[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 18



LEBANON:

106 handed down death penalty in Lebanon over Arsal clashes


A Lebanese military judge has sentenced 106 men to death over the 2014 clashes 
between the army and terrorists in the country's northeast near the border with 
conflict-ridden Syria.

A judicial source said Judge Najat Abou Chakra convicted 73 Syrians, 32 
Lebanese and one Palestinian of belonging to terrorist groups and attacking the 
town of Arsal.

They were also indicted for "carrying out terrorist acts, killing and 
attempting to kill a number of soldiers from the Lebanese Army, Internal 
Security Forces and civilians, kidnapping several servicemen, burning and 
looting military posts and vehicles, causing insecurity and sowing sectarian 
strife."

According to the judge, the militants planned killing all those aged over 15 
who sought to resist them.

Among those convicted, 77 are in custody but the remaining 29 are at large.

The suspects include Jamal Hussain Zainieh, also known as Abu Malek al-Talli, 
who is the al-Nusra Front terrorist group's leader in Syria's Qalamoun region.

Lebanon is suffering from the spillover of militancy in neighboring Syria, 
where foreign-backed extremists have been fighting government forces since 
2011.

Daesh and al-Nusra Front, which is the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, have been 
active on the outskirts of Arsal.

The militants briefly overran Arsal in August 2014, taking about 30 Lebanese 
army and police forces hostage, some of whom were executed.

After lengthy negotiations, 16 of the captives were released last December as 
part of a prisoner swap deal.

Assisting Syrian army forces, fighters with the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance 
movement have thwarted several terrorist attacks.

(source: Presstv)






ISRAEL:

Report: Liberman turned down Defense Minister offer----Yisrael Beytenu head 
rejects position, promise of death penalty for terrorists; says current gov't 
not really right-wing.


Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently offered Yisrael Beytenu chairman 
Avigdor Liberman the Defense Minister position, Channel 10 reports Tuesday, if 
his party joined the coalition.

Nertanyahu also offered Liberman a commitment to uphold a "death penalty for 
terrorists" policy Liberman has championed for years.

But Liberman evidently turned him down.

A senior Likud source told Arutz Sheva late Tuesday that the move was due to 
Netanyahu's beliefs that "a broad government can better cope with political, 
security, and economic challenges." Currently, the coalition is teetering with 
a treacherous 61 MKs - a majority of just one in the 120-seat Knesset.

But Yisrael Beytenu sources rejected this claim, saying that Netanyahu 
continues to deceive voters about his promises of a right-wing government, even 
more so since Netanyahu has entered serious talks with jis political nemesis 
Yitzhak Herzog (Zionist Union) about a unity government.

"Since the elections, Yisrael Beytenu demands the establishment of a genuine 
national government - which overthrows the Hamas regime in Gaza, builds up 
Ariel and Ma'aleh Adumim, and void [Joint List MKs] Ayman Odeh and Hanin Zoabi 
from running for the Knesset," Yisrael Beytenu sources fired.

Polls Monday showed that a vast majority of Israelis are opposed to a unity 
government, with Zionist Union voters in particular outraged over the proposal.

If elections were held today, Liberman's party would gain three additional 
seats as Likud would lose several, two separate studies have indicated - most 
likely due to voter frustration over a string of stalled promises from 
Netanyahu. Jewish Home, the Knesset's other right-wing party, would also stand 
to gain several seats, the projections show.

(source: Israel National News)






IRAN----executions

Iran regime steps up executions; 21 hanged in 48 hours


Iran's fundamentalist regime has sharply increased its rate of executions, 
carrying out at least 21 hangings in a 48-hour period this week.

2 men were hanged earlier on Wednesday in the Central Prison of Urmia 
(Orumieh), north-west Iran. They were identified as Dariyoush Farajzadeh and 
Ghafour Qaderzadeh.

Another 2 men were hanged on Wednesday in a prison in Yasuj, central Iran, 
according to Mehrdad Karami, the regime's prosecutor in the city. The men, 
whose names were not given, were 26 and 34 years old, he said.

A man, only identified by his initials S. R., 31, was hanged on Wednesday in a 
prison in Sari, northern Iran, according to the regime's judiciary in 
Mazandaran Province.

The state broadcaster IRIB, quoting the regime's judiciary in Yazd Province, 
central Iran, announced on its website that 8 prisoners were hanged in the 
province on Tuesday. The regime's Prosecutor in Yazd Province had earlier told 
the state-run Rokna news agency that 6 people had been hanged in the province 
on Tuesday.

A separate report from Isfahan, central Iran, said that a prisoner was hanged 
in the city's notorious Dastgerd Prison on Monday, May 16. He has been 
identified as Malek Salehi, 35.

6 men were hanged collectively in the Central Prison of Urmia on Tuesday, May 
17. They had been serving a prison sentence in Ward 15 of the jail on 
drugs-related charges.

They were identified as Naji Keywan, Nader Mohammadi, Ali Shamugardian, Aziz 
Nouri-Azar, Fereydoon Rashidi and Heidar Amini.

Also on Tuesday, a man was hanged in public in the north-eastern city of 
Mashhad.

The victim, who was not named, was hanged at 7 am in the city's Mofatteh 
Square. His sentence had been upheld by the regime's Supreme Court.

Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran 
(NCRI) and a human rights activist, on Tuesday criticized the lack of response 
by the international community and human rights groups to the appalling state 
of human rights in Iran.

The latest hangings bring to at least 97 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.

Iran's fundamentalist regime last week amputated the fingers of a man in his 
30s in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments handed down and 
carried out in recent weeks.

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."

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)

**********

Open letter to UN human rights experts to intervene against ongoing juvenile 
executions


Paris-Geneva, 17 May 2016

To:

-- The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic 
Republic of Iran, Mr. Ahmed Shaheed

-- The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, 
Mr. Christof Heyns

-- The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading 
treatment or punishment, Mr. Juan Mendez

-- Members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

-- Members of the UN Human Rights Committee

Dear Sirs/Madams,

I am writing to request your urgent intervention in the case of Alireza Tajiki, 
who was 15 years old at the time of his arrest in 2012 for alleged rape and 
murder. His execution was scheduled for Sunday 15 May 2016 in Adelabad prison 
in the city of Shiraz, but his lawyer and a number of other supporters managed 
to secure a temporary stay of execution. However, it is not clear for how long 
the execution has been postponed, notably because Iran's Islamic Penal Code 
empowers parents of the victims of murder to demand the execution of the 
alleged perpetrator.

The death sentence imposed on Mr. Tajiki is primarily based on a "confession" 
extracted from him under torture during his initial detention in solitary 
confinement, even though he retracted this "confession" during his trial, 
stating that he had been tortured and proclaiming his innocence. Throughout his 
detention and trial, Mr. Tajiki was denied due process, including being denied 
access to a lawyer during the investigation period.

After a trial that failed to meet international standards of fairness and 
transparency, he was sentenced to death in April 2014. A branch of the Supreme 
Court overturned this sentence and sent the case back to the issuing court for 
lack of evidence, and ordered further investigation. Nevertheless, the 
first-instance court re-imposed the death sentence based on the defendant's 
"confessions," without any reference to any other evidence or investigation 
into torture allegations. Despite this gross failure to investigate, the 
Supreme Court upheld the 2nd death sentence.

Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh, Alireza Tajiki's lawyer, who has applied for his retrial, 
stated on her Facebook page: "There are many ambiguous aspects in his file that 
create many doubts about the sentence. The worst aspect is that Alireza Tajiki 
was not older than 15 [at the time of the commission of the alleged offence]."

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been the biggest executioner of juvenile 
offenders worldwide for some years. The usual practice in Iran is to keep the 
alleged juvenile offenders in prison until they reach the age of 18 and then 
execute them. Nevertheless, several defendants have been executed even before 
reaching the age of 18.

International human rights organisations have documented the executions of at 
least 73 juveniles since 2005, including 4 in 2015, 13 in 2014, 8 in 2013, 4 in 
2012 and 7 in 2011. On 19 October 2015, the UN Secretary General expressed his 
deep sadness regarding the execution of 2 juvenile offenders the week before in 
Iran. According to the Secretary General's report to the Human Rights Council 
in February 2015, at least 160 juvenile offenders were reportedly on death row 
as of December 2014. (A/HRC/28/26)

Recalling that Iran is a State party to the Convention on the Rights of the 
Child, I request you to:

- ask Iran to order a fair retrial of Alireza Tajiki without recourse to the 
death penalty, and to fully investigate the allegations that he was subjected 
to torture;

- urge Iran to repeal all death sentences against juveniles and order retrials 
in all cases of death-row juveniles, in compliance with its obligations under 
international human rights law, including the Convention on the Rights of the 
Child; and

- call on UN member states, and in particular those States with economic and 
political ties with Iran, to use their influence to insist that Iran stop the 
practice of juvenile executions.

Sincerely,

Karim Lahidji, FIDH President

CC: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mr. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein

(source: fidh.org)

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

Halt Execution of Alireza Tajiki


Iranian teenager Alireza Tajiki is at continued risk of execution. The 
authorities did not carry out his scheduled execution on 15 May after a global 
outcry. However, they have not committed to not rescheduling the execution. 
Alireza Tajiki had been sentenced to death for a crime he says he did not 
commit. He was 15 years old at the time of the crime.

see: 
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/iran-halt-execution-of-alireza-tajiki-ua-11616

(source: Amnesty International USA)






PHILIPPINES:

House leaders slam Duterte's plan to revive public executions


House leaders have rejected the planned public executions by hanging especially 
on drug-related crimes by incoming president Rodrigo Roa Duterte, saying that 
the re-imposition of death penalty is not the antidote to the rising cases of 
crimes in the country.

Speaker Feliciano "Sonny" Belmonte Jr., vice president of the Liberal Party, 
maintained that the revival of death penalty is not the answer to the brutality 
of criminals who prey on the old and the weak.

He described as "divisive" Duterte's plan to restore the death penalty and said 
that "it won't fly."

"A very divisive issue in the House," Belmonte, vice president of the ruling 
Liberal party (LP), said, adding that the country's criminal justice system 
should be strengthened first.

But Belmonte was quick to add that they will be "supportive" of the Duterte 
administration's programs and legislative agenda.

On Monday, Duterte vowed to push for the restoration of death penalty for 
heinous crimes including robbery with rape.

Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza, for his part, insisted "the problem is the 
lack of effective and efficient law enforcement."

"It is not and never will be an effective deterrent to the commission of crimes 
and will not address this serious problem," he said.

1-BAP Party-list Rep. Silvestre Bello III, who served as Justice Secretary 
during the Ramos administration, said the best and most effective deterrent to 
criminality is the quick and effective apprehension and prosecution of 
criminals.

"The death penalty runs counter to the provision and spirit of our Constitution 
against inhuman and cruel punishment," he said.

In an earlier interview, Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo branded the proposal as 
"anti-poor", "considering that no rich person has been executed in the last 40 
years."

"The presence of the death penalty has no effect on the reduction of 
criminality," he said.

Republic Act (RA) No. 7659 or the Death Penalty Law was scrapped during the 
leadership of 2 women presidents - the late President Corazon Aquino and former 
president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

FRIGHTENING

Father Amado Picardal, who helped bury a teenager from a slum family who was 
gunned down by motorcycle-riding assassins in Davao, said a Duterte presidency 
is "very frightening."

He added that human rights groups will need to keep a close watch and document 
any violations, especially extrajudicial killings, in the next 6 years.

In a report, the Commission on Human Rights said 206 people, mostly suspected 
criminals and including 19 minors, were slain in shootings and stabbings 
attributed to the death squads from 2005 to 2009 alone, adding that there were 
witnesses to at least 94 of the killings.

"Nobody wanted to testify," said Loretta Ann Rosales, who headed the commission 
at the time. "There was a measure of fear. We can't prove his criminal 
liability because nobody would say that he ordered the killings."

Phelim Kine of the US-based group Human Rights Watch said it found no hard 
evidence of any direct role by Duterte in 28 death-squad killings, mostly from 
2007 to 2008 that it investigated.

Rosales said the Philippine human rights commission asked the Ombudsman, which 
prosecutes officials for wrongdoing, to investigate Duterte in 2012 for 
possible administrative liability "for his inaction in the face of evidence of 
numerous killings committed in Davao City and his toleration of the commission 
of those offenses."

Despite his brash campaign rhetoric, Duterte will find it hard to bring his 
Davao crime-fighting style to the rest of the country because of the oversight 
of Congress, the judiciary and other agencies that check abuses. The world will 
be watching too, said Picardal, who was assigned to Davao for many years until 
he moved to Manila in 2011.

"There are checks and balances," he said. "The eyes of the nation and the world 
are on him."

(source: Manila Bulletin)





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

Return of death penalty to be tackled in first 100 days of next Congress


The reimposition of the death penalty will be among the top legislative 
priorities when the 17th Congress starts in July, the point person of incoming 
President Rodrigo Duterte in the House of Representatives said.

Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez said bills for the reinstatement 
of capital punishment will be tackled within the first 100 days of the incoming 
Congress.

"Isasalang 'yan," he told reporters Wednesday in a press conference in Pasay 
City. Duterte, known for his tough stance against crime, has been vocal about 
his desire to bring back capital punishment, particularly for heinous crimes 
such as rape.

Earlier this week, the outgoing Davao City mayor said he wants to impose death 
penalty by hanging. Alvarez, Duterte's choice for Speaker, is aware the 
proposal to revive death penalty could face rough sailing in the Congress but 
is determined to push for its passage.

"We respect yung mga iba't ibang opinions on the matter but the President 
campaigned on the basis of those platforms and the people voted for him, 
meaning meron siyang mandate to effect the necessary changes," he said.

Death penalty was abolished in 2006 when former President Gloria Macapagal 
Arroyo signed a law repealing Republic Act 7659, which imposes capital 
punishment on certain heinous crimes.

Charter Change

Aside from the reviving capital punishment, Alvarez said Charter Change will 
also be a priority of the Duterte administration.

However, the mode for amending Constitution has yet to be discussed.

"The [incoming] President is calling for a Con con (Constitutional convention), 
but we have to remember that there are three modes of revising the 
Constitution: the Constitutional convention, constituent assembly and the 
people's initiative," he said.

Alvarez said Duterte wants to have a plebsicite on the proposed changes to the 
Constitution conducted in 2019, the same time as the midterm elections.

(source: gmanetwork.com)

********

Mayor Beng to leave death penalty issue to lawmakers


Reelected Mayor Beng Climaco-Salazar did not make clear whether she will 
support or not the imposition of the death penalty being pushed by incoming 
president Rodrigo Duterte particularly for heinous crimes.

"Although the Catholic church is against death penalty, per se always pro-life, 
what kind of justice must be given to our people? Will it be death or life 
imprisonment?" Climaco told reporters in her first press conference at City 
Hall Monday since the May 9 election.

"So we will leave it up to our justices, to the lawmakers to really see what is 
a very good, corrective measure for the violators of the law," she said.

Citing Filipino citizens who commit crimes in other countries, the mayor said 
they are meted with death penalty, but those foreigners who violate Philippine 
laws are just deported back to their countries.

"That is why, this is not a strong deterrent particularly for foreign violators 
of the law to conduct crimes in the Philippines," she added.

Climaco further said that personally, she does not think she would bein a 
capacity to judge for herself "as there is always room for the person for 
corrective measure."

"In that case, again, without washing my hands as a local chief executive, we 
will abide by the product of the law," she said.

Climaco, meantime, said they will strongly support Duterte's proposals on 
curfew for minors and liquor ban in public places.

"How it is to be translated in the form of the law that will guide all local 
chief executives and the local government? We will just await the issuance of 
the law and I believe once it is enacted or once the executive order from 
president comes out, it will always be in accordance with the Constitution of 
the Republic of the Philippines without violating the rights of the people. We 
will just abide," she explained.

The camp of Duterte had earlier said the curfew is principally forminors, 
unescorted, past 10:00 p.m. It will not include minorswith their parents or 
guardians.

It was also made clear that the liquor ban in Davao City, which prohibits 
establishments from selling alcohol after 1 a.m., will only be ineffect in 
public places.

Aside from the curfew and liquor ban, Duterte also imposed a karaoke ban and a 
no-smoking policy in public areas in Davao City.

(source: Zamboanga Today)


MALAYSIA:

Cook and veggie seller escape the gallows


A cook and a vegetable seller charged with trafficking in more than 2kg of 
ketamine at a house in Jalan Tanjung Bungah were sentenced to 5 years' jail 
after they pleaded guilty to an alternate charge of drug possession.

Judicial Commissioner Datuk Azmi Ariffin ordered the sentence for Teh Lai Heng, 
40, and Tan Kean Lye, 48, to commence from Dec 18, 2013. which was the date of 
their arrest.

The offence under Section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and punishable 
under Section 12(3) of the same act carries a fine of up to RM100,000 and a 
jail sentence of not more than 5 years, or both.

Both were previously charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 
1952 which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.

According to the facts of the case, the police conducted a raid at the house 
and 5 plastic packets suspected to contain ketamine were discovered on Teh. Tan 
was found in 1 of the rooms in the house.

At the premises, police also discovered numerous plastic packets containing the 
same substance, a digital weighing scale, empty plastic packets and a small 
plastic spoon.

In mitigation, Datuk Ranjit Singh Dhillon said Teh was a stroke, diabetes and 
renal disease patient with a wife and a 5-year-old son while Tan is also 
married with a 13-year-old child.

"Both had pleaded guilty at the 1st instance they were offered the alternate 
charge. I hope the court can take into account that they are first-time 
offenders and had been in remand since they were arrested in 2013."

DPP Emma Syafawati Abdul Wahab said an appropriate punishment should be meted 
out due to the severity of the offence.

In his judgment, Azmi said public interest should not be compromised.

"I hope this can become a lesson for the 2 of you as it is not the right way to 
earn a living and what you are doing can ruin the country, yourself, your 
family and children," he said.

(source: The Star)