[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 17



ETHIOPIA:

MPs seek release of British citizen on death row in Ethiopia



A delegation of British parliamentarians will be in Ethiopia next month in an 
attempt to secure the release of a British citizen who is facing the death 
penalty in Ethiopia.

Andargachew Tsege, a British national who was born in Ethiopia, was the 
secretary-general of exiled Ethiopian opposition movement Ginbot 7, labelled by 
the Ethiopian government as terrorist entity in 2011.

Tsege was sentenced to death in absentia in 2009 on charges of planning to 
assassinate government officials and thereby to stage a coup, an allegation he 
denies.

He was arrested by Yemeni authorities at Sana'a airport on 23 June while he was 
in transit to Eritrea and was subsequently extradited to Ethiopia under a 
security arrangement Yemen has with Ethiopia.

The Independent newspaper, reported that the delegation of British legislators 
will be headed by Jeremy Corbyn, vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary 
Group on Human Rights.

The UK government and prime minister David Cameron himself were criticised by 
Tsege's family and right groups for not doing enough to secure his release.

"He is a British citizen so there is no reason on earth why the British 
government should not take a very robust view on this," said Corbyn on Thursday 
while announcing the planned visit.

He added Tsege's constituent is "a British national in prison with no 
understandable, comprehensible or acceptable legal process that's put him 
there".

Clive Stafford-Smith, director, Reprieve, who will accompany the MPs to 
Ethiopia, said: "I think Mr Cameron doesn't understand how serious this is. I 
think that Tsege is going to be seen, as the years go by, as Ethiopia's Nelson 
Mandela"

A spokesperson for the Ethiopian Embassy in London claimed that Mr Tsege 
belongs to a "terrorist organisation" seeking to "overthrow the legitimate 
government of Ethiopia."

He is being "well treated" and "torture is inhumane and has no place in modern 
Ethiopia," he added.

According to the Foreign Office, the British government is pressing authorities 
in Ethiopian not to carry out the death penalty.

Tsege, who recently appeared on the state-run Ethiopia Television, said he was 
working with neighbouring Eritrea, long standing Ethiopia's foe, to destabilise 
the Horn of Africa nation.

He also confessed he has been recruiting and training people in Eritrea who 
will cross borders to carry out attacks in Ethiopian soil.

However, opposition sources cast doubts over the seriousness of such 
confessions, saying they were obtained using methods of torture.

Between 1998 and 2000, Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a 2-year-long bloody border 
war in which over 70,000 people lost their lives.

The 2 neighbours regularly trade accusations of hosting and providing support 
to each other's rebel groups.

(source: Sudan Tribune)








IRAN----executions

Execution of 2 Prisoners at Shiraz Adel-Abad Prison



On Sunday morning, 11 January 2015, 2 prisoners charged with armed robbery were 
hanged at Shiraz Adel-Abad Prison.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), on 
Sunday 10 January 2015, 3 prisoners convicted of armed robbery were transferred 
to solitary confinement so their death sentence could be carried out.

2 of these prisoners were executed on Sunday 11 January 2015, but the 3rd one 
was returned to his cell for unknown reasons.

It is important to mention that these executions were not covered by Iranian 
national media.

(source: Human Rights Activists News Agency)








JAPAN:

Japan's final sarin gas trial unlikely to bring closure----11 members of Aum 
Shinrikyo cult face execution, yet group that carried out Japan's worst 
domestic terrorist attack lives on



The final trial of a member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult opened in Tokyo today, 
nearly 20 years after followers of the apocalyptic group released sarin nerve 
gas on the city's subway system. When the case concludes, and cult members are 
no longer required to give testimony against each other, the executions can 
begin.

11 followers of Shoko Asahara, who declared himself a reincarnation of Christ 
and founded the cult in 1984, have been sentenced to death for crimes that 
include murder, abduction, the production of weapons and creating nerve gas.

In total, 189 people were indicted for crimes carried out by Aum, culminating 
in Japan's worst case of domestic terrorism and an incident that still has 
reverberations today.

The last cult follower to appear in court is Katsuya Takahashi, who was spotted 
in a comic book cafe in Tokyo in June 2012.

On the run for more than 16 years, 56-year-old Takahashi is charged with murder 
for his part in the morning rush-hour sarin gas attack on March 20, 1995, in 
which 13 commuters and station staff died, with 6,000 more hospitalised.

The trial is expected to last until April and prosecutors have indicated that 
they will call at least three members of the cult who are presently languishing 
on death row to give testimony.

But even with the conclusion of the final trial, Tokyo residents say closure is 
likely to elude many who were directly affected by the cult's murderous 
policies.

"The legacy of those days still lingers, both physically and in terms of the 
security arrangements that were put in place immediately afterwards - in much 
the same way as controls were brought in after 9/11", said Jun Okumura, a 
visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs.

"Personally, as someone who could have been affected, I've put it behind me, 
but there have been changes", he said, pointing out that rubbish bins are only 
now reappearing on train platforms and have been redesigned so that their 
contents are visible through transparent panels.

"In that physical sense, the after-effects of Aum are everywhere, even if they 
are muted", Mr Okumura said.

More worrying for many is that while Aum Shinrikyo was swiftly outlawed, 2 
splinter groups were quickly set up, protected by the constitutional right to 
religious freedom yet still swearing allegiance to Asahara.

In December, the Public Security Intelligence Agency applied to continue to 
carry out surveillance of the 2 groups, called Aleph and Circle of Light, to 
ensure they pose no threat to the public.

The agency stated that Asahara's daughter is a senior member of Aleph and is 
behind many of the group's decisions. The woman has filed a suit against the 
agency, denying that she is a high-ranking officer of the group and demanding 
Y10 million (55,873 pounds) in damages for emotional distress.

Japan has executed 11 death row inmates since the conservative government of 
Shinzo Abe came to power in December 2012. In that time, punishment in cases in 
which there were numerous victims and the appeals process had been exhausted 
generally came fairly swiftly.

Public opinion polls show that fully 80 % of the Japanese public support the 
death penalty. And given that no crime in living memory has shocked Japanese 
society like those carried in Asahara's name, there are likely to be few tears 
shed when the sentences are, inevitably, carried out.

(source: The Telegraph)



PAKISTAN----execution

Pakistan hangs 19th militant since school attack



Pakistan has executed a militant for his role in a 2004 sectarian killing, 
bringing to 19 the number of executions carried since a 6-year moratorium on 
the death penalty was lifted in the wake of the Taliban school massacre in 
Peshawar.

Pakistan on Saturday (Jan 17) hanged a sectarian militant whose execution was 
cancelled but later reinstated after a court rejected a pardon from his 
victim's family, officials said.

The hanging brings to 19 the number of executions Pakistan has carried out 
since it lifted a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases 
following a school massacre last month. Ikramul Haq, a member of banned Sunni 
militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was hanged in the central city of Lahore 
early on Saturday morning.

He had been sentenced to death by an anti-terror court in 2004 for killing a 
Shiite Muslim 3 years earlier. Police, prison officials and defence lawyer 
Ghulam Mustafa Mangan confirmed the execution.

The victim's family had pardoned him on Jan 8 just before his scheduled 
hanging, but a court later rejected the compromise. "The victim's family had 
pardoned my client, but the court rejected it and while we were appealing 
against the decision, my client was hanged," Mangan told AFP.

Murder can be forgiven under Pakistani law in exchange for blood money, while 
rival militant groups may choose to pardon each others' convicted killers. The 
United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights 
Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty, 
which ran from 2008 until December 2014.

Rights campaigners say Pakistan overuses its anti-terror laws and courts to 
prosecute ordinary crimes. There are also concerns that death row convicts from 
non-terror related cases could be executed.

Taliban gunmen stormed an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar 
last month, killing 150 people, mostly children, in the country's deadliest 
ever militant attack. In addition to ending its death penalty moratorium, 
Pakistan has since moved to set up military courts to try terror cases.

(source: Agence France-Presse)

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

End wave of executions in wake of Peshawar attack



Pakistan's government must immediately put an end to the spate of executions in 
the country in the wake of the Peshawar school attack, which has already seen 
19 people put to death over the past month, Amnesty International said.

Since a moratorium on executions was lifted on 17 December, Pakistan has 
threatened to send to the gallows around 500 death row prisoners convicted on 
terrorism charges. Another execution - of Ikramul Haq, member of the armed 
group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and convicted for murdering a Shi'a Muslim in 2004 - is 
scheduled for tomorrow in Lahore.

"The killing spree that is unfolding in Pakistan must end immediately. As 
horrific as the Peshawar attack was, proving you are tough on crime by carrying 
out more killings is never the answer to combating violence," said David 
Griffiths, Amnesty International???s Deputy Asia Pacific Director.

"The government should immediately reinstate a moratorium on executions with a 
view to the eventual abolition of the death penalty."

While Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, its 
use in Pakistan is even more troubling since many death sentences are handed 
down after manifestly unfair trials.

"The Pakistani legal system is riddled with serious fair trial issues at every 
level - not least when it comes to terror cases which are often rushed through 
the justice system. Frequent use of torture to extract 'confessions', a lack of 
access to legal counsel, and long periods of detention without charge are just 
some of our concerns. There is a real risk that people whose convictions are 
unsafe will be put to death, or indeed already have been," said David 
Griffiths.

Some of the prisoners executed so far, and those at risk, have been convicted 
in Anti-Terrorism Courts. These suspend fundamental rights of the defendant by 
holding trials in absentia or often using statements obtained through torture 
as evidence. Judges are also under pressure to conclude trials within 7 working 
days.

Over the past weeks, Pakistan has amended its constitution to speed up the 
prosecution of terror cases and move them from civilian to military courts. The 
jurisdiction of military courts over cases of terrorism raises serious concerns 
about fair trial guarantees, as rights could be violated in the rush to ensure 
speedy terrorism convictions.

"The latest moves to fast-track terror cases in military trials are leading 
Pakistan down a dangerous path. Military courts should never be used to try 
civilians under any circumstances. There is no excuse for sacrificing the right 
to a fair trial in the name of national security," said David Griffiths.

Military jurisdiction should be restricted solely to the trial of military 
personnel accused of purely military or disciplinary offences. Military courts 
usually lack requirements for the independence or impartiality of judges. The 
courts are often characterized by prolonged periods of pre-trial or pre-charge 
detention, lack of access to lawyers and a lack of a right to appeal verdict.

Torture is also rife in Pakistani police and military detention centres, and 
statements extracted through torture continue to be used as evidence in courts.

Many on death row convicted of acts of terrorism were actually convicted of 
crimes that bear little resemblance to the conventional notion of terrorism. 
According to a study by Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), out of 6,872 prisoners 
on death row in Pakistan in 2012 (now over 8,000), 818 were tried on 
terrorism-related charges. The definition of terrorism under Pakistan's 1997 
Anti-Terrorism Act is so vague that almost all crimes can fall under this 
definition. JPP's findings reveal that 256 of these 818 known cases of 
"terrorism" prosecutions had no link to terrorism-related offences and were 
convicted of charges under the Pakistan Penal Code as opposed to anti-terrorism 
legislation. Some of the acts under which they were charged do not meet the 
threshold of the "most serious crimes" for which the death penalty can be 
imposed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to 
which Pakistan is a state party.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and under any 
circumstances, regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of 
the offender, or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. The 
organization considers the death penalty a violation of the right to life as 
recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ultimate cruel, 
inhuman and degrading punishment.

(source: Amnesty International)

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

As Asia Bibi waits on death row, Pakistan's blasphemy laws in spotlight as 
deaths increase



On the Sunday before the terrorist attacks at the French newspaper Charlie 
Hebdo, a handful of mourners gathered at Liberty Plaza in Lahore to mark the 
2011 assassination of Salman Taseer.

The then governor of Punjab, Pakistan's eastern province, Taseer was shot dead 
in broad daylight by his bodyguard while eating lunch at an Islamabad cafe.

Taseer deserved his fate, his killer said afterwards, because he had had the 
effrontery to show sympathy for Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who remains in 
jail awaiting execution after being sentenced to death for blasphemy. Not only 
had Taseer called for Bibi's pardon, he criticised as a "black law" the 
criminal code that saw her convicted in the first place.

"We were there, burning the candle in front of [Taseer's] portrait and suddenly 
a group of people armed with sharp knives, Kalashnikovs and other weapons, they 
attacked us," says Abdullah Malik, president of Lahore's Civil Society Network.

"We ran away, to save our lives," says Malik. "They were raising slogans 'we 
will kill you, we will kill you. You are not Muslims. You are supporting a 
non-Muslim'."

3 days later, masked gunmen in another part of Punjab kidnapped 52-year-old 
Aabid Mehmood, another man facing blasphemy charges, who had just been released 
from jail on health grounds. Mehmood's bullet-ridden body was found dumped in 
the street the next day, just a few hours before the gunmen in Paris stormed 
the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

"The blasphemy law is not perfect," says Malik, with guarded understatement. 
"We demand that it must be changed and our government must take steps to bring 
some changes to this law."

While Pakistan's constitution supposedly guarantees freedom of speech, a 1991 
review of the criminal code by the Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan not only 
upheld the then rarely invoked blasphemy laws, but upgraded the penalty for 
blasphemy to death.

Since then, supposed crimes of blasphemy have soared, many of them malevolent 
and spurious accusations more likely to be the result of personal vendetta than 
any actual contravention of the law.

Last year, there were more than 100 blasphemy cases registered. Since 1991, 62 
people accused of blasphemy have been murdered by vigilantes, more than 1/2 of 
those in the last 5 years.

"Most reports of blasphemy have been shown to be about vendetta," says Asma 
Jahangir, a leading lawyer in Lahore and a former chair of the Human Rights 
Commission of Pakistan. "I think the law is framed in such a way that it's a 
very open-ended way of adjudication because it's one person's word against 
another. And the fact that it's such an emotional subject here, it is always 
accompanied with violence."

Lawyers acting for those accused of blasphemy have been threatened and killed, 
as have judges who have failed to convict alleged blasphemers brought before 
their courts, creating an intimidating culture of fear and violence.

"Before this law was there, we hardly had any cases of blasphemy," says 
Jahangir. "It's very strange that you have the law and suddenly people begin to 
blaspheme, it does not make sense to me at all, so this is obviously a tool in 
the hands of those who want to persecute other people on a religious basis."

According to Sahaid Mehrej, the Dean of the Lahore Cathedral, Christians - who 
make up less than 3 % of Pakistan's 194 million people - are particularly 
vulnerable to charges of blasphemy.

"There are forces of darkness that are leading Pakistan adrift from that vision 
of the founder of this country," says Mehrej. "These people who are really 
damaging our country have guns in their hands. This is our struggle. To take 
away these guns, to make peace everywhere."

Asia Bibi, the Christian mother of five awaiting the death sentence for 
blasphemy, was a field labourer in Sheikpura, a small village 70 kilometres 
outside Lahore who in 2009 got into a quarrel with some co-workers after she 
drank from the same water vessel as them. The co-workers, 2 Muslim women, later 
told a local cleric that during the argument, Bibi had insulted the prophet.

Enraged by what he heard, the cleric, Muhammad Salam, publicly denounced Bibi, 
inciting mobs across the district demanding her arrest. After 5 days, local 
police placed Bibi under arrest and in November 2010 she was found guilty in 
the district court and sentenced to death by hanging.

That wasn't enough for some. One cleric promised 500,000 rupees (about $6000) 
to anyone who would kill her in jail.

"I live in a confined cell," Bibi said in an interview with a Christian rights 
group in 2011. "I am allowed to go out for only 30 minutes every day and 
allowed to meet my family for one hour every Tuesday."

Bibi is given raw food so she can cook for herself for fears she might be 
poisoned - in 2011 a female prison guard at the jail was suspended after she 
tried to strangle Bibi - and she has reportedly suffered numerous beatings.

While many blasphemy cases are thrown out by higher courts, Bibi's appeal to 
the High Court of Lahore was denied and now she is awaiting the outcome of an 
appeal to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Islamabad which is expected to be 
heard next month.

Bibi's lawyer, Saif ul-Malook, who prosecuted the man who killed former Punjab 
governor Salman Taseer, told Fairfax Media that he believes there are strong 
reasons to hope that the Supreme Court will void Bibi's conviction.

"I think we have a good chance because there were a lot of faults in the 
original trial and a lot of legal mistakes made by the trial judge, as well as 
by the two judges of the High Court deciding her [first] appeal," says Malook.

Before 1991, Pakistani judges had the option of sentencing people convicted of 
blasphemy to life imprisonment. Now judges are compelled to impose the death 
sentence.

If Bibi's appeal to the Supreme Court fails, her only chance will be the 
personal intervention of the Pakistan President, who can commute her sentence, 
or even pardon her.

Speaking at his home in Lahore's military cantonment, an area secured by a 
series of fortified checkpoints, Malook is accompanied around-the-clock by at 
least 2 armed bodyguards.

Last May, Rashid Rehman, a lawyer representing a man accused of insulting the 
prophet Muhammad, was shot dead in Multan, a city south of Lahore.

"Of course, I fear for my life," says Malook. "Whenever I am on the street and 
someone appears to be following me, even for just a minute, the thought crosses 
my mind that this person has come to kill me."

Despite his efforts on behalf of Aasia Bibi, Malook is himself careful to 
emphasise that has no problem with Pakistan's blasphemy laws of themselves, 
only the capricious way they are being applied.

"The parliament of Pakistan has enacted the law, the wisdom of the whole 
parliament," says Malook. "This is a punishment fixed by God in the holy Koran. 
It can't be fixed by parliament of anyone else."

Blasphemy, Malook maintains, should remain a crime.

"If it is a free society like Australia and somebody said I want to abuse Jesus 
Christ or I want to abuse Moses, that means that man is mentally deranged. A 
normal man, why should he abuse the prophet? Even the Muslim prophet or the 
Christian prophet? Or a Jewish prophet? Why should he?"

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)








MALAYSIA:

Are we for the death penalty now?



Last week, the murderers of Altantuya Sharibuu, both Azilah Hadri and Sirul 
Azhar Umar, were finally sentenced to death for their crime by the Federal 
Court. Many were rejoicing over the decision and subsequent anger when it was 
discovered that Sirul was now living in Australia.

And I love some of the comments from the people on social media. Bring him home 
to the noose, was one call.

And of course, many went truly conspiracy theory crazy, alluding that he got 
away because the PM or his posse had arranged it.

Insane theories aside, there were also questions raised on how Sirul got his 
passport to have ran off to Australia last November. Well, both of them were 
free men after the court acquitted them in 2008 because no one (read: the 
prosecution) applied for them to be remanded pending the appeal.

The nation Down Under has apparently denied the extradition order on the basis 
that Sirul is facing the death penalty. As of yet, nobody has actually written 
out to appeal for the death penalty to be set aside for life imprisonment. Not 
a single one.

I find it interesting because we have had a strong presence of those who reject 
the death penalty, and at one point even to the point had Amnesty International 
calling for a moratorium on capital punishment. Yet in this case, Amnesty, the 
UNHCR, the Human Rights Council (HRC) even who was so loud about Eric Paulsen, 
are quiet.

I guess they are a pressure group with their own agendas.

So I have to ask. Is it because they are too high profile for you to take the 
case, or is it because there is a level of hypocrisy even within these NGOs 
when it comes to calling out against the death penalty because of who they are?

I'll wait for them to talk. But I won't hold my breath.

I am for the death penalty through a court of law. I've never had any qualms 
telling people about it. And let me emphasise I said a court of law before 
someone reacts with the simple tit-for-tat of extremists and terrorists.

But I am honestly quizzed by the fact that the same people who believe in the 
freedom of speech, supporting it to their very core as part of human rights, 
have remained silent on this issue.

This all being said, however, Malaysian laws are archaic and our citizenry is 
still stuck in believing government knows best especially when it comes to 
laws.

The Sedition Act, the Official Secrets Act and even the Internal Security Act 
are such cases, and so are our religious laws. These require review and 
abolishing where it does not apply to the Malaysia of today. Similarly, laws 
relating to drug offences as well require review.

Even our Penal Code requires review, particularly Section 377 because why on 
Earth are we criminalising what people do in their personal spaces if they 
don't record it and put it on YouTube or Pornhub.

It goes back to what Malaysia believes in. Do we as a majority believe that the 
value of a life is repayable by taking another? Do we believe in the concept of 
an eye for an eye will actually make you go blind, or do we throw that to the 
wind because we hate these particular people?

I think Malaysians need to think about deeply about this particular issue, 
because it is an international cause that determines what kind of society we 
wish to be.

And I'm also keeping an eye out on those so-called "liberal" advocates and NGO 
leaders on what they are saying about this, because this is where you can see 
the true hypocrisy of their stances.

(source: Hafidz Baharom, The Malaysian Insider)








SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi carries out 10th beheading of 2015



Saudi Arabia beheaded 1 of its citizens Friday for shooting dead a compatriot 
with a machine gun, officials said, bringing to 10 the number of executions in 
just over 2 weeks.

Murdi al-Shakra had been tried and sentenced to death for murdering fellow 
tribesman Faraj al-Shakra, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by 
the official SPA news agency.

The beheading brings to 10 the number of executions since the start of the 
year, according to an AFP tally.

It comes as Saudi Arabia postponed until next week Friday's flogging of blogger 
Raef Badawi jailed for insulting Islam, citing medical reasons, a week after he 
received the first 50 of a 1,000-lash sentence.

Badawi's case has sparked an international outcry put the spotlight on the 
ultra-conservative kingdom's rigid implementation of a strict version of 
Islamic Sharia law.

Saudi Arabia carried out the death penalty against 87 people last year, up from 
78 in 2013, according to an AFP tally.

The kingdom had the 3rd-highest number of recorded executions in 2013, behind 
Iran and Iraq, Amnesty International said in a report.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are punishable by 
death under Saudi Arabia's law.

(source: Agence France-Presse)






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

Saudi Arabia publicly beheads woman in holy Mecca as blogger lashings are 
postponed



Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim, a Burmese woman who resided in Saudi Arabia, 
was executed by sword on Monday after being dragged through the street and held 
down by four police officers.

She was convicted of the sexual abuse and murder of her 7-year-old 
step-daughter.

A video showed how it took three blows to complete the execution, while the 
woman screamed "I did not kill. I did not kill." It has now been removed by 
YouTube as part of its policy on "shocking and disgusting content".

There are 2 ways to behead people according to Mohammed al-Saeedi, a human 
rights activist: "One way is to inject the prisoner with painkillers to numb 
the pain and the other is without the painkiller," he told the Middle East Eye.

"This woman was beheaded without painkillers - they wanted to make the pain 
more powerful for her."

The Saudi Ministry of the Interior said in a statement that it believed the 
sentence was warranted due to the severity of the crime.

The beheading is part of an alarming trend, which has seen the kingdom execute 
7 people in the first 2 weeks of this year. In 2014 the number of executions 
rose to 87, from 78 in 2013.

In Saudi Arabia a number of crimes, including murder, rape, adultery and armed 
robbery, can carry a capital sentence.

Beheading is considered one of the more humane punishments the authorities can 
mete out, a firing squad and stoning are other methods open to judges.

(source: The Independent)