[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 24


IRAN----executions

Iran regime hangs 70-year-old man after 14 years of imprisonment



On Thursday, the Iranian regime's henchmen hanged a group of 9 men including a 
70-year-old who had been held in prison for the past 14 years, allegedly for 
drug-related offences.

The prisoners were all hanged in the main prison in the city of Bandar Abbas in 
the southern province of Hormozgan.

The mullahs' judiciary in the southern province of Hormozgan confirmed the 
execution of the nine prisoners but did not identify them.

According to the information received, Heydar Mardani, 70, was executed as he 
was serving his 14th year of imprisonment.

The other victims are: Hossein AliKhah, Ahmad Qurashi, Farhad Kianian, Mohamad 
Ahmadi, Mehrdad Azmand, Qassem Maziar, Heydar Moridani and Mohamad Naroui. The 
youngest victim was 25 years old.

In recent days there has been a sharp increase in the number of executions 
taking place in Iran. In a 7 day period between 12 to 18 April at least 81 
prisoners were hanged in several prisons, meaning 12 executions per day.

The sharp increase in the wave of executions after an agreement was reached on 
the framework of a nuclear deal is a clear indication of the mullahs' desperate 
need to create an atmosphere of fear in society in order to confront the 
explosive situation.

Inmates in prisons in the city of Karaj staged protests on April 12 following 
the transfer of their cellmates to solitary confinement in preparation for 
carrying out the criminal execution sentences. Protesting prisoner chanted: "We 
shall not let you kill us." Similarly, families of the prisoners on the verge 
of execution also gathered in front of the prisons and shouted: "We shall not 
let you execute them."

The Iranian Resistance has called on brave Iranian youths to express their 
solidarity with prisoners and the families of those executed, and urged them to 
protest against these brutal killings in the country.

(source: NCR-Iran)








INDIA:

Kupwara: 4 sentenced to death for rape, murder of 13 year-old girl



4 persons were on Friday sentenced to death by a sessions court in Kupwara for 
the gangrape and murder of a 13-year-old girl 8 years ago while she was 
returning from school.

Terming it as a rarest of rare case, Principal District and Sessions Judge 
Kupwara Mohammad Ibrahim Wani awarded the death penalty to convicts Sadiq Mir, 
Azhar Ahmad Mir, both residents of Langate in Kupwara, Mochi Jahangir Ansari of 
West Bengal and Suresh Kumar of Rajasthan, who had gangraped the child and slit 
her throat, before burying her. Emotional scenes were witnessed in the court as 
relatives of the victim broke down when the judge read out the verdict against 
the 4 for gangraping and murdering the class 8th student on June 27, 2007.

After hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence, the court agreed with 
Senior Public Prosecutor Ghulam Muhammad Shah, who sought death penalty for all 
4 convicts, terming it a rarest of rare case.

Shah said 88 witnesses had recorded their statements during the seven-year-long 
trial in the case.

"It was a Friday when she was killed and it is on Friday when our wounds have 
been healed. Justice has been done," an uncle of the victim said. He also 
thanked the state government for instituting a bravery award in her memory.

The state government in 2012 had instituted an award in her name to recognise 
the acts of bravery of children.

(source: Daily News & Analysis)








MALAYSIA:

Mexico to campaign against execution of brothers in drugs case



The government of Mexico plans to rally support from death penalty opponents to 
dissuade Malaysia from executing 3 Mexican brothers convicted on drug charges. 
Mexico "will turn to various local and international groups opposed to the 
death penalty," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Malaysia's Federal Court on Thursday upheld the death sentences imposed on Luis 
Alfonso, Simon and Jose Regino Gonzalez Villarreal.

The 3 men heard the court's decision accompanied by relatives and Mexico's 
ambassador to Malaysia, Carlos Felix. "We are in the final part of the judicial 
process. Today was a very serious setback," Felix told Mexico City's Radio 
Formula, adding that the defence team was considering filing a request for 
reconsideration by the Federal Court.

Once legal remedies are exhausted, the men's only hope of avoiding the noose 
would be a royal pardon. Felix said that the sultan of Johor, where the men 
were convicted, could substitute a prison sentence for the death penalty on 
"strictly humanitarian grounds".

Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy where traditional monarchs in the 
country's various regions retain certain powers. Malaysian jurisprudence offers 
no precedents for a case like this one, and the process could grind on for 
another 2 years, the ambassador said. "They won't hang them in the next few 
days," said Felix, who has visited the 3 brothers monthly since his arrival in 
Malaysia 18 months ago.

Mexico "maintains a position contrary to the death penalty" and will continue 
providing consular assistance to the Gonzalez Villarreal brothers, the foreign 
ministry said.

The brothers, who range in age from 37 to 47, and 2 other men - a Singaporean 
and a Malaysian - were arrested in a December 4, 2008 raid that resulted in the 
seizure of 29kg of methamphetamines worth RM44 million (US$15 million). The 3 
Mexicans testified at their May 2012 trial that they were merely cleaning the 
clandestine drug-making factory where they were detained. None of the brothers 
has a criminal record in Mexico.

(source: The Malaysian Insider)








PAKISTAN:

Pakistan Sets Execution Date for Man Arrested as Juvenile



The Pakistani government has issued a so-called Black Warrant for the execution 
of a man who was a juvenile when he was arrested and tortured into a 
'confession'.

Death-row prisoner Shafqat Hussain was arrested in 2004 as a juvenile and 
sentenced to death on the basis of a 'confession' extracted after 9 days of 
torture. The Pakistani government has attempted several times to issue orders 
for his execution since resuming hangings at the end of last year. A total of 
99 prisoners have been killed since December, including 17 this Tuesday alone.

Pakistan's Interior Minister, Chaudry Nisar, had recently granted a stay of 
execution for Mr Hussain and ordered the government's Federal Investigations 
Authority (FIA) to investigate evidence of Mr Hussain's torture and juvenility, 
raised by lawyers at Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) and Reprieve. However, last 
week, after concerns were raised about the neutrality of the probe, the 
Islamabad High Court ordered officials to appear at a hearing in early May to 
answer questions about their approach. Ahead of that hearing, lawyers for Mr 
Hussain have submitted evidence to the court of his forced confession and 
juvenility.

Pakistan has the largest death row in the world, with some 8,500 prisoners 
awaiting execution. Police torture and forced confessions are "systematic" in 
parts of the country, according to a 2014 report by Yale Law School and JPP. 
There are concerns that many death-row prisoners could have been forced into 
'confessions', and that hundreds may have been arrested as juveniles.

Today's stay of execution sets Mr Hussain's hanging for May 6th.

Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "It is deeply 
disturbing that, in the face of concern from both the international community 
and the Pakistani courts, the authorities in Pakistan are sending ever more 
prisoners to the hangman's noose. Given the strong evidence that some of these 
prisoners were illegally convicted as juveniles - and in Shafqat's case, 
tortured into a dubious 'confession' - the decision to continue issuing 
execution warrants is perverse. The Government of Pakistan must change course 
and admit it may have made a terrible mistake, before more lives are lost."

[Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce 
the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.]

(source: commondreams.org)

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

Hundred Executed in Pakistan Since Resumption of Death Penalty



With the hanging penalty today of 2 convicted of murder, 100 people were 
executed in Pakistan, following the end of a moratorium on death penalty 4 
months ago.

The highest amount of convicts executed was reached this week, as 21 prisoners 
were taken to the gallows, all of them charged with murder except for 2 
prosecuted for raping a minor.

In Pakistan the moratorium was in force since 2008, but around the middle of 
December 2014, Talibans killed 149 people in a military academy in Peshawar 
city, mostly children, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, ordered to resume 
executions in cases of terrorism.

Without further explanations, death penalties were also executed on convicted 
of murder and other crimes punishable by death.

(source: Prensa Latina)




CHINA:

China, in Suspending Woman's Death Sentence, Acknowledges Domestic Abuse



A court in the Chinese province of Sichuan suspended the death sentence on 
Friday of a battered woman who had killed her husband, in a case that drew 
international attention because it appeared to flout new rules allowing spousal 
abuse as a defense in murder cases and to set back China's shift away from the 
death penalty.

The ruling by the Sichuan Higher People's Court upheld the murder conviction 
against the woman, Li Yan, but acknowledged that she had been the victim of 
domestic violence. The suspension means that after 2 years of good behavior, 
the sentence will be commuted to life in prison. Later, it may be reduced 
further.

The ruling was still a shock to lawyers and feminists who have closely followed 
the case and who expected a lighter penalty after the Supreme People's Court 
ordered a retrial last year.

"This is a very heavy sentence," said Wan Miaoyan, Ms. Li's lawyer. "I'm 
disappointed. I failed in my defense."

But the courtroom in rural Anyue County erupted in angry shoving and shouting 
when Judge Huang Tianyong announced the decision. Family members of Ms. Li's 
husband, Tan Yong, who have demanded her execution, threw shoes and papers at 
Ms. Li and her lawyer, shouting "tramp" and "traitor," according to Xiao Meili, 
an observer in the courtroom.

The Tans could not be reached for comment on Friday.

The killing took place in 2010 in the couple's home in Anyue, where they ran a 
noodle stall, after what Ms. Li described as more than a year of abuse.

Mr. Tan seized her hair and hit her head against the wall, stubbed out 
cigarettes on her face and legs, and locked her outside on cold nights, Ms. Li 
told the court at her retrial in November. Often after beating her, he abused 
her sexually, she said.

She sought help from the police, a hospital, the local justice department and 
the local branch of the All-China Women's Federation, a government organization 
tasked with defending women's rights. All, according to her lawyers, advised 
her to just "bear it."

Then one night, she said, Mr. Tan struck her with an air rifle in a drunken 
rage, threatening to kill her. She grabbed the weapon and slammed the barrel 
against his head twice, killing him, she told the police at the time.

She cut off his head and put it in a pressure cooker, saying she feared his 
angry eyes even in death, then chopped up his body and boiled some of the 
pieces before reporting the death to a neighbor.

She was sentenced to death by the Ziyang Intermediate People???s Court, a 
verdict upheld on appeal by the Sichuan Higher People's Court.

Hundreds of Chinese lawyers and feminists petitioned the state not to execute 
her, an outpouring reflecting the increasing recognition of the problem of 
domestic violence in China.

"A death sentence was not justified in this case, given the domestic violence 
Li suffered," said Chi Susheng, a lawyer in Qiqihar in China's far northeast 
and a former delegate to the National People's Congress, who signed the 
petition.

Women in China who killed abusive spouses were once routinely executed, but as 
the scale of domestic violence began to emerge in the early 2000s - officials 
say 1 in 4 marriages is affected, activists say 1 in 3 - lengthy prison 
sentences became the norm instead. Over time, the sentences have grown lighter.

Last year, the Supreme People's Court in Beijing ordered Ms. Li's case retried 
because of evidential problems.

In March, the Supreme People's Court, along with the Public Security Bureau and 
two other government departments, issued a detailed opinion explaining for the 
1st time the concept of "justified defense" in domestic violence cases. The 
opinion made spousal abuse a mitigating factor in crimes committed in 
self-defense, and it established new rules providing privacy protection for 
victims and allowing protection orders against abusers.

The new approach dovetails with China's attempts to increase public respect for 
the judiciary, which is widely seen as corrupt and unfair, and coincides with 
an effort by the central government to curb the number of executions, estimated 
to be as high as 12,000 in 2002.

In 2006, the former chief judge of the Supreme People's Court, and other 
like-minded judges, began to advocate a policy of "kill fewer, kill 
cautiously." Facing international pressure, Beijing accepted the policy, and in 
2007, the court began reviewing every death penalty case.

Dui Hua, a human rights group based in San Francisco, estimates that the number 
of people put to death in China fell to about 2,400 in 2013, still more than 
the rest of the world combined.

The precise number is not known as the government considers it a state secret. 
"Only 3 to 5 people in the entire country know how many executions take place," 
said He Weifang, a legal scholar at Peking University.

Susan Finder, a legal scholar based in Hong Kong and author of the Supreme 
People's Court Monitor blog, said, "It seems the Supreme People's Court is 
making progress in reducing use of the death penalty."

She continued, "And the fact that they issued these rules on domestic violence 
shows that it's a huge, horrible issue that needs to be cleaned up 
immediately."

But progress has been mixed, she said.

According to the new rules, said Feng Yuan, a leading feminist, Ms. Li's "crime 
is not one of deliberate murder, and she should have received a more just 
sentence."

"There is certain progress here," she acknowledged. "There is a significant 
difference between the death penalty and suspended death. But over all, it's 
getting better on paper more than in reality, and this case shows that we need 
to see how these new rules can be implemented."

Lawyers say that "social stability" is also a factor that courts consider in 
handing down harsh punishments and that it may have played a role in this case.

"The courts are still under a lot of pressure to hand down sentences that won't 
get anyone upset," said Joshua Rosenzweig, an expert on human rights in China 
who lectures at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "1 of the things they're 
trying to do is to satisfy the victim's family, so they get the victim's family 
to accept the verdict so they won't petition and keep this case alive. They're 
trying to satisfy all sorts of different imperatives here, not all of which 
necessarily have to do with the law."

The Ministry of Justice and the Supreme People's Court declined to comment. 
Reached by telephone, a spokeswoman at the Anyue court declined to take 
questions.

Ms. Li was not permitted to speak in court on Friday, but she did speak at her 
retrial in November, the only time she has been allowed to testify.

Standing barely 5 feet tall, her hair chopped short, she held up her right hand 
to show the judge a truncated middle finger, cut off in a fight with her 
husband, she said.

"I did not kill him on purpose," she said quietly.

She begged for forgiveness from Mr. Tan's family, adding she was wrong to kill 
him and should be punished, but not with death.

"I apologize to Mr. Tan's family," she said, "and if they are willing, will pay 
my respects to them."

(source: New York Times)