[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 23





SAUDI ARABIA:

Religious Thinker on Trial for His Life----Criticized ‘Extremism’ in School 
Curriculum



Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a Saudi religious 
reformist thinker on a host of vague charges relating to his peaceful religious 
ideas, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities arrested Hassan Farhan 
al-Maliki in September 2017 and have detained him since, finally bringing 
charges in October 2018.

Prosecuting al-Maliki for peacefully expressing religious ideas appears to 
contradict Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s statement in October 2017that he 
wanted to “revert” the country to “a moderate Islam open to the world and all 
religions.” The Public Prosecution reports directly to the Saudi royal court.

“Mohammed bin Salman has consistently pledged to support a more ‘moderate’ 
version of Islam while his country maintains a prosecution service that seeks 
the death penalty against religious reformers for expressing their peaceful 
ideas,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 
“Saudi Arabia’s real road to reform lies in allowing religious thinkers like 
al-Maliki to express themselves without fear of arrest and possible execution.”

A Saudi activist told Human Rights Watch that the Specialized Criminal Court, 
Saudi Arabia’s terrorism court, has held at least three trial sessions on 
al-Maliki’s case, but the next hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Human Rights Watch reviewed al-Maliki’s charge sheet, which consists of 14 
charges, nearly all with no resemblance to recognized crimes. The first two 
charges relate to his peaceful expression of his religious opinions about the 
veracity of certain sayings of the prophet and his criticism of several seventh 
century Islamic figures. Other charges include “insulting the country’s rulers 
and the Supreme Council of Religious Scholars, and describing them as 
extremist,” and accusing Gulf countries of supporting ISIS.

Prosecutors also charged al-Maliki with praising Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan 
Nasrallah, and “having sympathy” for the Houthi group in Yemen, and expressing 
his religious views in television interviews, attending discussion groups in 
Saudi Arabia, writing books and studies and publishing them outside of Saudi 
Arabia, possession of banned books, defaming a Kuwaiti man by accusing him on 
Twitter of supporting ISIS, and violating the country’s notorious cybercrime 
law.

The charge sheet also accuses al-Maliki of crossing illegally from Saudi Arabia 
into northern Yemen for research about his family origins and history in 2001, 
after Saudi authorities had banned al-Maliki from travel abroad. Saudi Arabia 
does not have a comprehensive written penal code and only a limited number of 
written criminal regulations. Charges not based on a written text, which 
include all but one of al-Maliki’s, do not have a statute of limitation.

Evidence cited by prosecutors in the charge sheet consisted entirely of 
al-Maliki’s alleged confession, his Tweets, and material confiscated from his 
home and electronic devices. It says that he allegedly confessed to “calling 
for freedom of belief, and that it is the right of any person to adopt beliefs 
that he sees as correct, and it is not permitted to restrict these [beliefs] or 
impose certain beliefs,” as well as his denial that the crime of apostacy 
should be punishable by death, “seeing that there is no truth to it legally.” 
He also allegedly confessed to saying that “those [clerics] who ban singing or 
music in all its forms are extremists, as there is no evidence for banning it 
and that the prophet [peace be upon him] listened to it.”

“Prosecutors are seeking to put a man to death in part for criticizing any 
cleric who bans music, while Saudi leaders are paying millions to public 
relations companies to show how ‘progressive’ they are for allowing public 
concerts by major Western artists in the country,” Page said.

Prosecutors also cited excerpts of an alleged confession by al-Maliki’s son, 
Abbas, whom the charge sheet indicates is also detained, though Saudi activists 
do not know his status.

The charges do not qualify as crimes for which capital punishment can be 
justified under international human rights law. International standards, 
including the Arab Charter on Human Rights, ratified by Saudi Arabia, require 
countries that retain the death penalty to use it only for the “most serious 
crimes,” and in exceptional circumstances. In 2012, the United Nations special 
rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions stated that where 
used, the death penalty should be limited to cases in which a person is 
intentionally killed.

Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all countries and under all 
circumstances. Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality, and it 
is inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.

Since 2017, Saudi authorities have undertaken mass detentions, including of 
human rights activists, independent clerics, and academics. Authorities held 
many for months without charge and referred some to trial on charges solely 
tied to their peaceful statements or beliefs. Saudi prosecutors are also 
seeking the death penalty against a prominent cleric, Salman al-Awda, on a host 
of vague charges related to his political statements, associations, and 
positions.

Other prominent detainees arrested in September 2017 include Essam al-Zamil, an 
economist; Mustafa al-Hasan, an academic; Abdullah Al-Malki, a writer; and 
dozens of other clerics including Awad al-Qarni, Ibrahim al-Nasser, and Ibrahim 
al-Fares. Authorities imprisoned Abdulaziz al-Shubaily and Issa al-Hamid, human 
rights activists, around the same time. Both had lost appeals of convictions 
for their human rights work following unfair trials.

(source: Human Rights Watch)








IRAN----execution

CIA agent formerly working for defense ministry executed



Iran announced Sat. that a contract employee formerly working with the 
aerospace organization of the defense ministry has been executed on charges of 
spying for the US government.

Iran’s Judiciary Organization of the Armed Forces said Sat. that death penalty 
of Jalal Hajizavar, the ex-employee of the Defense Ministry, was carried out 
after he had been convicted of spying for the CIA and the US government.

According to the report, Jalal Hajizavar was sentenced to death penalty after 
he confessed to spying for and receiving money from the CIA and that relevant 
documents and spying equipment had been discovered at his home.

The death sentence of the ‘treacherous element’ had been confirmed by the 
country’s Supreme Court after observing legal procedures, the statement added.

The Judiciary Organization of the Armed Forces’ statement further noted that 
all legal standards had been observed at different levels of investigation on 
his case from the start to his death penalty during proceedings before the 
court.

Furthermore, his wife is also spending a 15-year jail term for her partnership 
in his crime.

(source: mehr news)

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

Despite international outcry, Iran keeps executing children----In the past 30 
years, Iran has executed twice as many juvenile offenders, some as young as 12, 
than any other country.



Iran must abolish a “blatantly unfair” judicial system that has seen the 
country obtain the record for executing the biggest number of child offenders, 
Amnesty International said.

Amnesty International said that, in the past 30 years, Iran has executed twice 
as many juvenile offenders, some as young as 12, than any other country. The 
group cited serious concerns for children — perhaps as many as 90 — on death 
row who were under the age of 18 at the time of their alleged offences. Many, 
the organisation said, were not given a fair trial.

“Amnesty International believes that the death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and 
degrading punishment and its use is horrendous in absolutely all circumstances 
but is even more appalling when it is used as punishment against people who 
were under 18 when the crimes took place and within a judicial system that is 
blatantly unfair,” said Nassim Papayianni, senior campaigner for the Iran team 
at Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa regional office.

“The Iranian authorities have a horrific track record of putting juvenile 
offenders to death in flagrant violation of international law and their own 
human rights obligations. (Iran) is a state party to the UN Convention on the 
Rights of the Child, which is unequivocal in its absolute prohibition on the 
use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people below 18 years of age.

“It is also well-established in the principles of juvenile justice that 
individuals under 18 years of age are categorically less mature and culpable 
and should never, therefore, face the same penalties as adults.”

The use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18 is 
prohibited under international human rights law, yet some countries execute 
child offenders.

>From 1990-2018, Amnesty International documented 145 executions of child 
offenders in China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, 
South Sudan, Sudan, the United States and Yemen. Iran has executed more than 
twice as many child offenders — 97 — as the other countries combined.

Some were of pre-teenage age when they were accused of their alleged crimes.

Arman Mohammadi was arrested when he was 12 and spent 6 years in prison before 
his execution. The crime he was charged with has not been revealed. Nor has it 
been in the case of Makwan Moloudzadeh, who was 13 at the time of his alleged 
offence. He was executed in 2007.

Other cases include the arrests and executions of 2 17-year-olds this year. 
Papayianni said cousins Mehdi Sohrabifar and Amin Sedaghat were executed on 
April 25. “Both were arrested aged 15 and convicted on multiple rape charges 
following an unfair trial,” she said.

Information published by Amnesty International stated the teenagers were 
unaware they had been sentenced to death until shortly before their executions 
and both teenagers had lash marks on their bodies, indicating they had been 
flogged before they died. The two were reportedly forced to confess under 
torture.

Their families and lawyers were not informed about the executions in advance 
and were “shocked to learn of the news,” Papayianni said.

Held at a Shiraz child correction centre since 2017, the two boys were 
transferred to Adelabad Prison on April 24 and visited by their families. The 
next day, Iran’s Legal Medicine Organisation reportedly informed the families 
that the boys had been executed and asked them to collect the bodies.

“We are particularly disturbed by reports that one of the alleged child 
offenders, Mehdi Sohrabifar, had an intellectual disability and had spent 
nearly 10 years in a special education centre,” said UN experts in a statement. 
“Although evidence of the child’s disability was presented during his trial, 
the courts failed to use their discretion to request an assessment of the 
maturity of the child, in line with Article 91 of Iran’s amended Penal Code, in 
clear breach of his right to a fair trial.”

A Wikipedia entry states that crimes punishable by death in Iran include 
murder, rape, child molestation, drug trafficking, armed robbery, kidnapping, 
terrorism, burglary, paedophilia, homosexuality, incestuous relations, 
fornication, prohibited sexual relations, sexual misconduct, prostitution, 
plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime, political dissidence, sabotage, 
arson, rebellion, apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, extortion, counterfeiting, 
smuggling, speculating, disrupting production, recidivist consumption of 
alcohol, producing or preparing food, drink, cosmetics or sanitary items that 
lead to death when consumed or used, producing and publishing pornography, 
using pornographic materials to solicit sex, recidivist false accusation of 
capital sexual offences causing execution of an innocent person, recidivist 
theft, certain military offences (e.g., cowardice, assisting the enemy), 
“waging war against God,” “spreading corruption on Earth,” espionage and 
treason.

UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman published a report 
that presented in-depth research on the execution of child offenders in Iran, 
including targeted and detailed recommendations addressed to the Iranian 
parliament, judiciary and other key stakeholders, outlining steps to end the 
practice.

It said Sohrabifar and Sedaghat were not isolated cases.

“We are very concerned that some specific cases of individuals who were under 
the age of 18 at the time of the offence are at risk of execution now,” 
Papayianni said.

The sobering list includes Mohammad Kalhori, who was 15 when he was arrested in 
December 2014 over the fatal stabbing of one of his schoolteachers. He was 
found guilty of murder in March 2016.

He was sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to pay diya — blood money — 
to the victim’s family. In its verdict, the court relied on a state medical 
opinion that concluded that the boy did not have “mental growth and maturity” 
at the time of the crime.

However, the verdict was overturned on appeal by the Supreme Court and, in 
January 2017, a court dismissed arguments about Kalhori’s “mental growth and 
maturity,” convicted him of murder and sentenced him to death. At least two 
judicial reviews of his case since then have been rejected.

Papayianni also pointed out the case of Barzan Nasrollahzadeh, who was arrested 
by Ministry of Intelligence officials at the age of 17 in May 2010. He was held 
for several months in a Ministry of Intelligence detention facility in Sanandaj 
without access to his family or a lawyer.

He has said he was tortured, including with an electric-shock device, by being 
suspended upside down and beaten.

After his trial in August 2013, he was sentenced to death after being convicted 
of “enmity against God.” His request for judicial review of his case has been 
rejected, which means his death sentence could soon be implemented.

Hamid Ahmadi was sentenced to death in August 2009 following an “unfair trial” 
before in Gilan province in connection with the fatal stabbing of a young man 
during a fight among a group of boys in 2008, Papayianni said.

The court relied on “confessions” he made at the police station after his 
arrest when he did not have access to a lawyer or his family.

Papayianni said Ahmadi’s “confessions” were obtained under torture and police 
officers held him for 3 days in a filthy, urine-stained cell; tied his hands 
and feet together and pushed him face down on the cell floor; tied him to a 
pole in the yard; kicked his genitals; and denied him food and water.

Reportedly, the pain inflicted was so severe that he was willing to confess to 
anything to end it. Authorities are not known to have investigated his torture 
allegations.

“In Amnesty International’s annual death penalty report this year, which looks 
at the use of the death penalty worldwide in 2018, we have said that seven 
people in Iran and at least 1 person in South Sudan were executed for crimes 
committed when they were younger than 18 years of age,” said Papayianni. “The 
organisation also recently issued a document on which countries the 
organisation has recorded using the death penalty against individuals who were 
under the age of 18 at the time of the offence.”

In recent years, Iranian judicial authorities often waited until a child 
sentenced to death had turned 18 before executing him, claiming he was no 
longer a child.

“There is no justification for executing children,” said Michael Page, deputy 
Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Until Iran bans the death penalty, 
Iranian judges should use the legal authority they already have and stop 
sending children to be killed by the state.”

Amnesty International recorded about 51,000 adult and juvenile executions from 
1990-2018, however, data from China have been unavailable since 2009.

(source: The Arab Weekly)

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

Power Games In Iran Involve A Billionaire On Death Row



A parliamentary leader in Iran demands to know why a group of Iranian lawmakers 
would meet a billionaire in prison who is convicted of massive corruption.

A member of the board of directors of Iran’s parliament has called upon the 
Islamic Republic Judiciary to investigate meetings that he claims some of the 
country's legislators have recently had with Babak Zanjani, sentenced to death 
for embezzling billions of dollars of smuggled oil.

Citing one of President Hassan Rouhani's ministers, Alireza Rahimi twitted on 
June 21, "Some of the members of parliament have recently met with Babak 
Zanjani behind bars."

Rahimi has not named the lawmakers who have allegedly met with the 45-year-old 
Zanjani but insisted, "It will be a good idea if the Judiciary briefs 
parliament's board of directors about these ambiguous meetings."

Zanjani was a middleman, selling Iranian oil through front companies, mainly 
affiliated with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), in the years when 
international sanctions banned Iran oil exports and banking relations, during 
hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second term, 2009-2013.

These non-transparent operations led to many cases of embezzlement and 
misappropriation of state funds. Most of the financial corruption cases have 
something to do with failing or refusing to repatriate revenues from the 
illicit sale of oil and oil products.

In Late 2013, Babak Zanjani was arrested and accused of withholding $2.7 
billion of oil ministry money. He was convicted of corruption, sentenced to 
death in 2016 and is currently awaiting execution.

Many Iranians believe that Zanjani is perhaps a "fall guy" for many corrupt 
officials and corruption schemes in Iran.

A senior official of Iran's Judiciary said on December 13, 2018, that the 
former tycoon will be executed after he returns what he owes the Islamic 
Republic.

While many ordinary criminals are swiftly put to death in Iran, Zanjani's 
sentence has not been carried out and there are many theories as to why it is 
being delayed.

Hadi Sadeqi, a deputy to the all-powerful Judiciary head told reporters that 
part of "Zanjani's money is abroad, and currently not possible to repatriate 
it," major Tehran news agencies reported at the time.

"People should not be impatient with carrying out Zanjani's death penalty. The 
Judiciary does not want to lose the connection to his assets abroad," Sadeqi 
asserted.

After months being out of the spotlight, Rahimi's tweet has once again 
highlighted the case of the controversial tycoon.

Reacting to the tweet, Zanjani's attorney has denied that his client met 
several MPs, noting, "There was only one meeting held in the presence of the 
representatives of the government, Ministry of Intelligence, National Iranian 
Oil Company (NIOC), and Tehran's deputy Prosecutor-General."

The meeting, the attorney has insisted, was held to follow up Zanjani's case, 
and discuss his debt to the NIOC, as well as studying ways to pay it back.

Meanwhile, a lawmaker named as one of the legislators who have allegedly met 
with Zanjani, has asserted that he knows nothing about such a meeting.

"I have not heard anything about a meeting between Zanjani and several MPs," 
conservative representative of the city of Najafabad to Majlis, Abolfazl 
Aboutorabi (Abu Torabi) affirmed.

Aboutorabi is the same member of parliament who claimed recently that 
intelligence agents had discovered three credit card readers with one trillion 
rials (approximately $23.7 million) cash flow, and some hard currencies in 
cash, as well as some gold at the oil minister's office.

The Ministry of Petroleum has dismissed Aboutorabi's allegations as baseless 
and has filed a legal complaint against him.

The oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh belongs to President Hassan Rouhani’s 
political circle and a target for Iran’s hardliners. Several analysts believe 
that the imprisoned tycoon is being used or is playing a role in the latest 
string of attacks on the oil minister.

(source:radiofarda.com)








PAKISTAN:

Mental health, psychological counseling imperative to curb child abuse: Valerie 
Khan



Group Development Pakistan Executive Director Valerie Khan said mental health 
and psychological counseling of individuals is imperative to curb child abuse 
cases.

Valerie in an exclusive talk with APP said that there was dearth of education 
and basic knowledge on child abusive and harassing activities which should be 
imparted to children at the Primary level so that they might identify and 
resist to such acts.

She added that the implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) would 
definitely have decreased the level violence, ignorance and alleviated 
extremism. "The incumbent government including its minister for human rights 
has noble intent to end human rights violation at every level across the 
country whereas they lack proper research on social problems and modern crisis 
along with technical and psychological experts which would have eased their 
endeavors," Valerie suggested.

She raised her concerns over capital punishment for perpetrators of child 
abuse; however there was serious need for psychological treatment of both the 
victim and accused of child abuse.

"There are trauma centers for psychological treatment of the victims of child 
abuse but no one has ever paid attention to focus mental treatment of the 
convicted which is regrettable and demands urgent attention of the 
stakeholders," she added.

Valerie Khan expressed that early child marriage practice should be shunned at 
every level as it was putting the lives of mothers in perils resulting into 
increased mortalities and socio-economic pressure over the families.

"Pakistan has 2 way forwards: 1 to concentrate family planning and 2nd is to 
reform education system including revalidation of both student and teacher in 
order to yield desired development outcomes," she added.

To a question, she said, "Good governance demands contribution and efforts both 
from civil and military institutions where no endeavour in silos could produce 
any output and it is quite unethical and unjust to poke criticism one 
institution for intervening in governance and state affairs." Referring to 
minority rights, Valerie said the Constitution of Islamic Republic was the most 
rigid one as it had incorporated rights of all the factions of the society 
which required implementation to overcome the prevailing crisis.

She added that child labour should be banned where unemployed youth to be given 
job opportunities where it was not the responsibility of the juvenile to bear 
the burden of the economic needs. "There is need to understand that poverty 
alleviation is only possible with the implementation of the existing laws, 
socioeconomic empowerment, welfare budget and inclusion of non tax paying 
cohort to the national exchequer," she maintained.

Valerie Khan went on to say that the provision of justice to human rights 
violation victim in remote areas was possible through Union Council's 
incorporation and police reforms in the process of reporting the incidents 
would help ensure swift and required justice.

(source: urdupoint.com)