[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 13




CZECH REPUBLIC:

Poll: Opposition to death penalty rising among Czechs


Some 38 % of Czechs are against the capital punishment, the biggest proportion 
over the past 25 years, according to a poll conducted by the CVVM polling 
institute in May and released on Monday.

However, over 1/2 of Czechs are still for the death penalty.

Capital punishment was cancelled after the ousting of the Communist regime in 
1990.

The CVVM has been finding out since 1992 what part of the population is for the 
reintroduction of the capital punishment or against it.

The proportion of the former has been steadily bigger than the latter, but the 
difference has been diminishing.

In 1992, capital punishment was favoured by 76 % of Czechs, while only 13 % 
were against it.

This year, capital punishment was only approved of by 53 % of Czechs, while 38 
% were against it.

People with higher education and church-goers tend to be opposed to the death 
penalty, while it is mostly preferred by the elderly and the voters of 
extremist parties.

The CVVM was also finding out what arguments are mostly used in the debate.

Roughly 2/3 of the advocates of death penalty agreed with 3 arguments.

First, it brings satisfaction to the victims and their families.

Second, without the death penalty, the state uselessly provides livelihood to 
habitual criminals from the taxpayers' money. Third, the execution is an 
adequate punishment for the worst crimes.

On the other hand, almost 3/4 agree with 2 arguments against the death penalty. 
These are the risk of a judiciary error and the idea that it can be abused.

The poll was conducted on a sample of 1,019 Czechs over 15 between May 8 and 
18.

(source: Czech News Agency)






KUWAIT:

Death sentence in child murder overturned----Kuwait court overturns death 
sentence for father and mother who tortured their child to death


Kuwait's Court of Appeals has overturned the death sentence for father and a 
mother who tortured their 4-year-old daughter to death and kept her body in a 
freezer.

The court in its new ruling sentenced the father to 10 years in jail and 
acquitted the mother.

The reasons that made the appeals court abolish on Monday the verdicts 
pronounced by a lower court were not reported.

According to the case documents, the 26-year-old father in May last year beat 
his daughter Isra with an electrical wire and poured hot water on her in front 
of her mother, 23, and 3 younger siblings.

Security sources said that the investigation department received a tip about a 
suspicious murder in a flat in the Salmiya area in the capital Kuwait City.

Investigators searched the flat and found a bag in the freezer in which they 
found the frozen body of a young girl, the sources said

Forensic doctors reported that the body had burns on the shoulders and feet and 
traces of torture.

During his questioning, the father, reportedly a drug addict, said that his 
daughter took 1 of his pills and died.

However, he later admitted that he tortured her with hot water and beat her up 
with an electrical wire for her negligence in the flat. He added that when he 
saw her condition, he went down to a pharmacy and bought her medicines, but she 
passed away.

The father then went to the market and bought a freezer and placed Isra's body 
inside it.

His wife, a foreigner, refused to stay in the flat where the body was hidden, 
and he was forced to take her and their 3 children to another location.

However, they complained that the place was unbearably hot and that they could 
not stay there.

He took them to the flat of his mother and asked her to accommodate them for a 
few days, the sources added.

The father told his mother that the eldest daughter had been hospitalized and 
that he would stay with her at the hospital.

Upon hearing the details, investigators headed to the flat where they arrested 
Isra's mother for her complicity in the murder of her daughter.

Further investigations revealed that the father and mother consumed drugs and 
that the father had been fired from work for showing up in an abnormal state.

The parents were also found to be extremely negligent in the upbringing of 
their children and that their flat was disorganized and dirty.

In its statement, the interior ministry said the parents were on drugs at the 
time of the murder.

The investigations indicated that the father bought the freezer on the same day 
he killed his daughter and that he was the one to put her in a bag.

The statement confirmed that the girl's body had traces of torture.

(source: Gulf News)






LEBANON:

NGO condemns calls to reinstate death penalty


Calls to reinstate the death penalty in Lebanon were condemned by Human Rights 
Watch Monday. The rebuttal came after Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk called 
Friday for the "reintroduction of the death penalty," in particular for 
"intentional crimes," following the murder of 24-year-old student Roy Hamoush, 
reportedly shot dead last week. The death penalty is technically legal in 
Lebanon but has not been carried out since 2004. "Ending [the] moratorium on 
executions would only serve to tarnish Lebanon's human rights record," HRW said 
in a statement. "Parliament should solidify Lebanon's position as a leader on 
this issue in the Middle East and abolish the death penalty outright."

(source: Daily Star)




PAKISTAN:

Quash conviction and death sentence for alleged blasphemy in Facebook post


Responding to an Anti-Terrorism court's decision to convict and sentence to 
death a man for allegedly posting content on Facebook deemed to be 
'blasphemous', Amnesty International's Pakistan campaigner, Nadia Rahman, said:

"Convicting and sentencing someone to death for allegedly posting blasphemous 
material online is a violation of international human rights law and sets a 
dangerous precedent. The authorities are using vague and broad laws to 
criminalize freedom of expression. He and all others accused of 'blasphemy' 
must be released immediately.

"Instead of holding people accountable for mob violence that has killed at 
least three people and injured several more in recent months, the authorities 
are becoming part of the problem by enforcing laws that lack safeguards and are 
open to abuse.

"No one should be hauled before an anti-terrorism court or any other court 
solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and 
freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief online. It is also horrific 
that they are prepared to use the death penalty in such cases, a cruel and 
irreversible punishment that most of the world has had the good sense to 
abandon."

Background

The conviction and sentence, imposed by an Anti-Terrorism Court, came after the 
Facebook user was accused under Section 295-C of Pakistan's penal code (using 
derogatory remarks...in respect of the Holy Prophet) and Sections 9 and 11(w) 
of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which criminalize incitement to sectarian hatred.

The sentence is the harshest handed down yet for a cyber-crime related offence. 
Pakistan has never executed anyone convicted of blasphemy.

An Amnesty International report published in December 2016 documented how 
Pakistan's blasphemy laws are often used against religious minorities and 
others who are the target of false accusations, while emboldening vigilantes 
who are prepared to threaten or kill the accused.

"As good as dead": The impact of blasphemy laws in Pakistan shows how once a 
person is accused, they become ensnared in a system that offers them few 
protections, presumes them guilty, and fails to safeguard them against people 
willing to use violence.

People accused of blasphemy, the report documents, face a gruelling struggle to 
establish their innocence. Even if a person is acquitted of the charges against 
them and released, usually after long delays, they can still face threats to 
their life.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally in all cases - 
regardless of who is the accused, the crime, guilt or innocence, or method of 
execution.

(source: Amnesty Internantional)






ZIMBABWE:

Mnangagwa blocks hangman's appointment


VICE-PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has blocked recruitment of the country's 
hangman although at least 5 people have applied for the post which fell vacant 
more than 10 years ago, Justice ministry permanent secretary Virginia Mabhiza 
has said.

Mabhiza told NewsDay yesterday that Mnangagwa, who doubles as Justice minister, 
was not keen on filling the hangman's post because he was against the death 
penalty.

"The hangman's post is yet to be filled and we continue to receive 
applications. From 2013, when I joined the ministry, we have received more than 
5 applications. I have not checked how many applied before I came," she said.

"The Constitution still allows the death penalty. It did not outlaw the death 
penalty," she said, adding no females had expressed interest in the job yet. 
"So far, we have not received applications from females, only men have applied. 
The post has been vacant for in excess of 10 years

"It is because our current Justice minister, who is VP Emmerson Mnangagwa, is 
opposed to the death penalty such that anything in the direction of execution, 
he does not entertain it," she said.

Mnangagwa himself missed the hangman's noose by a whisker after he was 
convicted of sabotage by the colonial regime during the liberation struggle.

After being jailed by the regime after his Crocodile Gang bombed a train in 
Masvingo during the struggle, Mnangagwa, then 17, was sentenced to death, but 
spared the hangman's noose because of his young age.

(source: newsday.co.zw)






INDONESIA:

East Java woman arrested at Bali airport with nearly 10,000 ecstasy pills, 
tried to tell airport security it was headache medication


Security was not fooled by a woman stopped at Bali's airport last Thursday with 
nearly 10,000 pills in her hand luggage.

East Java woman, Stefani Anindia Hadi, tried to say she was carrying medicine 
for headaches when officers in the airport's domestic terminal pulled out the 
suspicious quantity of pills packed in to 4 large plastic bags from her 
carry-on.

After some prodding, the 25-year-old, who had been flying in from Palembang, 
Sumatra, apparently confessed that the pills were actually ecstasy.

Head of the Bali division of the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), Brig. Gen. I 
Putu Gede Suastawa explained that Hadi was arrested after a tip from BNN South 
Sumatra, that there was a passenger on Garuda Indonesia flight GA 266 flying 
from Palembang to Denpasar with a huge quantity of drugs in hand.

"After searching, the evidence was obtained from a carry-on bag. Based on 
calculations from there, there were 9,675 ecstasy pills," Suastawa said on 
Friday, as quoted by Tribun Bali.

Following Hadi's arrest, BNN officers moved to track down the recipient of the 
smuggled drugs, eventually arresting Sukron Wardana, 27, at a hotel in Kuta.

Both Hadi and Wardana are originally from Banyuwangi, East Java, Suastawa told 
reporters.

After searching Wardana's home in Kerobokan, officers did not find any 
narcotics and say they are still hunting the person who ordered Sukron to take 
the pills brought in by Hadi.

This was not Hadi's 1st time playing the mule in a drug operation, says 
Suastawa.

Last March, the woman was given Rp 40 million to carry drugs into Bali, which 
apparently went through without a hitch.

But it only takes getting caught once for the blossoming career of a courier to 
get derailed. Police have not yet publicly announced if Hadi has been charged, 
but those caught trafficking class I narcotics in Indonesia, such as ecstasy, 
could get a life sentence in prison with a hefty fine - or more extreme, the 
death penalty.

Hadi's arrest comes after popular Denpasar nightclub Akasaka was raided earlier 
this month. Police found Rp 10 billion worth of ecstasy pills on the premises.

(source: coconuts.co)






MALAYSIA:

Malaysian rights group attacks death penalty for 9 Filipinos


A Malaysian human rights organization has condemned the country's Court of 
Appeals for sentencing 9 Muslim Filipinos to death.

The 9 were among around 100 gunmen from the southern Philippine province of 
Sulu who tried to reclaim parts of Borneo they claimed were part of the 
Sultanate of Sulu 4 years ago.

"The death penalty has been shown to have no deterrent value on crimes," said 
Charles Hector of the group Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture on 
June 12.

Hector denounced the decision of the 3-member bench of the Court of Appeals 
that reversed an earlier decision by the Kota Kinabalu High Court, which 
sentenced the Filipinos to life imprisonment in 2016.

Judge Stephen Chung of the Kota Kinabalu High Court earlier said there was no 
evidence that the accused were directly involved in skirmishes that occurred 
during the unrest.

In a statement, the Philippine's Foreign Affairs department said the "death 
sentence is still not final," adding that the case will still to be heard by 
the Federal Court of Malaysia.

The month-long Lahad Datu standoff in February 2013, killed 68 people, 56 of 
whom were gunmen from Sulu while the rest were either Malaysian security forces 
or civilians.

Hector said the severity of the incident "should never be sufficient to justify 
the imposition of an unjust sentence, especially the death penalty."

(source: heraldmalaysia.com)






GLOBAL:

5 deadliest among 14 nations with death penalty for gay sex


14 nations and regions with large Muslim populations have laws providing for 
the death penalty for same-sex activity or otherwise allow such executions. 
Many fewer countries actually impose the death sentence - by this blog's count, 
probably 5 of them.

That's a summary of this blog's updated tally of countries that impose the 
death penalty for same-sex intimacy. This latest tally incorporates information 
contained in the 2017 edition of the State-Sponsored Homophobia report from 
ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.

For details, see the blog page "14 nations have death penalty for gay sex; 5 
carry it out."

(The 5 - 4 nations and 1 would-be nation - where the death penalty is actually 
imposed for same-sex intimacy are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Somalia and the 
Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh.)

(source: 76crimes.com)