[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 30



ZIMBABWE:

Amendments to the Criminal Law Code----The GLA Bill proposes wide-ranging 
amendments to the Code, many of them minor, some of them far-reaching, most of 
them technically complex. In this Bill Watch we shall explain the more 
important of these amendments.


In fact the amendments should have been made in a separate Bill rather than 
added to an omnibus Bill. This would have enabled parliamentarians to give them 
the careful consideration they deserve. In any event the long title to the GLA 
Bill allows only amendments to align laws with the Constitution and the most of 
the amendments have nothing to do with the Constitution. It is not too late for 
parliamentarians to request the Minister to remove them from the GLA Bill and 
present them as a separate Bill.

Sentence for murder

The Bill will amend section 47 of the Code to reintroduce the death penalty for 
murder. For the most part the new provisions are in accordance with section 48 
of the Constitution, which allows a law to prescribe the death penalty for 
murder committed in aggravating circumstances. There are 2 difficulties with 
the new provisions, however:

1. The Bill purports to lay down circumstances which a court must regard as 
aggravating and so justifying the imposition of the death penalty. The 
Constitution suggests that courts should decide for themselves what amounts to 
murder committed in aggravating circumstances, and Parliament should not limit 
the courts' discretion on this issue. Furthermore, some of the circumstances 
the Bill regards as aggravating are not necessarily so. For example it will be 
an aggravating circumstance if the murderer entered a dwelling illegally in 
order to kill his victim: so if the victim runs to her hut and the murderer 
follows her in and kills her, he will commit murder in aggravating 
circumstances, but if he catches and kills her before she reaches the hut the 
circumstances will not be aggravating.

2. Even though a court will have a discretion not to impose the death sentence 
on an offender convicted of murder with aggravating circumstances, under the 
proposed amendments the court will be obliged to sentence the offender to a 
minimum of 20 years' imprisonment. This is almost certainly unconstitutional 
because the Bill contains no provision allowing the court to impose a lesser 
sentence in special circumstances.

It should be noted that the Bill is reintroducing the death penalty which has 
effectively been abolished by the new Constitution [and there have been several 
court judgements confirming that it is now abolished]. The GLA Bill is not 
aligning the law with the constitution: it is introducing the death penalty.

(source: zimbabwean.com)






INDIA:

Can't abolish death penalty because of terrorism: Jaitley


The Narendra Modi government on Thursday called the debate on abolishing 
capital punishment "legitimate" but made it clear there was no way India could 
afford to take the leap now due to terrorism in India and the country's 
disturbed neighbourhood.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley also rejected suggestions that the government had 
been in a hurry to execute 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict Yakub Memon 
and made it clear that the BJP disapproved party MP Shatrughan Sinha's signing 
a representation for clemency to Memon.

The senior BJP MP was unsparing in his criticism of Hyderabad MP and AIMIM 
leader Asaduddin Owaisi and Congress leader Digvijaya Singh for trying to 
communalise the punishment meted out to Memon. They had insinuated that the 
government was fast-tracking Memon's execution due to his religion, not merits 
of the case.

Rather, Jaitley told a private news channel the fact was that the case had 
stretched on for too long.

"The crime took place in 1993, it was a crime against India. And 22 years 
later, if a person is being punished for crime, it does not lie in the mouth of 
anybody to speak of doing it in a hurry," the senior BJP leader said.

Given that Memon's appeals against the death penalty had been considered 7 
times by the courts and the President, Jaitley added, there was hardly any 
ground for anybody to argue that he had been given an unfair deal.

"We have a judicial system; there is an investigation, trial, appeal and so on. 
We are not banana republic," he told the news channel in an interview.

But Jaitley - who brushed aside claims that security officials had promised a 
lighter sentence to Memon - said the broader debate over retaining death 
penalty on the statute was a legitimate one. But he quickly added there was 
little chance that the demand could be accepted due to terrorism and the 
prevailing security situation.

"We are not in a position to abolish death penalty," he said, adding that the 
BJP's ideology was against showing leniency to those who butcher innocents. 
Courts in India had awarded death penalty to 2,052 convicts between 1998 and 
2013.

(source: Hindustan Times)

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

Yakub Memon hanging: Kanimoshi to move private member's bill in Rajya Sabha to 
abolish death penalty


India should implement a moratorium on death penalty, said DMK leader and Rajya 
Sabha member Kanimozhi on Thursday.

Reacting to the hanging of 1993 Mumbai blast accused Yakub Memon on Thursday, 
Kanimozhi said she would move a private member resolution and private member's 
bill in the Rajya Sabha to abolish death penalty.

"Over 150 countries in the world have abolished death penalty. The UN General 
Assembly has repeatedly urged countries to abolish this practice. As the Law 
Commission is debating the issue, Parliament should issue a moratorium on death 
penalty," she said.

"DMK has opposed death penalty in all cases and favours immediate abolition of 
this practice. India has witnessed 3 executions in 3 years. A lengthy legal 
process and executive clemency could not prevent the government from taking the 
life of its own citizens," she said.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Human Rights Watch asks India to abolish death penalty after Yakub Memon's 
hanging


A leading human rights organisation on Thursday renewed its call for India to 
abolish death penalty after it executed 1993 Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon, 
saying there is no evidence that the 'cruel' form of punishment acts as a 
deterrent.

Human Rights Watch said that India should adopt the message of Mahatma Gandhi 
that an 'eye for an eye will make the whole world blind' as the practice of 
death penalty is 'blinding the Indian Justice.'

"So, why does India cling to capital punishment? Perhaps the government is 
afraid to be seen as soft in the face of horrific terrorist attacks or other 
crimes like the 2013 gang rape of a student in New Delhi. But the often 
professed goals for capital punishment - deterrence, reformation, or justice - 
hardly hold up to scrutiny," said Jayshree Bajoria, researcher in the Asia 
Division.

She said there is no conclusive evidence from India to show that the death 
penalty acts as a deterrent. "Capital punishment should also be rejected on the 
simple grounds it is irreversible...Plus, these death sentences are meted out 
by a criminal justice system known to be abusive, under-resourced, and in 
urgent need of reform," she added.

"It is definitely time for India to change. A saying famously attributed to 
Gandhi is: 'An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind'. India 
should adopt his message, and end the use of the death penalty for 
retribution," she added.

She said Memon's case highlights another 'fundamental flaw' that India lacks 
any credible process to assess whether an accused is capable of reform. "More 
importantly, most Indian prisons lack adequate or effective systems to help the 
reformation or rehabilitation of prisoners. Those on death row are treated even 
worse," she said.

Memon was hanged on his 53rd birthday today after he exhausted all legal 
options to appeal his conviction in the Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people 
and injured more than 700 others.

(source: mid-day.com)

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

On The Day Yakub Memon Is Hanged, Shashi Tharoor Says Death Penalty Makes Us 
'Murderers'


While Yakub Memon's hanging today polarised the nation, Congress Party leader 
Shashi Tharoor sparked controversy by lambasting the death penalty as a 
pointless and retributive practice, and asked, "should the state be reducing 
itself to the level of murderers and terrorists by taking human life?"

2 hours after the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts convict was declared dead on Thursday 
morning, Tharoor tweeted that "cold blooded execution had never prevented a 
terror attack anywhere."

In an opinion piece, published by NDTV, Tharoor wrote, "state sponsored killing 
reduces us to murderers too."

Excerpts from Tharoor's opinion piece.

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.

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 1 person was executed and the incidence of murder decreased from 37,399 in 
2000 to 33,335 in 2010. No correlation: QED.

Responding to Tharoor's remarks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told Times Now 
that it was irresponsible of the Congress Party leader to call Memon's 
execution "state sponsored killing," which he compared to an "extra judicial 
killing."

Jaitley acknowledged that the death penalty debate is "legitimate," but he 
said, "because of the advent of terrorism in India we are still not in a 
position to abolish the death penalty."

Divided On Death Penalty

Over the past week, politicians, intellectuals, activists and the public have 
expressed polarising opinions on whether Memon should be executed, but today 
the debate shifted course to the overarching question of whether India should 
abolish the death penalty.

While highlighting its futility as a deterrent, death penalty critics said that 
poorer convicts are more vulnerable because they can't afford a good defence, 
and there is always danger of political, social and religious biases creeping 
into the decision-making process.

Speaking against the death penalty, Communist Party of India chief Sitaram 
Yechury said that more than 100 countries have abolished the death penalty 
because it has proven to be ineffective. Noting that life imprisonment in India 
extends to 14 years, the Left party leader suggested changing the law to 
"imprisonment for life" to substitute execution.

Yechury also said that "terrorism in our country knows no religion and is not 
confined to any region," and justice should be "delivered without any 
partiality."

The other side said that the death penalty is confined to the "rarest of rare" 
cases in India, and provides closure to families of victims who are subjected 
to horrific crimes.

Memon, they said, had exhausted all legal avenues over the course of 22 years, 
and the Indian judiciary really did pull out all the stops to ensure that he 
got a fair hearing. On Thursday morning, three Supreme Court judges heard his 
final petition in an unprecedented pre-dawn session, and gave their final 
verdict at 5:00 a.m., 2 hours before he was hanged.

"I think there cannot be a more transparent system," said Home Minister Rajnath 
Singh, ANI reported. "This has never happened before in history of world, that 
a nation's Supreme Court heard somebody mercy petition at 2.15am in the night."

But Bharatiya Janata Party's own leader Shatrughan Sinha, who was among the 
several eminent Indians to back Memon's mercy petition before President Pranab 
Mukherjee, condemned capital punishment.


(source: Huffington Post)






IRAN----female execution

Iran regime hangs 43-year-old mother


Iran's regime has hanged a 43-year-old mother in a prison in the city of Karaj, 
in Alborz Province, north-west of Tehran.

The woman, identified as Ms. Pari-Dokht Molai-Far, was hanged on Wednesday in 
the notorious Qezelhesar Prison.

The mother of 1 had been imprisoned in the notorious Qarchak Prison for Women 
in the city of Varamin for the past 3 years and was transferred to Qezelhesar 
for the execution to take place.

Qarchak Prison, also referred to as 'Qarchak Death Camp', was used by the 
Iranian regime as a place to brutally torture and rape those arrested during 
the 2009 anti-regime popular protests. The death of at least 4 young protesters 
under torture in Qarchak turned into a scandal for the Iranian regime.

Also on Wednesday, the mullahs' regime hanged 3 men in a public square in 
Karaj. The 3 men, who were not named, were hanged at dawn.

5 other death-row prisoners, including 1 woman, in the south-eastern city of 
Kerman were on Wednesday transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for 
their imminent execution.

3 of the men have been identified as Ezzat Sabeki, Meysam Shahraki and Ali 
Zehi.

At least 31 prisoners have been executed in Iran in the past 9 days.

Faced with escalating popular discontent and unable to respond to the rightful 
demands of the majority of the Iranian people who are living under the poverty 
line, the religious fascism ruling Iran - dubbed the 'godfather of ISIS' by the 
Iranian people - is ramping up suppression.

(source: NCR-Iran)