[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 22



IRAN----executions

Iran hangs 5 prisoners collectively in Kermanshah Prison


At least 5 prisoners were hanged on Junly at Dizelabad Prison in Kermanshah, 
west of Iran. One of the victims is identified as Alireza Ashuri, 57. All the 5 
were found guilty of murder.

In yet another case on the morning of July 17, a prisoner was hanged in the 
Birjand Prison in South Khorasan Province. He was sentenced to death on murder 
charges, identified as Baratali Shirdelan.

In another development on the morning of July 16, a prisoner was hanged at 
Mashhad Prison, northeast of Iran. He was identified as Gholamali, 41, 
convicted of being involved in a fight during a wedding he attended in 2009 
that resulted in the death of a man. Gholamali arrested in 2014 and sentenced 
to death on murder charges, the state-run Khorasan Daily reported on July 18, 
2018.

' The head of the Kerman Revolutionary Court was quoted on July 13, 2018, in 
the state-run Fars news agency report as announcing the execution of Yahya 
Ahmad Yousefi in Kerman Prison. His sentence carried out after the confirmation 
by the Supreme Court. The prisoner accused of "corruption on earth" tried in a 
Revolutionary Court in Kerman, Ahmad Ghorbani said. He was charged with murder 
and kidnapping.

On the morning of July 12, 1 prisoner charged with murder executed in Khoy 
Prison. Identified as Babak Bolughi 24, from Khoy, the convict was arrested 3 
years ago. Khoy is a city and capital of Khoy County, West Azerbaijan Province 
in Iran.

According to Amnesty International's report, among all the recorded executions 
worldwide in 2017, more than 51 % were carried out in Iran.

Although 2nd, behind China in terms of executions, Iran "carried out 84 % of 
the global total number of executions."

The number of executions in Iran last year was 507, "accounting for 60 % of all 
confirmed executions in the region." Of the 507 people executed, "501 were men 
and 6 were women. At least 5 juvenile offenders were executed, and 31 
executions were carried out publicly."

(source: Iran Human Rights)






SRI LANKA:

Prisons reform not executions, the need of the hour?----Former prisons chief 
recounts how gory and gut-wrenching judicial executions can be even for prisons 
officials; prisons officials acknowledge major security lapses, loopholes that 
allow crime to thrive inside prison walls:


Former Prisons Commissioner General, C.T. Jansz has a bitter experience of 
judicial executions carried out during his tenure in the 1950s.

"I remember a prisoner who was scheduled to be hanged was ready to be taken to 
the scaffold. He started reciting gaathas. Seconds after he was hanged, those 
chants faded into silence," Jansz recalled in an interview with the Sunday 
Observer this week.

Jogging his memory about the few hangings he had witnessed during his tenure, 
Jansz explained that the whole prison mourns an execution. The environment 
inside the prison becomes oppressive, the former Commissioner General said, 
because the premises become a funeral house.

"The whole prison mourns," he recalled.

For 42-long years, even prison officials - a generation of them have never 
witnessed an xecution. A moratorium in effect for nearly half a century means 
that the 'expertise' and the stomach for executions may also have faded within 
the Prisons Department over time.

Former Commissioner General Jansz, who has personal experience of such 
executions, recounts a prisoner's final days on death row.

In the last night before execution, the prisoner is allowed to have any meal of 
his choice. Yet, Jansz himself is unable to recall a single prisoner marked for 
execution who had requested a fancy meal. He explains that when someone knows 
his life is about to end, the last thing he may want to do, is eat even the 
fanciest meal. The only thing prisoners in their final moments request were 
access to religious figures, priests or Buddhist monks. Explaining the 
gut-wrenching feelings that grip all those involved when executing a prisoner 
Jansz says that he can only see it as an inhumane act. "Nobody should be 
sentenced to death for any offence. It is something irrevocable and 
unjustifiable," he said. The re-implementation of the capital punishment called 
for by President Sirisena and was acknowledged by the Cabinet has attracted 
criticism locally and internationally.

Tense situation

Amnesty International, one of the foremost human rights activist organizations 
in the world reports a tendency of a decrease in executions all around the 
world. According to their statistics, 23 countries have carried out 993 
executions last year while it was 1,032 and 1,634 in 2016 and 2015 
respectively.

The EU, Canada and Norway have already written to the President Maithripala 
Sirisena requesting further details about this move.

According to reports from within the Prisons Department, the President's move 
had created a tense situation within the prison. It is reported that 18 such 
offenders are to be hung if the punishment is to be imposed.

Thushara Upuldeniya, the media spokesman of Prisons Department also confirmed 
to the Sunday Observer that the Department had sent the list of 18 prisoners to 
the Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms. According to him all 18 offenders 
have completed their appeals and been convicted as wrongdoers by the appeal 
courts.

Last week, the Prison Department called applications to recruit 2 hangmen to 
execute the death sentences.

According to the statistics published by the Department of Prison Sri Lanka, 
2014 was the year that the highest number of drug offences were reported. It 
has accounted up to 11,990 where the composition has been 11,822 males and 168 
females.

In the last 10 years, the trend is that most offenders abuse the drug Heroin. 
In 2007 the percentage of Heroine related offenders has moved from 55 per cent 
to 73 per cent. Meanwhile, Cannabis related cases have been reduced where 44 
per cent. In 2006, 0nly 02 people have been convicted for death and life 
sentence while 32 people have been imposed the same in the year 2012. During 
the time between 2006 to 2016, 179 people have been convicted for either death 
sentence or the life sentence.

Javed Yusuf, a former member of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka says 
dealing with the problem of drugs requires a holistic approach. "You can't 
defeat the drug issue just by executing 6-7 people," he insisted. Yusuf, who 
opposes the re-imposition of the death penalty says, there are fundamental 
inaccuracies stemming from the Government???s move to resume judicial 
executions.

"The decision taken by the Cabinet is not clear, whether this targets all those 
who have received a death sentence due to drug-related activities or only those 
who were engaged in drug trafficking operations within prisons.

Is this selective implementation?" he questioned. However, Justice and Prison 
Reforms Minister Thalatha Athukorala refused the claims of imposing the death 
penalty on those who only possess drugs.

"First of all, we haven't taken any firm decision on re-implementing the death 
penalty again. It's still at discussion stage. Our aim is to hunt the big fish, 
not the sprats. So even if we implement the death penalty we target only those 
who engaged in drug-related operations" she stressed.

Prisoners sentenced to death are kept in a secluded area known as the C3 
section. They are kept in condemned cells. Inmates in solitary confinement are 
allowed to come out at 6 AM to wash and to have breakfast. They take their 
breakfast in the corridor of the wards. Then they are put in the cells again 
and taken out in batches to exercise for about 45 minutes. This continues 
throughout the day. In between they are taken out for lunch.

Prison officials

According to prison officials, considering time, capacity and space death row 
prisoners cannot be given more than 45 minutes to spend outside their cells. 
"It is difficult to put everyone out at the same time. There are fights between 
inmates as there are gangs operating within the prison," a prison official who 
wished not to be named, told the Sunday Observer.

The Welikada prison was built in 1841. At that time they had a system where all 
prisoners were kept in solitary confinement. Welikada only has capacity to 
house 12,000 inmates; however it currently houses over 20,000 and is badly 
overcrowded.

Many argue that rather than implementing the death penalty the government 
should focus on curbing drug related crimes taking place within the prisons, 
the issue which has roused the ire of President Sirisena.

In spite of security measures to maintain order within the prison compound, 
inmates are always a step ahead.

The Welikada prison is equipped with jammers, parcel scanners and walk through 
scan machines. But all these measures are being side-stepped, prison officials 
told Sunday Observer. For example a walk though is installed at the entrance so 
that all inmates returning to prison and newcomers have to walk through it to 
be scanned, but they know that by walking faster they can avoid being detected 
by a scanner. Therefore, whatever is in their body does not get detected.

Prisoners also smuggle in mobile phones by covering them in carbon paper and 
placing them inside a parcel, which makes it difficult to detect. "It is not 
possible to check every inmate and their parcels individually because the 
Department does not have the man-power.

There are practical issues," the official who did not wish to be named 
explained. The communication signal jammers used to block calls from within the 
prison compound also need to upgraded, the official added. "We now have 4th 
generation mobile phones but the jammers installed are older ones hence it 
needs to be upgraded." Jammers are more affective when they are utilized on 
horizontal buildings.

Where there are different layers in the building some areas are not covered, 
called 'shadow areas', by the jammer. "Inmates find these areas to make phone 
calls."

Another system that they had invented is to use the reflective sides of CDs. 
When the CD is held to the signals of the jammer it gets reflected, enabling 
easily to make phone calls. Additionally, the prisons official explained, since 
the Welikada prison is located on a main road which encircles the compound, it 
was not difficult even to put something inside a tennis ball and throw it into 
the prison. The female ward is located next to shanty dwellings making it easy 
to transfer goods in and out of prisons.

(source: Sunday Observer)