[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 27



JAPAN:

Death penalty to stand for woman convicted of murdering 2 men



The death sentence given to a woman convicted of murdering 2 men in the western 
Japan prefecture of Tottori in 2009 is set to be finalized after the Supreme 
Court upheld lower court rulings Thursday.

The top court said in its ruling that the defendant carried out the 
premeditated and "cruel crimes based on firm intentions to kill" and she bears 
"grave criminal responsibility."

According to the lower court rulings, Miyuki Ueta, a 43-year-old former bar 
worker, drugged truck driver Kazumi Yabe, 47, and drowned him in the sea in 
April 2009 and she drugged and drowned in a river electronics store owner 
Hideki Maruyama, 57, in October of the same year.

Ueta, who owed money to both victims, maintained her innocence and the verdicts 
were based mainly on circumstantial evidence, including that Ueta was the last 
person to meet with the men before they went missing and she obtained sleeping 
pills beforehand.

(source: The Mainichi)








PAKISTAN:

Man gets death penalty for murder



A man was handed the death penalty by a local court, while his accomplice was 
sentenced to life in prison for murder.

According to the prosecution, Umer Farooq and his friend Zaheer had beaten a 
man to death using sticks over a petty dispute on Jallala Road, in the 
Nawababad area, on July 7, 2013.

Both the suspects were found guilty of the charge. Consequently, Additional 
Sessions Judge Amir Shahbaz sentenced Farooq to death and handed Zaheer a life 
term. The convicts were asked to pay Rs500,000 as compensation to the family of 
the deceased.

(source: The Express Tribune)

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

Death penalty in Pakistan



Sir, as we know that the death penalty robs life and there is no impact of it 
on crime rate in Pakistan and in countries which still practice it. Opposing 
the death penalty means saying no to state murder, and no to torture of all 
sorts. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in Pakistan in 2014 after 
Peshawar massacre about 470 had been executed.

Pakistan had reinstated the brutal and inhuman punishment with intention of 
combating terrorism. The ratio of heinous of offences across Pakistan has not 
been decreased despite of reinstatement of the death penalty. The recent bomb 
blast across in Lahore is a clear example of mentioned argument wherein 25 
innocent had been killed. The punishment of death is not an answer to such 
incidents at all.

The medieval times punishment has no space whatsoever in modern era at all. The 
countries that don't practice the death penalty have lesser ratio of heinous 
offences such as Britain, and France, etc. It is also submitted that Pakistan 
and those countries that practice the death penalty must abolish or either 
place moratorium for all sorts of offences. In Pakistan the brutal punishment 
of death penalty had been practiced against poor and those who had no access to 
better legal aid.

The recent judgment of Indian Supreme Court is relevant to be considered in 
prevalent circumstances wherein it is opined that poverty must also be 
considered by the courts at the time of sentencing. Mostly poor people are 
being sentenced to death. Last week an interesting conference organized by Anti 
Death Penalty Network (ADPAN) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in collaboration with 
World Coalition against Death Penalty, and ECPM wherein people from different 
walks participated to discussion and high light arguments against the barbaric 
death penalty.

The participated reached on to a concrete agreement that the death penalty must 
be abolished in Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran including countries of 
Asia Pacific. It has no room in modern age as it challenges human dignity and 
the death penalty is irreversible if an innocent is executed. In most countries 
that practice the death penalty are those countries where the judicial system 
can be administered and controlled by people with deep pockets such as 
Pakistan, etc.

The death penalty disproportionately affects the poorer and lower classes, and 
the risks of wrongful convictions cannot be excluded. Everyone deserves a 2nd 
chance. The death penalty is not a solution; it is a violation of human rights 
and should be abolished. We are aiming to become a developed nation, and one of 
its important elements is human rights.

Many countries have abolished the death penalty and Pakistan should aim for the 
same.

SARMAD ALI

Lahore

(source: Letter to the Editor, Daily Times)

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

CII's opinion sought on petition against death by hanging



A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday directed the Council of Islamic Ideology 
and attorney general for Pakistan to respond to a petition seeking its orders 
for the government to introduce a less painful mode of execution than hanging.

Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Abdul Shakoor extended a stay order against 
the execution of a death row prisoner, Jan Bahadur, until the disposal of his 
petition.

The bench asked the CII to explain its viewpoint on the petitioner's prayer in 
light of Islamic injunctions.

It also directed that the attorney general should explain the legal position on 
the points raised by the petitioner.

Kept at the Haripur Central Prison, the petitioner has requested the high court 
to declare death by hanging un-Islamic and unconstitutional saying it is 
painful and against human values.

He said Section 368 of the Code of Criminal Procedure stated, "When any person 
is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that he be hanged by the neck 
till he is dead."

The petitioner requested the court to order end to the execution of death row 
prisoners by hanging saying it is cruel, painful, un-Islamic and inhuman.

He added that the court should order the authorities to adopt the modes of 
execution, which were not painful. The respondents in the petition are the home 
secretary, superintendent of the Haripur Central Prison, law secretary, CII 
secretary and Mardan???s district and sessions judge.

Additional advocate general Qaisar Ali Shah, who appeared for the provincial 
government, requested the court to give him some time for preparing the case.

Former deputy attorney general Mohammad Khursheed Khan, who appeared for the 
petitioner, said his client was arrested in connection with a murder case 
registered at the Takht Bhai police station in Mardan on Oct 22, 1993.

He added that the petitioner was sentenced to death by an additional district 
and sessions judge on Apr 7, 2000, in Takht Bhai and that the judgment was 
upheld first by the high court and then by the Supreme Court.

The lawyer said his client's review and clemency petitions were rejected and 
therefore, his black warrant could be issued any time by the trial court.

Khursheed Khan requested the court to extend a stay order earlier issued by it 
against the execution of the petitioner.

He said there were nine modes of death penalties, including through firing 
squad, gas chamber and electric chair, hanging, shooting in the head, lethal 
injection, beheading, stoning and pushing from unspecified height.

The lawyer said in the past, the mode of execution in all US states was hanging 
but the use of electric chair was devised as a less painful mode.

He added that in 1921, the State of Nevada introduced gas chamber for carrying 
out death penalty.

The lawyer said in more than 30 US states, the convicts were executed by lethal 
injection, which was considered more humane and less painful than other modes 
of execution.

"3 injections are administered to a death row prisoner. The 1st injection 
leaves a prisoner unconscious, the 2nd paralyses his body and the third stops 
his heart from functioning," he said.

The lawyer claimed that 28 countries executed prisoners through firing squad 
and 22 by shooting gunshots in head.

He said the colonial rulers had introduced death by hanging through the CrPC in 
1898 and that the same mode was adopted after the creation of Pakistan.

(source: dawn.com)

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

Pakistani police arrest 20 for ordering 'revenge rape'----Suspects face death 
penalty or life in prison for allegedly ordering rape victim's brother to rape 
suspect's sister.



The 16-year-old girl was raped in revenge on July 18.

Pakistani police have arrested 20 people in Punjab province accused of 
organising a village council that ordered a man to rape a 16-year-old girl in 
revenge for the earlier rape of his sister, according to officials.

The suspects were arrested from near the central city of Multan on Wednesday, 
and a hunt for 7 more suspects was under way, Malik Rashid, the local police 
official heading the investigation, told Al Jazeera.

"It was not a formal village council, like has happened in the past," he said. 
"It was just a gathering of uncles and aunts [of the first victim] from that 
village, in the same area."

Cases had been registered regarding the 2 rapes, he confirmed.

The maximum punishment for rape under Pakistani law is the death penalty. 
Alternately, convicts may face imprisonment of up to 25 years.

On July 16, a 12-year-old girl was raped while working in the family fields 
just south of Multan, according to one of the police reports.

"My daughter [...] was cutting grass in the fields on July 16, 2017, at around 
2pm when ... she was covered in a cloth [by her attackers] and forcibly raped," 
her mother told police.

Following that attack, members of the victim's family gathered together and 
resolved to rape a member of the alleged attacker's family in revenge, said 
Rashid.

"On the night of July 18, 2017 at about 2am I was sleeping with my children in 
my house when [...] my 16-year-old daughter was taken away [by 3 men]," said 
the 2nd victim's mother in a police report.

The 2nd victim is the sister of the alleged attacker in the 1st rape, said 
Rashid.

"We implored the culprits to leave my daughter alone, but [they] threatened us 
that if anyone came forward they would be killed," said the second victim's 
mother.

New provincial law

The rapes were reported at a government-run Violence Against Women Centre in 
Multan, the 1st such centre set up under a new provincial law designed to 
enhance protection for women that was passed last year.

According to a Thomson Reuters Foundation poll in 2011, Pakistan is the world's 
3rd most dangerous country for women, with domestic abuse, sexual harassment, 
acid attacks and economic discrimination common.

It ranks 130th on the United Nations Gender Inequality Index, and 143rd out of 
144 countries on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index.

Last year, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan documented at least 2,446 
cases of violence against women in the country, including 958 rapes and 158 
cases of attacks where victims were either set on fire or attacked with acid.

The new law in Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, criminalised all forms of 
violence against women, including domestic, psychological and sexual violence, 
and established a toll-free hotline for reporting abuse.

It also mandated the establishment of shelters such as the one where the rapes 
in Multan were reported.

Village councils, typically consisting of local elders, are a traditional means 
of dispute resolution in rural Pakistan, where the formal legal system is not 
always accessible. Such councils do not, however, hold any legal standing.

"Their shameful act is now before the entire world," said local police official 
Rashid, who was en route to a conduct a raid in the hope of capturing the 
remaining suspects.

(source: aljazeera.com)








GLOBAL:

Gay relationships are still criminalised in 72 countries, report finds----50 
years after Britain???s partial decriminalisation of homosexuality, in eight 
countries it can still result in death penalty



50 years after homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales, 72 other 
countries and territories worldwide continue to criminalise same-sex 
relationships, including 45 in which sexual relationships between women are 
outlawed.

There are 8 countries in which homosexuality can result in a death penalty, and 
dozens more in which homosexual acts can result in a prison sentence, according 
to an annual report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and 
Intersex Association (ILGA).

Southern and east Africa, the Middle East and south Asia persist with the most 
draconian approaches. Western Europe and the western hemisphere are the most 
tolerant.

But Britain was by no means a frontrunner when it moved 50 years ago to partly 
decriminalise homosexuality. Some 20 other countries had already led the way, 
including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil and Argentina, all of whom 
had legalised it well before 1900.

In Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, homosexuality is still punishable by 
death, under sharia law. The same applies in parts of Somalia and northern 
Nigeria. In 2 other countries - Syria and Iraq - the death penalty is carried 
out by non-state actors, including Islamic State.

The report notes that, although the potential exists for a death penalty to be 
handed down under sharia courts in at least 5 other countries - Pakistan, 
Afghanistan, the UAE, Qatar and Mauritania - there is no evidence suggesting 
that it has been implemented for consensual same-sex acts between adults in 
private.

Same-sex relations - which are variously criminalised under laws covering 
sodomy, buggery and "acts against nature" among others - could lead to a prison 
sentence in 71 states in all.

However, this number excludes Egypt, where same-sex relations are technically 
legal but are vigorously pursued and where hundreds of people are reported to 
be detained on morality grounds.

Altogether, more than 120 countries have decriminalised homosexuality. But some 
still cannot be described as liberal. Russia, for example, has recently 
introduced laws banning the promotion of homosexuality. Russia was recently 
rebuked by the European court of human rights for a 2013 law banning the spread 
of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors.

A co-author of the ILGA report, Aengus Carroll, said it remained the case that 
there was "no country in the world where LGBT people are safe from 
discrimination, stigmatisation or violence".

"Legislative change is slow enough in coming, but societal attitudes, 
particularly those that may evoke taboo, are painstakingly slow," he said.

However, he pointed to some positive developments, in countries including 
Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tunisia, where advocates have recently won court 
cases affirming the right to form organisations to lobby for rights.

There have also been "amazing strides" on sexual orientation and gender 
identity issues around the world.

A parliamentary vote in Germany will lead to the legalisation of same-sex 
marriage later this year; marriage equality in Malta will bring to 24 the 
number of states allowing gay marriage. A similar number of states offer civil 
partnership recognition.

At the time of publication of the ILGA report, there were 26 countries that 
allowed for joint adoption for same-sex couples and 27 in which same-sex second 
parent adoption - where a same-sex parent can legally become a step-parent to 
his or her partner's child - was in place.

A spokesman for the LGBT charity Stonewall said that, while it was important to 
remember how far the UK had come on LGBT rights since the 1967 Sexual Offences 
Act, many challenges remained.

"Same-sex relations are illegal in 72 countries, and punishable by death in 8. 
We all have a part to play in ensuring all LGBT people are accepted without 
exception and all we can hope is that, in 50 more years, we will have lots more 
progress to look back on," said Matt Horwood.

"Trans people still face a number of legal barriers and LGBT people as a whole 
continue to face discrimination in their daily lives. LGBT people can find 
themselves excluded, or face verbal and physical abuse, whether at work, at 
school, in sport, in faith or within local communities."

(source: The Guardian)