[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 27




MIDDLE EAST:

Al-Qaeda vow to avenge beheadings carried out by Saudi Arabia earlier this week 
- claiming the men were executed 'to appease America'

Al Qaeda's Yemen branch is vowing to avenge victims of a mass execution carried 
out by Saudia Arabia this week.

The group's declaration is an indication that some of the 37 Saudis executed on 
terrorism-related charges were members of the Sunni militant group.

Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch is called, posted a statement 
on militant-linked websites on Friday, accusing Saudi of offering the blood of 
the 'noble children of the nation just to appease America.'

The statement says they will 'never forget about their blood and we will avenge 
them'.

US ally Saudi Arabia executed 37 suspects convicted on terrorism-related 
charges on Tuesday.

Most were believed to be Shiites but at least one was believed to be a Sunni 
militant.

His body was pinned to a pole in public as a warning to others.

The victims of the mass execution pleaded with judges before being killed, 
saying that their confessions were false and obtained under torture, trial 
documents revealed.

Of the 37 men beheaded on Tuesday, many had attempted to convince the courts 
they had been tortured and even pledged their loyalty to King Salman in 
desperation.

The body of one of was crucified after his execution and put on public display, 
according to local media reports.

Some of those executed on terror charges included men who were just teenagers 
when they were arrested for attending protests.

Court documents obtained by CNN from trials for 34 of the men showed many had 
repeatedly denied the veracity of their 'confessions.'

Fourteen were convicted of forming a 'terror cell' in the city of Awamiya after 
anti-government demonstrations in 2011 and 2012.

One of the condemned - Munir al-Adam - is recorded as saying: 'Those aren't my 
words. I didn't write a letter. This is defamation written by the interrogator 
with his own hand.'

Al-Adam was just 23 when he was arrested at a government checkpoint in April 
2012.

He was beaten on the soles of his feet and had to crawl on his hands and knees 
for days.

As a 5-year-old boy he had lost his hearing in one ear following an accident, 
but after torture he lost hearing in the other and was left totally deaf. The 
27-year-old was executed on Tuesday.

Two of those beheaded were just 16 and 17 when they were arrested - including 
one who was set to start a new life in the US at Western Michigan University.

Mujtaba al-Sweikat, then 17, was severely beaten all over his body, including 
on the soles of his feet, before 'confessing' to crimes including attending 
protests in 2012.

In 2017, staff at the university said the English language and pre-finance 
studies student showed 'great promise' and called for him to be released.

Abdulkarim al-Hawaj, 21, was the youngest executed, 4 years after being 
arrested in the country's Shia-majority Eastern province for spreading 
information about protests on WhatsApp.

Under international law, putting to death anyone who was under 18 at the time 
of the crime is strictly prohibited.

Human rights charity Reprieve said al-Hawaj was beaten, tortured with 
electricity and chained with his hands above his head until he 'confessed' to 
his crimes.

Reprieve said both men were sentenced to death at the end of 'sham trials' when 
they were denied access to lawyers.

It claimed they were held for months in solitary confinement and their 
convictions were solely based on their 'confessions' which were extracted under 
torture.

At his trial, al-Hawaj was convicted on cyber crime charges including spreading 
information on WhatsApp 'as proscribed by the cyber crime bill' and sentenced 
to death.

Another victim, Hussein Mohammed al-Musallam, said in court: 'Nothing in these 
confessions is correct and I cannot prove that I was forced to do it. But 
medical reports ... show the effects of torture on my body.'

State-run media said on Tuesday those executed had 'adopted extremist 
ideologies and formed terrorist cells with the aim of spreading chaos and 
provoking sectarian strife'.

The U.N. human rights chief condemned the beheadings, saying most were minority 
Shi'ite Muslims who may not have had fair trials and at least three were minors 
when sentenced.

The sentences were carried out in Riyadh, the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and 
Medina, central Qassim province and Eastern Province, home to the country's 
Shiite minority.

Three other prisoners who were under 18 at the time of their alleged crimes, 
Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher, remain on death row.

Al-Marhoon told Reprieve he was tortured and made to sign a blank document, to 
which Saudi officials then added his 'confession'.

Those who were executed on Tuesday had been sentenced 'for adopting terrorist 
and extremist thinking and for forming terrorist cells to corrupt and 
destabilise security', a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency 
(SPA) said

. Executions in the ultra-conservative kingdom are usually carried out by 
beheading.

At least 100 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of 
the year, according to a count based on official data released by SPA.

Last year, the oil-rich Gulf state carried out the death sentences of 149 
people, according to Amnesty International, which said only Iran was known to 
have executed more people.

Rights experts have repeatedly raised concerns about the fairness of trials in 
Saudi Arabia, governed under a strict form of Islamic law.

People convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug 
trafficking face the death penalty, which the government says is a deterrent 
for further crime.

The US government commission on religious freedom on Friday urged action 
against ally Saudi Arabia after its mass execution of 37 people, most of them 
Shiite Muslims.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, whose members are 
appointed by the president and lawmakers across party lines but whose role is 
advisory, said the State Department 'must stop giving a free pass' to Saudi 
Arabia.

The State Department, in a congressionally mandated annual report, classifies 
Saudi Arabia among its 'countries of particular concern' for violations of 
religious freedom, which would normally require the United States to take 
punitive actions such as imposing economic sanctions.

But successive secretaries of state have each year issued waivers on punishing 
Saudi Arabia, citing national security interests.

'The Saudi government's execution of minority Shia Muslims on the basis of 
their religious identity and peaceful activism is not only shocking, but also 
directly contradicts the government's official narrative of working toward 
greater modernization and improving religious freedom conditions,' the 
commission's chair, Tenzin Dorjee, said in a statement as the commission urged 
an end to the waivers.

Saudi Arabia practices a puritanical Wahabi ideology, with the latest State 
Department report on religious freedom pointing to a 'pattern of societal 
prejudice and discrimination' against the Shiite minority and a ban on the 
practice of any faith besides Islam.

Human rights groups say that nearly all of the Saudi citizens beheaded on 
Tuesday were Shiite, with 1 crucified after death.

The UN human rights chief said that at least three were minors when charged.

President Donald Trump has vowed to preserve a close relationship with Saudi 
Arabia, pointing to its major purchases of US weapons, its giant oil exports 
and its hostility toward US rival Iran.

Trump has not commented on the executions, although the State Department said 
it urged 'Saudi Arabia and all governments' to respect freedom of religion.

(source: dailymail.co.uk)








IRAN:

Forgiveness: A Growing Anti-Death Penalty Movement in Iran



With 253 executions in 2018—including six people executed for offenses they 
allegedly committed as children—Iran is still among the world’s leading 
executioners, according to Amnesty International’s recent annual report on 
global trends in executions. Yet executions in Iran dropped by half last year, 
from 507 in 2017.

The significant reduction is mostly attributable to the reform of Iran’s 
draconian drug law that went into force in late 2017. The long-awaited 
amendment had originally sought to outlaw executions for all nonviolent drug 
offenses. After legislative battles, the final version did not go so far, but 
it substantially raised the amount of drugs the suspect was found to possess 
for a mandatory death penalty. Since January 2018, the Iranian judiciary has 
largely halted executions for drug offenses as they review the cases of 15,000 
convicts on death row.

The change in the law comes after almost a decade of advocacy on the ground and 
pressure from international human rights bodies. But there is also a parallel 
movement inside Iran largely outside traditional human rights work—led by 
charities and celebrities as well as some judiciary officials—that appears to 
be changing Iranian views about the death penalty.

Before the drug-law amendment, the majority of executions were for drug related 
offenses. With the new law in force, it appears that the majority of those 
executed in 2018 had been convicted of intentional murder under the qisas 
principle, an Islamic principle that translates as retribution in kind. Under 
the qisas principle, the victim’s heirs can seek the death penalty, or instead 
forgive and request “blood money,” in which case the judge can sentence the 
accused to up to ten years in prison.

Over the years in Iranian civil society’s fight against the death penalty, 
activists have tried to convince the families of the victims to forgive as a 
means of last resort. Over the past decade, these efforts have increased, 
leading to at least 200 cases of forgiveness each year for the past four years. 
In 2018, Iran Human Rights, a nongovernmental group based in Norway, reported 
an increase in the movement to encourage families to forgive, recording 272 
such cases—almost the same as the number of recorded executions. The real 
number of cases in which the families forgive is most likely higher.

Judicial officials also encourage forgiving, but the heart of the movement has 
been activists, charity workers and journalists. Groups such as Imam Ali 
Society and other associations that support prisoners—as well as independent 
activists—have worked across the country to mediate between families of victims 
and the accused in informal settings to convince the victims’ heirs to forego 
executions. In return, families often ask for blood money. The official 
government rate for blood money for an adult male is around $55,000 (USD), but 
families can ask for whatever amount they want.

Many of the accused’s families cannot afford those payments—GDP per capita was 
just $5,600 in Iran in 2017—and charity workers and activists often join forces 
with celebrities such as actors and soccer players to raise the funds. Every 
year, activists organize fund-raising events in which celebrities—and in 
exceptional cases, government officials—participate.

Shahindokht Molaverdi, the former vice president for women and family affairs, 
participated in some of the fund-raising efforts when she was in office. In 
December, Asghar Farhadi—the Iranian film director and 2-time Oscar 
winner—along with Rakhshan Bani Etemad—another respected film 
director—organized a screening to raise funds for 2 people on death row for 
crimes they allegedly committed as children.

Iranian journalists have also made a difference by reporting on the 
irreversible harm executions cause to families, particularly in the case of 
juvenile offenders. Newspapers have also featured interviews with families who 
have chosen not to ask for the death penalty, expressing their peace with their 
decision.

Many efforts have been focused on child offenders and women who are accused of 
killing their husbands. They have not saved everyone. At least 180 people were 
executed for murder in 2018 and Amnesty International estimates that 90 people 
are on death row in Iran for crimes they committed as children.

International law restricts the imposition of the death penalty—in countries 
that choose to retain it—for the most serious crimes such as murder and 
completely bans it for crimes committed by children. Human Rights Watch and 
many other groups, as well as the European Union, oppose the death penalty 
because it is inherently cruel and irreversible. In this framework, requiring 
families to forgive is not a sufficient or real alternative to abolishing the 
death penalty.

Rights should not depend on public opinion, but today Iranian society is more 
informed about the irreversible harm of executions, particularly with regard to 
children, thanks to the work of activists. The movement is saving lives and 
playing an important role in changing public opinion about executions in Iran. 
The government may not abolish the death penalty tomorrow, but it should heed 
the activists’ calls and take the next step toward that goal today, by 
categorically imposing a moratorium on executing people for crimes they 
allegedly committed as children.

(source: Human Rights Watch)