[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 30




INDIA:

State to drop its law on death penalty for child rapists


The Haryana Government has decided not to pursue a Bill that the Assembly 
passed 3 months ago and that provides for death penalty to those guilty of 
raping girls aged 12 years or less. Instead, the government will adopt the 
Central legislation in this regard after it is passed.

Sources say it was decided to drop the state legislation in favour of the 
Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018, which will was promulgated on April 21 
following an outcry over the rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua (Jammu 
and Kashmir) and the rape of a woman in Unnao (Uttar Pradesh).

The essence of the state and Central legislations is the same, while the latter 
is more comprehensive, the sources say.

"There are 2 categories in the Centre's law. While death penalty for raping a 
12-year-old girl or less remains, the Centre has provided for 2 months each for 
investigation and trial, making it time bound. There was no such provision in 
the state's legislation," an officer said.

Haryana was the 3rd state after Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to pass a Bill 
providing death penalty for child rapists. The Criminal Law (Haryana Amendment) 
Bill, 2018, was moved in the Assembly on the last day of the Budget session and 
passed unanimously.

Haryana had introduced Section 376-AA, under an amendment, stating that in case 
of rape of a girl up to 12 years of age, there will be a punishment of death or 
rigorous imprisonment of not less than 14 years which may extend to life 
imprisonment for the remainder period of the person's natural life, according 
to the legislation.

Section 376-DA was also added after Section 376-D of the IPC. Under Section 
376-DA, if a girl up to 12 years of age is raped by 1 or more persons 
constituting a group, each of those persons shall be deemed to have committed 
rape and will be punished with death or rigorous imprisonment for a term which 
will not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to life along with a fine.

The Bill also provided for making the existing criminal laws related to other 
sexual offences sterner with imprisonment not less than 2 years (earlier not 
less than 1 year) extending up to 7 years (earlier up to 5 years) for assault 
or criminal force against women with an intent to outrage her modesty.

Also, those found guilty of stalking would be punished on 1st conviction with 
imprisonment up to 3 years. They could be punished on a 2nd or subsequent 
conviction with imprisonment for not less than 3 years, but which may extend to 
7 years (earlier up to 5 years). The new additions also include provisions of 
fining the convict and any such fine will be paid to the victim.

Haryana, however, has now decided to adopt the Central legislation once it gets 
the nod of the Parliament.

(source: tribuneindia.com)

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

India needs 1,023 special courts to try cases of rape and child rape: Law Min


A little over 1,000 'fast track special courts' need to be set up across India 
as part of a new scheme to try cases related to rape of children and women, the 
Law Ministry has estimated.

These courts are to be set up as part of a larger scheme to strengthen 
infrastructure for better investigation and swift prosecution in such cases.

The Department of Justice in the Law Ministry has estimated an expenditure of 
Rs 767.25 to set up these special courts. The Centre will have to shell out Rs 
474 crore as central funding, the department has told the Ministry of Home 
Affairs (MHA).

" ... It is estimated that a total of 1,023 FTSCs (fast track special courts) 
are required to be set up for disposing of rape and the Protection of Children 
from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act cases with an estimated expenditure of Rs 
767.25 crore out of which Rs 464 crore as central funding on the pattern of 
centrally sonsored scheme," said a Law Ministry document.

The details worked out by it have been forwarded to the MHA.

The new scheme is part of an ordinance recently promulgated to allow courts to 
award death penalty to those convicted of raping children aged up to 12 years.

The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Ordinance amended the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 
the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the Evidence Act and the POCSO Act.

While bringing out the ordinance, the government had decided to frame a scheme 
to set up an "appropriate" number of fast track courts to try rape cases in the 
states.

The scheme will include components, including strengthening of the physical 
infrastructure and prosecution machinery, provision of the required number of 
judicial officers for lower courts, additional posts of public prosecutors, 
dedicated investigators and special forensic kits.

A senior government functionary said as many as 524 fast-track courts are 
already functional in the country to try cases related to women, SCs and STs, 
the marginalised and senior citizens.

Quoting a written response of Law Minster Ravi Shankar Prasad in Parliament in 
March 2017, the functionary pointed out that of the 524 fast track courts, 100 
are in Maharashtra, 83 in Uttar Pradesh, 39 in Tamil Nadu, 38 in Andhra Pradesh 
and 34 in Telangana.

The special fast track courts proposed now as part of the ordinance would 
specifically deal with rape and child rape cases, the functionary said.

In April, the government had issued an ordinance to provide stringent 
punishment, including death, for those convicted of raping minors up to the age 
of 12 years, amid a nationwide outrage over cases of sexual assault and the 
murder of minors in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua and Gujarat's Surat, and the 
rape of a girl in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.

New fast-track courts will be set up to deal with such cases and special 
forensic kits for rape cases will be given to all police stations and hospitals 
in the long term, according to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance.

It stipulates stringent punishment for perpetrators of rape, particularly of 
girls below 16 and 12 years. The death sentence has been provided for rapists 
of girls under 12 years.

The measure also provides for speedy investigation and trial. The time limit 
for investigation of all cases of rape has been prescribed and has to be now 
completed within 2 months.

The deadline for the completion of trial in all rape cases will be 2 months, 
officials said. A 6-month time limit for the disposal of appeals in rape cases 
has also been prescribed.

New posts of public prosecutors will be created and special forensic kits for 
rape cases given to all police stations and hospitals in the long term, the 
officials said.

Dedicated manpower will be provided for investigation of rape cases in a 
time-bound manner.

Special forensic labs exclusively for rape cases would also come up in each 
state.

(source: business-standard.com)






GAZA STRIP:

4 Death Sentences in 1 Month; 2 Death Sentences Issued Against 2 Civilians in 
the Gaza Strip


On 26 July 2018, Gaza Court of First Instance issued 2 death sentences by 
hanging against (G. H.) and (Z. Q.) from Gaza City, after being convicted of 
participation in murder. This sentence comes after Palestine's signing the 
instrument of its accession to the Additional Protocol of the 1989 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in last June.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns issuing death 
sentences, especially in light of absence of fair trial guarantees in the Gaza 
Strip. PCHR reiterates is calls upon the Palestinian President to issue a 
Presidential decree to halt the death penalty until pending the necessary 
amendments in the local laws.

It should be noted that this sentence is the 2nd to be issued against a woman 
in the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a previous 1 was issued against a woman in 
2016, but it was not executed yet.

In 2018, the number of death sentences issued has so far risen to 5 sentences, 
4 of them were issued by courts of first instance, and 1 was issued by the 
Court of Appeal, upholding a previous sentence. Thus, the total number of death 
sentences issued in the PA controlled areas has risen to 207 since 1994, 30 of 
which have been issued in the West Bank and 177 in the Gaza Strip. Among those 
issued in the Gaza Strip, 119 sentences have been issued since 2007.

Since the establishment of the PA, 41 death sentences were applied, 39 of which 
were in the Gaza Strip and two in the West Bank. Among the sentences applied in 
the Gaza Strip, 28 were applied since 2007 without the ratification of the 
Palestinian President in violation of the law.

PCHR express its continued condemnation of such inhuman punishment in light of 
absence of fair trial guarantees and calls upon the judiciary in Gaza not to 
use such sentence until it is abolished in the necessary legal form.

PCHR calls upon the Palestinian President to make immediate amendments in the 
Penal Codes applicable in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, especially the 
Penal Law No. 74 (1936) which remains in effect in the Gaza Strip, and the 
Jordanian Penal Code No. 16 (1960) that is in effect in the West Bank. PCHR 
retreats is calls to halt the application of 1979 Revolutionary Penal Code as 
it is unconstitutional.

(source: Palestinian Center for Human Rights)






BAHAMAS:

Capital punishment debate continues


Noted attorney Wayne Munroe Q.C. questioned Sunday why the government would 
have to take the matter of capital punishment to a referendum noting that 
simple amendments to existing legislation would be a better option.

His comments came after it was revealed by Attorney General Carl Bethel last 
week that Bahamian public will most likely decide via a referendum on how The 
Bahamas will proceed with capital punishment.

Former representative of Amnesty International R.E. Barnes, who presently 
serves as secretary of Better Caribbean Life which focuses solely on capital 
punishment in the region, however, said capital punishment should be removed as 
an option for punishment as the organization believes that reform can be 
achieved.

Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis said last Sunday that he remains a firm 
supporter of the death penalty.

The government was expected to make amendments to the Juries Bill, which deals 
with certain provisions regarding the death penalty, before taking its summer 
recess. However, that did not happen.

(source: ewnews.com)






UNITED KINGDOM:

Behind the Isis 'Beatle' Elsheikh is a story of breakdown and despair----I am 
distantly connected to El Shafee Elsheikh, and I know his execution would do 
nothing to solve the root causes of radicalisation


The 1st time I saw El Shafee Elsheikh's name in the British media, it took me a 
while to make the link between this Islamic State terrorist - said to be a 
member of the so-called Isis Beatles - and the stories I'd heard about the 
misfortunes of a Sudanese woman called Maha whose boys were losing their way in 
London.

The Elsheikhs were a distant part of my extended family circle in Sudan before 
they sought asylum in the UK. I never met any of them, but they were spoken of 
often, long before the brothers were radicalised, as a family that had fallen 
through the cracks in exile. The irony in the Elsheikh story is that the 
parents were communists who fled to the UK from the persecution of an Islamist 
regime that came to power in Sudan in 1989. A whole middle-class generation 
left the country in the early 90s, either out of fear for their safety after 
they refused to support the regime, or because they were too liberal and 
progressive. Many struggled to thrive once they fled.

His story has no arc, is merely one of self-righteous violence with a banal 
origin, and it should be treated that way

The Elsheikh family stories came through regularly, traded in the salons of 
Khartoum. It was unkind gossip from those who had stayed behind to suffer under 
the iron fist of the military, sneery and gloating at their lack of success. 
The parents had separated shortly after arriving in the UK and the mother, 
Maha, and her 3 boys lived in a west London council estate. 2 of the boys began 
to stray into gang violence, their close threesome shattered when the eldest 
was sent to jail for a decade for firearm possession during a plot to murder a 
boy who had stabbed El Shafee several times in a fight.

El Shafee fell under the influence of an imam version of the Pied Piper, who 
set him on the path to radicalisation, and ultimately to the torturers of Isis. 
El Shafee's younger brother, left alone with his mother, followed him to Syria 
and was dead within a year. El Shafee, on the other hand, rose high in the Isis 
ranks.

He allegedly became part of the "Beatles", the gang of torturers and 
executioners that also included "Jihadi John". The sobriquets and breathless 
media coverage of this gang of 4, wielding their weapons as they bantered in 
masks and London accents, jarred with the sad, small life lived by misfit boys 
in west London that had been gossiped about among their parents' peers.

This is not a glamorous story with a coherent thread, it is a story of 
political failure in Sudan and social failure in the UK, underscored by family 
breakdown. It is a story of poverty, urban drift and atomisation. And it is a 
story of how some preachers in London???s mosques stalk the city, picking up 
fatherless, disenchanted boys.

So it is unsettling to hear the way Elsheikh's narrative is being retold today 
- giving him the chance of glamorous martyrdom at the hands of Isis's great 
satan, the United States, with the UK happy to assist without any assurances 
against the death penalty being enforced. This is a mistake. Not out of any 
sympathy for Elsheikh or his fellow jihadis - they chose their path - but 
because to strip them of citizenship and condemn them to death gives them a 
shot at the jihadi big time. And it fuels the idea of a western enemy that 
claims to have values but jettisons them whenever is convenient. This is the 
west of Guantanamo Bay, of extrajudicial torture and execution.

Elsheikh draws his lifeblood from this. Since his arrest in Syria, he's been 
happy to give interviews, seething with anger against his FBI interrogators - 
according to him "the least respectable of the bunch" of parties that 
interviewed him. He rails against his statelessness and how it guarantees 
mistreatment at American hands.

UK waits on legal challenge over death penalty for Isis pair Already he is an 
embarrassment to the British government. His mother launched a legal bid last 
week to stop Britain handing over evidence to US authorities. The Home Office, 
which had until then cooperated with the US, paused its assistance - 
potentially saving Elsheikh's life. It is the first time in the legal 
proceedings since he and another alleged former "Beatle" Alexanda Kotey were 
arrested in Syria that authorities have intervened on behalf of British due 
process. The British government seems happy to wash its hands of the whole 
affair. The home secretary, Sajid Javid, in a leaked letter to the US 
attorney-general Jeff Sessions, states that the government "does not currently 
intend to request, nor actively encourage" the transfer of Kotey and Elsheikh 
to Britain, allowing the US retribution machine to take over.

It seems we have in this country defaulted to some of the American way of 
dealing with Islamist radicalisation, in that we imbue it with an exceptional 
sort of criminality, something that requires a public square lynching. Only a 
month ago, it was revealed that British intelligence had been involved in 
hundreds of illegal rendition or torture cases. This plays into all the 
narratives that nourish radicalisation, that spin elaborate tales to convince 
people such as Elsheikh that they are not merely gangsters. The whole purpose 
of joining Isis is to inflict as much damage and pain as possible against its 
self-appointed enemy, before succumbing to crucifixion and in the process, earn 
an identity, an arc, some meaning.

Elsheikh's story has no arc or meaning, it is merely one of self-righteous 
violence with a banal origin, and it should be treated that way. The crimes he 
and Kotey are accused of are horrific and, though it is tempting to look for a 
jurisdiction that metes out maximum punishment, to do so gives them too much 
credit. They would become 2 more names to be used in the Isis propaganda of 
victimhood, of heroism in the face of barbarism. Handing them over boosts them 
and diminishes us.

(source: Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist)






JAPAN:

Haruki Murakami 'cannot oppose' death penalty for doomsday cult 
killers----Japanese novelist, whose book Underground charted the impact of the 
1995 sarin gas attack, says he is unable to argue with judicial killing in this 
case

The Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has said that he cannot publicly oppose 
Japan's execution of the doomsday cult members behind the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas 
attack, despite being against the death penalty.

In a rare essay, published in the Mainichi Shimbun on Sunday, Murakami said 
that "as a general argument, I adopt a stance of opposition toward the death 
penalty", pointing to the number of wrongful convictions which mean that "the 
death penalty, literally, can be described as an institution with fatal 
dangers".

But the author, who interviewed survivors and cult members about the sarin 
attack for his 1997 non-fiction book Underground, said that after speaking to 
those who were injured and those who lost loved ones, "I cannot publicly state, 
as far as this case is concerned, 'I am opposed to death penalty.'"

The Aum Shinrikyo cult's attack on the Tokyo subway killed 13 people and left 
more than 6,000 ill. The group's former leader, Shoko Asahara, was hanged on 6 
July along with 6 other members, with a further 6 members executed last week.

Murakami said that it was not possible to say that the executions were "right", 
but he believes they will not provide closure to those affected by Aum 
Shinrikyo's attack. "If there was any intention of 'bringing a closure to those 
cases', or an ulterior motive of making the institution called the death 
penalty a more permanent one by using this opportunity, that is wrong, and the 
existence of such a strategy must never be allowed," he wrote.

The novelist said that writing Underground changed "something inside me", and 
spending time listening to the sentencing of the cult members made him feel 
"like a blunt weight was inside my chest".

Following the news that all of the 13 death row inmates have been executed, "I 
similarly feel the existence of that weight in my chest", wrote Murakami. "A 
heavy silence that defies words exists inside me. The death that appeared in 
the courtroom took away its share."

(source: The Guardian)






CHINA:

Father gets death for slaying doctor


A father from Shandong province whose newborn daughter died in a hospital has 
been sentenced to death for killing the doctor who treated her.

Chen Jianli, 30, was convicted of the intentional homicide of pediatrician Li 
Baohua at Laiwu Intermediate People's Court.

"He stabbed the doctor to vent his anger in a public place and used cruel means 
to kill innocent medical personnel, resulting in great harm to people's 
personal safety and a negative social impact. We have given him the death 
penalty," the court said in a statement on Sunday.

The killer has also been deprived of his political rights, it added.

Chen's daughter was born in a hospital in Laiwu in February 2016. The baby 
developed a fever the next day and was transferred to the pediatric ward for 
treatment, but she died, the court said.

Prosecutors said the father blamed Li and the hospital for the death, and he 
sought compensation from both on numerous occasions. When he failed, he decided 
to get revenge, the court said.

One morning in October 2016, Chen rode a motorcycle to the hospital. On the way 
he stopped to buy a machete, which he hid in his green canvas bag. Once at the 
hospital, he went directly to the pediatric ward on the fifth floor and found 
Li in a break room.

He questioned Li about his daughter's death and the compensation issue. When 
the doctor did not reply, Chen took out the machete and struck Li in the head 
as the doctor was answering a phone call.

Li died at the scene, and Chen was detained by police in the hospital.

In recent days, a number of violent attacks on doctors have occurred across the 
country, attracting attention from the public and media.

Judicial authorities say they have ramped up efforts to punish assailants and 
have taken a zero-tolerance attitude toward such crimes.

Last week, the Supreme People's Court held a meeting about judicial reform in 
which it was decided that people who violently target medical personnel, or who 
are involved in activities that endanger food or drug safety, will be severely 
punished.

"In China, lots of patients face difficulties in seeing doctors and paying 
medical fees," said Li Wei, a lawyer with the Beijing Lawyers Association. 
"Patients and doctors don't have enough trust in each other, which contributes 
to the high incidence of violence targeting medical personnel.

"Authorities should adopt comprehensive measures and take the time needed to 
solve the problem thoroughly," she said.

(source: china.org.cn)