[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 8



GLOBAL:

All children are of worth



On Thursday, the 17th World Day Against the Death Penalty will be dedicated to 
children whose parents have been sentenced to death or executed. The theme this 
year is: Children: unseen victims of the death penalty.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty states:

“Today, 142 countries... are abolitionist in law or practice. While few studies 
have been done to quantify the number of children who have a parent who has 
been sentenced to death or executed, Amnesty International’s 2019 annual report 
stated that at least 19,336 people were known to be under sentence of death 
worldwide at the end of 2018 and at least 690 were believed to have been 
executed in that year...

“Frequently forgotten, children of parents sentenced to death or executed carry 
a heavy emotional and psychological burden that can amount to the violation of 
their human rights. This trauma can occur at any and all stages of the capital 
punishment of a parent: arrest, trial, sentencing, death row stays, execution 
dates, execution itself, and its aftermath. The repeated cycles of hope and 
disappointment that can accompany all of these stages can have a long-term 
impact, occasionally well into adulthood.

“Stigmatisation from the community in which they live and the loss of a parent 
at the hands of a state all reinforce deep instability in the child’s 
day-to-day life. In line with the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the 
Convention on the Rights of the Child (November 20, 1989), the focus of this 
World Day is on children and their human rights.

“The experience of having a parent sentenced to death affects each child 
differently, including children within the same family, depending on factors 
like their personality and circumstances, the reactions of those around them, 
and the wider public response to the situation, including the scrutiny of media 
coverage...

“In international human rights law, it is a well-established principle that the 
best interest of the child should be a paramount consideration in any decision 
that impacts a child. It is therefore necessary to consider how a parent’s 
death sentence will impact the child and to take this into account when 
deciding on sentencing, commutation and pardon...

“In 2013, the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 24/11, in which it 
‘acknowledges the negative impact of a parent’s death sentence and his or her 
execution on his or her children’ and urges states ‘to provide these children 
with the protection and assistance they may require.’ And in 2018, the Human 
Rights Committee’s general comment No 36 made an explicit recommendation for 
states not to execute parents of young and dependent children: ‘States 
parties...should...refrain from executing parents to very young or dependent 
children.’”

While we stand in solidarity with the victims of crime, including their 
children, let us not forget that all children are of worth and reach out in 
solidarity to the children of offenders.

In observation of World Day, CCSJ, in collaboration with the Greater Caribbean 
for Life, RED Initiatives, and with the support of the EU Delegation 
ambassador, UWI Faculty of Law, St Augustine Campus, and Amnesty International, 
have organised a panel discussion on Thursday from 5 pm to 7 pm at the Church 
of the Assumption Parish Hall, Long Circular Road, Maraval. Admission is free.

The moderator is Prof Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, dean, Faculty of Law, UWI, St 
Augustine Campus. Panel speakers are Aad Biesebroek, EU Delegation ambassador, 
keynote speaker; Rhonda Gregoire-Roopchan, deputy director, care services, 
Children’s Authority; Gerard Wilson, Commissioner of Prisons; Alloy Youk See, 
PRO, Social Workers’ Association and former senior prison officer; Andrew 
Douglas, lifer, Maximum Security Prison, Arouca; and myself as chair of the 
CCSJ and member of Greater Caribbean for Life.

(source: newsday.co.tt)








IRAN:

Iran charges famous Kurdish singer with being gay, faces execution ---- "Well 
known Iranian Kurdish singer, Mohsen Lorestani was charged with ‘corruption on 
earth’ by a court in Tehran for posting ‘immoral’ content on social media."



Iran has alleged that a prominent singer is gay and under the Islamic 
Republic’s anti-homosexual laws he could face the death penalty.

BBC journalist Ali Hamedani tweeted on Sunday that “A famous Iranian singer 
from the Kurdish province of Kermanshah has been ‘accused’ of being a 
homosexual and could face execution. Iran executes gay men.”

Volker Beck, a German Green Party politician and LGBTQ activist , told The 
Jerusalem Post that "It is a perversion of unjust states like Iran and Saudi 
Arabia that alleged or actual homosexuality is presented as an accusation that 
can cost you your life. It is time for the international community to outlaw 
states punishing homosexuals."

The Kurdistan Human Rights Network tweeted that “Mohsen Lorestani, a Kurdish 
singer from Kermanshah, has been charged with ‘corruption on earth’ in a public 
complaint. His lawyer told Kurdistan Human Rights Network, ‘The alleged 
incidents happened in a private chat.’ If convicted, this charge could result 
in death sentence.”

Iran News Wire reported that “Well known Iranian Kurdish singer, Mohsen 
Lorestani was charged with ‘corruption on earth’ by a court in Tehran for 
posting ‘immoral’ content on social media. ‘Corruption on earth’ can carry the 
death sentence.”

The Jerusalem Post first reported on the Iranian regime’s public hanging of a 
homosexual in January based on the country’s anti-gay law. The unidentified man 
was hanged on January 10 in the southwestern city of Kazeroon based on criminal 
violations of “lavat-e be onf” – sexual intercourse between two men, as well as 
kidnapping charges, according to ISNA. Iran’s radical sharia law system 
prescribes the death penalty for gay sex.

According to a 2008 British WikiLeaks dispatch, Iran’s mullah regime has 
executed “between 4,000 and 6,000 gays and lesbians” since the Islamic 
Revolution in 1979.

In 2016, The Jerusalem Post reported that Iran’s regime had executed a gay 
adolescent that year – the 1st confirmed execution of someone convicted as a 
juvenile in the Islamic Republic.

Hassan Afshar, 19, was hanged in Arak Prison in Iran’s Markazi Province on July 
18, 2016, after he was convicted of “forced male-to-male anal intercourse” in 
early 2015.

In 2011, Iran’s regime executed 3 Iranian men after being found guilty of 
charges related to homosexuality.

(source: The Jerusalem Post)








PAKISTAN:

Poor And Marginalised Suffer Disproportionately From Capital Punishment



In a new report issued today, FIDH and its member organisation, the Human 
Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), detail the systemic bias faced by the 
poor and marginalised with regards to the death penalty in Pakistan. The 
report, published ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty (10 
October), urges the Pakistani government to reform the criminal justice system 
to eradicate the procedural and policy issues that are among the primary causes 
of high rates of capital convictions and executions for the most vulnerable 
members of society.

The report, titled “Punished for Being Vulnerable: How Pakistan executes the 
poorest and the most marginalised in society”, is based on an investigation the 
two organisations carried out in November 2018 to examine the issue of capital 
punishment in Pakistan. The investigation focused on fair trial rights for 
defendants accused of capital offences, detention conditions on death row, the 
conviction and execution of juveniles, and the toll the use of the death 
penalty takes on convicts’ families. A disturbing theme emerged throughout the 
course of the investigation: lower economic classes and other vulnerable 
communities are disproportionately impacted by the deficiencies of Pakistan’s 
criminal justice system.

“It is highly concerning that those at the margins of Pakistani society are 
more likely to be convicted of capital offences. While the death penalty 
violates the most fundamental human rights wherever it is used, in Pakistan its 
discriminatory application is particularly egregious,” said FIDH Secretary 
General Shawan Jabarin.

The way Pakistan’s criminal justice system currently operates – from police 
investigations, to prosecutions, to trials – results in the most vulnerable 
segments of society being much more likely to confess to crimes under duress, 
be prosecuted in unfair trials, and sentenced to death.

They face an insurmountable systemic bias, which leaves them even more 
susceptible to violations of due process and at risk of being executed.

“There is an urgent need for the Pakistani government to address the numerous 
failures of the criminal justice system, not only to move Pakistan towards 
complete abolition of the death penalty but also to promote a system that 
respects fair trial rights for all,” said HRCP Chair Dr Mehdi Hasan.

Capital punishment in Pakistan also entails significant and long-lasting harm 
for family members of those on death row, including socioeconomic impacts. 
Convicts tend to be their families’ breadwinners, and legal processes – which 
can last for years – can impose crippling costs. Furthermore, the ordeal can 
inflict psychosocial anguish. The wife of a death row prisoner expressed the 
effect of her husband’s imprisonment on her: “[My husband] has been in jail for 
27 years. He is being punished inside the jail and I am being punished outside 
the jail.”

While executions in Pakistan have decreased in recent years, the country 
remains one of the world’s top executioners. Between the end of a moratorium on 
executions in December 2014 and August 2019, close to 1,800 death sentences 
were imposed across the nation’s court system and 520 people were executed. 32 
offences remain punishable by death in Pakistan, including for many offences 
that fail to meet the “most serious crimes” threshold under international law.

This report follows up on a previous joint FIDH-HRCP report, “Slow march to the 
gallows: Death penalty in Pakistan”, published in January 2007.

(source: urdupoint.com)






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

World Day Against the Death Penalty: Who is waiting for you? These performances 
are designed to haunt you for long after you leave.



For one night only, Bari Studios in Lahore will be transformed into an 
immersive art experience where audience members can wander the historic studio 
grounds encountering and experiencing performance art up close and personal.

Hosted by Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) to commemorate the World Day Against 
the Death Penalty on Thursday, October 10, We’ve Been Waiting For You is a 
landmark project curated by Natasha Jozi, featuring 11 performance artists in a 
surreal setting.

Last year, JPP presented No Time to Sleep, a 24-hour live stream charting the 
final hours of a death row prisoner’s life leading up to his execution. In 
partnership with Dawn.com, it received critical acclaim both domestically and 
internationally with 1.4 million views, 6,000 tweets and a hashtag that trended 
on Twitter for several hours throughout the performance.

This year, these artists have delved into the underbelly of Pakistan’s criminal 
justice system, and the psyches of prisoners, guards, family members and 
executions in creating 10 brand-new, provoking, empathetic and sometimes 
grotesque pieces.

The performances will be of different durations, with some lasting for as many 
as 3 hours. The event is set to start at 5:30pm and end at 10:30pm, while the 
performances will take place between 6:00pm and 9:00pm.

Through them, audiences will be asked to reflect on the emotional struggle that 
affect the nearly 5,000 prisoners on death row in Pakistan, and how this system 
infects everyone it touches — from the guards, to the executioner, to family 
members and, perhaps, even you.

Here, you’ll meet prisoners waiting for justice, executioners who cannot 
articulate the profound experience of taking lives day-in, day-out, and guards 
who, too, are trapped in a system that dehumanises everyone it touches. These 
performances are designed to haunt you for long after you leave.

Here are 3 pieces from the exhibition that the artists will be showcasing:

Resuscitate by Haider Shah

Negotiating with the criminal justice system in Pakistan can feel futile, like 
hurling your body against a brick wall. How many times would you be able to 
raise the strength to stand up, dust yourself off and run full pelt into the 
wall? Shah’s work tests the endurance of the human body and here he brings the 
frustrating battle with the criminal justice system and bureaucracy to life. In 
his solo performance, Shah enacts a repetitive act of creating and demolishing 
a brick wall, demonstrating how resistance is channelled through one’s physical 
self.

The Birth of Debris by Baqer Ahmadi

Executioners perform the same task. Day after day, the bones pile up. Baqer, an 
artist whose work centres around the human experience, depicts this repetitive 
work as mundane yet sinister. In this performance, flesh is cut from bones and, 
in a powerful metaphor, the artist alternates between the persona of an 
executioner and a prisoner.

Can I Braid Your Hair Tonight? By Aisha Ahmed and Waleed Sajid

Condemned prisoners spend a lot of time wondering about their fate, not knowing 
when they will be hanged or if, by some judicial miracle, their life will be 
spared. The artist duo Aisha and Waleed suspend themselves above the audience 
using rope mesh. Through their performance they aim to create a power dynamic 
in which they both have fluctuating control over the other's safety, and also 
exercise power over the viewers below them.

(source: Nida Jaffery is the head of communications at Justice Project 
Pakistan---dawn.com)








VIETNAM:

Vietnam sentences 11 people to death for drug trafficking



A court in Ho Chi Minh City has sentenced 8 people to death for drug 
trafficking, a court official said on Tuesday (Oct 8), while in northern 
Vietnam, 3 others faced the same fate and 2 received life imprisonment.

Eight members of a trafficking ring, aged between 38 and 65 and led by drug 
lord Phan Huu Hieu, were given death sentences on Monday after a week-long 
trial found them guilty of transporting 132kg of heroin and 55kg of 
methamphetamines, Viet Nam News reported, quoting the court.

One gang member was spared death and instead sentenced to life in prison.

"Most of the defendants sincerely admitted their crime and asked for leniency," 
secretary of the court Luu Quoc Khanh told DPA.

The case first came to light in July 2018 after police carried out a crackdown 
and arrested nine people involved in the gang, which had been trafficking drugs 
from Laos to Danang in Central Vietnam, before selling the narcotics to other 
regions via an extensive network.

In a separate case on Monday, Son La Province's court, located 3 hours 
north-west of Hanoi, issued 3 death penalties, 2 life sentences and one 18-year 
sentence for the same charge, according to local newspaper VnExpress.

Since the beginning of the year, the authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have 
seized more than 1.6 tonnes of drugs, marking a tenfold increase on the same 
period last year, Mr Phung Van Dang, deputy head of the city's anti-drug police 
department, said at a meeting last week.

Under Vietnamese law, the production or sale of 100g of heroin or cocaine, or 
300g of methamphetamines, warrants the death penalty.

(source: straitstimes.com)