[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 16



JAPAN:

Public support for death penalty not overwhelming, researchers say ---- 
Japanese may not be as enthusiastic about death row inmates being sent to the 
gallows as previously believed.


A recent study by researchers shows public support for the death penalty in 
Japan is not deeply entrenched, despite a government survey indicating more 
than 80 % accept the practice.

While Japan has cited the outcome of the survey to support its continuation of 
capital punishment amid a global trend to abolish it, Mai Sato, a lecturer of 
the University of Reading in Britain, said, "The majority of the public is in 
favor of the death penalty if asked in general, but how strongly or how 
unconditionally they want to retain it is a different matter.

"Our research indicates behind the supposed majority support lies a minority of 
respondents who are really committed to keeping the death penalty," she said in 
recent interview.

Sato, together with Paul Bacon, an associate professor at Waseda University in 
Tokyo, conducted a survey on the death penalty from February to March, shortly 
after the Cabinet Office carried out its own poll about the issue last 
November.

Between the 2 surveys, no inmates were hanged, while no heinous crimes were 
reported, which means there were no significant factors to influence the public 
view of capital punishment during the three-month period, making it possible to 
meaningfully compare their results.

The two surveys similarly asked respondents if they thought the death penalty 
was unavoidable or if they thought it should be abolished. Both found a similar 
tendency: around 80 % had a favorable attitude toward capital punishment.

Additionally, the researchers gave the respondents 5 options in their own poll 
to examine the how committed respondents were to the death penalty: whether 
capital punishment should definitely be kept, probably be kept, probably be 
abolished, definitely be abolished or cannot say.

The survey found respondents who chose the 1st option accounted for only 27 %.

The researchers also closely examined the 2014 Cabinet Office survey data to 
find only 34 % of respondents were staunchly in favor of the death penalty and 
would never approve its abolition.

"Headlines of the government survey's reports say '80 % support death penalty,' 
but our close study shows staunch supporters are the minority, standing at 
around 30 %," Sato said. "It is doubtful, given such an outcome, if the 
government has a sufficient rationale for executing inmates."

The researchers' survey also showed 71 % of respondents who wanted to retain 
the death penalty said they would accept the abolition of capital punishment, 
if the government took the initiative to end the practice.

"The outcome suggests a rather smooth road to abolition if the government 
exercises policy initiatives," said Sato, who was working at the Center for 
Criminology at the University of Oxford at the time of the survey. "We could 
say Japanese people possess the capacity and flexibility to embrace abolition."

The researchers' survey results also showed skepticism about whether 
introducing life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, alongside the 
death penalty, would ultimately lead to capital punishment being abolished.

It found only 12 % of those who wanted to retain the death penalty would accept 
life imprisonment without parole as an ultimate punishment.

"The majority of them consider the death penalty to be irreplaceable by life 
imprisonment without parole, and support the death penalty for the very reason 
that it is an ultimate form of atonement," Sato said.

The researchers also asked several questions to test the respondents' level of 
knowledge on the issue, given the government discloses little information about 
executions and it is still unknown how prisoners are chosen for the gallows or 
the cost of an execution.

One of the questions was the method of execution used in Japan, with 
respondents given options including lethal injection, gas and electric chair. 
Only 51 % selected the correct answer - hanging.

"The fact that only 1/2 of the respondents knew about the more than 
140-year-old, only execution method in Japan highlights the secrecy surrounding 
the death penalty," Sato said.

She also suggested it was paradoxical that while the government justified the 
death penalty based on public support, it did not provide people with 
sufficient information for making their decisions.

She concluded, "Japan has the death penalty not because the general public is 
clamoring for its retention, but rather because the government has not yet 
taken steps to understand fully the nature of public opinion on the subject.

"Were the government to change its stance on the death penalty, there is 
reliable evidence that its citizens would follow suit."

Last year, the U.N. Human Rights Committee urged Japan to "give due 
consideration to the abolition of the death penalty," while the Japan 
Federation of Bar Associations asked Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa to suspend 
the execution of death row inmates, saying public support for the death penalty 
did not necessarily affect the argument in favor of terminating it.

However, Tokyo hanged a death row inmate in June, bringing the total number of 
executions under the second administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which 
started December 2012, to 12.

According to human rights group Amnesty International, 140 countries, or about 
70 % of all nations in the world, had abolished the death penalty by law or in 
practice as of the end of 2014. In 2014, only 22 countries, including Japan, 
executed inmates.

(source: Japan Times)






SUDAN:

Sudan's child welfare council aims to abolish child death penalty


Sudanese child rights advocates are working to ban the death penalty for people 
under 18 years of age.

Dr Omayma Abdel-Wahab of Sudan's National Council for Child Welfare said that 
her organization along with UNICEF is undertaking a workshop aimed at reviewing 
the death penalty for children with an aim to abolish the practice.

She said the workshop has come up with a number of recommendations including 
the enforcement of Article 77 (d) of the Child Law 2010 to prevent execution of 
the death penalty for children. They have also recommended that children only 
be tried by child courts while stressing the importance of issuing birth 
certificates to children.

Dr Omayma said they are still at the beginning stages of developing an 
operational plan to abolish the death penalty for children. She said they are 
studying national and international laws and constitutions and will also take 
note of jurisprudential and psychological recommendations regarding the 
practice.

(source: radiotamazuj.org)






INDIA:

UP governor rejects mercy pleas of couple sentenced to death


Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik has rejected the mercy petition of Shabnam and 
her lover Saleem, who were sentenced to death for killing 7 people, including a 
10-month-old child, in 2008.

BR Verma, senior superintendent of Moradabad Jail, where Shabnam is being held, 
confirmed the governor had rejected her mercy petition. Shabnam's mercy 
petition filed with the President is still pending, he said.

The papers regarding the rejection of the mercy plea had reached Moradabad Jail 
and Shabnam had been informed about the governor's decision, he said.

Shabnam had said in her petition that she should be granted mercy to take care 
of her 6-year-old son Taj Mohammad, Verma said.

A district and sessions court in Amroha had in 2010 awarded the death penalty 
to the duo for killing 7 members of Shabnam's family on April 15, 2008.

On May 15, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences. But within 10 days, 
the apex court quashed death warrants issued by the sessions court in Amroha 
for executing the couple, saying they were "signed in haste" without following 
guidelines.

According to the law, the couple should have been given 30 days to file review 
petitions against the death sentence. They could also file curative petitions 
and mercy pleas. However, the sessions court issued the death warrants less 
than a week after the Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty.

The duo had killed Shabnam' father Shaukat Ali, 55, mother Hashmi, 50, elder 
brother Anees, 35, his wife Anjum, 25, younger brother Rashid, 22, and cousin 
Rabia, 14. Shabnam had throttled Anees' 10-month-old child Arsh.

Shabnam drugged members of her family while Saleem hacked them to death with an 
axe in Bawankhedi village of Hasanpur Kotwali. The couple confessed they 
eliminated Shabnam's family for opposing their relationship.

Judge SAA Hussaini convicted Shabnam and Saleem and gave them the death 
sentence after hearing arguments by the prosecution and defence over a period 
of 27 months. The judge described the crime as "rarest of the rare" and 
rejected defence lawyer Arshad Hussain's appeal to convert the capital 
punishment into life imprisonment.

(source: prameyanews7.com)






CHINA:

China Moves to Restrict Death Penalty - But Not For Drugs


Last Friday, United Nations human rights experts welcomed a recommendation by 
India to abolish the death penalty, as well as a decision to reduce the number 
of crimes subject to capital punishment in China, the world's top executioner 
by far. The better news was that concerning India - which has thousands on 
death row, but has only carried out 4 executions so far this century.

In August, the Indian Law Commission issued a report concluding that the death 
penalty does not act as an effective deterrent and recommended its abolition 
for all crimes except terrorism-related offenses.

"I encourage the Indian authorities to implement these recommendations and to 
move towards the complete abolition of the death penalty for all offenses," 
Christof Heyns, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial or arbitrary 
executions, said.

Juan Mendez, the special rapporteur on torture, noted that the Commission 
"recognized the immense suffering caused by the death row phenomenon as a 
seemingly inevitable consequence of the imposition of the death penalty." He 
added that "this recognition supports the emergence of a customary norm that 
considers the death penalty as, per se, running afoul of the prohibition of 
torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

Meanwhile, China amended several provisions of its criminal law after the 
session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, replacing the 
death penalty with life imprisonment for several offenses, including the 
smuggling of weapons, ammunition, nuclear materials and counterfeit currency; 
arranging or forcing a person to carry out prostitution; obstruction of duty of 
a police officer; and creating rumors during wartime to mislead people.

"By adopting these amendments to its criminal code, China has made progress in 
the right direction; this needs to be encouraged," Heyns and M???ndez jointly 
noted. "These new developments in India and China are in line with the general 
trend towards the abolition of the death penalty at a global level, even if 
there are isolated moves in the opposite direction."

This is indeed a big step in the right direction. But note that China is not 
dropping the death penalty for drug-related offenses.

China continues to top the list in the use of the death penalty worldwide. This 
makes it the foremost contributor to a global spike in the use of the death 
penalty - despite the abolition of capital punishment by some 2/3 of the 
world's nations. While the number of executions in China is kept secret, 
Amnesty International believes thousands are put to death there every year - 
including drug offenders.

(source: hightimes.com)


UNITED KINGDOM:

How UK taxpayers are funding executions in Iran and Pakistan


Among the new human rights concerns that have occurred as a result of this new 
Conservative government, such as the threats to scrap the Human Rights Act and 
the refugee crisis, you would be forgiven if you had not heard about how UK 
foreign aid and assistance money is being used to fund executions in Iran and 
Pakistan.

Human rights organisation Reprieve has documented the catastrophic impact of 
money sent by the UK government to Iran and Pakistan in the name of the 'war on 
drugs'. Over a 2-year investigation Reprieve found that the 45m pounds worth of 
aid to these countries, given by European governments, has led to over 3,000 
executions in Iran and 112 death sentences in Pakistan.

The UK is by far the largest donor in Europe (providing just over 50 % of the 
contribution to the counter-narcotics aid in the region). UK taxpayers may 
therefore not be aware that their money is being used by these countries, under 
the guise of fighting drug supply, to execute their citizens. Instead of 
targeting the masterminds of the global drugs trade, this policy can be used to 
facilitate arrests and executions of the most vulnerable and abused people.

Consider the case of Khadijah Shah, from Birmingham, who is currently being 
held in custody in Pakistan because she was asked to carry bags on her way back 
from Pakistan after a trip to the country. She was heavily pregnant when she 
was arrested in 2012 and was only allowed to leave for one day to give birth 
while she was incarcerated. The baby and her other 2 young children were 
incarcerated with her. The older children were allowed to return to the UK 
after 4 1/2 months but Khadijah, and her baby, remain in jail on a life 
sentence.

Khadijah's case shows that the current system succeeds only in locking up 
'mules' who are knowingly or unknowingly carrying drugs, while letting off 
those who make the big money from the narcotics trade. Indeed, UK-funded 
programmes are so hopelessly skewed that UN evaluators inspecting these 
initiatives recently observed 'an indication of increased [drug] trafficking' 
in Pakistan and a lack of 'tangible outcomes' with respect to the overall drugs 
trade.

This is a very important issue because as a country we are, rightly, 
fundamentally opposed to the death penalty and our aid money should not be 
going towards any programmes which enable or encourage it. It is therefore up 
to Labour to put pressure on the government to understand how this has been 
allowed to happen, and to consider shifting the focus of drug policy on the 
demand-side (for example, better rehabilitation centres) rather than the 
supply-side of the trade.

In August of this year an unprecedented coalition of 37 public figures - 
including Sir Richard Branson and former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord 
Ken Macdonald - called for the Labour chair of the Home Affairs committee to 
launch an enquiry into the Home Office's financial and operational support for 
overseas drug operations. After the Guardian reported on this the Committee's 
chair admitted he had received more than 3,000 emails from members of the 
public backing the call for an inquiry.

The Home Office has responsibility to advance the UK's opposition to the death 
penalty. However, after the announcement that the Foreign Office has dropped 
its reference to the death penalty as one of its global thematic priorities, 
and with the aid for executions programme, Labour must ensure that opposition 
to the death penalty in any form is maintained by the UK government.

In order to ensure that taxpayers' money is not fuelling executions worldwide 
it is absolutely vital that the UK's overseas drug programmes receive some 
degree of public and parliamentary scrutiny. Despite all the evidence that 
these programmes lead to grave human rights abuses, the home secretary has 
repeatedly refused to disclose any information about their funding or 
management - meaning their evident failings are hidden from public view.

If you wish to help Reprieve's campaign, please write to your MP about this 
issue, asking them to contact the chair of the Home Affairs Committee and back 
the call for a full inquiry. You can find out more about UK aid for executions 
on Reprieve's website.

(source: Ailar Hashemzadeh is the campaigns officer for Labour Campaign for 
Human Rights----leftfootforwoard.org)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Fears that Saudi Arabia is set to 'crucify' juvenile prisoner


Saudi Arabia has dismissed the final appeal of a prisoner sentenced to death as 
a child, leading to fears his execution could take place in a matter of days.

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested when he was 17 and initially held at a 
juvenile offenders facility. There is evidence that he was tortured and forced 
to sign a document amounting to a confession, which then formed the basis of 
the case against him.

Last week, his family found out that his final appeal had been heard in secret, 
without Ali's knowledge, and dismissed. This means that there are now no 
remaining legal hurdles before he faces his sentence of 'death by crucifixion,' 
originally handed down on 27 May 2014.

Ali was arrested on 14 February 2012 in the wake of anti-Government protests, 
and has been accused by the authorities of participation in an illegal 
demonstration and firearms offences - no evidence has been produced for the 
latter charge, which he and his family strongly deny. The opaque nature of the 
Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) through which Ali was convicted makes it hard 
to determine the detail of the charges against him.

The Government appears to have rested its case against him in large part on his 
relation to Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent religious leader in the Kingdom 
and human rights activist.

The Saudi Government has been widely criticised for its heavy-handed response 
against protesters and human rights activists since Arab Spring demonstrations 
began - including a death sentence for Sheikh Nimr. Ali is one of a number of 
people - thought to possibly include other juveniles - who has been sentenced 
to death following involvement in those protests. In January 2015, prominent 
Saudi blogger Raif Al-Badawi received the first of 1000 lashes as part of his 
sentence for his statements critical of the Saudi regime in 2012.

The Saudi Government has carried out executions at a high rate since the coming 
to power of King Salman in January 2015, surpassing 100 for the year so far.

Commenting, Maya Foa, Director of the death penalty team at legal charity 
Reprieve said: "No one should have to go through the ordeal Ali has suffered - 
torture, forced 'confession,' and an unfair, secret trial process, resulting in 
a sentence of death by 'crucifixion.' But worse still, Ali was a vulnerable 
child when he was arrested and this ordeal began. His execution - based 
apparently on the authorities' dislike for his uncle, and his involvement in 
anti-government protests - would violate international law and the most basic 
standards of decency. It must be stopped."

(source: reprieve.org)

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

Child Offender at Risk of Execution----Torture Allegations Ignored, Due Process 
Violated


Saudi authorities may soon execute a Saudi man for crimes related to a 2011 
protest movement, committed when he was only 17. His trial was marred by 
serious due process violations, and the court failed to investigate his 
allegations that he had been tortured in detention.

The Specialized Criminal Court sentenced Ali al-Nimr to death in 2014 after 
convicting him on charges related to an uprising by the country's minority Shia 
in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province in 2011. The Saudi news website Okaz 
reported on September 14, 2015, that a Saudi appeals court and the country's 
Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence. The sentence requires the king's 
approval before it can be carried out.

"Saudi Arabia has been on an execution spree in 2015, but beheading a child 
offender whose trial was unfair would be an appalling new low," said Joe Stork, 
deputy Middle East director. "King Salman should immediately quash al-Nimr's 
conviction and order a new trial that guarantees him a fear hearing."

Since January 1, Saudi Arabia has executed 135 people, compared with 88 in all 
of 2014. Most executions are carried out by beheading, sometimes in public. 
Saudi Arabia executed 3 child offenders in 2013.

Mostly Shia residents of Eastern Province towns such as Qatif, Awamiyya, and 
Hufuf have repeatedly held protests over discrimination by the government since 
2011. Saudi Arabia's Shia citizens face systematic discrimination in public 
education, government employment, and permission to build houses of worship in 
the majority-Sunni country.

Al-Nimr's paternal uncle, the prominent Shia cleric and government critic Nimr 
al-Nimr, also faces execution. The same Specialized Criminal Court convicted 
him in October 2014 on a host of vague charges, based largely on his peaceful 
criticism of Saudi officials. The Nimrs are among 7 men sentenced to death for 
their role in the Eastern Province uprising in 2011.

The court judgment in al-Nimr's case, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, 
exposes serious flaws in his trial. He faced broadly framed charges that do not 
resemble recognizable crimes and was denied access to a lawyer. He was held in 
prolonged pretrial detention without judicial review, and the trial court 
failed to investigate his allegations that officials tortured him in detention.

The judgment says he was convicted on crimes that included "breaking allegiance 
with the ruler," "going out to a number of marches, demonstrations, and 
gatherings against the state and repeating some chants against the state," and 
setting up a website on his blackberry to incite demonstrations. The charges 
also included attacking police with Molotov cocktails and rocks, sheltering men 
wanted by police, and helping the wanted men avoid police raids. Prosecutors 
gave no details of any injuries to police officers. Al-Nimr denied the charges 
and told the court that security officials coerced him to make him "confess."

International law prohibits executing people for crimes committed as children 
and restricts its application to the most serious crimes. Human Rights Watch 
opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its inherent cruelty and 
irreversibility.

Family members told Human Rights Watch that following al-Nimr's arrest in 
February 2012, authorities did not permit them to visit him for four months. 
The authorities called him before a judge for the 1st time in December 2013, 
without informing his family, allowing him to appoint a lawyer, or providing a 
copy of his charge sheet. The court held 3 more sessions before the authorities 
allowed al-Nimr to appoint a defense lawyer. Yet, as the trial judgment 
records, despite court orders to the contrary, Dammam Mabahith Prison officials 
did not allow al-Nimr's lawyer to visit him in prison to help prepare a defense 
before or during his trial.

The court found al-Nimr guilty in May 2014 solely on the basis of a confession 
he signed during his interrogation despite his statements that one of his 
interrogators wrote it and that he signed under duress without reading it. The 
court was aware that the investigator wrote the confession, but judged it 
admissible because al-Nimr signed it. Family members said that al-Nimr agreed 
to sign the statement only after interrogators told him that they would then 
release him.

In dismissing al-Nimr's torture claims, the judge said that "Religious scholars 
have ruled that retracting a confession for a discretionary crime is not 
acceptable .... Therefore what the defendant has retracted from what appeared 
in his legally signed statement is not permitted, and what the defendant has 
argued regarding coercion was not proven to the judges."

Article 13 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia ratified in 
2009, guarantees the right to a fair trial.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Saudi Arabia acceded 
in 1996, prohibits capital punishment for children in all cases (article 
37(a)). The CRC stipulates a number of important rights for children accused of 
committing crimes, including the right to prepare an appropriate defense with 
"legal or other appropriate assistance" (article 40.2), the right "to have the 
matter determined without delay by a competent, independent and impartial 
authority or judicial body in a fair hearing according to law, in the presence 
of legal or other appropriate assistance" including the child's parents or 
legal guardian (article 40.3), and the right to "not to be compelled to give 
testimony or to confess guilt" (article 40.4). Saudi authorities appear to have 
violated these obligations in the case of al-Nimr, Human Rights Watch said.

"Unfair trials of Shia citizens amount to no more than a legal veneer for state 
repression of their demands to end long-term discrimination," Stork said. "The 
authorities should not compound their repression by killing a child offender."

(source: Human Rights Watch)