[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 16




GAZA:

Trial of 'Israeli agent' in Gaza begins----Hamas claims man accused of killing 
senior terrorist commander worked for the Shin Bet.


The military court in Gaza began hearing the case against Ashraf Abu Laila, the 
man accused of carrying out the assassination of Hamas military commander Mazen 
Fukha on March 24.

Hamas claims that Fukha was assassinated by agents working for the Shin Bet.

According to the Safa news agency, 2 other Arabs accused of carrying out 
operations for the Shin Bet were also being tried for the murder. If they are 
convicted they will face the death penalty.

Following the assassination, the Hamas terrorist organization issued a warning 
that its response to further assassinations would be to target senior members 
of the Israeli defense establishment, including the chief of staff and the 
defense minister.

(source: Israel National News)






SOMALIA:

Executions Increase in Somalia


In Somalia, a country long troubled by deadly violence, there's a disturbing 
new trend: an increase in summary executions.

Somali military courts and the militant group al-Shabab have each executed 
about a dozen people so far in 2017, all of them killed in public settings as 
crowds of between 30 and 300 people looked on.

While executions in Somalia are nothing new, the sudden increase has drawn the 
attention of human rights groups like Amnesty International as well as the 
local European Union delegation, which has asked Somali authorities to enact a 
moratorium on the death penalty.

Activists have been particularly critical of executions carried out by military 
courts, which they say are trying cases beyond their jurisdiction and failing 
to give defendants fair legal process.

Military courts put to death 11 people in April alone, including a policeman 
convicted of murdering a civilian, a soldier convicted of killing a civilian, 
and 4 al-Shabab militants sentenced for explosions that killed some 80 people 
in the town of Baidoa.

The execution of 5 young men by firing squad in the semi-autonomous Puntland 
region on April 8 sparked the most controversy. Amnesty International says the 
defendants, all accused of murdering officials in the town of Bossaso, were too 
young to be tried as adults, never given access to a lawyer and coerced into 
giving false confessions.

Tortured

The rights group says that according to family members, the boys confessed to 
the killings only after being beaten, raped, subjected to electric shocks and 
burned with cigarettes on their genitals.

"These horrific allegations of torture must be fully and independently 
investigated and those found responsible held to account," said Michelle 
Kagari, Amnesty's deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the 
Great Lakes.

The head of Puntland Military Appeals Court, Salah Liif, said the court does 
not force confessions and denied the allegations about the defendants being 
underage.

"Puntland Administration does not execute children and will never do that," he 
told VOA's Somali service. "It was a propaganda spread by elements playing 
human rights groups against Puntland."

Al-Shabab gives defendants virtually no legal process at all. On the morning of 
May 6, residents of tiny Quar'a Madobe village were going about their business 
when al-Shabab militants ordered them to assemble. Dozens gathered to see the 
militants holding 2 men in civilian clothes at gunpoint.

"They brought the men in front of a tea restaurant, and told the residents they 
were captured enemy soldiers," said a witness who spoke to the Somali service. 
One militant then recited a Quranic verse, he said, and 2 others used large 
knives to slice off the men's heads, as those watching gasped and screamed.

A Somali National Army colonel identified the men as Mowlid Hussein and Ahmed 
Ya'qub, and said they were driving to the town of Jowhar to tend to family 
emergencies when al-Shabab intercepted their vehicle. The colonel said they 
were "off duty, uniformed and unarmed."

On May 1, al-Shabab executed 2 other men - Ahmed Ibrahim Ragow, 29, and Yusuf 
Ali Bajin, 22 - for allegedly raping a girl and killing her brother in the city 
of Beledweye. 1 was shot by firing squad; the other was publicly stoned.

Hassan Shire Sheikh is chairperson of the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights 
Defenders Network (EHAHRD). In an interview with VOA Somali, he called for a 
complete stop to the executions.

"Carrying out executions abruptly won't help the nation as it can cause the 
death of innocents," said Shire. "The current executions represent 
retrogressive and unjustifiable [policy], as there is no evidence to suggest 
that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishment."

Cleric backs death penalty

Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad, an influential cleric and the chairman of the 
Council of Religious Scholars of Somalia, said his council backs use of the 
death penalty, which describes as "a strong principle in our Islamic law."

The cleric, who survived a car bomb in Mogadishu in 2013, is one of the few 
Somali clerics to publicly criticize al-Shabab's extreme ideology and terrorist 
attacks. He supports any harsh sentences against the militant members.

"We generally believe that al-Shabab militant members disrespect human life, 
kill innocent people indiscriminately and destabilizes people's peace and norm, 
so we support any iron hand dealing with them," he said.

(source: New Delhi Times)






INDIA:

Jyoti Singh's rapists are the symptoms and not the problem of sexual violence 
in India.


Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for 4 of the rapists in 
the December 2012 gang rape of Jyoti Singh. The gang rape, which took place in 
a moving bus in the capital city, has received widespread attention both in 
India and abroad.

The apex court's judgement was based on the incident being the "rarest of rare" 
- a criteria required to award the death penalty in India. The judgement 
described the offenders as "barbaric and demonical," noting that "if ever a 
case called for hanging, this was it".

Twitter and the news media echoed these sentiments. Well-known journalist 
Barkha Dutt tweeted that the case "definitely meets rarest of rare benchmark," 
while others celebrated that justice was served and demanded actions such as 
castration or "torture until death". "Rare" was the most used word to describe 
the incident in the press, followed by "brutal," "diabolical," and "heinous". 
Times Now, the English news channel with the highest viewership ratings in 
India, ran the story with the headline: "brutes sent to gallows".

The portrayal of the 2012 Delhi gang rape as ???rare??? contains key factors 
over the past five years: first is that this incident was exceptional because 
of its extreme violent nature, which included the insertion of a rod into the 
victim and damage to her internal organs; second, that the rapists were some 
sort of depraved monsters that were unusual to average Indian society and hence 
capable of such inhuman acts.

Both factors are false. Neither was Jyoti Singh's rape rare in the intensity of 
its violence, nor was the intent of the rapists entirely different from what 
data on sexual violence in India proves.

This article does not debate the merit of the death penalty. But it makes a 
case that justice does not stop with legal punishment (whatever your stand on 
the nature of the punishment is); it demands that citizens participate in 
addressing the root causes of the rape.

Not so rare

Singh's gang rape was not the first nor the last brutal incident of its kind. 
In May last year, a young girl was stabbed 30 times and had her intestines 
gouged out by a sharp object. In 2015, a woman's body was found in Haryana on 
the side of the highway with missing limbs and sticks and stones in her private 
parts. Later that year, a 71-year old Catholic nun was gang raped by 8 men in 
West Bengal. In Uttar Pradesh in January this year, a teenage girl's ears were 
chopped off as she attempted to resist rape. Minors between the ages of 2- and 
8-years are routinely raped. On average, 93 women are raped in India every day.

The difference between Singh's rape and the majority of rapes that receive 
lower attention is that 88% of rapes happen in rural India to women from lower 
classes and castes. The domination of upper-castes in India's political, 
economic and judicial sphere, especially in rural India, make both outrage and 
the delivery of justice less frequent. The close caste networks in villages 
often result in the offender and police colluding in refusing to officially 
record a rape, and in cases where they are recorded the police is often unable 
to act upon the offender for the same reason.

The English press won't carry these stories of rural and lower-caste victims 
with the same vigour and activism as it did in the aftermath of Singh's rape, 
as their primarily urban, middle-to-upper class target audience do not identify 
with these victims. Singh was a student living in a big Indian city, hailing 
from a middle-class family and returning home from the release of the latest 
English movie. While the number of recorded rapes have only changed mildly in 
the past decade, the average reporting on rapes in the English press has gone 
up by 4-fold since December 2012.

Reflections, rather than exceptions, of Indian society

The idea that Singh's rapists are evil abnormalities or extreme departures from 
average Indian society allows the convenience of diverting blame away from 
ourselves. Last week's judgement read that "the way the crime happened, it 
sounds like a story from a different world". The data and statistics around 
gender dynamics in India show that incidences of sexual violence are 
representative of deep-rooted social structures and stigmas.

According to the National Crimes Records Bureau of India, over 95% of rape 
victims know their rapist. These rapists are not 'brutes' lurking in the 
streets and back alleys, but are in fact within family and friends' circles. A 
study released in 2014 by the UN Population Fund and the International Centre 
for Research on Women reported that 2/3 of men surveyed across India admitted 
to having inflicted violence on their partners, while 1/3 had coerced their 
wives into performing a sexual act. Based on interviews with over 12,000 
participants, the study further reported that the average male, across income, 
age and geography, believed that masculinity was about controlling women. 
Further, the majority of both male and female participants showed a preference 
for sons over daughters.

Rapists - even those who were capable of doing what they did to Singh - are not 
the real problem, but are simply manifestations and symptoms of the far more 
complex challenges of patriarchy and gender inequality. In an interview for the 
BBC documentary, India's Daughter, 1 of the rapists, Mukesh Singh, said: "a 
decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night. A girl is far more 
responsible for rape than a boy,". The documentary-maker Leslee Udween noted 
that "the horrifying details of the rape had led me to expect deranged 
monsters. Psychopaths. The truth was far more chilling. These were ordinary, 
apparently normal and certainly unremarkable men." The documentary was banned 
in India.

Questioning our own social behaviour

Gaining satisfaction from this punishment is right, up until it is about Singh 
getting justice and the police and courts delivering. Justice also exists 
outside of the legal sphere, and requires going beyond the courts and 
participating as a society to prevent further rapes. This would mean looking at 
our own social behaviour and correcting the power and gender imbalance. Do we 
raise our sons and daughters equally? Do we pay our male and female employees 
the same wages? Do we uphold patriarchal practices within our family 
structures?

Last week's ruling ended saying, "stringent legislation and punishments may not 
be sufficient for fighting crimes against women". Furthermore, it said,"Every 
individual, irrespective of his/her gender must be willing to assume the 
responsibility in fight for gender justice and also awaken public opinion."

(source: Anushka Shah is a researcher at the MIT Media Lab in 
Boston----thewire.in)

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

Kulbhushan Jadhav: India wins 1st round as ICJ refuses Pakistan from playing 
the purported confessional video


India tasted its 1st victory in its battle to save Kulbhushan Jadhav on Monday.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused to allow Pakistan to play the 
purported confessional video of the former Naval officer, who has been 
sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court on charges of spying.

Pakistan also assured the UN Court at The Hague, which began the public hearing 
on Monday, that Jadhav, who was arrested in March last year, was not going to 
be hanged immediately and that he would get 150 days to appeal against the 
death penalty.

The assurance is being seen as an attempt by Islamabad to stop the ICJ from 
passing any "provisional order" in the case as sought by India.

However, ICJ President Ronny Abraham informed the counsels of both countries 
that provisional orders would be passed another day.

India has demanded immediate suspension of Jadhav's death sentence, expressing 
fears that Pakistan could execute him even before the hearing at the ICJ 
concludes. "The execution of the death sentence cannot be done while this court 
is hearing the appeal. Else, it will be a violation of the Vienna Convention," 
India's lead attorney Harish Salve said.

Pakistan vehemently argued that consular agreement signed in 2008 between 
Islambad and Delhi was sufficient to deal with Jadhav case and the matter could 
not be raised under the Vienna Convention as India had done. "Why is time of 
this court being wasted?" asked its lawyer Khawar Qureshi.

Pakistan further accused Delhi of using the court as political theatre. "We 
will not respond in kind," Qureshi said.

"India's application for Jadhav is misconceived and unnecessary. Vienna 
Convention provisions do not intend to those involved in terror activities," he 
added.

In its submission, Salve had earlier pointed out that the consular pact between 
India and Pakistan was not relevant as it was not registered with the UN.

India claimed that the situation was grave and urgent, prompting it to approach 
the court "at such short notice". Pakistan had denied India its 16 requests for 
consular access, attorney Salve said.

"The graver the charges, the greater the need for continued adherence of the 
Vienna Convention. Jadhav has been in judicial custody without any 
communication with his family," he added.

The rights of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations are 
sacrosanct, Salve further said, citing the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights (ICCPR) that recognises that no one can be arbitrarily 
deprived of their lives.

Deepak Mittal, joint secretary of India's Ministry of External Affairs, added 
that Jadhav's death sentence was handed down following a "farcical" trial.

Foreign policy experts feel that India has no reason to worry about the 
arguments put forward by Pakistan.

Former Ambassador Rajiv Dogra, who was posted for a while in Karachi, claimed 
that India had rightly focused on three questions in this case - ICJ's 
jurisdiction, due process of law/trial for Jadhav and complete violation of 
consular law.

"We have highlighted the contradictions in Pak Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz's 
statements of March 3 and April 10, when he first said there was insufficient 
evidence against Jadhav. Then a month later, he says Jadhav will be booked," 
said Dogra.

After hearing the arguments from the 2 sides, the ICJ will issue its order on 
the request for the provisional measures "as soon as possible". "The date on 
which this order will be delivered at a public sitting will be duly 
communicated to the parties," the court said.

On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty handed down to Jadhav. 
On May 9, the highest court in the UN stayed Jadhav's sentence.

US urges India, Pakistan to engage in dialogue

The US on Monday urged India and Pakistan to engage in direct dialogue to 
reduce tension. "We believe India and Pakistan stand to benefit from practical 
cooperation," a State Department spokesperson said. Asked about the US's stand 
on the case of Jadhav, the official said, "We encourage India and Pakistan to 
engage in direct dialogue aimed at reducing tension."

(source: indiatimes.com)

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

2 verdicts, 1 message----A civilised and progressive jurisprudence calls for 
banning the death penalty.


Over the last few days, the Supreme Court has confirmed death sentences twice, 
and in close succession. On May 3, the Court rejected the review petition of 
Vasant Sampat Dupare, convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder 
of a small child. The 2nd, and more infamous case, relates to the death 
penalties for the convicts in the December 16 Delhi gang-rape case.

In both these cases, the Supreme Court did not consider it fit to remand the 
cases to the original sentencing court, despite agreeing that the trial court 
had erred by not considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances. This 
becomes important where the penalty sought to be imposed is that of death, 
which stands qualitatively and legally on a completely different footing from 
any other punishment. This deprives the convict of his procedural right of 
confirmation and appeal of the sentence.

Indeed, the Supreme Court routinely rejects a vast majority of the special 
leave petitions furnished before it each week, and remands a large number of 
criminal cases for consideration. Why was it that such a direction was not 
considered fit in these cases, even when the Court itself agreed that the 
sentencing carried out by the trial court was legally deficient? So much so 
that it considered mitigation evidence afresh, and reached the conclusion of 
death. The Supreme Court, in not referring the cases back to the trial court 
for sentencing, has, in fact, exercised jurisdiction which is properly with the 
lower courts.

Not only does the procedure adopted by the Court curtail the due process rights 
of the convicts under Article 21, but it also raises the question of whether 
the Court itself has created a differential criteria for the treatment of 
petitioners before it. These cases are similar in terms of the crimes 
committed. They are offences for which there is substantial demand for visible, 
retributive punishment of the offenders. Would it be possible then that the 
judiciary may be under pressure to impose extraordinary punishment in such 
cases, which could possibly run counter to procedural and Fundamental Rights?

Another aspect that requires discussion is the meaning of "rarest of rare" that 
is used to identify the category of offenders who may be sentenced to death. In 
the case of Bariyar, the Supreme Court had shown that its determination of 
rarest of rare was providing irreconcilable results, with similar cases falling 
in and out of the category. The Bariyar judgment may also be used to show that 
the determination of which cases merit death are influenced by the individual 
predilections of judges. The only safeguard that could possibly remedy this 
would be to look for the consistent award of death right from the trial court 
upwards, before concluding that a case merits capital punishment.

If one agrees with this aspect of Bariyar's reasoning, then the present cases 
become unsatisfactory on another ground. If the trial court had, as the Supreme 
Court seems to agree, not done a proper analysis of whether these cases were 
rarest of rare instances, then the question of consistency in sentencing 
vapourises. In essence, there is no legally tenable sentence at the level of 
the trial court at all. Therefore, a determination of whether or not these 
cases fall within the rarest of rare category cannot be done, unless the matter 
is remanded to the court which first sentenced them.

If these 2 cases are considered to be representative, it leads us to consider 
the possibility of legal and Fundamental Rights being not honoured for heinous 
offences accompanied by public outrage. The true test of whether any legal 
rights exist in the first place is how strictly we follow them in cases that 
test us the most. Whether we put anything by the rights to life and liberty 
must be seen in situations when those rights are under the most pressure and 
the temptation to ignore them is the highest. Any other understanding is 
chimerical to the entire notion of having rights.

The above also raises questions as to whether the death penalty has a place in 
our legal system, if inconsistencies in its application are being witnessed. In 
particular, if one sees that the very limited scope of rarest of rare is itself 
not capable of being applied in a manner which would provide predictability and 
equality, there can be no guarantee as to the proper exercise of the 
punishment. Therefore, the problem with retaining the death penalty will 
continue to exist even when its scope is limited. The only tenable option that 
remains would be that of abolition.

It is only by abolishing the death penalty in toto that we would be able to 
give full meaning to our commitment to a civilised and progressive 
jurisprudence in line with international trends.

(source: Opinion, Kunal Ambasta----The writer is assistant professor, National 
Law School of India University, Bangalore----Indian Express)

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

India demands suspension of Jadhav death penalty at ICJ; Pak calls plea 
unnecessary


Expressing apprehensions about the execution of former Indian Navy officer 
Kulbhushan Jadhav, India on Monday demanded consular access to him at the 
International Court of Justice contending that a Pakistan's military court has 
awarded him death sentence through a "farcical trial".

Eminent lawyer Harish Salve and Ministry of External Affairs Joint Secretary 
Deepak Mittal led India's charge against Pakistan in the UN's highest judicial 
body. India contended that the situation was urgent as it was afraid that 
Islamabad might hang Jadhav even before the hearing was over. The charge was 
denied by Pakistan in its arguments later in the evening where it contended 
that the hearing was "not necessary" as Jadhav was found guilty on charges of 
espionage and subversive activities and hence does not fall under ICJ's 
jurisdiction.

"Jadhav has not got the right to get proper legal assistance and the right to 
consular access. There is an immediate threat to him to be executed even before 
a decision is passed," Mittal told the court in his opening remarks. India's 
decision to move ICJ over an issue with Pakistan has come after nearly after 4 
decades. India's main contention is that it was denied its consular rights to 
its national and accused Pakistan of violating the Vienna convention and 
conducting a "farcical trial" without a "shred of evidence".

"The execution of the death sentence cannot be done while this court is hearing 
the appeal. Else, it will be a violation of the Vienna Convention," lead 
attorney Harish Salve said. Pakistan has turned down India's requests for 
consular access 16 times. Highlighting this and invoking Article 36 of Vienna 
Convention on Consular Relations, Salve said: "The graver the charges, the 
greater the need for continued adherence of the Vienna Convention. Jadhav has 
been in judicial custody without any communication with his family." India has 
called the trial 'farcical' as it was not provided chargesheet against Jadhav, 
neither was he provided with defence counsel; and New Delhi came to know about 
his death sentence from the media. Human rights treated as "basics" all over 
had been thrown to the wind by Pakistan and the trial had been vitiated, India 
argued.

Replying to India's arguments, Pakistan later said that India has not responded 
to the evidence of Indian Passport. Pakistan also requested to show a 
confessional video of Jadhav but it was turned down by the court. Islamabad 
said that the Permanent-5 was informed about the case. Calling the petition as 
unnecessary, Pakistan said that 150 days has been provided to Kulbhushan from 
10 April to 10 August to file an appeal in the case.

Pakistan has claimed to have arrested Jadhav from Balochistan, something 
vehemently denied by India that claims that the former naval officer was 
kidnapped from Chahbahar port in Iran.

(source: thenewindianexpress.com)






PHILIPPINES:

House names new committee chairs after death penalty vote


The House leadership began naming the lawmakers who will be replacing the 
ousted committee chairpersons following the vote on the controversial death 
penalty bill.

On Monday, May 15, Majority Leader Rodolfo Farinas announced during the plenary 
session the 1st batch of lawmakers who now hold committee chairmanships:

Mauyag Papandayan Jr, Lanao del Sur 2nd District - Muslim affairs

Arnel Ty, LPG Marketers Association - natural resources

Bernadette Herrera-Dy, Bagong Henerasyon - public information

Papandayan replaced Anak Mindanao Representative Sitti Turabin-Hataman, who is 
now just a member of the Muslim affairs committee.

Ty replaced Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate, who has been named as one 
of the new vice chairs of the natural resources panel.

Dy, meanwhile, replaced ACT Teachers Representative Antonio Tinio, who is now a 
vice chairperson.

Hataman, Zarate, and Tinio all voted against House Bill (HB) Number 4727, which 
gives judges the option to impose a life sentence or the death penalty on 
perpetrators of 7 drug crimes.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said any House leader who would vote against HB 4727, 
abstain from voting, or be absent during the proceedings would be removed from 
their posts.

The House then removed 11 committee chairpersons from their posts on March 15. 
Pampanga 2nd District Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was also stripped 
of her deputy speakership for saying no to the death penalty bill.

It was under Arroyo's term as president when the Philippines abolished the 
capital punishment in 2006.

(source: rappler.com)