[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Rick Halperin
rhalperi at smu.edu
Tue Nov 17 17:37:52 CST 2015
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Nov. 17
PAKISTAN:
Over 300 executed in Pakistan since December
The government of Pakistan has executed at least 300 people in the past 11
months, it's emerged.
In a rare admission, an anonymous Interior Ministry official said yesterday
that Pakistan's total for hangings "now stands at 311" since the country
resumed executions 11 months ago today. Setting aside the religious holidays,
during which no executions took place, according to Pakistan's own figures they
have executed at least one person a day for the last 11 months.
The figure was revealed amid confusion over the scale of Pakistan's death row,
believed to be the largest in the world. 2 weeks ago, the Pakistani government
said that some 6,000 people were facing execution in the country; however, this
contradicts another government estimate, of 8,000, made by the Interior
Ministry at the beginning of the year.
Reprieve has collated all of the publicly available data on the executions that
have taken place since the moratorium broke, and has identified 300
individuals. Among these, Reprieve has found just 16 individuals (less than
0.06% of all executed) with known links to a prescribed terrorist organisation.
Reuters revealed in July that to date, more than 83% of those executed had no
links to militancy.
Police torture and forced 'confessions' are common in Pakistan, and there are
concerns that many of those on the country's death row were sentenced after
unfair trials. Since more than 73% of births are unregistered in Pakistan,
there are also fears that many of those who have been executed may have been
juveniles when arrested. Among those killed so far was Aftab Bahadur, who was
15 at the time of his arrest for a crime which all eye witnesses in the case
said he was innocent.
Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "The
Pakistani government has no idea how many people it has on its death row, let
alone how many are innocent or were sentenced to death as children. It is
appalling that the authorities are proceeding with executions at this rate. If
they continue to execute one person a day, by the end of next year they will
have killed nearly a thousand people - among whom there will almost certainly
be a large number of juveniles, and innocent people tortured into 'confessing'
to crimes they didn't commit. This senseless massacre will not make Pakistan
any safer, and must be stopped."
(source: reprieve.org.uk)
SAINT LUCIA:
"We should not be fearful of abolishing the death penalty"
Human Rights Activist and Attorney-at-Law Mary Francis said she plans to
continue advocating for the abolition of the mandatory death penalty in Saint
Lucia and the Eastern Caribbean region.
Francis told St. Lucia News Online (SNO) today in an interview that while the
law has been bypassed for almost 2 decades here, she still believes that it
should be removed entirely from the constitution. The attorney said the
European Union (EU) has been pushing the Caribbean to become part and parcel of
the world-wide movement against the death penalty for a number of years.
The UN General Assembly had also adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the
ICCPR. This was aimed at encouraging the abolition of the death penalty.
Francis maintains that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to
crime, but rather a a form of revenge.
"We understand that the crime situation in the Caribbean is very high, but this
death penalty is part of our pre and post independence law and by virtue of how
our constitution was written," she told SNO.
She reminded that Saint Lucia's laws were adopted from England and it's been
more than a quarter of a century since that country has abolished the death
penalty.
"It must be recognised that 1994 was the last time we had an execution. So in
fact most of the Caribbean and the OECS they have actually put a hold on
hanging which is our form of death penalty."
But Francis has advised that the government amend the laws and have it removed
and replaced with an alternative such as life imprisonment, stating that
killing is wrong whether it is by the state. She continued: "In Saint Lucia I
think there are about 50 men right now awaiting trial for murder. If all those
young men had to be hanged, what would happen?" she questioned.
While she admitted that they have done vicious crimes and deserves to face the
full brunt of the law, she believes that the government must look at the root
of crime.
"We have to attack it from societal level, to ensure that young men don't turn
into to those types of individuals who commit serious crimes, especially
murder," she asserted.
Francis recalls that her advocacy work began in 1999, when she worked on a case
alongside a few other prominent lawyers to have the 1st death sentence case
committed to life imprisonment. She said the perpetrator was due for execution
when the judge decided to stop the prosecution of the individual and accepted
the application for the person to be put on life imprisonment.
In the same year, Francis got 5 persons who were on death sentence to be
committed to life imprisonment.
"I have done work in the past and continue to believe that maybe in terms of
building a more humane society we should set the example and move to do that.
We should not be fearful of abolishing the death penalty because it could
increase more vicious crimes. There is no scientific evidence to prove that,"
she told SNO.
Francis, who is very vocal about several other human rights issues here, has
been invited to attend a special conference organised by the EU to discuss the
death penalty in Georgetown, Guyana this month end.
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have long criticised
Caribbean countries mandatory death penalty as too harsh and in breach of
international law.
Even though the capital punishment is on the books in a number of
English-speaking Caribbean states and polls have shown strong support for the
death penalty, executions are rare in the region. The last execution took place
in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2008, when Charles Laplace was hanged for murdering
his wife. That was the region's 1st outside Cuba since an execution in the
Bahamas in 2000.
Politicians of former British colonies have long complained that the
London-based Privy Council, the highest appeal court for many Caribbean
countries, has stymied their attempts to execute murderers. The regional
Caribbean Court of Justice is the highest court of appeal for Barbados, Belize
and Guyana.
(source: stlucianewsonline.com)
NEW ZEALAND/CHINA:
NZ Government willing to deport murder suspect if death penalty ruled out
The Chinese Government wants New Zealand to deport a murder suspect back to
China to face charges and Prime Minister John Key says it's possible, if the
death penalty is ruled out.
It was a decision to be made by Justice Minister Amy Adams.
Speaking with reporters last night in Manila, Mr Key revealed more details
about the case ahead of his meeting today with China's president Xi Jinping at
the Apec summit.
He revealed in August that the Government wanted the return of a person to face
trial. That person was not a Chinese national.
Yesterday Mr Key said the suspect was accused of killing another person.
"It's a long and complicated case."
Mr Key said there had been no deportations of Chinese suspected of fleeing to
New Zealand with the proceeds of corruption, although background work had been
done on the issue, and it was raised during the official visit of President Xi
to New Zealand a year ago.
Mr Key said he would raise at the meeting the issues of China's territorial
disputes (with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei) in the
South China Sea.
China has recently expanded atolls through reclamation in the Spratly group and
built airfields.
"We will be doing and making the same consistent comments that we make which is
we don't arbitrate with these issues," said Mr Key. "We don't pick sides but it
is a very important passage of waterway to us and we do want to see a peaceful
resolution to the issue.
"To a certain extent it is the elephant in the room. It is there and the
reclamations have been fairly significant, so it is raising the temperature on
that issue."
The Vietnamese Prime Minister had raised the issue when Mr Key had talks with
him in Hanoi on Monday.
Mr Key laughed off a newspaper article on the English language newspaper Viet
Nam News in which he was described in a photo as the president of the Senate of
the Czech Republic, Milan Stech.
"It is all part of my global master-plan to increase my sphere of influence and
make you all believe I have so many more people under my control."
(source: New Zealand Herald)
IRAN:
Is the Obama administration aware that it is trusting and dealing with a
country that has just broken the world record in executions? Of course the
President is aware of that, and it seems that he has decided to turn a blind
eye to Iran's increasing aggression and oppression inside and outside of its
own country.
According to the recent and 5th report by the special United Nations
investigator of human rights, human rights violations in Iran are rising even
since the nuclear agreement was reached. Accordingly, execution rates have been
increasing at "an exponential rate" in Iran. In 2014, 753 were executed and at
least 694 people (including women and juveniles) were executed from January
2015 till mid-September. This is reported to be the highest rate of execution
the Islamic Republic has had in 25 years.
If we take the ratio of the population into consideration, the Islamic Republic
breaks the world record in number of executions per capita. As Ahmed Shaheed,
the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, pointed out, "The Islamic
Republic of Iran continues to execute more individuals per capita than any
other country in the world. Executions have been rising at an exponential rate
since 2005 and peaked in 2014, at a shocking 753 executions[.]" According to
the UN analyst, Iran is on track to execute more than 1000 people by the end of
this year. Of course, these are only the official numbers being reported by the
Iranian regime, the unreported number of executions by the government is likely
much higher.
An execution may be ordered over many things, such as insulting the Supreme
Leader, enmity toward Allah, and other non-violent offenses. According to the
U.S. State Department's Human Rights report on Iran, "the law criminalizes
dissent and applies the death penalty to offenses such as ....'attempts against
the security of the state,' 'outrage against high-ranking officials,'
....(moharebeh), and 'insults against the memory of Imam Khomeini and against
the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.'"
In addition, when it comes to journalists, social media activists, and women,
political rights, discriminatory laws, as well as arbitrary detentions have
been on the rise as well. According to the global gender gap index of the World
Economic Forum, the Islamic Republic is ranked 137 out of 142, followed by
Mali, Syria, Chad, Pakistan and Yemen.
In contrast to the report, a more liberal, softer and open image of the Islamic
Republic has been repeatedly projected to the international community by
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Western-educated
foreign minister, and his technocratic team.
There was an assumption by liberals that several developments, including the
improving ties between the West and Iran, the nuclear agreement, and the
presidency of a moderate political figure would translate into improving civil
liberties, social justice and removing restrictions on political critics in
Iran. However, the real picture inside the country suggests a much different
landscape. As Azita, an Iranian human rights activist and teacher from the
ethnically Azeri-populated city of Tabriz said, "This is similar to, or even
worse than, the period of Khatami where Basij, moral police, and IRGC increased
suppression in order to tell the young people particularly that the laws will
not changed."
The State Department report clearly highlights the notion that the superficial
illusion of a softer image projected by Iran belies the social, political, and
economic reality inside the country.
This explains three phenomena. First, although President Rouhani promised that
he will improve several critical issues such as civil liberties, social
justice, freedom of expression, assembly, and press, and women's rights, he
decided to instead solely focus on the nuclear deal in order to get Iran out of
the financial sanctions that restrained its growth.
Secondly, one can make the argument that President Rouhani has also decided not
to cross the boundaries of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by
cooperating with them and allowing them to have full control over domestic
social and political policies, as well as foreign policy (Syria, Hezbollah,
etc.).
Third, the hardliners are increasing their repressive tools and cracking-down
on civil liberties in order to send a message to the Iranian young people and
the West that the nuclear agreement does not mean Tehran is going to open up
its political system and loosen Sharia law.
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, and his social base (the
hardliners) are very concerned that Iranian youth might become a source of
revolution. As a result they attempt to keep the country closed and they fear
Western political and cultural influence on young people.
As Mr. Khamanei warned the senior cadre of the IRGC, "The main purpose of the
enemies is for Iranians to give up on their revolutionary mentality...Enemy
means global arrogance, the ultimate symbol of which is the United
States....Economic and security breaches are definitely dangerous, and have
dire consequences...But political and cultural intrusion by the enemy is a more
serious danger that everyone should be vigilant about."
Finally, the nuclear agreement seems to have overshadowed the human rights
conditions inside Iran and the repressive Shiite Islamist laws. European
countries and the Obama administration appear to have been turning a blind eye
and have been becoming less critical of the Islamic Republic's human rights
record since the nuclear negotiation began and after the nuclear deal was
signed.
It is time for the Obama administration to draw attention to the real face of
the so-called moderate president of Iran who contradicts the truth by depicting
himself and his country in a softer image to the world while simultaneously
allowing executions and egregious, appalling and atrocious human rights abuses
on his watch.
(source: Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist and
scholar, is president of the International American Council and serves on the
board of the Harvard International Review at Harvard University. Rafizadeh is
also a former senior fellow at the Nonviolence International Organization based
in Washington, DC and is a member of the Gulf Project at Columbia
University----frontpagemag.com)
VIETNAM:
Russian arrested at Vietnam airport for smuggling 6.5 kilos of cocaine from
Dubai
Customs officers at Tan Son Nhat Airport on Sunday arrested a Russian man for
smuggling around 6.5 kilograms of cocaine from Dubai into Vietnam.
The officers said they found the suspect luggage of the 25-year-old and
demanded to check it. They then found a quilt and three jackets and the large
amount of drug inside them.
The suspect, whose identity has been withheld, said a strange man paid him
US$1,000 to carry the drug from Chile through different countries including
Russia, Brazil and the UAE, before Vietnam.
Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those convicted of
smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine face the death penalty.
The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal
narcotics is also punishable by death.
(source: Thanh Nien News)
INDONESIA:
Airport Police arrest 2 drug traffickers with drugs worth Rp 39 billion
The Soekarno Hatta Airport Police seized drugs worth Rp 39 billion after
capturing 2 drug traffickers, identified by their initials N and S, on November
10 and 11.
"N was the courier, whereas S was the supplier. The evidence includes 1,012
grams of meth, 2,944 grams of ketamine, 61,251 ecstasy pills, and 4,196 strips
of happy 5. The monetary value of these drugs altogether is Rp 39 billion,"
said Soekarno Hatta Airport Police Chief Roycke Langie, as quoted by Warta Kota
today.
The police first arrested N after carrying out a drug deal in Terminal 1A of
the airport. The police then followed N to another transaction in Grogol, West
Jakarta, and arrested him there.
The next day, N led the police to his supplier, S, in Tambora, West Jakarta.
After arresting S, the police located his kost and found the motherload of his
drugs stored there, thought to be worth Rp 39 billion in total.
Drug traffickers in Indonesia may face the death penalty if proven guilty.
(source: Coconuts News)
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