[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 25



SUDAN:

Urgent Action

HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER FACING DEATH PENALTY

Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam is now facing 6 charges 2 of which may result in the 
death penalty or life imprisonment if he is convicted. Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam 
was arrested on 7 December 2016 and is being detained for his human rights work 
in Sudan.

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

* Urging the Sudanese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Dr 
Mudawi Ibrahim Adam and Hafiz Edris Eldoma;

* Urging them to ensure that Dr Mudawi Ibrahim Adam and Hafiz Edris Eldoma are 
granted access to their lawyers, families and adequate medical treatment;

* Urging them to investigate allegations that Dr Mudawi Ibrahim Adam and Hafiz 
Edris Eldoma were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and ensure that 
they are not subjected to further torture and other ill-treatment pending their 
release

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

Contact these 2 officials by 6 July, 2017:

President

Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir

Office of the President

People's Palace

PO Box 281

Khartoum, Sudan

Salutation: Your Excellency

Ambassador Maowia Osman Khalid

Embassy of the Republic of Sudan

2210 Massachusetts Ave. NW

Washington DC 20008

Phone: 202 338 8565

Fax: 1 202 667 2406

Email: sudanembassydc at sudanembassy.org

Salutation: Dear Ambassador

(source: Amnesty International)






PAKISTAN:

Man awarded death penalty for murdering relative


A court ruled death sentence to an accused involved in a murder case in 
Sargodha the other day. The verdict was announced by Additional District and 
Sessions Judge Javed Iqbal Ranjha.

The prosecution told the court that accused Sheikh Muhammad, a resident of 
Bhakkar, and his son Azhar Hussain had gunned down their relative Amir Shahzad 
over a domestic dispute in 2015.

The local police had registered a case against the accused and presented the 
challan before the court. After hearing the arguments, the judge handed down 
death sentence to Sheikh Muhammad along with a fine of Rs0.2 million as 
compensation money. However, the judge acquitted Azhar Hussain over lack of 
evidence.

(source: Pakistan Today)






MALAYSIA:

Stop executions and abolish the death penalty - Malaysian Bar


The Malaysian Bar is deeply troubled that 2 persons - Yong Kar Mun, aged 48, 
and an individual whose identity has not been reported - were executed by 
hanging at Sungai Buloh Prison yesterday morning. The prison authorities there 
had written to the family of Yong Kar Mun on May 19, 2017 to inform them that 
he would be hanged to death soon, and that they could pay him a final visit on 
May 23, 2017.

Yong Kar Mun had been convicted under Section 3 of the Firearms (Increased 
Penalties) Act 1971 for discharging a firearm when committing a robbery, and 
the mandatory death penalty was meted out.

The Malaysian Bar is appalled that the 2 executions yesterday bring the total 
of reported executions this year to 4: Rames Batumalai, aged 44, and his 
brother Suthar Batumalai, aged 39, were reportedly executed at Kajang Prison on 
March 15, 2017.

Every individual has an inherent right to life - as enshrined in Article 5(1) 
of the Federal Constitution - which is absolute, universal and inalienable, 
irrespective of any crimes that have been committed.

We do not condone or excuse any crimes that have been committed. There is no 
denying that guilty persons ought to receive punishment, and justice must be 
served. However, to be just and effective, punishment must always be 
proportionate to the gravity of offences committed, and the State must never 
resort to taking a human life. Furthermore, studies have shown that there is no 
conclusive evidence of the deterrent value of the death penalty.

The death penalty is an extreme, abhorrent and inhumane punishment, and must 
not be taken lightly, as it is irreversible.

The Malaysian Bar calls upon the Government to act swiftly to abolish the death 
penalty for all crimes, stop executions, and commute each death sentence to one 
of life imprisonment.

(source: This statement is submitted by George Varughese, president of the 
Malaysian Bar----themalaymailonline.com)



SRI LANKA:

Restoring the death penalty after a long lapse?


People support, or oppose the death penalty for a wide range of reasons. At one 
extreme are those who believe that executions are inherently right as an 
expression of society's revulsion at murder, and that society is morally 
justified in exacting this retribution. At the other end of the spectrum are 
those whose oppose executions on equally deeply felt moral or religious 
grounds, or because they find profoundly repugnant the deliberate pre-planned 
execution of a prisoner by servants of the state. No argument is likely to 
affect those firmly committed to either of these positions. In between, however 
- and this will be the large majority - are those capable of being persuaded.

Many favour the death penalty on the "deterrent" basis. But the possibility of 
any punishment is a deterrent. What is involved here is whether the death 
penalty is a unique or special deterrent as opposed to other punishments. 
People are likely to change their minds when this is shown to be unproved and 
unprovable, and when the true deterrent is pointed out. As the highest court of 
South Africa said in 1995:

The greatest deterrence to crime is the likelihood that offenders will be 
apprehended, convicted and punished. It is that which is lacking in our 
criminal justice system.

>From our own history of valiant attempts to abolish the death penalty by many 
great Sri Lankans over the years, we find Susantha de Fonseka saying, in the 
colonial legislature in 1936:

Sir, is it not likely that murders are on the increase today because ... people 
realise that the chances of detection are small and that the chances of 
conviction are even less. No, Sir, what is wanted is not severity of 
punishment: what is wanted is certainty of detection, certainty of punishment."

Many abolitionists are influenced by the certainty that innocent persons will 
be hanged. And this is a certainty, for no human institution is infallible, as 
has been demonstrated time and time again elsewhere. Persons (commendably) 
concerned with the interests of victims' families will often concede that these 
can be met by categorizing murders for the purpose of imprisonment periods, and 
parole boards to which representations may be made against premature release. 
Some argue that executions should be retained for particularly horrific 
murders. Certain murders evoke public outrage, and justifiably so. But it is 
precisely here that miscarriages of justice are likely. There is tremendous 
pressure on the police - from superiors, from political masters, from the 
public - to make quick arrests. A speedy arrest once made and highly publicized 
is difficult to go back on. Subsequent discoveries which might raise doubts are 
likely to be unwelcome and trails leading in other directions ignored. Review 
by learned judges at a final stage is no solution, as the harm is done at the 
initial pre-trial investigation. The writer has been profoundly disturbed at 
several of the resulting convictions in some such cases, and is aware that this 
discomfiture is shared by others.

Restoring the death penalty after a long lapse makes a gruesome operation even 
more so. Home Secretary William Whitelaw, who had earlier voted against 
abolition in Britain, in 1979 voted against its reintroduction, saying:

We should pause to consider what that would mean to the prison staff who would 
be involved, directly or indirectly, in executions, and for the prison 
establishments in which executions would take place and for their other 
inmates. Of course, executions took place in the past and were endured, if not 
always accepted, by those whose duty it was. But the prisons have been without 
executions for 15 years . . .

How much worse in Sri Lanka; we have a lapse of 41 years. There is no hangman 
who has even undergone the (previously mandatory) training of assisting at 
executions, let alone performed one himself. No senior prison or medical staff 
has previously officiated at executions. Quite apart from the possibility of 
horrendously botched executions, it is wrong to now impose such duties on 
prison staff and medical officers. If there are some who volunteer, that very 
fact, in this writer's opinion, gives rise to grave discomfiture.

People passionately yearn for a peaceful crime-free society. The responsibility 
of governments is to address criminality effectively, and not divert attention 
with illusory "quick fixes". Abdicating this responsibility would place an 
unfair burden on the public. Opinion polls simplify the extent to which 
responses are based on accurate perceptions, and the means available for 
combating crime. Results often depend on how a question is framed. A "yes" to 
capital punishment can easily turn into a "No" if accompanied by alternatives 
or explanations.

The responsibility of leaders is to lead, to guide. Our society is complex and 
contains different strands, some inspiring, some frightening. We should nurture 
the good and discourage the bad. Political leaders and lawmakers need to make a 
serious study before taking so grim a step as resuming judicial hangings. This 
includes acquainting themselves with the worldwide trend towards abolition, the 
UN studies on the issue, the South African case where all eleven judges wrote 
individual judgments striking down the death penalty, and the work of the 
Criminal Cases Review Commission of UK. This last-named had by end July 2009 
resulted in 280 convictions being quashed out of the 397 examined, some 50 of 
these being murder cases.

Slavery was once legal and widely accepted; abolition came through years of 
effort. It has been the same with torture, and with the death penalty, now 
viewed with abhorrence in most of the world. Is that not why the International 
Criminal Court, and other tribunals set up to deal with the most appalling 
crimes known to mankind such as genocide, specifically exclude the death 
penalty? Is not that why our own government resumed the earlier practice of 
supporting the United Nations regular calls for a moratorium on the death 
penalty as a step towards its total abolition?

(source: Suriya Wickremasinghe; The writer, a lawyer, is founder member of the 
Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka (1971), and currently its Honorary 
Secretary----island.lk)






GAZA:

Hamas must urgently halt executions of 3 men sentenced after unfair trial


Responding to reports that Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip will tomorrow 
execute 3 men accused of killing senior Hamas commander Mazen Faqha on 24 
March, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North 
Africa Magdalena Mughrabi said:

"The 3 men scheduled to be hanged or shot in Gaza Thursday were tried in a 
court that utterly disregarded international fair trial standards. If carried 
out, these cruel executions will constitute an appalling breach of 
international human rights law.

"It is not too late to save these men's lives. We are urging the Hamas 
authorities to immediately halt these executions and ensure that the men are 
given a fair retrial. The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and 
degrading punishment which should never be used in any circumstances."

Background

Mazen Faqha, a commander in Hamas' military wing, was shot in the head and 
chest at the entrance of his Gaza City home on 24 March.

Hamas formed a military court that sentenced the 3 men to death under the 
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Revolutionary Code which does not 
comply with Palestinian Basic Law of 2003. The 3 men were sentenced to death on 
21 May in a trial that lasted 1 week and consisted of 4 brief sessions only.

Palestinian law provides that the President must approve death sentences before 
they are implemented. However, since 2010, the Hamas de facto administration 
has been carrying out executions without obtaining the President's approval.

(source: Amnesty International)






IRAN----executions

Mass Executions Immediately After Election Farce


The mullahs' regime in Iran has immediately relaunched its domestic crackdown 
machine after the election farce, especially through executions and torture in 
prisons across the country. 10 inmates in the prisons of Tabriz, Zahedan, 
Ardebil, Kermanshah and Isfahan, and Karaj Central Prison were hanged on May 22 
and 23. 9 of these cases were carried out on May 23 alone.

Authorities in Zahedan executed 30-year-old Abdulkarim Shahnavazi and placed a 
noose on another prisoner. After witnessing Shahnavazi's death, the latter was 
brought down from the gallows and told his execution will be carried in 40 
days.

Seeking to rein in increasing protests and the abhorrence of the younger 
generation in cities across the country, the mullahs' regime has yet again 
resorted to mass executions.

While referring to the huge numbers of intelligence and security agents 
deployed on Friday, May 19, Iranian Interior Minister Rahmani Fazli said, "All 
youths were in the streets during the last 4 nights. The situation was very 
concerning. Our state has enemies."

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