[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

January 24



VIETNAM:

3 detained for trafficking drugs from Laos to Vietnam



Border guards and police of Vietnam's central Ha Tinh province have arrested 3 
Vietnamese men for transporting 120 cakes of heroin from Laos to Vietnam, local 
media reported on Thursday.

On Wednesday, when searching a suspected car with 3 men inside at Cau Treo 
international border gate in Ha Tinh, the border guards and police found heroin 
hidden in cartoons and then arrested the trio, online newspaper VnExpress 
reported.

According to the Vietnamese law, those convicted of smuggling over 600 grams of 
heroin or more than 2.5 kg of methamphetamine are punishable by death.

Making or trading 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal drugs also 
faces death penalty.

(source: xinhuanet.com)








MALAYSIA:

Families of 30 death row prisoners submit memorandum to Liew



Families of 30 prisoners on death row have submitted a memorandum to Datuk Liew 
Vui Keong, stating their support for the abolition of the death penalty.

About 50 of them, together with a few NGO representatives, met the Minister in 
the Prime Minister's Department in charge of legal matters at the Legal Affairs 
Division here on Thursday (Jan 24) to hand over the memorandum.

(source: thestar.com.my)








SRI LANKA:

Ministry issues timeline on death penalty convicts



In response to President Maithripala Sirisena’s recent comments that the files 
of convicted drug dealers have been withheld or disappeared from prisons, 
sabotaging his decision to activate death penalty on them, the Justice and 
Prison Reforms Ministry today issued a time line on the process it adopted to 
implement the death penalty on death row prisoners on drug related crimes.

The Ministry said a list of convicts on death row was requested on July, 12, 
2018 after President Sirisena declared that he had decided to activate death 
penalty on drug convicts. On July 13, a list of 13 who were on death row was 
sent to the Justice and Prison Reforms Ministry.

On July 25, cabinet approved a proposal to put convicted drug dealers who are 
on the death row to death if they continue to do the crime and on July 4, the 
list of death row inmates was sent to the Attorney General.

On October 2, 2 out of 18 were confirmed for immediate implementation of death 
on October 3, the list of death row prisoners recommended for immediate 
implementation of death was sent by the Ministry to Additional Secretary Ms. 
Jayawickrama of the Presidential Secretariat.

Another name of a death row prisoner was confirmed for death on October 13. A 
discussion was held by President Sirisena with officials of the Ministry of 
Justice and Prison Reforms on the death row prisoners list.

The Justice Ministry has sent another list of 48 death row prisoners who have 
been convicted on drug related crimes to Presidential Secretariat on December 
31 while 30 out of them have filed appeals against the convictions.

Justice and Prison Reforms Minister Talatha Atukorake explained the action take 
by the Ministry to carry out death penalty on convicts of drug related crimes 
who are on death row to the cabinet on last Tuesday.

(source: dailymirror.lk)








CHINA:

Urgent Action



   Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian national, was sentenced to death after he was 
convicted of drug trafficking at his re-trial. First arrested in 2014, he was 
convicted and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment by the Dalian Municipal 
Intermediate People’s Court on 20 November 2018. Schellenberg subsequently 
appealed the verdict and on 14 January 2019 at his retrial, he was found guilty 
of a more serious drug-related offense and sentenced to death. Announcing a 
death sentence at the same time of the conviction was unprecedented, according 
to Mo Shaoping, a partner of the law firm representing Schellenberg.

Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to one or 
both government officials listed. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them.

Procurator-General, Zhang Jun

147 Beiheyandajie,

Dongcheng Qu, Beijing Shi, 100726

People’s Republic of China

Email: web at spp.gov.cn

Ambassador Cui Tiankai

Embassy of the People's Republic of China

3505 International Place NW

Washington DC 20008

Phone: 202 495 2266 I Fax: 202 495 2138

Email: chinaembpress_us at mfa.gov.cn

Salutation: Dear Ambassador

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

Dear Procurator-General,

I write to express my grave concern regarding the case of Robert Lloyd 
Schellenberg, a Canadian national convicted and sentenced to death for drug 
trafficking on 14 January 2019.

First detained on 3 December 2014, Robert Schellenberg was eventually sentenced 
to 15 years’ imprisonment after being convicted for drug trafficking on 20 
November 2018. Schellenberg appealed the conviction and sentence. The Liaoning 
High People’s Court heard his case on 29 December 2018 and considered new 
evidence. It ordered a full retrial on the grounds that the 15-year sentence 
was too lenient. The Dalian Municipal Intermediate People’s Court held a 
retrial on Schellenberg’s case on 14 January 2019 and announced the guilty 
verdict and death sentence on the same day. It is very unusual for the court to 
announce the death penalty at a full hearing instead of on a later date.

Drug-related offenses do not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” to 
which the use of the death penalty must be restricted under international law, 
yet reports of death sentences and executions for drug-related offenses are 
routinely published in Chinese and international media. The speed of 
Schellenberg’s retrial, combined with reports that his lawyer was frequently 
interrupted by the judge in the hearing and was limited in the number of 
questions he was allowed to ask each witness on various subjects, raises 
concerns over the fairness of the trial.

I call on you to: immediately stop seeking the death sentence in this case, or 
any other cases; ensure that all case proceedings fully comply with 
international standards for a fair trial and that, pending full abolition of 
the death penalty, the use of this punishment is restricted to the “most 
serious crimes”, which refers to intentional killings.

Yours sincerely,

(source: Amnesty Internatnional USA)


PAKISTAN:

Asia Bibi is 'anything but safe', says Christian leader in Pakistan



A Christian leader in Pakistan has warned that radical Islamists are still 
trying to find Christian mother Asia Bibi 'so they can kill her'.

Months after her death sentence for blasphemy was overturned by the Pakistani 
Supreme Court, Bibi remains in hiding and is 'anything but safe', according to 
the director of the Peace Center in Lahore, Fr James Channon.

He told Aid to the Church in Need: 'Even now, after her acquittal, she is 
anything but safe. Radical Islamists are trying to find her so they can kill 
her. That is why she is currently under state protection.'

Bibi spent eight years in prison on death row after being found guilty of 
blasphemy. The Christian mother-of-five had been accused by colleagues on a 
fruit-picking farm following a dispute over a cup of water.

Pakistan is a majority-Muslim country where Christians account for less than 2 
% of the population. They face intense persecution for their faith, often as a 
result of the blasphemy laws, which carry a death penalty.

Fr Channon said there were currently 187 active blasphemy cases against 
Christians in Pakistan.

'The blasphemy law destroys the lives of those who have been accused, even if 
they avoid being executed,' he said.

'Any time Christians are accused of supposed blasphemy, all Christians in the 
region are indicted with them. This often leads to acts of violence against 
Christians.'

Fr Channon cited the ongoing case of Christian couple Shafqat Masih and 
Shagufta Bibi, who are facing the death penalty after being accused of sending 
blasphemous text messages.

He fears the worst, even if the courts decide to free them.

'Their prospects are very weak. Even should they be acquitted, they and their 
children will no longer be able to live in Pakistan. Fanatic Muslims will try 
to kill them,' he said.

Christians have raised the same concerns about Asia Bibi, who is still waiting 
for an offer of asylum from a Western country.

The UK Government has said it is involved in discussions with Pakistan and 
other countries about a solution for Bibi but has so far refused to say whether 
an offer of asylum will be made.

Questioned by Tory MP Rehman Chishti about what action the Government was 
taking, Prime Minister Theresa May said last week that she would not comment on 
the details.

'Our primary concern is for the safety and wellbeing of Asia Bibi and her 
family and obviously the UK High Commissioner in Islamabad is keeping me and 
the Government up to date with developments,' she said.

'We have been in contact with international partners about our shared desire to 
see a swift and positive resolution in this case, and a number of countries are 
in discussion about a possible alternative destination for Asia Bibi once the 
legal process is complete.

'I'm not going to comment on the details of that because we do not want to 
compromise Asia Bibi's long-term safety.'

Mr Chishti, who resigned as Conservative Party Vice-Chair over the Government's 
handling of Bibi's asylum case, said it 'can't be right' to leave her to find 
asylum in another country and that it was Britain's 'moral responsibility' to 
take her in.

(source: christiantoday.com)








UNITED KINGDOM:

Surviving the gallows: the Georgian hangings that didn’t go to plan



In 1740, in a case heard at the Old Bailey, 16-year-old William Duell was found 
guilty of the rape and murder of a servant, Sarah Griffin. He was hanged at 
noon on 24 November. His body was laid out on a slab ready for dissection… 
…then he woke up. Words by Elilzabeth Hurren

The case of “Dead-Alive!” Duell was a newspaper sensation. And no wonder. Here 
was a young man who, following his conviction for the murder and rape of Sarah 
Griffin, had survived the noose at Tyburn. What was to be done with the revived 
prisoner? Should Duell’s cheating of the gallows be treated as an act of God, a 
divine intervention meaning he should be spared? Or should he be hanged again 
in punishment for heinous crimes?

To understand the authorities’ dilemma, it helps first to understand the 
shocking level of violence William Duell conspired to visit on poor Sarah 
Griffin. In September 1740, suffering from severe bronchitis because of the 
capital’s poor air quality, she had left her London employer and was returning 
to her family in rural Worcestershire for health reasons. She journeyed via 
west London, intending to walk to the Midlands. Along the way, she encountered 
a farmer’s lad, Duell, who offered to hire Sarah a night-lodging. At a barn in 
Acton, Sarah bedded down on a hay bale. Duell then went to the nearby Captain’s 
public house. There he met five men and boasted about Sarah’s whereabouts. Soon 
after, the group began attacking Sarah.

It was reported in court that the ringleader, “George Curtis alias Tag-Mutton… 
put his hands several times up the woman’s clothes, and swore if she did not 
hold her tongue, he would kill her.” Sarah tried to defend herself by crying 
out that “she was pox’d” with a sexually transmitted disease. But Curtis 
shouted back: “Pox’d or pox’d not, by God I will [have you].” She was held 
down, and experienced multiple rapes and sexual assaults. She was badly beaten 
and robbed. According to Samuel Lock, local surgeon, Sarah told him the next 
morning that she “believed she could not live”. Sarah died the next day from “a 
stroke”. Her dead body was bloodied and bruised.

In court it was established that the main culprit who incited the others to 
rape and murder was “the youth William Duell… who had little education, and 
what little reading he had he had almost forgotten, being an obstinate boy”. 
His father was a respectable shoemaker in Acton. At first the family denied the 
accusations but the evidence in court was conclusive. After issuing a death 
warrant, the court recorder noted that Duell “with tears in his eyes, 
acknowledged himself guilty of rape, robbery and murder”.

Embarrassingly, the officials in charge of executions did not know what to do 
with murderers who survived

The judge pronounced that being a minor lacking in education did not exonerate 
Duell from being hanged for such a wicked offence. What happened next would 
cause a commotion in the national press and present the authorities with an 
almighty dilemma. As the court recorder put it: “Twas very singular indeed; but 
not unaccountable as some people make it, since such have but a very 
superficial notion of anatomy, may easily conceive how a person very soon cut 
down [from the hangman’s rope] may shew even strong signs of life.” Duell had 
survived the gallows.

A cold November day

The London newspapers revealed the details of Duell’s noon-day execution at 
Tyburn, where there was “a northerly gale of wind with rain, snow and hail”. 
Duell had been suspended from the rope “for more than 50 minutes”. On being cut 
down, his young body was a valuable teaching prize. It was put in a hackney 
coach and transported back to Surgeons’ Hall near the Old Bailey. The body was 
brought in through the “under-door” at street level, taken up a spiral 
staircase, and “laid out in a passage”. In attendance was a washerwoman tasked 
with swilling down the corpse and preparing it for the next dissection 
demonstration at the anatomy theatre. But suddenly she heard William Duell 
“groan very much” after “about 10 minutes”. Immediately, the duty surgeon bled 
the prisoner “after which he reviv’d very fast”. At this point, Duell could not 
respond to questions, and so his body was warmed up with wine and hot water. 
The City of London sheriff was summoned and he reported that Duell “lay very 
easy and composed”.

The next morning, the duty sheriff and surgeon questioned Duell. The teenager 
remembered nothing about the execution, but did recall receiving the last 
rites. At the anatomy theatre, it was decided to return Duell back to the Press 
Yard at Newgate, where he was fed a “mess of broth”, which he ate “very 
heartily”. There appeared to be no adverse physical side-effects. When asked, 
Duell could recite the lord’s prayer fluently.

Duell was socially and legally dead. But he was not medically dead. This alive 
non-person did not officially exist in Georgian society.

A week after the execution, an Old Bailey hearing was convened to decide what 
to do with Duell and whether to hang him. If a rope broke on execution day – a 
common occurrence – the condemned was usually straightaway tied up again. But 
the prosecution pointed out that rescheduling this execution would betray to 
spectators that it was possible to survive the gallows. That admission not only 
made the law look ludicrous, but called into question the deterrence value of 
the capital code. Then there was the question of divine intervention, whether 
God had spared Duell. The authorities were alarmed that the story’s puzzling 
religious overtones might gain traction in the popular press. It was 
unanimously decided “to transport William Duell for life to North America”. We 
don’t know what happened to Duell next because he was never entered in the 
transportation lists to America. However, official reports reveal that “he was 
successfully transported”.

At almost 300 years remove, it’s a shocking case, both for the misogynistic 
violence of the crime and for the hangman’s apparent incompetence. Yet what’s 
arguably more surprising is that, as the words of the court recorder hint, 
Duell’s survival was not that unusual. Housebreaker John ‘Half-Hanged’ Smith, 
for instance, was hanged for around 15 minutes on Christmas Eve in 1705, but 
survived after he was cut down. These kinds of incidents continued into the 
19th century. When John Holloway was executed in 1831 for the “horrible murder, 
almost unparalleled in atrocity” of his wife, Celia, it was noted by the 
hangman that even after an hour on the scaffold his neck was not broken, 
meaning there was a risk he might revive. On being cut down from the gallows, 
“the body had to be made safe by the surgeon”, who severed the carotid artery 
in the neck with a lancet to speed up the dying process.

Uncomfortable secrets

Such incidents occurred in part because establishing medically when a prisoner 
died during the execution process was not an exact science. As such, the case 
of William Duell was noteworthy not for what happened, but because it revealed 
an uncomfortable secret: officials in charge of executions did not know what to 
do with murderers who revived.

One reason so many of those who went to the gallows survived was that most 
executions swiping a swan’s feather along the throat to stimulate a swallowing 
sensation. Most penal surgeons learned nonetheless to be cautious when 
receiving so-called corpses from the gallows. They had discovered at first hand 
the amazing capacity of the human brain to trigger the body’s survival 
mechanisms when in trauma. It may even have been William Duell who first 
alerted penal surgeons to this physical set of possibilities.

But whatever Duell’s place in the medical history timeline, this knowledge is 
now used to save lives. Working with the body’s own biological defences against 
trauma, therapeutic hypothermia means letting the brain reduce the temperature 
of the body. This preserves energy, keeps the vital organs such as the heart 
and lungs alive, and ensures that optimum oxygenate levels are maintained to 
prevent major brain damage in a trauma like being hanged in the winter cold.

The surgeons’ dilemma

By the early 19th century, leading London anatomists were confronted with 
having to break the Hippocratic Oath. Instead of “doing no harm” they were in 
the unedifying position of having to try to revive dangerous murderers such as 
Duell. Or committing human vivisection if the prisoner had a faint-beating 
heart but was brain-dead.

William Clift (1775–1849) was a renowned anatomist and he often worked with the 
famous penal surgeon Sir William Blizard (1743–1835). Clift kept detailed 
notebooks that reveal the precautions both men took together before releasing a 
body for dissection. He recorded how the physical processes of dying were 
monitored every 10 minutes post-execution, until they were fully satisfied that 
the condemned had expired in the heart, lungs and brain. In fact, in 10 out of 
35 well-documented cases in the Royal College of Surgeons archives, the 
executed prisoner had not died on the rope even after the standard-drop 
execution (when the prisoner was dropped between four and six feet, increasing 
the chance of the neck breaking) had been introduced.

Anatomists were in the unedifying position of having to try to revive murderers 
or committing human vivisection

When James Leary was executed for murder at Newgate on Monday 20 September 1813 
at eight o’clock in the morning, for example, he survived being hanged. William 
Clift carefully noted how the condemned reacted to “stimulation until a little 
after two” in the afternoon, six hours after execution. Leary was about “5ft 
8ins high, 44 years of age, and not remarkably stout”. Nonetheless, his 
physical prowess and the inclement weather had helped him survive. A journalist 
with the Caledonian Mercury reported on 27 September, that “Leary was observed 
to have been a full quarter of an hour in a convulsive agony” on the rope. In 
other words, Leary fought hard to survive.

Leary had been hanged with another murderer, John Denton. The same newspaper 
reporter thought that he saw that: “Denton was dead already as soon as he was 
let drop.” But when Denton was opened up, Clift noted he too showed signs of 
life “by stimulation until ten minutes past three” in the afternoon, seven 
hours post-execution.

William Clift’s records suggest that Denton’s strong neck did not break during 
his execution. Leary and Denton were thus for a time both technically the 
Dead-Alive, just as William Duell had been 70 years earlier. They did not 
survive more than half a day in the dissection-room because, in all 
probability, it had not been cold enough to keep their brains oxygenated enough 
to survive without permanent brain damage.

If they had been hanged in midwinter, they might have revived to be 
“transported for life to Australia”, the destination in such cases by the early 
19th century. However, we will never know how many enjoyed such a reprieve 
because the records of such cases were destroyed. The authorities were simply 
too embarrassed to allow the cases of the ‘dead-alive’ to reach the public 
domain.

(suorce: Dr Elizabeth Hurren lectures at the University of Leicester. She’s the 
author of Dissecting the Criminal Corpse: Staging Post-Execution Punishment in 
Early Modern England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), which is free to download on 
Open Access----historyextra.com)








SAUDI ARABIA:

2018 Death Penalty report: Saudi Arabia’s False Promise



With crown prince Mohammed bin Salman at the helm, 2018 was a deeply violent 
and barbaric year for Saudi Arabia, under his defacto leadership.

This year execution rates of 149 executions, shows an increase from than 
previous year of three executions), indicating that death penalty trends are 
soaring and there is no reversal of this trend in sight.

The execution rates between 2015-2018 are amongst the highest recorded in the 
Kingdom since the 1990s and coincide with the ascension of king Salman to the 
throne, upon which executions averaged 151.5 during his reign, peaking at 2015 
with 157 executions. Such alarming statistics indicate that Saudi Arabia is 
experiencing one if its darkest periods of repression, under the watch of the 
current king and his son, the crown prince. There are also concerns that the 
actual execution rate is higher, as ESOHR has found that Saudi Arabia does not 
officially report all of the executions that it implements.

New trends in the death penalty have also emerged in 2018. Worryingly, this 
year has witnessed an unprecedented expansion in scope of the use of 
politically motivated death sentences and death penalty recommendations .

In recent years political death sentences have been disproportionately used 
against Eastern province activists, using trumped up violent charges despite 
peaceful dissent, and this discriminatory trend has continued on in 2018. 
However, this year there has been a widening in scope in use of the death 
penalty, as the authorities continue to employ it as a political tool of 
terror, even in the absence of trumped up violent charges. Consequently, new 
segments of civil society have now been targeted via the death penalty, 
including female human rights defenders and peaceful clerics, preachers and 
critics within the kingdom.

This was compounded by a 2018 UN report published by the (now former) Special 
Rapporteur on counter terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson, who highlighted 
serious concerns regarding ‘Use of the death penalty following manifestly 
unfair trials’, as well as the issuing of death sentences against vulnerable 
individuals such as those with psycho-social disabilities, minors and those who 
‘had been convicted of political offences not involving the use of violence’.

Whilst public relations companies went to great lengths to hail Bin Salman as 
the mastermind behind ‘Vision 2030’, a plan which was marketed as a blueprint 
for reform and prosperity in Saudi Arabia, it has since transpired that these 
glittery reforms were superficial and a mere distraction strategy from the deep 
repression being employed against civil society.

In this regard, Mohammed bin Salman has gone to great lengths to rally support 
for his ‘modernisation’ plans, using the death penalty issue as a flag to show 
‘reforms’. During an international public relations tour in April 2018, in a 
televised interview with TIME, Mohammed bin Salman said the following when 
asked about whether there would be an end to executions:

“We’ve tried to minimize (the death penalty). There are a few areas we can 
change (or lower the sentence) from execution to life imprisonment. So we are 
working for 2 years through the government and also the Saudi parliament to 
build new laws in that area. And we believe it will take 1 year, maybe a little 
bit more, to have it finished. Yeah, of course it’s an initiative. But we will 
not get it 100 %, but to reduce it big time”.

However, this statement is not reflected in the death penalty statistics of 
2018. Execution rates have sky rocketed in the last 4 years do not indicate any 
attempts to ‘minimise’ or ‘reduce’, with 2018 showing an increase in executions 
from the previous year.

Furthermore, if such an intention to reduce the death penalty was genuine, it 
has not been officially reported and neither has a corresponding immediate 
moratorium on existing death sentence cases been imposed until the new laws are 
in place. Therefore, there is no evidence to support the crown prince’s claims.

This recent recourse to the death penalty, goes against global trends towards 
abolition of the capital punishment, and questions Saudi Arabia’s commitment to 
human rights principles, namely the right to life, which is a non-derogable and 
fundamental human right:

“Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be 
protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life”. (ICCPR, 
Article 6)

These concerning 2018 execution rates and trends reflect the wider abysmal 
state of the human landscape in Saudi Arabia, a year which witnessed a 
crackdown on women’s rights defenders who were later tortured in detention, as 
well as the murder of extra territorial murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, 
whom Saudi Arabia acknowledged on October 19, 2018, was killed in its Istanbul 
consulate by its own agents sent from Saudi Arabia.

Trends in the Death penalty

Use of the Death Penalty Against Female Activists

In August 2018, during her 1st trial, the Saudi public prosecution called for 
the death penalty sentence against female human rights defender, Israa 
Al-Ghomgham, a well known Arab spring female human rights defender from Qatif. 
This appears to be a dangerous precedent, as it will be the 1st time that the 
death penalty sentence has been demanded against a women human rights 
defenders.

Israa was detained in December 2016 during a raid on her home without a 
warrant, and was held in arbitrary detention for 32 months without access to a 
lawyer. Israa hearing was held at the notorious Specialized Criminal Court 
(SCC) in Riyadh and her trial proceedings so far have been grossly unfair.

During her first court session, Israa was denied a lawyer, and during both her 
second and third hearing, Israa was not transported to the courtroom and 
remained absent. Israa’s trial is still ongoing, and the final outcome of the 
trial still has not been concluded. Israa is being trialled en masse, and all 
the trumped up charges levelled against Israa part of her charge list her are 
non-violent in nature, yet the prosecution is still pursuing the death penalty 
for her, using dubious domestic counter terror laws.

All this comes despite UN experts naming her in a statement issued in October 
in which they stated:

‘Referring to Ms. Al-Ghomgham’s trial in the Specialised Criminal Court, the 
experts condemned the conflation of human rights activities with terrorism. 
“Measures aimed at countering terrorism should never be used to suppress or 
curtail human rights work.’

There are also concerns for the women human rights defenders (WHRD’s) arrested 
during the crackdown on women’s rights activists in May 2018.

The 2018 crackdown on WHRD’s included: LoujainHathloul, Aziza al-Yousef and 
Iman al-Nafjan, Nouf bin abdulaziz, Mayaa Al-Zahraini, Samar Badawi and Naseema 
Al-Sadah amongst others. It is believed these WHRD’s will now face national 
security cases in the SCC, and it is feared that the outcome of Israa’s trial 
may well act as a precedent for their cases when they will eventually come to 
trial.

Worryingly, pro-government newspaper Okaz, published an article followed the 
initial first wave of arrests of Loujain, Aziza and Iman, indicated that the 
trial of these WHRD’s may well lead to taa’zir(discretionary) death penalties.

Widening of the scope of politically motivated death sentences

In previous years, the death penalty has been used as a tool of terror 
disproportionately against Eastern province activists, seeking to equate their 
peaceful activism with terrorism, as they did with Sheikh Nimr in 2016.

This trend has continued on into 2018, particularly with the ongoing 
high-profile mass trial of human rights defender Israa Al-Ghomgham. This was 
also concurred in Ben Emmerson’s UN report, where he highlights that since his 
visit in 2017 ‘several more individuals have been sentence to death and face 
imminent execution for their involvement in pro-democracy demonstrations in the 
east of the country in 2011 and 2012’.

In 2018, a new pattern related to politically motivated death sentences has 
emerged. In recent years, the Saudi authorities went to great lengths to use 
trumped up violent against peaceful activists. This is exemplified with the 
case of non-violent social justice activist Sheikh Al-Nimr, who is famously 
quoted as saying ‘the roar of the word, not the roar of bullets’. During Sheikh 
Nimr’s trial, the authorities went to great lengths to frame him as violent, 
levelling fabricated, trumped up violent charges against him. Following a 
grossly unfair trial and after a long campaign to equate and blur his 
non-violent activism with terrorism, the Saudi government executed Sheikh Nimr 
as part of a mass execution of 47 other individuals which included protestors 
and minors.

However, a more recent development during 2018, is that Saudi Arabia’s Public 
Prosecution, which reports directly to King Salman, has intensified its 
horrific demands for the death penalty against an increasing spectrum of 
government critics, shamelessly demanding the death penalty on the basis on 
peaceful charges. Consequently, new segments of civil society have now been 
targeted via death penalty, including female human rights defenders and 
peaceful clerics, preachers and critics from all regions of the kingdom, but 
the difference is that now the authorities instead have no hesitation in 
shamelessly using solely peaceful charges to justify death sentences. For 
example, in the case of Israa Al-Ghomgham, all the trumped up charges levelled 
against as part of her charge list her are non-violent in nature, yet the 
prosecution is still pursuing the death penalty for her.

Consequently, in September 2017, the Saudi authorities undertook a crackdown on 
dissent, in which several clerics were arbitrarily detained and later taken to 
trial.

In September 2018, the public prosecution called for the execution of Sheikh 
Salman Al-Odah, a popular cleric, during his first court hearing at the SCC. 
Al-Odah was arrested in connection with his refusal to support Mohammed Bin 
Salman’s policies towards Qatar and posted a tweet calling for reconciliation 
between Saudi Arabia and Qatar just before his arrest in September 2017. Sheikh 
Al-Odah’s trial was initiated secret and closed, and even he himself was not 
informed of the commencement of the trial. The was charged under counter terror 
laws and some of his 37 charges include: ‘Seeking to spread sedition’ and 
‘incitement against the rulers’. In addition, Al-Odah has suffered severe 
health problems during the course of his detention. The final outcome of his 
secret trial, which has been marred by due process concerns, has yet to be 
determined, with the next hearing postponed until February 2019.

In the same week of September 2018, two other clerics were also targeted in a 
similar fashion during trials at the SCC. The Saudi public prosecution also 
recommended the death penalty against prominent cleric Awad Al-Qarni who 
arrested in September 2017, as well as public figure and scholar Ali Al-Omari, 
who was also a director for a channel called ‘Al-Shabab’ and featured in 
several popular TV shows. Likewise, sources report that demands for the 
execution of the distinguished Islamic scholar Hassan Farhan al-Maliki, were 
made by the public prosecution during his trial which began October 2018. 
Al-Maliki is charged in relation to his religious beliefs that conflict with 
that of the official extremist religious institution. He is known for his 
non-sectarian, moderate and inclusive Islamic teachings.

Mass death penalty trials

In recent years, mass death penalty cases became commonplace, as exemplified by 
the trial of 32 individuals referred to in Saudi media as ‘Iranian spy ring’ 
trial, in which 32 individuals were put on trial, and resulted in 12 of them 
receiving a death sentence. Unfortunately, this trend of ‘en masse’ death 
penalty trials has continued on into 2018.

In August 2018, a mass trial was held at the SCC against 6 Eastern Province 
Arab spring activists: Israa Al-Ghomgham, Khalid Al-Ghanem, Sayid Musa 
Al-Hashim (Israa’s husband), Ali Al-Awayshir, Ahmed Al-Matrod and Mujtaba 
Al-Muzayin.

During the 1st court session of this trial, the Saudi prosecutors demanded the 
death penalty for all individuals apart from Al-Muzayin. This mass trial is 
ongoing and the final outcome and sentencing is expected in 2019.

2018 Statistics on Death Penalty

2018 Execution Rates

At 149 executions in 2018, execution rates exceed the previous year figures, 
and overall the statistics indicate a soaring of execution rates in the last 
three years. Whilst 2018 rates are not highest of recent years, there has been 
no dramatic reduction in the Saudi authorities use of the death penalty since 
2015. To the contrary, executions rates between 2015-2018 have been at the 
highest since 1992.

Execution statistics breakdown by nationality

Out of 149 individuals executed, 74 of those where Saudi citizens, whilst the 
remainder of those executed were foreign nationals, with the exception of one 
stateless person (Bidoon).

2018 Executions statistics for 2018 show that 50% of those executed were 
foreign nationals. 22% of those executed were Pakistani nationals, making them 
the foreign demographic group with the highest execution rates (33 Pakistani 
nationals were executed in total). All other foreign nationals executed were of 
Middle Eastern, Asian or African nationalities, with the exception of one 
stateless individual (Bidoon).

In 2018, 59 individuals were executed for drugs related offences, 79 for murder 
related offences and 11 for other offences such as armed robbery and adultery. 
International law stipulates that the death penalty can only be implemented by 
retentionist states for the ‘Most serious of crimes’, which has been 
interpreted as being intentional killing. Drugs related crimes do not fall 
under the category of most serious crimes.

Execution of Women

2 women were executed this year. One was an Ethiopian woman, whilst, another 
Indonesian woman, Tuti Tursilawati. The latter execution was not being 
officially announced by the Saudi government. In this regard, several media 
outlets including‘ABC News’ and ‘Diplomacy’, published articles on the Saudi 
execution of an Indonesian women maid worker in March 2018, who was executed 
without informing the concerned Indonesian diplomatic authorities. The 
execution was carried out despite the Indonesian president’s request to lessen 
the punishment after obtaining information about the lack of fair trial 
conditions, such as the insufficient access to legal aid. The unfair nature of 
this case, also highlights that foreign nationals are also particularly 
vulnerable to a deprivation of due process.

The execution of minors

Execution announcements are published following implementation of an execution 
order via portal spa.gov. This official publication does not mention the ages 
of those executed, but based on official reports there were no minors executed 
in 2018. However, ESOHR cannot confirm, there were nominors executed in 2018, 
especially with the existence of precedents for Saudi Arabia in the execution 
of minors, and the presence of minors currently on death row awaiting 
execution.

Issues related to reporting of executions: Misreporting

The official source of executions in Saudi Arabia is via the portal spa.gov. 
which announces the execution once it has been implemented. However, according 
to ESOHR’s monitoring, the government has concealed one executions that take 
place and failed to officially announce the implementation, as in the case of 
the Indonesian woman executed in October 2018. This is very alarming, as it 
means that official statistics from the Saudi government may be heavily under 
reporting execution rates in a way which is grossly misleading and inaccurate. 
The execution rates reported by ESOHR have been solely based on official 
execution reports from the spa.gov portal, with the exception of the execution 
of the Indonesian woman, who execution was reported in foreign media. This 
raises questions as to how many other executions cases have gone unreported by 
the Saudi authorities.

Individuals at risk of execution

As well as monitoring execution rates, ESOHR also monitors those at risk of 
execution. Currently, 58 individuals stand at risk of execution, at different 
legal stages,8 of whomwere minors at the time of the ‘crime’, including: Ali 
Al-Nimr, Dawood Al-Marhoon, Abdullah Al-Zaher, Abdul Kareem Al-Hawaj, Mujtaba 
Al-Suwaiket, Said al-Skafi, Salman al-Quraish, and Abdullah Al-Sarih.

In particular, in November 2018, the case files of 12 men convicted of spying 
for Iran and spreading the Shia faith, including that of Abbas Al-Hassan, was 
transferred to the Presidency of the State Security (PSS) by Royal Decree. All 
these men have exhausted all legal remedies and such administrative file 
transfers represents a strong indication that their files are being prepared 
for an imminent execution. This comes despite seven United Nations rapporteurs 
issuing a statement in May 2018, calling upon Saudi Arabia to halt executions 
that threaten the lives of Abbas Hassan and others individuals accused of 
espionage for Iran in Saudi Arabia.

Areas of concern surrounding the death penalty

Detention and the use of torture

Recent examples on violations of torture, cruel and inhumane treatment 
undertaken during detention are well documented. Such violations are usually 
done during interrogation to elicit information and torture-based confessions.

Scholar, Salman Al-Odah, who may be sentenced to death, was subjected to 24 
hour long durations of interrogation, derived of sleep, had his feet shackled 
and was placed in solitary confinement. He was also denied medical care for 
dangerously high blood pressure to the point where he had to be hospitalized.

Ali Al-Awaishir, who is facing a death penalty recommendation, as part of the 
mass trial alongside Israa Al-Ghomgham, was verbally psychologically tortured 
by insults such as being called names such as ‘dog’, ‘donkey’ and ‘animal’. Al- 
Awaishirwas threatened during his interrogation by an investigator who said:

“If you do not confess, we will bring your children and torture and whip you in 
front of them, then burn you until death. Then we will issue a report to say 
that you died of a heart attack”.

Al-Awaishir was also physically tortured by being asked to raised his 
handcuffed hands above his head and stand for long periods of time until he 
became unconscious. He was also subjected to whipping.

Using evidence such as torture based confessions to sentence individuals to 
death, renders such death sentence invalid and unlawful. ESOHR has documented 
multiple examples of torture based confessions being used and accepted by 
Judges at the SCC, despite complaints made by defendants that they have been 
tortured into given those confessions. Such complaints are routinely ignored by 
judges. This was the case for child protestor Ali al-Nimr, who was sentenced to 
death in 2014.

In death penalty cases, individuals can be subjected to multiple violations of 
due process during various legal stages, including: detention, pre-trial, 
in-trial and post-trial. Thus, any death penalty, where due process and a fair 
trial have not been strictly observed can be considered unlawful. In many of 
the cases documented by, death penalties were issued after grossly unfair 
trials and violate international law on imposition of the death penalty.

Withholding the bodies after execution

In 2018, the international community was overcome with horror, after learning 
that Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, on what 
appears to be an order from the highest Saudi authorities. Jamal’s body was 
never recovered, with some reports claiming it was dissolved in acid. In fact, 
the Saudi authorities have used the barbaric practice of hiding detaining the 
bodies of individuals who have been executed or are victims extrajudicial 
killings. Since January 2016, it has systematically engaged in this practise, 
concealing the whereabouts of the corpses and denying the families the right to 
perform burial rites. To date, ESOHR has documented a total of 32 bodies which 
have remained hidden and have not been returned to their families.

Saudi Arabia has carried out the death penalty against people who exercised 
peaceful freedom of expression, reflecting its willingness to disregard 
dissenters’ right to life whenever it wants. On January 2, 2016, the Saudi 
government carried out a mass execution of 47 people, including social justice 
activist Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr, as well as child minors Mustafa Abker, Meshaal 
Al-Faraj, and Abdul Aziz Al-Ghamdi, child demonstrator Ali Al-Ribh, protrstor 
Mohammed Al-Shuyukh, Mohammed Al-Suweimel who had non-violent charges, along 
with the mentally handicapped Abdul Aziz Al-Taweeli.

Not only did the Saudi government carry out these unjust sentences and ignore 
all international criticism and accountability, it also completed a series of 
violations and crimes by detaining some of the bodies. Following these the 
executions, some families issued statements demanding the handover of the 
bodies of their loved ones for burial according to their wishes or directives. 
Some families also submitted various claims to the official authorities.

In July 2017, the Saudi government carried out another death penalty against 
victims sentenced to death after a trial that largely lacked the most basic 
conditions for fair trials. Its victims were Yousef Al-Mushaykhes, Amjad 
Al-Moaibad, Zaher Al-Basri, and Mahdi Al-Sayegh. The charges against them 
included the exercise of freedom of expression and demonstration, along with 
other charges including use of violence without any concrete evidence other 
than confessions under torture and coercion. None of the charges were 
classified as serious crimes. After the families learned of the executions 
through the media, they published a statement calling for “the bodies to be 
turned over.”

Between 2011 and 2018, the government, in the context of its use of excessive 
violence and arbitrary measures, has violated the right to life and killed at 
least 83 people in Qatif alone in a variety of ways, including torture and 
arbitrary executions, street assassinations, incineration, raids, and prison 
killings. Victims of extrajudicial killing whose bodies have not yet been 
returned to families include the child Waleed Al-Orayedh.

After the mass execution in January 2016, Saudi Arabia has clearly renewed its 
practice of the bodies of holding on to the bodies of victims of excessive 
violence and summary or arbitrary killing. With the case of journalist Jamal 
Khashoggi– whom Saudi Arabia acknowledged on October 19, 2018, was killed in 
its Istanbul consulate by its own agents who came from Saudi Arabia and has yet 
to offer any official indications so far about the fate of his body.

The Apparatus Saudi Arabia uses to Justify Executions

In order to add formality to the façade, Saudi Arabia needs to justify 
political executions, it uses various apparatus to give apparent justification 
and legitimization to judicial outcomes, including: Extremist Religious 
interpretations, Specialised Criminal court, Domestic Laws (Cybercrimes law, 
Counter-terrorism laws and discretionary taa’zir sentences) and media smear 
campaigns.

Religious Extremism: Wahabbism as the state religion

Religion is employed in a is distorted, radical and extremist manner by the 
Saudi government, who adopt the ultra-conservative religious interpretation of 
Wahabbism. The Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, asserted that he will destroy 
extremism, return to mainstream Islam, and undertake steps such as receiving a 
delegation of American evangelical Christians. However, there were no signs 
that the end of extremism would encompass a cessation of its use against human 
rights defenders.

Counter Terror Court: Specialized Criminal Court (SCC)

the SCC was enacted in 2008, and was initially set up by the Saudi government 
as a counter terrorism court to try individuals accused of terrorism, but has 
been increasingly used to trial various political detainees, such as human 
rights defenders, protesters, children and journalists. The irreversible nature 
of the death penalty means that it can only implemented only if strict 
procedural safeguards have been strictly observed, and this extreme ‘penalty 
can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent 
court’[1]. Human rights case law also clarifies that any death sentence arising 
from an unfair trial is void and unlawful.

ESOHR has documented multiple trials held at the SCC which fell grossly short 
of international standards of due process and a fair trial. In addition to 
unfair trials, they also have no codified jurisdiction, which makes it 
difficult for defendants or acting lawyers to obtain an adequate defence.

The lack of jurisdiction has enabled the Saudi government, in more than 10 
years since its inception, to expand the types of victims it punishes, without 
victims being able to object on the basis of their trial. In general, the court 
has become a holocaust for all those who the government wants to punish, and an 
apparatus used to intimidate civil society.

The judicial system itself as well as the courts being used to put individuals 
on trial are non-independent in nature and heavily controlled by the state. 
Furthermore, the entire infrastructure of the judicial system, is undermined by 
a recent royal decree which ordains that the public prosecution should directly 
report to King Salman for the purpose of ‘observing justice and protecting 
society’. However, such a decree will undermine the independence of the public 
prosecution.

Domestic Laws: Cyber crime laws, Counter terrorism laws& Discretionary 
sentencing(Taa’zir):

The establishment of a set of domestic laws has overridden and taken precedent 
overmany of the international conventions to which Saudi Arabia is a state 
party to, such as the convention against Torture. Thus, domestic laws are used 
as apparatus to allows the practice of repression in the name of law. In 2007, 
local Cybercrime laws were enacted, which give the authorities the right to 
punish any those who deals with electronic devices, storage media or social 
access networks by imprisonment of up to 6 years and a fine of up to 500,000 
riyals.

The Terrorism Crimes and its Financing System (Also known as the counter terror 
law) also established in 2014 and later revised in 2017. This laws broad 
formulation allows for a wide range of criminalization, where even criticism of 
the king or the crown prince can be considered a terrorist act. ESOHR, in 
cooperation with others organisations, produced legal analysis of the two 
versions of the two sets of counter terrorism laws. Legal expert Michael 
Newtonconcluded that the law “removes the little remaining respect for human 
rights and fails to comply with legal standards.” This is concurred by the 
former UN Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of human rights in the 
context of counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson, who said that the counter terrorism 
in Saudi Arabia is used against activists and others.

Discretionary sentences (taa’zir) also result in biased sentencing. ESOHR noted 
that 2 sets of punishments were handed down for the same charges. ESOHR also 
noted that the same charges that were brought against other prisoners led to 
them receiving death sentences and others were sentenced to a variable number 
of years. This is called taa’zir. This means that the judge uses his own 
discretion in the judgment sets a punishment as he sees fit. This allows huge 
scope for bias and politicization to influence sentencing.

This comes despite the fact that Islamic schools of thought do not see in any 
case that Ta’zirshould result in the death penalty, but Saudi Arabia does not 
mirror the opinion of the majority Islamic jurists, and opts for a rare and 
narrow interpretation of taa’zir.

Media smear campaigns

In Saudi Arabia the media is heavily regulated and there is no independent 
media within the kingdom, and journalist who offer critical opinions are 
regularly imprisoned. Pro-government media represent a form of ideological 
state apparatus which are used to influence public opinion thorough the use of 
smear campaigns which smear the reputation of activists, may have sectarian 
undertones and publish false claims, attempting to swerve public opinion into 
believing a death penalty is warranted. Such smear campaigns have been 
documented in several cases, most notably the aggressive smear campaign against 
Sheikh NimrBaqir Al-Nimr, in which the defamatory campaign against him was so 
intense, it was published in both national and transnational media networks 
linked to Saudi Arabia. Such smear campaign violates an individual’s right to 
the presumption of innocence. Furthermore, the media as a repressive mechanism, 
seeks to influence and dominate the public sphere by marketing these death 
sentences as the application of God’s divine law (according to Shariah law), 
leaving no room for civil society to refute such a death sentence.

Outlook for 2019

Whilst ESOHR acknowledge the importance responses following sheikh Nimr 
execution by UN High commissioner’s office, such as the statements of 
condemnation following Sheikh Nimr’s execution in 2016, it should be noted that 
this reactive response came after the execution and what is required now is a 
more preventative strategy, proactive response by the international community. 
In this regard, in 2018, some positive progress has been made, following 
various statements calling on Saudi Arabia to halt the execution of children, 
those accused of spying and even individually named in their statements Ms 
Israa Al-Ghomgham and in another statement Abbas Al-Hassan. The UN issued a 
statement decrying Saudi Arabia’s persistent use of counter terror laws to 
prosecute activists and named reformer Salman Al-Odah. ESOHR supports these 
important advocacy efforts by the UN in this regard.

With execution rates showing no sign of decline, and misreporting by the Saudi 
government, the outlook for 2019 is very bleak. Stronger international 
condemnation is required to apply pressure on Saudi Arabia to reverse this 
shameful record of death, that has earned Saudi Arabia its reputation as an 
ultra repressive state.

(source: esohr.org)








SCOTLAND:

Event: Forensic science and wrongful convictions



Brandon L Garrett, L Neil Williams, Jr professor of law at the Duke University 
School of Law, will give a seminar on “Forensic Science and Wrongful 
Convictions” at the University of Glasgow School of Law on next Tuesday.

He will speak about new work he is carrying out on forensic science and his 
2012 book Convicting the Innocent.

His research on the United States’ criminal justice system has ranged from the 
lessons to be learned from cases where innocent people were exonerated by DNA 
tests, research on false confessions, forensics, and eyewitness memory, to the 
difficult compromises that prosecutors reach when targeting the largest 
corporations in the world.

Professor Garrett’s books include Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal 
Prosecutions Go Wrong (2012) and Too Big To Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise 
with Corporations (2014).

His latest book, End of its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive 
Criminal Justice, examines the implications of the decline of the death 
penalty, was published by Harvard University Press in the autumn of 2017.

(source: scottishlegal.com)



PHILIPPINES:

Lagman: ‘House is a chamber of regressive legislation’



The House of Representatives has become a “veritable chamber of regressive 
legislation” after it reduced the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 
the present 15 to 12 years old and restored the death penalty for drug-related 
offenses, Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman lamented on Thursday.

The lower chamber approved House Bill No. 8858 on second reading on Wednesday. 
The bill seeks to lower the age of “social responsibility” to 12 years old, and 
not 9 as earlier proposed by the chamber.

Meanwhile, the House passed on third and final reading HB 4727 or an act 
imposing the death penalty for drug-related offenses on March 7, 2017. But this 
bill remains stagnant as the Senate has yet to act on the lower chamber’s 
controversial proposal.

Lagman said that even at the reduced age of 12 as the threshold, House Bill No. 
8858, as amended, “remains to be anti-child.”

He argued that according to neuroscience, a child’s brain does not fully 
develop until the early 20s. As such, Lagman said, children from the ages of 12 
to 15 “do not have complete faculties for discernment to make them criminally 
culpable.”

Lagman also pointed out that lowering the minimum age of criminal 
responsibility would not result in lower crime rates, saying poverty must 
instead be addressed.

The Albay congressman added that lowering the age of criminal responsibility 
would just encourage criminal syndicates to use even younger children. Instead, 
the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 should be fully implemented “with 
the assurance of adequate funding for non-penal institutions and programs for 
children in conflict with the law,” Lagman said.

He added that there is also no new appropriation for the creation and 
maintenance of “Bahay Pag-asa” or youth care facilities in the proposed 2019 
national budget. Senator Panfilo Lacson said Congress could discuss the 
realignment of funds for these centers during the bicameral conference on the 
proposed P3.8 trillion expenditure plan this year.

For his part, Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano meanwhile assailed Arroyo for admitting 
she only pushed for the bill because the President wants it. Alejano reminded 
Arroyo that she is a representative of the people and that Congress should not 
act as the Executive’s rubber stamp.

“ gently remind Speaker Arroyo that as a co-equal branch of the Executive 
Department, Congress is not the President’s rubber stamp,” Alejano said in a 
statement.

The proposed law, backed by President Rodrigo Duterte, House Speaker Gloria 
Arroyo and Senate President Vicente Sotto III, would put children in conflict 
with the law in reformative institutions like the Bahay Pag-asa. But there are 
only 58 operational youth care facilities nationwide, House justice panel chair 
and Oriental Mindoro 1st District Rep. Salvador “Doy” Leachon admitted.

Confinement, Leacho added, would only be mandatory if the child has committed 
serious offenses, has no family or has repeated the offense more than twice.

Child Rights Network (CRN) Philippines convenor Rom Dongeto and Bukidnon 3rd 
District Rep. Manuel Zubiri have warned that under the “poor” justice system in 
the country, children in conflict with the law would end up in ordinary 
prisons. Dongeto said only 1.7 percent of total crimes could be attributed to 
minors.

In the Senate, Minority Leader Franklin Drilon filed Senate Bill No. 1603 
seeking to lower the age of criminal liability to 12 years old, while Sotto 
filed SBN 2026 seeking to lower the age to “above 12 years old.” These bills 
are pending at the Senate committee on justice.

(source: newsinfo.inquirer.net)