[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

August 14




IRAQ:

Captured ISIS commander admits beheading 3 Kurds: ministry



Iraqi forces on Monday night announced the capture of an Islamic State (ISIS) 
commander and 6 other militants in southwest Kirkuk province who are alleged to 
have committed "heinous crimes" against civilians.

The 7 unnamed ISIS suspects were arrested by Iraqi troops, the defense ministry 
announced via social media, without describing the circumstances of their 
capture.

Among the prisoners is an alleged ISIS commander who managed the Hawija Grain 
Mill when the group controlled the area from mid-2014 to October 2017.

In a video published on Facebook by the Iraqi defense ministry, the unnamed 
ISIS commander, whose face is blurred, is showed confessing to the murder of 3 
Kurds and 2 other individuals from Diyala province.

"Members of our group kidnapped 3 Kurdish nationals and brought them to Hawija. 
Our leader ordered me to behead them. Together with 2 other persons who were 
from Diyala, we executed the order," he said, without identifying their leader.

Iraqi and Kurdish security forces regularly publish videos of their captives 
making confessions [ a format often seen in jihadist propaganda films. Human 
rights groups regularly accuse Iraqi courts of using confessions obtained by 
duress.

The defense ministry condemned the "barbaric" group, accusing them of "heinous 
crimes against humanity killing innocent people" without providing details.

The group allegedly confessed to plotting attacks inside Kirkuk using the 
families of slain ISIS militants, the ministry claimed.

Iraqi troops recently launched a string of operations across several provinces 
to quell the ISIS resurgence, including a one-day sweep of the southern Kirkuk 
region on August 4 dubbed "New Dawn."

The 3rd phase of operation "Will of Victory" was launched in Diyala and Nineveh 
provinces on August 5 by Iraqi Security Forces backed up by Iraqi and coalition 
airpower.

During the 3rd phase, Iraqi forces searched 25 villages over a 1,702 square 
kilometer area in Diyala for ISIS remnants, arms caches, bomb workshops, and 
hideouts. They detained 18 ISIS fighters and killed 4 others, according to 
Iraq’s Security Media Cell. They also destroyed 12 tunnels and 24 hideouts and 
seized 42 explosive devices and 6 mortar rounds, it added.

ISIS seized vast areas of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014. Although 
Iraqi’s former prime minister Haider al-Abadi declared the group defeated in 
Iraq in December 2017, ISIS remnants and sleeper cells remain active, returning 
to their earlier insurgency tactics.

Their resurgence has been particularly apparent in areas disputed between Erbil 
and Baghdad, where contention over control of territory has created security 
vacuums open to exploitation.

According to a US Department of Defense report to the US Congress published in 
early August, ISIS are "working to rebuild their capabilities" in Iraq and 
Syria.

"ISIS is rebuilding in remote territory, which is hard for Iraqi forces to 
secure," the report said, and is "able to recruit in these areas [Iraq’s 
northern and western provinces] using family and tribal connections."

On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said Iraqi forces have yet to 
encounter "real resistance" from ISIS militants in recent operations.

(source: rudaw.net)








IRAN----executions

Iran Regime Hangs 7 Prisoners



Iran's regime has hanged at least 7 prisoners in recent days, according to a 
group monitoring the human rights situation inside the country.

Iran Human Rights Monitor reported on Tuesday 2 prisoners were hanged on 
Saturday, August 10, in the central prison of Mashhad, according to a report in 
the state-run Khorasan daily on Sunday. The state media did not identify the 
victims by name but said it would publish a full report in following days.

In another development last Wednesday, 5 prisoners were hanged in the notorious 
Raja’i Shahr (Gohardasht) Prison, in the city of Karaj, northwest of Tehran, 
Iran HRM said. The names of those executed were announced as Mohammad-Reza 
Shekari, Yousof Zakeri, Majid Arabali, Hossein Panjeh-Maryam, and Bahram Tork.

These prisoners, along with several others, had been moved to solitary 
confinement prior to their execution.

The regime usually moves prisoners who are listed to be hanged soon to solitary 
confinement where they have to count the minutes and hours to have a hangman 
take them to the gallows.

The Iranian regime hanged 39 prisoners in July alone. 4 were women, and there 
was 1 public hanging.

The executions took place in the prisons of Birjand, Ghohardasht, Karaj, 
Kashan, Khondab, Mahshahr, Kelardasht, Orumieh (Urmia), Noor, Mashhad, Mahabad, 
Zanjan, Minab, Bandar-Abbas, Borujerd, Shiraz, Tabriz, Gorgan, Dezful, Rasht 
and Kermanshah.

Iran’s regime is the world’s top record holder in executions per capita. More 
than 3,800 people have been executed in Iran since Hassan Rouhani took office 
as President in 2013.

The mullahs’ regime uses the death penalty as a tool to suppress and silence a 
disgruntled society the majority of whom live under the poverty line, are 
unemployed and deprived of freedom of speech.

United Nations human rights bodies have condemned the Iranian regime on 65 
occasions for its gross human rights violations.

(source: ncr-iran.org)

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

Family spares ex-Tehran mayor facing death over wife's murder



A former mayor of Tehran sentenced to death over the murder of his wife has 
been spared by her family in a post shared on Instagram on Wednesday.

Mohammad Ali Najafi, 67, was sentenced to death last month after being 
convicted of shooting dead his second wife Mitra Ostad at their home in the 
Iranian capital on May 28.

Ostad's family had appealed for the Islamic law of retribution to be applied -- 
an "eye for an eye" form of punishment which would have seen the death penalty 
served.

But her brother Masood Ostad said the family had decided to grant him a 
reprieve, according to a post on his private Instagram account cited by various 
media outlets.

State news agency IRNA said a lawyer for the family, Mahmoud Hajiloui, had 
confirmed the reprieve.

In his Instagram post, the brother cited a verse from the Koran that says: 
"Allah loves the doers of good".

"My father, my mother and our Mahyar (his sister's son) forgive Mr Mohammad Ali 
Najafi" after mediation that involved others, he wrote.

"We are happy that we made no deal for the blood of that honourable (person)," 
he added, referring to retribution for his sister's murder.

"We hope Mr Mohammad Ali Najafi in his remaining years... engages in cleansing 
himself."

Najafi remains behind bars after also receiving a 2-year jail sentence for 
illegal possession of a firearm, but it was not immediately known if he still 
has to serve time for murder.

The former mayor's trial received detailed coverage in state media where 
scandals related to politicians rarely appear on television.

A mathematician, professor and veteran politician, Najafi had previously served 
as President Hassan Rouhani's economic adviser and education minister.

He was elected Tehran mayor in August 2017, but resigned the following April 
after facing criticism from conservatives for attending a dance performed by 
schoolgirls.

Najafi married Ostad without divorcing his 1st wife, unusual in Iran where 
polygamy is legal but socially frowned upon.

Some of Iran's ultra-conservatives said the case showed the "moral bankruptcy" 
of reformists, while reformists accused the conservative-dominated state 
television of bias in its coverage and highlighting the case for political 
ends.

(source: france24.com)








SAUDI ARABIA:

My father called for reform in Saudi Arabia. Now he faces death----‘Sadly, my 
father is by no means the only individual who faces the death penalty on 
trumped-up charges.’



In September 2017, my father, the prominent Saudi reformist Muslim scholar 
Salman al-Odah, tweeted an innocuous message to his 14 million followers 
encouraging the government to end its diplomatic standoff with Qatar. A few 
hours later he was taken from our home by state security officials. He now 
faces the prospect of being executed on charges that include spreading 
corruption by calling for a constitutional monarchy, stirring public discord, 
incitement and "mocking the government’s achievements."

Since his arrest he has been held in solitary confinement, where he remains 
today. He has been mistreated, handcuffed, blindfolded and chained inside his 
cell, and deprived of sleep and medications - so much so that after 5 months he 
had to be taken to hospital. Seventeen members of my family have been banned 
from travelling; my uncle Khalid was arrested because he tweeted about my 
father; and I was asked by the Saudi embassy in Washington to go back to Saudi 
Arabia to "renew my passport", which has been frozen.

A year after he was taken, my father appeared in front of the notorious 
specialised criminal court. The SCC was established in 2008 with the sole 
purpose of prosecuting terror suspects; but since then it has become a tool to 
hammer out any dissent or activism within the kingdom. It does this either by 
cowing critics into silence by way of its fearsome reputation, or silencing 
them permanently by imposing the death penalty. Prosecutions brought before the 
SCC are often politically motivated with charges so vague - such as the 
"mocking" accusation against my father - that they would be laughable were the 
consequences not so grave.

Article 30 of the anti-terrorism law criminalises "directly or indirectly 
describing the king or the crown prince by any description that defames [their] 
religion or justice" and considers it an act of terrorism punishable by a 
minimum of 5 years in prison. The law further labels as terrorist many rights 
and activities protected by democratic systems around the world, such as 
"pressing the state to carry out an act or abstain from doing so"; and its 
vague language allows the state to arrest anyone on terrorism charges for 
"harming the kingdom’s interests, economy, or national security". It is this 
precise law that allowed the state to try the 2 prominent women’s rights 
activists Loujain al-Hathloul and Maysa al-Amoudi in the terrorism court for 
defying the ban on women driving in 2014.

SCC judges are pressured by the government to hand down the strongest sentence 
possible. In Saudi Arabia this means beheading or even crucifixion. Last year 6 
judges from the SCC were arrested and interrogated when the outcome of cases 
they presided over did not meet the attorney general’s expectations. In one 
case, a judge who exonerated the accused was subsequently held under arrest for 
many months.

This is the context within which my father was supposed to go to court on 28 
July to find out if he was going to be executed. He was, however, not even 
taken to the court and all we know is that his hearing has been postponed to 
November. Everything about his case has been completely illegal and unjust. 
Sadly, my father is by no means the only individual who faces the death penalty 
on trumped-up charges, nor is he the only prisoner to have been treated so 
badly.

Many of the others awaiting execution were also sentenced by the SCC for 
similarly vague, politically motivated charges. In a new report that I have 
given testimony to the British lawyer Helena Kennedy recommends that everyone 
currently awaiting the death penalty should have the reasons for their sentence 
published immediately. Many of those held, such as my father, have said things 
so innocent and inoffensive that it is clear this is a weak government that 
cannot handle even the smallest suggestion, let alone criticism.

The Saudi authorities have, of course, resorted to lethal methods beyond the 
judicial system too - most notably in the gruesome killing of my friend Jamal 
Khashoggi. However, the court-sanctioned route remains the most popular. What 
has been done to Khashoggi extrajudicially is possibly what my father faces 
judicially.

Since Mohammed bin Salman came to power in Saudi Arabia in 2017 there appears 
to have been a marked increase in the number of executions. In 2010 there were 
just 27 confirmed. In 2015 158 people were executed, most of whom had 
participated in Arab spring protests a few years earlier. But this year there 
have already been 134 victims, with at least 24 more at risk of imminent 
execution, including my father.

This excess is part of a concerted effort by the Saudi authorities to quash 
dissent and silence political activists and human rights defenders. It is right 
that we are outraged. But recent events have demonstrated that international 
outrage is not enough. Baroness Kennedy’s report recommends that an independent 
team goes to Saudi Arabia to investigate what is actually happening. We need to 
push for this.

If they execute my father it will be state-sanctioned murder and they cannot be 
allowed to get away with it.

(source: Opinion; Abdullah Alaoudh is a Saudi legal scholar and senior fellow 
at Georgetown University in Washington DC----The Guardian)








PHILIPPINES:

Death penalty and Sara Duterte: The somber and the bizarre



The past 2 weeks’ op-ed pages, TV talking heads, social media blogs and 
comments echoed the SONA interpretations of the President’s intent or 
non-intent. Their critique and follow-up stories, both constructive and 
negative, were roughly split in two major categories - the somber and the 
bizarre. An example of the former dealt with the instructions by the Deegong to 
his subalterns in Congress to reinstate the death penalty covering crimes 
involving illegal drugs. The bizarre involves the President’s daughter 
imploring God for signs for her next political moves. But I am getting ahead of 
my narrative.

A cursory reading of the pros and cons were argued from the point of view of 
how President Duterte sits with the proponents. The DDS and fist pumpers 
epitomized by the newly minted senator Bato de la Rosa, architect of Duterte’s 
bloody campaign of the dreaded "tokhang" that resulted in thousands of deaths, 
will be filing a bill in Congress to reinstate the death penalty. 
Incongruously, he declared that as a devout Catholic, he goes through 
"confession to seek forgiveness after he has killed criminals." His 
doppelganger, Sen. Bong Go goes further to include "heinous crimes such as 
illegal drugs and corruption" and plunder convicts." If passed by both houses, 
we will soon see legal executions not seen perhaps since the French guillotine 
was devised. Some cynics view the reinstatement of the death penalty as simply 
the formalization of what DU30’s government is being accused of - extrajudicial 
killings (EJK).

But one anti-death penalty columnist carried the cudgels for the opposing side 
and argued on the "cost-benefit" of a death sentence. He posits that the appeal 
of the classic deterrent effect of a death sentence is not due to its severity 
but on the certainty and consistency of carrying out a severe punishment. Death 
itself does not deter crimes but when punishment comes swiftly, consistently 
and inexorably, then perhaps the deterrent appeal (of a death sentence) could 
be effective. He may be right, particularly in the Philippines where statistics 
bear him out. Despite years of capital punishment protocol, statistics show 
heinous crimes have not declined. This is attributable to the uncertainty of 
punishment where the rich can get away with crime, the poor don’t, and the 
justice system sucks.

On the other hand, the proponent of capital punishment argues in a linear 
manner. You kill a murderer legally so he may not kill again. You kill a rapist 
so he will not rape again. You kill a plunderer so he will not plunder again, 
ever. Period! This could be akin to a child who touches a hot oven. The 
punishment is instant, severe and deadly. This will deter the child from 
touching a hot oven ever again. Lesson learned.

This killing ethos nurtured by our President is perhaps a reflection of his 
success as a local executive in what was once a lawless city, a laboratory of 
the communist pogrom in Davao in the 1970s and 1980s; or a flaw in his 
character as simply a manifestation of his alpha proclivities. Therefore, I 
shall not pass judgment on the man as even the Catholic hierarchy has its tail 
between the legs when confronted by the Deegong’s public moral outrages.

Be that as it may, the arguments for and against capital punishment have been 
debated internationally for years. Until 1986, the Philippines had capital 
punishment in its statutes, but a moratorium was imposed by the Cory regime as 
an affirmation of the country’s Catholic heritage. In 1993, President FVR 
reimposed the death penalty and executions were resumed during President Erap’s 
time in 1999. And towards the end of President GMA’s term, Congress passed a 
law abolishing capital punishment. But the debate goes on and on, and this 
"urong-sulong" may yet take another turn, if DU30’s minions will carry the day 
in Congress. My take on this is somewhat altruistic. Capital punishment is a 
cry for society’s collective desire for revenge for a wrong done. In the olden 
days, this was embedded in the concept of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a 
tooth." But our culture will no longer permit individual revenge - as this too 
is a crime if resulting in murder or death. So civilized society concocted 
capital punishment, translating the individual’s lust for vengeance into civil 
and collective catharsis.

Now back to the bizarre. One such ridiculous digression from the country’s 
pressing concerns is Apollo Quiboloy interviewing Sara Duterte on her political 
plans for 2022. Sara intimated that she was praying for guidance, allowing God 
a target date for His signs to appear by January 2020. Very considerate of her, 
yet superfluous as she was in fact already talking to the "appointed son of 
God." True enough, Quiboloy has anointed her as the next president of the 
republic. We will either waste energy speculating on Sara’s ascendancy to the 
throne upon the instance of an influential charlatan and the subsequent 
appearance and distractions of other wannabees contesting her; or buckle down 
to work in the next 3 years advancing the tattered remains of DU30’s legacy.

I am wary about leaders consulting God publicly on their political plans. This 
may have been acceptable in ancient times when the Deity was believed to 
intervene in the affairs of men and give instructions to prophets from behind 
burning bushes. Certainly, it is stretching imagination too far when political 
leaders, as they have been wont to do during election season, trek to prayer 
mountains or their personal Mount Sinai to seek and receive affirmation of 
their political agenda.

If one recalls, in 2009, Mar Roxas was the Liberal Party’s niño bonito and was 
the leading presidential contender until Tita Cory with exquisite timing exited 
the scene. And the son, PNoy, thereafter decided to seek God’s guidance and 
discern what the almighty’s plans were for him. Looking back, God must have 
cringed at the effrontery of this heir presumptive supplicating divine aid to 
become president. And since "vox populi vox dei," God must have made a mistake.

But I want us to go back to the realities at hand and what the Deegong 
articulately put:

"Though we cannot change the past, we will not squander the future. I will push 
harder in the pursuit of programs that we have started, but always within the 
parameters of the law. I will not merely coast along or while away my time 
during the remaining years of my administration. It ain’t my style. But I will 
not stop until I reach the finish line. Then and only then shall I call it a 
day.

"Our goal for the next 3 years is clear: a comfortable life for everybody, all 
Filipinos. We have made significant strides and accomplished signal milestones 
as a nation in the past 3 years. This momentum must continue with greater 
fervor in the next 3 years and beyond."

So, stop this prattle about Sara becoming the next president. We still have 
this unenviable task of making this current president become truly a president 
for all.

(source: The Manila Times)