messages came from a phone owned by the 
couple," Farukh Saif, an official of World Vision in Progress giving legal aid 
to the couple, told Christians in Pakistan.

In the first place they had lost the phone some months before July 2013 and 
secondly there was no SIM card in their names.

The only evidence police produced was a bill for a SIM card from a shop owner 
which is unheard of.'

Mr Emmanuel and Ms Kausar were initially sentenced to death for blasphemy, but 
as with nearly all such convictions, it is most likely they will spend the rest 
of their lives in jail.

Pakistan's blasphemy laws are notoriously harsh, and accusations of blasphemy 
against Islam is taken very seriously in the country.

Being found guilty of desecrating the Koran or blaspheming against the Prophet 
Mohammed is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

The laws have long been criticised both in Pakistan and internationally as they 
are often used to settle personal grudges and accusations are made with little 
to no evidence.

They have lodged an appeal at Lahore High Court on the grounds of Mr Emmanuel's 
deteriorating condition, claiming lack of treatment in jail has left him with 
bedsores and life-threatening ill health.

Pakistan's blasphemy laws are notoriously harsh, and accusations of blasphemy 
against Islam is taken very seriously in the country.

Being found guilty of desecrating the Koran or blaspheming against the Prophet 
Mohammed is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

The laws have long been criticised both in Pakistan and internationally as they 
are often used to settle personal grudges and accusations are made with little 
to no evidence.

Last month, the head of a powerful religious body in the country said he is 
willing to review Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, to decide if they are 
Islamic.

Pakistan's religious and political elites almost universally keep clear of 
debating blasphemy laws in a country where criticism of Islam is a highly 
sensitive subject. Even rumours of blasphemy have sparked rampaging mobs and 
deadly riots.

But Muhammad Khan Sherani, chairman of a body that advises the government on 
the compatibility of laws with Islam, told Reuters he was willing to reopen the 
debate and see whether sentences as harsh as the death penalty were fair.

"The government of Pakistan should officially, at the government level, refer 
the law on committing blasphemy to the Council of Islamic Ideology. There is a 
lot of difference of opinion among the clergy on this issue," Sherani said in 
an interview at his office close to Pakistan's parliament.

"Then the council can seriously consider things and give its recommendation of 
whether it needs to stay the same or if it needs to be hardened or if it needs 
to be softened," Sherani, said.

(source: Daily Mail)






BURUNDI:

Burundi's defense minister requests reintroduction of death penalty


Burundian Defense Minister Emmanuel Ntahomvukiye has requested the 
reintroduction of the death penalty to sanction authors of the May 13, 2015 
failed coup plot, the government official said Thursday in a parliamentary 
session.

Defense and War Veterans Minister Emmanuel Ntahomvukiye was speaking in a 
session at the parliamentary house in Kigobe along with 2 of his colleagues - 
Security Minister Alain Guillaume Bunyoni and External Relations and 
International Cooperation Minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe.

They had been summoned to answer MPs' questions and to debate on Burundi's 
political crisis that broke in April 2015 as well as possible solutions.

"The death penalty should be reintroduced especially to sanction people who 
attempted to overthrow institutions on May 13, 2015,"Ntahomvukiye told the 
Parliament.

Burundi abolished the death penalty in the penal code promulgated on April 29, 
2009.

Ntahomvukiye acknowledged that there are 3 rebel groups that are propagating 
trouble in some areas of the east African nation including the Republican 
Forces of Burundi (FOREBU), the Restoration of a Rule of Law (Red-Tabara) and 
the National Liberation Forces (FNL) led by Nzabampema.

For his part, Bunyoni told MPs that with the beginning of the country's 
political crisis in April 2015, more than 90 % of arms seized from 
troublemakers came from other countries, with the majority from Rwanda.

The Burundian government and the ruling party, the National Council for the 
Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) have been 
accusing Rwanda of "destabilizing" Burundi.

Burundi's crisis broke out in April 2015 following the announcement by 
Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza that he would be seeking a 3rd term.

His candidature, which was opposed by the opposition and civil society groups, 
resulted into a wave of protests, violence and even a failed coup on May 13, 
2015.

Over 400 persons are reported to have been killed since then.

(source: Xinhua news)






IRAQ:

Iraq sentences 40 members of ISIS to death for role in Speicher massacre


Iraq has sentenced 40 members of Islamic State (ISIS) in its captivity to death 
on Thursday. They were charged with mass-murdering hundreds of Iraqi cadets at 
Camp Speicher in Tikrit back in June 2014.

According to Reuters many of these suspects were arrested by Iraqi authorities 
after they pushed ISIS from Tikrit in early 2015. Previously 24 were convicted 
and executed last year. There are a total of 600 individuals suspected of 
having a hand in that atrocity. Amnesty International has condemned this trial 
alleging that it was "fundamentally flawed" and constituted "a reckless 
disregard for justice and human life."

The Speicher massacre ranks among the most bloody and notorious of the crimes 
against humanity ISIS has carried out to date.

On that occasion ISIS lined up 1,700 the mostly Shiite members of the Iraqi 
military and systematically murdered them. Burying many in mass graves and 
dumping others in the Tigris River.

(source: rudaw.net)