[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 2



PHILIPPINES:

Bong Go files bill imposing the death penalty for drugs, plunder



Neophyte Senator Christopher "Bong" Go on Tuesday filed a bill seeking the 
reimposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes involving dangerous drugs, 
as well as for plunder.

Senate Bill 207 will amend Section 1 of Republic Act 9346 or an Act Prohibiting 
the Imposition of Death Penalty to read: “The imposition of the penalty of 
death is hereby prohibited except for crimes specified under Republic Act 9165, 
otherwise know as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 and Section 12 
of Republic Act 7659.”

In the explanatory note, Go said the proliferation of heinous crimes had 
ignited the call for a tough and definitive stance against crimes that have 
plagued the security and development of the nation.

“The crippling problems brought about by dangerous drugs and corruption must be 
answered with a firm and decisive solution,” he said.

“Due to their pervasive nature and the impunity with which criminals operate, 
these crimes must be met with a punishment based not only on deterrence, but 
also on retribution, to leave no doubt that there can never be any gain for 
anyone who chooses to commit these heinous crimes,” he added.

Go argued that under the Constitution, the death penalty was reserved for the 
most heinous crimes and the time had come to revive it.

“We must recognize the need to take a harder stance against these pervasive 
evils and impose the most extreme form of punishment, reserved only for the 
most evil of crimes,” claimed Go.

(source: gmanetwork.com)








SRI LANKA:

Must abolish Executive’s powers to implement death penalty - CHR



The powers vested with the Executive to implement the death penalty must be 
abolished, Centre for Human Rights and Research (CHR) says.

Among the powers conferred on the Executive of the country, the authority to 
implement the death penalty is extremely threatening, the Acting Executive 
Director of CHR Surangi Ariyawansa said was cited in a press release issued by 
the centre.

She has stated this during a workshop held with the volunteer human rights 
activists at the CHR office in Rajagiriya.

Ariyawansa pointed out that the legislature has the jurisdiction to limit the 
powers of the Executive to implement the death penalty. This power vested with 
the Executive can be revoked by the majority consent of the Parliament, she 
added.

Sri Lanka has been internationally acknowledged for not enforcing capital 
punishment since 1976 and Sri Lanka has already voted in favour of a resolution 
brought forth by the United Nations in 2016, the release further said.

The CHR Acting Executive Director emphasized that the decision taken to 
reintroduce the death penalty, at a time in which almost all the democratic 
nations have looked towards its abolishment, is unacceptable.

The release highlights the fact countries like Saudi Arabia impose the death 
penalty yet have failed to put an end to the crimes taking place states.

The CHR says implementing the death penalty is a decision that takes the 
society backwards from civilization to barbarism.

Child abuse and drug menace are severe social issues, however, imposing the 
death penalty is not a solution for these, Ariyawansa says.

Disregarding the responsibility to streamline the legal system to wipe out drug 
trafficking and hanging convicts to death instead cannot resolve the issue, she 
added.

Ariyawansa says there is no evidence to prove that imposing the death penalty 
can curb social issues like drug trafficking and this is merely a political 
decision taken to gain popularity.

At a time when the trust in the judiciary has been diminished, the partiality 
shown to implement the capital punishment is doubtful and this grant arbitrary 
powers to the authorities to convict an opponent and impose the death penalty 
on him, the CHR release said.

(source: adaderana.lk)

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

‘Parties which supported Common Candidate oppose death penalty’



Most parties that supported the Common Candidate at the 2015 Presidential 
Election oppose the implementation of the death penalty, Prime Minister Ranil 
Wickremesinghe told a group of foreign ambassadors yesterday.

The foreign envoys met the Prime Minister to express their concerns over 
President Maithripala Sirisena’s decision to implement the death penalty.

The Premier explained to the ambassadors that the UNP, JVP and TNA are against 
ending the 43-year-old moratorium on the death penalty, and even the Opposition 
led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been vocal against it.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said he would discuss this matter with the 
Cabinet of Ministers, and then with President Sirisena and Speaker Karu 
Jayasuriya.

He told the envoys that Sri Lanka had voted in favour of the UN resolution on 
the moratorium on the use of the death penalty in 2016 and again in 2018.

“President Sirisena was the President and I was the Prime Minister when Sri 
Lanka voted in favour of the moratorium on the death penalty in 2016. When it 
was reaffirmed on December 17, 2018, President Sirisena was the President and 
Mahinda Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister,” he observed.

The Premier recalled that former President J.R. Jayewardene decided to stop 
implementing the death penalty and his successors, Ranasinghe Premadasa, D.B. 
Wijetunga, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa continued 
with that decision.

(source: dailynews.lk)

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

Protests, legal challenge in Sri Lanka over death penalty----The executions 
would be the 1st in the island nation since 1976



Civil rights activists have protested in Sri Lanka against the president’s 
decision to end a moratorium on capital punishment and execute 4 convicted drug 
dealers.

Holding placards that read “Execute justice not people” and the “Death penalty 
kills people not crimes”, activists gathered outside Sri Lanka’s largest 
prison, Welikade, on June 29 to urge President Maithripala Sirisena to reverse 
his decision.

Sirisena said on June 26 he had signed the requisite documents to reimpose the 
death penalty, paving the way for the first executions in the country since 
1976.

He has defended the decision as necessary to curb a serious national drug 
problem that has grown to 300,000 addicts.

Civil rights lawyer Senaka Perera questioned the motive for the decision, 
suggesting it was an attempt to boost Sirisena’s image as a strong leader, 
ahead of presidential elections due to take place by year’s end.

“We thoroughly condemn the president's action. Behind these prison walls it is 
written ‘prisoners are humans’ but the president has taken a stand to execute 
them," said Perera, president of the Committee for Protecting Rights of 
Prisoners.

"We request the president rehabilitate the prisoners. Executions are accepted 
internationally only in extreme cases, but the president is going to execute 
these people for political benefit and to build his image.

"If the president is not going to stop this, we will have a mass protest and 
also take further action to bring this matter to the attention of the 
international community," said Perera.

Sirisena also faces legal challenges against his attempt to end the moratorium, 
with a petition filed in the Court of Appeal seeking an order quashing the move 
on human rights grounds. Sri Lanka’s top prisons official told the court during 
questioning on June 28 for the petition that the hangings would not take place 
for at least 7 days.

Sirisena has said the hangings would take place “very soon” but no date has 
been announced. As of February, there were 48 prisoners on the nation’s 
so-called death row.

2 hangmen meanwhile have been recruited from more than 100 applicants to carry 
out the job, according to the prisons department.

Amnesty International and a number of other rights groups have criticized Sri 
Lanka’s intentions to return to hangings, noting that some 106 countries have 
already abolished the death penalty.

Athula Samarakoon, a social sciences lecturer at the Open University of Sri 
Lanka, said the decision was not only a threat to democracy, but would fail to 
deter drug dealers. He called on the government to focus more on installing law 
and order.

“Implementing the death penalty will not help to reduce crime rates,” 
Samarakoon told ucanews.com. "The government should establish law and order 
which we do not have at present.”

“Give people a chance to repent. This punishment has been stopped in Sri Lanka 
for more than 43 years and it is not good for a civilized society and for a 
democratic country (to reintroduce it)," he said.

(source: ucanews.com)

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

Look into eyes of one convicted to hang – Milinda Moragoda



Chairman of the Prisoners Welfare Society and former minister Milinda Moragoda 
has written to the President asking him to reconsider his decision on the death 
penalty.

He stated that the president’s decision to reimplement the death penalty in Sri 
Lanka has given rise to an outcry both locally and internationally. He further 
states that during his time in office as the Minister of Justice and Law 
reforms from 2009 – 2010 discussions were held on the reimplementation of the 
death penalty.

The former minister states that he believes that even taking the life of an 
inmate convicted of the most heinous crime is a gruesome form of punishment 
that does not allow for a man to reform himself to be a good citizen.

He continued to say that when considering the time taken to reach a decision in 
court, there is a lack of complete confidence in the justice system and that 
the general public still has doubts regarding the judiciary system of the 
country.

Finally, he implores the president to look into the eyes of a prisoner 
sentenced to death and requests him to visit the prison and comprehend the 
lowest state a human life can fall.

(source: newsfirst.lk)

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

Rights groups to protest death sentence for drug offenders at Sri Lankan 
embassy



Various human rights and civil society organisations today announced protest 
programme in Kathmandu against the Sri Lankan government’s recent move to order 
the execution of four drug offenders.

The organisations are Amnesty International Nepal, Advocacy Forum, 
Accountability Watch Committee, Justice and Rights Institute Nepal, Collective 
Campaign for Peace, Peace Envisioners, INHURED International, Conflict Victims 
Common Platform, Aprabasi Mahila Kamdar Samuha, Go Go Foundation, Nepal Human 
Rights Organisation, National Human Rights Foundation, and World Vision 
Advocacy Forum.

The organisations plan to hold peaceful demonstration in front of the Sri 
Lankan Embassy in Kathmandu tomorrow from 9:00am to 10:00pm, according to a 
press release of Amnesty International Nepal.

Amnesty International Nepal said in its press release that it was shocked to 
know that Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on June 26 signed a warrant 
for implementation of death penalty against the four individuals who are 
presently serving jail term. There was a moratorium on death penalty in Sri 
Lanka for the past 43 years. However, after the Sri Lankan government hired 
executioners a few days ago, chances of the four individuals being sentenced to 
death are high, said the press release.

“Adopting a brutal and inhuman system of death penalty is a matter of shame for 
modern society.”

“As per our understanding, none of the world’s criminal system is perfect and 
the death penalty provision will not only disproportionately affect the poor, 
but also increase the chances of victimisation of innocent people.”

The statement said the death penalty system violates a person’s right to live 
and right against torture guaranteed by the universal declaration of human 
rights and other documents.

“We are organising the protest to warn the Sri Lankan government to honour its 
international human rights commitments,” read the press release.

(source: The Himalayan Times)








INDIA:

Gujarat High Court saves man from gallows, sends him to prison for 30 
years----As per the case details, the incident dates back to June 15, 2012



The Gujarat High Court on Monday refused to uphold the death sentence awarded 
to a 38-year-old man for kidnapping, raping, and murdering a 6-year-old girl. 
However, it ensured that the man would have to repent for committing the 
heinous crime for the rest of his life as it converted his death sentence to 30 
years in prison without remission.

An additional district court in Anjar of Kutch district had in February 
sentenced him to death. While the state government, as per norms, moved the HC 
for confirmation of the death penalty, convict Deva Dhana Koli challenged his 
conviction and sentence in the HC.

Additional public prosecutor Himanshu Patel told DNA: "The court has converted 
the death sentence into 30 years in prison without remission. It has also 
rejected the appeal against the conviction and sentence filed by Koli."

Patel had argued before the court that Koli had tried to satisfy his lust and 
made the 6-year-old girl his prey as she was helpless and not in a position to 
defend herself. He also argued that the man also murdered the girl after raping 
her.

It was also argued that Koli had criminal antecedents, no remorse after 
committing such an act, and might repeat the same.

On the contrary, counsel for Koli argued that the case against him was false. 
It was also argued that the child-witnesses in the case identified him after a 
period of three years and therefore, the same should not be relied upon.

As per the case details, the incident dates back to June 15, 2012, when the 
victim along with 3-4 other girls had gone to take a bath in a pool in an 
agricultural farm. Koli was present there and the victim, being the youngest 
among other girls, was kidnapped, taken to a nearby place, and was sexually 
assaulted by the man. Eventually, she was murdered.

In the meantime, the other girls alerted the victim's relatives, who came 
searching for her only to find the body, with blood oozing out of her private 
parts. An FIR was registered and Koli, a resident of a nearby village, was 
arrested within a few hours. He was tried by the additional district court in 
Anjar, which awarded him the death sentence.

(source: dnaindia.com)

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

Death row convict’s only hope: His age, 25 years ago----Pune police report says 
he was juvenile when he was sentenced, along with 2 others, for murder of 5 of 
a family in 1994; case was reopened in January this year



Narayan Chetanaram Chaudary is 39 years old and has spent almost 2/3 of his 
life in the shadow of the gallows. In 1994, he and 2 others were sentenced to 
death for the murder of 5 members of a family that included a pregnant woman 
and 2 children — a ‘rarest of the rare’ case.

But in the 25 years he has spent in Pune’s Yerwada Central Jail, Narayan has 
worked towards making himself a model prisoner with the hope that it would help 
in the commutation of his death sentence.

Unlettered when he went to jail, Narayan taught himself Marathi and Hindi and 
went on to finish a BA in Social Science, MA in Sociology and completed a 
course in Tourism from open universities. He has virtually exhausted all legal 
options after his death sentence was confirmed by the Bombay High Court and 
twice by the Supreme Court in 2000.

But Narayan’s story is about to change. It is his education, not the degrees he 
earned in prison but a year-and-half of schooling he had as a kid in 
Rajasthan’s Bikaner district, that is promising him a fresh lease of life.

Narayan discovered that he could not have been awarded the death penalty as he 
was barely 14 years old when he was sentenced. He moved the Supreme Court in 
October last year, seeking a recall of the earlier court rulings confirming his 
death sentence.

In 1994, the sessions court in Pune had recorded Narayan’s age as 20 years and 
he was tried and convicted as an adult under the Indian Penal Code. But Narayan 
was only 14 years old, a juvenile who could not have been awarded the death 
sentence.

However, the issue was never raised in court by Narayan during his trial. 
Narayan’s lawyer in the Supreme Court had argued that his young age must be 
considered as a mitigating circumstance but the court had refused to entertain 
the argument.

His case was reopened in January this year and Narayan obtained his school 
documents from a government school in Bikaner — he had dropped out after 18 
months — and from the district administration that records his date of birth.

In January, a 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court directed the Principal 
District and Sessions Judge of Pune to decide whether Narayan was a juvenile 
when the crime was committed.

The Pune police have concluded, in a report submitted to the Supreme Court, 
that in 1994, when the crime was committed, Narayan was 12 years and 6 months.

“Capital punishment can never be imposed on a juvenile,” the Supreme Court said 
while granting Narayan parole for a week in May to perform the last rites of 
his father. He is back in Yerwada jail now but his fresh battle before the 
Supreme Court has just begun.

(source: indianexpress.com)








PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

Death penalty for crimes that warrant it: Steven



The death penalty is applicable to crimes that warrant extreme penalties and 
Parliament is entitled to include that in the penalty provisions, Deputy Prime 
Minister Davis Steven says.

S teven also, the Justice Minister and Attorney-General, said Parliament was 
entitled to include the change in the body of laws.

“The question now is when do we implement it when the National Executive 
Council (NEC) approves the method of execution?” he said.

“One of the last submissions I signed before I resigned (recently from Cabinet) 
was to brief the NEC on the exact progress status of this particular law.

“We spent K2 million and sent our officials on a fact-finding mission overseas 
to come back and advise us on what we should do in terms of how we execute 
those who are on death row.” Steven said the National Court had directed the 
Government to relook at the provisions of the organic law relating to the power 
of mercy.

“These are legacy issues we will have to go through,” he said.

“The NEC must now make a decision and that submission is currently under 
preparation and I will present it to NEC when it is ready.

“The good thing is that whilst the law is available the judges have an option 
to impose it.

“We know in our jurisdictions that courts have imposed that penalty before 
that’s why we have people on death row.

“Parliament knows that we have that penalty available. So in crimes that we 
think warrant this very extreme penalty, it (Parliament) has entitled to decide 
to include that in penalty provisions.”

(source: thenational.com.pg)








IRAN----execution

Iran Executions: Man Hanged at Bandar Abbas Prison



A prisoner was executed on a murder charge at the Iranian southern port city of 
Bandar Abbas prison on Sunday.

According to IHR sources, on the early morning of Sunday, June 30, a man was 
hanged at Bandar Abbas prison. His identity is revealed by IHR sources as 
Sohrab Tajmehr, 39. Sohrab was convicted to death for committing a murder 
during a gang fight.

“Sohrab Tajmehr was insisting all the time that he is innocent. The murder 
happened during a gang fight in which 6 people were involved. He was claiming 
that the person who killed Yaser (the victim) is someone else who ran away to 
Greece. However, Sohrab and Yaser were enemies for 5 years and thus, everyone 
believed he was the one who killed Yaser,” the source said.

Sohrab’s execution is not announced by Iranian authorities or media so far.

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.

According to the Iran Human Rights statistic department, at least 273 people 
were executed in Iran in 2018. At least 188 of them executed for murder 
charges.

(source: Iran Human Rights)

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

Iran says several suspected U.S. spies face possible death sentences



Iranian prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for several suspects arrested 
last year for spying for the United States in military and nuclear bodies, 
state media reported on Tuesday, as tensions rise with Washington over Tehran's 
nuclear program.

Iran said in August it had arrested "tens of spies" in state bodies, many of 
whom were dual nationals.

In June, Iran said it executed a former contract employee of the defense 
ministry aerospace body on charges of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence 
Agency.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said an unspecified number of 
suspects, arrested less than a year ago, faced possible death sentences in 
military tribunals, state televison reported.

"2 of the defendants, who were not military, have received long prison terms," 
Esmaili added, without giving details.

Iran announced on Monday it had amassed more low-enriched uranium than 
permitted under a 2015 nuclear deal, a move denounced by President Donald Trump 
as "playing with fire" amid concerns about deepening U.S.-Iranian 
confrontation.

The initiative marked Tehran's first major shift from the provisions of the 
pact since the United States pulled out of it more than a year ago.

However, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the move was not a 
violation of the accord, arguing that Iran was exercising its right to respond 
to the U.S. walkout.

(source: Jerusalem Post)