[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 30

INDIA----execution

Yakub Memon's execution: Death penalty no answer to terror


As the Supreme Court's verdict ended Yakub Memon's final hope to stop his 
hanging, a majority of voices opined that death penalty was not the answer to 
terrorism, and underlined that he was not the main accused.

"You have to differentiate between this person, who has surrendered before the 
court and the other people who are in Pakistan," CPI-M politburo member Brinda 
Karat told IANS.

"The senior officer in-charge of the operation himself wrote that death 
sentence was not correct," she said commenting on the resurfacing of an article 
by former RAW official B. Raman, who had written that Memon had entered into an 
agreement with the government.

Activist John Dayal said he was "deeply saddened at the court ruling". "I 
continue to oppose the barbaric concept of death penalty which has never 
deterred determined criminals. I am ashamed and embarrassed as a citizen at the 
gloating I see on TV channels. I wonder if this will expedite the process of 
justice for the victims of targeted violence against the citizens of India in 
1984, 1993, 2002, 2008 and 2014", said Dayal.

Hyderabad Lok Sabha member Asaduddin Owaisi said Memon was given the death 
sentence because he did not have any political backing, unlike the killers of 
former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and former prime minister Rajiv 
Gandhi.

Owaisi, head of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, said if Memon was 
to be hanged, the perpetrators of the Babri mosque demolition should also be 
hanged.

"If capital punishment given by court of law can bring closure to innocent 
victims of a bomb blast, I demand capital punishment should also be given to 
actual sin, the demolition of the Babri Masjid," he said.

Social activist Sandhya Gokhle echoed similar views. "The decision is 
disappointing. Even yesterday, there was a difference of opinion amongst the 
judges. He was denied justice after spending 20 years in prison. They should 
have considered the RAW official's letter. This is a vendetta because he is 
Tiger Memon's brother, otherwise the other people associated with the case have 
not been given death penalty," Gokhle said.

Author K.R. Meera, who wrote the book "Hang Woman", said: "We can't put an end 
to terrorism by hanging one person." Ved Marwah, a former Indian Police Service 
(IPS) officer who was also the governor of Manipur and Mizoram, said the 
Supreme Court has done the right thing by not intervening at this late stage.

He, however, added: "My personal views on death penalty are that a life 
sentence should be the last recourse." There were a few others who supported 
the death penalty.

Former Border Security Force director general Prakash Singh said: "The Supreme 
Court has taken the right decision. A message should go to those carrying out 
terrorist activities."

"In fact, I find it disappointing that in an incident where 250 people died, 
only one person could be hanged. It is also very late despite cases being 
registered under TADA." He also questioned the authenticity of the article by 
the ex-RAW official, saying its resurfacing after so many years was very 
"mysterious".

Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut said: "Now they will know what is death, what is the 
pain. The pain Mumbai faced. The government and the Supreme Court have taken 
decisions in consonance with the views of the people of India."

(source: Deccan Herald)

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

Hanging Yakub Memon Makes Us Murderers Too


The news of the hanging of Yakub Memon has been greeted across the country with 
reactions ranging from dismay to scarcely-concealed bloodlust. I joined the 
public debate by expressing my sadness that our government has hanged a human 
being, whatever his crimes may have been. State-sponsored killing diminishes us 
all, I added, by reducing us to murderers too. I stressed that I was not 
commenting on the merits of this or any specific case: that's for the Supreme 
Court to decide. My problem is with the principle and practice of the death 
penalty in our country.

The overwhelming evidence suggests that the death penalty cannot be justified 
as an effective instrument of the state. Look at the numbers: there's no 
statistical correlation between applying the death penalty and preventing 
murder. About 10 people were executed from 1980 to 1990 for the offence of 
murder under section 302 of the India Penal Code, but the incidence of murder 
increased from 22,149 to 35,045 during the same period. Similarly, during 
1990-2000, even though about 8 people were executed, the incidence of murder 
increased from 35,045 to 37,399. However, during 2000-2010, only one person was 
executed and the incidence of murder decreased from 37,399 in 2000 to 33,335 in 
2010. No correlation: QED.

The death penalty does not actually deter an individual from committing an 
offence. In fact, studies show that an individual is rarely aware of the legal 
implications of his acts - in other words no criminal decides not to commit a 
crime because he is aware that a death sentence might follow. Additionally, the 
ambiguous application of the "rarest of the rare" principle enunciated by the 
Supreme Court further disables an individual from determining what offence 
would actually lead to a sentence of death penalty, and what would instead lead 
to life imprisonment. For any punishment to be an effective deterrence, it is 
important for ordinary people, especially potential criminals, to understand a 
clear relation between an offence and its punishment; but the odds of being 
hanged even for murder are very unpredictable indeed.

Studies have also proved that the application of the death penalty in India 
depends on various variables such as the biases of the judiciary, the 
arbitrariness of the Executive, social and communal biases, public outrage 
(especially against those complicit in terrorism or crimes against women 
involving rape and murder), the economic status of the accused (many more poor 
criminals are executed than well-off ones), and the quality of legal 
representation. The judicial use of expressions like "the collective conscience 
of the community has been shocked" to justify the death penalty testifies to 
the room for subjectivity and the grave risk that ill-informed media rhetoric 
can affect a decision.

Our existing criminal justice system leaves much room for errors and biases, 
especially because the system is created and implemented by humans. There is a 
possibility that the investigating agency is not able to collect sufficient and 
relevant evidence, the legal counsel is not competent enough to assess and 
defend his case, the judge is influenced by personal biases and media reports, 
and a lengthy criminal trial destroys the evidence. All such factors can never 
lead to an error-free assessment; it's a worrying basis to take a human life.

These factors leave much room for the arbitrary and disproportionate 
application of capital punishment. While 436 death sentences were imposed by 
the lower courts in the four years from 2010-13, 280 were commuted to life 
imprisonment and only 2 people were actually executed. However, all death 
sentences have not been commuted: many stay in an appalling limbo for decades. 
There are no comprehensive parameters to ascertain whether a person has been 
rightfully executed. It is morally difficult to justify taking such an extreme 
step when there is so much ambiguity about both the fairness of the death 
penalty and its efficacy.

The Law Commission had organized consultations just a couple of weeks ago to 
assess the effectiveness of the provisions governing the death penalty in India 
and the purpose of the penalty itself. This had been prompted by the Supreme 
Court taking note of the errors, the arbitrariness, and the judicial bias 
affecting the award of a death sentence. Unsurprisingly, based on the evidence 
and the opinions presented at the Law Commission's hearings, there was a 
general consensus on the inability of the courts to adopt a fair and 
non-discriminatory approach to the death penalty, and overwhelming opinion in 
favour of its abolition.

I am told my comments on social media this morning were met by a response from 
the government that I should not be politicizing the issue. I don't see 
anything political in my statement of principle. But since politics has been 
mentioned, let me respond that it would be disingenuous to suggest that the 
imposition of the death penalty is free from any political motivations. After 
all, the final decision on mercy petitions or to commute a death sentence is 
taken by the political executive, which advises the President, who has the 
final say in deciding the execution of a death sentence but, is expected to act 
in accordance with the guidance of the Council of Ministers. The decision is 
therefore bound to be influenced by popular public opinion and political 
calculation.

The fundamental issue remains that innumerable studies and statistics support 
the view that there is no direct correlation between death penalty and 
deterrence. So why have it? The answer is simple: revenge and retribution. He 
killed (or participated in killing), therefore he should be killed. Is that a 
worthy act for a State? Should our society be practising the philosophy of 'an 
eye for an eye'? Revenge is not an acceptable justification for any 
governmental punishment. And the inept criminal justice system and the existing 
judicial and economic biases, which are further aggravated by inflamed public 
opinion, can hardly ensure the fair use of the death penalty, so we may in some 
cases be exacting revenge on the wrong people. Innocent, reformed and 
reformable people have been given the death penalty even though they no longer 
pose any serious danger to society.

There's only one possible conclusion as far as I'm concerned. The provisions 
governing capital punishment cannot be reformed. Therefore the death penalty 
should be abolished.

(source: Dr Shashi Tharoor is a 2-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman 
of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union 
Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the 
former UN Under-Secretary-General----ndtv.com)

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

India executes Mumbai bomb plotter Yakub Memon----Media caption Yakub Memon, 
who has been executed by hanging, tried using all legal routes to plead for 
mercy, as Yogita Limaye reports


India has carried out the execution of Yakub Memon, the man convicted of 
financing the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings.

Memon was hanged at a prison in Nagpur in the western state of Maharashtra.

The serial blasts killed 257 people, and were allegedly to avenge the killing 
of Muslims in riots a few months earlier.

India rarely carries out death sentences - only 3 other people have been 
executed since 2004.

There was tight security around the Nagpur prison on Thursday morning, and in 
parts of the state capital, Mumbai.

The March 1993 blasts targeted a dozen sites, including the Bombay Stock 
Exchange, the offices of national carrier Air India and a luxury hotel.

Yakub Memon with a police guard in MumbaiMemon was sentenced to death in 2007 
after being convicted of providing financial and logistical support for the 
bombings.

Memon was hanged hours after the Supreme Court dismissed a final plea to stay 
the sentence.

His lawyers had argued that executions can only be carried out after 7 days 
have passed following the rejection of a mercy petition.

The court opened its doors in the dead of the night to hear his last appeal for 
mercy, but rejected it just before dawn.

The court ruled that because his first mercy petition had been rejected last 
year, the execution met the required rules, said media reports.

History of Mumbai attacks

March 1993: Series of explosions kill 257 people and injure 713

August 2003: 4 bomb attacks kill 52 people

July 2006: 7 bombs go off on crowded trains within 11 minutes, killing more 
than 180 people and wounding hundreds

November 2008: Gunmen carry out a series of co-ordinated attacks across 7 
high-profile locations, including 2 luxury hotels, city's main commuter train 
station, a hospital, a restaurant and a Jewish centre, killing 165 people.

Pakistan-based militants blamed for the attacks and peace efforts between the 2 
countries derailed. 9 of the attackers also killed. Pakistani national Mohammad 
Ajmal Amir Qasab, who was captured alive, hanged in November 2012.

July 2011: 3 near-simultaneous explosions during Mumbai's evening rush hour 
kill 18 people and injure 131

Memon, a chartered accountant, was sentenced to death in 2007 by a special 
court in Mumbai after being convicted of providing financial and logistical 
support for the bombings.

He was the only one of 11 people convicted for the bombings to have his death 
sentence upheld on appeal. The sentences on the others were commuted to life 
imprisonment.

The additional chief secretary of the state government confirmed to the BBC 
that Memon's body would not be buried inside the prison compound, and would be 
handed over to his family once a post-mortem had been carried out.

The Yakub Memon case

05 August 1994: Yakub Memon is picked up from the New Delhi railway station; he 
claims he gave himself up in Nepal eight days earlier.

27 July 2007: 12 including Memon sentenced to death, 20 given life sentences.

21 March 2013: Supreme court commutes sentences of 10 but confirms death 
penalty for Memon, saying "his commanding position and the crime of utmost 
gravity" warranted no less.

May 2014: President Pranab Mukherjee rejects Yakub's mercy petition.

9 April 2015: Supreme Court rejects mercy plea, confirms death for Yakub.

30 July 2015: Supreme Court rejects final petition filed by Memon - he is 
executed hours later.

Memon's case has divided opinion in India, with many calling for the suspension 
of the death sentence.

Yakub Memon's brother, Tiger, is widely seen as having been the mastermind 
behind the attacks, alongside gangland boss Dawood Ibrahim. Both remain in 
hiding.

Several influential journalists, politicians and members of civil society had 
sent a letter to the president asking for him to "spare him from the noose of 
the death for a crime that was master-minded by someone else to communally 
divide India".

(source: BBC news)

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

Amnesty expresses 'disappointment' over Yakub verdict


Amnesty International on Wednesday expressed disappointment over the dismissal 
of Yakub Memon's plea against his scheduled execution on Thursday in connection 
with the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, saying the death penalty is a cruel and 
inhuman punishment.

"It is extremely disappointing that India is going to be on the verge of 
executing another person yet again. The death penalty is a cruel, inhuman 
punishment. It hasn't been shown to have any deterrent effect around world," 
said Shailesh, senior policy advisor, Amnesty International.

(source: The Free Press Journal)

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

Political war of words erupts over Memon's execution


A political war of words erupted on Thursday over the execution of 1993 Mumbai 
blast convict Yakub Memon, with a section of opposition leaders speaking 
against the death sentence.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh fired the first salvo, saying that 
the BJP- led government should show "similar commitment" in all cases of terror 
as it showed in the case of Yakub Memon.

"I hope similar commitment of the government and the judiciary would be shown 
in all cases of terror, irrespective of their caste, creed and religion," he 
said in a tweet following Memon's execution in the Nagpur central jail on 
Thursday morning.

Party colleague and former union minister Shashi Tharoor said he was "saddened" 
by Memon's execution.

"Saddened by news that our government has hanged a human being. State-sponsored 
killing diminishes us all by reducing us to murderers too," Tharoor tweeted.

"There is no evidence that death penalty serves as a deterrent, to the contrary 
in fact. All it does is exact retribution, unworthy of a government," the 
Thiruvananthapuram parliamentarian said.

"I'm not commenting on the merits of a specific case; that's for the Supreme 
Court to decide. Problem is death penalty in principle and practice," he added.

Communist Party of India (CPI) parliamentarian D. Raja, meanwhile, said that 
the death penalty should be done away with in the country.

"India should say an emphatic no to capital punishment.... It does not mean we 
do not have sympathy with those (blast victims') families, but by snatching 
away one life will not bring back all those lives," Raja said.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader and Hyderabad parliamenarian 
Asaduddin Owaisi said the government should ensure death sentence in all 
similar cases.

"Death sentence should also be given to Babu Bajrangi, Maya Kodnani, Col. 
Purohit and Swami Aseemanand," he said.

While Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani are accused in the Gujarat riots, Col. 
Purohit and Swami Aseemanand are accused in the Malegaon blast.

The ruling BJP slammed the leaders opposed to the hanging, Tharoor and 
Digvijaya Singh were foresaken by the Congress as well, which said it was their 
"personal views".

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the views were that of the leaders 
concerned and not of the Congress.

Former home secretary and BJP parliamentarian R.K. Singh said those making such 
comments did not have national interests on their minds.

"These people don't think about national interest. Whether he (Yakub) had to be 
hanged or not was not to be decided by the government but the court, and the 
president uses his judgement after that...," he said.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said justice 
had been done.

"Justice has been done; this increased the people's faith in the judicial 
process. He got 2 decades to prove his innocence, and he was proven guilty," he 
said.

Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon, convicted in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, 
was hanged till death at Maharashtra's Nagpur central jail on Thursday morning.

(source: Business Standard)

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

CPDR Protests Against The Unjust Death Penalty To Yakub Memon


The Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) planned demonstrations 
to protest against the government???s plan to hang Yakub Memon on 30 July at 
the Nagpur Central Jail. The demonstrations were planned today (28 July 2015) 
at 5 pm Near Dadar Railway Station (East). There was a significant support from 
youth organizations and students to the demonstrations and we expected a good 
turnout of activists and public support. During the entire day the Police 
repeatedly phoned up the CPDR activists, whose numbers were given on the CPDR 
pamphlet and kept asking the details about demonstration and about the police 
permission, clearly to spread scare among the activists.

The venue, the East side of the Dadar Railway Station was already filled up by 
police and media people. As the activists reached the spot with placards, 
pamphlets and banners, they were pounced upon by the police who whisked them 
away to the Matunga Police Station. The activists however managed to shout 
slogans and throw some pamphlets to people. In all they arrested about 50 
people which included students of Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) and 
some other institutes, and were charged under Unlawful Assembly and Mumbai 
Police Act. They were detained for nearly 3 hours during which the police 
reverberated with various slogans denouncing the death penalty to Yakub Memon. 
Advocate Pradeep Mandyan of CPDR reached the Police Station and mediated their 
release on PR. Among the arrested were Maharukh Adenwala, Susan Abraham, Suresh 
Rajeshwar, Monica Sakhrani, Jyoti Punyani, Arun Fereira, Sudhir Dhawale and 
Feroze Mithiborwala of Bharat Bachao Andolan.

Other activists escaped the arrest and distributed pamphlets at various railway 
stations including CST.

Anand Teltumbde is General Secretary of Committee for Protection of Democratic 
Rights

(source: countercurrents.org)

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

Death penalty wrong in principle and practice: Tharoor


Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said that although he did not want 
to comment on the execution of 1993 Mumbai terror attacks convict Yakub Memon 
but said that death penalty is wrong in principle and practice.

"I am not commenting on the merits of any case because that is for the Supreme 
Court to decide. My position is that death penalty is wrong in principle and 
practice. Lots of studies have been conducted which confirm that death penalty 
has no deterrent effect, statistics also suggest that," said Tharoor. Memon's 
body was handed over to his family members after the 1993 Mumbai terror attacks 
convict was hanged in the Nagpur Central jail earlier today.

Meanwhile, security has been tightened outside the terror attack convict's 
Mumbai residence following his execution.

Memon was hanged at the Nagpur Central jail today morning after his 2nd mercy 
plea before President Pranab Mukherjee was rejected late last night.

(source: The Times of India)

*******

Death penalty in 'peace-loving' India may not be right, says NCP


Commenting on 1993 Mumbai terror blast convict Yakub Memon's execution, the 
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Thursday said that implementing capital 
punishment in 'peace-loving' India may not be right.

"Debate over whether or not the capital punishment should be implemented is 
going on in the whole world and also in our nation. Personally I feel that in a 
peace-loving place like India, where we use names of people like Gandhiji, 
punishment like this may not be right," Tariq Anwar told ANI.

"I think in the future we will reach to a conclusion. Whatever happened with 
Yakub, our court took the decision. We believe in the court. We don't doubt 
that Yakub was guilty. He was guilty and he needed to be punished, but the rest 
of the nation was suggesting that he shouldn't be hanged and given some other 
punishment," he added.

"Maybe the Supreme Court didn`t accept the suggestion. Now, that he is hanged, 
we need to decide in the future whether or not the capital punishment should 
exist," said Anwar, adding "The way the whole world is debating on the capital 
punishment, I think we will soon reach to a conclusion."

Memon's 2nd mercy plea before President Pranab Mukherjee was rejected late last 
night.In an unprecedented move, a 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court presided 
over a fresh hearing of the case throughout the intervening night of Wednesday 
and Thursday before dismissing the final appeal for mercy by Yakub, the only 
person to be sentenced to death for the series of bombings in Mumbai.

While Yakub Memon's lawyer Anand Grover had sought a reprieve of 14 days to 
challenge rejection of mercy plea by the President, Attorney General Mukul 
Rohatgi maintained that if mercy petitions are filed over and over again, death 
warrants will never be executed.

The apex court had on Wednesday also dismissed the curative petition of Yakub, 
saying proper procedure was followed in disposing of Yakub's curative 
petition.Memon was convicted for being the "driving spirit" behind the blasts 
that killed at least 257 people at separate landmarks in the financial capital, 
including the Bombay Stock Exchange and two crowded markets.

(source: Zee News)

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

Society's Severest Criticism


The past fortnight saw the execution of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani 
Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist who had been captured in the attacks on Bombay in 
November 2008, just days before the fourth anniversary of the same attack. Not 
surprisingly, death penalty abolitionists used the opportunity to argue their 
case against state execution (yet again) before the public. It is not difficult 
to be sceptical of state power and fear its familiar abuse. However, the Indian 
judiciary has set the bar quite high with its "rarest of the rare" doctrine 
that there is less to fear in terms of judicial error in the awarding of 
society???s severest criticism.

The question whether the death penalty should exist is not a matter of law but 
of philosophy. That it has been upheld repeatedly by the highest court of the 
land is enough to cement its legal position. Yet laws reflect societal values, 
and the real question that faces us is if a law that allows the state to take 
the life of an individual should be on the books in the first place.

Those who oppose the death penalty do so on multiple grounds - its 
irreversibility, its low correlation to deterrence, the rejection of 
retribution and vengeance as one of the foundational elements of justice, and 
its inhumanity. Barring the 1st concern, the rest seem like a haute-bourgeois 
tantrum, insisting upon the imposition of a saccharine prettiness on society. 
The emphasis on mercy, reformation, and rehabilitation find little resonance 
with the victims of crimes; the unbridled optimism - naivete? - that comes 
through is neither practical nor sound. What the abolitionists seem to have 
lost sight of is that the penalty is considered only for the severest of crimes 
committed in the most exceptional manner.

So far, the proponents of the death penalty have defended the practice while 
the opponents have fired a barrage of questions. There are, however, a few 
questions for them too: firstly, what is their rejection of collective 
retribution based on? 2nd, what is the success rate of rehabilitation of the 
most dangerous criminals, and what is the potential for recidivism? 3rd, what 
exactly is inhuman about a state execution in which efforts have been made to 
ensure that death is quick and painless? 4th, what makes institutionalised 
mercy a virtue?

The notion of retribution is ancient and has religious - middah kenegged middah 
- as well as secular - lex talionis - origins. Interestingly, the principle was 
supposed to curb retributive impulses of a wronged party in early societies! 
Apart from finding some basis in utilitarian principles such as the removal of 
a criminal from society serving the greater good, capital punishment also has 
some support from deontological ethics. The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, 
believed that retributive justice was not merely about punishment but also 
about respect. Treating a criminal as a case of social maladjustment was not 
only an enormous loophole but also ignored the rationality of the perpetrator 
of a crime. If the basis of law and society sees man as a rational actor, it is 
hardly logical to disregard so foundational a belief when it comes to criminal 
behaviour.

The new mantra of rehabilitation that has taken hold of prison reforms has 
certainly had its successes, but most of these have been among inmates who have 
been incarcerated for non-violent crimes. One wonders if rehabilitation would 
work on hardened criminals capable of carrying out the rarest of the rare 
crimes. Would it have worked on Ajmal Kasab? Osama bin Laden? Uday Hussein? 
Were one inclined towards an emotional plea, a brief summary of former 
president Pratibha Patil's pardons would be appropriate here. Logic alone, 
however, should suffice (but the emotional impact of coming face to face with 
gruesome crimes should be noted). Faced with a death sentence, everyone is keen 
on disavowing their crimes, but what is the probability - and danger - of 
recidivism? No longer is the question merely a philosophical inquiry but it can 
have devastating consequences on thousands of lives.

It is also alleged that state execution is inhuman. The act itself seems quick 
and relatively painless - hanging by the long drop method causes severe trauma 
to the upper cervical spine and causes near instantaneous death. This is far 
kinder than the victims of those the state apparatus has sentenced to death, 
but that is neither here nor there. The assertion is that voluntary taking of 
life is cruel and unusual. This assumption, however, takes no account of the 
context in which a human life is being taken and the process by which that 
decision has been reached; nor does it consider the consequences of not doing 
so. Arguing that the death penalty is not humane tries to make an absolute 
moral judgement. The only problem is that everything functions within limits.

A final point for consideration is the option before the state for clemency. 
Mercy is not an act that can be deserved, or one would then be entitled to it. 
It is, properly considered, an act that one has no claim to. Furthermore, the 
mercy being sought is not personal but institutional. There is yet another 
twist - one must be careful to distinguish between charity, pity, forgiveness, 
and mercy. The 1st has no implication of pardoning or reducing guilt, the 2nd 
refers to the adjustment of guilt to an appropriate level, the 3rd is quite 
clear in its intent, and the fourth implies a 2nd chance a moral improvement. 
Unfortunately, this is a personal decision, one that society cannot make 
collectively. Mercy, if shown, can meaningfully come only from the kin of the 
victims - who but the wronged can bestow such a magnanimous gift?

People like Kasab, bin Laden, and Hussein are not merely criminals; those who 
commit the rarest of rare crimes represent a tumour in society that must be 
excised. If rehabilitation were truly the answer, there would be no war, no 
hatred, no racism, no strife of any kind today. We would all be generous, 
happy, eco-friendly, virtuous, community-conscious, and dharmic individuals. 
The horror of some crimes forces us to reflect upon those members of our 
species that have gone wildly wrong, and it is too close for comfort - it could 
have been us. Our discomfort must not, however, lead us to specious moral 
arguments. In that Great Book, the Mahabharata, we learn a most important 
lesson from Draupadi in the Vana Parva: "Revenge is not always better, but 
neither is forgiveness; learn to know them both so that there is no problem."

(source: Jaideep Prabhu, swarajyamag.com)

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

On India's Continued Use of the Death Penalty


Capital punishment or the death penalty has been abolished completely in 103 
countries. 50 countries have not used it for the past 10 years or more or they 
practice a moratorium. Public opinion against the death penalty around the 
world is increasing. According to Amnesty International, 37 countries had the 
death penalty in 1994, compared with 22 today. In Europe and Latin America, the 
practice has essentially been entirely banished and an increasing number of 
African countries are reviewing their laws. Recently, 2 victims, 1 in China and 
the other in the US, were found to be innocent following their executions. Can 
the state give back their lives?

India, the world's largest democracy shamelessly continues to apply the death 
penalty. On Sunday the famous Bollywood star, Salman Khan, tweeted against the 
death penalty for Yakub Memom who was accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb 
blasts case and was ultimately executed on the July, 30 2015. Immediately after 
the tweet, he received support from former Bollywood star and present BJP 
Member of Parliament, Shatrugan Sinha.

What followed was a shameful reflection on the rich heritage of India as a 
tolerant and non violent country. Goons from the BJP and Shiv Sena gathered in 
large numbers and protested in front of Salman Khan's house. The actor withdrew 
his tweets.

Without going into the merits of the case, one needs to understand that the 
state is meant to protect its subjects, not necessarily by killing those who 
have caused harm to fellow subjects of the state. If revenge is the answer, the 
state need not exist. Hammurabi's code of laws was discarded as draconian ages 
ago. There is no greater glory to the state than showing mercy and compassion 
to its offenders.

Death penalty has been there since time immemorial and the argument is that it 
acts as a deterrent to those who may think of committing a heinous crime, but 
has it had the desired result over thousands of years? One who has made up his 
mind to terrorize and kill innocents is never deterred by the consequences of 
his action.

The Indian public needs to understand that terrorism is not the biggest killer 
in India, poverty and misguided government policies are. Farmer suicides have 
killed more than 300,000 farmers since independence in 1947. (There was a 26% 
increase in farmer suicide in 2014 alone).

Diseases, unsafe roads and railways are the biggest killers and the state does 
not highlight these issues as there are no political gains to be had.

More than 200 prominent people in India have sought clemency for Yakub Memon. 
By killing Yakub Memom, will the 250 victims of the 1993 blasts be brought back 
to life, or would his execution bring solace to all the families of those 
victims?

What has happened to this country of Mahavira, Buddha, Ashoka the Great? The 
world over we Indians are respected for the Gandhian ideals of truth and ahimsa 
(non violence). We were the torch bearers of Human Rights around the world. 
Would the hanging of Yakub Memom satisfy our collective thirst for blood? Here 
I am reminded of the few lines of George Orwel's essay, A Hanging:

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to 
destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid 
the puddle I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life 
short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we 
are alive. All the organs of his body were working - bowels digesting food, 
skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming - all toiling away in 
solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, 
when he was falling through the air with 1/10 of a second to live. His eyes saw 
the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, 
reasoned - even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, 
seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in 2 minutes, with 
a sudden snap, 1 of us would be gone - 1 mind less, 1 world less.

The greatest pleasure and the path to inner peace is in forgiving and not 
seeking revenge. Forgiveness would surely elevate India as a morally powerful 
country ready to take up the leadership role for those who are victims of 
terrorism.

(source: Paul Newman, International Policy Digest)

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

After Yakub Memon's execution, here's the case to retain death penalty


The hanging of Yakub Memon gives us a good reason to start the debate over the 
death penalty. I would like to make out a case in favour of retaining the death 
penalty.

The main arguments trotted out in favour of the abolition of capital punishment 
are these. First, we should not be party to taking precious human life. 2nd, 
sentencing someone to death when facts may later prove him or her innocent 
means irreparable injustice will be done. 3rd, death is never a deterrent. And, 
a 4th, that retribution should never be the aim of capital punishment. It is 
primitive and barbaric to seek death even for the worst crimes.

Let me agree that none of these arguments are invalid in toto. But they are not 
as strong as they appear to be at first glance.

Let's take the 1st argument. Every human life is precious, no doubt. The right 
to life is the most fundamental of rights. No state should be allowed to take 
it away easily.

But no fundamental right is without riders either. Free speech, property and 
faith, all these are rights subject to reasonable restrictions. Sure, the right 
to life is even more fundamental, but this only means that the right to take it 
away has to be foolproof and not amenable to subjective readings.

When someone is a terrorist, killing people at will, or a serial murderer or 
rapist, is this person's right to life all that sacrosanct all the time?

Also, we need to evaluate the death sentence compared to the alternative: a 
life sentence. Is living life in a dingy cell somehow more humane than sending 
the killer to the hangman? When suicide bombers voluntarily kill themselves for 
psychic gains, why is the right to life somehow so sacrosanct? They want to die 
anyway - and they don't believe in other people's right to live.

Let me add 2 more elements to this argument. Why is only human life so 
valuable, and not that of animals or other fauna? Why is it so unethical to 
hang a human being, but perfectly all right to murder animals by the million 
when this causes global warming, makes our diets excessively fatty and 
cholesterol-laden, and also leads to needless suffering to creatures whom we 
dominate?

Moreover, what if keeping a person alive can cause even more deaths? Keeping 
Maqbool Butt alive led Kashmiri separatists to the kidnap and murder of an 
Indian diplomat in Birmingham in the early 1980s. Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, Indian 
Mujahideen, Al Shabaab, and ISIS will do anything to get the release of their 
jailed comrades. Keeping Maulana Masood Azhar and Sheikh Omar in jail caused 
the Kandahar Indian Airlines hijack and may even have contributed to the 9/11 
mass murders at the Twin Towers. When keeping deadly killers alive in jail can 
tempt their compatriots to indulge in more killings, how is this justified?

When it comes to demented people who kill or rape for pleasure and revenge, and 
when they do so out of mental sickness, is it better to keep them rotting in 
jail or end their suffering and potential threats to society - including other 
jailbirds?

Sometimes, the greater good is more important than the life of one individual. 
Hence the death penalty is not something we should reject out of sheer emotion.

Let's take the next argument - that sending someone to the gallows when he may 
be innocent is the worst form of injustice. This is a reasonably good argument, 
but we need to examine it closely for its implications.

There are 2 kinds of states - malevolent ones, that are run by dictatorships 
and hence outside the rule of law, and democratic ones, which do give the 
accused a chance to prove their innocence. In the 1st case, there is no point 
arguing against the death sentence since that kind of regime is against any 
argument that is not in favour of it.

In democratic regimes, where the rule of law is reasonably expected to operate, 
the accused have a chance to prove their innocence. Let's remember, Yakub Memon 
got 21 years to prove his innocence, and failed. However, the real issue here 
is whether he (and others on death row) got reasonable support from the law so 
that they don't end up on the gallows for want of an adequate defence. In big 
cases, the courts themselves provide legal support; the real problem lies with 
the poor and weak in criminal cases that do not catch the public eye. It is a 
travesty that the bulk of the people languishing on death row are from these 
segments of society. This problem needs remedying by strengthening the law - a 
law which provides state legal support for the poor. Maybe, a group of 
concerned citizens can serve as watchdog to ensure that this gets done.

That still leaves the question of the non-guilty facing a death rap because of 
poor evidence gathering by the criminal investigation teams.

This is a valid argument, but not an overpowering one. Reason: the fact that 
mistakes will be made occasionally should not be used to kill the idea of death 
penalty in the rarest of rare cases. Once we create a basic list of crimes that 
fits this "rarest of rare" category, the rules for applying the death sentence 
can be tightened suitably so that convictions based on weak evidence should 
automatically attract nothing more than lifers. This is a reasonable safeguard 
to have - and it can be codified into law.

The 3rd argument, that capital punishment is never a deterrent, is actually the 
weakest of them all. If death is no deterrence, is a jail term (even a lifer) a 
better deterrent? Ask yourself: if you intend to kill, not out of some degree 
of temporary insanity or driven by extreme emotion, nothing is a deterrent. If 
you kill after plotting assiduously for it, you are prepared for any 
consequences. So death or jail will be no deterrent anyway. I believe that 
punishment itself does not deter too many crimes involving the killing of 
people, but it is still needed to send out a message to society. Punishment is 
how we educate ourselves on what is acceptable or unacceptable to a society. 
This is the prime purpose of any punishment, death or jail, regardless of 
whether it deters or not.

The last argument, that death penalty cannot become a form of retribution, I 
personally disagree with. States punish crimes with punishment, including 
death, so that people don't take law into their own hands and seek retribution 
directly. Punishment by the state is vital to keep ordinary citizens from 
taking the law into their own hands - some form of retribution is vital for 
closure, for righting wrongs. Of course, an occasional Gandhi or a Buddha may 
not want retribution, but most societies are held in place by the promise of 
retribution for wrongs inflicted, and not by the forgiving nature of the 
wronged. Retribution is a human emotion that needs to be acknowledged - just as 
love, anger and hate are - and punishment is vital if society is not to sink 
into wanton lawlessness.

These are some of the reasons why I think the death sentence should be 
retained. But it cannot be wayward and arbitrary. We need a specific set of 
crimes which are defined as rarest of rare and not leave it to the imagination 
of all-to-human judges to decide this. This is what the debate on capital 
punishment needs to focus on, not whether it should be abolished.

It may be possible to abolish death penalties in extremely advanced countries 
where people are normally law abiding and the state is strong enough and has 
enough resources to even attempt to correct the behaviour patterns of deadly 
criminals. But India is not anywhere near that stage. We need the death penalty 
for our own reasons at this stage in our development as a civilised society. 
Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that we must do what the Joneses do to 
their killers in Scandinavia or Europe. That way lies chaos and disaster.

(source: R Jagannathan, firstpost.com)






INDONESIA:

NU clerics want death penalty for corruption


Muslim clerics across the nation have urged law enforcement agencies and courts 
to be steadfast in dealing with corruption and money laundering, and bold 
enough to hand down death sentences to those found guilty of corruption.

The religious leaders from the country's largest Islamic organization Nahdlatul 
Ulama (NU) said corruption and money laundering were extraordinary crimes 
against humanity because of their adverse impacts on the nation, state and 
community. "We clerics are in favor of the death penalty if conditions are 
supportive and requirements are met," NU Syuro board chairman for legal affairs 
Ahmad Ishomuddin told the media in Yogyakarta on Wednesday.

The recommendation on the death penalty for those involved in corruption was 1 
of the 7 points of the "Recommendation on Prevention and Eradication of 
Corruption and Money Laundering" directed at the government.

The recommendation was part of the conclusion of the 2-day Nusantara 
(archipelago) Cleric Assembly themed Building Pesantren Anti-corruption 
Movement, organized by the NU and the Gusdurian Network National Secretariat in 
Yogyakarta, which began Tuesday. Gusdurian is a network of activists who 
promote the ideas on peace and pluralism of former president Abdurrahman "Gus 
Dur" Wahid.

The meeting was attended by 30 religious figures from 27 cities in 10 provinces 
across the country.

"Among the requirements [for the death penalty] are if corruption and money 
laundering are committed at a time when the country is in peril, during 
economic or social crises, or committed repeatedly," added Ishomuddin.

Meanwhile, Umar Faroeq, from the Ma'had Jami'ah Pesantren STAI Mathali'ul Falah 
Islamic boarding school in Pati, Central Java, said Nusantara clerics also 
studied about the death penalty handed down to corrupt people from the 
viewpoint of Muslim clerics long ago.

"It exists in the Maliki and Hanafi [Islamic teaching] schools, and the 
condition is very clear, that is, when it is done repeatedly," said Umar. He 
added that an edict on the death penalty for corrupt people had not been issued 
by clerics from long ago because they were very careful and paid attention to 
aspects of human rights. "But now we are in a time of crisis and it's time to 
implement it," he pointed out.

Umar said the recommendation also described various forms of corruption, such 
as bribery, embezzlement, looting, extortion, power abuse, theft and fraud.

Money laundering is categorized as a sin according to Islamic perspectives, 
because it is part of a conspiracy of sin and enmity, harms the government, 
business world and economic system, encourages crime and puts people in danger, 
he added.

Gusdurian Network coordinator Alissa Wahid said the recommendation also served 
as a basis for the NU to carry out anti-corruption measures based in Islamic 
boarding schools. "The recommendation will enable Islamic boarding school 
caretakers and Islamic-based schools as well as members of the NU community to 
understand corruption," said Alissa.

The eldest daughter of Gus Dur added that the recommendation would also be 
conveyed to clerics attending the 33rd NU Congress in Jombang, East Java, in 
early August.

Meanwhile, Yogyakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Yogyakarta) director Hamzal 
Wahyudin said he agreed that serious measures needed to be taken to eradicate 
corruption, but disagreed with the death penalty for such offenses.

"The death penalty is against basic human rights so it is not feasible in 
Indonesia," said Hamzal.

He said there were alternative forms of punishment that could serve as 
deterrents, such as a life sentences, deprivation and revoking the political 
rights of those found guilty.

"I believe they are sufficient," he stressed.

(source: The Jakarta Post)