[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 24




BOTSWANA:

Ditshwanelo hosts Death Penalty dialogue


The Botswana Centre for Human Rights hosted a two (2) day dialogue on Access to 
Justice and the Death Penalty in Botswana, from February 9-10, 2016. The 
dialogue was facilitated by Justice Lovemore Paul Chikopa, Judge of the Malawi 
Supreme Court of Appeal. Participants included Attorneys Kgosi Ngakaagae and 
Martin Dingake, University of Botswana Law Students, Botswana Council of 
Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) and the media.

The purpose of the dialogue was to promote informed public debate on the death 
penalty, specifically, on the right to dignity in 21st century Botswana. This 
was a civil society contribution towards the implementation of Botswana's 2013 
UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) commitment, to 'hold dialogue about the 
death penalty'.

Some of the key issues raised during the dialogue were:

--This year is 2016 African Year of Human Rights, with Particular Focus on the 
Rights of Women. There needs to be clear State commitment to the implementation 
of human rights in Botswana; --The Death Penalty is part of our inherited 
colonial legislation, following 85 years as a British Protectorate (1885-1966); 
It is 50 years since independence;

--It is time to reflect on where we have come from over the past 50 years, 
where we are presently and where we would like to be in 50 years' time;

The criminal justice system is not insulated sufficiently to prevent 
miscarriages of justice. It was noted that there is no perfect legal system 
anywhere in the world;

--'Access to justice' should be guaranteed for both the rich and the poor. 
Currently the poor lack true access to justice;

--Pro Deo attorneys are under-resourced and therefore unable to adequately 
represent indigent clients who are charged with capital offences which may lead 
to the death sentence;

There should be effective representation for those who could be sentenced to 
death;

--There is a need to involve the Judiciary when holding dialogues and 
conversations about the death penalty;

--There is a need to focus on the rehabilitation aspect of the criminal justice 
system within a restorative justice. This is in contrast with focus only on 
punishment, within a retributive justice system;

--Alternative sentences to the death penalty need to be thoroughly explored;

--The deterrent factor of the death penalty ought to be verifiable. Currently 
it does not appear to prevent murder (not a deterrent);

--There is need to locate, analyse and understand death penalty discussions 
within a broad socio-political and economic context;

--In determining the moral blameworthiness of the accused persons, their 
personal upbringing and influential factors which shaped their person should be 
considered by the court;

--Sentencing should have the dual purpose of punishment and addressing the 
cause of the offence;

--Where applicable in law, the death penalty should not always apply, but 
should be limited to certain circumstances - for most serious crimes such as 
murder;

--There is need for the Judiciary to be exposed to the realities of the death 
penalty;

--There are no known procedures or transparency concerning the clemency 
process; and

--There is need for more information about what the penalty of death actually 
entails.

DITSHWANELO was encouraged to engage in more public awareness raising 
activities with different stakeholders about the death penalty in Botswana.

We would like to thank our sponsors, The British High Commission, and friends 
of DITSHWANELO for participating in the dialogue. We appreciate all the 
support.

Ditshwanelo

Gaborone

(source: Letter to the Editor, mmegi.bw)






ZIMBABWE:

Zimbabwe Considers Scrapping Death Penalty


Zimbabwe's vice president, who once faced the death penalty, says the country 
will consider scrapping capital punishment.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also the justice minister, called it 
"a flagrant violation of the right to life and dignity." Mnangagwa was 
sentenced to death during Zimbabwe's colonial era, only avoiding it because he 
was too young at the time.

The state-run Herald newspaper said Mnangagwa was speaking at an international 
meeting of justice ministers in Rome.

Last month, a group of death row inmates approached Zimbabwe's Constitutional 
Court bid to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The country of 
13 million has nearly 100 death row inmates.

Zimbabwe's constitution says the death penalty only applies to males aged 
between 21 and 70 convicted of "murder committed in aggravating circumstances."

(source: Associated Press)






AUSTRALILA:

Barrister Julian McMahon speaks in Canberra on the death penalty


Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen was in a Singapore cell facing the 
end of his life, one of his lawyers, Julian McMahon, offered him some solace in 
words written by Sir Thomas More as he awaited his own execution almost 500 
years earlier.

Mr McMahon, a Melbourne barrister who was a national finalist in the 2016 
Australian of the Year awards for his human rights work, is due to speak on 
Wednesday night at the Saint Thomas More Forum in Canberra.

While representing Van Nguyen, who was hanged in Singapore in 2005, Mr McMahon 
referred back to the case of Sir Thomas, the Lord Chancellor of England, 
beheaded in 1535 after standing firm in his Catholic faith and refusing to 
swear that the Crown had supremacy over the Church.

"In the last year of Van Nguyen's life, he had become much more interested in 
his Catholic faith so I had actually given him copies of a few pages written by 
Thomas More while More was in his cell awaiting his execution," Mr McMahon 
said.

"And those few pages of reflection on how to think about your imminent death, 
how to think about the people who were about to kill you - they were very 
gentle and wise words."

Mr McMahon said there was still much to learn from the case of More, who was 
made a saint by the Catholic church in 1935.

"He's a fascinating character to study on the question of conscience and the 
right to silence and the clashes between truth, the power of the state and, in 
that instance, the failure of the rule of law," he said.

Mr McMahon has been working on death penalty cases for 13 years and is the 
president of Reprieve Australia, which is dedicated to ending executions around 
the world.

He represented Bali 9 members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, both convicted 
of drug smuggling, and was within earshot as they were gunned down by a firing 
squad in a field on an Indonesian island in April last year.

Mr McMahon said the final meeting with his clients facing the death penalty was 
never easy.

"Firstly, it's very difficult but, secondly, we lawyers are there as 
professional assistants and that fact makes it easier for us to be detached and 
support the client and family," he said.

"In the last visit of the Chan and Sukumaran families with their son and 
brother, although it was extraordinarily difficult, there was both signs of 
profound familial love and support.

"Everybody knew when they separated at that moment, when they were peeled 
apart, Myuran and Andrew, still had to cope with the next 10 hours and in order 
to help them cope, everybody understood that each person there had to be 
strong."

He said the number of countries who had the death penalty had steadily fallen 
since World War II, with fewer than 30 now carrying out executions.

"Some of these countries are slowly improving. For instance, Singapore used to 
execute an enormous number of people, now it executes very few, so that's a 
positive change," he said.

"Other countries like Pakistan and Iran and Saudi Arabia are rapidly going 
backwards and descending into large-scale executions. And it's like any other 
cancer across the world - sexual abuse of children or women, destruction of the 
environment, slavery, which is a rampant problem in today's world - each 
generation has to fight these things or they re-appear as cancers.

"We should speak the truth to [these countries] and we should demand better 
from them and that includes our close allies, ranging from America to China 
right through to countries in the Middle East which show such little regard for 
human life."

Mr McMahon said the death penalty "brutalises all involved".

"It debases the society which kills, that consciously plans to kill someone 
rendered helpless," he said.

"It perpetuates violence and a disrespect for life, it removes all hope of 
remorse and rehabilitation. These days it's always political.

"It's just a delusion to call 'killing' justice when jail is enough punishment. 
We should never punish more than is necessary."

Mr McMahon said it was impossible for him to sit back and do nothing, even when 
taking on cases that appeared hopeless.

"Lots of people maintain an interest in issues which need an active engagement 
and at times it's easy and at times it's hard,'' he said.

"It's just part of my professional life. I had a very privileged education and 
I'd rather do something useful with it than play computer games."

(source: The Canberra Times)






BANGLADESH:

Supreme Court irked with war crimes tribunal's investigators, prosecutors


The Supreme Court has expressed its displeasure with the work of the 
investigators and prosecutors of the International Crimes Tribunal in the 1971 
war crimes cases.

The top appeals court's annoyance was made known during the appeal hearing of 
death-row convict Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali on Tuesday, Attorney 
General Mahbubey Alam told reporters.

State counsel Alam, who expects to finish his arguments on Wednesday, said the 
court observed that the investigators and the prosecutors were not doing their 
job properly in Mir Quasem's case and other cases.

The court felt that they were not correctly investigating and prosecuting even 
though enough money was being spent on them, he said.

"The court was of the opinion that this (Mir Quasem's) case could have been 
investigated and prosecuted more efficiently," he added.

The Appellate Division had earlier disapproved of the work of the tribunal's 
investigation agency and so had the war crimes tribunal.

Apart from the courts, the attorney general had himself questioned the skills 
of the prosecutors and negligence in the investigation on Jamaat-e-Islami 
Nayeb-e-Amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee.

The government-appointed prosecutors run the cases at the ICT. After the 
tribunal delivers a verdict, the defendants appeal at the Supreme Court.

The attorney general then joins the prosecutors to represent the State.

The tribunal gave Mir Quasem, a known top financier of the Jamaat, the death 
penalty on Nov 2, 2014 for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 
Liberation War.

He filed an appeal seeking acquittal on Nov 30 that year. The hearing started 
earlier this month.

Mir Quasem is said to have been the 3rd man in vigilante militia Al-Badr's 
command structure during the war.

Replying to a question, Attorney General Alam, however, told reporters on 
Tuesday that 'inefficiency of the investigation agency and prosecutors' will 
not affect the appeal verdict.

The 5-strong Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha 
is hearing Mir Quasem's appeal.

This is the 7th war crimes case set to be resolved by the top appeals court.

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

3 killers of RU professor Mohammad Yunus get death sentence reduced to life 
term following retrial


The death sentence handed down to two militants of banned outfit Jama'atul 
Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the murder of Rajshahi University professor 
Mohammad Yunus has been reduced to life imprisonment.

Rajshahi Speedy Trial Tribunal judge Golam Ahmed Khalilul announced the verdict 
on Wednesday following a retrial.

Their sentences have been reduced to life imprisonment from death penalty. They 
have also been fined Tk 5,000, inability to pay which will lead to another year 
in prison, State counsel Entajul Haque Babu said.

Yunus, a professor of economics at Rajshahi University, was hacked to death 
with sharp weapons while he was on his morning walk in Binodpur on Dec 24, 
2004.

The 2 men, Safiullah and Shahidullah, were present in court on Wednesday.

They were handed the death penalty by a speedy tribunal at Rajshahi in 2010 but 
the convicts appealed for a stay on the verdict, pleading for another trial.

Shahidullah aka Mahbub is son-in-law to Rafiqul Islam, elder brother to top JMB 
leader Siddikur Rahman better known as Bangla Bhai who was executed in 2007.

He hails from Naogaon and Safiullah aka Tarek is from Satkhira.

Professor Yunus was president of Bangabandhu Parishad at Rajshahi University.

Police's Criminal Investigation Department charged 8 JMB militants in 2007.

The professor's murder was ordered by Shaykh Abdur Rahman, who headed the JMB, 
Safiullah said in a testimony after his arrest on Apt 13, 2006.

Shahidullah was later arrested in Bogra.

In 2009, the case was transferred to a speedy trial tribunal. The following 
year, Judge Md Monjurul Basid acquitted 6 and handed down maximum penalty for 
the 2 men.

Shaykh Abdur Rahman wanted the professor dead, said the earlier verdict.

The case did not have an eyewitness but the testimonies provided by the 2 men 
proved their involvement.

(source: source for both: bdnews24.com)

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

Verdict in Mir Quasem's appeal against death sentence Mar 8


The Supreme Court has fixed March 8 to deliver verdict in an appeal filed by 
death row convict Mir Quasem Ali, a senior leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami 
party.

The 5-member panel of judges headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha came 
up with the decision as hearing into the appeal petition concluded Wednesday, 
court officials said.

Quasem, also a financier of the party, was awarded death penalty for crimes 
committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war of liberation from Pakistan.

International Crimes Tribunal, a specialised war crimes court set up in 2010, 
handed down the penalty on November 2, 2014. The defendant filed the appeal 
petition with Supreme Court challenging the verdict later in the year.

The court began hearing into the petition on February 7, 2016.

Quasem, 64, was one of the founders of the al-Badr force commissioned by the 
Pakistani military to thwart the voices of unarmed civilians during the war.

The group aided the Pakistan military responsible for atrocities on unarmed 
civilians.

10 out of 14 allegations against Quasem was proved beyond doubt. He was awarded 
death sentence for abduction, killing and dumping bodies of several people in 
Karnaphuli River in south-eastern district of Chittagong.

He was also handed down 72 years of imprisonment for other crimes he had 
committed during the war.

Quasem, a director of private Diganta Media Corporation that owns a newspaper 
and a television (now defunct), was arrested on June 17 2013. He was indicted 
in war crimes on September 2013 and his trial ended on May 4 2014.

According to the investigators, Mir Quasem Ali was elected president of 
Chittagong Government College unit of Islami Chhatra Shangha, the student wing 
of the then Jamaat-e-Islami, in 1970.

He was the president of Chittagong City unit of the organisation between March 
25 and November 6 of 1971. He was made the general secretary of the East 
Pakistan Chhatra Shangha that helped the Pakistan army to unleash 
indiscriminate attacks.

The organization re-emerged in 1977 as Islami Chhatra Shibir with Quasem as its 
founding president. He was made director of Rabeta Al Isami, a foreign founded 
organization in Bangladesh, in 1980, and become member of the Jamaat-e-Islami's 
policy-making Surah in 1985.

He is the founder of Diganta Media Corporation that owns pro-Jamaat newspaper 
Naya Diganta and now defunct Diganta Television. Quasem supervised a number of 
torture cells in the port city of Chittagong to punish freedom loving people 
during the 9-month war that left an estimated 3 million people killed, more 
than 200,000 women raped and numerous homesteads torched in the then Eastern 
wing of Pakistan.

Jamaat-e-Islami party opposed Bangladesh's liberation.

(source: newsnextbd.com)





MALAYSIA:

Amnesty wants moratorium on death penalty----Amnesty International Malaysia 
executive director Shamini Darshni says Putrajaya should consider imposing a 
moratorium for those on death row while deliberating on plans to abolish the 
death penalty.


Human rights group Amnesty International Malaysia, in welcoming Putrajaya's 
plan to push for the abolishing of death penalty, has urged for a moratorium 
for those currently on death row. Its executive director Shamini Darshni said 
the announcements by Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali and de facto 
Law Minister Nancy Shukri in November, were positive and most welcome.

Apandi had said he plans to propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death 
penalty be scrapped while Nancy said Putrajaya plans to table a bill in March 
next year to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences.

"But what is missing is that in the mean time, since the announcement was made, 
there is no moratorium, so people are still being sentenced to death by the 
courts.

"We are urging the Malaysian government to seriously impose a moratorium on the 
use of death penalty as well as execution," she said, when presenting The 
Amnesty International Report (AIR) 2015/16 - The State of the World's Human 
Rights in Petaling Jaya today.

She said Malaysia imposed death penalty for murder, drug-trafficking, the use 
of firearms as well as kidnapping in certain circumstances.

Last November, Nancy had said the plan to abolish the mandatory death penalty 
in drug-related offences would allow judges to use their discretion to choose 
between sentencing a person to jail and the gallows in non-criminal cases, such 
as drug-related offences. Apandi in an interview with The Malaysian Insider had 
said he would propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be 
scrapped.

Meanwhile, on the report which was released today, Shamini said there were 6 
areas of concern in Malaysia's human rights record - freedom of expression, 
freedom of assembly and association, arbitrary arrests and detentions, police 
and security forces, refugees and migrants on death penalty.

"Last year, we saw how repressive and outdated legislation were being used to 
clamp down on basic rights.

"In the first few months of 2016, we are seeing the same pattern persist, much 
to the detriment of basic freedoms,: Shamini said.

Earlier, Amnesty International released a report on the State of the World's 
Human Rights where it said Malaysia has "intensified" its crackdown on freedom 
of expression and other civil and political rights last year. The report for 
2015/2016 said this was evidence from the use of the Sedition Act to silence 
government critics.

(source: themalaysianinsider.com)


GLOBAL:

Pope's reasoning wrong on death penalty ban


Pope Francis is wrong in asserting the death penalty always violates the 
Bible's command not to murder, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore says.

In a Feb. 21 blog post, Moore responded to the pope's call the same day for a 
worldwide ban on capital punishment. The president of the Ethics & Religious 
Liberty Commission (ERLC) took issue with the reasoning used by the leader of 
the Roman Catholic Church in his abolitionist appeal.

Pope Francis referred to the 10 Commandments in telling tens of thousands of 
people in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, "The commandment 'You shall not 
kill' has absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty." He 
appealed to "the consciences of those who govern to reach an international 
consensus to abolish the death penalty," according to Reuters News Service.

The Bible, however, distinguishes between the innocent and guilty, Moore wrote 
in his post.

The pope's argument is not just practical but an across-the-board application 
to every use of capital punishment, Moore said.

"On that, I believe he is wrong. We may disagree, with good arguments on both 
sides, about the death penalty. But as we do so, we must not lose the 
distinction the Bible makes between the innocent and the guilty," he wrote. 
"The gospel shows us forgiveness for the guilty through the sin-absorbing 
atonement of Christ, not through the state's refusal to carry out temporal 
justice."

The Mosaic Law the pope appeals to in calling for the death penalty's abolition 
actually "draws a distinction between murder and lawful execution by the 
state," Moore said.

Also, capital punishment approved by God predates the Ten Commandments and the 
rest of the Mosaic Law, Moore wrote. "In the covenant with Noah [in Gen. 9], 
God forbade murder and simultaneously made provision for the death penalty in 
some instances. Humanity, created in the image of God, is of such value that to 
murder is to bear the most awful consequences imaginable, the forfeiture of 
one's own life."

Moore also cited the Catholic Church's centuries-long defense of "just war" 
theory in at least some circumstances. "If one believes the state can order the 
military to kill opposing combatants in war, one does not, by definition, 
believe that every instance of the state killing is a violation of the 
commandment not to murder," he said.

Biblical support for the state's use of capital punishment continues in the New 
Testament, Moore said. The apostle Paul refers to the Roman government "bearing 
the sword" in Romans 13, shortly after he urges Christians not to take 
vengeance, he wrote.

"Some have argued (unconvincingly, in my view) that this 'bearing the sword' is 
police power, not [the] death penalty," Moore said. "But police power, if armed 
with lethal arms, always carries at least the possibility of the death of the 
evildoer. If that is always and everywhere murder, then it deserves the full 
sanction of God's moral judgment."

Paul does not offer any divine sanction, however, he said.

The understanding that the Bible draws a distinction between murder and the 
death penalty "does not settle the question of whether we ought to have capital 
punishment," Moore acknowledged. "There are, in many places, serious problems 
with the application of capital punishment."

These include "racial and economic disparities" in the use of the death penalty 
in many locations, disparities that exist in other aspects of criminal justice, 
he said.

"Christians can debate whether a state should declare a moratorium on capital 
punishment while reforming unjust sentencing practices," Moore wrote. 
"Christians can debate whether the death penalty is effective as a deterrent or 
whether the death penalty is meaningful at all in a world in which legal 
systems delay for years the application of the penalty. These are prudential 
debates about how best to order our political systems, not debates about 
whether every act of state killing is murder and thus immoral and unjust."

Moore said he agrees with the pope regarding "the value of human life" and his 
opposition to the "culture of death."

"He is also right about the church's responsibility to prisoners, to remember 
those who are jailed, to minister to them, and to work against policies that 
violate human dignity or harden criminals in their criminality," Moore wrote.

The pope issued his call for a ban on capital punishment the day before a 
Catholic-sponsored international conference opposing the death penalty began in 
Rome.

(source: Tom Strode is the Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press, news 
service of the Southern Baptist Convention----Baptist Press)






JAPAN:

Pachinko parlor arsonist loses appeal against death sentence


The nation's top court has upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of 
arson in which 5 people died.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Sunao Takami's appeal against a lower 
court ruling in the 2009 case, in which he poured gasoline on the floor of an 
Osaka pachinko parlor and set it alight. The sentence is now set to be 
finalized.

The presiding judge, Toshimitsu Yamasaki, said the 48-year-old Takami carries 
an "extremely grave liability for committing a premeditated, indiscriminate 
murder that targeted a pachinko parlor on a Sunday, when it was expected to 
draw a large crowd."

The top court's 5-justice No. 3 Petty Bench said the death penalty is justified 
for Takami, despite certain circumstances being in his favor. These include the 
fact that he surrendered to authorities on the day following the attack.

According to rulings by the Osaka district and high courts, Takami set the 
gaming parlor in Osaka's Konohana Ward on fire on July 5, 2009, killing 5 
people and injuring 10 others.

Takami's defense counsel argued that execution by hanging is a cruel punishment 
that runs counter to the Constitution. The country's supreme law forbids cruel 
punishments and torture by public officials.

But the top court's petty bench dismissed this argument, noting that the 
Supreme Court has in the past upheld the constitutionality of capital 
punishment.

In a 1955 ruling on execution by hanging, the top court declared that it was 
constitutional and is not considered a cruel punishment for most serious 
crimes.

In handing down the ruling on Takami's case in October 2011, the Osaka District 
Court's presiding judge, Makoto Wada, noted that there is "controversy" over 
whether death by hanging is the best way to punish a person, but he added that 
"the death penalty system in the first place entails that a person pay for his 
or her crime with death. Agony and cruelty to some extent are inevitable."

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court played down the defense counsel's assertion that 
Takami was delusional at the time of the attack and in a state of diminished 
capacity, saying that while such a state of mind does affect the motives of 
someone accused, it cannot be considered a major factor in this case.

It was the 1st time lay judges participated in a decision regarding the 
constitutionality of capital punishment.

The Osaka High Court upheld the lower court's ruling in July 2013.

(source: The Japan Times)






PAKISTAN:

APS convicts' appeals case referred to CJP


A 3-member Supreme Court bench on Tuesday referred the petitions of convicted 
terrorists against death penalty awarded by military courts to the Chief 
Justice of Pakistan (CJP) for the formation of a larger bench.

The bench headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar heard the petitions of terrorists 
Taj Muhamamd and Ali Rehman involved in Army Public Army (APS) attack, Qari 
Zubair involved in Noshewara mosque bomb blast and Muhamamd Imran in a 
terrorist incident in Bajur Agency against their conviction by army courts.

During the course of proceedings, the Attorney General for Pakistan informed 
the court that the hearing of a similar case was continuing in the larger 
bench.

The bench asked whether legal questions were same in both the cases and the AGP 
replied in the affirmative.

Later the apex court referred the matter to the CJP for the formation of a 
larger bench.

(source: Samaa.tv)