[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 23



GLOBAL:

The death penalty saves lives - the pope is wrong to call for a ban


The pope wants a worldwide ban on the death penalty and it is not hard to think 
of countries where the range of offences that attract it is frighteningly 
large. The frequency of its application is just as worrying but to state that 
it can never be justified is wrong.

I have never defended the use or availability of capital punishment on the 
grounds of retribution and would echo his holiness's own phraseology in saying 
that no matter how serious the crime, it is wrong if its purpose is merely an 
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Using it as a deterrent is, however, a 
very different matter for it saves innocent lives.

Pope Francis claims that the death penalty is "an offence against the 
inviolability of life and the dignity of the person" but what about the life 
and dignity of a victim who would not be a victim if the death penalty were in 
force? For if capital punishment deters - and I will shortly be looking at the 
evidence for the assertion that it does - then effectively there is a choice of 
lives to be made: those of the guilty or those of the innocent. We cannot 
pretend that choice is not there.

The state's duty in these circumstances is an extension of the individual's 
right to self-defence. If we believe our lives or those of others are at 
genuine risk then we can use whatever force is necessary to mount a credible 
defence including, in extremis, killing.

Thus, if the state has reason to believe that its citizens' lives are 
threatened it must defend them. To ignore the deterrent effect is to condemn 
innocent people to death and a state that does that is morally responsible for 
those deaths. Is that really what the pope is advocating?

Therefore the crux of the argument is: is it really a deterrent? In the 5 years 
immediately following the abolition of the death penalty in Britain the 
government still collected statistics based on the distinction between capital 
and non-capital murder precisely in order to assess the effect of abolition and 
the effect was startling. The capital murder rate had risen almost 125%. It is 
worth pausing just to absorb that. There was also a substantial rise in the 
number of times firearms were taken on robberies.

On the strength of those figures it is possible to make a compelling moral case 
for the availability of a death penalty. Capital punishment can be rarely used 
and still be a deterrent as long as it is available and used occasionally. This 
argument, however, applies to Britain where the categories of murder attracting 
the death penalty were latterly narrowly defined and intended to reflect 
premeditation. No penalty can deter spontaneous anger or jealousy or judgment 
impaired by drink or drugs. Whether or not the penalty is actually a deterrent 
will vary from country to country.

Pope Francis contends there are no circumstances that ever justify the death 
penalty. They clearly sometimes do.

Of course there are other arguments against the death penalty, not least that 
of the fallibility of human justice and the irreversibility of the penalty 
where justice has failed, but his holiness was not making a practical case 
against judicial execution: he was relying on principle and asserting the 
principle to be unchallengeable. It is not.

(source: Opinion, Ann Widdecombe; The Guardian)






MALAYSIA:

6 in Lahad Datu intrusion case plead guilty


6 accused in the Lahad Datu intrusion case pleaded guilty at the High Court in 
Kota Kinabalu today to a charge of being a member of a terrorist group.

They are Philippine nationals Atik Hussin Abu Bakar, 45; Lin Mad Salleh, 50; 
Holland Kalbi, 50; Basad H Manuel, 41; Ismail Yasin, 76; and Virgilio Nemar 
Patulada alias Mohammad Alam Patulada, 52.

The charge under Section 130KA of the Penal Code provides for life imprisonment 
and a fine.

However, justice Stephen Chung reserved sentencing as 4 of the accused - Atik 
Hussin, Manuel, Ismail and Patulada would be entering their defence for a 
charge of waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, which carries the death 
penalty.

During mitigation, their counsel N Sivananthan said that some of his clients 
were duped by the leader of the armed intruders into coming to Kampung Tanduo 
in Lahad Datu three years ago.

Mitigating for Atik Hussin, Lin and Holland, Sivananthan said they were 
promised a job in the state and even a Malaysian identity card.

"The moment they realised what the group was really up to at Kampung Tanduo, 
they attempted to run away.

"The reason they are entering a guilty plea now after the prosecution trial is 
because they had accepted the fact that they had come to Sabah with the 
(terrorist) group," he said.

Sivananthan said Manuel was promised an office job in Sabah, but was tasked to 
collecting water and preparing meals for other members of the group who had 
intruded into Kampung Tanduo.

The counsel also said that Manuel had stated that whenever he went to collect 
water from a well in the village, he was constantly guarded by men with 
firearms to ensure that he did not try to escape.

Sivananthan said Ismail and Patulada did not expect the armed group to get 
involved in a skirmish that eventually claimed the lives of many, including 9 
security personnel.

He said Ismail escaped from Kampung Tanduo after hearing gunfire and paddled a 
boat towards the Malaysian-Philippine border, while Patulada stated that he was 
shot at by the other intruders.

"They all have families and are sole breadwinners and came to Sabah with the 
hope of making better lives for themselves and their families because it does 
not make sense that they leave their families to come here to be in a war where 
they can lose their lives and deprive their families of their sole 
breadwinners. 'Kiram played a cruel trick on them'

"Datu Agbimuddin Kiram (leader of the intruders) played a cruel trick on these 
unsuspecting individuals (accused) by enticing them to Sabah," he said.

Deputy public prosecutor Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar said mitigation would not deter 
the sentence to be meted out due to the fact that the sentence had to be based 
on public interest.

"We argue that the armed intrusion led by Datu Agbimuddin is an encroachment 
and a direct challenge to the sovereignty and security of Malaysia ... a 
lenient sentence would undermine and compromise the sovereignty of Malaysia as 
an independent nation," he said.

Mohd Dusuki said the court should also take into account that the skirmishes 
that happened had resulted in the deaths of 9 members of the security forces, 
who were brutally attacked and killed, while some were badly injured.

"An act of terrorism is a transnational phenomenon with global effects and has 
become a challenge to the community of civilised nations.

"This is the 1st case where Malaysia, as an independent nation, had been 
intruded by foreigners involved in terrorism and, on that basis, this 
honourable court should impose a maximum sentence as it will set a benchmark of 
precedence on all subsequent cases, if any," he said.

Mohd Dusuki also observed that in any mitigation, the matter of family hardship 
and other usual problems of living would be raised and he suggested that the 
correct approach in meting out a sentence was to strike a balance between the 
interest of the public and that of the accused.

5 accused, including 3 local men, are expected to enter a guilty plea tomorrow.

A Filipino and a Malaysian are charged with being members of a terrorist group. 
Another Filipino and a Malaysian face life imprisonment or imprisonment not 
exceeding 30 years or a fine on an amended charge of soliciting or giving 
support to a terrorist group.

Another Malaysian faces imprisonment of up to 30 years and a fine on an amended 
charge of soliciting a terrorist group by providing financial aid.

Yesterday, 10 of 16 Filipino accused wanted to plead guilty on charges that do 
not carry the capital punishment (death), but 2, who are charged with being 
members of a terrorist group, changed their minds today and will enter their 
defence.

The defence trial, which was fixed for 3 weeks beginning yesterday (Feb 22) at 
the Sabah Prisons Department, will proceed after the guilty plea and mitigation 
of all 8 Filipinos and 3 Malaysians have been recorded.

(source: malaysiakini.com)






PAKISTAN:

Fundamental rights: Justice system 'punishes only the unprivileged'


The state has embarked upon executing hordes of prisoners, speakers at a panel 
discussion said on Monday. The discussion was titled Terror on Death Row.

Justice Project Pakistan had arranged the session in collaboration with the 
Forman Journalism Society at the Forman Christian College University (FCCU).

Analyst Ejaz Haider and JPP executive director Sarah Belal were the panellists. 
The session was moderated by Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) 
Assistant Professor Uzair Kayani.

The panellists said that following the December 2014 attack on Army Public 
School (APS) in Peshawar, the government had vowed to crack down on terrorism 
through a number of controversial measures. These were opposed in parliament 
and by some members of civil society.

They said that rather than challenging the inherent cruelty of capital 
punishment, it seemed that the state had embarked upon executing hordes of 
prisoners.

In 2014, the JPP had released a report titled Torture on Death Row.

The panellists said the report had brought to the fore statistics related to 
terrorism charges and how they related to terrorism as broadly understood. The 
report indicated that out of 818 cases, 256 were found to have no links to 
terrorism ... the convicts were charged for other crimes under the Pakistan 
Penal Code and were tried at anti-terrorism courts. Of the remaining 562, 112 
had committed crimes that could be defined as terrorism as "understood 
broadly", they said. Belal began with a history of the laws in place that she 
said were often used arbitrarily. These included the Anti-terrorism Act, 1997, 
and the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, 2014. She said, "The situation was 
held to have gotten worse since the massacre of the school children in December 
2014 in Peshawar. The definition of terrorism in both these pieces of 
legislation is overtly broad and can be stretched to include the most ordinary 
crime."

She cited the case of Zafar Iqbal who she said was a client of the JPP. The 
lifting of the moratorium on death penalty had further weakened the criminal 
justice system in the country, she said.

The participants alleged that extra-judicial methods, including torture, were 
regularly used to extract confessions from prisoners at the anti-terrorism 
courts. Other challenges to the right to fair trial such as denial of bail to 
the defendant were also mentioned.

Belal said that the criminal justice system was structured towards punishing 
the unprivileged only. "If you have capital, you will not get capital 
punishment," she said.

Haider said that there was inherent tension during times of war between the 
moral principle of not killing nonchalantly and the necessity to kill. He said 
that the existence of anti-terrorism courts was not an issue, only the abuse of 
these courts was.

(source: Express Tribune)






TAIWAN:

Nearly 85 % don't trust Taiwan's judges, prosecutors


According to the figures of a poll released on Monday, an overwhelming majority 
of Taiwanese citizens do not trust the judges and prosecutors of their legal 
system, with distrust rising year on year.

A whopping 84.6 % of respondents rated judges and prosecutors as untrustworthy 
and unfair, rising from 76.5 % in a poll conducted for 2014. The 
dissatisfaction was connected with the way respondents perceived fairness in 
how judges handled cases. Another 76.5 % of respondents also expressed parallel 
dissatisfaction with the fairness of state prosecutors.

The bad ratings were somewhat mitigated by the fact that 86.2 % of respondents 
said they felt safe in and around their home neighborhoods. Ratings for law 
enforcement also reached an all time high, with 72.9 % indicating they were 
satisfied with efforts to maintain public safety. A total of 43.9 % cent rated 
public safety to be "good."

Not all areas of crime prevention received favourable ratings, however. 
Respondents were deeply dissatisfied with measures to prevent government 
corruption (78.7 %).

The poll was conducted by the Crime Research Center of National Chung Cheng 
University in Chiayi, which asked 1,715 respondents (aged 20 and older) during 
the period of Jan. 25 to Feb. 2 to rate their impression of the local legal 
system for 2015. The margin of error was calculated at 2.2 %.

The director of the centre, Yang Shih-lung, believed that several rulings in 
high-profile cases, including the Ting Hsin food safety and public housing 
projects scandals might have revealed divergences with public opinion. Yang 
recommended that regulations be implemented to dismiss judges that transgress 
their duties in order to raise the quality of the judicial system. Failure to 
respond on these issues could further erode the public's trust in the judicial 
system, he reasoned.

Heavy Support for Death Penalty

The survey also showed continuing support for capital punishment, with 83 % of 
respondents opposed to repealing the death penalty. Similarly conservative 
viewpoints on drug users and drug-related crime were prevalent, with 57.3 % of 
respondents believing that drug addicts should not be viewed as patients. 
Another 78 % believed that the government needed to institute penal reforms. 
The research centre recommended that government agencies commit more resources 
in order to use Big Data to combat drug abuse and trafficking while improving 
prevention programs.

(source: asiaone.com)



ZIMBABWE:

MNANGAGWA DEPLORES DEATH PENALTY


Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa says Zimbabwe is making progress in 
minimising cases that attract death sentences.

In his address at the 9th edition of the International Congress of Ministers of 
Justice, which opened today in Rome, Italy, Cde Mnangagwa said while efforts 
are being made to do away with death penalty, Zimbabweans voted in favour of 
the capital punishment in the new constitution.

Cde Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe values human life and has managed to uphold human 
sanctity by exclusion of women and children from death penalty.

The Vice President, who survived death penalty due to his young age when he was 
sentenced in 1965 by the Rhodesian government, said he understands how those 
sentenced to death feel despite the seriousness of crimes committed.

He added that only God has the right to take away life.

Concerns have been raised at this conference that some people can be wrongfully 
convicted and once they are sentenced to death, one cannot get back his or her 
life hence the need to abolish the capital punishment.

The community of Saint Egidio, who are the organisers of this conference,,are 
of the opinion that the imposition of death penalty by states is in violation 
of the right to life and only lowers the state to the level of the perpetrator.

(source: Zimbabwe Daily)






PHILIPPINES:

Escudero rejects re-imposition of death penalty


Vice presidential hopeful Senator Francis Escudero expressed Tuesday his strong 
disapproval over the revival of death penalty.

"It is easy to say, 'I will kill all the criminals.' What if your sibling, 
spouse, parent, or child is accused of being a criminal? Or what if it is true? 
Let's say, a true criminal, doesn't he have the chance to change, to correct 
his mistake?" the senator said in a statement.

"As long as there is life, there is hope and chance to correct the wrongdoing," 
he added.

In 1987, the Philippines was the first country in Asia to abolish death penalty 
but it was however re-imposed in 1992 during the Ramos administration because 
of heinous crimes, from murder to rape and drug-related offenses.

In 1999, then president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada lifted the ban on 
executions and in 2006, the Philippines completely abolished the capital 
punishment for all crimes, with the enactment of An Act Prohibiting the 
Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines, or Republic Act 9364.

Escudero said the death penalty failed to recognize that guilty people have the 
potential to change, denying them the opportunity to rejoin society.

He added that such punishment "was discriminatory and used disproportionately 
against the poor who cannot afford good legal representation."

"I believe no man was born wicked. He just becomes wicked because of the 
environment. And if he becomes wicked, the Lord is giving him the chance to 
change and rehabilitate. How much more a human is?" Escudero siad.

"Punish him if he needs to be punished; teach him the right lesson if needed. 
It is however not in the man???s hand to slay his fellowman and end his chance 
to change and to straighten whatever offense or mistake he had done."

Escudero likewise said the death penalty would not work in the country because 
its justice system is "rife with discrimination, corruption, and abuse."

Besides, he said the country had long shifted from punitive to restorative 
justice, allowing offenders to recognize their mistakes, make amends for their 
wrongdoing, and avoid further involvement in criminal activities.

(source: Sun Star)






IRAN:

Death sentence of young Kurdish man becomes definite


The Iranian judiciary has finalized the death sentence that had been handed 
dwon to a young Kurdish man who was under the age of 18 at the time of 
attributed crime.

The country's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence issued for a young man by 
the name of Heyman Uraminezhad.

This young man is currently held in Sanandaj Central Prison waiting for his 
sentence to be carried out.

Heyman is currently 21 years old and was convicted on premeditated murder by 
the Sanandaj Prime Court.

Iran under the rule of the clerical regime is one of the leading executioners 
of juvenile offenders, Amnesty International said Monday.

In a new report, Amnesty International said last month that it had documented 
the execution of at least 73 juveniles in Iran from 2005 to 2015 and that 160 
juvenile offenders are languishing on the country's death row.

According to the Amnesty International, the report was based on information 
received from death-penalty opponents and human rights defenders in Iran, as 
well as from lawyers and relatives of juveniles convicted of capital crimes in 
Iran.

Now that Iran is emerging from an era of international sanctions and is seeking 
broader acceptance, Ms. Auerbach said, rights groups are hoping that the 
Iranian authorities "realize they have to act in accordance with international 
human rights standards."

There have been over 2,300 executions in Iran since Hassan Rouhani has been in 
office, more than in any similar period in the past 25 years.

The victims include political dissidents like Gholamreza Khosravi, an activist 
of Iran's principal opposition, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran 
(PMOI or MEK) who was hanged solely for providing financial assistance to a 
satellite television station supporting the opposition.

On April 20, 2014 Rouhani described these executions as "God's commandments" 
and "laws of the parliament that belongs to the people."

(source: NCRI)