[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

January 17




GLOBAL----book review

Books----Is the threat of capital punishment really the foundation of good 
behaviour?; Richard Wrangham argues persuasively that fear of the ultimate 
punishment has always been the source of law and order, however much we may 
wish it otherwise



The Goodness Paradox: How Evolution Made Us More and Less Violent Richard 
Wrangham

profile, pp.382, £25

Richard Wrangham embraces controversy, and appears to enjoy munching apples 
from carts he upsets himself. While his new book seems to be the history of an 
amalgam of moral and political virtues and vices, its thesis is actually the 
large claim that these have evolved; and he has no compunction about writing 
that the foundation stone of good behaviour is the possibility of capital 
punishment (against it though he is in today’s world).

It’s not just that the logic of his argument requires this hypothesis; he has 
found examples of premeditated (‘proactive’), co-operative (‘coalitionary’) 
killing in the Pleistocene record, providing an empirical basis for his claims 
about our evolution. Chimpanzees have (reactive) murderous rages. There are 
also many attested examples of male chimpanzees bullying their most frequent 
sex partner, and of them committing infanticide, enough to cause us to look for 
the adaptive value of such behaviour (in both cases such proactive aggression 
increases the male’s chances of perpetuating his own genes). Proactive 
aggression, Wrangham argues, provides a necessary evolutionary curb on the 
reactive sort.

Wrangham is British, and holds the chair of biological anthropology in the 
newish department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard. Like his fellow 
anthropologist, the late Sidney Mintz (also Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and 
Matthieu Ricard), Wrangham’s academic work changes our ideas about everyday 
life. In Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), he made the once 
startling, now easy-to-accept, claim that the mastery of fire allowed our 
ancestors to evolve bigger brains by reducing the larger digestive apparatus 
needed to extract nutrition from raw food — that learning to cook (meat and 
grains) was essential to the evolution of our hunter-gatherer species. (What 
would be the consequences for the future development of H. sapiens of adopting 
a vegan diet?)

The Goodness Paradox takes the further step of looking at matters that are 
normally the province of philosophers — ethics and politics — from the 
viewpoint of evolutionary biology. That is, Wrangham is asking questions about 
how we behave to each other, in pairs, families, tribes, states and even larger 
groups, not from the ethicist’s perspective of how we ought to behave, or what 
some political philosophers see as their task of justifying how we do behave. 
He is attempting to determine how the way we in fact do behave had adaptive 
value for our species in the course of our ‘descent’ (as Darwin dubbed it) from 
primate ancestors. Although John Rawls, another great Harvard thinker, who 
dealt with moral and political philosophy, doesn’t even get an entry in the 
38-page bibliography or the 12-page index, Wrangham seems to accept parts of 
Rawls’s argument invoking the ‘original position’ — presumably when our African 
ancestors acquired language 250,000 years ago.

Though it would enhance the value of this magisterial work if he had engaged 
more directly with contemporary philosophy, Wrangham’s goodness paradox boils 
down to the conflict between the positions of two philosophers. He 
characterises the followers of Rousseau as saying, ‘We are a naturally peaceful 
species corrupted by society’, whereas ‘Hobbesians see us as a naturally 
violent species civilised by society’.

He regards H. sapiens as a chimera — the mythological beast with the body of a 
goat and head of a lion. His view is that,with respect to our tendency for 
aggression, a human being is both a goat and a lion. We have a low propensity 
for reactive aggression, and a high propensity for proactive aggression. The 
subject of this book is: ‘Why did this unusual combination evolve?’ How, in the 
course of evolution, were genes selected for which gave their bearers an 
advantage from being a reflectiveantagonist rather than an impulsive, easily 
provoked destroyer?

‘Reactive aggression’ leads individual humans to murder, and to lesser crimes, 
some categorised as manslaughter. Reactive killing of their own kind is common 
in chimpanzees, but less so in bonobos. The key to its opposite, proactive 
aggression, is premeditation. Obviously, there are some solo proactive 
aggressions, such as violent acts of revenge, or sadistic sexual fantasy. (I 
imagine this would include the duel, as honour killings pose no problem for 
Wrangham’s argument.) Note that ‘successful aggressors initiate action only 
when they perceive they are likely to achieve their goals at appropriately low 
cost’ — emphasising that repeated aggressive behaviour must have some adaptive 
value. Humans are capable of proactive aggression in groups; as families, 
clans, tribes, mafias, gangs or nation states, we can plan the killing of 
single individuals, wars, or wiping out entire other groups, genocide. Other 
primates cannot do this because they lack what we developed a quarter of a 
million years ago, language, which allows us to plot and conspire.

What restrains us? Wrangham’s answer: the same thing that prevents your pet dog 
from using your house as her lavatory — domestication. Domestication confers 
evident evolutionary advantages: unlike wolves, Lassie and her descendants have 
evolved a genetic make-up that enables them to cater to our ideas of hygiene, 
and in exchange we feed, house and cuddle them. Learning to avoid reactive 
aggression is a major aspect of domestication. Homosexuality is the welcome 
by-product of domestication — in bonobo society it promotes stability (and the 
claim about prenatal exposure to testosterone affecting the ratio of ring 
finger to index finger is true). If we domesticated our pets and farmyard 
animals, who domesticated us?

Wrangham insists that we did it ourselves; we are self-domesticated. Currently, 
human beings who allow themselves to be provoked into reactive aggression often 
wind up in the criminal courts. Our language-evolving ancestors in the 
Pleistocene needed an era or two to develop legal codes, so how did they 
discourage unhelpful behaviour? Wrangham’s solution to this puzzle is, at 
first, alarming. As soon as there was language, there was the possibility of 
people agreeing to join together to punish reactive aggressors; but, of course, 
the only sanction that always worked was to kill the malefactor — socially 
approved homicide. ‘Capital punishment has been the ultimate source of law and 
order.’

Wrangham writes in the penultimate paragraph of this extraordinarily detailed, 
cogently argued, hugely important book:

I hope that, very soon, every country will abolish capital punishment, just as 
most countries have abolished other ancestral behaviours such as cannibalism, 
slavery and marital rape. Whether something is natural says nothing about 
whether we should give it a place in our lives today.

One finding is relevant to Brexit. ‘At the end of the Pleistocene, just before 
the beginning of agriculture,’ Wrangham writes, there might have been as many 
as ‘36,000 different societies, each with sovereignty over its home area’. 
Today’s figure is 195, and ‘as the number of independent societies has 
declined, so has the frequency of wars’. ‘In the distant future,’ he concludes, 
‘humanity could become a single nation: extrapolations from past trends suggest 
a date between 2300 CE and 3500 CE for a World State to be established.’ Though 
this would minimise deaths from anarchic violence, ‘the possibilities of 
tyranny could enable other kinds to flourish’. Science fiction, or social 
science?

(soruce: The Spectator)








SRI LANKA:

Death penalty issued for 28 year old drug trafficker



An individual arrested in connection to trafficking Cocaine was sentenced to 
death by the Colombo High Court today (January 17). The 28-year-old, a resident 
of Kohuwela is a father of 2.

The Attorney General had filed indictments against him for drug trafficking 
with over 62kg of Cocaine in possession.

Announcing his decision Colombo High Court judge, Gihan Kulathunge said that 
the suspect was guilty of all charges. The suspect was arrested by the Police 
Anti-Narcotics Bureau in 2012 in an operation carried out in Kohuwela.

(source: newsfirst.lk)








CHINA:

Canadian Sentenced to Death in China for Drug Smuggling Will Appeal



A Canadian man sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling intends to 
appeal, one of his lawyers said Wednesday, as a diplomatic rift between Canada 
and China deepened and information emerged about the man’s past drug 
convictions.

The man, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, was tried, convicted and sentenced on 
Monday in what one of his attorneys called a stunningly swift outcome. The 
hearing in Dalian, a port city in northeastern China, was a retrial ordered by 
an appeals court last month, after Beijing angrily denounced Canada for 
arresting a Chinese tech executive at the request of the United States.

Zhang Dongshuo, one of Mr. Schellenberg’s two defense attorneys, said his 
client was relatively calm when they met on Tuesday, despite the death sentence 
and the possibility that a geopolitical conflict could decide his fate. Mr. 
Schellenberg said during that meeting that he would appeal, Mr. Zhang said by 
telephone.

“His main point is that he is innocent, and he didn’t do what he’s been accused 
of doing,” Mr. Zhang said.

He said he had warned Mr. Schellenberg last week that the retrial might result 
in a harsher punishment than the 15-year sentence he originally received, and 
that he could even be sentenced to death. Still, Mr. Zhang said he was 
astonished by the swiftness of the sentencing Monday.

“This really was too fast,” Mr. Zhang said.

“Under Chinese law, death sentences should be handled very carefully,” he said. 
“Generally, they must be arrived at after careful consideration, assessment and 
discussion. For a court to announce a death sentence just an hour after the 
trial really is very, very rare.”

Mr. Schellenberg can formally lodge his appeal within 10 days of receiving a 
written copy of the court verdict. He had yet to receive one when Mr. Zhang saw 
him on Tuesday.

Mr. Zhang said it was too early to lay out all the potential grounds for 
appeal, but he said prosecutors had offered no new evidence Monday that could 
justify a heavier penalty.

“My view is that the facts laid out by the prosecution for the retrial were not 
new,” Mr. Zhang said.

“Under Chinese law, the penalty of a criminal conviction can only be increased 
on appeal if the prosecution produces new criminal facts,” he said. “It still 
fell within the scope of the original criminal facts.”

Canada opposes the death penalty and carried out its last execution in 1962. 
Its minister for foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, said on Tuesday that her 
ministry had already asked for clemency for Mr. Schellenberg.

She told reporters on Tuesday that Canada’s relationship with China was at “a 
complicated, a difficult moment,” and that she had spoken twice with the 
Chinese ambassador.

“As Canadians know we do not have the death penalty in Canada,” she said. “We 
believe it is inhumane and inappropriate.”

Ms Freeland said she had also had an “emotional” conversation over the phone 
with Mr. Schellenberg’s father.

“It’s important for us to remember that we’re talking about a human being — 
about a person,” she said.

Legally, the odds are stacked against Mr. Schellenberg. Chinese courts come 
under Communist Party control, and successful appeals in criminal cases are 
rare; outright exonerations are even rarer. But an appeal may help Mr. 
Schellenberg extend the process while the Canadian government seeks to secure 
clemency.

The fate of Mr. Schellenberg, as well as two Canadians detained in China last 
month, now seems inescapably tied to the tense relationship between the 
countries — in particular, to Canada’s handling of Meng Wanzhou, the Chinese 
tech executive whose arrest in Vancouver early last month ignited official fury 
in Beijing.

Ms. Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei, a powerful Chinese 
telecommunications equipment maker, is free on bail ahead of a court battle 
that will decide whether the Canadian government can order her extradition to 
the United States. Prosecutors in New York have accused her of fraudulent bank 
transactions related to business with Iran that violated United States 
sanctions on that country.

The Chinese government has argued that Ms. Meng’s arrest was an abuse of law, 
an accusation denied by Canada. But numerous law experts and former diplomats 
suspect China of playing politics with the law itself, to put pressure on 
Canada.

Less than 2 weeks after Ms. Meng’s arrest, 2 Canadians — Michael Kovrig, a 
former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman — were arrested in China on 
suspicion of “endangering national security,” a vague charge that can cover 
crimes like espionage.

Then in late December, a court in Dalian acted with uncommon speed to hear Mr. 
Schellenberg’s appeal against the 15-year prison sentence he had received the 
previous month. Mr. Schellenberg had hoped the court would reduce his sentence 
or overturn the conviction, but it ordered a retrial and indicated that he 
might deserve a heavier sentence.

Mr. Zhang, the lawyer, said Mr. Schellenberg’s criminal record in Canada had 
not come up during his hearings in China. At the appeal hearing and the 
retrial, Mr. Schellenberg said he had been in China as a tourist and 
unwittingly became entangled in a drug smuggling operation.

In Canada, though, Mr. Schellenberg has a history of drug trafficking dating to 
2003, when he was convicted of possession of a scheduled substance for the 
purpose of trafficking, according to court records.

In 2010, he was convicted of drug trafficking again and sentenced to 9 months 
in jail. 2 years later, when Mr. Schellenberg was 29, he pleaded guilty to 
possessing about $4,500 worth of cocaine and heroin for trafficking purposes, 
as well as possessing cannabis and methamphetamines.

Court records indicated that the police had found drugs in Mr. Schellenberg’s 
apartment, which a judge said he was using “as a distribution center,” saying 
he was “not at the lower rung of the dial-a-dope operations.” Mr. Schellenberg 
was sentenced to two years in jail, some of which he had already served while 
waiting for the trial.

The sentencing judge, Neill Brown of the British Columbia Supreme Court, told 
Mr. Schellenberg: “Your country deserves much better from you. You are in one 
of the best places in the whole world to live.” He urged Mr. Schellenberg to 
“overcome your addiction and reform your life” and told him, “I hope this is 
the last time you appear in court.”

Lauri Nelson-Jones, Mr. Schellenberg’s aunt, said in an earlier interview that 
before his arrest in China in 2014, Mr. Schellenberg had traveled around Asia, 
using earnings from working in the oil fields of Alberta to pay for his 
adventures.

After Mr. Schellenberg was sentenced to death on Monday, Global Affairs Canada 
— the country’s foreign service — issued a revised travel advisory for 
Canadians considering travel to China. That warning came after Prime Minister 
Justin Trudeau said that “China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply” the 
death penalty.

The travel advisory recommended “a high degree of caution in China due to the 
risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws.”

On Tuesday, China struck back. Its embassy in Ottawa urged Chinese citizens to 
“fully assess the risks of traveling to Canada,” citing the "arbitrary 
detention” of Ms. Meng, though it did not name her. “In the near future, 
exercise caution in traveling to Canada,” the notice said.

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua 
Chunying, said that the Canadian government had played down the gravity of Mr. 
Schellenberg’s crime, which the court said involved attempting to smuggle 
nearly 500 pounds of methamphetamine to Australia. Ms. Hua also brushed aside 
the call for clemency.

“I don’t know if the Canadian leader has seriously heeded China’s solemn 
stance,” Ms. Hua said at a regular news briefing. “For the Canadian leader to 
use ‘arbitrary’ to describe Schellenberg’s trial in China was extremely 
irresponsible.”

(source: New York Times)

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

Canadian's death sentence leaves Beijing and Ottawa trapped in a crisis



There's no easy way out in the darkening diplomatic feud between China and 
Canada over the detention of a Huawei executive -- even as a man's life now 
hangs on the outcome.

Beijing has repeatedly proven over the last 2 years that it is willing to play 
hardball with international partners which it believes have tried to undermine 
China's national interest.

But re-sentencing a Canadian found guilty of drug smuggling in China to death 
is a dramatic escalation which could undermine the Chinese government's global 
standing in the future.

"(The decision) is denting China's international reputation in the long term. 
So even in the short term it could look tough and strong, I think in the long 
term it is paying a huge cost," Lynette Ong, political science professor at the 
University of Toronto, told CNN.

The Chinese government and its state-run media have been raging since Huawei 
Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was taken into custody by Canadian 
authorities to face extradition to the US over alleged Iran sanction violations 
on December 1.

Shortly after Meng's arrest, two Canadians were placed in Chinese detention, 
vanishing into the system without explanation, before later being given 
consular assistance. Then on Monday, Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was 
retried and sentenced to death over drug smuggling charges in a 1-day trial in 
Dalian.

Beijing has explicitly denied links between Meng's situation and the legal 
action against Canadians in China, but the legal team for Schellenberg said it 
was only after the Huawei arrest that they started to see actions taken against 
their client.

With the Chinese government refusing to back down on the arrests and Canada 
unable to interfere in its country's independent legal system, there are now 
few options left to de-escalate the growing crisis.

'Beijing needs to remind them'

Beijing may not have explicitly linked its actions to Meng's arrest, but the 
furious behavior of state media and Chinese diplomats have made the connection 
plain.

In an editorial on Tuesday night, China's state-run Global Times tabloid said 
that if countries forgot Chinese laws and interests should be respected, 
"Beijing needs to remind them."

The publication's editor, Hu Xijin, said in a video posted to its website in 
December that if Canada extradited Meng to the US, "China's revenge will be far 
worse than detaining a Canadian."

Most damning of all, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, wrote in an 
opinion piece published in early January that the arrests of the 2 Canadians -- 
ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor -- was 
"self-defense."

Ong said it wasn't just a sense of outrage driving the Communist Party 
leadership -- Beijing also wanted to appear tough at a time when it faced 
growing problems at home and abroad, including a slowing economy and a trade 
war with the United States.

"China doesn't want to look weak ... partially for domestic reasons it needs to 
assure its strong leadership. There are people in China who are unhappy with 
the arrest of Meng which is why (the government) has been very, very tough 
against Canada," she said.

But Ong said that in the process, Beijing has allowed the Meng case to blow out 
from a dispute between China and Canada to a broader one between China and the 
Western world.

As Hudson Institute senior fellow John Lee wrote for CNN on Wednesday, China is 
a "growing but lonely rising power" and can't afford to be estranging other 
countries so readily.

"(China) is widely distrusted. It has few enduring allies and supporters. It 
could be bad faith or bad timing. But sentencing a Canadian to death has only 
raised collective suspicion and deepened its isolation," Lee wrote.

Major Chinese trading partner Australia was just one of the countries to voice 
concern over the death sentence.

"We expect at a level of principle that not only the death penalty should not 
be applied but also wherever people are in trouble the rule of law ought be 
applied fairly," Acting Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham told ABC Radio 
National Wednesday. On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 
discussed the matter with the leaders of Argentina and New Zealand.

In December, the US State Department also expressed concern over the detention 
of the two Canadians. "We share Canada's commitment to the rule of law as 
fundamental to all free societies, and we will defend and uphold this 
principle," the statement said.

But Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying was 
unrepentant on Wednesday. "Canada's so-called allies, which can be counted with 
10 fingers, can not represent the international society at all," she said.

US to the rescue?

One of the few possible amicable resolutions to the dispute between Canada and 
China might involve the United States.

Ong said if Washington was to drop the extradition request and charges against 
Meng, Canada would release her and China could relax its grip on Canadians 
inside its borders.

"This is not something that Canada can actually do because the request came 
from the US and the Canadian government cannot intervene in judicial processes. 
It has to come from the United States," she said.

But it won't be Beijing which is putting pressure on the US to drop the charges 
-- at least not explicitly as it's doing with Canada.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government is anxious to ensure that the 
current trade talks with the United States are successful, hoping a deal will 
boost the country's flagging economy and stem consumer worries.

The desire for a quick deal with Washington to remove trade tariffs is part of 
why Beijing has been hammering Ottawa on Meng's detention -- despite the arrest 
being a US request in the first place.

However at this stage it appears more likely that China will simply keep trying 
to force Canada's hand ahead of Meng's trial in February. And if it doesn't get 
its way, this could spell disaster for Schellenberg and his family.

"In a country such as China, where there is no semblance of the rule of law or 
the independence of the judiciary, there can be no fair trials, and this is why 
the death penalty is so appalling," human rights advocate Michael Caster told 
CNN Tuesday.

"In all cases -- but even more so when it is applied politically and as a 
threat to another country." (source: CNN)








IRAN----executions

Man Hanged in Public, Children Watched ---- This is the 5th case of public 
executions so far in 2019.



A prisoner was hanged in Public at a square in Falavarjan City, Isfahan 
Province, in Iran. He was sentenced to death for murder and rape charges.

According to the Iranian website Mashregh News, Mohammad Javad Shams was 
executed on Tuesday, January 15, for murdering a 5 years old girl. Mohammad 
Javad Shams was arrested last October for kidnapping and murdering Melika, 5, 
during an ill-fated drug dealing. He was reportedly kidnapped Melika along with 
her brother and sister, killed Melika and raped her elder sister, Maryam.

His death sentence has been carried out just four months after his arrest, and 
it is unknown that he had a fair trial or not.

Pictures published by the Iranian media show several children among the crowd 
watching the execution.

According to the head of Isfahan Province Judiciary Courthouse, the defendant 
was “convicted to qisas (retribution in kind) for murdering Melika, sentenced 
to death for raping (Melika’s elder sister), 20 years of imprisonment for 
kidnapping, 7 years for intentional injuring, 4 years for illegal deprivation 
of Melika and her siblings' freedom, 9 months for child abuse, and paying 
compensation (Diya) to the plaintiffs.”

Iranian media reported that the qisas verdict was carried out. 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.

This is the 5th case of public executions so far in 2019. UN human rights 
experts, including the former Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human 
Rights in Iran, had previously drawn particular attention to continued reports 
of public executions. “a dehumanising effect on both the victim and those who 
witness the execution” and ultimately reinforced the “already cruel, inhuman 
and degrading nature of the death penalty,” UN experts said.

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

Man Hanged in Northern Iran



A prisoner was hanged for murder charges in Northern Iranian province of 
Mazandaran on Wednesday.

According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), on the morning of January 
16, 2019, a 29 years old prisoner was hanged for murder charges.

He had reportedly murdered a person during a robbery in Moziraj District of 
Babol city, northern Iran, on September 21, 2012.

“His execution was scheduled 2 weeks ago. However, he got another 2 weeks in 
order try to win the consent of the plaintiffs,” head of Babol judiciary 
courthouse, Fazlollah Vakili Rad, said.

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.

IRNA has not mentioned the exact place of the execution. However, it seems the 
execution was carried out at Babol Prison.

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 for both: Iran Human Rights)