[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 23



CARIBBEAN:

Hang 'em or not?


How Did We Get Here: Crime is ubiquitous, regardless of the basic system of 
government, pure democracy, absolutism, or oligarchical. Managing criminals 
remains a wedge issue, especially in countries that have automatic death 
penalty, as studies have shown.

The ongoing struggles in a few dominant Caribbean islands, especially Jamaica, 
Trinidad and others with high capital crime rates, have seen a softening 
mentality to bring back hanging, hoping that it will cut crime.

Both advocates for and against capital punishment agree that it is a delicate 
balance in the region where public opinion can quickly drive policies. They 
argue that new rules tend to limit personal freedom, challenge human rights, 
and erode confidence, where there is little or no oversight on how the nation 
applies punishment.

For decades, homicide rates and other violence have not been reduced 
significantly before hanging faced several pushbacks from human rights 
organizations, shifting views that it is as barbaric as the crime committed by 
an offender. As a result, with mounting pressure some of these islands have 
implemented a moratorium.

The alternative is to commute sentences to life in prison even in aggravated 
murders.

The UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) has always been 
calling for a stop to the death sentence. And, according to the Inter-American 
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), it has advised to abolish or at least 
impose a moratorium on its application.

Revisiting History: Hanging is not new to society. Sadly, despite the 
deterrence implication, hanging has not always been for the condemned man. 
Several slaves who tried to escape their masters, or by hate groups simply for 
one being different have faced the rope.

It has also claimed victims because of sexual orientation, stemming from 
homophobia.

In the 1800s, most hanging took place in the public, and the community 
celebrated. Today, given the crime waves on these shores, how many would show 
up if hanging were to be held in the local parishes?

The scars from colonization have also left few mentally hanged from what is 
believed to poor economic rope despite modernization and independence. It is 
not an argument that today???s criminals are still linked to policies that are 
perhaps no different from hanging because they were simply an economic death. 
Unforgiving Cord: It is an organized strangulation. This loss of consciousness 
makes death imminent. It is dependent upon the knot positioning and the length 
of drop, which has varied through the history of hanging.

According to several journals, hanging can range from head and neck injuries. 
When this occurs, compression or rupture of the vertebral and carotid arteries 
leads to cerebral ischaemia.

What has emerged recently is not a new structural push. The last hanging based 
on reports in Jamaica took place in 1998. Today, most polls show that Jamaicans 
welcome hanging as other parts of the Caribbean.

It sends a strong message that the society will not tolerate barbaric 
criminals.

Scholars also noted that, even in Jamaica's final appellate court, it has 
consistently upheld submissions from defence attorneys for hangings to be 
commuted to life imprisonment

As the region struggles with just desserts, and incapacitation, or simply an 
eye for an eye justice, few will admit publicly that crime threatens not only 
the basic pursuit of happiness on the beautiful shores, and inside the green 
communities, but the overall economy that thrives on a global good image to 
attract visitors.

The Politics of Hanging: Capital punishment tends to be fought on both 
political and moral grounds despite an offender's action.

When then opposition leader Andrew Holness ran his election campaign, he 
promised to be tough on crime. He is not alone calling for more drastic 
measures to fight crime. This push is not what rope will be used after an 
election, but a test to the limits of government, balance to the rule of law, 
freedom, human rights, the constitutional challenge and, simply, willingness to 
fulfill a political promise.

Despite opposition to this push to reinstate hanging, the ongoing killings need 
an answer.

The question remains can hanging solve that issue where there is still 
limitation on many fronts. The criminogenic circumstances are rising while 
opportunities and treatment for high risk offenders have disappeared.

First, the ability to find an offender and properly gather and maintain 
evidence is key to even conduct an impartial trial. Many still see a corrupt 
system with limited resources.

It is often plagued with questions about an accused from both sides of the 
judicial process than the final outcome of a condemned person.

Furthermore, how does a society change a decade of mentality? Even when 
exculpatory evidence is introduced it will take time to reverse an atmosphere 
of doubts from the history of distrust in government and its ability to perform 
basic functions.

Preventing Wrongful Execution: No one is implying that anyone charged with a 
criminal offense does not have the right to a hearing, or the courts themselves 
are incapable of conducting a trial or operating under a tree in primitive 
conditions. However, there still remains ambiguity in some of the rule 
applications.

Amnesty International reports that far too often some defendants do not have 
"prompt access" to counsel or representation at all stages of a trial. 
Therefore, one can be deprived of proper representation.

Sometimes the victims are against this practice, and what weight would be given 
to their rejections. Often they are being re-victimized, and lost in the 
debates.

What if this person has mental illnesses?

According to recent studies, nearly 44 million American adults, and millions of 
children, experience mental health conditions each year, including depression, 
anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress.

What are the numbers in the Caribbean?

US President Barack Obama, in trying to highlight this issue, signed a 
proclamation on mental health.

Despite tools to diagnose someone with mental health, disparities and access to 
healthcare is a major problem, and individuals both in and out of the criminal 
justice system often go unnoticed.

Not all offenders who commit crimes are mentally ill.

Furthermore, changing an attitude about mental illness, where it is much easier 
to label a person a mad man/woman based on appearance, and where they sleep at 
nights.

This is what I call the appearance conviction

The lack of psychological and other analytical assessments to diagnose to make 
sure that an insane individual is even capable of standing trial before one's 
ultimate fate seems lacking.

As studies have shown, capital punishment does not reduce crime. The region has 
to look at not only creating opportunities for the youths, but also closing the 
gaps between the haves vs the have-nots.

The salient jury where few still believe that freedom is more likely for person 
with the deepest pocket and well connected.

Where is the local debate and demand from the community to be heard and not a 
few tweets while the ability to solve crime still is an elusive concept.

What Next: Although Amnesty International has been proactive on few appeals and 
in conjunction with other human rights committees, it constantly finds 
violations, and these processes still need fundamental work, and to make sure 
one receives the support required to mount a challenge.

As these criminal elements continue, maybe a 3 strikes law will be the next 
recommendation, but one has to be able to solve the 1st crime and maintain good 
criminal records.

Sure, no one wants to live in fear, but new crime strategy has to balance power 
with victims' rights, and a political, moral or social compass, and all 
measures have been taken.

Solving these issues is important and, leaders have to become more proactive in 
developing fundamental economic plans that will reduce the appetite for 
criminals.

This debate remains an uncomfortable feeling.

(source: Commentary, Derrick Miller----Caribbean News Now!)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Killer needs Dh35 million to escape death----Saudi court will free him after 
blood money is paid


A Saudi man on the death row for killing another Saudi needs to pay SR35 
million (Dh35m) blood money within four months to escape execution.

A court in the Northern Saudi town of Skaka agreed to scrap the death penalty 
against Tariq Al Ruwaili if his relatives pay blood money to the victim's 
family.

"The judge gave Ruwaili's relatives 4 months to raise the money ... after it is 
paid, Ruwaili will be freed," Ajel newspaper said. Under Islamic law, which is 
strictly enforced in Saudi Arabia, a convicted killer can escape execution and 
walk free if pardoned by the victim's family in return for blood money, which 
is officially set in Saudi Arabia at SR300,000 for a Muslim victim. However, 
the victim???s relatives are allowed to demand any sum.

(source: emirates247.com)






IRAN:

Iran regime may be planning to mass execute child offenders


Iran's fundamentalist regime has transferred at least 7 young death-row 
prisoners to solitary confinement in Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) Prison in 
preparation for their imminent execution, according to reports from the prison.

The young inmates were transferred earlier on Saturday from the prison's Ward 
5, known as the adolescents' ward, to solitary confinement in Gohardasht Prison 
in Karaj, north-west of Tehran. Reports say the regime plans to execute them at 
the latest by next Wednesday.

All 7 inmates are believed to be between the ages of 22 and 25 and some are 
suspected to have been minors at the time of their alleged crime.

The names of 6 of the prisoners are believed to be Mohsen Agha-Mohammadi, 
Farhad Bakhshayesh, Iman Fatemi-Pour, Javad Khorsandi, Hossein Mohammadi and 
Masoud Raghadi. The mullahs' regime on Friday hanged a man in a prison in 
Qazvin, north-west of Tehran.

Ismaeil Sadeqi Niaraki, a notorious mullah who is the regime's Prosecutor in 
Qazvin, confirmed the execution had taken place in the city's central prison. 
He identified the victim only by his first name Sepahdar.

Iran's fundamentalist regime has sharply increased its rate of executions, 
carrying out at least 21 hangings in a 48-hour period earlier this week. 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 hanging brings to at least 98 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)



TAIWAN:

Taiwan seek death penalty after indicting man over public child beheading


Taiwanese prosecutors indicted a man Monday for murder over the public 
decapitation of a four year old girl, saying they would seek the death penalty 
for the "extremely cold-blooded" attack.

Wang Ching-yu, 33, is accused of overpowering the mother of the child near a 
metro station in central Taipei, and beheading the young girl with a kitchen 
knife.

The mother and a number of bystanders tried to intervene but were pushed away 
and unable to save the child, who police have identified only by the surname 
Liu.

Prosecutors at the Shihlin District Court in Taipei said that it was an 
"extremely cold-blooded" crime which had deeply shocked the generally peaceful 
island.

"It has caused indelible pain to her mother, who witnessed the cruelty," 
prosecutors said in a statement at the close of their investigation, which took 
less than 2 months.

"The suspect has never repented... so we suggest the court sentence him to 
death," they said, adding that capital punishment in this instance was 
important to maintain society's faith in law and justice.

Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions 
are reserved for serious crimes such as aggravated murder.

Some politicians and rights groups have called for its abolition, but various 
opinion surveys show majority support for the death penalty.

After the March 28 decapitation, hundreds of Taiwanese, many dressed in black 
and wearing stickers reading "Death penalty is necessary," called for Wang to 
be executed.

Wang was arrested at the scene of the crime and was subsequently taken into 
custody.

Prosecutors say that blood test show Wang was not under the influence of drugs 
at the time of the crime, nor had he displayed any signs of mental illness 
after the attack.

Police said the 33-year-old had previously been arrested for drug-related 
crimes. He was attacked by an angry mob while in custody.

Taiwan's Apple Daily has reported that he was unemployed and living with his 
parents, and had previously been hospitalised with mental health issues.

The killing came less than a year after the throat of an 8-year-old girl was 
slit in her school restroom in Taipei. It sparked widespread public anger and 
fresh debate about capital punishment.

(source: Agence France-Presse)






SINGAPORE:

Kho Jabing's death calls for more clarity on death-penalty implementation


The sudden execution of Kho Jabing filled me with a sense of dread and sorrow. 
Having followed his case and its many twists and turns, I have come to see this 
young man as a human being. Not as a martyr or a saint but just as a normal 
human being who through his one moment of folly brought undue suffering on the 
Cao family.

Like anyone else, Kho Jabing had a family who loved him. He was remorseful and 
he wanted to live and make amends. More than that, he provided those in 
Singapore who believe in second chances a reason to hope. This is perhaps why 
the dramatic build up to this case and its swift and unexpected end is so 
crushing.

I am by no means justifying Kho Jabing's crimes - far from it. A man lost his 
life because of Kho Jabing's acts and for that there has to be punishment. But 
should that punishment be death? Further, even if society believes in the death 
penalty, is Kho Jabing's role in the crime deserving of the death penalty?

Will Kho Jabing's death bring back Cao Ruyin?

Kho Jabing's valiant fight against the noose ultimately ended up in victory for 
the hangman. But was the undue haste of his execution a matter of justice or a 
matter of policy expediency? If it is the latter, has justice really been 
served?

Kho Jabing was not initially sentenced to death. This would lead me to believe 
that although his crimes were severe, they were not deemed sufficiently severe 
to merit the death penalty. On appeal, this was overturned although not 
unanimously. This begs the question - should there be unanimity in the 
imposition of so harsh a sentence?

Personally, I think so.

The taking of a life is irrevocable and irretrievable. Given that Kho Jabing's 
case was initially not ruled to be a capital case coupled with the fact that on 
appeal, the judges were not in total agreement leads me to believe that it 
should not be a clear-cut case of imposing the death penalty. In such 
circumstances, isn't it better to err on the side of compassion and life?

Unless it was deemed that the life of a penniless, lowly educated blue-collar 
foreigner did not deserve mercy? Such is the unfortunate conclusion I have to 
draw in the way this case has panned out.

I am personally against the death penalty but I accept that a large portion of 
Singaporean society may not agree me. That said, I am sure that even the most 
fervent defenders of capital punishment will agree that the imposition of so 
draconian a sentence cannot be one that is casually and wantonly passed. There 
has to no doubt at all that the person in question is legally and unequivocally 
deserving of this harshest of punishments. Given Kho Jabing's initial 
sentencing and the lack of unanimity on appeal, I would think not.

Even if we accept that Kho Jabing was condemned to die, it does seem 
unnaturally cruel to execute him with such unseeming haste.

The condemned are usually hanged at 6am on Fridays. One would have thus 
reasonably expected that Kho Jabing would have been hung the following Friday. 
Yet, a deviation from precedent was created just so that the hangman got his 
weekly quota.

Given that our brand of justice had run its course in this case and Kho Jabing 
had by then exhausted all avenues of fighting for life, would keeping him alive 
for one more week really have affected the service of "justice"? There were no 
other options left to be utilised to thwart the noose. Where could he go? What 
more can he do? Why the rush to have him killed?

It really made me wonder if his execution forthwith was to prevent further 
public outcries or campaigns? Did the powers be want the issue to finally die 
literally and figuratively?

Kho Jabing may have died but the issues raised by his case have not. What needs 
to be made plainly clear is when and how the death penalty is to be meted out. 
Should there be unanimity? In changes of precedent such as in the hanging times 
of the condemned, what is the process and procedure? Who decides and on what 
basis? If the death sentence has to remain in Singapore, it should at least be 
crystal clear.

(source: Opinion, Ghui, the Independent)

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

Activist and lawyer involved in Kho Jabing's case abused online


An anti-death penalty activist and a lawyer who defended Kho Jabing are bearing 
the brunt of some netizens who have taken issue with them for defending a 
condemned criminal.

The activist Kirsten Han shared some of the abusive messages she had received 
in her Facebook and captioned them: "To add to my series of examples of how 
women receive a particular sort of abuse (online in this case, but also off) 
when people disagree with 
them:https://spuddings.net/putting-me-in-my-place-sexism-misogyn...

Context: this is the article they were reacting to - 
http://m.themalaymailonline.com/.../activist-roasted-on-faceb..."

(source: The Independent)






THAILAND:

Pair set to lodge appeal after being found guilty of murdering Essex University 
student Hannah Witheridge


2 men convicted of the murder of an Essex University student and another man 
are set to lodge an appeal.

Burmese men Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were convicted of murdering student Hannah 
Witheridge, 23, and 24-year-old David Miller, from Jersey, in December.

Miss Witheridge, who was from Norfolk but was a student at Essex University at 
the time of her death, and Mr Miller were found dead on a beach on the Thai 
island of Koh Tao in September 2014.

Lin and Phyo, both 22, were found guilty of their murders after a controversial 
trial and were sentenced to death.

The Burmese murderers now have a team of 7 Thai lawyers, as well as 
international advisors, working to exonerate them.

The appeals, which are due to be lodged this week, will be against their 
conviction and sentence.

Their lawyers plan to show it cannot be proved beyond reasonable doubt Lin and 
Phyo were responsible for the Brits' deaths.

As well as the death penalty, the Burmese pair received additional 20-year 
prison sentences for the rape of the Essex University student and for robbery.

The bodies of British pair were discovered on Sairee Beach on Koh Tao in the 
early morning of September 15, 2014.

Miss Witheridge had been raped and battered to death with a garden hoe.

Mr Miller was left to drown in the sea after being beaten unconscious.

(source: Daily Gazette)


ISRAEL:

Kahlon to oppose death punishment for terrorists----Senior Kulanu official 
makes it clear that the party will not support Yisrael Beytenu's flagship 
legislation, which is one of its conditions to join the government.


A senior member of Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu told Ynet on Sunday that the party 
will not support an amendment to the law that would make it easier for military 
courts to sentence terrorists to death, a bill being pushed by Yisrael Beytenu 
leader Avigdor Lieberman who is in talks to join the government.

"Israel's defense establishment is in agreement that this is a bad idea that it 
will not contribute to the fight against terror or to Israel's security," the 
official said. "It's an inappropriate suggestion both on an ethical and 
operational level. Any attempt by the government or the Knesset to act in such 
an irresponsible manner will come up against a wall comprised of all ten of 
Kulanu's MKs."

Yisrael Beytenu has yet to officially sign the agreement to join the government 
due to budgetary issues over the party's demand to complete the pension reform 
and its demand to amend the law to allow death sentence to terrorists.

Likud Minister Yariv Levin has been working with Lieberman to formulate a draft 
bill proposal on death sentence to terrorists that could withstand the High 
Court's judgment.

One of the options is to amend the legislation that allows the military court 
to hand out capital punishment to terrorists if a unanimous decision is made by 
3 judges, and change it so only 2 judges suffice.

If the sides fail to reach a final agreement on the legislation, it is possible 
they will commit to working on the legislation during the upcoming Knesset 
session.

On Friday, Lieberman and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon held their first meeting 
on the pension reform. At first, Lieberman sought to secure pensions only for 
immigrants from the former Soviet Union, but it was eventually decided to apply 
the planned reform on all immigrants, as well as on other Israelis who did not 
work enough years to accumulate sufficient pension funds.

The cost of the reform stands at about NIS 3 billion, a sum that could only be 
allocated if it is done gradually over the period of a few years.

Lieberman and Kahlon agreed to meet again at the beginning of the week to 
finalize the details.

(source: YNetNews)