[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 22



SAUDI ARABIA:

Number of Beheadings in Saudi Arabia Rises by 70%



Amid mounting criticism of Saudi Arabia over its human rights record, a new 
report by a nonprofit organization shows that the number of beheadings in the 
kingdom during the 1st quarter of 2018 rose by over 70 % compared to the same 
period last year.

In its latest report published Saturday, the European Saudi Organization for 
Human Rights (ESOHR) said executions by the Saudi government in the 1st quarter 
of 2018 increased by 72% compared to the corresponding period last year.

According to the report, a number of foreign nationals also face capital 
punishment in Saudi Arabia.

The report came against a backdrop of widespread criticism of the kingdom over 
its terrible human rights record, including the censorship of free speech, 
indiscriminate incarceration of citizens with no due process, or the lack of 
basic freedoms for women and girls.

Although the Riyadh government does not disclose any official statistics for 
people on death row, ESOHR has confirmed that 42 people are facing imminent 
execution, including 8 people who were minors at the time of the offence.

The report has also decried the Saudi regime's move to execute people for 
alleged offenses that do not even cross the serious crimes threshold defined by 
the international law, noting that the convicts have simply attended peaceful 
demonstrations, exercised freedom of speech, or practiced their religious 
rites.

Since 2008, Saudi Arabia has rejected all requests for visits by special 
independent rapporteurs of the United Nations, who are concerned about the 
kingdom's human rights violation, the report added.

In March 2017, Michel Forst, a UN special rapporteur on the situation of human 
rights, expressed serious concerns about the situation of human rights 
defenders in Saudi Arabia.

Also in a report in September 2017, the UN Secretary General deplored Saudi 
Arabia for practicing intimidating acts such as travel bans, freezes on assets 
of people, and the use of torture against individuals or groups that 
collaborate with the UN institutions or programs.

Figures show that 146 people were decapitated in Saudi Arabia in 2017, of whom 
56 were foreigners.

Only in 1 day in July 2017, Saudi Arabia killed 4 people charged with attending 
demonstrations.

(source: ifpnews.com)








IRAN----executions

8 Prisoners Including 2 Afghans Executed in Iran



8 prisoners most of whom were charged with murder were secretly executed at 
Rajai Shahr Prison.

According to a close source, on the morning of Wednesday, April 18, 8 prisoners 
most of whom were charged with murder were executed at Rajai Shahr Prison.

1 of the prisoners were identified as Akbar Eftekhari from ward 6, who had been 
in prison for 14 years on murder charges. 5 other prisoners were transferred to 
the solitary confinement from different wards of the same prison.

The 2 other prisoners were Afghans transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison from 
Ghezel Hesar Prison in order to be executed.

An informed source told IHR, "Unusually strict security measures were taken for 
these executions to keep them secret."

According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 240 of the 
517 execution sentences in 2017 were implemented due to murder charges.

There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results 
in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and 
intent.

(source: Iran Human Rights)








INDIA:

India approves death penalty for child rapists after 8-year-old murdered



Offenders who rape girls under 12 may now be subject to the death penalty in 
India, according to an ordinance passed by India's cabinet Saturday after a 
nationwide furor over the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl.

In an emergency meeting, India's cabinet approved an amendment to the law 
protecting children from sexual offences that will set the minimum penalty for 
the gang rape of a child under 12 to life imprisonment or death, and the 
minimum for the rape of a child to 20 years up to a maximum sentence of life or 
death. It also doubled, to 20 years, the minimum punishment for the rape of a 
child under 16.

The new ordinance also calls for rape cases to be investigated in 2 months and 
trials to be concluded in the same span, as well as for new forensic labs and 
fast-track courts to be added.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been under fire for his response to the 
crisis sparked by the arrest earlier this month of 8 suspects in the January 
rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in the northern state of Jammu and 
Kashmir.

With a Muslim victim and alleged Hindu assailants, the case rapidly became 
polarized, and 2 legislators from Modi's political party were ultimately forced 
to step down after they attended a rally in support of the accused. Around the 
same time, a legislator from Modi's party was arrested for raping a teen in a 
separate case in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

On Tuesday, Indian Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi called rape and child 
sexual abuse in India a "national emergency," with 100,000 such cases pending 
in courts.

"The whole country was enraged, and it cannot happen that the central 
government does not listen to us. Some change will occur," Swati Maliwal, the 
chair of Delhi's commission for women, told reporters Saturday. She said she 
will end a 9-day hunger strike she staged to protest government inaction over 
the controversial rapes.

Maliwal said she was happy about the government's move but said police still 
need more accountability and resources.

But others criticized the ordinance, arguing that the possibility of a death 
sentence will not act as a deterrent and that India needs to improve its 
prosecution and conviction rate for rape and child sexual abuse cases. Supreme 
Court lawyer Karuna Nundy says that the rate of rapes has not decreased since 
the death penalty for the crime was introduced in India in 2013.

"The death penalty is easy political candy to hand out to angry and upset 
citizens, but it's much harder to work on justice systems that guarantee swift, 
certain punishment for sexual assault or to limit the violent patriarchies that 
cause rape in the first place," Nundy said.

Swagata Raha, a legal researcher with the Centre for Child and the Law at the 
National Law School of India University at Bangalore, wrote an opinion piece 
Saturday for website ThePrint, arguing that the death penalty will make it 
difficult for children to come forward and disclose sexual abuse because 94 % 
of offenders under India???s Child Protection Act are relatives or otherwise 
known to their victims.

"I feel it's a very reactionary measure, and certainly not the change those of 
us who work in this space would like to see," Raha said.

In 2012, another highly publicized gang rape and murder of a young college 
student prompted India to tighten its rape laws and set up fast-track courts. 4 
men were ultimately convicted and sentenced to death in that attack. But 
incidents of reported rape have risen 60 per cent since then, to 38,947 in 
2016, according to National Crime Records Bureau data.

A 2016 investigation by the Washington Post of nearly 400 fast-track rape 
courts found that those set up to speed the prosecution of rape cases do not 
always have the impact that advocates hope for.

Interviews with lawyers, activists and prosecutors showed that the quality and 
success of the courts vary widely. Some described proceedings bogged down from 
long waits for forensic evidence, police reports and repeated adjournments, 
with witnesses turning hostile and refusing to testify because they have 
settled the matter with the family of a suspect.

In New Delhi, for example, there was a backlog of 3,487 cases in the capital's 
fast-track courts, some of which had been languishing for years, the Post's 
investigation showed.

(source: The Star)

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

Global rights groups Amnesty International, CRY term ordinance on death penalty 
for child rapists a 'knee-jerk' reaction



Global rights groups, the Amnesty International and the CRY have termed the 
Union Cabinet's decision to introduce death penalty for rape of children below 
the age of 12 years a "knee-jerk reaction" and said it could possibly be a 
threat to the judicial process.

They said the government must ensure implementation of existing laws to protect 
children from sexual abuse instead of introducing the death penalty.

"The government's decision to introduce death penalty through an ordinance is a 
knee-jerk reaction that diverts attention from the poor implementation of laws 
on rape and child protection.

"Studies have shown that most perpetrators are 'known' to child victims - 
introducing the death penalty in such circumstances will only silence and 
further endanger children. Both the Justice Verma Committee and India's Law 
Commission have questioned the deterrent value of death penalty in preventing 
crimes," Asmita Basu, Programmes Director, Amnesty International India, said in 
a statement.

She said the government must instead allocate "adequate resources for the 
effective implementation of existing laws, improve conviction rates and ensure 
that justice is done in all cases of child abuse."

"The President must not approve this regressive ordinance, as it does little to 
promote the best interests of children," she said.

The ordinance comes in response to nationwide protests against the alleged 
gang-rape and murder of an 8 year old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua 
region.

The ordinance will amend the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Evidence Act, the 
Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual 
Offences (POCSO) Act to introduce a new provision to sentence convicts of such 
crimes to the punishment of death.

Another NGO, the Child Rights and You (CRY) said violence against children 
needs to be curbed but this ordinance comes as a "knee-jerk" reaction and may 
pose a threat to the judicial process.

"It is beyond debate that state had to act in order to curb violence against 
children, however, this ordinance does come as a knee-jerk reaction and may 
pose a threat to the judicial process.

"As in 95 % of such cases children are assaulted by the people they know (Data 
source: NCRB 2014), there is a high probability of under reporting of sexual 
offences against children and that of justice never been able to penetrate 
thick walls of homes and neighbourhoods," said Komal Ganotra, Director of 
Policy and Advocacy at CRY.

They urged the government to address the bigger challenge on hand in carrying 
out investments in preventive mechanisms to make children safe at all the 
spaces - homes, schools, neighbourhood, parks, roads.

The National Crime Records Bureau's Crime in India report, 2016, highlighted 
that only 28.2 % of the child sexual abuse cases brought to trial have resulted 
in convictions.

Despite the low conviction rates, recently four Indian states, Madhya Pradesh, 
Rajasthan, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh, have introduced the death penalty for 
the rape of girls below the age of 12 years.

(source: firstpost.com)