[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

August 15




BELARUS:

Urgent Action



BELARUS SENTENCES 2 MEN TO DEATH

Ihar Hershankou and Siamion Berazhnoy were convicted and sentenced to death by 
the Mahiliou Regional Court, in eastern Belarus, on 21 July 2017. Theirs are 
the 2nd and 3rd death sentences imposed in Belarus in 2017.

Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:

* Urging the Prosecutor General to withdraw the death penalty as a sentencing 
option for Ihar Hershankou and Siamion Berazhnoy, and all others on death row;

* Stress that whilst we are not seeking to downplay the seriousness of the 
crime, research shows that the death penalty does not have a unique deterrent 
effect and is the ultimate denial of human rights;

* Calling on the President to introduce an immediate moratorium on executions 
with a view to abolishing the death penalty

Friendly reminder: If you send an email, please create your own instead of 
forwarding this one!

Contact these 2 officials by 25 September, 2017:

President

Alyaksandr Lukashenka

Vul. Karla Marksa 38

220016 Minsk, Belarus

Fax: +375 17 226 06 10

+375 17 222 38 72

Email: contact at president.gov.by

Salutation: Dear President

Charge d'Affaires Mr. Pavel Shidlovsky



Embassy of Belarus

1619 New Hampshire Ave NW

Washington DC 20009

Phone: 202 986 9420 OR 1 202 986 1606

Fax: 202 986 1805 OR 1 202 986 1805

Email: us at mfa.gov.by

Salutation: Dear Ambassador

(source: Amnesty International)








PAKISTAN:

Pakistan to nominate ad-hoc judge for ICJ hearing in Kulbhushan Jadhav 
case----The ICJ had on May 18 restrained Pakistan from executing the death 
sentence on Jadhav



The Pakistan government has begun consultations over the nomination of an 
ad-hoc judge for the Kulbhushan Jadhav case being heard at the International 
Court of Justice (ICJ) with an ex-attorney general and a former Jordanian 
premier emerging as the top contenders, a media report said on Tuesday.

India had moved the Hague-based ICJ against Jadhav's death penalty handed down 
by a Pakistani military court. The ICJ had on May 18 restrained Pakistan from 
executing the death sentence.

Pakistan government's functionaries have started consultations for the 
nomination of an ad-hoc judge, Express Tribune reported, citing sources.

During the tenure of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former Supreme Court 
judge Khalilur Rehman Ramday was approached, but he declined the nomination, 
the report said.

Sources were quoted by the daily as saying that the Attorney General for 
Pakistan's (AGP) office has recommended the names of senior lawyer Makhdoom Ali 
Khan and former Jordanian prime minister Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh to the Prime 
Minister's Office for the nomination of one name as an ad-hoc judge.

Khasawneh served as an ICJ judge for over a decade, while Khan, a former 
Attorney General who is seen as the favourite for the job, also has experience 
in international arbitration cases, having represented eight different 
countries in international courts.

The nomination of the ad-hoc judge will be finalised after getting inputs from 
the Foreign Office and the military establishment, the sources said, adding 
that earlier, government functionaries had also considered the name of former 
chief justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jillani.

An official was quoted as saying that the name of the ad- hoc judge will be 
finalised next month, soon after the Indian side files its documents.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) representative Raheel Kamran Sheikh has 
called upon the government to seek Parliament's approval on the appointment of 
the ad-hoc judge.

Only 1 person has previously been appointed as ICJ judge in Pakistan's history 
- former foreign minister Zafarullah Khan, who was appointed in 1954 and later 
became the president of the court.

Yaqub Ali Khan and Sharifuddin Pirzada both served as ad-hoc judges, as did 
Zafarullah.

(source: business-standard.com)








INDIA:

Yavatmal court awards death penalty to 7 in human sacrifice case



Additional District and Sessions Judge A S Waghmare on Monday awarded capital 
punishment to Manoj Atram, Devidas Atram, Yadhavrao Tekam, Punaji Atram, 
Ramchandra Atram, Motiram Atram and Yashodabai Meshram in the sensational Sapna 
Palaskar human sacrifice case. The convicts are the residents of Choramba 
village in Ghatanji tehsil and were arrested for 'sacrificing' 7-year-old Sapna 
Palaskar on October 23, 2012.

All of them were convicted under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, 
apart from other offences. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each on 
them. Durga Shirbhate, another accused, was sentenced to 5 years' rigorous 
imprisonment for being part of the conspiracy.

According to prosecution, Shirbhate, claiming to be possessed by a goddess, 
said that 'human blood' was needed to appease the deity and save the clan as 
well as the village from its wrath.

The accused, a few of them related to Shirbhate, decided to 'sacrifice' Sapna 
Palaskar (7), a girl living in the same village. Sapna was persuaded to go to 
the house of Yashodabai Meshram where Ramchandra chopped off her head after a 
ritual. The head and the body were buried with pooja material outside the 
house. 1 1/2 months later the girl's remains were exhumed and reburied in 
another person's field. Later, the bones and skull were exhumed again, and 
thrown into bushes.

In the meantime, the police had registered a missing person complaint regarding 
the girl. During the trial, 13 witnesses were examined. The girl's parents -- 
Sharda and Gopal-- who were also prosecution witnesses, turned hostile.

However, the court relied on DNA test reports which confirmed that the remains 
recovered by the police were of Sapna, and the statements of other prosecution 
witnesses.

Assistant Public Prosecutor Adv Shubhangi Darne represented the State.

(source: The Hitavada)








PHILIPPINES:

Anti-death penalty photographer exhibits images of juvenile death row inmates



When Japanese photographer Toshi Kazama found out that he was going to take 
pictures of a 16-year-old killer on death row in the United States, he expected 
to find a monster.

But when he finally met the teenager, what he found was an intellectually 
disabled boy who could easily have been sitting in his son???s classroom.

Charged with 2 counts of murder, the boy had confided in Kazama that he was 
afraid to shower because the adult inmates would rape him in the bathroom.

"I started to think, what if I was born the same? I want to treat him as I 
would want to be treated. So I started to treat others the way I wanted myself 
to be treated. That really changed my whole life for me," Kazama said, speaking 
on Monday at the Commission on Human Rights in a forum against the death 
penalty.

"People think, 'as long as I'm fine, I don't care about others.' But meeting 
him just changed my whole experience."

Thankfully, the 16-year-old was spared the death penalty when the U.S. Supreme 
Court abolished capital punishment for juvenile offenders in 2005.

Since 1996, Kazama has been visiting prisons in the U.S. and other countries, 
photographing juvenile death row inmates, meeting families, victims, victims' 
families, and executioners.

He was in the Philippines to present an exhibit of his photos at the Senate's 
public hall, and to advocate against the death penalty.

He recalled visiting an execution chamber in Taiwan, where the floor was filled 
with black sand. The inmate would have his last meal in front of an image of 
Buddha, then he would lie down on a sheet. The executioner would then shoot him 
until he died. The black sand would absorb the bullet's impact, and the blood.

"To me, death penalty is reality. It's not just an idea ... As I see the 
execution chambers, and there are many executioners, I see how the human life 
is being snuffed," the photographer said. "And many of the executioners are 
normal prison guards. They all say they don't want to kill any more human 
beings. While society pushes to reinstate the death penalty, someone has to 
kill a human being. And yes, you don't want to kill somebody with your own 
hand. But you ask somebody [else] to do it. When death penalty is reinstated in 
this country, and when execution resumes, somebody has to kill for you."

He hoped to have the chance to meet the Filipino senators one by one to talk to 
them about the realities of death penalty.

"We have to stop. Please keep this country away from death penalty," Kazama 
said.

He remembered an execution where, five minutes before it was to be carried out, 
the phone rang. The guards cheered, expecting it to be the governor calling to 
halt the proceedings.

Indeed it was the governor, but, sounding drunk, he was just calling to say 
they should push through with the execution.

"To him, execution is just a piece of paper in front of him. Just to sign a 
paper, it's only a matter of paper to him. He never comes here to witness or 
administer any execution. It's almost like us ... Execution is the farthest 
event from our daily lives ... We are trying to distance [ourselves]. I was one 
of them too," Kazama said.

He urged Filipinos to stop the reimposition of the death penalty, which 
President Rodrigo Duterte had asked Congress to do in his last State of the 
Nation Address. The House of Representatives approved the measure to reinstate 
the death penalty, for drug-related offenses, in March.

The Philippines had done "an amazing job" abolishing the death penalty during 
the time of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, making the nation a "jewel 
in Asia," Kazama said.

Reinstating the death penalty would just legalize extrajudicial killings, he 
added.

With Kazama, representatives from CHR, from the Coalition for the Abolition of 
Death Penalty in ASEAN, ASEAN Youth Forum, iDefend, and Participatory Education 
on Rights Awareness and Social Action called on the Philippine government to 
"End Crime, Not Life".

CHR Commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit said they would continue to work against 
the reimposition of the death penalty, and propagate the studies proving that 
the death penalty did not deter crime. The CHR also planned to conduct a 
nationwide survey to see how Filipinos really felt about the death penalty.

Dumpit said that she was one in the quest for justice, which was the motivation 
for many people who were for the death penalty.

She stressed that the CHR did not want any crime to go unpunished; this was not 
how human rights worked. Rather, what the CHR was for was due process. The rule 
of law must be followed, and there must be humane treatment for those who had 
committed crimes.

Death was an inhuman verdict, and was tantamount to punishing people for the 
failure of the justice system. The taking of life was permanent, she added. 
Mistakes could not be rectified.

For her part, iDefend's Nilda Sevilla estimated that about 8 to 10 senators 
were against the death penalty, and she hoped they would be firm in their 
stance.

(source: interaksyon.com)








NIGERIA:

Katsina stipulates death penalty for rape



Katsina State Government has stipulated death as penalty for any one found 
guilty of rape in the state.

The technical committee working on the domestication of 'Child Rights Act' made 
this resolution on Monday.

The Secretary of the committee, Hajiya Fatima Jibo, made the disclosure while 
presenting the final draft of the bill known as 'Katsina State Child Protection 
Bill' to the Commissioner of Women Affairs, Dr. Badiyya Mashi, for onward 
delivery to Governor Bello Masari.

Hajiya Jibo explained that the death sentence is applicable where the sexually 
abused child is under the age of 9.

Quoting from the draft, she said, "whoever sexually abuses a child commits an 
offence and shall be liable on conviction to be sentenced to death."

(source: dailypost.ng)








ZIMBABWE:

Mugabe, Mnangagwa clash over death penalty



President Robert Mugabe yesterday disclosed that he had on several occasions 
clashed with a section of Cabinet ministers led by Vice-President Emmerson 
Mnangagwa over how to deal with capital punishment, which he said should be 
retained on the statutes to allow for the hanging of some convicted murderers.

In a speech to mark Heroes Day commemorations at the National Heroes Acre, 
Mugabe also appealed to the public to take up the hangman's post, which has 
remained vacant for over two decades. "We are still debating whether to remove 
capital punishment. My Cabinet is divided about that and Mnangagwa wants it to 
be removed, but we are still considering. We now have many people on the death 
row," Mugabe said.

Mnangagwa, who doubles as Justice minister, is on record describing capital 
punishment as inhuman and wants it abolished.

"We are failing to get a hangman. If there is anyone brave, they should apply 
and we will appoint," Mugabe said yesterday.

The death penalty has remained a controversial issue in Zimbabwe and the new 
Constitution exempts women murderers from execution while only allowing for 
certain male criminals to be hanged.

(source: newsday.co.zw)








IRAN:

Call to Save 7 Prisoners on the Verge of Execution



7 prisoners sentenced to death in Gohar Dasht (Rajaieh Shahr) Prison in Karaj, 
have been transferred to solitary confinement. These victims are faced with an 
imminent death threat. Mehdi Bohlouli, who is now on the verge of execution 
after serving 15 years of imprisonment, was only 17 when arrested and this is 
the 4th time he has been transferred to solitary confinement for implementation 
of the death sentence.

Taking prisoners to the gallows to witness the shocking scene of the execution 
of other prisoners is a common practice of torture in the prisons of Iranian 
regime.

Transferring the young prisoner, Mehdi Bohlouli for execution is taking place 
while the execution of Alireza Tajiki, a young prisoner who was 15 years old at 
the time of his arrest, sparked a wave of hatred inside and outside of Iran, 
and international human rights organizations called it shameful and shocking. 
Alireza Tajiki was hanged on August 10 after serving 6 years in prison under 
torture for compulsory confessions, and while his family's repeated requests 
for a retrial was ignored.

The execution and torture machine of the regime, which is a world record 
holder, on the number of executions per capita and one of the few juvenile 
executioners, has accelerated after the sham presidential election. Only in 
July 2017 there has been a rare record of 101 recorded hangings. The actual 
number of executions is likely to be higher, since it does not include the 
number of secret executions.

The Iranian resistance calls for urgent intervention and action of the 
international bodies and human rights organizations to stop the death sentences 
of these 7 victims and the abolition of their death sentences, as well as the 
protest and condemnation of governments to the new wave of executions in Iran.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)

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

Scheduled execution of man arrested as teenager is an all-out assault on 
children's rights



The planned execution on Wednesday morning of Mehdi Bohlouli, who was only a 
child at the time of the crime, just days after the hanging of another man 
arrested as a child, is a sickening act of cruelty that must be stopped 
immediately, said Amnesty International today.

Mehdi Bohlouli was transferred to solitary confinement in Raja'i Shahr Prison 
in Karaj, near Tehran, on Monday morning. His family have been told to go to 
the prison for their final visit today. He has spent more than 15 years on 
death row. It follows the execution last Thursday (10 August) of Alireza 
Tajiki, who was just 15 at the time of his arrest.

"By scheduling this unlawful execution when the world is still expressing 
outrage about Alireza Tajiki, the Iranian authorities are effectively declaring 
to the international community that they have no shame in remaining the world's 
top executioner of those who were children at the time of the crime. The head 
of Iran's judiciary must immediately intervene and stop this execution from 
taking place before Iran's cruel justice system takes yet another life," said 
Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at 
Amnesty International.

"The latest round of executions of individuals for crimes committed while under 
18 shows that the sickening enthusiasm of Iran's justice system for the death 
penalty knows no bound. This is nothing short of an all-out assault on the UN 
Convention on the Rights of the Child."

Mehdi Bohlouli was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Tehran in November 
2001 after he was convicted of murder for fatally stabbing a man during a 
fight. He was 17 when the crime took place and has spent his entire young adult 
life on death row. This is the 4th time that he has been scheduled for 
execution and transferred to solitary confinement. The last time was in April 
2017, when a postponement was announced the day before the scheduled execution 
date. In January 2017, his request for a retrial was denied.

Iran is one of the last countries in the world that still uses the death 
penalty against juvenile offenders. In January 2016, Amnesty International 
published a report which found that despite piecemeal reforms introduced by the 
Iranian authorities in 2013 to deflect criticism of their appalling record on 
executions of juvenile offenders, they have continued to condemn dozens of 
young people to death for crimes committed when they were below 18 years of 
age.

Since the beginning of this year, Iran has executed at least 4 individuals who 
were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime. As of August 2017, Amnesty 
International had identified the names of at least 89 individuals on death row 
who were under the age of 18 when the crime was committed.

(source: Amnesty International)

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

Raising the Death Penalty Bar----Parliament Amends Drug Law



The Iranian parliament on August 13, 2017 approved a long-awaited amendment to 
the country's drug law that significantly raises the bar for a mandatory death 
sentence, Human Rights Watch said today. The amendment, which the parliamentary 
judiciary commission revised four times, is a step in the right direction 
despite being more limited than a December 2016 draft amendment that sought to 
outlaw the death penalty for most non-violent drug related offenses.

Iran has one of the highest rates of documented executions in the world. 
According to Amnesty International, in 2016 alone, Iran executed at least 567 
individuals, including at least 2 who were children when they allegedly 
committed their crimes. When submitting the new draft law to the parliament, 
Hassan Noroozi, the spokesperson for the parliamentary judicial committee, 
stated that 5,000 people are currently on death row for drug offenses in Iran, 
the majority between the ages of 20 and 30.

"If the amendment becomes law, it could save hundreds of people from execution 
who never should have been on death row in the first place," said Sarah Leah 
Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Even Iranian officials 
admit the ineffectiveness of capital punishment for combating drugs, and the 
parliament should next outlaw capital punishment for all drug offenders, and 
then end all executions."

For the bill to become law, the Guardian Council, a body of 12 Islamic jurists, 
must approve it, agreeing that the bill is in accordance with Iran's 
constitution and their interpretation of sharia law.

Under Iran's current drug law, nonviolent offenses, including possession of as 
little as 30 grams of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines, as well as 
trafficking, possession, or trade of more than 5 kilograms of opium or 30 grams 
of heroin carries a mandatory death sentence.

The approved amendment changes the punishment for drug offenses that previously 
carried the death penalty or life in prison to a prison term of up to 30 years. 
However, it still mandates the death penalty if the accused or one of the 
participants in the crime used or carried weapons and intended to use them 
against law enforcement agencies. The death penalty would still apply to a 
leader of a drug trafficking cartel, anyone who used a child in some way to 
traffic drugs, or anyone facing new drug-related charges who had previously 
been sentenced to execution or 15 years to life for drug-related offenses.

After facing pushback from Iran's judiciary and the Interior Ministry's drug 
control headquarters, parliament altered the amendment to maintain the death 
penalty for nonviolent charges of "production, distribution, trafficking, and 
selling" drugs. However, the amendment raises the amounts of drugs involved to 
more than 50 kilograms of "traditional" drugs such as opium or 2 kilograms of 
synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines. It also restores the death penalty 
for possession, purchase, or concealing more than three kilograms of "synthetic 
drugs."

Despite the prospect of reform, the authorities have continued executing people 
on drug-related offenses. On July 20, Human Rights Watch called on Iranian 
authorities to immediately halt these executions while the amendments await 
final approval.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented serious violations of due process, 
torture, and other violations of the rights of people accused of drug offenses, 
including in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj. Prisoners have told Human Rights 
Watch that authorities routinely blindfold and beat detainees and force them to 
sign confessions. Prisoners also said that court-appointed lawyers are not 
allowed to be present during interrogations or to meet privately with their 
clients, and that they are allowed only to submit written statements in their 
clients' defense.

Under article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 
which Iran has ratified, in countries that still retain capital punishment, the 
death penalty may be applied only for the "most serious crimes." The UN Human 
Rights Committee, which interprets the covenant, has said that drug offenses 
are not among the "most serious crimes," and that the use of the death penalty 
for such crimes violates international law. Human Rights Watch opposes capital 
punishment in all circumstances because it is inherently irreversible and 
inhumane.

"The Guardian Council shouldn't wait a moment longer to approve reforms and 
take a 1st step to curbing Iran's execution epidemic," Whitson said.

(source: Human Rights Watch)

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

Daughter Of Iran's 'Hanging Judge' Breaks Silence About Her Notorious Father



Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali is notorious as Iran's "hanging judge," having 
ruthlessly ordered hundreds of summary executions after trials that sometimes 
lasted just minutes in the months following Iran's 1979 revolution.

His daughter, however, remembers him differently.

"My father's outside image is very violent," Fatemeh Sadeghi says in an 
interview published this month in the Iranian magazine Andisheye Pouya. "But 
that's not the image of him that I had at home. He was very strict at home, but 
he would never beat me."

Sadeghi said her father never discussed his dark past with her.

"He didn't want to talk about it," she said. "It was clear that he had [some 
issues], but he wasn't remorseful."

Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini selected Khalkhali to head the 
newly created Revolutionary Courts shortly after taking power. Before Khalkhali 
was forced to step down and sidelined in December 1980, he sent hundreds of 
people to their deaths, including many affiliated with the regime of Mohammad 
Reza Shah Pahlavi.

In his 2000 autobiography, Khalkhali wrote that he indeed felt no remorse.

"I killed over 500 criminals close to the royal family, hundreds of rebels in 
the Kurdistan, Gonabad, and Khuzestan regions, and many drug smugglers,'' 
Khalkhali wrote, according to a translation by The New York Times.

''I feel no regret or guilt over the executions. Yet I think I killed little. 
There were many more who deserved to be killed, but I could not get my hands on 
them," he added.

Khalkhali died in 2003 at the age of 77.

The Andisheye Pouya interview this month marks the 1st time that Sadeghi, a 
respected women's rights activist who has criticized the compulsory hijab in 
the past, has spoken publicly about her father.

While she says she doesn't intend to justify her father or defend his actions, 
she asserts that, at that moment in her country's history, those in charge had 
to demonstrate "revolutionary decisiveness."

"The atmosphere then was very ideological," Sadeghi said. "I don't want to say 
that my father was kind -- not at all. But that ideological atmosphere required 
revolutionary decisiveness."

"At that time, they all wanted to present themselves as revolutionaries to 
scare the enemy. This is how I see things," she added.

She says she never felt she had to defend Khalkhali, who is believed to have 
acted with Khomeini's blessing, because "my father always insisted that his 
political face -- good or bad -- was his business."

"He presented himself as a revolutionary and believed that he had to accept 
some bad notoriety for the revolution," she said. "[My father] would always 
say: 'We made the revolution and we have to stand by it.' I can still hear 
him."

People often criticize her father, but Sadeghi says she doesn't react. She 
merely takes note so she can later tell relatives what she heard.

"People have the right to make judgments about political figures, so whatever I 
hear is not strange to me," she says.

Sadeghi then recounts a particular episode that has stuck in her mind.

She was riding in a long-distance taxi from Tehran to Karaj, about 30 
kilometers west of the Iranian capital, when she heard one of the passengers 
attacking her father.

"[That person] started saying very bad insults about my father," she recalled. 
"He said that [my father] was once detained in France with two sacks of gold, 
adding that his wife was also with him.

"Those moments were hard on me. But I wanted to laugh at the image of my mother 
carrying a sack of gold," Sadeghi said. "[My father] wasn't a thief. He 
didn???t have any hidden wealth.

"My father ordered the [execution] of [former Prime Minister Amir Abbas] 
Hoveyda. He went to Kurdistan (where Khalkhali ordered the execution of many 
Kurds)," Sadehi said. "All of this happened, but he didn't steal."

Khalkhali presided over the brief trial of Hoveyda, who served as prime 
minister under the shah for more than a decade. Moments after being sentenced 
to death, Hoveyda was taken outside and shot in the back of the head. Khalkhali 
then returned to the courtroom and announced that the sentence had been carried 
out.

The New Haven-based Iran Human Rights Documents Center reports that Khalkhali 
was proud to have been present at Hoveyda's execution and had kept the pistol 
as a memento.

She said that Khalkhali, who had become a supporter of the reformist movement, 
convinced her in 1997 to vote for reformist presidential candidate Mohammad 
Khatami, who won the election and served as Iran's 5th president from 1997 
until 2005.

The interviewer, who says she is a friend of Sadeghi, rarely challenges her. At 
one point, she asks Sadeghi if she misses her father.

"It's a tough question. Is there anyone who doesn't love his or her parents?" 
Sadeghi asks.

Sadeghi's interview has been criticized by some as a dubious effort to humanize 
a monster.

"I wish Fatemeh Sadeghi had continued her silence regarding her father," wrote 
exiled Iranian journalist Arash Bahmani on Twitter.

The Iranian blogger who goes by the name Zeitoun commented on Facebook: "Why 
didn't Fatemeh Sadeghi say: 'Although Khalkhali was my father and I love him, 
he did bad things to people -- many bad things.' Why didn't she say that?"

(source: Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior correspondent with Radio Free 
Europe/Radio Liberty)