[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 2



CHINA:

Supervising an Execution in China


A prosecutor offers a look into executions carried out in China.

"When he looked at me, I could see fear, uncertainty and hope in his eyes. The 
emotions flashed by so quickly, I would have missed it if I had not been paying 
attention."

An article written in Chinese by a prosecutor in China has been circulating on 
various blogs and WeChat. The author, credited as Nan Shiqin, in the piece 
describes his experience supervising the execution of a 23-year-old convicted 
murderer.

Nan comes face-to-face with the prisoner at a morgue, where the convict is 
executed by a firing squad. The aftermath of the death penalty is nothing like 
what television dramas show, writes Nan.

"There are no angry shouts from the prisoner, no family crying; the autopsy is 
quick, and the body is hauled onto a chaise from the morgue and taken away."

"I felt regret having to end the life of someone so young. At 23, his life was 
only just beginning. But I also knew that the law is ruthless because it needs 
to uphold the greater good," writes the prosecutor. "It was not an easy job for 
me, watching a young man give his life to atone for his crimes."

Death penalty data is a state secret in China, but according to an Amnesty 
International report in 2016, the country is the world's top executioner.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pledged to abolish the death penalty in 1922, 
but Amnesty International estimates that thousands of executions and death 
sentences are carried out in China each year - despite the Supreme People's 
Court judgments database only recording 701 approved death sentences between 
2011 and 2016.

Amnesty International found 931 death sentences reported in Chinese media 
between 2014 and 2016, but only 85 of those cases were documented in the 
Supreme People's Court database.

The international human rights organization also reports that the majority of 
people sentenced to death between 2011 to 2016 were often unemployed or 
classified as "rural people or farmers," with more than half being the latter.

(source: thenewslens.com)






INDIA:

His Grandfather Executed Indira Gandhi's Assassin. Today, He's A 'Hangman'


Pawan Jallad has been a hangman for over 50 years now. Traditionally, in India, 
a son follows his father's footsteps, taking up the same line of work. Pawan's 
father was a hangman (called a 'jallad' in Hindi), and so was his grandfather. 
Despite the grisly task assigned to him as an executioner, Pawan loves his job. 
He has never imagined being anything else and has wanted to be a hangman since 
he was a child.

Pawan has been in the 'family business' since 1951. Proudly speaking about his 
family's legacy in this profession, he mentions how his grandfather hanged 
Indira Gandhi's assassin in 1987, an execution that 22-year-old Pawan 
witnessed. When asked if he is scared by the work he does, Pawan shrugs and 
shakes his head. To him, all he is doing is performing a duty. Whether someone 
is innocent or not is not for him, but the courts to decide.

India is one of the few countries where the death penalty still exists. In 
fact, in 2007, India voted against a UN resolution that opposed the death 
penalty. In the year 2015, more than 1600 executions were carried out across 
the world. In India, it is estimated that since 2001, over 270 people have been 
sentenced to death, but not executed.

Outside the metros and beyond the urban jungle live the sons and daughters of 
India's heartland. The 101 Heartland series tells their stories. It celebrates 
both unique communities and individual tales of hope, struggle, and reform. 
>From the village of bouncers just outside Delhi to the fascinating story of Ram 
Kumar Tyagi, once a wanted man but now a coach for aspiring female wrestlers, 
101 Heartland tells stories for the heart, from the heartland.

(source: youthkiawaaz.com)






PHILIPPINES:

Death penalty revival dropped from priority bills


Congress on Tuesday appeared to have dropped bills seeking the revival of death 
penalty its priorities for passage this month.

Also excluded from the list of priority legislation were the lowering of the 
age of criminal responsibility, tax reform and postponement of the 2017 
barangay elections.

House Majority Leader Rodolfo Farinas explained leaders of the Senate and House 
of Representatives identified only 14 bills that could be passed by the end of 
May, in time for President Rodrigo Duterte's 2nd State of the Nation Address in 
July.

"We met -- the Speaker, the Minority Leader, the chairman of the [House] Ways 
and Means Committee. We met with our counterparts, namely the Senate President, 
Majority Leader Sotto, Senate Pro-tempore Ralph Recto and Minority Leader Frank 
Drilon," Farinas said.

Farinas said that in the case of the death penalty bill, there was no consensus 
among leaders of both chambers to make its passage a priority.

(source: abs-cbn.com)






AFRICA:

Africa must reject the death penalty


On April 11, Amnesty International published its report on the global use of 
the death penalty for last year.

The report indicates that at least some 1,032 people were executed in 23 
countries.

Excluding China, which executed more people than the rest of the world 
combined, some 87 % of all the executions took place in Iran, Saudi Arabia, 
Iraq, and Pakistan.

In recent years, sub-Saharan Africa has stood out as a beacon of hope and 
positive progress on the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty.

However, last year saw a mix of some good and bad news. The good news is that 
there has been a significant reduction in the number of executions carried out 
in the entire region.

EXECUTIONS REDUCED

The number of recorded executions went down by 49 %, with 22 executions 
recorded last year compared to 43 the previous year.

In addition, 2 countries in the region abolished the death penalty.

In January last year, the Constitutional Court of the West African nation of 
Benin ruled that in order to comply with the country's international human 
rights obligations, all laws providing for the death penalty were void and 
death sentences could no longer be imposed.

The landmark decision effectively abolished the death penalty. Later in the 
year, Guinea introduced a new Criminal Code, which removed the death penalty 
from the statute books as an applicable punishment for ordinary crimes.

While Guinea's Military Code still provides for the death penalty for some 
exceptional crimes, a Bill to remove all the death penalty provisions from the 
Military Code is pending in that country's National Assembly.

POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS

These positive developments in Benin and Guinea followed the trend from 2015, 
when Madagascar and the Republic of Congo consigned the death penalty to 
history.

The pace of abolition of the penalty in sub-Saharan Africa has been steady and 
promising.

In 1977, when Amnesty International started campaigning and advocating for the 
worldwide abolition of the death penalty no country in sub-Saharan Africa had 
abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

Today, some 19 have done so.

There was also good news for hundreds of people who had been condemned to death 
and were reprieved last year when their death sentences were commuted in Kenya, 
Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritania, and Sudan.

The commutations in Kenya were particularly remarkable. President Uhuru 
Kenyatta commuted the death sentences of 2,747 prisoners - the entire death row 
population in Kenya at the time.

REMOVED DEATH PENALTY

Indeed, despite not having removed the death penalty, it is instructive to note 
that Kenya has not carried out executions in 30 years and this move further 
steers it away from the death penalty.

On the other hand, 2 countries that had not carried out executions since 2013 
resumed. Botswana executed 1 person last year; and in December 3 people were 
suddenly executed in Edo State of Nigeria.

A very worrying trend in sub-Saharan Africa last year was the sharp increase in 
the number of death sentences handed down despite the fact that the number of 
countries where death sentences were imposed by the courts fell from 21 in 2015 
to 17 last year.

There was a staggering 145 % increase in the number of death sentences imposed 
across the region.

RIGHT TO LIFE

Some 1,086 death sentences were confirmed last year compared to 443 in 2015. 
This sharp increase was largely due to a massive surge in Nigeria, where the 
courts imposed a total of 527 death sentences, the highest in the whole of 
Africa.

This high number of death sentences in Nigeria raises serious concern about the 
real possibility of executing some innocent people, as unsafe convictions are 
common.

In fact, it is worth noting that the courts exonerated 32 wrongly convicted 
people last year alone.

The death penalty is a violation of the right to life; it is the ultimate cruel 
and inhuman punishment that has no place in the modern era.

The majority of the countries in the world, a total of 104, have accepted this 
fact by completely doing away with the death penalty for all crimes.

It is, therefore, time for the countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are yet to 
do so, to seriously consider joining them.

There is no reason why, in the foreseeable future, the region could not be 
completely free of the death penalty.

(source: Opinion, Mr Popoola, Amnesty International's advocate/adviser on the 
death penalty----nation.co.ke)