[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 18



BANGLADESH:

Family meets Quasem at Kashimpur jail


Family members of condemned war crimes convict Jamaat leader Mir Quasem Ali met 
with him at Kashimpur jail in Gazipur this afternoon.

9 family members including his wife, son and daughter-in-law reached the jail 
gate around 12:45pm and left after an hour, said Subrata Kumar Bala, jail super 
of Kashimpur jail, told our Gazipur correspondent.

It was part of a regular meeting, the SP said.

The International Crimes Tribunal on June 6 issued a death warrant for Quasem 
Ali hours after the Supreme Court released the full text of its verdict 
upholding his death penalty.

On November 2, 2014, the ICT-2 handed down capital punishment to 63-year-old 
Quasem, chief of Chittagong Al-Badr Bahini, for committing crimes against 
humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

Quasem is the 5th Jamaat leader to have got the death penalty for playing a 
notorious role in 1971.

The tribunal sentenced him to death on 2 charges and different jail terms on 
eight other charges. He later challenged the verdict at the apex court.

On March 8 this year, the SC upheld his death penalty for 1 charge -- the 
brutal torture and killing of young freedom fighter Jasim.

His conviction and punishment on 6 other charges were upheld by the 5-member SC 
bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

(source: The Daily Star)






MALAWI:

Malawi maintains that it will not impose death penalty for fear of human rights 
institutions


Malawi government has disclosed that it will not implement the death sentence 
in fear of humiliation by international human rights institutions that include 
the Amnesty International which is also in the forefront against the killing of 
people with albinism.

The development comes at a time when some stakeholders are calling for the 
maximum sentence to people found guilty of murder in the country.

The stakeholders argue that death sentence can help in putting down barbaric 
acts of killing people with albinism in the country

But government spokesperson Patricia Kaliati said Malawi has its signature on 
various human rights instruments that forbids death penalty.

Kaliati added the country wants to put itself away from criminal cases even 
though some citizens think death penalty will help stop the killings of people 
with albinism in Malawi.

One of the advocates for death sentence is Paramount Chief Lundu who said the 
maximum sentence will help in bringing peace to people with albinism in the 
country.

Meanwhile, Mulanje South Member of Parliament Elias Bon Kalindo is set to 
parade in his birthday suit to force government to have death sentence being 
practical in Malawi.

The nude parade has been scheduled to take place on June 23 in the capital 
Lilongwe to force lawmakers to reinstate death sentence.

(source: malawi24.com)

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

An eye for an eye: a case for death penalty for albino-killers


Granted, the 21st century world is essentially an era of the triumph of human 
rights. Ostensibly dancing to the tune of this era, there have been calls for 
the abolishment of death penalty. Proponents of death penalty have always 
argued that killing a human being as punishment is primitive, barbaric, and 
costly.

Without doubt, the calls for the abolishment of death penalty are and continue 
to be persuasive. And, true to that, a good number of people have been 
persuaded to this fold. However, the recent spate of albino-butchering has 
changed the penal terrain and has weakened the anti-death penalty calls. It is 
for this reason that calls for the death penalty on albino-killers are 
justifiable. And here is why.

Killing albino-killers clears society of albino-killers

Elsewhere people have justified death penalty on the basis of deterrence. 
However, research has shown that death penalty does not sufficiently deter 
people from committing the offence. Whether death penalty sufficiently deters 
offenders or not is a problem for another day, the simple truth remains that 
when you kill the killers the society becomes clear of killers.

It is an elementary fact of the social contract that people come together and 
form a society to run away from the brutal, cruel, and barbaric natural state 
of life. Society loses its meaning if people can experience the same brutality, 
cruelty, and barbarism life as happened in the state of nature. What will 
remain of a society if, after sacrificing some of their individual rights in 
exchange for security, all the people get is insecurity?

Again, it is a measure of a civilized nation that its citizens are accorded the 
fullest security. A nation is backward if its citizens live in perpetual 
insecurity. And the best guarantee of security is the meting out of punishment 
in full force to offenders. And this means, in case of the killing of albinos, 
giving death penalty.

Killing albino-killers avenges victims' death

Call it backward or what have you, it does make sense that the gap created by 
losing a family member in the calculated circumstances characteristic of the 
albino-killings will, to a certain satisfactory level, be filled by killing the 
killer.

The justification here being that the loss of a relative in such barbaric 
circumstances causes too much grief and resentment and the same can be 
suppressed if the perpetrator gets the death penalty. It should be emphasized 
here that punishment loses its touch if the offender of such grievous offences 
as slicing a fellow human being goes to prison and comes to see the light of 
day.

Killing albino-killers shrinks peoples' eagerness for mob justice

Call ourselves lucky to this moment that we have not heard of a mob justice on 
albino-killers. This is the case perhaps because no one has been caught in the 
act of killing an albino. Such mob justice will not be surprising given the 
fact that people are more than willing to kill suspected thieves.

Furthermore, people are not currently taking the law into their hands probably 
because they are pursuing the let's-wait-and-see attitude - that is, waiting to 
see the government's response. They may decide to act in the way they know best 
if they will not like the action taken by government. And it can only be 
speculated here that the people would not administer mob justice if they see 
government mete out death penalty to albino-killers.

This therefore means that the passing of death penalty to albino-killers will 
be in line with the human rights dispensation. This will be the case because, 
unlike mob justice, the suspected albino-killers will be allowed to exercise 
their right to legal representation and all the legal safeguards accorded to an 
accused person.

Killing albino-killers lifts the moral torture of feeding killers

Imagine. That albino family member of yours was killed, say, last month. You 
have grieved enough and things are seemingly returning to normal. And now you 
are buying your usuals - sugar, soap, matches, lotion, salt etc. - and tax is 
deducted. That tax forms the subvention to prisons which is used to buy food 
for prisoners including that prisoner who murdered your family member. Now 
imagine the psychological and moral torture you have to endure upon that 
realization!

Honestly, you do not have to suffer that way and endure all that. That 
psychological and moral torture gets lifted the moment the death penalty is 
pronounced. It can thus be seen here that death penalty has the added advantage 
of lifting the moral burden of feeding killers.

Albino-killers have no rights because they are not human beings

It is common knowledge in the human rights world that human rights are 
entitlements for human beings only. Accepted, a human being in an imperfect 
being; he can steal, stab, mob, or even kill. However, in doing all these bad 
things, a human being is guided by some residual sense of humanness. A human 
being who maims a fellow human being loses his sense of humanness and 
automatically seizes to be human. Albino-killers maim albinos and are thus not 
human beings.

Albino-killers chop the bodies of albinos into parts. In all conscience, such 
people cannot claim to have rights. Defending such people is not only 
preposterous, it is also outright wicked.

The foregoing may be outlandish. It may also be unthinkable or backward. That's 
your take and this is a free world. But for some of us, the above case is 
progressive. For many of us are tired with the prevailing mentality on albino 
killing which, in all fairness, appears to take the side of the offender rather 
than that of the victim. So, next time you argue that albino-killers have a 
right to life, think about the victims whose lives they needlessly and 
mercilessly take away.

Malawi has not abolished the death penalty; it is there in our laws. So do the 
needful courts, implement it. When you think about exodus 21:24 and look at 
punishments our good courts mete out to albino-killers you cannot help but ask: 
"Are our courts really serious?" Judge Madise's recent life imprisonment 
judgment starts the journey; let's hope the entire justice machinery will join. 
But hey, no offence intended our courts, this is only a case for death penalty 
for albino-killers! (source: Henry Chizimba, maravipost.com)






JAPAN:

Head of Japan lawyers' group criticizes media for naming ex-minor sentenced to 
death


The head of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations on Friday criticized news 
organizations that reported the name of a man sentenced to death for a double 
murder committed when he was a juvenile.

"It is regrettable that the news reports violated the juvenile law, which bans 
publishing articles and photographs that could identify a juvenile delinquent," 
Kazuhiro Nakamoto, president of the federation, said in a statement.

The statement was issued after the Supreme Court upheld lower court rulings 
that sentenced to death the man who was 18 when he killed 2 women and seriously 
injured a man in 2010.

Major newspapers including the Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun and Nikkei daily, 
as well as Kyodo News published the man's name on the grounds that the 
opportunity for rehabilitation ends when a death penalty is finalized, and the 
name of a person to be executed by the state should not be kept confidential.

Some other major newspapers, including the Mainichi and the Tokyo Shimbun, 
reported the Supreme Court decision without revealing the name of the man to be 
executed, saying the chance for his rehabilitation remains due to the 
possibility of amnesty or retrial.

The Japan Times has also chosen to name the man in its reporting.

Nakamoto said the dignity and the constitutionally-guaranteed right to the 
pursuit of happiness of a minor are not terminated with the finalization of a 
death sentence.

"While it is needless to say that constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of 
expression is important and it is necessary to report the details of a crime in 
order to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents, it cannot be said the 
real name and photo of a minor are indispensable factors for news reports," he 
said.

(source: The Japan Times)






CHINA:

Mother's Fight to Exonerate Executed Son Highlights Gaping Holes in Justice 
System ---- "Invisible forces" in police have delayed a retrial for Nie Shubin 
after fresh evidence, suggesting his innocence, emerged, says former journalist


More than 2 decades after a young man in the northern province of Hebei was 
executed for the alleged rape and murder of a woman, his mother is anxiously 
awaiting a retrial to clear his name.

Zhang Huanzhi's only son, Nie Shubin, was executed in 1995 - when he was 20 - 
for raping and killing a woman in a cornfield near Shijiazhuang, the provincial 
capital. A decade later, another man arrested for a separate crime, confessed 
to the murder.

Zhang had fought for years after this fresh evidence emerged to exonerate her 
son, but she kept on hitting a wall. The case is back in the public spotlight 
after the country's highest court, the Supreme People's Court, on June 6 
ordered a court in the eastern province of Shandong to review the 1995 ruling, 
saying evidence that lead to his death sentence were "unreliable and 
incomplete."

Zhang's dogged pursuit, lodging repeated appeals at courts in her home province 
Hebei and in Beijing, has helped turn Nie's case into an example of the flaws 
in the Chinese criminal justice system, including the use of torture, lack of 
due process and lax review of death sentences.

But Nie's is not the only incident of a possible miscarriage of justice 
reported in recent years. In February, a man from the eastern province of 
Zhejiang, Chen Man, convicted of arson and murder, was allowed to walk free 
after languishing in prison for 23 years when his sentence was overturned due 
to lack of evidence.

In late 2014, a court in Inner Mongolia said an 18-year-old killed by firing 
squad in 1996 for alleged rape and murder, was innocent. The Inner Mongolia 
Higher People's Court said the defendant, Huugjilt, was wrongfully convicted 
after being tortured into making a confession.

Nie's case had also galvanized the legal community, media and the public to 
scrutinize the gaping holes in the country's justice system. "There is no doubt 
Nie will be exonerated soon," said Ma Yulong, a former reporter at Dahe Daily, 
a newspaper in the central province of Henan, who has followed Nie's case 
starting in 2005.

Nie's retrial can help in some measure to restore public faith in China's legal 
system, said Li Shuting, the lawyer representing his family.

Quest for Justice

The Shandong High Court in-charge of reviewing the case said the evidence on 
which the original verdict was based was incomplete because many questions have 
gone unanswered, such as the exact time the crime was committed and the weapon 
used for the murder. However, the court has not announced a date for a retrial.

Nie was sentenced for premeditated rape and murder on March 15, 1995 by the 
intermediate court in Shijiazhuang, after a closed-door trial, state media 
reports show. He was executed a month later.

In 2005, another suspect named Wang Shujin, arrested for a similar crime, 
confessed to raping and killing several women, one of whom turned out to be the 
victim in Nie's case. Ma was the 1st to break the news, which attracted wide 
public attention to the case.

After this fresh evidence emerged, Liu Jinguo, the head of the party's 
provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee at the time, who oversaw the 
security and legal systems in Hebei, set up a special team to reopen Nie's case 
and ordered the results to be published within one month, Ma told Caixin on 
June 14.

Liu's order gave Nie's family a glimmer of hope, but it vanished quickly. The 
investigation stalled when Liu was promoted shortly afterwards to vice minister 
of public security in Beijing, said Ma.

>From then on, Zhang Huanzhi has made countless trips to courts in Hebei and 
Beijing, to appeal her son's case, but she was turned down by officials who 
said her documents were incomplete.

It wasn't until July 2007, when the Supreme Court in Beijing accepted Zhang's 
appeal and ordered the Hebei High Court to review the case.

But this court never carried out the review. "We tried every means possible to 
get a retrial, but they were all in vain," said Li.

In March 2007, the other suspect, Wang, received the death penalty for 4 counts 
of murder and rape. But this did not include the victim in Nie's case, although 
Wang admitted to the crime. In a twist of fate, Wang even appealed his verdict 
and insisted that he had killed the woman Nie was charged with murdering. But 
his appeal was turned down by the Hebei court in 2013.

Wang is now on death row, waiting for the Supreme Court to review his sentence, 
but the process has been delayed due to his connection to Nie's case, Li said.

Ma said he had learned from sources in the Hebei public security system that 
officials had tortured Wang, forcing him to recant his confession connected to 
the 1994 murder in Shijiazhuang before the 2nd trial.

There are "invisible" forces in Hebei's police and legal system that have 
resisted the reopening of Nie's case, said Ma.

Fresh Hope

In December 2014, the Supreme Court ordered a high court in another province 
Shandong to re-examine the files of Nie's case. The Supreme Court's June 
decision for a retrial, which comes after four delays, had rekindled the 
family's hopes to have Nie exonerated.

Li told Caixin that there were many holes in the evidence presented including 
Nie's testimony, the murder weapon used and even the exact date of his 
execution. He has been collecting evidence that show Nie was tortured while in 
custody and highlight deficiencies in due process when handling the case.

The case "is obviously a wrongful conviction with little complexity, but it has 
taken more than ten years to get a retrial due to delays by officials in 
Hebei," said Li.

Police offices' over reliance on harsh interrogation techniques to elicit 
confessions from suspects in criminal investigation cases have led to many 
wrongful convictions, said Li. Some investigators and officials rush to close a 
case to secure bonuses and promotion, he said.

Fundamentally, "the lack of independence of the judicial system had led to the 
miscarriage of justice," said the former journalist Ma. "Without further legal 
reform, there will be other cases like this in future."

(source: caixin.com)






IRAN----executions

At Least 3 Prisoners Hanged at Bandar Abbas Central Prison on Drug Charges


At least 3 prisoners with drug related charges were reportedly hanged at Bandar 
Abbas Central Prison (in the Hormozgan province, southern Iran) on the morning 
of Thursday June 16. The official Iranian state-run news agency, Borna, has 
published the identities of the prisoners as: A.Z., Gh.A., and B.A.

The human rights news agency, HRANA, published a similar report, but listed the 
number of prisoners executed at Bandar Abbas Central Prison on June 16 as at 
least 4.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






EGYPT:

Mursi sentenced to 40 years in Qatar spy case----Court upholds death sentences 
against 6 other defendants for supplying Qatar with classified state documents 
under Mursi's rule


An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced toppled Islamist president Mohammad 
Mursi to a total of 40 years in prison after convicting him of jeopardising 
national security by having passed classified state documents to Qatar when he 
was in power.

The Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Mursi to life in prison - a verdict equal to 
25 years in Egypt - and 15 more years on 2 separate counts in the case.

The verdict is the latest in a series of sentences against Mursi who is already 
on death row.

2 ex-aides to Mursi were also given sentences of a total of 40 years in prison 
each in the same case.

The court confirmed initial death sentences it passed last month against 6 more 
defendants in the case after the verdicts had been ratified by the country's 
top Islamic legal official, the Grand Mufti.

"The accused deserve the penalty of death because they put the nation in 
danger," chief judge Mohammad Sherin quoted the mufti as saying in his advisory 
opinion to the court.

"They obtained state secrets with the intention of divulging them to a foreign 
country. Thus, they breached trust," the top Muslim cleric added, referring to 
the convicts.

Egyptian law requires the mufti to sign off on death sentences. His opinion is 
not binding, but is usually respected by courts.

All the rulings are subjected to appeal.

The leaked documents were pertaining to the Egyptian army, its armament and 
concentrations, the chief judge added in a statement broadcast live on Egyptian 
television.

The session was held at a makeshift courtroom in the Police Academy outside 
Cairo.

Qatar is a staunch backer of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood. Ties have soured 
between Egypt and Qatar since the army's 2013 ouster of Mursi following massive 
street protests against his 1-year rule. Hearings in this case, dubbed 
"espionage with Qatar", opened in February 2015.

Mursi is already on death row after another court sentenced him to death last 
year in a separate case related to orchestrating a big prison escape during the 
2011 uprising that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak. Mursi was also 
given a life sentence after being convicted of conspiring with foreign 
organisations for the jailbreak.

The "Qatar spying" trial is one of several in which Mursi is charged with 
multiple criminal charges. Mursi, a senior leader in the now-outlawed 
Brotherhood, is being tried in another case related to insulting the judiciary. 
The Islamist leader insists he remains the rightful president of Egypt.

(source: Gulf News)

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

2 Al-Jazeera journalists given death penalty by Egyptian court


6 people, including 2 Al-Jazeera journalists, have been sentenced to death by 
an Egyptian court for allegedly passing documents relating to national security 
to Qatar and the Doha-based TV network during the rule of Mohammed Morsi.

The former Islamist president was also sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was 
ousted by the military in July 2013 and has already been sentenced to death in 
another case. Saturday's verdicts can be appealed.

The 2 Al-Jazeera employees - identified by the judge as news producer Alaa Omar 
Mohammed and news editor Ibrahim Mohammed Hilal - were sentenced in absentia 
along with Asmaa al-Khateib, who worked for Rasd, a media network widely 
suspected of links to Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood was banned and declared a terrorist group after Morsi was 
ousted.

The 3 other defendants sentenced to death on Saturday are documentary producer 
Ahmed Afify, EgyptAir cabin crew member Mohammed Keilany and academic Ahmed 
Ismail.

Egypt's relations with Qatar have been fraught with tension since the overthrow 
of Morsi, who enjoyed the support of the tiny but wealthy Gulf state. Cairo 
also maintains that Al-Jazeera's news coverage of Egypt and elsewhere in the 
Middle East is biased in favor of militant Islamic groups.

Last year, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi pardoned two imprisoned journalists 
from the Al-Jazeera English news network.

Mohamed Fahmy, an Egyptian-born Canadian, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were 
arrested in December 2013. They were sentenced last year to 3 years in prison 
for airing what a court described as "false news" and coverage biased in favour 
of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The prosecution of the 2, along with Australian Peter Greste - deported in 
February last year - drew strong international condemnation.

Their long-running trial was entangled from the start with the wider political 
enmity between Egypt and Qatar.

(source: independent.ie)