[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 17




PAKISTAN:

Isabel Buchanan: 'In Pakistan, law was literally a matter of life and 
death'----The Scottish lawyer talks about her book recalling her time as a 
23-year-old working on death-row cases in Pakistan


Pakistan has around 8,000 people on death row. What kinds of crimes have these 
people "committed"?

Isabel Buchanan Yes, I'd be careful saying "committed"; it's more accurately 
crimes that people have been convicted of. The most common is charges of 
murder, but there's a really large number of offences that are capital offences 
in Pakistan. I think it's more than 20 and these include non-lethal offences, 
so non-murder and manslaughter offences. Blasphemy is one of the main, most 
controversial ones, kidnapping as well, drug-related offences.

You first became involved in working for prisoners in Pakistan through British 
nationals - of whom more than 20 are on death row. What's their situation?

There's something of a pattern to these cases. Many Pakistanis moved to Britain 
in the 20th century and often their children or their children's children will 
go back to Pakistan for long periods of time to meet their cousins or aunts or 
extended family. It's during those visits that they can find themselves caught 
up in the criminal justice system, often over land disputes. Those who left 
Pakistan will often be more affluent than their neighbours back home, and the 
absentee landlord becomes the object of much envy for neighbours. They are also 
not necessarily connected so closely to the community so they lose the defences 
that a very interconnected person has available to them.

The reliance on witnesses and knowledge of the police system and those sorts of 
things puts them at a significant disadvantage if they are then accused of a 
crime in Pakistan. It makes it a very difficult situation for them.

It's not unknown for lawyers in Pakistan to be assassinated. Does this make 
them more wary of taking on death row cases?

It's fair to say that not many lawyers take on blasphemy cases. More lawyers 
take on death-penalty cases for other crimes. But yes, there are a number of 
very high-profile instances of lawyers being assassinated by people walking 
into their office and simply shooting them at point-blank range. Or those who 
are outspoken being assassinated in other ways. It has a real chastening 
effect.

When you moved to Pakistan in 2011 it was to work with a young Pakistani lawyer 
called Sarah Belal. In May 2015, she was told by a friend at the Ministry of 
Interior to leave the country immediately. How dangerous was her situation? 
Well, she's extraordinarily brave, far more than I am, so she makes light of 
that situation, but I think it was very dangerous and she's quite defiant in 
the face of that danger. She's very committed to these cases and she believes 
it's right to do them and it's wrong that those people are facing a death 
sentence. That's where her reasoning stops. She doesn't take the danger into 
account, but it is very real.

When you first arrived in Pakistan you were 23. Were you fearful yourself?

Oh, I played a very minor role. I was really an intern and then an assistant to 
Sarah for most of it. I was not a target in any way, and so no, in short. There 
remain all the risks of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; quite apart 
from working on these legal cases, Pakistan itself is not the most stable of 
countries. I worried about Sarah a bit, but I wasn't at the forefront of 
anything.

Why did you want to go to Pakistan?

There was certainly an element of chance, but I was also particularly drawn 
there. I graduated in law from Glasgow University in 2010 and didn't really 
know what to do with myself. So I started to volunteer at Reprieve, who work on 
behalf of death row prisoners around the world. This seemed to me an 
uncomplicatedly good thing to do; the one thing I did know was that I was 
anti-death penalty. So I worked on the Pakistan death-penalty desk and then I 
realised that I wanted to understand Pakistan itself better so I asked Sarah if 
she'd have me as an intern in Lahore.

Did you have a previous connection to the country?

I grew up in Scotland, which is not particularly ethnically diverse as a 
country. The one minority community of which there are quite a number is 
Pakistanis, particularly in Glasgow. There are between 20,000 and 30,000 
Pakistanis in Glasgow. So Pakistan was at once very familiar to me - my 
neighbours were Pakistanis, my local shop was run by a Pakistani man who just 
stocked different foodstuffs to the ones that other shops might. And, being 
really quite parochial and knowing nothing beyond Scotland, I loved Pakistani 
puddings from the age of 19. Yet the news coverage particularly and the cases I 
came across at Reprieve showed a place that looked quite foreign and hostile. I 
was intrigued by the relationship between those 2 things.

There was a big change in Pakistan in 2014 and 2015, after Taliban militants 
killed 132 children and 9 staff at Peshawar's army public school. The 
government began executing prisoners on death row at a much higher rate, 
including some of Sarah Belal's clients. What impact did that have on you?

It was really horrifying. In the 1st year [after the attack] about 350 people 
were executed, almost a person per day, so the rate was extraordinary and 
unrelenting. Sarah and I used to joke about the fact that she and I were being 
hard as nails and thick-skinned, because when you're working on the cases, your 
job is not to be sad, your job is to do everything you can to overturn the 
sentence or get some point on which the death penalty can be rescinded. But the 
really difficult stage is in those last few hours and the hours afterwards, 
when there is actually absolutely nothing you can do or it's already happened. 
At that point it's impossible to escape the horror of it and also it feels 
right to embrace that sadness, because it becomes a sign of respect, rather 
than you shirking your duties as a lawyer.

There's a vogue at the moment for true crime, miscarriages of justice, such as 
The Jinx and Making a Murderer on TV, and the podcast Serial. There must be 
hundreds of those kinds of stories in Pakistan. Are these shows too close to 
your day job for you to really enjoy them?

No, I think they are brilliant. There's a difference between being a lawyer on 
a case and being a journalist looking into a case and it's something people 
like Janet Malcolm draw out really well in their writing. Law - at least in 
Britain, Pakistan and America - is an adversarial process, so there's a give 
and take of argument the whole way through these cases. When it's investigated, 
that's quite a different process, so I find it really interesting to see the 2 
different approaches to the same story, as it were.

Away from work, how was living in Pakistan?

I really loved it. Lahore is an unbelievably beautiful city and it's quite 
unvisited. One comparison is Delhi, which is another great Mughal capital that 
is of course thronged with tourists for most months of the year, and Lahore is 
really quite untouristy. It's very vibrant, there are people everywhere in 
Lahore, it's a very living place. I would wear local clothes, which I did most 
of the time, and sit in the back of the rickshaw, which actually opened up the 
city to me in a whole new way, because you're the most discreet traveller 
sitting in the back of a rickshaw, no one can really see you. Whereas if you're 
in a car with tinted windows, everybody notices you driving around.

You learned to speak Urdu in Pakistan. Do you keep it up now you're back?

Since coming back to England, whenever I hear someone in a shop speaking Urdu I 
always join in with them. I've got very Scottish pasty skin and fair hair, so I 
look very British really - by that I mean Caucasian female - and the last thing 
people are expecting is for me to speak Urdu. It always leads to really fun 
conversations.

You are about to start working as a barrister in London. Will your experiences 
in Pakistan stay with you?

Yes, it was something of a forging in the fire. I was given far more 
responsibility by Sarah than I would have had in Britain, mostly because it was 
a very small charitable organisation where it was all hands on deck. So I 
really experienced the responsibility of being a lawyer and emotionally, too, 
because in Pakistan it was literally a matter of life and death in a way that 
not many cases are. Also just working in real adversity. Now even a late night 
in chambers when you are making yourself a cup of tea at 2am and have just 
bought some sushi from Itsu looks pretty cosy compared to writing the final-day 
application at 2am in Lahore where it's 50C and you've got no AC and someone's 
threatening to kill your boss. It's good to have that perspective.

(source: The Guardian)






PHILIPPINES:

If proposed laws are passed, 9-year-old children could be hanged


A few weeks ago, the Philippines and the world that care for children's rights 
and human dignity learned that the new Speaker of the House of Philippine 
Congress has filed two proposed laws, which would lower the age of criminal 
liability for children in conflict with the law to 9 years old and reintroduce 
the death penalty by hanging.

This is draconian and oppressive for children and not worthy of the Duterte 
administration and the Philippine people. The children are innocent, most are 
illiterate, abandoned, neglected and failed by society and government. The 
children, younger than 15, are being used by criminals to commit crimes because 
they cannot be prosecuted, proponents of the law say. This is baloney.

If it is true that they are being used (there is no research data or evidence 
to support this), the children are controlled, used and exploited by criminals 
and cannot act with free will or be held liable for wrongdoing. So what's the 
point of criminalizing them? The children are scapegoats of uncaring 
authorities and an indifferent society.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), through the Juvenile 
Justice and Welfare Council, has strongly opposed such a move to exact criminal 
liability on children and the civil society is also adamantly against it.

The Catholic Church has strongly spoken against the death penalty and we await 
a statement from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines to support 
the retention of the age of liability for children to 15. It is very wrong to 
blame children for the crimes of adults.

The proposed laws are anti-poor and anti-child, and violate international 
conventions. If adult gangsters do use children to further their crimes, say, 
on illegal drugs, they are guilty of child abuse and exploitation, and they 
ought to be arrested and tried for child abuse and drug possession. The 
children, with the appropriate help and support, can easily testify against the 
criminals.

The courageous police should arrest the drug lords, not the children. If 
children are ever used as drug "mules" or carriers of illegal drugs as some law 
enforcers contend, then children at nine years old could be meted the death 
sentence. It is not likely, but the implications are that children and 
teenagers could, according to the proposed laws, face the death penalty. The 
proposed laws see the said children as pests to be eliminated.

This deplorable attitude gave rise to the death squads in Davao City over the 
past 20 years, and the use of vigilantes and assassins has spread to other 
cities and many youth and minors were assassinated (see Human Rights Watch 
reports "You Can Die Anytime" and "A Shot to the Head: Death Squads in Tagum").

In 1999, the Preda Foundation (www.preda.org) social workers and this writer 
had opposed the killing of the street children by death squads. I wrote 
articles about it in the press and ran a letter-writing project that called on 
the then-mayor of Davao City to take the responsibility to stop the killings. I 
was branded a suspected criminal and charged with libel, so I had to defend 
myself in court.

No lawyer in Davao had volunteered to help me. After 2 years of legal battles, 
I finally appealed to the Department of Justice, in Manila, for a 
reconsideration of the charges brought by the Davao prosecutor. There was no 
answer and I was to be arraigned in court in Davao City. I flew to Davao with 
some fear and trepidation of the notorious death squads that might be waiting 
for me at the airport to greet me with a shot to the head.

When I arrived at the airport and walked out the exit, I was met by a group of 
about 50 cheering, boisterous street children and their community workers. They 
had made welcome posters and placards. They blew wildly on plastic bugles and 
beat tin cans in place of drums, and they surrounded me as my guard of honor 
and protection.

With great noise and fanfare, I made it safely across the car park to a waiting 
jeepney and to safety in a secret location. It was a great moment. On the day 
of the arraignment, I appeared in the courtroom filled with media and TV 
cameras. I explained to the media that I had libeled no one but had asked the 
government to protect the children from the death squad. The official line then 
was that the death squad did not exist. Claiming that it did was not 
acceptable.

The authorities had no explanation for the alleged 1,000 dead other than to say 
they killed each other in a gang war. I told the media I would not pay bail and 
I would fight from behind bars for the children's right to live and for 
everyone's freedom of speech.

The mayor at that time (not President Rodrigo Duterte) chose to withdraw the 
charges at the last minute in what seemed like a courtroom drama, as I was 
about to be arraigned. 6 months later, the decision from the DOJ stated that I 
was innocent and should not answer to any case leveled against me, and formal 
charges were dropped.

But now the death squads have reappeared and police are given shoot-to-kill 
orders. The bodies are piling up. We all have to speak out without fear and 
call for a society that respects human dignity and the rights of all.

(source: FR. SHAY CULLEN, SSC, The Manila Times)






INDONESIA:

Indonesian AGO Set to Carry Out 3rd Wave of Executions


Any move to execute convicts on the death row continues to draw strong 
criticism since many NGOs strongly oppose and criticize such an approach.

Last year, the Indonesian government was flooded with criticisms from within 
the country as well as by other nations for having executed 14 drug convicts on 
death row.

Notwithstanding the lack of popular support, Attorney General HM Prasetyo has 
decided not to flinch this year, and instead indicated that the 3rd wave of 
executions would be carried out soon.

"You see the preparations that we made yesterday. I have even seen the 
activities in Nusakambangan where arrangements are being made to carry out the 
executions," Prasetyo said on July 15.

Like last year, the prisoners would be brought to Nusakambangan to face 
executions, he said.

Nusakambangan is an island off Cilacap, southern coast of Central Java, 
notorious for its exile prison where hard core criminals are housed.

"The Central Java police has also tightened security. They have agreed to 
coordinate with us," Prasetyo said.

He declined to disclose the names of death row inmates who will be facing the 
firing squads, but confirmed that there would be more than 2 convicts, and will 
include Indonesian, Nigerian and Zimbabwe citizens.

The attorney general said he would later inform the embassies of the convicts 
concerned through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Among Indonesian and foreign death row inmates in Indonesian jails are Ozias 
Sibanda and Fredderikk Luttar from Zimbabwe; Obina Nwajagu and Humprey Ejike 
from Nigeria; Seck Osmane from South Africa; Zhu Xu Xhiong, Cheng Hong Xin, 
Gang Chung Yi and Jian Yu Xin from China; A Yam, Jun Hao alias A Heng alias 
Vass Liem, Freddy Budiman, Suryanto, Agus Hadi, and Pujo Lestari from 
Indonesia; and Zulfikar Ali from Pakistan.

Earlier, the Attorney General said that inmate Freddy Budiman, a drug kingpin, 
will be among the convicts, scheduled to die in this 3rd wave of executions.

"I will push for the execution of Budiman. Freddy Budiman is our target," 
Prasetyo had affirmed on May 10.

However, the Attorney Generals Office (AGO) is waiting for Budiman to seek a 
review of his case in the Supreme Court. The AGO will set a deadline for the 
same.

"Budiman said he will use his legal rights to seek a review of the case. The 
review should be confirmed soon, (we) cannot wait for a long time," Prasetyo 
remarked.

He said the move by Freddy Budiman is more of an attempt to delay his 
execution.

Indonesia had executed 14 drug convicts on January 18, 2015, and April 29, 
2015. Among the executed convicts were a 62-year-old Dutch citizen Ang Kim 
Soei, 48-year-old Malawian Namaona Denis, 53-year-old Brazilian national Marco 
Archer Cardoso Mareira, 38-year-old Nigerian Daniel Enemua, 38-year-old 
Indonesian citizen Andriani alias Melisa Aprilia, and 37-year-old Vietnamese 
national Tran Thi Bich Hanh.

2 members of the "Bali 9" drug ring --- Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran --- 
were also executed in April last year.

The 1st and 2nd rounds of execution of the drug convicts were carried out on 
the Nusakambangan Island.

President Widodo had emphasized that he would not grant clemency to drug 
convicts, who were responsible for the deaths of 50 Indonesians every day, 
despite protests from several countries and parties at home.

The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform has, however, urged the government to 
delay its plan to execute death row inmates, till the amended Criminal Code 
(KUHP) is approved.

"The image of being a strongman that President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has earned 
for himself by carrying out these executions has seemingly become popular among 
Indonesian prosecutors and judges," Executive Director of the Institute for 
Criminal Justice Reform, Supriyadi Widodo, noted in a statement.

The country's legal enforcement agencies have been competing in imposing 
capital punishment through courts, citing the need to have a deterrent effect, 
he pointed out.

However, in the current KUHP Bill being deliberated in the Parliament, it has 
been agreed that death penalty would be imposed only as an alternative sanction 
in case of special crimes.

Based on data collected by the NGO, 37 people were given death sentences by 
district courts in 2015.

This year, until June, the district courts had issued capital punishment 
verdicts to 17 defendants, mostly for major drug trafficking and premeditated 
murder cases.

The NGO believes that death penalty should no longer be imposed as it has 
failed to serve as a deterrent.

A similar view was shared by the Chairman of the Setara Institute, Hendardi, 
who said execution of drug convicts would not have any deterring effect and 
would not solve any problem.

Death sentence to a number of drug convicts is a punishment meted out on the 
basis of a logic of retribution, instead of serving as a correctional measure, 
the NGO activist said.

"The governments plan to execute more drug convicts is a pragmatic way of 
dealing with drug related crimes in Indonesia," Hendardi claimed.

(source: tempo.co)






TURKEY:

Erdogan says Turkey may discuss death penalty after coup attempt


Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told a crowd chanting for the death penalty on 
Saturday that such demands may be discussed in parliament after a coup attempt 
by a faction in the military killed at least 161 people overnight.

Looking relaxed and smiling, giving an occasional thumbs up to his supporters 
in Istanbul, Erdogan said the coup attempt had been carried out by a minority 
in the army.

"The army is ours, not that of the parallel structure. I am chief commander," 
he said, referring to the network of his arch enemy Fethullah Gulen, a 
U.S.-based cleric he accuses of fomenting the coup plot and previous attempts 
to oust him.

(source: Reuters)

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

Crowds plead with Turkey PM for death penalty for coup plotters: 'The necessary 
will be done'


As Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addressed crowds who gathered outside 
parliament, some of those assembled began to shout, "We want the death penalty! 
We want the death penalty!" They were referring to plotters of the attempted 
coup.

Yildirim responded: "We got your message. The necessary will be done."

Turkey scrapped the death penalty more than a decade ago.

The prime minister also asked the crowds to walk to Ankara's main square nearby 
and remain in the streets to keep a 2nd night of "watch for democracy."

Yildrim said 2,839 people have been detained in connection to the failed coup, 
which resulted in more than 250 people dead and 1,440 wounded.

Russia's Foreign Ministry is expressing concern about tensions in Turkey in the 
wake of the attempted military coup, urging the country to stray from a violent 
reaction.

"The aggravation of the political situation in the context of the terrorist 
threats existing in the country and armed conflict in the region carry a high 
risk to international and regional stability," the ministry said in a statement 
Saturday. "We call on the government and people of Turkey to solve the existing 
problems without violence, to respect the constitutional order."

Tensions between Russia and Turkey have been strong since last year when Turkey 
shot down a Russian warplane near the border with Syria. However, relations 
appeared to be moving toward repair after Turkish President Recep Tayyip 
Erdogan issued an apology for the incident last month.

The Italian Foreign Ministry was quick to usher the same warnings.

Paolo Gentiloni says Turkish authorities must do their utmost to ensure 
"respect for the rule of law, of fundamental rights and of parliament's role" 
following the failed military coup.

In a statement Saturday evening, Gentiloni expresses relief that Turkey 
thwarted a "military adventure that would have brought the country into chaos 
with the return of ghosts of the past."

Gentiloni says the prompt return to stability is urgent but must occur without 
"indulging in the logic of violence."

Italy is also an outspoken opponent of the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Amnesty urges Turkey to reject death penalty after coup attempt


Turkey should not use the death penalty after crushing an attempted putsch, 
Amnesty International says, amid some calls for the use of capital punishment 
against top coup plotters.

"Turkey has united to defend rights against a would-be junta. Return to death 
penalty and crackdown on dissent and victory will be lost," Andrew Gardner, 
Amnesty's Turkey researcher, said on his Twitter feed.

"Grave threat of military rule averted. Now coup plotters must face justice and 
the rule of law respected for everyone."

Government supporters have chanted during demonstrations for the use of capital 
punishment while local media has cited an official as saying this could be 
considered.

(source: DPA)






THE MALDIVES:

see: 
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1LkmqSK8dadG-UcA7S_cGttmPj8Z0qCNsPN9QOT8hhlgtA00-EHzTFPHKmddR5W7bQ2xVOWjgpZHawEi42dP5Q4JJeSQtx0mX-FQsqASf0k1jBPhAJ1vTxiz
2_NIwRwKxViSxWnfCIAnensjr-VQZfHUBgXECaThkd8I5fvzrbecJB8s8N8eScVO7Ss6u_NpkqDcb7Ui95NM4FgVUhvYNKg/https%3A%2F%2Freprieve.bsd.net%2Fpage%2Fspeakout%2F
execution-imminent-in-maldives

(source: reprieve.bsd.net)