[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 26



IRAN----execution

Prisoner of conscience hanged for 'different interpretation of Quran'


The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and 
the Human Rights Council, as well as all international human rights 
organizations to strongly condemn the execution of prisoner of conscience Mr 
Mohsen Amir Aslani on charges of "corruption on earth; changing Islam's 
principles and secondary laws; and new interpretation of Quran". It further 
calls for adoption of binding decisions against the growing number of arbitrary 
executions by the religious fascism ruling Iran.

Mr. Amir Aslani, 37, who had been in prison since eight years ago, was once 
sentenced to 4 years in prison which was later commuted to 28 months. However, 
as more fabricated charges were brought against him, the head henchman Judge 
Salavati condemned him to death.

The Iranian regime has refraining from handing over the body of this prisoner 
to his family through stonewalling and offering contradictory answers to them.

The executions are continuing while Hassan Rouhani, infamous among the Iranian 
people as 'President of Execution' for his record of over 1,000 executions in a 
year, is visiting New Yerk to whitewash the regime's crimes.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)






NIGERIA:

Mutiny - TUC Faults Senate's Position on Condemned Soldiers


The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) yesterday faulted the decision by the 
Senate not to intervene in the case of the 12 soldiers who were recently 
convicted for mutiny and sentenced to death by a military tribunal.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Defence, Senator Thompson Sekibo, had on 
Tuesday disclosed that the Senate would not intervene in the case of the 
convicted soldiers because the penalty is as prescribed in the Military Act and 
must be carried out to maintain discipline.

In its reaction, the congress condemned the position of the Senate, arguing 
that the circumstances that prompted the soldiers' alleged mutinous act are 
weighty enough to serve as mitigating factors in the consideration of any 
punishment to be meted out to them.

The congress, in a statement jointly issued by its President and Secretary, 
Bobboi Kaigama and Musa Lawal respectively, emphasised that any contrary view 
on the case would amount to "nothing but sheer wickedness and a clear example 
of man's insensitivity and inhumanity to man."

According to the congress, it was bad enough that the military tribunal issued 
such a sentence against ill-equipped gallant soldiers who battled the sect with 
unequalled bravery, but worse and totally bewildering that Sekibo declared that 
the Senate would not intervene because the penalty is as prescribed in the 
Military Act and must be carried out to maintain discipline.

"We ordinarily might have agreed with the senator if the soldiers' mutinous 
acts and refusal to fight had been informed by cowardice, but the undisputed 
evidence adduced and reported show that they are all brave, willing combatants 
who only requested that they be sufficiently equipped for the task at hand and 
protested the avoidable death of their buddies because of the negligence, 
recalcitrance and misjudgement of their commanding officer," the congress 
stated.

Rather than carry out that callous death sentence, the congress called on the 
military to investigate properly the case at hand and proffer lasting solution 
to the challenges confronting Nigerian soldiers in the fight against the Boko 
Haram insurgents.

It insisted that the General Officer Commanding (GOC) who denied the boys the 
appropriate weapons should be court-marshalled for indiscipline.

Speaking further, the congress warned that the death sentence, if executed, 
could demoralise the rank and file of the soldiers, stressing that if the 
soldiers must be punished, a sentence of no more than 2 years imprisonment 
should suffice. Thus, it called on the Defence Headquarters to review the 
tribunal's decision in favour of the convicted soldiers.

The labour group equally called on President Goodluck Jonathan to step in and 
exercise his prerogative of mercy by pardoning the convicted soldiers, 
stressing that no military official should be punished for "protesting or 
refusing to do a job for which his master denied him necessary tools.

"To the best of our knowledge, the soldiers' grievances stemmed from the fact 
that the military top brass failed to adequately equip them with the right 
quality and quantity of weapons, ammunitions and other equipment for the war 
against the Boko Haram insurgents that they we re ordered to fight. Worse 
still, the insurgents were equipped with superior, up-to-date fire power and 
other tools of war, a factor which had helped them to vanquish many a soldier 
including several colleagues of the convicted ones.

"In the light of the foregoing, how could anyone have possibly expected the 
convicted soldiers to obey such an order? Does enlisting into any of the armed 
forces automatically translate to a reckless loss of one's life and good sense 
of judgment? Or is it in the national interest for our soldiers to be 
needlessly suicidal? Is discretion no longer the better part of valour? Were 
they wrong to have insisted that their commanding officer (and the rest of the 
military leadership) furnish them with the pre-requisites for prosecuting the 
war? We dare say no," the statement added.

(source: This Day)






KENYA:

Kenyan nurse gets death penalty for abortion -- Thousands of Kenya women are 
treated in hospitals each year for complications from unsafe abortions


A Kenyan nurse has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of carrying 
out an abortion 5 years ago on a woman who later bled to death.

Abortions are illegal in Kenya, but a doctor is allowed to perform one if a 
woman's life is in danger.

Witnesses told the high court that Jackson Namunya Tali had agreed to help the 
woman, Christine Atieno, who wanted to terminated her early pregnancy.

But Tali said Ms Atieno had sought help after a botched abortion elsewhere.

Thousands of women in Kenya are treated each year for complications after 
unsafe abortions - a survey last year put the figure in 2012 at 120,000.

The court heard that Ms Atieno had died in Tali's vehicle as he was taking her 
from the clinic in Gachie, 15km (nine miles) west of the capital, Nairobi, to 
another hospital for more advanced treatment.

She had been bleeding for 8 days following the abortion.

Judge Nicholas Ombija said the court had established "that the accused caused 
the death of the deceased" and convicted him of murder.

Kenya has not carried out a death sentence since 1987.

The BBC's Muliro Telewa in Nairobi says campaigners tried unsuccessfully to get 
abortion legalised when Kenya adopted a new constitution in 2010.

Religious leaders fiercely opposed the move, though the law was slightly 
relaxed.

3 doctors had been needed to certify that an abortion was necessary to save the 
life of the mother. Now only 1 doctor is required.

(source: BBC news)






PHILIPPINES:

Bishops reject death penalty restoration; lawmakers press for debate


The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines has put its foot down on a 
proposal to restore the death penalty following efforts in both chambers of 
Congress to restart debate on the issue.

House members supported a proposal filed by Senator Vicente Sotto who in a 
privilege speech last week cited the recent cases of high-profile murder, 
kidnapping-for-ransom, drug trafficking and other heinous crimes. Sotto's bill 
was endorsed by Senate President Franklin Drilon who said the upper chamber may 
start the debate on death penalty.

In the House of Representatives, congressman Jerry Trenas of Iloilo City 
stressed the need to reimpose the death penalty on those who commit crimes that 
so heinous.

Trenas said the spate of heinous crimes has become very alarming that people 
now barely feel safe even inside their homes. "These criminals no longer fear 
the law."

The CBCP however condemned the planned revival of capital punishment, with Rev. 
Fr. Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of CBCP-Permanent Committee on Public 
Affairs saying that a "mistake begets mistakes."

Secillano urged the government to look deeper into the increasing number of 
heinous crimes in the country specially the implementation of the law.

Bishop Broderick Pabillano, chairman of the CBCP-Episcopal Commission on Public 
Affairs, said high profile criminals were still roaming free.

The prelate also said that most of the time, those who got punished with death 
penalty were the poor because they could not afford a lawyer to defend 
themselves.

"No one has the right to take away the life of anybody," Pabillon said, adding 
that "imprisonment should not only be taken as a punishment but also as a form 
of rehabilitation."

(source: Manila Standard Today)

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

Aquino ally open to debate on death penalty


A close political ally of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino said he favoured 
the reopening of debates on the proposal to restore the death penalty to stop 
the increase of "heinous" crimes in the country.

Senate President Franklin Drilon explained the debates would be good to find 
out if the impunity displayed by criminal elements was due to the absence of 
the death penalty or the failure of the Philippine National Police to perform 
its job of protecting the people and responding to crimes.

Drilon was reacting to the speech delivered by Senator Vicente Sotto who sought 
the revival of capital punishment to stop the increase in heinous crimes, 
citing as an example the killing of the mother of an actress at the height of 
storm Fung-Wong (local codename Mario) that flooded Metro Manila and wide areas 
on the main island of Luzon.

Sotto warned: "These past many years without a death penalty, we have a virtual 
wild, wild West in these eastern islands. Whether it be murder, rape, drug 
manufacturing, pushing and using, the numbers are on the rise. Criminals have 
more fun in the Philippines."

"The influx of heinous crimes committed," he said, "poses an alarming situation 
in the country nowadays."

As a result, Sotto said, criminals appeared to be no longer afraid of getting 
punished in the Philippines.

Other death penalty advocates especially the non-government organisation 
Volunteers against Crime (VAC) also noted that unlike in the Philippines 
neighbouring countries such as China were tough on illegal drug dealers by 
imposing the death penalty.

VAC pointed out that despite appeals from the government, China proceeded with 
the execution of many Filipinos arrested and convicted by the courts for 
smuggling illegal drugs into the country.

But Secretary Edwin Lacierda, the presidential spokesman, said Aquino remained 
cool to the proposal in response to questions from Malacanang Palace reporters.

In January, Sotto filed a bill restoring the death penalty particularly for 
heinous crimes like murder, rape, kidnap-for-ransom and plunder.

The bill, however, remained pending before several Senate committees like 
justice, human rights and constitutional amendments, according to Sotto.

(source: The Gulf Today)






EGYPT:

Leading Islamists escape death sentence as court downgrades verdict----Life 
imprisonment for the Salafist Call's Abdallah Barakat and the Muslim 
Brotherhood's Hossam Marghany


The death sentences for 2 leading Islamist figures were downgraded to life 
imprisonment following a retrial by Cairo's criminal court on Thursday.

In July, Abdallah Barakat, dean of the Islamic Call's faculty at Al-Azhar 
University, along with top Muslim Brotherhood member Hossam Marghany and eight 
other defendants were given the death penalthy on charges of inciting violence 
and cutting off the highway between Qalioubiya and Cairo in July 2013 after the 
ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The court gave the harshest penalty at the time - a death sentence - as the 
defendants were tried in absentia.

However, the 2 Islamist figures have since been detained by police, prompting a 
retrial.

The July court verdict included a life sentence for 37 others who attended the 
sessions and were thus not part of Thursday's retrial.

The incident along the Qalioubiya-Cairo highway last year resulted in the death 
of 2 and the injury of 35 others due to clashes between police forces and the 
defendants.

Other Egyptian courts have recently handed the death sentence to hundreds of 
Morsi supporters also in abbreviated trials prompting a local and international 
outcry.

Many of those death sentences were overturned upon retrials due to the 
objections of the Grand Mufti who must be consulted on every death verdict.

(source: Ahram Online)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan's Dangerous 'Blasphemy" Law


Christian pastor Zafar Bhatti's trial for violating Pakistan's blasphemy law 
may never get to the court verdict stage. That's because Bhatti was shot and 
wounded in his Rawalpindi prison cell in an attack that also injured his 
cellmate, British citizen Muhammad Asghar.

The motives of the alleged gunman, a member of an elite police unit, aren't 
known. Regardless, Bhatti and Asghar are the latest victims of Pakistan's 
dangerously ambiguous and discriminatory blasphemy law. Police arrested Bhatti 
in 2012 on suspicion of sending "blasphemous" text messages, despite evidence 
indicating the phone from which the messages were sent didn't belong to him. 
Ashgar's conviction in January - based on allegations that he claimed to be a 
"prophet" - ignored evidence he suffered from mental illness.

Section 295-C of Pakistan's penal code makes the death penalty mandatory for 
blasphemy, though no one has yet been executed for the crime. The vagueness of 
the blasphemy law has long spelled peril for Pakistan's religious minorities. 
The law allows prosecution for derogatory remarks about Islam based on criteria 
including "imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly" 
without providing criteria for such assessments. Targets of the law have 
included Christians and the Ahmadiyya community, a heterodox sect that 
identifies itself as Muslim but has been declared non-Muslim under Pakistani 
law.

Bhatti and Ashgar are only the law's latest victims. On May 7, unidentified 
gunmen killed human rights activist and lawyer Rashid Rehman in an apparent 
reprisal for his willingness to represent people charged under the law. 
Rehman's attackers remain at large. Meanwhile, thousands have been charged 
under various provisions of the law since it was added to the penal code in 
1986 by military ruler Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, including several dozen in 
2013 alone. At least 18 people are currently on death row for blasphemy in 
Pakistan, while another 20 are serving life sentences.

The attack on Bhatti is a reminder that even an accusation of blasphemy can 
mean imprisonment or death. Until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif moves to repeal 
the blasphemy law, it will continue to claim new victims.

(source: Human Rights Watch)






GLOBAL:

At high-level event, UN officials call for end to death penalty


The continuing application of capital punishment is a "primitive" practice 
which has no place in the 21st century, United Nations officials declared 
today, as they pressed global leaders to set course towards abolishing the 
death penalty and advancing a more progressive judicial agenda in their 
respective States.

"We are seeing substantial progress towards the universal abolition of the 
death penalty," Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson declared in his opening 
remarks at the high-level event, Moving Away from the Death Penalty: National 
Leadership, held on the margins of the annual General Assembly debate.

"The right to life represents everything the UN stands for," he affirmed, 
adding that the application of the death penalty deprived people of their lives 
"arbitrarily and cruelly" and that the practice itself was "unjust and 
incompatible with human rights."

Mr. Eliasson urged world leaders gathered at the event to make strides in 
bringing about either a moratorium or the abolishment of capital punishment in 
their respective nations. In addition, he called on all States to ratify the 
Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights which seeks to abolish the death penalty across the globe.

"We call on you to show principled leadership on the matter of the death 
penalty," he continued. "Depriving a person of his or her life is incompatible 
with life in the 21st century. Let us do away with the death penalty. In doing 
so we reaffirm faith in human life."

The event also marked the release of a new publication produced by the Office 
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), entitled Moving Away from 
the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives, which places particular 
focus on the political leadership required to move away from capital 
punishment.

In his remarks to the event, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al 
Hussein underscored the need to reform judicial systems around the world, 
noting that only then would a practice based on vengeance truly be defeated.

"Revenge alone is not justice," said the High Commissioner, who encouraged the 
international community to "set course" towards a "more sophisticated, more 
human" form of justice which goes beyond punishment and seeks "a genuine 
recognition by the wrongdoers of their wrongdoing."

"As we work toward that objective, enabling contrition, we must continue to put 
an end to the application of the death penalty, which is the very example of 
human vengeance at its worst," he declared.

The High Commissioner dismissed capital punishment as "degrading and cruel in 
more than one sense" and acknowledged that it was "often discriminatory" of the 
condemned, disproportionately affecting the poor, the mentally ill, the 
powerless and minorities.

But he admitted to being "impressed and heartened" by what he described as a 
"strong momentum" towards a global abolition of the practice.

Recently, Equatorial Guinea, Pakistan, and the states of Washington, Maryland 
and Connecticut in the United States decided to establish a moratorium or 
suspend executions while last April, El Salvador, Gabon and Poland acceded to 
the Second Optional Protocol. These countries join more than 160 other Members 
States who have already either eliminated capital punishment or do not practice 
it.

"These decisions to cease judicially sanctioned killings have been taken thanks 
to principled political leadership," the High Commissioner confirmed, while 
urging those Member States that continue to apply the death penalty to liaise 
with his office and receive assistance on possible ways to abolish capital 
punishment.

"The death penalty is too severe a sanction in the hands of humans," he 
concluded. "Surely, we cannot reach far into the 21st century, claim to be an 
ever more sophisticated humanity, and still be practicing it. Its application 
must now be suspended by all States."

(source: UN News Centre)