[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 18




IRAN----executions

16 prisoners including a woman hanged in 1 day, 2 in public ---- 30 prisoners 
executed in less than a week in cities across the country


In a new wave of executions, the Iranian regime executed 30 prisoners in 
various cities from July 11 to 17. 16 were executed Sunday, July 17, in Karaj 
and Birjand.

In Karaj, 11 prisoners including a woman were executed en masse in Ghezel 
Hessar Prison and another 2 were hanged in public in Mehrshahr district.

2 prisoners were executed in the Central Prison of Lakan, in Rasht (northern 
Iran) on July 16. 6 prisoners were hanged on July 13, in Gohardasht Prison of 
Karaj. 5 more prisoners were hanged on July 11, in the Central Prison of Arak 
(central Iran), and another prisoner was executed also on July 11, in the 
Prison of Maragheh (East Azerbaijan Province in northwest Iran) after enduring 
8 years in prison.

Beset by various crises, the Iranian regime is unable to respond to the most 
basic needs of the Iranian people, especially the deprived and low income 
strata. To confront growing public dissent and protests across the country, it 
has resorted to a new wave of executions. 1 year after the nuclear deal, these 
crimes reveal the claims of moderation in the clerical regime as hollow and 
expose the falsehood of promises of improvement under the mullahs' rule. It was 
thus proved that appeasement of the mullahs' medieval regime will not bring 
about change.

The Iranian Resistance calls on human rights organizations to condemn the 
rising number of executions in Iran and to immediately undertake measures to 
send the dossier of violations of human rights in Iran to the UN Security 
Council. All relations with the Iranian regime must be made conditional on an 
end to executions and an improvement of the human rights situation in Iran.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)






INDIA:

Final hearing in December 16 gang rape case to begin from today


The Supreme Court will from today begin its hearing in the appeals filed by the 
four accused in the December 16 gang rape case.

A special bench of the apex court hearing the plea of death convicts in the 
case has decided to sit 2 hours beyond its working time to ensure speedy 
disposal of the case that has been pending in the court for more than 2 years.

The convicts Vinay Sharma (23), Akshay Thakur (31), Mukesh (29) and Pawan Gupta 
(22) were awarded death sentence by a trial court in September 2013 and 6 
months later the Delhi High Court upheld their conviction and sentence. All the 
convicts then approached the Supreme Court which had in 2014 stayed their 
execution and the matter is pending in the top court since then.

The Delhi High Court had upheld their conviction and award of death penalty by 
terming the offence as 'extremely fiendish' and 'unparalleled in the history of 
criminal jurisprudence' and said the 'exemplary punishment' was the need of the 
hour.

Though arguments started in April before a three-judge Bench headed by Justice 
Dipak Misra, arguments will have to be made afresh since the combination of 
judges in the bench has been changed.

The bench comprises Justices Dipak Misra, C. Nagappan and Ms. R. Banumathi.

23-year old Nirbhaya was brutally assaulted and gang-raped by 6 people in a 
moving bus in south Delhi on the night of December 16, 2012, and thrown out of 
the vehicle with her male friend. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 
29.

(source: Business Standard)






THE VATICAN:

Why the Church Cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment----If Pope 
Francis were to teach that capital punishment is ???absolutely??? immoral, he 
would be contradicting the teaching of scripture, the Fathers, and all previous 
popes, and substituting for it "some new doctrine."


Editor's note: This is Part 1 of a 2-part article on Catholicism and the death 
penalty. Part 2 will be posted later this week.

Pope St. John Paul II was well-known for his vigorous opposition to capital 
punishment. Yet in 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- the pope's own chief 
doctrinal officer, later to become Pope Benedict XVI -- stated unambiguously 
that:

[I]f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of 
capital punishment ... he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to 
present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil 
authorities ... to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on 
criminals, it may still be permissible ... to have recourse to capital 
punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics 
about ... applying the death penalty ... (emphasis added)

How could it be "legitimate" for a Catholic to be "at odds with" the pope on 
such a matter? The answer is that the pope's opposition to capital punishment 
was not a matter of binding doctrine, but merely an opinion which a Catholic 
must respectfully consider but not necessarily agree with. Cardinal Ratzinger 
could not possibly have said what he did otherwise. If it were mortally sinful 
for a Catholic to disagree with the pope about capital punishment, then he 
could not "present himself to receive Holy Communion." If it were even venially 
sinful to disagree, then there could not be "a legitimate diversity of opinion 
even among Catholics."

The fact is that it is the irreformable teaching of the Church that capital 
punishment can in principle be legitimate, not merely to ensure the physical 
safety of others when an offender poses an immediate danger (a case where even 
John Paul II was willing to allow for the death penalty), but even for purposes 
such as securing retributive justice and deterring serious crime. What is open 
to debate is merely whether recourse to the death penalty is in practice the 
best option given particular historical and cultural circumstances. That is a 
"prudential" matter about which popes have no special expertise.

We defend these claims in detail and at length in our book By Man Shall His 
Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty, forthcoming from 
Ignatius Press. What follows is a brief summary of some key points.

Sacred Scripture

The Church holds that scripture is infallible, particularly when it teaches on 
matters of faith and morals. The First Vatican Council teaches that scripture 
must always be interpreted in the sense in which the Church has traditionally 
understood it, and in particular that it can never be interpreted in a sense 
contrary to the unanimous understanding of the Fathers of the Church.

Both the Old and New Testaments teach that capital punishment can be 
legitimate, and the Church has always interpreted them this way. For example, 
Genesis 9:6 famously states: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his 
blood be shed; for God made man in his own image." The Church has always 
understood this as a sanction of the death penalty. Even Christian Brugger, a 
prominent Catholic opponent of capital punishment, admits that attempts to 
reinterpret this passage are dubious and that the passage is a "problem" for 
views like his own.i

St. Paul's Letter to the Romans teaches that the state "does not bear the sword 
in vain [but] is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer" 
(13:4). The Church has always understood this too as a warrant for capital 
punishment, and by Brugger's own admission, there was a "consensus" among the 
Fathers and medieval Doctors of the Church that the passage was to be 
understood in this way.ii But in that case, attempts to reinterpret the passage 
cannot possibly be reconciled with a Catholic understanding of scripture.

Not only Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4 but also passages like Numbers 35:33, 
Deuteronomy 19: 11-13, Luke 23:41, and Acts 25:11 all clearly regard capital 
punishment as legitimate when carried out simply for the purpose of securing 
retributive justice. The lex talionis ("law of retaliation") of Exodus 21 and 
Leviticus 24 is also obviously a matter of exacting retribution for its own 
sake. Deuteronomy 19:19-21 talks of execution as a way of striking "fear" in 
potential offenders, and deterrence is clearly in view in Romans 13:4. Hence 
scripture clearly teaches that capital punishment can in principle be 
legitimate for the sake of deterrence.

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church

The Church has always regarded the Fathers as having an extremely high degree 
of authority when they are agreed on some matter of faith or morals. Now, some 
of the Fathers preferred mercy to the use of capital punishment. However, every 
one of the Fathers who commented on the subject nevertheless also allowed that 
capital punishment can in principle be legitimate. For example, in his Homilies 
on Leviticus, Origen teaches that "death which is inflicted as the penalty of 
sin is a purification of the sin itself." Clement of Alexandria says that "when 
one falls into any incurable evil ... it will be for his good if he is put to 
death." In his commentary On the Sermon on the Mount, Augustine writes that 
"great and holy men ... punished some sins with death ... [by which] the living 
were struck with a salutary fear." Jerome taught that ???he who slays cruel men 
is not cruel."

It is sometimes claimed that Tertullian and Lactantius were exceptions to the 
patristic consensus on capital punishment as legitimate at least in principle, 
but even Brugger admits that this is not in fact the case.iii And again, the 
Fathers also uniformly regarded scripture as allowing capital punishment, and 
the Church teaches that the Fathers must be followed where they agree on the 
interpretation of scripture.

Like scripture, the Fathers also speak of capital punishment as in principle 
legitimate for purposes like the securing of retributive justice and deterring 
others. (Indeed, neither scripture nor the Fathers refer to protection against 
immediate physical danger even as a purpose of capital punishment, let alone as 
the only legitimate purpose.)

The Church has also regarded the Doctors of the Church as having a very high 
degree of authority when they are agreed on some matter of faith or morals. 
Like the Fathers, these Doctors - including thinkers of the stature of St. 
Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, and St. Alphonsus Ligouri - are all in 
agreement on the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. Aquinas even 
dismissed as "frivolous" the suggestion that capital punishment removes from 
offenders the possibility of repentance, arguing that "if they are so stubborn 
that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is 
possible to make a highly probable judgment that they would never come away 
from evil to the right use of their powers" (Summa Contra Gentiles III.146).

The popes

No pope from St. Peter to Benedict XVI ever denied the legitimacy in principle 
of capital punishment, and many popes explicitly affirmed its legitimacy, even 
as a matter of basic Catholic orthodoxy. For example, Pope St. Innocent I 
taught that to deny the legitimacy of capital punishment would be to go against 
biblical authority, indeed "the authority of the Lord" himself. Pope Innocent 
III required adherents of the Waldensian heresy, as a condition for their 
reconciliation with the Church and proof of their orthodoxy, to affirm the 
legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. Pope St. Pius V promulgated the 
Roman Catechism, which states that:

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is 
entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which 
they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, 
far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to 
this Commandment which prohibits murder.

The 1912 Catechism of Christian Doctrine issued by Pope St. Pius X says in the 
context of discussion of the Fifth Commandment: "It is lawful to kill ... when 
carrying out by order of the Supreme Authority a sentence of death in 
punishment of a crime." Pope Pius XII taught that "it is reserved ... to the 
public authority to deprive the criminal of the benefit of life when already, 
by his crime, he has deprived himself of the right to live."

It is sometimes alleged that while Pope John Paul II did not contradict past 
teaching, he did modify doctrine on capital punishment in a more restrictive 
direction in the catechism which he promulgated. In particular, it is claimed 
by some that John Paul taught that it is in principle immoral to resort to 
capital punishment except for the purpose of protecting others against the 
immediate physical danger posed by an offender. However, then-Cardinal 
Ratzinger explicitly denied that there was any change at the level of doctrinal 
principle. He affirmed that "the Holy Father has not altered the doctrinal 
principles which pertain to this issue" and that the revisions to the catechism 
reflected merely "circumstantial considerations ... without any modification of 
the relevant doctrinal principles."iv

Moreover, as Cardinal Avery Dulles has pointed out, had the pope made such a 
modification to doctrine, he would have been partially reversing or 
contradicting previous teaching rather than merely modifying it.v For as we 
have noted, scripture and the Fathers teach that capital punishment can be 
legitimate specifically for purposes of retribution and deterrence, and not 
merely for the purpose of counteracting some immediate physical threat.

Pope Francis

Like other recent popes, Pope Francis has opposed the use of the death penalty. 
But there are indications that, unlike any previous pope, Francis may be 
inclined to declare capital punishment intrinsically immoral. For example, in a 
recent statement, Pope Francis said that "the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' 
has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty" 
(emphasis added). It has also been reported that he has set up a commission to 
explore changing the Catechism of the Catholic Church so that it will 
"absolutely" forbid capital punishment.

Does Catholic doctrine permit a pope to make such a change? It very clearly 
does not. The First Vatican Council explicitly taught that:

[T]he Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they 
might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his 
assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation 
or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles. (Emphasis added)

And the Second Vatican Council explicitly taught that:

[T]he task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or 
handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the 
Church ... This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, 
teaching only what has been handed on ... (Emphasis added)

If Pope Francis were to teach that capital punishment is "absolutely" immoral, 
he would be contradicting (rather than "religiously guard[ing]," "faithfully 
expound[ing]," and "hand[ing] on") the teaching of scripture, the Fathers, and 
all previous popes, and substituting for it "some new doctrine." He would be 
overruling the many scriptural passages that support capital punishment, 
thereby putting himself "above the word of God." If he were to claim warrant 
for this novel teaching in the commandment against murder, he would be 
contradicting the way every previous pope who has addressed the subject has 
understand that commandment. As we have seen, Pope Pius XII teaches that the 
guilty person "has deprived himself of the right to live," and the catechisms 
promulgated by Pope St. Pius V and Pope St. Pius X explicitly affirm that 
capital punishment is consistent with the commandment against murder.

Moreover, if Pope Francis were to teach that capital punishment is 
intrinsically immoral, he would undermine the authority of Catholic teaching in 
general. As Cardinal Dulles wrote:

The reversal of a doctrine as well established as the legitimacy of capital 
punishment would raise serious problems regarding the credibility of the 
magisterium. Consistency with Scripture and long-standing Catholic tradition is 
important for the grounding of many current teachings of the Catholic Church; 
for example, those regarding abortion, contraception, the permanence of 
marriage, and the ineligibility of women for priestly ordination. If the 
tradition on capital punishment had been reversed, serious questions would be 
raised regarding other doctrines ...vi

Indeed, a change vis-a-vis the death penalty would undermine the pope's own 
credibility as well. Cardinal Dulles continues:

If, in fact, the previous teaching had been discarded, doubt would be cast on 
the current teaching as well. It too would have to be seen as reversible, and 
in that case, as having no firm hold on people's assent. The new doctrine, 
based on a recent insight, would be in competition with a magisterial teaching 
that has endured for 2 millennia -- or even more, if one wishes to count the 
biblical testimonies. Would not some Catholics be justified in adhering to the 
earlier teaching on the ground that it has more solid warrant than the new? The 
faithful would be confronted with the dilemma of having to dissent either from 
past or from present magisterial teaching.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, were Pope Francis to condemn 
capital punishment as intrinsically immoral, he would thereby be joining the 
ranks of that very small number of popes who have taught doctrinal error (which 
is possible when a pope does not speak ex cathedra).

However, we do not believe that Pope Francis will do this. For one thing, as is 
well known, the pope is prone in his public utterances to making imprecise and 
exaggerated statements. He has certainly done so before when speaking about 
capital punishment. For example, in a statement from March 15, 2015, the pope 
approvingly cited some lines he attributed to Dostoevsky, to the effect that 
"to kill one who killed is an incomparably greater punishment than the crime 
itself. Killing in virtue of a sentence is far worse than the killing committed 
by a criminal."

Consider a serial killer like Ted Bundy, who murdered at least fourteen women. 
Bundy routinely raped and tortured his victims, and also mutilated, and even 
engaged in necrophilia with, some of their bodies. He was executed in the 
electric chair, a method of killing that takes only a few moments. Should we 
interpret the pope as seriously suggesting that Bundy's execution was "far 
worse" and an "incomparably greater" crime than what Bundy himself did? Surely 
not; such a judgment would be manifestly absurd, and indeed, frankly obscene. 
Surely the pope did not intend to teach such a thing, but was rather merely 
indulging in a rhetorical flourish. A charitable interpretation of some of his 
other remarks about capital punishment would lead us to conclude that he does 
not intend to contradict the tradition.

For another thing, if the pope has indeed set up a commission to study revising 
the catechism, that in itself indicates that he wants to be careful not to 
contradict past teaching. Presumably, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, current prefect 
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, would play a key role on 
such a commission. Commenting on the controversy the pope's remarks on various 
subjects have sometimes generated, Cardinal Muller has noted that "Pope Francis 
is not a 'professional theologian', but has been largely formed by his 
experiences in the field of the pastoral care."vii Asked if he has sometimes 
had to correct the pope's remarks from a doctrinal point of view, the cardinal 
replied: "That is what he [Pope Francis] has said already 3 or 4 times himself, 
publicly ..." Cardinal Muller also emphasized that the pope himself "refers to 
the teaching of the Church as the framework of interpretation" for his various 
remarks. In another interview in which he was asked about Pope Francis's 
sometimes doctrinally imprecise statements, Cardinal Muller acknowledged that 
churchmen sometimes "express themselves in a somewhat inappropriate, misleading 
or vague way," and that not all papal pronouncements have the same binding 
nature.viii

Having shown here that Catholic teaching has always supported the legitimacy of 
capital punishment, in part 2 of this article we will discuss some of the 
reasons for believing that it remains necessary for achieving public safety and 
the larger common good.

ENDNOTES:

i Brugger, Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition (University of 
Notre Dame Press, 2003), p. 73.

ii Ibid., p. 112.

iii Ibid., pp. 77 and 84.

iv Response to an inquiry from Fr Richard John Neuhaus, published in the 
October 1995 issue of First Things.

v Dulles, "Catholic Teaching on the Death Penalty: Has It Changed?" in Erik 
Owens, John Carlson, and Eric Elshtain, eds., Religion and the Death Penalty 
(Eerdmans, 2004).

vi Ibid., p. 26.

vii Cardinal Muller's remarks were made in a March 1, 2016 interview with the 
German newspaper Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger. The English translation is quoted from 
Maike Hickson, "Vatican's doctrine chief: Pope is not a 'professional 
theologian,'" LifeSiteNews.com, March 14, 2016.

viii These remarks were made in an interview in the German magazine Die Zeit, 
December 30, 2015.

(source: Catholic World Report)




PAKISTAN:

Pakistani social media icon's brother arrested in her death


Police have arrested the brother of a Pakistani Internet celebrity who said at 
a press conference that he killed his sister for "family honor" and that he had 
"no regrets," Al Jazeera reported.

After Fauzia Azeem, 26, known online as Qandeel Baloch, was found strangled to 
death in her family's home near Multan in Pakistan's Punjab province, 
authorities began searching for her brothers.

Police officials told Al Jazeera that Baloch's father had filed a case against 
Waseem and testified against another of his sons, claiming he encouraged the 
murder. Akram Azhar, the Multan police chief, said authorities would seek the 
"maximum punishment" for Waseem.

Baloch, who rose to fame in 2014, has over 744,000 likes on her Facebook page 
and 48,000 followers on Instagram. Her Facebook page described her as a singer, 
actress and model.

With posts that defied conservative social norms, Baloch drew support from 
those that viewed her as an advocate for women's rights. She spoke openly about 
the expectations she faced as a woman, discussing issues such arranged marriage 
in interviews with Pakistani media.

"I was 17 years old when my parents forced an uneducated man on me," she said. 
"The abuse I have been through ... It happens in places like this, in small 
villages, in Baloch families. This happened to me too."

Baloch received widespread criticism for her posts on social media, which some 
in Pakistan considered inappropriate. "What she (was) doing is a disgrace for 
Pakistan so she deserve this," said Twitter user Asad Iqbal Orakzai, according 
to Reuters.

She recently appeared in a music video wearing clothing that critics called 
revealing, and wrote in a recent Facebook post that she was trying to "change 
the typical orthodox mindset of people."

Honor killings consistently target females who male family members feel have 
tarnished the family's reputation.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent nonprofit 
that tracks human rights violations, 987 honor crimes occurred in 2015 in 
Pakistan against 1096 victims. 170 of those victims were minors.

Advocates for a law to prevent honor killings took to social media after the 
news of Baloch's death, speaking out against honor crimes and calling for 
reforms to existing legislation to ensure perpetrators are punished more 
consistently.

Families, especially those in rural areas, sometimes settle honor killings in 
tribal councils, which can allow those involved in the murders to avoid jail 
time.

Baloch had recently filed a request with the interior minister, the director 
general of the Federal Investigation Authority and the senior superintendent of 
Islamabad asking for protection, according to Dawn, a Pakistani media outlet 
based in Karachi. Baloch had said she was receiving threatening calls and hoped 
to gain government security protection, Dawn reported.

(source: pbs.org)