[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 24



UNITED KINGDOM/BAHRAIN:

UK funds Bahrain parliament as it reverses reforms and backs executions


The British government is using a multi-million pound aid programme to fund 
Bahrain's parliament while the Gulf country bans opposition parties, reverses 
human rights reforms and carries out executions, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Funding for the parliament, which critics say is a "rubber-stamping" body for 
the kingdom's ruling family, was revealed in a breakdown provided under the 
Freedom of Information Act.

The funding, which is part of the Foreign Office's 2m pounds "technical 
assistance" programme in the county, supports officials in the Council of 
Representatives despite internal concerns from advisers that it could be used 
as PR "fig leaf" over human rights concerns.

The revelation that the UK is funding the parliament comes as the Gulf state 
reverses key rights reforms and carries out executions in the face of 
international condemnation.

The British government says it opposes the death penalty, but it is working 
with Bahrain's parliament where politicians are encouraging the King to execute 
prisoners - Human rights group Repreive

Bahrain has been rocked by unrest since March 2011 when security forces 
brutally crushed an Arab Spring-inspired uprising.

The largest opposition group in the country, al-Wefaq, boycotted the parliament 
in 2014 before it was banned last summer, while the party's secretary general 
Sheikh Ali Salman is languishing in prison after he was sentenced to 9 years 
for giving speeches against the government.

MPs have also backed the use of the death penalty for critics of the 
government, and last week Bahrain executed three men charged with killing 
members of the security forces.

The 3 Shia men were convicted of killing an Emirati police officer and two 
Bahrain police officers in a 2014 bomb attack, but human rights campaigners say 
that confessions were extracted from Abbas al-Samea, 27, Sami Mushaima, 42, and 
Ali al-Singace, 21, under torture, including beatings, electric shocks and 
deprivation of food and water.

2 more men - Mohamed Ramadhan and Hussain Ali Moosa - are now at risk of 
execution, according to right group Reprieve. Both men claim they were tortured 
and their claims have not been properly investigated.

Maya Foa, a director of Reprieve, told MEE: "The British government says it 
opposes the death penalty, but it is working with Bahrain's parliament where 
politicians are encouraging the King to execute prisoners like Mohammed 
Ramadhan, who has always insisted on his innocence and was tortured into making 
a false confession.

"Just weeks after Bahrain's parliament made alarming calls for death sentences 
like his to be implemented without delay, a firing squad executed three men who 
were also tortured into falsely confessing. The UK Foreign Office should 
urgently tell Bahrain's authorities that the executions following such deeply 
unfair trials are unconscionable."

In Westminster, political pressure has been building over the FCO's response to 
the executions and ongoing British support for Bahrain, and the Liberal 
Democrats have called for funding to Bahrain to be "stopped immediately".

Tom Brake MP, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, told MEE: "The FCO must 
undertake a root and branch review to determine whether any of the UK funds 
invested in prisons or parliament in Bahrain are leading to greater respect for 
human rights.

"After the recent extrajudicial executions carried out in Bahrain, it's looking 
more and more apparent that they are not and funding must be stopped 
immediately."

The FCO must determine whether any of the UK funds invested in prisons or 
parliament in Bahrain are leading to greater respect for human rights - Tom 
Break, Liberal Democrat MP

MEE can also reveal details of 11 projects in Bahrain that the British 
government is funding through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, a 
controversial pot of aid money that is currently focus of an investigation by 
British MPs over transparency concerns.

These projects range from implementing a Criminal Justice Board and creating a 
social inclusion unit to a contract with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons 
to build the capacity of Bahrain's National Preventive Mechanism against 
torture.

The CSSF, which operates in more than 40 countries, is overseen by the National 
Security Council, a secretive cabinet committee including senior ministers, 
military chiefs and secret service heads.

Last year MPs probing the fund, which is worth more than 1bn pounds a year, 
expressed frustration that Mark Lyall, the national security advisor to the 
prime minister, was providing scant details of how the money is spent.

During an evidence session Lyall refused to rule out granted funds from the 
CSSF fund to countries that use torture.

Bahrain consistently denies it uses torture and says it adheres to 
international norms for death penalty cases.

Unlike the majority of the aid projects in Bahrain, the funding for the 
Bahraini parliament comes from the FCO's Bilateral Programme Fund. Few details 
are known about the project, which MEE understands is still active and has 
received regular funding since it was first established in 2015.

Secretive aid fund

The Foreign Office has refused to disclose which organisation is running the 
programme and the contractors name was redacted from the Freedom of Information 
Act data, but MEE can reveal the project is run by the Westminster Foundation 
for Democracy (WFD), which lists senior MPs including Conservative Andrew 
Rosindell, former SNP leader Alex Salmond and Labour's Margaret Hodge on its 
board.

According to WFD documents, staff at the organisation, an executive 
non-departmental body funded by the Foreign Office, noted "significant public 
concerns" about Bahrain's human rights record and expressed concerns that the 
programme risked "being used as a fig leaf for the Bahraini authorities".

A source close to the discussions, told MEE: "It is of the nature of WFD's work 
that there will sometimes be political risks involved; the point is to support 
democracy in countries where democratic accountability is weak."

The WFD is understood to be helping Bahrain???s parliamentarians understand how 
to draft laws and is also assisting in the creation of a parliamentary 
calendar.

A spokesperson for WFD said it works to support democratic institutions and law 
and order worldwide. They said that the on-going project in Bahrain is 
"focusing on building technical skills for parliamentary staff."

The cost of the project is not known. Campaigners at London-based Bahrain 
Institute for Rights and Democracy, which obtained the data on Britain's aid to 
Bahrain, sayministers are still refusing to give a breakdown of how taxpayers 
money is being spent in Bahrain. The group is planning to take the case to the 
Information Commissioner.

Sayed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at BIRD, told MEE: "UK involvement goes 
beyond technical assistance, forming a spider's web across Bahrain's prisons, 
police, judiciary and now parliament, despite the majority of opposition 
leaders languishing behind bars, an unprecedented crackdown on civil society 
and a sharp deterioration in human rights. The UK is managing repression in an 
authoritarian regime, paid by the taxpayer."

The UK has already provided over 5.1m pounds of technical and human rights 
assistance to Bahrain since 2012, and last week the Guardian reported that is 
due to spend a further 2m pounds in Bahrain this year.

Despite this dedicated support, the Bahraini government continues to curtail 
freedoms of expression, association and assembly and crackdown on dissent, 
according to Amnesty International.

A spokesperson for the FCO said: "We believe that UK support to Bahrain's 
reform programme is the most constructive way to assist in achieving 
long-lasting and sustainable reform in Bahrain. While it will take time to see 
the full results, we believe UK support is having a direct, positive impact on 
areas of concern."

(source: Middle East Eye)

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

Rights Group Warns New Executions May Occur in Bahrain in Unfair Trials


2 Bahrainis appear to be at imminent risk of execution despite the authorities' 
failure to properly investigate their allegations of torture, Human Rights 
Watch said Monday.

Both Mohamed Ramadan and Husain Ali Moosa have disavowed confessions that they 
allege were the result of torture and that were used as evidence in a trial 
that violated international due process standards.

The January 15, 2017 executions of 3 other Bahrainis in a similar case have 
raised concerns that the regime's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa will approve 
the executions of Ramadan and Moosa, who face the death penalty for his alleged 
role a February 2014 bombing that resulted in the death of a policeman.

Human Rights Watch analysis of their trial and appeal judgments found that 
their convictions were based almost exclusively on their confessions, which 
both men retracted.

"Bahrain should not under any circumstances execute 2 more young men, 
especially where there is credible evidence of confessions obtained through 
torture and unsound convictions," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director 
at Human Rights Watch.

On December 29, 2014, Bahrain's 4th superior criminal court convicted Ramadan 
and Moosa of the premeditated murder of 'Abd al-Wahid Sayyid Muhammad Faqir, a 
policeman who died from injuries caused by an improvised explosive device in 
Muharraq on February 14, 2014. The court convicted 10 other Bahrainis of 
involvement in the bombing and sentenced them to between 6 years and life in 
prison.

Ramadan and Moosa's lawyer, Mohamed al-Tajer, told Human Rights Watch that he 
was unable to speak with his clients during pretrial detention. The 1st time he 
was able to speak with them was on the 1st day of their trial on July 24, 2014, 
he said.

An examination of the trial record indicates that the key evidence used to 
convict Ramadan and Moosa was their confessions, which their lawyer argued in 
court should have been inadmissible because the court did not thoroughly 
investigate the men's torture allegations.

The trial court dismissed this argument, stating that "the defendant's 
[Moosa's] confession is overall consistent, which confirms and proves that his 
confession is consistent with the truth and facts of the case." On May 27, 
2015, Bahrain's First Supreme Criminal High Appellate Court upheld the death 
sentences, saying that it was "persuaded that these confessions and statements 
were free of any taint of coercion of any kind, using in this its discretionary 
authority."

(source: Tasnim News Agency)






NIGERIA:

The Logic Of Death Penalty For Kidnappers


In these days of economic crises and continued disparity between poverty and 
wealth, there have been many crimes that are putting our nation in a state of 
perpetual fear. Terrorism, Advance Free Fraud (aka 419), money laundering, 
cyber crime and kidnapping have become increasing source of worries in our 
nation.

Kidnapping, especially, has become a nauseating affair.

Society has always used punishment to discourage would be criminals from 
unlawful action. And talking of spate at which kidnapping is gradually becoming 
a new normal business, it is understandable why the Lagos State House of 
Assembly has joined few other States in passing into law, a bill aimed at 
checking the spate of kidnapping with stiffer penalties, including death 
sentence for offenders.

Ever since the law was passed, opinions especially from lawyers are sharply 
divided, and equally strong among both supporters and opponents of the law.

In Lagos: State Assembly Approves Death Sentence For Kidnappers

But for the perennial problems of human existence like kidnapping that requires 
logical investigation and deployment of all the cognitive resources of human 
reason and scientific methodology for solution, it can be very easy for people 
to assume or conclude that courses like Philosophy and Sociology among other 
humanities and social sciences can be dispensed with, going by silence of 
scholars and students of the courses in the ongoing debate and search for 
ethically acceptable solution. Presently, displayed of uncanny effrontery of 
resorting to mass abduction of students and officials of schools with that of 
Nigeria-Turkish International School, Ogun State being the current one remains 
a big sore in our society.

In the past, expatriates and foreign construction workers are the potential 
targets of kidnappers. It was later extended to parents of high profile 
personalities, religious leaders, businessmen and politicians. In following the 
bad example of Boko Haram terrorist group, school children are now seemingly 
the main target. It has happened at Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary, a model 
private missionary school in Ikorodu and Lagos State Model College, Igbo Nla in 
Epe. Naturally, it should trouble every one of us that schools are now the 
target.

In accordance with the laws of physics, every action causes a reaction and, 
depending on the type of action, the reaction. Lagos State is on course with 
the new bill which prescribes death sentence for kidnappers whose victims die 
in their custody and life sentence for kidnappers whose victims did not die in 
the hands of their abductors. In the bill, 25 years imprisonment is proposed as 
penalty for anyone found guilty of threatening to kidnap another person through 
phone call, e-mail, text message or any other means of communication.

So far, the only aspect of the law that is generating reaction is that of death 
penalty, where victims die in custody of kidnappers. Whatever the reasons for 
the focus on capital punishment alone, it is germane to look at the logic and 
otherwise of death penalty. This should bring us to a number of questions, 
which are important to explain as a way of summarizing the moral trade-offs of 
the debate. Is capital punishment intended primarily as a punishment? Is it a 
just and proportional punishment for certain crimes, like murder? Do murderers 
and some other criminals commit crimes so horrific that they forfeit the right 
to life? Should innocent life be valued over a murderer's life, and does 
capital punishment demonstrate this? Or is it important to demonstrate 
compassion even to murderers who operate with ammunition by sparing their 
lives?

For some of our compatriots who share the Amnesty International belief that 
death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights which State must not be 
involved in, death penalty is seen as not a solution to kidnapping. The 
argument being that it is wrong to assume that death penalty will act as 
deterrent to committing of crimes. To them, death penalty has no historical 
foundation; it has no jurisprudential foundation and has no foundation in real 
life. Anti-death penalty campaigners are also quick in citing armed robbery 
experience which attracted death penalty from the '70s in Nigeria and how it 
has not put an end to robbery.

However, one is of the view that all these arguments are flawed and misleading. 
At best it can be regarded as academic exercise which does not reflect the 
sentiment of majority of the traumatized kidnapping victims. In Singapore, 
death sentences are permitted for some offences, so the people know precisely 
what to expect if they are convicted of such offences. In 2012, a couple of 
American elected officials and office-seekers suggested that Singapore's 
success in combating drug abuse through death penalty should be examined as a 
model for the United States. Michael Bloomberg, a former Mayor of New York 
City, said that the United States could learn a thing or 2 from nations like 
Singapore when it comes to drug trafficking, noting that "executing a handful 
of people saves thousands and thousands of lives".

So for a crime being orchestrated by professional gangs who make use of 
ammunition, speed boat and probably other equipment and logistics worth 
millions of naira, nothing else could suffice other than death penalty. This is 
proportional to the gravity of kidnapping crime and presently the only way to 
adequately express our horror at the taking of an innocent life through 
kidnapping.

Agreed there are socio-economic issues that must be addressed by the country. 
Notwithstanding, kidnapping must not be allowed to become another nemesis for 
our nation. Implementing death penalty to prevent continuous growth of the 
crime is a necessity before the crime assumes the dimension it takes in Mexico, 
Brazil, Colombia and Philippines where it is a lucrative business.

Less we forget, the toll of kidnapping in Nigeria is usually counted in terms 
of the human and emotional cost, but as organized kidnapping groups get rich on 
the suffering of others, the financial damage to the economy is also 
considerable as it remains one of the greatest drawbacks to investment in 
Nigeria. Herein lies the logic in death penalty for kidnappers!

(source: Rasak Musbau is of the Features Unit, Lagos State Ministry of 
Information and Strategy. Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos----Nigeria Today)






BELARUS:

MP: Belarus Parliament may hold hearings on death penalty


Parliamentary hearings on death penalty may be held in Belarus, Andrei 
Naumovich, the chairman of the permanent commission on human rights, national 
relations and mass media, said when speaking at a meeting of the political 
affairs committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 
Strasbourg, BelTA has learned.

"The House of Representatives can organize parliamentary hearings on death 
penalty in late 2017 - early 2018," noted Andrei Naumovich.

He stressed the need for an elaborate and well-balanced approach to capital 
punishment which is a sensitive issue for Belarus. All stakeholders are 
expected to be invited to the hearings.

Andrei Naumovich added that the country will continue exploring the issue. 
Account is taken of both modern global trends and the results of the 1996 
referendum when the majority of citizens voted against abolishing this type of 
punishment.

In December 2016 a working group on death penalty was set up in the 
new-convocation parliament. The group is headed by Andrei Naumovich. "The 
parliamentary group will continue its work on the matter relying on the 
suggestions and recommendations made by the previous group," the MP said.

(source: Belarusian Telegraphic Agency)