[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 3



INDONESIA:

Rights groups criticize resumption of executions in Indonesia----11 more men 
are scheduled for execution, with the majority of those on death row there on 
drug charges



Rights activists inside and outside Indonesia have expressed alarm after the 
country executed 6 people in January, officially resuming the death penalty 
after a 1-year reprieve.

On Jan. 29, the government named the next 11 people to be executed, 8 of them 
on drug-related charges, and, of those 8, 7 are foreigners.

In 2013, after an almost 5-year gap, the Southeast Asian country executed 5 
people, then held off for a year before executing 6 people at the start of this 
year, putting on notice about 150 people currently on Indonesian death row.

Some activists said the move is largely about domestic politics. Ricky Gunawan, 
director of the Jakarta-based LBH Masyarakat Community Legal Aid Institute, 
told Al Jazeera there is widespread domestic support for capital punishment for 
drug trafficking within Indonesia.

"In Indonesia, drugs have always been seen as 'evil.' Narcotics ... are often 
labeled as haram [forbidden]," Gunawan said, adding that "the government and 
law apparatus treat this issue as a way to gain popularity or support."

Arrests, convictions and executions are "a way for the government to show that 
they are tough against crimes," Gunawan said.

When Indonesian President Joko Widodo spoke about the fate of 2 Australians - 
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are among the next 11 to be executed - he 
told CNN, "We are not going to compromise for drug dealers. No compromise, no 
compromise."

Widodo, who took office in the predominantly Muslim nation of roughly 250 
million in October, said the two would not receive a reprieve from execution, 
although both men filed a last-ditch appeal on Friday.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has personally asked for clemency for 
Chan and Sukimaran, who were arrested in 2005.

Relations between the 2 neighbor countries have soured since it was revealed in 
2013 that Australia had been spying on Indonesian officials, including former 
president President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.

Executions not a deterrent

In its 2013 Death Sentence and Executions report, Amnesty International 
indicated that there were at least 149 people on death row in Indonesia, 
roughly half on drug-related charges.

Rights groups say that executing people on drug charges does not comport with 
international standards.

Article 6 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights limits the acceptable use of capital punishment to crimes that meet the 
threshold for being "the most serious crimes."

"According to international human rights jurisprudence, capital punishment 
could only be applied to the crime of murder or intentional killing," Ravina 
Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a Jan. 20 statement.

The Indonesian government has staunchly resisted the U.N.???s interpretation of 
jurisprudence, which is why some rights groups focus on opposition to 
executions rather than the offenses for which prisoners are being executed.

"Amnesty International opposes the death penalty for whatever reason, so it 
doesn't matter if [the charge] falls under a heinous crime or not," said T. 
Kumar, international advocacy director for the rights group.

"The death penalty is commonly used for drug offenses in many countries, mainly 
in Southeast Asia, so that's nothing new there," Kumar said. "So what's new is 
we have a new president in Indonesia so he's carrying out all the death 
sentences, and refusing to give any consideration for clemency - he's pretty 
much taking a tough line."

Rights activists questioned the effectiveness of that hardline approach when it 
comes to curbing the flow of narcotics into the country.

Rick Lines, director of Harm Reduction International (HRI), a U.K.-based NGO, 
said that after decades of study, criminologists and social scientists have 
found "no evidence at all that the death penalty is a deterrent of crime, 
whether drug crimes or other crimes."

"The fact that the majority of those arrested and sentenced to death are 
low-level couriers in and of itself demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the 
laws, as high-level traffickers and kingpins are not being caught in the legal 
net leads to capital punishment," Lines said.

He added that executing the couriers would not stop the drug trade, "as there 
will be a never-ending procession of poor and desperate people" willing to 
assume the risk for financial or other rewards.

HRI estimates that as many as 1,000 people are executed on drug charges each 
year in the Middle East and Asia alone.

(source: Al Jazeera)

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

Indonesia's drugs strategy under fire



Indonesia's strategy in its war against drugs is under attack, with lawmakers 
airing concerns over the prison drug culture and experts challenging the 
deterrent effect of the death penalty.

President Joko Widodo has already sent 6 death row drug offenders to the firing 
squad this year, and Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will be among 
the next.

Mr Joko says the death penalty is needed because Indonesia's future is under 
threat from a 'drugs emergency'.

His position is based on a study by the National Narcotics Board (BNN) which 
finds up to 50 Indonesians die from drug-related causes each day.

Under pressure at a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta on Monday, BNN chief Anang 
Iskandar reportedly admitted prison guards were involved in distributing drugs 
behind bars.

He told reporters the BNN was aiming to dismantle up to 50 prison drug 
networks, as well as rehabilitate 100,000 drug addicts this year.

Mr Anang backed the death penalty as a strong deterrent, as long as executions 
were carried out regularly.

'If we do it in 2015, the next one should not be in 2016 or once a year, this 
will not create a deterrent effect,' he said.

'A deterrent effect is only caused by continuous executions and the time 
interval between should not be too long either.'

Indonesia's Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, an independent research 
institute, says the evidence does not support the idea that capital punishment 
is a deterrent.

'It's a myth,' institute director Supriyadi W. Eddyono said.

'Many studies have shown it.'

I find the BNN is not consistent either.

'There's the death penalty for some and on the other hand, there are domestic 
drug dealers who receive remission.'

If they want to make tighter laws for drugs offenders, they should also limit 
the remission given to drug offenders.

The institute is also preparing a legal challenge to Supreme Court advice to 
limit the number of judicial reviews, known as PKs, to 1 per convict.

The courts are now considering an application from Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 33, 
for a 2nd judicial review.

Their lawyers argue past errors were made in their case and that the Bali 9 
ringleaders are reformed after 10 years' jail.Indonesia's Attorney-General HM 
Prasetyo says the application does not alter his plans to include the 
Australians in the next round of executions, on a date to be determined.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has reportedly been advised there is nothing that 
can be done to save the two Australians from execution.The message was conveyed 
to Mr Abbott on Australia Day by Indonesia's ambassador Nadjib Riphat Kesoema, 
News Corp Australia reports.

2 celebrated Melbourne artists, Ben Quilty and Matthew Sleeth, visited 
Kerobokan prison on Tuesday for a prison art workshop that had been planned 
some time ago.

Quilty says both Sukumaran and Chan are doing well.

'They are carrying an enormous weight on their shoulders, but they are still 
hopeful,' he told reporters.

Sleeth said it would be a shame to end their lives when they had done so much 
to rehabilitate prisoners.

'I would like to see the Indonesian authorities celebrate their success in this 
rehabilitation and in the art room, and keep it going.'

(source: Sky News)

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

The Bali 9, and how not to argue for the death penalty

Barring some sort of last-minute miracle, 2 relatively young Australian men, 
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, are going to be killed by the Indonesian 
state. They will not be the first to die this way in 2015. 6 other drug 
criminals have already been executed in Indonesia this year, and more are 
scheduled.

The Brazilians and Dutch recalled their ambassadors in response to the last 
executions, which involved two of their citizens. Australia is reportedly doing 
what it can to save Chan and Sukumaran, but apparently to no avail, and it 
remains to be seen if we would follow the Brazilian and Dutch examples. ACU 
Vice-Chancellor Greg Craven has claimed that:

The attitude of Australia and Australians will become part of the reason why 
these men are executed if we are not sending the right signals to Indonesia.

Meanwhile, Roy Morgan polling finds that 62% of Australians think their 
government should not do more to stop the execution. A slim majority, 52%, 
favour such executions going ahead. Yet as recently as 2009 Roy Morgan also 
found a clear majority not in favour of capital punishment in Australia - not 
even for murder.

That re-introducing the death penalty doesn't have majority support isn't 
surprising. The consequentialist arguments against the death penalty aren't 
hard to find. The irreversibility of execution means sickening and unfixable 
miscarriages of justice are more or less inevitable.

The imperative to avoid those injustices makes the process extremely slow - 
almost 15 years on average in the US, as of 2010 - and accordingly more 
expensive than life imprisonment. As a deterrent it simply doesn't seem to 
work, perhaps because, oddly enough, it turns out humans aren't rational, 
cool-headed calculators who deliberate carefully and act accordingly.

We know all this, or at least we should.

So, it seems a large proportion of us are against the death penalty, but say we 
are for executions abroad and don't want us to try harder to stop them. How do 
we reconcile these apparently incompatible beliefs?

I suspect we're doing it with "arguments" that at bottom have nothing to do 
with the death penalty as such, but are really just excuses for not caring 
about it in particular cases. We don't like the death penalty, we just don't 
want the discomfort of having to care about the people it's applied to. And so 
we trot out a series of trite, cliched slogans.

'Do the crime, do the time'

The obvious rejoinder to this is that execution isn't "doing time" - even if 
the years spent on death row is.

Philosophers continue to grapple with the surprisingly difficult question of 
why death is a harm and why, by extension, killing is wrong. The closest thing 
to a standard answer is that death deprives us of good years we would otherwise 
have enjoyed.

But as the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus insisted, not existing for what 
would have been the rest of your life is not the same as suffering for that 
many years.

You might rephrase this as: "Do the crime, pay the penalty". But just how far 
do we follow that principle? Penalties can be excessive, or unjust. So surely 
for such a principle to have force, the penalty has to be proportional to the 
crime.

If you say Chan and Sukumaran should accept their punishment, you're thereby 
committed to saying that execution is a fitting punishment for drug trafficking 
- a claim that needs to be argued for.

'They knew the risk they were running'

Radio host Garry Linnell offered a version of this argument in response to 
artist Ben Quilty's candlelight vigil for the pair. He wrote:

Sukumaran and Chan knew the penalty if they were caught. You cannot arrive 
anywhere in Indonesia without signs explicitly stating the consequences of 
importing and exporting drugs on Indonesian soil. It is Indonesian law.

But this confuses moral responsibility with prudential responsibility. If you 
leave your car unlocked with the window down and your laptop on the front seat, 
someone might say that you "deserve" to have your laptop stolen. But being 
imprudent in such a case isn't the same thing as moral culpability: that rests 
with the thief. We wouldn't refuse to stop the thief, or let him off the hook, 
simply because you'd been careless.

You can agree that Chan and Sukumaran were stupid to take the risk they did, 
and even that what they did morally deserves punishment, given the misery and 
death heroin brings with it. But the argument that "they knew the risks" 
doesn't, on its own, make their execution appropriate. Those who assert this 
still owe us an argument.

'Different countries have different laws and we should respect that'

Linnell, like many others, also insisted that:

... the Bali 9 controversy is equally about sovereign rights and the penalties 
imposed on those who decide to flout them.

Sovereignty has moral weight, and it's not hard to imagine cases where it might 
be ethically right to abide by local laws or norms you nonetheless disagree 
with.

But, again, this only goes so far. It would be obscene to subordinate the 
profound wrongness of killing - the very thing many death penalty proponents 
appeal to - to the need to respect sovereignty or avoid giving offence. To say 
that the laws of other countries must always be respected - no matter what they 
demand - is not so much a statement of principle as a moral abdication.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with making arguments like this. It's 
not so much ethical reasoning as ritual hand-washing.

If you honestly think that killing 2 young men, who are so effectively 
rehabilitated that even their jailers want them to live, and destroying the 
lives of their families, all for no deterrent effect, is somehow going to 
achieve something - well, you have to argue for it.

If there's some knock-down argument that makes premeditated killing on the part 
of the government appropriate, or shows how more death and misery is somehow 
going to put the world to right, let's hear it. Those who think we shouldn't 
care about this owe us better than rhetorical fig leaves for indifference.

Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika has said that the executions should take 
place - just not in Bali. It seems it's OK for things like this to happen, so 
long as they don't happen here, where we have to confront the full reality of 
what is done when the state ends a life, of what it is to shoot a man tied to a 
stake.

Sadly, many Australians seem to agree.

(source: The Conversation)

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

Indonesia defers execution of Pinay drug convict



Indonesia has deferred the execution of a convicted Filipina drug smuggler 
after the Philippine government sought a review of her case, the Department of 
Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Tuesday.

The woman, who flew in to Indonesia from Malaysia, was arrested by authorities 
at the Yogyakarta Airport on April 25, 2010 for alleged trafficking of 2.6 
kilograms of heroin. She entered Indonesia as a tourist.

"We are already waiting for a schedule of that judicial request. In view of 
that request, the actual execution has been deferred," Foreign Affairs 
spokesman Charles Jose told a press briefing.

In its request, Jose said the Philippine government is seeking the commutation 
of her sentence to life imprisonment.

Although the sentence was already upheld by the Supreme Court, Jose said all 
death penalty cases in Indonesia are entitled to at least 1 judicial review.

"We are presenting new arguments. We'll see how this will be taken and 
considered by authorities of Indonesia," he said.

In many countries, such as Indonesia and China, trafficking of large quantities 
of prohibited drugs is punishable by death. Death penalty in Indonesia is 
carried out through firing squad.

Since 2011, 5 Filipinos - all drug couriers - were put to death in China.

Despite the executions, many Filipinos continue to engage in drug trafficking, 
citing lack of economic opportunities at home.

Citing a September 2014 data, the DFA said a total of 805 Filipinos who are 
detained abroad for drug-related offenses.

(source: GMA News)

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

Jokowi's leadership could do with more compassion



President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo completed his first 100 days in office last week 
with mixed public reviews, but if there is one area where he has disappointed 
some of his fans the most, it is in his lacking the compassion and spirit of 
forgiveness expected from a leader who has almost all the other main 
humanitarian virtues.

Jokowi won the presidential elections in July chiefly because of his popularity 
among voters, rather than on his thin track record in government at the 
national level. The 53-year-old man from Surakarta, Central Java, displayed all 
the positive Javanese characteristics from humility to sincerity, virtues that 
are rarely found among today's politicians and leaders, but characteristics 
that people craved badly enough to vote for him.

But his decision at the start of his presidency to order the execution of the 
dozens of people on death row, there chiefly for drug trafficking, came as a 
big shock to some of his supporters who had hoped the new President would be 
more compassionate and forgiving, especially in deciding to take the lives of 
others. These are virtues that would have been consistent with his other 
humanitarian traits.

Last month, the Attorney General's Office carried out the execution of 6 people 
who have lingered on death row for years, including 5 foreigners, after 
President Jokowi rejected their appeals for clemency, their last chance for 
reprieve. The government says 11 others are now being lined up for execution. 
There were 64 people on death row when Jokowi ordered the executions to start 
as soon as he came into office in October. Unless he had a change of heart, all 
will be executed. 11th-hour appeals for mercy from President Dilma Rousseff of 
Brazil and King Willem of the Netherlands to spare the lives of their citizens, 
who were among the 6 executed, were rejected. Australian Prime Minister Tony 
Abbott has been on the phone with Jokowi this past week asking him to spare the 
lives of 2 Australians in the list of 11 about to be executed.

Jokowi responded to these pleas by saying Indonesia is in the middle of a major 
war against drug trafficking and these people violated Indonesian laws that 
clearly stipulate death for violators.

His strong stance received widespread support from the Indonesian public. They 
lauded the new President for taking a stand against the menacing drug threats 
that have affected millions of Indonesians and their families and for standing 
up against foreign leaders.

It's hard to accept Jokowi's explanation that there was nothing he could do to 
stop the executions. He claimed it was the court that decided on the death 
penalty, and not him, and that the order for execution is the natural 
consequence of him following the law of the land. Jokowi cannot easily wash his 
blood-stained hands. The Constitution grants the President the power to pardon 
people and he could have commuted their sentences to life imprisonment if he 
wanted to. When he rejects the appeals for clemency, he virtually signs their 
death warrants. This episode leads to a disturbing thought that we may have 
elected a war-mongering and vengeful president. After declaring war on drug 
abuse early in his presidency, he became trapped by his own rhetoric, to the 
effect that he simply had to order the executions of people on death row, 
mostly drug traffickers, but also including sadistic murderers.

Jokowi may have won over domestic public opinion - many in fact compared him 
with his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whom they thought of being too 
lame on drug offenders. But a better comparison would be with great leaders of 
the past, many of whom made compassion and forgiveness as part of the virtues 
that raised them above others.

The late South African leader Nelson Mandela made forgiveness very much one of 
his leadership qualities, one reason why he won the respect and admiration of 
people around the world, not only of South Africans. "Forgiveness liberates the 
soul. That's why it's such a powerful weapon," Mandela once said.

"You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than through acts of 
retribution," he said another time as he fought against demands from fellow 
black South Africans to take revenge against the whites for their brutality 
during decades of Apartheid. Compassion and the spirit of forgiveness would 
make Jokowi much stronger. They are not signs of weaknesses. They would even 
elevate him from being just another elected politician into a true statesman.

Given all his other humanitarian traits and given that he came from a younger 
generation of leaders not so tainted by the violent political culture, many 
supporters had hoped Jokowi to lean closer toward human rights causes, 
including on capital punishment.

All the arguments for and against capital punishment, from legal, 
constitutional, moral and religious points of view, have been debated. Even the 
Constitutional Court was divided when it ruled 5-to-4 in favor of retaining the 
death penalty in 2008. Public opinion is very much in favor of retention and 
the politician in President Jokowi has simply followed it and even strengthened 
it through his rhetorical statements. He could have risen above public opinion 
and shown compassion and forgiveness, but he chose not to.

The campaign to abolish capital punishment in Indonesia needs a public figure 
or an icon to tip public opinion to its side. Obviously, Jokowi is not their 
man.

(source: Endy Bayuni, The Jakarta Post)

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

Trial continued as objection rejected



A panel of judges in Denpasar District Court has decided to continue the trial 
of an American couple charged with murder despite an objection from the 
defendants' lawyers that the indictments were inaccurate and should be 
annulled.

This decision means that the couple, Tommy Schaefer, 21, and Heather Mack, 19, 
will face trial and could be sentenced to death.

"The indictment has been arranged carefully and fulfilled the material and 
judiciary requirements; the objection from the lawyer is rejected," presiding 
judge Made Suweda said in a hearing on Monday.

In a trial hearing 2 weeks ago, Schaefer's lawyer, Iswahyudi, said the 
indictment was unclear and contained a factual error. The lawyer asked the 
judge to return the indictment to the prosecutors.

"The indictment is unexamined, unclear and erroneous, so it is null and void," 
Iswahyudi claimed.

The same statement was also conveyed by Mack's lawyer, Novi Wirani, during her 
hearing, which took place after Schaefer's with the same presiding judge. "An 
indictment should be made carefully, clearly and completely, as required by 
law, as an indictment will determine someone's fate, whether they are guilty or 
not," Novi stated.

However, in the next session, prosecutors Eddy Artha Wijaya and Ni Luh Oka 
Ariani assured that the indictment and the charges were very clear.

As the lawyers' objections have been rejected, the trial will continue on 
Wednesday, Feb. 4, to hear witness statements.

If found guilty, the 2 Americans could face the death penalty as they have been 
charged with premeditated murder under Article 340 of the Criminal Code.

Schaefer and Mack, who are expecting a baby girl on April 1, are accused of 
murdering Mack's mother, 62-year-old American Sheila Ann von Weise-Mack. The 
victim's body was found in a suitcase allegedly put in a taxi trunk on Aug. 12 
by the young couple outside the luxury hotel in Nusa Dua where the 3 had been 
vacationing.

Mack and Schaefer were arrested on Aug. 13, 1 day after the murder, at Risata 
Bali Resort in Kuta, where they had stayed for the night.

According to the prosecutor's indictment, the murder was triggered by the 
mother's rejection of Mack and Schaefer's relationship. Mack had reportedly 
asked Schaefer to find a hit man to kill her mother before the incident took 
place. "Heather Lois Mack wanted her mother, Sheila Ann von Weise-Mack, to die 
and asked Tommy Schaefer to find people to kill her mother for US$50,000," the 
indictment stated.

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

Execution plan gets mixed reactions in Oz, says RI envoy



President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's latest rejection of clemency for a group of 
drug-case convicts, including two Australians, which will lead to the prisoners 
being executed by firing squad, has sparked mixed reactions in Australia, says 
Indonesian Ambassador to Australia Nadjib Riphat Kesoema.

"It is natural for every government to defend its citizens who are about to be 
executed. The Australian government expects to be able to spare its citizens' 
lives," Nadjib told The Jakarta Post recently.

"We also fully realize that taking someone's life is never an easy business. 
However, the word is final and the law must be upheld."

The statement was made following Attorney General HM Prasetyo's latest 
statement that prosecutors would execute foreigner prisoners and an Indonesian.

Nadjib also said that he had discussed the matter with various parties in 
Australia by explaining that the situation in Indonesia had forced the 
government to be firm, citing approximately 4.5 million people being exposed to 
narcotics, its various by-products and also other drugs.

He added that of the figure, a million people could not access proper 
rehabilitation.

"We are expecting some protests and mass rallies ahead as the result of the 
executions," he said.

However, Nadjib went on to say that apparently the execution plan had also 
drawn mixed reactions, as a portion of the Australian public also agreed to the 
executions.

A survey conducted by Roy Morgan Research revealed 52 % of Australians agreed 
that Australians convicted of drug trafficking in another country and sentenced 
to death should be executed.

The same survey also showed that 62 % of Australians thought their government 
should not do more to stop the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. 
The survey was conducted via SMS to 2,123 people from Jan. 23-27. The pair has 
been detained at Kerobokan Penitentiary in Denpasar, Bali, for almost 10 years.

A call for mercy was aired at a concert on Thursday last week, where more than 
2,000 Australians, led by local musicians, gathered in Sydney in a plea for 
mercy for the 2 convicts.

Holding candles and signs reading "I stand for mercy", the crowd listened to 
speeches and live music at Martin Place in the heart of the city, in a show of 
support for Chan and Sukumaran, who recently lost their final appeals for 
clemency.

The 2 men - members of an Australian drug-smuggling group dubbed the "Bali 9" - 
were arrested in Bali in 2005 and sentenced to death the following year for 
attempting to smuggle 8 kilograms of heroin off the Indonesian holiday island.

Sukumaran's grandmother Edith Visvanathan told the crowd that she was not 
asking for him to be sent home.

"I only ask him [Jokowi] to give him his life and let him do something with 
it," she said between sobs, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.

"Don't kill him, please don't kill him [...] please, President, please forgive 
him."

Artist Ben Quilty, a friend of Sukumaran's who organized the concert, choked 
back tears as he said the men's families would be touched by the outpouring of 
support.

"Andrew and Myuran did really bad things, but they are good young men now," he 
added.

Australia's Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson, who was in the audience, said 
there was "no cause for governments to kill people".

"The death penalty is completely inconsistent with human rights principles and 
disproportionate to the crimes being committed," he told AFP.

(source for both: The Jakarta Post)

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




Rights groups criticize resumption of executions in Indonesia----11 more men 
are scheduled for execution with the majority of those on death row there on 
drug charges



Rights activists inside and outside Indonesia have expressed alarm after the 
country executed 6 people in January, officially resuming the death penalty 
after a 1-year reprieve.

On Jan. 29, the government named the next 11 people to be executed, 8 of them 
on drug-related charges, and, of those 8, 7 are foreigners.

In 2013, after an almost 5-year gap, the Southeast Asian country executed 5 
people, then held off for a year before executing 6 people at the start of this 
year, putting on notice about 150 people currently on Indonesian death row.

Some activists said the move is largely about domestic politics. Ricky Gunawan, 
director of the Jakarta-based LBH Masyarakat Community Legal Aid Institute, 
told Al Jazeera there is widespread domestic support for capital punishment for 
drug trafficking within Indonesia.

"In Indonesia, drugs have always been seen as 'evil.' Narcotics ... are often 
labeled as haram [forbidden]," Gunawan said, adding that "the government and 
law apparatus treat this issue as a way to gain popularity or support."

Arrests, convictions and executions are "a way for the government to show that 
they are tough against crimes," Gunawan said.

When Indonesian President Joko Widodo spoke about the fate of 2 Australians - 
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are among the next 11 to be executed - he 
told CNN, "We are not going to compromise for drug dealers. No compromise, no 
compromise."

Widodo, who took office in the predominantly Muslim nation of roughly 250 
million in October, said the 2 would not receive a reprieve from execution, 
although both men filed a last-ditch appeal on Friday.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has personally asked for clemency for 
Chan and Sukimaran, who were arrested in 2005.

Relations between the 2 neighbor countries have soured since it was revealed in 
2013 that Australia had been spying on Indonesian officials, including former 
president President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.

Executions not a deterrent

In its 2013 Death Sentence and Executions report, Amnesty International 
indicated that there were at least 149 people on death row in Indonesia, 
roughly 1/2 on drug-related charges.

Rights groups say that executing people on drug charges does not comport with 
international standards.

Article 6 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights limits the acceptable use of capital punishment to crimes that meet the 
threshold for being "the most serious crimes."

"According to international human rights jurisprudence, capital punishment 
could only be applied to the crime of murder or intentional killing," Ravina 
Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a Jan. 20 statement.

The Indonesian government has staunchly resisted the U.N.???s interpretation of 
jurisprudence, which is why some rights groups focus on opposition to 
executions rather than the offenses for which prisoners are being executed.

"Amnesty International opposes the death penalty for whatever reason, so it 
doesn't matter if [the charge] falls under a heinous crime or not," said T. 
Kumar, international advocacy director for the rights group.

"The death penalty is commonly used for drug offenses in many countries, mainly 
in Southeast Asia, so that's nothing new there," Kumar said. "So what's new is 
we have a new president in Indonesia so he's carrying out all the death 
sentences, and refusing to give any consideration for clemency - he's pretty 
much taking a tough line."

Rights activists questioned the effectiveness of that hardline approach when it 
comes to curbing the flow of narcotics into the country.

Rick Lines, director of Harm Reduction International (HRI), a U.K.-based NGO, 
said that after decades of study, criminologists and social scientists have 
found "no evidence at all that the death penalty is a deterrent of crime, 
whether drug crimes or other crimes."

"The fact that the majority of those arrested and sentenced to death are 
low-level couriers in and of itself demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the 
laws, as high-level traffickers and kingpins are not being caught in the legal 
net leads to capital punishment," Lines said.

He added that executing the couriers would not stop the drug trade, "as there 
will be a never-ending procession of poor and desperate people" willing to 
assume the risk for financial or other rewards.

HRI estimates that as many as 1,000 people are executed on drug charges each 
year in the Middle East and Asia alone.

(source: Al Jazeera)

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

Drugs smuggling British grandmother on death row in Bali moves a step closer to 
execution----Lindsay Sandiford, 57, of Cheltenham, has been on death row since 
2012



Death by firing squad for a British grandmother now seems certain after 
Indonesia today revealed 2 Australian men will be among the next group of death 
row inmates to be executed.

Lindsay Sandiford, 57, from Cheltenham, has been languishing on death row in 
Bali since being convicted of attempting to smuggle 1.6million pounds' worth of 
cocaine through the island's airport in 2012.

She maintains she was forced to transport the drugs to protect her children, 
whose safety was at stake.

Since her arrest, she has been holed up in the squalid Kerobokan prison in 
Bali.

She claims to have received little or no help from the Foreign Office since 
then and fears the Indonesian authorities might construe that as a lack of 
commitment by the government to her cause.

Revelations of an affair between fellow inmate Julian Ponder - nicknamed Bali's 
Mr Big - and Alys Harahap, Britain's top diplomat in Bali have also handicapped 
her efforts to evade the firing squad.

Ms Harahap stopped her visits to Kerobokan prison after the affair was exposed, 
meaning Ms Sandiford may have been denied the full diplomatic support to which 
she is entitled.

Ms Sandiford has now written a desperate letter to Foreign Secretary Philip 
Hammond, who is due to visit Indonesia this month.

She has pleaded for funding to pay for a lawyer in the hope of escaping the 
firing squad - but today's grim news that two Australians will be among the 
next to die has dramatically weakened her hopes.

Indonesia's Attorney-General H.H.Prasetyo confirmed today that Andrew Chan and 
Myuran Sukumaran, condemned ringleaders of the Bali 9 heroin-smuggling group, 
will die with other condemned prisoners soon.

It was not clear when exactly the executions will take place. Appeals for 
clemency have already been rejected.

The pair will face execution together for their plot to smuggle more than eight 
kilograms of heroin in to Australia.

Mr Prasetyo told a press conference today: 'We have heard that many Australians 
support the execution and it is one of the things that pushes us to feel we are 
not making a mistake.'

Lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran, who have been on death row since 2006, have 
filed an application for a 2nd judicial review.

Mr Prasetyo said he had heard this focused on the men's rehabilitation in 
prison, but said this did not constitute new evidence.

If her execution goes ahead, Sandiford would be transferred from Bali to a 
maximum security jail on Nusa Kambangan, off Java Island, for up 72 hours 
before facing the firing squad.

The island is where the Bali bombers faced the firing squad and where 6 drug 
criminals were executed 2 weeks ago.

The last round of executions took place shortly after midnight.

Executions are carried out by 12-man firing squads - only a proportion of whom 
are given live bullets.

In their last 72 hours, prisoners are granted final requests and allowed to 
spend time with family and friends as they see out their last hours in 
isolation cells.

Prisoners are offered blindfolds to wear and are given the choice to stand, sit 
or lie down when the firing squad carries out their execution from between 5 
and 10 metres.

The Foreign Office said it stood 'ready to provide support at this difficult 
time, if requested'.

It said it had consistently provided and offered consular support to Ms 
Sandiford, which she currently declined to accept.

'We are closely following Lindsay Sandiford's case in Indonesia. We stand ready 
to provide support at this difficult time, if it is requested,' said a 
spokesman in the British embassy in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

'The UK strongly opposes the death penalty in all circumstances without 
exception. We have made representations about the death penalty to the 
Indonesian government, and we will continue to do so.'

Indonesia has some of the toughest drug laws in the world. It ended a four-year 
moratorium on executions in 2013.

Last month, Indonesia executed convicts from Malawi, Nigeria, Vietnam, Brazil 
and the Netherlands as well as 1 from Indonesia.

(source: Daily Mail)








VIETNAM:

Activists, religious dignitaries call for an end to Vietnam's death penalty



Religious dignitaries and civil activists in Vietnam as well as the 
international community have called on the Vietnamese government to abolish the 
death penalty.

An estimated 40 human rights activists, bloggers, journalists, democracy 
advocates, relatives of two death row inmates, and dignitaries of Christianity 
and indigenous sects of Cao Dai and Hoa Hao attended a special seminar, 
"Abolishing the Death Penalty -- The Progression of Civilization," on Jan. 26 
at the Redemptorists' pastoral center in Ho Chi Minh City. The event marked the 
1st time local religions and civil organizations publicly voiced concern about 
capital punishment.

European Union representatives and consulates of Australia, Germany and the 
United States attended the event, which was co-organized by the Redemptorists' 
Justice and Peace Office, Civil Society Forum, and Vietnam's Universal Periodic 
Review Working Group.

"Human beings are created in the image of God, so human life is the most 
important. The Fifth Commandment teaches, 'You shall not kill.' That means 
murder is banned in any circumstances," said Redemptorist Fr. Anthony Le Ngoc 
Thanh from the Justice and Peace Office.

Thanh said some local bishops and priests individually have called for the 
elimination of death sentences. "However, the bishops' conference has not yet 
petitioned the government to abolish the death penalty," he added.



Although Vietnam's constitution states everyone has the right to life and no 
one shall be illegally deprived of his life, the country still imposes a death 
sentence for 22 crimes. Courts throughout the country sentence approximately 
200 people to death annually. Death sentences are often handed down to those 
convicted of drug offenses and murder.

Hua Phi, a leader of Cao Dai, a syncretic belief system, blamed the rising 
crime rate among young people on a sharp decline in moral standards caused by 
atheist education.

The government should "eliminate the death penalty soon" and adopt a reform of 
educational system focusing on human values, Phi said.

Nguyen Quang A, a human rights activist, told participants: "The death penalty 
applied in Vietnam has drawn great attention from the international community." 
During the Universal Periodic Review Working Group's 2nd cycle in 2014, Vietnam 
received nearly 30 recommendations related to abolishing the death penalty, he 
added.

However, A said, the government only accepted a few of the recommendations, 
such as reducing the number of crimes subjected to persecution and seeking 
reform toward the eventual abolition of the death penalty.

"We should popularize [for] the people the recommendations the government 
promised and urge them to monitor how the recommendations are implemented in 
the country," A said.

(source: National Catholic Reporter)







SOUTH KOREA----new death sentence

Soldier gets death penalty for deadly shooting spree



A military court on Tuesday sentenced an Army deserter to death for killing and 
wounding about a dozen unarmed comrades in a shooting rampage at a guard post 
close to the border with North Korea.

The court handed down the death penalty to the 23-year-old Army sergeant, 
surnamed Lim, for killing 5 and wounding 7 others by detonating a grenade and 
firing at his comrades at the border outpost on the east coast in June last 
year.

He was also found guilty of running away from his unit with a rifle and a stash 
of ammunition. 2 days later, he was captured while being under siege by 
thousands of troops right after a botched suicide attempt.

Military prosecutors last month demanded the capital punishment for him on 
charges of murder and desertion, arguing that he committed a "cruel and 
premeditated attack" on unarmed comrades.

South Korea's military law stipulates that a soldier faces capital punishment 
for killing a superior officer. One of the fallen soldiers was a staff sergeant 
in Lim's unit.

(source: Yonhap News)