[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 4




INDONESIA:

Indonesia is preparing to execute prisoners, police official confirms ---- 
Spokesman says firing squad has been in training, risking backlash from foreign 
governments with citizens on death row


Indonesia is preparing to execute several prisoners, a police official has 
said, confirming reports that a year-long pause in the death penalty could be 
nearing an end.

Authorities have not said how many prisoners will face the firing squad or if 
foreigners will be among them. 2 Britons, Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth 
Cashmore, are on death row in the south-east Asian nation, which has a 
notoriously hardline attitude towards drug offences.

"We have had a warning since last month to prepare the place," said the Central 
Java provincial police spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.

"We carried out some rehabilitation of the location, like painting and repairs, 
because there will probably be more people who will be executed," he said, 
adding that the firing squad had been training and receiving counselling.

He declined to say how many prisoners would be executed, or when, or if there 
would be foreigners among them.

After 14 prisoners were executed in January and April 2015, drawing widespread 
international condemnation, scheduled executions were postponed, with officials 
saying the government preferred to focus on reviving the economy.

But President Joko Widodo's administration has pledged to resume executions by 
firing squad at an island prison on Nusa Kambangan, claiming they are a 
necessary response to the country's "drug emergency".

The most recent round of executions, in which eight men, including seven 
foreigners, were shot dead in April last year, sparked condemnation from 
Australia and Brazil, which had pleaded for their nationals to be spared. 2 
Australian men, the Bali 9 pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were 
executed, prompting the temporary withdrawal from Jakarta of Canberra's 
ambassador.

Authorities have not given a breakdown of the numbers of people sentenced to 
death, but according to Amnesty International, there were at least 165 people 
on death row at the end of 2015, and more than 40% of those were sentenced for 
drug-related crimes.

Many of them are foreigners, and citizens of France, Britain and the 
Philippines are known to be among them.

Sandiford, from the UK, was sentenced to death after being convicted in 2013 of 
trying to smuggle almost 4kg of cocaine into Bali.

Cashmore was sentenced to life imprisonment - later raised to death by firing 
squad - after he was caught with 6.5kg of crystal meth in his luggage at 
Jakarta airport in 2011.

A Philippine maid, Mary Jane Veloso, got a last-minute reprieve in April last 
year in response to a request from Manila after a woman whom Veloso had accused 
of planting drugs in her luggage gave herself up to police in the Philippines.

Her lawyer said he hoped she would not be in the next batch of prisoners to be 
executed. "The execution of Mary Jane should be delayed because we are waiting 
for the legal process in the Philippines," said the lawyer, Agus Salim.

A lawyer for Serge Atlaoui, a French national, said authorities had not 
contacted the French embassy on whether his client would be executed in the 
next batch. Atlaoui, who denies being the "chemist" for an ecstasy factory 
outside Jakarta, exhausted all legal appeals in mid-2015.

The government typically informs the embassies of foreign convicts only days 
before their executions.

Indonesia imposed a moratorium on executions for 5 years before resuming them 
in 2013. It has executed 14 people, most of them foreigners, under Widodo.

Indonesia's representative at a UN narcotics conference was jeered last month 
when he defended the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a penalty 
that is contrary to international law.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Death penalty calls for schoolgirl's rapists


The mother of an Indonesian schoolgirl killed following an alleged gang rape 
has called for the death penalty for the youths accused of the attack.

Prosecutors have called for sentences of 10 years for the 7 youths, but the 
girl's parents and activists say tougher penalties need to apply and parliament 
must address violence against women.

Yuyun, 14, left school at around lunchtime on April 2 when she was allegedly 
set upon by a group of 14 males in her village in Bengkulu, Sumatra.

The gang had drunk palm liquor or 'tuak' before snatching her, raping her and 
strangling her, Bengkulu Provincial Police spokesman Sudarno told AAP on 
Wednesday.

The schoolgirl's bound body was found 2 days later, dumped near the crime 
scene. Some of the alleged perpetrators are believed to have taken part in the 
search.

Sudarno said prosecutors have called for the 7 youth - aged 16 and 17 - who are 
currently facing trial, to be jailed for 10 years for the offences of 'forced' 
sex and violence causing death.

But the teenager's mother Yani said she wanted to see her daughter's attackers 
receive the death penalty or life.

'All of you other mothers, please take care of your daughters. Let Yuyun be the 
only victim ... There shall be no more other than Yuyun.'

5 men, aged up to 23, have been arrested with a search underway for the 
remaining 2 alleged perpetrators.

The case was pushed into the national spotlight this week after activists waged 
a social media campaign.

1 such Jakarta-based activist, Kate Walton, said she first heard of Yuyun's 
case last week and had been 'shocked' to discover it had garnered so little 
attention.

Utilising local media reports, Ms Walton has been gathering data on cases like 
Yuyun, and by her count 44 women and girls have been killed by men in Indonesia 
since the start of the year.

'We are trying to demonstrate that cases like Yuyun are not isolated,' she told 
AAP.

Adriana Venny, from the women's group Komnas Perempuan, said they had placed a 
draft bill before parliament more than 2 years ago to tackle sexual violence, 
but it had been languishing in the 'temporary list'.

The bill seeks to increase penalties, widen Indonesia's limited definition of 
rape and include further sex offences, she said.

Venny hopes parliament will finally listen.

'It's time to push and to pass this bill immediately because we can wait no 
longer,' she told AAP.

On Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo tweeted: 'We're all in grief for 
the tragic departure of YY. Catch and punish the perpetrators ... Women and 
children must be protected from violence.

(source: skynews.com.au)





**********

3rd round of death penalty a matter of choosing a day: Attorney General


It is now only a matter of choosing the day on which the 3rd round of 
executions of drug convicts will be carried out, Attorney General Muhammad 
Prasetyo said on Tuesday.

The Attorney General's Office ( AGO ) has begun preparations for the 
executions, set to take place on the notorious prison island of Nusakambangan 
in Cilacap, Central Java.

"There is only the choosing of the specific date. That's what I haven't been 
able to decide," Prasetyo said on Tuesday as quoted by newsportal Kompas.com.

He refused to disclose any details about what was delaying his decision. He 
also refrained from answering questions from reporters regarding the number of 
convicts who are to be executed.

The Attorney General has confirmed that Filipino Mary Jane Veloso and 
Indonesian drug kingpin Freddy Budiman are not on the list.

Veloso exclusion is due to an ongoing legal process in a separate but related 
case in her country.

Meanwhile, Freddy, who was found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills 
from China to Indonesia in 2012, has filed for a case review, Prasetyo said.

The prosecutors will execute convicts whose verdicts are final, he added.

Prasteyo said he hoped the third round of executions would be carried out 
without any public uproar, such as that which has previously arisen after the 
executions of death row convicts.

"We do not want any racket. I have said many times, this is not something that 
is fun, but we have to do it nonetheless. Because no matter what, it concerns 
the well-being of the nation," he said.

Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen Condro Kirono said he had prepared the 
firing squad, doctors as well as clerics and priests for the executions. He 
said a firing squad of 14 personnel was deployed to execute 1 convict.

However, he did not know the exact date either, as coordination between the AGO 
and police had been made prior to the execution.

There were 65 drug convicts on death row as of 2015, according to AGO data.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration has executed 2 groups of 
death-row convicts, both of which were carried out last year and comprise a 
total of 14 people.

The 1st round was conducted on January 18 with 6 drug convicts executed.

The 2nd round shortly after, on April 29, especially dominated media headlines, 
since several of the 8 people who were executed were foreigners whose deaths 
caused tensions between Indonesian and the respective home countries of the 
convicts.

(source: The Jakarta Post)

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

Gang Rape, Murder of Indonesian Girl Sparks Call for Reform


The rape and murder of a teenage girl by 14 men has reignited calls in 
Indonesia for a sexual violence law that is languishing in Parliament to be 
enacted.

The attack on the girl in Bengkulu province in western Indonesia occurred April 
2 and went largely unnoticed at a national level until social media users began 
highlighting its brutality.

Activists from the Alliance for Community Care of Victims of Sexual Violence 
called on the government on Tuesday to urgently pass the Elimination of Sexual 
Violence Act.

Half of the suspects are less than 18 years old and the maximum sentence they 
can receive because of Indonesia's child protection law is 10 years.

A local police chief in Bengkulu, Eka Chandra, said trials have begun for the 7 
minors and prosecutors are seeking 10-year sentences.

Local media reported the girl was dragged into a forest by 1 of the 
perpetrators on her way home from school. She was found 3 days later.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection, 
said the adult suspects could receive the death penalty if there is evidence 
the girl's murder was premeditated.

2 of the men are still at large.

(source: Associated Press)






TAIWAN:

Cheng Hsing-tse freed from death row----5,231 Days in Jail: Cheng was happy to 
be reunited with his mother in time for Mother's Day after 14 years in prison. 
He is to be retried after new evidence surfaced


The Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled that death-row 
inmate Cheng Hsing-tse should be released on bail pending a retrial on the 
charges that have seen him imprisoned for 14 years, including 10 on death row.

The 49-year-old Cheng, who has always maintained his innocence, walked out of 
the Taichung Prison in the afternoon and was met by family members and 
supporters, including representatives of the Taiwan Association for Innocence 
and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.

After 5,231 days of incarceration, Cheng said: "This taste of freedom is a 
really great feeling."

"I have been imprisoned for the past 14 years, but now I am so happy that I can 
spend this Mother's Day with my family," he said as he embraced his mother.

Some supporters came with sunflowers and handed one to Cheng, as they hailed 
his release as a victory for human rights and shouted: "Cheng is innocent of 
the crime" and "We don't want to have any more wrongful convictions."

Cheng's attorney Law Bing-cheng said the day has been late in coming because 
his client is innocent and has been jailed for too long.

"Today he is set free, and for this we have to thank the prosecutors and the 
judges. This case has also set milestones in Taiwan's judiciary, because it is 
the 1st time that a man whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court is 
going to receive a retrial. I am certain Cheng has the courage to face the 
retrial so that he can clear his name," Law said.

Yesterday's decision barred Cheng from leaving the country or going out to sea.

Cheng's case has gone through 7 trials and 7 retrials, including the Supreme 
Court upholding his death sentence in 2006.

A retrial was ordered after Cheng's defense team presented new evidence raising 
doubts about his conviction for the death of police officer Su Hsien-pi during 
an exchange of gunfire at a KTV parlor in Taichung in 2002 and prosecutors 
concurred.

The prosecutors' application in March for a retrial was the 1st time in the 
nation's history that a retrial has been sought in a case where the Supreme 
Court's final ruling upheld the original death sentence.

Cheng is the 5th death row inmate to be released from prison for a retrial, 
including the Hsichih Trio case of Su Chien-ho, Liu Bin-lang and Chuang 
Lin-hsun, who were found not guilty in 2012.

Human rights groups have long highlighted what they said were defects in the 
original investigation and questionable evidence used by prosecutors, including 
a confession that Cheng had been tortured and coerced into making.

After re-examining the forensic evidence and findings from a new investigative 
report, Taichung prosecutor Wu Tsui-fang decided a retrial was needed because 
the evidence indicated that another suspect had fired the fatal gunshot that 
killed Su, not Cheng.

(source: Taipei Times)






SINGAPORE:

See:https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-republic-of-singapore-cabinet-of-the-republic-of-singapore-savejabing-grant-clemency-to-sarawakian-kho-jabing

(source: change.org)






IRAN----executions

Iran regime hangs another 5 prisoners


The mullahs' regime in Iran on Tuesday hanged 5 prisoners, including a man in 
public.

4 death-row prisoners were hanged in Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj, west of 
Tehran.

They were identified as Ahmad al-Tafi, Abdolhamid Baqeri, Majid Imani, and Reza 
Hosseini.

Another prisoner, identified only by his first name Avaz, was hanged in a 
public square in the port city of Nour, northern Iran, on Tuesday.

The hangings bring to at least 62 the number of people executed in Iran since 
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a 
juvenile offender.

Commenting last week on the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran, 
Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National 
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: "In the month of April, during and 
after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy 
chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran."

"The increasing trend of executions indicates that the visits of senior 
European officials to Iran not only have failed to improve the human rights 
situation; rather, they have given a message of silence and inaction to the 
mullahs. This has emboldened the clerical regime in stepping up executions and 
suppressing the Iranian people. This is the regime that has been the record 
holder of executions per capita globally in 2015. This bitter reality is not an 
issue of pride for any of the guests of the religious fascism," he added.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April 
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate 
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society, 
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates 
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval 
regime."

Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for 
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with 7 EU 
commissioners for discussions with the regime???s officials on trade and other 
areas of cooperation.

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to 
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East 
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as 
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation 
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was 
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the 
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that 
belong to the people."

(source: NCR-Iran)

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

3 Prisoners Hanged in Iran


On Sunday May 1, 1 prisoner was reportedly hanged at Nahavand Prison (in the 
western province of Hamadan) and 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Mashhad 
Central Prison (in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan).

According to a report by the Judiciary in Hamadan, the prisoner hanged at 
Nahavand was executed on murder charges. The report identifies the prisoner 
only by the initials, M.R.

The state-run news site, Rokna, reported on the executions of the 2 unrelated 
prisoners in Mashhad, but did not publish their names or initials. According to 
the report, 1 of the prisoners was hanged on murder charges while the other was 
a 25-year-old hanged on rape charges.

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

2 Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges


2 unrelated prisoners with drug related charges were reportedly hanged at 
Ardebil Central Prison on the morning of Tuesday May 3. According to the press 
department of the Judiciary in Ardebil, 1 of the prisoners was charged with 
possession of 70 grams of heroin and crytal meth while the other was charged 
with trafficking 1 kilogram and 700 grams of heroin.

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

4 Prisoners in Danger of Execution on Drug Charges in Ghezel Hesar Prison


4 prisoners on death row on drug related charges have been reportedly 
transferred to solitary confinement cells in Ghezel Hesar Prison in preparation 
for their executions. The prison is located in the city of Karaj (northern 
Iranian province Alborz).

According to close sources, 3 of the prisoners were transferred from Unit 2 of 
Ghezel Hesar Prison and 1 of the prisoners was transferred from Tehran Central 
Prison (also known as Fashafouye). These prisoners have been identified as: 
Majid Imani, Abdolhamid Bameri, Ahmad Altafi, and Reza Hosseini (from Tehran 
Central Prison).

According to IHR's annual death penalty report, Iranian authorities executed at 
least 638 people in 2015 on drug related charges. After China, Iran is home to 
the most executions in the world. IHR reported at least 969 executions carried 
out in 2015 alone.

(source for all: Iran Human Rights)






INDIA:

Soumya's mother hits out at delay in execution of rapist


Sumathi, mother of 23-year-old Soumya who was pushed out of a train and raped 
and murdered on the tracks in 2011, said delay in execution of the man 
convicted in the case contributed to the recurrence of the similar rape and 
murder of the law student at Perumbavoor.

Govindachami, the convict, was awarded death penalty by a fast track court in 
November 2011 and the sentence was subsequently upheld by the high court in 
December, 2013. "But he is still alive as his appeal is pending in the Supreme 
Court. The government has not yet appointed a special prosecutor in the case. 
Legal experts say an advocate closely familiar with the case should be arguing 
the case in the Supreme Court as the conviction was largely based on 
circumstantial evidences and not on the basis of the testimonies of 
eye-witnesses,'' Sumathi said.

"We must ensure that no more mothers have to wet the earth with their tears for 
their daughters. The accused in such cases must be handed out quick and extreme 
punishments, which will have a deterrent value. In fact, the public must be 
allowed to handle such cases,'' Sumathi said. She, however, pointed out that 
the investigations in the Perumbavoor case had several lapses. The brutality 
came to light only after 2 or 3 days of the incident and the accused is still 
absconding, she said.

In the Soumya case, the investigating team led by DSP Radhakrishnan Nair and CI 
Sasidharan as well as the Special prosecutor A Suresan had meticulously 
followed up the case and this led to the awarding of death sentence to 
Govindachami, She said.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Listening to the Unheard: The Experience of Interviewing Death Row 
Prisoners----Student researchers who interviewed death row prisoners in India 
and their families spoke to The Wire about their experiences.


In May 2013, a group of people based out of the National Law University in 
Delhi decided to try and fill a big data gap in India - information on the 
death penalty and death row prisoners. Their aim was to conduct a research 
project that would look at the socio-economic background of death row 
prisoners, their experiences in the criminal justice system, what their 
families went through and so on. A comprehensive empirical base for talking 
about the death penalty in India.

Led by Anup Surendranath, a teacher at NLUD, the project tied up with the 
National Legal Services Authority, making it easier for them to gain access to 
the death row prisoners. In spite of that, there was 1 state that gave them no 
access at all and another that did not let them meet a section of prisoners. 
Though the project hired a few lawyers and legal researchers, a majority of 
those doing the fieldwork and data entry were student volunteers from NLUD. In 
the 2 1/2 years that a project lasted, close to 90 student researchers worked 
on it at different points in time. Some of them stayed for close to the entire 
period.

For most of these students, these experiences were different from ones they'd 
ever had before. Not only did they go to various prisons, speaking with 
prisoners who had been sentenced to death and faced perhaps the harshest side 
of the criminal justice system, they had also travelled to extremely remote 
locations across the country looking for the families of the prisoners, 
speaking to them about their experiences. About a week before the release of 
the report that contains all their work, they sat down with The Wire to talk 
about their experiences, what made them keep working with project and what they 
had learnt about India's criminal justice system.

"(The students) have given up on a lot of their internships for this project. 
Sticking with the same thing for so long is very rare among competitive law 
school students, because it's still only 1 line on your CV - whether you worked 
for 24 months or two," Surendranath said, smiling at the student researchers 
present in the room.

Research experiences and stories from the fieldwork

"I joined the project almost as soon as I joined college," said Gale Andrews, a 
3rd year student who worked with the project for 2 1/2 years. "Since we were 
just starting out, it seemed like a really exciting thing to do, and I think 
Anup sold it very well."

"There is this one family I keep taking about. It was a completely remote area, 
a tiny mud house with a thatched roof. I had met the prisoner about a week 
before that and he was 2 years older than me. He seemed like a sweet, friendly 
guy. I remember that I was taking notes during his interview, translating from 
Hindi to English simultaneously. When we asked him how much he had studied, he 
said proudly that he could write his name. When we asked if he could write it 
in English, he said 'No, I'm not that good yet, I can only write it in Hindi'. 
The idea that he was 2 years older than me and he's so proud of just writing 
his name - whereas it didn't even occur to me that it's so natural for me to be 
so literate," Andrews said. "When I went and met the family, the thing that 
struck me was when we asked them for the lawyer's contact details. This was a 
question we always asked. They pointed to the wall - they'd written lawyers 
number in chalk because they don't keep paper or a pen at home. They also don't 
have a telephone; they just use the village phone. Just seeing how disconnected 
they were - they didn't know anything about the case, they don't have the money 
to visit the prisoner. They didn't even know what the case was about, they only 
learnt things from rumours in the neighbourhood. It was impossible to get 
information from them for the project because they're so alienated from 
everything, they had no access to information. It just hits you then how unfair 
things are when they play out."

"For me, that's why I stayed on with the project," she added, explaining her 2 
1/2-year stint with this project instead of going for other internships. "Every 
time it kills you that you're staying up till 2 am filling up a sheet, you 
think okay, you're filling up this sheet because eventually it will come out - 
and that's what they wanted, they wanted their stories to come out. So what 
kept me going was knowing that we were the only ones willing to listen to them, 
and for them that was so valuable."

"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them, and no one 
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of 
responsibility."

Some of the students had trouble explaining to their parents why they wanted to 
travel across the country, meeting not only death row prisoners in jails but 
also their families, spread across states. "We're in the same batch, but I 
didn't join the project the same time as Gale did," said Jagata Krishna 
Swaminathan. "I joined it later because my parents were wary of sending me off 
into different parts of the country. I'm from Bangalore and at one point the 
project was look for Kannada speakers to do the interviews in Karnataka. That's 
when my parents agreed, because they said 'Okay, Karnataka we know'."

"I don't think I've ever worked this much for anything else in my life, and if 
you ask me I don't think I could give you a clear answer," Swaminathan added. 
"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them and no one 
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of 
responsibility."

"I think it's fair to say that even though we remember the entire experience, 
everyone has that one story that you carry with you. For me it was to do with a 
female death row prisoner," she said, remembering the case of a prisoner she 
met just after the landmark Shatrugan Chauhan judgment. Before this judgment, 
death row prisoners were kept in separate barracks. "For a female prisoner, 
what being kept in a separate barrack translates into is basically 1 or 2 women 
being completely isolated from everyone else, unlike the men's death row 
barracks in the state, which had about 30-35 prisoners. The isolation that the 
prisoner we met felt was then far greater. I also met her husband on death row 
and he was talking about how he was only allowed to meet her once in every 15 
days. She didn't really have much contact with people, so every time he met her 
he felt that she was deteriorating, that he could just see her giving up 
slowly. When I went in to meet her, she was eating breakfast so I was waiting 
for her to finish. While waiting I was talking to other people there - some of 
the prisoners and the prison guard. The guard pointed to this dark room at the 
very end of a hall, saying that's where she had to stay before, though now 
she's is allowed to stay with the others."

"The 1st prisoner interview I did was someone in solitary confinement," said 
Chinmay Konjia, relating the experience that shocked him most. "It was quite 
shocking. Our proximity to the prisoner was such that the person was inside the 
cell and we were standing outside. It was horrific. People had told us about 
certain other states and the prison authorities being extremely cooperative - 
letting the prisoners out so that they could sit down and talk face to face. I 
was absolutely not prepared for something like this. This was also the 1st 
female prisoner that Anup interviewed. For solitary confinement, you're taken 
in through doors after doors. She was allowed to leave their rooms for about 15 
minutes a day, and looking at the size of their room that was just unimaginable 
for me. Everything from eating to going to the toilet happened within that 
room. Even when you go out for those 15 minutes, there is nobody except the 
prison guards. Such things really got to me."

"Of course the interviews went well despite us not being prepared for 
everything that we saw, because people want to share their stories. Later we 
met the husband of this prisoner, who was in the male solitary confinement. He 
explained to us how we wouldn't be able to comprehend their lifestyle - from 
small things like mosquitoes in the jail to things like they can't be given 
thick blankets, because it's too hot, but they can't be given given thin 
blankets, because then there's a danger of them hanging themselves. It was all 
so surreal. Every time the people in solitary confinement would hear even a 
small thing like a lock being turned, they think today's the day that 
everything is going to come down. These things were extremely tough, at least 
for me," he added.

"Also, for some of the prisoners we met, the number of years that they had 
spent inside the jail was unthinkable. People often use the 5% number to argue 
for the death penalty, saying it's really the rarest of rare cases," he 
continued, referring to the fact that less than 5% of people sentenced to death 
by trial courts are finally sentenced to death by the Supreme Court. "What you 
are forgetting in this whole debate is the 15-20 years that a person has spent 
on death row. You could see the impact of those years once you meet these 
prisoners. It's not the same thing those in life imprisonment go through. The 
minute you are accused the rules in prison change for you. There'll be solitary 
confinement, shorter meeting period, etc. Everything changes because you're on 
death row. You're not even allowed to work, meaning that the little bit of 
money you could send to your family is also gone. Families told us about how 
they've had to keep living off debt, since one of their only earning members 
had been locked up. But even then, these families somehow get you a bottle of 
Thums Up to drink."

The sensitivities of family interviews

Given what they wanted to talk about, interviews with prisoners' families also 
had to be dealt with extremely carefully. The researchers did not use a set 
survey-like questionnaire. Though they had guidelines, they were encouraged to 
allow the conversation to progress naturally. "When we went out to talk to 
people, we were very aware that the fact that someone from their family has 
been sentenced to death will probably be constantly playing on their minds. So 
the 1st effort was always to try and make them comfortable with us, talking to 
them a little, trying to get to know them, introducing ourselves. If you just 
go question by question, like a survey, not only are they less comfortable, I 
think you also give up on a lot of valuable information," said Lakshya Gupta. 
"In a way I think we were well-placed to conduct these interviews - we're just 
law students, so harmless I guess, and people are more comfortable talking."

Surendranath agreed that allowing families and prisoners to speak naturally was 
very important. "They often wanted to talk about things that weren't relevant 
to our project, like how they didn't do it, for example. This was never a 
question, but since it was the 1st time they were getting to talk about it, 
prisoners wanted to express themselves. We understood that we should let them 
talk, not say things like 'we don't want to listen to this, it's not why we're 
here'. We learnt to slowly guide them into conversations you do want to have. I 
think emotionally it was a huge challenge to explain the utility of any of 
this, or why they should give you their time. I guess a lot of that went into 
making this permanent - just confronting that repeatedly," he said, referring 
to the full-time Centre on the Death Penalty that emerged out of the project, 
working on litigation as well as research.

Students also talked about the dual risk while preparing for family interviews 
- if you did all the background research, there was the chance you could form a 
bias on the case and perhaps against the family, whether you wanted to or not. 
But go in blind, and you can come across as completely ignorant, as if you 
haven't done your homework.

Difficult to be prepared for everything

"I think in some ways we were really unprepared," Surendranath added. "I don't 
think any of us could envisage the intensity of some of the reactions from 
families who didn't want to talk to us. The sensitivities around them having 
moved because of the case - we predicted it to some extent, that families might 
have moved, there might be stigma. You can't just go around asking neighbours, 
'Jinke bete ko phaansi ki saza mili hai woh kahaan milenge? (Where is the 
family whose son has been sentenced to death)'. There are a lot of sensitive 
things to care of."

Shreya Rastogi, a legal researcher with the project and now a litigator with 
the centre, echoed Surendranath's sentiments on some things being impossible to 
prepare for. "Sometimes it was something as simple as the fact that you would 
expect, at least for family interviews, that you're going to into someone's 
house, to sit down and have a conversation. But then you realise the situation 
in which some of these families are placed. Like for instance, this one family 
interview I was a part of, the family had been thrown out of their house 
because of the kind of the media pressure that was built around that case. They 
were basically living on the street outside the jail. There's a culpability 
that's attached to the family as well - they weren't even allowed to gather 
their things. Let alone if the prisoner is guilty, the family is facing the 
punishment too. This is in Bombay and we did the interview in July, so if you 
know Bombay at all you know that it's always pouring. So we couldn't even find 
a dry place where we could sit down and talk to them. Those are the kinds of 
situations where you find yourself doing these interviews and then you're 
supposed to cover their socio-economic circumstances, which is staring at you 
in the face while you do the interview. The part of that interview that will 
really stick with me was that even though they had absolutely nothing on them, 
at the end of the interview they offered if they could take me to the nearest 
chaiwallah and buy me some tea. How can you have nothing and still have 
something to offer?"

Each case and each state was also extremely different, making it harder for the 
team to know what to expect.

Thinking about the criminal justice system

Going through this process, students felt they had a new perspective on the 
criminal justice system, the people in it and cases they read.

"I want to talk about the jail and police authorities. There are usually 2 ways 
we speak about them, 2 narratives, both of which are very black and white. One 
is about how they're great, how they're authorities so they must be respected, 
all of that. Not criticising them at all. The other is to see them as 
adversaries, imposing an oppressive system. While there's merit to both, 1 
thing that struck me is that they're just cogs in a much larger oppressive 
system" said Pawani Mathur. "I think we forget that they're also human beings 
who are also affected by this process, though they may not show it. There were 
jailors that we met who were extremely sympathetic. One of the cases in 
Chhattisgarh, for instance, the jailer would call me up voluntarily and ask, 
'What's happening in the case? Tell me because I want to tell him.' That was 
very important for me, to appreciate the grey in all these situations. They 
also say things like, 'He's not that bad, there's no need to hang him. But we 
have to do what we have to do'."

Mathur also talked about an encounter with the legal system that left her 
surprised. "We discovered some new facts on a case during out research process, 
which weren't on record during the trial. It was about the age of the accused. 
So then Anup sent us back looking for proof, we did some more research. We 
collected all their school certificates, got it all verified by the sarpanch. 
We did so much groundwork, as a student I didn't even know all of that was 
necessary before you could file a case. We didn't have any litigators at that 
time so we gave the case to somebody outside. One thing that really struck me 
was that when the case went before a court, some of us were standing at the 
back when the judgment was to be announced. We couldn't properly hear what was 
going on. Then suddenly there was a commotion and everyone walked out. We had 
no idea what happened, so we went outside and asked the lawyers. He told us 
'Dismiss ho gaya (It got dismissed)'. And we didn't even hear it. Before all 
the commotion happened, one of the judges at the bench made a reference to a 
Sanskrit shlok (he only gave the meaning, not the shlok itself). And the 
meaning was something like if a king doesn't ensure adequate punishment, then 
the sin of the offender is passed onto him. And I thought okay, it's 
problematic, but okay. But this was before I knew he'd dismissed the case and 
was then saying it. In my head it was just that all of that work, that journey, 
all of that came down to one Sanskrit shlok. It really showed how the judge 
views himself, and how he viewed the justice system and his position in it."

"I think working on the project has had an impact on how I read cases," added 
another student researcher, Devina Malaviya. "Because earlier I used to read 
cases as very matter of fact documents. But after going through this entire 
process and doing this analysis, you start viewing cases very differently. You 
realise its not just about that 1 case, there's probably a back story to it 
that hasn't been mentioned here. Its about the family of the accused as well, 
and of course the victim. It's not just 'X vs. State of Maharashtra', that X 
has a life, a backstory."

"So many of the prisoners have told us they had no idea what happened in 
courts. And nobody explains anything to them."

Seeing the accused and how their case is handled is something others took away 
from the project as well. "For me, the impact it's had is what can we do 
different as lawyers or law students," said Swaminathan. "You're seeing how no 
one is paying attention to the accused, one of the parties present with the 
biggest ramifications. But the focus is always on other things. The prisoner 
always looks so lost about everything. They don't know what's happening, what 
they're supposed to do. They're supposed to plead with the judge, saying my 
lawyer isn't here, I don't have their number. So many of the prisoners have 
told us they had no idea what happened in courts. And nobody explains anything 
to them."

"So when I did my internship elsewhere, with a lawyer, in my head I would keep 
going through the lawyer's questionnaire for the project that asked did you do 
X, Y and Z, and the answer was almost always no," added Andrews. "It plays in 
my mind, how much is the lawyer actually doing for the accused, how much are 
they talking to them? That one rare lawyer, who may not be very senior, but you 
can see is not ignoring the accused, actually interacting, is the one you know 
you want to work with. I just can't get over the image of the prisoner saying I 
don't know anything that's happening in my case."

The intricacies of how cases are handled was also brought into question. 
"Another thing you start to really question is the quality of evidence," said 
Rastogi. "The evidence used to sentence people to death is largely 
circumstantial, to use that to sentence people to death is so bizarre. They 
have a witness who isn???t very sure, who just identified a figure. Or when you 
meet the prisoner they tell you they were made to sign blank sheets of paper 
and then stories written on them on the basis of which the weapon is apparently 
discovered. You have that evidence along with the medical evidence, and the 
decal evidence in some cases is also just post mortems with signs of rape, 
maybe some clothes with blood recovered that could be the accused's. And that's 
about it. So one of the most baffling things is that there is so much 
side-stepping in the system. Even if you might have the right person, the 
investigation is so flawed. And that procedure goes through our courts, 
unchallenged."

"I think 1 assumption people seem to have is that the accused is equally placed 
with the state, without taking into account instances of torture, etc. You 
can't expect prisoners to say 'I won't sign this document because it doesn't 
exactly match what I said'. There's also almost blind reliance on 'expert 
evidence'. Sometimes with blood stains all they do is match the blood group - 
which could belong to 1/4 of the population - and call that expert evidence," 
added student researchers, in agreement with Rastogi.

"The more you look at this system and hear the prisoners' stories, it just 
seems like a weird, absurd, dark comedy," said Maitreyi Misra, head of the 
research unit at the Centre on the Death Penalty. "With DNA evidence, judges 
are just so taken in because its some new-fangled science, that must be true 
because its science. You're explaining things to prisoners in a language they 
don't know. Nobody is understanding each other, but somehow they all think 
they're in it together."

The Death Penalty India Report will be released on May 6.

(source: The Wire)






SRI LANKA:

5 Charged with Death Penalty


5 suspects who were found guilty over a murder in Lunawa, Moratuwa were given 
capital punishment today.

The order was given by Panadura High Court judge Vikum Kaluarachchi.

The 2nd defendant of the case was released from all accusations while the other 
5 were charged leveled against 13 indictable offenses.

The death penalty receivers are residents of Lunawa, Panadura and have 
committed the murder of Pradeep Kumara who resided in the same area on 7th 
January 2002.

(source: hirunews.lk)