[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 23



IRAN:

Iranian MPs to decide on limiting capital punishment


Iranian parliament's judiciary commission has agreed with a proposal on the 
abolition of death penalty for a group of convicts of drug-related crimes.

Under the bill, the drug-related death penalty will be abolished except for 
those involved in organized and armed narcotics offenses, Mehr news agency 
reported.

According to the bill, this group of convicts will face at least 25 years in 
jail instead of execution.

However, the bill still needs to pass the parliament and move through Guardian 
Council, the country's constitutional watchdog body, in order to become a law.

(source: azernews.az)






MALAYSIA:

Royal pardon, end to death penalty sought during coronation


Human rights lawyer P Uthayakumar has appealed for a royal pardon to commute 
death sentences and reduce jail terms for prisoners in conjunction with the 
official installation of Sultan Muhammad V as the 15th Yang di-Pertuan Agong 
tomorrow.

In a letter to Prime Minister Najib Razak today, he also asked that the death 
penalty be abolished, saying Malaysia was supposed to mature into a civil and 
developed society by 2020.

The lawyer asked Najib to advise the Royal Pardons Board to announce that 
prisoners facing death row, natural life and life imprisonment have their 
sentences respectively commuted to life imprisonment, maximum 20 years jail and 
15 years jail.

"To err is human and to forgive is divine. Prisoners deserve a second chance to 
make amends for their past mistakes," he wrote.

"In appreciation of this most precious 'earlier freedom' they would surely want 
to keep out of trouble. The state's compassion and guidance can therefore yield 
results. Please temper justice with mercy."

He said he was making the appeal after having gone through pain and suffering 
and "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment" at Kajang Prison for 2 years on 
sedition charges.

"My saddest day in Kajang Prison was when one Mohamad was hanged in the wee 
hours of Friday the 14th day of March 2015 immediately after the suboh prayers 
(Muslim prayer at dawn)," he said

He also cited the hanging of the Batumalai brothers, Rames and Suthar, on March 
15, despite appeals and representations for a royal pardon.

Uthayakumar also asked that all prisoners on good behaviour while serving jail 
terms of 1 year or less for non-violent and non-sexual crimes be granted royal 
pardons and released.

He said 1st-time offenders, juveniles and women prisoners on good behaviour 
while serving terms of more than a year for non-violent and non-sexual crimes 
should be granted pardons and made to serve only 1/2 of their sentences while 
qualifying for parole.

He added that all other well-behaved prisoners of non-violent and non-sexual 
criminal cases be granted pardons and made to serve only 55% of their prison 
sentences while also being granted parole.

For 1st-time violent and sexual crime prisoners on good behaviour, he asked 
that they be granted pardons and made to serve only 60% of their prison 
sentences.

He also appealed for all laws on detention without trial, including under the 
Prevention of Crime Act 1959 involving commercial cases, be abolished.

(source: Free Malaysia Today)






NIGERIA:

LASG and death warrants


When he addressed the press last Tuesday, the Lagos State Attorney General and 
Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, spoke of the preparedness of the 
state to decide on the death sentences passed on the General Overseer of 
Christian Praying Assembly, Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, a.k.a. Rev. King, and others. 
The cleric, in particular, had been tried for murdering a church member in 
2006. The death sentence passed by a Lagos High Court in 2007 was eventually 
affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2016, an inordinate 9 years after the lower 
court first determined the case.

The Lagos attorney general did not say why the state appears to be in a 
quandary over the signing of death warrants: whether the state should go ahead 
and simply affirm the Supreme Court decision and sign the death warrants, as 
some expect, or to commute the sentences to life, as a few, including 
international activists, have campaigned. Whatever the eventual decision, 
finally, Lagos at least appears poised to decide one way or the other. In the 
words of the attorney general: "Some people say out there that even if we 
commit these infractions and they sentence us to death, they will never kill 
us. It does send the wrong signal sometimes...I've heard the people from the 
British High Commission and other embassies complain even on our 
recently-passed anti-kidnapping law; but I must say, you must have to look at 
your own local factors and deal with them. We are going to move in that 
direction. I'm sure you will hear from me, but I'm not sure that I want to 
openly state and give you a date when we are going to take that action."

But judging from the drift of his argument, Mr Kazeem seems persuaded that some 
strong signals ought to be sent out to criminals who casually commit capital 
offences. He was not unequivocal, but he seems amenable to the signing of death 
warrants. That would be a mistake, however, as this column has consistently 
maintained, beginning with the enactment of the anti-kidnapping law. In the 
past few decades, few states have dared to sign death warrants, and a campaign 
to get them to do it has met with stiff opposition. In fact, the debate over 
signing of death warrants and imposing the death penalty itself had led some 
lawmakers and lawyers to advocate for a committee of the Supreme Court to be 
charged with that responsibility. The advocates did not explain why a new 
select committee would find it easier to sign death warrants when governors who 
are customarily charged with that responsibility have been wary of doing it.

There is no scientific evidence to support that death penalty or enthusiastic 
signing of death warrants discourage capital offences. Every study done to find 
that inverse relationship has instead established that states and countries 
without the death penalty enjoy lower incidence of capital offences. If death 
penalty has had no impact on armed robbery, for instance, it is not because 
death warrants were not signed. When death warrants were signed, and the public 
entertained to the sanguinary bar beach shows of decades past, armed robbery 
still thrived. And as extremism and terrorism are showing in many parts of the 
world, those likely to be recruited often have a history of violence and 
criminality themselves.

In any case, Lagos is an aspiring megacity, one with an image to cultivate and 
protect. It is eager to nurture and sustain a reputation far exceeding that of 
many cities in Africa and the rest of the world. Its standards must not be 
lowered. Its image must not be compromised. Rather than flirt with death 
penalty and signed warrants in the inexcusable desire to curb capital offences 
and please agitated prison keepers, it is time Lagos found better and brilliant 
ways of curbing crime. The death penalty component of the anti-kidnapping law 
was inadvisable, as this column suggested when it was contemplated. The world 
is moving away from capital punishment; Lagos must not lag behind. The state is 
selling itself as the most modern and cosmopolitan city in Nigeria, and one of 
the fastest growing in Africa and the world. It cannot drive that great process 
and nurture the coveted image of its vision by scrounging for easy, cheap and 
controversial options.

Lagos is the pacesetter in law reform. Now is the time to look once again at 
its law books and institute measures and processes that will show Nigeria how 
crime control and peaceful conurbation can be achieved. The cost of signing 
death warrants will be too prohibitive for the new Lagos. The state can't 
afford that cost, regardless of the capital offences committed within its 
borders.

(source: The Nation)






SCOTLAND:

Ukip candidate Gisella Allen says she would bring back the death penalty by 
guillotine----Ms Allen also wants to abolish nurseries, golf courses, plastic 
bags, sex education, free bus passes and LGBT communities


A Ukip candidate for Glasgow Council has said she would like to see the death 
penalty reintroduced and suggested the guillotine might be a better method of 
execution than hanging.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be hanging", Gisela Allen told The Clydebank 
Post. "You could have the guillotine. I think the public is entitled to 
protection."

The candidate, who standing for election in the Garscadden/Scotstounhill ward, 
added that she wants to see nursery funding withdrawn entirely because women 
should stay at home and look after young children.

Ms Allen would also like to abolish golf courses, plastic bags, free bus 
passes, sex education in schools and the LGBT community.

Being gay was part of an individual's "private life, none of anyone's 
business", according to Ms Allen, while golf courses were in her view "a threat 
to the safety of people".

If the candidate was elected in Glasgow on 4 May, she would become the 1st ever 
Ukip councillor elected to a Scottish local authority.

The party has 1 Scottish MEP, David Coburn, who made headlines in 2015 when he 
compared Scottish government minister Humza Yousaf to the terrorist Abu Hamza. 
He later apologised, calling it a "joke".

Ms Allen was keen to stress that these were personal views, not the views of 
the party.

However, there is a significant amount of support within Ukip for bringing back 
capital punishment in some form.

Paul Nuttall, the leader of the party, who recently failed to get elected in 
the Stoke-on-Trent Central by election, has said he would hold a national 
referendum on re-introducing the death penalty.

Gawain Fowler, Ukip's head of press, said: "Having been able to read Mrs 
Allen's personal manifesto, the people of Garscadden will be able to make their 
democratic decision as to whether they wish to be represented by her.

"One of the many fine things about Ukip is that its local councillors are not 
whipped. It is possible that we might make an exception in this case."

(source: independent.co.uk)