[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 27




BANGLADESH:

Condemned prosioner dies mysteriously in Ctg jail


A young condemned prisoner died a 'mysterious' death in Chittagong Central jail 
on Friday afternoon.

A day after his death, the jail authorities on Saturday said prisoner Abu 
Raihan, 25, who was sentenced to death by a court for killing a mother and her 
daughter in Agrabad's CDA residential area, died all of a sudden, reports news 
agency UNB.

The authorities, however, could not cite any reason behind his death.

Contacted, Chittagong Central Jail deputy jailer Jahedul Alam said they found 
Raihan dead in the jail. "We're now taking steps as the jail code in this 
regard."

Asked about the reason behind his death, he declined to make any comment about 
it.

According to the statement of the case in which Raihan, son of Chittagong 
district police Havildar Abul Bashar, and his accomplice Md Shahid were given 
the death penalty, the duo hacked to death Rezia Khatun, wife of C&F 
businessman Rezaul Karim, and her 16-year-old daughter Saima Naznin on 24 March 
2014.

Police arrested the duo 2 days after the incident as Rezia's husband Rezaul 
filed a murder case in this connection.

On 1 October last year, a court here sentenced them to death. Raihan had been 
in the Chittagong Central jail since he was awarded the death sentence.

(source: prothom-alo.com)






INDIA:

Capital Punishment Reflected in Indian Cinema


A recent finding reveals that the death sentence in India is skewed against the 
poor. (Times of India, July 21, 2015). The findings are part of an on-going 
study conducted by the National Law University students with the help of the 
Law Commission currently engaged in a wider consultation with different 
stakeholders on the issue of death penalty and whether it should be abolished. 
The statistical findings spell out how interviews with 373 death row convicts 
over a 15-year period, shows that three-fourths of those given the death 
penalty belonged to backward classes, religious minorities and 75% were from 
economically weaker sections.

How far is this true? How has Hindi cinema reflected the death sentence in its 
films? Has it been neutral about delivering the death sentence in democratic 
manner without bias? Or have films reflected the bias that exists against the 
poor in real life as the above study - the first one of its kind in the 
country, bears out? 5 films described below will surprise us with the way they 
reflect the bias that exists within the death sentence in real life.

Mrigaya (1976) was a Hindi film set in a small hamlet in Bengal peopled by an 
adivasi tribe that barely ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence through hunting. 
It was based on Shikar, a short story by Oriya writer Bhagbati Charan 
Panigrahi. But Mrinal Sen said it was a story that could happen at any time, 
anywhere to anyone. Ghinua, a young Santhal, is a sharp archer and the Saahib 
or administrator favours him because he is fond of big game hunting. But during 
a fracas in the hamlet, Ghinua's wife is kidnapped by the moneylender. Ghinua 
kills the moneylender and rescues his wife. He then goes to the Saahib because 
the big game hunt is about to begin. But the Saahib sentences him to death. 
Ghinua is shocked because the same Saahib rewarded the police informer for 
killing Sholpu, a revolutionary from among the tribe. Till his death, Ghinua 
fails to understand why one man is rewarded for committing murder while he is 
sentenced to death. The Santhals are Dalits, extremely poor and illiterate too. 
Mithun Chakraborty won the National Award for his performance in this debut 
film.

Aakrosh (1980) marked the directorial debut of cinematographer Govind Nihalani. 
Aakrosh is listed among the top 60 films that shaped the Indian film industry 
spanning 6 decades. Aakrosh forms a part of the series of works, based around 
explorations in violence, written by Vijay Tendulkar. Lahanya Bhiku(Om Puri) a 
tribal arrested for killing is wife Nagi (Smita Patil) though he did not kill 
her. She was gang-raped by the so-called educated elders of the small town and 
killed later. They found Bhiku an excellent scapegoat to arrest for a murder he 
did not commit because he was an untouchable, he was illiterate and he was 
poor. Though a young lawyer Bhaskar Kulkarni (Naseeruddin Shah) trying his 
first case appeals to him to tell him his side of the story, Bhiku's only 
response is with silence. It is an explosive silence that sends its echoes far 
and wide till he finally explodes. When he is brought to the crematorium to 
light his father's funeral pyre, he picks an axe and chops off his young 
sister's head to save her from the same treatment meted out to his wife. He 
knows that the sentence for two murders will be the same as one. He knows he 
will be hanged and his last act of rescue is to kill his sister.

Massey Sahib (1985) was directed by Pradip Kishan and the main role was 
portrayed by Raghubir Yadav. It was an adaptation of Joyce Cary's novel Mister 
Johnson (1939). Francis Massey works as a clerk in the Deputy Commissioner's 
office in a small town in Central India in 1929. Despite his brown colour, his 
name gives him an attitude and he aspires to be like the colonial rulers. He 
tries his best to pander to the machinations of his boss Commissioner Charles 
Adam and indulges in machinations and manipulations of his own of which most 
are through illegal means and attract the label of corruption. But he is eager 
to please the big boss and when he is accused of corruption, his boss backs out 
of helping him. When his wife is taken back by force by her parental family, he 
requests his friend Banaji to help him fetch her back. But he refuses and he 
kills him in frustration on the spur of the moment. When he is arrested for 
Banaji's murder, Adams advises him to plead guilty to accidental manslaughter. 
But Massey refuses because he has full faith that Adams will save him in the 
end. Adams does not and Massey, a convert to Christianity, a poor and 
semi-educated man who believes he is of high birth by virtue of his name, is 
sentenced to death. Yadav picked up 2 international awards for his portrayal in 
the title role in his debut film.

Many have forgotten Prakash Jha's Damul (1985) but it is one of the boldest 
films that seamlessly explored the casteist and capitalist politics in some 
pockets of rural India like Bihar. Through the unfolding of Damul, the viewer 
is almost continuously exposed to a series of audiovisual shocks. There is 
murder in cold blood, there are mass killings of defenseless people, sexual 
blackmail of a helpless young widow of high caste, the holding of an entire 
basti to ransom, gheraoing the basti to stop the residents from casting their 
votes, subjecting them to the mandatory repayment of debts they had never 
taken, forcing them to steal cattle for the landlord who leaves them to die if 
and when caught, but not at his doorstep. The final blow comes when Sanjeevana 
(Annu Kapoor), an innocent Harijan from the Dalit basti is sentenced to be 
hanged to death because he turned wise to the landlord's wicked ways. He had 
not committed any crime. Are these shocks deliberate? Yes they are. Are they 
incidental to the script? They are that too. They are meant to shock the viewer 
out of the cool cocoon of the comfort he is watching the film in.

The camera captures the subtle nuances of the facial expressions in close-up, 
the atmosphere to place the situations in perspective in medium and long shots. 
The light in the Harijan basti is muted and natural - a glow here, a soft light 
there, the fiery flames consuming the basti and thereby heightening the 
credibility of the event or scene. The final shot shows the entire screen 
covered with a marbling effect coming from the blood-soaked palm of the 
zamindar, the camera moving in deliberate slow motion. The soundtrack is dotted 
with the humming of crickets at night and ordinary conversation in the day. The 
generous use of percussion instruments on the soundtrack, devoid of any song, 
raises the tension and underlines the drama. The editing is slick without any 
jerks and jars that the violence could have justified. "Damul" means hanging. 
Does the title refer to Samjeevana's death sentence brought about by the 
political manipulation of the powerful zamindar and his men? Or does 
Sanjeevana's death become a metaphor for the death of honesty, innocence, 
conscience and justice?

Purush (1984) directed by ace cinematographer the late Rajen Kothari, depicts a 
woman walking up to the gallows quietly, her face immobile and her gait 
dignified. Adapted by a very successful staged play by Jaywant Dalvi, this film 
tells the story of Ambika, a young school teacher, the only child of low-middle 
class parents who rises against the sexual exploitation of women by the 
powerful politician in general and her own gruesome rape by the same politician 
by cutting off his vital organ - performing a Bobbit on him. She does not 
regret her action and takes the death sentence in her stride. Her fiance 
ditches her and her mother goes insane but she sticks to her revenge that kills 
her rapist slowly and more gruesomely than the rape he committed on her. Ambika 
is a woman, an educated woman belonging to the low middle class who becomes a 
threat to the upper classes in the same neighbourhood. Her guts is another 
threat to the men in the neighbourhood who shun her for her courage and her 
capacity to resist power. When legal pursuits fail, she takes law in her own 
hands.

Cinema reflects life as these films have shown so far as the bias against 
Dalits, minorities and the poor are concerned. Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the young 
security guard who was hanged in Kolkata some years ago for raping and killing 
a school girl, did not tire of saying, "I would not have been hanged if I was 
not so poor." Does that ring a bell somewhere?

(source: The Citizen)






GLOBAL:

The Rare Psychological Disorder That Only Affects Death Row Inmates


Imagine being told you are going to die in a month. Then it's a few hours. Then 
another month. You may be set free or you may be killed, and it all depends on 
events that are completely out of your control. How long could you stand it?

The poem, "O Death, rock me asleep," is rumoured to have been written by Anne 
Boleyn in her cell as she awaited execution. While in prison, Anne was reported 
to have fallen into laughing spells and claimed that it would not rain until 
she was released or that doom would befall the kingdom seven years after she 
was executed. One morning, believing she was to be executed that day, she burst 
into tears upon being informed that her execution was delayed. She declared 
that she had hoped to be "past her pain" by the end of the day. A few years 
later Anne's sister-in-law, Jane Rochford, also went insane awaiting execution.

Regardless of the legality or morality of the death penalty, the process of 
sitting on death row, waiting to be executed, is incredibly painful. Some now 
argue that the protracted uncertainty, the rapidly changing execution dates, 
and the terrible isolation of death row, induces a form of insanity. People 
lose their minds, they commit suicide, and most importantly, they stop using 
the legal system to appeal their executions. It's called death row syndrome.

Mock Executions and Delayed Executions

Mock executions, procedures that cause people to think they are about to be 
executed, have long been established as a means of psychological torture. 
Victims are prepared for an execution, sometimes blindfolded or made to kneel, 
but the execution is not carried out. The procedure not only terrifies people, 
but makes them feel tortured hope should time come for their real execution. 
They lose all control, even the control of knowing when they are about to be 
killed.

No execution proceeding on death row is a mock execution. That would require 
deceitful intent on the part of those conducting it. Still, death row prisoners 
have been made to expect imminent death, only for the execution to be delayed. 
It's not unusual for people to come within twenty-four hours of their official 
time of execution. One man, Warren Hill, was strapped to a gurney, sedated, and 
30 minutes away from being executed, when he was granted a stay of execution. 
People spend years thinking they're going to be executed in a few months, or a 
few days. They spend the last few minutes before their execution believing 
there might be a reprieve.

Appalling Conditions

Death row syndrome is not just the result of the appeals process, but the life 
that people lead while they appeal. Though conditions vary widely, most death 
row cells are small. Many of them are roughly the size of parking spaces, and 
depending on the country, they can have multiple people inside them. Although 
some death rows are rows of open cells, allowing inmates to see and hear each 
other, others are a series of steel containers, so the inmates see no one.

Inmates rarely leave their cells. Most inmates are in their cells 22 to 23 
hours a day. If they leave, they don't go outside. They have no contact with 
anyone except, occasionally, their legal representatives. Guards slide food to 
them through a slot.

No Way Out

It's not surprising that these conditions take a toll on people's minds. Death 
row prisoners, and prisoners who have been exonerated, often describe the way 
that their fellow death row inmates deteriorate over time. They describe some 
prisoners smearing faeces on the wall and having psychotic delusions. Other 
prisoners hold long conversations with themselves. Many attempt suicide. Others 
simply sleep 20 hours a day.

Still others attempt suicide through legal means. It's not unusual for 
prisoners on death row to give up making appeals, and cooperate as much as they 
can with the execution process. One inmate's own lawyer, who had represented 
him for months on the understanding that the inmate would drop all appeals out 
of respect for the victims' families, stopped the process 75 minutes before the 
man was to be executed. The lawyer stated that he no longer believed his client 
was competent. The man had claimed that he wished to spare the victim's 
families any more pain. After spending time with the man, the lawyer unearthed 
letters in which the man confessed that he now knew why people on death row 
chose to embrace the idea of execution as escape, and that he could no longer 
stand the isolation and the cycle of appeals.

It's this wide range of responses that keeps death row syndrome from being 
recognised as a psychiatric disorder. Many argue, quite reasonably, that it 
can't be an actual mental illness if the expression of it varies so widely. 
Death row prisoners also don't make an easy group to study, as most of them are 
severely disturbed before they go on death row.

The Soering Case

Conditions on death row are not just a moral problem. They're a diplomatic 
problem as well. In the 1985, a young German man named Jens Soering was 
accused, along with his girlfriend, of murdering the girlfriend's parents. The 
murder was committed in Virginia, where Soering was studying. The pair fled to 
the United Kingdom, where they were caught. The United Kingdom was ready to 
send Soering back to the United States, when Soering appealed. His lawyers 
argued, in front of the European Court of Human Rights, that conditions on 
Virginia's death row were so harsh, and the delays so long, that a stay on 
death row was "inhuman or degrading treatment." Soering was extradited, on the 
understanding that the state of Virginia would not seek the death penalty. It 
wasn't the death penalty itself that was the human rights violation. It was the 
experience of being on death row.

Over the years, other courts have decided that long stays on death row 
constitute inhumane punishment. Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe have all passed 
laws, or made court decisions, that limited time on death row. (Many of those 
laws have been subsequently overturned because of political shifts or changes 
to the countries' constitutions.) In countries that have abolished the death 
penalty the point is moot. The United States supreme court has, so far, refused 
to hear cases which might limit the time allowed between the pronouncement of a 
death sentence and its execution.

In the end, the problem with death row syndrome is not just that it indicates 
inhumane treatment. The problem is that the very process that's meant to save 
people from unjust execution is so painful that it causes those people to seek 
their own execution. The check on the system, which people should use to fight 
injustice, has become a tool to break down resistance to the system.

(source: lifehacker.com.au)






SOUTH AFRICA:

Remains of hanged men to be exhumed


South Africa will, within the next week, commence the exhumation of 83 
political prisoners who were previously hanged at the then Pretoria Central 
Prison during the apartheid era, Justice Minister Michael Masutha announced on 
Wednesday.

Speaking at the launch of the gallows exhumation project at the Kgosi Mampuru 
II Correctional Centre in Pretoria, Masutha said the dignity of at least 83 of 
the 130 people who were hanged for politically-related offences between 1960 
and 1990 will be restored from April 4 when the Missing Persons Task Team in 
the National Prosecuting Authority will be conducting the exhumations of their 
remains.

At least 130 people were hanged for politically-related offences between 1960 
and 1990. The remains of 47 of mainly members of the Pan Africanist Congress 
and United Democratic Front anti-apartheid organisations had been exhumed at 
various stages, while 83 of them remain buried in unmarked graves.

"Our Truth and Reconciliation Unit and various provincial governments will then 
arrange for the remains to be formally handed over to the families for 
dignified reburials," said Masutha.

Those sentenced to death were transferred to Kgosi Mampuru II, then known as 
Pretoria Central Maximum Security prison, for execution.

Famous people who were executed at the gallows include Solomon Mahlangu, 
Benjamin Moloise, Michael Lucas, and Thelle Simon Mogoerane while others such 
as suspended Independent Police Investigative Directorate head Robert McBride 
were reprieved.

They were buried in unmarked graves at Mamelodi West and Rebecca Street 
cemeteries. Of the 83 human remains, 69 are buried in Mamelodi West and 14 at 
Rebecca Street.

Madeleine Fullard, head of the NPA's missing persons task team, said they had 
partial records of where the bodies were buried.

In February 1990, President FW de Klerk declared a moratorium on executions in 
the country, while the death penalty itself was abolished in 1995.

(source: iol.co.za)






SOMALIA:

Somali Court upholds death sentence against journalists killer


A high tribunal court in Mogadishu upheld a death penalty sentence against 
Hassan Hanafi found guilty of killing 5 journalists and media workers between 
2007 - 2009.

"After evidences, we we found him guilty of assassinating 5 journalists,
the high court of the Somalia's armed forces upheld the death sentence
against Hassan Hanafi Hajji," said Liban Ali Yarow, the chairman of the
army court.

The defendant had previously appealed his conviction on murder charges, but the 
high court has dismissed during Friday's hearing.

Hanafi who worked as Al shabaab media officer was captured by Somali 
intelligence agency forces while trying to escape justice and sneak into 
nighbouring Kenya in 2014, the court judge said.

(source: mareeg.com)






CHINA:

Kiwi drugs-accused Peter Gardner could face death penalty


The New Zealander allegedly caught trying to leave China with $25 million of 
methamphetamine is expecting to find out his fate within the next month.

Peter Gardner was stopped at Guangzhou Baiyan International Airport in 2014, 
while travelling back to his home in Australia with then-girlfriend Kalynda 
Davis.

Gardner claimed ownership of the bags when questioned - but denied the drugs 
found inside were his.

Peter Gardner was charged with drug trafficking after being caught with 30kg of 
methamphetamine in China.

He said he had been duped into carrying the 30kgs of methamphetamine, and 
thought he was transporting an order of bodybuilding peptides including 
Melanotan.

The pair were arrested, but while Davis was later freed and sent home, Gardner 
was locked up.

He went to trial in front of a panel of 3 judges last May, and a verdict had 
been expected within a few weeks of the 1-day hearing's conclusion.

If found guilty, Gardner could face the death penalty.

Gardner's parents, Sandra Cornelius and Russell Gardner, travelled to China for 
the hearing and were granted 2 short visits with their son.

After Gardner's arrest, it emerged it was his 2nd trip to China - he had 
previously made one other journey to bring back the legal, 
performance-enhancing peptides.

Gardner's lawyer Craig Tuck says his client was coping well with the extended 
wait for a verdict.

"Peter is very thankful for the love and support of his friends and family in 
New Zealand and Australia."

Tuck said he was now expecting a verdict by the end of April.

If convicted, there would be a 10-day period to appeal, he said.

(source: sutff.co.nz)






TAIWAN:

Ministry death penalty review too narrow: lawyer


A Ministry of Justice-initiated review of "controversial" death penalty cases 
is too narrow and self-limiting, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty 
said yesterday.

"Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay is in the transition period between 
administrations and should not have issued the order," said Lin Tzu-wei, the 
head of the alliance's legal department, adding that while the "direction" was 
commendable, because the scope of the review was narrowly limited to 
"controversial" cases, it could lead to the "deception" that a full review had 
been conducted.

"What is important about most of these cases is not whether the person 
committed the crime, but rather what degree of punishment is appropriate," the 
lawyer said.

Luo announced the review this week at the suggestion of Supreme Prosecutor Yen 
Ta-ho.

The review is warranted because of the irreversible nature of the death 
penalty, she said.

Her order requires a working group from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to 
reopen files of inmates in controversial death penalty cases whose sentencing 
has been finalized, taking remedial measures if any new evidence or file 
inconsistencies that might be advantageous to the convict are found.

The order came following prosecutors' decision last week to apply for a retrial 
of a case involving Cheng Hsing-tse following the emergence of new forensic 
evidence casting doubt on his conviction for a 2002 killing of a police 
officer.

The case was reportedly the 1st for which prosecutors sought a retrial after 
the Supreme Court had already issued a final ruling upholding the death 
sentence.

Lin said the files of the nation's 42 death row inmates should be reviewed 
because of widespread legal irregularities such as failing to have the 
opportunity to testify before the Supreme Court and being tried before court 
rulings and legal amendments established their right to question witnesses in 
court.

(source: Taipei Times)