[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 15




SIERRA LEONE:

Death Penalty does not reform the prisoner- Amnesty International


The Director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone, Solomon Moses Sogbandi, 
in an interview with Awoko Newspaper on Wednesday at their Circular Road office 
in Freetown, declared that the Death Penalty (D.P) does not reform the 
prisoner.

He made this declaration while he was commenting on the Amnesty International 
Global Report on Death Sentences and Execution 2015, which was launched last 
Tuesday by the organisation.

While he was giving the statistics of D.P globally, he said the global trend is 
a bit worrying as there is 54% increase in it execution as at 2015, noting that 
about 1,634 people were executed that year as compared to the 573 execution of 
death penalty recorded in 2014. This figure, he pointed out, does not include 
China where data on the use of D.P is classified as a state secret.

Mr Sogbandi said the report shows that three countries which are notorious for 
the execution of death are Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as they carry 89% of 
execution recorded.

Speaking on the reasons why they want the 'Death Penalty' to be removed from 
the country's law books, he said "Death Penalty is a controversial issue all 
over the world. There is no part in the world where the citizens have accepted 
the D.P". He added that a consultation which they did around the country shows 
that majority of the people in this country are not in favour of the Death 
Penalty.

He furthered that countries that have abolished the D.P largely depend on 
political will.

Secondly he said the D.P does not act as a deterrent, stating that countries 
that have abolished the D.P have fewer incidences of violence and crimes than 
those that still have it.

The D.P, he went on, does not promote the essence of punishment. "It is final 
and does not reform the prisoner," he stressed.

The 3rd issue he raised was the issue of error in judicial review or trial. 
According to him, the executers are humans subject to judicial error. He argued 
that it is possible that the wrong procedure is used to try an individual 
leading to his execution. "If the person is executed and there is new 
evidence(s), there is no way that person will come back to answer," he 
contended.

The director said even though the country has not been executing the death 
penalty for over a decade, his argument is that they are still in the law books 
and someday a leader may come who would start executing these laws.

He suggested that life imprisonment be an option though "it is left with the 
government to see which action they will take in terms of people who commit 
offences liable to or that can lead to D.P."

He called on the Inter-Religious Councils and the Attorney General to see how 
best they can aid in the repeal of these laws for the country's statute books.

(source: awoko.org)






PHILIPPINES:

Philippine bishop warns against death penalty proponents ---- Support 
candidates who respect the right to life, prelate says


A Philippine bishop urged Catholics not to vote for candidates who advocate the 
revival of the death penalty in the country.

Bishop Jose Cabantan of Malaybalay said Filipinos, who will elect national and 
local leaders on May 9, should choose officials who "respect the right to 
life."

The prelate said church teachings emphasize the "value and inviolability of 
human life" and the focus on "restorative justice" that will deter crimes, 
improve law enforcement, and the justice system.

Data from the Philippine National Police show that in 2015 crime incidents 
soared by 46 percent compared to the previous year.

Authorities, however, said the increase in the statistics did not mean a 
worsening crime rate but was due in part to underreporting by local police 
units in the past.

Louie Tito Guia of the Commission on Elections noted the "vital role" of the 
Catholic Church in educating voters.

He said the church is the "most all-encompassing institution" in the country 
that plays a big role in "political and social change."

Some 55 million Filipinos are registered to vote in the May 2016 elections.

(source: UCA News)

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

Davao del Norte Congress bet favors death penalty to curb drugs


Former Congress Rep Pantaleon Alvarez said he would favor the restoration of 
death penalty?to ?help curb the problem on drugs in the province.

Alvarez, running for Congressional slot, for the 1st district of Davao del 
Norte, presented a "2-pronged approach" which included the restoration of death 
penalty and the increase of the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and 
Development.

"One, restore death penalty against drug lords, drug pushers and corrupt public 
officials. 2nd, increase the budget of DSWD to enable them to attend to 
victims," he said adding that these actions need an act of Congress.

Alvarez was responding to a question duringthe Candidates Forum 2016, held at 
the Aces Tagum College on Thursday, April 14. He was among the 5 candidates for 
the 1st congressional district of Davao del Norte.

Panelist Aurora Lozada, a local veteran broadcaster, threw the question on 
their strategy to address the problem on drugs.

"The children and the youth sector is the most volatile and the most crucial 
among the sectors. Given the widespread threat on illegal drugs and 
criminality, what will be your strategy in making the sector drug free and 
crime free, developing them to responsible and contributing members of our 
society?" Lozada said.

'Make rehabilitation accessible'

Former Tagum City Councilor Nicandro Suaybaguio,would disagree and ?blamed 
corruption for the proliferation of drugs, wanting rehabilitation center to be 
more accessible.

"We have the (Philippine National Police), the (Philippine Drug Enforcement 
Agency), and all other agencies, However if there is corruption, there will 
always be that problem," he said.

Suaybaguio said education among the youth on the effects of drugs should be 
intensified.

Suaybaguio added that the province only have 1 rehabilitation center.

"Even if they have the will to change but the rehabilitation is not accessible, 
nothing will happen," he said.

Another Congressional candidate, Atty. Emmanuel Mahipus, said there should be a 
"convergent approach" between the public and private sector to address the 
needs of the youth sector.

He will also push for the strengthening of families as basic unit of the 
society.

"Drug is just a manifestation of a bigger problem and that problem is the lack 
of family. And even the society and government could take care of the needs of 
the youth. They were disregarded because of hunger, poverty," he said.

Former Tagum barangay Kagawad, Dexter Welborn said the youth should be elevated 
from their situation of poverty and will provide help through cooperative 
system.

Parents attention

Former Rep. Arrel Olano said the youth should be given attention by their 
parents and the out of school youth should be "motivated to go to school."

"We will expand the function of (Technical Education and Skills Development 
Authority) to reach all the youth who need further education and to enable them 
look for jobs. If they have jobs they will be distracted from activities like 
using illegal drugs," he said.

The Candidates Forum 2016 was organized by the Philippine Information Agency 
and the Commission on Elections in Davao del Norte.

(source: davaotoday.com)






SINGAPORE:

$177k worth of drugs seized in CNB operations


More than $177,000 worth of drugs have been seized in multiple operations by 
the Central Narcotics Board (CNB) this week.

The drug haul comprised more than 1.5kg of heroin, 329g of 'Ice', 80g of 
cannabis, 153 ecstasy tablets, 26 Erimin-5 tablets and ketamine.

Some 103 suspected drug offenders were also arrested in one 4-day operation, 
which started on Monday and ended on Friday (April 15).

This operation was supported by officers from the Singapore Police Force, and 
spanned areas including Tampines, Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio, Clementi, Punggol, 
Sembawang, Woodlands and Yishun.

In one of the the cases during the 4-day operation, 570g of heroin worth over 
$40,000 and more than $2,000 in cash were seized by officers.

The 1st arrest in this case was made on Wednesday in the vicinity of Upper Boon 
Keng Road, where a 52-year-old Singaporean man was caught with Erimin-5 tablets 
and drug paraphernalia.

Nearby, officers noticed a 60-year-old Singaporean man behaving suspiciously, 
and seized over 80g of heroin, seven Erimin-5 tablets and cash from him. 
Follow-up investigations led to the capture of a 28-year-old Malaysian man the 
next day, who was found with 450g of heroin in the vicinity of Somerset and is 
believed to have been a supplier.

The CNB is continuing its investigations into all of the suspects.

It reminded the public that the Misuse of Drugs Act allows for the death 
penalty if the amount of diamorphine (or pure heroin) trafficked exceeds 15g.

(source: Straits Times)






INDONESIA:

Indonesia's drug obsession is only making things worse


When Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, was elected as President of 
Indonesia in late 2014, the world was enthralled. He was expected to be 
different - the 1st President in the nation's history not connected to the old 
power order. In fact, he came from a surprisingly humble background; he was a 
former small-scale furniture salesman who rose to power by fighting corruption 
and getting things done. Here was a young, populist leader at the head of one 
of the world's largest countries and most populous Muslim nation.

Just a few months later, this goodwill disappeared when Jokowi made the 
ill-advised decision to execute a dozen foreign nationals, including, most 
notably, 2 citizens from neighboring Australia, for drug-related crimes. It was 
the largest single use of the death penalty in Indonesia in nearly a decade and 
created an international crisis.

While there was definitely some hypocrisy at play (where was the global outrage 
when Saudi Arabia executed Indonesians in 2011?) the situation ended up being a 
lose-lose for Indonesia. The global outcry tainted Jokowi and the country's 
international standing. Moreover, and importantly, the impact on the country's 
drug problem was, not surprisingly, pretty much nil.

Part of it was because the death penalty, as a tool of fighting crime, just 
does not work. "We oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle," says 
Andreas Harsono, Indonesia Researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW). "Moreover, 
the death penalty does not deter drug trafficking." HRW also strongly believes 
the death penalty will do nothing to stop drugs from entering countries like 
Indonesia.

This shouldn't come as any surprise. Amnesty International, HRW, and other 
civil society organizations believe that the death penalty is discriminatory, 
prone to misuse by skewed justice systems, and does nothing to deter crime. 
According to Amnesty, you are more likely to be sentenced to death if you are 
poor or belong to a racial, ethnic or religious minority because of 
discrimination in the justice system. Moreover, poor and marginalized groups 
have less access to the legal resources needed to defend themselves.

This goes beyond the death penalty, which is just the most harsh tool in the 
plethora of heavy-handed, police and military focused anti-drug tactics. And on 
this, President Jokowi is, amazingly, doubling down. This past February, he 
stated in a speech that drugs were Indonesia's top problem, calling for more a 
aggressive, punishment heavy, anti-drug push.

Perpetuating bad policy

Think about that for a second. This is a country with rampant corruption, 
severely lacking infrastructure, where tens of millions still don't have 
Internet, 1 out of 2 Indonesians lack reliable clean water, and the education 
system is ranked near the bottom of an survey by the Economist Intelligence 
Unit. Those are all problems worth tackling, and each could be called the 
country's top challenge. But drugs?

Certainly a problem, though many dispute the Government's figures of 4 million 
addicts nationwide, with 30 dying each day. Just not the biggest one.

It's not just the diagnosis that's worrisome - so too is the prescription. 
Indonesia's use of the death penalty was just one sign of a policy focused on 
imprisonment and police tactics. As experiences from other countries shows, 
such a "war on drugs" not only won't work, but can make things worse.

Jokowi's policies harken back to the experiences of countries like the United 
States in the 1960s, when the so-called "War on Drugs" began. Heavy-handed 
police tactics and a court system focused on imprisonment rather than 
rehabilitation has left the country with the largest prison population in the 
world, and no discernible reduction in drug use, as the recent heroin epidemic 
attests.

The impacts on America's neighbor, Mexico - which economically more resembles 
Indonesia than the United States - are even worse. There, in certain regions, 
the war on drugs has become a literal war, with 27,000 killed, many civilians, 
in 2011 alone. For comparison's sake, Indonesia estimates that 8,000 people die 
from drugs in the country every year - a number that could probably be reduced 
through better healthcare rather than more arrests and death penalty 
convictions.

Jailing addicts alongside traffickers

Frighteningly, the country is already heading down the path of mass 
incarceration - and seeing the impacts. Harsh new laws are being considered 
that would increase punishment for drug offenses, potentially including 
draconian penalties such as force-feeding drug traffickers their own narcotics 
until they die. In fact, many of these drug laws are inspired by the U.S. 
approach to drugs, which were promulgated in Indonesia through the United 
Nations' failed narcotics policy. These laws, as they currently stand, do not 
distinguish between drug traffickers and addicts, putting far too many addicts 
into overcrowded prisons.

"Criminalising the consumption of even small amounts of drugs has led to a 
massive increase in the number of prison inmates," said Michael Buehler, a 
lecturer at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, 
to Al Jazeera. "Around 60 % of the 12,000 people locked up in the capital 
Jakarta alone are imprisoned for substance abuse."

Focusing on improving social services such as health care could actually have 
more impact on reducing drug usage in Indonesia than greater use of the death 
penalty or putting more drug users in jail. In fact, the country estimates that 
1.2 million drug addicts need immediate medical care, yet there are only 22,000 
beds across the country. Expanding this system, and ensuing that addicts get 
care, would be one step towards actually solving the problem.

"If the Indonesian government were really serious about protecting the 
wellbeing of its citizens, it would pursue harm-reduction strategies aimed at 
Indonesian drug users instead of executing drug traffickers," said Buehler.

Chief among these would be fighting corruption, as, according to World Press, 
it is closely connected to the drug issue.

Understanding drug problems in Indonesia is complicated by the open secret that 
drug dealing is tied to politics and the security forces. Many police and 
soldiers test positive for drugs in their urine (usually Ecstasy, amphetamines, 
or low-grade heroin).

There is still time for Jokowi to change his mind, and focus on the real 
problems facing Indonesia. If he does, the world will stand behind him, because 
even though he lost his goodwill last year, we're still eager for a Democratic, 
populist hero in Southeast Asia. Shifting his priorities away from drugs and 
focusing on Indonesia's social challenges, such as corruption, education, 
health, or even gender inequality, would be a boon not only for the country's 
240 million citizens, but for the world. These initiatives would likely have 
the side effect of reducing drug use as well.

Let's hope that he comes to his senses soon, before it's too late.

(source: Nithin Coca, Global Comment)



CHINA:

Tomb raiding ringleader gets death penalty


China on Thursday sentenced the head of the country's most prolific tomb 
raiding gang to death with a 2-year reprieve, a rare severe punishment which 
analysts hope will serve as a warning to the unbridled tomb raiding industry in 
China.

Ringleader Yao Yuzhong, from Chifeng in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, 
was found guilty of several offenses including tomb raiding, looting and 
selling stolen antiquities. His gang was highly organized, and would source 
fund, explore, loot and trade relics, said the Chaoyang City Intermediate 
People's Court of Northeast China's Liaoning Province on Thursday.

Altogether, 22 gang members received prison terms of varying lengths. Three 
gang members received life sentences.

Under China's Criminal Law, tomb raiders can be sentenced up to over 10 years' 
imprisonment or to a life sentence for the most serious violations.

Among 32 artifacts retrieved by police, 16 were under grade-one State cultural 
protection. Another 77 relics still in the possession of the gang members were 
ordered returned.

The gang's arrest was one of the biggest busts of its kind supervised by the 
Ministry of Public Security since 1949. It was among 12 organized gangs 
implicated in illegal excavations at Niuheliang, a Neolithic site in 
northeastern Liaoning. Police apprehended 225 people and retrieved a total of 
2,063 artifacts, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

This heavy punishment can serve as a deterrent to the unrestrained tomb raiding 
industry in China, which has grown into a mature business in the underground 
market, Ni Fangliu, a Nanjing-based expert on archeology and the history of 
tomb raiding, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Busier than archaeologists

Observers noted that more excavations may have been made by tomb raiders than 
official archaeologists in China, and that the antiquities recovered are 
usually sold either overseas for a better price or purchased by some private or 
even public museums.

Citing anonymous insiders, the Legal Weekly reported in 2010 that the number of 
tomb raiders in China may have reached 100,000 in 6 provinces, including Hebei, 
Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hunan and Gansu.

Tomb raiders are usually familiar with history to help them better locate the 
tombs, such as historical rituals or traditional feng shui, as emperors' tombs 
usually sit near mountains and rivers. Different dynasties had different 
funeral practices, Ni said.

"Tomb raiding gangs sometimes make better use of new technologies, such as 
directional explosion excavating equipment. They don't care that the ancient 
tombs are damaged, all they want are the relics to make a profit," Liu Yang, a 
Beijing-based lawyer specializing in cultural relics, told the Global Times.

Liu, who has been working to retrieve Chinese relics overseas, estimated that a 
large proportion of the millions of relics in foreign countries could have 
originated from tomb raiding.

Some 100,000 individual relics could be sent annually to distribution centers 
in the Chinese mainland before being sent to Hong Kong and Taiwan before they 
then reach the UK as the axis of the international hub for relic smuggling, the 
Legal Weekly reported.

"Museums in China are also willing to pay for the raided relics. They can't 
track the origin after they've changed hands dozens of times, and they also 
stimulate the development and prosperity of tomb raiding," Ni said.

Urbanization threat

Apart from tomb raiding, Chinese cultural relics are threatened by urbanization 
efforts, according to Xu Changqing, head of the institute of cultural relics 
and archaeology of Jiangxi Province, who called for a balanced relationship 
between infrastructure construction and cultural relic excavation and 
protection.

"Some officials think they can protect the relics after economic development, 
after building high-rises, but they actually begin at the wrong end, because 
the heritage of thousands of years can be damaged in one day," Xu told the 
Global Times, explaining that exploration, assessment and investigation of 
relic resources are sometimes deemed as a delaying factor in urban development.

(source: ecns.com)






IRAN----female executed

Woman Prisoner Hanged in Northeastern Iran on Drug Charges----A woman sentenced 
to death on drug charges was reportedly hanged in northeastern Iran on Thursday 
morning Tehran time.


On the morning of Thursday April 14, a woman was reportedly hanged at Kashmar 
Prison (located in the Razavi Khorasan province, northeastern Iran) on drug 
charges. A report by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network identifies the prisoner 
as Ameneh Rezaian, a 43-year-old woman who was arrested 2 years ago by Iranian 
authorities on charges of possession and trafficking of narcotics.

The report makes mention of another woman at Kashmar Prison, Khavar B., who is 
sentenced to death on drug charges and is currently on death row.

Iranian official sources, including state media and the Judiciary, have been 
silent about Ameneh Rezaian's execution.

(source: iranhr.net)

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

UN rights chief calls for end to executions for drug offences


The United Nations human rights chief today appealed to Iran to halt executions 
for drug offences until the new Parliament debates a proposed law that would 
remove the mandatory death penalty for drug crimes.

"Given the broadening recognition in Iran that death penalty does not deter 
drug crime and that anti-narcotics laws need to be reformed, I call on Iran to 
take the important 1st step of instituting a moratorium on the use of death 
penalty," said High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.

Last year, at least 966 people were executed in Iran - the highest rate in more 
than 2 decades - the majority for drug offences. At least 4 of those executed 
in 2015 were juveniles. So far this year, 60 executions have reportedly been 
carried out in Iran, less than the number in the same period last year.

He, however, noted that 5 men were hanged last weekend, 3 of them on charges of 
narcotics trafficking. The other 2 men were convicted of murder.

In at least 1 of the cases, that of Rashid Kouhi, there were serious concerns 
about the fairness of the trial and the denial of his right to appeal. Kouhi 
was sentenced to death in 2012 after he was found in possession of 800 grams of 
crystal meth. He was executed last Saturday in Gilan province in northern Iran.

In December last year, 70 parliamentarians presented a bill to amend the 
existing mandatory death penalty for drug offences. The bill provides for life 
imprisonment in such cases. It remains to be seen whether it will be taken 
forward in the new Parliament.

"There have been encouraging signs from within Iran towards reform of the law, 
from the judiciary, the executive and the legislature and I hope the new 
Parliament will adopt these changes," Mr. Zeid said. "But it is unfortunate 
that executions for drug-related offences - crimes that clearly do not meet the 
threshold under international human rights law for application of the death 
penalty - continue to be carried out in the meantime."

He also expressed serious concerns about the large number of juvenile offenders 
reported to be on death row in Iran. He urged the authorities to ensure that no 
one is executed for offences committed under the age of 18, stressing that 
there is a strict prohibition against the execution of juvenile offenders in 
international human rights law, including in the International Covenant on 
Civil and Political Rights, which Iran ratified in 1975 and the Convention on 
the Rights of the Child, which it ratified in 1994.

(source: UN News Centre)

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

5 prisoners transferred to solitary confinement for their execution


According to reports from Iran, 5 death-row prisoners from different wards in 
Isfahan Prison, central Iran, have been transferred to solitary confinement in 
preparation for their execution.

Iran's fundamentalist regime executed 8 prisoners on April 13 in Gohardasht 
Prison, northwest of Tehran. The prisoners had been transferred to solitary 
confinement earlier in the week.

These executions are taking place while Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi 
visited Iran in recent days to established trade relations between the Iranian 
regime and Italy. The EU High Representative is expected to visit Iran soon.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on 
Wednesday that the Iranian regime executed 14 prisoners in various prisons 
across the country within a 5-day period.

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to 
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East 
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as 
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation 
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was 
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the 
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that 
belong to the people."

(source: NCR-Iran)






PAKISTAN----executions

Another 4 Convicts Hanged in Pakistan


Murderers executed in Multan, Jhang, Sialkot and Larkana.

Pakistan on Wednesday hanged 4 more prisoners convicted of murder despite 
international criticism over its surging use of the death penalty.

Amnesty International last week described Pakistan as the world's 3rd most 
prolific executioner after China and Iran, with 326 hangings last year.

Wednesday's executions took place in Multan, Jhang and Sialkot in Punjab 
province and in Larkana in Sindh province.

Anwarul Haq was executed in Multan for murdering his brother over a land 
dispute in 2000, senior prisons official Chaudhry Arshad Saeed Arain told AFP. 
Ghulam Farooq was hanged in Sialkot prison for murdering 2 women and a man due 
to a family feud in 1999. Muhammad Irfan was hanged in Jhang for killing a 
woman while robbing her home in 2006, Arain said, adding that 8 more prisoners 
were likely to be hanged in Punjab on Thursday.

In Larkana, Waris Mir Bahr was hanged for the 1995 murder of a Pakistan 
International Airlines employee during an attack on an airlines van carrying 
cash, prison officials said.

Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty after Taliban attackers 
gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in 
Peshawar in December 2014. Hangings were initially reinstated only for those 
convicted of terrorism, but later extended to all capital offences.

(source: newsweekpakistan.com)

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

Murder convict hanged at Central Prison Haripur


A convict on death row was hanged at Central Prison Haripur Thursday morning 
while another inmate's was postponed after the complainant forgave him a few 
hours before his execution.

A prison official told The Express Tribune Imtiaz Ahmed, a resident of Khaki 
village in Mansehra, had been convicted by a district court for murdering a van 
driver while attempting to kidnap him in 2005. He was awarded the death 
penalty.

Subsequently, Ahmed's appeal was turned down by the Peshawar High Court and 
Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The home department issued a black warrant against him 3 days before his 
execution. "His mercy petition was rejected by the president last week," the 
official said. "The last meeting between Ahmed and his family was arranged on 
Wednesday. He was hanged at 5:30am in the presence of the magistrate, doctor 
and jail administration officials."

On hold

The execution of another convict was postponed after the complainant decided to 
forgive him.

The home department issued a black warrant against Muhammad Humayun Jamal, a 
resident of Mardan, and he was going to be executed on Thursday at Central 
Prison Haripur. Jamal was awarded capital punishment for murdering his father 
in 2006. However, his brother, who had filed a complaint against him, decided 
to forgive him and struck a deal through a district court in Mardan.

The deal was sent to the home department and jail authorities and will be 
scrutinised. Until then, Jamal's execution has been postponed.

According to officials, there are 114 inmates at the facility who are on death 
row. The appeals of over 30 of them have been rejected.

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

Who are we hanging? 'State policies fuelled terrorism'


Panelists at a discussion organised on Wednesday at the Lahore University of 
Management Sciences (LUMS) highlighted major limitations of counter-terrorism 
measures, legal problems in anti-terrorism legislation, social and moral 
implications of death penalty and regular use of torture.

The event was moderated by journalist Rashed Rehman. Social scientist Ayesha 
Siddiqa, Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) director Sarah Belal and lawyer Saroop 
Ijaz spoke on the occasion. Ijaz highlighted problems with anti-terrorism 
legislation like the difference between the academic and the state-derived 
definitions of terrorism. He said no efforts had been made to date to reform 
anti-terror legislation.

Siddiqa questioned the use of death penalty under the Anti-Terrorism Act and 
its social and moral implications, especially with regard to law enforcement 
agencies such as police. "The police in the Punjab are cognisant of every 
single crime and criminal in the deepest corners of gali mohallas. Even with 
that amount of information there is no control over crime as police are not 
allowed to take any legitimate legal action," she said.

Belal presented an analysis on the increasing pattern of executions and how 
extra-judicial methods such as torture were regularly utilised in order to 
extract confessions from prisoners. "Of the 380 convicts hanged since December, 
2014, only 39 had committed a terrorism offence or had links with terrorist 
organisations. This brings it to 1 in 10 out of all those executed," she said. 
Belal further elucidated on fundamental rights and due process challenges faced 
by lawyers in defending clients set to be executed.

"Terrorism has not come to Pakistan out of the blue. It's the cumulative result 
and the unintended consequence of policies implemented by our state 
institutions and evil civil reprieves in projecting themselves through proxies 
in the region, whether westward or eastward," Rehman said while concluding the 
organisation.

The discussion was attended by people from all walks of life including 
students, professionals and journalists. The initiative was taken by the JPP to 
reexamine and raise awareness about reforming the Anti-Terrorism Act and 
counterterrorism strategies. The JPP had earlier researched and released 
Torture on death row, a report in 2014, which brought to the fore statistics 
related to terrorism charges. The discussion was organised in collaboration 
with the LUMS Model United Nations Society.

(source for both: The Express Tribune)

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

Are executions a deterrence?


In the wake of an ongoing execution spree in Pakistan, 4 more murder convicts 
were hanged on Wednesday in different jails of Punjab and Sindh. The hanging of 
convicts has become almost an everyday occurrence across the country. Amnesty 
International's recent report described Pakistan as the world's 3rd most 
prolific executioner after China and Iran, with 326 hangings last year. 
Reportedly, among the 4 convicts, Anwarul Haq was executed in Multan for 
murdering his brother over a land dispute in 2000. Ghulam Farooq was hanged in 
Sialkot prison for murdering 2 women and a man due to a family feud in 1999. 
Muhammad Irfan was hanged in Jhang for killing a woman while robbing her home 
in 2006. In Larkana, Waris Mir Bahr was hanged for the 1995 murder of a 
Pakistan International Airlines employee during an attack on an airlines van 
carrying cash.

These cases bring to the forefront the sorry state of affairs of the justice 
system in Pakistan where prisoners on death row remain languishing in jails for 
years to eventually face the merciless procedure of hanging. There are no 
studies on the agony those convicts and their families go through, living in 
the limbo of not knowing. This becomes an additional punishment for those 
convicts who become a victim of the faulty justice system, as not all who are 
served the death penalty are actually guilty of committing the crime of 1st 
degree murder. The existing jail system in Pakistan raises multiple questions 
about zero respect for basic human rights. The ineffectiveness of police FIRs, 
fabrication of cases through torture, a weak legal mechanism, and unfair trials 
make the judicial system a murky phenomenon, entangling many innocent people in 
a lifelong internment - literally and otherwise - of pain and endless wait.

Pakistan ended a 7-year moratorium on death penalty after Taliban attackers 
gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at the Army Public 
School in Peshawar in December 2014. Hangings were initially reinstated only 
for those convicted of terrorism, but in March 2015, they were extended to all 
capital offences. At a time when the death penalty is being abolished in most 
countries, Pakistan is using this centuries old punishment as deterrence 
against crimes. In reality, the death penalty has failed to prove a deterrent 
against crime and terrorism. Pakistan needs to have solid reforms in its legal 
and judicial system, and instead of relying on capital punishment that is 
considered an inhuman act there is a need to introduce a reform culture in 
which criminals would be treated as human beings. No society can succeed 
without justice and fair play. In our country, for most, only the law of jungle 
prevails. The law has 2 different definitions for the rich and the poor. If a 
poor person even commits suicide, he cannot escape punishment, while a 
well-to-do accused literally gets away with murder. Hanging offenders will not 
bring peace to a terrorism-riddled Pakistan, or solace to those who lost their 
loved ones to an act of brutality - be it the act of an individual or 
terror-related. Pakistan must have a reform system based on human values of 
repentance, rehabilitation, compassion and forgiveness. That would be the best 
antidote to pain of victims while Pakistan fights a war to rid Pakistan of all 
who inflict pain on human beings making them nameless statistics of terrorism.

(source: Daily Express)