[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 14



IRAN:

7 Sunni Prisoners Sentenced to Death by the Revolutionary Court


On May 25, 2016, the death sentences of 7 Sunni prisoners in Rajai Shahr prison 
was notified to them. This verdict was issued by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary 
Court headed by judge Moghiseh.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), 
Davood Abdollahi, Kamran Sheikhi, Farhad Salimi, Anvar Khezri, Khosrow 
Besharat, Ghasem Abesteh and Ayoub Karimi, are the 7 Sunnis prisoners who were 
detained since December 7, 2009 and have been sentenced to death.

The hearing of these prisoners had been held at Branch 28 of the Revolutionary 
Court headed by judge Moghiseh, on May 25, 2016.

The prisoners appealed in writing so the case will be reviewed by the Supreme 
Court for the final result.

They did not have the opportunity to defend themselves in the court and were 
not allowed to benefit from the presence of a lawyer of their own choosing.

The Sunni prisoners have been sentenced to death by the judiciary on charges of 
acting against national security, propaganda against the system, membership in 
the Salafist groups, corruption on earth and Muharebeh. The details about their 
activities have not be published by authorities and judicial organs.

According to the information which HRANA was provided with, the defendants 
denied involvement in armed conflicts and said that they had been arrested only 
because of their believes and religious activities such as attending meetings 
and distributing religious literature.

It is worth noting that HRANA has previously published the names of 27 death 
row Sunni prisoners in Rajai Shahr prison whose sentences have been confirmed 
by the Supreme Court.

(source: HRA News Agency)






TAIWAN:

Inmate's Sudden Execution Reignites Death Penalty Controversy in 
Taiwan----Taiwan's former justice minister has stirred up controversy over the 
death penalty in Taiwan.


"There was nothing extraordinary about his life, because every person's life is 
invaluable, and every soul has the same high significance." Such were the words 
of Taiwan's former Justice Minister Luo Ying-shay, after she approved the 
execution of death row inmate Cheng Chieh last month.

Uproar ensued.

23 at the time of his death, Cheng had gone on a stabbing spree on Taipei's 
metro 2 years ago, taking 4 lives and injuring over 20. He was dubbed the 
"Monster of the Metro" by local media outlets including Apple Daily and the 
United Daily News, and showed little to no remorse in both interrogation and 
the trials that followed.

In late-April, he received a death sentence. 19 days later, he was dead. It was 
what Cheng had longed for: during interrogation, he informed prosecutors that 
he had set out to kill people so he would be given death penalty in return. "I 
wanted to commit suicide, but I'm afraid it would hurt too much."

The crudeness of the excuse was not lost on the Taiwanese people, many of whom 
called for his death online.

A week before the new government stepped into office, the Ministry of Justice 
held a press conference, shortly after Luo decided to carry out Cheng's death 
sentence at night.

His lawyer and family had not been notified, and Luo's reasoning was that, "If 
we announced the execution beforehand, none of the death penalties would be 
carried out. Relevant people would only continue to seek retrials and 
extraordinary appeal."

Luo's reasoning was shocking: it sounded like the Justice Minister had created 
her own loophole in the judiciary system to defy the legal procedure every 
Taiwanese citizen is granted by law.

Luo ordered Cheng's immediate death because, even behind bars, he posed as an 
"immense threat to the society's stability and security," and his death would 
serve as a reminder for those tempted to kill for the same reasons.

Despite Cheng's unacceptable rationale for his actions and long history of 
demonstrating a love for violence (as shown on his blog and in conversations 
with classmates), many people in Taiwan also saw Luo's sudden order to execute 
Cheng as an atrocity. Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty executive 
director Lin Hsin-yi spoke to the media shortly after Cheng's death, saying 
that, "We can not allow the government to decide if the need for procedural 
justice is essential under different circumstances." Inexcusable Abandonment of 
Due Process?

As brutal as the crime had been and as important as it was to remind the 
community that such actions would not be overlooked, Cheng deserves to be 
walked through the complete judiciary procedure with his legal team and his 
family deserves to be notified before his death.

How long should the government wait, from the moment when a death sentence is 
finalized until the actual execution? In Cheng's case, the government has 
chosen the simplest and most "convenient" manner by which to end one of the 
most complex social issues existing, said Taiwanese lawmaker Tuan Yi-kang.

Tuan supports the abolition of Taiwan's death penalty. Those who were against 
abolition were quick to blame the anti-death camp for several homicide cases 
that occurred in the 2 years following Cheng's crime, saying that potential 
murderers are on the prowl because they knew the government does not take the 
death penalty seriously.

It may, of course, take many generations to accept the relatively newer concept 
of a judiciary system that forgoes the death penalty. It may take possibly even 
longer for this concept to be adopted and implemented; but, in the meantime, 
the government should look into Cheng's case, hopefully turning this negative 
incident into a positive lesson for Taiwanese society.

Killing people on the metro is an act of violence and so are the gunshots that 
rang through the night Cheng died. The state is granted the right to carry out 
this specific type of violence because it is codified in the law - law that is 
solidified by social recognition. Nevertheless, this does not change the nature 
of the violence enacted by the state.

Luo has denied vehemently that Cheng's life became a pawn in Taiwan's most 
significant power exchange in history, but in the eyes of many, she has proven 
to the people that top government officials have no respect for the law or for 
a human life.

(source: The Diplomat)






BANGLADESH:

Family concern over journalist held without charge in Bangladesh ---- Magazine 
editor, aged 81, could face death penalty if charged with sedition


An elderly British-Bangladeshi journalist facing a potential death sentence has 
been denied bail by a Bangladesh court. Now his family fears for his health 
while under detention.

I reported 2 months ago that Shafik Rehman, a prominent 81-year-old journalist, 
had been arrested on a charge of sedition and remanded in custody. But he has 
not been charged.

He applied for bail, which was denied at a hearing last Tuesday (7 June), 
following several weeks in solitary confinement, without a bed. He was taken to 
hospital last month and remains in a hospital wing of Dhaka central jail.

It is thought that the arrest of Rehman, a former speechwriter for the 
opposition Bangladesh National Party, was politically-motivated.

The authorities have suggested that he will be charged over an alleged plot to 
kidnap the son of the Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed.

But the government has not provided any evidence to support the existence of a 
kidnap plot, or Rehman's involvement in it. In 2015, a US judge - who had 
reviewed similar plot allegations as part of a separate American trial - 
dismissed the allegations on grounds of insufficient evidence.

Rehman's incarceration comes amid criticism of the Bangladeshi government 
following a series of recent attacks and arrests involving journalists, 
bloggers and opposition activists.

In last month's human rights report on Bangladesh, Britain's foreign office 
called for "an effective justice system" in the country and "a vibrant civil 
society and free media, able to challenge and hold authority to account."

Rehman's family are being assisted by the human rights organisation, Reprieve. 
The director of its death penalty team, Maya Foa, said: "It is deeply worrying 
that the Bangladeshi authorities have seen fit to deny bail to an elderly 
journalist, in what is clearly part of a wider crackdown on the government's 
critics."

She pointed out that the authorities have failed to make any case against him. 
"Meanwhile, his family in Britain are desperately worried that he could face 
the death penalty, or that his health will fail in detention."

Foa called on the UK "and other countries with close ties to Bangladesh" to 
urge Rehman's release "before it's too late."

For many years, Rehman edited Jai Jai Din, a mass-circulation Bengali daily. 
More recently, until his arrest, he edited a popular monthly magazine, Mouchake 
Dhil.

(source: The Guardian)



PHILIPPINES:

Death penalty won't stop crime, but could reduce ranks of poor


In a sense, the propagandists are right: the Duterte administration will "hit 
the ground running." Despite the frail composition of the incoming Cabinet, 
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte is showing unquestionable resolve in at least 2 
areas - 1, in his proposed collaboration with the communists, and 2, in his 
proposed reimposition of the death sentence. In both cases, the implementation 
appears to precede even his formal assumption of office.

The announced resumption of peace talks with the Communist Party/New People's 
Army/National Democratic Front in Oslo, Norway follows, rather than precedes, 
the announced decision of the incoming President Duterte to name nominees of 
the CPP/NPA/NDF to his Cabinet, thereby launching a coalition government with 
the Left.

This is an inversion of the correct process. Ideally, the Cabinet appointments 
should have come only after a comprehensive peace agreement has been concluded 
between the government and the CPP/NPA/NDF.

This subject is more elaborately treated in a paper written by former National 
Security Adviser and Secretary of National Defense Norberto B. Gonzales (The 
Philippine Road Map to Communism), and appearing on the National Transformation 
Council Facebook page and the NTC Website.

Reviving the death sentence

With respect to the proposed reimposition of the death sentence, Duterte's 
announced support for vigilantism has gained strong support from local 
executives and police chiefs, who have put up bounties on the head of notorious 
drug trafficking suspects. Duterte's intended P1 billion bounty for the death 
of thousands of drug dealers has drawn an immediate response from 20 alleged 
drug lords, who are reported to have decided to raise a P1 billion kitty for 
the assassination of Duterte and the new Philippine National Police chief.

Duterte has drawn enthusiastic support from the incoming members of the new 
Congress who have abandoned their old sinking ship to board Duterte's adopted 
flag carrier, the PDP-Laban, which used to have not more than a handful of 
members. They are eager to support the reimposition of the death sentence, 
which the 1987 Constitution has abolished, except for certain heinous crimes 
which Congress may define for "compelling reasons."

The political butterflies are more than eager to pass the needed law, as though 
it were no more than a city ordinance.

At the Senate, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel 3rd, who expects to be crowned Senate 
President despite his being the only PDP member of the Senate, said the death 
penalty should be in place by October, four months after the 1st regular 
session of the 17th Congress opens on July 25. There was no mention of the need 
for extended debate, so it appears that the decision to reimpose the death 
sentence could precede the formal proposal for its reinstatement.

Atienza's dissent

Except for Buhay Party-List Rep. Lito Atienza, three times Mayor of Manila and 
Cabinet member under the Arroyo administration, no incoming member of Congress 
has expressed any strong misgivings about the proposed reimposition, and the 
kneejerk reaction to it in the social media and various other places.

While fully supporting Duterte's proposed war on crime, Atienza, a pillar of 
the national pro-life movement, has warned that reimposition of the death 
sentence would be the wrong solution to crime. His objection is grounded on 
high moral ground and a wealth of empirical evidence. At least 102 countries 
have abolished the capital sentence, and among those that still have it in 
their books, 38 have not carried it out in the last 10 years. This is a trend 
the world can hardly ignore.

Weighing in

I am fundamentally against the capital sentence, and this is not the first time 
I am compelled to weigh in.

In 1992, on the 1st year of my 1st term in the Senate, seven Senate bills 
sought to impose the appropriate penalties for certain heinous crimes. All 
except one proposed the death penalty as the maximum. This was consistent with 
Article III, Section 19 of the Constitution, which provides: "Excessive fine 
shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted. 
Neither shall death penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons, 
involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it. Any death 
penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua."

When the 7 bills were consolidated, the committee in charge chose to scale down 
the proposed penalty from death to reclusion perpetua. Sen. Jose Lina Jr., the 
committee chair, asked me to co-sponsor the committee report, and on Nov. 18, 
1992, I delivered my sponsorship speech on the floor of the Senate. My speech, 
"The Death Penalty Will Not Solve Crime," has since been reproduced in a number 
of publications, and appears in one of my books of Senate speeches, "Guarding 
the Public Trust." I revisited it the other day, and found that none of the 
premises have changed.

Against UN accord

Now, as then, the reimposition of the capital sentence would violate or at 
least disavow a formal and solemn commitment of the Philippine government when 
it acceded to the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights and the 
Second Optional Protocol on Jan. 23, 1987, which provides: "No one within the 
jurisdiction of a (signatory) state shall be executed." And no party to the 
agreement may do anything to prevent or delay the abolition of the capital 
sentence.

What are we now to say to the rest of the world, were we to turn around and do 
the exact opposite of what we had committed to do under the Covenant and its 
companion protocol?

Shall we simply say, "Sorry we did not know what we signed, and we have now 
changed our mind"? Or shall we say, "there is a general breakdown of law and 
order, and the restoration of the death penalty is the only way to solve 
crime"? This was what we heard then, and this is what we are hearing again now. 
What, if any, has changed? 24 years ago I said:

???Our citizens despair of protection not only from criminals but also from 
those who are supposed to protect them from criminals. Rightly or wrongly - 
fairly or unfairly - many among them have learned to believe that they are as 
much in danger from the police as they are from criminals. Rightly or wrongly - 
fairly or unfairly - they have come to believe that the justice system does not 
work; that nobody is ever arrested anywhere anymore; or if that criminals do 
get arrested, they are never tried; if tried, they are never convicted; if 
convicted, they are not made to suffer the remorse of living hell but given the 
privileges of honored guests in a pre-paid inn.

"That is the heart of the problem. If we miss that, then we miss everything. We 
end up trying to cure everything except the disease that needs to be cured, or 
trying to cure one disease with a cure meant for another. This is what the 
proposal to reimpose capital punishment means.

"Were the death penalty reinstated today, it would probably be met with cheers 
from among its proponents. For a while it would satisfy their cry for blood and 
raise their expectations about the government's capability to combat crime. But 
it is the wrong solution and because it is the wrong solution to a serious 
social problem, it will do no such thing. In the end, it would simply frustrate 
and enrage the majority when they see that criminals still went unpunished and 
the increased penalty has not deterred crime.

Need for reforms

"The solution to the problem does not lie here. It lies somewhere else. It lies 
in reform. Reform the police and law-enforcement agencies. Reform the 
prosecution arm of the government. Reform the judiciary and the legal 
profession. Reform the prison system. Reform the social and political 
institutions. Reform the media and the educational system. Reform the society 
as a whole.

"Do all these and the state will not need to execute a single criminal to make 
justice and the law, and the people's faith in them, live again. Look for the 
solution elsewhere, and the state will remain powerless to deal with crime, 
even if the government combined the harshest cruelties of the Mosaic Law, the 
Code of Hammurabi and King Nebuchadnezzar and decreed the execution of the 
entire village along with every condemned individual."

St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest philosopher of all time, grants that under 
certain conditions, the State, in the exercise of its right of self-defense, 
may execute a criminal.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church confirms the moral validity of this 
proposition when the death penalty is the only available means to protect the 
society from a grave threat to human life; although never when other means more 
respectful of human life are available to punish criminals and protect society 
from them. The advance of human civilization has rendered the killing of 
criminals by the state virtually unnecessary and non-existent.

The fallible state

There are grave practical reasons for this too. The State is not infallible, 
and should be able to correct its mistakes. But the death penalty is 
irrevocable, irreparable and irreversible once carried out; it can no longer be 
corrected even after it is shown to have been a mistake - and there are many 
instances when the penalty was shown to have been a mistake.

But does it not at least deter crime?

This is the biggest and loudest argument behind the proposal. Many seem to 
believe, to use Arthur Koestler's words, that legal murder by the state 
prevents the illegal murder by criminals, "just as the Persians believed that 
whipping the sea would calm the storm."

This, however, is not supported by the evidence. Albert Pierrepoint, the last 
century's most famous and longest employed executioner, said before he died 
that capital punishment never deterred anyone from committing a capital crime.

Criminals don't learn

Koestler records, as does Camus, that at a time when England used to hang 
pickpockets, other pickpockets worked the crowd that watched the hanging. They 
usually chose the time when the strangled man was swinging above them to 
exercise their talents, because they knew that everybody's eyes were fixed on 
the wretched creature at the scaffold. Of 250 pickpockets who were hanged, says 
Camus, 170 had previously attended 1 or 2 executions. In 1886, out of 167 
condemned men who had gone through the Bristol prison, 164 had witnessed at 
least 1 execution.

Prior to the abolition of capital sentence by the 1987 Constitution, death 
convicts used to pack the national penitentiary to the brim, while awaiting 
execution. Among these hundreds, if not thousands, of death convicts, not more 
than a handful came from well-to-do families; almost all had wretched economic 
and social backgrounds. Did this mean that only the poor were capable of 
committing capital crimes?

By no means. But it means they had no means to hire good lawyers, or to bribe 
the police, the fiscals and the judges in order to escape arrest, prosecution 
or punishment. This situation has not changed at all. The poor still lie at the 
bottom of the criminal justice system. So a revival of the death sentence can 
only revive that same outrageous situation.

The death penalty will not solve crime. But if and when the state begins to 
kill again, it would be killing the poor and only the poor. So while the 
secretary of central economic planning tries to limit new births to a maximum 
of three children per family, and the new anti-life and anti-family members of 
the Senate try to railroad same-sex marriage and other means of population 
control, capital punishment could be used to drastically reduce the ranks of 
the poor on the other end. So if it doesn't work to solve crime, it could 
probably be justified as an "anti-poverty measure."

(source: Francisco Tatad, The Manila Times)






CHINA----execution

Man who killed 6 people during a shooting spree in Shanghai executed


A man who killed 6 people, including a soldier, and injured 4 others in 
Shanghai in 2013, has been executed by the Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People's 
Court, the court announced today.

Fan Jieming, 65, was convicted of murder and robbery, and illegal possession of 
guns, was given the death penalty in July last year.

The 6 who died during the shooting spree included 4 of Fan's colleagues, with 
whom he had disputes over company matters, an unlicensed taxi driver, a 
military sentinel from whom he stole the gun.

(source: Shanghai Daily)






UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

Death penalty for Algerian who killed Chinese man upheld


An Algerian man who murdered a Chinese man and stole more than Dh1 million from 
him has failed in his appeal against a death sentence.

The Court of Appeal heard there was conclusive evidence to show that the murder 
was premeditated as he had been monitoring his victim's movements for 3 days 
before committing the crime.

On the day of the murder, he entered the Chinese man's building armed with a 
knife and wooden stick and attacked him in the lift, reported Aletihad, the 
sister newspaper of The National.

He then stabbed the Chinese man twice, killing him instantly, before running 
away with the victim's briefcase, which contained Dh1.02 million in cash.

(source: The National)