[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

January 14





IRAN----executions

17 Men Hanged in 1 Prison in 1 Week



According to IHR sources inside Iran, 17 prisoners have been hanged for murder 
charges between January 2. and 9. at the Rajai Shahr prison of Karaj (West of 
Tehran).

According to the IHR sources, on the morning of Wednesday, January 9, 2019, at 
least 12 prisoners were executed at Karaj city’s Rajai Shahr prison for murder 
charges. 3 of the prisoners were identified as “Mohsen Rezaei" from ward 1, 
"Reza Farmanjou" from ward 6, and "Baratali Rahimi" from ward 10 of the 
prison.”

Mohsen Rezaei was sentenced to death for killing his wife. According to a close 
friend of Mohsen Rezaei, he had always emphasized that he was innocent and his 
confessions were extracted after 1 year of torture.

Of note, on January 2, five other prisoners were secretly executed for murder 
charges at the same prison. None of the prisoners have been identified by name 
yet and the Iranian authorities have not announced these executions so far.

IHR has previously received many reports regarding the use of torture to 
extract confessions in Iran. In many cases, prisoners are sentenced to death 
only based on their own confessions. In 2013, Iranian media wrote about a death 
row prisoner who was proved to be innocent 48 hours before the execution. When 
he was asked why he had confessed to a murder he didn't commit, he said: "I was 
beaten so much that I thought if I don't confess to the murder I will die as a 
result of the beating".

According to the Iran Human Rights statistic department, the majority of 
executions in 2018 were for murder charges.

According to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code (IPC) murder is punishable by qisas 
which means “retribution in kind” or retaliation. In this way, the State 
effectively puts the responsibility of the death sentence for murder on the 
shoulders of the victim’s family. In qisas cases, the plaintiff has the 
possibility to forgive or demand diya (blood money). In many cases, the 
victim's family are encouraged to put the rope is around the prisoner's neck 
and even carry out the actual execution by pulling off the chair the prisoner 
is standing on.

(source: Iran Human Rights)








PAKISTAN:

UN experts urge Pakistan not to execute mentally ill prisoner



UN experts have urged Pakistan not to carry out arbitrary execution of mental 
illness prisoners. The execution of Khizar Hayat, sentenced to death in 2003 
for killing a colleague, was suspended by Pakistan's Supreme Court on Saturday, 
just 3 days before the 55-year-old was due to be hanged.

Government doctors had diagnosed Hayat as suffering from schizophrenia in 2008. 
Agnes Callamard, UN expert on extrajudicial executions and disabled rights 
said, the imposition of capital punishment on individuals with psychosocial 
disabilities is a clear violation of Pakistan's international obligations. 
Pakistan's Supreme Court will on Monday hold a hearing into whether the 
execution of Khizar Hayat can go ahead.

The UN experts said, Hayat, who has spent more than 15 years in custody, has 
been kept in solitary confinement since 2012, urging the government to halt the 
execution and questioning the veracity of his conviction.

(source: newsonair.com)








CHINA:

Canadian Fights Death Penalty Case in China, Raising Stakes in Rift



China’s diplomatic clash with Canada reached its highest stakes on Monday, when 
a Canadian man vigorously denied that he was a knowing participant in a drug 
smuggling operation at a retrial in northeast China that could lead to his 
execution.

Last month a court ordered the Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, to be 
retried after he appealed a 15-year prison sentence for smuggling 
methamphetamines. Against a backdrop of sharply increased tensions between 
China and Canada, the court sided with prosecutors who called for a stiffer 
sentence at a new trial.

In China, that sentence could mean the death penalty. At the trial on Monday, 
the prosecutors and Mr. Schellenberg offered starkly different accounts of his 
role in the smuggling operation.

Prosecutors told the court that they “now have evidence that highly suggests 
Schellenberg was involved in organized international drug crime,” China’s 
central television broadcaster said in an online report. “Schellenberg argued 
that he was a tourist visiting China and framed by criminals.”

Mr. Schellenberg’s unusually swift appeal hearing and retrial came after the 
Chinese government was incensed by the December arrest in Vancouver, British 
Columbia, of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, a Chinese 
telecommunications equipment manufacturer.

Mr. Schellenberg’s family fears that he has become a bargaining chip for 
Beijing to seek Ms. Meng’s release, said his aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones.

“He’s become a pawn,” she said. “We can only guess, but that is definitely what 
it looks like, and that is incredibly worrisome. We’re just worried that it 
won’t be a fair trial or a fair outcome.”

As well as ordering a retrial for Mr. Schellenberg, the Chinese authorities 
arrested two Canadians last month: Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat; and 
Michael Spavor, a businessman.

Those men have been accused of “endangering national security,” a sweeping 
charge that can include espionage. The police, however, have not announced any 
specific allegations against them while they remain in secret detention, denied 
visits from lawyers and family members.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, said 
Mr. Kovrig did not have diplomatic immunity, rejecting a comment from Prime 
Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who on Friday suggested that Mr. Kovrig had 
such protection.

Mr. Kovrig, who works for the International Crisis Group, is on leave from 
Global Affairs Canada, the country’s foreign service. The International Crisis 
Group, which gives advice on solving conflicts, has adamantly denied that Mr. 
Kovrig did anything to harm China.

Some foreign experts have said China’s swift action in all three cases appeared 
intended to pressure Canada to free Ms. Meng and return her to China, rather 
than sending her to the United States. The prospect that Mr. Schellenberg could 
receive the death penalty created a potent threat, they said.

“Sending the case back for retrial gives China the opportunity to threaten 
death and to drag out that threat for as long as necessary,” Donald Clarke, a 
professor at the George Washington University Law School who is an expert on 
Chinese law, wrote in a commentary last week for Lawfare, a national security 
blog.

“The case appears to reinforce the message, previously suggested by the 
detentions of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, that China views the 
holding of human hostages as an acceptable way to conduct diplomacy,” Professor 
Clarke wrote.

Mr. Schellenberg stood on Monday for his latest trial in Dalian, a port city in 
northeast China. By the afternoon, there was no sign when the court would end 
proceedings or deliver a verdict.

Before his arrest in 2014, Mr. Schellenberg, 36, had been an adventurous 
traveler who used earnings from working in Alberta’s oil fields to pay for his 
travels in Asia, Ms. Nelson-Jones said by telephone.

Mr. Schellenberg grew up in Abbotsford, British Columbia, surrounded by a large 
extended family. He kept in irregular contact with his family as he roamed 
around Asia, especially Thailand, Ms. Nelson-Jones said.

“He called and told his dad — my brother — that he was heading off to China, 
and it was just like, ‘O.K., whatever,’” she said. About a month later, Mr. 
Schellenberg’s family learned that he had been arrested.

“The next call that my brother got was from the consulate, from Global Affairs 
Canada, telling him that Robert was detained,” Ms. Nelson-Jones said.

After his arrest, Mr. Schellenberg was held for 15 months before his first 
trial, and it took another 32 months before a court declared him guilty and 
sentenced him to 15 years in prison for his role in a failed attempt to smuggle 
drugs from China to Australia.

The tempo of Mr. Schellenberg’s case has accelerated since Ms. Meng’s arrest. 
She is out on bail and under house arrest in Canada until the courts there 
decide whether she can be extradited to the United States. American prosecutors 
have accused her of fraudulent bank transactions related to business deals with 
Iran that violated United States sanctions.

At Mr. Schellenberg’s appeal hearing last month, prosecutors said that emerging 
evidence indicated he had played a bigger role in a drug trafficking network, 
and so his initial sentence was too light. At the retrial, prosecutors said 
that Mr. Schellenberg was heavily involved in a failed attempt to smuggle 
methamphetamines to Australia in pellets stuffed inside tires. They produced a 
witness, Xu Qing, to testify against the Canadian. But Mr. Schellenberg said he 
was unwittingly recruited into the scheme by Mr. Xu, reported Agence 
France-Presse, one of three foreign news outlets allowed into the court.

“He is an international drug smuggler and a liar,” Mr. Schellenberg said, 
according to the agency.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied that Mr. Schellenberg’s 
trial and the arrests of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor have anything to do with Ms. 
Meng’s arrest. At a news briefing on Friday, a spokesman for the ministry, Lu 
Kang, said critics should not undermine Chinese law for political purposes.

“If there are no violations, I do hope that these people won’t just for their 
own sake politicize legal issues,” Mr. Lu said.

But Chinese officials have diluted that argument by suggesting that their 
government was engaged in “defense” after the arrest of Ms. Meng. In an op-ed 
for a Canadian newspaper last week, the Chinese ambassador to Ottawa, Lu Shaye, 
said that the calls to release Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor amounted to an 
assertion of “Western egotism and white supremacy.”

“They said that by arresting 2 Canadian citizens as retaliation for Canada’s 
detention of Meng, China was bullying Canada,” Mr. Lu wrote. “To those people, 
China’s self-defense is an offense to Canada.”

(source: New York Times)

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

Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg risks death penalty in China as drug 
smuggling retrial begins



A Canadian man accused of drug smuggling in China faced a new trial on Monday 
after an upper court called for a harsher sentence in a case that could further 
strain ties between Beijing and Ottawa.

Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison 
and a 150,000 yuan (US$22,000) fine, could now potentially face the death 
penalty under China’s zero-tolerance drug laws.

His retrial in the northeast city of Dalian, Liaoning province, comes against 
the backdrop of the Chinese government’s anger over the arrest in Canada of a 
top executive of telecoms giant Huawei last month.

Chinese authorities have since detained two Canadian nationals – a former 
diplomat and a business consultant – on suspicion of endangering national 
security.

Canadian drug smuggler Robert Lloyd Schellenberg jailed in China to be retried 
after court deems 15-year sentence too lenient

Schellenberg, who was reportedly detained in the northeastern Liaoning province 
in 2014, is accused of playing an important role in drug smuggling and of 
potentially being involved in international organised drug trafficking 
activities.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November 2016. His appeal backfired 
when a high court in Liaoning ruled in December that the sentence was too 
lenient given the severity of his crimes.

There has been little public information from the courts about Schellenberg’s 
case, rights groups say, making it difficult to keep track of.

“It’s clear that Chinese courts are not independent, and by systematic design, 
courts can be influenced by Communist Party officials,” William Nee, China 
researcher at Amnesty International, said.

Canadian MP Michael Cooper calls China’s treatment of detainees ‘unacceptable’

Court retrials were rare, said Donald Clarke, a professor at George Washington 
University specialising in Chinese law, and even rarer were retrials calling 
for a harsher sentence.

“It is obvious … that Schellenberg’s fate will have little to do with his 
actual guilt or innocence,” Clarke said.

“If the Chinese government has an innocent explanation for all the unusual 
features of this case, I hope it will provide it – otherwise, I don’t know how 
to understand this case other than as a simple threat.”

The Canadian foreign ministry has said it is following the case “very closely” 
and has provided Schellenberg consular assistance since his arrest.

Michael Spavor granted Canadian consular visit a month after his detention in 
China

Beijing has taken the unusual step of inviting selected foreign media to 
observe the retrial.

Beijing and Ottawa have been locked in a diplomatic tussle since the December 1 
arrest of Huawei executive Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver at the request of 
the United States, where she is accused of fraud related to Iranian sanctions 
violations.

In what is believed to be a retaliation to Meng’s arrest, Chinese authorities 
detained former diplomat Michael Kovrig, who works for a foreign think tank, 
and businessman Michael Spavor.

Beijing has repeatedly denied that diplomatic pressure is behind Schellenberg’s 
case.

“You can ask these [critics] which laws the relevant Chinese judicial organs 
and departments have violated by [ordering a retrial],” foreign ministry 
spokesman Lu Kang said on Friday.

“If no laws have been broken, I hope that these people can stop recklessly 
suspecting others of politicising legal issues just because they have done so.”

Chinese envoy Lu Shaye accuses Canada of ‘white supremacy’ for demanding 
release of detained citizens after arresting Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou

China has executed other foreigners for drug-related crimes.

In 2014, a Japanese national sentenced in Dalian was put to death for drug 
offences, according to Tokyo diplomats and media reports.

A Filipina drug trafficker was executed in 2013, according to the Philippine 
foreign department, ignoring Manila’s request to spare her life.

“Amnesty International is very concerned that Robert Schellenberg may be 
sentenced to death, particularly as drug-related offences do not meet the 
threshold of the ‘most serious crimes’, to which the use of the death penalty 
must be restricted under international law,” Nee said.

(source: South China Morning Post)








TAIWAN:

The death penalty doesn’t work, so why do politicians keep insisting it does?



Countless studies have shown that capital punishment doesn’t lower the crime 
rate, and opposition against the morality of the death penalty has been 
mounting in recent years. But that hasn’t stopped many politicians doggedly 
insisting the most severe form of corporal punishment be continued.

In Taiwan, as in other countries that have capital punishment, it has become a 
political tool. In the lead up to local elections last year, rights groups 
accused the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of timing the only 
execution of the year to boost their popularity. The execution date? – 
President Tsai Ing-wen’s birthday.

The country only reintroduced the measure in 2010 after a brief hiatus. The DPP 
has supported the abolition of the death penalty in the past. As far as 1999, 
the party’s action plan said the party would “respect life, prevent 
miscarriages of justice and search for ways to end the use of capital 
punishment.”

However, the party’s previous administration oversaw 32 executions between 2000 
and 2006, and the current president has failed to take a strong position on 
abolition, instead maintaining the measure is legal and must remain in place.

But why the failure to act when all of the evidence argues against the merits 
of capital punishment?

There is still no evidence the death penalty deters crime, and almost 90 % of 
sociologists confidently believe it doesn’t. It costs the state huge amounts of 
money, is known to predominantly target the poor, and there has been no 
connection found between executions and emotional closure for the victims’ 
families.

The easy answer as to why politicians keep the measure is because it’s popular.

A huge majority of Taiwanese still support the death penalty. That’s a lot of 
people that election-minded politicians want to avoid alienating.

“About 80 % of people support the death penalty, and the politicians, they 
worry about elections. They don’t want to speak out loudly against it,” Hsinyi 
Lin, Executive Director of Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP), 
said while speaking at an Amnesty International Death Penalty conference in 
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Friday.

“For them [politicians], they don’t really think about it, they’re just worried 
about losing the vote, losing the elections. That’s why they really don’t want 
to do anything.”

While pandering to pro-capital punishment sentiment at home, Lin accuses 
politicians of paying lip service to abolition on the international stage to 
placate human rights groups and governing bodies.

“It’s ironic, when they face foreign countries and international human rights 
organisations, they will say, ‘We are Taiwan, we will abolish the death 
penalty, we respect human rights,'” Lin told Asian Correspondent.

“But when they face the domestic people and media they say, ‘We considered 
abolishing it but the people still support it so we need to carry out the 
execution.’ When they face different people, they say different things.”

As an example, Lin details one instance when the DPP set up a working group to 
work towards abolition. What politicians did not make public was that the task 
force was made up of NGOs who actually supported the use of the death penalty.

Needless to say, little progress was made, but the government was able to point 
to the task force as evidence of them taking action on the issue when 
questioned internationally.

Despite making all the right moves internationally, at home the political game 
playing continues.

It is such a contentious and passionate topic for some people that even the 
family of victims have been known to face harassment if they don’t push for the 
death penalty for the offender.

But that support of the death penalty, which seems so conclusive at 80 percent, 
is not quite as straightforward as it seems. Scratch the surface and people’s 
feeling on the subject are far more nuanced than sometimes even they are given 
the chance to realise.

Although the polls show Taiwan overwhelmingly supports capital punishment, Lin 
found if people are provided with more information they lower their acceptance, 
not just of the death penalty but the severity of any punishment.

“If people have more information about the death penalty, they will not choose 
it as a punishment,” Lin said of a public opinon survey conducted by the TAEDP.

“And if they have another choice, such as life sentence or life sentence 
without parole, people will choose the alternative.”

But that information about the death penalty can be hard to find, in most part 
because of the government’s reluctance to share it. Lin believes the widespread 
support is mostly based on ignorance, and this includes the politicians 
themselves. This lack of knowledge combined with a complete lack of political 
will make it a difficult battle to win.

“We have people that we can communicate with in the government but it is very 
difficult if they always relate it to an election. The public doesn’t 
understand the death penalty, but the political leaders don’t understand it 
too,” said Lin.

“We don’t have political leaders who have the responsibility or the courage to 
understand human rights.”

In contrast, Malaysia’s government has shown “bravery” by taking major steps 
towards abolition, something Lin applauds.

The new Pakatan Harapan announced in October that it was taking steps to end 
the law, which is still used for drug traffickers as well as treason, murder, 
and terrorism. It is being tabled for discussion in March.

Rachel Chhoa-Howard, a researcher from Amnesty International, says there has 
been a notable shift since the new administration took power in May.

“The new government has definitely been more receptive to human rights reform 
and several promises in their manifesto since they came to power have been 
fulfilled,” Chhoa-Howard told Asian Correspondent.

“There has been some backtracking, and that’s concerning, but this is a 
tremendous opportunity when it comes to the death penalty.”

The installation of longtime human rights advocates into power has spurred on 
Malaysia’s progress on this front, Chhoa-Howard said. Many of the new 
administration have long espoused the importance of human rights and a need for 
a change in the policy.

While Malaysia’s awakening came from a whole change of government, in Taiwan, 
it may well come from somewhere else entirely.

Lin may have accused the political elite of lacking political courage. But 
there is one group on the rise in the country who have exactly that in spades.

The Obasang Alliance – or old women (an affectionate term rather than an 
insult) – have had enough of political pandering and are raising their voice on 
the issues that they, as mothers, care about.

A collection of independents as opposed to a fully formed political party, the 
Alliance may have failed to win any seats in last year’s local elections, but 
their no-nonsense, anti-spin approach to politics is starting to resonate with 
the everyday Taiwanese.

Their refusal to compromise on their morals is getting them noticed and winning 
them supporters. They have turned down offers to partner with political parties 
and NGOs, instead preferring to remain independent.

Following the single execution of 2018, the Obasang Alliance were the only 
party to release a statement condemning the punishment. Refusing to be cowed by 
public pressure.

After years of debate, contention, and politicking, could it be a group of “old 
women” – not politicians – who finally put an end to the death penalty in 
Taiwan?

(source: asiancorrespondent.com)