[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 14




ZIMBABWE:

Death penalty challenged


People's Democratic Party leader and lawyer Tendai Biti is challenging the 
constitutionality of capital punishment several months after he appeared before 
the same court arguing for sentences of death row inmates to be commuted to 
life in prison.

Biti confirmed that the Constitutional Court will hear the application this 
month.

"This case is now set down in the Constitutional Court on September 28 and we 
are demanding an end to the death penalty," Biti said.

Many human rights groups and lawyers, among them Southern Africa Litigation 
Centre (Salc), were looking forward to the hearing.

"Case coming up arguing death penalty is unconstitutional under new 
Constitution - irrespective of its prior legality," Salc tweeted.

In January when he appeared before the same court on behalf of 15 inmates on 
death row at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, Biti argued that their 
sentences be commuted to life in prison.

Some of the inmates have been on death row for the past 18 years. Zimbabwe last 
executed prisoners in 2005.

Notorious robbers Stephen Chidhumo and Edgar Masendeke were among the last 
inmates hanged at Chikurubi.

Some in the government, among them Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, were 
openly against capital punishment having escaped such a sentence by a whisker 
during the liberation struggle.

Amnesty International is also on record urging Zimbabwe to completely do away 
with the death penalty.

Under the new Constitution, the death sentence can be handed down only to male 
offenders between the ages of 21 and 70 and only in cases of aggravated murder.

Biti has of late been handling human rights cases and recently won an 
application against child marriages in the Constitutional Court.

(source: Newsday.co.zw)






IRAN:

Call for indictment of all government officials


A group of activist mothers and families of political prisoners and martyrs who 
lost their lives during 2009 uprising after the sham elections in Iran have 
announce in a letter that they would indict all government officials for their 
crimes.

These families and mothers who are known as "Mothers of Laleh Park" in an open 
letter called for justice for the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran 
and indictment of all officials of the Iranian regime.

The following is excerpts of their letter:

Mass execution of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 in Iran is a 
political massacre in which the prisoners who had received prison sentences and 
were spending their prison terms or had finished their terms were executed by 
the "Death Commission" following a fatwa or decree [by the Iranian regime's 
then Supreme Leader Khomeini] and after retrial in closed and unfair courts 
while their families were unaware of their executions. Nearly 5000 of these 
Mojahed and Combatant human beings were executed and buried secretly in mass 
graves in Khavaran, Behesht-e Zahra and some other unknown cemeteries in Tehran 
alone.

Based on the Statute of the International Tribunal at Nuremberg, the 1988 
massacre of political prisoners in Iran can be regarded as "crimes against 
humanity" or "genocide" and officials of the Islamic Republic as the 
perpetrators and accomplices of this heinous crime can be brought to justice in 
international courts, because more than 30,000 political prisoners, who had 
previously received prison sentences, have been massacred in absolute secrecy 
and in systematic and planned group executions by the Iranian regime's 
authorities after torture and rape and after secret and unfair retrials and 
with government decree.

The regime of Islamic Republic during the past 28 years has remained silent 
about this crime to avoid disclosure of its secrets. But the mothers and 
families of the massacred political prisoners and other justice-seeking 
activists in Iran and abroad in all these years have tried in different ways to 
stand still and fight against this silence to hold the officials accountable 
and bring the government to respond. These activities include but not limited 
to a range of protests and sit-ins in front of Justice Department, writing 
petitions to the judicial authorities and other official bodies, going to the 
grave of their loved ones and interviews and writing and posting revealing 
contents, attending memorial ceremonies at home and in Khavaran cemetery and 
gathering together inside Iran as well as disclosure of this crime abroad via 
writing memoirs, books, articles, interviews, holding ceremonies and memorials 
and participating in various conferences and gatherings, etc., which did not 
allow the voice of Iranian people and their cry for justice be silenced.

Following disclosure of Mr. Montazeri's audio file [and his speech during a 
meeting with the officials of "Death Commission" responsible for the 1988 
massacre], the issue has become more clear than ever before. The important 
point in this file is the voice of the members of "Death Commission" admitting 
the massacre, and no one can deny it anymore. Then, the mass grave of [the 
massacred political prisoners] in Malek Abad in Mashhad was discovered and 
revealed. And now no one can deny this crime and the killings and the regime 
officials have started one by one to take a stance.

Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, Justice Minister in Rouhani's Cabinet, flagrantly says: 
"We are proud that we have implemented God's Commandment in this regard."

Hashemi Rafsanjani considers the audio file an insult to and desecration of 
Khomeini and condemns its disclosure. He says: "I express extreme regret 
regarding the recent wave of attacks created against Imam [Khomeini] that 
continues in almost all foreign hostile media. This is tarnishing and damaging 
Haj Ahmad [Khomeini's son] position and respectable house of Imam in the 
society and they should not be allowed to reach their goals."

Hassan Khomeini [Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson] says: "The executions were 
necessary to maintain the Islamic Revolution." Khomeini's other grandsons as 
well as other mullahs including Mousavi Tabrizi, Mousavi Bojnourdi, and 
Mohammad Ali Ansari joined the critics of Mr. Montazeri and supported the 1988 
massacre.

Ali Falahian, former Minister of Intelligence under Rafsanjani's presidency, 
regarding the massacre says: "The view of Imam [Khomeini] and all religious 
scholars is that the sentence for those who rebel against the Islamic rule is 
execution and there is no doubt about it. Imam said that God's Commandment must 
be implemented and the history's judgment should be ignored."

Ahmad Khatami: "What the late Imam has done in [the] 1988 [massacre] was 
according to Quran and religious jurisprudence and a revolutionary act. It was 
a great service to the Muslim nation of Iran."

Taj-Zadeh talked about reconciliation and said: "Forgive but do not forget."

When and where did the regime officials ask for forgiveness that he (Taj-Zadeh) 
says this and talks about national reconciliation? Can anybody talk about 
reconciliation with a ruling government that with utter obscenity considers the 
mass executions of political prisoners in 1988 legitimate and right and 
implements the policy of physical elimination, torture and imprisonment or 
heavy sentences for political and conscience activists in its extrajudicial 
courts and emphasizes on continuation of this policy? Taj-Zadeh with pragmatism 
says: "I apologize to the families of those executed in that catastrophe who 
were not members of the PMOI."...

However, these days Khamenei, Rouhani, Khatami and other officials of the 
regime and majority of the so-called reformers have remained silent because 
they have directly or indirectly participated in this crime and have been an 
accomplice in it and they know that if they say anything, they will be exposed 
and disgraced more.

During the executions of political prisoners in 1988, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 
who was Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces at the time, on 27 July 1988 
said: "This is a good opportunity to destroy them (the PMOI) and get rid of 
them!"

In the early years of the revolution, Hassan Rouhani speaking in the regime's 
parliament in July 1980 said: "We ask our army and the Revolutionary Court not 
to rush in the case of the conspirators and do a wide range of investigation to 
find their roots. I request that the conspirators be hanged in public during 
Friday Prayers in order to have a greater impact."

We, Mothers of Laleh Park, who also grieve [our martyrs] in Khavaran grave 
site, call for indictment of all officials of the Iranian regime who have been 
complicit and had a role in the killings in the 1980s particularly the massacre 
of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988 in Iran. We demand removal, 
trial in courts and punishment of all those criminals who occupy the highest 
judicial and executive positions and authorities in Iran. Our homeland in the 
past 37 years has been invaded by those who have brought nothing but evil and 
enmity of freedom, justice and equality, and their Sharia and civil laws and 
achievements are also extremely discriminatory and against freedom. They have 
no respect for human lives and ideas, and the outcome of their existence and 
their present for us is repression and destruction of humanity. They are the 
ones who have destroyed thousands and thousands of freedom-loving souls and 
noble free and dynamic thoughts; but enough is enough and a solution must be 
found.

We along with mothers and families of Khavaran (mothers and families of the 
political prisoners who were massacred in 1988 and secretly buried in mass 
graves in Khavaran cemetery) want to uncover the truth. We demand to know:

1) What was the exact method and process of decision making and implementation 
of the mass executions of political prisoners and who were the perpetrators of 
this brutal massacre?

2) On the basis of what law and for what crime, prisoners who were sentenced to 
prison terms, were retried in closed-door courts and executed?

3) Why was the trial of political prisoners held behind closed doors?

4) Why were the families of political prisoners kept in absolute darkness about 
the fate of their loved ones nearly 5 months after their executions from the 
time the meetings were banned to handing over the bags containing their 
belongings?

5) The exact number and names of the political prisoners who were massacred in 
the summer of 1988 must be announced;

6) Where and how did they bury those who were executed?

7) Where are the wills and testaments of those who were executed?

8) Why the families [of the executed political prisoners] do not have the right 
to hold memorial ceremonies freely?

9) Why Khavaran's graveyard doors are closed and the security forces deny 
access to the families?

10) Why Khavaran and other unnamed graveyards have been turned upside down 
several times?

We thank Mr. Ahmad Montazeri, for making the audio file available to the public 
and provided it to people (although with 28 years delay), to help uncover the 
truth. We call on the regime's officials to stop the pressure and case making 
against him.

We also call on Mr. Ahmad Montazeri and other officials, who distanced 
themselves from the regime and claim that the Islamic Republic's officials are 
criminals and regret their alignment and association with them, to help the 
families and justice-seekers to uncover the truth and provide them with 
information and expose the Islamic Republic's secrecy and concealment of their 
crimes. Of course, we welcome these bold actions which are in the public 
interests.

The right to know the truth and seek justice is the most obvious right and 
demand of the families and Justice-Seekers and we follow it relentlessly.

(source: NCR-Iran)






PHILIPPINES:

CBCP to Catholic solons, judges: Oppose death penalty


The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on Wednesday urged 
lawmakers and the public to oppose proposals to restore death penalty in the 
country, saying it transgresses the dignity of the human person.

CBCP President and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said there was 
a "striking and compelling contradiction and irreconcilability" between death 
sentence and the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

"For many centuries, the death penalty was unquestionably accepted by most 
including the Church. However, with time our understanding evolves and we learn 
to become more human in our behavior according to the dignity bestowed upon us 
and our moral sense evolves," Villegas said in an ethical guideline released on 
Wednesday.

"You cannot, without contradiction, insist that the person is secure from cruel 
punishment and at the same time open the possibility of inflicting upon him or 
her the most cruel punishment possible: the calculated, planned and deliberate 
deprivation of life!" he added.

The revival of death penalty, the 1st bill filed in the House of 
Representatives in the 17th Congress, is one of the main thrusts of the 
administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

CBCP's statements came amid confusing accounts on Duterte's supposed "go-ahead" 
for the execution of Filipina convicted drug courier Mary Jane Veloso, who 
remains on death row in Indonesia for drug smuggling.

'Legal obligation'

Villegas summarized the Philippine Catholic Church's appeal into 3 points: for 
Catholic lawmakers to withhold support from any attempt to restore the death 
penalty; for Catholic jurists to study the issue and to oppose, through proper 
judicial proceedings, the re-introduction of capital punishment; and for 
Catholic judges to heed the teaching of the Church and to appreciate every 
possible attenuating or mitigating circumstance so as not to impose the death 
penalty.

Citing the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights, which the Philippines ratified, Villegas said the Philippines has an 
international legal obligation not to restore death penalty. Article 1 of the 
Protocol states that "no one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the 
present Protocol shall be executed," and that "each State Party shall take all 
necessary measures to abolish death penalty within its jurisdiction."

"Believing that the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the 
enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights, 
convinced that all measures of abolition of the death penalty should be 
considered as progress in the enjoyment of the right to life, these are some of 
the premises underlying the obligation of State-parties, among them the 
Philippines, not to execute anyone and not to restore the death penalty to our 
statute books," Villegas said. 'Unchristian, primitive'

The CBCP president said favoring the restoration of death penalty is a position 
"that the Christian cannot and must not maintain," noting that it is equivalent 
to depriving a person of the right to life.

"When the State kills in the name of justice, it is in fact saying that the 
condemned person has no right to live, is undeserving of the basic right to 
life, and that there is no saving quality or attribute in him or her 
whatsoever," Villegas said.

"The Gospel by which we all live and in which we all find hope is one that 
proclaims the inestimable value of human life and the inexhaustible love and 
mercy of God that constantly renews, even when it seems that no renewal is 
likely or possible!" he added.

Villegas said taking someone's life as punishment for an offense was not 
"paying back," but "some primitive sense that engenders the discredited 'eye 
for an eye, tooth for a tooth.'"

"When the State kills, it kills with no less reprehensibility as when a 
criminal kills, for the same violence is involved, and the result is the same: 
the curtailment of human life and the violation of its inalienable value and 
worth," he said. "Not really retribution then but the restoration both of the 
victim as well as society and the offender to optimal, human, humanizing and 
just relations! This is the positive moment of justice."

(source: inquirer.net)




TURKEY:

Erdogan: people of Turkey want death penalty back


The people of Turkey demand reinstating the death penalty, the country's 
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Erdogan said that if the Turkish parliament decides to restore the death 
penalty, no one has the right to criticize this, since decisions of the 
parliament reflect the will of people, Trend reports.

Earlier, Turkey's Minister for the EU Affairs Omer Celik said that reinstating 
the death penalty in Turkey wasn't put up for consideration by the country's 
parliament.

Turkey cancelled the death penalty in 2001. Reinstating the death penalty was 
discussed after the military coup attempt in Turkey.

(source: vestnikkavkaza.net)






INDONESIA:

Drug trafficking suspects held at hypermall


Police detained a man and a woman for allegedly trafficking 301.50 grams of 
syabu at 1Borneo Hypermall here last Friday.

City police chief ACP M Chandra said the foreign suspects, who are related and 
in their 20s and 30s, were detained by narcotic police at a restaurant in 
1Borneo Hypermall around 2.30pm on September 9.

"Police believe that based on initial police investigation, the suspects were 
waiting for clients when police from the narcotic division approached them as 
they were acting suspiciously.

"Upon inspection, police found 6 plastic packages containing crystal-like 
substance believed to be syabu in the woman's handbag.

"The drugs, weighing 301.50 grams with market price at RM42,000, were 
confiscated and both suspects were taken to the police station for further 
investigation," he said yesterday.

Chandra added that both suspects would be remanded until Sept 16 to facilitate 
police investigation.

He said the case would be investigated under section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs 
Act 1952, which carries the mandatory death penalty if found guilty.

(source: The Borneo Post)






NIGERIA:

Women leader wants death penalty for rape


Coordinator of Global Initiative for Women and Children, Hajia Hafsat Baba has 
advocated death by hanging for convicted rapists in Kaduna State.

She described as lenient, the life imprisonment for rapists proposed by Kaduna 
State Governor Nasir el-Rufa'i in the new Child Right Bill forwarded to the 
State House of Assembly.

Hajia Hafsat, who is also the 3rd Vice President of National Council of Women 
Society lamented the alarming increase in cases of rape especially rape of 
minors. She said, there was need for stiffer punishment to serve as deterrent.

"Recently a minor who was a victim of rape was discharged from Barau Dikko 
hospital, she was so much damaged that she had to go into the emergency to be 
operated upon twice because she was bleeding profusely," she said.

Hafsat said "I believe and I hope that it should be death by hanging. During my 
discussion with the governor, he assured us that it is going to be death by 
hanging and we are actually looking forward to that. We do not want life 
imprisonment."

(source: dailytrust.com.ng)






INDIA:

Jigisha murder case: Death row convict challenges conviction


1 of the 2 death row convicts in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case has moved 
the Delhi High Court challenging his conviction and the sentence awarded to him 
by the trial court.

Convict Amit Shukla, who along with accused Ravi Kapoor was handed down death 
penalty has approached the high court, saying the trial court has awarded him 
the capital punishment by "wrongly holding that the case falls in the category 
of rarest of rare".

The trial court on July 14 held Kapoor, Shukla and Baljeet Malik guilty on 
various counts, including the murder of 28-year-old IT executive Jigisha.

The court while sentencing Kapoor and Shukla to death on August 22, had said 
the girl was killed in a "cold-blooded, inhuman and cruel manner" and "brutally 
mauled to death".

The 3rd offender Baljeet Malik was given reprieve from the gallows for his good 
conduct in jail. Malik has already challenged his conviction and sentence of 
life imprisonment by the trial court before the high court.

While seeking setting aside of his conviction and order on sentence, Shukla 
through his counsel Amit Kumar said the trial court has committed error by 
awarding death penalty simply on the basis of biased jail/probation report 
about his client.

"It has also not been noticed that for the similar offence one of the convict 
has been sentenced for life imprisonment," the appeal, which would come up for 
hearing on September 15, said.

Meanwhile, the trial court, which has awarded death to 2 of the accused has 
sent the case file to the Delhi High Court for confirmation of the capital 
punishment.

It is mandatory for a trial court to refer a death penalty case to a high court 
for confirmation of sentence within 30 days of the pronouncement of the 
verdict.

(source: statetimes.in)