[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 18




IRAN:

Imprisoned Founder of Spiritual Group Awaits Clarification on His 
Sentence----May Still Face Death Penalty for Peaceful Practice of Beliefs


Uncertainty surrounds the sentence of Mohammad Ali Taheri, the imprisoned 
founder of a spiritual healing and cultural group. The Judiciary spokesman says 
he has been sentenced but his lawyer says this is "incorrect."

"I went t the court on Tuesday July 14 and no sentence has been issued. If a 
sentence is issued, they will first inform me and my client. I'm sure 
[Judiciary Spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni] Ejei has been given the wrong 
information," Taheri's lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee, told the 
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Ejei had stated in a press conference on July 13 that Taheri had been sentenced 
at the initial stage and that he could request an appeal. Yet Ejei did not 
reveal what the sentence was.

Mohammad Ali Taheri, founder of the "Erfan-e Halgheh" spiritual arts and 
healing group, is facing the charge of "Corruption on Earth" which carries the 
possibility of the death penalty. On June 20, 2015, his lawyer had expressed 
concern that the judge had issued the death penalty but the next day this was 
denied by the Judiciary.

Taheri established the Erfan-e Halgheh institute in Tehran during the 2000s, 
and, using healing concepts, treated patients with psychological and medical 
conditions. He was arrested in 2010 by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards on 
charges of "acting against national security" and was held in solitary 
confinement for 67 days before he was released.

On May 4, 2011, he was arrested again and on October 30, 2011, Branch 26 of the 
Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced him to five years in prison for 
"blasphemy," to 74 lashes for "touching the wrists of female patients," and 900 
million toman in fines (approximately $300,000) for "interfering in medical 
science," "earning illegitimate funds," and "distribution of audio-visual 
products and use of academic titles."

The authorities in Iran do not formally acknowledge Taheri's group, Erfan-e 
Halgheh, but in addition to imprisoning Taheri and prosecuting him on a charge 
that potentially carries the death penalty, its institute has been closed down.

The authorities take a harsh view of any individual who promotes alternative 
spiritual beliefs in Iran. They are seen as national security threats, 
especially if they attract Shia Muslims. As such, the authorities also severely 
prosecute Baha'is who propagate their faith, Gonabadi Dervishes, and 
evangelical Christians who seek converts to Christianity, demonstrating the 
continued systematic denial of freedom of religion in the Islamic Republic.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






NIGERIA:

Traditional Rulers Want Death Penalty, Special Courts For Terrorism Acts


As part of measures to curb the rising spate of insurgency and other violent 
crimes in the country, the National Association of Royal Traditional Rulers of 
Nigeria (NARTN) has called on the Federal Government to approve the 
introduction of military training for members of the National Youth Service 
Corps (NYSC) to enable them complement the efforts of the army, police and 
other security agencies in the country.

The association, after its 99th National Conference in Abuja yesterday, also 
renewed its call for the Federal Government to give a constitutional role to 
traditional rulers, arguing that that would empower them to fully play active 
role in identifying and helping the government to fight insurgency in the 
country.

In a communique, which was read at the Congress by its chairman, Eze Thomas 
Obiefule, NARTN, which advocated for the return of death penalty for offences 
like terrorism, called on the National Assembly to amend the Constitution to 
that effect.

"The nation's Constitution is not helping the country in the fight against 
insurgency.For instance,if someone uses explosives to wreck havoc, killing so 
many people, the killer will only bag a life imprisonment, if convicted. This 
is the most unfair and unfortunate. Therefore, we want to urge the National 
Assembly to amend the Constitution to carry death penalty. Cases involving 
terrorists should not exceed three months for judgment to be delivered, as it 
is the case in other countries. Special courts should be put in place to handle 
cases of terrorism for quick dispensation of justice," the statement said.

(source: The Guardian)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan's Hypocritical Season of Mercy


Pakistan's state executioners have taken a rare breather this past month after 
a death penalty spree that has killed 176 death row prisoners since the end of 
December 2014.

But Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has made clear that the pause in that horrific 
body count is strictly temporary, until the conclusion of the holy month of 
Ramazan. His daughter, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, praised the temporary suspension of 
executions as an act of reverence for "human dignity". That was a welcome 
admission that the death penalty offends human dignity. But it comes as no 
comfort to the 8,000 people on death row in Pakistan who face execution as soon 
as the government's death penalty suspension ends next week.

The Pakistani government's death penalty spree has become a barbaric 
assembly-line. On March 17, Pakistan executed 12 people, the highest number of 
executions in a single day in almost a decade. The government broke that record 
on April 21 by executing at least 15 people that day.

Along with the use of military courts against civilians and coerced 
repatriations of Afghans living in Pakistan, these executions are part of the 
government's response to the horrific December 16, 2014 attack by the Pakistani 
Taliban splinter group Tehreek-e-Taliban on a school in Peshawar in 
northwestern Pakistan that left at least 148 dead - almost all of them 
children.

The government reacted by lifting a four-year unofficial death penalty 
moratorium for non-military personnel "in terrorism-related cases". On March 
10, the government lifted the death penalty moratorium for all capital crimes, 
including kidnapping and murder. The government's motivations for its death 
penalty reinstatement have been a matter of populist pandering rather than 
pursuit of justice. In the province of Punjab alone, there are at least 62 
people scheduled to be executed once the government's Ramazan-imposed seasonal 
tolerance for "human dignity" comes to an end.

Those whose lives are at risk include Kaneezan Bibi, convicted of murder in 
January 1991. Despite compelling evidence that Bibi has a psychosocial 
disability, President Mamnoon Hussain rejected her mercy petition. Bibi is 
scheduled to be the 9th woman to be hanged in Pakistan's history. Khizar Hayat 
is also scheduled for execution post-Ramazan, despite a 2008 diagnosis of 
paranoid schizophrenia. According to his lawyers, by 2012 Hayat had become so 
delusional that prison authorities isolated him from the general prison 
population by moving him to the prison hospital, where he has spent the last 3 
years.

The looming execution of individuals with psychosocial disabilities is more 
than an affront to human dignity. It is an appalling violation of international 
human rights law, including obligations under the United Nations disability 
rights treaty, which Pakistan ratified in 2011. The UN Commission on Human 
Rights adopted resolutions in 1999 and 2000 urging countries that retain the 
death penalty not to impose it "on a person suffering from any form of mental 
disorder". Section 84 of Pakistan's Penal Code excludes from criminal 
punishment any person demonstrating "disorder of his mental capacities".

Yet another death row prisoner facing execution post-Ramazan is Shafqat 
Hussain, who was allegedly 14- or 15-years-old when sentenced to death in 2004 
for allegedly kidnapping and killing a 7-year-old boy. Hussain remains on death 
row despite compelling allegations that law-enforcement officers obtained his 
confession through torture. The Pakistani government's death penalty spree has 
already involved multiple violations of the rights of those it has executed 
since December.

Take the case of Zulfiqar Ali, executed on January 13. Unable to afford a 
lawyer, the court-appointed lawyer who represented Ali never met with him once 
outside of court. Aftab Bahadur could also speak volumes for the Pakistan 
government's disregard of human dignity. Bahadur was reportedly 15-years-old 
when convicted of murder in 1992. He maintained his innocence and said that he 
was prosecuted and convicted only because he was unable to afford a hefty bribe 
demanded by police who arrested him. He was executed on June 10, 2015.

Pakistan has ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which specifically 
prohibit capital punishment of anyone who was under 18 at the time of the 
offence.

The prohibition is absolute. In July 2000, Pakistan issued a Juvenile Justice 
System Ordinance banning the death penalty for crimes by people under 18. 
However, the ordinance requires the existence of dedicated juvenile courts and 
other mechanisms not provided for by law in all parts of Pakistan, leaving 
juvenile offenders at risk of trial as adults in capital cases.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has an obligation to safeguard the fundamental 
rights of the citizens of Pakistan, particularly their right to life. He should 
do so by immediately reinstating an indefinite death penalty moratorium and 
move towards abolition. For inspiration, he can reflect on the words of Aftab 
Bahadur in a letter published hours before his execution. Bahadur wrote, "While 
the death penalty moratorium was ended on the pretext of killing terrorists, 
most of the people here in Kot Lakhpat prison are charged with regular crimes. 
Quite how killing them is going to stop the sectarian violence in this country, 
I cannot say. I hope I do not die on Wednesday, but I have no source of money, 
so I can only rely on God and on my volunteer lawyers. I have not given up 
hope, though the night is very dark."

The government of Pakistan has a choice. It can act to defend fundamental human 
rights and consign the death penalty to the dustbin of history. Or it can end 
this brief season of "human dignity" and condemn Kaneezan Bibi, Khizar Hayat 
and thousands of others to the darkness of a vindictive death penalty policy 
with no end in sight.

(source: Saroop Ijaz; The writer is a lawyer and the Pakistan Researcher for 
Human Rights Watch----Express Tribune)






BRITAIN:

David Morrissey and Reece Shearsmith to star in Martin McDonagh's Hangmen ---- 
The Royal Court production is McDonagh's 1st play in a decade, following film 
success with In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths; meanwhile, Kim Cattrall also 
joins the theatre's new season


The lead cast has been announced for Hangmen, Martin McDonagh's new play at the 
Royal Court in London, with Reece Shearsmith and David Morrissey at the top of 
the bill.

The play is McDonagh's 1st in a decade, following a brace of successful films: 
In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. Opening on 10 September, it follows an 
executioner on the day that Britain announces the abolition of the death 
penalty. The Royal Court's artistic director Vicky Featherstone has described 
it as "dark and surreal and shocking and challenging".

Shearsmith, known for The League of Gentlemen among many other film and TV 
roles, is no stranger to the London stage, having appeared in As You Like It, 
The Producers, and Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends in recent years. Most 
recently he appeared in the Grease musical sequel Cool Rider.

Morrissey, meanwhile, began his career with stints at the Royal Shakespeare 
Company and the National Theatre, later peppering his film work with runs in 
the likes of Neil LaBute's In a Dark Dark House, Richard Greenberg's Three Days 
of Rain, and a 2011 production of Macbeth at the Everyman theatre.

Joining them for the Court's winter season is Kim Cattrell - the Sex and the 
City star is to take the lead in Linda, a new play from Penelope Skinner about 
a woman going through a mid-life crisis. It begins on 25 November at the 
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.

(source: The Guardian)






INDIA:

Mumbai blasts execution: Noose is barbaric, serves no purpose


Every high-profile execution in India is invariably preceded by loud and 
fervent debates on the pluses and minuses of such state-sponsored killing. This 
is the case with Yakub Memon, the accused mastermind of the 1993 serial Mumbai 
blasts that left about 350 people dead and 1000-odd wounded or maimed for life.

Memon is likely to hang on July 30. The scheduled execution is stirring deep 
resentment insofar as India, a country where Mahatma Gandhi once propagated 
non-violence, is included in a shrinking group of nations that still sends men 
to the gallows.

India's Supreme Court has given the go-ahead for the hanging. The President of 
India has rejected his appeal for mercy, and if Memon's last-ditch petition for 
a review of the death penalty is turned down as well, he will be hanged in a 
prison in Maharashtra.

Strangely, of the 11 convicted in the 1993 Mumbai explosions, the sentences of 
10 have been commuted to life. Only Memon will walk to his death. Stranger by 
far is the fact that only Muslims convicted of similar crimes have been 
executed. In 2012, Ajmal Kasab, 1 of the 10 killers sent into India by 
Pakistan's ISI and Lashkar-e-Toiba to kill innocent men and women in the 26/11 
Mumbai terror attacks, was executed. 3 months later, Afzal Guru, found guilty 
of being part of the 2001 attack on India's Parliament, was also hanged and 
with unfeeling haste. His family was not allowed to meet him one last time.

However, 1 other terrorist, whose crime was as heinous as Kasab's and Guru's, 
is still living - though he is on death row. Balwant Singh Rajona, who 
assassinated a former Chief Minister of Punjab, Beant Singh, was spared the 
death penalty after political pressure was applied. And what's more, 3 Sri 
Lankan men - Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan - who masterminded the murder of 
one of India's most charismatic prime ministers, Rajiv Gandhi - escaped the 
gallows after their sentences were commuted by the Supreme Court, because it 
found that their mercy petitions had been delayed too long. The Tamil Nadu 
Government of India's Tamil Nadu state, which is brazenly sympathetic to Sri 
Lankan Tamils (language being a cementing force), pulled strings to let these 3 
convicts live.

It is apparent that unlike Rajona or the 3 Sri Lankans, Kasab or Guru or Memon, 
do not enjoy political support or popular sympathy. So Kasab and Guru died. 
Memon too may not live.

This brings us to a larger and extremely vexing question of the relevance of 
capital punishment. Throughout history, there have been protests against what 
many decried as "a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye" policy. Even in the 
15th century, when Joan of Arc was accused of being a heretic and burnt alive, 
there were murmurs of dissent. 5 centuries later, when the Vatican canonized 
her, it seemed too late to right a wrong.

Ever since those times, there have been innumerable instances of men and women 
escaping the noose before it did its work. A 1987 study found that 350 people 
condemned to die in the US between 1900 and 1985 were actually innocent. Most 
lived, but 23 lost their lives.

Sadly, despite several UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a global 
moratorium on executions, many countries still have this barbaric law on their 
statute books. The US is one, and along with China, Indonesia and India, still 
puts men to death. What is worse is that 60% of the world's population live in 
these regions. One need not even talk about Saudi Arabia or Japan where capital 
punishment is frequently carried out.

It goes without saying that in a nation like India notorious for a corrupt 
judiciary and poor policing, errors of judgment are quite possible. Added to 
this, we have a community divided on caste and class lines. As one US Supreme 
Court judge said famously, capital punishment is for those without capital. It 
is no different in India, where life can be bought with money, and life is lost 
for want of money.

Although India applies the death penalty "only in the rarest of rare cases," 
there can be no denying that such punishment is no deterrent. Many, many 
studies have proven that the death sentence has never cut down the number of 
capital crimes. Some American states did away with the electric chair, but 
found no significant rise in murders or rapes. And when they reintroduced it, 
there was no drop in major misdemeanors.

In fact, how do you prevent a crime of passion? No law can stave it off. Is it 
possible to stop a suicide bomber in his tracks - pushed as he is into a 
murderous mission by religious fanaticism or an intolerant partisan view? 
Indeed, advocating death under government supervision may be as foolish as 
suggesting that stockpiling nuclear weapons serves as a safeguard for peace.

Certainly, India and the others must understand that capital punishment has no 
place in a civilized society, and administrations must also realize that modern 
dilemmas and contradictions must be resolved with dignity, and not through 
easier options like the noose or poison prick.

(source: Gautaman Bhaskaran is an author, commentator and movie critic, who has 
worked with 2 of India's best regarded daily newspapers, The Statesman in 
Kolkata and The Hindu in Chennai for 35 years, and who now writes for the 
Hindustan Times, the Gulf Times and The Seoul Times----Asia Times)