[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 9




BANGLADESH:

Supreme Court commutes 'top terrorist' Joseph???s death penalty to life in jail


The Supreme Court has reduced the death sentence of Tofayel Ahmed Joseph, a 
'top-listed terrorist' of the 1990s, to life imprisonment.

The Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha on 
Wednesday gave its judgment in the case over the 1996 murder of Freedom Party 
leader Mustafizur Rahman of Dhaka's Mohammadpur.

It acquitted another accused in the case, 'Kabil', on hearing his appeal.

Joseph had moved the top appeals court after the 2007 verdict by the High 
Court.

After Wednesday's verdict, his lawyer AM Amin Uddin told bdnews24.com the 
verdict only commuted his death sentence to life in jail.

(source: bdnews24.com)






RUSSIA:

Russian chief investigator speaks in favor of restoring death penalty in Russia


Russia's chief investigator said on Wednesday he was in favor of the restoring 
the death penalty in Russia, currently under moratorium, but at the same time 
the Russian Investigative Committee had been and will always be adherent to the 
country's laws and legal norms.

"I personally speak for the capital punishment and this I say this first of all 
as a human being," Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of the Russian 
Investigative Committee, said speaking in the Urals city of Izhevsk at a 
commemorative event devoted to a 13-year-old local boy, who was raped and 
murdered.

"I am not afraid of criticism, when somebody begins criticizing me or all those 
voicing such ideas," he said. "We must not be hypocrites. The evil must be 
punished. If one takes away somebody's life, moreover the life of a child, one 
must pay for it with his own life.

According to Bastrykin, criminals, who commit such outrageous crimes, do not 
deserve "having a place in the world."

Russia's top investigator said he had worked in the law enforcement bodies 
since 1975 and from his own experience knows a great deal of criminals, who 
would "step over everything," but "would never step over their own lives."

"I remember a lot of cases, when bandits and terrorists in 1990s asked for the 
only thing and it was to spare their lives, but when they were reminded that 
they took somebody else's life, and more than 1, they would break down crying 
asking for mercy," Bastrykin said.

The investigator, however, said that the committee he is in charge of had 
compled and always would be with the laws of Russia.

Kremlin against death penalty

Russia suspended death sentences in 1997. The last death verdict was carried 
out in 1996. Moscow assumed an extra obligation to cancel the death penalty 
when it signed Protocol 6 to the European Convention on the Protection of Human 
Rights and Basic Freedoms in April 1997. On that condition, it was admitted to 
the Council of Europe.

Debates over whether punishment by death should be reinstated have never ceased 
since the moratorium took effect. Society's attitude is mixed.

Kremlin officials have repeatedly commented on proposals to introduce death 
penalty. Kremlin Administration Chief Sergey Ivanov said n November that it 
would be premature to introduce capital punishment for terrorists.

"If a referendum is held in Russia on whether the death penalty should be 
restored [for a number of crimes], I have no doubt that over 90% of our 
citizens will vote for the restoration of this measure of punishment," Ivanov 
said adding that it's not always possible to give vent to emotions.

"Sometimes, it is necessary to act out of reason in compliance with Russia's 
international commitments," the Kremlin administration chief stressed.

"Therefore, I personally believe, though I fully share these emotions, that 
this move would be premature and inexpedient to put it mildly," Ivanov said.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters commenting on the 
suggestion that the Kremlin proceeds on the assumption that a moratorium on the 
capital punishment is currently in effect in Russia.

"The issue of death penalty is extremely complicated, he noted. "After all, 
there is a decision on the moratorium, we proceed from this moratorium," the 
Kremlin spokesman said.

When asked whether the stance of the Russian President Vladimir Putin who 
earlier called the return of the death penalty pointless has changed, Peskov 
said the president "had not come up with any alternative points of view."

(source: tass.ru)






ENGLAND:

Death-Penalty Drama 'Hangmen' Blends Humor and Menace


London's new stage hit, "Hangmen," is a work of gallows humor. Literally.

Martin McDonagh's ferocious comedy centers on an executioner facing forced 
retirement as Britain abolishes capital punishment.

It's set in the early-to-mid 1960s, the era of British Invasion bands, 
miniskirts and Swinging London. But the only swinging going on in McDonagh's 
macabre world is at the end of a rope.

McDonagh, a Londoner with Irish roots who wrote and directed the screen 
tragicomedy "In Bruges," says he wanted to "explore that grim period of British 
life where they were still hanging people at the same time that The Beatles 
were appearing and Elvis was on the radio."

"Hangmen" is set in a prison and a pub - a world of "grim, working-class male 
ugliness," the playwright said, at odds with the decade's hip reputation.

"If you were in the Rolling Stones, yeah, probably the 60s were great," a 
cheery McDonagh said after the play's opening night this week. "But if you were 
a common Joe or Jill working in a factory, I doubt the 60s were that swinging."

The play, which ran at London's 370-seat Royal Court Theatre in September and 
opened this week at the larger Wyndham's Theatre, stars David Morrissey (a 
versatile actor known to zombie fans as the fearsome Governor on TV drama "The 
Walking Dead") as Harry Wade, a bluff, broad-shouldered northerner certain of 
the rightness of his work.

He banishes doubts about the guilt of some of the prisoners he has hanged, and 
dismisses alternative methods of execution including the electric chair ("Yank 
claptrap") and the guillotine ("messy - and French").

But after a series of infamous cases, public opinion is turning. The play 
refers to controversial real-life executions including that of Ruth Ellis, 
hanged in 1955 for murdering her abusive lover.

The death penalty is being abolished and Harry is running a pub in a northern 
England town where his job has made him a macabre minor celebrity. He's visited 
by Peter Mooney (star-in-the-making Johnny Flynn), a disruptive southern dandy 
with mysterious and possibly sinister intentions, who embodies the charm, 
danger and menace of changing times.

McDonagh said Mooney is "a kind of Rolling Stones type, but a creepy, 
(messed)-up Rolling Stones type."

Part farce, part thriller, part dissection of society and its hypocrisies, 
"Hangmen" has echoes of the 1960s plays of Joe Orton and Harold Pinter, who 
brought a new energy, irreverence and violence onto the British stage.

McDonagh, 45, made his name with plays including "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" 
and "The Pillowman" before moving into film as writer-director of "In Bruges" 
and "7 Psychopaths."

Like those works, "Hangmen" - McDonagh's first new play in London for more than 
a decade - creates a world in which violence is both terrible and ridiculous.

Humor and menace make for a delicate balance, executed with precision by the 
cast under director Matthew Dunster.

"It's absurdist humor," said Morrissey, who makes Wade both threatening and 
vulnerable. "But if you played it for laughs it would kill it. I tend to play 
the menace and then the laughs come.

"What's absurd is the truth - the truth that you combat people who have 
committed murder by murdering them."

Morrissey says he finds capital punishment "abhorrent," and "Hangmen" invites 
theatergoers to agree, although McDonagh says he didn't set out to write a 
message play.

"But I do have my opinions about it and I kind of knew it would bubble up if I 
wrote something about it," he said.

McDonagh has had past success in New York - most recently last year with a 
production of his play "The Cripple of Inishmaan" starring Daniel Radcliffe.

"Hangmen," which runs in London until March 5, has received enthusiastic 
reviews, and it's a good bet it will head for New York before too long.

McDonagh relishes the idea of showing the play to audiences in a country where 
state-sanctioned executions still occur.

"I can't wait," he said. "I can't wait to have that debate."

(source: ABC news)






LIBERIA:

Muslim Cleric Wants Convicted Rapists in Liberia Killed


Sheikh Omaru A. Kamara, National Chairman of Muslim Council of Liberia wants 
death penalty as punishment for people found guilty of rape and other sexual 
and Gender based violence against women and children. The National Muslim 
council chair says chronic illnesses require chronic treatment and wants people 
who kill children through rape to as well face death penalty for their action 
and is also calling for his suggestion to be enacted into law.

Sheikh Kamara: "Bad sore needs bad medicine, we see our children die at the 
hands of these perpetrators while they are protected under what is refer to as 
the law. This we must put an end to, if people die as a result of rape than let 
then die too". Also speaking at program memorializing children who have died as 
a result of rape and other sexual related violence cases, Gender Minister Julia 
Duncan Cassel called on schools administrators around the country to keep in 
school children who go late until their relatives are present.

She said between 2013 to 2015 23 girls fewer than 18 died of rape. She reminded 
elders and traditional leaders to join the fight by reporting SGBV cases to 
state authorities and not compromising it at home through settlement. For her 
part Senator Geraldine Doe-Sheriff Chairman on Executive at the Liberian Senate 
wants President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to speak robustly. Senator Doe-Sheriff 
committed the Legislature to ensuring that issues regarding Gender based 
violence are given serious attention.

According to the Montserrado County senator parents and guardians should be 
held responsible for violence against children due to their failure to give the 
children the necessary advice that will guide them. Senator Doe Sheriff said: 
"We call on people in authority to stop backing wrong in the name of that's my 
interest and reframe from allowing one segment of the citizenry to be exception 
to the law. The president needs to speak robustly against all desecration 
against women and children".

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's statement reflects the global trend away 
from capital punishment. More and more Member States from all regions 
acknowledge that the death penalty undermines human dignity, and that its 
abolition, or at least a moratorium on its use, contributes to the enhancement 
and progressive development of human rights. More than 160 Members States of 
the United Nations with a variety of legal systems, traditions, cultures and 
religious backgrounds, have either abolished the death penalty or do not 
practice it. Yet, prisoners in a number of countries continue to face 
execution.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with its mandate to 
promote and protect all human rights, advocates for the universal abolition of 
the death penalty. The UN Human Rights Office argues this position for other 
reasons as well, including the fundamental nature of the right to life; the 
unacceptable risk of executing innocent people; and the absence of proof that 
the death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime. In line with General Assembly 
resolutions calling for a phasing out of capital punishment, the UN Human 
Rights Office supports Member States, civil society and other stakeholders 
campaigning for a moratorium on the death penalty and ultimately its abolition 
worldwide.

(source: frontpageafricaonline.com)






INDIA:

Acid attack victim demands death penalty for accused


"Is this life? ... After that incident I have become a faceless person and the 
pain kills me every day. I want death sentence for the perpetrators or 
permission from the court to chop off their hands," says Chanchal Kumari.

In a landmark judgment in her case, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the State 
government to pay her a compenation of Rs. 10 lakh and also directed States and 
Union

Territories to include acid attack victims in the Social Justice Ministry's 
disability list, thereby giving them access to government welfare schemes and 
reservation in jobs and education centres.

In 2012, the young and bubbly Chanchal, who was barely 19, suffered 90 % burns 
after 4 men sneaked onto the roof, where she and her younger sister Sonam,15, 
were sleeping, and threw acid on their face.

The incident took place while the village, Chitnawan (30 km from here), was 
busy celebrating Dussehra.

"One of them wanted to marry me. When I turned down his proposal, he, along 
with others, started harassing me, stalking me everywhere but we couldn't do 
anything as we are from a poor Dalit family," Chanchal tells The Hindu over 
phone.

Chanchal now breathes only through her mouth as her nostrils are completely 
burnt. She cannot close her eyes as her eyelids were burnt, cannot chew and 
swallow food properly. Even sleeping has become painful. For Sonam, too, the 
agonies of daily life have become manifold.

'No one talks to me'

"Today wherever I go we cover my face under veil...I've no face today...people 
have stopped talking to me... even in college I sit alone, study and come back 
as nobody talks to me," says Chanchal.

(source: The Hindu)