[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 16



BAHRAIN:

Rights groups condemn death penalty sentence of Mohammed Ramadan and Husain Ali 
Moosa


The undersigned organisations condemn the practice of capital punishment in 
Bahrain and urge the Government of Bahrain to commute any and all death 
sentences issued by its courts.

On 29th December 2014, a Bahraini criminal court sentenced Mohammed Ramadan and 
Husain Ali Moosa to death for their alleged involvement in a February 2014 bomb 
explosion. Both defendants state that authorities tortured them into confessing 
to the crime. According to Moosa, authorities hung him from a ceiling for 3 
days, beat him and on several occasions threatened to harm his relatives. 
Ramadan was allegedly arrested without a warrant and violently beaten on 
sensitive parts of his body until he agreed to confess. Both have subsequently 
had their sentences upheld by the Court of Cassation on 16 November 2015 
despite having recanted their confessions and reiterating that they confessed 
under torture. Their allegations have not provoked any investigation. Ramadan 
and Moosa are just 2 of 9 individuals on death row in Bahrain and are the first 
to be sentenced to death since 2011.

We are concerned with Bahrain's regression towards the practice of capital 
punishment. We are also concerned over reports that those individuals on death 
row have been denied basic rights to a fair trial, and have been reportedly 
subjected to severe torture during their detention and interrogation. Such 
practices have afflicted the Bahrain justice system since 2011, as documented 
by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. It is appalling that these 
practices have continued on a systematic and wide-scale basis despite numerous 
promises of reform.

Earlier this year, 5 UN human rights experts, including the Special Rapporteur 
on Torture, expressed serious concerns that both Ramadan and Moosa had 
confessed under duress. The European Union found that Bahrain's use of the 
death penalty had expanded to politically-motivated cases in an urgency 
resolution over the summer, and called for Bahrain to immediately ratify and 
implement international treaties banning the use of capital punishment. We both 
welcome and join these calls.

As a State party to the ICCPR, Bahrain should ensure that death penalty can 
only be handed for most serious crimes and pursuant to a final judgment 
rendered by a competent court. The ICCPR also guarantees that fair trial 
standards should be applied including an absolute prohibition against torture.

We condemn the practice of capital punishment in Bahrain, and call on the 
government to immediately commute all death sentences. We also call on Bahrain 
to investigate all allegations of torture made by persons sentenced to death, 
and to dismiss any and all convictions made on the basis of confessions 
obtained under conditions of torture. Finally, we urge Bahrain to re-impose a 
moratorium on the death penalty with a view towards abolishing the practice.

(source: FIDH.org)






SUDAN:

Sudan threatens 25 Muslims with death on charges of apostasy ---- Group - 
including 3 teenagers - accused of 'rejecting the prophet' in a case lawyers 
say contradicts the country's constitution


A judge granted the men bail on Monday and announced that court proceedings 
against them had been suspended until February, in what lawyers believe is an 
attempt to deflect international criticism of the case.

"I think they want to shrink [attention on] the case, because [it] started 
getting international coverage and [the judge] saw how foreign media covered 
the story," said Ahmed Sibare, 1 of the lawyers defending the group.

The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies and the Sudanese Human Rights 
Initiative released a join statement calling for the government to drop the 
charges against the 25 "who are prisoners of conscience and have been put on 
trial solely because of their religious beliefs".

The men are being tried under article 126 of the criminal code which adheres to 
Islamic Sharia law, but Sibare said the code is clearly in conflict with the 
Sudanese constitution which guarantees the right to "freedom of thought and 
conscience".

The lawyer said he would challenge the article in the constitutional court. 
"[It is] vague and the authorities use it for malicious reasons," he said.

Rifaat Abdel-Mo'min Awad, 1 of the teenagers facing the death penalty, remained 
defiant after his release. "This law has to be changed because it conflicted 
with the constitution that gives the rights to people to believe in whatever 
they want," he said.

He said he had been listening to the imam with his brother, Fareed, 21, when 
the police arrived. "He was telling us what the God and his prophet Muhammad 
said - and suddenly the police came and surrounded us with their guns on our 
heads like criminals."

Some people fled the scene, the teenager recalled, but 22 people were put in 
police cars and taken to the local prison, where they were held for 12 days. 
They were later transferred with 5 others to the notorious Omdurman prison in 
western Khartoum, where they were kept for 4 weeks until being released on bail 
on Monday.

If the accused agree to renounce their beliefs in court, the sentence could be 
commuted to 5 years in jail.

Members of Khartoum's Hausa community meet regularly in street markets to 
listen to readings from the Qur'an translated into Hausa, the group's native 
language, as many of them are not fluent in Arabic.

Though Sudan is a religiously and ethnically diverse country, Bashir has long 
made his intolerance towards the country's Christian and traditional African 
religions clear. They make up 3% of the country's population, according to 
official figures.

Bashir declared in 2010 that the country would follow Sharia law: "We don't 
want to hear anything about diversity - Sudan is an Islamic and Arabic country. 
Rifaat's father, Abdel-Mo'min Awad, said: "I really don't know why we're being 
targeted by the authorities. We are not politicians and we don't care about 
politics, we only worship God."

Mohamed Badwai, from the African Centre for Peace and Justice Studies, said 
this latest case shows the urgent need for legal reform in Sudan, where jailing 
citizens for their beliefs has become routine. "The ruling party uses trials 
like these to repress the people in Sudan, and force them into its preferred 
way of life," he said.

Last year, a pregnant Christian woman from Khartoum, Meriam Ibrahim, narrowly 
escaped death row after she too was accused of apostasy and adultery for 
marrying a Christian man.

(source: The Guardian)






INDIA:

Don't want death penalty for rapists, say women's progressive groups


On 16 December, a group of 40 odd women, students and progressive groups have 
released a letter that opposes the demand for death penalty and castration.

This comes after mass anguish over the gang rape that occurred on the night of 
the 16th 3 years ago in the capital. Anguish that resulted in the demand for 
instant justice in the form of castration and death.

Opposed to that natural but dangerous retaliation, the letter reiterates that 
an eye for an eye is really no good. Interestingly, even in the Bhanwari Devi 
case, it was the women of the village who stood up against death penalty and 
castration.

Here are some arguments/conclusions reproduced verbatim from the letter:

1. The movement of December 2012 had raised the slogan of Bekhauf Azaadi, or 
Fearless Freedom for women and for all, and had specifically challenged moves 
to control women in the name of their own safety, and to use the fear of rape 
to justify patriarchal restrictions and surveillance on women's freedom.

2. We share the grief and have full empathy with parents and families of 
victims of violence. It is however important that we continue to place the 
issue of violence against women and children at the centre of discussions and 
not "victimhood".

We understand that one instance of sexual violence in a family sometimes takes 
a toll on the family as a whole and it is years before they can recover. In our 
struggle against violence we must be aware and ensure that we do not reinforce 
victimhood and prolong this suffering. They, victims and families need to heal, 
and their loss and grief must not be publicly paraded.

3. For us, this is a day that calls upon us to renew our vision of substantive, 
reformative and reparative justice for victims and survivors of sexual 
violence, as opposed to retribution against perpetrators. Such justice can only 
truly be achieved in a society that is both ethical and humane, and in which 
the survivor and her health and freedom are the focus of the procedures of the 
criminal justice, medical, and social welfare systems.

We condemn the impunity that most often accompanies acts of gender-based 
violence against women, girls, boys and transpeople. We assert their right to 
equality in the eyes of the law.

4. We state unequivocally that we are against draconian punishments like death 
penalty or chemical castration. We believe in reformative and reparative rather 
than retributive justice, which gives a chance for people - including juveniles 
- to change and turn their lives around.

5. We reject the logic of 'instant' vigilante justice and instead seek to 
strengthen the systems and due processes of justice, to ensure that these work 
for and not against victims.

(source: catchnews.com)






PAKISTAN:

Hangings on the eve of Preshawar school attack


8 convicted killers were hanged at prisons across the country on the eve of the 
1-year anniversary of the Peshawar school attack, which prompted the government 
to reinstate the death penalty.

As reported by Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany's international broadcaster, the 
moratorium on executions was lifted last year by Pakistan after Taliban gunmen 
killed more than 150 people, most of them children, at an army-run school in 
the northwest on 16 December 2014.

The latest round of executions took place on December 15 in various locations 
in Punjab province, with eight convicted murderers sent to the prison gallows.

"2 convicts on death row were hanged in Multan, 2 each in Bahawalpur and Gujrat 
and 1 each in Attock and Dera Ghazi Khan," Chaudhry Arshad Saeed, a senior 
prison official in Punjab, told the AFP news agency.

According to rights activists, the number of executions carried out since the 
6-year moratorium was lifted is around 310.

Germany, the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have 
called on Pakistan to cease executing prisoners.

(source: neurope.eu)

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

Only 17 terror executions after APS tragedy----7 appeals still pending in 
courts


The deaths caused by terrorists run into thousands but only 17 high-profile 
executions have been carried out in the last 1 year after the tragic incident 
of APS School in Peshawar on December 16, an official document revealed.

The terrorists who faced executions were found involved in different acts of 
terrorism including attacks on military installations and security agencies.

The document also lists the names of 7 other terrorists whose appeals are still 
pending in the Supreme Court and the high court after they were awarded capital 
punishment by the military and anti-terrorism courts.

Appeals of 5 terrorists which include Kamran s/o Muhammad Aslam, Ihsan Azeem 
s/o Muhammad Azeem, Asif Maroof s/o Muhammad Idrees, Aamir Yousaf s/o Muhammad 
Yousaf and Nadeem s/o Naeem Khan are pending in the Supreme Court. Similarly, 
appeals of 2 terrorists, Lance Naik Ghulam Nabi s/o Muhammad Ashraf and a 
civilian Abdul Malik alias Muslim s/o Aurangzeb Khan are pending in the high 
court.

Most of the executions took place during the month of January 2015, the month 
succeeding the APS incident. The names of 17 terrorists along with the dates of 
their execution are listed below:

A military court announced death sentence to Aqeel Ahmad alias Dr Usman s/o 
Nazir Ahmad and he was executed on December 19, 2014.

Arshad Mehmood s/o Meharban Khan was executed on December 19, 2014 following 
the award of death penalty by a military court. The same military court also 
sentenced to death 4 other terrorists which included Akhlas Ahmed alias Russi 
s/o Akhlaq Ahmad, Ghulam Sarwar s/o Safdar Hussain, Zubair Ahmad s/o Allah 
Ditta and Rashid Mehmood alias Teepu s/o Muhammad Anwar. They were executed on 
December 21, 2014. Nawazish Ali s/o Ali Muhammad who got capital punishment by 
a military court was executed on January 13, 2015.

Muhammad Zahid alias Zahida s/o Nazar Hussain was executed on January 15, 2015 
as a result of a court verdict by ACT - II, Multan. Ahmed Ali s/o Ghulam Abbas 
and Ghulam Shabbir s/o Bashir Ahmed were also sentenced to death by the same 
anti-terrorism court and hanged on January 7, 2015.

Ikram Ul Haq alias Lahori alias Farooq Haider s/o Bashir Ahmed was hanged on 
January 17, 2015 after an Anti-terrorism of Faisalabad announced death penalty 
to them.

Zulfiqar Ali s/o Abdul Hameed was hanged on January 13, 2015. The verdict for 
his execution was passed by an Anti-terrorism court of Karachi.

The execution of Khalid Mehmood s/o Ahmed Khan was carried out on January 9, 
2015. He was sentenced to death by a Chaklala-based military court. Mushtaq 
Ahmed s/o Imran Ahmed was executed on January 13, 2015. Qari M Tayyab s/o Nabi 
Ahmed was hanged on April 7, 2015 after a Faisalabad-based anti-terrorism court 
awarded him the death penalty. Mushtaq Ahmad s/o M Nawaz was hanged on 
September 30, 2015 following a decision by a military court. An anti-terrorism 
court at Multan sentenced Umar Nadeem s/o Nadeem and his execution took place 
on November 17, 2015.

(source: The Nation)



IRAN:

Iran's Supreme Court Confirms Death Penalty for A Sunni Prisoner


Barzan Nasrollah Zadeh, who was arrested on vague charges of Moharebeh (enmity 
against God), has been reportedly sentenced to death; the Iranian supreme court 
has allegedly confirmed the capital punishment and the case was referred to the 
court for possible execution.

Sunni prisoner of conscience Barzan Nasrollah Zadeh was detained (when he was 
under 18) along with 2 other Sunni men by Iran's security forces on May 29, 
2010, BCR Group has learned. He was finally sentenced to the death penalty for 
supporting Salafi groups at Branch 28 of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Court.

Mr. Nasrollah Zadeh was deprived the right of having a lawyer during his trial, 
relatives said.

Barzan Nasrollah Zadeh has been suffering from health problems such as liver 
disorders since his arrest on 29 May 2010. He was shot in the abdomen by 
plain-clothed officers from the Ministry of Intelligence who arrested him as he 
walked home from school in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province of Iran, International 
Campaign for Sunni Prisoners in Iran declared. Barzan was then filmed by 
interrogators who forced him to make a false 'confession' that he had 'contact 
with Salafi groups', the organization stated.

He is jailed in Ward 4 of Hall 10 in the notorious Rajai Shahr prison and is 
serving the 5th year of his sentence.

Situation of Sunni Prisoners in Iran

According to reports, more than 74 Sunni Kurd prisoners have been convicted to 
prison terms estimated from 5 to 33 year in Rajai Shahr prison. In addition, 39 
of them have been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court of the regime, 
and 6 prisoners including Hamed Ahmadi, Kamal Molaei, Jahangir Dehghani, 
Jamshid Dehghani, Sedigh Mohammadi and Hadi Husseini were executed on 4 March 
2015.

This report mentioned there are numbers of Sunni prisoners that would not 
publish their news, because the relatives of some prisoners are panicked after 
they were severely threatened by officials of the regime of Iran.

Torture, beating, mock execution and brutal interrogation are the norms against 
Sunni Kurd prisoners that most of them are unknown due to weak media and Human 
Rights Organizations negligence.

They have had extremely painful experiences in prison - both psychologically 
and physically during interrogation by torturers.

Broken captives are thrown into solitary confinement and horrific interrogation 
rooms, where they are subjected to inhuman and cruel methods. The condition of 
prisoners is alarming and worrying as reports have acknowledged.

They are brutally tortured and threatened through pressure on their families, 
hanging from the ceiling that leads them to break their shoulder, lethal 
medicine injections, hanging up weights to the testis, keeping in cold weather, 
threats of rape, severe lashes on the bed, beating by shocker, beating to the 
sensitive organs (head, cerebellum, neck, spine, stomach, shin, knee, back of 
knee), mock execution and long-term imprisonment in solitary confinement.

***

Therefore, BCR Group asks for halting the death penalty by writing immediately 
in Persian, English or your own language:

-- Urging the Iranian authorities to halt immediately the execution of Barzan 
Nasrollah Zadeh;

PLEASE SEND APPEALS TO:

Leader of the Islamic Republic

Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei

The Office of the Supreme Leader

Islamic Republic Street- End of Shahid

Keshvar Doust StreetM

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Email:info_leader at leader.ir

Twitter: @khamenei_ir

Salutation: Your Excellency

Head of the Judiciary

Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani

c/o Public Relations Office

Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Salutation: Your Excellency

And copies to:

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Hassan Rouhani

The Presidency

Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Twitter: @HassanRouhani (English)

@Rouhani_ir (Persian)

Also, send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.



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



JUVENILE OFFENDER RE-SENTENCED TO DEATH

An Iranian juvenile offender, Sajad Sanjari, was re-sentenced to death on 21 
November, after a
retrial. He had been convicted of murder, for fatally stabbing a man when he 
was 15 years old.

Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case 
information,
addresses and sample messages.

Sajad Sanjari who had been sentenced to death in January 2012 for fatally 
stabbing a man when he was
15 years old, was sentenced to death for the second time on 21 November after a 
re-trial. He has
appealed the sentence to the Supreme Court.

Sajad Sanjari had been granted a retrial in June 2015 after new juvenile 
sentencing guidelines had
been introduced in the 2013 Islamic Penal Code, which gives judges discretion 
to replace the death
penalty with an alternative punishment if they determined that juvenile 
offenders had not understood
the nature of the crime or its consequences, or there were doubts about their 
“mental growth and
maturity” at the time of the crime.

Branch Three of the Provincial Criminal Court of Kermanshah Province 
re-resentenced Sajad Sanjari to
death, with little explanation, on 21 November 2015. The verdict, which has 
been reviewed by Amnesty
International, simply states that Sajad Sanjari merits the death penalty as he 
“understood the
nature of his crime and there is no doubt or uncertainty about his mental 
maturity and development
at the time of the commission of the crime”. Amnesty International understands 
that during the
re-trial, judges focused on whether Sajad Sanjari could distinguish right from 
wrong at the time of
the crime. His lawyer highlighted that Sajad Sanjari had not had access to 
proper schooling, as he
worked as a shepherd and his parents were poor and illiterate.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Sajad Sanjari was arrested on 2 August 2010 after a man was fatally stabbed. 
Branch One of the
Provincial Criminal Court of Kermanshah Province convicted him of murder and 
sentenced him to death
in January 2012. During his trial, Sajad Sanjari admitted that he had stabbed 
the man but maintained
that he had done so in self-defence after the man tried to rape him. He said 
that the man had warned
him the previous day that he would come to rape him, so he took a kitchen knife 
to scare him away.
The court rejected Sajad Sanjari’s claims, after several witnesses testified to 
the good character
of the deceased. The court added that even if the rape threats and the attack 
had been carried out,
Sajad Sanjari could not claim self-defence because the attack was predictable 
from at least a day
before and he had had ample time to raise the matter with the authorities or 
seek help from people
living nearby, to reduce hostility and prevent the attack from happening.

Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format.

Name: Sajad Sanjari
Gender m/f: m
UA: 286/15 Index: MDE 13/3064/2015 Issue Date: 11 December 2015

Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact!

EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with “UA 286/15” in the subject 
line, and include in the
body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent,

OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action.

Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office 
if taking action after
the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please 
forward it to us at
uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Please write immediately in Persian, English, Spanish, French or your own 
language:
  *  Urging the Iranian authorities to ensure that Sajad Sanjari’s death 
sentence is commuted
     immediately;
  *  Expressing concern that granting judges discretion to sentence juvenile 
offenders to death
     violates Iran’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights and
     the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which absolutely prohibit the 
imposition of death
     sentences for crimes committed by persons below the age of 18.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 22 JANUARY 2016 TO:

The Office of the Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
Islamic Republic Street- End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: via website
http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php?
p=letter
Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English)
Salutation: Your Excellency

And copies to:
Prosecutor General of Tehran
Abbas Ja’fari Dolat Abadi
Tehran General and Revolutionary Prosecution Office
Corner (Nabsh-e) of 15 Khordad Square Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran




Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
c/o Public Relations Office
Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info at humanrights-iran.ir
Salutation: Your Excellency




Also send copies to:
Iran does not presently have an embassy in the United States. Instead, please 
send copies to:
Embassy of Pakistan - Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran
1250 23rd ST. N.W. #200, Washington, D.C. 20037
T: 202.965.4990 | 202.965.1073 | Email: info at daftar.org

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