[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

October 10



UNITED KINGDOM:

Lord Ahmad marks World Day Against the Death Penalty



Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad reaffirms the UK's long-standing policy on 
the death penalty.

Minister for Human Rights, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon said:

On World Day Against the Death Penalty, we reaffirm the UK’s long-standing 
policy to oppose the use of the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter 
of principle.

The death penalty undermines human dignity, there is no conclusive evidence of 
its deterrent value, and any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition 
is irreparable.

With the Magna Carta Fund we work globally through our diplomatic network and 
with international experts to reduce use of the death penalty and to work 
towards its abolition.

We call on the 73rd session of the General Assembly of the United Nations to 
vote in favour of the Resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the 
death penalty. We will continue to work with other states, parliaments and 
civil society groups who share this goal.

(source: www.gov.uk)








BELARUS:

I didn't know my country had the death penalty - until they executed my father



My father was sentenced to death in Belarus in 2016. 10 months later, he was 
executed. We were only notified 1 month after his death, as is usual in 
Belarus.

I used to visit my father in prison once a month. He was escorted to our 
meetings by 5 prison guards. His hands were tied together and he couldn't see 
where he was going. He was always stressed when he came to see me. He knew he 
was either going to see me, his lawyer or he was going to be shot.

The prison guards would stay with us, listening carefully to what we were 
talking about. We never spoke about what he did or about his case. We only 
spoke about personal matters.

I remember the last time I saw my father. It was on 5 November 2016. He was 
saying:

'Everything is fine, we have enough time, don't worry.'

One prison guard was joking ironically: 'Yes, you have a bit of time. Just a 
bit left.'

The guard was making it clear that my father's execution was going to happen 
sooner or later. He wanted to crush my father's morale while I was there. I can 
only imagine how they acted one on one, with no relatives or loved ones 
present.

I gave my father a parcel, thinking I would go again a month later. Just as I 
was planning to visit him again, we got the letter. He'd been shot the day I 
went to see him.

We didn't ask for any of his personal belongings. My mother was scared they 
would send us his prison uniform. But it's a shame because he had personal 
photographs. I think they threw them out or burnt them - they could have 
returned them to us.

My father had been accused of killing his girlfriend but the whole trial was 
very strange. It was more like a circus. 1 witness turned up drunk. His 
testimonies were contradictory, even the judge questioned it. The witness was 
saying: 'Oh, I can't remember exactly.'

The entire case was built on such testimonies and evidence. 'Nobody else could 
have done it' was the main line of argument in the case and the fact that my 
father had a criminal record. The court didn't care about who else could have 
done it.

It's bizarre but that's how it was - our government decided the outcome.

The death penalty is a longstanding practice in Belarus. It’s thought that 
during the Soviet times up to 250,000 people were executed and buried in a 
place called Kurapaty.

It might seem like a long time ago, but it's still happening today. People are 
executed and nobody is notified. Families have no idea where their loved ones 
are buried.

For us, it's hard to come to terms with what's happened because we didn't bury 
my father, we didn't see his body - so it's like he's still out there 
somewhere, alive and well.

We do have a plot for his grave. We've kept it very plain, but it doesn't stop 
us from praying for him. It's harder for my mother because some people keep 
telling her he's still alive. Others call and say they can show her where he's 
buried - if we pay.

There are few people who pay attention to the fact we still have the death 
penalty in Belarus - so I am grateful to organisations such as Amnesty 
International which continue to draw public attention to the problem and which 
campaigned for my father's death sentence to be commuted.

After he was sentenced to death, nobody ever discussed it with me in our small 
town in Belarus. However, people on the internet had a lot to say.

People didn't understand why my mother and I supported him. Some said we should 
be shot as well or placed in a psychiatric hospital. People also said things 
about my 4-year-old daughter. That's what hurt me the most. They said she 
should be shot because she will grow up to be the same.

People often ask me why I tell my story. I don't talk about political issues, 
I'm not interested. I am telling my personal story, how it affected my family. 
Despite the tragedy that struck our family, we are moving on - I need to, 
especially for my daughter.

I have a great creative job, which I love. It's helping me to heal, move on 
from my problems and forget all the difficulties we've faced.

I didn't even know the death penalty existed in Belarus - the 1st time I heard 
about it was in court. When the public prosecutor demanded the death penalty, I 
was shocked. I thought he was mistaken. That's the problem. Before you face it 
yourself, you don't think about it.

There are at least 4 prisoners known to be on death row in Belarus. To mark 
World Day Against the Death Penalty, Amnesty International is launching a 
campaign highlighting cases in Belarus, Ghana, Iran, Japan and Malaysia, where 
the death penalty is commonly used. To find out more, visit www.amnesty.org

(source: metro.co.uk)








SOMALIA:

Somalia's al Shabaab executes 5 men accused of spying



Somalia's al Shabaab Islamists on Tuesday shot 5 men in a public execution, 
including a Somali British citizen accused of spying, a sign of the insurgents' 
control of southern swathes of the country, even as authorities step up efforts 
to combat them.

Al Shabaab's grip on the Horn of Africa nation has been weakening since it was 
pushed out of the capital by African Union peacekeepers in 2011, but the 
government and the U.S. military are beefing up an offensive against it.

"5 of them were publicly shot to death this afternoon after they admitted 
espionage before the court," said Mohamed Abu Abdalla, al Shabaab's governor 
for the Jubba regions.

"Awale Ahmed Mohamed, 32 spied for MI6 and he came from Britain to Somalia to 
establish Islamic State," he told Reuters late on Tuesday.

3 of the men spied for the United States and helped guide drones to carry out 
strikes in Somalia, while a 4th spied for the Somali government, he added.

The government did not return telephone calls from Reuters to seek comment.

The U.S. drones often carry out strikes against the Somali militants, with the 
U.S. military saying it killed 1 militant in an air strike in southern Somalia 
over the weekend.

Al Shabaab is trying to overthrow Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed government and 
impose a strict form of Islamic law. The country has been torn apart by civil 
war since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator before turning on each 
other.

(soruce: Reuters)








KENYA:

It's time Kenya abolished the death sentence



Death is the most controversial topic in many cultures and societies. Some 
believe life is cyclical; it doesn't have an end. Others believe life is 
lineal; there is an end to it.

While some talk about it freely, in most African cultures death is usually 
spoken about in hushed tones and whispers. In some communities, it is an 
abomination to talk about death. They believe it is an enemy of life and life 
should be preserved by all means, even if the case is hopeless.

I take 'hopeless' to mean those suffering from incurable diseases, habitual 
offenders, murderers or other people or conduct that disrupts, or terminates, 
life.

DEGRADING

Most human beings fear death. We can tell from the many inventions and products 
churned out on a daily basis to prolong life, prevent ageing and delay death. 
If this is the case, what about that person who knows that on a certain date 
they will meet their death in the most inhumane way?

No matter how hard we try to justify the death penalty through religion, 
culture and laws, it still is inhumane. Death is barbaric, inhumane and 
degrading. Why should one human being condemn another to such cruelty?

In Kenyan laws, the death penalty is prescribed in the Penal Code for offences 
of murder, robbery with violence, attempted robbery with violence, treason and 
administration of oath to bind a person to commit a capital offence.

MITIGATION

Until recently, the courts did not have discretion to consider mitigation when 
meting out the death penalty unless where the accused was mentally ill, 
pregnant or a minor.

The death penalty is a residue of the colonial laws imposed on Kenya by the 
British colonial master, who used it to uphold "good governance, justice and 
civilisation". Violence and death were tools to control the African and 
facilitate operations of the State.

The application of the death penalty in Kenya was heightened during the 
Independence struggle. Records show that 280 of the 3,584 people sentenced to 
death were executed in 24 years - 1963 to 1987.

Around the world, 106 countries have abolished the death penalty for all 
crimes, seven for ordinary crimes, 29 are abolitionist in practice (including 
Kenya) and 56 retain the practice.

HUMANITY

The death penalty, whether in law or practice, deprives a person of their 
humanity. Living on death row is a two-pronged punishment: Psychological 
torture for waiting to die and the death itself.

But how can a regional economic power and democratically progressive nation 
such as Kenya keep such a heinous punishment in its laws? The penalty has not 
deterred crime. The threshold in some of the capital offences that attract the 
death penalty are low.

Further, Kenyan prisons are congested due to limited infrastructure.

While the prisons authorities might try to offer good living conditions, the 
high numbers of inmates make it hard to manage the wards, especially in regard 
to personal hygiene. This usually leads to infections and diseases. This 
further threatens their rights to life, dignity and privacy.

REINTEGRATION

I have spent time with inmates who had been condemned to death before the 
sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.

I have seen them making use of their time in prison in many useful ways: 
Studying for degrees, teaching their colleagues in the prison school and using 
their technical skills in the workshop, among other vocational programmes.

I have witnessed some of these people, who had a date with the hangman, 
supporting fellow inmates to access justice and even challenging 
unconstitutional laws in court.

I have talked to people who, in my opinion, have reformed and are ripe for 
reintegration. I have seen people who were on death row released either through 
acquittal on appeal or the presidential pardon moving on to provide immense 
service to the community.

EFFECTIVENESS

I do not even want to get to those who, for whatever reason, have innocently 
found themselves in prison.

I wonder what loss we would incur if these useful members of society had been 
killed.

The British, who enjoy a cordial bilateral relationships with Kenya, have a 
moral obligation to advocate against death penalty in their former colony too. 
They introduced this heinous law and should, therefore, come out to condemn it 
and support the abolition movement.

As we mark the 16th World Day Against Death Penalty today, it is time Kenya 
looked at the effectiveness of the death penalty and whether we need to 
continue having it in our books or not.

(source: Mr John Muthuri is a legal aid manager at African Prisons 
Project----nation.co.ke)








IRAN:

World Day 2018: Death penalty; an inhumane punishment for death row prisoners, 
their families and society as a whole



Every year several hundred people are executed by the Iranian authorities. 
According to reports by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and other human rights groups, 
death row prisoners have often no access to a defence lawyer after their arrest 
and are sentenced to death following unfair trials and based on confessions 
extracted from them under torture. These are issues which have been addressed 
in IHR’s previous reports. The current report is based on first-hand accounts 
of several inmates held in Iran's prisons and their families. The report seeks 
to illustrate other aspects of how the death penalty affects the inmate, their 
families and, as a consequence, society.

How does a death row inmate experience his final hours?

Speaking about the final hours of a prisoner prior to his execution, Saeed 
(name changed), who has been on death row for a while and has even been taken 
to the gallows once, told IHR: "Recently, there has been an increase in the 
number of the days inmates at Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj are kept in solitary 
confinement ahead of their execution and so you can no longer really speak of 
an inmate's final hours. Generally, the prisoners have their hands and feet 
cuffed in this period to make sure they harm neither themselves nor their 
guards and to avoid any trouble during their transfer. Prisoners sentenced to 
death are moved to solitary confinement on Saturdays and usually executed on 
Wednesdays. There have been cases where the execution was postponed to 
Wednesday in the following week. During this time, prisoners are given only 
government food to eat. And that food is absolutely inedible. While still in 
their ward, they do their own cooking, making their own meals and throwing away 
the government food.

The final visit is the most awful thing there is and, to my mind, worse than 
the execution itself. A prisoner who is taken to his final visit hasn't cleaned 
himself and eaten in days and has had to wash his hands in the toilet bowl of 
his solitary confinement cell. As the windows are sealed shut, the solitary 
confinement cell is steaming hot in the summer. I could virtually see the sweat 
coming out of the cells of my skin. Imagine, in these conditions, the prisoner, 
whose hands and feet are cuffed, is brought to the last visit and given 10 
minutes to say goodbye to his family. Granted, in some cases, they do uncuff 
the prisoner's hands. The families weep, they cry out in anguish, then the 10 
minutes are over, and they hold on to the prisoner's hands and feet and won't 
let him leave the visiting room. The male guards forcefully separate the women 
from the prisoner as there are no female officers to do that.

These are frantic and reprehensible moments for the families, and most 
prisoners whose hands and feet are tied become angry and, frequently, they are 
subjected to electric shocks and beaten with truncheons once they have left the 
room. The final visit is usually held after office hours because that is when 
the visitors' section is closed.

On the one hand, the blankets which are given to prisoners in the solitary 
confinement cell reek of vomit. When they moved me to solitary confinement, 
there was a blanket under the dustbin and slime was dripping on it from the 
waste in the bin. The officer told me to pick it up. I told him it was dirty. 
The officer said that the other blankets were even dirtier, and he was telling 
the truth. All the blanket smelled of urine, excrement and rubbish.

There is no fixed time for taking a death row inmate to his execution. Usually, 
it is between 5 and 6 in the morning. But there was a case where an inmate, 
Mohammad Ghiasvand, who was convicted of a murder under a group fight was held 
in solitary confinement for a week and was executed at 8 in the morning. When 
he was picked up to be executed, he thought they were taking him to meet his 
lawyer. He didn't know that he was going to be executed on his own. Unless 
someone has pity on you, no one gets to know (about the execution) and you are 
not told when you are going to be executed individually or in twos.

As in the nights before, the prisoner is kept in solitary confinement for the 
last night. His hands and feet tied together, he lies on the floor of the cell 
with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Sometimes, if the prisoner is lucky, his 
hands are tied in the front and he gets to masturbate."

Drugs: a refuge for death row inmates

Prisoners wait between several months and several years before their death 
sentence is carried out. Anxiety, depression and, in many cases, suicide is 
rampant among death row inmates and as no specialised healthcare provider and 
adequate medication are available in prison, most of the prisoners revert to 
the use of narcotic drugs. To procure drugs in prison, you need money. 
Generally, maintaining good relations with the guards and other prison staff is 
helpful. To make money, addicted prisoners are forced to sell drugs, and to be 
able to sell drugs in the prison environment you need some kind of power 
structure to protect yourself and this kind of power can be acquired in group 
structures. For this reason, most prisons have gangs consisting of death row 
inmates who traffic drugs.

Ali (nicknamed Black Ali ) was one of the prisoners at Rajai Shahr Prison in 
Karaj. He was imprisoned after having been found guilty of murder for having 
killed someone in a street fight. Soon after being throw in prison he became 
addicted to drugs and started to peddle drugs in order to cover his expenses. 
As it happened, prison officers discovered drugs in his cell and this time he 
was sentenced to death for possessing and dealing drugs. After having been 
convicted to death, Ali began to shoot heroin and soon infected with HIV. In 
order to earn money, he then became a "fall guy" who, every time drugs were 
found in the prison facility, would report to the prison guards and say: "Those 
drugs belong to me". In return for doing so, the actual owners would give Ali 
drugs or pay him money to buy more drugs. As a result, he was convicted to 
death in 8 more cases of drug possession. In 2011, Ali put an end to his life 
at the Rajai Shahr Prison facility.

Sexual relations between death row inmates

Sexual relations between prisoners, particularly between death row inmates who 
have no hope of ever coming out of prison alive, is very common. Although, for 
the most part, the prisoners engage in such relations voluntarily and based on 
mutual consent, sometimes weak prisoners engage in such relations with strong 
prisoners and drug sellers for the protection they afford and in return for 
drugs.

Execution: The punishment inflicted on an inmate's family

A prisoner incarcerated at Urmia Prison who faces the death sentence reports: 
"In truth, my execution is punishment for my family. My mother will lose a son, 
my wife her husband, my sister her brother and, most important of all, my 
daughter will never get to see her father again. But me, after I'm dead, I will 
no longer be around to be punished.

Alongside the psychological aspects and the behavioural issues that death row 
inmates need to come to terms with, the prisoners' families also have their 
burden to bear. For families of prisoners, especially of prisoners who are 
married and have children, this is particularly agonising. It appears that 
there are some similarities in what children of death row inmates experience in 
society. In the knowledge that their father or mother have been put to death on 
account of the society’s laws, they are confronted with the concept of death 
and need to find a way to move on with their lives. Having been marked while 
they are still children, they will have to suffer the stigma of being the child 
of someone who has been executed for the remainder of their lives. As a result, 
these children are much more likely to develop anti-social behaviour, 
personality disorders and other mental issues.

Gholam (name changed) was executed in 2017 at Urmia Prison after being found 
guilty of drug trafficking. He had received 300 thousand tomans, a paltry sum, 
for the job of carrying the drug. The person who had hired him was never 
arrested although Golam disclosed his identity. Fellow inmates report that 
Gholam was called out for execution on a Friday morning at 8 Am. Moments before 
he was going to be executed, he gave the attending judge a picture of his 
children and said: I did it to fill their empty stomachs, don't make my 
children orphans. Gholam's wife now lives in Urmia with her two children and 
receives an insignificant allowance from welfare, which hardly suffices to make 
ends meet. The family had been renting a place and when Qolam was executed the 
landlord found out and demanded that Gholam's wife and children vacate the 
premises. Gholam's wife and children lived with relatives for roughly one year 
until they finally found a room to rent in one of Urmia's poorest 
neighbourhoods. The people of the neighbourhood have been told of Gholam's fate 
and the two children are sometimes made fun of at school. Also, ever since he 
was executed, Gholam's wife has been routinely harassed by men wanting sexual 
relations with her. A family friend says: Even the local cleric went after her 
once he found out that she has no husband.

Depression, anxiety and even suicide are prevalent among the family members of 
the death row inmates. The families of inmates who have been put to death, most 
of whom are from the lower social classes, do not receive any psychological 
support and counselling.

The story of a 52-year-old mother's suicide in Kermanshah after her son had 
been executed in 2013 was even reported by the State media. After two years in 
prison, Fereydoon was sentenced to death at Dizel Abad Prison (Kermanshah) for 
carrying drugs. He, too, had agreed to act as a courier for a small fee due to 
money problems. Fereydoon was married and up until he was incarcerated he had 
also cared for his mother. 3 days after Fereydoon's execution, his mother took 
her own life by hanging herself.

Whether guilty or not, the outcome of the death penalty is the same. In Iran, 
the death penalty is by hanging, and it takes from several agonising seconds to 
several harrowing minutes for death to occur and for everything to be over. 
However, before their death sentence is carried out, the inmates spend some 
time in prison or the detention centre. Many death row inmates do not consider 
these few minutes of struggle on the threshold to their death the main 
punishment, but rather the days and nights they spend in prison awaiting their 
death.

It is undeniable that the families of those condemned to death, and 
particularly the children, also suffer from the profound impact this experience 
has on their lives; so much so, that these children and families themselves, in 
enduring this punishment, can be said to experience a death of their own. The 
effects appear at the time of the actual execution and last for many years 
thereafter. The indifference or hostility shown by society is capable of 
exacerbating the trauma that the families of prisoners suffer on account of the 
execution of a loved one or even just the risk of execution. That is why, until 
the death penalty is completely abolished in Iran, civil society organisations, 
need to pay particular attention to the families of death row inmates, 
especially to their children.

(source: Iran Human Rights)