[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 11



BANGLADESH:

HC upholds death penalty for 4 in Rajon murder case


The High Court has maintained the maximum penalty a lower court had handed down 
to 4 men for clubbing 13-year-old Rajon to death in Sylhet.

Justice Jahangir Hossain and Justice Md Jahangir Hossain's bench delivered the 
verdict on the convicts' appeal and death reference in the Samiul Alam Rajon 
murder case on Tuesday.

Death sentences were upheld for prime accused Kamrul Islam, Moina, Tajuddin and 
Zakir.

The court also maintained 7-year imprisonment for Kamrul's brothers - Ali 
Haider, Muhit Alam and Shamim Ahmed - and 1 year jail sentence for Dulal Ahmed 
and Aiyaz Ali.

The life imprisonment sentence of Nur Ahmed, who had filmed the torture and 
killing of Rajon, was commuted to 6 months.

Rajon's father Sheikh Azizur Rahman Alam said he was satisfied with the 
verdict.

Rajon was tied to a pole and beaten to death on July 8, 2015 at Kumargaon bus 
station on the outskirts of Sylhet by several men who accused him of stealing a 
rickshaw van.

They recorded the incident on a mobile phone and posted the gory footage on 
social media, triggering a massive outcry across Bangladesh.

A Sylhet court sentenced Kamrul, Moina, Tajuddin and Zakir to death on November 
8 that year and fined them Tk10,000 each.

Nur was sentenced to life in prison and fined Tk10,000 for filming the video of 
the killing. Apart from them, Kamrul's brothers and Moina were given 7 years 
jail while Dulal, Aiyaz and Moina were given 1 year jail.

Moina was sentenced thrice in the case.

The death reference reached the High Court on November 10 last year. The court 
started appeals hearing on January 30 this year.

Appeals hearing concluded on March 12.

(source: Dhaka Tribune)






VITENAM:

'Alarming' executions in Vietnam: Amnesty


Secrecy around executions continues to plague some Southeast Asian countries, 
with newly released figures showing the "disturbing" use of the death penalty 
in Vietnam, Amnesty International says.

At least 1032 people were executed worldwide in 2016, while at least 3117 were 
sentenced to death, according to Amnesty International's global report released 
on Tuesday.

The figures, while alarming, are considerably less than the reality because 
they exclude the thousands of executions believed to have taken place in China.

This secrecy continues to plague some countries in Southeast Asia.

Like China, Amnesty says Vietnam continues to classify figures on the death 
penalty as state secrets.

However, according to the report, new information obtained this year reveal 
executions have been carried out at a higher rate than previously understood.

In February 2017, Vietnam media reported statistics by the ministry of public 
security showing 429 people had been executed between August 2013 and June 
2016, at an average rate of 147 executions a year.

"(This) placed Vietnam over a 3-year period as effectively the 3rd-biggest 
executioner in the world," Amnesty International's deputy director of global 
issues, James Lynch, told AAP, putting it behind China and Iran.

The figures raise as many questions as they answer - with no context provided 
as to what people were executed for, when they took place or the details of 
their cases' legal proceedings.

"Secrecy is a huge concern, not only Vietnam but also Malaysia ... when new 
information comes to light it is disturbing, the number of executions were 
higher again than people had expected. The size of death row was higher than 
expected," Mr Lynch said.

"There needs to be a much more structured program of transparency about the 
imposition of the death penalty to allow for a more informed debate."

Also of concern in the region were calls by the Philippines government to 
reintroduce the death penalty as a measure to tackle crime and threats to 
national security.

It's a step backward for Southeast Asia, where the Philippines has been a key 
abolitionist.

(source: The Weekly Times)






INDONESIA:

Scores sentenced to death in Indonesia in 2016 but proposed law offers hope


More than 60 people were sentenced to death in Indonesia last year but proposed 
changes to the country's penal code could save the lives of future prisoners if 
they can demonstrate good behaviour.

In a sign Indonesia is slowly edging away from capital punishment, the House of 
Representatives is poised to pass a revised criminal code, which, a lawmaker 
told Fairfax Media, would "give hope" to those facing execution.

Indonesia's Law and Human Rights Minister, Yasonna Laoly, is optimistic the 
revised penal code will be passed mid-year. A clause would allow death 
sentences to be commuted to imprisonment if felons could show they had 
reformed.

However, it will provide little succour to the more than 215 people currently 
facing the firing squad - including British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford - as 
laws in Indonesia are not applied retrospectively.

The proposed change comes after Indonesian President Joko Widodo told Agence 
France-Presse last month he would consider a moratorium on the death penalty if 
his people agreed to it.

But he told the news agency it would be difficult to secure parliamentary 
backing without clear public support and cited a 2015 survey that found 85 % of 
Indonesians supported the death penalty for drug trafficking.

An Amnesty International report on death sentences and executions globally in 
2016 - to be released on Tuesday - found the number of executions in Indonesia 
fell from 14 in 2015 to four last year.

However, there were significantly more death sentences imposed.

"At least 60 new death sentences were imposed in 2016, including 46 for 
drug-related offences and 14 for murder," the report says. "At least 215 were 
under sentence for death."

14 convicted drug offenders were due to be executed on July 29 last year as 
part of Indonesia's so-called "war on drugs". However, 10 were given a 
last-minute stay of execution for reasons never properly explained by the 
Indonesian government. Their lives remain in limbo.

"No independent and impartial body was mandated to review existing death 
sentences at the end of the year," the Amnesty report says.

The report also found there were people with mental or intellectual 
disabilities on death row in Indonesia and there was credible evidence of 
people who were under 18 at the time of the crime for which they were 
convicted.

In December, Indonesia abstained from voting on a United Nations General 
Assembly resolution on a moratorium on the death penalty.

In February Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo said Indonesia would continue to 
impose the death penalty - including for drug trafficking - but executions had 
been put on hold while Indonesia lobbied for support to become a non-permanent 
member of the United Nations Security Council.

Nasir Jamil, a member of the House of Parliament's working committee on the 
penal code, said the committee had agreed to the clause on capital punishment. 
He told Fairfax Media it was a compromise that reflected differing views within 
government and among academics.

"So, we give them an alternative," Mr Nasir said. "This clause gives people who 
are sentenced to death some hope that their sentence can be commuted to life or 
20 years' imprisonment. At the moment they have no hope."

Mr Nasir said convicts would need to be able to persuade a number of people - 
including prosecutors - that they had reformed in order to have their sentences 
commuted.

Prison chiefs would not be the sole arbiter of their good behaviour, to prevent 
opportunities for convicts to bribe them.

Mr Nasir said he hoped the revised penal code would be passed in August but 
some other articles in the bill relating to defamation and insulting the 
President were yet to be finalised.

In 2007 the Indonesian Constitutional Court upheld the validity of the death 
penalty but recommended that a death-row prisoner who showed rehabilitation 
after 10 years have their sentence commuted to imprisonment.

Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, part of the so-called Bali 9, 
were executed in 2015 for drug trafficking despite their well-documented 
rehabilitation in jail. This included Chan becoming a pastor and Sukumaran 
establishing art classes in Kerobokan jail.

Their lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, said it remained to be seen if the revised 
code would be passed, given deliberations were not complete.

He said if the bill was not passed this year its future would be uncertain as 
2018 would be a "political year" ahead of the 2019 presidential elections.

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)






MALAYSIA:

Malaysia ranked 10th in use of death penalty, says Amnesty International


Malaysia was placed 10th among the world's top executioners after carrying out 
9 death sentences last year, human rights watchdog Amnesty International 
Malaysia (AI-M) said in its report.

AI-M Executive Director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu said the number of 
executions in Malaysia has also considerably increased from the previous years, 
according to the Death Sentences and Executions Report 2016 launched today.

"The Home Ministry in October last year had informed the Parliament that 
Malaysia had executed 6 people in 2014, 1 in 2015 and 9 last year.

"The disclosure was the 1st time executions have been disaggregated by year in 
recent memory and the revelation provided an insight into the magnitude and 
true extent of Malaysia's use of the death penalty," she told reporters here.

According to the report, 23 countries were known to have carried out 
executions. China lead the list of top executioners, followed by Iran, Saudi 
Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan.

However, she praised Malaysia for being "slightly more" transparent with death 
penalty data, after urging Putrajaya to do so over the years.

"The October announcement proved that Malaysia has been executing more than we 
were previously aware of. The government should continue to make public 
information on the death penalty while it is still in use," she said.

In the previous parliamentary session, minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said 
revealed that the government had agreed to review Section 39B of the Dangerous 
Drugs Act 1952 and allow courts to decide on the penalty for drug offences.

Currently, the law only provides for one sentence for those convicted of 
drug-related offences - death.

While the government has agreed to review drug laws in the country, it should 
also explore its options in entirely abolishing the death penalty, Shamini 
said.

"On March 15, the hurried double executions of brothers Rames and Suthar 
Batumalai while clemency application was still pending is symbolic of the lack 
of transparency that surrounds executions in Malaysia.

"It is a perfect example of why the death penalty must be abolished in 
totality. The government must go further and immediately establish a moratorium 
on all executions as first steps towards full abolition of the death penalty."

The report also revealed that executions at the global level had decreased by 
37 * from a high of 1,634 in 2015. On the other hand, new death sentences had 
increased in 2016 to 3,117 from 1,998 in 2015.

(source: Yahoo News)






UNITED KINGDOM:

Dying for business: UK softening stance on death penalty for post-Brexit deals 
- Amnesty


Britain has been accused of "damping down" its criticism of regimes that 
practice the death penalty because it is desperate to secure trade deals after 
it leaves the European Union, Amnesty International claims.

By contrast, the number of executions is down to 1,032 across 23 countries, 
against 1,634 in 2015 across 25 countries. China was named the top executioner. 
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan made up 87 percent of executions in 
2016.

Amnesty UK director Kate Allen has called into question the UK's willingness to 
criticize countries with a record of human rights abuse, such as Saudi Arabia, 
and claimed security and new deals may have become its priority as it faces the 
prospect of leaving the EU.

"We fear that trade and security issues are trumping human right," she said.

"With UK officials damping down their objections to the death penalty when it 
comes to countries like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain," Allen was reported saying in 
the Independent.

When Bahrain unfairly executed 3 men, the British foreign secretary gave "only 
the mildest of rebukes," she said.

While acknowledging the UK "at its best" has done some "very important" work in 
urging countries to abolish the death penalty, Allen said as death sentences 
are at a record high "now is not the time to go quiet."

"If governments in Beijing, Manama, Islamabad and Riyadh see there's very 
little public outrage over executions, then they're going to think they've got 
a green light to carry on killing," she added.

The report follows Prime Minister Theresa May's tour of the Middle East last 
week to secure future security and trade deals with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, 
both known for their poor human rights records.

Maya Foa of legal rights charity Reprieve pointed out that many of the 
countries with the "worst" records for executions are the very same ones the PM 
is courting."

"Many of those with the worst record on executions are countries which British 
Prime Minister Theresa May has been actively courting in recent weeks - has 
been actively courting in recent weeks - including Saudi Arabia, where 
juveniles face beheading and crucifixion, and Bahrain, where political 
protesters have been executed on the basis of forced 'confessions,'" she said.

"The UK government must not let the trade agenda trump concerns for human 
rights." (source: rt.com)






BOTSWANA:

Amnesty says Botswana executed 1 criminal in 2016


Amnesty International says Botswana was the only country in southern African to 
execute a criminal last year.

The rights group, which opposes the death penalty, said in a global report 
Tuesday that the single execution in Botswana was the country's 1st since 2013.

Patrick Gabaakanye, 65, was hanged in May for the 2010 axe murder of an elderly 
man, according to media in Botswana.

Amnesty says another 283 people across southern Africa faced the death sentence 
at the end of 2016, including 157 in Zambia and 97 in Zimbabwe.

The report says Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe were the only southern African 
nations that sentenced criminals to death last year - a total of 110, most of 
whom were in Zambia.

(source: Associated Press)