[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 3


CAMEROON:

Faced with Boko Haram, Cameroon weighs death penalty for terrorism


Lawmakers in Cameroon, which is battling to stop the advance of Nigerian Boko 
Haram militants on its territory, will vote in the coming days on whether to 
impose the death penalty on those found guilty of involvement in acts of 
terrorism.

Opposition figures accused the government of seeking to use the proposed law, 
which they say is too broad in scope, to criminalize opposition to President 
Paul Biya's 32-year rule.

Boko Haram fighters have made repeated incursions into the rugged Far North 
region of Cameroon in recent months. They have clashed with Cameroonian 
soldiers sent to the border to stop them and are blamed for dozens of deaths 
and kidnappings there.

Cameroonian officials also fear the Islamist group is targeting young men in 
the impoverished north for recruitment.

"The draft law provides the ultimate penalty, the death penalty, for anyone who 
personally, in complicity or under coercion commits a terrorist act," 
Parliament Speaker Cavaye Yeguie Djibril said.

Though Cameroon has not carried out an execution since 1997, according to 
Amnesty International, the bill received loud applause from some members of 
parliament when it was introduced on Tuesday.

But some in the opposition see it as an attempt by the president to tighten his 
grip on power.

"This text seems obviously to be his response to the popular uprisings that 
have led to the fall of regimes in several African countries and in particular 
Burkina Faso," said Maurice Kamto, a former deputy justice minister turned 
opposition figure.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets in Burkina Faso in 
October, forcing President Blaise Compaore to step down and flee the country 
after 27 years in power.

Cameroon has reinforced its military presence on its northeastern border as 
part of regional efforts to combat Boko Haram. This week it announced it had 
trained a special commando unit of around 850 soldiers to fight the militants.

Cameroon also faces growing insecurity along its eastern border with Central 
African Republic.

(source: Reuters)






EGYPT:

Egypt Death Penalty: Why Human Rights Group Denounce The Egyptian Judiciary's 
Mass Execution Verdict?


On Tuesday, an Egyptian criminal court gave the death penalty verdict to 188 
people accused for killing police force members in an Aug. 14, 2013 attack on a 
Kerdassa police station located on the outskirts of Cairo. The accused were 
found guilty of killing the policemen on the day security forces powerfully 
dispersed 2 pro-Morsi protests in Cairo that left hundreds of demonstrators' 
fatalities.

The Egypt death penalty verdict was handed down after the accused were found 
guilty for the 2013 attack known as the "Kerdassa Massacre" that had killed 11 
police officers and 2 civilians. During the police operation, DW News reported 
almost 700 people died where security forces violently dispersed supporters of 
ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The death penalties in Egypt on Dec. 2 are preliminary and need to be approved 
by the nation's highest Muslim religious authority called the "Grand Mufti." 
The final decision of the court's verdict is expected to be announced on 
January.

Meanwhile, international human rights group denounced Egypt on Wednesday over 
the court's decision for mass executions of 188 Islamists. Human Rights Watch 
(HRW) said Judge Nagi Shehata imposed the sentences after he convicted all the 
defendants of participating in an August 2013 attack on a police station in the 
governorate of Giza.

"Mass death sentences are fast losing Egypt's judiciary whatever reputation for 
independence it once had," HRW Middle East and North Africa director Sarah Leah 
Whitson said. "Instead of weighing the evidence against each person, judges are 
convicting defendants en masse without regard for fair trial standards."

The provisional death penalty verdict came just days after an Egyptian court on 
Saturday cited a procedural technicality to dismiss charges against former 
president Hosni Mubarak, who had been accused of killing protesters during the 
2011 uprising. The New York Times reported rights advocates disputed the 
decision saying it captured the systemic bias of the Egyptian courts.

"It is just one more piece of evidence that the judiciary is just a political 
tool the government uses to prosecute its enemies and free the people it wants 
to be freed," Whitson stated.

Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been sentenced by Egyptian courts to 
drawn-out prison terms. The Daily Star said several were also sentenced death 
penalties after speedy mass trials that the United Nations called 
"unprecedented in recent history."

The Egypt death penalties on Tuesday were also slammed by Amnesty International 
(AI).

"It is quite telling that the sentencing... was handed down in the same week 
that the case against former president Hosni Mubarak was dropped," AI's Deputy 
Director for the Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director Hassiba Hadj 
Sahrouai said. "This is blatantly a case of justice being meted out based on a 
political whim."

Of the 188 defendants sentenced to death penalty by the Egyptian court, 135 
were present in custody while 53 others were tried and sentenced in absentia. 
Shehata set a Jan. 24 court date to finalize the verdicts.

(source: jobsnhire.com)






BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh war crimes convict contests death term in SC


The Supreme Court of Bangladesh will hear war crimes accused Ali Ahsan Mohammad 
Mujaheed's appeal against death penalty Jan 14. The 5-member appellate division 
of the apex court led by Chief Justice Mohammad Muzammel Hossain fixed the date 
Wednesday, bdnews24.com reported.

Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general and former Al-Badr commander Mujaheed moved 
the appellate division Aug 11, 2013, challenging the verdict which ruled him to 
be "hanged by the neck" for unleashing his ruthless militia on unarmed 
intellectuals and for mass murders that he planned and executed during the 
Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.

The International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) sentenced Mujaheed to death July 
17, 2013, after finding him guilty of 5 of the 7 charges levelled against him.

The ICT is a specially constituted court set up to prosecute those who 
committed war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War.

(source: Business Standard)


PAKISTAN:

Death Sentence For Pakistan Woman Turned On Technicality


The Pakistan court that a month ago said Aasiya Noreen, a Christian, must die 
for the crime of insulting Islam, based its ruling on a legal technicality that 
it now wants to eliminate.

The Lahore High Court, an appeals court for Pakistan's largest province, had 
decided Oct. 16 that it would let stand the 2010 conviction of Noreen, a 
day-labor berry picker whose argument with a Muslim coworker blew up into a 
highly charged test of the country's anti-blasphemy laws, which are widely 
criticized abroad but popular among voters in the Muslim-majority nation.

The appeals judges now explain they had no choice, given the way Pakistan's 
laws are written, and have turned to lawmakers to craft legislation that would 
empower trial courts to apply a test that would make future blasphemy 
convictions much more difficult to achieve. That test was not in place when 
Noreen, popularly known as Asia Bibi, was tried.

The High Court's detailed legal reasoning, as well as its intention to close 
the loophole through which it says Noreen has fallen, is contained in a Nov. 5 
written decision that was not available on Oct. 16 when the court ruled from 
the bench that her original conviction will stand. In Pakistan, blasphemy 
against Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, carries the requirement of the death 
penalty, though it has never been carried out.

The written judgment was released the day after a Pakistani Christian couple 
was brutally murderedafter an alleged blasphemy.

"The bench has referred the case to the executive for consideration after 
identifying a legal glitch," said Abid Saqi, former President of Lahore High 
Court Bar Association.

That glitch, he said, involves a legal principle found in Islamic law called 
tazkiya al shuhood. It requires accusers to meet strict standards of Islamic 
piety, and it came into play when Noreen's lawyer, Naeem Shakir, embarked on an 
unconventional legal strategy: To attempt to subject his Christian client to 
Islamic law rather than Pakistan's secular laws.

Pakistan's Federal Shariat Court, which determines whether the country's laws 
comply with the principles of Islam, declared in 1990 that insulting the 
prophet qualifies as hadd - a category of crimes and punishments prescribed in 
the Qur'an and the tradition of the Prophet. Accordingly, the only acceptable 
penalty is death, the Shariat Court ruled.

And that, in turn, requires the strictest standards of evidence, or tazkiya al 
shuhood, Shakir argued to the Lahore High Court in October. He pointed to a 
1992 decision by the Pakistan Supreme Court, which ruled that "[w]hat the 
expression tazkiya al shuhoodsignifies and connotes is to require elaborate 
enquiry into the piety, uprightness and integrity of the witness from the men 
of the same virtues."

Those stringent barriers were not used at Noreen's 2010 court trial, rendering 
the conviction invalid, Shakir argued.

In their written ruling released Nov. 5, High Court judges Muhammad Anwaarul 
Haq and Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi upheld Noreen's conviction and death penalty 
based largely on a shoddy trial defense that failed to cross-examine 
prosecution witnesses. Left unchallenged, the prosecution's case prevailed by 
default, the appeals judges said.

Noreen's trial lawyer, S.K. Chaudhry, who also was present at the appeal 
hearing, had previously said he dared not speak the allegedly blasphemous 
remarks to Noreen's accusers in court, lest he be accused of blasphemy himself.

The High Court's ruling brushed aside the 1992 Supreme Court guidance on 
tazkiya al shuhood, saying the accused in that case had been acquitted on the 
merits of the evidence even without the benefit of the stricter standards, 
leaving open the question of whether those standards ought to be employed 
generally.

The ruling was silent on the question of haddin Noreen's case and whether the 
attendant higher legal barriers to prosecution ought to have been employed. The 
judges did, however, suggest the trial court could have made that determination 
if it had been equipped with guidelines for applying the legal test:

"In the absence of any corresponding amendment in procedural law for testing 
credibility of a witness at such a higher standard, the principle of Tazkiyah 
al Shuhood cannot be applied in other cases," the ruling said. It expressed the 
"utmost necessity for necessary corresponding amendments in procedural law for 
the proof of an offence where only sentence provided is death."

The judges ordered that the Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights transmit 
the court's request to the Pakistan government.

If the government complies with the High Court's request - a separate matter 
entirely -- blasphemy defendants in Pakistan theoretically could place nearly 
insurmountable barriers in front of accusers. Those barriers might have 
prevented a Lahore trial court from handing down a death sentence in March to 
Sawan Masih, accused of insulting the Prophet during a night of drinking and 
conversation with a Muslim friend in 2013. 2 days after their conversation, 
thousands of Muslims looted and torched Christian homes and churches throughout 
Lahore's Joseph Colony, displacing hundreds of families.

Drinking liquor is punishable under Islamic law. The tazkiyah al shuhood 
standard, demanding strict adherence to Islamic principles from witnesses, 
presumably would have disqualified the testimony of Masih's accuser.

Placing the matter in the hands of Pakistan lawmakers opens the possibility of 
renewed public debate over an extremely sensitive issue for the country. 
Politicians have been killed for speaking out in favor of reform.

Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi, a staunch supporter of Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws, 
nonetheless told World Watch Monitor he views the High Court's request 
favorably. "In all cases, the evidence must meet the standards prescribed in 
the Islamic jurisprudence," said Ashrafi, chairman of the Pakistan Ulema 
Council, a body of Islamic clerics and scholars.

However, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, a lawyer who represented Noreen's accuser, 
said there's no need to expand the application of tazkiyah al shuhood.

"The current anti-blasphemy laws were perfectly fine and there is no need to 
introduce any procedural amendment in them," Chaudhry told World Watch Monitor.

Chaudhry, president of the Khatme Nabuwat (Finality of Prophethood) Lawyers' 
Forum, said in death penalty cases, a superintendent of police is appointed to 
collect evidence. "Junior officers can do hanky-panky but not senior officers 
of the SP post. So enquiry by them already means a high standard of evidence," 
he said.

"If one really insists on the tazkiyah al shuhood standard of evidence then it 
shouldn't just apply on witnesses, the [judge] should also be appointed based 
on the Islamic standards not the way our current judges who are selected by 
political parties," Chaudhry said. "Even the entire society must operate on 
Islamic principles rather than just cherry picked laws that suit to the 
interests of certain people."

(source: World Watch Monitor)






INDIA:

Union Cabinet approved Anti-Hijacking Bill 2014 giving death penalty to 
hijackers


The Union cabinet on 2 December 2014 approved introduction of a comprehensive 
Anti-Hijacking Bill 2014. This Bill provides for stringent punishment including 
death penalty to hijackers in case of death of a hostage or security personnel.

It also provides imprisonment for life and the moveable and immoveable property 
of such persons shall also be liable to be confiscated.

The Bill is expected to be introduced in Parliament in the winter session 2014.

The cabinet also decided to repeal the Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982 (amended in 
1994) and withdrawal of the Anti-Hijacking Amendment Bill, 2010. The decision 
was made during a Union Cabinet meet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Anti-Hijacking Amendment Bill, 2010 was brought after incident of hijack of 
Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in 1999 from Kathmandu. The amendment was made 
more necessary after the incident of 9/11 US attack in which aircrafts were 
used as weapons.

The Bill was pending in Rajya Sabha since it was introduced on 19 August 2010 
by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Civil 
Aviation, Praful Patel. The Bill was referred to the Standing Committee on 
Transport, Tourism and Culture.

Main Features of Anti-Hijacking Amendment Bill, 2010

- The Bill wanted to amend the Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982. The Act states that 
any person (whether alone or in a group) who unlawfully, by force or 
intimidation seizes an aircraft commits the offence of hijacking is guilty of 
the offence

- The Bill enhances the penalty for hijacking to death or life imprisonment and 
fine as against the Act which stipulates a penalty of life imprisonment and 
fine for the offence of hijacking.

The Cabinet also gave approval for Ratification of the Beijing Protocol, 2010. 
India is a signatory of the Beijing Protocol that was signed at the global 
diplomatic Conference held at Beijing in August-September, 2010. This Protocol 
brought out new principal offences combined with ancillary offences, enlarged 
the scope of hijacking, expanded jurisdiction and strengthened extradition and 
mutual assistance regimes.

About December 1999 Indian Airlines flight IC-814 hijack

Indian Airlines (now Air India) flight IC-814 was hijacked on its way back to 
Delhi from Kathmandu on 24 December 1999. The flight was taken over by 5 
Pakistani hijackers with 180 passengers and crew, the flight was forced to make 
a detour to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

The hijack drama that continued for several days ended after an agreement was 
reached between the Union Government and the terrorists. Under the agreement, 
India exchanged 3 jailed militants (Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed 
Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar) for the release of passengers.

(source: Jagran Josh)

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

Execution Of Surinder Koli Would Be A Travesty Of Justice

By Concerned Citizens

The President of India

Rashtrapati Bhavan

New Delhi, India.

2 December 2014

Subject: Execution of Surinder Koli Would be a Travesty of Justice: Plea for 
Mercy from Women's Groups, Lawyers, Academics, Students and Activists

As women who have been engaged in the struggles for women's rights and justice, 
we appeal to you to commute Koli's death sentence or at least to stay his 
execution till the completion of the other cases involving other Nithari 
victims in which he is an accused.

Surinder Koli, accused of murdering 18 women and children residing in Nithari 
village, NOIDA is facing imminent execution after his Review Petition was 
dismissed by the Supreme Court on 28 October 2014.

While there is no doubt that justice needs to be served in the gruesome Nithari 
case, that is precisely the reason why executing Koli would be an injustice - 
not only to him, but to the families whose children were slaughtered at 
Nithari.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Koli was actually the killer of the 18 
women and children. Koli's 'confession' - the only basis for his conviction - 
itself declares that it was obtained under torture and tutoring by the police.

The phenomenon of abnormally high disappearances of children from Nithari was 
present from 2003 - before Koli came to Pandher's house as a domestic servant 
in 2004. And the phenomenon continues till date - even after Koli's arrest and 
conviction.

The autopsy surgeon who examined bodies of the victims discounted cannibalism 
and suggested organ trade as an explanation for the murders.

The expert committee set up by the Ministry of Women & Child Development (WCD), 
in its report, concluded that the police had fixed on Koli as the culprit, and 
had not investigated the possibility of organ trade as the motive for the 
offence.

The autopsy surgeon opined to the Committee that the bodies had been severed 
with surgical precision, whereas it was the CBI's case that Koli had used an 
axe to hack the bodies to pieces.

The lawyers in this case have pointed out that the evidence of the autopsy 
surgeon was suppressed by the police. He was neither examined as a witness 
during the trial nor was his statement included in the chargesheet.

Another suspect, a doctor who was previously charged in a case of organ trade, 
was simply not probed by the police.

The committee also stressed the need to investigate whether some of Koli's 
supposed victims were actually alive and trafficked elsewhere.

The DNA report also contradicts Koli???s 'confession'. Koli supposedly 
confessed to killing 16 persons in his employer's living room, but DNA evidence 
showed body parts of 19 victims. 11 of those bodies remain unidentified. 
Clearly, the story of those murders is full of loose ends, and Koli's 
confession simply does not fit all the facts.

Koli's death sentence has been upheld in the Rimpa Haldar case by the Supreme 
Court. But there is still no evidence that Rimpa Haldar is dead - in fact, 
there is a letter by her to her parents saying she eloped and is living with 
her husband in Nepal. There is no evidence that any attempt was made to 
establish if this was indeed a fact.

Why have these facts have been ignored by the courts and the police? Why the 
hurry to pin the crimes solely on Koli?

It is relevant to point out that Koli is Dalit, poor, and had access only to 
very poorly paid legal aid. These facts placed him in a very poor position to 
challenge the way in which the media and the police portrayed him as a cannibal 
and a depraved killer. Koli's case underlines how in most cases it is the 
economically and socially vulnerable who tend to be awarded the death penalty, 
because they are in no position to influence public opinion.

The poverty of the accused, poor trial representation, lacunae in 
investigation, torture and tutoring and glaring gaps in forensic examination 
furnish strong grounds for this petition for mercy.

The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be 
rectified. As women staunchly opposed to the death penalty in principle, we 
stood firm against this form of retributive punishment, under the pretext of 
'justice'. Executions do not thwart crime. Many independently conducted surveys 
from across the globe have failed to establish a correlation between the 2. On 
the contrary, an American survey reported by the New York Times in the year 
2000 stated that in the last 20 years, homicide rates of states with the death 
penalty were 48 to 100 % higher than in those without the death penalty. Even 
the much-hailed Justice Verma Committee report was unequivocally against the 
death penalty, even in the rarest of the rare of rape cases.

Hence, we appeal to you to commute Koli's death sentence, at least to begin 
with, stay his execution till the completion of the other cases involving other 
Nithari victims in which he is an accused.

1. Uma Chakravarti, Feminist historian and former Professor, Delhi University

2. Kavita Krishnan, All India Progressive Women's Association

3. Vani Subramanian, Saheli Women's Resource Centre, New Delhi

4. Pratiksha Baxi, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU, New Delhi

5. Laxmi Murthy, Journalist, Bangalore

6. Shraddha Chickerur, Social worker, New Delhi

7. Amrita Nandy, Ph.D Scholar, JNU

8. Annie Raja, NFIW

9. Jagmati Sangwan, AIDWA

10. Malika Virdi, Maati, Munsiari, Uttarakhand

11. Farah Naqvi, Writer & Activist, Delhi

12. Voices Against 377, New Delhi

13. Lara Jesani, Advocate, Mumbai

14. Geeta Seshu, Journalist, Mumbai

15. Sujata Madhok, Journalist, New Delhi

16. Pyoli Swatija, Advocate, New Delhi

17. Rohini Hensman, Writer and independent scholar, Mumbai

18. Gita Sen, Professor (Retd) Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of 
Management, Bangalore & Adjunct Professor, Global Health and Population, 
Harvard School of Public Health

19. Kavita Srivastava, PUCL Rajasthan, Jaipur

20. Ratna A, Advocate, New Delhi.

21. Kaveri Indira, WSS

22. Nalini Visvanathan

23. Dr.Mohan Rao, Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, 
School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

24. Rituparna Borah, Queer Feminist Activist. New Delhi

25. Nandini Rao, Women's Rights Activist, New Delhi

26. Amrita Shodhan, SOAS, London

27. Kiran Shaheen, Memoirist and Activist, New Delhi

28. Gabriele Dietrich, Tamil Nadu

29. Ashok Visvanathan, Chennai

30. Jarjum Ete, President, Indigenous Women's Resource Center, Arunachal 
Pradesh

31. Jhuma Sen, Delhi

32. Karuna, DW

33. Vahida Nainar, Women's Research & Action Group

34. Madhumita Dutta, Vettiver Collective, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

35. Meera Narmada

36. Jaya Vindhyala, Advocate, PUCL-Telangana, Hyderabad

37. Sumi Krishna, Bangaluru

38. Arundhati Dhuru, NAPM

39. Ravi Hemadri, New Delhi

40. Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS)

41. Dr.Rosemary Dzuvichu, Nagaland University, Kohima

42. Madhu Mehra, Partners for Law in Development, New Dehi

43. Rahul Roy, Filmmaker, New Delhi

44. Surajit Sarkar, New Delhi

45. Sujata Gothoskar, Forum Against Oppression of Women, Mumbai

46. Pragna Patel - Director of Southall Black Sisters UK

47. Svati Joshi, Ahmedabad

48. Nimisha, Olakh, Vadodara

49. Anchita Ghatak, Parichiti - A Society for Empowerment of Women, Calcutta

50. Shahida Murtaza

51. Arvind Narrain, Alternative Law Forum

52. Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University

53. Dyuti, Delhi

54. Chinmayi Arun, Assistant Professor of Law, National Law University Delhi

55. Jinee Lokaneeta, New York, NY.

56. Action India, New Delhi

57. Runu Chakraborty, Delhi

58. Jyoti Punwani, Freelance Journalist, Mumbai

59. Oishik Sircar, Melbourne Law School

60. Saumya Uma, Women's Research & Action Group, Mumbai

61. G. Arunima, Associate Professor, Centre for Women's Studies School of 
Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

62. Neeraj Malik

63. Javed Malick

64. Ramlath Kavil

65. Supriya Madangarli

66. Geetanjali Gangoli

67. Navtaj Purewal, Bijli UK

68. Rahila Gupta, Southall Black Sisters, UK

69. Santosh Dass, Anti-Caste Discrimination alliance (ACDA), UK

70. Lalita Ramdas

71. Shalini Gera, Advocate, Jagdalpur

72. Prabha Nagraj, Tarshi

73. Sumanta Roy, Imkaan, UK

74. Amrit Wilson, Freedom Without Fear Platform, UK

75. Vinay Gidwani, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN

76. Mrs. S. Sahni, New Delhi

77. Chayanika Shah, LABIA - A Queer Feminist LBT Collective, Mumbai

78. Swayam, Kolkata

79. Rukmini Sen, Ambedkar University Delhi

80. Devaki Jain, New Delhi

81. Rachana Johri, Ambedkar University Delhi

82. Anuradha Banerji, New Delhi

83. Madhu Bala, Activist

84. Buta Singh, writer and activist

85. Pamposh Dhar, writer

86. Vinitha Mokshagundam

87. Ashutosh, JNUSU President

88. Chintu Kumari, JNUSU General Secretary

89. Sucheta De, AISA

90. S Seshan, Teacher

91. N Jayaram, Sociologist, TISS, Mumbai

92. Uma V Chandru, Bangalore

93. Nisha Biswas

(source: countercurrents.org)