[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 13



PAKISTAN:

Laws For Children


The senate passed a landmark amendment to the penal code on Friday by
criminalising acts of sexual assault against children. In the aftermath of the
Kasur scandal, the need for this law was self-evident. The abuse of children
has existed in Pakistani society for a long time, and the failure of the legal
code to protect our children from the people that abuse them has given the
perpetrators impunity. In the case of children, the need for this because a
child cannot defend him/herself against a fully grown adult, especially when
this adult is a teacher or a family member and has a position of influence over
the child. The abuser uses their innocence to exploit them, and this must not
continue, because apart from the physical abuse, the psychological impact of
the attack can potentially be impossible to recover from.

Over the past 5 years, cases of sexual abuse against children have been brought
into the limelight more frequently. Not only that, but some NGOs have released
studies that show that the incidence of cases have increased as well. The
proposed penalty of 7 years however is not nearly enough given the seriousness
of the crime. In legal terms, it is important to remember that a child's status
differs from an adult because of the ability to make conscious decisions and
provide consent for anything that affects an individual. The fact that the
attacker is abusing someone who may or may not know what is happening to
her/him. The punishment of a crime against a child then should be the strictest
possible in the penal code, which in the case of Pakistan is a life sentence or
death.

Increasing the age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 10 years old is also a
very important step. Most developed countries have identified the age of
criminal responsibility as 10, with punishments that are moderate and more
corrective instead of focusing on retribution for crimes committed. It is
important to remember that a child who engages in criminal activity is very
different from a hardened criminal. In the case of the latter, it is important
to keep the time spent incarcerated long enough to remove the criminal from
society until he or she is ready to be rehabilitated. It is in the interest of
the society to do the opposite with children, to ensure that they are brought
back into the fold at the earliest. The government should be commended for the
step it has taken, but should also be reminded that the job is only half done.
In order to adequately protect children, the law needs to be implemented, and
the police and the courts need to take the next step in ensuring that a
positive precedent is set for protecting children from abuse.

(source: Editorial, The Nation)






INDIA:

Bombay High Court overturns life imprisonment, sentences youth to death for
rape and murder----HC says woman's right to live with dignity, honour and
respect, if taken away to satisfy lust, needs to be put down with heavy hands


The Bombay High Court, on Saturday, overturned the life imprisonment awarded to
a 25-year-old, charged of raping and murdering a soon-to-be bride, held that
the case falls in the category of 'rarest of rare' and awarded him 'death
penalty'.

A division bench of Justice Indira K Jain and Justice AV Nirgude said,
"Commitment has been made at all levels - from local to international - that
women have an inherent right to life, which includes right to live with
dignity, honour and respect...If this inherent right is taken away just to
satisfy lust, it is to be put down with heavy hands. Any leniency would result
in inadequate punishment."

The accused, Javed khan alias Tingarya s/o Habib Khan, had committed the
offence in 2009. As per the prosecution, the victim, a 2nd-year Bachelor of
Computer Science student, was staying in the house at Aurangabad with her
brother. On the fateful day, her brother had to stay back at his workplace, and
when he returned the next morning, he found his sister lying naked in a pool of
blood. He called the police and neighbours who rushed her to the hospital where
she was declared 'brought dead'.

The police tracked down the mobile phone of the victim, which was stolen by the
accused, to a hotel owner. After learning that the phone was given to him by
accused Javedkhan to settle his hotel bill, the police arrested Javedkhan.
During the trial, the prosecution examined several witnesses, including medical
officers, to prove the diabolic crime. The trial court then sentenced Javed to
life imprisonment. The state government moved the high court seeking
enhancement of sentence while the accused challenged his conviction.

The court, while overlooking the young age of the accused, said, "In order to
satisfy his lust, the accused forcibly raped a young defenceless lone girl and
then eliminated her life in a beastly, brutal and barbaric manner. We consider
this grisly and a gory episode as an ultimate insult to the humanity in general
and womanhood in particular."

(source: dnaindia.com)






BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh's top court upholds Islamist tycoon???s death sentence----Ali was
sentenced to death on 2 counts, as well as to 72 years in prison on the other
charges.


Mir Quasem Ali, a media tycoon and key financier for the Jamaat e-Islami party,
was convicted on charges including confinement, torture and incitement to
religious hatred during Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.

International Crimes Tribunal had sentenced 63-year old Mir Quasem Ali,
considered the financial backbone of the Jamaat-e-Islami, to death on November
2, 2014.

Quasem was the Al-Badr's 3rd most important functionary after Jamaat-e-Islami
chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid.

A death-row convict can seek review of Appellate Division verdict and if
rejected, he or she can plea for president's clemency.

"For 42 years, we have waited for justice, which has been delivered, and
hopefully the government will take steps to execute the judgment", Mahbubul
Alam Chowdhruy, a former freedom fighter told ucanews.com.

Defence lawyers said that they would talk to Ali and his family to decide the
next course of action. "The court has acted independently and handed down to
Mir Quasem Ali what he deserves", state prosecutor Tureen Afroze told reporters
outside the court after the verdict.

The church doesn't support the death penalty but welcomes justice for criminal
wrongdoings, says Father Albert T. Rozario, convener of Justice and Peace
Commission in the Dhaka Archdiocese.

According to Bangladesh's official figures, which are contested, around 3
million people were killed and 200,000 women raped during the breakaway from
Pakistan.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has opened an inquiry into crimes
committed during the 1971 war in which East Pakistan separated to become
Bangladesh. paving the way for prosecutions by a war crimes tribunal.

(source: nanonews.org)




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[Rick Halperin]

March 14



BURMA----executions

Wa Authorities Say 2 Men Executed in Self-Ruling Region


A court in Panghsang handed down death sentences to 2 people found guilty of
murder in the autonomous Wa Special Region, where on Sunday the duo were
executed, according to local sources.

Zhao Guoan, who is a spokesperson from the United Wa State Army (UWSA),
confirmed the court ruling and the men's execution.

"They killed other people. The court gave the death sentence to them
yesterday," he told The Irrawaddy on Monday.

He said the crime and severe sentence were rare in the Wa Special Region, an
autonomous zone in Shan State that is ruled by the UWSA and administers a
judicial system independent of the Burmese government.

"Our court only gives the death penalty when someone killed another. It happens
only sometimes here," Zhao said.

The UWSA, Burma's largest ethnic armed group, administers the Wa Special Region
essentially beyond the reach of the central government in Naypyidaw.

At the national level, Burma is considered a de facto abolitionist state and
has not openly carried out an execution in decades.

The UWSA-run Wa State TV aired a broadcast on Sunday that showed photos of the
2 men made to kneel before police officers, presumably before being shot dead
in accordance with the Panghsang court's ruling.

A separate report, also from UWSA-affiliated media, identified the men, one
being Yan Lu, a 50-year-old ethnic Wa man who was found to have killed his 2
wives while under the influence of illicit narcotics.

Li Jian Guo, a 33-year-old Chinese citizen, was found guilty in the slaying of
his 18-month-old son, also reportedly under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

The weekend executions recall a similar case that played out in January in the
Mong La Special Region, where a Chinese national was reportedly executed by
officials apparently acting under instruction from the semiautonomous authority
there. That man, too, was found guilty of murder, as well as arson. The Mong La
Special region is administered by the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA),
a non-state armed group like the UWSA.

(source: The Irrawaddy)






IRAN:

Annual Report Reveals 2015 as Darkest Year for Iran Executions


The full English report was published on Monday March 14.

IHR's 8th annual report on the death penalty reveals 2015 to be one of the
darkest years in the Islamic Republic of Iran's history. However, the
horrifying death penalty record has not had an impact on relations between the
Islamic Republic of Iran and the West.

The numbers presented in this report are very close toin line with the numbers
presented by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of the human rights in
Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed.

On average between 2 and 3 people were hanged every single day in Iran;
juvenile offenders, women, political prisoners, and alleged drug offenders were
among them. That's at least 969 executions in 2015, the highest annual number
in more than 25 years. 66% of the executions were for drug offenses, even
though Iranian authorities have admitted multiple times in the past that the
death penalty has not decreased the volume of drug crimes in Iran. 2015 was
also the year when the Islamic Republic of Iran emerged out of several years of
isolation. Following the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group,
sanctions were lifted and the diplomatic climate between the Islamic Republic
and the West improved significantly. Currently there are hundreds of European
companies preparing to resume business in Iran.

Although the reaction of the international community to the wave of executions
has not been adequate, there have been some encouraging signs inside Iran with
activists and civil society leaders coming together to stand against the death
penalty. In particular the forgiveness movement is rising in Iran. According to
the annual report, the number of victims who chose forgiveness was higher than
those who asked for a retribution death sentence for the murder convict.

The annual report explains how the charges issued by Iran's Judiciary are
unfair, the use of torture to coerce confessions is widespread, and in some
cases the charges against the prisoners were fabricated.

EXECUTION TRENDS UNDER PRESIDENT HASSAN ROUHANI

Since the election of Hassan Rouhani in June 2013, at least 2162 people have
been executed in Iran. A comparison between the 2 1/2 years after Hassan
Rouhani's election and the 2 1/2 years before his election show an increase of
43% in the number of executions carried out in Iran.

The dramatic increase in the number of executions after the election of
President Rouhani has been, according to some, a reflection of the power
struggle between the conservative Judiciary and the "moderate" government of
President Rouhani. Although it is the judiciary which issues and implements
death sentences, neither President Rouhani nor members of his cabinet have
expressed any dissatisfaction about the large number of executions. On the
contrary, when President Rouhani or Foreign minister Javad Zarif were given
chances to make a statement about the death penalty they defended Iran's high
number of executions.

Iran Human Rights calls on the United Nations to renew the mandate of the
Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, the international community to
require procedural transparency and guarantee fair trials from Iranian
authorities, and also European partners to help reduce the usage of the death
penalty in Iran by putting the death penalty on top of the agenda in any talks
with Iranian authorities. "Europe and European companies cannot be silent
witnesses to Iran's horrendous death penalty record. Upgrading business
relationship with the Iranian authorities must be conditioned on restriction of
the use of the death penalty. The growing abolitionist civil society inside
Iran and Iran's need for foreign investments provide a rare opportunity for
Europe to contribute to limiting the use of the death penalty and improving
human rights in Iran," says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the executive director of
Iran Human Rights.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






PHILIPPINES:

'Cheaper to kill than to injure'


There is an official price for human life in the Philippines: P50,000 per
person.

The amount of P50,000 can buy you a living room set, a secondhand Gucci women's
bag, or a pair of Prada men's shoes in various online shops like eBay. These
are the material equivalent of the value of human life in this country.

It was Congress that put a peso value on human life when it passed in 1950 the
New Civil Code, which states that any person who causes the death of another,
by committing either a crime or gross negligence, shall be liable to pay a sum
of money for the resulting loss of life.

Notwithstanding all the speeches in Congress and Supreme Court decisions
describing life as "priceless," "invaluable" and "irreplaceable," human life
still has a peso equivalent.

In 1950, the base price fixed by Congress was P3,000 for the wrongful
termination of a person's life. Notwithstanding the huge fall in the value of
money in the past 66 years, Congress never adjusted the peso value of life.
Until now, Article 2206 of the New Civil Code states that the amount payable
for any human life that is killed is P3,000.

It was the Supreme Court that increased the price of life, first to P6,000,
then to P9,000, next to P12,000, and eventually, in 1990, to P50,000 (P75,000
if the crime is penalized with death, even if the death penalty is presently
suspended).

(It is worthwhile to know the inflation-adjusted peso value of life from the
1950s to the present. The earliest available inflation data are the figures of
1958, and the P3,000 monetary value of life in 1958 is equivalent to P325,000
in 2016. The P50,000 monetary value of life in 1990 is equivalent to P213,000
in 2016. On the other hand, the P50,000 monetary value of life in 2016 was
equivalent to P10,500 in 1990, and P500 in 1958.)

For 26 years now, the price of life has not increased and has remained
generally fixed at P50,000. Hence, if you are murdered by an enemy or a drunk
driver recklessly causes your death, the criminal will only be liable to pay
P50,000 as "death indemnity" for the loss of your life.

Of course there will be additional amounts payable for other losses, such as:
actual damages for losses due to funeral and burial expenses; compensatory
damages for the loss of the deceased's earning capacity; moral damages for the
emotional loss and suffering of the heirs; attorney's fees for lawyer expenses;
and exemplary damages to serve as lesson so that others will not commit the
same crime.

The amounts payable for each of these additional damages are almost always
higher than the P50,000 payable for the loss of life itself, but such other
damages will be measures of how rich, educated and powerful the victim was. And
this shows that these mere incidents of life are given more value than life
itself. This also shows how our government regards and values "priceless" life.

This cheap valuation of life has given rise to an outrageous mindset among
Filipino bus and truck drivers. The absurd belief that is much talked about
among drivers is that when a reckless driver causes an accident that results in
serious injuries to a pedestrian, the reckless driver will end up paying a
lesser amount of damages if the pedestrian ends up dead.

There are anecdotal stories of a bus or truck driver who ran over and seriously
injured a pedestrian, and then backed up to do a 2nd runover in order to
deliver death to the injured pedestrian. The motivation to kill the injured
pedestrian is reportedly due to the gruesome belief that a dead pedestrian
means lower payment of damages.

There is factual basis for the horrifying belief. Almost always, road accident
victims have this profile: They are beggars, vendors, and generally poor people
who have no documented income; their funeral and burial expenses are at minimum
amounts; the emotional loss of their heirs is tempered by the latter's
immediate need for cash; and their heirs will be represented pro bono by public
attorneys.

The profile of poverty among road accident victims means that they would be
unable to prove substantial damages if the case goes to court trial. Poverty
also puts extreme pressure on the victims??? heirs to accept a small amount of
compromise settlement.

In contrast, if the pedestrian is seriously injured but survives, the vehicle
owner and driver will end up paying substantial medical and rehabilitation
expenses. Thus, the grisly belief is that the vehicle owner and driver will be
paying less if the pedestrian ends up dead rather than survives with severe
injuries.

Even the threat of criminal prosecution for the pedestrian's death does not
create fear. The crime committed by reckless drivers (reckless imprudence
resulting in homicide) will lead only to a prison sentence of less than 6
years. Under the law, a 1st-time offender sentenced to less than 6 years of
imprisonment can be granted probation. A granted probation means that the
convicted driver will not go to prison but will merely report monthly to a
government official to show good behavior.

In 2014, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago filed a bill seeking to increase death
indemnity to P500,000, noting that it has become "cheaper to kill than to
injure." But Congress has shown no interest in increasing the price of life.

In all these years, what Congress has shown instead is a hyperactive interest
in changing the names of streets, schools and buildings. In this hobby of
changing names, Congress has spent public funds in the hundreds of millions of
pesos - public funds that can be computed and measured in terms of human lives.

(source: Opinion, Joel Rutuyan, Philippine Daily Inquirer)






BANGLADESH:

Mobarak appeal comes next for SC hearing


The Supreme Court is now set to hear and settle the appeal of convicted war
criminal Mobarak Hossain.

The defence and the state counsels, however, could not say specifically when
the apex court would start hearing the appeal.

Earlier, the SC completed the proceedings of the appeal of war criminal Mir
Quasem Ali and upheld the Jamaat-e-Islami leader's death penalty on March 8.

On November 24, 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 sentenced Mobarak, a
former Awami League leader from Brahmanbaria, to death for abducting and
killing 33 people of Tanmandayl village in his district during the Liberation
War.

The tribunal also sentenced Mobarak to life imprisonment for another war crime
and acquitted him of 3 other charges.

On December 18, 2014, Mobarak filed an appeal through his lawyers with the apex
court, challenging the ICT-1 verdict.

In an 82-page appeal, Mobarak sought acquittal of the two charges, in which he
was found guilty and convicted. He also annexed documents of 780 pages along
with the appeal.

The former AL leader also mentioned 77 grounds, for which, according to him,
the court should consider acquitting him.

A defence lawyer, Tajul Islam, told The Daily Star on March 11 that neither the
defence nor the state counsels submitted concise statements to the SC on the
appeal.

A concise statement contains the points on which the counsels place arguments
on an appeal before the SC.

The Appellate Division may include the appeal of Mobarak in its cause list any
day and ask the counsels for submitting their concise statements to it for
starting the hearing.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told this correspondent on March 11 that his
office would take necessary steps after the appeal of Mobarak was placed on the
cause list.

Apart from Mobarak, other appellants in war crimes cases are Jamaat Assistant
Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam and Senior Nayebe Amir Maulana Abdus Subhan
and former state minister Syed Mohammad Qaisar.

2 international crimes tribunals have convicted and sentenced them to death for
committing crimes against humanity during the war in 1971.

Besides, the government filed an appeal with the SC, seeking death penalty for
former Jatiya Party lawmaker Abdul Jabbar, who is on the run.

The ICT-1 on February 24 last year sentenced Jabbar to imprisonment until death
in absentia for crimes against humanity.

The SC has so far disposed of the appeals of seven war criminals. Four of them
have been executed. They are Jamaat leaders Abdul Quader Mollah, Muhammad
Kamaruzzaman and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader
Chowdhury.

The SC on January 6 this year upheld the death penalty for Jamaat chief Motiur
Rahman Nizami for his war crimes. The apex court has yet to release the full
text of its judgement on Nizami.

Another war criminal and Jamaat leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee has been behind
bars as the SC commuted his death sentence to jail until death.

The ICT-1 had earlier sentenced Sayedee to death for his crimes against
humanity.

(source: The Daily Star)

**********

To kill the killers ---- Can we justify the morality behind capital punishment?


Recently the Supreme Court, the highest judiciary body of Bangladesh, decided
to uphold the death sentence to former Al-Badr commander Mir Quasem Ali. While
the attorney general reiterated that justice was served, I decided to ask few
of my friends about their opinions on this matter.

Some of them, being educated in the West -- self-proclaimed liberals --
criticised me for expecting the highest punishment permitted by our legal
system even for war criminals.

I failed to understand this liberal philosophy. Since when did we stop
sympathising for the victims and start caring about the criminals?

When has this question "do you support capital punishment" become our ultimate
test of morality? It would be cowardly of me if I keep my stance a secret so
that I am not despised among liberal friends of mine.

Most of the people who object to capital punishment do so because they believe
the punishment itself is morally reprehensible.

The common moral objection I hear is that, wouldn't we as a state, descend to
the criminal's level if we allow death penalty for murderers? Absolutely not.

The state is not punishing an innocent person, but rather, providing fair
justice to the families who have lost their loved ones by punishing the
criminal.

Some of them would want to see the state's right to sentence the death penalty
repealed, even for the gravest crime.

In fact, Article-6 of the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights) preserves the state's right to use the death penalty in the cases of
the most serious crimes.

Although more countries are moving towards abolishing capital punishment, the
world's 2 largest democracies (the US and India) still retain the capital
punishment, and almost 2/3 of the world's population still lives in places (top
four populous countries: China, India, the US, and Indonesia) where capital
punishment is permitted.

But is it immoral to ask for the death penalty even for the worst crimes? What
I would try to do is to examine the morality of the punishment through
Bentham's utilitarian principle and Immanuel Kant's categorical moral
reasoning, and let readers make an informed argument about the issue.

According to Jeremy Bentham, the father of modern utilitarianism, the action
that maximises utility is the best moral action: "It is the greatest happiness
of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."

A Benthamite would support capital punishment, only when the benefits to the
society outweigh the suffering of the person who committed the crime. One
obvious benefit would be that the death penalty will prevent future murders due
to its deterrent effects.

There are several studies which show that the death penalty actually reduces
homicides. Why would we not want to execute murderers if it protects fellow
innocent citizens from being killed in the future?

As Ernest Van Den Haag, professor of jurisprudence at Fordham University, puts
it: "Common sense, lately bolstered by statistics, tells us that the death
penalty will deter murder. People fear nothing more than death.

Therefore, nothing will deter a criminal more than the fear of death and life
in prison is less feared. Murderers clearly prefer it to execution --
otherwise, they would not try to be sentenced to life in prison instead of a
death sentence.

Therefore, a life sentence must be less deterrent than a death sentence.

And we must execute murderers as long as it is merely possible that their
execution protects citizens from future murder."

Immanuel Kant, often regarded as the most influential scholar of modern
philosophy, rejects the utilitarian logic of punishing criminals for 2 reasons:
First, he believes it treats criminals as a tool to achieve others' good;
Kant's categorical reasoning prohibits this. Second, the utilitarian theory
could justify punishing an innocent person to promote general welfare.

In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant absolutely insists on capital punishment for
murderers.

According to Kant: "Whoever has committed murder, must die, because no matter
how difficult life might be, it is still better than death."

Kant goes even further by arguing that if a state does not sentence a murderer
to death, eventually it becomes an accomplice to the crime.

(source: Op Ed, Rasheek Irtisam -- dhakatribune.com)






INDIA:

Indian student hacked to death for intercaste marriage----Woman's relatives
were angered by the couple's marriage, says police commissioner.


An Indian student from the lowest Dalit caste was hacked to death and his wife
critically injured in southern India in a suspected "honour killing" by
relatives angered by their marriage, police said Monday.

3 men armed with sickles and sharp weapons attacked the 22-year-old student and
his wife, who is from a higher caste, on a crowded street in Tamil Nadu state
on Sunday.

Local police commissioner N Manjunatha said the 19-year-old woman's relatives
were angered by the couple's marriage.

"They married some 8 months ago and the woman's family was unhappy. She is an
upper Thevar Hindu caste and the man was a Dalit," Manjunatha told AFP.

The woman is recovering at a local hospital and police are searching for her
uncle in connection with the attack, he said.

CCTV footage of the incident broadcast on Indian television showed the couple
walking along the street when 3 men on a motorbike stop and attack them.

Thevars are a dominant community in Tamil Nadu while Dalits, formerly known as
untouchables, are a historically marginalised community.

India has long witnessed so-called honour killings, where couples are targeted
because their families or communities disapprove of their relationships over
caste or religion. Most occur in rural pockets of the north.

They are carried out by relatives or caste groups to protect what is seen as
the family's reputation and pride.

There are no India-specific figures available, but United Nations statistics
say 1,000 out of the 5,000 such killings every year are in India.

India's Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that those involved in honour killings
should face the death penalty.

(source: Agence France-Presse)

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March 14



PAKISTAN:

SC maintains death penalty of 5 murderers from Gujrat


The Supreme Court on Monday maintained death penalty of Ashraf Baho, who was
involved in the killing of 5 people at Shaheen Chock Gujrat, while changing the
death penalty of Nasar into life in prison.

A 5-member bench of the SC headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali resumed
hearing of the case in which it was informed by the prosecutor that 2
proclaimed offenders have not been arrested so far.

The apex court expressed annoyance over inapprehension of proclaimed offenders
Tahir and Imran Baloki. It directed DPO Gujrat to arrest and present the
offenders before the court within a week. Justice Ameer Hani Muslim in
satirically thanked the police department for arresting culprits in
instalments. He remarked that 2 proclaimed offenders were not arrested despite
passage of 16 years, adding that society would benefit if police performed its
duty efficiently.

(source: Pakistan Today)






IRAN:

UN Expert Expresses Concerns Over Juvenile Death Penalty In Iran


A United Nations rapporteur has raised concerns about the extremely high rate
of executions, especially for juvenile offenders, in Iran.

Ahmed Shaheed, who presented his report to the UN Human Rights Council on March
14, said that "with at least 16 juvenile offenders reportedly hanged in
2014-15, Iran remains one of a few countries still resorting to this practice
despite a strict prohibition against it under international law."

Shaheed also noted reports that individuals accused of national security and
drug-related crimes in Iran are often deprived of the most basic due-process
and fair-trial rights.

Shaheed acknowledged Iran's efforts to engage with his mandate and cooperate
with UN human rights bodies, and called on the international community to
continue supporting Tehran in realizing its human rights obligations.

Shaheed has not been allowed to visit Iran as part of his mandate, now in its
5th year.

(source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)






GREAT BRITAIN:

Cameron Urged to Save Saudi Juveniles Facing Execution


David Cameron has been urged to intervene with Saudi Arabia to prevent the
execution of 3 Saudi juveniles, after reports suggested their sentences may
soon be carried out.

Last week, a government-affiliated Saudi news website reported that the
authorities are planning to 'complete' a mass execution of 47 prisoners in
January, by executing 4 more prisoners convicted in the country's Specialized
Criminal Court (SCC). The reports raised fears that the juveniles - Ali
al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher - would be among those
executed. All three juveniles had their sentences upheld last year, following
secretive SCC proceedings which relied on 'confessions' they signed following
torture.

Human rights organization Reprieve has written to David Cameron, asking him to
intervene with the Saudi government and request that the authorities commute
the sentences. Last year, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that, having
raised Ali al-Nimr's case with Saudi Arabia, he "did not expect" the execution
to go ahead. However, subsequent comments by Mr Hammond regarding January's
mass execution - that those killed had been 'terrorists' - raised concerns
about the UK's approach. Reprieve has established that the 47 prisoners who
were executed included political protestors, and at least 4 juveniles.

Reports of the latest impending executions came as the juveniles' families
voiced their fears. Speaking to Vice News, Abdullah's father, Hassan al-Zaher,
said: "We have been living a nightmare ever since Abdullah was arrested." He
added: "Please help me to save my son from the imminent threat of death - he
doesn't deserve to die just because he attended a protest."

Research by Reprieve last year found that, of those that could be identified as
facing execution in Saudi Arabia, some 72 % were convicted of non-violent
crimes, including drug offences and political protest. Torture and forced
'confessions' were also reported to be common.

Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said:

"Though Philip Hammond and David Cameron claim to have received assurances from
the Saudi government that these juveniles will not be put to death, the
executions of Ali, Dawood, and Abdullah once again appear imminent. It is too
late to save the peaceful protestors and juveniles killed in January's mass
execution - but David Cameron can still act to ensure that the UK does not
allow more children, convicted on sham terrorism charges, to be executed in
Saudi Arabia."

(source: Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to
enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay----
commondreams.org)






INDIA:

Sacrilege cases: Damdami Taksal for death penalty


Damdami Taksal, a prominent seminary of Sikhs, has sought death penalty or
minimum of life imprisonment for the persons found involved in incidents of
blasphemy.

Expressing deep concern over recent 2 incidents of desecration of Guru Granth
Sahib, Taksal chief Baba Harnam Singh Khalsa opined that time had come when
government needed to take some serious steps to prevent such incidents in the
future.

Harnam Singh said legislators should bring a Bill in the current session of
Punjab assembly advocating capital punishment and if not, minimum of life
imprisonment to the persons who disgrace the holy book of Sikhs.

(source: The Times of India)






BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh ministers tender apology over CJ criticism


A senior Bangladeshi cabinet minister today offered an "unconditional apology"
a week after the Supreme Court ordered him to personally appear along with
another minister to explain their "contemptuous comments" against the Chief
Justice over the 1971 war crimes trial.

"My client has sought the court's mercy for his comments as he respects the top
court, chief justice and all other justices," food minister Qamrul Islam's
counsel Syed Mamun Mahbub said.

The minister's apology came a day ahead of his scheduled appearance in the dock
along with liberation war affairs minister A K M Mozammel Haque, summoned by
the full bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

But his counsel said he submitted before the court Islam's apology in writing
which also sought rescheduling of the date for his appearance as he currently
was outside the country on an official tour to Malaysia.

"He will certainly be present if the court fixes a date after March 16 for
appearing before it (on his return home)," Mahbub said as Haque's counsel also
informed the court that he too would submit a similar plea soon.

The apex court in an unprecedented move on March 8 had summoned the two senior
ministers to clarify their "contemptuous comments" for criticising chief
justice Sinha over the appeal hearing of Jamaat-e-Islami leader and 1971 war
crimes convict Mir Qashem.

Speaking at a discussion on March 5, Islam had called for a new bench that he
said should exclude Chief Justice Sinha to hear Qashem's appeal.

Sinha's displeasure at the work of International Crimes Tribunal's
investigators and prosecutors in the war crimes cases, including Qashem's, had
been seen by Islam as a 'broad hint' that the accused's death penalty may not
be upheld, bdnews24.Com reported.

Islam had alleged that the chief justice openly spoke in the language of
fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami by questioning the quality of the war crimes
investigation.

Haque supplemented him at the same function saying the chief justice should not
be a part of the appeal hearing process against Qashem but their comments
sparked an uproar in political and judicial arenas.

"Their (2 ministers) comments undermined the dignity and prestige of the
Supreme Court and the chief justice's office and their unholy and contemptuous
comments stunned the judges of the top court," Sinha said while passing the
order summoning the 2.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also today snubbed the 2 ministers for
"embarrassing" the government by their remarks saying the government did not
agree with their "private comments".

(source: Press Trust of India)


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March 15




LEBANON:

Judge seeks death penalty for suspects linked to 2015 Beirut bombings


A military judge Tuesday demanded the death penalty for 20 accused of
organizing and planning a 2015 twin suicide attack that killed 47 people and
wounded more than 200 in a Beirut suburb.

(source: The Daily Star)






BANGLADESH:

FULL VERDICT RELEASED ---- War trial: Nizami to get 15 days to seek review


The Supreme Court today released its full verdict that upheld the death penalty
for war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami, leaving him with option to seek review
of the verdict.

Talking with The Daily Star, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said the
Jamaat-e-Islami chief can move a review petition with the Supreme Court within
15 days of receiving the copy of the full verdict.

The apex court released the 153-page judgement after its 4 judges concerned
signed the verdict.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1 handed Nizami death penalty on October 29,
2014 for crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

On January 6, a 4-member bench of the Appellate Division of SC upheld the death
sentence of the Al-Badr Bahini chief Nizami for his crimes against humanity
during the country's Liberation War.

The SC bench unanimously upheld his death penalty for masterminding the killing
of intellectuals and involvement in 2 incidents of mass killing of over 500
people in Pabna in 1971, paving the way for his execution.

The Jamaat ameer now has the option of seeking review of the SC judgment after
the release of the verdict's full text. If his review petition is rejected, he
will get a chance to seek presidential clemency.

If Nizami decides not to seek clemency or is denied it, he will be the second
Al-Badr top leader after Mojaheed to walk the gallows.

Nizami is the third former minister after Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad
Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to get death penalty for
their notorious role during the war.

(source: The Daily Star)






PAKISTAN:

Army chief ratifies death sentence of climber killer among 13 terrorists


Army Chief General Raheel Sharif Tuesday ratified death sentence of 13
'hardcore terrorists' found guilty of terrorism-related offences including the
2013 massacre of 10 foreign mountaineers, said the Inter Services Public
Relations (ISPR).

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) member Irfan Ullah was sentenced for the
attack on the base camp at Nanga Parbat, Pakistan's 2nd highest mountain, which
shocked the world and scarred the country's climbing tourism industry.

Gunmen dressed in police uniforms stormed the camp and shot dead 10 foreign
mountaineers - including 1 American with dual Chinese citizenship, 2 other
Chinese, 3 Ukrainians, 2 Slovakians, 1 Lithuanian and 1 Nepalese and a
Pakistani guide.

"Today Chief of Army Staff confirmed death sentences awarded to another 13
hardcore terrorists, who were involved in committing heinous offences relating
to terrorism, including killing of foreign tourists at Nanga Parbat," the ISPR
said in a statement.

The other 12 had been charged with various severe crimes from attacking schools
and an airport, to killing security officials, civilians and damaging
helicopters.

Pakistan has hanged more than 300 people since lifting a moratorium on the
death penalty in December 2014.

The nuclear-armed South Asian nation lifted the 6-year moratorium and amended
the constitution to allow military courts to try hardcore militants after
Taliban gunmen killed more than 150 people, most of them children, at an
army-run school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014.

In June 2014, the army launched an operation in a bid to wipe out militant
bases in North Waziristan tribal area and end the bloody decade-long Islamist
insurgency that has cost thousands of lives.

(source: arynews.tv)

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

SC to hear appeals against military court convictions----Supreme Court upholds
death penalty for 2 over war crimes


The Supreme Court of Pakistan will commence hearing 10 appeals instituted
against military court convictions of militants from tomorrow, the media
reported yesterday.

The appeals will be taken up by a five-judge larger bench, headed by Chief
Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Dawn online reported.

At the last hearing, on February 24, Jamali had ordered that all the challenges
against military court decisions be clubbed, with the directive that execution
of the convicts would remain suspended until the pending petitions were
decided.

2 of the convicts were awarded death sentence by the military courts for their
alleged involvement in the December 16, 2014, carnage at the Army Public School
in Peshawar, which killed more than 150 people, most of them school children.

The South Asian nation unveiled a sweeping plan to curb militancy after the
attack.

A 6-year moratorium on the country's death penalty was lifted and the
constitution amended to allow military courts to try those accused of carrying
out attacks.

Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but
in March they were extended to all capital offences.

Earlier this year the Ministry of Interior and Narcotics Control said 332
people had been executed in the country.

Following the attack on the school, senior lawyer Salim Shah Hoti had said
persons found involved in helping militants in carry out terror attacks
(facilitators) are liable to be sentenced to death in accordance with the law
of the land.

Military courts had been set up after the passage of 21st Amendment in Jan 2015
to proceed with terror- related cases.

After lifting of the moratorium on death penalty through an executive order
following the Army Public School attack, these courts were authorised to
sentence to death facilitators, abettors and handlers of the terrorists without
any distinction.

The interior ministry was required to send the case of facilitators arrested by
security forces for their involvement in the attack at Bacha Khan University to
the military courts because the law applied to them.

However, opponents of the policy stress that Pakistan's legal system is unjust,
with rampant police torture and poor representation for victims during unfair
trials, while the majority of those who are hanged are not convicted of terror
charges.

"They (government) are hanging petty criminals but known terrorists on death
row are awaiting their punishment for years," Asma Jahangir, a lawyer and human
rights activist in Pakistan, has been quoted as saying.

She has accused the government of failing to act consistently, citing the men
convicted of murdering journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, who were handed death
sentence years ago but have yet to be hanged.

But supporters of the plan argue that executions are the only effective way to
deal with the scourge of militancy in Pakistan.

Earlier this month, the Senate of Pakistan proposed changes in the laws
pertaining to counter-terrorism strategy to ensure swift dispensation of
justice along with mechanism for security and protection of witnesses,
prosecutors and judges.

The report of the Committee of Whole, Senate of Pakistan 2015 emphasised
enhanced evidential value of confessional statements in terrorism cases and
increased co-ordination between police and military-run intelligence agencies.

Regarding the enforced disappearances, the Senate's report states that the
Constitution's articles regarding fundamental rights of citizens should be
taught in all academies run by military, para-military forces and police.

The Senate has given 90 days to the government to adopt its recommendations.

(source: Gulf-Times)






INDIA:

SC junks petition seeking abolition of death sentence


The Supreme Court on Monday refused to re-examine the Constitutional validity
of death sentence in the light of the evolving jurisprudence across the world
to do away with the extreme punishment and dismissed a plea seeking abolition
of capital punishment.

A bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy refused to entertain a PIL
pleading the court to revisit the relevance of death sentence in a modern
society on the ground that it failed to act as deterrent and resulted in
violation of human rights.

According to National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of death sentences
handed out by courts between 1998 and 2013 was 2052, an average of 132 a year.
But in most of the cases, awarding extreme punishment could not get approval
from the higher courts. The SC confirms barely 3 to 4 death sentences each
year. Over 64 people were awarded death sentence by lower courts in 2014,
according to Amnesty International's Death Penalty Report 2015.

. Although death sentence has been executed only in 4 cases in the last 15
years, civil rights groups have been very vocal about its abolition terming it
"barbaric and a form of judicial killing". Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon was
executed last year preceded by Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru (2013),
26/11 Mumbai attacker Ajmal Kasab (2012) and Dhananjoy Chatterjee (2004).

Advocate Mathews Nedumpara told the bench that the apex court in its various
judgements had underscored the "vice" of arbitrariness in awarding death
sentence. He told the bench that the 'rarest of the rare' theory, propounded by
the SC 35 years ago, has been variedly and inconsistently applied which needed
to be examined.

. "There have been and always will be cases of executions of innocent people.
No matter how developed a judicial system is, it will always remain susceptible
to human failure," the petitioner said, adding, "At the time of Independence,
the capital punishment was order all over the world, but with passage of time
it came to be considered to be inhuman and it was abolished in all European
countries."

(source: The Times of India)






IRAN:

UN rights expert concerned over rate of juvenile executions in Iran


UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ahmed
Shaheed, expressed continued concern Monday regarding Iran's alarming rate of
juvenile executions and other flaws in the justice system. Shaheed's report
calls for complete removal of the juvenile death penalty, as Iran is one of the
only countries still using this practice in violation of international law.
Shaheed also discussed problems with due process, failure of officials to
implement Iranian law in a manner that complies with international law and
other problems with the administration of justice. While recognizing some
reform and recent successful elections, Shaheed stated, "[t]here remains a
considerable gap between protections afforded to the accused in Iranian law and
the reality on the ground."

The use of the death penalty remains controversial worldwide. Last month
Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] criticized Iran's justice system
after 40 men were sentenced to death. In January AI reported on the many
juvenile offenders on death row in Iran. Last year AI said that use of the
death penalty in Pakistan was undergoing a "disturbing and dangerous"
escalation after the execution of 2 men convicted of non-terrorism offenses. In
2014 UN officials called on the government of Iraq to impose a moratorium on
the death penalty in response to a significant rise in executions since the
country restored capital punishment in 2005. The report stated that 73
executions of juvenile offenders took place between 2005 and 2015 and that 160
juvenile offenders are currently on death row.

(source: The Jurist)

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

Most Executions Unannounced by Iranian Authorities----Only 373 of the total 969
executions cases in 2015 were announced by official sources.


About 60% of all executions included in IHR's 8th annual report on the death
penalty were unannounced by Iranian authorities.

IHR's annual report distinguishes between official and unofficial or
unannounced executions. The group's unofficial execution reports are verified
and confirmed by 2 independent sources. About 60% of all executions included in
this report were not announced by Iranian authorities. Some of these executions
were carried out in secret, without the family or the lawyer being informed,
and some were simply not announced by the official media. Only 373 of the total
969 executions cases in 2015 were announced by official sources.

Official executions are those announced by official websites of the Iranian
judiciary, Iranian police, the National Iranian Broadcasting Network, official
or state-run news agencies and national or local newspapers. Unofficial or
unannounced executions are not announced by official sources, but are confirmed
by IHR through unofficial channels. These include other human rights NGOs or
IHR's sources within Iran. The sources of unofficial reports are often
eyewitnesses, family members, lawyers, sources within the prisons and the
Iranian judiciary. IHR has only included unofficial reports that were confirmed
by 2 independent sources.

In 2015, IHR received reports of secret or unannounced executions from 16
different prisons across the country. In the ethnic regions of Baluchistan,
Azerbaijans (East and West), and Kurdistan more than 97% of the executions were
either carried out secretly or were not announced by official Iranian media.

Prisons in the ethnic regions of Iran have the highest percentage of
unannounced or secret executions. More than 95% of all executions in the ethnic
regions of Iran's provinces of West and East Azerbaijan, Baluchistan and
Kurdistan were not announced by the official media.

The unannounced executions of 2015 are marked yellow inthe graph above and are
categorized based on province (excluding the Tehran and Karaj areas). Prisons
in the provinces of Fars (south), West Azerbaijan (northwest), Hormozgan
(south) and Kerman (southeast) had the highest number of executions.

The yellow in the diagram above represents the unofficial/unannounced
executions in the 2 provinces of Iran with the highest number of executions in
2015. Ghezel Hesar and Rajai Shahr prisons in Karaj were the sites with the
highest number of both officially announced and unannounced executions in 2015.

QUICK FACTS ABOUT SECRET OR UNANNOUNCED EXECUTIONS IN 2015:

-- At least 596 (61%) of the executions were not announced by official Iranian
sources

-- Drug related offences accounted for the charges in 77% of the unannounced
executions

-- Executions of women and foreign citizens (mainly Afghan and Pakistani) were
mainly not announced

-- Executions for none of the political or security related charges were
announced by the official sources

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

UNODC Renews Cooperation with Iran Despite 638 Drug Executions in 2015


Iran has used the death penalty for drug related crimes since the inception of
the Islamic Republic in 1979. Both crime rates and drug abuses in Iran have
increased in the past 3 decades.

The annual report by IHR provides a special focus on drug related executions in
Iran and looks at the cooperation between the United Nations Office for Drugs
and Crime (UNODC) and Iran against drug trafficking.

638 of the recorded 969 executions in 2015 were drug related, even though
several top Iranian officials have admitted that executions have not reduced
drug problems (including trafficking) in Iran. The number of drug executions in
2015 was the highest in more than 25 years, but despite this, the UNODC
recently renewed its cooperation with Iran in the fight against drug
trafficking. In December 2015 UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov announced a
new $20 million funding settlement for anti-drug operations in Iran - a deal
which represents a doubling in the agency's support for Iranian
counter-narcotics efforts. The UNODC's new Iran Country Program is expected to
run between 2015 and 2019, but the UNODC has not disclosed who will donate to
the project, or what human rights safeguards will be imposed to prevent it
facilitating drug related executions.

Most of the individuals who are sentenced to death in Iran for drug related
offences are carriers belonging to marginalized groups in Iranian society, in
particular the ethnic regions such as Baluchistan and Kurdistan. There is an
overall lack of transparency in the Iranian judicial process, all those
convicted of drug related charges were tried behind closed doors, and most of
those executed on drug charges were not identified by name. Some of the issues
those in Iran who are accused of drug offenses face are unfair trials, lack of
access to a lawyer, and coerced confessions. Iranian authorities have claimed
that many of those sentenced to death for drug related charges were involved in
organized armed smuggling; however, investigations by IHR indicate that most of
the individuals who were executed in Iran on drug related charges were not
involved in armed drug smuggling. Witness statements given to IHR indicate that
people arrested and accused of possession or trafficking of drugs are
systematically tortured in Iranian detention centres until they agree to a
confession.

More than 2,690 people were executed in Iran in the six years from 2010 to
2015. With more than 638 executions for drug related offenses, 2015 was the
deadliest year since 1990.

The prisons which carried out the most drug related executions in 2015 were
Ghezel Hesar and Rajai Shahr prisons, both located in the Tehran/Karaj area.
Kerman (southeastern Iran), Hormozgan (southern border) and Urmia (northwestern
border) also had a high number of drug related executions. Most of the
executions were not announced by official Iranian media.

UNODC COOPERATION WITH IRAN

The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has cooperated with Iran
in the fight against drug trafficking for the past decades. Several European
states provided millions of dollars worth of support through UNODC to
counter-narcotics forces in Iran. In February 2015 UNODC Executive Director
Yury Fedotov gave a speech in Tehran noting that "no country can compete with
Iran when it comes to the amount of narcotics discovered and seized". In early
2015 the human rights group Reprieve uncovered a formal UN evaluation of
UNODC's Iranian operations which warned of a potential "funding crisis" if
donors withdrew support due to human rights concerns. The document suggested
the human rights policy that UNODC published in 2012 - calling for a "temporary
freeze or withdrawal" in funding if drug offenders are executed - was neither
"promoted nor implemented" in Iran. It also noted that "no action" was taken to
prevent death sentences and executions as a result of the UNODC's work.

INTERNATIONAL ATTENTION ON DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG OFFENCES

International attention on the death penalty for drug related offences is
relatively new. In recent years a growing number of global institutions and
agencies have expressed public concern about Iran's use of the death penalty
for drug related offences, and called for an end to international cooperation
with Iranian counter-narcotics efforts. In October 2015, the European
Parliament passed a resolution by 569 votes to 38 majority condemning Iran's
high rate of drug related executions, and called on the European Commission and
member States "to reaffirm the categorical principle that European aid and
assistance, including to UNODC counter-narcotics programs, may not facilitate
law enforcement operations that lead to the death sentences and the execution
of those arrested". The resolution follows decisions by individual donor states
to withdraw funding from UNODC operations in Iran. In 2013, Denmark withdrew
its support for such efforts, stating that "the donations are leading to
executions". The United Kingdom subsequently did the same, citing "the exact
same concerns" as Denmark. Ireland also took similar action, with the
then-Foreign Minister explaining that "we have made it very clear to the UNODC
that we could not be party to any funding in relation to where the death
penalty is used so liberally and used almost exclusively for drug traffickers".

Iran Human Rights calls on the United Nations to freeze all cooperation
involving law enforcement against drug trafficking until Iran removes the death
penalty for drug offences from its law. "We call on Iran to impose a moratorium
on the death penalty for drug related offences...We also ask the Iranian
authorities to give special consideration to the most vulnerable groups in the
Iranian society, including Afghan citizens," says Raphael Chenuil-Hazan,
Executive Director of Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM), a human rights
group that collaborated with IHR on its 8th annual report.

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

Ghezelhesar: Death Camp Home to 3000 Prisoners Awaiting Execution


Karaj's Ghezelhesar Prison, also called the death camp, is home to more than
3,000 prisoners sentenced to death for drug related charges.

IIHR's 8th annual report reveals that in 2015 at least 200 prisoners were
executed in Ghezelhesar Prison, and they were all on death row for drug related
offenses. The executions in this prison dramatically increased after a group of
the death row prisoners gathered peacefully in the courtyard on May 21, 2015,
calling on the Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei to reduce their sentences.
In the 5 weeks following the peaceful gathering more than 70 prisoners were
hanged in groups of 11 to 17. One of the 13 prisoners who was transferred for
execution on May 31 2015, attempted to postpone his execution by stabbing
another prisoner on death row. When a prisoner who is sentenced to death for
drug related charges commits a murder, his death sentence for drug related
charges is postponed, since "qisas" (retribution in kind) is given higher
priority. On its website IHR has published several interviews with death row
prisoners in Ghezelhesar.

CASE: Innocent school teacher, Mahmood Barati. No prior criminal record and the
father of a 3-year-old boy when he was arrested in 2006 on a trumped up drug
related charge. Sentenced to death solely based on the false testimony of a
drug convict, a testimony that was later withdrawn on 2 separate occasions.
Despite this, Iranian authorities still executed Mahmood in Ghezelhesar Prison
on September 7, 2015. According to witness testimonies, Mahmood had been
tortured and forced to confess.

(source for all: Iran Human Rights)






MOROCCO:

Petition Calls on King Mohammed VI to Allow Castration of Pedophiles


Following the tragic story of the little boy Imran who was subject to a sexual
and physical abuse a Moroccan mother launched an online petition
onAvaaz.orgaddressed to King Mohammed VI calling for the adoption of the death
penalty against pedophiles.

I am a mother and I am traumatized after what happened to the little boy
Imran'wrote Ghita B. the author of the petition.

I do not feel safe in my country. I am afraid for my son for all children. I
want every pedophile who abuses a little angel to be sentenced to death and
make an example for other inhuman pedophiles' the mother added.

The petition has garnered already 1652 signatures.

Crimes of solicitation of minors and their sexual abuse are punishable with a
maximum sentence of 30 years in prison under the Moroccan Penal Code.

However La Coalition Contre les Actes Pedophiles(the Moroccan Coalition Against
Child Abse) said in its annual report on pedophilia in Morocco published last
November that the number of reported child abuse cases in 2015 reached 935 an
increase of 10 percent compared to 2014 (850 cases).

Khalid Cherkapoui President of the Coalition reportedly said that most of the
court rulings against convicted pedophiles in 2015 were light.

Most of court rulings against convicted pedophiles were between 1 year and 4
years in jail Some pedophiles were even released due to lack of evidence'
Cherkaoui said.

The 4-year-old boy Imran was subject to a brutal assault last week by a
16-year-old homeless boy who raped him and threw him in a deserted place in Hay
Hassani Casablanca before the authorities found him in terrible condition.
Moroccan media reported that King Mohammed VI ordered the transfer of the
little boy to Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Hospital in Casablanca to receive the
necessary medical care.

(source: menafn.com)


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March 16



IRAQ----execution

Iraq executes Saudi prisoner 'for terrorism'


Iraqi authorities executed Saudi prisoner Abdullah Mahmous Sydat last Sunday.

Sydat was being held in Al-Nasiryah Prison, south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

According to Al-Riyadh newspaper, the Iraqi Ministry of Justice pronounced the
death sentence for Sydat after convicting him of terrorism.

According to the newspaper, the Iraqi ministry notified the Saudi Embassy in
Bagdad of the conviction and actual execution of Sydat a few days ago. Sources
confirmed, however, that the execution was carried out on Sunday, March 6 and
that the embassy was only notified of the decision after the execution took
place.

The sources added that the Saudi prisoner was executed along with a number of
other Iraqi prisoners.

The family of the prisoner said they were notified about his execution on
Thursday by the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, but were not given any further
details.

Sydat left the Kingdom for Iraq in 2007 and was arrested on charges of
terrorism during his time there. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which
was later upgraded to the death sentence.

The man, who has 2 children, had asked that he be buried in Madinah.

(source: Arab News)

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

20 convicts executed, 70 waiting in Iraq, Justice Minister


Iraqi Justice Minister Haidar al-Zamili disclosed that 20 death verdicts were
executed for different charges, including Arab terrorists.

Minister Zamili added that some of the convicted terrorists are from Tunisia,
Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and Iraqis.

(source: Iraq Tradelink News Agency)






SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi Arabia puts murderer to death in 72nd execution of 2016


Saudi Arabia executed one of its nationals convicted of murder on Sunday,
bringing to 72 the number of people put to death in the conservative kingdom
this year.

Hadian al-Qahtani was found guilty of shooting dead Abdullah al-Qaoud following
a dispute, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by state news
agency SPA.

Most people executed in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.

The executions so far this year include 47 for "terrorism" carried out in a
single day on January 2.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or
murder, according to an AFP count.

Rights group Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi
Arabia last year was the highest for 2 decades. However the tally was far
behind those of China and Iran.

The kingdom has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug
trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.

(source: Express Tribune)

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

"Tyranny will fall": Son of executed Saudi dissident al-Nimr shares his
incredible story ---- EXCLUSIVE: Interview with activist Mohammed al-Nimr,
whose father was killed by Saudi Arabia for leading protest


"I don't like the name 'Saudi Arabia,'" Mohammed Nimr al-Nimr said with a
smile. "It's actually called the Arabian Peninsula, not Saudi," he laughed,
noting the country is named after its ruling dynasty.

The impeccably dressed and amiable 29-year-old Saudi activist and engineer was
in Washington, D.C. for the 2016 Summit on Saudi Arabia, the first
international conference to call into question the close U.S. relationship with
the theocratic absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed's father, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was a prominent leader in the Shia
Muslim religious community, a minority group in the Saudi kingdom, which is
governed by a fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.

The Saudi regime imprisoned Sheikh al-Nimr in 2012 for leading protests against
its authoritarianism and violent sectarianism, and sentenced him to death in
2014. On Jan. 2 of this year, Saudi Arabia killed Mohammed's father, along with
46 other people in a series of executions.

At the Summit on Saudi Arabia, Mohammed spoke of his father, and of the
struggle for equality, justice and democracy in the Arabian Peninsula that he
now carries on.

Salon, which reported on the summit, sat down with the young al-Nimr, who
shared his remarkable story.

Growing pains

Like so many activists from the Middle East, Mohammed was born in exile - in
Damascus in 1987. He lived in the Syrian capital until 1993, when his family
moved back to Saudi Arabia. Throughout his youth, Mohammed and his family moved
back and forth between Saudi Arabia and Syria.

That Mohammed spent part of his youth in Syria is fascinating to consider in
contrast to his time in Saudi Arabia. In many ways, the 2 countries are on the
polar ends of Arab politics. His experiences in the 2, as a Shia Muslim,
differed greatly.

Syria is known for its strict secularism and respect for religious minority
rights; the Saudi monarchy, on the other hand, greatly discriminates against
religious minority groups, and enforces an extreme interpretation of Sharia
(Islamic law). In Syria's larger cities - before the catastrophic war that has
since reduced much of the country to rubble broke out in 2011, at least - it
was not strange to see bikini-clad women at the beach; in Saudi Arabia, women
lack basic political rights, and cannot travel without being accompanied by a
male guardian.

Muslims of different sects, along with Christians, Jews and even atheists lived
together in Syria, Mohammed recalled, and people of any religion could pray
practically anywhere. As a Shia Muslim in Saudi Arabia, however, Mohammed said
he was afraid to pray in many mosques, and had to be careful not to anger
authorities or extremist citizens.

At a very young age in Saudi Arabia, before he even entered school, Mohammed
was made painfully aware of the fact that he faced discrimination for being
raised in a different religious sect. When he later began studying in Saudi
schools, he had to learn Wahhabi doctrine, which he described as "extremist
ideas" that are nothing like the Islam he loves.

The 2 countries in which the young al-Nimr spent his youth exposed him to
drastically different worlds. Yet there were some similarities. In both,
Mohammed witnessed first-hand how authoritarianism manifests itself, even when
it appears in different ways.

Saudi Arabia is a theocratic absolute monarchy which has been ruled by a royal
family for more than 80 years. Syria is a secular dictatorship which has been
ruled by the Assad family for over five decades. In Syria, Mohammed explained,
people were not discriminated against based on their religion, but they faced
repression based on their politics. If you belonged to the ruling Ba'ath Party,
you were treated better. If you criticized the government, you would risk
facing backlash, even imprisonment.

In Saudi Arabia, religious minorities lived in fear. "They would humiliate
people intentionally; they would treat them with disrespect," he recollected.
In Syria, you had religious freedoms that were unimaginable in the Wahhabi
Saudi regime, but you still lacked political freedoms.

Growing up in these environments helped shaped Mohammed's view of justice. "The
tyrant is the same everywhere," Mohammed said. Dictators may differ in their
rule, but they are still dictators.

And tyranny is not just limited to dictatorships, Mohammed added. He condemned
the apartheid-like conditions Palestinians live under in Israel. "Whether the
tyrant is in Saudi or Israel, it is still a tyrant," he explained. "They are
thinking the same way; they are creating an ideology that serves them."

The young activist's sense of justice is rooted in an internationalism that
seeks liberation for all peoples.

"There is no more value for 1 person than any other," Mohammed stressed. "Your
life is not worth more than other lives."

Repression and imprisonment

Given the autocratic milieux in which he came of age, Mohammed remained
apolitical throughout his early life. It was not until much later, in the past
few years, that he began speaking out about politics. But first, a few
uprisings would take place.

In 2006, the Saudi regime, incensed at Sheikh al-Nimr's activism, forced
Mohammed's father to sign a pledge not to speak in public. He agreed to stop
speaking, and instead started writing.

"If they don't want us to speak, we're gonna write" was his father's
philosophy, Mohammed said.

2 years passed, and Sheikh al-Nimr held his tongue about the multitudinous
injustices in the Wahhabi kingdom. In 2008, however, a series of violent
incidents took place at al-Baqi, a cemetery in the important city of Medina,
and a site of religious significance.

The Saudi monarchy's fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam opposes the
preservation of many ancient religious sites, which it considers to be a form
of idolatry. Like ISIS, Saudi Arabia has destroyed millennium-old heritage
sites and artifacts; unlike ISIS, the close U.S. ally has replaced these sites
with lavish Hilton hotels and gender-segregated shopping malls.

Shia graves at al-Baqi have been demolished by the Saudi regime, setting off
further state-sanctioned sectarian tensions. In 2008, Mohammed recalled, Sunni
extremists attacked Shia worshipers at the religious site, stabbing several.

After the attack, virtually no one was punished. Some Shia Saudis subsequently
began protesting the impunity the regime effectively guarantees for sectarian
violence. Sheikh al-Nimr broke his silence, and gave a public speech in 2008
harshly criticizing the monarchy.

In his speech, the senior al-Nimr raised the possibility that, if the Saudi
regime did not treat its Shia citizens - many of whom live in the eastern part
of the country - justly, there could be a possibility of secession. Saudi
authorities took the statements of the sheikh, who always always preached
nonviolence, out of context, and claimed he was calling for violent secession.

The regime clamped down harshly on Sheikh al-Nimr - and not just on him, but
also on his family. In 2009, four months after his father's speech, 14 police
cars showed up at Mohammed's house, armed to the teeth with Kalashnikovs. The
young al-Nimr, who was not involved in politics in any way, and was guilty only
of being the son of a political activist, was arrested.

Saudi Arabia's feared secret police, the Mabahith - a brutal force notorious
for, in the words of Human Rights Watch, "a wide range of human rights abuses,
including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention and torture" - interrogated
the 22-year-old, and threw him in prison.

After several months locked up, Mohammed was eventually released. He said the
fear he felt during this time still haunts him.

Mohammed then decided to move to the U.S. to study mechanical engineering. In
2010, he began studies at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis,
where he remains today. Less than a year after he arrived, however, one of the
biggest uprisings in Saudi history would take place.

(source: salon.com)






INDONESIA:

National scene: Govt uncertain on use of death penalty in 2016


The Indonesian government is yet to decide on whether it will execute drug
traffickers this year, but has said it will focus more on improving the economy
for the next 7 to 8 months.

"We'll see what happens. We are still studying this very carefully. Maybe we
could [continue with executions] this year, or maybe next year," Coordinating
Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said in Jakarta
on Friday.Luhut said Indonesia had been disturbed by noisy, annoying comments
from the public about the death penalty's implementation. "So we have to
calculate very carefully when using the death penalty," he said.

According to 2015 data from the National Narcotics Agency, there are 14 drug
convicts currently waiting to face the firing squad. Last year Indonesia put to
death 14 drug convicts, including 2 Australians that were part of the Bali 9
group, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

(source: Jakarta Post)






BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh set to execute top Jamaat leader for war crimes


Bangladesh is set to hang fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman
Nizami for war crimes during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistan.

Authorities today served the death warrant to 72-year-old Mr Nizami, two months
after the apex court upheld his death penalty.

"We received the death warrant earlier this morning and served it to the
convict (in the death row)," an official of the suburban high security
Kashimpur Jail briefly told reporters.

Attorney general Mahbubey Alam, meanwhile, said the top leader of the country's
biggest Islamist party would now get 15 days' time to seek review of the
judgement by the Supreme Court itself in his final bid to evade the gallows.
He, however, said that the scope of reviewing the judgement in a war crimes
case is very slim.

"If he prefers not to get the judgement reviewed within the time-frame or if
his petition is rejected, the government may execute the verdict anytime in the
subsequent days," Mr Alam told newsmen.

He said Mr Nizami, however, could seek presidential mercy immediately if the
review petition was rejected but he would not get any extra time to decide for
seeking the clemency.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) originally sentenced Mr
Nizami to death in October 29, 2014. The apex court upheld the verdict on
January 6 this year.

According to TV reports Mr Nizami's lawyers sought to meet their client in jail
as the death warrant was issued to know his mind if he wants to exhaust the
opportunity of filing a review petition.

Leader of infamous Al-Badr force in 1971, Mr Nizami is the last remaining top
perpetrators of crimes against humanity whose fate now hangs on the balance.

He was found guilty of systematic killings of more than 450 people alone in his
own village home in northwestern Pabna siding with the Pakistani troops during
the liberation war.

Mr Nizami at that time was the chief of the student front of Jamaat, which was
opposed to Bangladesh's 1971 independence.

4 opposition politicians, including 3 leaders of the Islamist party, the
Jamaat-e-Islami, have been convicted by a war crimes tribunal and executed
since late 2013.

2 others, former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam and ex-Bangladesh Nationalist Party
minister Abdul Alim, earlier were handed down "imprisonment until death"
penalty instead of capital punishment due to their old age as they exceeded 80.

They subsequently died in the prison cells of a specialised state-run hospital
due to old age ailments.

(source: Deccan Chronicle)

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

Bangladesh Islamist party chief intends to seek review of death penalty


Bangladesh's largest Islamist party chief Motiur Rahman Nizami Wednesday said
he will file a review petition with the Supreme Court against its verdict that
upheld his death sentence for war crimes in 1971.

Nizami, president of the Bangladeshi Jamaat-e-Islami party, expressed his
interest to file a review petition in consultation with his lawyers as his
death warrant was read out to him on Wednesday morning in a prison in Kashimpur
on the outskirts of capital Dhaka where he is being kept condemned, the
prison's Superintendent Prashant Kumar Banik told journalists.

Also on Wednesday Nizami was allowed to meet his lawyers and a son, he said.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal-1 issued Nizami's death warrant
Tuesday night hours after the country's apex court released its full verdict in
this connection.

Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Jan. 6 upheld a death penalty for the 73-year-old
Motiur Rahman Nizami over war crimes during the country's war of independence
44 years ago.

Nizami served as agriculture and industries minister in Khaleda Zia's 2001-2006
cabinet.

The apex court upheld capital penalty for the Islamist party chief on 3 charges
and life imprisonment on 2 charges.

On Oct. 29, 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-1) handed down capital
punishment to Nizami for war crimes which include mass killings of
intellectuals.

According to the rules, Nizami has an opportunity to file a review petition
against the verdict within 15 days.

If his review petition is rejected, the last option for him will be to seek
presidential mercy.

Nizami was indicted in 2012 with 16 charges of crimes during the 1971 war.

(source: Xinhua News)

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

Death warrant issued for Nizami


The International Crimes Tribunal has issued the death warrant for convicted
war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami on Tuesday, hours after the Supreme Court
released its full verdict upholding his death penalty.

Confirming the news, Tribunal Registrar Shahidul Alam Jhinuk said: "3 judges of
the ICT signed the death warrant around 9:05pm. The death warrant will reach
the jail authorities by an hour. The copies of the death warrant have been sent
to Dhaka Central Jail authorities, Dhaka District magistrate, Home Ministry and
Law Ministry."

Earlier in the day, the apex court released the 153-page judgment after its
four judges concerned signed the verdict that upheld the Jamaat chief's death
penalty.

A copy of it was uploaded on the Supreme Court's website on Tuesday afternoon
while its official said that they would send a copy to the International Crimes
Tribunal. From there, copies will be sent to jail and district magistrate. The
Home Ministry will also be notified.

Nizami can move a review petition with the apex court in a last ditch attempt
to escape the noose. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said the countdown would
start from the day of receiving a copy of the full verdict.

Bangladesh's 1st war crimes tribunal handed Nizami death on October 29, 2014 on
4 charges and life imprisonment on 4 other charges. He challenged the verdict
at the apex court.

On January 6, a four-member Appellate Division bench upheld the tribunal's
sentence for the Al-Badr chief for masterminding the killing of intellectuals
and involvement in two incidents of mass killing of over 500 people in Pabna in
1971.

His death sentences were upheld on 3 charges and life imprisonment on 2
charges. He was cleared of 3 charges.

Nizami is the 3rd former minister after Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad
Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to get death penalty for his
notorious role during the war.

Nizami led Jamaat's erstwhile student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha from 1966 to
September 1971 and was the chief of Al-Badr, known as Pakistan army's death
squad in 1971. Al-Badr members were exclusively drawn from Chhatra Sangha.

Throughout the war, he visited different areas of the country and delivered
provocative speeches at rallies organised by Jamaat, Chhatra Sangha, Al-Badr
and Razakars. He also wrote columns in newspapers justifying the formation of
Al-Badr.

The militia, which called itself the "angel of death", unleashed a reign of
terror on pro-liberation Bangalees, killed unarmed civilians, raped women and
destroyed properties during the war.

The auxiliary force of the Pakistan army made its worst example by
systematically rounding up, torturing and killing the intellectuals to cripple
the country at the fag end of the war.

Jamaat chief Nizami has never repented of the cold-blooded savagery. He was
rehabilitated in Bangladesh politics after the assassination of Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 and was made a minister during the BNP-led
government 2001-06 tenure.

What is next

The government may start the procedure of executing the verdict after getting
verdict copies and issuing of death reference. The convict will have to file
the review petition within 15 days. If his review petition is rejected, he will
get a chance to seek presidential mercy. The execution processes will be halted
till then.

If Nizami decides not to seek clemency or if the president denies it, he will
be the second Al-Badr top leader after Mojaheed to walk the gallows finally.

(source: dhakatribune.com)

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

Woman, lover get death penalty for husband's murder


A Jessore court yesterday sentenced a woman and her lover to death for killing
her husband in 2014.

The convicts are Sabana Khatun, wife of victim Abdur Razzak of Ajmatpur village
in Chowgachha upazila of Jessore, and her lover Abdul Ali.

Judge Sharif Hossain of Jessore Additional Sessions Judge's Court also fined
them Tk 50,000 each.

According to the prosecution, Sabana along with Ali killed Razzak on March 9 in
2004 as the victim protested his wife's extramarital relation.

The brother of the deceased Mintu Miah filed a case with Chowgachha Police
Station in this connection the same day.

On June 9 the same year, police submitted charge sheet against Sabana and her
boyfriend Ali.

After examining witnesses and evidence, the judge found them guilty and
pronounced the verdict.

(source: The Daily Star)

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

Man sentenced to death for murdering wife 15 years ago


A man has been sentenced to death for murdering his wife for dowry 15 years ago
in Chandina, Comilla.

Nur Nahar Begum, Comilla's additional district and session's judge, gave the
verdict on Wednesday.

Md. Sadek, the man slapped the death penalty, has been in hiding ever since the
case was started.

Case details show Sadek had killed his wife, Rokeya Begum, on the night of Jun
28, 2000 for failing to pay the dowry he demanded.

He had slit his wife's throat after assaulting her and dumped the body the
Chanshar stream.

A few days later a body in a bag was found floating.

The sack revealed Rokeya's decomposed body when opened.

Mustafizur Rahman Liton, the state prosecutor, said Rokeya's uncle Shadatullah
had lodged a complaint with the police, accusing 7 people.

A charge sheet had been filed against Sadek after investigation.

(source: bdnews24.com)




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[Rick Halperin]

March 16



SWAZILAND:

Swazi lawmakers want death penalty to stay


While the African Union's Commissioner on Human and People's Rights Pansy
Tlakula wants Swaziland to abolish the death penalty, parliamentarians want
murderers to be killed, APA learnt on Wednesday.While on a visit to Swaziland
last week, Tlakula recommended that the Swazi government scraps the death
penalty.

Swazi lawmakers however say the high prevalence of cases of gender-based
violence demand that the death penalty remains in force.

They further argue that parents no longer raise their children the right way,
hence there is an issue of moral decay.

According to the Royal Swaziland Police Service's performance report, cases of
violence against women and children, most of which are fatal, increased by 8 %
this year.

Deputy Prime Minister Paul Dlamini says the solution to this problem is the
passing of the Gender-Based Violence Bill which is now in Parliament, and not
the death penalty.

(source: StarAfrica.com)






SINGAPORE:

Man, 68, charged in Changi General Hospital with murder of wife in Compassvale
flat


A 68-year-old man was charged in Changi General Hospital on Tuesday (March 15)
afternoon with the murder of his wife at Sengkang on Sunday.

No plea was taken from Kong Peng Yee, who is believed to have been injured.

He allegedly caused the death of his wife, Madam Wong Chik Yeok, 63, at their
Compassvale Crescent home between 11am and 4.35pm on Sunday (March 13).

The housewife was found motionless in the living room of their 5-room flat. She
was pronounced dead at about 5pm by paramedics at the scene.

Kong, who has 2 daughters, will be remanded for psychiatric evaluation until
his next appearance in court on April 5.

If convicted of murder, he faces the death penalty.

(source: Straits Times)

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

Nearly 2kg of cannabis, other drugs seized during 2 CNB raids----According to
the Central Narcotics Bureau, the drugs seized are estimated to be worth more
than S$64,000. Three suspected drug traffickers were also arrested.


A total of nearly 2kg of cannabis and other drugs were seized on Tuesday (Mar
15), following 2 separate raids led by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).

In a press release on Wednesday, the CNB said the drugs seized are estimated to
be worth more than S$64,000. Supported by the Singapore Police Force, 3
suspected drug traffickers were also arrested during the raids.

The 1st raid was conducted on Tuesday afternoon at a unit in Marsiling. 2
suspected drug traffickers, both Singaporean males aged 41 and 42, were
arrested within the unit. About 940g of cannabis and small amounts of "Ice" and
heroin were recovered from the unit.

The 2nd raid was at Woodlands on the same day. Officers arrested a suspected
drug trafficker, a 29-year-old Singaporean male, at one of the units. About 1kg
of cannabis and an assortment of other drugs were recovered from that unit.

Those convicted of trafficking in more than 500g of cannabis may face the death
penalty.

Investigations into the drug activities of the arrested suspects are ongoing,
said CNB.

(source: channelnewsasia.com)






PAKISTAN:

Climber killer among 13 sentenced to death by Pakistan military


Military courts in Pakistan have sentenced 13 militants to death for
terrorism-related offences including the 2013 massacre of 10 foreign
mountaineers, the army said Tuesday.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) member Irfan Ullah was sentenced for the
attack on the base camp at Nanga Parbat, Pakistan's second highest mountain,
which shocked the world and scarred the country's climbing tourism industry.

Gunmen dressed in police uniforms stormed the camp and shot dead 10 foreign
mountaineers -- including 1 American with dual Chinese citizenship, 2 other
Chinese, three Ukrainians, 2 Slovakians, 1 Lithuanian and 1 Nepalese and a
Pakistani guide.

"Today Chief of Army Staff confirmed death sentences awarded to another 13
hardcore terrorists, who were involved in committing heinous offences relating
to terrorism, including killing of foreign tourists at Nanga Parbat," the army
said in a statement.

The other 12 had been charged with various severe crimes from attacking schools
and an airport, to killing security officials, civilians and damaging
helicopters. Pakistan has hanged more than 300 people since lifting a
moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014, many of them convicted in
closed military courts which critics say fail to meet fair trial standards.

The nuclear-armed South Asian nation lifted the 6-year moratorium and amended
the constitution to allow military courts to try hardcore militants after
Taliban gunmen killed more than 150 people, most of them children, at an
army-run school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014.

In June 2014, the army launched an operation in a bid to wipe out militant
bases in North Waziristan tribal area and end the bloody decade-long Islamist
insurgency that has cost thousands of lives.

Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for more a decade
following its decision to side with the US-led coalition against the Taliban in
Afghanistan.

(source: Agence France-Presse)


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March 17



GHANA:

Amnesty Int. rejects Rawlings' death penalty clamour


Amnesty International has rejected calls by former President Jerry John
Rawlings who is advocating capital punishment for convicted killers in the
country.

The ex-president had called for a strict adherence to the laws of the country
so that persons found to have committed murder by a court of competent
jurisdiction are condemned to death.

He made the call when the family of the late Member of Parliament for Abuakwa
North, J.B Danquah-Adu, visited him at his residence on Wednesday 16th March,
2016.

Mr Rawlings charged parliament to enact legislation empowering regional
security councils to enforce the death penalty.

"Our constitution empowers us and gives us the right to punish, to exact the
same level of punishment, and if we cannot do it to serve as a lesson to those
who are taking others' lives with ease, then, please, I'd like to use this
occasion - I should have done this a long time ago - to invite parliament to
consider the need to look into our constitution as to whether we should not now
empower the regional security councils to sign or to approve the taking of a
life for a life," Mr Rawlings said when the family of the late J B Danquah-Adu
visited him at his residence in Accra on Wednesday March 16.

"We all believe in the New Testament, but if some people are determined to
conduct their lives along the Old Testament, then please let's not give them
the other cheek to slap," the former military leader added.

But human rights group Amnesty International has said the call is unfortunate
and has proposed an objective discussion on the issue.

Speaking to Class News Wednesday March 16, 2016, Country Director of Amnesty
International Lawrence Amesu said the death penalty does not deter crime in any
society.

"Amnesty International totally opposes what His Excellency the former President
Jerry Rawlings is proposing that people on death row should be executed,"
stated Mr Amesu.

"We think that His Excellency has taken us back to barbaric years.

"I wish that we are not discussing this issue at this time when there is so
much pain on the heart of everybody, because people are now being emotional.
That is why people are saying that let's execute or kill because he has also
killed.

"I wish that time will pass, the wounds will heal, and then we discuss this
passionately as Ghanaians. [The] death penalty does not deter crime in any
society," he added.

(source: ghanaweb.com)






BELARUS:

A moratorium on death penalty is unlikely to be introduced since Lukashenka
doesn't want it


A moratorium on death penalty is unlikely to be introduced since Lukashenka
doesn't want it Belarus President appears to be ready to discuss the
moratorium; however without any obligations. Minsk counts on further
normalization of relations with EU without making significant concessions.

EU Special Representative for Human Rights Stavros Lambrinidis stated that a
moratorium on the death penalty would be a very good incentive for Belarus-EU
relations and Belarus' reputation in the world.

The issue of the death penalty repeatedly came up in Minsk-CoE negotiations in
the past. However, despite the importance of this subject for European
capitals, Belarusian leadership had never seriously regarded the moratorium as
an option.

In addition, abolition of the death penalty is a very unpopular idea in the
Belarusian society, according to the IISEPS polls. Moreover, people voted
against the abolition on the national referendum in 1996. Such vox populi is a
likely reflection of the state's stance in this regard and the efforts of the
state-run media.

That said, Lukashenka regards the death penalty issue as the president's major
privilege. For instance, the president has publicly advocated for the death
penalty many times: "With regard to the death penalty, we had a referendum.
Whether I want or not, regardless of my position, there was a referendum
decision. For me, that is the law. And when they start nudging me: "The death
penalty, the dictatorship", - I tell them, the Europeans: "Make a little u-turn
across the Atlantic, there is a very good friend of yours. As soon as they
abolish, we shall follow". Why am I talking about this? Not because we'll
follow the States... I am just showing them that there should be no double
standards in this matter".

For Minsk, the mere discussion about a moratorium on the death penalty enables
to outline further moves in settling Belarusian-European relations.

Regardless of the reasoning by European diplomats, the Belarusian leadership is
confident of its measures to curb crime, including the death penalty. As the
president said in the mid-1990s, he was able to end lawlessness and "road
racketeers" by using non-traditional methods of eliminating criminals.

In addition, the president referred to double standards applied by the EU, "...
the death penalty... and maybe, even more stringent laws exist in the People's
Republic of China and other neighbouring states and in the Arab countries.
Where are they pumping oil from? Why aren't you demanding from them? But that
is where oil comes from!"

Minsk is unlikely to seek participation of Belarusian representatives in the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. That would only create
additional obligations without bringing substantial benefits, which the
Belarusian leadership has already obtained avoiding unnecessary costs.

The Parliamentary Assembly could empower the Belarusian Parliament, which is
not in the president's interests. In case of a political crisis, the Parliament
could become an alternative body of governance.

Overall, the death penalty is unlikely to be abolished with reference to will
of the people, but is likely to be supported by parliamentarians.

(source: eurobelarus.info)

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

Belarus Retains Death Penalty, Promotes UN Reform - Belarus Foreign Policy
Digest----Lambrinidis meets human rights activists in Minsk


In the 1st half of March, the EU's top human rights official came to Minsk to
talk President Alexander Lukashenka into introducing a temporary moratorium on
the death penalty.

The Belarusian authorities are very willing to discuss human rights with Europe
but remain reluctant to take specific action.

At the UN, Belarusian diplomats continue to promote greater inclusion of
rank-and-file UN members in the decision-making process, this time by
advocating a stronger role for them in selecting the next UN head. These
actions are at odds with Russia's position on this matter.

Lukashenka meets the EU human rights head

On 9-11 March, Stavros Lambrinidis, the EU Special Representative for Human
Rights, visited Belarus. The EU official met ministers for foreign affairs, the
interior, justice and information. His agenda also included meetings with
opposition and civil society leaders, independent journalists and human rights
activists.

Alexander Lukashenka and Stavros LambrinidisLukashenka received Lambrinidis on
the first day of his visit in Minsk. The Belarusian leader sounded
reconciliatory and constructive. He expressed satisfaction with the fact that
Belarus and Europe had "abandoned [their] head-on confrontation".

Lukashenka spoke in favour of a "permanent dialogue, permanent contacts".
However, he claimed Belarus' right to have its own understanding of human
rights issues.

Lukashenka and Lambrinidis agreed that trade, economic cooperation and human
rights are interrelated but disagreed on cause and effect. The Belarusian
president stressed that, with the development of trade and economic relations,
human rights issues would disappear on their own.

The EU official, in his turn, believes that the improvement of the human rights
situation in the country will result in more trade and foreign investment.

Belarus retains death penalty as a bargaining tool

Lambrinidis came to Minsk to persuade Lukashenka to introduce a temporary
moratorium on the death penalty in Belarus. Belarus is the only country in
Europe where capital punishment is still applied.

The issue of the death penalty remains at the top of Europe's demands vis-a-vis
Belarus. When lifting the sanctions in February, the European Council
"condemn[ed] the application of the death penalty in Belarus ... and urge[d]
the Belarusian authorities to set up a moratorium as a first step towards its
abolition:.

Stavros Lambrinidis at the conferenceOn 10 March, the Belarusian foreign
ministry and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office in Minsk
organised an international conference titled The Death Penalty: Transcending
the Divide. Speaking at the conference, Lambrinidis urged Belarus' highest
authorities to show their political will by abolishing capital punishment.

The Belarusian authorities continue to shelter themselves behind public
opinion. Opening the conference, deputy foreign minister Valentin Rybakov
pointed to the fact that most Belarusians still support the death penalty. "We
cannot and will not ignore this fact, including in the context of dialogue with
our much esteemed European partners", Rybakov stressed.

Abolition of the death penalty would be one of the easiest steps for the
authorities to take in order to please Europe. Unlike concessions on freedom of
speech or assembly, such a decision would hardly undermine the regime's grip on
society. Public opinion on this subject can be easily ignored or tweaked.

Abolition of the death penalty or even a moratorium would improve Belarus???
image in Europe. It would help the European bureaucracy to rationalise the need
for more cooperation with Minsk. Belarus would finally be able to join the
Council of Europe.

However, one should not expect the Belarusian authorities to take such a step
in the near future. They realise full well the bargaining power that retention
of the death penalty provides. Thus, they will likely choose to play this card
at a more crucial moment, as they did with the release of political prisoners.

A temporary moratorium on the death penalty can hardly be an option. Lukashenka
realises that nothing is more permanent than the temporary. Once the moratorium
is in place, it will be difficult to withdraw it without damaging the country's
reputation.

At this stage, the maximum Europe may expect from Belarus on the death penalty
is more dialogue and a lot of talking. The same also applies to other divisive
issues between Belarus and Europe.

Belarus reforms the UN

By the end of 2016, the United Nations will appoint its new Secretary-General
for the next several years. An informal regional rotation arrangement provides
that the next head of the UN Secretariat should come from among Eastern
European countries.

This factor makes the forthcoming selection process an important exercise for
Belarusian diplomacy.

Andrei Dapkiunas speaks at the UNOn 29 February, speaking at an informal
brainstorming session, Belarus' ambassador to the UN Andrei Dapkiunas insisted
on the appointment of the UN's chief through a secret ballot. Though the
existing rules require such a procedure, in practice, the UN General Assembly
(UNGA) always rubber-stamps the candidate recommended by the Security Council.

Belarus also wants the UNGA to withdraw its own recommendation (made in 1946)
to the Security Council to "proffer 1 candidate only" for the appointment.

Throughout the UN's entire history, the UN Secretary General has remained a
product of consensus of the Security Council's permanent members. Submitting
more than 1 candidate to the UNGA would mean effectively letting the wider
international community have the final say on the matter.

Even if the UNGA adopts the Belarusian proposal, it is highly unlikely that
China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States would agree to
relinquish their control over who will head the organisation.

Nevertheless, this year the process of selection and appointment of the
Secretary General promises to be more transparent and inclusive for member
states. The process starts in April when Belarus will chair the UN's Eastern
European Group (EEG). The country's mission at the UN seeks to organise a
high-level EEG event with participation of potential candidates.

An UN official told Belarus Digest that Belarus favoured the candidature of
Irina Bokova, a Bulgarian politician and UNESCO's Director-General. Bokova
visited Belarus in April 2014 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the
country's UNESCO membership.

Belarus' activity in reforming the appointment process has been frowned upon by
Russia, which does not welcome any change that could undermine its role at the
UN. Belarusian diplomats have taken this into account by softening their
reforming zeal. However, they are still pressing ahead with their agenda.

(source: Igar Gubarevich is a senior analyst of the Ostrogorski Centre in
Minsk. For a number of years he has been working in various diplomatic
positions at the Belarusian Foreign Ministry; Belarus Digest)






ENGLAND:

Was this man wrongly hanged for murdering a girl and hiding her in a trunk?


Jeannette Hensby spent her working life in the NHS but in retirement she has
become a writer and crime sleuth. Andy Smart looks at her 1st cold case.

Notts-born Andrew Anderson Bagley died on Tuesday, February 1, 1937. He was
hanged by the neck in Armley Jail in Leeds for the brutal murder of his
16-year-old step-granddaughter.

Despite trial judge Mr Justice Goddard - a notorious figure dubbed "the hanging
judge" in the Press - sentencing him to death on "evidence which could leave no
doubt ..." Bagley maintained his innocence from the moment of his arrest in
Hucknall Library only 3 months earlier, to his final steps towards the gallows.

No one believed him and at 9am on that cold winter morning executioner Thomas
Pierrepont sent the 62-year-old convicted man to his death.

But in her fascinating 1st book "The Rotherham Trunk Murder"*, ex-NHS director
Jeannette Hensby argues that Bagley, born a policeman's son in the south Notts
village of Bunny, was innocent. She examines the evidence in forensic detail,
asks questions that should have been asked at his trial, exposes a scandalous
appeal hearing cover-up and, in the final chapters, points an accusing finger
at the person she believes was the real killer.

Her part in the story begins in the 1950s, more than 20 years after the murder.
Jeannette, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, remembers sitting on her
grandmother's knee, listening to her stories as the rain teemed down outside.

"Whether she could tell that I was bored, or whether she had run out of other
stories to tell, I don't know, but she certainly got my attention when she
started to tell me about the murder of a Masbrough (Rotherham) girl that had
been committed by somebody that she knew. She told me who the murderer was, but
she didn't tell me the name of the victim; just that "a girl" had been
murdered," explained Jeannette, now 67.

She tucked the memory away as she raised her family and met the demands of her
career in the NHS, finally retiring as director of older people's mental health
for Sheffield - but always intending to find out more about her grandmother's
story.

In 2014, she finally came across an account in a local history book about
murders in Rotherham.

"I was tingling with anticipation as I started to read. One of the things that
I had never been sure about from grandma's story was whether or not the
murderer had been brought to justice and hanged. Now I would be able to find
out.

"I learned that the victim was 16-year-old Irene Hart ... murdered in her own
home in Hartington Road in Masbrough, Rotherham, in 1936. Irene was strangled
and her body was stuffed into an old green tin trunk and hidden in a clothes
closet in her bedroom."

Suspicion fell on her step-grandfather Andrew Anderson Bagley, who lived in the
same house as Irene, along with his daughter Avice and his disabled son
Ambrose.

Bagley went missing immediately after the crime and police launched what became
at the time the biggest manhunt in British criminal history. The case made the
news around the world under the eye-catching headline "The Rotherham Trunk
Murder".

For 6 frustrating weeks of a chaotic manhunt, police searched lodging houses,
homeless hostels, pubs, barns and haystacks across the country.

But Bagley was an expert at staying hidden. Married in Notts in his early 20s,
he soon left his wife and to avoid paying maintenance he moved to Sheffield,
adopted an assumed name - Bill Smith - and there he lived in another loveless
relationship for the sake of his 4 children.

For 40 years he had stayed 1 step ahead of debt collectors, chasing him for
money that his drink and gambling-addicted 2nd "wife" had piled up.

He had little trouble giving police the slip until he made a fatal mistake by
returning to his home county. On Friday, October 23, 1936, as he was sitting in
Hucknall Library reading a newspaper, he was recognised by an old acquaintance.
The police were called and Bagley was arrested. "I have nothing to fear," he
told officers. "I didn't do it."

Jeannette said: "As I read it, my interest turned to disbelief and then to
horror. My grandma - who had been close to the family - had told me who had
committed this crime, and it wasn't Andrew Anderson Bagley. Had an innocent man
gone to the gallows, I wondered?"

Helped by her sister Carol, Jeannette spent a year trawling through newspaper
reports, court records and local archives.

"What we discovered was an unusual story, and a real family tragedy," she said.

"Looking at the records with the benefit of what grandma told me it became
clear to me that the man that was hanged was not the murderer," she added. She
found letters from members of Andrew Bagley's family, particularly his brother
and sister.

His siblings maintained that he was mentally unstable, prone to attacks of
dizziness and violence. His brother had concluded that the crime must have been
committed during one of these episodes without him even knowing he had done it.

His family fought long and hard to get the death penalty reduced to a custodial
sentence on the grounds of insanity, petitioning the Home Secretary and even
writing to Queen Mary, but their efforts were in vain.

Jeannette says: "The family were decent, respectable people, and in order to
distance the family from the shame of what had happened, Bagley's brother had
the family surname changed from Bagley to Baguley after the execution had taken
place.

"I have no idea whether the descendants of Andrew Bagley still think that he
did kill Irene Hart.

"I guess that they, and other local people, would be interested to read that
the records show, when read with the benefit of what my grandma told me, that I
believe Andrew Bagley was not the heartless murderer of Irene Hart, but, in
fact, he was a very brave and selfless man."

Jeannette believes the answer lies within Andrew's family circle ... but the
identity of the person she believes murdered Irene Hart can only be found in
the pages of her book.

Whether anything comes of her account remains to be seen.

Jeannette, who is now working on her second book looking at a pre-First World
War murder case, adds: "I am very aware of how difficult it is to get a
posthumous pardon. Iris Bentley, who spent her life fighting in vain to get her
brother Derek pardoned, springs to mind.

"If the people of Nottingham, or Andrew's family, wished to mount a campaign, I
would do everything that I could to support it."

(source: nottinghampost.com)






PAKISTAN:

Deterrent death sentences to curb terrorism


In yet another manifestation of unflinching commitment to rid the country of
the menace of terrorism, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif confirmed
death sentences awarded to 13 terrorists. Tried by military courts, these
terrorists were involved various heinous offences relating to terrorism
including killing of foreign tourists at Nanga Parbat, attack on Saidu Sharif
airport and attacks on armed forces and law enforcement agencies.

These executions might provoke some so called human rights activists to resort
to protests but in our view the death penalty acts as a deterrent and is one of
the effective ways to root out crime. It has also been proven through different
studies that each execution, on average, results in fewer murders. Saudi Arabia
is ranked amongst the countries where crime rate is very low as compared to
even developed countries because of strict punishment for different crimes
without undue delays. The public hanging of criminals is serving the purpose to
deter other individuals from committing the criminal deeds. Similarly, Iran has
set some good traditions of awarding strict punishments to the individuals
without any discrimination. Recently, a billionaire tycoon was sentenced to
death for involvement in massive corruption. It is therefore a natural
phenomenon that the punishments help deter crimes. However, the deterrent
effect is directly proportional to the delay in the execution. The longer the
delay, the lesser the deterrent effect. Hence, it has been criminal
indifference, silence or negligence on the part of successive governments in
Pakistan that the hardcore criminals awarded with the death sentences were not
brought to the gallows despite passage of so many years. The present government
however deserves appreciation for lifting moratorium on the death penalty back
in 2014 and reviving the process which had been done much earlier. Given the
current situation in Pakistan where Zarb-e-Azb operation is meeting tremendous
success and terrorists are being executed, we are sure the country will soon
achieve the status of a civilized terror free nation. No mercy to the stone
hearted and hardcore criminals is the right course and step in the right
direction that will soon rid the country of the curse of terrorism.

(source: Pakistan Observer)






CAMEROON:

89 Boko Haram members sentenced to death in Cameroon - none yet in Nigeria


Cameroon has sentenced 89 members of the Boko Haram sect to death over terror
charges, even though Nigeria, the hot bed, is yet to impose the penalty on any
suspect.

According to the BBC, a military court tried the insurgents over their roles in
several attacks in the northern part of the country which borders Nigeria.

Since 2009 when Boko Haram launched its campaign of violence, Cameroon has been
its next target after Nigeria.

In January 2015, Abubakar Shekau, leader of the sect, threatened to attack Paul
Biya, president of Cameroon, over his country's role in the regional force set
up to fight insurgency.

"Oh Paul Biya, if you don't stop this your evil plot, you will taste what has
befallen Nigeria," Shekau had said in a video.

"If you do not repent, you will see the dire consequences. Your troops cannot
do anything to us. I advise you to desist from following your constitution and
democracy, which is unIslamic. The only language of peace is to repent and
follow Allah, but if you do not, then we will communicate it to you through the
language of violence."

On his part, Biya vowed to wipe out Boko Haram.

About 850 members of the sect are currently in detention over alleged
involvement in insurgency in Cameroon.

This is the 1st time that people have been sentenced to death since a new
anti-terror law was passed in 2014.

(source: thecable.ng)

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[Rick Halperin]

March 17




TANZANIA:

19 Face Death Penalty Over Albino Killings in Tanzania


19 people have been sentenced to death after being convicted of killing
albinos, the Tanzanian government has confirmed.

Home Affairs Deputy Minister, Hamad Yusuf Masauni told Anadolu Agency on
Saturday that the convicted are among 133 people arrested and charged with
killing people with albinism from 2006 to 2015.

"Other albino attacks and killings cases are in different stages in different
courts countrywide," the minister said in a telephone interview from Dodoma,
Tanzania's administrative capital.

Masauni said at least 75 people with albinism have been killed in Tanzania
since 2006, while more than 100 people have been attacked and mutilated.

Such attacks are due in large part to widespread superstition in East Africa
that body parts of people with albinism carry magical powers that witch doctors
claim to harness, or other beliefs that view albinos as cursed or causing bad
luck.

Commenting on the plea from people with albinism asking the government to
implement death penalties for those convicted of the killings, the minister
said the government is keen on exercising the court's ruling.

"Death penalties have long procedures and processes to be followed before
implementation. Once we are done with the process, those found guilty will be
executed," Masauni said.

Last year, the government formed a tripartite committee involving government
officials, people with albinism, witch doctors who are believed to have a hand
on albino killings and other stakeholders, as a strategy to combat attacks and
killings of people with albinism.

The Tanzanian government has also targeted witch doctors, arresting more than
200 of them in different parts of the country, as part of the fight against
albino killings.

The government, civil society and various groups including those with albinism
have also joined hands to prevent attacks through special concerts, radio and
TV programs in both public and privately owned media outlets.

Apart from Tanzania, albino attacks and killings have also been reported in
other East African countries, including Burundi and Kenya.

(source: The Citizen)






INDIA:

German Bakery blast: Baig's death sentence commuted to life term


The Bombay High Court on Thursday commuted, to a life term, the death sentence
to Mirza Himayat Baig after his conviction for the February 13, 2010 Pune
German Bakery blast which killed 17 people, including foreigners, his lawyer
said.

"Baig has been totally absolved of all charges including conspiracy, murder,
attempt to murder and other serious charges pertaining to the German Bakery
blast," said his lawyer Abdul Rehman.

"He has only been convicted under the Explosives Act and given a life sentence.
This is the first step only - we plan to appeal this and we are confident he
will come clear from this too," he added.

Around 7 p.m. on the day, a powerful blast ripped through the popular eatery
near the Osho Ashram in the fashionable Koregaon Park area and much frequented
by the young crowd. Among the 17 killed were an Italian woman, an Iranian and 2
Sudanese students. Another 60 patrons were injured in the blast, including 12
foreigners while the eatery subsequently reopened briefly and shut down.

A Pune sessions court had in April 18, 2013 awarded the death penalty to the
sole accused, Indian Mujahiddeen operative Baig, against which he had appealed
before the Bombay High Court.

(source: sify.com)

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

India police arrest father-in-law over 'honor killing'


The father-in-law of a lower-caste student brutally hacked to death in a
suspected " honor killing" in India has been arrested, police said on Tuesday.

3 men armed with sickles and sharp weapons attacked the 22-year-old student
from the lowest Dalit caste and his wife on a crowded street in the southern
state of Tamil Nadu on Sunday, killing him and seriously injuring her.

The woman's father and uncle were among 5 people arrested over the assault,
which was apparently motivated by her decision to marry outside her own caste,
police said.

"We have arrested 5 accused and are looking for 5 more," A. Dhavamani, an
investigating officer, said.

"3 of them were involved in the attack, including the woman's uncle," he said,
adding that the others have confessed to conspiracy to kill the victim.

The Press Trust of India news agency said the woman's mother was also among
those arrested, although this could not immediately be confirmed.

Her father surrendered to police late on Monday and was formally arrested.
Police said the 19-year-old woman married the Dalit engineering student 8
months ago in defiance of her family, who are from the higher Thevar caste.

Marriage outside caste or religion still attracts strong censure in parts of
India and can even lead to so-called honor killings, carried out to protect
family pride.

Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, are a historically marginalized
community who have faced centuries of discrimination in India.

The couple had reportedly faced threats from her family before Sunday's attack
that was captured on CCTV, footage from which showed 3 men on a motorbike stop
and attack them as they walked along a crowded street.

There are no India-specific figures on honor killings available, but United
Nations statistics say 1,000 out of the 5,000 such killings every year are in
India.

India's Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that those involved in honor killings
should face the death penalty.

(source: Saudi Gazette)






SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi beheads 73rd person this year


Saudi Arabia has beheaded one of its citizens after sentencing him to death for
murder, bringing to 73 the number of such executions in the kingdom since the
start of the year.

The convicted man, identified as Omar al-Rabie, was beheaded on Wednesday, the
Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press
Agency.

The ministry added that al-Rabie was found guilty of shooting to death his
fellow Saudi citizen Ghanem Salem in a dispute.

According to AFP tallies, the latest execution brings to 73 the number of
locals and foreigners put to death this year.

In the most stunning case, Saudi Arabia executed on January 2 Sheikh Nimr
al-Nimr along with 46 other people in defiance of international calls for the
release of the prominent Shia cleric and other jailed political dissidents in
the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia carried out 153 executions, including 71 foreign nationals, in
2015. This number of executions in terms of annual basis in Saudi Arabia has
been unseen since 1995.

Under the Saudi law, apostasy, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape and murder
carry the death penalty. Beheading with a sword is the most common form of
execution in Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh has been under fire for having one of the world's highest execution
rates.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Saudi regime to
abolish its "ghastly" beheadings.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has recently called on the United Nations
Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its gross
human rights violations.

In a statement to the 31st meeting of UNHRC, the rights group said that the
kingdom has breached international humanitarian laws on numerous occasions.

(source: albawaba.com)

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

KSA takes pride in applying Sharia Law


The delegate of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to the United Nations
Ambassador Faisal Trad stressed the fundamentals of the kingdom as being proud
in applying the provisions of the tolerant Islamic Sharia which ensures
justice, rights and duties for all equally without any discrimination.

He added that the best proof of that is the level of growth, prosperity and
progress experienced by the kingdom and the Saudi society of all sects and
individuals of both sexes compared with many countries of the world.

Ambassador Trad made the remarks as he delivered the kingdom's reply to what
was stated by a number of European countries especially Germany, Iceland and
Ireland on human rights in the kingdom before the Human Rights Council held in
Geneva.

He said that the provisions of Islamic law, Saudi applicable regulations and
the kingdom's international obligations ensure non-violation of the right of
any human being and therefore any penalty applied to anyone in the kingdom is
the result of his acts and an offense that is punishable by law and that levels
of litigation are met and all guarantees are provided for a fair, open and
transparent trial that is open to the public, including representatives of the
missions of the above mentioned countries.

Trad said that not under any circumstances, privileges or immunities can be
granted to a class of people without others under any name or any capacity. All
are equal before the judiciary, he stated.

He indicated that the death penalty is provided for by the laws of the kingdom
and that there are dozens of countries around the world that still apply the
death penalty for the most serious crimes, such as terrorism and drug
trafficking.

He stressed the strong rejection of the kingdom for any statement by any
country against the independent and fair judiciary in the Kingdom and its
demand for everyone to respect the judiciary and its rulings, and not interfere
with it in any way. He also demanded that these countries verify their sources
of information before directing any criticism against the kingdom where there
is no respect for the cultural and religious special nature of a country that
represents the heart of the Islamic world, and asked them to refrain from
double standards and trying to exploit the Human Rights Council for political
purposes or to accomplish electoral achievements and to address real human
rights violations without any political, cultural or ideological motives.

(source: Saudi Press Agency)






SRI LANKA:

Sri Lankan gets death for rape, murder of 5-year-old girl


Several suspects were rounded up. The father of the child, who was also under
suspicion, volunteered to undergo DNA test to clear his name.

A Sri Lankan court on Tuesday sentenced a man to death for rape and murder of a
5-year old girl in September last year.

Saman Jayalth, a 36 year old man was found guilty after the DNA test. He later
confessed to the crime. He was charged on 4 counts including abduction, abuse,
rape and murder.

5-year-old Seya Sadewmi went missing from her home after she went to sleep on
September 11. Her body was found a day after near the village stream by her
small home. Forensic reports later showed that the child was tortured and raped
before being strangled to death.

Several suspects were rounded up. The father of the child, who was also under
suspicion, volunteered to undergo DNA test to clear his name.

According to a Unicef report, everyday 3 to 5 children are raped in the
country. The horrific rape and murder of Seya triggered rights groups'
campaigns to invoke death penalty.

Although Lankan courts hands out death sentences for crimes, the state has not
carried out any executions since 1976. Instead the death sentences have been
commuted to life imprisonment.

Soon after the murder of Seya, then newly elect President Maithripala Sirisena
promised to re-introduce the death penalty. According to the commissioner
general of prisons, Rohana Pushpakumara, there are 1,115 prisoners on death row
in Lankan prisons.

(source: Khaleej Times)






BANGLADESH:

Nizami tells son, lawyers to 'seek review' against his death penalty


Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami will seek a review of the death
sentence awarded to him for crimes against humanity during Bangladesh's
Liberation War, his lawyer says.

His son Barrister Nazib Momen and 2 lawyers were at Kashimpur's Dhaka Central
Jail-2 at noon on Wednesday.

Nizami, who headed vigilante militia Al-Badr in 1971, appeared 'worried' during
their meeting, Jail Superintendent Prashanta Kumar Banik told bdnews24.com.

His lawyer Motiur Rahman Akhand said, "He (Nizami) was not present during the
incidents for which he has been sentenced to death. He said he will plead for a
review to get justice."

The International Crimes Tribunal issued a death warrant for Nizami on Tuesday
night hours after a full copy of his appeal verdict was released by the Supreme
Court.

The warrant wrapped in red cloth was read out to him after it reached Kashimpur
prison.

Nizami's lawyer Akhand said the defence would file a plea within the 15-day
deadline. The sentence cannot be executed unless the review plea is resolved.

The convict then may seek a presidential pardon if the plea is turned down.

The tribunal on Oct 29, 2014, ordered Nizami to be hanged for murder, rape, and
the killing of intellectuals.

The Supreme Court, after hearing his appeal later, upheld the maximum penalty
for the Jamaat chief.

An influential minister in the BNP-Jamaat coalition government of 2001-6, he
carries another death sentence for his role in the 10-truck arms haul case in
Chittagong.

Born on Mar 31, 1943, in Monmothpur of Pabna's Sathia Upazila, Nizami had
earlier headed Islami Chhatra Sangha, Jamaat's student front before it was
renamed to become Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The Jamaat-e-Islami had actively opposed the secession from Pakistan and formed
militias to collaborate with the invading forces of the Pakistani Army in 1971.

Nizami was chief of the Al-Badr, a militia made up of members of the so-called
Peace Committee and Islami Chhatra Sangha.

Al-Badr gained notoriety for executing prominent pro-liberation members of the
Bengali intelligentsia ranging from doctors, journalists and teachers to
writers and composers on Dec 14, just days before Bangladesh secured victory by
defeating West Pakistan's forces.

(source: bdnews24.com)


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March 18



UNITED KINGDOM/ETHIOPIA:

David Cameron writes to Ethiopia amid fears for death-row Briton


David Cameron has intervened twice to secure UK access to a Briton who was
kidnapped by Ethiopian forces in 2014, it has emerged, amid Foreign Office
concerns that there has been "no substantive progress" on the case.

The government has confirmed to Buzzfeed News that since 2014, the Prime
Minister has written twice to his Ethiopian counterpart to ask for regular
British consular access to Andargachew 'Andy' Tsege. Mr Tsege is a British
father of 3 who was kidnapped and rendered to Ethiopia by the country's
security forces in June 2014. Mr Tsege, a political activist who has called for
reform in Ethiopia, appears to be held under a sentence of death that was
imposed in absentia in 2009. British officials have asked the Ethiopian
government for regular consular access to Mr Tsege, and for a 'legal process'
for him in Ethiopia, but have stopped short of requesting his release.
(http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/22741)

News of the Prime Minister's interventions came as a July 2015 briefing from
the Foreign Secretary's office to Downing Street emerged. In the briefing,
officials note that the UK's strategy on Mr Tsege's case had achieved "no
substantive progress" since 2014, and that "our repeated requests for
regularised consular access have not been granted" by Ethiopia; "despite
multiple assurances given to the foreign secretary by the Ethiopian foreign
minister." The briefing concludes by describing the UK's relationship with
Ethiopia as an "otherwise successful partnership."

The news follows the recent voicing of concerns for Mr Tsege by the UN Special
Rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez. In his annual report to the UN's Human
Rights Council, which meets this month, Mr Mendez said there was "substantial"
evidence that the Ethiopian government had subjected Mr Tsege to "torture,
ill-treatment, prolonged solitary confinement and incommunicado detention."

Calls for Mr Tsege's release have already been made by the UN's Working Group
on Arbitrary Detention, the European Parliament, and human rights organisation
Reprieve, which is assisting his family in London.

Harriet McCulloch, deputy director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said:
"Andy Tsege was unlawfully sentenced to death in absentia by Ethiopia's
government, and has since suffered a series of terrible abuses - including
kidnap, rendition and torture. Yet, nearly 2 years on from Andy's
disappearance, it appears even David Cameron's interventions aren't moving
Ethiopia to grant the UK's basic requests. Britain must take a much firmer
line, and ask Ethiopia to release Andy - as the UN and others have done."

*Further detail on Mr Tsege's case can be found on the Reprieve website, here.

* Reprieve http://www.reprieve.org.uk/

(source: ekklesia.co.uk)






THAILAND:

Arrested in Thailand: Mysterious Canadian with links to UN gang


Khamla Wong, who lived in B.C. and has ties to the UN gang, has been arrested
in Thailand on drug charges.

A mysterious Canadian with links to the United Nations gang has been arrested
in Thailand on drug trafficking charges.

Khamla Wong, also known as Khamla Siharaj, is also accused in Canada of
smuggling hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into B.C.

The 46-year-old has been on the run since 2012 when he was charged after a
major investigation by the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit-B.C.

Wong was living in Abbotsford before he disappeared. At one time he owned a
restaurant frequented by UN gang members in the Fraser Valley city.

Thai authorities confirmed Tuesday that Wong had been arrested with a Chinese
national in Bangkok and charged with possession with the intent to sell 259
ecstasy pills.

Wong is also being investigated for fraud after he was found with a fake
passport in the name of a Thai national.

Thai police said Wong has used the passport regularly since 2013 to travel in
and out of Thailand.

CFSEU Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton said Wong will have to deal with his Thai
charges before Canada can prosecute him.

"We are aware the Thai police have located Khamla Wong and have arrested him on
what appears to be a local drug-related investigation," Houghton said Thursday.
"So now we are in talks with the Department of Justice. Whatever happens to
Khamla in the Thai courts, that's got to be resolved before any action is taken
between our respective governments."

Thailand has notoriously harsh sentences for drug trafficking - up to life in
prison or even the death penalty.

"From what I've read, that is the potential penalty for a drug trafficker in
Thailand," Houghton said.

In Canada, Wong faces 1 count of conspiracy to traffic 121 kilograms of
cocaine, another count of conspiracy to import 97 kilograms of cocaine and one
count of possession of a firearm.

He was born Khamla Siharaj in Laos before immigrating to Canada and legally
changing his name to Wong.

He became a Canadian citizen, but as a result of his outstanding Canada-wide
arrest warrant and the Interpol Blue Notice, Passport Canada revoked his
Canadian passport.

Justice Dept. media officer Andrew Gowing confirmed there is an extradition
treaty between Canada and Thailand.

"Due to the confidential nature of state-to-state communication, the government
can neither confirm nor deny whether an extradition request has been made
related to Mr. Wong," Gowing said in an email.

Before Wong's arrest, Canadian authorities believed he was hiding with his wife
and young Canadian children in either Europe or Asia.

"Wong speaks many Asian languages, along with English. He has already changed
his name at least once, as has his wife, and this, along with his language
skills, is likely making his ability to move around Asia - where we believe he
has spent much of his time - and escape the police much easier," Houghton said
earlier.

He also told The Sun that Wong was "extremely savvy to police techniques and
counter-surveillance, but we believe that he has also made many enemies in the
criminal world."

Wong's co-accused in Canada have received stiff sentences. Last year, Jeremy
Albert Stark got 13 years and Christopher Lloyd Mehan was sentenced to 10 for
their roles in the international drug ring. Another accused, Robert Charles
Arthur, received a 3-year sentence in January.

The B.C. men were snared in the investigation started by the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles in 2008. The DEA used a confidential
informant to distribute encrypted BlackBerry devices to members of the drug
gang in both Canada and the U.S., including Stark, Mehan and Wong.

The BlackBerrys used a server inside a DEA office, allowing agents to read all
the messages about drug deliveries and money drop-offs. U.S. agents sent
information to CFSEU, which began its own investigation.

The co-ordinated effort led to 218 kilograms of cocaine being seized in 2 large
shipments smuggled through the Pacific border crossing inside commercial trucks
in December 2008.

UN gang members and associates have turned up in several countries.

(source: The Province)






MALAYSIA:

Duo charged with drug trafficking


A Malaysian and his Thai wife were jointly charged in the magistrate's court
here with trafficking in 247.1kg of cannabis earlier this month.

Abdul Rahman Mohd Zain, 55, and Sophaporn Saengsir, 44, were indicted yesterday
with committing the offence on March 5 at their house in Taman Teja, Changlun.

They face the mandatory death penalty if convicted.

Their 2 daughters, who were nabbed with them in a raid on their house by Bukit
Aman???s Special Tactical Intelligence Narcotics Group, were released
yesterday.

Magistrate Mohd Khairul Hafizuddin Ramli fixed June 5 for mention.

(source: The Star)






GHANA:

Is Rawlings ready to be executed?


The death penalty is one of the few issues I vacillate on and therefore will
not criticize anybody on any position they take, whether against or for. My
problem is that, somebody might be executed and later found out the person was
not guilty and there is no remedy to ameliorate that wrong. On other times, a
crime is so heinous there is no other punishment except death penalty, I
therefore have no problem with President Rawlings call for murderers to be
executed. The message is alright with me except the nessenger who has no moral
right to call for others to be executed for murders when he has admitted
killing others.

President Rawlings called for the execution of murderers yesterday when the
family of the slay Abuakwa North Member of Parliament, J.B Danquah's informed
him about his death and this is what he said:

"Our constitution empowers us and gives us the right to punish, to exact the
same level of punishment and if we cannot do it, to serve as a lesson, to those
who are taking others' lives with ease, then please I'd like to use this
occasion - I should have done this a long time ago - to invite Parliament to
consider the need to look into our constitution as to whether we should not now
empower the regional security councils to sign or to approve the taking of a
life for a life," Mr Rawlings said when the family of the late J B Danquah-Adu
visited the former President at his residence in Accra on Wednesday, March 16.
"

IF THAT IS PRESIDENT RAWLINGS POSITION ON DEATH PENALTY, IS HE WILLING TO BE
EXECUTED SINCE HE HAS ADMITTED TO KILLING YEYE BOY? NOW READ RAWLINGS ADMISSION
OF KILLING SOMEBODY WITHOUT ANY COURT JUDGEMENT.

WHY I KILLED 'YEYE BOY'-Rawlings Confesses

By Daily Guide - Daily Guide General News | Sat, 04 Nov 2006

Several years after the series of bloodletting, atrocities and disappearances
that characterised Jerry John Rawlings' military juntas, some of the motives
behind the sinister acts are beginning to unfold, this time from the horse's
own mouth.The leader of the bloodiest regime in Ghana's history, Flt. Lt. Jerry
John Rawlings, claimed that his main reason for ordering the execution of
Torgbui Akakpovi Ahiaku, popularly called, Yeye Boy of Atidzive, near Abor in
the Volta Region, as well as other traditionalists, was to demonstrate to their
people that juju does not pay. The former President and founder of the
opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), after nearly three decades of
silence, was virtually compelled to blow off the lid at a press conference in
his Ridge residence last week Thursday.

With no sense of remorse whatsoever, Mr Rawlings, an apostle of fetishism,
boastfully said Yeye Boy in particular, was killed to send a strong message to
fetish priests that juju was a sham. According to Mr. Rawlings, the execution
of the jujumen, who were suspects of ritual murder in their communities, was to
let the people know that there was no salvation in juju. At the conference, a
female TV Africa reporter had wanted to know whether the country, and therefore
the citizenry, was any safer now, than in the revolutionary days. Obviously not
satisfied with the responses from Victor Gbeho and other spokespersons like Dr
Benjamin Kumbuor, the unrelenting lady reporter insisted on a specific answer
to her question, which prompted the former president to tell the world, the
'hidden truth'.

Rawlings said, Talking about the lady's question on safety, we talked of the
murder of the judges and the punitive action that was taken, and I also talked
about my brother's son. When people commit ritual murders and we catch up with
them and the chiefs and timber merchants, and we execute them right in their
villages for people to think that juju has not saved them, then we are violent
people? he asked..

Yeye Boy, the fetish priest of Atidzive, near Abor in the Volta Region, was
abducted from his home by armed soldiers in 1982 and bundled into a waiting
military vehicle.

That was the last time his relatives saw, or heard of him. A few days after his
abduction from Atidzive, his charred, mutilated body was discovered in a bush
along the Accra-Ho road. He was not tried in any court of law or even military
tribunal, and no official explanation had since been given for his execution.
However, there was the strong suspicion that it was part of the witch-hunting
exercise embarked upon by the leadership of the PNDC.

Rawlings' chilling confession may now give his family the respite, as regards
the sin of the once revered jujuman. Dozens of vehicles and properties
registered in Yeye Boy's name were looted, while several of his relatives and
children were forced to go into hiding, after his sadistic murder. Unofficial
sources suggested human ritual, but his execution was not announced, as were
the cases of the generals.

In the wake of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) 2 years ago, the
children of Yeye Boy petitioned the commission and after thorough
investigations, the committee recommended reparation and apology for his death.
Torgbui Akakpovi Ahiaku was the 111th person on the reparation list and his
family is to be given c20m. Hundreds of fetish priests, traditional rulers,
students and soldiers were murdered in similar manner, a number of whom were
suspected of committing crimes as minor as indebtedness.

Yeye Boy's execution was one of the most chilling stories heard by the Justice
Amoah-Sekyi-led NRC.

The Commission was informed by a certain Mathias Kudzo, who was at the time of
the murder, a soldier with the Ho Mortar Regiment and a close Rawlings
confidante, that he was part of the team that raided Yeye Boy's location after
an order for the action was received from Accra.

The jujuman was rumoured to have been a voodoo consultant for Rawlings in the
heady days of the revolution, but attracted his wrath when he was reported to
have asked for the clothing of the junta leader.

As Bombardier Mathias Kodzo related, when a close friend of Rawlings heard
about the request which he (Yeye Boy) had made, it was believed that he drew
the attention of the junta leader to a rumour that the late General E.W.K.
Kotoka, one of the architects of the 24th February 1966, had obliged to a
similar request by the jujuman and paid dearly for it.On hearing this, the NRC
was told, Rawlings grew furious and allegedly ordered, Go and bring the bastard
whereupon his hounds charged on Yeye Boy, seized him and eventually subjected
him to a gory death.

In fact, the whole of Atidzive suffered the wrath of the soldiers, who
descended on the village to carry out the orders. Bombardier Kodzo, now a man
of God, showed visible remorse for having taken part in that operation, when he
took his turn before the NRC.That was the closest Ghanaians got to knowing what
had happened to Yeye Boy, whose abduction and subsequent death, like many
others in the course of the so-called revolution, was shrouded in mystery."

Justice Sarpong

(CRDINAL of TRUTH)

(source: ghanaweb.com)




JORDAN:

Need to fix legal aberrations


Minister of Justice Bassam Talhouni recently expressed support for the
abolition or amendment of the death penalty in a local electronic media outlet.

He also said he agreed with amending the infamous Article 308 of the Penal
Code, which spares a rapist punishment if he marries his victim.

This is encouraging, coming, as it does, from an official who could affect
change of the legislation.

The death penalty has been phased out and abolished in most countries; Jordan
need not remain an exception to the growing international consensus on the
issue for much longer.

As for the practice of not punishing a rapist simply because he marries his
victim, this is a serious aberration that must be addressed, actually revoked,
as soon as possible.

The minister is to be commended for speaking out against major shortcomings in
the national legislation on crime and punishment.

If his statements were made with the tacit blessing of the government, even
better. But whatever is the case, it is good to hear such official speak out
against laws that do not make anyone proud.

If these 2 items in the national legislation are corrected, that will be a good
step in the direction of rectifying other issues that still need to be
addressed, especially those touching on gender equality.

Jordan cannot remain out of step with the enlightened world.

If the minister's stand is taken into consideration and will be used to tackle
controversial laws, citizens will have reason to be proud of their justice
system.

Now that the country has just adopted a national plan of action for the
protection and promotion of human rights for the years 2016-2025, it behooves
the government to act on the recommendations of the minister of justice and
make the necessary changes as soon as possible.

(source: Editorial, The Jordan Times)






ISRAEL:

With 'Death for Terrorists' Bill, Israel Risks Joining a Very Dubious Club ----
Space will not suffice to enumerate all the arguments against the death
penalty, now that bill calling for the death penalty for terrorists has been
resurrected.


The bill calling for the death penalty for terrorists has suddenly been
resurrected and is coming up for debate on Sunday in the Ministerial Committee
on Legislation. The main reasons for this are the need to deter terrorists and
the fact that Israel releases terrorists before their full prison term is up.

Space will not suffice to enumerate all the arguments against the death
penalty. But it is important to make clear that comparative studies among
states in the United States, and research that compares the situation before
and after the death penalty was instituted or abolished, have not been able to
prove that it is in any way a deterrent that prevents murders, certainly not
murders committed by terrorists. The latter know that they are risking their
lives during or after their actions, so the claim that the death penalty deters
them insults our intelligence. That is also one of the reasons why, with the
exception of the United States, the death penalty does not exist in any
democratic country.

Are the supporters of the bill seriously proposing that because the government
of Israel is unable to make rational decisions about negotiating with terrorist
organizations over the release of prisoners, it will decide to execute people?
And would this solve the problem, or just exacerbate it? After all, a murder
trial with a death penalty will be a lengthy one, and during that time
terrorist groups will be especially motivated to abduct soldiers or civilians
to demand the release of the indicted or condemned individual.

If Israel insists on executing that individual, will it not be condemning to
death the next Israeli to be abducted by a terror group? It is worth recalling
the incident of the British sergeants, who were held by the pre-state
underground force Etzel and were killed after Jewish prisoners were executed -
after which no more underground prisoners were executed.

But the main argument against the death penalty has nothing to do with the
question of efficacy or deterrence but rather, the heinousness of intentional
killing, in cold blood, by the state. This is an inhuman punishment, which
leads to contempt for the value of human life and human dignity. It should also
be remembered that the death penalty is irreversible, and no system is
infallible. The State of Israel must not slip down the slope of populism and
hunger for revenge, joining the dubious club of death-penalty countries like
China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

(source: Editorial, Ha'aretz)

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March 18



AFGHANISTAN:

Hundreds Gather To Commemorate Afghan Woman Lynched By Mob


Hundreds of Afghans have taken to the streets in Kabul to commemorate the death
anniversary of a woman killed by a mob.

In March last year, a Kabul mob brutally attacked 27-year-old Farkhunda
Malikzada outside a shrine in the Afghan capital, after one of the men in the
group shouted that she had burned a Koran, the Muslim holy book -- an
accusation that was later found to be false.

The brutal slaying stunned the country and led to calls for reform of the
judicial system, long plagued by corruption, partisanship and incompetence --
and stronger protection for women from violence.

Hundreds of people, some wearing masks bearing an impression of her bloodied
face, rallied to demand justice for Farkhunda on March 17.

Protesters, some with fake blood on their faces, chanted "Justice for
Farkhunda!" on the banks of Kabul River where the frenzied mob turned on her.

Some demonstrators reenacted her grisly death, illustrating public anger over a
Supreme Court ruling last week that upheld reduced sentences for the men
convicted of her murder.

The court vacated the death penalty in 4 cases, reduced prison terms to 20
years in 3 others and 10 years in the 4th. It also cut the sentences of 9 other
defendants.

(source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)






MALDIVES:

Maldives top court to begin appeal of death sentence over MP's murder on Monday


Supreme Court announced Thursday that the 1st hearing in the state initiated
appeal of the death sentence handed to Hussain Humam over the brutal murder of
former Ungoofaru MP Dr Afrasheem Ali would begin on Monday.

Humam was found guilty of the MP's murder and sentenced to death in January
2015. He later appealed the sentence.

High Court had on September 7 upheld the death sentence handed to Humam.

The prosecutor general's (PG) office had in November forwarded the case to the
Supreme Court to initiate the final stage of appeal after Humam failed to
appeal the sentence against him within the appeal window.

Regulations on death penalty that came into effect in 2014 require the
prosecution to exhaust the appeal process -- the High Court and Supreme Court
-- even if the convict wishes to not file for appeal.

Afrasheem was found brutally stabbed to death on the stairway of his apartment
building in October 2012.

Criminal Court had acquitted Ali Shan of Hicoast in Henveyru district of
Afrasheem's murder.

(source: haveeru.com)






INDONESIA:

Indonesia to Keep Applying Death Penalty for Drug Crimes ---- Foreign minister
tells Bloomberg `we have to enforce our law'

Indonesia will continue to apply the death penalty to convicted drug
traffickers despite international opposition fanned by the executions of 12
foreign convicts last year, the country's foreign minister said.

The continuing use of the law was justified by a "drug emergency" in Southeast
Asia's largest nation, Retno Marsudi said in an interview with Bloomberg News
in Jakarta.

"That's why we have to enforce our law," Marsudi said in her office, which had
a large map of the world in one corner and a globe in the other. "It's really,
really, really worrying. It is not against a country. It's against crimes being
done by those guys."

The executions of 7 foreigners in April -- among them 2 Australians -- prompted
Australia to temporarily withdraw its ambassador. President Joko Widodo, who
had been in office 6 months at the time, refused numerous appeals for clemency.
Since April, there have been no executions.

"It's still part of Indonesian law," Marsudi said, when asked whether the
country was prepared to keep executing drug convicts. "As long as it is there,
then of course it is there."

Moderate Islam

Marsudi said the government's main foreign policy objectives were resolving
maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors, helping Indonesians working
abroad, furthering the country???s economic objectives and strengthening its
voice at international forums.

The foreign minister also said Indonesia would intensify efforts to promote its
traditionally less-conservative brand of Islam around the world. In January,
militants claiming allegiance to Islamic State staged a suicide bomb attack in
the capital, Jakarta, in what was the 1st major terrorist attack in the world's
most populous Muslim nation since 2008.

"The moderate Islam, the tolerant Islam -- that is the Islam in Indonesia," she
said "We want to reflect that and share our experience."

Asked whether she was concerned about the anti-Muslim rhetoric of U.S.
presidential candidate Donald Trump, Marsudi said she hoped America's tradition
of tolerance would be maintained.

"I don't want to comment on the political campaigns of other countries, but
what I would like to underline is the values of the Americans," she said. "I
know that they have the values of respecting diversity and respecting
differences."

(source: Bloomberg News)






JAPAN:

Killer of 6-year-old Kobe girl gets death penalty


The Kobe District Court on Friday gave the death sentence to a man who killed a
6-year-old girl in the city in 2014.

Yasuhiro Kimino, 49, lured the 1st-grader to his home by asking her to sit for
a painting. He then strangled and stabbed her, dismembered her body and placed
it in plastic bags, prosecutors say.

The prosecutors sought the death penalty, saying Kimino showed a brutal
disregard for human life.

The case was tried by presiding Judge Takeshi Samo, 2 other professional judges
and 6 lay judges.

(source: The Japan Times)






INDIA:

2 awarded death penalty for killing 4-year-old


The convicts Akshay Patel (24) and Kuldeep Panchal (26) broke down in the court
after additional sessions judge KM Dave pronounced the death sentence. The duo
had abducted Golu, son of a share broker in Kansa village, on March 17, 2012
for ransom. They had demanded Rs 50 lakh for his release. But the boy's father
informed police, who began a search for the kid. However, Golu's body was found
the next day from a river bank near Visnagar. Post-mortem report revealed that
Golu was strangulated to death.

Akshay and Kuldeep were arrested after few days.

Judge Dave termed the abduction and killing of the 4-year-old by as rarest of
the rare case and ordered that they be hanged till death.

Public prosecutor Sanjay Patel said that the both pleaded for mercy from the
judge saying that they were young and they should not be given death penalty.
However, the judge refused to entertain their plea.

(source: The Times of India)






GERMANY:

German state to finally get rid of death penalty


The central state of Hesse is overhauling their constitution, making sure to
get rid of one thing in particular that no other state has: the death penalty.

In the wake of the Second World War, Germany wrote a new Constitution with
reforms intended to shake off its violent Nazi past, including to clearly
define where the country newly stood on the death penalty.

"Capital punishment is abolished," states Article 102 simply, with no further
explanation.

The Constitution, or Grundgesetz, was signed in 1949, but just three years
before, the state of Hesse apparently had its own ideas about capital
punishment.

"For especially severe crimes, the sentence can be death," dictates Article 21
of Hesse's state constitution, written in 1946.

Now, 70 years later, Hesse is at last working to clear up this inconsistency.

When the Grundgesetz was approved, it immediately superseded the state law,
thus making Article 21 essentially irrelevant. Even during the three years in
between those legal documents being signed, capital punishment was never
exercised in Hesse, though it was used in other parts of the country, according
to Tagesspiegel.

Hesse's state legislators met this week to discuss reforming the constitution,
which would also include changes like lowering the minimum age of voting in
state elections from 21 to 18 - something else unusual to Hesse.

The last time Hesse attempted to negotiate a similar major constitutional
reform, which included changing the death penalty, was between 2003 and 2005,
Hesse parliament spokeswoman Carola May told The Local. But the various parties
could not agree on the proposed changes. The death penalty remained.

To finalize the reform, Hesse will have to put forth a referendum to the
people.

In Europe, only Belarus maintains the death penalty in both law and practice,
while 102 countries worldwide have abolished it.

In a surprising survey 2 years ago, a law professor in Bavaria found that 1/3
of his students and aspiring lawyers supported the death penalty.

(source: thelocal.de)

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[Rick Halperin]

March 19




BARBADOS:

Mercy for victims' families too


It would be quite hard for any reasonable person to argue with any degree of
strength that there is not significant merit in the suggestion of Director of
Public Prosecutions (DPP) Charles Leacock QC on the way the Mercy Committee of
the local Privy Council exercises its power in relation to murder convicts.

Just days after the release of Peter Bradshaw, the notorious killer of Francia
Plantation owner Cyril Sisnett back in 1984; and Oliver Sinclair Archer, who
was found guilty of manslaughter in relation to the killing of Andrea Williams
in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, Leacock called for consultation
with the victims' families before perpetrators are released early.

In essence, what we took from the DPP's submission is that there is tremendous
value in balancing the success of the prison's rehabilitative programmes with
the perpetrators and the sense among the families of the victims that justice
has been served.

And in an environment where the imposition and execution of the death penalty
are destined to become less frequently considered by those who administer the
criminal justice system, it is very likely that the absence of consultation
when the Mercy Committee is doing its work will lead to more frequent
questioning of the process by the public.

We believe that as the society continues to evolve, acceptance back into the
community of individuals who were imprisoned for the ultimate crime will be
seen increasingly as a natural occurrence in our civilised environment. Indeed,
it would be nothing less than hypocritical to expend resources on
rehabilitating prisoners, have the experts certify their success, and then not
be willing to release them back into the society.

But if the justification for each individual release can't at least be shared
and discussed with the families of the victims, who themselves are victims, and
their own concerns and reservations taken into consideration, then the value of
early release will never be fully appreciated. We believe this is essential to
the successful reintegration of released prisoners.

We also hold the view that while the family may not be a disinterested party in
any such consideration or discussion, in many respects that family would
constitute the nearest embodiment of the public's sentiment on such matters.
And although there is no doubt that the individuals who make up the committee
are honourable and respected members of the Barbadian community, it would be
hard to equate them with the man in the street.

And it is that man in the street who would wish to be satisfied that all
interests have been properly served when, for example, Oliver Sinclair Archer,
who was given a life sentence in 1980 in Canada for killing Jennifer Wong, his
girlfriend, was released early in 1988 on good behaviour and deported to
Barbados 4 years later and then ended up being charged for 2 killings here, 1
of them resulting in his 25-year sentence.

As far as we are aware that Mercy Committee is under no legal obligation to
report to the public, but it certainly would make a positive difference to how
Barbadians feel about its work if its procedures included some kind of
interaction with the public, even if that "public" is restricted to the
families of the victims.

We support limitations on the use of the death penalty, which we believe is a
position being adopted by more Barbadians, but in the absence of carrying out
the death penalty there is the possibility of more and more murderers being
released back into the society eventually. It can't be unreasonable for those
who will have to live with these supposedly rehabilitated murderers to know
what factors guided the decision to release them early.

(source: Editorial, nationnews.com)






RUSSIA:

Putin says he needs someone to hang if Crimea bridge isn't built


President Vladimir Putin said he wants to identify an official who can be
hanged if a bridge linking Crimea to Russia isn't built, as he complained that
nobody wants to take charge of the project.

"There should be a specific person who can be hanged if it's not done," Putin
said during a visit to Crimea to view construction work on Friday, the second
anniversary of Russia's annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine. Officials
keep passing responsibility for the work to colleagues in different ministries,
he said.

Construction of the 19-kilometer (12 miles) bridge to end the peninsula's
isolation is a "historical mission" for Russia that must be completed by Dec.
18, 2018, Putin said. The span linking Crimea to Russia across the Kerch Strait
will boost economic growth, he said.

Putin annexed Crimea in March 2014 after the peninsula approved joining Russia
in a referendum branded illegal by the United States and the European Union,
which imposed sanctions. The vote took place after masked, armed men seized the
parliament and government buildings in the Crimean capital, Simferopol,
following the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
Putin at first denied sending troops to Crimea, then later admitted that
Russian servicemen had assisted local self-defense units.

It was unclear if Putin was speaking figuratively when he made his threat,
though a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia has been in force since
1996.

The Crimean peninsula is connected to Ukraine and has no land link to Russia.
It was conquered by Russian Empress Catherine the Great in the 18th century and
became part of Ukraine only in 1954 -- a gift of then-Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev.

Ukraine has vowed to reclaim Crimea. French President Francois Hollande and
German Chancellor Angela Merkel "reaffirmed that the EU does not recognize the
occupation of Crimea by Russia," at talks Thursday in Brussels with President
Petro Poroshenko, according to the Ukrainian presidential website.

Crimeans' decision to join Russia should be respected and the peninsula's
status can't "be the subject of any negotiations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov told reporters on a conference call Friday.

Russia's "illegal invasion" of Crimea won't be accepted "under any circumstance
and Moscow eventually has to end its occupation of Ukraine's sovereign
territory," U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on a visit to the Ukrainian
capital, Kiev, in December.

(source: Chicago Tribune)






UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

Trial of U.S. Citizens Detained in UAE Resumes


On Monday, March 21 the trial resumes in the UAE's prosecution of American
citizens Kamal and Momed Eldarat. Arrested in the UAE in August 2014, the
Eldarats were held in secret, tortured, and denied access to legal counsel.
Monday's hearing could determine whether or not the father and son will be
convicted of trumped-up terrorism charges.

On January 18, 2016, after nearly 18 months of detention, the Eldarats were
charged with supporting 2 alleged Libyan terrorist groups during the Arab
Spring. Neither groups are recognized by the U.N. as terrorist organizations.
The Eldarats deny any involvement with the Libyan groups, which splintered in
the wake of the country's civil war. The only "evidence" the prosecution has to
support its claims is the signed "confessions" of the Eldarats - obtained under
torture.

On the 1st day of the trial, which began on February 15th, the judge adjourned
the case for 2 weeks. When the trial resumed on February 29th, it was again
postponed after 30 minutes to conduct a forensic medical assessment of the
allegations of torture and to call additional witnesses. If the court finds
Kamal and Momed guilty, the father and son could face the death penalty with no
right to appeal.

During these fits and starts, international pressure for the UAE to free the
Eldarats is mounting. The prosecution of the Eldarats has been widely condemned
by human rights groups and the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on torture
issued a statement in February citing credible evidence that the Eldarats were
tortured and called for Kamal and Momed's unconditional release.

This international pressure, coupled with the expected testimony of Libyan
officials, including the country's former president, bolsters the Eldarats'
chances for release. Furthermore, on March 14, 2016, a UAE court found 2 other
Libyan nationals also charged with aiding armed groups innocent and the case
was dismissed. That outcome bodes well for the Eldarats and their family. Both
trials share common characteristics, including fabricated terrorism charges, a
prosecution based on coerced confessions, retroactive use of a law, and
prolonged, unlawful imprisonment.

There is no guarantee that the medical examination, carried out by a court
appointed physician, heeded international standards for the investigation of
torture. According to family member Amal Eldarat, Kamal and Momed's respective
examinations did not exceed 5 minutes. It is difficult to imagine how the
extent of the abuse can be assessed in such superficial examinations.

U.S. support for the Eldarats is essential for a just resolution of the case.
While U.S. embassy personnel attended the hearings in January and February and
plan to attend Monday's, the State Department has spoken of the Eldarats far
too infrequently during their lengthy detention. When asked if she thought the
U.S. government believes the UAE's allegations against her father and brother,
Amal Eldarat told the Huffington Post, "I don't think they think it's legit,
but they're silent."

Meanwhile, such silence has allowed UAE officials, like Ambassador to the U.S.
Yousef al Otaiba, to spin their own distorted version of events to the American
public. In response to a Washington Post story on the Eldarat's ordeal, al
Otaiba stated, "just as in the United States, the defendants received a
hearing, were represented by legal counsel and were allowed to contact their
families and U.S. diplomatic representatives."

It is neither in the interests of the UAE nor the United States to let the case
against the Eldarats drag on. The publicity surrounding the Eldarats is
increasing, bringing light to the wider problem of the UAE's brutal state
security apparatus and raising questions about Washington's alliance with Abu
Dhabi. As Obama prepares to meet with GCC leaders in Saudi Arabia next month,
there is a risk that the United States may prioritize its relations with a
repressive ally over the human rights of American citizens. The U.S. government
should do everything in its power to prove this is not the case.

(source: Human Rights First)






INDONESIA:

3rd Wave of Executions to Be Realized Soon: AGO


Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said that a number of drug convicts would
face the 3rd wave of executions soon. While the number of death row convicts
increased, Prasetyo claimed that the executions were hampered by weather
conditions.

"It's difficult [to conduct executions] during the rainy season. We'll see
about that. I've never said that the executions will be canceled. It's just a
matter of time," Prasetyo said on Friday, March 18, 2016, without revealing
names of convicts on death row.

Prasetyo also dismissed a rumor saying that the Attorney General Office (AGO)
had been pressured by foreign countries to postpone the executions.

"There's no such thing. This is our law enforcement. We will enforce our law in
our own country, and Indonesian law still applies death sentence," Prasetyo
explained.

Therefore, the AGO would stick to the execution schedule, although a human
rights organization Imparsial was in communication with Prasetyo asking the AGO
to postpone this year???s execution.

Earlier, the AGO announced its target to execute 14 convicts in 2016 during the
budget plan discussion with House of Representatives' Commission III. In 2015,
the AGO conducted 2 waves of executions: the 1st one on January 18, 2015 and
the second one in April 29, 2015.

(source: tempo.co)






ITALY:

The Catholic Movement Against Capital Punishment


On February 21st, as Mario Marazziti prepared Sunday lunch at his apartment in
Trastevere, he had the television on, turned to Rai Vaticano, the Italian state
channel devoted to coverage of the Catholic Church. It showed an image of Pope
Francis in the window of the papal apartments overlooking St. Peter's Square.
There - a 15-minute walk from Trastevere, via the old pilgrim road - Francis
was leading the faithful in a set of prayers known as the Angelus. The Pope
usually speaks briefly when the prayers are finished, and, on this Sunday,
Francis called for a global moratorium on the death penalty, as part of the
Year of Mercy he initiated last fall.

"The commandment 'Do not kill' holds absolute value and applies to both the
innocent and the guilty," Francis said. He called for politicians to work for
the abolition of the death penalty, and went on, "And I propose to all those
among them who are Catholic to make a courageous and exemplary gesture: may no
execution sentence be carried out in this Holy Year of Mercy."

Popes have denounced capital punishment for four decades, drawing on a much
longer history of religious revulsion toward the practice; but, by calling for
a moratorium, Francis turned opprobrium for the death penalty into a simple
step that governments and their executives can take.

Marazziti had hoped that Pope Francis would offer a statement of support for
the moratoria. He and his compatriots in the Community of Sant'Egidio, a
progressive Catholic movement based in Rome, were instrumental in bringing it
about. They had asked Francis to consider making such a statement in advance of
a conference against the death penalty they had planned for the coming week.

It's the sort of request that Marazziti has made of public figures many times.
He is a founder of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, an alliance
of more than 150 N.G.O.s, unions, bar associations, and other groups, which
emerged out of a conference held at Sant'Egidio???s headquarters, in Rome, in
2002. Meanwhile, the Community of Sant'Egidio has made the Colosseum - where
Christians were thrown to the lions - a symbol of resistance to capital
punishment, arranging for it to be lit up especially brightly at night each
time a government renounces the practice. Marazziti and the movement he
represents have created a patchwork consensus against the death penalty, and,
in countries that still have the death penalty, such as the United States -
retentionist countries, the movement calls them - it is a consensus that
politicians are finding harder and harder to resist.

He sat down to lunch with his family: wife, mother-in-law, son,
daughter-in-law, grandson. They talked about what they had just seen and heard.
After the meal, he sent an e-mail to several thousand people with whom he has
made common cause over the years (myself among them). "I am very happy," he
said, and summarized Francis's message: "No Death Penalty, no executions,
during Mercy???s Year. And never again."

Marazziti, who is 63, with thick, straight hair, travels light, bringing one
change of clothes, a Moleskine knapsack full of late-model mobile devices, and
gifts from Italy, for friends, wherever he is going. He worked for 3 decades as
a television producer with RAI. After Silvio Berlusconi's ouster from electoral
politics, Marazziti and several dozen other non-politicians stood for election
in an attempt to infuse the government with fresh life from civil society. Now
he is a member of Italy's lower house of parliament, the Camera dei Deputati,
and the president of its social-affairs commission. The February conference -
called A World Without the Death Penalty - was held in the body's chambers.

His true workspace, though, is out in the world, where he has travelled
cheerfully and tirelessly since his late twenties, on efforts ranging from
conflict mediation to AIDS relief to simple friendship. Most of his work is
with the Community of Sant'Egidio, which emerged in Rome after the student
uprisings of 1968 and now counts sixty thousand members worldwide (albeit only
a few dozen of us in the United States). Its members fit humanitarian efforts
into the space around their day jobs, and do so without compensation. Marazziti
was long known as the Community of Sant'Egidio's "portavoce," or spokesman. As
an elected official he has dropped the job description, which never suited him.
What is he? "Humanitarian" is too starchy, "activist" too strident, "organizer"
too prosaic. He is a person who goes places and does good things, making the
impossible seem obvious. "Mario and Sant'Egidio walk the talk like none other,"
Lance Lindsey, the administrative director of the California Appellate Project
and a longtime activist against the death penalty in that state, told me.

"On the global scene, no one has worked harder with me to abolish the death
penalty than this man," Sister Helen Prejean, whose efforts were recounted in
the book and film "Dead Man Walking," said last year. In addition to helping
found the World Coalition, Marazziti has befriended men on death row, some
plainly guilty, others later exonerated; made "Dominique's Story,", a
documentary (narrated by John Turturro) about death row in Texas; and written a
book, in English, called "13 Ways of Looking at the Death Penalty." (I
contributed an afterword to the book.) And he has helped persuade several
governors to bring about the abolition of the death penalty in their states -
notably, Bill Richardson, in New Mexico, and Pat Quinn, in Illinois. "Mario and
Sant'Egidio are very good at mixing policy and politics - and a little
marketing," Richardson told me. "He made the trip to New Mexico. He promised a
ceremony at the Colosseum if I signed the bill, and he delivered on it. An
audience with the Pope [Benedict XVI]: well, that was just icing."

Sant'Egidio's members knew Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he was the Archbishop of
Buenos Aires, and since Bergoglio was elected Pope, in March, 2013, they've
maintained a bond of friendship and mutual trust. Andrea Riccardi and Marco
Impagliazzo - the movement's founder, and its current president - met with Pope
Francis before Sant'Egidio's annual Prayer for Peace, held in Tirana, Albania,
last September - 2 weeks before Francis's speech to a joint session of
Congress, where he spoke approvingly of the prospect of the global abolition of
the death penalty. "Albania is one of the last countries in Europe to have
abolished the death penalty, but we did not speak of this issue," Impagliazzo
told me. They also rescheduled a November, 2016, conference on the death
penalty for February, so as to tie it to the Year of Mercy, and asked Cardinal
Reinhard Marx, of Munich - 1 of Francis's "group of 8" cardinal-advisers - to
be a speaker. "We sent information about it through the Segreteria di Stato,
well knowing the attention of Pope Francis to this issue and his longing for a
world without the death penalty, asking for a message or whatever he may have
thought more useful," Impagliazzo told me. He decided not to send a message to
the conference but to send it worldwide, through the Angelus. He could not have
been clearer."

"There was no arrangement, no deal," Marazziti said. "But we were pretty
hopeful that it would happen. The Pope decides, and he decided to do it. I
think he wrote his own remarks." (The papal spokesman, Federico Lombardi, S.J.,
did not answer a request for comment.)

In a moratorium, a government's legislature or head of state makes a pledge
that the state will refrain from capital punishment for a period of time,
although the death penalty remains on the books as a legal option. At the turn
of the millennium, activists against the death penalty were divided between
those seeking moratoria and those who would not work for anything less than
full abolition. Marazziti favored the step-by-step approach. After the World
Coalition was founded, in 2002, he organized a call for a resolution against
the death penalty in the United Nations General Assembly, and it passed in
December, 2007. (The United States voted against it.) "Although the Resolution
was non-binding, it set an international moral standard," he explained in his
book, "asserting that the death penalty was a question of human rights, not
just one of internal justice. Capital punishment became an issue for the
international community, and not just the 'good souls' at the NGO's."

The step-by-step approach to ending the death penalty is clearly working, both
abroad and in the United States. During the conference in Rome, Marazziti
summarized its progress: When the Helsinki Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe took place, in 1975, 16 countries had abolished the death
penalty. When the Berlin Wall fell, in 1989, 35 had done so. In 2016, 105
countries have abolished the death penalty, and another 60 have not used it in
a decade. Fewer than 30 countries have carried out executions in the past few
years: among them China, Japan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, and
the United States. Last year 28 people were executed in the U.S., the lowest
number in 25 years.

The death penalty is on the defensive even in states where it enjoys robust
popular support - and Marazziti and his associates have had a hand in this,
too. In Oklahoma, for some years, executions were performed by lethal injection
with a cocktail of 3 drugs. Through activists with the anti-death-penalty group
Reprieve, Marazziti learned that 1 of the drugs - sodium thiopental - was
manufactured in Liscate, near Milan, by an Italian subsidiary of the drug
company Hospira, which is based in Lake Forest, Illinois. Because capital
punishment is against the law in Italy, and because the drug was clearly being
used for non-therapeutic purposes, Marazziti and activists with the European
abolition movement Hands Off Cain concluded that the export of the drug was
illegal. Hands Off Cain wished to denounce Hospira. Marazziti, instead, reached
out to Italy's minister of justice and minister of health, and then entered
into dialogue with representatives of Hospira. A week later, the company ceased
to produce the drug in Italy. As The Atlantic has reported, Reprieve undertook
a similar effort in England, and sodium thiopental became exceedingly hard to
obtain, even on the black market. "This was the 1st crisis of the
lethal-injection system in the U.S," Marazziti said.

Challenged in the courts in the United States, the death penalty is dying in
the people's court of human rights, with Pope Francis's call for moratoria on
capital punishment just the latest strike against it. I asked Marazziti what he
saw as the practical effect of Francis's statement. "It creates a context in
which politicians in difficult circumstances can do the hard thing, whether in
Uzbekistan or the United States - to work for abolition, and to deal with
public opinion," he said. "And it enables us to accompany them."

(source: The New Yorker)





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[Rick Halperin]

March 20



PHILIPPINES:

Cebu debate: Duterte, Poe favor return of death penalty----Why are they in
favor of bringing back death penalty? Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte says
it's for cases involving drugs, while Senator Grace Poe says it's for heinous
crimes


During the second "Yes or No" segment of the Cebu presidential debate on
Sunday, March 20, only Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Senator Grace Poe
raised their hands when asked who among the candidates were in favor of
bringing back the death penalty in the Philippines.

The "Yes or No" segment - a last-minute addition in the second presidential
debate organized by the Commission on Elections - asked candidates about
various issues, after which they would raise their hands if they were in favor.

Candidates were not allowed to explain their stand, but both candidates were
able to say a few words to explain their vote: drugs for Duterte, and drugs and
heinous crimes for Poe.

The death penalty was abolished in 1986 when President Corazon Aquino took over
the reins of power from Ferdinand Marcos. It was reintroduced by President
Fidel Ramos in 1993, then suspended again in 2006.

The 1st question during the "Yes or No" segment was whether the 4 presidential
candidates present were in favor of divorce. None of them raised a hand after
the question was asked. (READ: Cebu presidential debate: All candidates against
divorce)

The Visayas leg of the presidential debates mounted by the Comelec with media
partners TV 5 and Philippine Star started past 6:30 pm, or one and a half hour
later than planned.

Aside from Duterte and Poe, Vice President Jejomar Binay and former Interior
Secretary Manuel Roxas II also attended Sunday's debate.

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago skipped the event for health reasons, but she
is open to death penalty for drug traffickers, according to a tweet on her
official Twitter account.

(source: rappler.com)






ISRAEL:

Death penalty for terrorists?----Ministerial committee set to discuss
controversial proposal. Bill would remove barriers to executing terrorists
convicted of murder.


The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is set to discuss on Sunday a
controversial proposal from former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that
would enable courts to sentence convicted terrorists to death.

Lieberman, who made a campaign slogan promising the death penalty for
terrorists, proposed the bill last year.

If passed, the legislation would enable military courts to sentence terrorists
convicted of attacks "intended to kill citizens for political, national,
religious, or ideological purposes."

The law would also require only a majority, rather than a unanimous decision,
to sentence terrorists to death. It would also prohibit reducing the sentence
once it has been finalized.

The Ministerial Committee meets every Sunday to discuss pending legislation and
to determine the government's official position on specific bills. The
Committee can either vote to affirm or deny the proposal government support,
which would obligate all coalition members to vote in favor of the bill, all
but assuring its passage.

The Israel Democracy Institute blasted the proposal, calling upon the Committee
to reject it on Sunday. In a 5 page statement the IDI argued that permitting
the death penalty would put Israel in company with some of the world's most
undemocratic regimes and biggest human rights offenders like China, North
Korea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.

Israeli law currently includes the death penalty, but judicial barriers have
prevented its use since the execution of Adolf Eichmann in 1962.

(source: Israel National News)






AFGHANISTAN:

#Farkhunda: Hundreds protest in Kabul 1 year after execution of innocent woman


Activists have gathered in Kabul to mark the 1 year anniversary of Farkhunda
Malikzada's death by staging protests and putting on a play which relived
Malikzada's execution.

A monument was also unveiled in front of the Kabul River in memory of the
27-year-old who was beaten by a mob of mostly young men, set alight and then
thrown into the river.

Hundreds of Afghans gathered to support justice for Ms Malikzada, wearing masks
bearing her bloodied face, and to fight for greater protection of women who
often suffer oppression and abuse in Afghanistan.

"Farkhunda is our conscience. We are all Farkhunda," protesters shouted.

"It is our enemies who burned you."

In a very dramatic spectacle, a theatre troupe re-enacted the deadly attack
which included a young woman taking on the part of Ms Malikzada and being hit
and thrown around the stage by fellow actors.

The shrine to honour Ms Malikzada, an Islamic studies student, features a
clenched fist at its highest point and cell phones are now banned at the shrine
as well as the adjacent mosque.

The busy street where Ms Malikzada was killed has also now been unofficially
renamed "The Martyr Farkhunda Street" with an accompanying sign made by local
carpenters and blacksmiths after her death.

Protesters also planted a tree at the site where Ms Malikzada was burned.

Earlier this month Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ordered the re-opening of Ms
Malikzada's case just days after the country's highest court upheld the reduced
sentences for the men convicted of her murder.

The court vacated the death penalty in 4 cases and reduced the prison sentences
of 9 other defendants convicted.

Ms Malikzada's public murder was sparked by allegations she had set fire to the
Koran but authorities later claimed there was no evidence she ever did so.

(source: ABC news)






BANGLADESH:

Qamrul asked to provide fresh explanation, next hearing on Mar 27----Food
Minister Qamrul Islam has been asked by the apex court to provide fresh
explanations over his remarks on appeal hearing of war crimes convict Mir
Quasem Ali.

Qamrul and his colleague Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq
appeared before the Supreme Court on Sunday.

The court found Qamrul's explanation not good enough and told him to provide a
fresh one.

The 7-member bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha has fixed Mar 27
for the next hearing and asked the ministers to appear before it on that day.

The Cabinet members had been pulled up by the top court's full bench for their
remarks made at a roundtable on Mar 5.

In compliance with an earlier court order, the ministers appeared before the
court on Sunday and explained themselves through their lawyers.

Both of them, however, had already apologised and sought the court's
forgiveness for their remarks.

Barrister Rafique Ul Huq and advocate Abdul Baset Majumder represented the
ministers in court on Sunday.

The Cabinet members had to stand on the dock for about 5 minutes after the
court began proceedings at 9:15am. They were later allowed to sit down after
their counsels pleaded to the court.

Speaking at a discussion on Mar 5, Qamrul had called for a new bench that, in
his view, should exclude the chief justice to hear Mir Quasem's appeal.

Justice Sinha's displeasure at the work of the International Crimes
Tribunal???s investigators and prosecutors in the war crimes cases, including
Mir Quasem's one, had been seen by the minister as a 'broad hint' that the war
criminal's death penalty might not be upheld.

Minister Mozammel had also criticised the chief justice at the same programme.

Their remarks had led to a furore in the media and social networking sites,
prompting the Ganajagaran Mancha to suspect a 'conspiracy' to save the
Jamaat-e-Islami leader.

Leaders of the BNP as well as Mir Quasem's chief counsel Khandker Mahbub
Hossain had described the ministers' comments as 'interference in the
judiciary's independence'.

While Attorney General Mahbubey Alam urged all to refrain from commenting on
the sub-judice matter, Law Minister Anisul Huq and Commerce Minister Tofail
Ahmed even refrained from commenting on their colleagues' remarks.

Media reports said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Cabinet meeting on Mar 7
had made it clear that the ministers' remarks did not represent the views of
her government.

On Mar 8, the top court delivered the verdict in the case, upholding former
Al-Badr leader Mir Quasem's death sentence, for his 1971 war crimes, handed
down by the International Crimes Tribunal in November 2014.

Before the verdict was pronounced, the nin9-member full appeals bench issued an
order summoning Qamrul Islam and Mozammel Huq to appear before it on Mar 15.

The court said their comments had "undermined the dignity and prestige of the
Supreme Court and the office of the chief justice";

It also issued a notice asking why legal action would not be taken against them
for their comments and told the ministers to respond by Mar 14.

Mozammel appeared before the court on Mar 15 while Qamrul's lawyer appealed for
more time as his client was out of the country on an official trip.

The court had then fixed Mar 20 for the hearing.

(source: bdnews24.com)






MALDIVES:

Maldives pres says death penalty only way for stability----Implementing death
penalty will only bring stability and harmony to the Maldives, President
Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom said Saturday.


At the closing ceremony of the third symposium on training campaign leaders for
his re-election, President Yameen said his government's aim is to bring peace
and harmony to the society. That cannot be achieved only through legislation,
he added.

"Why are some people so fond of taking the life of another person? Why should
there be space for that? We don't want that to happen," the president said, at
the ceremony held at the Dharubaaruge convention centre in capital Male.

The president's comments follow a series of new rules and regulations adopted
by the authorities to implement capital punishment and is currently drafting a
law on death penalty.

High Court had in November annulled the clause giving the president power to
grant clemency to convicts on death row.

The Supreme Court had issued new guidelines recently allowing death sentences
and public lashing rulings issued by lower courts to be appealed automatically
at the High Court.

In a circular, the Supreme Court said if the defendant fails to appeal death
sentences and public lashing verdicts within 10 days, the court that had
initially issued the verdict should forward the relevant documents to the High
Court. The appellate court would have seven days to notify both the defendant
and the prosecution of the appeal and during that period should take the
necessary steps to begin appeal proceedings, it added.

The new rules follow similar guidelines issued by the apex court in November.

The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on November 8 giving a month-long
window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed
by High Court.

According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court
verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day
period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the
prosecution.

The guidelines, included in a circular signed by Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed,
did not specifically mention sentences of death and public lashing. However, it
says that High Court rulings that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court
had to be appealed within 30 days, including public holidays.

Under local laws, the only sentences that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme
Court are death sentences and public lashing verdicts.

Judicature Act earlier granted a 90-day period, excluding public holidays, to
appeal rulings by any court.

However, the Supreme Court had in January 2015 annulled that clause and issued
new guidelines under which rulings issued by lower courts had to be appealed at
the High Court within 10 days and appeal over High Court verdicts needed to be
filed at the Supreme Court within 60 days

Meanwhile, the government has included funds in the state budget for this year
to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to carry out the
death penalty.

Government had, meanwhile, adopted a new regulation in 2014 under which lethal
injection would be used to implement the death penalty.

However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been
refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital
punishment.

Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be
ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by
the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the government announced on November 16 that it was in the process
of drafting legislation on implementing death penalty.

Attorney General Mohamed Anil told reporters that the bill being drafted by his
office would expand on the already existing regulations on death penalty. The
bill would include procedures on conducting murder investigations, filing
charges in such cases and conducting proceedings in murder cases, he added.

There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has
exhausted the appeal process thus far.

(source: haveeru.com)






INDONESIA:

Death Penalty Execution for Drug-Related Convicts to Continue This
Year----Several drug-related convicts who are on death row will be executed
this year.


The Indonesian government is firm in its stance of upholding the drug penalty
law for convicted drug traffickers. This year, the government will send to the
gallows several Indonesian nationals who are on death row for drug trafficking.

This is according to Coordinating Minister for Political, Law and Defense
Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

The minister, however, did mention the number of inmates who are going to be
executed and he also did not identify them.

"This year it will be implemented (death penalty) to Indonesian nationals,"
Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said in his 1-hour public lecture at Institu
Teknologi Bandung (ITB) on Friday (18/3) as reported by Tempo.co. He was
commenting on the government's past decisions to delay the execution of drug
inmates in response to their new claims of innocence.

In April last year, shortly after the execution of 8 drug traffickers including
an Indonesian nationals, a well-placed official at the Attorney General's
Office said the government was making plan to send to the gallows 5 death row
prisoners. But, he did not say whether they were drug traffickers.

Meanwhile, in January of last year, 6 drug-related death-row prisoners
including 5 foreign nationals, went to the gallows.

(source: globalindonesianvoices.com)

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March 21




UNITED KINGDOM/ETHIOPIA:

Andy Tsege: Britain helps fund Ethiopian regime holding UK activist on death
row----The UK Government is using taxpayers' money to bolster the Ethiopian
security forces responsible for the imprisonment of a 60-year-old Briton facing
the death sentence, it can be revealed.


Human rights groups have condemned the British Government after using Freedom
of Information laws to uncover the fact the UK is spending hundreds of
thousands to fund a training centre run by the Ethiopian military.

Andargachew "Andy" Tsege was arrested in Yemen in June 2014, while en route to
Africa from the Middle East. The whereabouts of the father of three, from
London, were unknown until weeks later when it emerged he had been imprisoned
in Ethiopia. A death sentence was passed against Mr Tsege - an opponent of the
Ethiopian government who fled to Britain as a political refugee in 1979 - after
a trial held in his absence 6 years ago.

His plight has been repeatedly raised with the Ethiopian government by British
officials. But it has now emerged that the UK spent more than a million pounds
subsidising security projects in Ethiopia while Mr Tsege has languished on
death row.

The funding has been given by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the
Ministry of Defence (MoD), through a Conflict, Security and Stabilisation Fund
set up by the Government last year.

Half a million pounds has been spent on a master's degree programme in
"security sector management" and 546,500 pounds has been given to the Ethiopian
Peace Support Training Centre, according to an FCO response to a Freedom of
Information request.

The UK Government refused to divulge details of a human rights risk assessment
made prior to the funding being given, citing "the need to protect information
that would be likely to prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and
other states".

Mr Tsege's partner, Yemi Hailemariam, mother of their 3 children, told The
Independent: "Since Andy's disappearance, our family has been in agony - all we
want is for him to come home. It's deeply worrying to think that, throughout
all this, the UK is supporting the same Ethiopian security apparatus that has
detained Andy.

"We sincerely hope that the Foreign Office is using its close links to
Ethiopia's government to secure Andy's release - rather than supporting his
kidnappers."

Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "This funding
raises potentially serious questions over the UK's approach to Ethiopia???s
security forces - forces who were responsible for the kidnap and rendition to
Ethiopia of British national Andy Tsege in June 2014."

Kevin Laue, legal advisor at the human rights charity Redress, said: "Instead
of demanding his release and return, the UK Government appears to be bolstering
the capacity of the Ethiopian security services - the very institution behind
this continuing travesty of justice."

This comes amid mounting concern over the welfare of the 60-year-old father of
3.

In an analysis of a transcript from a visit by British officials to Mr Tsege at
Ethiopia's notorious Kaliti prison last December, Dr Ben Robinson, a
psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, said the Briton's mental
health "has declined precipitously since being detained in Ethiopia".

David Cameron is under increasing pressure to intervene. The Prime Minister is
planning to visit Ethiopia later this month. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who
is Mr Tsege's local MP, said: "I have written to the Prime Minister asking him
to demand his unconditional release. It is completely unacceptable that a
British citizen should be treated in this way by a state that purports to be a
respected member of the international family of nations."

In a statement last night, a Government spokeswoman said: "The Foreign
Secretary again raised Mr Tsege's case with the Ethiopian foreign minister, in
person on 13 February, making it clear the way he has been treated is
unacceptable.

They added: "Separately, we support training courses that are designed to give
members of the Ethiopian military an improved range of skills in non-combat
areas while they serve on regional peace missions that are vital to UK
interests."

Background: 'Ethiopia's Mandela'

Andargachew "Andy" Tsege has been desecribed as Ethiopia's Nelson Mandela by
campaigners and suporters, including Clive Stafford-Smith, the director of
Reprieve.

The head of an opposition movement called Ginbot 7, he came to Britain as a
political refugee in 1979. In June 2014, while he was on route from Dubai to
Eritrea, he disappeared during a stopover in Sanaa, Yemen. 2 weeks later, it
emerged that he had been arrested by the Yemeni authorities on the basis of a
security agreement between Yemen and Ethiopia. Mr Tsege had been transferred to
Ethiopia, and remains in prison there.

6 years ago, at a trial held in his absence, Mr Tsege was given sentenced to
death for allegedly plotting a coup and planning to kill Ethiopian officials -
claims he has denied.

(source: The Independent)






SOMALIA:

Somali Female Journalist Killers Sentenced to Death


2 Al shabaab members who have been convicted of murdering a female Somali
journalist have been sentenced to death by the military tribunal of Somalia on
Sunday.

Liban Ali Yarow, the chief of Somali military court said evidence brought in
support of the case showed that they had execution role of Hinda Hajji Mohamed,
female journalist killed in car bomb on 3rd December, 2015.

Hinda who worked for the state media has been killed in a bomb attached under
the seat of her private car which exploded out Turkish embassy building in
Mogadishu's KM4 area.

Abdirisack Mohamed Barrow, 28, and Hassan Nur Ali Farah, 37, were sentenced to
death penalty, after the court has found them guilty of all charges against
them, according to Judge Yarow who announced the verdict.

4 other co-conspirators have been sentenced to jail terms, 2 of them life in
imprisonment by the Somali military tribunal for their role of the journalist
murdering.

1 - Mo'allin Mohmed Abukar Ali, 42, born in middle Shabelle region of southern
Somalia was sentenced to life time jail.

2 - Mo'alin Mohamed Sheikh Yusuf, 56, born in Mudug region, central Somalia has
been sentenced to life in prison.

3 - Ali Hassan Aden Tooni, 40, born in Ethiopia was sentenced to 15 years in
prison.

4 - Muheyadin Osman Mohamed Awale, 22, was sentenced to 10 years of prison
term.

Early this month, the court has sentenced Hassan Hanafi, Al shabaab journalist
to death for planning the deaths of 5 media workers who were killed in
Mogadishu between 2007 and 2011.

(source: All Africa News)






BANGLADESH:

B'desh SC orders ministers to appear again in contempt case


Bangladesh Supreme Court Sunday ordered 2 senior ministers to reappear next
week over their "contemptuous comments" against the judiciary made in reference
to the appeal hearing of a major 1971 war crimes convict.

A larger bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha
rebuked food minister Quamrul Islam and liberation war affairs minister AKM
Mozammel Huq over their comments and ordered Islam to submit a fresh
explanation, calling his clarification 'not appropriate', court officials said.

"This (apex) court will not hesitate to pass any order for protecting the
constitution, caring little how much powerful you (ministers) are," a visibly
angry Chief justice said.

Sinha added: "This court is not an organ of the government... You have not only
belittled the chief justice but also defamed the entire judiciary with your
arrogant comments."

Earlier today, the 2 ministers submitted their explanation over the comments
and sought unconditional apology. The apex court accepted Huq's clarification
but ordered his appearance again along with Islam on March 27.

In an unprecedented move on March 8, the Supreme Court had summoned the 2
senior ministers to clarify their "contemptuous comments" criticising Sinha
over the appeal hearing of a major 1971 war crimes convict, Jamaat-e-Islami
leader Mir Qashem Ali.

The apex court on the same day upheld Ali's death penalty and ordered the two
ministers personal appearance.

Speaking at a discussion on March 5, Islam had called for a re-hearing of Ali's
appeal excluding the chief justice as he had earlier questioned the
investigators efficiency in collecting evidence against the accused.

"Through a comment of the chief justice in the court, we have realised what
verdict will be delivered in the case. We have realised that there is no scope
for awarding the death penalty (to the convict)," the food minister had said.

Haque supplemented him at the same function saying the chief justice should not
be a part of the appeal hearing process against Ali.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had last week snubbed the 2 ministers for
"embarrassing" the government through their comments and said the government
did not own their "private comments".

(source: Business Standard)






PAKISTAN:

Tensions rise over Asia Bibi


Demands for Asia Bibi's execution are rising in Pakistan after the execution of
an Islamic militant hero, Voice of the Martyrs Canada (VOMC) reports. Extremist
Mumtaz Qadri was executed on February 29, 2016, after assassinating Punjab
Govenor Salmaan Taseer in 2011. Taseer was one of Bibi's biggest supporters,
ridiculing Pakistan's blasphemy laws, under which she is being held, and
advocated for her release.

Qadri was seen as a hero among Islamic militants. When he was executed,
explosive demands for Bibi's hanging started. Intelligence reports have found
Islamist groups plotting to have her killed in jail for vengeance. At Qadri's
funeral, a group of about 150,000 supporters gathered on the streets of
Rawalpindi. Many were chanting for Bibi's death.

The Express Tribune cites a statement from Islamabad's Lal Masjid who called on
the government to kill "the blasphemer Asia Bibi as soon as possible and not
bow to international pressure."

VOMC reports the government is keeping her safe despite the calls for her quick
execution. Security has been tightened, Bibi is in isolation and is cooking her
own food so no one can poison her food. The guards keeping watch have been
assessed by intelligence agencies to make sure they are not extremists.

"Calls for her speedy execution have increased the risk to her life," says
Bibi's lawyer, Saiful Malook, who expressed concern over her safety.

As demands rise, Bibi desperately needs prayer. Pray for her safety, for her
faith in Christ to stay strong, and for her family's trust in God to stay
strong. Also pray for the protests to stop.

Bibi was found guilty for blasphemy in 2010 after an argument with a Muslim
woman who accused her of contamination of water by drinking out of it.
Blasphemy is not a subject taken lightly by the Pakistani government who
sentences those who are guilty to the death penalty. Bibi has been on death row
since her conviction.

(source: Mission Network News)






MALDIVES:

Maldives prosecutors defend death sentence on MP murderer


Prosecutors defended the death sentence handed to Hussain Humam over the brutal
murder of former Ungoofaru MP Dr Afrasheem Ali, as the Supreme Court began
Monday the last stage of appeal in the high profile murder case.

Humam was found guilty of the MP's murder and sentenced to death in January
2015. He later appealed the sentence.

High Court had on September 7 upheld the death sentence handed to Humam.

The prosecutor general's (PG) office had in November forwarded the case to the
Supreme Court to initiate the final stage of appeal after Humam failed to
appeal the sentence against him within the appeal window.

? Regulations on death penalty that came into effect in 2014 require the
prosecution to exhaust the appeal process -- the High Court and Supreme Court
-- even if the convict wishes to not file for appeal.

In the 1st appeal hearing Monday, prosecutors told the Supreme Court that
sentence is in line with all the requirements of the death penalty under
Islamic sharia law.

The court asked the prosecution to provide a point-by-point detail of their
argument, but gave time till the next hearing to prepare it.

Defence lawyer Abdulla Haseen, meanwhile, told the court that he had not yet
received the full report of the verdict from the High Court.

Chief justice Abdulla Saeed, who is heading the bench presiding over the 1st
case of its kind, told Haseen that it was his responsibility to obtain the
report from the High Court.

A request by Haseen for more time to prepare his defence was also denied.

Humam, clad in prison uniform, was escorted to Monday's hearing by prison
guards. He, however, did not speak.

Afrasheem was found brutally stabbed to death on the stairway of his apartment
building in October 2012.

Criminal Court had acquitted Ali Shan of Hicoast in Henveyru district of
Afrasheem's murder.

There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has
exhausted the appeal process thus far. If Humam's sentence is upheld by the
apex court, he would be the 1st of the inmates on death row to have completed
all the 2 stages of appeal.

Authorities had pledged to implement the death penalty after the exhaustion of
the appeal process.

(source: haveeru.com)

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March 22



MALDIVES:

Maldives to begin final appeal of 2 high profile death sentences


Supreme Court is to begin this week the final appeal proceedings over the death
sentences handed in 2 high profile murder cases.

Criminal Court sentenced Mohamed Nabeel, 22, a resident of Reef in Galolhu ward
of capital Male, to death on October 22, 2010 after he was found guilty of
stabbing to death 18-year-old Abdulla Farhad from Hulhudhoo ward of Addu city.

Ahmed Murrath was sentenced to death over the murder of prominent lawyer Ahmed
Najeeb in 2012.

High Court had upheld the sentences.

Both the suspects had not exercised the right to appeal the appellate court's
verdicts, prompting the prosecution to forward the cases to the Supreme Court
late last year for a final review.

Regulations on death penalty that came into effect in 2014 require the
prosecution to exhaust the appeal process -- the High Court and Supreme Court
-- even if the convict wishes to not file for appeal.

According to the Supreme Court's schedule, the 1st hearing in Murrath's appeal
would be held on Wednesday, while Nabeel's appeal proceedings would begin on
Thursday.

Murrath's lover, Fathimath Hana had also been convicted and sentenced to death
over the murder in 2012. But the appeal of her sentence is yet to be concluded
by the High Court.

The announcements by the Supreme Court come a day after it began the last stage
of appeal of the death sentence handed to Hussain Humam over the brutal murder
of former Ungoofaru MP Dr Afrasheem Ali.

Humam was found guilty of the MP's murder and sentenced to death in January
2015. He later appealed the sentence.

High Court had on September 7 upheld the death sentence handed to Humam.

The prosecutor general's (PG) office had in November forwarded the case to the
Supreme Court to initiate the final stage of appeal after Humam failed to
appeal the sentence against him within the appeal window.

Afrasheem was found brutally stabbed to death on the stairway of his apartment
building in October 2012.

Criminal Court had acquitted Ali Shan of Hicoast in Henveyru district of
Afrasheem's murder.

There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has
exhausted the appeal process thus far. If Humam's sentence is upheld by the
apex court, he would be the first of the inmates on death row to have completed
all the 2 stages of appeal.

Authorities had pledged to implement the death penalty after the exhaustion of
the appeal process.

(source: haveeru.com)






IRELAND:

An Irish dead man walking who survived death penalty


The bloody and divisive Irish Civil War resulted in the surprise restoration of
the death penalty.

The last-minute decision to reinstate the ultimate deterrent would cost 29
ordinary Irish citizens their lives after they were convicted of murder, until
the death penalty was abolished in 1964 for everything but the murder of public
figures.

Dozens more would have the penalty imposed on them only to receive last-minute
commutations. Patrick Aylward was one such individual whose escape from the
gallows became legendary.

In an increasingly urbanized society it can be difficult for the modern Irish
person to comprehend the vicious feuds between rural farming families. Sadly,
in the Ireland of 1922, these fights were all too common.

Patrick Aylward was 63 years old and a farmer from Mullinavat, County Kilkenny.
He had returned to Ireland in 1921 after 39 years in Connecticut in order to
nurse his elderly brother on their 25 acre holding. 50 yards away lived the
Holden family, which included Patrick, Mary and their 8 children.

Relations between the two households had soured shortly after Patrick's return.
He complained about the alleged trespassing on his land by animals belonging to
the Holden family, even setting his dog on a goat belonging to Mrs. Holden. On
another occasion, a missing fowl belonging to the Holdens was found dead in
Aylward's shed. Mary would describe her neighbor as a violent and unpredictable
man who had twice struck her with a stick.

Aylward disagreed, asserting that she was the aggressor and had attacked him
several times. Her children also constantly annoyed his animals and used his
well as a toilet. What started out as a minor disagreement was about to take a
far more sinister turn.

On Saturday, April 21, 1923, Patrick Holden was out working while his wife was
minding the children. At 5pm Mary put her 18-month-old son William to bed and
departed the house to buy an outfit for another son's confirmation. Despite the
lawless nature of the times, Mary saw fit to place 8-year-old Patrick in charge
of the house in her absence. She told him to lock the door and stay inside. His
younger sister Mary and brother Michael were also present. William, the 2nd
youngest of the Holden family, suffered from rickets and was not able to crawl
or walk but was sleeping peacefully when his mother left.

Some minutes afterwards, Patrick Aylward allegedly knocked at the Holden's
front door. The children reluctantly opened the door and Aylward burst in
shouting that he "would put an end to the trespassing." Aylward lifted William,
who was still sleeping, and walked over to the fire. He then proceeded to hold
the infant down over the burning grate. Patrick Holden allegedly endeavored to
intervene but was powerless against the older man's strength.

Aylward stayed watching the crying infant as he burned on the fire, all the
while using a stick to hold off the other children. Just as William's clothes
caught fire, Aylward said "Don't let them goats into my haggard anymore" before
striding out the door. The children quickly removed their infant brother from
the fire and put him in a bucket of water to quench the flames. The
severely-burned baby was then put back into his bed and the door was locked.

Patrick Holden Snr. arrived home within the next few minutes to be met with
several hysterical children and a baby suffering from life-threatening burns.
There were no garda??? in the area at that turbulent point in Irish history, so
Holden instead sent for a doctor from Waterford. He duly arrived and found the
baby in a state of collapse. William was charred black all over his body and
died from toxemia 24 hours later.

The coroner's inquest took place just days after the death. Aylward appeared
and denied having any knowledge of the burning. The coroner referred the case
to the gardai nonetheless, but also had harsh words for the bereaved Holdens,
telling them that he did not know whether to sympathize with them because they
had abandoned their young children at home. Aylward was arrested on May 8. He
replied "I did not do it."

The murder trial began on the November 26, 1923. The prosecutor stated that the
prisoner was "charged with a crime which, if proved against him, was as
terrible and hideous a crime as any one described as a human being could
commit." Aylward maintained a cool demeanor throughout despite the gravity of
the charges against him. He pleaded not guilty.

Dr. Matthew Coghlan appeared on the stand and told the court that the injuries
to William Holden could not have occurred accidentally. When asked about the
defendant, he described him as a "degenerate" who lived in squalor, referring
to the Aylward homestead as a "manure heap and cesspool." He did insist that
Aylward was sane and capable of distinguishing right from wrong, however.

Patrick Holden also took the stand and was described as an intelligent witness,
despite never attending school and being unable to write his name. He described
letting Aylward in and witnessing his neighbor grabbing William and putting him
across the fire. Patrick attempted to aid his brother but was unable to do so.
Michael Holden also recounted Aylward raising a stick at them and telling them
as he left the house "Don't tell your mother or I'll kill you."

Patrick Aylward admitted that he had poor relations with his neighbor but
insisted that he had not been in their house for 5 months before the incident
when he had complained to Mrs. Holden about her children chasing his sow and
swimming in his spring well. Her response was to hit him with a scrubbing
brush. He retaliated by giving her a whack with his walking stick. He denied
harming the children however, pleading "Don't you think I have a soul to save
as well as everyone else, or what do you think I am?" Aylward insisted that the
Holdens had told their children to lie about him. 2 witnesses, Aylward's
brother and a friend, also vouched that the prisoner had been tending a sick
cow all day and had not visited his neighbors.

The trial took just 1 day and despite the contentious and contradictory
evidence the all-male jury needed just 10 minutes deliberation before passing a
guilty verdict, with a recommendation to mercy. The judge announced his
agreement and sentenced the prisoner to death. Aylward responded "I am not
guilty at all. I have not been in that house for five months. May God forgive
the woman who put the lie on me and God forgive the jury." His pleas fell on
deaf ears and his execution was set for the December 27, putting him among 5
convicted murderers to be sentenced to death in that month.

3 of the men would indeed be hanged. Aylward, however, was fortunate to receive
petitions from numerous luminaries, including the Bishop of Ossory. His Grace
petitioned government minister Kevin O'Higgins, questioning the guilt of the
elderly man. He mentioned the Holden family's "bad moral character," and
alluded to a previous incident when another Holden child had burned to death in
suspicious circumstances in 1910.

It was announced just hours before the execution that Aylward's death sentence
was to be commuted to one of penal servitude for life. The minister was not
obligated to give a reason for this sudden commutation but a reasonable doubt
was surely present. The government may also have been reluctant to execute a
man solely on the evidence of children. Patrick Aylward served 10 years in
prison and was released in 1932. He died 3 years later, still maintaining that
he had taken no part in the burning of William Holden.

The death penalty remained in the Irish Constitution until 1990 and 28 men and
1 woman would meet their death at the end of an Irish rope. Harry Gleeson was
shamefully hanged for murder in 1941, a crime he did not commit. 20 years
before, did Patrick Aylward come within hours of suffering a similar injustice?
The truth may never be known.

(source: Colm Wallace has written a book "Sentenced to Death: Saved from the
Gallows" about 30 Irish men and women who had the death penalty imposed on them
between 1922 and 1985. It is being launched on the June 17 and is available for
pre-order on books.ie or Amazon----irishcentral.com)


UNITED KINGDOM:

Free Talk on Japanese Death Penalty


A free documentary screening and public lecture on the Japanese death penalty
is being hosted at the University of Portsmouth this week.

Dr Mai Sato, a lecturer in criminal law at the University of Reading, will give
a talk after the screening of The Wavering Public? The Death Penalty, Justice
and Public Opinion, which provides a rare insight into public perceptions of
this controversial topic in Japan.

Dr Sato said: "Japan, unbeknownst to many, retains the death penalty, and still
executes criminal offenders to this day.

"The Japanese government's official justification for preserving the death
penalty is that the majority of the public is overwhelmingly in favour of this
method of criminal punishment.

"They argue that support for the death penalty is so strong and entrenched in
Japanese culture that abolition is not possible."

However Dr Sato's recent report, which analysed government data and
investigated public opinion, found that contrary to the government's claim that
there is an '80 % majority support' of the death penalty, the Japanese public
is in fact largely ready for the abolition of capital punishment.

The documentary explores what the death penalty means to 135 ordinary citizens
who are filmed discussing crime and punishment in a retentionist state - one in
which much of the practice surrounding the death penalty remains secretive and
discreet.

The free event is on Wednesday, 23 March from 6 - 7pm and will be followed by a
drinks reception.

(source: aboutmyarea.co.uk)

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

BBC To Re-Tell Grisly Events Behind Rillington Place Murders----The tragic tale
of miscarriage of justice contributed to the abolition of the death penalty.


A brand new BBC drama will retell the real-life grisly events behind the
multiple murders committed by John Christie in Notting Hill in the 1940s and
'50s, made famous by the 1971 film '10 Rillington Place'.

Tim Roth and Samantha Morton will star in 'Rillington Place', which starts
filming today in Scotland.

The 3-part drama will follow the same events as the earlier film, which starred
Richard Attenborough as the killer, and John Hurt as his neighbour Timothy
Evans.

The subsequent tragic miscarriage of justice, which led to Timothy Evans being
hanged for a crime he did not commit, contributed towards the abolition of
capital punishment in Britain.

Tim Roth plays John Christie, who lived at the infamous address with his wife
Ethel (Samantha Morton) from where he carried out the multiple murders.

Newly-weds Timothy and Beryl Evans, played by Nico Mirallegro ('The Village',
'Common') and Jodie Comer ('Doctor Foster', 'Thirteen'), fall prey to
Christie's influence after moving into a neighbouring flat.

The drama will be directed by Craig Viveiros, who enjoyed recent success with
Agatha Christie adaptation 'And Then There Were None'.

(source: BBC news)






INDIA:

Time to re-look at sedition law, says law panel's new head Chauhan


There is a need to revisit India's controversial sedition law, the
newly-appointed chairman of the Law Commission said, flagging a sensitive issue
weeks after the arrest of several JNU students sparked a nationwide debate on
nationalism and free speech.

"We should give it a fresh look. The Indian Penal Code was drafted almost 150
years ago and the British rulers had a different purpose behind the law. It's
time for us to examine whether the law holds good today or not," justice BS
Chauhan told Hindustan Times.

JNU students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar and 2 others were arrested in
February over an event when anti-India slogans were allegedly shouted. They
were among 6 students charged under the sedition law.

Justice Chauhan - a retired Supreme Court judge who took over as the chairman
of the 21st Law Commission earlier this month - however, said misuse of a
particular law can't be the sole ground to declare it unconstitutional or to
repeal it. The commission advises the government on legal issues but its
recommendations are not binding.

"Whatever recommendations we make would be after having a public debate
involving law universities ... law teachers and after examining its definition,
judicial pronouncements and taking into views of all concerned."

Several opposition parties have demanded that the sedition law should be thrown
out as it was a relic of the Raj.

Justice Chauhan's statement comes a few days after the Narendra Modi-led NDA
government told Parliament that the sedition law was a broad-brush measure and
needed a review.

"Anybody who speaks against the government can be booked under sedition law.
Amendments have been suggested because the definition is very wide. That is why
concerns have been raised," minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju told the
Rajya Sabha last week.

Home minister Rajnath Singh said the government would call a meeting of all
parties to discuss the matter after the Law Commission submitted its
recommendations.

Justice Chauhan and the commission's member, justice Ravi R Tripathi, said they
would like the government to prioritise the issues it wanted the panel to take
up.

Law on sedition

Sedition was not a part of the original IPC that came into force in 1862. It
was added to the in 1870 and its scope and ambit was broadened in 1898 to deal
with the freedom movement that was gaining ground.

According to Section 124A, a person commits the crime of sedition if s/he
brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to
excite disaffection towards, the government established by law in India. It can
be by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible
representation, or otherwise. The maximum punishment for sedition is
imprisonment for life. Explanation 1 to Section 124A clarifies that the
expression "disaffection" includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity.

Explanation 2 and 3 to Section 124A make it clear that comments expressing
disapprobation of the measures of the government or an admin???istrative or
other action of the government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful
means, without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or
disaffection, do not amount to sedition.

The Supreme Court upheld its validity in Kedar Nath Singh versus State of Bihar
in 1962.

A 5-judge constitution bench headed by then chief justice of India BP Sinha
said though the section imposed restrictions on the fundamental right to
freedom of speech and expression, the restrictions were in the interest of
public order and were within the ambit of permissible legislative interference
with the fundamental right.

The law struck the correct balance between individual fundamental rights and
the interest of public order, the SC said.

The apex court, however, clarified sedition law would be attracted only if the
offence was such that it could cause "public disorder" by acts of violence.

But despite the clarification given by the SC, sedition law has often been
misused by various states.

Homosexuality

Asked if he favoured de-criminalising gay sex, justice Chauhan said: "There
should be a public debate. England also debated the contentious issue for more
than a decade before finally de-criminalising it. A commission was appointed in
1957 to look into it and 10 years later homosexuality was de-criminalised."

He said discussions should happen and then Parliament should make a law in the
light of public opinion.

Death penalty

Justice Chauhan -- who was a member of the SC bench that upheld Mumbai blasts
case convict Yakub Memon's death penalty ??? said: "Let it be on the statute
book. Where they (courts) feel death penalty is not required, let them give
fixed term sentences such as 30 years or 40 years in jail."

Stating that the Mumbai blasts case was not a simple case of bombing but a war
against the nation, he said that "even in that case we commuted the death
sentence of so many convicts and upheld the death sentence of just one of
them".

Uniform civil code

He refused to comment on the issues of uniform civil code and discrimination
against women in Muslim Personal Law, saying these issues are pending before
the Supreme Court. He however, said gender discrimination was there in other
religions' personal laws as well and Parliament should consider these issues.

Justice for poor

The Law Commission chairman said he would strongly recommend that judiciary
reserve some of its time for poor litigants, particularly those languishing in
jails. "There should be dedicated benches to hear bail matters of those
languishing in jail for years," he added.

(source: Hindustan Times)






SINGAPORE:

Jackie Chan wants drug offenders to be executed?


This article was originally published by The Influence, a news site that covers
the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on
Facebook or Twitter.

Singapore is not exactly notorious for rational law enforcement or
compassionate drug policy. The city state of five and half million has strict
laws governing everything from spitting to chewing gum in public. Seventy
percent of executions in Singapore over the past few decades (happily, the
number has dropped off steeply in recent years) are for drug offenses. And the
government has been widely mocked for its simple-minded approach to drug
enforcement.

Enter internationally beloved martial arts movie star and former UNICEF
goodwill ambassador Jackie Chan. The Hong Kong native has become Singapore's
1st celebrity anti-drugs ambassador. Why on earth would he associate himself
with this regime?

Back in China, his own son, Jaycee Chan, was imprisoned for 6 months on drug
charges. Chan referenced his son when explaining his new role:

I have always supported anti-drug causes, even more so now because my own
family member is a victim. Right now he just holes up in his room, writing
songs. He doesn't dare to face the world and the media. But I told him, you
need to face them. Everyone makes mistakes - we just need to recover from them.

Jaycee Chan's "victimhood" comes in the form of merely testing positive for
marijuana. Targeted as part of the Chinese government's crackdown on
celebrities, Chan Jr. was lucky not to have ended up in China's sprawling
"detoxification centers," which in many cases are simply repurposed gulags.

Far from criticizing China's witch-hunt, Jackie Chan has effectively endorsed
it, as well as wrongly asserting that experimentation with drugs invariably
leads to addiction. Chan has even gone so far as to advocate the death penalty
for nonviolent drug offenses: "I approve the death penalty, for certain cases
... For drugs, when you sell it, you are hurting thousands of people and
children - those people are useless. I am not a judge, but some cases deserve
heavy penalty."

Not such a nice guy after all.

(source: rawstory.com)


UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

Terror charges downgraded against Canadian detained in UAE


Terrorism charges against a Canadian imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates for
more than a year have been dropped, marking what his family called a major
development in the man's case.

But Salim Alaradi's legal battle is far from over, as a state prosecutor
announced at a court hearing Monday that the Libyan-born man had been charged
instead with 2 lesser offences.

"What happened today is clear evidence that my father is innocent," Alaradi's
18-year-old daughter Marwa told The Canadian Press. "The closer we get to his
innocence the more the U.A.E. State Security plays games with his freedom."

Alaradi, who immigrated to Canada in 1998 from the U.A.E. but returned there in
2007 to run a home appliance business, was on vacation with his family in Dubai
when he was arrested in August 2014.

He was among 10 men of Libyan origin detained around the same time -- some of
them have since been released.

When his trial got underway in January, the 48-year-old pleaded not guilty to
the terrorism charges which related to funding, supporting and co-operating
with terrorist organizations.

His Canadian lawyer said the dropping of the terror-related charges was a
significant development.

"It was a real dramatic turn," said Paul Champ. "It seems that state security
is trying to salvage this situation and save face when they know they really
don't have anything against these men."

The lesser charges Alaradi now faces allege he provided supplies to groups in a
foreign country without permission of the U.A.E. government and collected
donations without permission of the U.A.E. government, Champ said.

"The most serious outcomes that we were most concerned about are off the table,
whether it was life imprisonment or even the death penalty," Champ explained.
"We're hoping that these might be viewed as relatively minor charges."

Alaradi has always admitted he helped raise funds and secure supplies for the
new transitional council in Libya after the ouster of longtime Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, Champ noted.

"That was fully supported by the U.A.E. government and all western governments
at the time," he said. "Since there has been increased unrest in Libya starting
in 2012, Mr. Alaradi has nothing to do whatsoever with the political situation
there."

The U.A.E. was part of the NATO-led coalition that ousted Gadhafi and has taken
a keen interest in the country's future since.

Alaradi's case has drawn growing international attention since he and his
co-accused went on trial.

UN human rights experts last month demanded the U.A.E immediately release him
and his fellow detainees.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also examined the men's cases and
cited advocates for the detainees alleging that the men had been deprived of
sleep for up to 20 days, beaten on the hands and legs and suffered "electric
shocks with an electric chair."

The scrutiny seems to be having an impact, Champ said.

"I think the contrast between the human rights violations that are occurring
against these men and the reputation that the U.A.E. likes to project to the
world is really what's on display here," he said. "Hopefully we're going to see
a fair process the rest of the way here and Mr. Alaradi will be acquitted."

A spokeswoman with Global Affairs said Canada was urging the U.A.E. to ensure
Alaradi received a fair and transparent trial.

"The government of Canada is seized of the seriousness of Mr. Alaradi's case
and is fully engaged in efforts to ensure a prompt and just resolution," said
Rachna Mishra, who noted that Canadian officials "at very high levels" have
raised concerns about Alaradi's well-being.

Alaradi will be back in court on April 11.

(source: cp24.com)






EGYPT:

Request to remove judge in 'Rabaa Operations room' case refused----On Sunday,
the trial was suspended to allow for reviewing the request to remove the judge


The controversial "Rabaa Operations Room" case is to be retried after the Cairo
Court of Cassation accepted appeals on verdicts issued against 38 defendants in
the case.

The Cairo Appeals Court refused Monday a request demanding the removal of the
judge in the 'Rabaa Operations room' retrial, leading to the continuation of
the case after it was suspended for one day.

The demand was presented to the court by the defence team of Mohamed Badie,
supreme guide of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, arguing the flawed legal
status of the court. As a result of the refusal, Badie will have to pay a fine
of EGP 2,000. On Sunday the court decided to look into the demand and suspended
the retrial.

The retrial involves at least 50 defendants, including prominent Muslim
Brotherhood members, such as former spokesmen Mahmoud Ghozlan and Gehad
El-Haddad. A number of the detainees in the case have gone on hunger strike,
including US citizen Mohamed Soltan, who was reportedly on hunger strike for
over 300 days. Soltan is currently in the US after being deported following his
rescinding of his Egyptian nationality.

The defendants in the case include 14 journalists and media workers, 13 of whom
received life sentences and one who received the death penalty. These include
board members of the Rassd news network Abdullah Al-Fakharany and Samhy
Mostafa, along with the head of Al-Aqsa channel, Ahmed Sebai, who was sentenced
to life in prison.

The prosecution accused the defendants of setting up an "operations room" for
the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in in 2013 and giving orders to the protesters, which
created "nationwide chaos".

Also on Monday, Badie stood trial in front of a court at the Police Academy in
the case involving post-Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in violence in Ismailia. Badie is
charged with inciting supporters to burn government buildings. The case will
continue on Tuesday.

He is also a defendant in several cases where he is charged with committing and
inciting violence.

(source: Daily News Egypt)


SAUDI ARABIA:

Sick public beheadings & female beatings which aren't ISIS - but UK's FRIENDS
Saudi Arabia----BRITAIN'S special relationship with Saudi Arabia has been
brought into question ahead of a sickening documentary exposing the brutal and
oppressive life under the totalitarian nation.


The shock footage shows numerous public beheadings

Horror footage, revealed in a documentary to be broadcast tomorrow, shows five
headless bodies - said to belong to robbers - hanging on a pole as a reminder
to the public not to step out of line.

They were said to have been left there for days.

In another brutal example of Saudi Arabia oppression a woman is held down on a
roadside while a policeman decapitates her with a sword.

The victim, who screams "I did not do it" just before her executions, had been
convicted of killing her stepdaughter.

The documentary includes interviews with those living under the brutal
dictatorship, where women are considered 2nd class citizens.

They bravely speak out against the regime risking the wrath of the state where
blasphemy is punishable by stoning.

Leading politicians have recently criticised Britain's relationship with the
Islamic state and the latest revelations will put even more pressure on the
Government to act.

In January Liberal Democrat Tim Farron called for a debate on the issue after
it was revealed 47 prisoners were executed in 1 day.

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

New documentary features public beheadings in Saudi's 'brutal' regime -- The
documentary called Saudi Arabia Uncovered also features never seen before
footage from the country.


A woman clad in black burqa is surrounded by Saudi policemen on a street in
Mecca, they hold her down to the ground as she desperately screams 'I did not
do it', her voice almost like that of a trapped animal. One of the men dressed
in white robes then brandishes a sword as she continues screaming. He beheads
her with one stroke and her blood is splattered across the road and the screams
die. This is a real and chilling public execution that is just one of the stark
brutal scenes in a new documentary that aims to expose some 'brutal' realities
of Saudi Arabia.

The woman was convicted for killing her stepdaughter and decapitated in the
middle of a road. The video had caused much anger in the country, not over the
beheading but over the fact that it was recorded and could be seen by her
family. A new documentary called 'Saudi Arabia Uncovered' which will be aired
this week for the first time, is the effort of men and women who did extensive
undercover reporting to show the world the brutality of Saudi regime.

While most of us have heard that Saudi Arabia is notorious for its public
beheadings, watching the blood-curdling life executions, make it more real and
terrifying.

The film shows how those accused of crimes are made an example of and the
public is not allowed to forgive or forget their crimes easily. The legal
system in Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia and the death penalty is handed out
for a number of crimes including adultery, murder, armed robbery, drug-related
offences, alleged sorcery, rape and apostasy from Islam.

Another footage in the documentary shows five bodies hanging from a pole that
is held in mid-air by 2 red cranes. They were a gang of robbers who were first
executed and then their bodies were tied and suspended from the pole for days
as a chilling reminder for citizens to see what happens to those who choose a
life of crime.

While some of the footage in the documentary are already in public domain, it
features some rare and never seen visuals and tells the untold stories of men
and women who dared to raise their voice against the regime and paid with their
lives for their courage.

The film is already facing pressure and a Saudi women's rights activist Loujain
al-Hathloul has been receiving death threats for being a part of the
documentary. Hathloul had earlier been jailed for posting a video of herself
driving a car, as women are not allowed to drive in the country despite having
attained the right to vote, if only recently.

The yet to be aired documentary could rattle the power corridors in the highly
secretive and notorious Muslim country and it would not come as news if Saudi
authorities try to pressure its allies from banning the screening of the film
in coming days.

The documentary not only speaks of the barbaric crime and punishment systems
but also exposes what is being taught to young boys and girls inside Saudi
mosques.

A cameraman who was shooting secretively asks a boy what he is taught and pat
comes a horrifying reply, 'All Christians must be punished with death until
none of them are left, they should all be beheaded.'

The film also shows a preacher who was secretly filmed giving hate-filled
messages about non-Islamic religions and asking Allah to finish all those that
do not believe in Muslim faith.

The documentary is being produced by ITV and the Public Broadcasting Service
and will be aired in US on March 29.

(source for both: The Express)






PHILIPPINES:

Pro and con of death penalty: Poe, De Lima give their view


Presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe said her interaction with the public
during provincial sorties had prompted her to reassess her stand on the
reimposition of the death penalty.

During the 2nd PiliPinas Debate in Cebu on Sunday, Poe and Davao City Mayor
Rodrigo Duterte declared their support for capital punishment, while rivals
Vice President Jejomar Binay and Liberal Party standard bearer Mar Roxas were
opposed.

Poe said she was previously opposed to the return of death penalty which was
abolished by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2006.

She said she changed her mind after going around the country the last few
months, during which the public pulse was overwhelmingly for the return of the
death penalty but only for a select group of criminals.

"I believe that if we cannot stop the rise of criminality in the country and we
have to impose strict rules, I am [for the reimposition of the death penalty]
only for heinous crimes, drug pushers and repeat offenders," Poe said in an
interview after the debate.

The senator said she believed there were some people who could not be
rehabilitated and must be made an example "no matter how much it would hurt
inside" to instill fear in others.

Fix justice system first

Poe, however, said she would not rush the reimposition of the death penalty
because she wants to fix the justice system to ensure the poor would not be
abused by the rich and powerful.

She said she would make sure that the poor would have access to legal
representation by increasing the budget of the Pubic Attorney's Office to
attract more brilliant lawyers to work for the state.

"It is up to Congress to do that because a president cannot just go out and
reimpose it. If we cannot stop crimes, we have to have this in place," she
said.

But former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, a Liberal Party senatorial
candidate the reimposition of the death penalty, saying the state had the
responsibility to offer reformation programs for all criminal offenders.

"No empirical evidence anywhere [in the world] has suggested that the death
penalty deters crime," De Lima said in a statement.

"The death penalty should be abolished not only because there is no correlation
between this punishment and crime deterrence, but also [because] its effects
are basically irreversible," she said.

De Lima, a former Commission on Human Rights chair, said criminals should be
given a chance to "become reformed members of society."

Punishment enough

Putting individuals behind bars for life without parole is punishment enough
for those involved in the illegal drug trade, human trafficking, sex-related
offenses, serial killings and mass murders, she said.

Instead of implementing the death sentence, she said the government should
institute measures for a "modern and simplified criminal code" to ensure higher
conviction rates of cases brought against perpetrators of heinous crimes.

"We should also note that the CHR has said that most of those convicted belong
to the lower classes, the poor and disadvantaged, financially unable to pay for
their own counsel, relying only on the courts to provide them with legal
counsel," De Lima said.

She noted that a study conducted by the Free Legal Assistance Group showed that
more than half of those who were on death row were poor.

"(W)e need to ensure the justice system indeed works by having a truly
independent judiciary which can decide on cases with the highest integrity and
ensure a speedy trial," De Lima said.

She said the government should also hire "efficient prosecutors who can closely
collaborate with investigating bodies and other law enforcement units for a
strong case buildup, and a law enforcement sector that will implement the law
to the letter."

(source: inquirer.net)






BANGLADESH:

2 get death penalty for killing street boy


A Dhaka court has sentenced 2 people to death for brutally killing a street boy
13 years ago. Dhaka First District and Sessions Judge SM Saiful Islam passed
the order on Monday in the presence of the convicts.

The convicts are Md Anwar Hossain alias Md Rajib alias Golam Rabbani alias
Sankar Chandra Devnath and Md Zakir Hossain. According to the case statement,
Sankar along with Zakir picked up a street boy from Kamlapur Railway Station
alluring that he would be given new clothes. Later, he was taken to Bhawal
forest of Gazipur and killed the street boy on April 9, 2005.

"They split the body into 2 parts. Later, they were held by police at Kamlapur
Railway Station while returning to Dhaka with the head of the body in a bag,"
read the statement.

Sankar was a tailor by profession. He was tailoring at Narindra Tailors in Old
Dhaka. Sankar was involved in a conflict with another tailor Abdur Rab, tailor
master of Suja Tailors located near at Grand Hotel in Paltan in the capital.

Sankar killed the boy to realize Tk50,000 extortion from Abdur Rab showing the
head of a body. Before that, he was caught red handed by police with the head
of the body of the ill-fated street boy.

(source: Dhaka Tribune)

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March 22



INDIA:

Gandhi Tried His Best to Save Bhagat Singh's Life


The 85th death anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, the revolutionary icon of
the freedom struggle, who attained martyrdom at the young age of 23, falls on
March 23, 2016. Alongwith Sukhdev and Rajguru, Bhagat Singh was hanged to death
less than a week before the commencement of the Karachi session of the Indian
National Congress, on March 29, 1931, a landmark event of India's freedom
struggle in which economic freedom was equated with political freedom.

The year 1928 was marked by an anti-Simon Commision upsurge everywhere in
India. On 30 October 1928, the Simon Commission faced a large hostile crowd led
by Lala Lajpat Rai at Lahore Station. The Lala was severely beaten by the
Police under J. A. Scot, British SP and he later succumbed to his head injury.

The whole nation was stunned by this savagery. As news of the attack on Lajpat
Rai spread, the country reacted with anger.

Bhagat Singh was appalled. He could not believe that a white man could dare
take a stick in hand and set upon Lajpat Rai. The HSRA (Hindustan Socialist
Republic Army) decided to undertake retaliatory action. On 17 December, Bhagat
Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and Chandra Shekhar Azad mistook the ASP, J.P.Scot for
Saunders, as they pounced upon him and shot him dead.

A few months later, on 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeswar Datta threw a
bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly Hall in Delhi. It was hurled from the
midst of a packed gallery, not aimed at anybody, but to draw the attention of
the House, the Indian people and the British rulers in India.

As Bhagat Singh and Batukeswar Dutt had planned not to escape after throwing
the bomb, they were arrested. While Dutt was sentenced to transportation for
life in the Assembly Bomb Case, Bhagat Singh, alongwith Rajguru and Sukhdev,
was sentenced to death for the murder of Saunders in what became famous as the
Lahore conspiracy case.

While in jail, Bhagat Singh took up the cause of bettering jail conditions and
commenced a hunger strike. The Jail Committee requested Bhagat Singh and B.K.
Dutt to give up their hunger strike but they declined. As the fast continued
indefinitely with no solution in sight, Jawaharlal Nehru visited Bhagat Singh
and the other hunger strikers in jail.

Nehru gives an account of his visit in his Autobiography: "I saw Bhagat Singh
for the 1st time, and Jatindranath Das and a few others. They were all very
weak and bed-ridden and it was hardly possible to talk to them much. Bhagat
Singh had an attractive, intellectual face, remarkably calm and peaceful. There
seemed to be no anger in it. He looked and talked with great gentleness."

Finally, it was Bhagat Singh's father who had his way. He came armed with a
resolution by the Congress urging them to give up the hunger strike. The
revolutionaries respected the Congress party because they knew of its struggle
for India'a freedom. They called Gandhi 'an impossible visionary' but they
saluted him for the awakening he had brought about in the country.

As days of execution of Bhagat Singh and his comrades drew near, appeals from
all over India, from all sections of people poured in, usually addressed to the
Viceroy asking him to stay the execution. Gandhi met Irwin on i9th March and
pleaded for the reprieve of Bhagat Singh and his two colleagues from the death
sentences to which they had been condemned. He reinforced this oral request
with a powerful appeal to the charity of a "great Christian" in Young India.

Bhagat Singh, Rajguru & Sukhdev were hanged to death on March 23, 1931. As the
news of Bhagat Singh's execution spread the nation went into mourning. There
were processions throughout the country. Many went without food. People wore
black badges and shut down their businesses to express their grief.

A pall of gloom hung over the Motilal Nehru pandal at the annual Congress
session in Karachi. When the session was scheduled for 29 March, 1931 nobody
had an inkling that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru would be hanged 6 days
ahead of schedule. A procession to be led by president-elect Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel was abandoned in grief.

Jawaharlal Nehru sponsored a resolution which was seconded by Madan Mohan
Malviya. According to Kuldip Nayar in 'The Life and Trial of Bhagat Singh':
"Gandhi chose Nehru to pilot the resolution because he was popular among the
youth. Patel was heckled." A part of the resolution read: "This Congress while
dissociating itself from and disapproving of political violence in any shape or
form, places on record its admiration of the bravery and sacrifice of the late
Sardar Bhagat Singh and his comrades, Sukhdev and Rajguru, and mourns with the
bereaved families the loss of these lives. This Congress is of the opinion that
this triple execution is an act of wanton vengeance and is a deliberate
flouting of the unanimous demand of the nation for commutation."

What soothed the emotions was a speech by Bhagat Singh's father, Kishen Singh.
Delegates wept loudly and openly as Kishen Singh recalled Bhagat Singh's words:
"Bhagat Singh told me not to worry. Let me be hanged. But he made a fervent
appeal: 'You must support your general (Gandhi). You must support all Congress
leaders. Only then will you be able to win independence for the country.'"

Subhash Chandra Bose had told Gandhiji that they should, if necessary, break
with the Viceroy on the question of Bhagat Singh and his 2 comrades: "Because
the execution was against the spirit, if not the letter, of the Delhi pact."
Still, Netaji added: "It must be admitted that he (Gandhi) did try his very
best."

Gandhi's secretary, Mahadev Desai also quoted the Mahatma as saying : "I was
not here to defend myself and hence I have not placed the facts as to what I
have done to save Bhagat Singh and his comrades. I have tried to persuade the
Viceroy with all the methods of persuasion I had. After my last meeting with
the relatives of Bhagat Singh, on the appointed date, that is , 23rd morning, I
wrote a personal letter to the Viceroy, in which I had poured in my whole
being-heart and soul-but it has all gone in vain... Pandit Malaviyaji and Dr
Sapru also did their utmost."

Lord Irwin took the public into confidence on his reasons for rejecting
Gandhi's appeal. In his farewell speech on 26th March, 1931, Irwin said: "As I
listened the other day to Mr. Gandhi putting the case for commutation formally
before me, I reflected first on what significance it surely was that the
apostle of non-violence should so earnestly be pleading the cause of devotees
of a creed fundamentally opposed to his own, but I should regard it as wholly
wrong to allow my judgment on these matters to be influenced or deflected by
purely political considera-tions. I could imagine no case in which under the
law the penalty had been more directly deserved."

The jail diary of Bhagat Singh makes for an interesting historical reading. He
wrote shortly before his death : "They (the youth) should aim at a Swaraj for
the masses based on socialism. That was a revolutionary change which they could
not bring about without revolutionary methods..." Bhagat Singh exhorted
Punjab's youth to follow Nehru. He called Nehru and Bose as a "redeeming
feature of the freedom struggle" during the 1920s.

In his last letter to his youngest brother, Kultar, he quoted the popular Urdu
couplet: Khush raho ahle watan hum to safar karte hain (Goodbye, dear
countrymen, we proceed on our journey).

(source: The New Indian Express)






NIGERIA:

Osun Assembly plans death penalty for kidnapping


Speaker of Osun House of Assembly, Mr Najeem Salaam, said the assembly would
soon review the state???s criminal law to provide for death penalty for
kidnapping in the state.

Salaam made this known when the new Commandant of Nigerian Security and Civil
Defence Corps (NSCDC) in the state, Mr Ayodele Olusola, visited him in his
office in Osogbo on Tuesday.

He expressed optimism that the review would discourage kidnapping and other
associated vices in the state.

According to him, the assembly wants to be proactive in making laws that will
protect lives and property in the state.

On upcoming House of Assembly bye-election in Ife Central, Salaam urged the
NSCDC commandant to provide adequate security for the electorate before, during
and after the election.

"I want to urge you to ensure violence-free election.

"We don't want bloodshed before, during and after the election, and that is why
I am pleading with you to mount surveillance around lfe," he said.

The bye-election is as a result of the death of Mr Dejo Makinde, who was
representing the constituency.

Makinde, who died in December, 2015 was a member of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) and minority leader of the house.

Earlier, Olusola said that the NSCDC command in the state would do the needful
to protect lives and property before and during the election.

He added that the command would continue to execute its mandate of protecting
government facilities at all times.

(source: The News)

***********

Killer of 12 policemen to die by hanging, court rules


One of the killers of 12 policemen who were ambushed and shot dead along the
creeks of Lobia 2 community, Southern Ijaw, Bayelsa State, on April 5, 2013,
has been sentenced to death by hanging.

The Oporoma Judicial Division of the High Court sitting in Yenagoa, the state
capital, slammed the capital punishment on the accused person, Jackson
Feutuboba, known along the creeks and waterways as Jasper.

The 2013 victims were deployed by the state police command, then headed by
Kingsley Omire (retd) to provide security for the funeral of the late mother of
an ex-militant leader, Mr. Kile Torughedi, popularly known as Young Shall Grow.

Torughedi who was the commander of the South Wing of the Movement for
Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) from 2002 till 2009 when he embraced the
amnesty for repentant militants was then serving as the Senior Special Adviser
to Governor Seriake Dickson on Marine Waterways Security.

The slain policemen were escorting dignitaries to the wake of the deceased when
the gunmen attacked them.

The gunmen killed 12 out of 15 of them and held 1 of them hostage for ransom.

Jasper and 2 others have been standing trial for their murder.

The court ruled that the prosecution proved its case beyond every reasonable
doubt and found Jasper guilty on all the 11 counts.

He was particularly arraigned for killing one Police Inspector, Joseph Ofozini.

The prosecution told the court that the accused person had over 5 cases in
various courts bothering on kidnapping, sea piracy and involvement in the death
of the policemen.

The presiding Judge, Justice M.A Ayemieye, took into consideration the nature
of the offence, the passionate plea for mercy made by the defendant's lawyer.

But the judge concluded that the sentence for murder is death and it is
mandatory.

Justice Ayemieye ruled and sentenced the accused to death by hanging.

The police prosecutor, Arthur Andrew Seweniowor, said if the accused failed to
appeal the sentence in three months, the governor would sign his death warrant
and he would be hanged.

The accused lawyer, Efieseimokumo Bipelede earlier pleaded with the court to
tamper justice with mercy saying the accused person is a family man with 5
children.

He said imposing the maximum penalty would truncate the destiny of all the
children whom he described as minors.

He urged the court to convert the punishment to prison sentence.

The court discharged and acquitted the second accused person identified as
ThankGod Clinton Ezetu for lack of evidence.

(source: thenationonlineng.net)






ST. KITTS/NEVIS:

PM Harris reminds no abolishment of death penalty


With the Federation's continuing fight against the scourge of gun crimes, Prime
Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy has reminded the nation that the death penalty is
not off the books.

Addressing media representatives at his recent press conference, Dr. Harris
explained that there was no consideration for the removal of that piece of law
from the books.

"The law is there and at times people seem to forget that the death penalty has
not been abolished, and it is a matter for the courts to impose in their
wisdom. But the death penalty still remains on our books."

Currently, St. Kitts and Nevis has recorded 9 homicides for the year; 6 in
January and 3 in March.

To this end, PM Harris stressed that "this government has no intention of
removing it in the immediate future".

Just last year, an advocacy group along with a number of European Union
officials had called for regional leaders to abolish the law.

St. Kitts and Nevis is one of 11 countries in the Caribbean and also one of 59
in the world that still uses capital punishment for those convicted of murder.

Amnesty International, an internationally-acclaimed NGO, has described the use
of the death penalty as being "cruel, inhuman and degrading", and as such they
strongly oppose its implementation.

"Amnesty opposes the death penalty at all times - regardless of who is accused,
the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution," the body said on its
website...

During a conference held in Georgetown, Guyana in 2015, several EU
representatives had lobbied for the law to be scrapped entirely, highlighting
the detriments in the case of wrongfully putting someone to death.

However, when asked about the overcrowding of facilities in the region and the
burden it places on developing countries, one representative indicated that
funding could be sought to assist those nations from the European Union.

"The European Union provides significant funding to countries in the Caribbean
through the European Development Fund and it has three programmatic lines,
climate change, regional integration, and crime and security. So we are working
with governments in the region to define exactly how these funds will be
disbursed and it's an ongoing conversation."

The Federation's main penitentiary, Her Majesty's Prison in Basseterre, is
overcrowded and Dr. Harris, who is also the Minister of National Security,
revealed to reporters that consideration is being given to constructing another
facility, but he confessed that they have not done an evaluation on the cost of
it as yet.

Asked if outside assistance would be sought for construction of the new prison
under the EU programme, the Prime Minister indicate that they would first look
at providing the resources before going internationally.

Meanwhile, in an interview with The St. Kitts and Nevis Observer last year, Dr.
Harris had informed that leaving the death penalty on the books would be seen
as a discouragement against criminal activities.

"It will help to send a strong message that homicides and all of these serious
crimes are not to be tolerated...The government at this time will not remove
any legislation or any mechanism that could help."

St. Kitts and Nevis uses the noose while most developed countries, including
the United States of America, use lethal injection or the electrical chair as
their means of capital punishment.

The Federation last used the noose in 2009 when convicted murderer Charles 'Al'
LaPlace was sentenced to death after chopping his wife to death.

According to reports, LaPlace had held his wife Diana against her will at a
home they once shared in Sandy Point. It is while escaping capture that he
reportedly dealt her several chops about her body in the presence of their
neighbours.

(soruce: sknvibes.com)






INDONESIA:

Student on drug trafficking charge faces death penalty


A student charged with drug trafficking was ordered to be further remanded in
prison by a magistrates' court here yesterday as the offence is non bailable.
No plea was taken from Ralph Lee Zhen Jie, aged 21.

He appeared before Magistrate Zubaidah Sharkawi who ordered him to be remanded
in prison at Puncak Borneo here pending further mention of the case on April
19.

The student of a private college here is charged with possessing 655 grammes of
cannabis (gross weight) when he was detained at 9.45pm on March 13 at a house
in Jalan Dogan.

Drug trafficking listed under Section 39A(1) (a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act
1952, provides a mandatory death sentence upon conviction. Lee was represented
by counsel Roger Chin while DPP Poh Yoh Tinn prosecuted.

(source: theborneopost.com)

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March 23



PAKISTAN:

Since lifting of moratorium: 353 convicts hanged since Dec 2014, SC told


The federal government on Tuesday informed the top court that 353 death-row
prisoners have been hanged in the country after the lifting of moratorium on
capital punishment in the wake of a massacre of schoolchildren by terrorists in
December 2014.

Deputy Attorney General Sajid Ilyas Bhatti on Tuesday submitted a 1-page
response before a 3-judge bench of the SC headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan in
response to its query regarding status of mercy petitions.

The reply said 444 mercy petitions had been rejected by the president from
December 2014 to February 25, 2016. "38 petitions were still pending before the
Interior Ministry while 33 were under process. The provinces have, however, not
submitted any details of death row prisoners," it said.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Barrister Zafarullah, who had
requested the SC to convert sentence of death row prisoners into life
imprisonment.

During the hearing, Barrister Zafarullah said no one could be given double
sentences for 1 offence, adding that the SC's 5-judge larger bench had already
declared that if a death row prisoner had spent a life sentence then he could
not be executed.

However, the bench said the matter differed from case to case.

In response to the counsel's request to form a larger bench the court remarked
that only the CJP could constitute a larger bench.

Last year, the SC - while dismissing a plea of the same petitioner against the
abolition of the death penalty - observed that the right to life and liberty is
not absolute in nature and that such a right is circumscribed and subject to
law

Authoring the judgment, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar observed that "the court has
made clear that the right to life and liberty is not absolute in nature and a
person cannot be bereft of his life and liberty except in accordance with the
law," adding that a person could be deprived of his life and liberty, if it was
provided and prescribed by any law in view of the Constitution's Article 4 (2)
(a).

The judgment said the petitioner had failed to show that on the basis of 2
constitutional clauses, the top court, while exercising its jurisdiction in
terms of Article 184 (3) of the Constitution, could direct the abolition of the
death penalty in Pakistan and annul any law.

Regarding the petitioner's argument that Article 9 is not a properly worded
article and parliament should make necessary amendment, the judgment said the
top court while exercising the instant jurisdiction does not deem it
appropriate to issue such direction.

(source: Express Tribune)






SINGAPORE:

D'Leedon murder: Belgian accused could escape death penalty


A Belgian man accused of murdering his 5-year-old son in Singapore could be
spared from hanging if he pleads guilty to an amended charge, state prosecutors
said Wednesday.

Philippe Graffart, 42, was charged with the murder of his son Keryan at an
upmarket condominium in October 2015 but has been found to be suffering from
severe depression.

Murder is punishable by death through hanging in Singapore, but Graffart would
instead face a maximum term of 10 years and caning should he plead guilty to an
amended charge of culpable homicide under the Singapore penal code.

"The accused suffered from major depressive order which substantially impaired
his mental state at the time of the offence," the Attorney-General's Chambers
told AFP in reply to a query.

"The charging and sentencing position will be made clear when the matter is
heard in open court."

Execution by hanging dates back to British colonial rule in Singapore and is
applied to convicted murderers and drug traffickers. There is no other form of
execution in the city-state.

Graffart's lawyer Ramesh Tiwary said his client was "still very depressed about
what happened".

The Belgian, a former finance executive who has been in remand since his arrest
in October hours after the killing, did not appear in a district court on
Wednesday during a pre-trial session because he was unwell, Tiwary said.

He said the next pre-trial conference on the case is scheduled for March
29.According to Singapore media reports, Graffart's son was found strangled in
his bedroom with hand-shaped bruises around his neck.

The father was believed to have been fighting for the boy's custody with his
ex-wife at the time.

Graffart's account on business networking service LinkedIn before his arrest
described him as an executive director and head of fund distribution in the
Asia-Pacific region for Oslo-based Nordea Investment Management

(source: asiaone.com)






MALDIVES:

Maldives top court allows lawyer killer state attorney in final appeal


Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a state appointed attorney for Ahmed Murrath
who was sentenced to death over the murder of a prominent lawyer in 2012.

The Supreme Court began final proceedings over Murrath's death sentence on
Wednesday where he requested the judge for the state's assistance to appoint a
defence lawyer.

Murrath had not exercised the right to appeal the after the High Court had
upheld the verdict, prompting the prosecution to forward the cases to the
Supreme Court late last year for a final review.

Regulations on death penalty that came into effect in 2014 require the
prosecution to exhaust the appeal process -- the High Court and Supreme Court
-- even if the convict wishes to not file for appeal.

Murrath's lover, Fathimath Hana had also been convicted and sentenced to death
over the murder in 2012. But the appeal of her sentence is yet to be concluded
by the High Court.

(source: haveeru.com)




JAPAN:

Scholar's poll rebuts high public support for death penalty


A scholar based in Britain has raised doubts about the high level of public
support for the death penalty touted by the Abe government as the main reason
to continue capital punishment.

Mai Sato, a lecturer of criminology at the University of Reading, says her
research shows that such high support levels are nothing more than a myth.

She published an article in the March edition of the monthly Sekai (World)
magazine in which she compares government surveys with her own polls.

In January 2015, the Cabinet Office released the results of a public opinion
survey that asked a 2-choice question. Only 9.7 % chose "the death penalty
should be eliminated," compared with an overwhelming 80.3 % who picked "it
cannot be helped but to keep the death penalty."

"This shows a positive response (to the death penalty system)," Yoko Kamikawa,
then justice minister, said at a news conference.

Sato conducted her own poll in February and March 2015 to find out if the
government survey was a good indicator of public opinion.

The conditions of her survey were similar to that of the government survey, but
she included additional questions to gain a deeper understanding of the
public's views.

She sent questionnaires to 3,000 individuals, identical to the Cabinet Office
survey, and received responses from 1,551, or 52 % of the total.

Sato asked respondents about whether or not Japan should keep the death
penalty, but she offered 5 answers, rather than 2.

According to the results of Sato's survey, 27 % picked "having (the death
penalty) is absolutely better," 46 % chose "it is somewhat better to have it,"
20 % said "neither," 6 % picked "it is somewhat better to eliminate it" and 2 %
said "it absolutely has to be eliminated."

"While there is a large number in favor of maintaining the system, only 27 %
were strongly in favor of keeping it," Sato said. "It shows that public opinion
does not necessarily strongly support the capital punishment system."

Her survey also looked into whether the public would accept a decision made
unilaterally by the government to abolish the death penalty.

On this issue, 71 % of supporters of the death penalty said they thought there
would be a spread of the thinking "if the government made such a decision,
there would be nothing to do but accept it even though there may be
dissatisfaction."

The survey also asked who should determine the future of the death penalty.

40 % each chose "it should be decided by public opinion" and "it should be
decided by state authority, such as the government, or experts."

"This shows there is room in Japan for accepting the elimination of the death
penalty,' Sato said. "The public also does not feel that public opinion should
determine whether to keep or abolish the death penalty."

Mikio Kawai, a professor of sociology of law at Toin University of Yokohama,
praised Sato's research for concentrating on the main points in the debate over
capital punishment.

He pointed out that when discussions were being held in Europe over the death
penalty, the common pattern was to have the government decide to eliminate it
even though the majority of public opinion was in favor of keeping it.

"In the background to the support for the government decision of those times
was the reality of 'while a majority may favor keeping it, the support is not
strong,'" Kawai said.

(source: asahi.com)






POLAND:

Polish Muslim leader says death penalty should be reinstated for terrorists


Chief Mufti of Poland Tomasz Miskiewicz has said that EU countries should
reintroduce the death penalty for terrorists, in the wake of Tuesday's fatal
attacks in Brussels.

"The death penalty would not be comparable to executions carried out by the
Islamic State as the sentences would be meted out to those responsible for the
death of innocent people," Mufti Miskiewicz said in an interview with the TVN
24 news channel.

"This punishment should not only be for the actual perpetrators, but also
anyone who is against freedom, who propagates terrorism," he added.

Over 30 people were killed and about 230 injured as a result of explosions at
Brussels Zaventem airport and on the city's metro on Tuesday.

3 Poles were among the injured. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility
for the attacks.

Mufti Miskiewcz is a descendant of Poland's small Tatar community, which has
been based in the country - principally in the east - for several centuries.

(source: The News)






INDIA:

Bihar considering death penalty to curb hooch production


As a ban on production and sale of spiked liquor comes into force on April 1 in
Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar sought cooperation from the public to
enforce it, and said his government was considering introducing the death
penalty for those found guilty of manufacturing hooch.

Kumar especially appealed to women in implementing the phased ban, stating that
it was not an easy decision to enforce.

"Once successful in enforcing ban, including plugging of home delivery, it will
not only increase Bihar's credibility but also trigger similar demand for ban
in other states," he said, adding the government had considered all aspects of
the ban.

Other measures like introducing e-locks for containers transporting liquor
through the state to check pilferage will also be put in place. However, the
'home delivery' aspect of the problem can only be tackled with public support,
Kumar said, saying the government would bring in tougher laws, launch awareness
campaigns and bolster public participation.

"IMFL (Indian manufactured foreign liquor) sale is being taken over by Bihar
State Beverages Corporation to ensure quick and effective imposition of
complete ban in the next phase," he said.

"In order to make it a public campaign, students are getting signed pledges
from parents. Women are already taking men to de-addiction centres in various
districts for counselling and getting medicines prescribed, if need be, to deal
with the habit."

Kumar was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of Bihar Diwas where he also
called on the Bihari pride for a better future. Talking about the rich heritage
of the state, he said Bihar's present day achievements were no less inspiring.
"(The) whole of Bihar is a live archaeological site. If proper excavations are
carried out it would add many new chapters to history of the country ... It's
time to unearth Bihar's heritage and legacy," he said.

With plans to christen the upcoming International Convention Centre after King
Ashoka, the chief minister said the government was planning for a developed
Bihar through seven actionable key resolves.

(source: Hindustan Times)






PHILIPPINES:

De Lima says 'no' to death penalty


Former Justice secretary and now senatorial candidate Leila de Lima on Tuesday
said she opposes the position of Sen. Grace Poe and Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who
have publicly declared their support to bring back the death penalty as a means
to resolve crime in the country.

"No empirical evidence anywhere has suggested that the death penalty deters
crime. The death penalty should be abolished, not only because there is no
correlation between this punishment and crime deterrence, but also its effects
are basically irreversible," according to de Lima.

The State, she said, "has the obligation to guide any offender to a life of
reform and become more productive members of society. Even law offenders have a
potential to become reformed members of society. For heinous offenses such as
drug and human trafficking, rape and other sociopathic offenses such as serial
killings and mass murderers, life imprisonment without parole or executive
clemency should be enough." she said.

De Lima cited a finding of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that most of
those convicted belong to the lower classes: the poor and disadvantaged,
financially unable to pay for their own counsel, relying only on the courts to
provide them with a legal counsel.

She was CHR chairman until she was tapped to head the Department of Justice.

The CHR finding, de Lima said, is supported by a survey conducted by FLAG, a
lawyers' group, when death penalty was still in law books, wherein 52.2 % of
those in death row belonged to the lowest social class.

"Instead, we need to ensure that the justice system indeed works: By having a
truly independent judiciary who can decide on cases with the highest integrity
and will ensure a speedy trial, efficient prosecutors who can closely
collaborate with investigating bodies and other law enforcement units for a
strong case build-up and a law enforcement sector that will implement the law
to the letter, while caring for victims, who were put in jeopardy because of
circumstances," she added.

The former Justice secretary also batted for a modern and simplified criminal
code that will allow better response to the times, resulting in a higher
conviction rates.

(source: Manila Times)


NIGERIA:

Sentence politicians who kidnap govt money to death - Bruce Nkem Ikeke

Some states have been proposing the death penalty for kidnappers, one of such
state is Osun.

The state House of Assembly recently indicated plans to review the state's
criminal law to provide for death penalty for kidnapping in the state.

Reacting to this, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, representing Bayelsa East at the
National Assembly said the death sentence should first be applied on
politicians who kidnap government money.

Cross Rivers state is another state advocating for death penalty for convicted
kidnappers. The state governor, Ben Ayade, on Wednesday, July 1, sent an
executive bill to the House of Assembly stipulating a death penalty for those
convicted of kidnapping for consideration and passage.

In September 2015, the anti-kidnapping bill was signed into law.

Also, in July the Kogi state executive council proposed an executive bill
seeking to enact a law criminalizing kidnapping and death sentence by hanging.

(source: naij.com)






BANGLADESH:

SC confirms JMB militant Asaduzzaman's death penalty for Udichi office bombings
in 2005


The Supreme Court has upheld the death verdict awarded to a militant of banned
Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the bombings at Udichi's office in
Netrokona.

A 4-strong bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha
rejected an appeal filed by Asaduzzaman Chowdhury alias Panir on Wednesday.

Dhaka's Speedy Trial Tribunal-2 sentenced 3 including Asaduzzaman to death for
the bombings that killed 8 people in front of the cultural organisation's
office on Dec 8, 2005.

(source: bdnews24.com)

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

War Crimes Verdict Based on Flawed Trial----Chief Justice Calls Prosecution
"Incompetent" and Evidence "Insufficient"


Bangladeshi authorities should immediately set aside the death penalty against
Mir Qasem Ali, a senior member of the executive committee of opposition party
Jamaat-e-Islaami, and order a new trial that meets international fair trial
standards, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Supreme Court upheld the conviction against Ali despite earlier statements
in court by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, criticizing the attorney
general, prosecutors, and investigators for producing insufficient evidence in
the trial court. According to credible, detailed notes from the hearing in the
Supreme Court, he said to the prosecutors: "What prevented the investigation
agency to produce sufficient witnesses to prove the charges? ... The
prosecution and the Investigation Agency need to produce sufficient evidence to
support a conviction ... We feel really ashamed when we read the prosecution
evidence." The attorney general, Mahbubey Alam, in turn was quoted saying, "The
Supreme Court observed that a huge amount of money is being spent on the
prosecutors and investigators, but they did not handle and investigate the
cases properly."

"Convictions can only be upheld when there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt,
yet in this case there are grave doubts about the evidence after the court so
strongly criticized the prosecution," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human
Rights Watch. "In death penalty cases the authorities must adhere to the
highest standards."

Ali was convicted and sentenced to death in November 2014, by the International
Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on 10 out of 14 counts of abduction, torture, and
confinement as crimes against humanity. For these crimes, he was sentenced to
72 years in prison. Ali was also convicted on 2 further counts of murder, in 1
case of 2 adults and in the other of a child, Jashim Uddin. He was sentenced to
death for the murders.

On March 8, 2016, the Appellate Division of the Bangladeshi Supreme Court set
aside three of the abduction and torture convictions. It also acquitted Ali of
the murder of the 2 adults. However, it upheld the conviction and death penalty
sentence against Ali for the murder of Jashim Uddin during the war.

As in other cases before the ICT, the defense was arbitrarily limited in its
ability to submit evidence, including witnesses and documents. Defense lawyers
were allowed to produce only three witnesses to counter 14 separate charges.
Lawyers were threatened orally with a 50 lakh taka (approximately US$64,000)
fine when they asked the judges to review their order limiting witnesses. The
court denied the defense the opportunity to challenge the credibility of
prosecution witnesses by rejecting witnesses' earlier statements that were
inconsistent with their trial testimony. The refusal to allow the accused to
challenge the credibility of prosecution witnesses has been a hallmark of
trials before the ICT.

During the appeal at the Supreme Court, the chief justice called the
prosecution and its investigation agency "very incompetent." He accused the
prosecution of dealing with proving the case against Ali "half-heartedly" and
with "no responsibility." The chief justice said he was "shocked" and that the
prosecution's case against Ali was full of contradictions. He expressed
particular concern at the prosecution's failure to rebut the accused???s alibi
defense, which put Ali in Dhaka on the day of the murder in Chittagong:
"Defence could produce a series of documentary evidences in support of their
alibi. But the prosecution and the investigation agency were very incompetent."

The chief justice further went on to accuse the prosecution of using the ICT
trials purely for political benefit and political interests: "We are very
disappointed to see that you are using these trials out of your political
benefits. These trials are being used for political interests."

The chief justice's sentiments echo those made by the Supreme Court in its
written verdict in another ICT case against Delwar Hossain Sayedee. The chief
justice wrote that verdict when he was a justice on the Supreme Court before
his promotion to chief justice. In that case, Sayedee's death penalty was
commuted by the Supreme Court to a life sentence, though it stopped short of
ordering a new trial.

The chief justice's statements in the Ali case caused a furore among those
backing the ICT trials. A government minister, Qamrul Islam, called for the
removal of the chief justice and for a rehearing to be held.

???Human Rights Watch has long supported justice and accountability for the
horrific crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war. But this must be done
through trials which meet international standards, particularly since the death
penalty is at stake," said Adams. "Bangladesh owes the victims of 1971 a fair
and proper accountability process."

Trials before the ICT have been replete with violations of the right to a fair
trial. The ICT has fundamental flaws because of article 47(A) of the
constitution, which states, "This Article further denies any accused under the
ICT Act from moving the Supreme Court for any remedies under the Constitution,
including any challenges as to the unconstitutionality of Article 47(A)." The
article specifically strips people accused of war crimes of certain fundamental
rights, including the right to an expeditious trial by an independent and
impartial tribunal, and the right to move the courts to enforce their
fundamental rights. This article has permitted the ICT overly broad discretion
to deny those accused in this and prior cases the rights and procedures
accorded to other defendants.

Many of the trials before the ICT have been marred by evidence from intercepted
communications between the prosecution and the judges that has revealed
prohibited and biased communications. The ICT's response on several occasions
to those who have raised objections about the trials has been to file contempt
charges against them in an apparent attempt to silence criticism rather than to
answer substantively or to rectify any errors.

The UN Human Rights Committee, which interprets the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a state party, has said
that, "in cases of trials leading to the imposition of the death penalty,
scrupulous respect of the guarantees of fair trial is particularly important"
and that any death penalty imposed after an unfair trial would be a violation
of the right to life and to a fair trial.

Human Rights Watch reiterated its longstanding call for Bangladesh to impose an
immediate moratorium on the death penalty and join the growing number of states
that have abolished the use of capital punishment.

"We welcome the fact that the chief justice identified problems with the
evidence in the Ali case, but the court should follow through by ordering a
retrial," Adams said. "Allowing the death sentence in a case with such
fundamental doubts about the evidence is unthinkable."

(source: Human Rights Watch)

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[Rick Halperin]

March 23



NIGERIA----impending execution

3 years after, killer of 11 police to die by hanging


The Oporoma Judicial Division of the High Court in Bayelsa State has sentenced
to death by hanging 1 of the killers of the 11 policemen at Lobia 2 community
in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State on April 5, 2013.

The accused, Mr. Jackson Feutubobai, known along the creeks and waterways as
Jasper, was found guilty on all the 11-count charge of murder.

Jackson Feutubobai, according to the charge sheet numbered OHC/3c/2014, was
accused of killing one Police Inspector, Joseph Ofozini.

Police prosecutor told the court that the accused had over 5 cases in various
courts bothering on alleged kidnapping, sea piracy and involvement in the
killing of 11 policemen in 2013.

3 years after, killer of 11 police to die by hanging

The presiding Judge of the State High Court, Justice M.A Ayemieye, after taking
into account the nature of the offence and the passionate plea for mercy made
by the counsel for the convict, ordered that the sentence of murder was death
and that it was mandatory.

Justice Ayemieye ruled and sentenced the accused to death by hanging.

The State Prosecuting Counsel, Arthur Andrew Seweniowor, while speaking with
newsmen, said if the accused failed to appeal in 3 months, the governor would
sign his death warrant and he would be hanged.

The counsel to the accused Efieseimokumo Bipeledei pleaded with the court to
temper justice with mercy, saying the accused person was a family man who had 5
children who were all depending on him.

He said imposing the maximum penalty would truncate the destiny of all the
children, who were all minors, urging the court to convert the punishment to
terms of imprisonment.

The court also discharged and acquitted the 2nd accused person identified as
ThankGod Clinton Ezetu after no evidence was linked to him on the murder of the
11 policemen.

(source: Daily Times of Nigeria)






BANGLADESH:

SC upholds death penalty for JMB man Asaduzzaman


The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the death penalty of banned Jama'atul
Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activist Asaduzzaman Chowdhury alias Panir for
killing 8 people by carrying out suicide bomb attacks at Udichi and Shata Dal
Shilpi Goshthi offices in Netrakona in 2005.

A 4-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra
Kumar Sinha dismissed an appeal filed by Asaduzzaman challenging the High Court
verdict that had affirmed the trial court judgement sentencing him to death.

Deputy Attorney General Sashanka Shekhar Sarkar told The Daily Star that the
jail authorities could take steps for executing the convict after receiving the
apex court verdict, if he did not take any further legal step.

Asaduzzaman, who is now is Dhaka Central Jail, can seek review of the SC
verdict and presidential mercy after receiving the SC verdict, he added.

According to the prosecution, suicide bomb attacks were carried out at Udichi
and Shata Dal Shilpi Goshthi offices on December 8, 2005 that left eight people
dead and 40 others injured.

The deceased were Khawja Haider, Sudipta Paul Shelly, Rani Begum, Joinal,
Raisuddin, Yadev Das, Jahanara and Shawkat.

On February 17, 2008, a Dhaka court sentenced 3 JMB activists Salahuddin alias
Saleheen, Asaduzzaman Chowdhury alias Panir and Yunus Ali to death for the
killings.

Yunus was tried in absentia as he is on the run. The court acquitted Fahima
alias Farzana, also known as Rokeya, an accused of the case, as her involvement
in the killings was not proved.

The court did not consider punishing JMB's second-in-command Siddiqul Islam
Bangla Bhai and JMB's military commander Ataur Rahman Sunny, who were also the
accused of the case, as their death penalty for killing two Jhalakathi judges
were earlier executed.

Asaduzzaman the same year filed an appeal with the HC challenging the lower
court verdict on him.

The HC in 2014 rejected his appeal, DAG Sashanka said.

The DAG, however, could not say the status of Salahuddin.

(source: The Daily Star)






MALAYSIA:

Stop execution of prisoner due to be hanged on Friday


The Malaysian government must halt the execution of a 34-year-old man due to be
hanged this Friday for murder, said Amnesty International.

Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu's mother was today advised by officials at Taiping
Prison, northern Malaysia, to visit her son for the "last time" and make
arrangements for his funeral. Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu was convicted of murder,
an offence which attracts the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia.

"Executing Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu would be a regressive step for human rights
in Malaysia," said Josef Benedict, Amnesty International's Deputy Campaign
Director for South-East Asia and the Pacific.

"The mandatory death penalty is a clear breach of human rights regardless of
the crime committed. The authorities must step in to prevent this brutal act
taking place before it is too late, and instead commute Gunasegar's death
sentence."

Amnesty International has consistently criticized Malaysia's practice of
"secretive" executions. Information on scheduled hangings is not made public
before, or even after, they are carried out - contrary to international
standards on the use of the death penalty.

Instead, Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu's mother Nagarani Sandasamy today received a
letter from Taiping Prison officials informing her that he will be executed
"soon" and advising her to visit him tomorrow morning. The family was also
advised to discuss arrangements to claim the prisoner's body for his funeral.

Nagarani Sandasamy last visited her son a week ago, when neither were aware
that the 34-year-old was scheduled to be hanged just a week later.

Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu was sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing of a man
in Sungai Petani, Kedah state, on 16 April 2005.

"As discussions on abolishing the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia continue,
the Malaysian government must immediately put in place a moratorium on all
executions as a 1st step towards full abolition of the death penalty," said
Josef Benedict.

Background

No information is made publicly available on individual death penalty cases in
Malaysia, while families are often informed at the last minute that their loved
ones will be executed.

Senior government officials recently said Malaysia was considering abolishing
the mandatory death penalty, which is currently the punishment for crimes
including murder and drug-related offenses.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception
regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, the guilt, innocence or
other characteristics of the individual, or the method used by the state to
carry out the execution.

The death penalty violates the right to life and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman
and degrading punishment.

International law and standards prohibit the mandatory imposition of the death
penalty as constituting arbitrary deprivation of life, as it denies judges the
possibility of taking into account the defendant's personal circumstances or
the circumstances of the particular offense.

(source: Amnesty International)



SOUTH AFRICA:

'SA can't go back to death penalty'


Justice Minister Michael Masutha says today's visit to the correctional centre
reinforced his belief that South Africa can never go back to the death penalty.

It was an emotional day for many as correctional services officials led a tour
of the gallows where hundreds of people were hanged and explained the process
of carrying out a death sentence.

Masutha launched The Gallows Exhumation Project at the Kgosi Mampuru Maximum
Security Prison this morning.

Between 1960 and 1990, at least 130 black South Africans were hanged for
politically motivated offences.

All political prisoners who were sentenced to death during apartheid were
transferred to the prison to await their execution.

But in 1996, all those who were handed the death penalty for political or other
crimes had their sentences converted to life imprisonment after the
Constitutional Court ruled executions were cruel, inhumane and degrading.

Minister Masutha says inspecting the gallows confirmed to him that doing away
with the punishment was justified.

"Being a constitutional state does provide some advantage in situations such as
this."

He says the exhumations of 83 people will begin on 4 April 2016.

(source: ewn.co.za)






CHINA:

Suspect in Iowa killing stands trial in China


A grieving father has called for the death penalty as his daughter's alleged
killer goes on trial in China.

Shao Tong, a 20-year-old student from China who had gone to the U.S. to study
engineering, was strangled to death in Iowa in September 2014, her body stuffed
in the trunk of her own car.

Her boyfriend, Li Xiangnan, who fled to China shortly after she was killed, was
charged with her murder in June last year and stands trial at the Intermediate
People's Court on Wednesday in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou.

Li turned himself in to authorities in May last year. His lawyer Sheng Shaolin
declined to say whether he had pleaded guilty or not.

Shao Chunsheng and his wife Yang Xue have traveled to Wenzhou to attend the
trial.

He said he had met with Li's parents Tuesday, who begged for his forgiveness
and offered to pay an unspecified amount compensation for his only daughter's
death. Sheng confirmed the details of the meeting and the compensation offer.

No forgiveness

Shao said Li deserved the death penalty.

"I wouldn't forgive him however much money they offered," Shao told CNN by
phone.

According to Chinese law, the sentence for intentional homicide could range
from 10 years to capital punishment. The trial is expected to last no longer
than 1 day, court authorities told CNN.

2 Iowa state detectives and the case prosecutor from Iowa City have traveled to
Wenzhou for the trial and to support the Shao family.

There is no death penalty in Iowa and the lead prosecutor there had expressed
their hope to Chinese investigators that the case not be pursued as a capital
one.

David Gonzalez, the lead Iowa police investigator for the case, said his
priority was to support the Shao family.

"Whatever happens to Mr. Li is not up to us at this point, that's up for the
court," said David Gonzalez,

"I can only imagine if it was my child, if I was in the same position, what I
would want in my own justice."

"I would want them to know that obviously we did the best we could for their
family as far as the investigation goes," Gonzalez added.

Rare cooperation

Iowa authorities have credited an April 2015 CNN story with drawing attention
to the investigation, which had stalled because there is no extradition treaty
between China and the United States.

In that piece, Shao's father urged both U.S. and Chinese authorities to do more
to seek justice for his daughter.

Investigators in Iowa said they felt hamstrung because there was little
precedent for such a case -- when a Chinese national flees the United States
and is wanted in connection with the killing of another Chinese national.

However, the case has since been hailed a rare example of cooperation between
U.S. and Chinese law enforcement agencies.

Gonzalez told CNN Iowa authorities have worked "very, very well together" with
Chinese law enforcement at both local and state levels, adding that the
important thing was for Li to be brought to justice, no matter whether in the
U.S. or China.

"I have nothing but good things to say about the cooperation that we received
from the Chinese government."

Shao Tong was first reported missing by her roommate on September 18, 2014. It
wasn't until September 26 that police in Iowa found her body.

By then Li, a "person of interest" sought for questioning by Iowa authorities,
had already bought a 1-way ticket and returned to China.

He turned himself in to Chinese police in May 2015 and was charged with
intentional homicide in June.

The case attracted a huge amount interest in China and particularly among the
300,000 Chinese students in the United States.

Yang, Shao Tong's mom, said she was too emotional to speak about the case.

"I'm bitter, very bitter. My heart aches," she said via text message.

(source: CNN)


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March 24


SOUTH AFRICA:

South Africa exhumes political prisoners hanged during apartheid


South Africa on Wednesday commenced the exhumation of 83 political prisoners
hanged at Pretoria Central Prison during the apartheid era, Justice Minister,
Michael Masutha, said.

The minister said the remains would be identified and returned to their
families.

Report says some 130 political prisoners were hanged on the gallows of the
correctional centre between 1960 and 1990.

The remains of 47 of mainly members of the Pan Africanist Congress and United
Democratic Front anti-apartheid organisations had been exhumed, while 83 of
them remain buried in unmarked graves.

The apartheid government was widely criticised for its mass executions of
anti-apartheid activists, most of them black South Africans.

The last execution carried out at the prison was of Solomon Ngobeni in November
1989, who was convicted of robbing a taxi driver.

The last woman executed was Sandra Smith, convicted for murder in June of the
same year.

In February 1990, President Frederik Willem de Klerk declared a moratorium on
executions in the country, while the death penalty was abolished in 1995.

However, many South Africans called for the death penalty to be reinstated
after a surge in violent crimes and murders in the country.

A survey conducted in 2015 by the South African research group Pondering Panda
found that over 3/4 of young South Africans wanted the death penalty back.

(source: Premium Times)






SOMALIA:

Killers of female Somali journalist sentenced to death


2 Al Shabaab members who have been convicted of murdering a female Somali
journalist have been sentenced to death by the military tribunal of Somalia
last Sunday.

Liban Ali Yarow, the chief of Somali military court said evidence brought in
support of the case showed that they had execution role of Hinda Hajji Mohamed,
female journalist killed in car bomb on December 3, 2015.

Hinda who worked for the state media has been killed in a bomb attached under
the seat of her private car which exploded out Turkish embassy building in
Mogadishu's KM4 area.

Abdirisack Mohamed Barrow, 28, and Hassan Nur Ali Farah, 37, were sentenced to
death penalty, after the court has found them guilty of all charges against
them, according to Judge Yarow who announced the verdict.

4 other co-conspirators have been sentenced to jail terms, 2 of them life in
imprisonment by the Somali military tribunal for their role of the journalist
murdering.

Early this month, the court has sentenced Hassan Hanafi, Al Shabaab journalist
to death for planning the deaths of 5 media workers who were killed in
Mogadishu between 2007 and 2011. Mandera quarry terror attack that left 14
dead.

On July 7, 2015, workers at the quarry were killed by fighters of the al
Qaeda-linked terror group as they slept. Dubow is "armed and dangerous", read a
poster the National Police Service circulated on social media on Friday. He is
believed to have returned to Kenya from Somalia.

On February 26, Kenyan security agencies placed a Sh8 million bounty on 4
terror suspects believed to have been behind attacks on a bus and a quarry in
Mandera.

Abdullahi Issak, Idriss Issack, Ahmed Uweys and Mohamed Shide allegedly planned
the November 2014 ambush on Makkah Bus that left 28 dead. They have also been
linked to the December 2014 killing of 36 quarry workers in the county.

Mandera county ordered all quarries closed immediately to save workers from
terror attacks. More than 3,000 people, mostly non-residents, rely on the mines
for upkeep.

Quarry workers started leaving Mandera town after the order.

(source: ippmedia.com)



BANGLADESH:

HRW wants new trial for Mir Quasem


Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the Bangladesh authorities to set aside the
death penalty against Jamaat leader Mir Quasem Ali and order a new trial that
it says would meet international fair trial standards.

"Convictions can only be upheld when there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt,
yet in this case there are grave doubts about the evidence after the court so
strongly criticised the prosecution," Brad Adams, Asia director at the HRW,
said in a press release yesterday.

In death penalty cases, the authorities must adhere to the highest standards.

"Human Rights Watch has long supported justice and accountability for the
horrific crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war. But this must be done
through trials which meet international standards, particularly since the death
penalty is at stake," he said.

"Bangladesh owes the victims of 1971 a fair and proper accountability process."

Mir Quasem Ali was convicted and sentenced to death in November 2014, by the
International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on charges of abduction, torture, and
confinement as crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971, said
the release.

On March 8 this year, the Appellate Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court
set aside three of the abduction and torture convictions. However, it upheld
the conviction and death penalty sentence against Mir Quasem for the murder of
Jashim Uddin during the war, it added.

The HRW reiterated its call for Bangladesh to impose an immediate moratorium on
the death penalty and join the growing number of states that have abolished the
use of capital punishment.

(source: The Daily Star)




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

Bangladesh SC Confirms Islamist's Death Sentence


Bangladesh Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty of a top Islamist
militant for carrying out a bomb attack in 2005 that had left 8 secular
activists dead, authorities said today.

"The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court yesterday confirmed the death
penalty of JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) operative Asaduzzaman
Chowdhury, upholding the trial court and the subsequent High Court judgments,"
a spokesman of the attorney general's office told PTI.

8 people had died and 40 others injured in the 2005 attack on the offices of 2
secular groups that organised cultural events.

JMB was banned after a series of bombings across the country in 2005.

A special Dhaka court in 2008 had handed down Chowdhury and 2 other fellow JMB
members the death penalty. His other 2 accomplices were tried in absentia and
are still on the run.

JMB's founder Shaikh Abdur Rahman and 5 of his key associates were hanged in
March 2007 and hundreds of JMB men were hunted down as Bangladesh launched a
massive anti- militancy campaign.

(source: outlookindia.com)






MALAYSIA:

Bar urges hold on executions pending death penalty review


The Malaysian Bar has urged the government to declare a moratorium on any
executions, in light of an impending review of the mandatory death penalty.

Its president Steven Thiru said that all death sentences should be stayed
pending the results of the review.

"It is unfair and unjust to carry out the death sentence when there is
currently a possibility of reform which, if put into effect, should apply
retrospectively," he said in a statement on Thursday in response to reports
that convicts P. Gunasegar, J. Ramesh and J. Sasivarnam would be executed as
early as Friday.

Since 2010, the Malaysian Government has announced its willingness to review
the mandatory death penalty, with a view to its possible abolition or the
reintroduction of a discretionary death penalty especially for drug-related
offences.

Steven however said that the death penalty should be abolished as it has no
place in a society that values human life, justice and mercy.

The 3 are on death row for the murder of B. Venukumar, then 24, on April 4,
2005.

In court documents sighted by The Star, Gunasegar was charged, together with J.
Ramesh and J. Sasivarnam, with murdering Venukumar at a playground in Taman Ria
Raya, Sungai Petani, Kedah.

Though the trio claimed during the trial that they had been attacked by a
group, which included Venukumar and only defended themselves, the High Court
found them guilty in 2011.

The decision was later affirmed by the Court of Appeal and Federal Court.

(source: The Star)


RUSSIA:

'Capital crime!' Nationalist lawmaker seeks return of death penalty for
terrorists


MP Nikolay Nosov, representing populist nationalist party LDPR, promises to
draft a bill that, if passed, will reinstate the death penalty in Russia, but
only for terrorists and foreign citizens convicted of drug trafficking.

"I am currently drafting a law that would introduce the death penalty for
terrorists. I think we should use methods employed by the USSR and Israel - no
negotiations and only death for terrorists," the lawmaker has told RIA Novosti.

He added that in his view terrorism was an evil that could not be justified and
therefore the authorities should not use compromise in dealing with extremists.

"The world has turned into a minefield. The horrible events that have sent
tremors through Europe are a logical consequence of European policies. We
should stop flirting with terrorists, label them as opposition or fighters for
independence, everyone must stop using them for any political purposes," Nosov
noted.

However, he emphasized that capital punishment could be applied only when the
convict's guilt is completely proven and only for very few categories of
criminals - terrorists, recruiters of terrorists and foreign citizens
repeatedly convicted of drug trafficking.

The moratorium on capital punishment was introduced in 1996 in connection with
Russia's entry into the Council of Europe. The last execution in the Russian
Federation took place on September 2, 1996.

Since the moratorium came into force, Russian politicians and state officials
have repeatedly proposed reintroducing the death penalty for crimes like
terrorism, corruption, pedophilia and war crimes. The LDPR party has been among
those who urged to return capital punishment for corrupt officials who aid
terrorists.

The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has also repeatedly urged the
authorities to introduce the death penalty for terrorism, arguing that keeping
convicted extremists in prisons is too expensive and also that there was a
threat that terrorists serving life sentences would recruit new supporters
inside prisons.

The poll conducted by the privately owned center Public Opinion Foundation in
mid-2015 showed that 60 % of Russian citizens would not object to the
reintroduction of the death penalty. This was down from the 2014 figure of 66
%, while the highest recorded figure was 80 % back in 2001.

However, the Human Rights Council, along with the Russian president, has
repeatedly unanimously rejected calls to reinstitute executions for terrorist
crimes, saying that the measure would be both inhumane and ineffective. In late
2015, the body's Chairman Mikhail Fedotov told reporters that in 2009, Russia's
Constitutional Court prolonged the moratorium on the death penalty, with
President Vladimir Putin voicing his strong support for the decision.

Members of the parliamentary majority United Russia party have also refused to
support the return of capital punishment.

"At the present moment the issue of introducing the death penalty, including
the death penalty for terrorism, is not being considered in Russia," Raphael
Mardanshin (United Russia) said in a televised interview in October.

The MP added that he agreed additional counter-terrorist measures were needed,
but the death penalty was not the best choice for this.

"For terrorists it is often an honor to die while carrying out an attack.
Therefore they can actually consider execution as a good thing," Mardashin
said.

(source: rt.com)






JAMAICA:

People, politicians and 'Pontius Pilatitis'


Today is Holy Thursday on the Christian calendar. Holy Thursday is commemorated
as the anniversary of the Lord's Supper, the washing of the feet, and as the
day before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday.

This year, Holy Thursday coincides with the 46th anniversary of former Prime
Minister P J Patterson's election to the House of Representatives in a
by-election in what was then Westmoreland South Eastern.

I recall my June 10 1999 column in the Jamaica Observer, headlined 'Patterson
playing Pontius Pilate'. Perhaps a fortnight before that column, 9 convicted
murderers had been hanged in Trinidad. Most Jamaicans were in favour of the
death penalty for convicted murderers; as may still be the case today. On that
occasion, P J Patterson, as prime minister, sent a letter of congratulation to
the Government of Trinidad with the statement that Jamaica was soon to follow.
That was the context in which the column was written nearly 17 years ago.

Jamaica was not "soon to follow", as written in Patterson's 1999 letter, since
Jamaica never resumed hanging - although it is still on the books. But this has
more to do with the signing of certain international conventions as well as
certain borrowing and trade agreements more than anything else.

Whether P J Patterson knew then that Jamaica would be so obliged later to avoid
carrying out the death penalty, or face the most inconvenient alternatives, I
cannot say. But the letter of congratulation to the Government of Trinidad was
politically expedient. The more the local anti-death penalty activists
criticised the letter, the more he would gain favour among the electorate.

Incidentally, Jesus Christ was also put to his death (in his case by
crucifixion) out of political expediency, which is important to bear in mind on
Holy Thursday. And this is why I call Patterson's 1999 letter to the Government
of Trinidad and Tobago a case of 'Pontius Pilatitis'. Indeed this is part of
the great political astuteness that Patterson has been known for - although he
had a few defeats, such as in 1980 when he lost his seat to long-time rival
Euphemia Williams.

Yes, I coined the term "Pontius Pilatitis". The synonym in my unpublished
thesaurus is the word 'dilemma'. And dilemma is defined by the Oxford
Dictionary as "a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between 2
or more alternatives, especially ones that are equally undesirable".

To quote my June 10, 1999 column, "But which politician in the circumstances
would resist the temptation to play Pontius Pilate? There are politicians in
both the PNP [People's National Party] and JLP [Jamaica Labour Party] who have
come out against the death penalty. But what would any of them do if they were
either prime minister or minister of national security?"

Pontius Pilate did not want Jesus Christ to be crucified. He 'passed the buck'
by sending him to King Herod. But the Jews had no death penalty, so Herod sent
him back to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. So Pilate tried to appease the
crowd by having Jesus lashed 39 times, but to no avail.

To further quote my June 10 1999 column: "But Pilate allowed the crucifixion,
notwithstanding the public washing of his hands because it was politically
correct. One of the alternatives Pilate faced was to crucify an innocent man
and keep his job. The other was to face the possibility of being arrested for
not keeping the peace and ordered back to Rome in chains to serve a term in
prison.

"Now, if Pilate would order the crucifixion of an innocent man who he had come
to believe was the Messiah, then what can we expect from politicians when
dealing with convicted murderers if the crowds are shouting for them to be
hanged?"

In a real way, we are all politicians. Who among us will risk his life as a
crowd mobs an innocent man accused of stealing? Today, I would have written,
"We all suffer from Pontius Pilatitis", but I had not yet coined the term.

In 1979, some 20 years before my June 10, 1999 column, the first conscience
vote on the death penalty took place in Parliament. Then prime minister,
Michael Manley, voted against; while his brother Douglas voted for the death
penalty.

Was then Opposition Leader Edward Seaga's absence due to a case of "Pontius
Pilatitis"? How could an Member of Parliament (MP) for a constituency not
unknown for crime vote in favour of the death penalty? How could such an MP
vote against it when most Jamaicans want the death penalty? What would we have
done were we in Seaga's position at the time?

In the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan, the Jews and the Samaritans
were not on speaking terms. Yet a Samaritan helped the supposedly Jewish man
who was badly beaten by robbers on the road Jericho. The Samaritan was
righteously correct, but politically incorrect.

When Norman Manley called a referendum to decide whether Jamaica should still
be a part of the West Indies Federation, and called a general election months
after, both of which he lost, he was morally correct, but politically
incorrect.

Still, expediency is not always a bad thing. I have been very expedient today
in 3 ways. First, I have used P J Patterson's 1999 letter to the Government of
Trinidad and Tobago to explain a part of the Good Friday story. Second, in so
doing I have rubbished the accusations that I write in favour of politicians on
1 side only. And 3rd, I have indirectly pointed out that "is long time me a
write fi dis newspaypa". Actually, my 1st column in the Jamaica Observer was
published on April 23 1998, nearly 18 years ago, and come July it will be 28
years in all as a newspaper columnist.

Have a Holy Easter!

(source: Michael Burke, Jamaica Observer)






MALDIVES:

Maldives prosecutors defend another high profile death sentence


Prosecutors defended Thursday the death sentence issued in a high profile
murder case.

Criminal Court sentenced Mohamed Nabeel, 22, a resident of Reef in Galolhu ward
of capital Male, to death on October 22, 2010 after he was found guilty of
stabbing to death 18-year-old Abdulla Farhad from Hulhudhoo ward of Addu city.

High Court had upheld the sentence.

The Supreme Court began final proceedings over Nabeel's death sentence on
Thursday where his lawyer's request for more time to respond to the charges was
granted.

In the hearing, the state prosecutor stressed that Nabeel had confessed to the
murder during the investigation, the trial and the appeal proceedings at the
High Court. All the evidence was obtained through legal channels, he added.

Regulations on death penalty that came into effect in 2014 require the
prosecution to exhaust the appeal process -- the High Court and Supreme Court
-- even if the convict wishes to not file for appeal.

There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has
exhausted the appeal process thus far. If Nabeel's sentence is upheld by the
apex court, he would be among the 1st of the inmates on death row to have
completed all the 2 stages of appeal.

Authorities had pledged to implement the death penalty after the exhaustion of
the appeal process.

Prosecutors had sought the Supreme Court's confirmation of 2 other death
sentences, including the sentence handed to Ahmed Murrath over the murder of
prominent lawyer Ahmed Najeeb and the sentence given to Hussain Humam over the
brutal murder of former Ungoofaru MP Dr Afrasheem Ali. The court had this week
begun the appeal proceedings in both the cases.

(source: haveeru.com)


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March 24




CANADA:

Trudeau Should Follow Dad's Footsteps on Death Penalty, Advocate
Says----Prominent US activist in Vancouver tonight to call Canadians to action.

Leno Rose-Avila remembers the 1st time he met someone who narrowly avoided the
electric chair.

While attending a debate 3 decades ago, a United States district attorney
stated that nobody on death row had ever been found innocent.

"I'm innocent," protested a man in the audience, Rose-Avila recalls, "and I
just got off death row."

The black ex-convict, Joseph Green Brown, had been exonerated just 15 hours
before his scheduled execution when authorities admitted they knew the witness
who helped convict him was lying.

(In a strange twist, Brown, who became an anti-capital punishment campaigner,
was convicted of different charges -- the 2nd-degree murder of his wife -- in
2013 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.)

Today, Rose-Avila heads the anti-execution group Witness to Innocence, a death
row survivor-led organization founded by Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in
Dead Man Walking.

It's now been 40 years since Pierre Trudeau's government abolished the death
penalty in Canada, though only by a razor-thin 7 votes.

"Those who vote against the bill," the prime minister warned MPs in 1976,
"cannot escape their personal share of responsibility for the hangings that
will take place if the bill is defeated."

Rose-Avila is in Vancouver tonight to call on Canadians -- and Justin Trudeau
-- to push their southern neighbours to end the "inhuman" practice.

He sat down with The Tyee to explain why.

The Tyee: Canada hasn't had the death penalty for decades. There's a sense that
we can't do anything -- it's not our moral responsibility.

Leno Rose-Avila: It is your moral responsibility. Other people pressured Canada
when Pierre Trudeau eliminated it. Now you have an opportunity to do that.
People in Europe for years have been working to abolish the death penalty in
the U.S. People used to ask me, 'What do Europeans have to do with it?' Well,
they've actually gotten people off of death row, and they stopped the sale of
all the chemicals used to execute people from European companies.

We're your neighbours, we're doing something wrong, and you've got to correct
us. And just like you would in your city, if you saw somebody was abusing their
spouse, you'd report them. If you saw somebody abusing their animals, you'd
report them. That's a responsibility you have. Here, you have your neighbouring
country killing its own citizens. It would be wrong for Canadians not to say,
'Stop it. We know you're a smarter country. We know you can do better.'

Talk about the racial overtones of the death penalty. The majority of people on
death row are minorities.

That's because we put more emphasis on what the colour of the victim was. If
the victim was Anglo-Saxon white -- and particularly if the [accused] is a
person of colour, primarily black -- you're more likely to get the death
penalty. White people also get the death penalty; [those who do are] low income
and don't have the proper representation. So the two factors are economics and
race. And race is a bigger factor.

Do you think there's more popular interest in wrongful convictions through
podcasts like Serial or shows like Making a Murderer? There's a sense in both
those cases that there was a prosecutorial zeal to get someone and to railroad
them through the system.

For every one of our members who's been found innocent, there was prosecutorial
or police misconduct. A lot of times, they know they have the wrong guy. But
they have enough that in a court of law, who are you going to agree with -- the
prosecutor and police, or somebody they say killed somebody? Most of the
defendants don't have good attorneys.

Right now we have prosecutors and police who are coming to us saying, 'We've
made mistakes. I want to help you.' We even have wardens who oversaw executions
who [now] say, 'It was wrong. I saw innocent people being executed and even the
guilty should not be executed.'

Was there something for you, personally, that made this issue hit home for you?

In 1985, I joined Amnesty International in the South where we have a lot of
death penalty cases. The deeper I got into it, the more reasons I found to work
on it. In 1986 or 1987, I met my 1st innocent person that came off death row --
he came within 4 hours of being executed -- Shabaka, better known as Joseph
Green Brown.

What was he like? Was he quite angry about his experience?

What struck me most about Shabaka was his sense of humour, his calmness and
even though he was emotional, he wasn't super angry -- that they didn't let him
out of death row to give a kidney to his brother when his brother needed it to
survive, and died. That they didn't let him out for his mother's funeral. That
he came within hours of being executed.

The heroes of the American judicial system are those people who survive prison,
especially the exonerated men and women of death row.

(source: The Tyee)






MALAYSIA:

Stop possible 'Good Friday' execution of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu


Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) is shocked to hear that
Malaysia may be executing 34-year-old Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu, possibly on Good
Friday (March 25, 2016).

In a letter from the from the Taiping Prison???s Department, received by the
family on Wednesday, it was stated that that they should visit him for the last
time as he would be executed "soon".

The family was also advised to discuss arrangements to claim Gunasegar's body
for his funeral. (The Star, March 24, 2016).

The letter provided no date or time for execution, but it was reported that
executions in Malaysia usually happen on Friday morning.

Malaysia is in the process of considering the abolition of the death penalty,
starting possibly with the abolition of the mandatory death penalty.

Nancy Shukri, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and also the de facto
Law Minister, was reported stating that the proposal to amend laws to abolish
the mandatory death sentence may be tabled in Parliament as early as March this
year. (Malay Mail, Nov 17, 2015).

Attorney-general Apandi Ali also did commit to propose to the Cabinet that the
mandatory death penalty be scrapped (The Malaysian Insider, Nov 13, 2015).

Apandi, who is also the public prosecutor, said that '...mandatory death
sentences were a 'paradox', as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose
sentences on convicted criminals....'

"If I had my way, I would introduce the option for the judge in cases where it
involves capital punishment. Give the option to the judge either to hang him or
send him to prison.

"Then we're working towards a good administration of criminal justice," Apandi
had said.

Victim of mandatory death penalty

As such, Malaysia should not be executing anyone at this time, especially
persons who are victims of the mandatory death penalty.

Gunasegar was convicted of murder, and that carries the mandatory death
penalty. He was on death row for his role in the murder of B Venukumar on April
4, 2005, which means that he was merely 23 years old when the alleged crime was
committed.

It must be noted that '...In court documents sighted by The Star, Gunasegar was
charged, together with J Ramesh and J Sasivarnam, with murdering Venukumar at a
playground in Taman Ria Raya, Sungai Petani, Kedah.

Though the trio claimed during the trial that they had been attacked by a
group, which included Venukumar and only defended themselves, the High Court
found them guilty in 2011...' (The Star, March 24, 2016).

It must be noted that even if one is represented by a lawyer, lawyer errors at
the court of first instance can lead to injustice being done, and the
possibility that an innocent man be sent to his death. If evidence was not
challenged, or not adduced at the court of first instance, it is extremely
difficult to introduce relevant evidence later at the appellate stage.

We recall also the case where an innocent man was wrongly executed, whereby in
January 2011, Taiwan's Ministry of Justice admitted that Chiang Kuo-ching, a
private in the Air Force, had been executed in error in 1997 for a murder
committed 15 years previously.

We recall the words of former Court of Appeal Judge KC Vohrah who said, "The
law is the law but I wish Parliament would abolish the death sentence because
if a mistake is made, it would be irreversible. There are other ways of dealing
with heinous crimes."

Royal intervention

Madpet urges the Sultan of Kedah and/or Sultan of Perak, to intervene and stop
this hanging, as was done by Sultan of Johor in 2014 who saved Chandran s/o
Paskaran from being hanged. The crime was committed in Kedah, whilst Gunasegar
is being imprisoned in Perak, and in all likelihood, execution will be carried
out also in Perak.

Madpet also urges Nancy Shukri, the de facto law minister, and the
attorney-general, to act and obtain a stay of execution as they did before, in
the case of Osariakhi Ernest Obayangbon (aka Philip Michael) in 2014.

On Dec 18, 2014, the UN general assembly reaffirmed for the 5th time since 2007
the urging for a stop to all executions.

In 2014, 117 nation-states voted in favour, 38 against, 34 abstained, with 4
absentees. Every time the said resolution had been adopted, the number of votes
in favour has been increasing. The global trend continues to be for abolition.

The urging for the abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia has been made by
many individuals, bodies and civil society organisations, including Malaysian
Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), Malaysian Bar, and Madpet.

Madpet prays the planned execution of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu be stopped and
that his sentence be commuted.

Madpet also urges a moratorium on all executions pending abolition, and also
for the commutation of sentence of all persons on death row, whereby in October
2015, the number on death row as disclosed was about 1,022.

Madpet also urges Malaysia to abolish the death penalty.

[CHARLES HECTOR is coordinator for Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture
(Madpet).]

(source: malaysiakini.com)





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March 24



SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi Arabia carries out 76th execution of the year----Kingdom faces criticism
from rights groups over its use of the death penalty


Authorities in Saudi Arabia have executed the 76th person to be put to death in
the country this year.

Saudi citizen Abdullah al-Harbi was executed after being convicted for murder,
state media reported.

The manner of the execution was not specified, but many people convicted of
criminal charges are beheaded.

His death brings the number of executions in the conservative Islamic state to
76, according to AFP news agency, which keeps record of Saudi executions.

The number of people executed in Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Britain, in the
1st 3 months of 2016 compared to the 153 people killed by the state in all of
2015 - described by Amnesty International as the highest in 20 years.

In the Wahabi Saudi interpretation of Sharia law, apostasy, armed robbery, drug
trafficking, rape and murder all carry the death penalty.

The rate of executions has dramatically increased since the accession of King
Salman in January 2015.

In January, there was an international outcry following the mass execution of
47 people on terrorism charges, including influential Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Saudi Arabia has been criticised by rights groups over it frequent use of the
death penalty, one of the highest in the world.

Among those facing execution is journalist Alaa Brinji, who has campaigned for
women's rights.

Accused of apostasy charges including 'calling for secularist thought' and
'ridiculing Islamic religious figures', he has been denied legal support,
according to Amnesty International.

He has also been charged with breaching cybercrime laws, which Amnesty
International said related to his use of social media.

In addition to the death penalty, the country continues to face criticism over
its treatment of women and its millitary campaign in Yemen, for which it has
been accused of killing civilians in air strikes.

In the UK, Saudi Arabia has faced renewed criticism following a documentary
which aired this week.

Footage in the programme, filmed covertly in the secretive nation, showed
public executions, bodies displayed in the streets and public corporal
punishment.

(source: The Independent)






BANGLADESH:

see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/bangladesh-halt-the-execution-
of-motiur-rahman-nizami-ua-6616

(source: Amnesty International USA)






IRAN:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/iran-halt-any-plans-to-execute-
himan-uraminejad-ua-7216

(source: Amnesty International USA






MALAYSIA:

Halt 3 executions, abolish death penatly, urges Bar


The Malaysian Bar is extremely troubled over the reports of the imminent
carrying out of the death sentence upon Gunasegar s/o Pitchaymuthu, J Ramesh
s/o Jayakumar, and Sasivarnam s/o Jayakumar.

Their next-of-kin have been informed to schedule their final visit with them
today, and to discuss the arrangements for burial. The executions could be
carried out as early as tomorrow, possibly at Taiping Prison. This appears to
be consistent with the practice of executing death row inmates early on a
Friday morning.

All 3 of these death row prisoners were convicted under section 302, read with
section 34, of the Penal Code, and their convictions were upheld by the Federal
Court on 19 February 2014. At the time of writing, we have no information as to
whether applications for pardon were made for them or on their behalf.

Since 2010, the Malaysian government has announced its willingness to review
the mandatory death penalty, with a view to its possible abolition or the
reintroduction of a discretionary death penalty.

More recently, in 2015, both the minister in the prime minister's department in
charge of law and the attorney general have spoken of the government's
intention to introduce legislation in Parliament to cease the use of the
mandatory death penalty.

While this laudable initiative appears to have been in the context of the
mandatory death sentence for those convicted of drug-related offences, the
Malaysian Bar is of the view that the death penalty should be abolished
irrespective of the crime that may have been committed.

The decision on the punishment for offences should be left to the discretion of
the judiciary. The death penalty has no place in a society that values human
life, justice and mercy. Persons sentenced with the mandatory death penalty
should be resentenced to imprisonment.

In light of the impending review of the mandatory death penalty, the government
should, in the interest of justice, declare and implement an immediate official
moratorium on any and all executions. All death sentences should be stayed
pending the results of the review. It is unfair and unjust to carry out the
death sentence when there is currently a possibility of reform which, if put
into effect, should apply retrospectively.

The Malaysian Bar therefore calls on the Malaysian government to immediately
halt the impending execution of Gunasegar s/o Pitchaymuthu, J Ramesh s/o
Jayakumar, and Sasivarnam s/o Jayakumar.

(source: Steven Thiru is president of the Malaysian Bar; aliran.com)


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[Rick Halperin]

March 25




FRANCE:

The Death-Penalty Abolitionist Who Invented the Guillotine----The 18th-century
doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin hoped a more humane method of execution would
eventually lead to the end of capital punishment.


One day in May 1738, legend has it, a woman approaching the end of her
pregnancy was walking down a street in Saintes, France, when she heard the
cries of a man being executed on the town's breaking wheel. (The condemned
would be tied to a large wheel, limbs stretched into a starfish, and then
beaten with a club to break the bones.) So traumatic were the man's screams,
the story goes, that the woman went into labor right then and there.

The circumstances, if true, were fitting for the person that came into the
world that day. As the French historian Daniel Arasse wrote, "the conditions of
his birth determined his later renown" - the baby, Joseph Ignace Guillotin,
would grow up to invent one of the deadliest instruments of execution of his
time. But before he invented the guillotine, he would devote a career to
lobbying against the death penalty in France.

Guillotin's early career was accomplished, if otherwise unremarkable: He worked
briefly as a literature professor at the University of Bordeaux, then left for
Paris, where he studied medicine and then settled as a practicing physician. In
1788, he wrote a pamphlet titled "Petition of the Living Citizens of Paris,"
arguing for more representation for non-nobility in the legislative body called
the Estates General. The following year, largely as a result of the attention
he received for "Petition," he became a representative to the Estate, launching
his political career.

As a politician, Guillotin focused mostly on medical reform. He was also an
opponent of the death penalty, and, perhaps recognizing that outright abolition
was unlikely, focused his energy on making capital punishment more humane - and
more egalitarian. At the time, only the nobility in France had the dubious
privilege of beheading by sword; most criminals sentenced to death were hung on
the gallows (or, in some gruesome cases, sent to the breaking wheel).

On October 10, 1789, Guillotin submitted a proposal to the French government
arguing for a decapitating machine to become the standard manner of carrying
out the death penalty. Initially, the proposal gained little traction - but
that December, Guillotin delivered a speech to the National Assembly that would
ultimately elevate both the man and the idea to international fame. In a moment
of enthusiasm, he told his audience, "Now with my machine I take off your head
in the twinkling of an eye, and you never feel it."

The following day, the Les Actes des Apotres, a popular French journal, mocked
Guillton's comment into song (this translation comes from Chambers Edinburgh
Journal, a 19th-century British magazine):

Politician,

And physician,

Bethought himself, 'tis plain,

That hanging's not humane

Nor patriotic;

And straightaway showed

A clever mode

To kill - without a pang - men;

Which, void of rope or stakes,

Suppression makes

Of hangmen. ...

And then offhand,

His genius planned

That machine that 'simply' kills - that's all -

Which after him we call

"Guillotine"

For Guillotin, it was the moment that his name became forever synonymous with
decapitation. (As the Chambers' Journal noted, the three other politicians
mentioned in the full version of the song were all known as violent members of
the National Assembly. All, coincidentally, also were later killed by the
guillotine, as was the author of the song, Chevalier de Champcenetz.)

Despite the public merriment around Guillotin's comments, all of his
propositions were eventually approved. On June 3, 1791, the Assembly decreed
that the decapitating machine was to be the sole means of legal criminal
execution, and tasked the politician Pierre Louis Roederer with overseeing its
construction.

Roederer contacted Guillotin on the March 10, 1792, to request his involvement,
but no record exists of whether the doctor complied. In the meantime, he
initially struggled to procure workmen for the job, due to their concern about
the stigma of being affiliated with the machine. After receiving a letter
suggesting workmen would charge exorbitantly for involvement, Roederer wrote to
one potential contractor: "Prejudice indeed exists, but I have offers from
other persons ... provided they should not ... have their names exposed as
connected with the object."

The machine was initially tested on sheep, calves, and human corpses.

Finally, Roederer reached an agreement with a German harpsichord maker, Tobias
Schmidt, to manufacture the guillotine. The machine was initially tested on
sheep, calves, and human corpses; the 1st human to fall victim to the
guillotine was Nicolas Jacques Pelletier, in 1792. From there, the guillotine
would reign for another 2 centuries: It remained the standard means of
execution for condemned civilians in France until the death penalty was
abolished in 1981. Guillotin, the Chamber's Edinburgh Journal wrote, "bitterly
regretted to the latest moment of his existence" his involvement with the
killing apparatus.

Despite persistent public myth that Guillotin himself was killed by his
eponymous machine, the doctor died at 75 of natural causes. (The myth was so
widespread, however, that the popular Johnson's Dictionary even recorded it as
fact under the entry for guillotine.) At his funeral, Guillotin's friend, the
physician Edme-Claude Bourru, eulogized the late physician, commenting: "How
true it is that it is difficult to benefit mankind without some unpleasantness
resulting for oneself."

(source: The Atlantic)






PAKISTAN:

2 terrorists hanged in Sahiwal jail


Authorities on Thursday hanged 2 terrorists here at a high security jail.

According to reports, Abdullah Baloch, a resident of Darya Khan, Bhakkar, and
Sohail Ahmed, a resident of Ahmedpur Sharqia, Bhawalpur, were arrested and an
inquiry was undertaken under Section 59(6) and 4 of the Army Act against them.
Upon completion of inquiry, a special military court awarded them death penalty
on 7th January 2016 which was later confirmed by army chief. President of
Pakistan also rejected their mercy petitions on 22nd of January and both
convicts were hanged yesterday.

Bodies of both men - Abdullah Baloch and Sohail - were handed over to their
heirs after execution.

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

4,960 death-row prisoners awaiting their fate in Punjab jails


Around 4,960 condemned prisoners are awaiting their fate in the jails of Punjab
only, statistics available with The Nation revealed. Their appeals are pending
with the President of Pakistan, the Supreme Court, the Lahore High Court, the
Federal Shariat Court and the GHQ. Apart from these condemned prisoners, 350
high-profile prisoners are also kept in the jails of Lahore, Multan,
Faisalabad, Sargodha, Sahiwal and Rawalpindi. Of these, 17 belong to
Sipah-e-Sahaba, 4 have links with Al-Qaeda and one is from Sipah-e-Muhammad.

The prison authorities have deployed army jawans, Rangers, Elite Force, Quick
Response Force and Punjab police for their safe custody. All of them are under
strict vigilance.

"We are imparting latest training and weapons to our staff for watch and ward
of these prisoners," a top official of the Prisons Department told The Nation.
It merits mentioning here that mercy petitions of 55 prisoners on death row in
the Punjab had been rejected by the President of Pakistan, but they were not
executed as they have filed review petitions in the Supreme Court.

Former President Asif Ali Zardari placed a 5-year moratorium on executions in
June 2008. During the period from June 2008 to March 6, 2015, nobody was sent
to the gallows as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also suspended the death penalty
after the moratorium expired in June 2013. The suspension on executions imposed
by the Nawaz government was welcomed by the international community and human
rights organisations, particularly because it was being feared that Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif was going to resume executions.

At present, 4,915 male and 45 female prisoners are awaiting their fate in
different jails of the province. The highest number of these prisoners, 413
males and 7 females, is in Central Jail, Lahore, followed by Central Jail,
Faisalabad, where there are 393 male condemned prisoners. In Central Jail,
Rawalpindi, there are 376 male and 7 female prisoners. There are more than
2,000 male and 16 female death-row prisoners in the jails of Lahore region
which comprises Lahore, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Kasur, Sheikhupura and Sialkot
districts.

Of these prisoners, the appeals of 1,500 males and 14 females are pending with
the Lahore High Court and those of 350 males and one female with the Supreme
Court. The appeals of 175 prisoners are pending with the President of Pakistan
while 1 male prisoner's appeal is pending with the GHQ. In Rawalpindi Region,
there are more than 1,000 male and 8 female condemned prisoners. The appeals of
727 male and 8 female prisoners are pending with the Lahore High Court and
those of 188 in the Supreme Court. Rawalpindi region consists of Rawalpindi,
Attock, Gujrat, Jhelum, Mandi Bahauddin and Chakwal districts.

The appeals of about 1,200 male and 8 female condemned prisoners are pending in
the Faisalabad region which comprises Faisalabad, Mianwali, Jhang, Sargodha,
Khushab and Toba Tek Singh districts.

Similarly, more than 1,100 male and 12 female prisoners are awaiting their fate
in Multan region's jails.

In addition, 45 Indian prisoners are also kept in different jails of the
province.

(source for both: The Nation)






JAPAN----executions

Japan sends 2 more inmates to the gallows


2 death row inmates were hanged Friday morning, according to the Justice
Ministry, bringing to 16 the number of executions carried out under Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe's administration since taking power in 2012.

The 2 prisoners were Yasutoshi Kamata, 75, and Junko Yoshida, 56. Yoshida is
only the 5th woman to face the gallows according to ministry records that date
back to 1950, and the 1st hanged since 2012.

Kamata was sentenced to death in 2005 for killing 5 females in Osaka between
1985 and 1994, including a 9-year-old girl. Kamata abducted the girl to molest
her, and eventually strangled her to death. He was also found guilty of
kidnapping, having demanded a ransom from the girl's father.

Yoshida, a former nurse from Fukuoka Prefecture, was convicted for conspiring
with 3 other hospital employees in 1998 and 1999 to kill 2 of their husbands in
schemes to pocket Y67 million yen in insurance money. She was found guilty for
being the mastermind behind the killings and sentenced to death in 2010.

Justice Minister Mitsuhide Iwaki, who signed the order for the executions,
emphasized they were only carried out after "careful examination," and it was
determined there was no valid reason for retrials.

"These 2 atrocious cases claimed the precious lives of the victims for
extremely selfish reasons. I feel sorrow for those who were murdered and their
families," he told a news conference following the hangings.

The last time Japan hanged a death row inmate was in December.

The executions Friday were the 2nd time capital punishment has been carried out
since Iwaki took over the ministry 5 months ago. A total of 16 death row
inmates have now been hanged under the current Abe administration.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International Japan, a human rights group opposed to capital
punishment, criticized the latest executions, saying a string of capital
punishment cases is evidence the administration is "disregarding lives."

"From the international perspective, by keeping this atrocious, inhumane
punishment it seems that . . . (Japan) disregards human rights by going against
the (international) trend to abolish the death penalty," the group said in a
statement. "We extremely regret the executions this time, especially when the
country is about to play a role in leading the international society as the
host country of the G-7 Ise-Shima summit."

There are now 124 inmates on death row in Japan after Friday's hangings, of
which 89 are seeking retrials and 22 are seeking amnesties, according to the
Justice Ministry.

(source: Japan Times)

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

Japan executes 2 death row inmates: Media


Japan on Friday (March 25) executed 2 death row prisoners, local media
reported, as the government - backed by public opinion - continued to ignore
calls by international rights groups to end capital punishment.

There was no immediate confirmation of the reports by Jiji Press and other
media, but a Justice Ministry spokesman said a press conference on the issue
was being prepared.

Japan and the United States are the only major advanced industrial nations with
capital punishment.

Surveys have shown that the death penalty has overwhelming public support in
Japan, despite repeated protests from European governments and human rights
groups.

International advocacy groups say Japan's system is cruel because inmates can
wait for their executions for many years in solitary confinement and are only
told of their impending death a few hours ahead of time.

In December, Japan executed two death row prisoners, including for the 1st time
someone sentenced to death by jurors.

Japan in 2009 launched a jury system in which citizens deliberate with
professional judges in a bid to boost the role of the citizenry in the judicial
process.

Under the system, more than a score of people have been sentenced to death,
according to public broadcaster NHK.

(source: Agence France-Presse)






MALAYSIA----executions

Malaysia hangs three men for murder in 'secretive' execution ---- Rights groups
criticise government for giving the men's families only 2 days notice of the
hangings


Malaysia has executed 3 men for murder, their lawyer said, in what rights
groups called a "secretive" hanging in which the men's families were given only
2 days notice.

"The execution was done between 4:30 and 5:30 this morning," lawyer Palaya
Rengaiah told the Guardian. "They were hanged to death."

Rengaiah said the families received a letter 2 days before the execution,
advising them to make a last visit to the men and funeral arrangements. He said
the men were told on Thursday that they would be hanged on Friday.

Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu, 35, Ramesh Jayakumar, 34, and his brother Sasivarnam
Jayakumar, 37, were sentenced to the gallows after they were found guilty by
the high court of murdering a 25-year-old man in a playground in 2005.

The trio claimed during court sessions that they were acting in self-defence
after being attacked by a group that included the victim.

The Malaysian prison's department said there were currently more than 1,000
inmates awaiting execution, although none had been killed since 2013, according
to Death Penalty Worldwide.

Amnesty International has condemned what it called a "last-minute" execution of
the men accused of murder, an offence that carries a mandatory death sentence.

In Malaysia, information on scheduled hangings are not made public before, or
sometimes after, they are carried out - a practice Amnesty said was "secretive"
and contrary to international standards on the use of the death penalty.

Several high-level officials have spoken against mandatory death sentences in
Malaysia, a decades-old law that is also imposed on serious drug, treason and
firearms offences.

These voices include the attorney-general, Apandi Ali, who said in November
that he would propose to the cabinet that the penalty be scrapped, calling it a
"paradox" as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on
convicted criminals.

"If I had my way, I would introduce the option for the judge in cases where it
involves capital punishment. Give the option to the judge either to hang him or
send him to prison," he said.

Days after, government minister Nancy Shukri, said she hoped to amend the penal
code to abolish the death sentence.

"It is not easy to amend, but we are working on it. I hope to table it next
year in March," Shukri told reporters, adding that the punishment had done
little to reduce the number of crimes committed. The motion has not been put to
parliament.

Charles Hector, coordinator for Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture,
on Thursday called for the Sultan of Kedah and the Sultan of Perak, state
royalty in the two regions where the men were on death row, to use their power
to stop the hangings.

He also urged Skukri, who is the de facto law minister, and the
attorney-general, to obtain a stay of execution.

The Guardian was unable immediately to reach the government for comment.

Josef Benedict, Amnesty International's deputy campaign director for south-east
Asia and the Pacific, said ahead of the execution that "as discussions on
abolishing the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia continue, the Malaysian
government must immediately put in place a moratorium on all executions as a
1st step towards full abolition of the death penalty".

(source: The Guardian)

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

Death row inmate's family regrets not told of his execution


After 2 years on death row, a convict and his family learnt the dreaded news
just a day before he was put to death this morning.

Account executive P. Joty, 30, said the family rushed to see her brother
Gunasegar (pic) on Thursday, after they received a letter which stated he would
be executed "soon".

The letter from the Taiping Prison Department gave no date for execution,
though it advised them to make arrangements to claim the body for a funeral.

A source from the Malaysian Bar confirmed seeing the letter, saying that it was
dated earlier but apparently received only on Wednesday.

When the 25 family members visited Gunasegar in Taiping prison, they were given
the bombshell news that he would be hung at dawn on Friday.

"Me and my mother visited him last week. They told us nothing," said Joty,
sobbing when reached for a phone interview.

1 of 9 siblings, she had delayed her wedding to stay close to her brother at
the Pokok Sena prison, in Kedah, where death row inmates are kept before being
transferred to Taiping for execution.

She said the immediate family was given an hour to see him, while the rest had
around 40 minutes per group of 10 people.

When The Star asked to speak to Gunasegar's mother, Joty said she was still
crying and too distraught to speak.

Gunasegar was on death row for his role in the murder of B. Venukumar, then 24,
during a gang fight on April 4, 2005.

Joty said Gunasegar maintained his claim of innocence, telling her "only God
knows what happened, but it's bye bye for me".

In court documents sighted by The Star, Gunasegar was charged together with
brothers J. Ramesh and J. Sasivarnam, with murdering Venukumar at a playground
in Taman Ria Raya, Sungai Petani, Kedah.

Though the trio claimed during the trial that they had been attacked by a gang,
which included Venukumar and only defended themselves, the High Court found
them guilty in 2011.

The decision was later affirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2012 and Federal
Court in 2014.

Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni criticised
the Prisons Department's handling of the news, saying the last minute nature of
the announcement was "heartless" to the family.

Amnesty International stated its concern on Malaysia's practice of "secretive"
executions, saying transparency on the use of the death penalty was an
essential safeguard in such cases, as it allowed for greater scrutiny and
meaningful debate on the issue.

Despite civil bodies Amnesty International and the Malaysian Bar call for the
Government to halt the execution the Gunasegar, Ramesh and Sasivarnam, the trio
were put to death at 6.30am this morning.

In a statement on Thursday, Malaysian Bar president Steven Thiru said it was
unfair and unjust to carry out the death sentence while the Government was
mulling on abolishing the mandatory death penalty.

(source: The Star)

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

Amnesty International denounces 'shocking' Malaysian executions


Amnesty International said Malaysian authorities hanged 3 convicted murderers
on Friday (March 25) despite calls for clemency from rights groups that called
the executions "shocking and disturbing", as the country considers scrapping
the death penalty.

Meanwhile, the family of one of the executed inmates slammed the authorities
for informing them of the execution only a day in advance.

Malaysian and international organisations including the UN's human rights body
had this week issued appeals for authorities to stay the expected execution of
Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu.

Amnesty said 2 brothers, Ramesh Jayakumar and Sasivarnam Jayakumar, also had
been hanged on Friday.

AFP was not able to confirm the hangings. Malaysia does not publicly announce
executions and otherwise closely guards information on its application of the
death penalty

Malaysian officials have indicated in recent years that the government may
review its use of capital punishment, but no progress is known to have been
made.

"The fact that these state killings come at a time when the Malaysian
government is actively discussing abolition of the mandatory death penalty
makes them all the more shocking and disturbing," Amnesty International's
Southeast Asia campaigns director Josef Benedict said in a statement.

"These hangings are a sickening reminder that the Malaysian authorities must
redouble their efforts to establish a moratorium on executions as a first step
towards abolition of the death penalty."

Gunasegar was sentenced to death for his role in the murder of B. Venukumar,
then 24, during a gang fight on April 4, 2005.

His sister, P. Joty, said Gunasegar maintained his claim of innocence, telling
her "only God knows what happened, but it's bye bye for me".

P. Joty, 30, said the family rushed to see her brother on Thursday, after they
received a letter which stated he would be executed "soon".

The letter from the Taiping Prison Department gave no date for execution,
though it advised them to make arrangements to claim the body for a funeral.

A source from the Malaysian Bar confirmed seeing the letter, saying that it was
dated earlier but apparently received only on Wednesday.

When 25 family members visited Gunasegar in Taiping prison, they were given the
bombshell news that he would be hung at dawn on Friday.

"Me and my mother visited him last week. They told us nothing," said Joty,
sobbing in a phone interview.

1 of 9 siblings, she had delayed her wedding to stay close to her brother at
the Pokok Sena prison, in Kedah, where death row inmates are kept before being
transferred to Taiping for execution.

She said the immediate family was given an hour to see him, while the rest had
around 40 minutes per group of 10 people.

The Southeast Asia office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on
Thursday also had urged a stay of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu's execution, adding
that it was "concerned by Malaysia's practice of carrying out executions in
secret".

Around 900 people were on death row in Malaysia, officials have said in recent
years, mostly drug offenders.

Since 1960, nearly 450 people have been executed, according to data released in
2011, but activists say they have been extremely rare in recent years.

In 2014, authorities halted plans to execute a Malaysian convicted murderer,
Chandran Paskaran, after an outcry from rights groups.

(source: straitstimes.com)

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

Malaysian mulls death penalty ban


Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri yesterday said the
government, through the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC), is still studying
whether to abolish the provision for the mandatory death penalty.

"They already have a study done and they are still doing a report to evaluate
legal issues, policies and the effectiveness of the death penalty in the
country.

"The scope of the research is not accounted for the mandatory death penalty
only instead it covers the overall death penalty enforced in the country."

She also said the AGC is reviewing a proposal to amend the Civil Law Act 1956
to raise the age limit for road accident claimants from 55 to 60 years.

She said the amendment to Section 7 of the Act, known as Act 67, among others,
aims to increase the amount of compensation for grief, the calculation of loss
of income by taking into account the amendment to the Pensions Act 1980 (Act
227) through the Pensions Amendment Act 2011 (Act 1409).

"Act 1409 has raised the mandatory retirement age of civil servants from 55
years to 60 years and the Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012 (Act 753) sets the
minimum retirement age as 60.

"The decision will be made on the basis of the findings of the research being
conducted," she said at the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

(source: therakyatpost.com)

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

Death sentence for cop who let pistol be used in robbery, murder


A 49-year-old suspended policeman has been sentenced to death by the High Court
here for allowing his pistol to be used in a robbery which led to the death of
another man.

In sentencing Mohd Taufik Peter Abdullah, Justice Datuk Samsudin Hassan said
the defence had failed to prove reasonable doubt to the prosecution's case.

"As the defence had failed to prove that the accused took reasonable actions to
avoid shots being fired from his pistol, the penalty is for the accused to be
hung to death," he said.

Taufik was accused of robbing Max Goldsmith & Jewellery at No. 105, Jalan
Sultan Iskandar on Sept 16 2009 between 3.30pm and 5.10pm with S. Nagendran.
The robbery led to the killing of Chen Fun Kee, a shop employee.

Taufik was initially charged under section 302 of the penal code for murder but
when his defence was called, the prosecution offered an alternative charge
under section 3A of the Firearms Act (Increased Penalty) 1971.

(source: New Straits Times)






SINGAPORE:

5 arrested, more than 2kg of drugs seized in CNB operation


5 people have been arrested and more than 2kg of drugs worth an estimated
$156,000 were seized in a Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) operation on Thursday
(March 24).

At about noon, CNB officers observed a car driven by a 47-year-old male
Singaporean, who picked up a 43-year-old Singaporean man and a 21-year-old
Indonesian woman.

The driver drove to a carpark in the vicinity of Lengkong Tiga in Bedok, where
a suspected drug courier, a 29-year-old Malaysian man on a motorcycle, passed a
plastic bag to the male passenger, who is a suspected drug trafficker.

Officers arrested all 4 for suspected drug activities, and recovered 2 bundles
of heroin weighing about 950g from the plastic bag, along with $5,880 in cash.

They then raided the hideout of the suspected drug trafficker, where about 920g
of heroin and 4 packets of "Ice" weighing about 30g were recovered.

Follow-up investigations led to the arrest of another suspected trafficker, a
41-year-old Singaporean man. About 400g of cannabis, 20g of "Ice" and 35g of
heroin were found in his hideout.

A total of about 1.9kg of heroin, 400g of cannabis and about 50g of "Ice" were
seized in the operation.

Investigations into the drug activities of all suspects are ongoing. The Misuse
of Drugs Act provides for the death penalty if the amount of diamorphine - or
pure heroin - trafficked exceeds 15g.

(source: The Straits Times)






INDIA:

Tharoor reignites Afzal Guru debate, says he didn't pull gun or set up bomb


Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has reignited the debate on Afzal Guru, 2001
Parliament attack convict. Speaking against the death penalty, Tharoor said,
"This (Afzal Guru) is not a terrorist to actually himself pull the gun or set
up a bomb."

Tharoor said, "The government of India I believe, did not distinguish itself in
the manner in which it was done and in the same time, I don't like the death
penalty."

Here are excerpts from the interview:

CNN-IBN:So if I was to then ask you, when a former home minister like P
Chidambaram makes a statement like Afzal Guru being hung, was perhaps not the
best example of Indian legalism. How do I look at that? Should I look at that
as a nationalist comment? Should I look at that as a patriotic comment? How do
you I look at that?

Shashi Tharoor: I think you should look at it like a specific political leader
expressing his views on a public issue. Look, I myself have stated that I'm
against the death penalty on all circumstances for everybody. I have said this
on the record.

CNN-IBN:You believe Afzal Guru should not have been hanged?

Shashi Tharoor: I believe even terrorists and in this case, this is not a
terrorist to actually himself pull the gun or set up a bomb.

CNN-IBN:Should he have been hung?

Shashi Tharoor: As far as I am concerned, under the existing laws and practices
of our country, he got due process through all judicial processes and was
hanged. That doesn't deny me the right of an Indian citizen in a democracy to
continue arguing that the death penalty should be abolished.

CNN-IBN:Even in the case of Afzal Guru? Despite the fact that the case went all
up to Supreme Court literally at the stroke of midnight hours?

Shashi Tharoor: As you know, the Supreme Court can only apply the existing law
of the land. In the 2nd point, I mean in manner that we did it did not do us
credit as a government because of the fact that we didn't notify the family in
time. They got the notification after the news office hanging.

CNN-IBN:You were unfair? Your government was unfair to Afzal Guru. Is that what
you're saying?

Shashi Tharoor: The government of India, let's not say yours or mine,

CNN-IBN:Okay, the government of India...the then government of India led by the
Congress party.

Shashi Tharoor: The government of India I believe, did not distinguish itself
in the manner in which it was done and in the same time, I don't like the death
penalty. So these are individual views, Mr Chidambaran expressed his views. I
am expressing my views.

(source: ibnlive.com)


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March 25



RUSSIA:

Russian Duma Deputies Propose Death Penalty for Terrorists


A number of Russian Duma deputies have proposed a bill that would introduce the
death penalty for terrorism-related crimes, the Kommersant newspaper reported
Friday.

The bill was introduced by A Just Russia political party leader Sergei Mironov
and two other deputies.

"The goal of rehabilitation for such criminals ... cannot be achieved, and the
punishment has to be adequate to the threat their deeds pose to society and
serve as a warning [to others]," Mironov said in a statement published on the
party's website.

Although a provision in Russia's Criminal Code allows capital punishment for
serious crimes, a moratorium has been in place since 1996.

In 2009, the Constitutional Court extended the moratorium and ruled that no
court in the country has the right to sentence anyone to death.

(source: The Moscow Times)






JAPAN:

2 hanged as chilling executions continue


The Japanese authorities' reprehensible execution of 2 people today, continues
to place the country on the wrong side of history, Amnesty International said.

Yasutoshi Kamata, a 75-year-old-man, was hanged in Osaka Detention Centre on
Friday morning. Junko Yoshida, 56, was hanged in the early hours of Friday
morning at Fukuoka Detention Centre, in southern Japan. Yoshida is the first
woman to be executed in Japan since 2012.

"These disgraceful executions demonstrate a failure of leadership by Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe," said Hiroka Shoji, East Asia Researcher at Amnesty
International.

"It is long overdue for Japan to abolish this ultimate cruel and inhumane
punishment."

The executions are the 1st to be carried out in Japan in 2016, and takes the
total number of executions under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's current government
to 16.

Junko Yoshida was sentenced to death in 2010 for the murder of two people, in
1998 and 1999. Yasutoshi Kamata's death sentence was confirmed in 2005, after
he was convicted of the murders of five people between 1985 and 1994.

Japan is among a small, shrinking minority of countries around the world that
continue to execute people. As of today, 102 countries - more than 1/2 of the
world's countries have fully abolished thedeath penalty, and 140 countries
globally have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

The Japanese government maintains that the continued use of executions is
supported by public opinion and acts as deterrent for serious crimes.

"The Japanese authorities' willingness to continue with executions means the
country is out of step with the majority of the world, as more and more
countries abandon this cruel punishment," said Hiroka Shoji.

"There is no evidence that the death penalty is any more of a deterrent to
violent crime than imprisonment."

Amnesty International has called on Japan to immediately introduce a moratorium
on executions, as a 1st step towards abolition of the death penalty.

Background

Executions in Japan are shrouded in secrecy with prisoners typically given only
a few hours' notice, but some may be given no warning at all. Their families,
lawyers and the public are usually notified about the execution only after it
has taken place.

Secret executions are in contravention of international standards on the use of
the death penalty. This and the lack of other adequate legal safeguards for
those facing the death penalty in Japan has been widely criticized by UN
experts.

This includes defendants being denied adequate legal counsel and a lack of a
mandatory appeal process for capital cases. Several prisoners with mental and
intellectual disabilities are also known to have been executed or remain on
death row.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception,
regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, the guilt, innocence or
other characteristics of the offender or the method used by the state to carry
out the execution. The death penalty violates the right to life and is the
ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

(source: Amnesty International)

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[Rick Halperin]

March 26




MALAYSIA:

Waytha questions why the rush to execute 3 last Friday


Hindraf Makkal Sakthi, an ad hoc apolitical human rights movement, has urged
the government to put in place a moratorium for all pending executions until it
introduces a Bill in Parliament to abolish capital punishment in totality.
"This has been assured by the de facto Law Minister and the Attorney-General."

Hindraf Chairman P. Waythamoorthy was expressing shock over the execution of 3
individuals by the authorities on Friday morning and condemned it. "The
hastiness in the execution of these 3 individuals raises many questions."

"It was arbitrary. It was an uninformed method of execution by the Prisons
Department."

Waytha, a human rights advocate and senior lawyer in private practice, could
not understand why there was a rush to execute the 3 individuals. "They were
only sentenced in 2011 and their Federal Court appeal was dismissed in 2014,
not so long ago."

The Hindraf Chief pointed out that there are currently over 1,022 persons on
death row and the Prisons Department had stated, according to the Death Penalty
Worldwide Report, that no execution had been carried out since 2013. "More than
50 % of these estimated 1,022 persons facing the gallows have been waiting for
their execution for more than 5 years."

Hence, he said, Hindraf was perplexed why the three individuals were
"specifically targeted" for execution. "We can question the criteria used by
the authorities to select who should be hanged."

Again, he argued, the decision by the authorities was wrong and conflicts with
the statements and indications given out to the public by the government , more
recently by the de facto Law Minister and the Attorney-General.

He reiterated that it was therefore shocking the government apparatus was going
against its intentions by executing the 3 individuals hastily, more so when
they have only recently exhausted their final appeal.

He has been left wondering what the real intentions were in executing the trio
"hastily". "There could be other motives behind this."

Waytha referred to several statements from the government on capital
punishment.

The Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and de facto Law Minister,
Nancy Shukri, was reported by The Star Online on 17 November 2015 as saying
that the government intends to abolish the mandatory death sentence, in
particular for drug related offences, and said that punishment should be left
to the discretion of the Judge. The amendments to the law was supposed to be
tabled at the next sitting in March 2016.

In the same statement, the de facto Law Minister also said she does not believe
that death sentences are effective in curbing crime. She added that "we need to
find other ways like education, motivation or something else".

Earlier, on 13 November 2015, Attorney-General Mohd Apandi Ali said he would
propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped. He said
mandatory death sentences were a "paradox" as it robbed judges of their
discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals.

These statements show that there's intention on the part of the government to
abolish the death penalty, said Waytha who was briefly in the Federal Cabinet
not so long ago and in the Senate.

(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)






IRAN:

Amnesty fears teenage offender to be executed in Iran soon


A young Iranian man, Himan Uraminejad, on death row in Iran for an offence
carried out when he was a child, has been told that he will be executed soon
after 1 April, Amnesty International has warned.

"Himan Uraminejad was sentenced to death in August 2012 after he was convicted
of murder over the fatal stabbing of a boy during a fight, when he was 17," the
international human rights group said in an Urgent Action alerting its members
on Thursday, March 24.

Himan is now aged 21, and on death row in Sanandaj's Prison, western Kurdistan
Province, where he has been told he will be executed after the Iranian New Year
holiday period ends on 1 April, Amnesty said.

He was retried by Branch 9 of the Provincial Criminal Court in Kurdistan
Province in June 2015, and sentenced to death again.

"In its ruling, the court ignored the absolute prohibition, in international
law, on using the death penalty against people who were under 18 at the time of
the crime, and the fundamental principles of juvenile justice that require all
those under 18 years old be treated as children," Amnesty said.

His sentence was confirmed by the regime???s Supreme Court in November 2015.

"The judicial proceedings that led to Himan Uraminejad's conviction were
unfair. He admitted stabbing the victim during the interrogations, which were
conducted without a lawyer present. He is believed to have been tortured while
he was held in a police detention centre (agahi): this included severe beatings
that apparently left scars and bruises all over his face and body. His trial
was held before an adult court, without special juvenile justice protections.
No investigation is known to have been carried out into his allegations of
torture and other ill-treatment," the group's Urgent Action added.

"As a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Iran is
legally obliged to treat everyone under the age of 18 as a child. This is
different from the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which is the age
below which children are deemed not to have the capacity to break the law. This
age varies between countries, but it must be no lower than 12 years, according
to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child."

"The minimum age of criminal responsibility in Iran has been set at nine lunar
years for girls and 15 lunar years for boys. From this age, a child who is
convicted of crimes that fall in the category of hodud (offences against God
carrying inalterable punishments prescribed by Shari'a law) or qesas
(retribution-in-kind connected with a criminal act), is generally convicted and
sentenced in the same way as an adult."

"Amnesty International has recorded at least 73 executions of juvenile
offenders between 2005 and 2015. According to the UN at least 160 juvenile
offenders are now on death row. Amnesty International has been able to identify
the names of 49 of these juvenile offenders, some of whom have been on death
row for over a decade," the Urgent Action added.

(source: NCR-Iran)

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[Rick Halperin]

March 27




BANGLADESH:

Condemned prosioner dies mysteriously in Ctg jail


A young condemned prisoner died a 'mysterious' death in Chittagong Central jail
on Friday afternoon.

A day after his death, the jail authorities on Saturday said prisoner Abu
Raihan, 25, who was sentenced to death by a court for killing a mother and her
daughter in Agrabad's CDA residential area, died all of a sudden, reports news
agency UNB.

The authorities, however, could not cite any reason behind his death.

Contacted, Chittagong Central Jail deputy jailer Jahedul Alam said they found
Raihan dead in the jail. "We're now taking steps as the jail code in this
regard."

Asked about the reason behind his death, he declined to make any comment about
it.

According to the statement of the case in which Raihan, son of Chittagong
district police Havildar Abul Bashar, and his accomplice Md Shahid were given
the death penalty, the duo hacked to death Rezia Khatun, wife of C&F
businessman Rezaul Karim, and her 16-year-old daughter Saima Naznin on 24 March
2014.

Police arrested the duo 2 days after the incident as Rezia's husband Rezaul
filed a murder case in this connection.

On 1 October last year, a court here sentenced them to death. Raihan had been
in the Chittagong Central jail since he was awarded the death sentence.

(source: prothom-alo.com)






INDIA:

Capital Punishment Reflected in Indian Cinema


A recent finding reveals that the death sentence in India is skewed against the
poor. (Times of India, July 21, 2015). The findings are part of an on-going
study conducted by the National Law University students with the help of the
Law Commission currently engaged in a wider consultation with different
stakeholders on the issue of death penalty and whether it should be abolished.
The statistical findings spell out how interviews with 373 death row convicts
over a 15-year period, shows that three-fourths of those given the death
penalty belonged to backward classes, religious minorities and 75% were from
economically weaker sections.

How far is this true? How has Hindi cinema reflected the death sentence in its
films? Has it been neutral about delivering the death sentence in democratic
manner without bias? Or have films reflected the bias that exists against the
poor in real life as the above study - the first one of its kind in the
country, bears out? 5 films described below will surprise us with the way they
reflect the bias that exists within the death sentence in real life.

Mrigaya (1976) was a Hindi film set in a small hamlet in Bengal peopled by an
adivasi tribe that barely ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence through hunting.
It was based on Shikar, a short story by Oriya writer Bhagbati Charan
Panigrahi. But Mrinal Sen said it was a story that could happen at any time,
anywhere to anyone. Ghinua, a young Santhal, is a sharp archer and the Saahib
or administrator favours him because he is fond of big game hunting. But during
a fracas in the hamlet, Ghinua's wife is kidnapped by the moneylender. Ghinua
kills the moneylender and rescues his wife. He then goes to the Saahib because
the big game hunt is about to begin. But the Saahib sentences him to death.
Ghinua is shocked because the same Saahib rewarded the police informer for
killing Sholpu, a revolutionary from among the tribe. Till his death, Ghinua
fails to understand why one man is rewarded for committing murder while he is
sentenced to death. The Santhals are Dalits, extremely poor and illiterate too.
Mithun Chakraborty won the National Award for his performance in this debut
film.

Aakrosh (1980) marked the directorial debut of cinematographer Govind Nihalani.
Aakrosh is listed among the top 60 films that shaped the Indian film industry
spanning 6 decades. Aakrosh forms a part of the series of works, based around
explorations in violence, written by Vijay Tendulkar. Lahanya Bhiku(Om Puri) a
tribal arrested for killing is wife Nagi (Smita Patil) though he did not kill
her. She was gang-raped by the so-called educated elders of the small town and
killed later. They found Bhiku an excellent scapegoat to arrest for a murder he
did not commit because he was an untouchable, he was illiterate and he was
poor. Though a young lawyer Bhaskar Kulkarni (Naseeruddin Shah) trying his
first case appeals to him to tell him his side of the story, Bhiku's only
response is with silence. It is an explosive silence that sends its echoes far
and wide till he finally explodes. When he is brought to the crematorium to
light his father's funeral pyre, he picks an axe and chops off his young
sister's head to save her from the same treatment meted out to his wife. He
knows that the sentence for two murders will be the same as one. He knows he
will be hanged and his last act of rescue is to kill his sister.

Massey Sahib (1985) was directed by Pradip Kishan and the main role was
portrayed by Raghubir Yadav. It was an adaptation of Joyce Cary's novel Mister
Johnson (1939). Francis Massey works as a clerk in the Deputy Commissioner's
office in a small town in Central India in 1929. Despite his brown colour, his
name gives him an attitude and he aspires to be like the colonial rulers. He
tries his best to pander to the machinations of his boss Commissioner Charles
Adam and indulges in machinations and manipulations of his own of which most
are through illegal means and attract the label of corruption. But he is eager
to please the big boss and when he is accused of corruption, his boss backs out
of helping him. When his wife is taken back by force by her parental family, he
requests his friend Banaji to help him fetch her back. But he refuses and he
kills him in frustration on the spur of the moment. When he is arrested for
Banaji's murder, Adams advises him to plead guilty to accidental manslaughter.
But Massey refuses because he has full faith that Adams will save him in the
end. Adams does not and Massey, a convert to Christianity, a poor and
semi-educated man who believes he is of high birth by virtue of his name, is
sentenced to death. Yadav picked up 2 international awards for his portrayal in
the title role in his debut film.

Many have forgotten Prakash Jha's Damul (1985) but it is one of the boldest
films that seamlessly explored the casteist and capitalist politics in some
pockets of rural India like Bihar. Through the unfolding of Damul, the viewer
is almost continuously exposed to a series of audiovisual shocks. There is
murder in cold blood, there are mass killings of defenseless people, sexual
blackmail of a helpless young widow of high caste, the holding of an entire
basti to ransom, gheraoing the basti to stop the residents from casting their
votes, subjecting them to the mandatory repayment of debts they had never
taken, forcing them to steal cattle for the landlord who leaves them to die if
and when caught, but not at his doorstep. The final blow comes when Sanjeevana
(Annu Kapoor), an innocent Harijan from the Dalit basti is sentenced to be
hanged to death because he turned wise to the landlord's wicked ways. He had
not committed any crime. Are these shocks deliberate? Yes they are. Are they
incidental to the script? They are that too. They are meant to shock the viewer
out of the cool cocoon of the comfort he is watching the film in.

The camera captures the subtle nuances of the facial expressions in close-up,
the atmosphere to place the situations in perspective in medium and long shots.
The light in the Harijan basti is muted and natural - a glow here, a soft light
there, the fiery flames consuming the basti and thereby heightening the
credibility of the event or scene. The final shot shows the entire screen
covered with a marbling effect coming from the blood-soaked palm of the
zamindar, the camera moving in deliberate slow motion. The soundtrack is dotted
with the humming of crickets at night and ordinary conversation in the day. The
generous use of percussion instruments on the soundtrack, devoid of any song,
raises the tension and underlines the drama. The editing is slick without any
jerks and jars that the violence could have justified. "Damul" means hanging.
Does the title refer to Samjeevana's death sentence brought about by the
political manipulation of the powerful zamindar and his men? Or does
Sanjeevana's death become a metaphor for the death of honesty, innocence,
conscience and justice?

Purush (1984) directed by ace cinematographer the late Rajen Kothari, depicts a
woman walking up to the gallows quietly, her face immobile and her gait
dignified. Adapted by a very successful staged play by Jaywant Dalvi, this film
tells the story of Ambika, a young school teacher, the only child of low-middle
class parents who rises against the sexual exploitation of women by the
powerful politician in general and her own gruesome rape by the same politician
by cutting off his vital organ - performing a Bobbit on him. She does not
regret her action and takes the death sentence in her stride. Her fiance
ditches her and her mother goes insane but she sticks to her revenge that kills
her rapist slowly and more gruesomely than the rape he committed on her. Ambika
is a woman, an educated woman belonging to the low middle class who becomes a
threat to the upper classes in the same neighbourhood. Her guts is another
threat to the men in the neighbourhood who shun her for her courage and her
capacity to resist power. When legal pursuits fail, she takes law in her own
hands.

Cinema reflects life as these films have shown so far as the bias against
Dalits, minorities and the poor are concerned. Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the young
security guard who was hanged in Kolkata some years ago for raping and killing
a school girl, did not tire of saying, "I would not have been hanged if I was
not so poor." Does that ring a bell somewhere?

(source: The Citizen)






GLOBAL:

The Rare Psychological Disorder That Only Affects Death Row Inmates


Imagine being told you are going to die in a month. Then it's a few hours. Then
another month. You may be set free or you may be killed, and it all depends on
events that are completely out of your control. How long could you stand it?

The poem, "O Death, rock me asleep," is rumoured to have been written by Anne
Boleyn in her cell as she awaited execution. While in prison, Anne was reported
to have fallen into laughing spells and claimed that it would not rain until
she was released or that doom would befall the kingdom seven years after she
was executed. One morning, believing she was to be executed that day, she burst
into tears upon being informed that her execution was delayed. She declared
that she had hoped to be "past her pain" by the end of the day. A few years
later Anne's sister-in-law, Jane Rochford, also went insane awaiting execution.

Regardless of the legality or morality of the death penalty, the process of
sitting on death row, waiting to be executed, is incredibly painful. Some now
argue that the protracted uncertainty, the rapidly changing execution dates,
and the terrible isolation of death row, induces a form of insanity. People
lose their minds, they commit suicide, and most importantly, they stop using
the legal system to appeal their executions. It's called death row syndrome.

Mock Executions and Delayed Executions

Mock executions, procedures that cause people to think they are about to be
executed, have long been established as a means of psychological torture.
Victims are prepared for an execution, sometimes blindfolded or made to kneel,
but the execution is not carried out. The procedure not only terrifies people,
but makes them feel tortured hope should time come for their real execution.
They lose all control, even the control of knowing when they are about to be
killed.

No execution proceeding on death row is a mock execution. That would require
deceitful intent on the part of those conducting it. Still, death row prisoners
have been made to expect imminent death, only for the execution to be delayed.
It's not unusual for people to come within twenty-four hours of their official
time of execution. One man, Warren Hill, was strapped to a gurney, sedated, and
30 minutes away from being executed, when he was granted a stay of execution.
People spend years thinking they're going to be executed in a few months, or a
few days. They spend the last few minutes before their execution believing
there might be a reprieve.

Appalling Conditions

Death row syndrome is not just the result of the appeals process, but the life
that people lead while they appeal. Though conditions vary widely, most death
row cells are small. Many of them are roughly the size of parking spaces, and
depending on the country, they can have multiple people inside them. Although
some death rows are rows of open cells, allowing inmates to see and hear each
other, others are a series of steel containers, so the inmates see no one.

Inmates rarely leave their cells. Most inmates are in their cells 22 to 23
hours a day. If they leave, they don't go outside. They have no contact with
anyone except, occasionally, their legal representatives. Guards slide food to
them through a slot.

No Way Out

It's not surprising that these conditions take a toll on people's minds. Death
row prisoners, and prisoners who have been exonerated, often describe the way
that their fellow death row inmates deteriorate over time. They describe some
prisoners smearing faeces on the wall and having psychotic delusions. Other
prisoners hold long conversations with themselves. Many attempt suicide. Others
simply sleep 20 hours a day.

Still others attempt suicide through legal means. It's not unusual for
prisoners on death row to give up making appeals, and cooperate as much as they
can with the execution process. One inmate's own lawyer, who had represented
him for months on the understanding that the inmate would drop all appeals out
of respect for the victims' families, stopped the process 75 minutes before the
man was to be executed. The lawyer stated that he no longer believed his client
was competent. The man had claimed that he wished to spare the victim's
families any more pain. After spending time with the man, the lawyer unearthed
letters in which the man confessed that he now knew why people on death row
chose to embrace the idea of execution as escape, and that he could no longer
stand the isolation and the cycle of appeals.

It's this wide range of responses that keeps death row syndrome from being
recognised as a psychiatric disorder. Many argue, quite reasonably, that it
can't be an actual mental illness if the expression of it varies so widely.
Death row prisoners also don't make an easy group to study, as most of them are
severely disturbed before they go on death row.

The Soering Case

Conditions on death row are not just a moral problem. They're a diplomatic
problem as well. In the 1985, a young German man named Jens Soering was
accused, along with his girlfriend, of murdering the girlfriend's parents. The
murder was committed in Virginia, where Soering was studying. The pair fled to
the United Kingdom, where they were caught. The United Kingdom was ready to
send Soering back to the United States, when Soering appealed. His lawyers
argued, in front of the European Court of Human Rights, that conditions on
Virginia's death row were so harsh, and the delays so long, that a stay on
death row was "inhuman or degrading treatment." Soering was extradited, on the
understanding that the state of Virginia would not seek the death penalty. It
wasn't the death penalty itself that was the human rights violation. It was the
experience of being on death row.

Over the years, other courts have decided that long stays on death row
constitute inhumane punishment. Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe have all passed
laws, or made court decisions, that limited time on death row. (Many of those
laws have been subsequently overturned because of political shifts or changes
to the countries' constitutions.) In countries that have abolished the death
penalty the point is moot. The United States supreme court has, so far, refused
to hear cases which might limit the time allowed between the pronouncement of a
death sentence and its execution.

In the end, the problem with death row syndrome is not just that it indicates
inhumane treatment. The problem is that the very process that's meant to save
people from unjust execution is so painful that it causes those people to seek
their own execution. The check on the system, which people should use to fight
injustice, has become a tool to break down resistance to the system.

(source: lifehacker.com.au)






SOUTH AFRICA:

Remains of hanged men to be exhumed


South Africa will, within the next week, commence the exhumation of 83
political prisoners who were previously hanged at the then Pretoria Central
Prison during the apartheid era, Justice Minister Michael Masutha announced on
Wednesday.

Speaking at the launch of the gallows exhumation project at the Kgosi Mampuru
II Correctional Centre in Pretoria, Masutha said the dignity of at least 83 of
the 130 people who were hanged for politically-related offences between 1960
and 1990 will be restored from April 4 when the Missing Persons Task Team in
the National Prosecuting Authority will be conducting the exhumations of their
remains.

At least 130 people were hanged for politically-related offences between 1960
and 1990. The remains of 47 of mainly members of the Pan Africanist Congress
and United Democratic Front anti-apartheid organisations had been exhumed at
various stages, while 83 of them remain buried in unmarked graves.

"Our Truth and Reconciliation Unit and various provincial governments will then
arrange for the remains to be formally handed over to the families for
dignified reburials," said Masutha.

Those sentenced to death were transferred to Kgosi Mampuru II, then known as
Pretoria Central Maximum Security prison, for execution.

Famous people who were executed at the gallows include Solomon Mahlangu,
Benjamin Moloise, Michael Lucas, and Thelle Simon Mogoerane while others such
as suspended Independent Police Investigative Directorate head Robert McBride
were reprieved.

They were buried in unmarked graves at Mamelodi West and Rebecca Street
cemeteries. Of the 83 human remains, 69 are buried in Mamelodi West and 14 at
Rebecca Street.

Madeleine Fullard, head of the NPA's missing persons task team, said they had
partial records of where the bodies were buried.

In February 1990, President FW de Klerk declared a moratorium on executions in
the country, while the death penalty itself was abolished in 1995.

(source: iol.co.za)






SOMALIA:

Somali Court upholds death sentence against journalists killer


A high tribunal court in Mogadishu upheld a death penalty sentence against
Hassan Hanafi found guilty of killing 5 journalists and media workers between
2007 - 2009.

"After evidences, we we found him guilty of assassinating 5 journalists,
the high court of the Somalia's armed forces upheld the death sentence
against Hassan Hanafi Hajji," said Liban Ali Yarow, the chairman of the
army court.

The defendant had previously appealed his conviction on murder charges, but the
high court has dismissed during Friday's hearing.

Hanafi who worked as Al shabaab media officer was captured by Somali
intelligence agency forces while trying to escape justice and sneak into
nighbouring Kenya in 2014, the court judge said.

(source: mareeg.com)






CHINA:

Kiwi drugs-accused Peter Gardner could face death penalty


The New Zealander allegedly caught trying to leave China with $25 million of
methamphetamine is expecting to find out his fate within the next month.

Peter Gardner was stopped at Guangzhou Baiyan International Airport in 2014,
while travelling back to his home in Australia with then-girlfriend Kalynda
Davis.

Gardner claimed ownership of the bags when questioned - but denied the drugs
found inside were his.

Peter Gardner was charged with drug trafficking after being caught with 30kg of
methamphetamine in China.

He said he had been duped into carrying the 30kgs of methamphetamine, and
thought he was transporting an order of bodybuilding peptides including
Melanotan.

The pair were arrested, but while Davis was later freed and sent home, Gardner
was locked up.

He went to trial in front of a panel of 3 judges last May, and a verdict had
been expected within a few weeks of the 1-day hearing's conclusion.

If found guilty, Gardner could face the death penalty.

Gardner's parents, Sandra Cornelius and Russell Gardner, travelled to China for
the hearing and were granted 2 short visits with their son.

After Gardner's arrest, it emerged it was his 2nd trip to China - he had
previously made one other journey to bring back the legal,
performance-enhancing peptides.

Gardner's lawyer Craig Tuck says his client was coping well with the extended
wait for a verdict.

"Peter is very thankful for the love and support of his friends and family in
New Zealand and Australia."

Tuck said he was now expecting a verdict by the end of April.

If convicted, there would be a 10-day period to appeal, he said.

(source: sutff.co.nz)






TAIWAN:

Ministry death penalty review too narrow: lawyer


A Ministry of Justice-initiated review of "controversial" death penalty cases
is too narrow and self-limiting, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty
said yesterday.

"Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay is in the transition period between
administrations and should not have issued the order," said Lin Tzu-wei, the
head of the alliance's legal department, adding that while the "direction" was
commendable, because the scope of the review was narrowly limited to
"controversial" cases, it could lead to the "deception" that a full review had
been conducted.

"What is important about most of these cases is not whether the person
committed the crime, but rather what degree of punishment is appropriate," the
lawyer said.

Luo announced the review this week at the suggestion of Supreme Prosecutor Yen
Ta-ho.

The review is warranted because of the irreversible nature of the death
penalty, she said.

Her order requires a working group from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to
reopen files of inmates in controversial death penalty cases whose sentencing
has been finalized, taking remedial measures if any new evidence or file
inconsistencies that might be advantageous to the convict are found.

The order came following prosecutors' decision last week to apply for a retrial
of a case involving Cheng Hsing-tse following the emergence of new forensic
evidence casting doubt on his conviction for a 2002 killing of a police
officer.

The case was reportedly the 1st for which prosecutors sought a retrial after
the Supreme Court had already issued a final ruling upholding the death
sentence.

Lin said the files of the nation's 42 death row inmates should be reviewed
because of widespread legal irregularities such as failing to have the
opportunity to testify before the Supreme Court and being tried before court
rulings and legal amendments established their right to question witnesses in
court.

(source: Taipei Times)


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March 28




BANGLADESH:

Nizami to file review petition Tuesday


Condemned war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami will file
a petition seeking review of the Appellate Division verdict that upheld his
death sentence.

"The review petition will be filed tomorrow with the Appellate Division of the
Supreme Court against his death sentences, upheld by the apex court, as all
preparations have already been completed," Nizami's son Barrister Nazib Momin
was quoted as saying by BSS.

The apex court on March 15 released the 153-page judgement after its 4 judges
concerned signed the verdict that upheld the Jamaat chief's death penalty for
war crimes.

International Crimes Tribunal issued a death warrant against the war criminal
on the same day.

There is a provision of filing a review petition within 15 days after releasing
the full verdict.

Nizami was given the death sentence on October 29, 2014 on 4 charges and life
imprisonment on 4 other charges. He challenged the verdict at the apex court.

On January 6, the Appellate Division upheld the tribunal's sentence for the
al-Badr chief for masterminding the killing of intellectuals and his
involvement in 2 incidents of mass murders of over 500 people in Pabna in 1971.

He is the 3rd former minister after Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid
and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to get the death penalty for his
notorious role during the war.

(source: dhakatribune.com)





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

Punishing ministers a message for all: Supreme Court


The Supreme Court has said that its verdict punishing 2 Cabinet members for
contempt is a warning for all over undermining the judiciary's dignity.

Food Minister Md Qamrul Islam and Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel
Huq have been found guilty by the apex court on Sunday for their remarks on a
war crimes convict's appeal hearing.

The 8-member bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha has slapped a fine
of Tk 50, 000 on each. If they don't pay up within 7 days, they will have to
suffer a week's imprisonment.

Speaking at a discussion on Mar 5, Qamrul called for a new bench that, in his
view, should exclude the chief justice to hear Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir
Quasem Ali's appeal.

Justice Sinha's displeasure at the work of the International Crimes Tribunal's
investigators and prosecutors in the war crimes cases, including Mir Quasem's
one, had been interpreted by the minister as a 'broad hint' that the war
criminal's death penalty might not be upheld.

Mozammel had also criticised the chief justice at the same programme.

The verdict, which was given 3 days later on Mar 8, however, upheld the death
penalty awarded to the Jamaat leader by the International Crimes Tribunal.

But before that, the chief justice along with all of the 9 Appellate Division
judges, summoned the two ministers for their comments.

The ministers later issued unconditional apologies and sought the court's
mercy.

But according to Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, the court rejected their
petitions as it found the extent of their offences 'far too much'.

Before announcing the verdict on Sunday, the chief justice said: "We, the
judges of the top court, have evaluated everything meticulously. The reports
(ran by media on the discussion where the comments were made) stated many other
names. We did not draw proceedings against everyone.

"The contempt proceedings against the two ministers was done to send a
message."

Speaking to the media after the verdict, the attorney general elaborated it.
"The message which the Appellate Division wanted to give was that, under no
circumstances the judiciary's dignity can be undermined."

Asked whether the ministers can still hold offices after being convicted, Alam
declined to comment and said as far as he knows the Constitution did not
address the matter clearly.

"But it's an ethical issue," he said adding that it was up to the Cabinet to
decide on the matter.

(source: bdnews24.com)






PAKISTAN:

Worst fears come true for Pakistan's Christians in Easter attack


The worst fears of Pakistan's Christians came true with the carnage in Lahore
on Easter Sunday, said activists who had braced for a backlash since thousands
took to the streets over the execution of a murderer feted as an Islamist hero.

Taliban militants said they were targeting Christians with the suicide bombing
which killed at least 72 people, nearly half of them children, in a crowded
park in Lahore as thousands marked Easter on a warm spring evening.

Christian leaders said they had been filled with foreboding ever since the
government executed Mumtaz Qadri, who murdered a liberal governor calling for
reform of the country's blasphemy laws.

Their fears grew when Islamists announced on Friday that they would hold
prayers for Qadri over the Easter weekend, four weeks after his hanging.

"The Christian community had the feeling that there would be backlash from
Qadri's execution, especially on festivals like Easter," said Shamoon Gill, a
Christian activist and spokesman for the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance.

"We feared that something might happen."

The Taliban did not mention Qadri in their claim of responsibility.

But the attack came as thousands of his supporters clashed with police in
Islamabad, several hundred kilometres away, with activists attacking the
government's apparent tolerance of the demonstrators.

"People are calling for an assassin to be declared a hero and the government is
giving them space," said Cecil Shane Chaudhry, executive director of the
National Commission for Justice and Peace, a Christian NGO.

- Persecution -

Sunday's blast was the latest in the "long history of persecution of Christians
in the country", leading human rights activist Hussain Naqi told AFP Monday.

In Rome, Pope Francis appealed to Pakistani authorities to step up security for
religious minorities after the "abhorrent" suicide bombing.

Christians are frequently the target of militant attacks, including a double
suicide bombing that killed 82 people at a church service in Pakistan's
northwestern city of Peshawar in 2013.

They also often face discrimination at work and routinely fall victim to the
blasphemy laws, which rights groups say are often used to wage personal
vendettas.

Blasphemy can carry the death penalty in Pakistan and is a hugely sensitive
issue in the Muslim nation of around 200 million.

Even unproven allegations can stir mob violence. Christians, who make up 1.6 %
of the population, are often the target.

"We are teaching our kids a distorted, rather false history where the mullah is
pious and the minorities are evil, and this is a very dangerous trend," Naqi
said.

"It's not only with Christians, we are doing the same with Hindus and Ahmadis
and that's why they take every possible step -- either legal or illegal -- to
leave the country."

Chaudhry agreed.

"There is a growing sense of insecurity among minorities in Pakistan, and
whoever is not a Muslim is not safe in this country," he said.

Activists pointed to officials who appeared to dismiss the militants' statement
they were targeting Christians, accusing them of downplaying the threat.

"The target was not the Christian community in particular," senior police
official Haider Ashraf told AFP Monday despite the Taliban statement, adding
that Muslims were among the dead.

Naqi branded the statement a "cover-up" and said the government was in denial,
"trying to downplay the incident to hide its own failure at protecting
Christians and minorities".

On Monday around 3,000 of Qadri's supporters were still holding a sit-in near
main government buildings in Islamabad.

Their demands include the execution of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother-of-five
who has been on death row since she was convicted of blasphemy in 2010.

They are also calling for Qadri to be officially declared a martyr and want the
immediate imposition of Sharia Islamic law.

"Didn't the government know what their demands would be? Why did the government
not stop them?" asked Chaudhry.

(source: Daily Mail)






MALAYSIA:

Duo plead not guilty to alternative charges over Kevin Morais' murder


2 of the 7 men charged with alleged involvement in the murder of Deputy Public
Prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais have been offered 1 alternative charge
each by the prosecution.

College student S. Nimalan was offered a charge under Section 201 of the Penal
Code with assisting to hide Morais' body and destroying a vehicle bearing plate
number WA 6264 Q with intention to protect 6 other co-accused from prosecution.

The offence was said to have committed between Jalan Dutamas 1 here and the oil
palm plantation in Kampung Sungai Samak, Hutan Melintang, Hilir Perak, between
7am on Sept 4 and 2am on Sept 5 last year.

Unemployed A.K. Thinesh Kumar was offered a charge of culpable homicide not
amounting to murder under Section 304(a) of the Code.

He allegedly committed the offence during the journey from Jalan Dutamas 1 here
to No. 20, Desa Mentari in Petaling Jaya between 7am on Sept 4 and 11.30am on
Sept 5 last year.

Nimalan and Thinesh, both 22, pleaded not guilty to the alternative charges.

High Court judge Justice Azman Abdullah said the 1st day of trial, which was
fixed on April 6, remained.

When met by media after the court proceedings Monday, Deputy Public Prosecutor
Abdul Razak Musa said the alternative charges that were offered to Nimalan and
Thinesh were based on the facts and their role in the case.

On Jan 27 this year, army pathologist Col Dr K. Kunaseegaran, 52, was charged
in the High Court with abetting in the murder of Kevin, 55, under section 109
of the Penal Code, read together with section 302 of the same Code.

6 people - G. Gunasegaran, 47, R. Dinishwaran, 23, Thinesh, M. Vishwanath, 25,
Nimalan and debt collector S. Ravi Chandaran, 44 - were jointly charged with
the murder of Morais between 7am and 8pm from Jalan Dutamas Raya to Jalan USJ
1/6D on Sept 4 last year.

They faced the mandatory death penalty, if convicted under section 302 of the
Penal Code.

Morais went missing on Sept 4 after leaving his residence in Menara Duta for
work in Putrajaya in a grey Proton Perdana.

His body was discovered cemented in an oil drum on Sept 16, which was dumped
into a swampy area in Subang Jaya near here.

(source: The Star)






IRAN:

Call to save a young man on the verge of execution ---- He was under 18 at the
time of arrest


The Iranian Resistance calls for urgent action to save the life of Himan
Uraminejad, a 21-year-old Kurdish prisoner, who at the time of the alleged
crime was under 18 and is now on death row, and demands effective action by
international human rights authorities to stop this brutal sentence.

There are 110 prisoners on death row in Sanandaj prison. In addition to Himan,
a number of others were less than 18 years old at the time of their alleged
offense. Yousef Mohammadi, 20, was 14 years old at the time of the offense.
Siavosh Mahmoodi and Amanj Hosseini (Oveyssi) were arrested at the age of 17.

The UN Children's Rights Committee consisting of 18 experts, on February 5,
2016 issued a report on the continuing execution of juveniles by the clerical
regime in Iran, and called the regime's inhumane policies and laws against
children, especially girls, a violation of international standards and
condemned it. The committee noted that based on the regime's laws, execution of
even 9-year-old girls is permitted for the charges attributed to them ... the
regime in Iran continues to execute juveniles. The head of the committee said
that because of secrecy, there is no statistics on the number of executed and
imprisoned children and juvenile offenders in Iran.

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

Relatives of Iran's executed dissidents expelled from cemetery


Relatives of the victims of Iran's 1988 massacre of political prisoners have
sent a report from their attempt to visit their loved ones' mass grave in
Khavaran Cemetery, south-east of Tehran.

The sister of one of the martyrs of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran
(PMOI or MEK) writes: "On the final Friday of the [Iranian calendar] year on
March 18, I went to Khavaran. I just had enough time to spread the flower
petals from the flowers in the vase I had taken there on the canal. The
authorities quickly expelled us."

Iran's fundamentalist regime routinely prevents the families of executed
political prisoners from commemorating the death of their loved ones.

Some 30,000 political prisoners, primarily affiliated to the main democratic
opposition PMOI (or Mujahedin-e Khalq) were executed in the summer of 1988.

1 month after Ruhollah Khomeini was forced to accept a cease-fire in his 8-year
war with Iraq, the fundamentalist ruler of the mullahs' regime ordered a mass
execution of all political prisoners affiliated with the main opposition group
PMOI (MEK).

The brutal prison massacre has been described by some international human
rights lawyers as the greatest crime against humanity that has gone unpunished
since the Second World War.

Near the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Khomeini who felt that defeat was imminent,
decided to take his revenge on the political prisoners. He issued a fatwa (or
religious decree) ordering the massacre of anyone who had not repented and was
not willing to collaborate fully with the regime.

Khomeini decreed: "Whoever at any stage continues to belong to the Monafeqin
(PMOI) must be executed. Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately." He
added: "Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in
their support for the PMOI are waging war on God and are condemned to
execution...It is naive to show mercy to those who wage war on God."

The Iranian regime has never acknowledged these executions, or provided any
information as to how many prisoners were summarily killed. Young girls, old
parents, students, workers, and many of those who had already finished their
sentences prior to 1988 were among those who vanished in the span of a few
months. Their bodies were dumped into mass graves, including in Khavaran
Cemetery.

Khomeini had assigned an "Amnesty Commission" for prisoners. In reality it was
a "Death Commission: comprised of the 3 individuals: A representative of the
Ministry of Intelligence, a religious judge and a prosecutor. Most trials
lasted for just a few minutes and resembled more of an interrogation session.
The questions were focused on whether the prisoner still had any allegiances to
the PMOI, whose supporters made up more than 90 % of the prisoners. If the
prisoners were not willing to collaborate fully with the regime against the
PMOI, it was viewed as a sign of sympathy to the organization and the sentence
was immediate execution. The task of the Death Commission was to determine
whether a prisoner was an Enemy of God or not. In the case of Mojahedin
prisoners, that determination was often made after only a single question about
their party affiliation. Those who said "Mojahedin" rather than the derogatory
term "Monafeqin" (meaning hypocrites) were sent to the gallows.

None of the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran
and none of the regime's senior officials including the Supreme leader, Ali
Khamenei, have been brought to justice to date.

(source for both: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)

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

Iran's Executions and Human Rights Abuses Hit 27 year high


The Islamic Republic hit the highest rate of executing people since 1989. The
official number indicates that Iran executed nearly 2 times more people in 2015
in comparison to 2010 when the hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in
office, as well as roughly 10 times more than the number of executions in 2005.

Approximately 1000 people were executed in 2015, according to the latest report
from the United Nations investigator, Ahmed Shaheed, the special rapporteur for
human rights in Iran. The unofficial number is higher.

The peak of the executions in 2015 was between April and June in which nearly 4
people were executed every day on average. Most of the executions were carried
out in prisons located in urban areas such as Ghezel Hesar and Rajai Shahr in
Karaj, and Adel Abad in Shiraz.

Iran has surpassed China in the number of executions being carried out per
capita. Most of the executions in Iran are being done by hanging. In addition
to the alarming increase in executions, fundamental rights of Iranians and
ethnic and religious minorities appear to have regressed in 2015 as well. In
addition, this year witnessed the highest level of disqualification of
political candidates, 61 %, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic,
1979.

Who and Which Groups are Being Mainly Targeted

Iranian authorities claim that these executions are overwhelmingly related to
drugs offenses. Nevertheless, many of the executions were linked to other
issues. Only around 65 % of those who were executed, were charged, with
violating Iran's narcotics law.

In other areas, according to Amnesty International, the Islamic Republic
remains a leading executioner of minors. Currently, 160 juvenile offenders are
on Iran's death row. Other human rights groups also believe that Iran has
executed more juveniles than any other country. Michael G. Bochenek, senior
counsel of the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch pointed out
"Iran is almost certainly the world leader in executing juvenile offenders."
Some articles in Iran's criminal code allows girls as young as 9 and boys as
young as 15 to receive death sentences.

In addition, ethnic and religious minority communities, including the Sunni,
Arabs, and Bahai continue to be systematically targeted and discriminated
against.

Iran's Sunni are the largest minority in the country. Some of the
discrimination that the Sunnis have suffered, according the UN report, are that
the Sunni communities in Iran "have long complained that Iranian authorities do
not appoint or employ them in high ranking government positions such as
cabinet-level ministers or governors. They have also raised concerns regarding
reported restrictions on the construction of Sunni mosques in Shia-majority
areas, including the capital Tehran, and the execution or imminent execution of
Sunni activists the government alleges were involved in terrorist-related
activities."

Other groups include journalists, artists, writers, musicians, and human rights
activists who witness arbitrary arrests, detentions and prosecutions.

Amnesty International and the United Nations do not have executive power to
force Iran to reform its law or hold Iranian leaders accountable, but the UN
can offer recommendations such as the latest one in which Iran is asked to
"take the necessary steps to ensure and that it citizens fully enjoy the rights
and freedoms awarded to by the Iranian constitution with special emphasis on
the right to freedom of expression, the right to political activity and their
right to assemble". According to Nazanin, an Iranian lawyer based in Karaj,
"Iran's judiciary and parliament will ignore these recommendations and not
follow up with them".

Rouhani's Pledges

One of Rouhani's main promises was to promote and reform restrictive law in
relation to civil liberties and social justice. "The situation has not changed
since Rouhani came to power. They only talk about their victory with regards to
the nuclear deal, while a lot people and religious minorities face daily
discrimination", Morteza, an Iranian teacher in city of Esfahan pointed out.

When it comes to number of people being executed as well as the rights of
ethnic and religious minorities, Iran's president would not change the status
quo regardless of whether he is being presented as a moderate or hardliner.

The major institutions which have power over these matters are the judiciary
system (its head is appointed by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei),
the ministry of Intelligence, the office of the Supreme Leader, the
Revolutionary Guards, and paramilitary groups such as the Basij.

In order to preserve his own interests and power, an Iranian president will not
stand against these powerful political establishments, and will support the
ruling political establishment. In fact, the number of executions increase and
rights for ethnic and religious minorities appear to deteriorate when the
Islamic Republic has "moderate" or "reformist" president. The above
institutions tighten the rules in order to send a message to the Iranians that
a non-hardline president does not mean that the country is liberalizing its
politics.

(source: Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is an American political scientist, business
advisor and the president of the International American Council on the Middle
East. Harvard-educated, Rafizadeh serves on the advisory board of Harvard
International Review. An American citizen, he is originally from Iran and
Syria, lived most of his life in Iran and Syria till recently. He is a board
member of several significant and influential international and governmental
institutions; Huffington Post)






ISRAEL:

Killing an injured terrorist may be wrong, but it isn't murder either----The
killing of an injured terrorist in Hevron poses a difficult moral dilemma - but
in grappling with it we must not lose our perspective.


What to make of the controversy surrounding the killing of an injured terrorist
in Hevron by an IDF soldier last week?

While many on both sides of the debate see it as a straightforward issue - "he
is a murderer" versus "he is a hero" - the reality is far more nuanced.

On the one hand, morally-speaking the soldier most certainly is no murderer. An
armed terrorist who comes in order to kill and hoping in the process to achieve
"martyrdom" can hardly be described as a "victim." I'll go further still: he
deserved to die. Him and all the others like him; those motivated by a
genocidal, Nazi-like bloodlust to murder and maim as many Jews as possible.
These are no innocent victims but jihadist terrorists, murderers and
degenerates of the worst kind - whether they ultimately succeed in killing or
not.

Were it not for the heavy concentration of soldiers in Hevron, Judaism's
2nd-holiest city, the terrorist would surely have targeted civilians, as many
others have. Men, women and children; civilians, police officers and soldiers;
pregnant women, the elderly and the disabled; mothers, fathers, rabbis, nurses,
teachers and students; peaceful worshippers at prayer - all of these are
considered fair game to the Arab and Islamic chauvinists for whom the very
notion of Jewish empowerment and independence, Zionism, is considered a most
grievous "provocation."

The only essential difference between the knife/gun/car/ax-wielding Arab
terrorist who stalks the streets looking for Jews to kill in 2016, and the
machine-gun-wielding guard at a Nazi concentration camp in the 1940s, is that
while the latter's Jewish victims were mostly powerless to resist, the former's
are - to his great misfortune - a very different breed of Jew indeed.

So please, spare me the faux outrage. And no, the video did not disturb me -
far more disturbing are the videos and pictures of murderers being given free
treatment at Israeli hospitals at tax-payers' expense. To know that a man or
woman who robbed a family of a loved one, who left orphans, widows and grieving
parents behind, or left innocent people with life-changing injuries, will be
pampered and treated using my taxes is a far more sickening prospect than a
jihadist killer getting his just desserts.

And yet, at the same time, the prospect of a soldier carrying out a field
execution - if that is indeed what occurred (which, though you would believe
otherwise from some of the media coverage, has still yet to be determined) -
poses a very disturbing problem.

In a rule-of-law society it is the courts who must mete out justice to
criminals; not soldiers, not police officers and not civilians - no matter how
enraged or wronged they are.

For the record, I am personally a supporter of the death penalty, at least in
cases of terrorist murderers. I believe that such a punishment is not only
fundamentally the only just one for premeditated murder, but that it would
serve as a deterrent - even to those who attack with the intention of dying in
the process. It's one thing to be killed in a blaze of (in)glory during the
course of an attack, quite another to die alone, as a common criminal, staring
at the hangman's noose.

But allowing individuals to exact "justice" in the field is the start of a
slippery slope which could well lead to a total breakdown in law and order,
with terrifying consequences for the general public. If such authority is
granted to the army or police - let alone private citizens - Israel could
quickly descend into the dark, savage anarchy engulfing many of our neighbors,
where the rule of the gun (or sword) is the only real authority, and
blood-vengeance, death squads and summary executions affect the innocent and
guilty alike. Worse still, such authority could easily be abused by those in
power in unthinkable ways. It could be the death-knell of Israeli democracy.

It is worth pointing out that the law and order argument, too, is a nuanced
one. Take the recent stabbing in Petah Tikva: putting aside the fact that in
that case the terrorist was not yet neutralized and therefore still posed a
potential danger anyway - automatically justifying his victim's subsequent
heroic actions - should a stab victim pulling the knife from his neck and
killing the terrorist who attacked him with it in retribution - even if he was
already neutralized - be subsequently punished? Personally, I would recoil from
such a notion, and it would take a particularly heartless, morally-bankrupt
judge to seriously consider punishing a victim in such a way.

Yet the case last Thursday was markedly different: the soldier who fired the
fatal shot was not injured and the terrorist in question was lying mortally
wounded on the ground. Angry though he may understandably have been over the
preceding attack which injured his comrade, he was not himself the victim. The
only legitimate justification (and for his part this is the soldier's version
of events) would be if he believed the terrorist still posed some kind of
threat, for example by carrying a concealed explosive device.

This is not impossible - in at least one attack terrorist knifemen also used
improvised explosives - but whether that was the soldier's true motivation is
for the military court to decide. It is of course the IDF's duty to try the
soldier in question and, if it is determined that he broke the rules of
conduct, he should be punished accordingly.

But there is something very disturbing in the way the case has played out in
parts of the media. I'm not talking about the trial by media which is,
unfortunately, an all too common phenomenon - rather, I refer to the way in
which we are being subtly robbed of our moral compasses without even knowing
it.

Consider, that when a Palestinian terrorist stabs a pregnant woman, or stabs a
mother or father to death in front of her or his children, or guns down parents
in front of their children, or stabs and slashes scores of innocent passersby,
it is forgotten within a day or two, and certainly receives little critical
analysis or direct criticism of Palestinian society and the terrorism it
breeds. It's just one of those things; maybe it's even Israel's fault.

In some cases - and it has happened far too often to be anything other than a
concerted editorial position - news articles will either whitewash the act of
evil committed or even go so far as to equate the victims and their killers, or
highlight the "suffering" not of the victims' families, but of the families of
the Palestinian "martyrs".

Much in the same way as the Duma attack was the focus of so much more outrage,
international criticism and self-flagellation by Israel and Jews everywhere,
there are those who would have us approach the events in Hevron last Thursday
as somehow more outrageous than the attack which preceded it.

Well, it wasn't. In fact, after half a year of daily attacks (and decades of
brutal terrorism before that), that one soldier may have lost his calm and shot
a would-be murderer in the head is far less worthy of outrage than the daily
acts of Arab terror we have sadly become inured to. If anything, we should give
pause for thought to just how few such incidents have occurred in spite of the
huge pressure and constant dangers faced by IDF soldiers.

To those who answer with the predictable "we should be better than them," I
would say that - apart from being a fundamentally racist sentiment (why are
"we" better than "them"?) - I personally have no desire to be held to a "higher
standard" than anyone else. "Higher standards," too, are a form of racism,
particularly when - as is the case with Israel in the kangaroo court of
international opinion - they magically apply only to our obligations, but
afford us no greater rights or legitimacy.

So, as Israel navigates the difficult yet crucial task of enforcing the rule of
law even on the complex and morally challenging battlefield, we must resist the
urge to leap to uninformed conclusions, as well as the groupthink which pushes
us to sympathize with the terrorist as a victim, and to view the soldier as a
cold-blooded killer.

What happens subsequently is up to the military court to decide, and we should
be proud of the State of Israel for that.

(source: Op-Ed; Ari Soffer----The writer is the Managing Editor of Arutz Sheva
English----Israel National News)






SCOTLAND:

Mother of tragic teen signs petition calling for murderers and rapists to face
death penalty


CAMPAIGNERS on the Change.org page are calling for convicted criminals such as
paedophiles to be executed if forensic evidence shows a person is 100 % guilty.

THE mother of tragic teenager Paige Doherty has signed a petition calling for
murderers and rapists to face the death penalty.

The Change.org page calls for convicted murderers, paedophiles and rapists to
be executed if forensic evidence can guarantee a person is 100 % guilty.

It also demands tougher sentencing for killers and rapists, claiming that
prisons "seem like a holiday camp".

The petition comes just days after 15-year-old Paige's body was found in a
wooded area just off Glasgow's Great Western Road.

Her devastated mum, Pamela Munro, signed the petition on Saturday writing
"#justiceforpaige".

Since being created 2 days ago it has already had more than 20,000 signatures.

The online document states: "Bring back some sort of death penalty to convicted
murders, paedophiles, and rapists.

"If Forensics can 100% guarantee that a person is guilty for the crime then why
should the hard working people of the UK pay our taxes to put a roof over their
head, food in their stomach, a job, an education, and all other luxuries you
can get in prison these days.

"Prison is for punishment and these days it seems like a holiday camp.

"Too many people are suffering horrific crimes for these evil sick twisted
people and it's time we put a stop to it.

"We are scared to walk our streets and let our children play outside without
adult supervision.

"Our crime rate for rapes and murders are at an all time high.

"Men, women and children are all being victimised by rape and even worse,
murder.

"Innocent people do not ask to have such atrocities to happen to them.

"Things have to change and if we bring back the death penalty there will be a
drop in the crime rate that our country has."

Dozens of Paige's friends and colleagues left messages of support for the
petition and for Paige's family.

Amy Strawhorn wrote: "I was Paige's boss. So tragic."

Lorna Jane Anderson said: "Something needs to be done to protect our children."

? And Lynn Banks wrote: "You take someone's life, you don't deserve to be
living yours."

Paige's body was found in a wooded area in Glasgow's West End last Monday after
going missing two days before.

(source: dailyrecord.co.uk)






GLOBAL:

The death penalty: Bad in U.S., atrocious in other countries


The debate about putting someone to death for committing a crime is an issue
often raised in criminal justice conversations.

Regardless of which side of the discussion we take, we Americans have some
sense as to which crimes are appropriate for death penalty consideration. Our
laws and our public view is that murder is on that short list. Contrast our
view with others around the world. Others elsewhere view life differently,
sometimes considerably so.

For example, there are people and countries that applaud and encourage suicide
bombings. It is not hard to understand, then, where they may be coming from
when an individual does something they consider criminal.

There are also countries that will kill you if you are a homosexual or if you
voice criticism against the government. In some countries you can be put to
death if you are an adulterer or even if you are convicted of theft.

While the list of countries that allow and use the death penalty continues to
decrease - as of July, 2015, according to Amnesty International (AI), 140
countries have legally abolished the death penalty or have effectively
abolished it despite laws still on the books - what, in some countries,
constitutes a crime that can trigger the death sentence is frequently
unfathomable.

In the United States of America, being involved in the death of another person
is almost a de facto prerequisite for getting the death penalty. Another death
penalty crime is treason, which remains on the books in the Federal system and
in some states as well.

Everyone in the U.S. who has been executed since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976 participated in a crime in which at least one victim died.
In most of these cases, the individual executed directly killed the victim. A
small number of death sentences have been carried out where the defendant
ordered or contracted with another person to carry out a murder. Some death
sentences have been carried out where the person executed participated in a
felony during which a victim died at the hands of another participant in the
felony.

Elsewhere around the world:

--Death sentences can follow convictions for homosexuality in Afghanistan,
Brunei Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, in the United Arab
Emirates and in Yemen.

--Convictions for perjury and treason can result in death sentences in Algeria,
Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Botswana, Central African Republic,
Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Israel (high treason), Japan, Kenya,
Laos, Libya, Nauru, North Korea, New Guinea, Peru, Saint Lucia, Sierra Leon,
Singapore, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and
Tobago, United Arab Emirates, the United States, Vietnam and Zambia.

--A conviction for espionage can result in death in Algeria, Cameroon, Central
African Republic, Iran, Peru, Qatar, the United States, Vietnam and Syria.

--Corruption is a death penalty crime in China, Cuba and Iran.

--Fraud is a death penalty offense in China and Vietnam.

--Stealing something can get you executed in Algeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia
and Syria.

--Adultery can result in the death penalty in Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Somalia,
Yemen and Syria.

--A woman and her 2 daughters are being held in Papua, New Guinea on charges of
sorcery. The death sentence may follow if they are convicted.

--Last November a Saudi Arabian court sentenced a Palestinian poet to death for
apostasy, defined as the act of abandoning his Muslim faith.

--Saudi Arabia (AI reports) continues to impose the death sentence on
individuals under the age of 18, violating child human rights laws.

But the death sentence cannot be justified.

--Around the world, some countries with absurdly unfair justice systems (such
as China, Iran, Iraq) employ the death sentence after conducting unfair trials,
when "confessions" are extracted through torture, and to punish political
opponents. The death penalty in such countries is often used as a tool of
repression, a quick way to silence political opposition. Frequently, those
accused do not have lawyers representing them.

--It is discriminatory, particularly in the United States, when being poor or
being a member of an ethnic or a religious minority is much more likely to
result in a death sentence. This fact is the result of still blatant
discrimination as well societal factors. Poor people and those in marginalized
groups have less access to the legal resources that are necessary for them to
defend themselves.

Amnesty International keeps statistics on executions around the world. They
rank China the most prolific state executioner, despite the Chinese
government's efforts to suppress the numbers. AI uses media sources and human
rights groups, rather than official government sources to estimate the number
of executions in China.

Executions in China can follow convictions for drug trafficking and for other
offenses that would not trigger death sentences in the U.S. Apparently China
does not discriminate by class, according to AI. Recently a billionaire was
executed for running a criminal gang.

AI statistics place Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in 2nd to 4th places in number
of annual executions worldwide last year. The U.S. is currently number 5.

Beyond the debate about whether the death penalty should be allowed, many
states in this country are struggling with the method of execution. The supply
of lethal drugs, limited now for many years for a number of reasons, has
resulted in alternate methods of execution being considered, which could be
used if lethal injections are ruled unconstitutional or if a state cannot
obtain the necessary drugs.

As for other methods under consideration, the Mississippi House wants to use
firing squads. Oklahoma would pursue electrocution or a firing squad. Wyoming
would use the gas chamber and Tennessee would use electrocution. Utah is the
only state that has executed 3 men by firing squad, the most recent example
occurring in 2010.

Countries that do execute individuals they define as "criminals" employ methods
we Americans would never consider: beheading, shooting in the back of the head,
and hanging. Saudi Arabia has conducted an execution by crucifixion.

Has anyone asked the current crop of Presidential candidates if they would
support a death penalty ban?

To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice. -- Desmond
Tutu

(source: Paul A. Samakow is an attorney licensed in Maryland and Virginia, and
has been practicing since 1980----commdiginews.com)


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[Rick Halperin]

March 28




INDONESIA:

MP calls for immediate execution of drug convicts on death row


A lawmaker has called for immediate execution of drug convicts on death row to
help combat the spread of illicit drug trafficking.

"We ask the Indonesian president to implement the decision on the execution of
drug convicts on death row soon to stop drug trafficking in this country," MH
Said Abdullah of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) faction at
the House of Representatives (DPR) said here on Sunday.

Abdullah was responding to pressure from ulemas in Madura island who are
grouped in the forum of ulemas from Islamic boarding schools in Madura island.

He believed that jailed drug dealers have masterminded part of illicit drug
trafficking in the country from behind bars.

If the drug offenders are not executed immediately, illicit drug trafficking
will fearfully spread due to the fact that part of the illicit drug trafficking
is controlled from behind bars, he said.

"Indonesia is a sovereign state and that it does not need to listen to pressure
from other countries with regard to the delayed execution of drug convicts on
death row," he said.

He said the ulemas' call for immediate execution of drug convicts on death row
is realistic idea.

"Politically, we, the legislative body, will convey it to the Indonesian
president," he said.

Many drug convicts on death row are waiting for their execution.

The National Narcotic Agency (BNN) said recently 55 drug convicts had been
sentenced to death, 14 of whom were now awaiting their execution.

Last year Indonesia put to death 14 drug convicts, including 2 Australians, who
were part of the so-called Bali Nine group, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has declared that the nation is in a state of
emergency over drugs.

(source: republika.co.id)






IRAQ:

Indian Catholic Priest Crucified by Islamic State on Good Friday


In a gruesome act of violence, the Islamic State crucified a Catholic priest
according to a report in a foreign leading daily

According to reports an Indian Salesian priest Reverent Thomas Uzhunnalil was
abducted in Yemen when a nursing home was raided in March.

The execution of the priest is said to have been carried out by the Islamist
sect in the same treatment the Romans carried out on Jesus, to mark Good
Friday.

Rev. Thomas Uzhunnalil initiated diplomatic efforts since the killing of 16
Christian nuns and nurses by gunmen on March 4. The gunmen had entered the
nursing home after killing the Yemeni guard and fired at 15 other employees
before abducting Uzhunnalil to an undisclosed place.

Bishop Paul Hinder, the head of Catholic Church in Yemen stated that the
missionary home was subjected to innumerable threats in the past, but they
refused to vacate.

The slained nuns were already honored as martyrs by Pope Francis.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday stated that the government
was taking desperate steps to rescue the priest.

(source: newindianexpress.com)






TAIWAN:

Murder of 4-year-old girl stirs death penalty debate


The brutal beheading of a 4-year-old girl in an apparent random attack in
Taipei on Monday has renewed debate over the death penalty, which is still
carried out in Taiwan, with advocates asking opponents if they still favored
abolishing it.

A 33-year-old man has been detained in connection with the gruesome killing of
the girl as she and her mother were on their way to a subway station in Neihu
District in northern Taipei late Monday morning.

The suspect grabbed the child from behind and decapitated her with a cleaver.
The girl died on the spot, according to police.

The tragedy sparked a heated debate in the Internet community, with Lin
Hsin-yi, the executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death
Penalty, saying that she was "very, very, very sad" about the tragedy on a
Facebook post.

She wrote that she really wanted to find a solution on how to stop such
incidents.

Some netizens argued, however, that people found guilty of "felony murder"
should be directly executed and others said those found guilty of killing
others should pay for what they have done.

Kuomintang Legislator Wang Yu-min said the attack was simply unacceptable, and
she called for public support for her proposal that would stipulate automatic
death penalties, or life sentences under specific circumstances, for people who
murder children under the age of 12.

Asked whether the incident would affect his support for abolishing the death
penalty, New Power Party Legislator Freddy Lim said he has pushed for reforms
of the country's penal system, which includes protecting the rights of children
and the families of victims.

Lin, who has served as the head of Amnesty International's Taiwan branch, said
it was time for Taiwan to make improvements in these areas to avoid the
repetition of similar incidents in the future.

The newly elected chairwoman of the KMT, Hung Hsiu-chu, questioned those
opposed to capital punishment, asking "Are you still in favor of abolishing the
death penalty?" while expressing her support for the bill proposed by Wang.

President-elect Tsai Ing-wen expressed her sadness over the brutal killing
through Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Wang Min-sheng.

Tsai said the country should stem these types of tragic crimes by strengthening
education, improving the economy and mental health for individuals and striving
to maintain social order, according to Wang.

Monday's incident was the 3rd case of a random child murder in Taiwan in the
last 5 years.

In December 2012, a 29-year-old unemployed man named Tseng Wen-chin murdered a
10-year-old boy in Tainan and allegedly said he killed him because he wanted to
be imprisoned. Tseng was given a life sentence by the Tainan District Court the
next year.

Tseng also reportedly suggested that he would not receive a death sentence
because he only killed 1 person, a comment that drew a public outcry and
sparked a debate over the death penalty at that time.

In June 2015, an 8-year-old girl died of multiple organ failure after she had
her throat slit by 29-year-old Kung Chung-an, who claimed to be looking for a
random target at her school in Beitou District in Taipei.

The killer said he murdered the girl because prisoners get better food than he
was getting in his daily life. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the
case also reinforced support for the death penalty and led people to question
those who oppose it.

(source: CNA)

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

Legislator pushes for harsher death penalty law


Former head of the Child Welfare League and Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Wang
Yu-min on Monday, March 28 called for a revision of Criminal Law, to sentence
murderers of children younger than 12 either to death or to life imprisonment.

Wang's statement came following public outrage over the death of a 4-year-old
girl, who was decapitated by a man in Taipei earlier on Monday.

Similar cases in the past have often resulted in disagreement from people
regarding the use of the death penalty, but any passing of laws should take
public opinion into account, said Wang.

"This is too unfair for the child. There is no way anybody who cares about
children could accept anything like this," said Wang. "I hope the Legislature
can soon add this to the review agenda."

New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Freddy Lim, who previously advocated against
capital punishment, said to local media that he felt great sadness and anger
about the murder, but also that a nation's criminal system must be assessed
with care.

Society is now overwhelmed with rage and grief, so it will be better to discuss
the issue at a later time, emphasized Lim.

Also, the Child Welfare League urged the government to force mental illness
patients that refuse to seek treatment to receive medical help, in order to
prevent "ticking time bombs from existing in communities."

Not Mental Illness, but Drug Use: MOHW

The man suspected of decapitating a 4-year-old girl appeared to be on drugs,
murdering the child due to hallucination from Amphetamine intake, said the
Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), after preliminary investigations.

People with mental illness rarely commit acts of violence, stressed the
ministry.

Head of the division of Mental and Oral Health Shen Lih-jong said to the
Central News Agency that he had just reached out to the Taipei City Hospital's
Songde Branch to get more information about the suspect.

The suspect was once detained for using Amphetamine in 2014, said Shen.

However, Shen said the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA), is
required to protect personal privacy, so specifics about the suspect's drug use
cannot be released to the public.

In the past, mental illness patients would be forced to stay in hospitals with
diagnosis from two physicians, said the official.

The Legislature passed the Mental Health Act in 1990, which stipulates that
patients may only be forced into treatment after a commission reviews the case
or when patients are believed to be likely to hurt themselves or others, said
Shen.

Last year, of the 747 applications for treatment by force, only 634 were
approved.

(source: China Post)

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

Bill on death penalty for child killers to be discussed Thursday


The horrifying beheading of a young girl in Taipei has prompted lawmakers to
quickly consider a Criminal Code amendment that would require random killers of
children to be sentenced to death.

The bill was proposed by indignant legislators echoing public anger at a
33-year-old suspect who brutally murdered a 4-year-old girl by decapitating her
in broad daylight in Neihu.

Kuomintang (KMT) lawmaker Lin Wei-chou, one of the conveners of the
Legislature's Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, said some
committee members wanted to put off the bill's review until people had time to
calm down.

But the committee concluded that the issue in fact warranted a thorough debate,
so he decided to put the amendment on the committee's agenda on March 31.

KMT Legislator Wang Yu-min said the attack was simply unacceptable, and she and
other KMT lawmakers like Hsu Chih-jung called for public support for their
proposal that would stipulate automatic death penalties, or life sentences
under specific circumstances, for people who murder children under the age of
12.

The lawmakers said the inhuman murder of a child was no different from killing
one's own parents and represented an act that they said deserved capital
punishment.

Lin said officials from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health and
Welfare, the Ministry of the Interior and the Judicial Yuan will be invited to
present their views on the subject at the committee meeting on March 31.

The death penalty is legal in Taiwan, and polls indicate it still has
widespread support, though calls for abolishing capital punishment have grown
louder.

Monday's tragedy prompted a civic group to call for 10,000 people to take to
the streets on April 9 to demand that the government abide by the law and hand
down a death sentence to anyone who deserves one.

"Execute those who should be executed," said a Facebook post by the White Rose
Social Concerns Association, which called for death sentences for mass drug
dealers and random killers, whom they said should not be seen in the same light
as the mentally challenged.

"When safety is not provided, what is the government for? When the government
does not abide by the law, what do the people expect from the law?" it
contended.

(source: focustaiwan.tw)






IRELAND:

The man who lived: How one convicted murderer escaped Ireland's death
penalty----Patrick Aylward, 63, was accused of burning a young child to death.


IRISH REPUBLICANISM HAS a bitter history with the death penalty. Padraig
Pearse, Robert Emmet and Kevin Barry are among our patriot dead, executed by
the British government.

It is not surprising then the original draft of the constitution contained no
reference to capital punishment.

The bloody and divisive Civil War soon changed minds, however. The last-minute
decision to reinstate the ultimate deterrent would cost 29 ordinary Irish
citizens their lives after they were convicted of murder.

Dozens more would have the penalty imposed on them only to receive last-minute
commutations.

Patrick Aylward was one such individual.

In an increasingly urbanised society, it can be difficult for the modern Irish
person to comprehend the vicious feuds between rural farming families.

Sadly, in the Ireland of 1922 these fights were all too common.

The story of the walking dead

Patrick Aylward was 63 years old and a farmer from Mullinavat, south Kilkenny.
He had returned to Ireland in 1921 after 39 years in Connecticut in order to
nurse his elderly brother on their 25-acre holding.

50 yards away lived the Holden family which included Patrick, Mary and their 8
children. Relations between the 2 households had soured shortly after Patrick's
return.

He complained about the alleged trespassing on his land by animals belonging to
the Holden family, even setting his dog on a goat belonging to Mrs. Holden.

On another occasion, a missing fowl belonging to the Holdens was found dead in
Aylward's shed.

Mary described her neighbour as a violent and unpredictable man who had twice
struck her with a stick. Aylward disagreed, asserting that she was the
aggressor and had attacked him several times.

Her children also constantly annoyed his animals and used his well as a toilet,
he claimed.

What started out as a minor disagreement was about to take a far more sinister
turn.

That fateful day

On Saturday 21 April 1923, Patrick Holden was out working while his wife was
minding the children. At 5pm, Mary put her 18-month-old son William to bed and
departed the house to buy an outfit for another son's confirmation.

Despite the lawless nature of the times, Mary saw fit to place 8-year-old
Patrick in charge of the house in her absence. She told him to lock the door
and stay inside.

His younger sister Mary and brother Michael were also present. William, the 2nd
youngest of the Holden family, suffered from rickets and was not able to crawl
or walk but was sleeping peacefully when his mother left.

Some minutes afterwards, Patrick Aylward allegedly knocked at the Holden's
front door. The children reluctantly opened the door and Aylward burst in
shouting that he "would put an end to the trespassing".

Aylward lifted William, who was still sleeping, and walked over to the fire.

He then proceeded to hold the infant down over the burning grate.

Patrick Holden endeavoured to intervene but was powerless against the older
man's strength. Aylward stayed watching the crying infant as he burned on the
fire, all the while using a stick to hold off the other children.

Just as William's clothes caught fire, Aylward said "Don't let them goats into
my haggard anymore" before striding out the door.

The children quickly removed their infant brother from the fire and put him in
a bucket of water to quench the flames. The severely-burned baby was then put
back into his bed and the door was locked.

Horrific death

Patrick Holden Snr. arrived home within the next few minutes to be met with
several hysterical children and a baby suffering from life-threatening burns.

There were no gardai in the area at that turbulent point in Irish history, so
Holden instead sent for a doctor from Waterford. He duly arrived and found the
baby in a state of collapse. William was charred black all over his body and
died from toxaemia 24 hours later.

The coroner's inquest took place just days after the death. Aylward appeared
and denied having any knowledge of the burning.

The coroner referred the case to the gardai nonetheless but also had harsh
words for the bereaved Holdens, telling them that he did not know whether to
sympathise with them because they had abandoned their young children at home.

Aylward was arrested on 8 May. He replied: "I did not do it."

Trial

The murder trial began on the 26 November 1923. The prosecutor stated that the
prisoner was "charged with a crime which, if proved against him, was as
terrible and hideous a crime as anyone described as a human being could
commit".

Aylward maintained a cool demeanour throughout despite the gravity of the
charges against him. He pleaded not guilty.

Dr. Matthew Coghlan appeared on the stand and told the court that the injuries
to William Holden could not have occurred accidentally. When asked about the
defendant, he described him as a "degenerate" who lived in squalor, referring
to the Aylward homestead as a "manure heap and cesspool".

He did insist that Aylward was sane and capable of distinguishing right from
wrong, however.

Child's testimony

Patrick Holden also took the stand and was described as an intelligent witness,
despite never attending school and being unable to write his name.

He described letting Aylward in and witnessing his neighbour grabbing William
and putting him across the fire. Patrick attempted to aid his brother but was
unable to do so.

Michael Holden also recounted Aylward raising a stick at them and telling them
as he left the house, "Don't tell your mother or I'll kill you."

Patrick Aylward admitted that he had poor relations with his neighbours but
insisted that he had not been in their house for 5 months before the incident
when he had complained to Mrs. Holden about her children chasing his sow and
swimming in his spring well.

Her response was to hit him with a scrubbing brush. He retaliated by giving her
a whack with his walking stick.

He denied harming the children however, pleading:

Don't you think I have a soul to save as well as everyone else, or what do you
think I am?

Aylward insisted that the Holdens had told their children to lie about him. 2
witnesses, Aylward's brother and a friend, also vouched that the prisoner had
been tending a sick cow all day and had not visited his neighbours.

Quick verdict

The trial took just 1 day and despite the contentious and contradictory
evidence, the all-male jury needed just 10 minutes deliberation before passing
a guilty verdict, with a recommendation to mercy.

The judge announced his agreement and sentenced the prisoner to death.

Aylward responded:

I am not guilty at all. I have not been in that house for 5 months. May God
forgive the woman who put the lie on me and God forgive the jury.

His pleas fell on deaf ears and his execution was set for the 27 December,
putting him among 5 convicted murderers to be sentenced to death in that month.

Getting off

3 of the men would indeed be hanged. Aylward, however, was fortunate to receive
petitions from numerous luminaries, including the Bishop of Ossory. His Grace
petitioned government minister Kevin O'Higgins, questioning the guilt of the
elderly man.

He mentioned the Holden family's "bad moral character," and alluded to a
previous incident when another Holden child had burned to death in suspicious
circumstances in 1910.

It was announced just hours before the execution that Aylward's death sentence
was to be commuted to one of penal servitude for life. The minister was not
obligated to give a reason for this sudden commutation but a reasonable doubt
was surely present.

The government may also have been reluctant to execute a man solely on the
evidence of children. Patrick Aylward served 10 years in prison before being
released in 1932.

He died 3 years later, still maintaining that he had taken no part in the
burning of William Holden.

The death penalty remained in the Irish Constitution until 1990 and 28 men and
1 woman would meet their death at the end of an Irish rope.

Harry Gleeson was hanged for murder in 1941 for a murder he did not commit. Did
Patrick Aylward come within hours of suffering a similar injustice 20 years
before him?

The truth may never be known.

(source: Colm Wallace has written a book Sentenced to Death: Saved from the
Gallows about 30 Irish men and women who had the death penalty imposed on them
between 1922 and 1985. It is being launched on 17 June and is available for
pre-order on Amazon.com----The Journal)






MALTA:

The boy who killed a girl... and other women's murders


Kim Dalli takes another look at a new book about the murder of Maltese women
and highlights more of these heinous crimes from history: a teenager shot dead
by a child, a prostitute who had her throat slit and a rape victim strangled
and thrown down a well.

It was 1867 and Mosta dome had just been built. 16-year-old Vittorja Vella was
playing beads with another girl her age in the streets of the town when an
argument erupted over the game.

The incident was witnessed by Guzeppi Sammut, 13, the brother of Vittorja's
playmate.

On seeing his sister being beaten up, Guzeppi ran as fast as he could to his
father's farm, grabbed a shotgun and returned to shoot Vittorja.

The girl is the youngest victim in crime historian Eddie Attard's newly
published book, Il-Femicidju: Qtil ta' Nisa f'Malta (from BDL), which documents
all the femicides of the last 2 centuries.

Despite the boy himself being even younger, he underwent a trial by jury, was
found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison with hard labour.

35 years earlier, Malta witnessed the 1st killing of a prostitute that century:
Grazzja Grech, known as Zol-in-Zol, was found dead in her Senglea home in April
1832.

Prostitution was not illegal at the time, although over the years certain
restrictions had been introduced dictating where prostitutes could live. They
were forbidden from occupying the ground floor but allowed to live in
maisonettes on the first floor.

Grazzja's absence had aroused the suspicions of her neighbours. After their
knocks at her door went unanswered, one of them peeked through a window to see
her lying on the floor in a pool of blood that oozed from her slit throat.

Grazzja was known to host a number of men at her home and many hailed from
localities outside Senglea. Among these men, there were 2 youths in particular
who were often seen in her company.

The night before the victim was found dead, the pair had been spotted buying
bread, cheese and a bottle of rum from a Senglea shop.

Their appearance was described to the police, who identified the 2 as
18-year-old Giovanni Fedele from Sliema and 21-year-old Pawlu Laus from
Valletta.

Both goldsmiths, they had known the victim for a while. Grazzja was rumoured to
have declared the 2 as her favourite clients, and they had even presented her
with a gold ring they had forged themselves.

On the day of the crime, Giovanni and Pawlu, armed with a penknife, paid a
visit to Grazzja. As Pawlu held her down, Giovanni slit her throat.

A month later they were sentenced to death in a trial by jury. Despite a plea
by governor Sir Patrick Ponsomby to mitigate the sentence, they were hanged.
Giovanni was the youngest man in Malta to receive the death penalty.

Yet the tragedy continued to unfold.

Giovanni's mother, who knew of her son's waywardness, had often warned him that
he would one day end up on the gallows. Pawlu's father, who kept hoping until
the end that the sentence would be changed, committed suicide.

The final victim in this case appears to have been the fishmonger, who received
a savage beating and later died of his injuries.

Another murder involving sex was that of 18-year-old Duminka Galea, dubbed
Malta's Maria Goretti, after the 11-year-old saint who was stabbed to death
after resisting rape.

Duminka was working in her father's fields in Naxxar in 1869, together with her
siblings.

As her brothers and sisters were about to leave, she asked them for a sip of
water, but their jug was empty.

They suggested she draw some water from the well in the nearby fields belonging
to the Schembri family.

That evening, Duminka failed to turn up for dinner. Her frantic family visited
the Schembri farm and asked after her but to no avail. Cikku Schembri, 24,
denied having set eyes on her.

The next day, one of the victim's siblings suggested searching the well,
fearing his sister might have fallen in. There they ran into Cikku again, who
seemed very evasive and would not answer their questions.

The family filed a police report and a search of the Schembri farm yielded
clothes smeared with blood.

Duminka's body was found in a well. An autopsy revealed that she had been raped
and then strangled.

Although most of the evidence was circumstantial, Cikku was found guilty by a
count of 6-3. As a result he could not be handed the death penalty and was
sentenced to life imprisonment.

(source: timesofmalta.com)


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March 29



INDIA:

Yug's killer moves HC


One of the perpetrators in Yug Chandak case - Arvind Abhilash Singh (23) -
moved the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court challenging the death sentence
awarded to him while praying for leniency.

A division bench comprising Justice Bhushan Gavai and Justice Atul Chandurkar
on Monday admitted the case for final hearing, which will commence from April
25. The judges also directed its registry to complete formalities like
preparing paperbook of the case related to the cold blooded murder of an
innocent child before April 17. Singh's plea was clubbed with another regarding
confirmation of his death sentence along with prime accused Rajesh Dhanalal
Daware (19).

Both the convicts were awarded a rare double death penalty on February 4 for
the diabolical murder of 8-year-old Yug on September 1, 2014, that sparked off
huge outrage and candle light protests in the city. This was 2nd such verdict
after a Yavatmal sessions court sent labourer Shatrughan Masram to gallows for
brutally raping and murdering a 2-year-old girl on August 14 last year.

The court would simultaneously hear both cases on April 25, according to
Chandak's family counsel Rajendra Daga, who assisted the prosecution. Mehroz
Pathan represented the government.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Bihar to provide for death penalty to enforce liquor ban; The state minister
said the poorest of the poor were consuming liquor, leading to family problems,
domestic violence and affecting their children's education.


Ahead of phased ban on manufacture and sale of liquor in the state, the Bihar
government has decided to bring an amendment bill in the assembly on Wednesday
to provide for death penalty for people found violating it. "The state
government will bring an amendment bill to include provision of death penalty
for manufacturing illicit country liquor after ban comes into effect in the
state from April 1," Bihar Excise and Prohibition Minister Abdul Jalil Mastan
told media here on Tuesday.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar last week announced the government in the ongoing
budget session of the assembly would amend law to include provision of death
penalty for manufacturing and sale of illegal liquor. Mastan said in the 1st
phase, manufacture and sale of country and spiced liquor would be banned
followed by Indian-made foreign liquor later this year. Last year, during
campaigning for the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, Nitish Kumar announced an
alcohol ban to be implemented from April 1.

The state minister said the poorest of the poor were consuming liquor, leading
to family problems, domestic violence and affecting their children's education.
"Women are suffering more than anyone else due to increasing liquor
consumption." According to officials, the ban decision was expected to impact
the state government's financial health. Bihar earns an annual revenue of
around Rs.3,650 crore from liquor sale. To provide the livelihood of those
involved in the liquor business, the government has offered them to sell
products of the state-run Bihar State Milk Cooperative Federation Ltd. under
the brand name "Sudha Dairy".

(source: india.com)

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

Gallows for minor's rapist


The session's court of Mumbai awarded death penalty to one Nazir Shaikh on
Monday for sexually assaulting and killing a minor in 2012.

In 2012, a 4-year-old girl fr-om Mumbai's Sakinaka area had gone missing and
her body was later found dumped. She was brutally murdered after being
assaulted sexually.

Upon investigations, the police arrested Nazir Shaikh, the nei-ghbour of the
deceased girl. As the investigation was not moving ahead and the police could
not gauge apt evidence against Shaikh, the victim's father then had approached
the Bombay High Court, seeking the case be transferred to higher authorities
for further probe.

After hearing the petition, the Bombay High Court had directed the Mumbai
Police to transfer the case to a higher rank office and complying by the
court's orders the Mumbai Police had then handed over the case to the then
Assistant Commissioner of Police Shantilal Bhamare. ACP Bhamare then again
investigated the case from the beginning and successfully collected enough
evidence against Shaikh. Finally after a total of 4 years, the session's court
convicted Shaikh and awarded death penalty to him.

"My daughter has finally got justice," was the only thing the victim's father
who is a driver by profession, expressed. When asked if would also fight in the
High Court as Shaikh has the option to move to High Court to challenge the
lower court's judgement, he said, "I'm ready to fight in each and every court
to get justice for my daughter. I will fight legally till the last breathe of
my life."

(source: Free Press Journal)

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

MPHC stays hanging of rapist-murderer


The Madhya Pradesh High Court today stayed, for a period of 3 months, the
execution of a death warrant vis-a-vis a convict who raped and murdered a
3-year-old.

Sachin Singrah, a driver hailing from Satna District's Maihar, was to be hanged
on Wednesday. On February 23 last year, he targeted the minor who used to go to
school in his vehicle. On the basis of Singrah's confession, the body was
seized from a well a couple of days later. In August, an additional district
judge awarded the death penalty and the High Court placed its seal of approval
on March 3.

The convict wrote to the Chief Justice seeking time for appealing to the
Supreme Court. Justices SK Seth and Rajendra Mahajan stayed the execution.

(source: webindia123.com)






MALAYSIA:

Alternative charges for 2 accused in Morais' case


2 of the 7 men charged with the murder of Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk
Anthony Kevin Morais have been given an alternative charge each by the
prosecution.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Abdul Razak Musa told High Court judge Justice
Azman Abdullah that the prosecution had preferred an alternative charge to
college student S. Nimalan and jobless A.K. Thinesh Kumar.

Nimalan was alternatively charged under Section 201 of the Penal Code with
assisting to hide a body and destroy a vehicle bearing plate number WA 6264 Q
with the intention to prevent six other co-accused from being prosecuted.

The offence was said to have been committed between Jalan Dutamas 1 and an oil
palm plantation in Kampung Sungai Samak, Hutan Melintang, Hilir Perak, Perak,
between 7am on Sept 4 and 2am on Sept 5, last year.

Thinesh Kumar was alternatively charged with causing the death of Morais, 55.

Thinesh Kumar, allegedly committed the offence during the journey from Jalan
Dutamas 1 to No. 20, Desa Mentari in Petaling Jaya between 7am on Sept 4 and
11.30am on Sept 5, last year.

However, Nimalan and Thinesh Kumar, both 22, pleaded not guilty to the
alternative charges.

Justice Azman said the 1st day of trial which was fixed for Apr 6 earlier would
remain.

After the court proceedings, DPP Abdul Razak told the media that the
alternative charges were preferred based on the facts of the case and their
role in the case.

On Jan 27, this year, army pathologist Col Dr K. Kunaseegaran, 52, is charged
with abetting in the High Court with the murder of Morais under section 109 of
the Penal Code, read together with Section 302 of the same Code.

Apart from Nimalan and Thinesh Kumar, 4 others were charged with the murder of
Morais which was committed between 7am and 8pm from Jalan Dutamas Raya to Jalan
USJ 1/6D on Sept 4 last year.

They are G. Gunasegaran, 47, R. Dinishwaran, 23, M.Vishwanath, 25, and debt
collector S. Ravi Chandaran, 44, They face the mandatory death penalty, if
convicted under Section 302 of the Penal Code.

(source: The Star)

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

Death penalty violates right to life and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and
degrading punishment - Suhakam


The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (the Commission ) notes the execution
of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu, Ramesh Jayakumar and Sasivarnam Jayakumar on 25
March 2016 under section 302 of the Penal Code, read together with section 34
of the same Code.

The Commission expresses regret in this regard as only recently in November
2015, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, YB Hajah Nancy Shukri
announced that the Government was in the midst of finalising amendments to
remove the mandatory death penalty in relevant laws. The Bill was expected to
be tabled at the current (March 2016) Parliamentary session. Today, over 2/3 of
the world's nations have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

The Commission is concerned because the mandatory imposition of the death
penalty violates the basic right to life, as enshrined in international human
rights laws as it constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life, as well as
denies judges the possibility of taking into account the facts of the offence
or the characteristics of each individual offender. Instead, each offender is
sentenced to death regardless of any mitigating circumstances that may apply.

While discussions on abolishing the mandatory death penalty in the country
continue, the Commission cautions that any miscarriage or failure of justice in
the implementation of the death penalty is irreversible and irreparable.
Further, the rationale that the death penalty acts as a deterrent has been
discredited and dismissed on several occasions.

The Commission therefore recommends that a moratorium on the use of the death
penalty be put in place that will at the very least, contribute to the respect
for human dignity and to the enhancement and progressive development of human
rights in Malaysia.

This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not
necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.

(source: themalaymailonline.com)






BANGLADESH:

Death penalty for one in Shipon murder

A Khulna court Monday handed down death penalty to a woman for killing her
beloved Emdadul Haque Shipon on March 8 in 2014. Judge of Additional
Metropolitan and Session Court of Khulna Dilruba Sultana gave the verdict in
presence of the convict after examining records and witnesses of the case.

The convict is Fatema Akter Sonali, 21, a madrasa student, daughter of late
Khabir Gazi, residence at Joykhali Koiyabazar area under Harintana Police
Station in the city.

The judge also acquitted Mehedi Hasan Anik, a close friend of Sonali as the
prosecution could not proved against him.

According to the prosecution, the convict killed Shipon, 23, a final year
student of Medical Institution of Science and Technical College of Khulna, son
of Mohiuddin Sheikh, residence at police line area under Khulna Kotwali Police
Station on March 8 in 2014. On information, police recovered Shipon's beheaded
body from the residence of Abu Bakkar, maternal uncle of Shipon, at Zoragate
Public and Works (P&W) colony area in the city.

His brother Babul Mian filed a case with Sonadanga Police Station in the
connection on March 9 accusing unidentified criminals.

On March 15, Police arrested Sonali and her boy friend Mehedi Hasan Anik in
this connection. Later, Sonali confessed her involvement into Shipon murder
before the CMM court. SI Showkat Hossain started investigation and pressed
charge sheet against Sonali and Anik on April 30 in 2014.

Narrating causes behind the killing, the charge sheet was described, Shipon was
a part time lift operator of Khulna Medical College Hospital (KMCH) engaged
with love affair with Sonali before killing. At one stage, Sonali knew that her
lover Shipon has developed sex relationship with 4 to 5 girls which became her
very hurt and cruel.

"Sonali designed a plan to kill her lover and waiting for an opportunity. She
went to the residence of Shipon's uncle with sleeping medicine mixed soft drink
on the fateful day as she become to know that his uncle will stay at Magura
from March 6 to March 9, 2014. After completing her killing mission she managed
to flee with taking laptop and mobile phone of her lover," according to
charge-sheet.

After examined the documents and witnesses the judge handed down the verdict,
according to BSS.

(source: The Financial Express)

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

Death penalty for 3 for killing minor


A speedy tribunal here on Tuesday convicted 4 men and sentenced 3 of them to
death and the other life term imprisonment for killing a schoolboy after
abduction in Sherpur on 2 August 2015.

The condemned convicts are Abdul Latif, uncle of the victim boy, Aslam Babu and
Rabin Hossain while the lifer is Imran Hossain.

All the 4 were fined Tk10,000, in default, to serve 6 months more in jail.

According to the prosecution, the convicts abducted Arafat Islam Rahat, son of
Shahidul Islam, a resident of Girja Narayanpur area of the district town on 2
August 2015.

They also demanded Tk2 lakh as ransom from the victim's father for his
(Rahat's) release.

Later Shahidul filed a case with Sadar Police Station against them on 7 August.

The police arrested the 4 after the case was filed.

Following the arrestees' statement, police recovered the body of Rahat from
Madhutila Eco Park in Nalitabari upazila on 8 August.

After examining the evidence and witnesses, Saidur Rahman Khan, judge of the
Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, handed down the verdict
within its nine working days.

(source: Prothom Alo)






CHINA:

Australian meth smuggler to learn if he will face death by firing squad in
China


Dual national Australian and New Zealander Peter Gardner, who was accused of
transporting 30 kilogrammes of methamphetamine - or "ice" - from Guangzhou in
2014, is awaiting a decision on whether he will receive the death penalty in
April.

He was arrested in 2014 at Guangzhou airport along with his then-girlfriend,
Kalynda Davis, who has since been freed and returned to Australia. However,
Gardner remained in prison.

Peter Gardner, arrested in China with Kalynda Davis and 30kg of ice in 2
suitcases, is about to find out if he will face a firing squad.

He was found guilty of trafficking drugs last May. Gardner had argued that he
thought he was transporting bodybuilding peptides and denied that the drugs
were his. According to Chinese law, smuggling drugs can result in the death
sentence.

Gardner's 30kg of drugs was reportedly the largest ever single bust of ice,
according to Chinese local media.

(source: Hong Kong Free Press)






TAIWAN:

Taiwan far from reaching consensus on scrapping capital punishment


Premier Simon Chang said Tuesday that there must be a high degree of public
consensus before capital punishment can be scrapped, and that he believes
society is far from reaching that high degree of consensus.

The premier noted that a lot of people want to scrap the death penalty, but
pointed out that it is a punishment stipulated under the law and that to change
the law will need "a very, very high degree of consensus among the public."

He noted that since a random killing on a Taipei metro train in 2014, the issue
has been repeatedly debated. But it is still very far from reaching a
consensus, he said.

His words came as the nation was gripped in shock and anger by yet another
random killing of a young victim, a 4-year-old child in Taipei, Monday, and the
debate raged again on whether it is right to push for the scrapping of the
death penalty, a goal that the nation is heading toward.

Chang has instructed his deputy, Duh Tyzz-jiun, to convene a series of meetings
to come up with short-, middle- and long-term contingency plans within one
month to address the incident, in a meeting held Tuesday afternoon, Cabinet
spokesman Sun Lih-chyun said.

In the short term, the Ministry of the Interior has to step up campus patrol
and social security. In the mid-term, the Ministry of Health and Welfare must
strengthen mental education, pinpoint high-risk mental patients and follow
their conditions, and revise relevant laws if necessary.

In the long term, the Ministry of Education must deal with the issue on the
family and education fronts.

Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou, accompanied by Chang, went to the victim's
home in Neihu District to extend condolences to her family.

Ma has instructed the National Police Agency to step up security to put the
nation, as well as the parents of children, at ease following the gruesome
killing.

President-elect Tsai Ing-wen laid flowers and a card at the scene of the murder
Tuesday.

She said that the nation is in sorrow and feels uneasy.

"This is the time for us to show determination," she said, noting that when the
social security net is not sufficient or has holes, the government needs to
strengthen it or plug the holes.

"People in Taiwan have the right not to live in fear," Tsai said, adding that
"the government must shoulder the biggest responsibility."

(source: focustaiwan.tw)



SAUDI ARABIA:

Report: Saudi authorities seek death penalty for coming out


A published report indicates that people who come out online in Saudi Arabia
could face the death penalty.

Oraz, a Saudi newspaper, reported on Saturday that prosecutors in the city of
Jiddah have proposed the penalty in response to dozens of cases they have
prosecuted over the last 6 months. These include 35 people who received prison
sentences for sodomy.

Okaz reported that Jiddah authorities have prosecuted 50 cases in which men
allegedly dressed as women. A doctor who lives in the port city on the Red Sea
has been released on bail after officials arrested him for allegedly raising an
LGBT Pride flag over his home.

A gay Saudi man who lives outside the kingdom told the Washington Blade on
Monday during a telephone interview the enhanced penalties that Jiddah
prosecutors have proposed would apply to the entire country. The man, who
operates a Twitter account that publishes LGBT-specific news and other
information from Saudi Arabia, said the proposal has caused fear among LGBT
people in the country.

Social media users in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have begun to use the hashtag
"You will not terrorize me. I'm gay" on Twitter to express their opposition to
the proposed penalty.

Saudi Arabia is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual
activity remains punishable by death.

The State Department's 2014 human rights report notes it is illegal for men "to
behave like women" or cross-dress. It also says the Committee for the Promotion
of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice - the so-called "religious police" that
enforces Sharia law in Saudi Arabia - uses undercover agents to target owners
of social media accounts that distribute "pornographic content or served as
social networking tools for LGBT persons in the kingdom."

The man behind the Saudi LGBT Twitter account told the Blade on Monday that
agents with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of
Vice use people they arrest as "bait" to entrap LGBT people who are online.

"It's happened so many times," he said.

The State Department report notes that police and agents with the Committee for
the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice arrested 35 gay men - many
of whom were wearing women's clothing - at a Jiddah party in 2014. A judge in
the holy city of Medina in the same year sentenced a man to 3 years in prison
and 450 lashes for "soliciting sex with other men" on Twitter.

Media reports indicate that authorities in the city of Taif arrested a man late
last year at a shopping mall who was wearing an abaya, a black cloak that women
in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries wear.

The man behind the Saudi LGBT Twitter page told the Blade that the sentences
that judges impose upon those found guilty of LGBT-specific offenses are
"completely random."

"It depends upon the judge," he said.

Death penalty proposal highlights country's 'horrific reality'

2 Saudi YouTube personalities last month posted a video in which they called
for the execution of gay people after police reportedly raided a same-sex
wedding in the kingdom's capital of Riyadh. YouTube removed the clip after it
sparked widespread outrage.

"We thought that this was a big step forward," a source in Saudi Arabia told
the Washington Blade on Sunday.

The source, who asked the Blade not to publish their name because of safety
concerns, said reports that Jiddah authorities are seeking the death penalty
against those who come out online highlights "the horrific reality of the
situation" in the country.

"We can???t do a thing about it, but try to make some noise so activists from
other countries would hear about it and talk to their politicians to pressure
Saudi to change its policies," said the source. "The Internet is the only safe
haven to LGBT individuals in the Middle East. If this is taken from us, we
won't have anywhere else to go."

The man behind the Saudi LGBT Twitter account agreed.

"It's their only outlet," he told the Blade. "There's no other actual space for
LGBT people to meet outside the Internet."

U.S. has not done 'enough' to challenge human rights record

Saudi Arabia remains a key U.S. ally, especially in the fight against the
so-called Islamic State.

The U.S. gives more than $1 billion in aid to the kingdom each year.

The State Department told the Blade earlier this year that it continues to urge
Saudi Arabia to "respect" human rights. Then-spokesperson Jen Psaki in July
2014 declined to say whether Secretary of State John Kerry raised the kingdom's
LGBT rights record during his meeting with then-Saudi King Abdullah in Jiddah.

"I don't think they've done nearly enough," said the man behind the Saudi LGBT
Twitter account.

"I want to see an actual punishment against people who preach hatred," he
added. "I want them to know they cannot leave the country."

The State Department has yet to respond to the Blade's request for comment.

(source: Washington Blade)

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March 29




LEBANON:

Suspects in Beirut murder face death penalty


3 suspects in the murder of an old-man and his housemaid in an upscale Beirut
neighborhood will face the death penalty.

Beirut's First Investigative Judge Ghassan Oueidat Tuesday requested the death
sentence for a Lebanese national and 2 Sri Lankan nationals for murdering a
92-year-old man and his housemaid at their house in Ramlet al-Baida.

The state-run National News Agency reported that 41-year-old Lebanese national
Bilal Mohammad Mokhtar Abu Al-Joud, and 2 Sri Lankan nationals, a 39-year-old
and a 27-year-old, were found guilty of stealing from and murdering the old man
and his housemaid.

Earlier this month, Oueidat issued arrest warrants against the 3 suspects for
carrying out the February murder.

The suspects have previously confessed to murdering Ibrahim Ali Yassine and
housemaid Gunawaia Paula Aalaj, which began as a robbery.

The 3 were detained in February after police arrested them for allegedly
murdering Yassine and his housemaid and stealing a sum of cash and 2 pistols.

The old man was found stabbed in the chest 7 times with a sharp tool, while the
maid appeared to have been strangled with a nylon bag.

The victim is the father of Issam Yassine, the private doctor of former Prime
Minister Saad Hariri.

The physician arrived at his father's apartment for a visit, but no one opened
the door. His brother got a key and they entered the apartment, only to find
the bodies of their father and the housemaid.

(source: The Daily Star)






INDIA:

Supreme Court Stays Execution Of Convict In Rape, Murder Of 5-Year-Old


A man, who was to be hanged on Wednesday for raping and killing a 5-year-old
last year in Madhya Pradesh, got a fresh lease of life as the Supreme Court
today stayed his execution and sought response of the state government on his
appeal in the case.

A bench, comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices R Banumathi and UU
Lalit, stayed the execution after taking note of the petition filed by convict
Sachin K Singhraha, a Madhya Pradesh resident, against the High Court verdict
confirming his death penalty awarded by a local court.

Singhraha, in his appeal, has sought a stay on the operation of the death
warrant.

The petition alleged that the prosecution had failed to prove the case against
him beyond reasonable doubt and the trial court was wrong in awarding him the
death penalty.

It said the trial court did not give any special reason for "imposing death
sentence upon the convict" and the high court while confirming the death
sentence has also failed to give any special reasons for imposing death
sentence. It also claimed that his case did not fall in the category of "rarest
of rare" so as to be awarded death sentence.

According to the prosecution, on February 23 last year, Singhraha had kidnapped
the victim, raped her and subsequently murdered her after 2 days.

Thereafter, the convict threw girl's dead body in a well with a view to destroy
the evidence.

The convict, however, had told the trial court that he was innocent and falsely
implicated in the case.

In its order, the trial court had held the accused guilty and awarded death
penalty, which was further confirmed by the High Court.

(source: ndtv.com)






BANGLADESH:

3 to die for killing schoolboy in Sherpur


A Sherpur court today sentenced 3 people to death and another to life term
imprisonment for killing a schoolboy after abduction last year.

Convicts Md Abdul Latif, 22, uncle of the schoolboy, Robin Mia, 20, and Md
Aslam Babu, 22, were awarded death penalty while Md Imran Hossain, 20, was
sentenced to life, reports a correspondent from Sherpur.

All the convicts hailed from Sherpur district.

Judge Sayedur Rahman Khan of Women and Children Repression Prevention Court
passed the order in presence of the convicts, Special Public Prosecutor Gulam
Kibria told the correspondent.

Victim Arafat Islam Rahat, a class I student of Biplop-Lopa Memorial School,
was son of Shahidul Islam Khokon in Gridanarayanpur area of Sherpur town.

A gang picked up Rahat on August 2, 2015 from in front of Shaheed Daroga Ali
Municipal Park in the town when he was going to his father's timber shop in
Shibbari area.

The abductors later demanded Tk 2 lakh as ransom from Shahidul over mobile
phone. But, his body was found in a hilly area 4 days after he was strangled.

After the body recovery, the victim's father filed a murder case with Sadar
Police Station.

(source: The Daily Star)

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

Jamaat leader appeals against death penalty


The chief of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, Motiur Rahman Nizami, filed
an appeal with the Supreme Court yesterday against his death sentence for war
crimes in 1971.

Lawyers of Nizami, president of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, submitted
the review petition on behalf of their client, who is now in a prison in
Kashimpur on the outskirts of capital Dhaka, Xinhua reported.

If his review petition is rejected, the last option for him will be to seek
presidential mercy.

Bangladesh's Supreme Court on January 6 upheld the death penalty for the
73-year-old Motiur Rahman Nizami over war crimes during the country's war of
independence 45 years ago.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal-1 issued Nizami's death warrant on
March 16 hours after the country's apex court released its full verdict.

Nizami served as agriculture and industries minister in the then prime minister
Khaleda Zia's 2001-2006 cabinet.

The apex court upheld capital penalty for the Islamist party chief on 3 charges
and life imprisonment on 2 charges.

On October 29, 2014, the International Court of Terrorism handed down capital
punishment to Nizami for war crimes which include mass killings of Bangali
intellectuals.

Nizami was indicted in 2012 with 16 charges of crimes during the 1971 war.

Nizami's party had earlier claimed that the government filed ill-motivated,
baseless cases against its top leaders in order to make the party leaderless.

Nizami is among the top Jamaat leaders who have been tried in 2 war crimes
tribunals which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Bangladesh Awami League-led
government formed in 2010 to bring the perpetrators of 1971 war crimes to book.

3 Jamaat leaders - Abdul Quader Molla, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Ali Ahsan
Mohammad Mujahid - have been executed.

Besides, Jamaat secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and opposition
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Salaudin Quader Chowdhury were
executed on November 22 last year.

Both the BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the court as a government "show trial",
saying it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the UN.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh was part of Pakistan and called East Pakistan till
1971. The government of Hasina said about 3 million people were killed in the
Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.

(source: Gulf Times)






SOUTH AFRICA:

'I wish killers could hang': Sam Meyiwa


The father of slain Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates captain Senzo Meyiwa
wants the death penalty to return and believes that his son???s killers will be
arrested soon.

An emotional Samuel Meyiwa also blamed Senzo's girlfriend Kelly Khumalo for not
leading investigators to the killers.

Meyiwa was speaking to Sowetan following reports that the arrest of those
involved in Senzo's death was imminent.

The goalkeeper was shot dead on October 26 2014, at Khumalo's family home in
Vosloorus.

Khumalo, her sister Zandi, their mother Ntombi, Sello "Chicco" Twala's son
Longwe Twala and 2 of Senzo's friends were in the house when the soccer star
was shot.

According to the Sunday Independent newspaper, investigators have identified a
suspect after reconstructing the crime scene 2 weeks ago.

The newspaper further reported that those who lied in their statements could be
arrested and charged with perjury and defeating the ends of justice.

Meyiwa said he was happy about the reports.

"I heard the news over the weekend on radio. I trust the Hawks and believe that
there is progress. I believe that there will be arrests because they are
hard-working," he said.

"They killed my soul. She [Khumalo] should be assisting me [in finding the
killers] as a person who claims to have loved my son. Instead, she talks about
money. I suspect they killed him for money."

Meyiwa said he and his wife were spending sleepless nights and were always in
tears.

"He [Senzo] was looking after us. Now they have killed my son. I wish those who
killed him could hang although I know that there is no law in the country which
condones the death penalty," Meyiwa said.

Police spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said their investigations were
continuing.

Mulaudzi said they had assembled a provincial task team comprising members of
the Hawks, forensic experts and investigators who wereinvolved in the matter
initially.

"We're keeping the Meyiwa family up to date about our progress. If we do
finally make arrests, we will inform the family. We took all experts from all
fields to deal with this matter. We need closure on the matter.

"The previous team is part of the investigations. They have played a role in
the investigations. Nobody has failed in this case," Mulaudzi said.

Khumalo could not be reached for comment. Her manager, Percy Vilakazi, said she
was probably rehearsing for Clash of the Choirs. Vilakazi added that he did not
believe that the musician would be interested in speaking to Sowetan. The
Sowetan

(source: nehandaradio.com)






TAIWAN:

KMT demands Tsai's death penalty stance


As anger continues to mount nationwide in the aftermath of the alleged murder
of a Taipei toddler on Monday, the Kuomintang (KMT) caucus on Tuesday called
for President-elect Tsai Ing-wen to give her stance on capital punishment and
proposed holding a future referendum.

KMT lawmaker Johnny Chiang raised questions regarding Tsai and her incoming
government's position on capital punishment.

"If the country's future leader insists upon abolishing the death penalty, (we)
hope it is a decision made by the people," Chiang said. He further stated that
the KMT caucus has not ruled out the likelihood of holding a capital punishment
referendum.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has long been known for its support for
abolishing capital punishment.

Due to varied reasons, capital punishment has yet to be exacted on the 42
inmates currently on death row in the nation, KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao said.
The issue of whether or not to abolish the death penalty is a widely-debated
topic, he pointed out, and demanded that Tsai clearly indicate her position on
the subject, as well as on the current case itself.

He also called on the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to cease delaying execution of
current death row prisoners, despite citing respect for judicial procedure.

"The death penalty must be handed down if judicial proceedings continue to
maintain the penalty's existence," Lai said. "Public powers must be carried out
to ensure a safe society."

Carrying out the sentences would likely ensure a "certain degree of deterrent
effect," he stated. However, he admitted that there is no guarantee that future
cases like this week's alleged murder of a toddler will go away simply by
enforcing the law alone and argued that "a life for a life" is an unchanged
principle that must be followed. Societal safety must be ensured through
enforcement of the law, he said.

Chiang also stressed that the judicial system must consider the way its
handling of the case is perceived by the victim's family and society as a whole
- a jab at the MOJ's shortcomings in past rulings, which have been criticized
as decisions that are out of touch with society.

Tsai Visits the Site of Toddler's Death

Late Tuesday afternoon, Tsai visited the makeshift memorial that people have
put in place where the 4-year-old girl was slain by her attacker in broad
daylight. She laid down a bouquet of flowers, a pair of rabbit dolls and a
card.

On the card, Tsai had written that she will not let her sacrifice go to waste.
"There are many holes in this society. I will do my best to mend those holes."

Speaking to reporters at the site, Tsai stated that the ordeal had made a
significant impact on society, and that people around the nation all have heavy
hearts at the moment.

She named measures that should be strengthened to address those who are
struggling economically, physically and mentally. Problems such as prevalent
drug abuse must be tackled as well, and more must be done to prevent crime, she
said.

"People living in Taiwan have the right to live without fear, and (I) hope
parents will not have to worry" and let their children grow up safely, Tsai
stressed.

This is something everyone must work together on, she said, "and the government
holds the greatest responsibility in this."

Tsai also stated that she had "heard the mother's plea" in an open letter,
which was posted on her Facebook page. Saying that she will not just "feel
rage," Tsai said that she "already has the answers" to move forward in building
a better society.

(source: China Post)





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March 30



TURKEY:

Turkish opposition demands to restore death penalty for terrorists


In Turkey, the head of the opposition National Movement Party (MHP) Devlet
Bahceli urged the government to restore the death penalty for terrorists, the
Turkish TV channel TRT Haber reported March 30.

The fact that the death penalty was abolished in Turkey unties the hands of
terrorists, Bahceli said.

On Feb. 16, 2015, the head of the parliament's justice commission Ahmet Iyimaya
said that Turkey's parliament may consider the restoration of death penalty.

Iyimaya said the death penalty can be applied in the case of violence against
women, and particularly brutal murders.

Following the rape and murder of a 20-year-old student, Ozgecan Aslan, in
Turkey's Mersin province, a number of ministers requested that the death
penalty be used against the perpetrator.

Ozgecan Aslan was last week raped and killed by a bus driver. Her body was
found in a river in southern Turkey.

Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2001. The country hasn't used the death
penalty since 1986.

(source: trend.az)






BELARUS:

Death sentence to Ivan Kulesh has been upheld


Death sentence to Ivan Kulesh has been upheld photo by the Human Rights Center
"Viasna" On March 28 the Supreme Court???s Criminal Board has turned down the
appeal and left the verdict of the Hrodna Regional Court in place. Kulesh was
told about his right to seek pardon from the President.

Let us recall that Ivan Kulesh was sentenced to death by a verdict of Judge
Anatol Zayats of the Hrodna Regional Court of 20 November 2015.

He was charged of triple murder, as well as attempted murder, theft and robbery
committed in the Lida district in 2013 and 2014.

During the hearing, Ivan Kulesh said that he fully agreed with his sentence
saying that it was 'fair', HRC "Viasna" informs. He confessed to 1 murder, but
refused to answer the judge's question of whether he had killed the 2 remaining
saleswomen.

Ivan Kulesh said that during the investigation he was forced to testify. He was
questioned without a lawyer, while the latter only came to sign papers.

The lawyer asked to commute the death penalty to 25 years' imprisonment, since
the case has extenuating circumstances, including full confession, which were
not taken into account by the Regional Court.

The public prosecutor said there was no reason to reduce the sentence.

As a result, the Supreme Court has turned down the appeal and left the verdict
in place. The death convict was told about his right to seek pardon from the
President.

Ivan Kulesh had previous convictions for theft, robbery and false denunciation.
He had no permanent job.

(source: EuroBelarus)



INDONESIA:

Greater Jakarta: Prosecutors lack evidence to charge Jessica


The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office will return the dossier on the murder of Wayan
Mirna Salihin to the Jakarta Police as it regards the evidence as insufficient
to charge the sole suspect Jessica Kumala Wongso.

Prosecutor's office spokesman Waluyo said on Tuesday that one of the
deficiencies in the case dossier was witness testimony as this was fundamental
to bring a case to the court.

"We need more witness testimony that will be solid enough as evidence. It is
still incomplete," Waluyo said as quoted by kompas.com, adding that they would
return the dossier to the investigators within 14 days from it being submitted
on March 22.

"[We will return it] around April 3 or 4," he said. Separately, Jessica's
lawyer Hidayat Bostam said the police did not have enough evidence to bring his
client to trial as a murder suspect. A premeditated murder case, he said,
needed strong evidence as it carried such a heavy sentence.

Jessica has been charged under Article 340 of the Criminal Code, which carries
the death penalty.Mirna died on Jan. 6 after drinking an iced coffee while at a
restaurant in Jakarta with Jessica and another friend. Police have named
Jessica as the sole suspect in the murder case, alleging she laced the victim's
coffee with cyanide.

(source: thejakartapost.com)






TAIWAN:

Group denies death penalty rally result of 'Little Light Bulb' case


A civic rights group that is planning to hold a rally in Taipei on April 10 to
promote enforcement of capital punishment said Wednesday that the event was not
aimed at highlighting any isolated case.

The White Rose Social Care Association announced on Tuesday that it would hold
a mass rally in front of the Presidential Office building on April 10 in the
wake of the beheading of a four-year-old girl on Monday in what was apparently
a random attack.

The announcement was met by a response from the mother of the 4-year-old girl
on her Facebook page on Wednesday urging individuals or groups not to try to
exploit the victim for their own ends.

Defending the association's rally, the group's chairwoman Eva Liang said the
planned rally was not aimed at highlighting any specific case but rather at
urging the government to take the issue of personal safety more seriously.

She said her organization had been planning the rally since before the Jan. 16
presidential election and issued a written statement to presidential candidates
at that time to promote the cause but did not receive any response.

Liang also stressed that the group did not reveal the names of the 4-year-old
girl and her mother or the girl's nickname -- "Little Light Bulb "-- on its
official website and that the girl's mother wrote at the end of the Facebook
post that her comments were not targeted at the association.

The main focus of the rally will be to stress the importance of personal safety
of the people and push for the enforcement of capital punishment, Liang said.

Asked whether the girl's mother will be invited to attend the event, Liang said
"no," because "the association did not want to rub salt into the wound of the
victim's family."

The random attack occurred Monday when the mother and her daughter were on
their way to a metro station in Taipei's Neihu District to meet the girl's
grandfather and 2 of her siblings for lunch.

A man later identified as 33-year-old Wang Ching-yu grabbed the child from
behind and beheaded her with a cleaver after striking several blows.

Wang was arrested, and a district court ordered that he be detained on the
grounds that he was a flight risk.

The case, the 2nd child killing in Taipei in less than a year, has sparked
widespread public anger and criticism of calls to abolish the death penalty.

The death penalty has always been legal under Taiwan's Criminal Code, but death
sentences were not enforced for a 5-year period from 2005 to 2010 until public
furor over the lack of enforcement pressured the incumbent Kuomintang
government to resume executions.

Opinion polls in Taiwan have indicated strong support for the death penalty,
but the Democratic Progressive Party, which was in power from 2000 to 2008 and
will assume power again on May 20, has traditionally been against capital
punishment.

(source: focustaiwan.tw)


INDIA:

10 convicted in last case under Pota


A special Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) court on Tuesday convicted 10
accused, including conspirators Saquib Nachan and planter Muzameel Ansari, for
planning and executing triple blasts at Mumbai Central, Vile Parle and Mulund
in 2002-2003. The court acquitted 3 accused of all charges leveled against
them.

On Wednesday, the court will hear arguments regarding the sentence. Ansari
faces the maximum sentence of death penalty, while a few others, including
Nachan, could be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Special public prosecutor Rohini Salian said the conviction was based purely on
the witness testimony, confessional statements of the accused given under Pota
and forensic and ballistic evidence.

The 1st blast took place near an eatery in the main building of Mumbai Central
terminus on on December 6, 2002, followed by another in a market in Vile Parle
on January 27, 2003 and the 3rd in a crowded ladies 1st class compartment of a
suburban train near Mulund March 13. Nachan, suspected to be a member of the
banned outfit Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), was said to be 1 of
the prime conspirators in the case. The prosecution had clubbed the 3 blast
cases, because the conspiracy was interlinked and accused were associated with
each other.

Though the draft charges were submitted to the court in 2003, the actual
charges were framed only in 2014, because Nachan had moved the higher court,
challenging the clubbing of the cases and maintainability of Pota. To bring
home the guilt of the accused, the prosecution examined 154 witnesses,
including injured persons and eyewitnesses.

Salian said the first arrest was of Nachan, made in 2003, after a police team
was restrained by residents of Padgha village, who refused to let the cops
carry out any local search. Nachan then moved the high court, seeking
directions to restrain the police from entering the village and harassing its
natives. It was then that the Mumbai police crime branch opposed the plea and
submitted an affidavit raising suspicion about the accused.

Based on that, the high court directed Nachan to surrender before Pota. Later,
the other accused also came to be arrested. 2 accused died while two were
discharged during the trial. Finally, only 13 were tried, of whom 3 were
acquitted.

Salian said the prosecution relied on the testimony of the witness, who knew
bomb planter Ansari and had seen him at the place of the blast before the
incident. Through several witness testimonies and confessional statements, the
prosecution was able to prove the association between the accused.

The prosecution had alleged that the blast conspiracy was hatched between three
groups located in Malegaon, Kurla, Padgha and Kalyan. Salian said the bombs
were prepared at accused Dr Wahid Ansari's clinic in Kurla.

The blasts

December 6, 2002: Blast at Mumbai Central terminus injures 25 people

January 27, 2003: Blast at Vile Parle market kills 1 woman and injures 32
people. 1 unexploded bomb found.

March 13, 2003: Blast in a Karjat-bound local near Mulund station kills 11,
injures 82

The convicts

1. Saquib Nachan

2. Atif Mulla

3. Haseeb Mulla

4. Ghoolam Khotal

5. Farhan Khot

6. Dr Wahid Ansari

7. Muzameel Ansari

8. Mohammed Sheikh

9. Noor Ansari

10. Anwar Ali

Acquitted accused

1. Mohammed Nadeem Paloba

2. Haroon Lohar

3. Adnan Mulla

(source: dnaindia.com)






BANGLADESH:

Death for Bangladeshi woman who cut out lover's heart


A young woman who cut her lover's heart out and slashed his throat has been
sentenced to death by a Bangladeshi court, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Fatema Akhter Sonali, 21, acted out of revenge after the man refused to marry
her and secretly kept recordings of the couple having sex, prosecutor Quazi
Shabbir Ahmed said.

She had also found video footage of him having sex with other women on his
laptop, Ahmed said.

"It's rare for a woman to be sentenced to death. But her case was exceptional,"
he told AFP."

She admitted to the court she killed her lover, Emdadul Haq Shipon, for
refusing to marry her and for keeping a recording video of their sexual
intercourse in his laptop.

The judge delivered Sonali's sentence on Monday in a packed court in the
southwestern city of Khulna.

In her confession, Sonali said she spiked a soft drink with 20 sleeping pills
and gave it to Shipon, a 28-year-old part-time lift attendant at a hospital.

When he fell unconscious, she bound his hands and feet before killing him by
slitting his throat.

Sonali then cut open his chest and removed his heart.

"She told the court that she was curious to see how big his heart was. She said
a man must have a big heart to carry out such audacious crimes," said Ahmed,
using a Bengali idiom.

Sonali committed the murder in March 2014 and can challenge the sentence in a
higher court.

If her execution goes ahead she will be the 1st woman to be hanged in
Bangladesh, according to Tipu Sultan, a deputy inspector general of prisons.

(source: asiaone.com)

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

SC fixes Apr 3 for hearing date on Nizami's review


A chamber judge of the Supreme Court today fixed April 3 for hearing a
government application filed for setting a date on the hearing of condemned war
criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami's review petition.

Chamber Judge Mirza Hossain Haider sent the government's petition to the apex
court's full bench.

The full bench of appellate division on April 3 may fix a date for holding a
hearing on Nizami's review petition, Deputy Attorney General Ekramul Haque
Tutul told The Daily Star.

Earlier on the day, the government filed an application to the SC to fix the
date for hearing the review petition.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami yesterday filed the review petition challenging
the SC's verdict that upheld death penalty for him for war crimes.

Nizami filed the petition 14 days after the SC released the full judgment.

The SC on January 6 this year upheld the verdict of the International Crimes
Tribunal-1 that sentenced Nizami to death for crimes against humanity during
the country's 1971 Liberation War.

2 months later, on March 15, the apex court released the full verdict. The ICT
issued death warrant for him hours after the SC released its full verdict.

The following day, the jail authorities read out the judgment before the
convict.

In October 2014, the ICT-1 handed down capital punishment to Nizami, the leader
of infamous Al-Badr Bahini, for his wartime offences.

(source: The Daily Star)

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March 30



PAKISTAN:

Muslim mob demands death penalty for blasphemy


This report from Al-Jazeera is clear as a bell as to what millions of Muslims
in Pakistan want: Death to blasphemers of Islam.

Note what the Islamic religious leader interviewed made clear.

No one who will not support killing those who criticize Islam or its iconic
figures can live without fear of being killed, even by their own guards or
state security.

That they want the man who murdered the state governor who acted on behalf of a
Christian woman to at least commute her death sentence for blasphemy, be
declared a national hero. The killer of the Governor was hanged by Pakistan on
February 29th this year.

They want the woman to be re-arrested and executed. Not retried, but executed
after arrest.

(No due process for those accused of blasphemy of Islam, and certainly not for
Christians.)

All people currently in jail for blasphemy of Islam charges to be executed.

"People from within your ranks will kill you. Your bodyguard will kill you.Your
servants will kill you..."

And this is how sharia works. Not by legislation, but by terror, intimidation,
murder and subversion of the process of law and order.

(source: therebel.media)






INDIA:

Mumbai blast verdict: Muzammil, Nachan plead for leniency


A day after a special court convicted 10 out of 13 on trial but only 1 Muzammil
Ansari for an active role in the conspiracy for causing 3 blasts between
December 2002 and March 2003 at Mumbai Central, Vile Parle and Mulund, he and
all the others on Wednesday pleaded for leniency on the quantum of sentence,
which the court has to now decide.

The court had held four others guilty for abetting the blasts conspiracy and
acts of terror, three only for terrorist act by virtue of possessing
unauthorised weapons in prohibited areas under Prevention of Terrorism Act
(Pota) and also under Arms Act while holding 3 others guilty only for arms
possession as a lesser offence under the Arms Act and completely acquitted 3
others of all charges. Between all 13, the court had framed 166 charges, most
against Muzzammil. He had 43 charges framed against him for offences under
various for having caused all the three blasts, as a planter. There were 29
charges common to almost all for having conspired in May 2001, prepared and
committed terrorist acts "with an intention to threaten the unity, integrity
and sovereignity of Indi and strike terror'' among people, by eventually
executing the blasts, that killed 12 persons and left over 130 injured, most
with hearing losses.

Saquib Nachan, a 56 year old resident of Borivli Village, Padgah in Thane
district near Mumbai, was the first to start and most articulate. He along with
Ateef Mulla and Haseeb Mulla was held guilty of possession of arms under Pota
and Arms Act, attracting maximum life sentence. But he deftly pointed out to an
attentive special judge P R Deshmukh that the law allows the court a "power to
impose even a sentence of a few hours or a day, or even just fine and no
imprisonment, as it sets no minimum term''. The reason he said was because the
earlier, repealed anti terror act of Terrorist and Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Act (Tada) had a similar but a draconian provision that laid down
a minimum 5 year sentence, which was misused by authorities. He started at
12.30 pm and said "I had myself surrendered on April 10, 2003 pursuant to
moving the Bombay high court. I also sought a CBI probe. Which foolish accused
would seek a CBI probe against himself?'' "I have completed 7 years 9 months in
jail in this case before getting bail in 2011. My father, a well regarded man
had asked me to surrender after asking me if I had done anything wrong. I said
I Hadnt. He had immense faith in the judiciary. He died last month. My sons
were called sons of a terrorist. My daughter was one year old when I was
arrested, my sons in school. Now I am a grandfather.''

"My father was a prominent leader not only among Muslims but for all the
communities in Padgah. He ran institutions for uplifting the people. But the
terror tag caused his prominence to suffer too." Nachan also said that his
sons' education took a hit. "The emotional loss is irreversible."

Nachan said, "I have not been found guilty of any other charge including the
charge of causing terror, for which I am grateful to this court. I advised
other accused to view this judgment in positive angle.'' Ateef Mulla, a fair 40
year old MBA from Padgah spoke next. He spoke softly of how he has "no criminal
antecedants'' and never once violated any of the strict bail conditions in the
last ten years after being released in 2005, the first to be given bail in this
case. But even the judge's voice softened later when Ateef spoke of how his
"youngest, 2 year old son is suffering from a Beta Thallesemia syndrome and
underwent a bone marrow transplant in a Pune hospital which has cautioned
extreme care for years as his life could be at risk.'' "I have to take my son
to hospital every 15 days. My father too is a cancer survivor who the doctors
had given up on.'' His father, Nasir Mulla who has been attending almost every
hearing, sat in court, listening, his brows furrowed.

The rest of the 10, followed, each speaking in low tones, pleading for minimum
possible sentence. Haseeb Mulla and most others said their family depend on
them, many had no jobs and the trial had cost their business and had no crime
record. Anwar Khan, held guilty only under Arms Act has already completed the
maximum sentence permissible in law. But he said he be awarded the minimum
sentence as he had lost his job at NDA, Pune as a Urdu teacher. He later said
that he has authored a book "learn Urdu in 30 days' while in jail in 2009 which
many educational institutions including the defence are now using, he said.

Farhaan Khot who face life sentence said, "I lost my father and now I have to
take care of my mother. I have a wife and three kids to also look after. My
financial condition is very weak. My family had suffered a lot. I seek the
minimum sentence.''

Muzammil Ansari, who faces maximum death penalty, was the last to go, post
lunch break. His voice, at a pitch where hearing was impossible two chairs
away, said he was a mechanical engineer and the ''charges against me are
false''. He expressed remorse and said "award me minimum sentence to what I
have undergone.'' He has been inside prison for 13 years. He also sought
"interim bail to spend time with family.'' He said his financial condition was
bad and he could not afford a lawyer for bail earlier. "But I have been good
inside jail, I helped other inmates write letters to the jail superintendent
about their health issues.'' He himself has suffered a health issue while in
custody after being "tortured by police while in custody.'' "It was my most
difficult period. I am the only earning member as my father a heart patient
cannot work now.''

(source: The Times of India)






BAHAMAS:

2 Guilty Of Killing Officer And Girlfriend


2 men who were unanimously convicted by a jury last night of their alleged
roles in the disappearances and murders of a Department of Immigration officer
and his girlfriend in Andros could be sentenced to death upon their return to
the Supreme Court for sentencing.

After more than 6 hours of deliberation, which included the 12-member panel's
return to Justice Indra Charles' courtroom for additional directions on a
criminal joint enterprise, Zintworn Duncombe, 28, and James Johnson, 22, were
found guilty of murdering Shane Gardiner and his girlfriend Tishka Braynen. The
victims' decomposed bodies were found in Andros, some 266 feet apart, in
December 2013.

While the jury returned not guilty verdicts for alleged murder accomplices
Daniel Coakley, 28, and Cordero Saunders, 26, all 4 men were unanimously
convicted of double kidnapping, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and
attempted armed robbery.

Crown prosecutors Darnell Dorsett and Patrick Sweeting informed the judge that
the prosecution was seeking to have the death penalty imposed on Duncombe and
Johnson, which would require the production of a psychiatric report and social
inquiry report prior to sentencing scheduled for May 29.

Gardiner and Braynen were allegedly killed after a failed plot to take $8,000
in gambling winnings from the immigration officer. Braynen, of Cargill Creek,
and Gardiner, who lived in Love Hill, both in Central Andros, were reported
missing around 1.45pm on November 24, 2013. Gardiner had recently been assigned
to the island.

On December 21, 2013, police in Andros discovered the remains of a man with
"items related to a female".

Duncombe, Saunders, Johnson and Coakley, who all denied the allegations, were
respectively represented by lawyers Ian Cargill, Moses Bain, Donna Major and
Terrel Butler.

(source: tribune242.com)






SAUDI ARABIA----executions

Saudi executes 2 citizens for murder


Saudi Arabia executed 2 citizens convicted of murder on Wednesday, raising to
81 the number of death sentences carried out in the ultra-conservative kingdom
this year.

Dhafer and Hussein al-Mutliq were found guilty of killing fellow Saudis Azeb
and Mahdi al-Moamer in a dispute between the 2 families, the interior ministry
said.

They were both executed in Najran, in the south, a ministry statement carried
by the official SPA news agency said.

Most people put to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or
murder, according to an AFP count.

Saudi Arabia says 47 executed on terror charges, including top Shia cleric

Human rights group Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi
Arabia last year was the highest for 2 decades.

The kingdom is one of the world's top executioners, although its tally in 2015
was far behind those of China and Iran.

Saudi Arabia has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug
trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.

(source: Agence France-Presse)






BELARUS:

Statement by the Spokesperson on the confirmation of a death sentence in
Belarus


"The Supreme Court of Belarus on 29 March confirmed the death sentence against
Ivan Kulesh, which had already been handed down by the Hrodna Regional Court in
November 2015.

Mr Kulesh is guilty of serious crimes and we reiterate our deepest sympathy to
the family and friends of the victims of these crimes.

Despite the seriousness of the acts, the European Union opposes capital
punishment in all cases. It has proved to fail as a deterrent and it represents
an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity.

We urge Belarus, the only country in Europe which still applies capital
punishment, to respect the right to life of each one of its citizens and to
join a global moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards its
abolition."

(source: eeas.europa.eu)


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March 31




GLOBAL:

The 13 countries where being an atheist is punishable by death


Around the world, a number of countries continue to criminalize atheists and
humanists, with 13 having laws which enable them to impose the death penalty.

It's often said that the world is becoming an increasingly secular place. Just
last week David Cameron sparked backlash when he used his Easter message to
describe the UK as "a Christian country". Critics pointed out that just 30 per
cent of people in the UK describe themselves as religious, making Britain one
of the least religious countries in the world. 53 per cent of people say they
have no faith, while 13 per cent claim they are committed atheists.

However, despite the prevalance of atheism and humanism in the UK, many may be
surprised to know that having no faith can be a life or death matter around the
world. In thirteen countries, you can be sentenced to death for not having a
faith:

1. Afghanistan.

2. Iran.

3. Malaysia.

4. Maldives.

5. Mauritania.

6. Nigeria.

7. Pakistan.

8. Qatar.

9. Saudi Arabia.

10. Somalia.

11. Sudan

12. United Arab Emirates

13. Yemen

In a number of other countries, the death penalty is not a formal punishment on
statute books but atheists and humanists have been murdered by religious
extremists on account of their beliefs.

In countries including India and Bangladesh, police have been accused of
condoning these murders by failing to investigate them properly. At least 3
atheist bloggers have been hacked to death in Bangladesh after penning posts
advocating that scientific proof should inform opinion above religious beliefs.

(source: The Times of India)






IRAN:

Iranian group gets help from Islam to save juveniles from execution ---- As 160
under-18s wait on death row in the Islamic Republic, an NGO is raising blood
money and public awareness to halt executions of juvenile offenders


On the night of 22 March 2009, 17-year-old Hamid was in his dad's mini-bus when
their neighbour's son, Ayyoub, 16, got in. Hamid was in the business of selling
mobile phones, and Ayyoub had been in dispute with him for days over a
cellphone he'd bought from him. As their argument became heated, Hamid grabbed
part of a seat cover and strangled Ayyoub.

Hamid was sentenced to death by hanging. Murder in Iran carries capital
punishment even for minors who are incarcerated until the sentence is carried
out when they turn 18. The execution can be halted only if the victim's family
pardons the offender, usually in return for blood money.

Ayyoub's father, Ali Kouravand, considered a pardon but this was in Izeh, a
city in the south-western province of Khuzestan with strong tribal networks. As
Hamid and Ayyoub were from different tribes, the father could not decide on his
own. His tribe set stringent conditions for a pardon. They demanded that the
killer's family pay the victim's a large sum, and then to leave Izeh.

It took the NGO Imam Ali's Popular Students Relief Society much negotiation
before Ayyoub's family agreed to a pardon. In December 2015 Kouravand took his
family to Ahvaz prison to meet his son's killer - knowing that by pardoning
Hamid, his family would be boycotted by their tribe, at least for a while.

Hamid had been prepared by Farzad Hosseini from Imam Ali Society. "His mind was
frozen, he didn't know how to react," says Hosseini. "Before he entered the
room where Ayyoub's family were waiting, I told him: 'Kiss their hands and
apologise. Keep your head down'."

Hamid did as he was asked. He bowed and kissed Kouravand's hand, and in
response Kouravand kissed his cheek, pardoned him and gave him his blessing.
The family received around $35,000 in blood money, partly gathered by Imam Ali
society through public fundraising.

Imam Ali's Popular Students Relief Society was founded in 1999 by a group of
students at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology led by Sharmin
Meymandi-Nejad, originally to combat poverty. Today 15,000 volunteers are
involved in projects to help the vulnerable in 12 provinces including Tehran,
Fars, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Hormozgan and Qom.

A playwright and university teacher, Meymandi-Nejad had been intrigued in 1997
by the case of Gholam Reza Khoshrou, known as khoffash-e shab (the night bat),
who was tried and executed for the murder of nine women, some of whom he had
raped. Meymandi-Nejad followed the story of Khoshrou in prison with the aim of
making a documentary but was struck by the hardships Khoshrou had faced as a
child, growing up with a step-mother in a poor and violent neighbourhood before
being sent to a juvenile detention centre and at 18 to prison, where, he told
his phycologist, he was raped many times by other prisoners.

When Khoshrou was executed, Meymandi-Nejad promised himself he would do his
best to help kids in violent neighbourhoods to keep them from becoming another
Khoshrou. This led by 2006 to Meymandi-Nejad's decision to work against the
execution of juvenile offenders.

Since then the group has saved 25 juvenile offenders - including one woman -
from execution and are working on nearly 50 other cases. Where offenders'
families cannot afford the blood money, the group raises funds from the public
through conferences and online campaigning.

Cases usually come to their attention when juvenile offenders' families seek
their help, as Imam Ali Society lacks access to court files. "We face lots of
restrictions, there is no systematic support," says Hosseini, 33, who became
involved 8 years ago when a civil engineering student at Sharif University. "We
can't even visit our clients in prison easily. It depends on the prison staff
who sometimes out of humanity let us pay limited visits to the offenders."
After gathering information by reading official documents, talking to the
offender's family, and if possible visiting the offender in prison, comes what
Hosseini describes as the "very difficult and complicated" task of approaching
the victim's family to seek a pardon.

By the time the Imam Ali Society is involved, the case is usually a few years
old, which as Hosseini says, means the victim's family anger and desire for
revenge have had time to fester. The visit is often far from smooth.

Hosseini says he and fellow volunteers were attacked by one family of a murder
victim: "They wanted to kill us." But over time they were not only able to talk
to the family but even convince them to share a meal with the offender's
family.

"Everything depends on how we treat the [victim's] family," he says. "When we
approach the next of kin, we see them as our own family. We put ourselves in
their shoes. To us, the person who was killed is like our own brother or
father."

Hosseini carries with him a photograph of a father of 7 killed 10 years ago by
a 17-year-old male, forgiven by the victim's family last autumn. "I really love
him like my own father."

But however time-consuming the process can be, most cases are not successful.
Hosseini says only 1 or 2 out of 100 see the victim's family pardoning the
juvenile offender. He cites the case of Alireza Shahi, hanged in November 2015
in Rajaei Shahr prison in Karaj city, west of Tehran, 7 years after he killed
someone during a street fight when he was 18.

"We tried so hard to convince the victim's family, but they didn't want to
listen at all," recalls Hosseini. "Even the night before the execution, we went
to the prison and were next to his [Shahi's] family until dawn. We were hoping
that maybe the execution would be halted, but in the morning he was executed. I
visited Alireza in prison twice. I hugged him. He was like my own brother. He
was so innocent. It all had happened during a fight. I really can't understand
- why should this kid be executed?"

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says no death sentences should be
imposed for offences committed by individuals under 18. Iran ratified the
convention in July 1994, but the age of adult criminal responsibility remains 9
lunar years for girls and 15 lunar years for boys.

While Imam Ali Society's ultimate goal is to change the law and stop all
executions of juvenile offenders, it has welcomed more limited changes. In May
2013 a new Islamic Penal Code was adopted, with Article 91 allowing a judge to
impose an alternative punishment if there is doubt over the offender's maturity
and wisdom, or if the judge determines the juvenile did not comprehend the
nature of the crime or its consequences. In December 2014, the general board of
the supreme court ruled that all juvenile offenders on death row were entitled
to request a retrial based on Article 91.

But these changes didn't bring actual results. Hosseini says since 2013 they
have encountered 2 or 3 cases positively affected by Article 91. Amnesty
International reported 12 executions of juvenile offenders in 2014 and 4 in
2015: there had been 4 in 2012 and 9 in 2013.

Iran doesn't deny it executes juvenile offenders but often disagrees with
numbers reported. The authorities also argue they are trying to make changes.
In January in a meeting with the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child in
Geneva, Mahmoud Abbasi, deputy for human rights and international affairs at
the justice ministry, said that reforming policies would not work without
changing the attitudes "particularly of policy-makers and those directly
involved with children".

Neither the UN nor Iranian activists are prepared to ease up. On 14 March,
during the 31st session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN
special rapporteur on Iran Ahmed Shaheed said that "at least 73 juvenile
offenders were reportedly executed" in Iran between 2005 and 2015. He added
that "at least 160" others are on death row.

3 representatives from Imam Ali Society, including Hosseini, were present
during the session. On 14 March, in response to Shaheed's report, a
representative read a statement noting the lack of implementation in many cases
of Article 91 and restating opposition to executing those who committed the
offence when aged under 18.

Hosseini says change should come primarily from below. "We believe that most of
our social and human rights issues are solvable if we empower civil society
within the country," he explains. "When we started working years back, public
mentality was different. People didn't want to get close to imprisoned kids.
But now through our efforts people are willing to help juvenile offenders, even
murderers. Currently several thousand people [in Iran] are in favour of the
abolition of death penalty for juvenile offenders, so now the judiciary and
those in charge have realised these laws need to be changed."

(source: The Guardian)






BELARUS:

New death sentence in Belarus: "EU opposes capital punishment in all cases"


The European Union has again called on Belarus to abolish the death penalty,
following confirmation by the country's Supreme Court of a new death sentence
this week. "Despite the seriousness of the acts, the European Union opposes
capital punishment in all cases," said the EU spokesperson in a statement
issued yesterday, adding: "It has proved to fail as a deterrent and it
represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity."

"We urge Belarus, the only country in Europe which still applies capital
punishment, to respect the right to life of each one of its citizens and to
join a global moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards its
abolition," the statement added.

(source: enpi-info.eu)






PAKSITAN:

Pakistan Pledges Not to Amend Law That Imposes Death Penalty for Blasphemy


Muslim radicals ended a four-day sit-in in a high-security "red zone" near
Pakistan's federal parliament, claiming victory after the government late
Wednesday gave assurances it will not seek to amend the country's notorious
blasphemy laws or show leniency to anyone convicted under them.

The government's pledge to the protestors came just days after a deadly Easter
Sunday bombing in Pakistan's 2nd-biggest city underlined anew the threats faced
by minority Christians both from terrorists and from Islamist extremists like
those at the sit-in in the capital.

The protestors, estimated at 25,000-strong at the peak of their demonstration,
are supporters of a police officer executed a month ago for the 2011 murder of
a provincial governor he was paid to protect. Bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri became a
hero to many fundamentalist Muslims after killing Punjab governor Salman
Taseer, whom he had accused of blasphemy.

During the sit-in some protestors, members of radical Sunni groups known for
their zeal for Mohammed and the Qur'an, clashed with police and set fire to
buses and bus shelters.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had ordered that the protest be brought to an end,
peacefully, by Wednesday. Pakistani media reported that protest leaders
declared victory after talks with government officials netted them several of
their listed demands.

They included an assurance that no amendments will be made to provision 295-C
of the penal code, which states that "Whoever by words, either spoken or
written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or
insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy
Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death."

According to the private television network Geo News, Daily Times and other
outlets, the government also promised that no-one convicted under the blasphemy
laws will be spared.

The government agreed further to release hundreds of people arrested during the
sit-in who do not stand accused of attacking property or personnel, and in
response to demands that shari'a be imposed across Pakistan agreed that clerics
would submit proposals on the matter to the religious affairs ministry.

Government ministers portrayed the various points as an "understanding," saying
no written agreement was signed with protest leaders. Interior Minister
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan declared that no future protests would be allowed in
the capital's "red zone."

On 2 of the protestors' demands, the government gave no assurances: They had
called for Qadri to be publicly declared a "martyr," and for the execution of
Asia Bibi, the 1st Christian woman in Pakistan to be sentenced to death for
blasphemy.

Asia Bibi, a mother of 5, has been on death row since her conviction in 2010
for "blaspheming" Mohammed. Qadri murdered Taseer after the governor, a liberal
Muslim, came out in support of Asia Bibi and called for her pardon.

'Appeasement'

How much of a concession the government has made to the protestors by pledging
not to touch the blasphemy laws is debatable, since there has been no
significant attempt to amend or annul them for years.

The last tentative effort to amend the blasphemy laws, by a lawmaker in the
then-ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was dropped just weeks after
Taseer's assassination after its sponsor, who had received death threats,
failed to receive the support of her own party.

Religious freedom advocates say Christians and other minorities have long been
disproportionately targeted under the blasphemy laws, which at times have also
been used as a pretext in instances of personal grudges or business disputes.

Individuals accused of blasphemy have frequently been attacked by mobs, and
vigilantes claiming to be protecting the honor of the prophet have taken the
law into their own hands.

Among many killed in such circumstances was a High Court judge, shot to death
in his Lahore chambers in 1997 after acquitting a man who had been convicted of
blasphemy by a lower court; a minority Ahmadi lawyer, shot dead in 2014 after
agreeing to represent a university lecturer facing blasphemy charges; and a
Christian couple, accused by a mob of blasphemy and burned alive in a brick
kiln, also in 2014.

On Sunday more than 70 people, many of them women and children, were killed in
a suicide bombing at a public part in Lahore. Claiming responsibility for the
attack, a Pakistan Taliban offshoot made it clear the target was Christians
celebrating Easter.

Earlier this week Xavier William, head of a Pakistani Christian human rights
advocacy group, Life For All, responded to queries about both the Easter Sunday
bombing and the Islamabad sit-in.

"Religious intolerance, sectarian violence and blatant terrorism is destroying
the very core of our social fabric," William said.

"In a plural Islamic society, which is what we must aspire and strive to
become, there is no place for intolerance, violence and appeasement of
extremist groups who are trying to make our nation hostage to their
obscurantist ideology."

Human Rights Focus Pakistan president Naveed Walter accused the government of
having "no long-term strategy to eliminate terrorism from the society," citing
both its response to terrorist threats against Christians, and the sit-in in
Islamabad in support of Qadri - whose execution, Walter said, "also increased
hatred against the Christian community."

(source: CNSNews.com)






INDIA:

Man sentenced to death for 2012 Anaimalai double murder case


A local court in Coimbatore on Wednesday awarded death penalty to a 28-year-old
man for murdering 2 women at Anaimalai in 2012. For the double murder, Rajiv
was awarded the death penalty and for the attempt to murder, he was sentenced
to life imprisonment," said E R Sivakumar, additional public prosecutor. and a
case was registered against him under Sections 302 (Murder), 307 (attempt to
murder) and 506(ii) (criminal intimidation). Rajiv had moved the high court
against the life imprisonment and the sentence was commuted to 7 years
imprisonment. He added that the death penalty was awarded mainly because of the
cruelty of the murder and also considering the fact that the accused was
punished for the similar crime earlier.

The Additional District and Sessions Judge, G Vijaya, also sentenced him to
life imprisonment for the charge of attempt to murder and 3 years' imprisonment
for the charge of criminal intimidation.The convict M Rajiv Gandhi, a resident
of Anaimalai in Coimbatore district, was a juvenile offender who was sentenced
to life imprisonment when he was 17 years old. In 2005, he had murdered a man
named Kanakaraj.

In that case his neighbour N Murugan was 1 of the witnesses. Rajiv had moved
the high court against the life imprisonment and the sentence was commuted to 7
years imprisonment. He came out of jail in February 2012. Rajiv then stayed in
his house, which was close to Murugan's home.

(source: nyoooz.com)

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

Triple blast convicts plead for leniency in sentence before POTA court----Prime
conspirator Saquib Nachan says his father made him surrender before court


"My father held my hand and made me surrender before court. He asked me only
one thing: Did you execute the blast? When I said no, he took me to the court.
He had blind faith in the judiciary," Saquib Nachan told the Special Prevention
of Terrorist Act (POTA) court on Wednesday.

Seeking leniency and asking the court to sentence him to the period already
undergone by him in prison, he said: "Not only me but my entire family suffered
because of the terror tag, my children were called as sons of a terrorist and
as I suffered in prison, they also suffered outside."

Nachan, who claimed he prepared his case overnight after the conviction was
handed down to him under the POTA and Arms Act charges, said: "Under POTA it
was the discretion of the court to hand over the sentence, if he feels it can
be even one day or only Rs100 fine, the wordings of the explanation of the
section for possessing weapons in a notified area says imprisonment up to life
and does not specify a minimum sentence."

Nachan, who was a businessman, claimed he suffered huge financial losses and
his family which has certain repute in the local community at Padgha village
suffered a face loss among peers. He also told the court that last month his
father passed away and at times when he saw him in prison, he would feel it was
a mistake to ask him to surrender. But he would immediately console himself and
me that judiciary will give the right decision.

Similarly, Muzammil Ansari, who planted 3 bombs between 2002-2003 at Mumbai
Central, Vile Parle and Mulund train blast, told the court that for the last 13
years he has suffered great mental agony being in prison. He claimed he was
falsely implicated and his co-workers at the private firm in Andheri where he
worked deposed falsely against him.

Ansari, who face the death penalty, sought for interim bail to meet his family
and said he was tortured and illegally detained by the police. Moreover, he has
not been able to return anything back to his parents who educated him. Ansari
is a mechanical engineer by education. He also said that while in prison he
helped other inmates in writing letters to their family members.

The POTA court on Tuesday convicted 10 accused, including conspirators Saquib
Nachan and planter Muzammil Ansari, for planning and executing triple blasts,
in 2002-2003. The court acquitted 3 accused of all charges leveled against
them. On Wednesday all of the convicted pleaded for leniency in sentence before
the court.

(source: dnaindia.com)

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

Man gets death penalty for double murder


The IV-Additional District Judge here, on Wednesday, awarded death penalty to a
30-year-old man for murdering the wife and daughter of his neighbour, who had
earlier testified against him in a murder case.

Additional Public Prosecutor E.R. Sivakumar said that M. Rajivgandhi alias
Marimuthu (30) of Subbaiya Goundan Pudur Sungam near Anamalai, murdered
Kanagaraj on November 1, 2005. The Fast Track Court in Coimbatore awarded him
life imprisonment on August 7, 2006.

"He made an appeal in the Madras High Court where the sentence was commuted to
7 years imprisonment. Rajivgandhi was released in 2012. He held a grudge
against his neighbour N. Murugan (60) for testifying against him in the murder
case," Mr. Sivakumar said.

Rajivgandhi and Murugan were farm labourers who lived in adjacent houses that
they built on a poramboke land.

"Rajivgandhi asked Murugan for a portion of the latter's land to expand his
house, which Murugan refused," Mr. Sivakumar said and added that this
infuriated Rajivgandhi further.

Around 6 p.m. on February 11, 2012, Murugan's wife M. Palaniammal (55) and 2
daughters M. Jothimani (31) and M. Magudeeswari (28) went to a vacant space
behind their house to ease themselves, when Rajivgandhi blocked their way and
attacked them with a machete.

"Suffering around 18 deep cuts all over their bodies, Palaniammal and Jothimani
died on the spot. Badly injured Magudeeswari fell unconscious. Murugan and his
son Manikandan (26) tried to rescue the 3 when Rajivgandhi threatened to kill
them. He fled on a 2-wheeler in which his accomplice, Jothimani (55), was
waiting," Mr. Sivakumar added.

Anamalai Police registered a case under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to
murder) and 506(ii) of the Indian Penal Code.

They arrested Rajivgandhi about 15 days later as he was under hiding and he was
lodged in jail since then.

Accomplice Jothimani who helped him escape the scene died during the course of
trial about a year ago.

On Wednesday, judge G. Vijaya awarded death sentence to Rajivgandhi for a
murder, life imprisonment for another murder and 3 years imprisonment for
attempt to murder, all to be served concurrently. Rajivgandhi was lodged at the
Coimbatore Central Prison.

(source: The Hindu)

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

Sharad Yadav favors death penalty to liquor manufacturers


Days after Bihar Government unanimously passed the Bihar Excise Bill, which
holds stringent punishments, including death penalty for the country's liquor
makers and sellers, JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav on Thursday said the decision was
justifying and welcoming. Yadav stated that to accomplish the idea of 'liquor
free state', strict measures are necessary to be taken.

(source: ANI)


SINGAPORE:

Sarawakian on death row in Singapore to know fate next week


A Malaysian man who faces the gallows in Singapore will find out next Tuesday
whether his sentence is commuted by the country's Court of Appeal.

Kho Jabing, 31, who is from Ulu Baram, Sarawak faces the gallows for killing a
Chinese construction worker with a tree branch back in 2008 during a robbery
attempt.

He was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6 last year but received a stay the day
before, after his lawyer filed a motion raising points of law about the way the
case was handled.

We Believe in Second Chances founder Kirsten Han said the Singapore-based
non-governmental organisation was making arrangements to bring Jabing's family
to Singapore.

"Jabing's judgement will be out on Tuesday 5 April, 9.30am at the Court of
Appeal," she told The Star Online on Thursday.

Jabing was sentenced to death in 2010 but in August 2013, following revisions
to Singapore's mandatory death penalty laws, the High Court sentenced him to
life and 24 strokes of the cane instead.

The prosecution challenged the decision before the Court of Appeal, which again
sentenced Jabing to death in a 3-2 majority decision earlier this year.

On Oct 19, Singapore president Tony Tan rejected a clemency petition before a
stay of execution by the Court of Appeal.

In 2013, the Singapore government amended the mandatory death penalty that gave
judges the discretion to choose between death and life imprisonment with caning
for all but the most serious category of murder, as well as certain cases of
drug trafficking.

(source: The Star)






MALAYSIA:

Kasthuri: Putrajaya should 'walk the talk' on executions


There should be no executions until the bill to abolish the "mandatory" death
penalty is tabled in Parliament.

When there's a possibility of judicial blunders, no one can ensure that just
and right sentences have been rendered to the accused, pointed out Batu Kawan
MP Kasthuri Patto in a statement.

"The government should walk the talk that there shall be no executions until
the Bill to abolish the 'mandatory' death penalty was tabled in Parliament."

The Attorney-General and the government should not play Russian roulette with
the lives of inmates on death row by arbitrary, "secretive" and hasty
executions, she added. "It should immediately impose a moratorium on executions
for all crimes."

The MP was commenting on the fact that it would be a week on Friday since the
"secretive" execution of 3 men in Taiping. "They had been sentenced to death
for a crime that took place in 2005 in Sungai Petani."

The families had been given a letter from the Taiping Prisons Department on
Wednesday 23 March informing them that they may visit their sons on Thursday
after 9 am and that they will be carrying out the executions in the soonest
time, noted Kasthuri. "The letter concluded that the families may also discuss
on claiming the bodies of the 3 men after the execution for their burials."

The letters had been dated 10 March and according to the families, they had
only received them on 23 March, a delay of 13 days, said the MP. "This may be
deliberate to deprive the families of help and support from various bodies who
may try to halt the executions."

While she does not condone or defend the crimes committed by the 3 men and
other offenders, the nature in which the executions had taken place had been
extremely shady, "secretive" and hasty, she reiterated. "To top it all,
questions have been raised if any particular case had become a victim of the
miscarriage of justice."

It is apparent that the prisons were bent on executing the 3 men come hell or
high water, charged the MP.

In November last year, she reminded, a roundtable discussion had been held in
Parliament by "Parliamentarians for Global Action for the Abolition of the
Death Penalty" on initiatives, commitments and particularly reforms on the
state of inmates on death row and the abolition of the mandatory death penalty.

The main outcome of the meeting was that the government put in place an
official moratorium on executions pending the assessment of the report on
effectiveness of the death penalty, said Kasthuri. "The government pledged to
introduce a Bill to abolish the mandatory death penalty for all offences and a
review of the existing death row cases."

(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)






JAPAN----executions

Japan executes an elderly man and a woman, despite international calls for
abolition


FIDH and its member organisation in Japan, Center for Prisoners' Rights,
strongly condemn the execution of 2 prisoners in Japan that took place last
week. On Friday 25 March, Japan's Justice Minister Mitsuhide Iwaki authorised
the execution of Mr. Yasutoshi Kamata and Ms. Junko Yoshida. These are the 1st
executions to take place in Japan in 2016, adding to the 14 other executions
since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was re-elected in 2012.

Mr. Kamata's death sentence for murder charges was confirmed in 2005, and he
was 75 years old when he was executed last week. In response to a questionnaire
sent to him by a human rights group in 2015, he stated that he had "become
senile and did not understand anything complicated." The execution of Mr.
Kamata is particularly problematic considering the UN Human Rights Committee's
recommended in 2008 that Japan adopt "a more humane approach with regard to the
treatment of death row inmates and the execution of persons at an advanced age
or with mental disabilities." [1] Since the UN handed down this recommendation,
Japan has executed several elderly and mentally disabled individuals.

Ms. Yoshida, sentenced to death in 2010 for murder, had her request for a
retrial rejected last year. It is suspected that the Ministry of Justice
expedited her execution in so that she could not file another petition for
retrial. Following Ms. Yoshida and Mr. Kamata's executions, there remain 124
people sentenced to death in Japan.

In 2020, Japan will host the United Nations (UN) Congress on Crime Prevention
and Criminal Justice. Considering the growing global trend towards abolition
and the multiple decisions by UN human rights bodies confirming that the use of
the death penalty entails serious human rights violations, the government of
Japan should abolish the death penalty before the 2020 Congress, in order to
bring its laws and criminal justice system in line with international human
rights standards.

Our organisations strongly condemn Japan's continued use of the death penalty,
and call on the government of Japan to immediately suspend all executions with
a view to ultimately abolishing the death penalty.

(source: fidh.org)






BAHAMAS:

Judge Spares Death Penalty, Laments Violent Crime Trend


A judge who spared a 22-year-old man the death penalty yesterday in connection
with a 2012 murder case expressed concern at an increasing trend of young men
under the age of 30 being tried and convicted of violent crimes.

Justice Indra Charles had been asked by prosecutor Uel Johnson to impose the
death sentence on Livingston Woodside for the June 3, 2012 shooting death of
Owen Rose Sr.

Rose, of Elizabeth Estates, was found dead that night at Washington Street with
gunshot wounds in his body.

It was the Crown's case that the murder was a paid execution with Woodside, who
was 19 at the time, pulling the trigger. His alleged accomplice, 19-year-old
Glenardo Johnson was 16.

A jury unanimously convicted both men of murder on May 1, 2015.

The judge sentenced Woodside to 40 years and Johnson to 35 years imprisonment
at the Department of Correctional Services to run from the date of conviction.

Both were credited 3 years for time spent on remand prior to conviction,
reducing their respective sentences to 37 and 32 years.

"One cannot restate the number of murders committed in this country by young
men like the ones in the prisoner's box," Justice Indra Charles stressed.

"It bothers me why so many young men are continuously before this court. It's
very rare to see someone who is 30 years old charged with these crimes. The
trend, it seems, is to see them much younger as even teens are appearing in
Supreme Court and it appears to me that message we (the court) are sending out
is not sounding."

"The court should be cognisant of the fact that just about every day the
newspapers read murder," the judge also stressed.

Justice Charles said notwithstanding these serious concerns, "each case must be
determined on its own peculiar facts."

"The Crown did seek the death penalty for Woodside. However, the court is of
the firm view that because of his young age, he's not a candidate for the death
penalty."

The judge acknowledged the 2011 amendment to the Penal Code, which followed the
Privy Council's decision in the Maxo Tido decision, which notes that only
certain types of aggravated murder are currently punishable by death. These
include murder of a law enforcement officer; murder of a judicial officer,
including judges, registrars and prosecutors; murder of a witness or juror;
murder of more than 1 person; murder committed by a defendant who has a prior
murder conviction; and murder in exchange for value.

"The amendment further provides that any murder committed in the course of/or
in furtherance of a robbery, rape, kidnapping, terrorist act, or any other
felony is punishable by death, with no explicit requirement of intent to cause
death.

"Justice Charles said the appellate court, in its Simeon Bain decision, ruled
that the crimes named in amendments met the threshold of consideration of the
imposition of the death penalty.

"However, she also had to consider the case on its own merits and whether the
circumstances determined it to be the "worst of the worst" and "rarest of the
rare."

"Justice Charles said she also had to consider Woodside's reasonable prospects
for reform as presented in a probation report given to the court.

"Despite the fact that this case qualifies for the death penalty, I don't think
the death penalty should be imposed," the judge said.

"Johnson was told that because of a provision in law, he could potentially be
released after serving 20 years following a review of his time in custody
because the offence was committed as a juvenile.

Justice Charles ordered both men to enrol in anger management sessions as "both
of you appeared to be angry throughout the trial."

Jiaram Mangra and Christina Galanos represented the pair at trial.

Johnson and Woodside have the right to appeal the conviction and sentences.

(source: tribune242.com)


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[Rick Halperin]

March 31



PAKISTAN----executions

2 convicted by military courts hanged in Kohat


2 'terrorists' convicted by military courts for involvement in attacks on
security officials and civilians were executed at a jail in Kohat on Wednesday,
a military sourced confirmed.

Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif had signed the death warrants for
Mehmood and Rab Nawaz last year.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in September last year issued the
names of 9 'hardcore terrorists' whose death sentences had been approved by the
army chief. The convicts executed today were among them.

The ISPR had shared the following details at the time about conviction of the
militants hanged on Wednesday:

Mehmood s/o Khawaza Khan, an active member of the TTP, was found involved in
attacking security personnel in KP, killing 2 soldiers and injuring 13 others.
He admitted his offences before the magistrate and trial court and was awarded
death sentence.

Rab Nawaz s/o Shahi Room, an active member of the TTP, was involved in killing
of 2 civilians, processing firearms and abetting attack on military in Peshawar
which resulted in death of 2 soldiers and caused severe injuries to another.

In the wake of the APS carnage, military courts were set up for trying
terrorists under amendments made to the Constitution and the Army Act.

Political parties had unanimously agreed to setting up military courts to
tackle terrorism cases in the country following the gruesome attack on the Army
Public School in Peshawar in December 2014, following which the Parliament
passed the 21st constitutional amendment in Jan 2015 to set up the said courts.

President Mamnoon Hussain had also promulgated an ordinance further revising
the recently amended Army Act to ostensibly aid the functioning of military
courts by allowing for trials in camera, i.e. without the presence of the
public or the media, and over video link if necessary.

The Supreme Court in a majority ruling upheld the establishment of military
courts in Pakistan.

Petitions challenging the 21st amendment were dismissed in August this year in
a majority 11-6 vote of the 17-member SC bench. Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk and
Justice Dost Muhammad announced the verdict.

(source: Daily Times)






MALAYSIA:

Who decides who's next to hang? Opposition MPs ask after Taiping executions


Opposition lawmakers today questioned the execution selection process of
inmates on death row following three controversial hangings at the Taiping
prison last week.

DAP MPs M Kulasegaran and Kasthuri Patto, along with Amanah's Kota Raja MP Siti
Mariah Mahmud, pointed out that the families of the 3 inmates at the Taiping
prison were only given one day to visit the inmates and that their execution
will carried out in the "soonest time".

"Who selects who will be up next (for execution)? No one really knows for
sure," Kashturi said during a press conference at the Parliament lobby.

The MPs also called for the government to hold off conducting further
executions until the mandatory death penalty is reviewed.

The 3 men executed in the Taiping prison were sentenced to death over a 2005
murder in Sungai Petani.

Kashturi alleged that the nature of the executions were "shady, secretive and
hasty."

"It is apparent that the prison was bent on executing them come hell or high
water," she said.

Kulasegaran said the call by the MPs was to merely give judges the option on
whether to hand out death penalty, rather than making the sentence mandatory.

"The judge is also a human being. All we are saying is give the judge
discretion," he said.

Putrajaya last year announced that it was considering dropping the death
penalty, but only for drug-related offences.

Under Malaysia's current laws, convictions for firearms, drugs, treason and
murder-related offences must result in the death sentence.

(source: themalaymailonline.com)






INDIA:

Internship opportunity at Centre on the Death Penalty, NLU Delhi


The Centre on the Death Penalty is keen to develop a robust and rewarding
internship programme that will provide meaningful exposure to the complexities
and nuances, in particular, of the administration of the death penalty and the
criminal justice system in India more generally, therefore the centre
introduces internship program where they accept interns on rolling basis.

Eligibility: The internship is open to students in India and other countries,
enrolled in a recognized undergraduate or post-graduate programme in the law,
humanities, social sciences, management or media and communications.

Duration: Internships are full-time and for a period of a minimum 4 weeks to a
maximum of 12 weeks. Candidates must indicate the exact dates in their
application. Interns shall be based out of our offices on the NLU Delhi campus
in Sector 14. Dwarka, New Delhi 100078.

Remuneration: Interns will be paid a stipend of Rs 10,000 (Rupees Ten Thousand
Only) for every 4 week period of internship undergone.

How to Apply The interested candidates must send their applications addressed
to the Director, Centre on the Death Penalty and sent by email to
***@nludelhi.ac.in and ***@nludelhi.ac.in . The subject of
the email should be "Application for Internship".

The application must accompany the following information: Curriculum Vitae
Cover Letter indicating the programme enrolled in, current year of study, name
of the university and the exact dates of the internship Statement of Purpose of
not more than 500 words explaining their interest in interning with the Centre.

(source: livelaw.in)


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April 1


IRAN:

Arjang Davoudi's Death Sentence Reduced to 5 Years Imprisonment


Arjang Davoudi, political prisoner in Rajai Shahr prison says; his death
sentence has been reduced to 5 years imprisonment in exile. He should be ready
by 14th June to be exiled to Zabul prison.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA),
the death penalty for the old political prisoner in Rajai Shahr prison, in
Karaj, Arjang Davoudi, was reduced to 5 years imprisonment and exile to Zabol
prison.

Mr. Davoudi in this regard told HRANA's reporter: "A few days before the new
year I was informed in prison that the appeals court has broken my execution
sentence and turned it to five years imprisonment in exile and I should wait
until June 14, 2016, to be transferred to Zabol prison."

He continued: "I have been told, as Zabul prison was a detention center,
probably I would be transferred to the prison of Zahedan."

It should be noted that, the aged political prisoner, Arjang Davoudi, who has
served his first 10-year-sentence, during this period of imprisonment and due
to another verdict, has been sentenced to 20 years and 8 months imprisonment,
and then by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court in Karaj, he was charged with
supporting and working effectively in advocating the goals of the People's
Mojahedin Organization in prison, and sentenced to death."

(source: HRA News Agency)






YEMEN:

Baha'i Adherent Faces Death Penalty----End Persecution of Religious Minority


Yemeni authorities should drop all charges against a member of the Baha'i faith
detained since December 2013, apparently for his religious beliefs. Prosecutors
are expected to seek the death penalty for Hamed Kamal Muhammad bin Haydara in
a court hearing scheduled for April 3, 2016.

Yemeni authorities should stop the persecution of the country's Baha'i
community, Human Rights Watch said.

"The Yemeni authorities have committed an injustice by prosecuting Haydara for
his religious beliefs and compounding that injustice by seeking to execute
him," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. "The charges should be
dropped and Haydara should be released."

Haydara was detained on December 3, 2013, by officers from Yemen's National
Security Bureau (NSB), an intelligence agency. He was held in an NSB detention
center in the capital, Sanaa, for almost a year, as officers beat him and
subjected him to electric shocks and other mistreatment.

On January 8, 2015, the Specialized Criminal Court prosecutor issued an
indictment claiming that Haydara was an Iranian citizen, using a false name,
who arrived in Yemen only in 1991. Yet photocopies of his Yemini ID and
passport provided by his wife show he was born in Yemen in 1964. The prosecutor
also charged him with collaborating with Israel by working for the Universal
House of Justice, the Baha'i supreme governing institution, which is based in
Haifa, Israel. The prosecutor also alleged that Haydara lured potential Muslim
converts to the Baha'i faith through charitable giving and tried to "establish
a homeland for the followers of the Baha'i faith" in Yemen.

In the indictment, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, the prosecutor charges
Haydara under Yemen's penal code with committing, among other crimes, "an act
that violates the independence of the republic, its unity, or the integrity of
its lands," "working for a foreign state's interests," "insulting Islam," and
"apostasy." The prosecutor is seeking "the maximum possible penalty," which for
some of these charges is death, as well as confiscation of his property.

4 members of the Baha'i community who have been monitoring the court
proceedings told Human Rights Watch that since Haydara's 2013 arrest, his case
has had 13 court hearings, but he has only been allowed to attend 3. The local
human rights group Mwatana monitored the most recent hearing, on February 28,
2016, for which Haydara was absent. The director of Mwatana, Radhiya
al-Mutawakil, who was at the session, said the judge asked the prosecutor,
Rajeh Zayyed, about Haydara's absence, but received no explanation.

Zayyed claims to have had 14 interrogation sessions with Haydara, but according
to Haydara's lawyer, Abdulkarim al-Hamadi, the prosecution only interrogated
Haydara twice, and brought him to the prosecutor's office twice more but then
did not question him. Al-Hamadi has only been allowed to communicate with his
client by phone.

At the February 28 hearing, Zayyed reiterated that the prosecution is seeking
the death penalty. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all
circumstances as an inherently cruel form of punishment.

Haydara's wife, Elham Muhammad Hossain Zara'i, told Human Rights Watch that in
a September 4 meeting with one of the judges presiding over the case, he
threatened her with prison because of her faith and told her that all Baha'is
should be in prison.

Since the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, took control of Sanaa and other
areas of Yemen in September 2014, the judiciary has significantly slowed its
processing of cases, though many employees within the judiciary system have
remained the same.

Most of the charges against Haydara relate to his practice of the Baha'i faith.
They violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
which Yemen ratified in 1987. Article 18 states: "Everyone shall have the right
to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include
freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom,
either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to
manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching."

Yemen's penal code includes provisions that impose criminal penalties for
renouncing Islam as well as attempting to convert Muslims to other faiths.

About 1,000 Baha'i members live in Yemen. The case against Haydara is not the
1st of its kind, representatives of the global Baha'i community said. In June
2008, National Security officers arrested Behrooz Rouhani, a Baha'i man, and 2
visiting Baha'i friends, all of whom carried Iranian passports, at Rouhani's
home in Sanaa. Rouhani told Human Rights Watch that the officers handcuffed and
blindfolded them and then searched his home, confiscating many Baha'i books,
video cassettes, and documents. They said they were kept handcuffed and
blindfolded the first 2 days of their detention.

Officers arrested a 4th Baha'i man, who carried an Iraqi passport, the next
day. Rouhani said that officers interrogated him about his faith the 1st week
every night for 5 or 6 hours, accusing him of trying to convert Muslims and of
collaboration with Israel. The 4 were released without charge after 120 days.
The authorities told them to leave Yemen within 2 months, but this order was
later revoked and 2 of them still live in Yemen.

A person who was at the trial told Human Rights Watch they heard the
prosecutor, Zayyed, use derogatory language against the Baha'i community,
saying that its members committed hostile acts toward Yemen.

Immediately after an earlier hearing in Haydara's case, on March 8, 2015,
Zayyed apprehended two members of the Baha'i community who had been monitoring
the trial, Nadim al-Sakkaf and his brother, Nader Tawfiq al-Sakkaf, both told
Human Rights Watch. They said that Zayyed tried to get the judge to issue a
court order to formalize the arrest but he refused, so after checking their
names off a list of members of the Baha'i community and holding them in the
courthouse guard booth for 2 hours, he transferred them to the Political
Security Organization's headquarters. Security forces held them for two days,
interrogating them several times about their faith and asking for names of
other members, then released them without charge.

Local human rights activists have reported that past Yemeni governments also
imposed unlawful restrictions on other religious minorities, including
Christian, Jewish, and Ismaili individuals. Based on comments she said she
heard from NSB officers, Zara'i fears authorities may deport Haydara to Iran.
Punishing citizens with exile is a violation of fundamental rights under
international law. Article 12 of the ICCPR states, "No one shall be arbitrarily
deprived of the right to enter his own country." The United Nations Human
Rights Committee, the international expert committee that monitors compliance
with the ICCPR, has interpreted article 12 to mean that this includes exiling
or banning citizens based on repressive domestic laws. The committee concluded
that, "There are few, if any, circumstances in which deprivation of the right
to enter one's own country could be reasonable. A State party must not, by
stripping a person of nationality or by expelling an individual to a 3rd
country, arbitrarily prevent this person from returning to his or her own
country."

Even if Haydara were found not to be a Yemeni citizen, under international law
he still may not be deported to a country where he faces persecution or abuse.
Because of his Baha'i faith, Haydara would probably face persecution in Iran,
Human Rights Watch said.

Haifa, in present-day Israel, has been the Baha'i faith's administrative
headquarters since 1868, when the city was under Ottoman rule. The Iranian
government, like the Yemeni authorities in Haydara's case, routinely uses the
connection to accuse Baha'is in Iran of spying for Israel, with which Iran has
hostile relations. The Baha'i faith originated in Iran, but its members suffer
severe persecution there, including arbitrary detention and prosecution related
solely to their religious activities, restrictions on access to higher
education, confiscation of property, and destruction and desecration of their
cemeteries. Iran???s judiciary often charges and convicts Baha'is of unlawful
links with foreign governments, including Israel. 7 leaders of the Iranian
Baha'i community are serving prison sentences, ranging from 7 to 20 years, on
charges that include propaganda against the state and espionage on behalf of
foreign governments.

"The prosecution of Hamed Kamal bin Haydara is symbolic of the broader attack
on Yemen's Baha'i community," Stork said. "If the current authorities want to
show the world that they represent an inclusive Yemen, they need to release him
and anyone else being held for their opinions and beliefs."

(source: Human Rights Watch)






UGANDA:

Supreme Court ruled that all death sentences not carried out in 3 years are
automatically commuted to life imprisonment


Inmates on death row at Luzira Maximum Prison have petitioned Parliament over
what they claim is the current flawed system in the Judiciary, which sees many
poor Ugandans with no financial ability to hire quality lawyers sent to the
gallows.

In their petition channeled through Serere Woman MP, Alice Alaso, the Luzira
death row inmates contend that the policy of lawyers on state briefs, though
well intentioned, is actually turning out to be a poisoned chalice.

State brief is where government pays a lawyer to represent an indigent person
accused of an offence that can fetch him a death penalty. This is a requirement
under Article 28 of the constitution as part of a right to a fair hearing.

"These inmates complain that lawyers on state briefs simply go through the
motion while representing them. They hardly meet them and go to court once or
twice because the state does not pay them well," Alaso told the House.

Alaso visited Luzira prison 'condemned section' recently as part of her
research work on the Law Revision (Penalties in Criminal Matters) Miscellaneous
Amendment Bill, 2015 - a private members Bill.

The Bill seeks to amend a raft of sections in the Penal Code Act, Trial on
indictments Act, UPDF Act, and Anti-terrorism Act relating to mandatory death
penalty following the landmark Susan Kigula case.

In the Kigula case judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that all death sentences
not carried out in 3 years are automatically commuted to life imprisonment.
Therefore, the Bill seeks to remove all reference to mandatory death penalty
prescribed in the above Acts of Parliament and restrict application of the
death penalty to the "most serious crimes" by converting the maximum penalties
prescribed in those Act into imprisonment for life.

According to Alaso, the Bill also seeks to give effect to the commitment made
by Government to the United Nations following the 1st periodic review of
Uganda's human rights record, to consistently apply the rulings of the court by
converting all death penalties not carried out within 3 years to imprisonment
for life.

"The inmates want lawyers on state briefs to be paid well in order not to
compromise their defense," Alaso noted.

The inmates also complained about missing record of judgment in courts of first
instance which has in many times impended their attempt to appeal their
conviction and sentence.

Inmates told Alaso that absence of records of judgment means that the only way
they can have their convictions and sentences overturned is through a retrial
which they admitted is almost impossible.

According to Ugandan Prison Services spokesperson, Frank Baine, there are 297
inmates at Luzira prison on death row.

Those convicted by military court marital, Alaso said, the process of appeal as
provided for under the UPDF Act is as unwieldy and convoluted.

"There are inmates who have been in Luzira on death row since 1999 and attempts
to appeal their conviction are problematic because of the UPDF Act," Alaso
said, without delving into the sections that make appealing against convictions
hard.

(source: newvision.co.ug)





TRINIDAD & TOBAGO:

Death penalty is long overdue


We must agree that since the criminals are aware there is no substantial
punishment for the crimes committed here in Trinidad and Tobago, they will
continue to kill our people, rape our citizens and in some cases decapitate
them for unknown reasons.

Both the United National Congress (UNC) and People's National Movement (PNM)
had given us promises and promises that crime is the number one item on their
agenda. But that was ole talk before and it is again today.

The UNC had introduced the Death Penalty Bill but it did not pass in Parliament
because it needed the 11 vote that were lacking by the PNM opposition under the
UNC administration.

Now that the PNM is in Government, none of the ministers including the PM has
since advocated to reintroduce capital punishment.

In fact, they are all more silent than ever whilst our citizens are murdered
from left to right.

The last time we heard or observed hanging carried out was under the Basdeo
Panday government in the matter of Dole Chadee and his gang.

How come the Panday government was able to carry out capital punishment and now
we can't even get pass the threshold for reintroduction?

Is our Government complicit when it comes to implementing the death penalty
once again?

The governments past and present have invested immense amounts of money to
fight crime and secure our borders from the importation of drugs and arms, they
have purchased patrol vessels and sophisticated technology to prevent or abate
the criminality in our country, but it all appears to be a waste of time and
money.

It is obvious that criminals are the ones who are in charge here. They have a
cache of AK 47s, AR15s, and now they have hand grenades and probably rocket
propel grenades.

The current situation warrants that our Government do something soon before the
Red House goes up in smoke and rubble.

The PNM has a golden opportunity to reintroduce the death penalty regardless of
all the naysayers, the Privy Council and Pratt and Morgan ruling. We are at the
mercy of the criminals and absolutely nothing solid is coming forth from the
people we vote for. And in addition, these ministers took an oath of office to
protect and safeguard the lives of our citizens.

I say it is highly warranted that our Government reintroduce the Capital
Punishment Bill in Parliament for support from the opposition which I firmly
believe will support the bill since they were the ones who initially brought it
to Parliament.

Mr Prime Minster your administration prevented the passage because of the 11
votes that were required. Please send a message to the criminals that your
Government will not tolerate the killing of our citizens.

Jay G Rakhar

New York

(source: Letter to the Editor, Trinidad Daily Express)


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April 1



TAIWAN:

Murder of child fuels death penalty debate in Taiwan ---- Executing criminals
is not the answer, says Holy See representative


The apparent random beheading of a 4-year-old girl in Taipei by a stranger has
reignited the debate over Taiwan's use of the death penalty.

The young girl nicknamed "Little Light Bulb" was with her mother Claire Wang
who was cycling toward a metro station March 28 when a 33-year-old unemployed
man attacked her with a meat cleaver.

The suspect, Wang Ching-yu, has been taken into custody; police say he has a
history of drug abuse and mental illness.

The attack and widespread public outrage reignited the death penalty debate in
Taiwan, which has executed 32 criminals since 2010.

Much of the discussion has occurred online with many netizens endorsing the
country's use of the death penalty.

A digital image that included the words: "Support the death sentence for use
against killers who murder kids," received more than 230,000 shares on Facebook
in less than 24 hours. A Facebook page dedicated to the same theme received
more than 240,000 "likes" within a similar time period.

Many Taiwanese netizens also have accused death penalty opponents of ignoring
the security and safety of Taiwanese society.

The Facebook page Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty has been inundated
by messages from death sentence supporters upset over the child's horrific
murder.

The group even came under fire from a Kuomintang lawmaker, Yan Kuanheng, who
posted on Facebook: "Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty don't cover up
for all death penalty prisoners, especially child murderers!"

The group's chief executive Lin Hsinyi responded to death penalty supporters on
Facebook.

"I know everyone is sad and angry. But simply shouting at death penalty
opponents cannot solve the real problem," wrote Lin.

David Chiu, a Catholic in Taipei and death penalty opponent, said supporters of
capital punishment are reacting emotionally.

"People are now using the death penalty debate as a way to express their
emotions," Chiu told ucanews.com.

The outgoing Holy See representative in Taiwan, Msgr. Paul Russell, said he
regretted that he was not able to influence an anti-death penalty movement
during his term in office, which began in 2008.

"We have not succeeded in building a greater consensus for the abolishment of
the death penalty," Msgr. Russell said March 30.

"People will continue to commit very terrible crimes. We saw it couple of days
ago at the MRT in Taipei," he said. "But executing criminals is not the answer.
Pope Francis is very clear on this point."

As part of the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis in February called for a global
moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

Claire Wang, the mother of the young victim said on her Facebook account that
she does not want people to use her daughter's death to argue over the death
penalty.

"For me, it just my beloved one gone accidentally. I really want to peacefully
manage the things left behind," Wang wrote.

Talking to media, Wang also cautioned against using her daughter's murder as
fuel for political arguments, AFP reported.

Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's president-elect, has said that if the death penalty is
to be abolished there needs to be a public consensus on the issue and a
well-thought-out and implemented policy. Taiwan had a moratorium on the death
penalty from 2006 to 2010.

(source: ucanews.com)






NIGERIA:

Death penalty on Boko Haram suspects could boomerang


A series of death sentences Boko Haram insurgents for their roles in the deadly
attacks that have claimed thousands of civilians have been hailed in Cameroon
as a breakthrough.

However, experts warn this could rebound badly in the wake of suggestions the
Nigerian Islamic militant sect could carry out reprisal attacks.

Recently, Cameroon sentenced to death more than 80 Boko Haram insurgents for
carrying out attacks in the country's Far North Region.

A military court in this region worst hit by the insurgency by the sect imposed
capital punishment on the 89 terrorists after finding them guilty of crimes
against humanity.

The judgment handed down on March 18 marked the most extreme implementation of
a controversial anti-terrorism law President Paul Biya promulgated in December
2014 in reaction to the merciless attacks the Boko Haram carried out in the
central African country.

The law specifies terrorist crimes as "actions likely to cause death, endanger
or damage the physical integrity of another, damage to the nation's natural
resources, environment or cultural heritage with the intent of intimidating the
population, provoking a situation of terror or forcing the victim, the
government and/or an organisation, national or international to accomplish or
abstain from accomplishing any act whatsoever, to adopt or renounce a
particular position, or to act according to certain principles."

It aims to punish "disturbing the normal functioning of the public services,
the provision of essential services to the population, or creating a situation
of crisis within the population and creating a general uprising in the
country."

The law prescribes the death penalty for "any activity which can lead to a
general revolt of the population or disturb the normal functioning of the
country" and for "anyone who supplies arms, war equipment, bacteria and viruses
with the intention of killing."

The death penalty also applies to people found guilty of kidnapping with
terrorist intent, as well as for "anyone who directly or indirectly finances
acts of terrorism" and for "anyone who recruits citizens with the aim of
carrying out acts of terrorism."

The law also punishes people and companies found guilty of promoting terrorist,
as well as people who give false testimony to administrative and judicial
authorities in matters of terrorism, with various fines and prison terms.

A military magistrate, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the convicts would
not be allowed to plea.

"The sentence is not subject to appeal," the magistrate said.

Recently, Chad executed 10 Boko Haram members convicted of acts of terrorism.
They were convicted over their roles in twin attacks on the capital in June,
which killed at least 38 people.

A month after the attack, Chad reintroduced the death penalty for escalating
acts of terror.

Cameroon and Chad form part of an 8,700 troops Multi-National Joint Task Force
set up by countries of the Lake Chad Region- also including Benin Niger and
Nigeria- to fight the terrorists.

Security experts nonetheless are worried the death sentence could create a
backlash from the lethal sect.

David Otto, Chief Executive Officer of the United Kingdom-based global security
provider, TGS Intelligence Consultants, Boko Haram would "surely react."

He mentioned the areas further south in Cameroon as vulnerable to reprisals.

"The government has no clue on the potential martyrdom effects this will
create. One must be reminded that no amount of punishment frightens a man who
is not afraid of death," warned Otto.

He said Cameroon "has weighed the cost benefit analysis of de-radicalisation
and reintegration into society and it has chosen the cheapest option, attaching
a legal justification on it."

"The government has to be careful not to draw Cameroon into a global jihadist
lens. I suspect we will see some attacks within the next 8 weeks."

Nigerian preventive terrorism expert, Temitope Olodo, concurred the death
sentence would increase the possibility of attacks.

"The use of the death sentence should be discouraged because it is not an
effective deterrent to violent extremism. The sentencing would rather motivate
the insurgent that encourage them to carry out more attacks against Cameroon in
the name of revenging the death of their falling comrade," Olodo said.

He added, "If members of Boko Haram view the 89 convicts as martyrs, then we
have a big hurdle to address in the future."

Cameroon's Communication Minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, appeared to justify
the capital punishment arguing Boko Haram has killed at least 1200 people in
Cameroon since 2013 when the terrorists started cross-border strikes in
Cameroon.

Boko Haram, whose reign of terror has split to neighbouring countries, aims to
institute Sharia, or Islamic law in Nigeria.

It has killed at least 20,000 people and displaced more than 2 million since
its insurgency began in Nigeria.

It is feared as the world's deadliest terrorist organisation.

(source: news24.com)


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April 2



SAUDI ARABIA:

Saudi Arabia 'on course to double number of beheadings this year'


This would be more than double the 158 executions carried out by the Kingdom
last year.This would be more than double the 158 executions carried out by the
Kingdom last year.

Saudi Arabia has already executed 82 people this year and is on course to
behead twice as many prisoners as it did in 2015, according to new statistics
compiled by a leading human rights organisation likely to raise fresh concerns
about the UK's close ties to the Kingdom.

The British government has been urged to do more to put pressure on its Gulf
allies to halt the bloodshed in light of the figures, which would see the total
death toll in Saudi Arabia reach a record high of more than 320 by the end of
the year if the current rate is maintained.

This would be more than double the 158 executions carried out by the Kingdom
last year, which was in itself a dramatic rise on the 88 people it beheaded in
2014. The figures were compiled by the UK organisation Reprieve using a
combination of official statements from the Saudi government and reliable local
media reports.

Earlier this week, the defence secretary Michael Fallon paid a low-key visit to
Saudi Arabia to "help strengthen the UK-Saudi defence relationship", meeting
Crown Prince Muhammad bin Naif bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the minister of interior
who is in charge of ordering executions. Days later, at least two more
prisoners were beheaded.

During his trip Fallon also met Saudi defence minister Mohammed bin Salman bin
Abdul Aziz and other members of the Saudi Royal family. The Ministry of Defence
(MoD) said he had "reiterated the importance of working together to deal with
global threats, including countering the poisonous ideology of Daesh and
regional instability".

However, it did not say whether Mr Fallon had raised the subject of executions
with the interior minister. Human rights groups are increasingly concerned
about the fates of Ali al Nimr, Dawoud al Marhoon and Abdullah al Zaher, who
have all been sentenced to death by the Saudis despite being children at the
time of their alleged crimes. All three were convicted for alleged offences
connected to protests calling for reform in the Kingdom and could be executed
at any time without warning.

"As Saudi Arabia looks set for yet another record breaking year of beheadings,
it is more important than ever that its allies in the UK, Europe and the US
call for it to stop," said Harriet McCulloch, deputy director of the death
penalty team at Reprieve.

"The deep injustices of the Saudi system mean that those being sent to the
swordsman's blade are in many cases tortured into 'confessing', guilty of
nothing more than calling peacefully for reform, or even sentenced to death as
children. The UK and US must immediately call for Ali, Dawoud and Abdullah's
sentences to be commuted before it is too late - given the rising tide of
beheadings, vague reassurances are not enough."

A government spokesperson said: "The Defence Secretary visited Saudi Arabia to
discuss a range of regional issues. The UK is opposed to the death penalty in
all circumstances and we make our views well known to Saudi Arabia. We have
raised these particular cases at the highest levels and will continue to do so.
Our expectation remains that the 3 individuals will not be executed."

(source: The Times of India)






SINGAPORE:

Standoff in Ang Mo Kio amid CNB operation; A 48-year-old chopper-wielding man
refused to open the door to authorities and threatened to burn himself.


Heroin and "Ice", with an estimated street value of S$57,000, have been seized
by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB). 3 suspects have also been arrested.

According to a press release on Friday (Apr 1), CNB said it mounted the
operation to dismantle the activities of a suspected drug trafficking
syndicate. The syndicate was suspected of trafficking in different types of
controlled drugs.

The operation started on Thursday after CNB officers were deployed to observe a
suspected drug trafficker in the vicinity of Ang Mo Kio. The 39-year-old
Singaporean woman, who was believed to be receiving a fresh consignment of
drugs, was seen meeting up with a 62-year-old Singaporean man near Ang Mo Kio
Avenue 10. Both were subsequently arrested.

About 48g of heroin was seized from the woman, while about 160g of heroin was
recovered from the man.

A search of the woman's hideout at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3 uncovered about 480g of
heroin and 25g of "Ice". About 40g of heroin was seized from the 62-year-old's
hideout.

Investigations also led officers to a unit in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8, belonging to
a suspected drug associate of the woman.

At the scene, the suspected drug offender, a 48-year-old Singaporean man,
refused to open the door and threatened to burn himself. He was also seen
holding a chopper. CNB said that for safety reasons, the police and the
Singapore Civil Defence Force were activated. Residents from neighbouring units
were also evacuated.

At about 10am on Friday, the 48-year-old was arrested. A small amount of "Ice"
and heroin were recovered from his unit.

Preliminary screening showed that he tested positive for the consumption of
controlled drugs. Another occupant who was in the unit was unharmed, said CNB.

Investigations into the drug activities of the suspects are ongoing. They face
the death penalty, under the Misuse of Drugs Act, if the amount of pure heroin
trafficked exceeds 15g.

(source: channelnewsasia.com)






ISRAEL:

Executing Palestinians, a sign of Israel's strength?


There was no military necessity for last week's slaying of Abdel Fattah
Al-Sharif in Hebron. He was clearly wound, incapacitated and posed no imminent
threat to the Israeli soldier who shot him. Even by Israel's standards it was a
callous act of murder. The Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper rightly described it
as a "cold-blooded execution"; one that can and must, therefore, reinforce
calls for an international investigation into Israel's policy of extrajudicial
executions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

When Sweden's foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom called for such an
investigation back in January the Israeli foreign ministry dismissed her
intervention as "irresponsible and delusional". The shooting of 21-year-old
Al-Sharif, which was recorded on video and has since gone viral on the
internet, will now revive and add a greater sense of urgency to her call.

Despite its cruelty the murder of Al-Sharif was by no means an isolated act.
The grim reality is that almost every day young Palestinians are killed in
almost similar circumstances. All it takes is for a fanatic settler or
trigger-happy soldier to suspect him, or her, of being a "terrorist".

Admittedly, Israel's political and religious establishments have both
encouraged this culture of impunity. In mid-March the chief Sephardi Rabbi
Israel Yitzhak issued an edict stating that it was a religious imperative to
kill Palestinians armed with knives, and urged soldiers not to worry about the
courts or the army on the matter.

For several years now Israeli politicians have been toying with the idea of
writing into law the death penalty for Palestinians. In 2006, the leader of the
Yisrael Beiteinu party, Avigdor Lieberman, argued during a parliamentary debate
that Arab parliamentarians who talk to Hamas should be executed.

Last year the Israeli news website Mako reported Lieberman as saying: "Anyone
who's with us should be given everything - up to 1/2 the kingdom. Anyone who's
against us, there's nothing to do - we should raise an axe and cut off his
head; otherwise we won't survive here."

In the wake of the current intifada in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem,
Israeli politicians have revived, yet again, the debate on capital punishment.
They have been egged on by an out pouring of public support for Elor Azarya,
the soldier who "executed" Al-Sharif. More than 50,000 Israelis signed an
online petition demanding he be awarded a medal; others have staged public
rallies in support of the offending soldier.

Despite these pressures it is unlikely that even the Israeli establishment will
accede to calls for the death penalty or even exonerate Azarya completely. The
international fallout from the execution is yet to run its course. Philip
Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty
International said: "The shooting of a wounded and incapacitated person, even
if they have been involved in an attack, has absolutely no justification and
must be prosecuted as a potential war crime." Similar concerns have been raised
even from within the normally subservient US Congress.

A recent decision to defer a ministerial discussion on the death penalty does
not mean that it has been taken off the agenda. The Israeli establishment has
only done so for now because of the damage the execution of Al-Sharif has done
to its claim of being a liberal democracy and bastion of civilised values.
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu???s oft repeated mantra that the Israeli army
is the most "moral" army in the world has been exposed as a shameless canard.

To the Palestinians, it hardly matters if Israel legislates to adopt capital
punishment. It is, after all, a postscript of a practice that has long been in
effect, all be it without due process in courts of law. For them, life under
military occupation is no longer an option.

Clearly, the Netanyahu government wants its people to believe that executions,
house demolitions and deportations are all signs of strength. They are not. At
best, they reflect the weakness and ineffectiveness of a government that is
politically bankrupt and incapable of finding a solution to the current
uprising. If he is to withstand the challenge posed by opposition figures like
Lieberman and his fellow travelers, Netanyahu must continue to give a free hand
to his "moral" army and extremist settlers to act with impunity. Ultimately,
for the Palestinians it is only through self-defence that they will ensure
self-preservation.

(source: Commentary, Dr. Daud Abdullah----Middle East Monitor)



BARBADOS:

Don't set them free!


He has been the overseer of the last executions to take place in Barbados. And
ironically he has been a fierce opponent of the death penalty.

But former superintendent of prisons Carl Harewood is vigorously opposed to
convicted murderers being released on humanitarian grounds.

"I've read about it but I could not believe it. It's unbelievable. Any person
who has committed murder should spend the rest of their life in prison - and
without any chance of coming out at all," Harewood told the SATURDAY SUN
yesterday.

His comments followed the release of a number of convicted murderers by the
Barbados Mercy Committee, whose membership includes the Governor General, Prime
Minister, Opposition Leader and head of the Anglican Diocese.

(source: nationnews.com)






BAHAMAS:

Death Penalty Decision On Men Convicted Of American Sailor's Murder Deferred


A judge has deferred her decision on whether she will impose the death penalty
on 3 men convicted of murdering an American sailor as he tried to prevent 2
women visitors being robbed.

Justice Indra Charles adjourned her decision to May 5 after she heard the last
submissions yesterday from counsel for Anton Bastian, 21, and 23-year-old
Marcellus Williams concerning their role in the events that led to Kyle
Bruner's fatal shooting on May 13, 2013.

Roberto Reckley and Walton Bain, respective lawyers for Bastian and Williams,
argued that the circumstances of the case did not warrant the imposition of the
discretionary death penalty when balanced against their clients' ages, lack of
antecedents, reasonable prospects for reform and other factors outlined in
probation and psychiatric reports that were presented to the court.

At an earlier hearing on March 8, Nathan Smith, lawyer for 22-year-old Craig
Johnson, made similar arguments to the court. He further noted that that the
"right to life" was one of many factors the Privy Council - the country's
highest court of appeal - had set out for judges to consider, the others being,
but not limited to, the extremity of the murder, the question of the convict's
ability to be reformed, and whether or not justice could only be met through
death of the convict.

Johnson, Bain, Williams and 30-year-old Jamaal Dorfevil denied having any
involvement in the armed robbery and the killing of Bruner, who was shot in the
neck as he tried to help two women who were being mugged by 2 armed men.

At trial in November last year, they testified that they were at home on the
early morning in question and had been lied on and assaulted by the police, who
produced videotaped interviews of Johnson, Williams and Dorfevil taking
officers through the crime scene.

The jury heard evidence from Sean William Cannon, a first mate aboard the
Liberty Chipper sailboat, who witnessed the shooting and later identified
Johnson during an identification parade.

The Crown also submitted the police statement of another witness, Delano Smith,
which implicated the remaining accused men concerning the crimes.

The jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts for Johnson, Bastian and Williams
for Bruner's murder. The 3 men were further convicted with Dorfevil on 2 counts
of armed robbery as they were alleged to have accosted 2 women while armed with
a firearm, robbing one of $150 cash, her $3,000 handbag and the other of cash,
a handbag and an iPhone.

Dorfevil was represented by Sonia Timothy who yesterday asked the court to
impose no more than 6 years imprisonment for his minimal involvement in the
matter based on the evidence.

A 5th accused, 21-year-old Leo Bethel, had all charges discontinued against him
by way of a nolle prosequi within moments of Justice Charles concluding her
summation of the evidence. Ian Cargill represented him.

(source: tribune242.com)






BELARUS:

The regime hopes to sell the death penalty moratorium for the highest possible
price


The regime hopes to sell the death penalty moratorium for the highest possible
price Though the EU lifted its sanctions against Belarus in early 2016, the
authorities seem to remain reluctant to address a moratorium on capital
punishment, Lizaveta Kasmach writes.

On 10 March 2016, Minsk hosted an international conference titled The Death
Penalty: Transcending the Divide.

According to Stavros Lambrinidis, the EU Special Representative for Human
Rights, a moratorium on the death penalty would send a positive signal for
relations between Belarus and the EU and improve the international image of
Belarus.

The existence of the death penalty has contributed to the pariah image of
Belarus - it lost its guest status at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe (PACE) after the 1996 referendum, when more than 80 % of the
population voted in favour of maintaining capital punishment.

Currently, Belarus remains the only European state in which the authorities
continue to execute criminals convicted of serious offences.

The EU's recent lifting of sanctions has created a window of opportunity for
the improvement of relations with the EU in all spheres. The introduction of a
moratorium on the death penalty appears to be an easy yet important symbolic
step for sealing rapprochement with the EU and demonstrating Belarusian good
will. Yet while public opinion shifts more towards accepting the moratorium,
the government appears to be treating the death penalty issue as a bargaining
chip.

Dark secrets of death row

Currently, 14 articles of the Belarusian Criminal Code foresee capital
punishment as one of the available penalty options. These include war crimes,
genocide, international terrorism, use of weapons of mass destruction and
various categories of serious crimes, including murder. The Belarusian Interior
Ministry has also pointed out that those Belarusians who signed up as
mercenaries in Ukraine could be accused of committing crimes against the
humanity and potentially face the death penalty.

According to the Ministry of Justice, Belarusian courts have handed down death
sentences to over 300 people since 1990. Yet the transparency and availability
of information leave a lot to be desired.

For instance, official statistical information on the website of the Interior
Ministry is not up-to-date, reflecting only the numbers of death penalties
carried out between 1998 and 2010. According to officially released
information, over the last decade the average number of executions ranged from
between 2 to 9 people per year.

The government keeps all procedures secret and neither society nor the families
of the convicted know what has happened to them after they hear their verdict.
One of the few sources of information available to the public is the book The
Death Squad by the former chief of the Minsk detention centre Aleh Alkaeu, who
used to be in charge of executions.

The most infamous case in recent years featured Uladzislau Kavaliou and Dzmitry
Kanavalau, found guilty of organising explosions in the Minsk subway on 11
April 2011. Both were promptly tried and convicted before the year was out.
Resonance of the case and the haste with which the trail was organised resulted
in the 1st serious instance of public debate on capital punishment, exacerbated
by growing distrust of the judicial system.

Lukashenka and public opinion: pros and cons

With regard to the issue of the death penalty, President Alexander Lukashenka
persistently refers to the results of the notorious 1996 November referendum,
when 80 % of voters refused to abolish the death penalty. Therefore, the
president has typically maintained that as "a servant of the people, who knows
the popular mood" he has no power to force society to accept a moratorium.

Yet his recent statements on the death penalty indicate some potential for a
change of heart. On 9 March 2016, the president noted that Belarus has
developed "its own interpretation of humanitarian issues, including on the
question of human rights." He tied progress in the sphere of human rights to
the economic situation, hinting that changes in public opinion depended on the
material well-being of the people. In other words, the death penalty would be
abolished if the EU provided an economic incentive.

According to a 2013 survey carried out by Penal Reform International, 37 % of
Belarusians did not know that Belarus still employed the death penalty.
Belarusian civil society actors, including the Helsinki Committee and the human
rights organisation Viasna with the support of the EU institutions, engage in
information campaigns to raise public awareness on the issue.

Gradually, these efforts are creating a potential shift in public opinion. The
president's reminders that 80 % of the population is in favour of the death
penalty sound less and less credible. According to a sociological survey
conducted by the consulting company SATIO in cooperation with Penal Reform
International and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee in 2014, the number of
death penalty opponents for the 1st time exceeded those supporting it, with
43.3 % against versus 41.9 % in favour.

Opponents are convinced that the death penalty is not an effective means of
punishment. According to IISEPS opinion polls, these people are more social
responsible, are tolerant towards minorities and tend to oppose the current
political regime. On the contrary, supporters of the death penalty are more
likely to trust the police and state authorities.

Capitalizing on the death penalty moratorium?

On 5 January 2016, the Minsk Regional Court handed down the 1st death sentence
of the new year. Genadz' Jakavitski from Vileika was tried and convicted for
the cruel murder of his girlfriend. On 15 February another verdict of a certain
"Kh." followed.

The EU promptly expressed its concerns, urging the Belarusian authorities to
introduce a moratorium on the death penalty and to encourage public debate on
the issue. Since the EU lifted its sanctions against Belarus in February 2016,
governing circles have started to show some willingness to co-operate with
their EU counterparts.

On 10 March 2016, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry together with the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) hosted an international conference titled
The Death Penalty: Transcending the Divide. Despite acknowledging the need to
launch a broad dialogue about capital punishment, Belarusian organizers
requested that journalists be removed from the conference venue following the
official opening ceremony. The unregistered human rights organisation Viasna,
known for its active position on the issue of the death penalty, was not
invited to participate.

These circumstances throw a shadow of doubt over the government's commitment to
a genuine dialogue. The authorities remain reluctant to address a moratorium on
capital punishment. It is also likely that the president is unwilling to
relinquish the absolute symbolic power he holds over the lives and deaths of
Belarusian citizens.

However, the main issue appears to be in the practical realm of politics.
Recent statements by Lukashenka specifically point to the connection between
human rights issues and the economic well-being of the population. For now, the
Belarusian regime is attempting to raise the stakes in what it perceives to be
a trade process with the EU. It hopes to sell the death penalty moratorium for
the highest possible price.

(source: eurobelarus.info)




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[Rick Halperin]

April 3




IRAN:

Another Juvenile Offender in Sanandaj Prison Sentenced to Death


With issuing of another death sentence for a juvenile offender in Sanandaj
Prison, the number of prisoners who are sentenced to death for an offence they
have committed while being a juvenile, has rose to 5.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a
juvenile offender (K.N) imprisoned at Sanandaj Prison, who at the time of crime
was 17 years and 9 months old, was sentenced to death by retaliation in kind
(Qisas) for murder.

1 of K.N's relatives has told HRANA's reporter: "He was born in May 1997. In a
group brawl, he has killed a person he didn't know at all. He was only 17 years
and 9 months old when he committed the crime."

He added: "A public lawyer was assigned for him, and was not even sent to
forensics to be tested for cognitive and psychosocial developments. In October
2015, after the 1st trial presided by judge Hamed Soltan-Bakhsh at branch
number 1 of the criminal court of Sanandaj, he has been sentenced to Qisas
(retaliation in kind), however this sentence was disclosed to him with a delay
just recently."

It is worth mentioning that there are currently 4 more juvenile offenders
imprisoned in Sanandaj Prison, who have been arrested and sentenced to death.
All of these 4 juvenile prisoners have been charged with murder. Below is the
previously gathered reports of HRANA on the identity and age at the time of
murder or arrest of these prisoners:

Yousef Mohammadi, born in 1995, age at the time of arrest: 14, sentenced to
death

Himan Orami-Nejhad, born in 1997, age at the time of arrest: 17 years and 9
months, year in which the crime was committed: 2011, sentenced to death

Siavash Mahmoudi, born in 1995, age at the time of arrest: 17, sentence to
death, Note: he has claimed that the murder was the result of a self-defense
against sexual assault.

Amanj Hosseini (Oveisi), age at the time of arrest: 17, sentenced to death

It should be noted, offenders under 18 are considered as juveniles according to
human right treaties, and the legal punishment of a juvenile in Iran including
death penalty for crimes such as brawl, murder, drug trafficking etc., has
always been a major challenge and violation of human rights In Iran.

Iran???s action is in contrast with its obligation to the international
covenant on civil and political rights and the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child. Iran along with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Sudan are the
only countries that still continue to execute minors. In recent years Iran's
judicial system detains the juvenile offenders that are sentenced to death at
correctional centers and executes them only after they reach the age of 18.

In 2013, after the reforms to the Islamic penal code, the death penalty for
juvenile offenders is subjected to the offender's ability to understand and
realize the nature of the committed crime. However recently Fatemeh Salbehi who
had been sentenced to death for committing murder under the age of 18, was
reconvicted for murder after the retrial on the grounds that at the time of the
murder she has been aware of the nature of the crime, and her sentence was
executed. The execution of Fatemeh Salbehi has once again raised the concerns
regarding the execution of juvenile offenders in Iran.

(source: HRA News Agency)






AUSTRALIA:

Ben Quilty says he would rather live on Indonesian execution island than with
kowtowing politicians


Ben Quilty will leave Australia if politicians do not campaign for the
abolition of the death penalty in countries like China and the United States.

The Archibald Prize-winning artist and Art Gallery of NSW trustee said, with a
dose of black humour, he would rather live on Indonesia's execution island than
witness Australian politicians kowtow to countries that kill their citizens.

"Next year is the 50th anniversary of the last person executed in Australia and
if some politicians don't get up and use a soap box to proclaim that to the
world, I'm leaving," he said.

Ronald Ryan was hanged in Melbourne in February 1967 for the murder of a prison
officer during an escape from Pentridge prison in 1965.

Asked where he would settle, Quilty said: "I don't care. I'd rather live on
Nusa Kambangan than have no politicians stand up for the great parts of what
we've achieved."

"We haven't executed anyone for 50 years. We have things to be proud of but
politicians like to kowtow to countries that still execute people, namely China
and America and no one f***ing says anything."

Quilty was speaking at last month's Art Basel Hong Kong art fair where his
large-scale autobiographical painting, After Afghanistan, Over the Hills and
Far Away, priced at $130,000, was sold by Melbourne's Tolarno Galleries to an
undisclosed buyer.

Quilty said the painting started as a self-portrait "and I guess in a way it
maps out the last few years of me being alive".

In particular, the painting focuses on Quilty's experiences in Afghanistan,
which he visited in 2011 as an official war artist, and his involvement in the
ultimately unsuccessful campaign to save Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from
an Indonesian firing squad.

"I'm intrigued and attracted and repulsed at the same time by those
experiences," he says. "This work references directly the response of young men
I met in Afghanistan to the way Afghanistan has slipped backwards since they
pulled out."

Quilty refuses to shy away from controversial topics, with his next show at
Tolarno in June featuring paintings and a video work of a young Hazara refugee
and life vests that he found on a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos.

After Afghanistan comprises 4 canvas panels and features an anguished face
coloured in shades of green and purple floating above the headless figure of a
naked reclining woman.

Quilty also painted an Afghani kolba or household dwelling under stormy skies.

"This domestic symbol prompted him to consider the implications of the
Taliban's return to power after the withdrawal of the Australian Defence
Forces," the catalogue states. "Their resumption of control over Afghan society
has pushed women back into their previous subservient role."

Pearl Lam Galleries, meanwhile, displayed Quilty's Rorschach work of Nusa
Kambangan - the Indonesian island where the 2 convicted Australian drug
smugglers were executed in 2015.

"It's probably not a work I would have shown in Australia because I'm not ready
really to go into too much conversation about that yet," Quilty says.

A regular in Hong Kong, Quilty says Art Basel and the constellation of other
art fairs are obvious places for Australian artists to exhibit.

"It's just allowed us artists to be seen for how good we are and I think we mix
it perfectly well," he says.

(source: Canberra Times)






EGYPT:

Egyptian military court postpones verdict for 28 accused Morsi supporters for
2nd time----8 of the defendants have received preliminary death sentences on
violence related charges


An Egyptian military court postponed on Wednesday to April 24 its issuing of a
verdict in the trial of 28 alleged supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi
accused of planning attacks on military and police personnel.

In February, the court sentenced eight of the 28 defendants to death. The court
did not issue sentences for the remaining 20 defendants.

The court referred its initial death penalty verdicts to the Grand Mufti of
Egypt - the country's leading authority on religious edicts - for a non-binding
consultation per Egyptian law.

In March, the court postponed issuing a verdict in the case till 3 April
without stating reasons.

On Sunday, the court was set to confirm or reverse the death sentences and rule
on 1st-degree sentences for the 20 remaining defendants. However, the judges
have not disclosed the reason behind the postponement.

The awaited verdicts will be subject to appeal in the military cassation court.

(source: ahramonline.com)






TAIWAN:

Random Killing Aftermath: Poll shows 80 percent back harsher sentences


A large majority of the public favors harsher sentences for people convicted of
killing children under the age of 12, according to a poll, which showed strong
support for the death penalty following the decapitation of a four-year-old
girl on Monday.

A survey conducted by Television Broadcasts Satellite's (TVBS) poll center
found that 81 percent of respondents supported mandatory death or life in
prison sentences for murder of a child under 12 years old.

Lawmakers have proposed making the sentences mandatory following the
decapitation of the girl, surnamed Liu, nicknamed "Little Lightbulb", in
Taipei's Neihu District.

Broad support for the proposed changes cut across party lines and age groups,
with 64 % of those surveyed "extremely supportive."

The TVBS poll found that 84 % of respondents supported maintaining the death
penalty, up 2 % points from a similar survey conducted in June last year.
Support for abolishing the death penalty fell 3 % points from the previous
poll.

When asked whether life in prison without parole could serve as an alternative
to the death penalty, only 27 % agreed, the poll showed.

There was a slight decline in the percentage of those who said that the death
penalty acts as a deterrent for crime, with 79 % agreeing compared with 85 %
last year.

The cable network operator's telephone poll was conducted on Wednesday and
Thursday, with 847 valid samples and a margin of error of 3.4 % points.

In related news, the girl's mother - identified as Claire Wang - said on
Facebook yesterday that while she "does not support" the death penalty, she
also "does not agree" with its abolition.

"Often many thoughts and ideas are like religion and politics - rooted in the
heart. Those who believe will always believe and those who do not never will -
I only believe in what I've always believed in," she said. "I still believe
that love is the heart's 1st intention, that society is beautiful and that
human nature at its root is good."

She asked that people who read her Facebook comments to "forgive" her for
failing to respond or clarify every comment, adding that she was not "mighty"
or "extraordinary" and lacked strength, caring only that her family and friends
understood her.

(source: Taipei Times)






INDIA:

NO MERCY SHOWN TO JYOTIKUMARI RAPISTS


The curtain has been drawn on an effort by the rapists of Jyotikumari Choudhary
to survive the death sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court. Maharashtra
Governor, Ch Vidyasagar Rao has turned down their mercy petition last week, it
is reliably learnt.

The duo, Purushottam Borate and Pradeep Kokade, it may be recalled, had filed a
mercy petition in mid-2015, inspired by the multiple mercy petitions filed and
debated upon preceding the hanging of Yakub Memon, convicted for his role in
the 1993 Mumbai bombings. A senior officer of the Maharashtra state government
told Mirror, "The Governor rejected it because the state had opposed the mercy
sought and their crime was heinous."

Borate and Kokade were first given the death penalty by the Pune sessions court
in March 2012, convicted under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 346
(kidnapping), 376 (rape) and 302 (murder), among others, of the Indian Penal
Code (IPC). "There was no ground for the mercy plea to be accepted, given the
brutality deployed in the case. We are yet to get an official confirmation on
this, but I am happy with the decision," said special government pleader,
Ujjwal Nikam, who wrested the conviction from the Pune sessions court.

The death sentence was contested both at the Bombay High Court as well as the
Supreme Court and both held it up on in September 2012 and April 2015,
respectively. Subsequently, the two had resigned themselves to the capital
punishment and had also given in writing that they will not pursue a review
petition. But the drama that unfolded preceding Yakub Memon's hanging revived
their hopes and they sought legal aid from the Pune District and Sessions Court
Authority (PDLSA) in the 2nd week of July. This brought the duty counsel with
the legal aid cell of Yerwada Central Jail, Atish Landge, into the picture.

"Both Borate and Kokade have filed a mercy petition. If it has been rejected,
we will approach President, Pranab Mukherjee to accept the plea. The 2 have
already admitted to their guilt in the petition. They come from a highly
financially deprived milieu and cannot afford lawyers. Our legal aid cell at
Yerwada jail is trying to get their capital punishment commuted," Landge
explained.

Jyotikumari's rape and murder shook the IT industry in Pune, which employs a
substantial number of women. On November 1, 2007, it was Jyotikumari's last day
at work at Wipro's BPO. She used to stay in the city with her relatives and
that night, taking her drop back home, she did not realise when cabby Borate
picked up his friend, Kokade, and veered away from the regular route. She was
raped, strangled, her skull smashed with boulders, before the 2 returned to
pick up of other employees of the same BPO, betraying no reaction about their
deed.

Jyotikumari's brother-in-law Gaur Sunder, who is following up on the case,
noted, "Last month, the Talegaon-Dabhade police station received the letter
from the home department, seeking details and files about the case. The news of
their plea being denied comes as a relief to the family. We are keen to see the
2 executed to find justice being done."

(source: punemirror.in)

*****

Citing young age, HC spares youth noose


Deepu was hardly 20 when he murdered his aunt and her 2 children, and he was
barely 22 when an Ooty court sentenced him to death.

Now, he has escaped the noose after a division bench of the Madras high court
weighed 'mitigating factors' such as his young age and his unsuccessful bid to
commit suicide after the murders in 2012. The bench of Justice M Jaichandren
and Justice S Nagamuthu then commuted the death penalty into one of
imprisonment for life, but made it clear that Deepu would not be eligible for
any remission benefits for 20 years.

After his SSLC, Deepu had remained idle at home. Once he tried to misbehave
with his aunt Radhamani, whose husband and Deepu's father are brothers. The
misdemeanour was brought to the notice of his father who reprimanded Deepu.
Since then he had been nursing a grudge against his aunt's family. On January
10, 2012, he barged into Radhamani's home and stabbed her and her children
Ramya and Vishnu to death. He then attempted to take his own life but failed.

. On December 16, 2014, a fast track mahila court in the Nilgiris found Deepu
guilty of triple murder, and sentenced him to death. The high court, however,
concluded that it was not a rarest of rare case due to several mitigating
circumstances in favour of the 'adolescent offender.'

The abolition of death penalty is not welcome one as most of the criminals
after their jail term came out of prison and restart their criminal activities
without fear.Sathasivan Nagarajan.

"The conviction is based on circumstantial evidence. At the time of occurrence,
the accused was hardly aged 20 years and he was an adolescent offender. He had
no bad antecedents. After having committed the crime, killing three people out
of depression, the accused himself attempted to commit suicide. Now there are a
lot of chances for his reformation," said the division bench. The trial court
had gone only by aggravating circumstances, in particular the brutality of the
crime."

Citing the Supreme Court's observation that generally life sentences should be
the rule, and death sentence should be an exception, the judges said several
sections of society too had been demanding abolition of the death penalty. The
Law Commission had gone to the extent of recommending to the government that
the death penalty be abolished, except in certain 'rarest of rare'
circumstances such as cases involving security of the nation. Over a period of
36 years, dealing with the 'rarest of rare' doctrine, the Supreme Court has
been endeavouring to impress upon the judiciary as to what exactly are 'rarest
of rare' cases.

(source: The Times of India)


BANGLADLESH:

Bangladesh Islamist party chief's plea against death term deferred----The
72-year-old sought review of Supreme Court verdict that confirmed his death
penalty for 1971 war crimes


The appellate court here has deferred the hearing on a petition of Motiur
Rahman Nizami, chief of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, to review the
Supreme Court verdict upholding his death sentence.

After Nizami's counsel pleaded for more time on Sunday, the Appellate Division
bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha deferred the hearing by a week.

"We pleaded for 6 weeks, the court gave us 1 week. The matter will be heard
after that." Nizami's lawyer S.M. Shahjahan told bdnews24.com after the
hearing.

Nizami, 72-year-old president of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, filed
the petition on March 29 for review of the Supreme Court verdict that confirmed
his death penalty for 1971 war crimes.

In January, the apex court rejected Nizami's appeal to overturn the
International Crimes Tribunal's 2014 verdict.

As the head of the Jamaat's student wing, Islami Chhatra Sangha, in 1971,
Nizami commanded the Al Badr, a militia known for its ruthless mass murders,
rape, looting and the killing of Bengali intellectuals in support of Pakistan's
campaign to suppress the Bengali freedom struggle.

Review is the last legal recourse for a death-row convict after all other
judicial options have been exhausted.

On March 16, the death warrant issued by the tribunal was read out to Nizami
after the Supreme Court published the full copy of its verdict.

Nizami's case is the 6th of the war crimes cases so far to reach the stage of a
review petition after the publication of the full verdict.

(source: Gulf News)

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

Supreme Court defers hearing Nizami's review petition


The hearing of a petition filed by war crimes convict Motiur Rahman Nizami to
review the verdict upholding his death sentence has been deferred.

The matter was included in the Supreme Court's cause list for Sunday.

But after Nizami's counsels pleaded for more time on Sunday, the Appellate
Division bench, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, deferred the hearing
by a week.

"Not this week," said the court.

"We pleaded for 6 weeks; the court gave us 1 week. The matter will be heard
after that," Nizami's lawyer SM Shahjahan told bdnews24.com after the hearing.

On Mar 29, the Jamaat-e-Islami chief filed the petition seeking review of the
Supreme Court verdict, which confirmed his death penalty for 1971 war crimes.

The next day, the State moved the Supreme Court's chamber judge to expedite the
hearing, when it forwarded the matter to a regular appeals bench and fixed
Sunday for the hearing.

In January this year, the top court rejected Nizami's appeal to overturn the
International Crimes Tribunal's 2014 verdict.

As the head of the Jamaat's student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha ( in 1971),
Nizami commanded the Al-Badr, a militia known for its ruthless mass murders,
rape, loot and the killing of Bengali intellectuals in support of Pakistan's
campaign to suppress the Bengali freedom struggle.

Review is the last legal recourse for a death-row convict after all other
judicial options have been exhausted.

The option to seek presidential mercy provides the only remaining hope ahead of
execution in case the review is rejected.

On Mar 16, the death warrant issued by the tribunal was read out to Nizami
after the Supreme Court published the full copy of his verdict.

Nizami's case is the 6th of the war crimes cases so far to reach the stage of a
review petition after the publication of the full verdict.

The 72-year-old is the 3rd former minister facing the gallows for war crimes.

Nizami, industries minister during the BNP-led coalition government from
2001-06, was also handed the death penalty in 2014 for involvement in arms
trafficking in Chittagong's sensational 10-truck arms haul case.

(saource: bdnews24.com)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 4



BANGLADESH:

Nizami's hearing not this week


Condemned war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami's petition seeking review of his
death penalty has been lined up for hearing at the Appellate Division next week
following a time petition by the defence.

A 3-member bench of the Appellate Division led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar
Sinha set the new date yesterday morning.

Defence lawyer SM Shahjahan said they had sought six-week time for the hearing
due to some personal difficulties of Nizami's principal lawyer Khandaker Mahbub
Hossain.

But the apex court said it would hold the hearing next week, Shahjahan said.

However, the court did not fix any specific day for the hearing.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami filed the petition on March 29 seeking acquittal
from all the proven charges.

The death penalty of Nizami was upheld by the apex court on January 6 on
charges of masterminding the killing of intellectuals and for his involvement
in two incidents of mass murders of over 500 people in Pabna in 1971.

(source: dhakatribune.com)






SINGAPORE:

Malaysian convicted of murder in Singapore to know his fate Tuesday


The family of Kho Jabing are anxiously waiting to see if the Singapore Court of
Appeal will decide if he will be executed or have his sentence commuted for a
murder he committed 8 years ago.

His mother Lenduk Baling and his sister Jumai Kho arrived in Singapore on
Sunday from Sarawak for the judgement, which is likely to be delivered on
Tuesday.

"We are very anxious. We can only hope for the best," Jumai told The Star
Online in a phone interview on Monday.

Kho Jabing, 31, who is from Ulu Baram, Sarawak faces the gallows for killing a
Chinese construction worker with a tree branch back in 2008 during a robbery
attempt.

He was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6 last year, but received a stay after
his lawyer filed a motion raising points of law about the way the case was
handled.

Jumai said she and her mother had met Jabing earlier on Monday, who also hoped
for his death sentence to be commuted.

Jabing was sentenced to death in 2010, but following revisions to Singapore's
mandatory death penalty laws in August 2013, Singpore's high court sentenced
him to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane instead.

The prosecution challenged the decision before the court of appeal, which
reinstated Jabing death sentence in a 3-2 majority decision earlier last year.

On Oct 19, Singapore president Tony Tan rejected a clemency petition before a
stay of execution by the court of appeal.

In 2013, the Singapore government abolished the mandatory death penalty and
gave judges discretion to choose between a death sentence or life imprisonment
with caning in murder and certain drug trafficking cases.

(source: The Star)






VIETNAM:

14 face charges in Vietnam for trafficking 280 kg of heroin to China


Vietnamese police are urging charges be filed against 14 people for allegedly
trafficking 280 kg of heroin to China on 22 different occasions, earning more
than VND10 billion (US$450,000).

Investigators from the Ministry of Public Security submitted a report to the
prosecutor's office Sunday, naming the suspects led by Chu Van Vien, 33.

The ring members, aged between 25 and 40, carried the drugs from Son La
Province on the Laos border.

Police caught 2 members of the gang in Hanoi and the neighboring Hoa Binh
Province in December 2014 with around 15 kg of heroin.

They told the police they were carrying the drugs for a Chinese woman and Chu
Dinh Tuyen, Vien's brother who acted as his assistant after quitting his job as
a vendor selling agriculture produce across the border.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. The production or sale of
100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is punishable by
death. Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin
or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine also face the death penalty.

(source: Thanh Nien News)






INDIA:

Need political rights, Indira Jaisingh at JNU


The right to hold a political opinion different from that of a ruling party is
"more endangered" than the right to free speech, said lawyer Indira Jaisingh.
She was addressing students in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), during their
'Azadi' lecture series, on Saturday.

The 1st woman Additional Solicitor General of India gave a lecture on the topic
'What does fidelity to the Constitution mean'.

After the nationalism classes in the university, the JNU Students' Union is
organising 'Azadi' lecture series where noted lawyers, academicians and
activists have been addressing students on a range of topics.

"While I believe that the right to free speech is endangered in today's
context, I feel that the right to hold a political opinion which is different
from that of the ruling party is even more endangered. I reject the
interpretation of the Constitution placed by BJP in its (National Executive
Meeting) resolution. My fidelity to the Constitution does not include the
vision that BJP has of the Constitution of India," Ms. Jaisingh said.

"I have seen 2 moments in the history of this country which are kind mirror or
are parallel to each other. One was the Emergency which was declared on June
26, 1976...Which was both an erosion of the form and substance of the
Constitution because it was done in the name of internal disturbance. And
today, we are seeing a parallel moment where we see the subversion of the form
and content of the Constitution and the abandonment of accountability in the
name of nationalism and anti-nationalism," she said.

Addressing the students at the administration block, which has been the venue
of protests ever since JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested in a
sedition case over an event marking the death anniversary of Parliament attack
convict Afzal Guru, Ms. Jaisingh said that it is time for the citizens to focus
on "political rights".

"This Constitution has been amended more than a 100 times since it was granted
and there was nothing subversive in demanding that the Indian Constitution be
changed to guarantee some of these rights, to include some political rights
and, for example, abolish death penalty completely as being against Article 21.
For 67 years, we've been talking about our social and economic rights. I think
it's time for us to now start focusing on our political rights," she added.

While I believe that the right to free speech is endangered in today's context,
I feel that the right to hold a political opinion which is different from that
of the ruling party is even more endangered I think it's time for us to now
start focusing on our political rights.

Indira Jaisingh, Lawyer

(source: Letter, The Hindu)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 4



INDIA:

Nirbhaya case: SC begins hearing on death convicts' plea


Almost 2 years after staying execution of death sentence of 4 convicts in the
December, 2012 Nirbhaya rape and murder case, the Supreme Court on Monday began
final hearing on their appeal challenging their conviction and sentence in the
case.

The convicts -- Vinay Sharma (23), Akshay Thakur (31), Mukesh (29) and Pawan
Gupta (22) -- were awarded the death sentence by a trial court in September
2013 and 6 moths later, the Delhi high court upheld their conviction and
sentence. All the convicts approached the Supreme Court in 2014, which stayed
their execution. A bench of Justices Dipak Misra, V Gopala Gowda and Kurian
Joseph said it would examine all evidences in the case to dispel allegations
made by the convicts that they were not given enough opportunity to defend
themselves in the lower court and HC.

"Our approach would be to hear the case as original trial. We would go through
all evidences in the case and analyse them. We would appreciate evidences as
trial court so that there remains no grievances," the bench said.

The bench said the testimony of Nirbhaya's male friend, who was with her on
that fateful night, was the most crucial evidence in the case. It asked the
counsel for the convicts to first argue on the testimony of her friend who was
the sole eyewitness in the case.

Advocate M L Sharma, appearing for Mukesh and Pawan, told the bench that the
order passed by the trial court and Delhi HC in the case was wrong and the
extreme punishment was meted out to them under media and political pressure. He
contended that the judgement be set aside as there was no "substance or
material piece of evidence" and there were contradictions in the depositions of
the victim and her friend about the offence and the offenders.

Disputing the veracity of the dying declaration of the victim, he contended
that she was not fit enough to record her statement and hence, the statement
made through gestures cannot be relied upon. The hearing remained inconclusive
and would resume on April 8.

The Delhi High Court had on March 13, 2014 upheld their conviction and award of
death penalty by terming the offence as "extremely fiendish" and "unparallelled
in the history of criminal jurisprudence" and had said the "exemplary
punishment" was the need of the hour.

The 23-year-old paramedic was brutally assaulted and gangraped by 6 people in a
moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012 and thrown out of the vehicle
with her male friend. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.

Prime accused in the case, Ram Singh, was found dead in Tihar Jail and the
trial against him was abated. The 6th accused, a juvenile, was sentenced to a
maximum of 3 years in a reformation home by the juvenile justice board on
August 31, 2013.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Is It Time To Do Away With Death Penalty In India?

In 1967, the Law Commission of India had reported: "Having regard, however, to
the conditions in India, to the variety of social upbringing of its
inhabitants, to the disparity in the level of morality and education in the
country, to the vastness of its area, to the diversity of its population and to
the paramount need for maintaining law and order in the country at the present
juncture, India cannot risk the experiment of abolition of capital punishment."
However, due to the recent support in favour of abolishing this punishment from
the Indian legal system and the trend being observed in most of the countries
around the world, the Law Commission of India in 2013 decided to review the
issue once again.

This issue, however, is not a new one. One of the most controversial and
heatedly debated topics during the Constituent Assembly debates was whether or
not the death penalty should be retained in the constitution of Independent
India?

One of the main voices for abolishing the death penalty was the man who is
often referred to as the architect of the Constitution - DR. B. R. Ambedkar.
Ambedkar pointed out the inherent violence that is attached to a punishment
like the death penalty and stated that "people may not follow non-violence in
practice but they certainly adhere to the principle of non-violence as a moral
mandate and thus the state ought to observe it as far as it possibly can,"
implying that a state must practice non-violence if it wants its citizens to
condone violence.

However, Ambedkar's views and suggestions were ignored by the Assembly and the
death penalty was retained as a legal form of punishment in the penal code.

Although the death penalty was retained in the legal system it has not been a
common form of punishment. In Mithu vs. State of Punjab (1983) the Supreme
Court observed that "in the whole of IPC there is only 1 section (Section 303)
where death is described as the only punishment for murder by person under a
sentence for imprisonment for life; and even this lone section has been struck
down by the supreme court as it was found violative of the constitutional
provisions."

There are other sections which describe offences for which the death penalty
exists as an alternative along with other punishments. Under the Indian Penal
Code, crimes that are punishable with a death sentence include treason,
abetment of mutiny, perjury resulting in the conviction and death of an
innocent person, murder, kidnapping for ransom and dacoity with murder.
Following the Nirbhaya case, Parliament changed the law to make a 2nd charge of
rape punishable with the death penalty.

The legal policy framers ensured that the death penalty was not awarded in a
frivolous manner. Section 354 (3) makes it mandatory for the judges to state
the reason for choosing to give this particular punishment when alternatives
are available. In Ambaram vs. State of MP, it was clarified that only a special
reason, i.e., special facts or circumstances present will warrant the passing
of a death sentence. This was also reflected in Dhananjoy Chatterjee vs. State
of West Bengal (1994) in which the courts observed that "the measure of
punishment in a given case must depend on the atrocity of the crime, the
conduct of the criminal and the defenceless and unprotected state of the
victim," thus, ensuring that the courts look at a number of factors before
deciding to award this punishment.

Apart from all these legal provisions stated in the various codes governing
criminal law, even the Supreme Court has tried to further limit the number of
cases in which the death penalty is given by coming up with the 'rarest of the
rare cases' doctrine. Cases like Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab (1980) make
it very clear that even though the death penalty stated is an alternative
option for punishment, in many cases, the only situation in which it can be
awarded is when it fits into the criteria set by the 'rarest of the rare'
doctrine. The mere fact that the court finds the person guilty of committing a
particular crime cannot be a reason to justify the sentencing of capital
punishment.

All this was done keeping in mind the gravity and irrevocable nature of this
sentence and to ensure that it is given only in cases in which such extreme and
grave loss is suffered that it can justify a punishment this harsh.

Apart from all these there is also an option with the person being sentenced to
death to file for a petition of mercy. Thus any person who believes that his or
her crime wasn't as grave as to attract the maximum punishment can appeal to
the Supreme Court (after the death penalty has been confirmed by the High
Court) and if the petition is rejected by the Supreme Court of India, a plea
for clemency can be sent to the President as well. Section 363 (4) of the
Criminal Procedure Code, protects this right to appeal by making it mandatory
for the court to formally inform the accused about his right to appeal against
the sentence and the time period within which such an appeal can be made. This
ensures that a decision as grave as deciding whether or not the State should
take away a person's life is not decided just be one court but can be reviewed
by other authorities as well.

According to government statistics, only 54 persons have been executed since
Independence. An average of 132 death sentences were handed down each year from
2001 to 2011 by trial courts across the country, according to a National Crime
Records Bureau report. The Supreme Court during the same period, however,
confirmed only 3 to 4 death sentences each year. These numbers reflect the
reluctance of Supreme Court in imposing capital punishment.

Even though the Indian criminal justice system tries to ensure that the death
penalty is not awarded unreasonably or without a proper justification, many
legal experts claim that mistakes while awarding this sentence are not
uncommon. This claim became more popular when in 2012 14 eminent judges
(retired) who had served in various high courts and the Supreme Court wrote a
letter to the President stating that since 1996 nearly 15 erroneous death
sentences had been awarded, out of which 2 had already been carried out.

Another very common response to the pro-death sentence argument - that it
serves as a deterrent against people committing similar crimes - is that the
certainty of punishment and not the severity deters crimes in society. This
argument was furthered strengthened when in 2012 a study conducted in the
United States found that there is no credible evidence that the death penalty
has any deterrent effect on crime.

With the recent global trend towards abolishing the capital punishment gaining
more and more support each day, with the European Union having made "abolition
of death penalty" a prerequisite for membership, and the Amnesty International
recently reporting that 140 countries, more than 2/3 of the world, do not use
the death penalty any more.

In fact, today India has become one of the few countries in which death
sentences continue to be awarded after it expressly refused to sign the
moratorium on executions, prepared by the 65th United Nations General Assembly,
in favour of abolishing the death penalty.

However, the idea of prohibiting this 'maximum punishment' is becoming popular
within the country at a very significant pace. And the support for this is
coming from all quarters of society, including from the judiciary itself. The
recent observation by the Supreme Court, "perhaps the Law Commission of India
can resolve the issue by examining whether death penalty is a deterrent
punishment or is retributive justice or serves an incapitative goal," reflects
the conflict within the judicial systems also.

(source: youthkiawaaz.com)


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April 5



MALAYSIA:

Kevin Morais murder trial to commence tomorrow


The trial of 7 men, including a doctor, charged with murdering and abetting in
the murder of deputy public prosecutor Anthony Kevin Morais will begin
tomorrow.

Deputy public prosecutor Abdul Razak Musa when contacted said the High Court
had fixed 16 days for hearing, before justice Azman Abdullah.

The trial dates are as follows: April 6 until April 15; May 3 until May 6; June
6 until June 8; and June 27 until June 28. The prosecution would be calling 60
witnesses.

Counsel N Sivananthan who is representing the doctor and army pathologist,
Colonel Dr K Kunaseegaran said he was ready for the trial.

"As far as I am concerned my client has absolutely nothing to do with the death
of Kevin and he did not aid or abet it in any manner whatsoever," he said when
asked on his client's case.

Last Jan 27, the 6 men - G Gunasekaran, 43; R Dinishwaran, 23; A Thinesh Kumar,
22; M Vishwanath, 25; S Nimalan, 22; and S Ravichandaran, 34, had pleaded not
guilty when charged.

They allegedly committed the offence between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015,
between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1 Jalan USJ1/6D, Subang Jaya.

They face the mandatory death penalty if convicted under Section 302 of the
Penal Code, while Kunaseegaran, 52, had pleaded not guilty to abetting the 6
men in Kevin's murder at the same place, date and time.

He is charged under Section 109 of the Penal Code, read together with Section
302 of the same act.

Pleaded not guilty to alternative charges

On March 28, Nimalan and Thinesh Kumar pleaded not guilty to alternative
charges of helping to hide the body and causing Kevin Morais??? death.

Nimalan, a college student, allegedly helped in hiding the body and destroying
a vehicle with the intention of preventing six others from facing legal action.

The charge under Section 201 of the Penal Code provides for a maximum jail term
of 7 years and fine upon conviction.

Thinesh Kumar, an unemployed, allegedly with six other individuals caused
Kevin's death on the way between Jalan Dutamas 1 in Kuala Lumpur and No 20,
Desa Mentari, Petaling Jaya on Sept 4, 2015, between 7am and 11.30am.

He allegedly committed culpable homicide not amounting to murder, under Section
304(a) of the Penal Code, which carries a maximum imprisonment of 30 years and
a fine upon conviction.

By rejecting the alternative charges offered, both Nimalan and Thinesh Kumar
are still jointly charged under Section 302 of Penal Code.

Kevin Morais was reported missing on Sept 4 last year.

He was last seen leaving his apartment at Menara Duta in Kuala Lumpur in a
Proton Perdana car bearing registration number WA6264Q.

His remains were found in a cemented drum at Persiaran Subang Mewah, Subang
Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur on Sept 16 last year.

Gunasekaran, Vishwanath, Nimalan and Ravichandaran will be defended by counsel
V Rajehgopal while Dinishwaran and Thinesh Kumar, by M Manoharan.

(source: malaysiakini.com)






INDONESIA:

Death row Sarawakian to know fate today


A Sarawakian in death row will know his fate today when the Singapore Court of
Appeal decides on whether he will be executed or have his sentence reduced.

Kho Jabing, 31, from Ulu Baram was granted a stay of execution in November last
year after his lawyer filed a motion, raising doubts over the handling of the
case.

He was sentenced to death in 2010 for the murder of a Chinese construction
worker with a piece of wood in 2008 during a robbery attempt in Singapore.

However following revisions to Singapore's mandatory death penalty laws in
August 2013, a Singapore High Court sentenced him to life imprisonment and to
be given 24 strokes of the cane instead.

The prosecution subsequently appealed against the decision before the Court of
Appeal which reinstated Jabing's death sentence.

In October last year, Singapore president Tony Tan rejected a clemency petition
before a stay of execution by the Court of Appeal.

(source: theborneopost.com)






SINGAPORE:

Convicted murderer Jabing Kho to hang after failing in bid to commute death
sentence


Convicted murderer Jabing Kho's 11th-hour bid to quash his death sentence,
which he made last year less than 24 hours before he was due to be hanged, has
failed.

A 5-judge Court of Appeal - the same panel that gave a 3-2 split decision in
favour of sending him to the gallows last year - on Tuesday (April 5)
unanimously threw out the Malaysian's bid to escape the hangman's noose.

Kho's mother and sister, who were present in court, sobbed loudly upon hearing
the verdict.

In 2008, Kho, 31, who is from Sarawak, bludgeoned Chinese national Cao Ruyin,
40, with a tree branch while robbing him, together with an accomplice. Mr Cao
died of head injuries 6 days later.

Kho has gone through many twists and turns since he and his accomplice were
given the death penalty - then mandatory for murder - in 2010.

The accomplice, who used his belt buckle as a weapon, escaped the gallows after
successfully appealing for his charge to be reduced to robbery with hurt.

Kho's appeal failed. But he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment by the High
Court in 2013, after the law was changed to give judges the discretion to opt
for a life term for murder with no intention to cause death.

Convicted murderer Jabing Kho was granted a temporary stay of execution less
than 24 hours before he was set to be hanged.

But the prosecution appealed, arguing that Kho's vicious crime warranted the
death penalty.

In January last year, the 5-judge appeal court gave a 3-2 decision to send Kho
to the gallows. The case was landmark as it laid down the legal principle for
judges to apply when deciding when the death penalty was warranted in murder
cases where it is discretionary.

Kho's case attracted the attention of human rights groups, including local
outfit Second Chances.

He was due to go to the gallows on Nov 6 last year, after his appeal for
clemency was rejected by the President the month before.

Less than 24 hours before he was to be hanged, lawyer Chandra Mohan K. Nair got
a temporary stay of execution to prepare his case.

2 weeks later, Mr Mohan argued for the appeal court to set aside its own
decision. He said the court should reopen its decision as it had applied the
wrong sentencing principles. He also argued that in the re-sentencing stage,
Kho was denied the chance to testify as to the number of blows and the force
used when he attacked Mr Cao.

The prosecution argued that this was simply a disappointed litigant's attempt
to convince the court to revisit a point that had been thoroughly considered.
DPP Francis Ng said Kho had already testified during his original trial that he
hit the victim twice and did not know the force he used.

(source: Straits Times)






INDIA:

Nirbhaya hearing: 1 court, 2 Benches, 2 views


Various anti-death penalty movements across the country seem to be having its
effect on the Supreme Court.

In sharp contrast from the stance of the earlier Bench hearing the matter, a
3-judge Bench presided by Justice Dipak Misra yesterday said that it will
afford full opportunity to the convicts in the December 2012 Delhi gang rape to
present their case and would hear the matter "like a trial judge".

When the matter had come up before a Bench of Justices BS Chauhan and Jasti
Chelameswar in April 2014, Justice Chelameswar had remarked that the court
would not interfere with the judgment of the High court if the dying
declaration of the victim is found to be satisfactory.

"We won't re-conduct the trial", he had remarked.

Chelameswar on Delhi gang rape

The matter had subsequently been placed before a 3-judge Bench since, after
amendment to the Supreme Court rules mandate that "every case, appeal or other
proceedings arising out of a case in which death sentence has been confirmed or
awarded by the High Court shall be heard by a Bench consisting of not less than
3 Judges" (Rule 3 of Order VI).

After the order placing the matter before 3-judge Bench was passed on August
25, 2014, the case remained in cold storage for around 19 months before it was
finally listed yesterday.

When the hearing commenced at 2 pm, Justice Dipak Misra told advocate Manohar
Lal Sharma appearing for 2 of the accused that he can proceed "in his own way"
and that the court does not mind even if "some time is consumed" in hearing the
case.

"How a trial judge would appreciate the case, we would do so, so that there is
no grievance", said Justice Misra.

ML Sharma is now making his submissions and is arguing on various scientific
premises pertaining to autopsy and medical reports. The hearing will resume on
Friday this week.

The anti-death penalty jurisprudence is gaining ground amongst the legal
fraternity in India.

In January 2014, the Supreme Court had held that unexplained and inordinate
delay in deciding mercy plea of death row convicts will be a valid ground for
commutation of their death penalty to life imprisonment.

On September 2, 2014 the Supreme Court had ruled that review petitions relating
to death penalty should be heard in open court by a 3 judge Bench. Till then,
all review petitions including those relating to death penalty were disposed of
by circulation without any oral arguments. Interestingly, Justice Chelameswar
who was part of that Constitution Bench which gave that judgment had written
the sole dissenting verdict.

Later in August 2015, weeks after Yakub Memon's hanging, the Law Commission of
India had recommended the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes other
than terror offences and waging war. Yakub Memon's hanging had created big news
as the Supreme Court had opened its doors at 2.30 am to hear Memon's plea
before confirming his death sentence.

The Centre for Death Penalty, established at National Law University, Delhi in
August 2014, provides death row prisoners with effective legal representation.
The Centre too has been at the forefront in the fight for abolition of death
penalty in India.

(source: barandbench.com)

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

Mumbai triple blasts: Death sought for 1, lifers for 9 convicts


The prosecution on Tuesday sought death penalty for Muzammil Ansari, and lifers
for 9 others who were found guilty in the triple bomb blasts between December
2002-March 2003 by a Special POTA Court here.

Pronouncing the guilty verdict on the 10 prime accused, Special POTA Judge P.R.
Deshmukh on March 29 acquitted three others for lack of sufficient evidence.

Forcefully arguing on the quantum of sentencing for the 10 guilty, Special
Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian said: "Considering the role of the convict
Muzammil Ansari, he deserves nothing less than the death penalty... The other
convicts should also be given life."

The defence lawyers closed their arguments on the quantum of sentence on
Monday.

The prosecution said the accused, mostly members of the outlawed SIMI (Students
Islamic Movement of India), wanted to avenge the razing of the Babri mosque in
Ayodhya in 1992 and the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002.

The court convicted Saquib Nachan, a former general secretary of the outfit,
who was described by police as the "mastermind" of the triple blasts.

Besides Nachan, the 9 others found guilty are: Muzammil Ansari, Ateef Nasir
Mulla, Hasib Zubeir Mulla, Gulam Khotal, Mohammed Kamil, Farhan Khot, Noor M.
Malik, Dr. Wahid Ansari and Anwar Ali Khan.

Haroon Lohar, Nadeem Paloba and Adnan Mulla were acquitted by the court for
lack of sufficient evidence against them.

The blasts occurred near McDonald's eatery in Mumbai Central Terminus on
December 6, 2002, another in a Vile Parle market on January 27, 2003, and the
3rd in a crowded ladies 1st class compartment of a suburban train near Mulund
on March 13, 2003, killing 12 and injuring over 139 others.

The 3 cases -- though far between and in different parts of Mumbai -- were
clubbed together by the court as a common conspiracy linked them.

All the accused were charged with murder, attempt to murder, causing grievous
hurt, waging war against the nation, criminal conspiracy besides several
charges under the Indian Penal Code, Railways Act, Arms Act, Explosive
Substances Act and POTA -- some of which attract the maximum death penalty.

(source: Business Standard)

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April 5



INDONESIA:

2 charged with trafficking in dangerous drugs


A woman and a man were jointly charged in a magistrates' court here yesterday
for trafficking in dangerous drugs last month.

No plea was taken from the Cynthia Chin, 26, and Taing Haw Kwong, 47, who
appeared before Magistrate Zubaidah Sharkawi.

Zubaidah ordered both accused to be further remanded in jail as the offence is
non-bailable.

They face 2 charges under Section 39B (1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952,
which provides for a mandatory death penalty.

Under the 1st charge, the duo are accused of trafficking 5.784kg (gross weight)
of ecstasy, while under the 2nd charge they are accused of trafficking 1.028kg
of syabu.

The offences were allegedly committed at an apartment along Jalan Lapangan
Terbang here around noon on March 23.

Counsel Lim Lian Kee represented both accused.

(source: Borneo Post)






BELARUS:

see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/belarus-halt-execution-of-ivan-kulesh-ua-26615

(source: Amnesty International USA)






IRAN:

Over 1000 executions in Iran in 2015


Richard Ashworth, a Member of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom,
has reiterated that the Iranian regime's president Hassan Rouhani is not a
'moderate' as he claims to be.

Mr. Ashworth, who is a strong supporter of freedom and democracy in Iran,
pointed to over 1000 executions carried out in Iran in 2015 under Rouhani's
watch.

Text of remarks by Richard Ashworth MEP:

"We were very happy to host Mrs. Maryam Rajavi in the European Parliament last
week. She received great support from many members of the parliament, who came
from all of the different political groups. And we were all there to
demonstrate our support for her vision for a free and democratic Iran, an Iran
that is free from nuclear ambitions, an Iran which is free from the death
penalty and an Iran that can once again be a valued partner in a peaceful
world; not a threat.

We have to remind our governments that Iranian President Rouhani is not a
moderate. Over 1000 people were hanged last year in Iran which has made it the
number one executioner state in the world. And with a human rights record like
that, no state could ever claim to be moderate.

The recent elections in Iran were not real. How can they be when the opposition
candidates are not allowed to run? That's not an election, that's a selection
within the ruling power itself. And therefore we in the European Parliament
will continue our efforts and continue to support the democratic opposition
until the day we get a truly free democratic election being held in Iran. Thank
you."

Members of the European Parliament have spoken out in support of human rights
and democracy in Iran through support for the democratic opposition led by Mrs.
Maryam Rajavi.

(source: NCR-Iran)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Pressure Saudi Arabia to halt executions of protesters, Keith Ellison asks John
Kerry, as 2016 beheadings break records ---- Congressman voices concerns about
Saudi death sentences in letter, after monarchy has executed 82 people this
year


Rep. Keith Ellison is calling on the federal government to pressure its close
ally Saudi Arabia to pardon 3 young activists who were sentenced to death for
attending protests.

Rep. Ellison (D-Minnesota) wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on
April 1. In the letter, which was obtained by Salon, Ellison requested Kerry's
"direct intervention to ensure the protection of 3 juveniles sentenced to death
for protesting in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher were arrested for
attending peaceful political protests while they were aged 17, 17 and 15,
respectively.

The Saudi youths were subsequently tortured, and forced to sign confessions, a
common practice in the Saudi criminal justice system. Eventually, all 3 were
sentenced to death. Al-Nimr was sentenced to not just beheading, but also to
crucifixion.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, along with numerous
human rights organizations, has criticized the Saudi regime for the death
sentences. Saudi is also party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which bans the use of the death penalty for people who committed crimes when
younger than age 18.

News reports indicate that Saudi Arabia may execute the young men at any time.
Their families are not able to stay in contact with them, and only hear updates
on their cases through media reports.

"Many of the individuals sentenced to death alongside Ali, Dawood and Abdullah
have already been executed, including a number of juveniles aged between 13 and
17 at the time of their arrest," Rep. Ellison noted in his letter.

"This includes one of the boys" co-defendants, Mi al-Ribh, who was just 17 at
the time of his arrest," he continued. "His family was only notified of their
son's execution when the Saudi Ministry of the Interior published the mass
execution. To date, they have not been informed where their son is buried, nor
have they been permitted to retrieve his body."

A State Department official told Salon, "We can confirm that the State
Department received this letter and will provide an appropriate response," but
did not comment any further.

Ellison's office did not offer any further remarks, as the congressman is
traveling.

Saudi Arabia kicked off the new year with mass beheadings. On Jan. 2, the Saudi
regime executed 47 people, including prominent cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a
leader in the kingdom's minority Shia religious community.

Salon spoke with Mohammed al-Nimr, the son of the executed dissident, who
criticized the close U.S. relationship with the Saudi dictatorship.

Saudi Arabia frequently executes people for nonviolent offenses. Beheadings are
the most common form of execution.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia broke previous records, executing 158 people. Roughly
half of people executed in Saudi Arabia are killed for drug-related offenses,
according to Amnesty International.

From August 2014 to August 2015, Amnesty documented 175 Saudi executions, an

average of 2 every 2 days. Every 4 days, on average, the Saudi government
killed someone for drug-related offenses - while its own princes are caught in
airports with tons of drugs.

This year is again slated to break past records. As of April 4, the Saudi
regime has executed 82 people in 2016, according to human rights organization
Reprieve. If the current rate is maintained, Saudi Arabia will execute 320
prisoners this year.

(source: salon.com)


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April 6



GLOBAL:

The Use of the Death Penalty Is at Its Highest in 25 Years, a New Report Says


More people were executed worldwide in 2015 than at any point in the last 25
years, according to a new report by global human rights group Amnesty
International released on Wednesday.

At least 1,634 people were put to death across 25 different countries, a 54%
increase from the number of executions recorded the previous year. Even without
the figure for China (Beijing treats its executions as a state secret), Amnesty
said last year's total represented the highest it has recorded since 1989.

The report also showed that nearly 90% of all recorded use of the death penalty
was accounted for by just 3 countries - Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan, with
the latter reinstating capital punishment in December 2014 following a 7-year
moratorium. The 3 nations fall between China, which Amnesty estimates executes
thousands annually, and the U.S., which rounds out the top 5 with 28 people put
to death in 2015.

Amnesty added that the report includes only the executions they were able to
verify, with the actual number in countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Somalia, and Egypt likely higher than their respective confirmed totals of 977,
158, 26, 25, and 22.

At the same time, the report observed that most of the world is renouncing the
death penalty. Madagascar, Fiji, the Republic of Congo and Suriname abolished
the death penalty for all crimes last year, bringing the total number of
countries that have done so to 102. As of Dec. 31, 2015, Amnesty said, the
number of countries that have abolished the death penalty "in law or practice"
stood at 140.

"Thankfully, countries that execute belong to a small and increasingly isolated
minority," Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's Secretary General, said in a
statement. "The majority of states have turned their back on the death
penalty."

(source: TIME.com)

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

Death penalty 2015: Facts and figures


Global figures

At least 1,634 people were executed in 25 countries in 2015. This represents a
stark increase on the number of executions recorded I 2014 of more than 50%; in
2014 Amnesty International recorded 1,061 executions in 22 countries worldwide.

This is the highest number of executions recorded in more than 25 years (since
1989).

Most executions took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the USA -
in that order.

China remained the world's top executioner - but the true extent of the use of
the death penalty in China is unknown as this data is considered a state
secret; the figure of 1,634 excludes the thousands of executions believed to
have been carried out in China.

Excluding China, almost 90% of all executions took place in just three
countries - Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

During 2015, 25 countries, about 1 in 10 of all countries worldwide, are known
to have carried out executions - a rise from 22 in 2014. This number has
decreased significantly from 2 decades ago (39 countries carried out executions
in 1996).

140 countries worldwide, more than 2/3, are abolitionist in law or practice.

In 2015, 4 countries - Fiji, Madagascar, the Republic of Congo and Suriname -
abolished the death penalty for all crimes. In total, 102 countries have done
so - a majority of the world's states. In 2015, Mongolia also passed a new
criminal code abolishing the death penalty which will come into effect later in
2016.

Commutations or pardons of death sentences were recorded in 34 countries in
2015. At least 71 people who had been sentenced to death were exonerated in 6
countries in 2015: China (1), Egypt (1), Nigeria (41), Pakistan (at least 21),
Taiwan (1) and USA (6).

At least 1,998 death sentences were recorded in 61 countries in 2015, a decline
from 2014 (at least 2,466 death sentences in 55 countries).

At least 20,292 people were on death row at the end of 2015.

The following methods of execution were used across the world: beheading,
hanging, lethal injection and shooting.

Reports indicated that at least 9 people who were under 18 at the time of the
crime for which they were sentenced to death were executed in 2015 - 4 in Iran
and 5 in Pakistan.

In many countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, the
proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards. In some cases this
included the extraction of 'confessions' through torture or other
ill-treatment, including in Bahrain, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Saudi
Arabia.

People continued to be sentenced to death and executed for offences that do not
meet the "most serious crimes" threshold of "intentional killing" as set out in
international law and standards. These offences included drug-related crimes in
at least 12 countries in Asia and the Middle East, as well as committing
"adultery" (Maldives, Saudi Arabia), economic crimes (China, North Korea, Viet
Nam), "apostasy" (Saudi Arabia) and "insulting the prophet of Islam" (Iran).

Sub-Saharan Africa

At least 43 executions were carried out in 4 countries - compared to 46
executions in 3 countries in 2014.

Death sentences fell sharply from 909 in 2014 to 443 in 2015, mainly due to a
decrease in Nigeria.

Chad, which had not executed anyone for more than a decade, resumed executions
and put 10 people to death. The other 3 countries that carried out executions
were Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.

Americas

For the 7th consecutive year, the USA was the only country to carry out
executions in the Americas region with, 28 people executed in 2015 (7 fewer
than in 2014). This was the lowest number of executions recorded in a single
year since 1991. 6 states executed in 2015 compared to 7 the previous year. The
number of death sentences decreased from at least 72 in 2014 to 52 in 2015, the
lowest number recorded since executions resumed in 1977. Only one other country
in the region, Trinidad and Tobago, imposed death sentences in 2015.

Asia-Pacific

At least 367 executions were carried out in 12 countries - a huge increase on
the 32 executions in 9 countries recorded in 2014, almost exclusively due to
the rise in Pakistan. This figure does not include executions carried out in
China, where executions were still in the thousands. But the true extent of the
use of the death penalty in China is unknown as data is treated as a state
secret.

Pakistan put 326 people to death in 2015 after the country lifted a 6-year
moratorium on the execution of civilians in December 2014, following the
Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar. It is the highest number of executions
Amnesty International has ever recorded for Pakistan.

Indonesia carried out 14 executions for drug-related offences, the 1st
executions under President Joko Widodo.

It was impossible to confirm the real number of executions in North Korea.

Europe and Central Asia

Belarus - the only country in the region that executes - did not put anyone to
death in 2015 but imposed 2 death sentences (compared to 3 executions and no
death sentences in 2014).

Middle East and North Africa

At least 1,196 executions were carried out in 8 countries - a rise of 26% from
the 945 executions recorded in 8 countries in 2014.

Iran alone accounted for 82% of all recorded executions in the region.

Saudi Arabia executed at least 158 people - a 76% increase on 2014 and the
highest number recorded for Saudi Arabia since 1995.

Amnesty International could not confirm if executions took place in Syria.

(source: Amnesty International)

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

(source: youtube.com)

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

US among world leaders in death penalty, surpassed only by Saudi, Iran &
Pakistan - Amnesty


With 28 killings in 2015, the US is the only country in the Americas and among
OSCE members to be on the list of top executioners published by Amnesty
International, coming right after Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan.

At least 1,634 people were put to death in 25 countries in 2015, Amnesty
International said. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan account for nearly 90
percent of those.

The US, it appears, had more executions than Iraq last year - 28 in 6 states:
Texas (13), Missouri (6), Georgia (5), Florida (2), Oklahoma (1) and Virginia
(1).

Last year, at least 2,851 people were under sentence of death in America,
including 746 in California, 389 in Florida, 250 in Texas, 185 in Alabama and
181 in Pennsylvania, according to the report.

"While the 2015 figure was the lowest number of executions recorded in a single
year since 1991, the decrease was in part linked to legal challenges that
resulted in the revision of lethal injection protocols or problems faced by
states in obtaining lethal injection chemicals," the human rights watchdog
explained.

21 US states still retain the death sentence. Texas carried out almost 1/2 of
all executions in 2015.

The state of Virginia carried out its 1st execution since 2013, while 2 states
- Arizona and Ohio - had to put executions on hold because of issues concerning
lethal injections.

"The USA continued to use the death penalty in ways that contravene
international law and standards, including on people with mental and
intellectual disabilities," Amnesty said in its annual report on the use of
capital punishment.

Amnesty cited the case of Warren Hill, who was executed by the state of Georgia
despite the fact that all experts who had assessed him, including those
provided by the state, agreed that he had an intellectual disability. "His
execution amounted to the arbitrary deprivation of life in violation of Article
6 of the ICCPR [the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights], to
which the USA is a state party," Amnesty said.

The report also mentioned the case of the 74-year-old Cecil Clayton, who was
diagnosed with dementia and a psychotic disorder, but was executed in Missouri
in March.

In August the governor of North Carolina signed into law House Bill 774, aimed
at the resumption of executions in the state. The law allows for the
participation of medical professionals other than a physician in executions,
against ethical codes relevant to the profession, the report said, adding that
it also allows the authorities to keep confidential any identifying information
of any person or entity involved in the manufacture, preparation or supply of
drugs used for lethal injection. Legislators in Texas also voted in favour of a
law to allow for secrecy on the providers of chemicals, Amnesty said.

Pre-trial proceedings against 6 detainees at the US naval base at Guantanamo,
Cuba, did not go unnoticed. The US government intends to seek the death penalty
if convicted for all 6 men, 5 of whom were charged with plotting the 9/11
attacks. "Proceedings before the military commission do not meet international
fair trial standards and the imposition of the death penalty in their cases
would constitute arbitrary deprivation of life," Amnesty stressed in the
report.

Huge increases in killings in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia executed at least 158 people (4 women and 154 men), the highest
number of executions recorded in the country since 1995, Amnesty International
said. 84 of the executions were for murder, 64 for drug-related offences, 6 for
kidnapping, torture and/or rape, and 4 for armed robbery.

"Saudi Arabia continued to carry out executions, mostly by beheading but some
also by a firing squad, in public and, in some cases, to display executed
bodies after death in public," according to the report. The authorities often
failed to inform those under sentence of death and their families of their
imminent execution or to return the bodies of those executed to their families,
Amnesty said, adding that the situation was plagued by the "flawed nature of
Saudi Arabian legal and judicial safeguards." According to the report, the
authorities frequently failed to apply both national laws and international
human rights law standards during trials, and commonly denied detainees the
right to a lawyer and to a meaningful appeal. "One of the most significant
concerns remained the fact that 'confessions' extracted under torture, duress
or coercion were often the sole evidence in death penalty cases."

Saudi Arabia continued to use the death penalty disproportionately on foreign
nationals, the majority of whom were migrant workers with no knowledge of
Arabic (the language in which they were questioned while in detention and in
which trial proceedings were carried out). Foreign nationals were often denied
adequate interpretation assistance. Their country's embassies and consulates
were not promptly informed of their arrest, or even of their executions. In
2015, 73 out of the 158, or 46 %, of executions recorded by Amnesty
International in Saudi Arabia were of foreign nationals.

Executions in Asia-Pacific

Amnesty International reported a "sharp increase" in the number of recorded
executions in the Asia-Pacific region, with Pakistan accounting for as much as
89 % of the total (excluding China). Bangladesh, India and Indonesia resumed
implementation of the death penalty in 2015, raising the number of executing
countries from 9 in 2014 to 12 in 2015.

The human rights watchdog said it received credible information indicating that
Pakistan executed at least 5 men who were under 18 years of age at the time of
the crime. "Pakistan carried out executions at an alarming rate in 2015,
joining the leading executioners China and Iran."

Amnesty recorded 326 executions, including 305 for murder in the South Asian
country last year. Pakistan had lifted a moratorium on executions in December
2014 to allow for executions for terrorism-related offences. Many of those
executed in 2015 had been convicted by the so-called Anti-Terrorism Courts,
Amnesty said.

China remained the world's top executioner, according to Amnesty International.
Although it was not possible to establish specific figures for executions
there, given the classification of death penalty figures as state secrets, the
report said executions in the country were still in the thousands in 2015.

3 executions were carried out in Japan last year, the same number as in 2014.
The authorities continued to implement death sentences in secret, announcing
executions only after they had occurred, Amnesty said.

At least seven new death sentences were imposed in Thailand. The Department of
Corrections reported that at the end of the year 413 people were on death row,
of whom 55 % had been convicted of drug-related offences. This % is much higher
among the female death row population, where 80 % of the 50 women under
sentence of death had drug-related convictions.

Capital punishment in the Middle East

Egypt executed at least 22 people in 2015, and courts in the country sentenced
at least 538 people to death. Many of the death sentences followed trials that
were unfair, Amnesty said.

Iran carried out at least 977 executions in 2015. The Iranian authorities
announced 400 executions through official and semi-official sources. "However,
credible sources confirmed that at least 577 more executions took place, in
addition to those officially announced," the report said, adding that at least
16 women and at least 4 juvenile offenders were executed. At least 58
executions known to Amnesty International were carried out publicly. The
majority of executions carried out in 2015 were for drug-related offences. At
least 160 juvenile offenders were on death row at the end of 2015. Some of them
had been in prison for more than a decade, according to the report.

At least 26 executions were carried out in Iraq, three of which took place in
the Kurdistan Region. These were the 1st executions carried out in the
Kurdistan Region of Iraq since 2008, Amnesty said. At least 89 death sentences
were imposed for offences that included terrorism, murder and kidnapping. Those
sentenced to death were mostly Iraqi nationals but also included some foreign
nationals.

(source: rt.com)






JAPAN:

Amnesty slams Japan over death penalty as global executions soar


Recorded executions worldwide surged by more than 50 % last year to the highest
level in a quarter-century, a human rights group said Wednesday.

Amnesty International cited the 3 executions that Japan carried out in 2015 as
contributing to a total of 1,634 worldwide. The tally does not include China,
where the figure is considered a state secret.

"The rise in executions last year is profoundly disturbing," Amnesty
Secretary-General Salil Shetty said. "In 2015 governments continued
relentlessly to deprive people of their lives on the false premise that the
death penalty would make us safer."

In its report, Amnesty leveled additional criticism at Japan for executing or
holding on death row prisoners with mental or intellectual disabilities.

One of the inmates killed last year was 89-year-old Masaru Okunishi. He spent
46 years on death row, fighting to clear his name in the murders of five women.
He said his confessions were forced and sought a retrial on nine occasions.

"Until the end he was fighting to clear his name. He is a good example of why
the authorities in Japan should review their criminal justice system," Amnesty
spokeswoman Chiara Sangiorgio told Kyodo News on Wednesday.

Sangiorgio urged Japan to follow the lead of the United States and initiate a
debate on the death penalty. Some activists say replacing the punishment with
life imprisonment without parole would have little political cost for the
government.

Japanese activists echoed the criticism. Taku Fukada of lobby group Forum 90
said the high rate of executions under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - his current
administration has put 16 prisoners to death - and rising numbers of inmates on
death row goes against the global trend toward abolition.

Fukada said the introduction of the lay judge system in 2009 has resulted in
individuals being unable to appeal to the nation???s highest court, due to
speedier convictions.

"Many people who were sentenced to death cannot defend themselves by expressing
their remorse for what they did or by providing new evidence" in seeking an
appeal, Fukada said.

"Whether they appeal or not, we must send all cases of capital punishment to
the Supreme Court before finalizing the sentence - a fundamental step taken in
other countries such as the United States. Otherwise, the number of people on
death row will continue to rise."

The latest 2 were hanged on March 25, a solemn day in the Christian calendar
known as Good Friday. Some activists considered the timing insensitive.

On the day, Amnesty slammed the 2 executions as "reprehensible," alleging a
failure of leadership by Abe. "It is long overdue for Japan to abolish this
cruel and inhumane punishment," Hiroka Shoji, an Amnesty researcher said in a
statement responding to the deaths.

The 2 victims had spent 5 and 10 years on death row. Former nurse Junko
Yoshida, 56, was convicted for conspiring with other women to kill 2 of their
husbands for insurance payouts. Yasutoshi Kamata, 75, was convicted of the
murders of 4 women and a 9-year-old girl.

Advocates of penal reform point to problems with Japan's handling of death-row
inmates. They are typically kept in solitary confinement, prevented from
speaking to fellow prisoners and deprived of most contact from outside -
ostensibly to maintain their peace of mind.

Solitary confinement is widely seen as fueling mental health problems. Iwao
Hakamada, who walked free in 2014 after more than 4 decades on death row,
developed dementia during his 45 years of isolation and is mostly unable to
communicate.

"Death-row prisoners are given only limited opportunities to talk with their
families, attorneys and friends. . . . People can easily lose their minds if
kept in such a situation for years," said Fukada of Forum 90. "Japan continues
to hang people who have completely lost their ability (to apply for a retrial).
I don't think that's right."

There are currently 124 inmates on death row in Japan, of whom 89 are seeking
retrials and 22 have appealed for amnesties, according to the Justice Ministry.

(source: Japan Times)



INDIA:

In 2015, India imposed death penalty on 75 people and executed 1


In 2015, India executed 1 person and imposed death penalty on 75 others. While
most of them were convicted of murder, 4 were sentenced for rape.

That takes the number of people in India on death row to 320, according to the
London-based Amnesty International.

On July 30, 2015, India carried out its lone execution of the year - also the
1st since 2013 - when Yakub Abdul Razak Memon was hanged at the Nagpur Central
jail in Maharashtra. Memon was convicted under the Terrorist and Disruptive
Activities Act, 1987, for his role in the 1993 Mumbai blasts that killed 257.
Since 1999, only 4 persons have been executed in India.

In all, at least 1,634 people were executed in 25 countries in 2015 - up from
1,061 in 2014 - according to the Amnesty report. The report excludes data on
China, where data on death penalty is a state secret.

"This is the highest number of executions Amnesty International has recorded in
more than 25 years, excluding those in China," the report said. "On the other
hand, 4 countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes. This is the
highest number of countries to fully abolish the death penalty in 1 year for
almost a decade."

Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan accounted for 89% of all executions in 2015.
"The number of executions recorded in Iran and Saudi Arabia increased by 31%
and 76% respectively, and executions in Pakistan were the highest that Amnesty
International has ever recorded in that country,' the report said.

(source: qz.com)






SINGAPORE:

AI Malaysia Pleads To Singapore President To Commute Sarawakian's Death
Sentence


Amnesty International (AI) Malaysia is pleading to the Singapore President to
commute Sarawak labourer Jabing Kho's death sentence to life imprisonment.

Its executive director Shamini Darshni said Jabing had exhausted all his legal
processes.

"We are appealing to President of Singapore, Tony Tan to please not execute
Jabing.

"We are asking that their death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment," she
said at the National Launch of Amnesty International's Death Sentences and
Executions 2015 report this morning, adding that the death penalty was proven
to be an ineffective deterrent when it came to crimes.

Shamini said she understood that there had been some communication between the
Malaysian government and Singaporean government on the issue but was unsure on
the status of talks.

However, she hoped that the government would be able to step in and save
Jabing.

She said her colleague, AI campaigner Gwen Lee had been in touch with the
Singaporean non-governmental organisation Second Chances, who is working on the
case, and Jabing???s sister Jumai Kho.

The 31-year old Sarawakian was convicted of murder in Singapore 6 years ago
when he was found guilty of murdering a Chinese citizen in the republic in
2010.

His appeal to overturn his death sentence failed on Tuesday when a 5-judge
panel decided against the appeal due to lack of material that was compelling to
justify review of the case.

(source: malaysiandigest.com)

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

see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/singapore-halt-kho-jabing-s-execution-ua-10315

(source: Amnesty International USA)

***********

UN Human Rights Office concerned by ongoing use of death penalty in Singapore


The UN Human Rights Office for South-East Asia (OHCHR) is concerned by the
Singapore Court of Appeal's decision on Tuesday to uphold the death sentence
given to Kho Jabing of Malaysia and urges the Government to immediately
establish a moratorium on capital punishment.

"We are gravely concerned that Mr. Kho is at imminent risk of hanging as the
court has lifted the stay of execution," said Laurent Meillan, OHCHR's acting
regional representative in Bangkok. "We are also concerned that he has been
forced to endure years of immense suffering as his sentence has been changed on
a number of occasions."

Mr. Kho, 31, was sentenced to death in 2010 after being found guilty of murder.
At the time, a mandatory death penalty applied to all cases of murder in
Singapore. Following a change in the legislation in 2012 which now gives judges
the option of giving a life term for murders where there is 'no intention to
cause death', he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the
cane in 2013.

In January 2015, the Court of Appeal decided to re-impose the death penalty.
The following November, Mr. Kho was granted a temporary stay of execution less
than 24 hours before he was due to be hanged as a result of an appeal by his
lawyer.

The UN Human Rights Office calls on the Singapore Government not to carry out
Mr. Kho's execution.

OHCHR's Regional Office welcomes the Government's decision to apply legislative
changes to sentences related to some cases of murder and certain categories of
drug trafficking. Media reports have said at least 5 people - 1 convicted of
murder and 4 others with drug trafficking - have had their sentences commuted
to life imprisonment.

"While we are encouraged by the recent positive steps, we call on the
Government to pursue more comprehensive death penalty reforms with the ultimate
aim of abolishing the death penalty altogether," said Meillan.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was also concerned that 4 individuals were
executed in Singapore in 2015 - 1 for murder and the others for drug-related
offences - which is a sharp increase from previous years. Singapore executed 2
people in 2014 and there were no executions during the de facto moratorium from
2011 to 2013. These statistics were released in Singapore Prison Service's
annual report this February.

Several States called on Singapore to abolish the death penalty during its
human rights review in Geneva in January 2016.

(source: theonlinecitizen.com)

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

Man, 47, arrested in relation to Circuit Road death


A man was arrested in Malaysia in connection with the death of a 28-year-old
woman in Singapore last month.

The Royal Malaysia Police made the arrest on April 4 and subsequently handed
the 47-year-old suspect over to Singapore Police Force, the police said in a
statement on Wednesday (April 6).

The deceased's body was found inside a locked rental room of a HDB unit at Blk
70, Circuit Road on March 22.Chinese evening daily Lianhe Wanbao reported that
the landlord made the grisly discovery when he checked on the vacated room of
his male tenant, after he was informed that he would be away in Malaysia for a
work trip.

According to Wanbao, other tenants identified the deceased as the male tenant's
girlfriend who would visit and stay over at the flat occasionally.

If convicted of murder, the suspect faces the death penalty.

(source: asiaone.com)






MALAYSIA:

'An embarrassment that M'sia practises death penalty'


It is an international embarrassment that Malaysia is 1 out of only 24 United
Nations member states that still practises the death penalty, said Amnesty
International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni.

"The recent triple executions cheapen suggestions by Attorney-General Apandi
Ali and Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri, who both
agree that death penalty reforms are due."

Last year saw the highest number of executions carried out around the world in
the last 25 years, according to Amnesty International.

According to Amnesty International's Death Sentences and Executions 2015
Report, at least 1,634 people were executed last year. This represented a 54%
increase in the number of executions when compared with 2014.

Malaysia, the report noted, was among the 5 Commonwealth member states that
executed convicts, apart from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Singapore.

Malaysia is also 1 of 13 retentionist countries - states which retain and use
the death penalty for ordinary crimes - in Asia Pacific and 1 of the 12
countries which carried out executions last year.

The most recent executions were those of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu, Ramesh
Jayakumar and Sasivarnam Jayakumar in March.

The hangings drew flak from various quarters for the seeming secrecy of the
executions and the near lack of notice given to their next of kin by the
authorities.

Shamini repeated calls for an immediate moratorium on all death penalty cases
so it would "not be used again".

"We are calling for a stop, not just on the death sentence for Sirul but for
others as well."

She said this when asked whether Amnesty supported commuting the death sentence
for Sirul Azhar Umar, the former police commando convicted of killing Mongolian
model Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Amnesty International, however, noted that some progress was made last year
after Putrajaya announced legislative reforms to review the country's mandatory
death penalty laws.

In Malaysia, the mandatory death penalty is handed down for certain drug
offences, murder, use of firearms and treason.

(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)






CHINA:

Man Sentenced to Death for Killing 9 in China Nursing Home


A man who killed 9 people and injured 9 others in a Chinese nursing home has
been sentenced to death, the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.

Luo Renchu had gathered bricks and pummeled residents at the home in the
central city of Loudi following a dispute with the owners over allegedly unpaid
wages, Xinhua said, citing a verdict handed down on Friday by the city's
Intermediate People's Court.

Xinhua said the attack occurred on Feb. 19, 2015, after the owners failed to
pay 40,000 yuan ($6,150) owed to Luo and his wife. Calls to the court and local
government offices rang unanswered Saturday

Retirement homes in China are drawing new attention as the country's overall
population rapidly ages, mainly as a result of a shrinking fertility rate
exacerbated by rules limiting most couples to just 1 child. Smaller family
sizes and increased mobility have challenged traditional notions that children
should house and care for their parents into their old age.

(source: Associated Press)






SAUDI ARABIA----executions

2 Saudis executed for murder

Saudi Arabia executed 2 citizens for murder on Monday, raising to 84 the number
of death sentences the kingdom has carried out so far this year.

Baddah al-Dusari was found guilty of killing Saudi national Abdullah al-Qahtani
by repeatedly running him over, the interior ministry said in a statement
carried by SPA state news agency.

Mansur al-Azuri was convicted of stabbing to death fellow citizen Saad
al-Subaiee following a dispute, the ministry said in separate statement.

They were both executed in al-Kharj, near the capital Riyadh.

Most people put to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.

The executions so far this year include 47 for "terrorism" carried out in a
single day on January 2.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or
murder, according to an AFP count.

Human rights group Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi
Arabia last year was the highest for 2 decades.

The kingdom is one of the world's top executioners, although its tally in 2015
was far behind those of China and Iran.

Saudi Arabia has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug
trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.

(source: thepeninsulaqatar.com)

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April 6



GLOBAL:

Countries that execute on wrong side of history


Aftab Bahadur was 15 years old when a Pakistani court found him guilty of
killing 3 people and sentenced him to death.

His sentence followed a farcical trial. Bahadur had always maintained his
innocence and said he was tortured into a "confession." His co-accused Ghulam
Mustafa, who falsely implicated him during the trial, later retracted his
statement, admitting that police had beaten him.

On June 10 of last year, after almost 24 agonizing years on death row, Bahadur
drew his last breath as he was hanged in a jail in Lahore. He had been dragged
to the gallows a handful of times before and saved at the last minute, but not
this time.

"We start to count down (to our execution), which itself is painful and
nerve-racking. In fact, we die many times before our death. In my personal
experience, nothing is more dreadful than waiting to die," he told media just
months before his killing.

Bahadur was 1 of 326 people executed in Pakistan last year. The country lifted
a moratorium on civilian executions in December 2014 after the horrific
Taliban-led massacre at a school in Peshawar. The move was ostensibly to
"tackle terrorism," even though there is no evidence that the death penalty is
more of a deterrent to crime than other forms of punishment.

The sheer number of people executed in Pakistan is staggering: 326 is the
highest figure Amnesty International has ever recorded in the country in a
single year since beginning to monitor executions there in 1980. Sadly, as we
release our annual report on the death penalty worldwide on Wednesday, Pakistan
is not the only source of troubling developments.

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia also saw huge surges in the number of people put to
death by the state. In Iran, at least 977 people were executed -- an increase
of more than 200 on the year before. The vast majority had been convicted of
drug-related crimes. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, put at least 158 people to death.
This is an incredible 76% rise on the year before, and the highest number we
have recorded for the country since the early 1990s.

These 3 countries -- Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- were the main culprits
behind an alarming and staggering rise in global executions last year. In
total, at least 1,634 people were put to death around the world, the highest
judicial death toll we have recorded in more than a quarter-century.

This global total, however, does not even include China, where Amnesty
International believes thousands of people are put to death every year. But
Chinese authorities treat death penalty statistics as state secrets, meaning
that the true figure is impossible to determine.

As an organization that for decades has campaigned for an end to the death
penalty, last year's setbacks were as disturbing as they were dismaying. Apart
from the number of lives taken, the use of the death penalty is in many
countries riddled with serious problems: unfair trials, the use of torture to
extract "confessions," death sentences for juvenile offenders and a lack of
transparency, to name a few.

But thankfully, 2015 was not all bad news. It was, in fact, in many ways a year
of extremes, with stark developments on both ends of the spectrum. The 25
countries around the world that carried out executions belong to an isolated
minority. In fact, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia accounted for almost 90% of
all global executions (excluding China).

Last year, we also saw a record number of countries fully remove the death
penalty from their legal books. Four states in total -- Fiji, Madagascar,
Republic of Congo and Suriname -- abolished the death penalty for all crimes in
2015, and a new penal code in Mongolia means it will also join the abolitionist
ranks in 2016.

For the 1st time ever, the majority of the world's countries now have legal
frameworks that make no mention of the death penalty at all. In total, 140 of
the world's countries have fully abolished capital punishment in law or
practice.

A historical perspective makes the long-term global trend away from the death
penalty even starker. Although 25 countries executed last year, two decades
ago, in 1996, that figure stood at 39. In 1945, when the United Nations was
established, only eight countries had abolished the death penalty for all
crimes. Today, this number stands at 102 countries, with more on the cusp of
doing so.

Countries that still execute need to realize that they are on the wrong side of
history and immediately impose moratoriums on the death penalty with a view to
its eventual repeal.

The hundreds of people put to death in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and
elsewhere in 2015 will never come back, but authorities in those countries can
at least ensure that no more lives are lost in the name of "justice."

(source: Opinion; Salil Shetty is secretary general of Amnesty
International----CNN)






BANGLADESH:

SC upholds JMB man's death penalty


The Appellate Division on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Masumur Rahman
alias Masum, a member of the banned militant outfit Jama???atul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB), in a case over bomb blast at Laxmipur Judge Court.

A 4-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by chief justice SK Sinha,
passed the order, reports UNB news agency.

Besides, the SC scrapped the High Court judgment that had acquitted condemned
convict Mohammad Amzad Ali, another JMB man, and ordered Amzad's retrial.

The SC also asked the authorities concerned to shift Amzad Ali to general cell
from the condemn cell of the jail.

Lawyer Delwar Hossain stood for Masum while deputy attorney general Shashank
Shekhor Sarkar represented the state.

According to the prosecution, miscreants carried out the bomb attack on
Laxmipur district Judge Court during working hours on 3 October 2005.

Majibullah, a litigant, was killed and several other people, including Judge MA
Sufian and bench officer Shafiqullah, were injured in the bomb blast.

Later, a case was filed against JMB member Masumur Rahman alias Masum in this
connection.

On 15 August 2006, Laxmipur Speedy Trial Tribunal sentenced three JMB
men-Masum, Ataur Rahman Sunny and Amzad Ali-to death in 2 cases.

Later, the convicts filed an appeal with the High Court against the tribunal
verdict.

After hearing, an HC bench upheld the death sentence of Masum while acquitted
Amzad Ali in the case in 2013.

Later, the state filed an appeal with the Supreme Court against the verdict and
the convicts filed petitions seeking acquittal.

(source: Prothom Alo)






AFRICA:

No more death penalty? Reforms in Africa fuel drop in world execution laws.


For the 1st time, the death penalty became illegal in more than 1/2 the world
in 2015. That shift comes in large part due to changes in sub-Saharan Africa.
There was little global fanfare last year when 2 small African states -
Madagascar and Congo Brazzaville - announced that they had outlawed the death
penalty.

On the surface, the legal change in both countries appeared little more than
cosmetic - neither had carried out an execution in more than 30 years, a far
cry from from places like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan that execute
hundreds of criminals every year. But beneath the global radar, Madagascar and
Congo had helped put a thumb on the scales of history.

In 2015, for the first time ever, the death penalty was illegal in more than
1/2 the world's countries, according to a report released today by Amnesty
International. In addition to the 2 African countries, the states that tipped
the balance were Fiji, Suriname, and Mongolia. They are all part of a dramatic
global shift away from capital punishment over the last 2 decades, which has
seen the number of states where the practice is entirely illegal nearly double,
from 60 to 102.

And perhaps in no region has this transformation been more significant than
sub-Saharan Africa, where abolishing the death penalty has been part of a
broader movement in many countries to close the door on colonial-era laws -
including those criminalizing everything from homelessness to homosexuality -
developed for a world order that no longer exists.

"The death penalty in Africa is overwhelmingly a product of colonialism," says
Andrew Novak, an adjunct professor of criminology, law, and society at George
Mason University in Virginia and author of a forthcoming book on the death
penalty in Africa. "Colonial powers used executions to showcase state power and
put the fear of god in their subjects. It was a tool to make people comply with
the law by terrifying them."

Brutality of colonial history

That dark history has warped the continent's contemporary views on capital
punishment, Mr. Novak says, though not always in straightforward ways.

In some countries, like South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, the
brutality of colonial executions - particularly those carried out against the
countries' freedom fighters - led to a dramatic reduction or outright abolition
of the practice after independence. South Africa, which in the waning days of
apartheid executed more people annually than any other country, abolished the
practice formally in a unanimous court decision in 1995, echoing back to the
country's apartheid-era justice system when it argued that "retribution cannot
be accorded the same weight under our Constitution as the right to life and
dignity."

Other countries, however, learned a more sinister lesson from their colonial
experience: capital punishment works as a tool to intimidate your population
into submission. In the past year, four countries in Africa - Somalia, Chad,
South Sudan, and Sudan - carried out at least 43 executions according to
Amnesty, though the organization believes the true figure in some of those
countries may be considerably higher.

"What the African countries who executed people in 2015 all have in common is a
history of systematic violation of human rights" more broadly, says Netsanet
Belay, Amnesty International's Africa director for research and advocacy. "They
are all places known for grossly unfair trials and the suppression of basic
rights."

Across the continent, 443 new death sentences were imposed in 2015, down from
909 in 2014. But most of those criminals will likely never be executed, says
Novak, since many have paradoxically been sentenced to death in countries that
never or almost never carry out the practice.

Kenya, for instance, has one of the largest death rows in the world, owing to
laws that make a sentence of death mandatory for both murder and armed robbery.
But the country's last execution - for coup-plotting - was carried out nearly
30 years ago.

And while both Zimbabwe and Swaziland technically allow the death penalty, each
has struggled in recent years with an unusual staffing problem - they can't
find a qualified hangman.

A broken system

Still, "one shouldn't overlook the people trapped in a broken system," says
Thomas Probert, a senior research with the unlawful killings unit at the
University of Pretoria's Centre for Human Rights. "There are likely thousands
of people on death row across the continent for whom the fact that their
government hasn't executed anyone for 10 years is only a small consolation."

Even in African countries where the death penalty is rare or de facto
prohibited, activists say it can continue to haunt the legal system, draining
disproportionate resources from already over-burdened courts and prisons.

But in countries saddled with a wide spectrum of human rights concerns -
including, in many cases, extrajudicial killings by police, militaries, and
armed groups - formally abolishing the death penalty is often low on national
priority lists. Just 18 of Africa's 54 countries have outlawed the practice
completely, although Amnesty considers another 16 to have "de facto" done away
with capital punishment.

But advocates for full abolition say these de facto moratoriums on execution
can be fragile, particularly when regimes change or wars are waged. Chad, for
instance, had not carried out an execution in more than a decade when it
executed 10 suspected members of the terror cell Boko Haram last year for
carrying out an attack that killed 38 people in the city of N'Djamena in June.

Still, Africa is doing considerably better than its northerly neighbors. In
2015, nearly 90 % of all executions recorded by Amnesty (which crucially leaves
out China, where execution figures are a state secret) occurred in just 3
countries - Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Globally, the organization notes,
executions were up 54 % in 2015 over the previous year, from 1,061 people
globally to 1,634.

But focusing on those figures obscure the march of progress seen in Africa and
elsewhere, Mr. Probert says.

"Advocacy around the death penalty for very obvious reasons tends to focus on
the really intransigent, retentionist states ... that execute scores if not
hundreds of people per year," he says. "But behind those headlines is a
less-often-told story about the remarkable decline of the practice of the death
penalty in the rest of the world over the last 50 years. Those states that
still have the death penalty on their books - in Africa and elsewhere - are
behind the curve of history."

(source: Christian Science Monitor)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 6



IRAN:

Amnesty: Iran regime executed nearly 1000 people in 2015


Iran's regime executed close to a thousand people, including juvenile
offenders, in 2015 and largely fueled the "dramatic global rise" in the number
of executions recorded last year which saw more people put to death than at any
point in the last quarter-century, Amnesty International said in a report on
Wednesday.

"Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the
year before," Amnesty International wrote in its annual Death penalty 2015
report.

"Iran is also one of the world's last executioners of juvenile offenders, in
flagrant breach of international law," the report said. The Iranian regime put
to death at least four people who were under 18 at the time of the crime for
which they were convicted in 2015, the human rights group said.

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, Amnesty said, adding that the regime continued to sentence
people to death for crimes - including drug trafficking, corruption, "adultery"
and "blasphemy."

According to Amnesty's figures, the Iranian regime was responsible last year
for nearly 60 % of all executions in the world with the exception of those in
China.

Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's Secretary General, said that the Iranian
regime put people to death at "unprecedented levels, often after grossly unfair
trials."

"This slaughter must end," he said.

(soruce: NCR-Iran)


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April 7



NIGERIA:

AI Calls for Abolition of Death Sentence in Nigeria


Amnesty International (AI) has called for the abolition of death sentence in
Nigeria and all over the world, saying that there has been a 50 % increase in
the number of executions globally.

The Director of AI in Nigeria, Amb. Mohammed Ibrahim, made this call on
Wednesday in Abuja during a media briefing on their latest report titled:
"Death Penalty 2015: Facts and Figures".

He said that Nigeria is among the 58 retentionist countries, whose constitution
still upheld death penalty for ordinary crimes.

He said that the AI has been leading the campaign against death penalty in
Nigeria and all over the world, advocating it that it be expunged from the
constitution.

He however clarified that even though Nigeria has not publicly executed any
criminal for the last 10 years, there are many Nigerians are being hurled up in
congested prisons on deathrow waiting endlessly for execution.

But Mr. Thankgod Ebose, a victims who was in deathrow for 27 years and was
lucky to escape alive, gave account of secret killings in the Nigerian Prisons.
Ebose recounted how he was imprisoned at the age of 19 over firearms incident
and was to be executed by firing squad. He noted how an argument over the mode
of his execution saved his life, having been in line after 4 of his deathrow
inmates have been executed by hanging.

He also disclosed that he was among the lucky few to have escaped the pangs of
death and to air of freedom, saying, "there are many innocent Nigerians in
jail".

"The Sherrif argued that I was to be executed by firing squad and not by
hanging and that was how Amnesty International took up my case to the governor
who later ordered that I be freed," he narrated.

"I don't have much to say but support the Amnesty International so that death
sentence will be cancelled. Do you know that there are people who did not
commit offence have been executed. They convicted innocent persons.

"I still think I am dreaming, but I pray if its a dream let us then remain in
the night. My execution, which suppose to take place in 2013 was a miracle
because then I appealed to Amnesty International to help me and they took up my
case and I was freed. After releasing me, they also helped me in business and
life," he said.

Against this backdrop, the AIN Director has called on the Federal government to
not just abolish the death penalty but to also revamp the criminal laws, which
seems to protect the rich but easily punish the poor.

Ibrahim also warned against killings of Nigerians engaged in peaceful protest,
saying that it is against the law.

"If anybody is killed in the time of peaceful process or peaceful assembly is
unlawful and we are investigating the issues across the country," he said.

(source: This Day)

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

Why we can't execute Boko Haram convicts


The Attorney General of the Federation, Mallam Abubakar Malami, said yesterday
that convicted members of the Boko Haram sect in the country could not be
executed because the laws under which they were tried did not prescribe death
sentence.

He disclosed this at the launch of Amnesty's report on Global Death Sentences
and Executions 2015, in Abuja, yesterday.

The attorney-general, who was represented by Sylvester Imahanobe, also promised
to work with Amnesty International to stop executition of convicted criminals
in the country, if the international human rights body proposed a bill to that
effect.

He said: "Terrorists in Nigeria are tried under the Terrorism Prevention Act
which does not carry death penalty. That is why even those Boko Haram members,
who have been convicted cannot be executed because the maximum sentence
prescribed by the law is life sentence."

The AGF said he would be pleased to support any bill that came from Amnesty
International on the abolition of death sentence in the country, pointing out
that "studies have shown that death penalty has not stopped people from
committing crimes."

Malami revealed that the country was working towards ensuring that the prison
system was corrective and not punitive, as it is currently.

Earlier in his remarks, the Country Director of Amnesty International, Mohammed
Ibrahim, said there was a "dramatic global rise in the number of executions
recorded in 2015 which saw more people put to death than at any point in the
last quarter-century."

He said the surge was largely fuelled by Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which
brought the number of people executed worldwide to 1,634 people, a rise of more
than 50 % on the year before and the highest number Amnesty International had
recorded since 1989.

(source: vanguardngr.com)






EGYPT:

Mubarak trial adjourned again, Egyptians impatient


The much awaited trial of Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak scheduled for
Thursday was for the fourth time adjourned due to security concerns.

The retrial was adjourned to November 3 after the former president, who is
being tried for conspiring to kill protesters, did not attend due to "concerns
about his secure transfer to the appeals court in downtown Cairo", local
Egyptian media, Mada Masr reported.

Egypt's Justice Ministry's suggestion to move the trial to a police academy in
the country's outskirts was rebuffed by the court.

The trial was adjourned to provide enough time for the search of a more
suitable place, Mada Masr reports.

The trial has previously been delayed twice since November last year due to
varying opinions between the country's internal affairs authority and the
justice system.

Residents of Cairo are now impatient and indifferent and want the case to end.

"No matter what happens to Mubarak, it makes no difference to us," said a Cairo
resident.

"I hope the case will be closed once and for all for Egyptians to move on from
this page. No matter whether he gets the death penalty or a life sentence, let
the judge decide, thank goodness," said another resident.

The ousted president was accused of ordering the killing of protesters during
the 2011 uprising that ended his 30-year rule.

(source: africanews.com)






EAST AFRICA:

Death Sentences in Kenya the Highest Within EAC Bloc


Death sentences in Kenya increased to 30 last year as other East African
nations maintained their penalties at below 10, a new report shows.

Kenya condemned 26 convicts to the hangman's noose in 2014 up from 11 a year
earlier, says Amnesty International (AI) -- which has been pushing for a stop
to killer sentences.

"Sentencing someone to death denies them the right to life - enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights," the report says.

Kenya has, however, not executed any convict in the past 29 years since 1987
and last year the Attorney-General Githu Muigai suggested a plan to scrap death
sentences as part of UN Human Rights Council recommendation.

"The proposal is subject to consensus-building within the justice system. It's
ongoing," said Samuel Kaumba, a State counsel, when asked on the progress. He
said that the rise in death row convicts could be a pointer of "a tight,
efficient criminal justice system in Kenya."

The Kenyan government does not publish the number of prisoners on death row.

Tanzania sentenced at least 5 convicts to die last year, down from 91 in 2014,
according to the report.

Uganda had only 1 death row convict while Rwanda and Burundi abolished death
penalty in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

Egypt led the pack in Africa with 538 death sentences, followed by Nigeria at
171. Crimes that attract death penalty include murder, violent robbery, treason
and military offences such as spying, mutiny and aiding the country's enemy,
according to Kenya's Penal Code.

But offenders below 18 years, pregnant women and the mentally ill are spared
from death penalties.

AI, a global human rights watchdog, has over the years pushed for the scrapping
of death penalty, saying it violates the right to life.

Kenya's Supreme Court is expected to make a ruling this year on the legality of
the country's mandatory death penalty after several death row convicts last
year petitioned against their sentencing.

The mandatory provision for capital offences is contained in the old
Constitution.

"We have the option of amending the Penal Code to replace the word 'shall' with
'may' to create room for judges when issuing judgment against capital
offenders," said Mr Kaumba. But convicts can still appeal.

A number of MPs in 2014 rooted for the inclusion of terrorism, homosexuality,
corruption and economic crimes in the list of crimes punishable by death, but
the bid was struck down while amending the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes
Act 2 years ago.

Former President Mwai Kibaki in 2009 commuted the death sentences of all 4,000
prisoners on death row to life.

Countries that have abolished the penalty are South Africa, Namibia, Angola,
Djibouti and Mozambique.

(source: allafrica.com)



PAKISTAN:

Death penalty in Pakistan


The number of executions carried out worldwide soared to a 25-year high of at
least 1,634 in 2015, according to a report published by the Amnesty
International. This "profoundly disturbing" rise in deaths is largely fuelled
by the high rate of convictions in China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Because the accurate number of casualties could not be ascertained for China,
considering the classified nature of its government statistics on death
penalty, the 3 subsequent countries have made the cut for carrying out more
than 90 % of global executions. Iran alone executed 977 people last year,
mostly to punish drug-related offenders. Pakistan is reported to have executed
over 326 people in 2015, topping even Saudi Arabia, a country notorious for
controversies surrounding human rights. It is disturbing to have Pakistan as 1
of the top 3 countries for carrying out the most executions in 1 year, whereas
it was in December 2014 that Pakistan lifted its 7-year moratorium on
executions.

This steep upturn in verdicts of death penalty as a counter-terrorism strategy
is seen as a response to the 2014 Peshawar massacre, and a mechanism to fight
extremism in Pakistan. Nevertheless, as has been documented over the year, the
reinstated capital punishment so far has had little to do with cases related to
terrorism. Since March 2015, the majority of people executed in Pakistan were
not convicted of any militant, terrorist or extremist offences.

Nevertheless, capital punishment is looked at with a certain scepticism by some
parts of the population and human rights organisations, who regard it as an
abhorrence to fundamental human rights. In addition, Pakistan???s judicial
system is at times criticised because of its lackadaisical attitude to special
cases of juvenile convicts or those with mental or physical impairments. 1
particular case in point is the death sentence of a paraplegic inmate, Abdul
Basit, whose execution has been rescheduled 4 times, not out of humanitarian
concerns but due to logistical challenges that his hanging poses to the
administration. His disability posits a glaring example of the shortcomings in
Pakistan's judicial system, which appears to be devoid of any application of
compassion towards offenders, no matter what their circumstances happen to be.

An oft-expressed criticism against human rights groups - which call for a
revolution in the judicial reforms - is the inclusion of Islamic injunctions
that advocate for a death penalty for a murderer. However, what these
commentators disregard in their opinions is the extensive emphasis on the
principles of empathy and mercy by the same religion.

Furthermore, no evidence has been found, whatsoever, that this reinstatement of
death penalty has acted as a deterrent for any kinds of offences. Even if fewer
terrorism episodes were reported in 2015, the decline can be easily associated
to an intense military operation being conducted across the country. Yet the
sudden upsurge of militant attacks in early 2016 reaffirms the stronghold of
terrorism elements in Pakistan. In the wake of the inefficacy of the present
death-sentence reforms, it is high time that Pakistan government started paying
attention to its judicial model, which neither inspires confidence nor assures
public safety. It is hoped that the country learns from Fiji and Madagascar,
among others, and the record of 2015 does not repeat itself in 2016.

(source: Editorial, Daily Times)






MALAYSIA:

Emotions run high at trial of DPP Kevin Morais


Tempers ran high at the murder trial of deputy public prosecutor Datuk Anthony
Kevin Morais, with his younger brother Datuk Richard Morais snapping at the man
accused of the murder.

Music company director Richard was the 1st witness called to testify against
army pathologist Colonel Dr R. Kunaseegaran, 53, who stands accused of
colluding to murder Kevin along with 6 others.

Asked by the prosecution about the state of his brother's remains, which were
found in a cemented drum, Richard said: "Ask Dr Kuna," prompting defence lawyer
Datuk N. Siva???nanthan to object.

Justice Azman Abdullah pointed out that emotions could get "a little high" as
Richard was understandably upset over his brother's death. The judge
nevertheless ordered the grieving brother to answer civilly.

"My brother was in a state beyond recognition; what do you expect after being
in cement for 12 days?" said Richard, after he was told to answer again.

Sivananthan raised questions over Richard's character, bringing up how he was
recently fined RM2,000 for criminal intimidation and had a few more similar
cases in which he was discharged not amounting to an acquittal.

To this, Richard scolded the lawyer and told him "focus on the case at hand,
and not to beat around the bush".

Sivananthan also asked if there was a connection between Kevin's murder and the
rumour that he had been handling the investigations of the 1Malaysia
Development Board (1MDB) case in relation to the Prime Minister.

Richard replied that he had no knowledge of the cases Kevin handled as a
prosecutor, but believed any such 1MDB theories were "rubbish and unrelated".

During the trial, the accused were allowed to have their handcuffs removed at
the request of their lawyers for the sake of comfort.

The High Court in Kuala Lumpur was filled to the brim, with 3 additional
benches provided to accommodate the many family members and reporters.

Family members of the accused were later seen shaking hands with and hugging
them before they were led back to the holding cells.

On Jan 27, the 6 men - G. Gunasekaran, 48; R. Dinishwaran, 24; A. K. Thinesh
Kumar, 23; M. Vishwanath, 26; S. Nimalan, 23; and S. Ravichandaran, 35 -
claimed trial to charges of murdering Kevin.

They are accused of committing the offence between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015,
between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1 Jalan USJ1/6D, Subang Jaya.

Kunaseegaran pleaded not guilty to abetting the 6 in the murder.

They face the mandatory death penalty if convicted under Section 302 of the
Penal Code.

Kevin was reported missing on Sept 4 last year.

He was last seen leaving his apartment at Menara Duta here in a Proton Perdana
car bearing the registration number WA6264Q.

His remains were found in a cemented drum at Persiaran Subang Mewah, Subang
Jaya, near here on Sept 16 last year.

Counsel Sivananthan acted for Kunaseegaran, while Gunasekaran, Vishwanath,
Nimalan and Ravichandaran were defended by counsel V. Rajehgopal, and
Dinishwaran and Thinesh Kumar by M. Manoharan.

The trial continues today.

(source: The Star)






INDONESIA:

Indonesia announces next 10 to be executed, all foreigners convicted of drug
crimes


It has been nearly a year since April 29, 2015, the last time Indonesia carried
out the death penalty. On that day, a firing squad executed 8 people convicted
of drug-related crimes, despite the pleas and outcry of the international
community.

However, all of the uproar over the executions seemed to give the government
pause. Last November, Indonesia's coordinating security minister, Luhut
Panjaitan, said that the government was not thinking "about executing a death
penalty with the economic conditions like this," leading many to say Indonesia
had enacted a de facto moratorium on the death penalty.

But various officials since then have been adamant that executions would
eventually resume, and now we know they were quite serious. Yesterday, the
government announced the names of the next 10 people set to be executed in
Indonesia. All of them are foreigners who have been found guilty of various
drug-related crimes.

Of the 10 foreigners set to executed, 4 are Nigerian (Humphrey Ejike, Eugene
Ape, Ekpere Dike Ole Kamma, and Frank Chidebere Nwakome), 2 are Malaysian (Lee
Chee Hen and Tham Tuck Yin), 2 are American (Frank Amado, and Lim Jit Wee), 1
is Zimbabwean (Federik Luttar) and 1 is Senegalese (Seck Osmane).

With the exception of Senegal, all of those set to be executed are from
countries where the death penalty is still practiced. Some have speculated that
might be to shield Indonesia from the same kind of criticism the government
received during the last round of executions from countries such as Australia
where the death penalty has been abolished.

Not included among those set to be executed is Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipino
woman who was given a last minute stay of execution last year after officials
from the Philippines successfully lobbied the Indonesian government to allow
her to live while the woman who allegedly tricked her into being a drug
smuggler underwent investigation and trial.

Also not included on the list is Frenchman Serge Atlaoui, who had also been set
to be part of last year's executions. The government said Atlaoui has exhausted
all of legal options to avoid the firing squad when courts dismissed his bid to
challenge the president's rejection of his plea for clemency in June.

Chief Public Prosecutor Sudung Situmorang said the next step in the process was
to get the greenlight from the Attorney General to move forward.

"It is being coordinated with the attorney general, we are awaiting a reply to
the letter we sent him," Sudung told Harian Terbit yesterday.

No date or timeline has been set for this next round of executions. Sudung said
the timing was at the discretion of the attorney general HM Prasetyo.

"We will see later, as I said it is still rainy season. We are waiting for the
weather to be good," Prasetyo told Media Indonesia yesterday. However, a
spokesman for the AGO apparently told ABC correspondent Adam Harvey that the
attorney general was just "joking" when he made that statement.

(source: coconuts.co)






SINGAPORE:

Malaysian charged with murder in Singapore


A Malaysian was charged today in the District Court with the murder of a
28-year-old woman in a flat at Circuit Road last month, according to a report
on The Straits Times website.

Boh Soon Ho, 47, is accused of killing Zhang Huaxiang, who is believed to have
been his girlfriend, sometime between 12.54pm on March 21 and 8.40pm the next
day, the report said.

It said Boh did not enter a plea to the charge, which was read out to him in
Mandarin.

The police prosecutor successfully applied for Boh to be remanded for further
investigations, the report said. He will be brought back to court on April 14,
it said.

The report said Boh was arrested by Malaysian police across the Causeway on
Monday and handed over to Singapore police the next day.

If found guilty of the charge, Boh faces the mandatory death penalty, it said.

(source: malaysiakini.com)

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April 7



NORTH KOREA:

N. Korea is one of 11 nations with record of executions for past 5 yrs


The nongovernmental human rights group, Amnesty International (AI), has listed
North Korea as 1 of 11 countries that have carried out executions for the past
5 years, a U.S. media report said Thursday.

AI said in its annual report released a day earlier that information on North
Korea cannot be verified on its own, but reports have shown that North Korea
has carried out capital punishment on various crimes, according to the
Washington-based Voice of America (VOA).

The report said the purging of North Korea's former defense chief Hyon
Yong-chol and ex-vice premier Choe Yong-gun are examples of the country
executing its people, the report said.

The North Korean government's use of execution is excessive, especially over
crimes that do not deserve capital punishment under the international law, one
AI official was quoted as telling the VOA.

The court process leading to a death penalty is also very unfair, the official
said, calling on the communist country to stop the practice of executions.

The official added that North Korea's executions are only the tip of the
iceberg in terms of other serious human rights violations perpetuated by the
government.

(source: Yonhap News)






INDIA:

Perarivalan planning book against death penalty----Says last 25 years in prison
have been horrible and painful


After penning his experiences as a death row convict in a book, An Appeal from
the Death Row (Rajiv Murder Case - The Truth Speaks) in 2008, A.G. Perarivalan
alias Arivu, is looking forward to document his views against the death
penalty.

In his written reply to questions posed by The Hindu through his lawyers,
Perarivalan, now a life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, said,
"I have a definite idea to write a book on my experience about how death
penalty is wrong.

The book may be in documentation form or novel form."

Whatever be the form of the book, the 44-year-old prisoner is certain that it
would "shake the conscience of persons" who think death penalty is the only
solution to tackle most of the crimes.

Describing the last 25 years in prison as "horrible and painful," he said, "It
is not a prisoner's or a convict's pain. It is more than that - the pain of an
innocent."

For quite sometime now, Perarivalan, who is lodged in the Vellore Central
Prison for Men, has been undergoing treatment including for high blood
pressure, orthopaedic and urological problems.

Mental stress

"Now, I am taking medicines for health reasons. But I do not know what medicine
I have to take other than freedom to cure my mental stress," he added.

Perarivalan has completed BCA and MCA from Indira Gandhi National Open
University and a number of certificate courses from the prison.

He disagreed that the State government's letter to the Centre on March 2
seeking its views on the release of the 7 convicts was with the elections in
mind.

"There is no 2nd opinion that seeking the view of the Union government before
our release is the best possible solution," he noted.

(source: The Hindu)






CHINA:

Beijing Says AI Death Penalty Report Is Biased against China


The Chinese government said Amnesty International has "biased opinions" on
China and refused to comment on its death penalty report released on Wednesday,
which estimates that "thousands" were executed in China last year.

Asked at a press conference about the AI report, spokesperson of the Chinese
foreign ministry Lu Kang refused to comment and said AI tends to have biased
opinions on China.

According to the human rights organization, the number of death penalty
executions in 2015 at 1,634 were the highest in 25 years.

The global rise in the figure was attributed to 3 countries - Saudi Arabia,
Iran and Pakistan - who were responsible for 89 % of all the executions carried
out in 2015, excluding China.

Data from the world's 2nd largest economy were not included as China considers
this information to be a "State secret," although the AI report notes that
"thousands of executions" were carried out in the Chinese territory.

AI Hong Kong's William Nee told EFE, AI asks governments across the world for
information on capital punishment to prepare the report, and a "majority"
responds to the request in "a professional manner."

"It is not a complicated task. It is completely hypocritical that China calls
our report biased when it refuses to give us information and continues treating
capital punishment figures as a State secret," he denounced.

Despite the lack of transparency, he said AI has "no doubt" that China is in
top spot as the country with the highest number of executions in the world.

(source: Latin American Herald Tribune)






BANGLADESH:

197 got death penalty in BD last year: AI


Bangladesh ranked the 3rd after China and Egypt among countries of the world in
awarding death sentences in 2015, according to a report of Amnesty
International (AI) released globally Wednesday. The global rights group in its
'Death Sentences and Executions Report 2015' said ordinary and special courts
of Bangladesh sentenced at least 197 people to death including four under the
ICT trials. At least 1,425 prisoners were under death sentence in the country
at the end of the year. About Bangladesh, the report alleged that the
proceedings of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), a special court
established to try people accused of crimes committed during 1971 war of
Independence, violated international fair trial standards, including by denying
the defence the possibility to challenge the credibility of prosecution
witnesses. Bangladesh, Iran, the Maldives and Pakistan also sentenced juvenile
offenders to death in 2015, the report said. It said Bangladesh also carried
out four executions by hanging along with Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iran,
Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Sudan and Sudan in
the same year. No execution was recorded in Bangladesh in 2014.

(source: thefinancialexpress-bd.com)

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

SC upholds JMB man's death penalty


The Appellate Division on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Masumur Rahman
alias Masum, a member of the banned militant outfit Jama???atul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB), in a case over bomb blast at Laxmipur Judge Court.

A 4-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by chief justice SK Sinha,
passed the order, reports UNB news agency.

Besides, the SC scrapped the High Court judgment that had acquitted condemned
convict Mohammad Amzad Ali, another JMB man, and ordered Amzad's retrial.

The SC also asked the authorities concerned to shift Amzad Ali to general cell
from the condemn cell of the jail.

Lawyer Delwar Hossain stood for Masum while deputy attorney general Shashank
Shekhor Sarkar represented the state.

According to the prosecution, miscreants carried out the bomb attack on
Laxmipur district Judge Court during working hours on 3 October 2005.

Majibullah, a litigant, was killed and several other people, including Judge MA
Sufian and bench officer Shafiqullah, were injured in the bomb blast.

Later, a case was filed against JMB member Masumur Rahman alias Masum in this
connection.

On 15 August 2006, Laxmipur Speedy Trial Tribunal sentenced 3 JMB men-Masum,
Ataur Rahman Sunny and Amzad Ali-to death in 2 cases.

Later, the convicts filed an appeal with the High Court against the tribunal
verdict.

After hearing, an HC bench upheld the death sentence of Masum while acquitted
Amzad Ali in the case in 2013.

Later, the state filed an appeal with the Supreme Court against the verdict and
the convicts filed petitions seeking acquittal.

(source: prothom-alo.com)






GHANA:

Amnesty International Ghana to adopt new strategy to abolish death penalty


Amnesty International, Ghana is adopting a new strategy for the death penalty
to be abolished.

The Country Director, Lawrence Amesu said the organization will work closely
with a group of parliamentarians who are against the death penalty law.

Mr. Amesu said there are indications that many people in Ghana want the death
penalty revoked, but will be difficult to achieve if the law exists.

Mr Amesu was speaking in Accra at the launch of the 2015 Death Penalty Report.

(source: bgcghana.com)






GLOBAL:

3 Countries Cause World Death Penalty Rates to Soar


Between January 2005 and August 2008, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, and
Yemen, are known to have executed at least 32 people for crimes they committed
as children. The majority of those executions were by hanging.

In fact, last year saw the highest number of executions globally in more than
25 years, with 3 countries - Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia - accounting for
nearly 90 % of known executions, even as much of the world seems to be
rejecting the practice. (Amnesty International's figures exclude executions in
China, which regards information on its use of the death penalty as a state
secret.)

In contrast, the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by children
dropped to nine known executions last year as compared with 14 in 2014. Even
with this decline, that's too many executions of juvenile offenders -
international law flatly prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed under
age 18.

Only 2 countries are known to have carried out death sentences against juvenile
offenders in 2015. Pakistan put 5 people to death for crimes they had committed
while under age 18, and Iran executed 4. In comparison, in 2014, Iran -- the
only country known to have carried out such executions in that year -- put 14
juvenile offenders to death.

This year Bangladesh and Maldives joined the list of countries that, although
still handing down death sentences for juvenile offenders, have not carried
them out. Juvenile offenders convicted in previous years also remained under
sentence of death in Indonesia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, and Saudi Arabia, as
well as Iran, Amnesty International reports.

While Iran has for years been the world leader in executing juvenile offenders,
Pakistan's execution spree, including of juvenile offenders, began in December
2014 as part of a misguided response to a horrific attack by the Pakistani
Taliban splinter group Tehreek-e-Talibam on a school in Peshawar that killed
over 130 children.

Overall, 4 countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2015, and
169 of the 193 United Nations member countries were execution-free during the
year. Despite the rise in executions in Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia,
there's reason to conclude that most of the world is on a trajectory toward
total abolition.

In short, it's clear that the few countries that continue to rely on this
particularly inhuman punishment - whether for juvenile offenders or for adults
- are increasingly isolated.

(source: Human Rights Watch)

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

There's no such thing as a humane execution - I know, because I've seen the
autopsy photos----The use of the death penalty is at its highest for 25 years.
And it shouldn't matter how executions are carried out: lethal injection has
been described as "the chemical equivalent of burning at the stake"


My 1st real execution left me horrified.

Brandon Rhode was executed in Georgia in September 2010. Six days before his
execution, terrified of what was to come, he tried to commit suicide by
slashing his veins with a razor blade. Prison officials rushed him to hospital
to suture his wounds and save his life so that - in the name of justice - the
state could execute him one week later.

I only found out that British drugs had been used to kill Brandon Rhode after
his execution. And it was only after his execution when I received the autopsy
photos that I came to know that, like Rudy's, Brandon's execution had been
torturous.

Brandon was executed using the then standard lethal injection 'cocktail':
sodium thiopental (an anesthetic agent), pancuronium bromide (a paralytic
agent) and potassium chloride (which stops the heart). This 'cocktail' was
specifically designed to mask any suffering of the prisoner being put to death
- the 2nd drug serving to paralyse him so that he is unable to scream or thrash
if something goes wrong.

Paradoxically, the drug that is used to make the lethal injection look humane
to the public is precisely the one that can cause the most suffering to the
prisoner.

Something did go wrong in Brandon's execution. His autopsy photos show him with
his eyes wide open, evidence that the anesthetic had failed and that -
paralysed but still conscious - Brandon had suffered the excruciating pain of
the administration of potassium chloride, a sensation that Supreme Court
Justices recently described as "the chemical equivalent of being burnt at the
stake."

Having worked as an investigator into cases concerned with the death penalty -
and specifically on lethal injection executions in the US - for many years, I
thought I was pretty hardened to the subject. But as I watched the guards drill
into Rudy Jones' ankle in a botched execution attempt in the first episode of
Peter Moffat's fictional drama, Undercover, whatever professional detachment
I'd built up over the last 6 years fell away.

In the first episode of Undercover, Peter Moffat achieved something I've spent
years fighting to do: expose the myth that lethal injection is in some way
clean and clinical, a "humane" method of execution.

As Undercover illustrated so deftly, when lethal injection executions go wrong,
the result is torture. Viewers may have wondered if the execution scene in
Undercover was exaggerated for dramatic effect. Sadly, real life executions can
be just as bloody and brutal.

Oklahoma prisoner Clayton Lockett, for example, moaned for an hour as officials
jabbed his body in fruitless attempts to find a vein. Ultimately they hit an
artery in his groin causing blood to spray over a medic's white coat. After
some back and forth with the state's Governor about exactly how one might go
about halting an execution, proceedings were called off. Clayton died of a
heart attack behind the curtain.

And Undercover's hour-long execution lasted only 1/2 as long as that of Arizona
prisoner, Joseph Wood, whose lawyers convinced the Supreme Court to assemble
and consider staying the execution while the state was still attempting to kill
him. The Justices were still arguing the toss when Wood died on the gurney,
just shy of the 2-hour mark.

Lethal injection is unquestionably grisly. But its brutality is not all blood
and gore. Perhaps the most chilling moment in the show was Louisiana's tuxedoed
Assistant Attorney General reassuring a Judge that Haysbert's execution could
press ahead because "we don't think his breathing is actual breathing...it's a
kind of snorting".

This kind of argument, distant and dehumanising, is familiar in states' legal
submissions in death penalty cases. It reduces a human being to a process which
the law says must go ahead. The kind of process where trying to kill yourself
ahead of an execution is deemed to be a "misdemeanour", and where you can't
have a cigarette for your last meal, because it's "bad for your health".

As the number of death penalties worldwide skyrocket, it's more important than
ever to emphasise that there's no such thing as a humane execution. The use of
the death penalty is at its highest in 25 years, with 3 countries (Saudi
Arabia, Iran and Pakistan) accounting for almost 90 % of the killings. After
what I've seen, this is more than unacceptable.

(source: Maya Foa, The Independent)





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

Billionaire calls for worldwide abolition of death penalty, says its
"barbaric"----The report revealed that at least 1,634 people were executed in
25 countries in 2015, which is over 50% increase from the 2014 figure.


British billionaire, Richard Branson has called for the abolition of death
penalty across the world following the Amnesty International global report on
death sentences and executions, which was released on Tuesday, April 6, 2016.

The report revealed that at least 1,634 people were executed in 25 countries in
2015, which is over 50% increase from the 2014 figure.

Branson described the capital punishment as "inhumane and should have no place
in any society. Those are non-negotiable beliefs."

According to the report, which shows that the 2015 statistics is the highest
recorded by Amnesty in the last 25 years, nearly 90 % of the executions carried
out last year were just in 3 countries - Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Al though it is believed that China execute more people more than the 3
countries, it is not included in Amnesty's number of recorded executions
because the country does not release official figures on capital punishment.

Giving a US case study and lamenting the erroneous conviction of innocent
persons, Branson said over 150 death-row inmates in the US have been freed in
the last decades.

He said: "It doesn't take much to understand how fraught with problems the
death penalty is. Last year, I wrote about the case of Richard Glossip in the
US state of Oklahoma, a man widely believed to be innocent of the crime he was
sentenced to die for. Richard came within minutes of lethal injection, and is
still facing an uphill battle proving his innocence against a criminal justice
system that hates admitting error.

"More than 150 death-row inmates in the US have been exonerated and freed in
the last decades, but many only after decades on death row, fighting unethical
prosecutors, incompetent lawyers and politicians who presume the public wants
them to pull the trigger or flip the switch.

"I hope a new generation of political leaders will take a clear-eyed view of
this problem.

"I can't say it often enough. It's time to abolish the death penalty for good,
in the US and around the world."

In what appears to be a glim of hope and progress, the report said four
countries abolished death penalty for all crimes and expunged it from their law
books in 2015.

The countries include Republic of Congo, Fiji, Madagascar and Suriname.

(source: pulse.ng)

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April 7



MOROCCO:

Amnesty International Calls on Morocco to Adopt UN Moratorium on Death Penalty


Director General of Amnesty International Morocco, Mohamed Sektaoui, on
Wednesday called on the Moroccan government to adopt the United Nations
moratorium on the death penalty and the Second Optional Protocol to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition
of the death penalty.

Mr. Sektaoui, who was presenting the 2015 world report of Amnesty International
on the death penalty during a meeting with the press, also called for the
implementation of the recommendations of the Equity and Reconciliation
Commission to abolish the death penalty and "all signs related to the death
penalty in the penal code".

With 9 death sentences in 2015 and a de facto moratorium, Morocco holds a good
position among MENA countries, where 831 death sentences were recorded in 17
countries and 1,196 executed judgments in 8 countries, he pointed out.

The use of capital punishment increased significantly in 2015 in the MENA
region, Sektaoui said, adding that the total number of known executions
increased by 26 pc compared to 2014, while the death sentences posted a 6pc
increase.

(source: moroccoworldnews.com)






BAHAMAS:

Majority Verdict Not Enough In Murder Case, Says Judge


A JUDGE ruled yesterday that he would not convict 2 men of murder, aggravated
or not, on a majority verdict decided by a jury in a recent murder trial.

Rashad Sullivan and Patrickedo Rose, both 25, appeared before Justice Bernard
Turner to learn whether the judge accepted the 10-2 guilty verdict for murder a
jury had arrived at during their six-hour deliberations of the November 2012
murder of Dario "China" Knowles, 25, at Lincoln Boulevard.

"A legal dispute had arisen on whether the 2011 amendment to the Penal Code
allowed for the court to accept majority verdicts in murder cases where the
question of the discretionary death penalty does not arise if a conviction is
reached.

"The amendment, which followed the Privy Council's decision in the Maxo Tido
appeal, notes that only certain types of aggravated murder are currently
punishable by death. These include murder of a law enforcement officer; murder
of a judicial officer, including judges, registrars and prosecutors; murder of
a witness or juror; murder of more than one person; murder committed by a
defendant who has a prior murder conviction; and murder in exchange for value.

"The amendment further provides that any murder committed in the course of/or
in furtherance of a robbery, rape, kidnapping, terrorist act, or any other
felony is punishable by death, with no explicit requirement of intent to cause
death.

"Noting that the reasons for his decision would be provided in a detailed
written ruling to follow, Justice Turner said yesterday he would not accept the
10-2 guilty verdict the jury arrived at last December.

"As the jury had also returned a 10-2 guilty verdict for conspiracy to commit
murder, the judge formally convicted the pair of that charge and adjourned
sentencing to May 19 at the request of lawyers for the accused who sought the
production of social inquiry reports.

"Sullivan and Rose, with 29-year-old Eddie Artus of Sugar Hill Road, were
alleged to have conspired to commit murder between November 1 and November 25,
2012.

"Sullivan and Rose were further accused of the actual murder.

"Knowles, the son of accused murderer and drug trafficker Dion "Emperor"
Knowles, was shot and killed on Lincoln Boulevard off Cordeaux Avenue. He was
found lying in the street, shortly after several gunshots were heard in the
area. The elder Knowles was killed in 2011.

"Artus was acquitted on direction of the judge at the close of the
prosecution's case. The 2 other men claimed they were induced into making
statements to police through physical mistreatment and threats. They maintained
their innocence.

"Investigators had denied the abuse allegations when cross-examined after
testifying that Sullivan allegedly admitted he was present when his co-accused
committed the crime. Rose also allegedly assigned the blame of the killing to
Sullivan.

"Rose, was represented by Glendon Rolle, while Sullivan was represented by
Lennox Coleby. Darell Taylor and Aaron Johnson prosecuted the case.

(source: tribune242.com)






GREAT BRITAIN:

Britain Is Making Millions Training Police In 21 Countries That Use The Death
Penalty----The UK's national College of Policing has earned 6.2 million pounds
in the last 3 years through overseas training contracts, a freedom of
information request has shown.


Britain's College of Policing, the professional body for police training, has
made millions of pounds in the last 3 years by training forces in countries
that use the death penalty.

Among the countries where the college offers training in "leadership, forensics
and intelligence" are Bahrain, China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Uganda. In all,
21 of the countries where the college operates training programmes have the
death penalty. Yesterday Amnesty International revealed that executions
worldwide are at a 25-year-high, with at least 158 people killed in 2015 in
Saudi Arabia alone.

At least 25 of the countries in which the college operates have forces that
have been accused by campaigners of human rights abuses and torture.

BuzzFeed News has seen a document that shows 242 officers from the college have
been deployed in the last 3 years to Qatar, where police have been accused of
torture and abuse.

In the Dominican Republic, another country where the college operates, 87
people were killed by the police in the 1st half of 2014. Amnesty International
has written an open letter to nation???s president saying that it has
documented cases of torture, forced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests in
the country.

In Jamaica, the police killed 93 people last year, and Amnesty has also
expressed concerns about arbitrary arrest and the treatment of prisoners there.

Despite the concerns over the countries in which it operates, the college has
made vast profits on its overseas training contracts. A freedom of information
request by campaigners and seen by BuzzFeed News reveals the college earned 6.2
million pounds (including 2.7 million pounds from the Middle East and 1.3
million pounds from Africa) in the last 3 years by offering the training.

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade, which carried out the FOI request,
told BuzzFeed News: "The police college has worked with some of the most
repressive police forces in the world. There is very little information about
what the work involves and no evidence that it has resulted in improved human
rights anywhere.

"A number of the police forces involved have been accused of torture, and many
uphold and enforce extremely repressive laws, including the death penalty. The
UK police college should not be giving legitimacy to these practices or
profiting from the oppression taking place."

There are questions of transparency around the exact nature of the training
provided by the college. It does not disclose commercial details, partly
because, it says, doing so could "expose vulnerabilities in the capability of
overseas police forces that could be exploited by criminals". Documents
discussing the contracts that have been unearthed by campaigners, such as this
agreement with the Kingdom of Bahrain, have done little to illustrate the
nature of the work.

Earlier this year the BBC's World at One revealed that more than 250 officers
from Saudi Arabia had been given specialist training, but the college refused
to disclose the content of that training (and the amount it was paid). The
Financial Times columnist David Allen Green said it was "hardly reassuring" to
know that the International Policing Assistance Board, which approves the
deals, has never rejected a training proposal.

A spokesperson for the College of Policing said: "Any training of overseas law
enforcement officers is overseen by the cross-governmental International
Policing Assistance Board (IPAB) which comprises policing representatives and
those of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Home Office, Ministry of Defence,
Department for International Development and devolved administrations.

"IPAB coordinates the delivery of the Government's overseas interests and
reviews training initiatives to ensure that they support the UK's international
priorities.

"All training delivered by the College meets the highest international
standards and respect for human rights and dignity is interwoven into
programmes.

"Decisions about UK policing assistance overseas must reconcile the
difficulties of working with countries whose standards of human rights may be
at odds with our own with the opportunity to address national security
concerns, reduce harm to individuals, help to protect UK citizens overseas and
contribute to reform in those countries.

"The College has never provided overseas assistance without IPAB's
recommendation."

(source: buzzfeed.com)



BANGLADESH:

Family meets Jamaat chief Nizami at Kashimpur jail----Members of convicted war
criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Niazami's family have met him
at Kashimpur jail in Gazipur.


Prison authorities confirmed that Nizami's wife, daughter, son, and
daughter-in-laws met him for around 30 minutes in a room inside the prison on
Thursday noon.

This is the 4th family visit since the Jamaat leader was handed down the death
warrant for orchestrating the massacre of Bangladesh's best brains in 1971,
using his ruthless Al-Badr militia.

Kashimpur Central Jail 2 Jailor Md Nashir Ahmed said Nizami's wife Begum
Samsunnahar Nizami, son Nazib Momen, daughter Khadiza Tahera, daughter-in-laws
'Saleha' and 'Raiyan' met him.

"They discussed family matters and the review of the death sentence," the
Jailor said.

They left the prison around 1:30pm, he added.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) had issued the death warrant for Nizami
on Mar 15, 2016. His family members met him on Mar 16, 24, and 31.

The ICT had, on Oct 29, 2014, ordered his execution, for the murders and rape
in Pabna and the mass killing of intellectuals during the War of Independence.

The Supreme Court, after hearing his appeal later, upheld the maximum penalty
for the Jamaat chief. He pled for a review of the verdict on Mar 29.

An influential minister in the BNP-Jamaat coalition government of 2001-6, he
carries another death sentence for his role in the 10-truck arms haul case in
Chittagong.

Born on Mar 31, 1943, in Monmothpur of Pabna's Sathia Upazila, Nizami had
earlier headed Islami Chhatra Sangha, Jamaat's student front before it was
renamed to become Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The Jamaat-e-Islami had actively opposed the secession from Pakistan and formed
militias to collaborate with the invading forces of the Pakistani Army in 1971.

Nizami was chief of the Al-Badr, a militia made up of members of the so-called
Peace Committee and Islami Chhatra Sangha.

Al-Badr gained notoriety for executing prominent pro-liberation members of the
Bengali intelligentsia ranging from doctors, journalists and teachers to
writers and composers on Dec 14, just days before Bangladesh secured victory by
defeating West Pakistan's forces.

(source: bdnews24.com)






INDIA:

SC likely to hear Nizami's review petition Sunday


The Supreme Court (SC) may hear the review petition of condemned war criminal
Jamaat Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami on Sunday against its verdict upholding the
International Crimes Tribunal's judgment that had sentenced him to death,
reports news agency UNB.

The review hearing has been enlisted as item number 19 in Sunday's cause list
of the Appellate Division.

A 4-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by chief justice SK Sinha, will
hear the petition.

Earlier on 3 April, the Supreme Court deferred the hearing for a week on the
review petition of the Jamaat chief.

On 29 March, Barrister Najib Momen, son of Nizami, submitted a 70-page review
petition with the Appellate Division. The review petition mentioned 46 grounds
seeking release of the convict in the war crimes case.

Meanwhile, Nizami's family members met him at Kashimpur Central Jail in Gazipur
on Thursday.

Nashir Ahmed, jailer of the central jail part-2, said his wife Shamsunnahar
Nizami, son Barrister Najib Momen, daughter Khadiza Tahera, daughter-in-law
Saleha and Raiyan reached the jail gate around 12:45pm and stayed there for
half an hour.

On 15 March, the ICT issued a death warrant for Nizami for his crimes against
humanity during the Liberation War in 1971 after the apex court released the
full text of its verdict upholding his death penalty.

On 6 January, a 4-member bench of the Appellate Division, headed by chief
justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, upheld the death sentence of the Jamaat Ameer for
his crimes against humanity during the war. The Supreme Court upheld the ICT-1
order sentencing Nizami to death for the wartime crimes, including genocide and
murder of intellectuals.

On 29 October, 2014, the ICT-1 sentenced Nizami to death for committing crimes
against humanity during the Liberation War. The tribunal sentenced Nizami, the
1971 commander-in-chief of Al Badr, a secret killing squad of Jamaate-e-Islami,
the capital punishment each on 4 counts of charges of war crimes, terming Al
Badr a criminal outfit.

Nizami filed an appeal with the SC on 23 November, 2014 challenging the death
sentence and claimed himself innocent and sought to be cleared of the charges.

(source: Prothom Alo)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Coming Out On Facebook May Soon Be A Death Sentence In Saudi Arabia


Facebook is making you gay - at least, according to Saudi Arabia. In recent
weeks, government officials and local prosecutors have been attempting to curb
what they reportedly believe is an outbreak of homosexuality caused by the
widespread adoption of social media in the country. PinkNews, an LGBT-centric
publication based in the U.K., is reporting that the Middle East nation may
reinstitute the death penalty for homosexuality, in fear that the Internet is
"turning people gay." Soon, even coming out online in Saudi Arabia may be a
death sentence.

Laws that mandate capital punishment for gay people are already on the books in
Saudi Arabia, but they are rarely enforced. Currently, same-sex intercourse
between 2 men is classified as zina in Sunni jurisprudence, which means it's
punishable by death or lashing. In 2002, 3 men were beheaded for the fact of
their sexual orientation, although the official charge from Saudi authorities
was the vaguely worded crime of "luring children and harming others." More
recently, a Medina man was subjected to 450 lashes and given 3 years in prison
for arranging hookups with other men via his Twitter account.

In one way, Saudi officials are correct: Social media platforms like Twitter
and Facebook have been a major boon to LGBT people attempting to live their
lives in a country where repression is national policy. These websites give
queer people a place where they can connect with others, which is why social
media has long been at the center of the government's anti-gay crackdown. In
2014, the gay dating app Grindr began displaying warnings to users in countries
like Saudi Arabia and Egypt that police "may be posing as LGBT to entrap you."
Egypt does not mandate the death penalty for homosexuality, but 10 countries -
including the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Somalia - still do. The Grindr
messages also ran in Russia and Sudan.

These anti-gay operations have been growing in recent years. In 2014, 2 men in
Egypt were arrested for advertising their apartment as a hookup spot on
Facebook, charging $200 a night to men who wished for rent the space. Each
received 2 years in prison. Last year, an illegal same-sex wedding in Riyadh,
the nation's capital, was cut short when police raided the ceremony and
arrested the couple. Okaz, a newspaper based in Jeddah, reports that in the
past 6 months, 35 men have been prosecuted for sodomy, while another 50 were
apprehended on the charge of "cross-dressing."

Although the country might point the finger at Facebook for this uptick in
arrests, the truth is more complicated. According to the Atlantic's Nadya Labi,
the country has long had a flourishing queer culture, one that both hides in
the shadows and often operates in broad daylight. The Saudi men Labi spoke with
referred to Riyadh as a "gay heaven." Radwan, who was born in Saudi Arabia and
grew up in the U.S. before returning to Jeddah as an adult, adds that it's
surprisingly easy to be "picked up" (e.g. for sex) in Saudi Arabia - even on
the street. "You can be cruised anywhere in Saudi Arabia, any time of the day,"
he said.

When it comes to same-sex relations between 2 women, Saudi society often looks
the other way. Yasmin, a college student living in Riyadh, tells Labi, "There's
an overwhelming number of people who turn to lesbianism." At her university,
one building is a notorious hangout spot for students wishing to kill time
between classes by partaking in Sapphic pleasures in its spacious bathroom
stalls. The building's walls are littered with graffiti that offer faith-based
warnings to all who enter: "She doesn't really love you, no matter what she
tells you" and "Before you engage in anything with [her] remember: God is
watching you."

Why is queerness is so ubiquitous in a country where it's so dangerous? Some
say that it's a product of gender segregation. This February, a Saudi
researcher released a report that linked the total division between sexes with
a rise in "situation-based" homosexual behavior, one that proved extremely
controversial. Nonetheless, it makes a certain amount of sense. In a society
where it's forbidden to mix with member of the opposite sex - so much so that
even religious spaces are divided by sex - the faithful may have no other
outlet for their desires. Yasmin adds that the young women seeking carnal
interludes in university restrooms may not be lesbians, per se. She refers to
them as akin to "cellmates in prison."

Yasmin's take is compelling, but it's not entirely accurate. If homosexuality
were a temporary stopgap prior to getting married, why were 4 adult gay couples
arrested in Saudi Arabia last year? A 2014 survey discovered that these are not
isolated cases: In Iran, nearly 20 % of college students identify as gay or
lesbian. That figure is much larger than the recent Public Religion Research
Institute report showing that "7 % of [U.S.] millennials identify either as
lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender." Those results are particularly
noteworthy in a country that not only puts gays to death, but doesn't even
recognize that its LGBT population exists. In 2006, former president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad infamously said: "We don't have any gays in Iran."

The real takeaway from these reports should be obvious: Repression doesn't
work.. It may even make the "problem" these countries are trying to fix even
bigger. For years, conservative religious countries have attempted to control
LGBT people with a campaign of harassment and violence, but increasing numbers
of queer folks continue to make themselves visible - in any way they can. After
news broke that Saudi Arabia was considering the death penalty for disclosing
sexuality on social media, Twitter users protested by doing exactly what the
proposed new law prohibits: coming out. The hashtag "You will not terrorize me.
I'm gay" began trending in the country last week.

Those 7 words speak to the powerful resilience of queer people. Even if Saudi
Arabia and other countries like it police every social media platform in
existence, the LGBT community will continue to do what it has always done:
survive. In a country that is determined to ignore, silence, and exterminate
its queer population, the simple fact of existence continues to be a radical
form of resistance.

(source: Nico Lang; thefrisky.com)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 8




IRAN:

Iranian man facing imminent execution denied the right to appeal


The scheduled execution of a 36-year-old man convicted on drug offences
tomorrow, Saturday 9 April, demonstrates the Iranian authorities' utter
disregard for the right to life and their determination to continue with a
staggering execution spree that saw nearly 1000 people put to death last year,
said Amnesty International.

Family members of Rashid Kouhi received a call from prison authorities
yesterday informing them that they should go to Rasht's Lakan Prison in Gilan
Province, Northern Iran, to have a final meeting with him today before his
execution on Saturday 9 April.

Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director, Said
Boumedouha said: "The imminent execution of Rashid Kouhi days after Iran was
revealed to be the world's 2nd highest executioner in 2015 in Amnesty
International's annual death penalty report, highlights the authorities'
determination to maintain their horrifying rate of executions.

"The Iranian authorities must halt the execution of Rashid Kouhi immediately.
The use of the death penalty for drug-related offences is a blatant violation
of international human rights law. Instead of stepping up their rampant
execution spree the Iranian authorities must take steps to abolish this
ultimate cruel and inhuman punishment."

At least 977 people were executed in Iran in 2015 - the vast majority of which
were for drug-related offences. These offences do not meet the threshold of
"most serious crimes", interpreted by international human rights bodies, as
crimes involving international killing, for which the death penalty is
permitted under international human rights law.

Rashid Kouhi was arrested at a checkpoint in Roudbar, Gilan province on 24
August 2011. The officers who stopped him conducted a search of his bag where
they found 800 grams of crystal meth. He was a student at the time. He was
tried and sentenced to death following a grossly unfair trial by a
Revolutionary Court in Roudbar in February 2012.

The court's verdict, which has been reviewed by Amnesty International, is less
than a page long and does not contain adequate reasoning. He did not have
access to a lawyer during questioning and met a state appointed lawyer for the
1st time during his trial. He was held in Roudbar for 2 years before being
taken to Lakan Prison in Rasht.

Rashid Kouhi was denied the right to appeal his death sentence. This was
because under Article 32 of the Anti-Narcotics Law, all death sentences passed
for drug related offences were subject to confirmation either by the Head of
the Supreme Court or the Prosecutor General, who were entitled to revise or
quash the sentence if they found it contravened Islamic law or that the judge
was not competent.

However, a new Code of Criminal Procedure entered into force in June 2015,
revoking this article and restoring the right to appeal for individuals
sentenced to death for drug-related offences. Despite this, Amnesty
International understands that Rashid Kouhi has not received adequate legal
assistance in order to submit an Application for Retrial (E'ade dadresi) to
Iran's Supreme Court on this basis.

Rashid Kouhi requests for clemency have been rejected.

"It is appalling that Rashid Kouhi has been denied the right to an appeal which
is a fundamental element of the right to a fair trial. The Iranian authorities
must urgently halt his execution and give him a chance to appeal his death
sentence in a fair trial without recourse to the death penalty. Failing to do
so will be an irreversible injustice," said Said Boumedouha.

Background

The UN Human Rights Committee has stated that a death sentence passed after an
unfair proceeding violates both the right to life and the prohibition of
torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Iran's Anti-Narcotics Law stipulates mandatory death sentences for a range of
drug-related offences, including trafficking more than 5kg of narcotics derived
from opium or more than 30g of heroin, morphine, cocaine or their chemical
derivatives.

(source: Amnesty International UK)






PAKISTAN:

DAK demands death penalty for food adulterators


Amid deepening public concerns over food safety following a wave of recent food
adulteration, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) Friday demanded capital
punishment for those involved in contamination of eatables.

Describing food adulteration as a crime against humanity, President DAK Dr
Nisar ul Hassan said that death penality will act as a powerful deterrent and
will curb the menace of food adulteration.

This provision of exemplary punishment should be inserted into the food act to
discourage those who are responsible for food adulteration which is causing
loss of precious human lives, he said.

The current food safety and standards act has provisions for a maximum
punishment of life imprisonment for those involved in manufacture and sale of
unsafe foods, Dr Nisar said.

He said that there are growing voices in favor of death sentence to weed out
this heinous crime which is perilous to human life and health.

(source: risingkashmir.com)






MALAYSIA:

Kevin Morais murder: DNA not a match with the accused


DNA evidence collected in deputy public prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais'
murder case was not a conclusive match with the accused, the High Court here
was told.

DNA analyst Nor Aidora Saedon, 43, going over evidence she tested, tendered
exhibit W10: a bloodstained wire with 2 DNA samples.

"There were 2 DNA profiles on it, which I labeled 'Unknown' and 'Male One'.
Sample Unknown was confirmed as a biological match to samples given by Kevin's
brothers," she said on Friday, referring to the deceased's siblings Datuk
Richard and David Ramesh.

However, she was unable to find a match between Male One and 11 DNA samples of
suspects in the case.

She had earlier recorded receiving 11 FTA cards (a tool used to collect and
store DNA evidence) that had DNA samples from the seven accused plus 3 other
suspects in the case.

"The sample cannot match conclusively with the other 11. It's not very good,
not strong, that's why I didn't say it matches in my report," she revealed.

During cross examination, defence lawyer Datuk N. Sivananthan asked if Nor
Aidora knew where the wire came from or if it was of any importance.

She replied that she was not informed where the wire was collected, but assumed
it was of importance as it was part of a police investigation into a murder.

Asked by defence counsel V. Rajehgopal if the results of DNA testing was
absolute, Nor Aidora said it was 99.9% accurate.

On Jan 27, the 6 men - G. Gunasekaran, 48; R. Dinishwaran, 24; A. K. Thinesh
Kumar, 23; M. Vishwanath, 26; Nimalan, 23; and Ravi Chandaran, 35 - claimed
trial to charges of murdering Kevin.

They are accused of committing the offence between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015,
between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1 Jalan USJ1/6D, Subang Jaya.

Army pathologist Colonel Dr R. Kunaseegaran, 53, pleaded not guilty to abetting
the 6 in the murder.

They face the mandatory death penalty if convicted, under Section 302 of the
Penal Code.

Counsel Sivananthan and Datuk Geethan Ram Vincent acted for Kunaseegaran,
counsel Rajehgopal defended Gunasekaran, Vishwanath, Nimalan and Ravi
Chandaran, while lawyer M. Manoharan acted for Dinishwaran and Thinesh Kumar.

Justice Azman Abdullah fixed April 12 for the next day of hearing.

(source: The Star)

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

Criminals are people too


It's easy to support the death penalty when the condemned persons are faceless
to you.

Does a murderer deserve to live? Ask anybody that question, and chances are
high that you get an instant and emphatic no.

Confront them, however, with real life cases of murderers on death row, and the
odds take a steep drop in the other direction.

Roger Hood, a criminology professor from Oxford University, asked more than
1,500 Malaysians in a 2013 survey whether they supported capital punishment. A
whopping 91% said yes for murder. Between 74% and 83% approved it for drug
trafficking or firearms offences.

"But when he confronted them with a variety of scenarios consistent with
capital crimes as defined in the statute books, only 1.2% said the culprit
should be executed in all cases," wrote writer Thomas Hubert in an article
published by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

The survey, like a previous one Hood conducted in Japan, also shows that
popular support for or opposition to the death penalty depends a lot on how the
question is asked and on how much information the public has.

Are those results contradictory? Yes. Are they also highly indicative of human
nature? Yes. From these results alone, we can make one quick conclusion: it's
easier to pass judgement upon nameless murderers than real people on death row.

The basic reasoning behind the death penalty is simple and biblical: An eye for
an eye. If your actions result in the death of others, you deserve death
yourself. It's vengeance at its simplest, an idea so attractive it lies at the
centre of 2/3 of all action movies, country songs, and cheap paperbacks about
cheating spouses.

The argument in favour of the death penalty is more robust than just that, of
course. "Justice demands that courts should impose punishment befitting the
crime so that the courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime," read the 2004
judgement on security guard Dhananjoy Chatterjee in Kolkata, India. This
reflects a long-held tenet of the pro-death penalty camp, that the threat of
death deters future crime.

Research shows otherwise, however. Human rights organisation Amnesty
International continually reiterates that no conclusive evidence exists to
prove the death penalty's efficacy over imprisonment in deterring crime. "Crime
figures from countries which have banned the death penalty have not risen. In
some cases, they have actually gone down," says Amnesty, citing frequently
repeated figures, some of which date back to 1988. An FBI report even shows
that murder rates are higher in places where the death penalty is in force.

So if the death penalty doesn't work to deter crime, why has it stuck around
for so long. In a nutshell, people seem to want it or are thought to want it.
Removing the death penalty requires political will, and politicians as a rule
don't work for something people don't want. Besides the constant pressure by
human rights NGOs, the only reason why Minister in the Prime Minister's
Department Nancy Shukri recently managed to push for the introduction of
legislative reforms to review capital punishment is that the issue has once
again become hot.

Malaysians were reminded that the death sentence is a terrible thing when a
Malaysian, Kho Jabing, was first sentenced to death by a Singaporean court in
2010. Malaysian politicians and human rights activists went into high gear
after, appealing to Singapore to stay the execution in favour of the "sanctity
of human life". Then it was pointed out to our government last year that asking
another government to desist from putting someone to death is tricky when our
country still uses the death penalty.

It's a little sad how we don't argue as much for the sanctity of human life
when our countrymen aren't on the chopping block.

There needs to be better recognition of the fact that the death sentence is
just the murky embodiment of vengeance. Things change when you put faces to the
people you demonise.

(source: Commentary; Mikha Chan---Free Malaysia Today)




BANGLADESH:

UN wants Bangladesh to protect secular activists


United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has
urged the Bangladesh government to take urgent, concerted measures to ensure
the protection of all those being threatened by extremists 'operating in the
country'.

Hussein made the call saying they are alarmed by the violent killing of yet
another blogger in Bangladesh - Nazimuddin Samad.

"We call on political and religious leaders to unequivocally condemn such
murders, and on the authorities to swiftly investigate and bring the
perpetrators to justice," he was quoted as saying in a statement received here
from Geneva on Friday.

Meanwhile, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina
Shamdasani, in a statement, renewed their call to the government of Bangladesh,
as a 1st step forward, to halt all executions and institute a moratorium on the
use of the death penalty.

Bangladesh, she said, reportedly has more than 1,200 prisoners on death row and
in March this year alone at least 13 people were reportedly sentenced to death
in separate murder cases in four districts in Bangladesh.

"We're concerned about the latest death sentences handed down against two men
by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal, particularly given continued
concerns in relation to international due process and fair trial standards,"
said the spokesperson.

War criminal and leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, Motiur Rahman Nizami has filed a
review petition against his death warrant, due to be heard on Sunday, April 10,
following a 1-week deferral.

This is the last stage of the legal process in appealing against his execution,
other than to seek a presidential pardon, and we hope it will be considered
thoroughly by the court, he added.

Nizami was sentenced to death on charges of planning, ordering and committing
murders and rapes, among other serious crimes during the 1971 war of
independence.

Last month, on March 8, the Supreme Court also upheld the death sentence
against Mir Quasem Ali, another war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami leader. Mir
Quasem Ali had been sentenced to death in November 2014 by the same tribunal.

Since its inception in 2010, the tribunal has delivered at least 17 verdicts,
the majority of which have resulted in the imposition of the death penalty. So
far, 4 men have been executed.

"The UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, no matter
the gravity of the crime committed and even if the most stringent fair trial
standards were respected," said the Spokesperson.

The UN rights body renewed their call to the government of Bangladesh to
respect its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), to which it acceded in 2000.

Article 14 of the ICCPR details the right to a fair trial. The imposition of a
death sentence following a trial in which these provisions have not been
respected constitutes a violation of the right to life, it said.

(source: The Daily Star)




UNITED KINGDOM:

Hangmen - British film is macabrely funny


How can one laugh when an innocent man is about to be hanged for a murder he
didn't commit?

But you do in this hilariously dark production for NT Live.

'Hangmen' writer Martin McDonagh is best known for 'In Bruges', his BAFTA
award-winning original screenplay which I am sad to say I have not yet seen.

The Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act was passed in the UK Parliament
in 1965 but excluded crimes involving high treason, piracy with violence, arson
in royal dockyards and espionage. It was only as late as 1998 that hanging was
completely abolished in the UK by the Human Rights Act and the Criminal and
Disorder Act.

'Hangmen' then is based on fact and at least 2 of the characters are based on
real life people.

Hangman Harry Wade (David Morrissey) is based on Harry Allen, the historical
Chief Executioner who presided over 41 hangings; the last of which was in 1964
in Strangeways prison, Manchester.

His competitor, Albert Pierrepoint (John Hodgkinson) did exist, following in
the footsteps of his father and uncle to become a hangman in 1932 and is
reported to have hanged over 400 people.

Both Allen and Pierrepoint were also real life publicans.

McDonagh manages to extract hilariously comic moments from this inhumane and
absurd subject.

The play begins with the hanging of a prisoner protesting his innocence of the
seaside murder of a woman to the end, but while horrified by the idea of what
is about to happen, we cannot help doubling over at the banter between the
characters participating in the scene.

The main action takes place in a pub in Oldham where Harry lords it over his
inebriated customers with his once glamorous wife and now and then the
assistance of his rather large and 'mopey' teenage daughter. The cut and thrust
of banal pub talk in snide Northern dialect is a delight - reminiscent of some
of the best sketches of Monty Python or Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

It is the day the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act is announced and the local
journalist is trying to wheedle a comment out of Harry. Interrupting the cosy
camaraderie of this Northern pub is the young Southern stranger, Mooney (Johnny
Flynn) who appears oddly menacing and Harry's 1-time hanging assistant, Syd
(Andy Nyman), nursing a grudge against his former superior.

When both Mooney and his daughter disappear on the day questions are being
asked about the Lowestoft murders and whether the man he had hanged was the
murderer or was innocent as he claimed, the action takes on a macabre twist.

David Morrissey is superb as the pompous and overly respectable Harry Wade
while Johnny Flynn easily gives us the shivers. It is a star cast all in all.

It is tightly directed by Matthew Dunster keeping the audience both entertained
and on the edge of their seats and I must applaud set and costume designer Anna
Fleischle, who brought back memories of many a pub I worked in as a student
while lighting designer, Joshua Carr created the mood.

Do go and enjoy this wonderful offering from the National Theatre now showing
live at Cinema Nouveau across the country from Saturday 9 April for limited
screenings. The play is 2h40m long with a 20m interval. You will rush back to
your seats.

(source: Sharmini Brookes, Freelance writer----artlink.co.za)





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April 8



NIGERIA:

Nigeria plans stoppage of execution of criminals


Nigeria is to work with Amnesty International to stop the execution of
convicted criminals.

The Attorney General of Nigeria, Mr. Abubakar Malami, said the country would be
pleased to support any bill from Amnesty International on the abolition of
death sentence.

"Studies have shown that death penalty has not stopped people from committing
crimes," he said.

Malami explained that because of the country's respect for human rights,
members of the Boko Haram sect arrested were tried under Terrorism Prevention
Act, which does not carry death penalty.

In spite of their heinous crime, he said, convicted Boko Haram members could
not be executed because the maximum sentence prescribed by the law is life
sentence, he said.

At the launch of Amnesty's report on Global Death Sentences and Executions
2015, in Abuja, he said government was working towards ensuring that the prison
system was corrective and not punitive, as it is currently.

Earlier, the Country Director of Amnesty International, Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim,
said: "There is dramatic global rise in the number of executions recorded in
2015, which saw more people put to death than at any point in the last
quarter-century."

The surge was largely fuelled by Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which brought
the number of people executed worldwide to 1,634 people, a rise of more than 50
% on the year before and the highest number Amnesty International had recorded
since 1989.

(source: Star Africa)






UGANDA:

The death penalty: On whose hands is the blood of the innocent?


On March 25, as Christians worldwide commemorated the most important event in
Christianity - The death of Jesus Christ, some families were grieving for their
relatives who were executed on the same day.

In Japan Yasutoshi Kamata (a 75 year old) and Ms. Junko Yoshida (whose request
for a retrial was rejected) were executed. Although I have not read all the
details about their cases, as I attended the way of the cross and passion of
Christ service, I thought about these 2 cases as well as those who have
previously faced the death penalty and those currently facing it in the 92 out
of 195 Independent states that have not yet fully abolished the death penalty.
(So far 103 countries including 18 in Africa have fully abolished, 6 have
abolished for ordinary crimes, 50 have abolished in practice i.e. not executed
persons for over 10 years including Uganda while 36 are executing).

An important event in the run up to Jesus' crucifixion particularly stood out
for me; Jesus' betrayal by Judas as written in all gospels (Matthew 26, Mark
14, Luke 22 and John 18) at a price of 30 silver pieces. It is possible that
for Judas this was a money making scheme with the expectation that Jesus whom
he had seen performing miracles including raising the dead would find a way of
escaping because when he found out that Jesus had been condemned, he took the
30 silver pieces back to the chief priests and confessed to betraying innocent
blood. This however could not reverse the events. Judas ended up hanging
himself and the chief priests knowing that it was blood money that could not
even be put it into the treasury for worthy causes, used it to buy a graveyard
for foreigners.

Jesus Christ an innocent man thus faced what in modern day would have been the
hangman's rope, firing squad, lethal injection or any other mode of execution
for those found deserving of the death penalty, because of a close friend's
wrongful act. Although it is true that many of those sentenced to death are
guilty of the crimes for which they are condemned, it is also an undisputed
fact that some are condemned unjustly leading to innocent persons being put to
death. This is because of various reasons including; poor investigations,
prosecutorial misconduct and lack of effective legal representation. This
explains why it is usually the poor who end up at the gallows. In America
alone, the use of DNA evidence on the already condemned prisoners has so far
led to the exoneration of 337 people who had been wrongfully condemned to
suffer death. Back home in Uganda, we have testimonies of former death row
inmates like Patrick Zizinga condemned for the murder of his wife who was later
found alive leading to his release.

On whose hands is the blood of the innocent already executed and those among
the 208 currently on death row in Uganda? Is it the witnesses who give false
witness, the police that do poor investigations, the advocates who offer poor
legal representation, the judge who hands down the sentence, the public whose
opinions influence some case outcomes, the public who sits in watch and do
nothing, the President who signs the death e warrant, the executioners? On
whose hands?

(source: Opinion; The writer, Lucy Nantume, is a human rights
lawyer----newvision.co.ug)






PHILIPPINES:

Lorna Kapunan says no to death penalty----To have [the death] penalty, [we have
to be] morally certain we have a justice system that works'


She's a tough-talking lawyer who wants to see a change in the country's justice
system, but there's one thing Lorna Kapunan will keep the same: the abolition
of death penalty in the Philippines.

During Rappler's 1st senatorial debate on Friday, April 8, Kapunan said she's
not in favor of bringing back the death penalty, especially with the kind of
justice in the country.

"Kung nabibili hustisya, p'wede mang-bribe, magbigay ng pera [para] manalo ka,
hindi fair ang justice system natin. Hindi tayo sigurado [na 'yung] dapat
ikulong, nakukulong," she explained.

(If you can buy justice, if you can bribe and give money in order to win cases,
then our justice system is not fair. We're not sure if those deserving jail
time actually get jailed.)

Kapunan added, "To have [the death] penalty, [we have to be] morally certain we
have a justice system that works."

The death penalty was abolished in 1986 when President Corazon Aquino took over
the reins of power from Ferdinand Marcos. It was reintroduced by President
Fidel Ramos in 1993, then suspended again in 2006.

Part of Kapunan's legislative agenda is to push for an honest government where
the justice system is "inclusive regardless of one's status in life."

She said this justice system not only includes the country's penitentiaries,
but also the rehabilitation of offenders. She zeroed in on minors in
rehabilitation centers.

"Dapat tingnan natin. Hindi offenders, kriminal ang minors. They are
victims.... [We have to] reassess the system of rehabiliation of victims,"
Kapunan added.

(We have to review it. Minors are not offenders, criminals. They are victims.
We have to reassess the system of rehabiliation of victims.)

Kapunan faced off with Liberal Party senatorial bet Jericho Petilla and
independent candidates Levi Baligod and Greco Belgica during Friday's
senatorial debate held at the AMA University in Quezon City.

Kapunan is part of the Senate slate of presidential candidate Grace Poe and
running mate Francis Escudero.

(source: rappler.com)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 8



BANGLADESH:

UN rights office expresses concern about death sentences in Bangladesh


The United Nations human rights office today expressed concern about the latest
death sentences handed down against 2 leaders of an opposition party by the
Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal, noting the court's practices have not
met international standards of fair trial and due process.

Since its inception in 2010, the tribunal has delivered at least 17 verdicts,
the majority of which have resulted in the imposition of the death penalty. So
far, 4 men have been executed, according to the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

"The UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, no matter
the gravity of the crime committed and even if the most stringent fair trial
standards were respected," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights.

While recognising Bangladesh's determination to tackle past crimes, the trials
conducted before the Tribunal have unfortunately not met international
standards of fair trial and due process as stipulated in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), she said.

Serious due process problems, which have been repeatedly raised by various UN
independent experts, include lack of adequate access to legal assistance and a
lack of equality of arms between the prosecution and the defence, among other
issues, she added.

OHCHR called on Bangladesh to respect its obligations under the ICCPR, to which
it acceded in 2000. Article 14 of the ICCPR details the right to a fair trial.
The imposition of a death sentence following a trial in which these provisions
have not been respected constitutes a violation of the right to life.

The 2 leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami opposition party who were given death
sentences are Mir Quasem Ali and Motiur Rahman Nizami.

The former was sentenced to death in November 2014 by the Tribunal, and the
Supreme Court also upheld the verdict on 8 March.

Nizami was sentenced to death on charges of planning, ordering and committing
murders and rapes, among other serious crimes during the 1971 war of
independence. He filed a review petition against his death warrant, due to be
heard on Sunday, 10 April, following a 1-week deferral. This is the last stage
of the legal process in appealing against his execution, other than to seek a
presidential pardon. "We hope it will be considered thoroughly by the court,"
the spokesperson said.

Bangladesh reportedly has more than 1,200 prisoners on death row. In the month
of March this year alone, at least 13 people were reportedly sentenced to death
in separate murder cases in 4 districts in Bangladesh.

"We renew our call to the Government of Bangladesh, as a 1st step forward, to
halt all executions and institute a moratorium on the use of the death
penalty," the spokesperson said.

(source: UN News Centre)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 9




IRAN:

Stop the execution of Amanj Veisee - a juvenile offender in Iran


At his retrial in December Juvenile offender Amanj Veisee was resentenced to
death for the murder of his cousin - despite an official forensic report
concluding that he had not attained 'mental growth and maturity' at the time of
the crime.

Amanj had originally been sentenced in 2008, following the fatal stabbing of us
cousin during a fight. He was just 15 at the time of the stabbing and has
always said he did not intend to kill his cousin.

He says they had grown up together and he loved him deeply. He claims to have
stabbed him only in a frightened reaction to his 23-year-old cousin strangling
him.

Demand that the Iranian authorities commute Amnaj's death sentence

Questionable 'mental growth and maturity'

Amanj was originally sentenced to death in 2008 but was granted a retrial due
to concerns that he did not understand the nature of the crime or its
consequences.

The retrial was granted in 2015 on the basis of a then new Islamic Penal Code
which allowed courts to replace the death penalty with an alternative sentence
for juvenile offenders under these circumstances, or if there were doubts about
his or her ???mental growth and maturity' at the time of the crime.

Despite a state forensic institution, the Legal Medicine Organisation,
concluding that Amanj had not attained "mental growth and maturity" at the time
of the crime, the court has resentenced him to death.

The verdict is less than one page long. It dismisses the forensic report as
'non-binding' and concludes: 'there is no doubt about his mental maturity at
the time of the crime.'

Juvenile offender in Iran

Iran's use of the death penalty on juvenile offenders has been criticised by
bodies including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, who in only
January of this year noted their serious concern that the exemption of juvenile
offenders from the death penalty is 'under full discretion of judges who are
allowed, but not mandated to seek forensic expert opinion and that several
persons have been resentenced to death following such retrials'

Act now!

We're urging you to write to the Iranian authorities demanding that they
immediately commute Amanj's death sentence and commit to not carrying out
executions upon any person who was below aged 18 at the time of the crime.

Please write immediately in Persian, Arabic, English or your own language:

-- Urging the Iranian authorities to immediately commute Amanj Veisee's death
sentence and not carry out the execution of any person who was below the age of
18 at the time of the crime; and

-- Urging them to take legislative measures to completely abolish, without any
discretion for the courts or other exceptions, the use of the death penalty for
crimes committed by people below the age of 18, in line with Iran???s
obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Please send appeals to:

Supreme Leader

Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei

Islamic Republic Sreeet - End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street

Tehran

Islamic Republic of Iran

Emaill via website

Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English)

Salutation: Your Excellency

Also send copies to:

Head of the Judiciary

Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani

c/o Public Relations Office Number 4,

Deadend of 1 Azizi

Above Pasteur Intersection

Vali Asr Street

Tehran

Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: ***@humanrights-iran.ir

Salutation: Your Excellency

And to:

Prosecutor General of Tehran

Abbas Ja'fari Dolat Abadi

Tehran General and Revolutionary Prosecution Office

Corner (Nabsh-e) of 15 Khordad Square

Tehran

Islamic Republic of Iran

(source: Amnesty International UK)






TURKEY:

Survey: 93 pct favor reintroducing of death penalty


Apublic survey conducted with 4,176 people found that 92.6 % of respondents
supported reintroducing the death penalty for crimes such as rape, terror and
treason. The survey was conducted from March 2 to March 6 in 36 provinces using
the method of computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).

The survey also asked participants who they would vote for if an election were
held, and 54 percent said they would vote for the Justice and Development Party
(AK Party). The closest rival to the AK Party in the results of the poll was
the Republican People's Party (CHP) with the support of 21.7 % of participants
while the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) had support from 11.6 %. The
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) received the support of 7.8 % of survey
participants, below the nation electoral threshold.

The survey further found that 57 % of respondents support a presidential system
while 43 % thought it was not necessary to abandon Turkey's current
parliamentary system.

(source: Daily Sabah)






PAKISTAN----executions

Pakistan hangs brothers for murdering 6 people----The execution comes just days
after Amnesty International called out Pakistan for being the world's 3rd most
prolific executioner


Pakistan on Saturday, April 9, hanged two brothers convicted of murdering 6
people from the same family, just days after Amnesty International criticized
the country for becoming the world's 3rd most prolific executioner after China
and Iran.

Nasir Mehmood and Tahir Iqbal were hanged in a jail in the eastern Pakistani
city of Sialkot early Saturday for the 2002 murders, senior prison official
Chaudhry Arshad Saeed Arain told AFP.

The hanged men killed 6 members of a family over a land dispute, jail officials
said. No further details were available.

A 6-year moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in Pakistan after Taliban
attackers gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at an
army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014.

Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but
in March they were extended to all capital offences.

Executions in the Muslim-majority nation have helped fuel an increase
worldwide, Amnesty International said in a report this week, with at least
1,634 people put to death globally in 2015, the highest figure recorded since
1989.

"Over the past year, Pakistan has vaulted to the number 3 spot for recorded
state executions in the world - a shameful position no one should aspire to,"
Champa Patel, director of Amnesty's South Asia office, told AFP.

Pakistan executed 326 people last year, Patel said.

The overwhelming majority of those hanged since Pakistan fully restored the
death penalty in March 2015 had no links to terrorism, said Sarah Belal,
director of the Justice Project Pakistan, which advocates the abolition of
hanging and represents death row convicts.

(source: rappler.com)

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

Does the death penalty target criminals or the poor?


A damning report places Pakistan as 3rd in the list of countries where the most
number of executions took place in 2015, after China and Iran and before Saudi
Arabia and the United States. In other compelling statistics, in 2014, the
Global Slavery Index, Pakistan ranked 3rd in a list of 167 countries where the
problem of human slavery is most severe.

In 2012, we had the most number of people (28 million) affected by war and
conflict. Along with other South Asian countries, Pakistan ranks high in hunger
and malnutrition statistics, with about 41 million people undernourished in the
period 2014-16, a whopping 22 % of the population.

The state is responsible for much of the violence perpetrated upon its citizens
whether it is oblivion to a pattern of sustained and systematic hunger,
condoning violence against women because of inadequate preventive and
responsive measures, or perpetuating abysmal labour protections for vulnerable
workers.

The death penalty is yet another form of state enforced violence. It appears as
the particularly cruel and whimsical working of a state that has abdicated its
social responsibility toward its citizens, and yet wants to maintain the
illusion of law and order through swift and draconian, though flawed, justice.

Ironically, most of the people susceptible to execution in Pakistan's criminal
justice system are indigent defendants who cannot afford competent lawyers or
settle their cases through the (infamous) Qisas and Diyat laws - and caught in
the system in the first place as opposed to powerful killers who escape
unscathed.

It can be safely assumed that the state is at war with the poor. One only has
to look at the massive (and often concealed) crackdowns on the working-poor
protesting evictions or labour conditions to confirm this. The state is also
not shy of using its massive and prejudicial anti-terrorism legislative arsenal
against poor labourers and residents of katchi abaadis when they stand up
against illegal evictions and unfair labour practices and threaten real estate
expansionism and corporate impunity. They are then slammed with FIR's with
trumped up charges of terrorism or penal code violations.

The death penalty in Pakistan is but a continuum of the state's war on the
poor, with 1 difference - many people support the death penalty in Pakistan;
but most people will not support water jets and lathi (baton) charges against
the poor. Most Pakistanis will not approve of brutal violence against and the
criminalisation of people fighting elite housing projects of Bahria Town to
preserve their two room homes, or school teachers demanding salaries.

People know these are not the rifle wielding terrorists. These are the poor and
the terrorised.

This is probably why there is a tangible media control in the ways in which
poverty, hunger, housing and labour woes are presented. They are either
obliterated from discourse, presented as emotional fillers rather than within
the context of a violent neo-liberal political economy that disrupts the lives
of the poor, or distorted within a larger liberal narrative of necessary
economic development.

But coming back to the death penalty.

With its emotive appeal for instant justice for murderers and terrorists, the
death penalty finds support it seems, in a large section of society. Never mind
that some of the executed were juveniles at the time of the crime and that most
were not terrorists, and the country is not necessarily safer because the
murderer of Salman Taseer is dead. Never mind that the Human Rights Conventions
we have ratified and even Islamic jurisprudence which we often aspire to
condemn the death penalty, or prescribe due process parameters for it, or allow
for discretion and forgiveness, are ignored.

It is a great indicator of (false) progress of a pro-active and concerned
government. Children in Sindh, Balochistan, South Punjab and FATA will continue
to die of hunger, but at least people are supposedly safer in their homes with
more than 300 people hanged in 2015.

The US, with its notorious legacy of Guantanamo, impunity for torture,
imperialist wars are no bastion of human rights; it was among the top five
countries that executed the most number of people last year. However, compared
to Pakistan's 300 plus figures for 2015, the US executed 28 people. 19 states
have abolished the death penalty, and some that have yet to outlaw it, have
imposed moratoriums.

Last year, Nebraska's legislature voted to abolish the death penalty. In
disappointing contrast, Missouri executed Cecil Clayton, a 74-year-old man
diagnosed with dementia. While in Pakistan, there is a little publicised debate
around or litigation against the cruel and barbaric nature of the method of
execution - hanging - in the US, there was a robust litigation around lethal
injection protocols. In Glossip v Gross, while the Supreme Court allowed the
use of a drug used in the deadly injection, 2 dissenting judges found that the
death penalty is probably unconstitutional, unreliable and arbitrary.

Also among the top 5 countries for capital punishment was Iran, which gave
cause for moral outrage when it reportedly executed the entire male population
of a village in the South for drug offences. China retains secrecy on carrying
out the death penalty, but it did amend its criminal law last year reducing the
number of crimes punishable by death from 55 to 46. Pakistan, in the meanwhile,
carries the death sentence for, just a little behind in the horrible race to
the bottom, 27 offences. By the middle of the year, Saudi Arabia had executed
at least 102 people and along with, in China, Iran and Pakistan, it accounted
for 90 % of the 1,614 executions in 2015. Saudi Arabia is known for its unfair
trials, lethal intolerance for drug offences, and many Pakistanis executed for
being drug mules do not have adequate access to consular services or a fair
trial.

Stoning, shooting gas chambers, hanging, beheading or lethal injections are the
methods states currently employ to execute people. They are all inhumane and
barbaric; and it is pointless to label stoning barbaric, which it is, beheading
uncivilised, which it is, hanging quick, which it is not, or lethal injection
sanitised, which it is certainly not. But what is indicative of a democratic
and humane civil society is how it contests these death methodologies through
litigation under constitutional and human rights principles banning cruel,
inhumane and degrading punishment - and the number of meaningful chances at
appeal available to those facing capital punishment.

The sanctity of life commands that every possible route to appeal a draconian
sentence of death is explored. In 1982, ex-Black Panther Party member Mumia Abu
Jamal was unfairly convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a racist
trial. His sentence was confirmed by the highest court of Pennsylvania in 1989.
In 1990 the Supreme Courts denied his writ of certiorari and then in 1991 his
request for a review of their decision. In 1995, Mumia applied for
post-conviction relief and new witnesses were called to testify in a renewed
trial. Losing that battle, he pled before the Supreme Court again only to have
his 2nd cert petition denied. More appeals later, in 2001, a federal district
court of the third circuit vacated his death sentence citing to irregularities
during his sentencing and ordered new sentencing proceedings. His final
vindication was in 2011 when prosecutors announced that they would not pursue
his execution.

If Mumia's trial was marred by the institutional racism of the American
criminal justice system, Shafqat Hussain's trial was marred by how courts, and
in fact all state polices, are stacked against the poor in Pakistan - be they
oppressed ethnicities, slum dwellers, migrant labourers, Dalits, the young, or
Christians. While, Mumia (although still in jail) benefitted from almost 3
decades of legal battles to save his life from what could have been a wrongful
execution, Shafqat Hussain, a lower income juvenile at the time of his crime,
was illegally executed despite international pressure.

With over 300 assembly line executions in 2015, almost an average of 1 per day,
in the state has shown that it can't be bothered too much by legal safeguards.
But it should be. All life is sacred and there are no short cuts if the result
is the potential death of an innocent person. And given the flaws in our
system, many of those 300 were probably innocent if not of the crime itself,
then as victims of unfair trial.

The death penalty should be evaluated in the general landscape of the war
against the poor. The state's rapid drive toward draconian laws, over
criminalisation and incarceration, in its effort to mimic other states, like
the US, with its massive prison apparatus and Patriot Acts, should be seen in
light of the fact that those countries may have more developed history of
capital defence and habeas corpus litigation.

(source: The Tribune)






INDIA:

In a first, drug dealer gets death penalty in West Bengal


Almost 14 years after he was arrested, a Barasat court has ordered Karaya
resident Anwar Rehman - who was found guilty of supplying heroin in Kolkata and
was arrested with over 53.5 kg of it- to be hanged till death. For the 1st time
a court in Bengal has awarded death sentence in a NDPS case.

Rehman was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of India. Anirban
Das, the sixth additional district session judge gave death sentence to Anshar
Rahaman (62) and sentenced his accomplice Dipak Giri (47) to 30 years of
rigorous imprisonment.NCB officials explained that a death penalty is usually
awarded in rarest of circumstances - gene rally when the quantity recovered is
huge and the accused is a repeat offender. In 2002, the cost of the confiscated
drug was estimated to over Rs 53.5 crore.

Officilas in the NCB said that their chargesheet carried enough evidence that
prove Rehman had links with some "influential people" in the city. His supplies
would come from Pakistan through Rajasthan. While carrying out the probe, the
NCB officials got in touch with narcotic officials in Bangladesh, Nepal,
Australia some other countries.

Officials said that Rehman had once gone to Switzerland in early 2002 and
stayed there for 6 months. "He claimed that he had gone on a holiday with his
son but had no evidence to suggest that he had he met drug dealers
there,''explained an officer.

Rehman had reportedly , invested Rs 1.5 crore to procure the heroin that was
seized by the sleuths. NCB officers said Rehman had paid the money to his
Rajasthan contacts in mid-September in 2002. "We are trying to find out how he
got so much money to invest," the NCB director said.

(source: The Times of India)


BANGLADESH:

OHCHR urges halting all executions


The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has urged the Bangladesh
government to halt all executions and institute a moratorium on the use of the
death penalty.

Raising question in relation to international due process and fair trial
standards, the OHCHR expressed concerns about the fate of Motiur Rahman Nizami,
who filed a review petition against his death warrant which is due to be heard
on Sunday.

"The trials conducted before the International Crimes Tribunal have not met
international standards of fair trial and due process as stipulated in the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)," OHCHR
spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a press briefing note issued yesterday.

"The UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, no matter
the gravity of the crime committed and even if the most stringent fair trial
standards were respected," the note said.

Ravina, in her message, said, "We renew our call to the Government of
Bangladesh to respect its obligations under the ICCPR, to which it acceded in
2000. Article 14 of the ICCPR details the right to a fair trial," the release
said.

It adds, "The imposition of a death sentence following a trial in which these
provisions have not been respected constitutes a violation of the right to
life."

(source: The Daily Star)

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

UN: Halt death penalty of Nizami, Mir Quasem


The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged Bangladesh government to
halt the death penalty to condemned war criminals Motiur Rahman Nizami and Mir
Quasem Ali.

The OHCHR made the call in a statement issued on Friday.

Expressing concern about the death sentences to the duo, the OHCHR also raised
question in relation to international due process and fair trial standards.

It stated that the UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all
circumstances, no matter the gravity of the crime committed and even if the
most stringent fair trial standards were respected.

"While recognising Bangladesh's determination to tackle past crimes, the trials
conducted before the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal have
unfortunately not met international standards of fair trial and due process as
stipulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR)," it says.

The statement reads: "We renew our call to the Government of Bangladesh, as a
1st step forward, to halt all executions and institute a moratorium on the use
of the death penalty."

Bangladesh's 1st war crimes tribunal handed Nizami death on October 29, 2014 on
4 charges and life imprisonment on 4 other charges. He challenged the verdict
at the apex court.

On January 6, a 4-member Appellate Division bench upheld the tribunal's
sentence for the Al-Badr chief for masterminding the killing of intellectuals
and involvement in 2 incidents of mass killing of over 500 people in Pabna in
1971.

The Supreme Court on March 8 upheld the war tribunal's death sentence awarded
to Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali for committing crimes against humanity
during the 1971 Liberation War.

Top Jamaat-e-Islami financier Quasem, now 64, was awarded capital punishment by
the tribunal on November 3, 2014. (source: Dhaka Tribune)

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

Nizami review hearing on Supreme Court's cause list for Sunday


The Supreme Court's business agenda for Sunday includes the matter of a
petition by war crimes convict Motiur Rahman Nizami for a review of the verdict
upholding his death sentence.

After being deferred once, the matter has been listed as the 19th issue on the
agenda at the 4-member appeals bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

The other members of the bench are justices Nazmun Ara Sultana, Syed Mahmud
Hossain and Hasan Foez Siddique. On Apr 3, the court deferred the matter for a
week after Nizami's counsels pleaded for time.

Nizami, who heads the Jamaat-e-Islami, filed a petition for a review of his
death sentence over his 1971 war crimes on Mar 29.

In January this year, the top court rejected Nizami's appeal to overturn the
International Crimes Tribunal's 2014 verdict.

As the head of the Jamaat's then student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha, Nizami
commanded the Al-Badr, a militia known for its ruthless mass murder, rape, loot
and killing of Bengali intellectuals in complicity with Pakistani soldiers
during the 1971 war.

Review is the last legal recourse for a death row convict after all other
judicial means have been exhausted.

The option to seek presidential mercy provides the only remaining hope ahead of
execution in case the review is rejected.

On Mar 16, the death warrant issued by the ICT was read out to Nizami after the
Supreme Court published the full copy of his verdict.

Nizami's case is the 6th among all war crimes cases so far to have reached the
stage of a review petition after the publication of the full verdict.

The 72-year-old is the 3rd former minister facing the gallows for war crimes.

Nizami, industries minister in the 2001-06 BNP-led coalition government, was
also handed the death penalty in 2014 for arms trafficking in the sensational
Chittagong 10-truck arms haul case.

(source: bdnews24.com)






SUDAN:

Khartoum sentences 22 South Sudanese to death


An anti-terrorism court in Khartoum has sentenced 22 South Sudanese nationals
to death and 3 others to life in prison on Wednesday for belonging to a
militant group in Darfur.

"The judge sentenced them to death by hanging on charges of terrorism, fighting
the state, bearing arms against the state and undermining the constitutional
order," Mahjoub Dawoud, defense attorney, told Reuters.

The defendants belong to the Justice and Equality Movement, a rebel group based
in Darfur that took up arms against the Sudanese government in 2003,
complaining that their region was being marginalized.

The group, led by Bakhit Abdul Karim (Dabjo), signed a peace agreement with the
Khartoum government in 2013.

Shortly after the agreement, the group handed in its weapons to the government
and in return the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, pardoned members
of the group.

However, the presidential pardon did not include the 25 South Sudanese
nationals. The government considered them foreign fighters and brought them to
trial for bearing arms against Sudan.

Lawyers of the defendants said they will appeal the court decision next week,
calling the Sudanese authorities to treat their clients as prisoners of war.

Sudan regularly accuses its neighbor of backing insurgents in its Darfur, Blue
Nile and South Kordofan regions.

South Sudan, which split away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of civil war
fueled by ethnicity and oil, dismisses the allegations and accuses Khartoum of
arming militias in its territory.

(source: Reuters)

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April 11



BANGLADESH:

Nizami's review plea hearing defers till May 3


The Supreme Court today deferred till May 3 the hearing on the review petition
filed by condemned war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami.

The four-member bench of Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra
Kumar Sinha passed the deferment order following a time petition moved by
Nizami's lawyer Khandaker Mahbub Hossain.

He prayed to the court to shift the date for hearing citing his personal
difficulties.

On March 29, Nizami filed the petition praying to the apex court to acquit him
of all the charges on which he was found guilty and awarded death penalty.

Nizami mentioned 46 grounds in the 70-page petition.

On October 29, 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 handed down the death
penalty to Nizami on four charges of war crimes, including murdering
intellectuals during the Liberation War in 1971. The 71-year-old was also
awarded life imprisonment on the four other charges.

The SC on January 6 this year upheld his death sentence on three charges and
life term imprisonment on 2 other charges.

On March 15, the apex court released the full verdict. The ICT issued death
warrant for him hours after the SC had released its full verdict.

The following day, the jail authorities read out the judgment before the
convict.

(source: The Dialy Star)






TAIWAN:

Taiwanese rally for death penalty after child's beheading


Hundreds of Taiwanese rallied Sunday to show support for retaining the death
penalty, after the beheading of a child in a street attack shocked the island.

Demonstrators dressed in black and held white roses in mourning for the
four-year-old girl murdered on March 28 near a Taipei metro station. Many wore
stickers reading "Death penalty is necessary."

The girl's mother tried to stop the attacker but was pushed away. Several
bystanders were also unable to stop the man, who decapitated the child with a
kitchen knife.

Police said the 33-year-old had previously been arrested for drug-related
crimes and had sought treatment for mental illness. He was attacked by an angry
mob while in custody.

The killing came less than a year after the throat of an 8-year-old girl was
slit in her school restroom in Taipei. It sparked widespread public anger and
fresh debate about capital punishment.

Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a 5-year hiatus. But executions
are reserved for the most serious crimes such as aggravated murder and
kidnapping.

Some politicians and rights groups have called for its abolition, but various
opinion surveys show majority support for the death penalty.

"Taiwan is not safe, so death sentences are needed to deter crimes and they
should be carried out. I hope this will make our society safer for all
children," said office worker Chen Pei-chi, who took her sons aged three and
six to the Taipei rally.

"I am really sad and angry that these random murders of children keep
happening. All child-killers should be sentenced to death for hurting
defenceless children and destroying their families, as losing a child is
unbearable," said housewife Wu Chiu-mei, who has a 3-year-old grandson.

In 2012 the murder of a 10-year-old boy in a playground reignited debate over
the death penalty, after the suspect reportedly said he was anticipating free
board and lodging in jail and would get a life sentence at most even if he were
to kill two or 3 people.

(source: The Daily Star)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan court issues arrest warrant for former president Musharraf


Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Court issued a nonbailable arrest warrant on Friday
against former president and military leader Pervez Musharraf for detaining
more than 60 judges after declaring a state of emergency in 2007. The
proceedings were held without Musharraf, who left the country for Dubai after a
court removed him from the exit control list last month to seek medical
treatment. However, the judge told his lawyers that Musharraf should have
obtained specific permission from the court before departing the country. He is
ordered to appear in court in Pakistan on April 22.

The case against Musharraf has been ongoing since 2014. Pakistan's Sindh High
Court (SHC) in June 2014 lifted a travel ban that had prevented Musharraf from
leaving the country. Musharraf was indicted in March of that year on charges of
high treason. If convicted, Musharraf could face the death penalty. Musharraf
pleaded not guilty to each of the charges against him, including unlawfully
suspending the constitution, firing Pakistan's chief justice, and instituting
emergency rule in 2007. Musharraf called the charges politically motivated and
maintained that the country had prospered under his 2001-2008 rule and that his
declaration of a state of emergency was not unconstitutional.

(source: Jurist.org)






IRAN----executions

5 Prisoners Hanged in Northern Iran on Drug Charges


On the morning of Saturday April 9, 5 prisoners were reportedly hanged at
Rasht's Lakan Prison (in the provine of Gilan, northern Iran) on drug charges.

The prisoners had reportedly been transferred out of their wards on Thursday
April 7 and taken to solitary confinement cells in preparation for their
executions.

According to close sources, Rashid Kouhi, Seyed Javad Mirzadeh and Hossein
Farhadi are the names of 3 of the prisoners. Iran Human Rights is in the
process of investigating the identities of the 2 other prisoners. All 5
prisoners were reportedly on death row for drug related offenses.

According to Amnesty International, 36-year-old Rashid Kouhi was arrested in
September 2011 and sentenced to death by the revolutionary court in Rudbar (a
county in Gilan) for possession and trafficking 800 grams of methamphetamine.
Close sources say prison authorities contacted Kouhi's family on April 7 and
instructed them to come in for their last visit with him on Friday April 8
before his scheduled execution the next day.

Iranian authorities have admitted multiple times in the past that the death
penalty has not decreased the volume of drug crimes in Iran, but Iranian
authorities still continue to hang prisoners on drug charges. Human rights
groups, including Iran Human Rights, have reported close to a thousand
executions carried out in Iran in 2015. According to the annual death penalty
report by Iran Human Rights, 66% of the executions carried out in 2015 in Iran
were for drug related offenses.

(source: Iran Human Rights)

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

Iran regime executes man despite appeal by rights group


Iran's fundamentalist regime on Saturday executed student Rashid Kouhi despite
an appeal by Amnesty International for the sentence to be halted.

Mr. Kouhi, 36, was executed earlier in the day on Saturday in Rasht???s Lakan
Prison in Gilan Province, northern Iran, sources said.

On Friday Amnesty International said Mr. Kouhi's scheduled execution
demonstrated the Iranian authorities' utter disregard for the right to life and
their determination to continue with a staggering execution spree that saw
nearly 1000 people put to death last year.

Family members of Rashid Kouhi received a call from prison authorities on
Thursday informing them that they should go to Lakan Prison to have a final
meeting with him on Friday before his execution the following day.

Rashid Kouhi was arrested at a checkpoint in Roudbar, Gilan province on August
24, 2011.

"The officers who stopped him conducted a search of his bag where they found
800 grams of crystal meth. He was a student at the time. He was tried and
sentenced to death following a grossly unfair trial by a Revolutionary Court in
Roudbar in February 2012," according to Amnesty International.

Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy
Director, said on Friday: "The imminent execution of Rashid Kouhi days after
Iran was revealed to be the world's 2nd highest executioner in 2015 in Amnesty
International's annual death penalty report, highlights the authorities'
determination to maintain their horrifying rate of executions."

"The Iranian authorities must halt the execution of Rashid Kouhi immediately.
The use of the death penalty for drug-related offences is a blatant violation
of international human rights law. Instead of stepping up their rampant
execution spree the Iranian authorities must take steps to abolish this
ultimate cruel and inhuman punishment."

The human rights groups said: "The court's verdict, which has been reviewed by
Amnesty International, is less than a page long and does not contain adequate
reasoning. He did not have access to a lawyer during questioning and met a
state appointed lawyer for the 1st time during his trial. He was held in
Roudbar for 2 years before being taken to Lakan Prison in Rasht."

Rashid Kouhi was denied the right to appeal his death sentence.

"It is appalling that Rashid Kouhi has been denied the right to an appeal which
is a fundamental element of the right to a fair trial. The Iranian authorities
must urgently halt his execution and give him a chance to appeal his death
sentence in a fair trial without recourse to the death penalty. Failing to do
so will be an irreversible injustice," said Said Boumedouha.

The human rights group said on its website: "At least 977 people were executed
in Iran in 2015."

(source: NCR-Iran)






SOMALIA----executions

Journalist murder: Somali court executes 2 Al-Shabaab militants


The Somali military court on Saturday executed 2 Al-Shabaab militants behind
last year's murder of a female journalist who worked for state media.

The court found that Abdirisak Mohamed Barow, 28, and Hassan-Nur Ali Farah, 37,
killed Hindiya Haji Mohamed, the journalist working for Radio Mogadishu and
National Television on December 3 last year, Xinhua reported.

The execution by firing squad occurred at a field in General Kahiye Police
Academy in Mogadishu.

"Barow and Farah, were sentenced to a death penalty on March 20 and they are
executed for their involvement and killing of the journalist, Hindiya Haji
Mohamed," said 1 of the prosecutors.

The prosecutor added that the executed men were members of the AlAl-Shabaab
militant group.

Hindiya was killed early December in 2015 while her husband, who was also a
journalist for the same station, was killed on September 20 in 2012.

Somalia is considered to be one of the worst places where journalists operate.
More than 25 journalists have been murdered in Somalia since 2007, according to
data from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

(source: Business-Standard)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 11




UNITED NATIONS:

Rights groups set 'priorities' for next UN chief----Rights groups say the next
leader must strike a new deal for refugees and end the death penalty. This
week, 8 candidates for the top job will outline their vision for the role at
the UN General Assembly.


Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and 4 other rights groups have listed
8 priorities for the next UN secretary-general, who will be elected later this
year to replace Ban Ki-moon.

Their unofficial job description was released on Monday as United Nations
member states were due to begin week-long question and answer sessions with
each of the eight candidates currently running for the position. Other
candidates are expected to emerge.

The priorities include forging a new deal for refugees and migrants that is
based on "sustained international cooperation with an equitable sharing of
responsibilities for resettlement." They also called for a full review of the
bodies that manage international migration.

The rights groups said the next UN chief should be prepared to invoke the UN
charter to prevent and end mass atrocities such as the deliberate targeting of
civilians in wars.

Current UN chief Ban Ki-moon steps down in December

Candidates were also urged to promise to work towards abolishing the death
penalty during their term, after a recent Amnesty report showed that executions
worldwide rose by more than 1/2 in 2015, compared to the previous year.

The surge was largely due to Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia carrying out more
killings, but China and the United States also regularly resort to the death
penalty.

Minority rights, gender equality

The NGOs also called on the next UN leader to champion the rights of
marginalized people, ensure gender equality and work to combat impunity for
crimes under international law.

The new secretary-general must also be willing to stand up to big powers at the
Security Council to discourage them from using their veto power to block action
to end atrocities, they said.

In 2014, the Security Council failed to refer Syria to the International
Criminal Court for war crimes prosecutions after Russia and China blocked the
measure.

UN officials said the two-hour public interviews of candidates, which will
begin on Tuesday, were part of broader plans to make the selection process for
the position of UN chief more transparent.

8 candidates so far

So far, 8 candidates have declared their interest. They include Irina Bokova,
the chief of UN children's body UNESCO, Helen Clark, former prime minister of
New Zealand, and Antonio Guterres, the former UN high commissioner for
refugees.

The Associated Press cited unnamed UN officials as suggesting that German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission budget chief Kristalina
Georgieva may also make strong candidates for the role, although Merkel is
reportedly not keen on the job.

The new UN secretary-general is formally picked by the 193-member General
Assembly. But the 15-member Security Council recommends the successful
candidate, and in practice the five permanent Security Council members - the
US, Russia, China, Britain and France - have veto power over the nominees.

The successful candidate will take over the position on January 1, 2017, when
incumbent Ban's 2nd 5-year term ends.

The human rights 'priorities' agenda was also endorsed by Civicus, the
International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), the Global Centre for the
Responsibility to Protect and the World Federalist Movement - Institute for
Global Policy.

(source: Deutsche Welle)






INDIA:

CSWO demands death penalty for rape & murder accused


The Irene Hujon faction of the Civil Society Women Organisation (CSWO) has
demanded death sentence for a rape accused even as it asked the State
government to appoint a special prosecutor to expedite trial in the case.

In a shocking incident, one Vicky Syiemlieh allegedly raped and murdered a
19-year-old-girl at 41/2 Mile in Upper Shillong on March 17.

"Crimes like these can no longer be tolerated and should be dealt with a firm
hand," Hujon said in a memorandum to the Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma.

Hujon suggested the name of Additional Advocate General, WHD Syngkon to handle
the case.

Meanwhile, in a letter to Home Minister Roshan Warjri, the Seng Teilang Kynthei
said that the incident has shamed the state. "We feel ashamed that even little
children are not spared from being raped and murdered in this once beautiful
and peaceful state of ours. It is the bounden duty of our public
representatives whom we have elected, to strengthen the judicial system and put
in place tough laws to protect women and children," the Seng Teilang Kynthei
said. "We also demand that others who were involved along with Vicky Syiemlieh
in this gruesome act be awarded the same punishment," the organisation said.

(source: sentinelassam.com)






SOMALIA----execution

Former Al-Shabaab media officer executed for murder of journalists


Former Al-Shabaab group media officer was executed by a firing squad on Monday
for murdering journalists in the Horn of Africa nation.

Hassan Hanafi Haji, who used to arrange for media briefings by the insurgents
in the capital, was shot in Mogadishu following his recent sentence by the
country's military court.

"The Court found him guilty of killing five journalists. He also admitted his
involvement in killing the journalists including former Chief of Somalia news
agency Sheikh Nor Abkey. National military court sat for his case 2 times and
found enough evidence and sentenced him to death penalty twice on March, but
finally his execution happened this morning," said Col. Abdulahi Hussein
Mayonge, one of the prosecutors.

Somalia journalists welcomed the execution of Haji, saying the deceased was a
threat to journalism in the Horn of Africa nation.

"It is something very important to see and witness a criminal who was behind
the killing of my colleagues facing justice. We used to hear perpetrators
escaping from justice, but this gives us sign of hope and confidence," Omar
Farah, a radio journalist, said.

Haji was arrested in Kenya and brought to Mogadishu for further investigation.
He appeared from the State run television last month, admitting his involvement
in the killing of journalists in Mogadishu.

The execution came 2 days after the court executed 2 other Al-Shabaab men who
were found guilty of killing another journalist, Hindiya Haji Mohamed, in
Mogadishu.

Hassan Nur Ali, 37, and Abdirisak Mohamed Barow, 28, were shot in Mogadishu on
Saturday.

Mohamed, who was a journalist for 2 state-run news outlets, Radio Mogadishu and
Somali National TV, was killed when a bomb planted under the seat of her car
exploded.

(source: Shangnhai Daily)






GLOBAL:

The death penalty is past its kill-by date


The number of countries that no longer apply the death penalty continues to
grow. Yet the global execution count is also on the rise. That is primarily the
fault of 4 countries, DW's Matthias von Hein writes.

The most fundamental human right - inalienable and also anchored in the UN's
Universal Declaration of Human Rights - is the right to live. This right, of
course, is often violated by conflict, terrorism and crime, and it is often
violated by the law. Last year, 25 states legally executed at least 1,634 human
beings.

Those numbers, from Amnesty International, represent a setback in the global
fight to abolish the death penalty. In 2015 the number of executions was higher
than it had been at any time in the previous quarter century. And, sadly, one
must assume that a great many more people lost their lives at the hands of
executioners. Many countries simply refuse to release such data, treating
executions like state secrets. 46 offenses are punishable by death in China,
which does not let on how many people are killed there annually, though the
total is likely more than in the rest of the world combined.

90 % of the executions recorded in Amnesty's numbers are carried out in Iran,
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. And it's not just an antiquated Old Testament
principle like "an eye for an eye" that will get you killed. Adultery,
blasphemy and homosexuality have all been used to justify the death penalty in
such places. And, if that were not bad enough, one cannot even begin to speak
of fairness in the judicial proceedings that lead to executions.

Other nonviolent offenses, such as drug dealing or smuggling, are also punished
by death on a massive level. For instance, two-thirds of the thousand or so
executions carried out in Iran last year were related to drug offenses. But
such measures have done little to stem the flow of drugs into the country. That
favored argument of death penalty supporters - that executions have a deterrent
effect - simply doesn't hold true.

One of the biggest disappointments in the run-up to the UN General Assembly's
special session on the world drug problem in New York this month is that the
European Union was unable to push through its calls for abolishing the death
penalty for such crimes. Drafts of the conference's closing document contain no
references to that. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt and others
maintain their position that the death penalty is a judiciary issue for
individual sovereign states and not a topic for drug conferences.

Belarus clings to the death penalty in Europe. The United States, which claims
political and moral superiority over many other nations, executed one inmate
every 2 weeks last year on average. The death penalty has its roots in eras in
which people were concerned with revenge, not justice. It is senseless,
gruesome and degrading; executions lead to brutal societies.

The majority of countries around the world have realized that state-sanctioned
killing is not the answer to murder or other crimes: A total of 102 states have
completely abolished the death penalty. 4 did so just last year. These
countries show that justice and criminal law have no need for executioners.

(source: Opinion, Deutsche Welle)


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April 12



TAIWAN:

Death row inmate asks for release ahead of his retrial


Relatives and supporters of Cheng Hsing-tse yesterday rally outside the
Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court during a pre-trial hearing for retrial
of the death row inmate.

After new evidence cast doubt on his conviction, death row inmate Cheng
Hsing-tse yesterday told a pre-trial hearing that he did not kill a police
officer in 2002 and asked a judge to release him from prison as he awaits his
retrial at the Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court.

To his disappointment, as well as that of his relatives and supporters, the
judge did not rule on Cheng's release request and so he was returned to prison
at the end of the hearing.

Cheng was convicted of killing police officer Su Hsien-pi during an exchange of
gunfire at a Taichung KTV on Jan. 2, 2002.

Police had been called to the KTV after a drunk patron, Lo Wu-hsiung, fired 2
shots from a pistol in one of the rooms, hitting the ceiling and a liquor
bottle. More shots rang out when the police entered the room and Su and Lo were
killed, while Cheng and several others were wounded.

The Supreme Court upheld his death sentence 10 years ago, but last month
prosecutors announced they would seek a retrial after as new evidence came to
light.

"I did not hold and fire the handgun. My confession was forced from me after I
was tortured. My defense lawyer will present the argument for granting a
retrial," the 49-year-old Cheng said yesterday in his opening statement.

"It has been more than 10 years since the court sentenced me to death and today
is the 1st time since then that I have been able to walk out of prison to
appear in court and defend myself," Cheng said. "It has been 5,210 days since I
lost my freedom. I very much wish that number will end right here."

Citing several questions about judicial process in the case, Cheng's lawyer, Lo
Ping-cheng, told the hearing that a retrial was necessary and urged that his
client be released pending the new trial.

"Prosecutors have presented new evidence that could change the ruling. If
prosecutors believe it is likely the conviction will be overturned, then Cheng
should be released. If the judiciary has other considerations, we ask the judge
to release Cheng during the retrial," Lo said.

Prosecutors told the hearing that there was enough new evidence to alter the
original conviction and possibly overturn the final verdict, and they asked the
judge to grant a retrial.

Cheng's case has gone through seven trials and several appeals. He has
steadfastly maintained his innocence.

Supporters have cited what they said were several flaws in the investigation
and the use of questionable evidence to win a conviction.

The prosecutors' application last month for a retrial was the 1st time in the
nation's history that a retrial has been sought in a case where the Supreme
Court's final ruling upheld the original death sentence.

Members of the Taiwan Association for Innocence, the Taiwan Alliance to End the
Death Penalty and human rights group members joined Cheng's relatives outside
the court building, holding up banners and slogans calling for Cheng's release
and asking the court to overturn his conviction.

Cheng's mother said that she knew that her son is innocent and she was ready to
take him home.

"We have suffered for more than 10 years, but he is still not free to come back
and be reunited with our family," she said.

She said she was devastated when she heard the judge had decided not to rule on
the release request and that Cheng would be returned to prison.

(source: Taipei Times)






NIGERIA:

Ajimobi okays death penalty for kidnappers


Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi has signed into law a kidnapping prohibition
bill, which makes kidnapping a capital offence in the state.

The new law states that kidnapping attracts the death sentence in the event of
the death of a kidnap victim while in the custody of the abductors.

The bill had earlier been passed by the state House of Assembly, following the
submission of a report by the Chairman, House Committee on Judiciary and
Justice, Olukayode Akande.

The Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Michael Adeyemo, and Permanent
Secretary/Clerk of the House, Mr. Paul Bankole, had earlier signed the bill
before the governor gave it his assent.

The law states that a convicted offender will be liable to life imprisonment if
the victim is released or rescued unhurt upon the payment of a ransom, while
the kidnapper will be made to pay back the ransom.

Under the new law, which was signed on Friday by the governor, similar
punishment will be given to any person who procures, engages or gives
information culminating in the kidnapping of a victim.

The law also prescribes life imprisonment for any person who kidnaps or
threatens to kill, maim or cause bodily harm in order to compel another person,
corporate body or organisation to do or abstain from doing any act as a
condition for the release of the victim.

An attempt to kidnap someone attracts 20 years imprisonment awaits, while
anybody who aids or abets kidnapping is liable to imprisonment for 15 years
upon conviction.

While signing the bill into, Ajimobi commended the lawmakers for its
accelerated passage, saying that it would help curb crime and criminal
activities in the state.

(source: punchng.com)





THE NETHERLANDS:

Dutch pharma firm reprimanded for drug used in U.S. executions


The Dutch branch of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) reprimanded pharmaceutical company Mylan for doing to little to prevent
their drugs being used in executions in the United States, the Volkskrant
reports.

The OECD reprimanded Mylan at the insistence of death penalty lawyer Bart
Staperd. The pharmaceutical company now has to update its sales policy and make
sure that their products are not used in executions. Mylan is originally an
American company, but is established in the Netherlands for tax reasons. It
therefore has to comply with Dutch human rights laws and provisions.

The drug involved is muscle relaxant rocuronium bromide. In the United States
it is used as part of the cocktail given to death penalty prisoners at their
execution.

Mylan initially defended itself by claiming that they do not always have
control over the distribution of the drug. They sell rocuronium bromide
wholesale to American hospitals, to be sued for anesthesia in medical
treatments. It is not directly supplied to prisons.

The OECD does not find that excuse acceptable, and instructed Mylan to better
monitor the trade of the drug, even after they sold it. The company now
promised to put more effort into monitoring where the drug ends up.

(source: nltimes.nl)






NORTHERN IRELAND:

Durkan supports Pope's call for abolition of the death penalty


SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan has co-sponsored a parliamentary motion at
Westminster welcoming Pope Francis's recent call for an abolition of the death
penalty - and for Catholic political leaders worldwide to begin the process by
suspending the death penalty during the Church's 'Year of Mercy' (8 December
2015 - 20 November 2016).

Mr Durkan, who is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the
Abolition of the Death Penalty at Westminster, said: "I oppose the death
penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle wherever it happens in
the world.

"There are many moral and practical arguments against capital punishment.
Indeed, cases such as the Guildford 4 and Birmingham 6 show the real danger
that innocent people could be put to death.

"As a member of the APPG for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, I also help to
raise awareness of miscarriages of justice in other countries and the appalling
human rights record of many states that do employ death verdicts where fair
trials are often a fantasy.

"The death penalty is not only wrong but counterproductive.

"I therefore welcome the example which has been shown by Pope Francis and fully
support his call for Catholic political leaders to suspend the death penalty
during the Year of Mercy.

"I will also continue to lobby the government to maintain its pressure on the
international community to pursue the ultimate aim of a worldwide abolition of
the death penalty."

(source: Derry Journal)



MALAYSIA:

Kevin Morais 'probably' dead before being placed in oil drum, High Court told


Deputy public prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais was "probably" dead before
he was placed in a drum in a sack, the High Court heard today.

Hospital Kuala Lumpur forensic expert Dr Nurliza Abdullah also confirmed the
direct cause of death was suffocation, where the deceased suffered from
external factors hindering him from breathing.

"There is high probability that he (Kevin) was dead before he was placed inside
the sack and then inside the drum.

"This is because (there were) no signs - to his hands and legs - that showed he
moved, struggled or wriggled and the posture of the deceased was still in an
abnormal state - a foetal position," she said during examination-in-chief when
asked by DPP Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin for her opinion as to whether the
deceased was still alive when he placed inside the drum.

Earlier she said Kevin had sustained external injuries to his body based on
contusions or blood clots at seven parts in his body from the left upper lip,
right and left parts of the chest, left shoulder tip, left ankle, right mid
back and left buttock region.

However Nurliza explained contusions can only be formed in a living person
because only living cells can react to blunt trauma like compression over a
long period.

She said such compression can cause someone to pass out but in this case it
could not have caused death as it only affected the superficial body.

Nurliza said the contusions did not cause serious internal damages to the
deceased.

"The body has moderately decomposed, unlike a fresh body, where you can
identify any asphyxiation injury. However, (there is a) high probability that
death was caused by suffocation," she said, ruling out the possibility of
drowning as cause of death.

"During the autopsy, we did not find water or foreign objects in the
respiratory tract nor the stomach.

"The direct cause of death was suffocation, where the deceased suffered from
external factors hindering him from breathing. If you do not get enough oxygen,
you will die," Nurliza said.

She had also said Kevin had his hands "loosely" tied at the back of his body
with a neck tie and there was no defensive wounds on his hands and arms.

She ruled out manual strangling of the deceased as there were signs of force
being used at the neck area.

Nurliza, who has 20 years of experience in the forensic field, was the 11th
witness in the case on the 4th day of the trial today.

She will be cross-examined today before Judge Azman Abdullah.

7 men have been accused of abetting and murdering Kevin between 7am and 8pm on
Sept 4, last year, between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1 Jalan USJ1/6D,
Subang Jaya.

Army doctor and pathologist Dr K. Kunaseegaran, 52, together with 6 others - G.
Gunasekaran, 43; R. Dinishwaran, 23; A. Thinesh Kumar, 22; M. Vishwanath, 25;
S. Nimalan, 22; and S. Ravichandaran, 34, had pleaded not guilty when charged
on Jan 27.

The 6 are facing death penalty if convicted under Section 302 of the Penal
Code, while Kunaseegaran, had pleaded not guilty to abetting the 6 men in
murdering the deputy public prosecutor.

(source: thesundaily.com)






BANGLADESH:

No retrial for JMB's Amzad, SC orders imprisonment until death after rehearing
appeal


The 4-member Appellate Division bench, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar
Sinha, gave the order on Tuesday.

On Apr 6, the Supreme Court quashed the High Court's verdict acquitting Ali of
the charges and ordered a retrial.

The apex court on Tuesday partially withdrew its previous verdict and sentenced
the JMB man to prison until death.

Deputy Attorney General Sashank Shekhar Sarkar, who represented the State in
the hearing, could not clearly say why a rehearing was held.

"That can be said after the full verdict is available," he told bdnews24.com.

In October 2005, a bomb attack on the Lakshmipur court premises had left one
dead.

2 cases were filed over the incident - 1 for murder and another under the
Explosives Substances Act.

According to the case details, Judge MA Sufian, Bench Officer Md Shafiqullah
and several others were injured in the attack.

Of them, Mojibul Haq, a petitioner, succumbed to his injuries later.

In 2006, the Lakshmipur Speedy Trial Tribunal handed the death penalty to JMB
activists Masumur Rahman Masum, Ataur Rahman Sunny and Amzad Ali.

Sunny, JMB military wing chief, was executed in 2007 in another case.

Masum and Ali moved the High Court against the verdict.

In 2013, the High Court upheld the capital punishment for Masum but acquitted
Ali.

Masum later moved Supreme Court against the death penalty, while the State
appealed against Ali's acquittal.

The apex court upheld Masum's death penalty and quashed the High Court verdict
acquitting Ali.

A retrial was ordered, but on Tuesday, the apex court revised the directive and
sentenced Ali to imprisonment until death.

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

Man in Bagerhat sentenced to death for wife's murder


A 35-year-old man in Bagerhat has been given the death penalty for murdering
his wife.

The District and Sessions Judge's Court delivered the verdict on Tuesday in
presence of the convict, Habi Sardar.

In October 2014, Sardar hacked his wife Hasina Begum before strangling her to
death over a family feud at a village in Mongla Upazila.

Police detained him from Khulna the same day, said Prosecutor Sheikh Mohammad
Ali.

The victim's brother levelled charges against Sardar in a case filed over the
killing, he said. "Habi (Sardar) confessed to the crime in court."

(source for both: bdnews24.com)






IRAN:

10 Rajai Shahr Prisoners in Imminent Danger of Execution


At least 10 Rajai Shahr prisoners who are on death row for murder charges have
been reportedly transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their
executions. According to close sources, the names of some of the prisoners are:
Mostafa Ejlali, Ebad Mohammadi, Mehdi Kaheh, Javad Sadeghi, and Mehdi
Haghshenas. The names of the other prisoners are not known at this time.

An informed source tells Iran Human Rights: "There were 12 prisoners who were
transferred to solitary confinement. Their execution sentences are scheduled to
be carried out on the morning of Wednesday April 13. Executions at Rajai Shahr
Prison (in the city of Karaj, Alborz province, northern Iran).

(source: iranhr.net)






PAKISTAN:

Challenging life term may incur death sentence in murder case


Filing an appeal against life imprisonment sentence could become costly for a
serial rape and murder accused as an Islamabad High Court (IHC) bench has
referred the matter to IHC chief justice with the observation that the
offenders may be awarded capital punishment.

The serial rape and murder convict Abrar Ahmed had file an appeal against life
imprisonment that was heard by Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the IHC.

The IHC bench, while hearing the case, observed that the convict committed
heinous crime and life imprisonment may not be sufficient penalty in this
matter. Justice Siddiqui then referred the matter to IHC chief justice with
observation that the matter may be placed before a division bench to see if the
convict could be awarded death sentence.

Abrar and his girl friend Zahra Mehak were both awarded life imprisonment with
a fine of Rs500,000 each for the rape and murder of 2 young girls Shehzadi and
Swera, by the court of sessions judge, Islamabad in August 2015.

According to prosecution, Abrar after raping Shehzadi, burnt her alive with the
help of Zahra to wash away the evidence. The convict was a student at National
University of Modern Languages in 2011 where he met Zahra.

Zahra was interested in marrying Abrar but he deceived her under a pretext that
he was suffering from the AIDS and could not marry her until he recovers from
the disease. Abrar told Zahra that he could recover from the fatal disease if
she provides him virgin girls. Zahra then provided her with 2 young girls and 1
was only 10 years old. The police had recovered the burnt dead body of Shehzadi
from a dry gutter in I-9/1.

(source: The News)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 12




PAKISTAN----executions

2 murder convicts hanged


A murder convict was hanged at the Faisalabad Central Jail on Tuesday. A
spokesperson for the Prisons Department said Adeel Shahzad, a resident of Raza
Abad, had killed his aunt Zahida Naseem and her 3 children on February 18,
2001, in a Pir Mehal police precinct. ATC Judge Raja Akhtar had issued black
warrants for Shehzad. Muhammad Ashraf, alias Achoo, who had killed a man in
2000, was hanged in Sahiwal District Jail on Tuesday.

(source: Express Tribune)






FRANCE/IRAN:

Air France's gay flight attendants protest Iran route, cite death penalty


A gay flight attendant working for Air France launched an online petition
against homosexual staff being forced to fly to Iran. It comes after female
cabin crew members refused to fly on the route because they didn't want to be
forced to wear headscarves.

"Sure, our sexuality isn't written on our passports and it doesn't change the
way we work as a crew," the flight attendant, identified only as 'Laurent M,'
wrote in an open letter to the French government and Air France CEO Frederic
Gagey.

"But it is inconceivable to force someone to go to a country where his kind are
condemned for who they are," he continued.

The online appeal, titled 'Gay stewards from Air France don't want to fly to
the death penalty in Iran', points out that homosexuality is punishable by
death for adults in Iran. It also notes that gay minors face a punishment of 74
lashes in the Islamic Republic.

The petition has so far received over 2,000 signatures.

It comes just 1 week after Air France flight attendants and female pilots
refused to fly the Paris to Tehran route because they didn't want to be forced
to wear headscarves and loose trousers.

2 organizations representing the female cabin crew, the SNPNC and Unsa PNC,
said that forcing women to fly to Tehran would have been "an attack on freedom
of conscience and individual freedoms," as well as the "freedom of women."

The female staff members eventually achieved victory, with the airline
accepting that they could refuse to work on the route without facing
punishment. Air France suspended flights to Tehran in 2008, but is resuming the
route next week after international sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear
program were lifted.

(source: rt.com)



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[Rick Halperin]

April 13




CHINA:

Communist Party Honcho Turns Godfather of Meth Gets Death Sentence----He was a
Chinese Communist Party branch secretary with a dark side - and he's been
sentenced to death. But the country???s drug problem is still widespread.


Cai Dongjia appeared before a judge in a courtroom in southeast China last
month to hear the court condemn him to death. 2 of his partners are due to be
executed as well, although not for another 2 years.

Cai was no common thug. He was a Chinese Communist Party branch secretary in
Guangdong Province. Those who join the party and receive the CCP???s political
indoctrination are told the position is a bit like a class prefect, a figure
meant to set an example for new members of the party as he presides over its
daily affairs. But Cai had a very dark side. Aside from his official title, he
was also known as "The Godfather of Meth."

The saga apparently began in 2011, when Cai decided that his salary as local
party boss was not enough and, a la Breaking Bad, chemistry could yield a
second income. He located a source for ephedrine and periodically purchased
clusters of the stuff at around US$300,000 per barrel. His partners cooked meth
from it. When they had a stockpile of a few dozen or even a couple of hundred
kilos, quick sales turned their product into a few million yuan.

As the operation expanded, Cai transformed the rural community of Boshe
village, population 14,000, into a meth production hub, much like factory towns
that specialize in assembling a single type of product. Adults were mules,
dealers, or cooks. Children split open cold medicine capsules and earned a
monthly wage of up to US$1,600.

Homes in Boshe were traditional houses built generations ago, and wouldn't look
out of place in Cantonese period films, but the cars parked in dirt lots were
imported European vehicles, well beyond the means of countryside peasants.
Eventually, old houses were knocked down and luxurious villas took their place.
Outsiders were not welcome, and lookouts blanketed the territory. Locals called
Boshe "The Fortress."

At around 4:00 a.m. on Dec. 29, 2013, Chinese police mounted an incredible
assault on what the authorities called "Guangdong's Number One Drug Village."

3000 police officers were mobilized for the operation, supported by canine
units, speedboats, and helicopters. The reported results were staggering. 18
separate drug gangs were arrested. 77 drug production sites were shut down. A
bomb maker's lab was raided. In total, 3,000 kilos (over 3 tons) of
methamphetamine were seized, as well as 260 kilos of ketamine and 23 tons of
chemicals used in the production processes. In some houses, all areas except
the bedroom were converted into meth labs. The raid was a massive success for
the police, with 182 men and women taken into custody, including 14 CCP
officials.

In the center of it all was Cai Dongjia, whose ascent to kingpin status made
him one of China's most wanted men. A senior narcotics officer claimed Cai's
network in Boshe produced 1/3 of all the meth sold in the country. Even though
Cai was arrested and now faces the death penalty, his intimidating presence
lingers in Boshe. Villagers claim they know nothing about the drug trade or
their former party chief's arrest. Is it omerta? Amnesia? Fear?

Cai's meth empire could not have blossomed without police and other officials
looking the other way. In his heyday, Cai wielded incredible influence over
Boshe. When unwelcome police officers tried to enter the village, townsfolk
blocked them under the direction of Cai. If drug lords were arrested, the party
chief would use his influence to secure their release. Bribes and threats were
part of everyday business, and even the former head of the region's Public
Security Bureau was in Cai's pocket.

All this was possible, not least, because China has a serious drug problem.
Last year, the Xinhua news agency reported the country had three million
registered drug addicts. Synthetic drugs, like methamphetamine, are more
popular than other narcotics, likely because land use is strictly controlled by
the government, which means drugs that require agricultural cultivation, like
opium, simply cannot be grown.

Even though meth labs have been found in various parts of the country, a report
published by the Brookings Institute suggests narcotics produced in Burma make
up a much larger share of the drugs available in China. More meth is coming in
from North Korea as well.

All this has triggered what might be called China's own war on drugs, but with
some particular historical twists.

Imagery from the 19th century Opium Wars is still vividly present in the
collective awareness in China. The British, who were selling opium grown in
their Indian colonies to the Chinese, went to war to preserve their market and
imposed demeaning treaties on the ruling dynasties. Nationalists see the wars
as the starting point of what they call the century of humiliation, a period of
severe political, economic, and social degradation, and drug trafficking is
intimately tied to the concept of colonial invasion. Addicts are not only seen
as individuals with personal flaws, but tumors that form a national weakness.

The use of meth is particularly widespread. Chinese celebrities have been
arrested and tested positive for it. Factory workers use it to stay awake
during extended or consecutive shifts. Meth is used in karaoke bars, where male
patrons pay hostesses to get high with them. In some cases, businessmen share
drugs to seal partnerships.

With plenty of users in China, it is not difficult to see why others have
followed in Cai's footsteps. Though Guangdong Province near Hong Kong is the
epicenter of meth production in China, police have raided makeshift drug labs
in other parts of the country as well. Last May, a 50-year-old chemistry
professor from Shaanxi was arrested with 6 other people. That raid yielded 128
kilos of methcathinone, which is similar to methamphetamine, along with 2,000
kilos of ingredients. The professor also provided recipes and instructions on
how to make methcathinone to dealers. In September, a former science teacher in
Guangxi was found to have set up a drug lab in his apartment. He had resigned
from his teaching position to make drugs, which he sold online.

The crackdown in Cai's old stomping grounds, Boshe, continues to this day. Last
year, police began to offer US$80,000 in reward money for tips that lead to the
arrests of leaders in the Chinese drug trade. Remnants of Cai's network still
operate in Guangdong. Together with their North Korean and Southeast Asian
counterparts, they supply the meth addicts of China and beyond. Australian
authorities have seized 2 major meth shipments from China this year: a haul
worth US$128 million in January; and a $1 billion worth of the stuff hidden in
gel bra inserts.

Boshe is now lauded by the Chinese government as a showcase for the
achievements in their war on drugs, and to their credit, the police have made
great strides in eradicating makeshift meth labs, but the root of the problem
persists. The chemicals used in meth production are not difficult to acquire in
China. A report by Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post indicates all of
the materials are regulated but legitimate, suggesting deep-rooted corruption
in China's chemical and pharmaceutical industries. With such easy access to the
basic ingredients, there is little to stand in the way of the next Walter White
who wants to set up shop in China.

(source: The Daily Beast)






MALAYSIA:

Dead before he was put in drum


Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais did not drown in concrete,
despite being found in a concrete filled oil drum, a forensic expert told the
High Court.

Nurliza Abdullah, 51, ruled out death by drowning, saying the autopsy found no
water or foreign objects in the victim's lungs nor water in the stomach, which
would be caused by swallowing water.

"There is a high probability that the cause of death was suffocation, where the
deceased suffered from external factors blocking him from breathing," she said,
adding that the moderate level of decomposition made it difficult to identify
the asphyxiation injury.

In a career spanning 20 years, Nurliza had handled 4,500 cases, from high
profile murders of Altantuya Shaariibuu, Stephanie Foray and Datuk Sosilawati
Lawiya; to disasters like the Rohingya mass graves in Perlis, the MH17 flight
disaster and Highland Towers collapse.

Questioned by DPP Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin during the examination in chief
whether Morais was strangled, Nurliza said it was unlikely as there was no
signs of trauma or impact on his neck.

She said there were external injuries: contusions to the top lip, the right and
left chest, above the ribs, the right shoulder, front left ankle, middle back,
and left buttock.

She added contusions only occurred if a person was still alive, and in Morais'
case, were in line with compression injury caused by having something pressing
him over a long period.

When asked if it was fatal, Nurliza said the pressure could restrict breathing
and cause the victim to pass out, but in this case was not the cause of death
as it did not cause serious internal damage to the vitals.

When questioned if Morais was still alive when placed in the oil drum, Nurliza
said there was a high probability he was already dead before being stuffed
inside a plastic sack, and then placed in the drum.

Nurliza also based her findings on lack of signs that the deceased tried moving
or struggling while in the drum.

"The body was also in an abnormal state, a foetal-like posture - the knees and
hip joint were bent and his arms were tied behind his back with a neck tie,"
Nurliza said, adding that the body was fully clothed except for a lack of shoes
when it was found.

On Jan 27, the 6 men - G. Gunasekaran, 48; R. Dinishwaran, 24; A. K.Thinesh
Kumar, 23; M. Vishwanath, 26; Nimalan, 23; and Ravi Chandaran, 35, claimed
trial to charges of murdering Morais.

They are accused of committing the offence between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015,
between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1 Jalan USJ1/6D, Subang Jaya.

Army pathologist Colonel Dr R. Kunaseegaran, 53, pleaded not guilty to abetting
the 6 in the murder.

They face the mandatory death penalty if convicted, under Section 302 of the
Penal Code.

Counsel Datuk N. Sivananthan and Datuk Geethan Ram Vincent acted for
Kunaseegaran, counsel V. Rajehgopal defended Gunasekaran, Vishwanath, Nimalan
and Ravi Chandaran, while lawyer M. Manoharan acted for Dinishwaran and Thinesh
Kumar.

The trial before Justice Azman Abdullah continues today.


FIJI:

Nikisha Nisha To PM: We Need Harsher Penalities for Rapists


While students her age are perhaps thinking of the upcoming Coca-cola Games and
the hype that awaits, Nikisha Nisha thought of a much more serious topic that
continues to rock our nation.

The Year 13 student of Savusavu Secondary School asked the Prime Minister
Voreqe Bainimarama for a review on the maximum sentence penalty for rape.

Nikisha met Mr Bainimarama when he visited the school yesterday. He encouraged
students to exercise their voting rights in 2018 and also assessed damages in
the wake of Tropical Cyclone Winston.

During the discussion, Mr Bainimarama asked students to talk about things they
wanted to see change in the nation.

"You tell me what you want or what changes you hope to see in the future or
what can be done," the Prime Minister urged the students.

Within seconds, Nikisha stood up and told Mr Bainimarama that she was shaken by
the numerous rape incidences here.

"The Fijian law on offenders who rape innocent girls is lenient and I hope the
Government can implement harsher punishment like death penalty," Nikisha said.

Nikisha claimed she had posted a letter on the Fijian Government Facebook page
giving her opinion on what she felt about rape and what may be done.

Mr Bainimarama said he would follow up on her request.

"I agree with Nikisha that rape cases is increasing in Fiji and her request for
changing the law is something that must be looked into at a more deeper level,"
Mr Bainimarama told the students.

An emotional Nikisha told Fiji Sun she was prompted to speak on the topic as
she was a victim of sexual harassment.

"In 2012 while I was having my shower at home, one of my close family members
was watching me through a small opening on the wall," Nikisha said.

"Although he is no longer staying with us I still live with this memory and
whenever I see him I can only cry.

"My mother who always reads the Bible has been encouraging me to pray to God
and ask him to give me strength," the 2nd eldest of 4 siblings said.

"From that time I have been praying to God to give me the opportunity to talk
to Mr Bainimarama face to face and ask him to change the law."

(source: Fiji Sun)






IRAN----executions

At Least 6 Prisoners Hanged at Rajai Shahr Prison


On the morning of Wednesday April 13 between 6 and 9 people were reportedly
hanged at Rajai Shahr Prison on murder charges.

The names of 6 of the prisoners have been confirmed to Iran Human Rights by a
close source: Mostafa Ejlali, Ebad Mohammadi, Javad Sadeghi, Mehdi Haghshenas,
and Mohammad Javad Mozaffari. Iranian authorities had transferred these 6
prisoners along with at least 4 others to solitary confinement on Monday April
11 in preparation for their executions. One of these prisoners, Mehdi Kaheh,
was reportedly taken out of solitary confinement and returned to his cell after
receiving a reprieve from the plaintiff on his case file. Close sources say
Mehdi Kaheh was taken to the gallows twice last year, but his execution
sentence was postponed both times and he was returned to his cell.

Iranian official sources, including state media and the Judiciary, has been
silent about these executions.

(source: iranhr.net)

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

Iran president under scrutiny over juvenile executions


The case presented by the Iranian judiciary was simple: In the southern
province of Fars, Fatemeh Salbehi suffocated her husband after drugging him, a
capital crime in the Islamic Republic.

What made the case controversial is that Salbehi was only 17, a minor by
international legal standards, when she allegedly committed the crime. Her
alleged confession also came during a series of interrogations where there was
no lawyer present.

The case was retried but Salbehi was hanged in the Adel Abad prison in Shiraz
last October.

The issue has come under scrutiny because of a scathing U.N. report on human
rights in Iran last month which highlighted what it called the "alarmingly
high" rate of executions in the country, including juveniles.

That report, along with an Amnesty International report in January, spurred
commentary from ordinary Iranians on social media at least some of which
criticized President Hassan Rouhani for not doing more to stop the juvenile
executions.

Iran has the highest rate of juvenile executions in the world, despite being a
signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human
rights treaty that forbids capital punishment for anyone under 18.

Only a week before Salbehi's execution, another juvenile offender was executed.

"The fact that there were 2 executions in less than 2 weeks just shows how
indifferent and contemptuous the Iranian authorities are of their obligations,"
said Raha Bahreini, the Iran researcher for Amnesty International.

In the past decade, Iran has executed at least 73 juvenile offenders, according
to the January Amnesty report.

The juvenile executions have continued despite campaign promises made by
Rouhani in 2013 to reform human rights. Since coming to office, Rouhani has
been focused on foreign policy, such as the nuclear deal sealed with world
powers last summer, and domestic issues like juvenile execution have been
largely ignored, observers say.

"The administration can't just keep hiding behind the nuclear issue," said Hadi
Ghaemi, the executive director for the International Campaign for Human Rights
in Iran. "Rouhani doesn't seem at all interested to push for it, fight the
battle and improve the human rights situation. And that's a problem because
we're now into the 3rd year of his term."

DOMESTIC LAW

Juveniles have been executed regularly since the establishment of the Islamic
Republic in 1979. Under Iranian law, the age for legally defining adulthood is
determined by puberty, 15 for boys and 9 for girls. When there is a discrepancy
between domestic law and international legal obligations, Iranian authorities
have turned to domestic law.

A request for comment sent to the Iranian judiciary was not answered. The head
of the Iranian judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, has previously said that allegations
that Iran executes juveniles under 18 is a "complete lie". No comment was
immediately available from the presidency.

In recent years, the judiciary has generally held off on executing minors until
after they turn 18. Salbehi was 23 when she was executed last fall. And there
are at least 160 minors currently on death row, according to the United
Nations.

"The trick they have come up with for the past 10 years or so is to wait until
the children turn 18 in prison and then execute them," said Ghaemi. "Then they
tell the international community that they were over 18."

The juvenile executions have prompted an outcry. "The execution of juveniles
has led to both domestic and international criticism," said Saleh Nikbakht, a
prominent lawyer in Tehran.

One prominent human rights activist who started a campaign to end the death
penalty in Iran, Narges Mohammadi, was arrested last year on unspecified
charges.

But there have been some cases where juvenile offenders have been spared the
noose. A non-governmental organization called Imam Ali's Popular Students
Relief Society has had some measure of success in bringing together families of
the victim and the accused. If the family of the victim agrees to forgive the
accused, the execution is not carried out.

Judicial reforms were also put into place in 2013, prior to Rouhani's taking
office, which led to the retrial of a number of cases involving juvenile
offenders. The sentences of the offenders were commuted in a handful of cases
but in at least half a dozen cases the death sentence was upheld, according to
Amnesty.

Inability to bring about any change on this controversial issue may cost
Rouhani support for the presidential elections next year.

"It is a battle that he can win. There are so many aspects that are not
defensible," said Ghaemi. He added, "He may not get elected to a 2nd term
because he's undercutting his own popular support."

And without pressure from the other branches of government, it is unlikely that
the judiciary will make significant changes to halt the execution of juvenile
offenders.

"When it comes to executions the responsibility lies first and foremost with
the judiciary but that doesn't mean that the other branches of the state aren't
responsible," said Bahreini.

(source: Reuters)

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

see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/iran-teenager-faces-imminent-execution-ua-8516

(source: Amnesty International)






PAKISTAN----executions

4 more executed in Pakistani jails


4 more prisoners, convicted of murder, were hanged in various jails in Pakistan
on Wednesday.

The executions took place in the jails of Multan, Jhang and Sialkot in Punjab
province and in Larkana in Sindh province.

A death row convict Anwarul Haq was executed in Multan for murdering his
brother over a land dispute in year 2000, prison officials said.

Another prisoner Ghulam Farooq was hanged in Sialkot prison for killing 2 women
and a man in a family feud in 1999.

In Jhang prison Muhammad Irfan was executed for killing a woman during a
robbery in her home in 2006.

In Larkana jail Waris Mirbahar was hanged for the 1995 murder of a PIA employee
during an attack on a cash van of the airlines, prison officials said.

Human rights group Amnesty International last week described Pakistan, with 326
hangings last year, as the world's 3rd most prolific country conducting
executions after China and Iran.

Pakistan had ended a moratorium on the death penalty after Taliban attackers
gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in
Peshawar on December 16, 2014.

The country had initially reinstated hangings only for those convicted of
terrorism, but later the decision was extended to all capital offences.

(source: arynews.tv)

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

PHC upholds death penalty for 6 militants


The Peshawar High Court upheld on Tuesday the military courts' verdicts,
maintaining death sentences awarded to 6 militants and dismissing all judicial
review petitions.

The petitions were dismissed after a PHC division bench examined the record,
produced in the court during the hearing.

The bench issued its decision during its in-camera session, matching verdicts
issued by PHC in earlier cases in which the high court had suspended similar
petitions and appeals had been filed with the Supreme Court.

The high court had earlier stayed the executions of 6 militants. They are Fazal
Ghaffar, Taj Gul, Mushtaq Ahmad, Fateh Khan, Bakht Ameer and Ikramullah.

Ghaffar, 38, had been handed over to the security forces on December 27, 2009
in the Charbagh area of district Swat.

Ghaffar's counsel, who requested anonymity, argued that the applicant was a
teacher at a local seminary before his arrest by the security forces.

He said that his client was detained and subsequently kept at an internment
centre until his conviction and the award of death sentence by a military
court.

He argued that the applicant's family had only come to know about the death
sentence through the media. Ghaffar was charged with attacking security forces.
The counsel contended that charges levelled against his client were not true.

He held that the applicant had neither been given a chance to defend himself
nor any substantive evidence had been produced against him.

He requested the bench to stay his execution till the final disposal of the
case, and the plea was accepted by the court.

Similarly, Mushtaq Ahmad's lawyer Alamzeb Khan said that the applicant had been
picked up by security forces on December 20, 2011 and since then his
whereabouts had been unknown.

(source: The Express Tribune)

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April 13




IRAN:

Iran regime is world record holder on execution of juveniles - NCRI


The mullahs' regime in Iran is the "world record holder" on execution of
juveniles, Shahin Gobadi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has told the International Business Times.

The Iranian regime's "alarmingly high" rate of juvenile executions is
attracting growing criticism from international charities and has now started
to gather increasing disapproval from within its own borders, the IBT wrote on
Wednesday.

Iran's regime has executed more than 70 juvenile offenders in the past decade,
according to several reports by Amnesty International this year, also showing
the number of juveniles on death row was increasing.

"This [Amnesty] report sheds light on Iran's shameful disregard for the rights
of children," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's
Middle East and North Africa Programme on the release of the report on
juveniles. "Iran is one of the few countries that continues to execute juvenile
offenders in blatant violation of the absolute legal prohibition on the use of
the death penalty against people under the age of 18 years at the time of the
crime."

Mr. Boumedouha pointed out that under the Iranian regime's laws girls as young
as 9 and boys as young as 15 can be sentenced to death.

Since the release of Amnesty's report on the alleged rise in executions, there
has been a social media backlash at home against the use of capital punishment
against minors, IBT reported.

Shahin Gobadi of the NCRI told the IBT: "The Iranian regime is not only the
world record holder on executions per capita; it is the world record holder on
execution of juveniles."

"Hundreds of juveniles, including activists of the opposition People's
Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), as young as 13 years old, were executed
in the 1980s for their political activities."

"The regime's current gambit is to sentence the juveniles to execution, keep
them in prison until they turn 18, and then execute them. There are scores of
juveniles currently on death row."

"The stark reality is that there has been no respite under [the Iranian
regime's President Hassan] Rouhani who some try to prop up as a 'moderate'. In
reality the pace of executions has increased dramatically during his tenure,
and that includes the execution of juveniles and women," he added.

(source: NCR-Iran)


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April 14



NIGERIA:

Amnesty International says Nigeria had zero executions in 2015 but Kaduna state
begs to differ


Last week, Amnesty International released its annual report on death sentences
and executions in 2015. The report takes a look at countries all over the world
that still use the death sentence, looking at the number of executions carried
out in these countries. Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United States of America and
Pakistan currently have the highest numbers of executions. Saudi Arabia killed
at least 158 people, while Iran had 977 executions, most of them for
drug-related offences. Nigeria, in contrast, had 171 death sentences with no
execution while still retaining its death penalty laws. However, new reports
concerning the clash between the Nigerian Army and the Shiite followers in
Kaduna state Nigeria last year, suggest that Nigeria deserves to be a top
executioner like Saudi Arabia and Iran.

One of the worst attacks on civilians by the Nigerian Army occurred last year
when it attacked a procession of a Muslim sect in Nigeria. After the dust
settled, officials of the Kaduna state government, where the incident occurred,
finally released their findings about what went down. On their way to a
military ceremony late last year, members of the Nigerian Army and their Chief
of Staff, Tukur Buratai, were stopped by a procession of a Shiite Islamic group
in Nigeria, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who people claim have been
radicalised. In a video circulated after the incident, after a few minutes,
Nigerian Army leaders were seen begging the procession to allow them pass
through, while young members of the procession were seen bearing sticks and
knives like they were going for a fight. The Nigerian army then attacked the
sect using live ammunition, baffling especially when their counterparts in
other nations have learnt to use rubber bullets and such to quell violence.

Reports after this became blurry and controversial as the head of the movement
El Zakzaky was arrested by the Army while the group's headquarters was
destroyed. Many reports of human rights abuse by the Nigerian Army and the
senseless killing of children and women emerged, but this latest report has put
a definite number on the number of Shiite followers killed by the Nigerian
Army: 347 civilians, including women and children.

The Kaduna state government said all 347 people were "given a mass burial in a
cemetery in Kaduna state" a few hours after they had been slaughtered by the
army, according to Muslim rites. This latest report confirms that the Nigerian
army is lawless, especially since the fight against Boko Haram started.
Different Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have accused
the Nigerian Army of human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings since the
fight against Boko haram started. And just like every panel set up by the Army
to allegedly investigate these killings, the panel set up to investigate the
Shiite killings is heading for a dead end.

This is an indictment on former Military General and current Nigerian
President, Muhammadu Buhari who has called himself a "reformed democrat" but
his media silence about the Army killings suggests the reformation happened to
his doppelganger in a parallel universe. Tukur Buratai could only have
authorised such disregard for human lives, especially the ones he swore to
protect, if he knew he was not receiving any censure from the
Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria's Armed Forces, Buhari. Nigerians would surely be
looking up to Amnesty International and the International Criminal Court to
bring the Nigerian Army to justice, since the Federal Government seems
reluctant to do so.

Amnesty International's report that Nigeria had no court-ordered execution in
2015 is true, but the number of indirect executions due to government
negligence and a glaring 'i-don't-care' attitude seems to suggest that we
deserve a higher position in the "Death sentence and Execution 2015 report."

(source: venturesafrica.com)






UGANDA:

Government Insists on Keeping Death Penalty


Attorney General Fred Ruhindi says since the Supreme Court ruling in the Susan
Kigula case ruled that the various provisions of the laws, which provide for
the mandatory death are inconsistent with the Constitution, courts are best
placed to make judgment.

(source: ugandaradionetwork.com)






EGYPT:

Diplomats attacked for accepting Egyptian authorities' word over Ibrahim Halawa


Diplomats have been criticised by a leading human rights body for accepting the
word of Egyptian authorities over the incarceration of an Irish teenager.

Ibrahim Halawa was transferred between prisons in recent days without the
knowledge of embassy staff in Cairo, Department of Foreign Affairs chiefs in
Dublin or his family.

He has been held without trial for almost three years and could face the death
penalty if convicted of involvement in protests over the ousting of the Muslim
Brotherhood.

Reprieve, a human rights group which campaigns to stop state executions, said
it was increasingly concerned over the 20-year-old's welfare.

Harriet McCulloch, deputy director at the agency, said it was shocking for both
the Egyptians to mislead Irish diplomats and for authorities in Dublin not to
demand more answers.

"Given recent widespread reports of enforced disappearances and deaths in
custody in Egypt, it's shocking that Irish officials appear to have been misled
over Ibrahim's whereabouts - and have taken the Egyptian authorities at their
unreliable word," she said.

"Ibrahim, who was just 17 when he was arrested, has already suffered an
unacceptable ordeal of torture, dire prison conditions, and an unlawful mass
trial - which could see him sentenced to death.

"The Irish Government must escalate their demands to see Ibrahim without delay,
and must challenge the Egyptian government on his appalling treatment."

Diplomatic chiefs in Dublin insisted Mr Halawa's case continues to receive high
priority in the department.

A series of meetings have been ordered by Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie
Flanagan amid the controversy, including sending the Irish Ambassador to Egypt
Damien Cole for talks in the Egyptian foreign ministry to highlight concerns.

Mr Flanagan will meet the Egyptian ambassador to Ireland Soha Gendi on
Thursday.

The department also said officials in the embassy in Cairo are to visit Mr
Halawa in jail in the coming days.

Reprieve said it was concerned amid widespread reports of so-called
disappearances of prisoners and deaths in Egyptian jails, including in the case
of Italian student Giulio Regeni.

The 28-year-old Cambridge student's body was found in a roadside ditch outside
Cairo on February 3, more than a week after he disappeared.

Meanwhile, Mr Halawa is understood to have been moved from Tora prison in Cairo
to the Wadi el Natrun prison, north of the city, several days ago.

He was 17 when he was detained while taking refuge in a mosque near Cairo's
Ramses Square as a "day of rage" was held over the removal of president Mohamed
Morsi.

The mass trial he is facing, along with more than 400 others, has been
repeatedly postponed since his detention in 2013.

Mr Halawa's detention has been raised in the European Parliament in Brussels
and in a letter from leading human rights lawyers in London to British Prime
Minister David Cameron.

Reprieve said that a report on the death penalty in Egypt last year found that
more than 70% of recent death sentences were handed down in relation to
protests. The report also detailed the frequency of torture and incommunicado
detention in the country's prisons.

Mr Halawa, from Firhouse in Dublin, was initially arrested with 3 of his
sisters.

His lawyers, who were refused access to him until September, said he was denied
medical treatment for a gunshot wound to his hand following his arrest and he
has been left permanently disfigured as a result.

Somaia Halawa, Ibrahim's sister, said the family's dealings with Irish
diplomats had been disappointing on a number of occasions.

She said the department had not informed them of the planned meetings between
officials in Dublin or Cairo as the final trial looms in late June in the
courthouse beside Wadi el Natrun.

"That is what is making our campaign a bit harder," she said.

"We feel we have 2 fights with two governments. You feel you are not just
having a problem with Egypt but a problem with the Irish Government."

Ms Halawa said she got confirmation of where Ibrahim was being held after
another brother, Ahmed, made contact with him.

(source: The Independent)



INDIA/SRI LANKA:

BJP claims it stopped death penalty on 5 Indians in Sri Lanka


BJP President Amit ShahIndia's ruling BJP says it ensured that the death
penalty given to five fishermen in Sri Lanka was not carried out.

BJP President Amit Shah also claimed that due to the steps taken by the Modi
Government, the firing at Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy had
stopped.

Indian news agencies said that while speaking to reporters in Tiruchirapalli,
around 340 km from Chennai, after chairing a party meeting today, Shah alleged
that that the AIADMK, DMK as well as the Congress were corrupt parties.

The Bharatiya Janata Party can provide the alternative to the existing
political parties in the state, Shah said.

He said Tamil Nadu voters normally voted out a Government but in the May 16
assembly elections, they should decide which party must come to power.

He added that the BJP could provide the "alternative" Tamil Nadu was seeking.
The BJP will give a transparent and good governance, he said.

According to him, the AIADMK and DMK had ruled Tamil Nadu alternatively for the
past nearly 50 years and it was time for a change.

The BJP leader said Tamil Nadu had not progressed because of corruption.

He said that due to the non-cooperation of the state government, central
Government schemes were not being implemented in Tamil Nadu.

(source: Colombo Gazette)






GLOBAL:

Where In The World Is Homosexuality Punished By The Death Penalty


There are many countries and states where homosexual acts could land you the
death penalty. Of these countries all are located in Central Africa or in the
Middle East.

There are the countries places on earth that have specific laws which call for
the death penalty of those who are found to have engaged in homosexual acts.

Afghanistan----Men could face execution, but are more likely to receive long
prison sentences. No executions are known to have been handed out since the end
of the Taliban rule.

Brunei*----Gay men in Brunei could be stoned or given 10 years in prison if
found guilty of homosexual acts.

Iran----In Iran gay men can be lashed up to 74 times for "immature men" and the
death penalty for mature men of sound mind - and where the acts were
consenting. Women can be lashed 50 times and can face the death penalty after
their fourth conviction.

Mauritania----Homosexuality is against the law in Mauritania and could attract
the death penalty however there have been no public executions since 1987.

Qatar---In Qatar gay men may face execution if they are Muslim otherwise men
can face fines and a prison sentence which lasts 7 years.

Saudi Arabi----A 2nd conviction of homosexuality in Saudi Arabia will land a
death penalty. For first offence men can face fines, castration, flogging,
prison and torture.

Sudan----Homosexuality has been illegal in Sudan since 1899. Death penalty
occurs on the 3rd offense for men and 4th offense for women.

Yemen----Married men can expect to be stoned to death if caught having same-sex
relations. Unmarried men will receive 100 lashes or one year imprisonment.

* Brunei is a Sovereign state and not a country.

Countries where you might be executed if you're found to be gay.

There are some countries where although capital punishment might not be
constitutionally ratified there are cases where gay people have been killed
because of their sexuality.

Libya----Gay men could face death in Libya.

Nigeria----Homosexuality is illegal in some states of Nigeria and could attract
the death penalty. These states include: Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna,
Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara

Somalia----Homosexuality is illegal in Somalia and could attract a death
penalty. Syria----The actual penalty that gay men should face for homosexual
acts is prison for up to 3 years, however due to the rise in ISIS a highly
advertised death awaits those found guilty of engaging in same-sex sexual acts.

(source: thegayuk.com)






BANGLADESH:

Son, lawyers meet Mir Quasem


Condemned war criminal Mir Quasem Ali has claimed that the government is
conspiring to punish him based on false allegations.

Quasem's son barrister Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem alias Arman and 2 other lawyers met
him at Kashimpur jail yesterday morning, said Jailer Nashir Ahmed. They stayed
there for around 45 minutes.

"My father is in a good state. He said 'I did not do anything wrong. Death is
decided by Allah, not any human being. They are conspiring to punish me on
totally baseless allegations,"' Arman told reporters.

After the apex court upheld Mir Quasem's death penalty on March 8, his family
members and lawyers met him at the jail on March 12 and April 9. The full text
of the judgement is yet to be published, following which the convict would get
15 days to file a review petition against the verdict.

Arrested in 2012, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem enjoyed division in the
jail until 2014. Later he was shifted to the condemned cell.

(source: dhakatribune.com)

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

HC likely to start hearing death reference, appeals in May ---- Says Deputy
Attorney General Shaikh AKM Moniruzzaman Kabir


The High Court is likely to start hearing the death reference and appeals in
the Ramna Batamul bomb blast case in the 1st week of May.

The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Amir Hossain might begin
the hearing on May 5, said Deputy Attorney General Shaikh AKM Moniruzzaman
Kabir, adding that the death reference and appeals have been included in the
hearing list of the HC bench as per sequence.

A Dhaka court on June 23, 2014 handed down death penalty to 8 militants of
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji), including its top leader Mufti Abdul Hannan
Munshi, for killing 10 people in the attack on the Chhayanaut function during
the Pahela Baishakh celebration at Ramna Batamul in 2001.

6 other militants of the banned Islamist outfit were sentenced to life
imprisonment for their involvement in the blasts.

Later, 8 of the condemned accused filed 9 separate appeals with the HC
challenging the trial court verdict on them, added DAG Moniruzaman.

(source: The Daily Star)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 14



MALAYSIA:

Morais' autopsy findings a 'certainty'


The pathologist that performed the autopsy on deputy public prosecutor Datuk
Anthony Kevin Morais defended her findings, telling the High Court that it was
beyond reasonable doubt.

Forensic expert Nurliza Abdullah, 51, said the findings that Morais' cause of
death was due to asphyxiation was a reasonable medical certainty.

Defence lawyer Datuk N. Sivananthan questioned its conclusiveness, saying the
coroner had used broad phrases and was non-definitive in her report.

"Does the use of the phrase 'most probably attributable' raise a question mark
whether the cause of death was asphyxiation?" asked Sivananthan.

He also questioned why 2 forensic experts conducted the autopsy, when the
procedure was usually handled by one.

"2 doctors put their heads together and the best they could come up with is
'probable'?" he asked.

Nurliza rebutted that there was medical evidence that supported the findings
that the cause of death was asphyxiation, though she used the broad phrasing as
the moderate degree of decomposition of the corpse made it impossible to make
an absolute call.

"When I say there there's a high probability, that means there is reasonable
medical probability ... in my view reasonable medical certainty is beyond
reasonable doubt," she said

Asked what she would need for absolute surety, she replied "a fresher body".

The veteran forensic expert delivered more zingers when questioned during cross
examination by the defence team.

Asked what was the difference between "medical certainty" and "reasonable
medical certainty", she replied "the word 'certainty'".

Nurliza also ruled out other causes of death, from sharp force injury,
projectile injury, heat related injuries; adding there were no signs of
skeleton fractures and internal bleeding.

She said asphyxiation was likely due to the deceased being smothered with a
plastic bag.

She added that the contusion injuries to the deceased's chest and ribcage
showed his body had been compressed, restricting the ribcage from expanding and
drawing breath, which would also have contributed to the death.

One of the accused, Col Dr R. Kunaseegaran, a pathologist himself, was seen
taking notes on the neon-green clipboard given to him.

On Jan 27, the 6 men - G. Gunasekaran, 48, R. Dinishwaran, 24, A.K. Thinesh
Kumar, 23, M. Vishwanath, 26, Nimalan, 23, and Ravi Chandaran, 35, claimed
trial to charges of murdering Morais.

They are accused of committing the offence between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015,
between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1 Jalan USJ1/6D, Subang Jaya.

Dr Kunaseegaran, 53, pleaded not guilty to abetting the 6 in the murder.

They face the mandatory death penalty if convicted under Section 302 of the
Penal Code.

Counsel Sivananthan and Datuk Geethan Ram Vincent acted for Dr Kunaseegaran.
Counsel V. Rajehgopal defended Gunasekaran, Vishwanath, Nimalan and Ravi
Chandaran while lawyer M. Manoharan acted for Dinishwaran and Thinesh Kumar.

The trial before Justice Azman Abdullah continues today.

(source: The Star)






INDONESIA:

Rights activists demand Indonesia end use of death penalty ---- Calls made as
country prepares next round of executions


Anti-death penalty activists are urging the Indonesian government to stop
killing prisoners after reports emerged that the government is preparing its
next round of executions.

The Indonesia Coalition on the Abolition of Death Penalty said in an April 13
statement that Indonesia should move with other countries toward a world that
bans "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

The statement noted that Indonesia ratified the U.N. Convention against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1998.

The coalition, representing organizations and institutions including the
Indonesian bishops' human rights advocacy, referred to Amnesty International's
recently released report on capital punishment "Death Sentences and Executions
2015" that said there was a 54.5 increase in executions globally.

Amnesty's report said at least 1,634 people were executed during 2015, 573 more
than in 2014.

The coalition noted that 4 countries had abolished the death penalty for all
crimes.

"Such tendency of the states to abolish the death penalty remains high as they
believe that the death penalty is against human logic," the report said.

On April 8, Indonesian Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo told the Jakarta
Globe that executions of drug traffickers would resume following the completion
of his office's inventory of death-row inmates.

In 2015, 14 people were executed in Indonesia. All the executions were carried
out for drug trafficking.

Marzuki Darusman of the Foundation for International Human Rights Reporting
Standards said the government's assertion that the death penalty serves as a
deterrent to drug abuse and other serious crimes cannot be proven.

"Based on the National Narcotics Board's data, the number of drug users in
Indonesia increased after the death penalty resumed," he said.

Meanwhile, Azas Tigor Nainggolan, coordinator of the bishops' forum, said the
government's reliance on the death penalty has placed Indonesia in a poor light
internationally.

"It's only in Indonesia that a president feels proud of executing people," he
said.

(source: ucanews.com)






CHINA:

Nurse who murdered fiance to be executed


A 28-year-old nurse was sentenced to death yesterday for murdering her fiance
by injecting him with insulin when he was unconscious, the Shanghai No. 1
Intermediate People's Court said.

According to the court, the condemned woman, surnamed Tao, a nurse at Shanghai
No.6 Hospital's branch in the Pudong New Area, got into a row with the victim,
surnamed Luo, when they were preparing for their wedding.

Already suspecting him of dishonesty, she became angry when he asked to delay
the ceremony, which was to be held in January last year.

Between December 2014 and March 2015, Tao obtained a large amount of sleeping
tablets at the hospital and bought poisonous chemicals such as potassium
cyanide and pesticide online.

She also took some insulin - a substance used to control diabetes - from the
hospital. Excessive insulin can cause a sharp decrease in a person's blood
sugar and affect their central nervous system.

On April 1, Tao gave Luo a drink of water laced with sleeping tablets at her
residence in Xuhui District.

After he fell asleep, Tao injected him with a fatal dose of insulin.

Tao's mother and aunt reported Luo's death to local police the next day, and
officers soon identified Tao as the suspect.

Tao claimed that Luo had caused his own death by taking sleeping tablets, but
later confessed to the murder during questioning.

The court ruled that because Tao is a nurse who used her professional knowledge
to commit the murder, she deserved the death penalty.

Tao decided not to appeal against the sentence.

(source: Shanghai Daily)






IRAN:

Iranian VP Summoned to Judiciary for Commenting on High Execution Rate of Drug
Traffickers


Shahindokht Mowlaverdi, Iran's vice president for Women and Family Affairs, has
been summoned to the Judiciary to explain a comment she made in February about
all the men in a village being executed for drug offenses.

"Officials in Sistan and Baluchistan province have transferred this case to
Tehran and Ms. Mowlaverdi has been summoned to the prosecutor's office to give
explanations and respond to the complaint," said Judiciary Spokesman
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, during a press conference on April 10, 2016.

Mowlaverdi criticized the lack of social support for the families of executed
drug traffickers during an interview with the semi-official Mehr News Agency
published on February 23, 2016, and said: "We have a village in Sistan and
Baluchistan province where all the men have been executed."

"Their survivors are potential drug traffickers as they would want to seek
revenge and provide money for their families," she added. "There is no support
for these people."

Mowlaverdi did not say when the executions took place nor did she mention the
village by name.

The vice president's comment was widely shared and debated on social media in
Iran and abroad. Officials in Sistan and Baluchistan - a province in
southeastern Iran bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan - denied any such village
existed and filed a complaint with the government.

The province's deputy prosecutor, Mohammad Ali Hamidian, said Mowlaverdi's
"thoughtless and completely false statements" had caused "a media wave against
Iran by our enemies," according to an article published in the hardline daily,
Vatan Emrooz, on April 4, 2016.

"This village does not exist at all, but even if it did, it's wrong for the
vice president to mention it because it causes public anxiety," he added.

Mowlaverdi's reaction to Hamidian's comments came in the form of a brief
statement issued on April 6, 2016 announcing that President Hassan Rouhani's
legal adviser would be following up on the matter.

Sistan and Baluchistan is one of Iran's poorest provinces and has one of the
highest numbers of executions per capita in the country.

High unemployment has drawn many of its inhabitants towards illegally
trafficking the drugs that are pouring into Iran from bordering Afghanistan and
Pakistan.

UN officials have repeatedly voiced concern over Iran's use of the death
penalty in drug-related convictions. Under international law, the use of the
death penalty is restricted to only the "most serious" crimes, and the UN
special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has
explicitly stated that drug-related crimes do not meet this criterion.
Nevertheless, drug offenders are routinely sentenced to death and executed in
Iran.

"The Sistan and Baluchistan province experiences a high rate of executions for
drug-related offenses or crimes deemed to constitute 'enmity against god' in
the absence of fair trials," said the UN's special rapporteur for human rights
in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, in a March 2013 report.

In 2015, Iran executed a total of 1,052 people - the highest per capita
execution rate in the world. The vast majority of these executions are for
drug-related crimes - more than 70 %, according to Mohammad Javad Larijani,
Head of the Iranian Judiciary's Human Rights Council.

In Shaheed's March 2016 report, he criticized the high number of executions in
Iran for non-violent drug-related offenses, noting that changes in Iran's drug
laws in 2010 increased to 17 the number of drug offenses that could be punished
by death.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the Judiciary's Human Rights Council,
described Shaheed's latest report as "false" and said the country's high number
of executions were legal according to Iranian laws.

However in a sign that the ground is shifting in Iran regarding its use of the
death penalty, in December 2015, more than 70 members of Iran's Parliament
presented a bill that, if ratified by the full legislature and approved by the
Guardian Council, would reduce the punishment for drug trafficking from death
to life imprisonment. The bill is still pending.

Human rights activists as well as legal experts have noted that Iran's tough
anti-drug laws have not resulted in any reduction in drug-related crimes.

(source: iranhumanrights.org)

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

Brave Iranian mother cries out against Italian PM's silence on executions


The mother of Reyhaneh Jabbari, a young Iranian woman whose execution in
October 2014 triggered international condemnation of the mullahs??? regime, has
written an open letter to the Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi criticizing
his trip this week to Tehran and his silence on the appalling human rights
abuses taking place in Iran.

Reyhaneh Jabbari was executed for killing an intelligence agent of the Iranian
regime in self-defense.

The following is the text of the impassioned open letter by her mother Mrs.
Shole Pakravan to the Prime Minister of Italy on the eve of his trip to Tehran:

"The Prime Minister of Italy will travel to Iran tomorrow. He might aim to
convey the messages of those who are shocked and disappointed about Iran's
executions. He might intend to communicate the Pope's message - which addresses
the global abolition of the death penalty - or to say: "Stop Public
Executions!" He might request a halt to the execution of juvenile offenders.

Or perhaps he might not say much about executions, but surely he would mention
the brutal sentences of amputation of limbs. No? They might not even discuss
such issues because their meeting would then be afflicted by such bitter and
creepy facts. But I am quite sure that he would mention the expulsion of
religious and ethnic minorities from universities or administrations. He would
talk about releasing those imprisoned people, such as Hossein Kazemeyni
Boroujerdi and Mohammad Ali Taheri, whose opinions differ from the current
administration. Then again, he might not talk about these things at all. Well
then, what is his aim of coming to Iran? Instead of visiting the historical
monuments of Shiraz and Isfahan, he might intend to visit prisons to ask about
the condition of Narges Mohammadi in order to see how she feels about being far
from her 2 small children. Perhaps he wants to visit Hossein Ronaghi in order
to see how he went on hunger strike although he suffers from kidney failure. He
might want to see the exotic painting talents of Atena Farghadani who has
unjustly been sentenced to serve 12 years in prison. Also, he might state that
torture is not a decent act. No matter what title or name each human holds,
beatings or hangings or any other acts of torture are prohibited against all
human beings. But I doubt he will visit prisoners. He might cruise through
Tehran's streets and witness the young and homeless children who beg for money
with bare feet. No, then again his car's windshield has tinted glass and he
cannot witness such scenes or he cannot talk about them in his meetings.

Honestly I have no idea why he is traveling to Iran. He might be seeking money,
trade, oil, sanctions and things like that.

In other words, can anything else be important to him except the mentioned
cases? I have no clue. Maybe this Prime Minister is a good person and he might
address all of the above issues. In this case, what he will be remembered for
in the future is his well-earned reputation and his good deeds. But if he only
pursues his own commercial interests in Iran, then he must note that in Iran
there are still a high number of executions per capita and it is still common
for people to be tortured to extract 'confessions,' let alone all the other
issues.

It does no harm for him to note that Italian artists and the Pope shared their
dismay for Reyhaneh's execution and they called for abolition of such
sentences. Despite all of the global and domestic demands, my loving daughter
was executed. I am now inspired by the Italian artist, Gianni Rodari, who
wished for the existence of a kiosk to sell prospect to people. Although I
buried my whole hope and desire, I still go to that kiosk to buy a little bit
of hope. No, I will buy all of that because I want to be hopeful that the Prime
Minister's visit to Iran becomes fruitful and beneficent for us, as the
helpless nation. I want to be hopeful that the Prime Minister of Italy does not
seek to plunder the God-given wealth of a people at the cost of remaining
silent against an infectious phenomenon called execution.

Perhaps the prime minister accepts our invitation and stands by our side in the
petition for abolition of the death penalty. Perhaps he also wishes for an Iran
without any execution. Maybe in his meetings, he would say: No to Execution, No
to Torture!"

--

When she was just 19 years old, Ms. Reyhaneh Jabbari was working as a decorator
when she was forced to defend herself against an intelligence agent who tried
to rape her. She was jailed for 7 years and was executed on October 25, 2014
despite an international campaign to save her.

Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi said at the time that Ms. Jabbari's
execution had political motives and that it was unlawful even in the framework
of the mullahs' medieval laws. Mrs. Rajavi called for an independent
international probe into the execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari as an example of
arbitrary, extrajudicial and criminal death sentences in Iran that have taken
on added dimensions since Hassan Rouhani's tenure as the regime's President.

********

14 executions carried out as Italian PM and EU High Representative visit Tehran


On the morning of Wednesday, April 13, concurrent with a visit by Italy's Prime
Minister and on the eve of a visit by the EU High Representative to Tehran, the
antihuman clerical regime collectively hanged 8 prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajai
Shahr) Prison in Karaj. Counting 1 execution in Tabriz central prison on April
11 and 5 other executions on April 9, the number of executions in just the last
5 days reached 14. Moreover, in an Isfahan prison, 5 prisoners were transferred
to solitary confinement on April 11 in preparation for their execution.

The increasing trend of executions aimed at intensifying the climate of terror
to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society, especially at a
time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates that the claim
of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval regime. In their
final statement, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries meeting in Hiroshima
called on the Iranian regime to comply with its international human rights
obligations and to end arbitrary executions carried out in violation of its
international obligations.

While welcoming the G7 position, the Iranian Resistance emphasizes that solely
issuing statements is inadequate. Trade and relations with the religious
fascism ruling Iran at the price of ignoring the tragic state of human rights
in Iran under the rule of the mullahs will only intensify suppression and in
particular executions. Relations with this regime should be preconditioned to a
halt in executions.

(source for both: NCR-Iran)

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

UN Calls For Moratorium In Iran On Executions For Drug Offenses


UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein has called on Iran
to temporarily halt executions for drug offenses until parliament debates a new
law to end the mandatory death penalty for such crimes.

"Given the broadening recognition in Iran that the death penalty does not deter
drug crime and that antinarcotics laws need to be reformed, I call on Iran to
take the important first step of instituting a moratorium on the use of the
death penalty," he said in a press statement issued on April 14.

Last weekend, 5 men were hanged in Iran, 3 of them on charges of narcotics
trafficking.

So far this year, 60 executions have reportedly been carried out in Iran. Zeid
noted that this represents a drop compared to the same period last year.

According to the latest UN report on human rights in Iran, Tehran carried out
nearly 1,000 executions in 2015, the highest rate in over 2 decades, and many
of them juveniles.

(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)



RUSSIA:

Will Russia Bring Back Death Penalty To Execute Terrorists?


The last state execution carried out in Russia was on Aug. 2, 1996, as the
young democracy led by then President Boris Yeltsin was imposing a moratorium
on capital punishment.

But a recent bill submitted at the Duma national parliament proposes to bring
the death penalty back in force, specifically for crimes of terrorism. Backers
of the bill, leaders of the A Just Russia political party cite the ISIS'
bombing in October of a Russian passenger jet over the Sinai that killed 224,
as well as the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels.

Just Russia leader Sergey Mironov says that convicted terrorists "deserve the
most severe punishment," dismissing any notion of rehabilitation for such
criminals. "The punishment must certainly be adequate," Mironov said, "taking
into account the degree of threat to society and serving as a warning to
committing crimes of this category in the future."

The new bill would amend two existing articles in Russia's Criminal Code,
article 205 (an act of terrorism) and article 205.1 (facilitating terrorist
activity), to allow for capital punishment both for those carrying out attacks
and others involved.

Just Russia Duma member Oleg Nilov tells Kommersant that the threat of
terrorism in the world is a growing problem, and the death penalty could be a
deterent. "Potential accomplices and organizers will be forced to think it
through," he says.

Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, noted that there is a
longstanding moratorium in Russia on capital punishment. "The question of the
death penalty is incredibly complex, and multiple discussions are currently
taking place. At the end of the day, there is a moratorium, which we will
continue to follow."

In effect since 1996, the moratorium is a provisional suspension of capital
punishment, that has effectively halted any executions. The penal code,
however, stipulates that it can be lifted in 5 defined exceptional
circumstances for men, aged 18 to 65: murder under specific aggravating
circumstances, encroachment on the life of an officer of a law enforcement
agency, encroachment on the life of a statesman or public figure, encroachment
on the life of a person administering justice or engaged in preliminary
investigation, and genocide.

Article 20 of the Russian Constitution states: "Everyone has the right to life
... until its abolition, death penalty may only be passed for the most serious
crimes against human life."

Under the Soviet regime, there was an on-and-off relationship with official
state executions. Capital punishment was alternately permitted and prohibited,
and was last restored on May 12, 1950, expanding the list of capital crimes
along with it. GARF archives show that in the following decades state
executions became less frequent, and the majority of the sentences were
successfully appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR.

A serial killer

One notable execution was that of Antonina Makarova. During World War II, the
woman dubbed "Tony-Machinegun" conspired with the Nazis, and was held solely
responsible for the executions of more than 1,500 Soviet partisans and their
family members. Makarova was eventually caught by the KGB and sentenced to
death in 1976, and executed 2 years later by firing squad.

In the early 1990s Russia's bid to gain entry into the Council of Europe, which
advocates for intergovernamental human rights and requires all of its members
to outright abolish the death penalty. In Moscow's case, a moratorium was
accepted in 1996, though a final state execution took place shortly afterward
of serial killer Sergey Golovkin, also known as "The Boa", who'd tortured and
murdered 11 boys between 1986 and 1992.

The new push for a resumption of the death penalty in Russia comes as a recent
report from Amnesty International found the number of state executions across
the world reached a 25-years high In 2015. Some 86% of the officially
registered executions were carried out in just three countries: Iran, Pakistan,
and Saudi Arabia. The report also mentions of China, dubbing the country as
"chief executioner" due to the presumably high number of executions, though the
information remains classified.

Today, Russia stands as 1 of the 3 post-Soviet nations with an active
moratorium, along with Kazakhstan and Tadjikistan. Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
and Kyrgyzstan have all abolished the death penalty outright, leaving Belarus
as the only remaining post-Soviet country to actively practice capital
punishment.

Aleksander Bastyrkin of the Investigative Committee of Russia, is a longtime
advocate of enforcing capital punishment. "I personally speak in favor of the
death penalty, first and foremost as a human," Bastyrkin tells Kommersant. "I
am not afraid of criticism. Don???t be a hypocrite - evil must be punished. You
take the life of another, especially the life of a child, pay with your own."

(source: worldcrunch.com)

BELARUS:

EU Urges Belarus To Introduce Moratorium On Death Penalty


The European Union has once again called on Belarus to introduce a moratorium
on the death penalty.

The statement by the Press Secretary of the European External Action Service
was posted on the official website of the service several days after the
Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the sentence of the 48-year-old Henadz
Yakavitski. Minsk regional court found him guilty of brutally murdering his
roommate and sentenced him to death by shooting.

The EU condemns the use of the death penalty in any situation. The statement
says that "it does not act as a deterrent and is a cruel punishment and
unacceptable denial of human dignity." Brussels urges the authorities of our
country "to respect the right to life of every citizen and to introduce a
moratorium on executions as a 1st step towards its complete abolition".

As we know, Belarus is the only country in Europe where the death penalty is
applied. Over the past 25 years, more than 400 people were shot. During his
presidency, Aliaksandr Lukashenka pardoned only 1 person.

(source: charter97.org)






DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:

Crime victim against death penalty, even for her attackers


Even for her assailants who in 2012 left her blind by gunshots during a robbery
would civil engineer Francina Hungria support the death penalty.

The now deputy mayor candidate for the National District for the ruling party
(PLD) said the Dominican justice system must implement other measures because
in her view, violence cannot be attacked violently.

She said the death penalty cannot justified by alleging that it would solve the
spate of violent crimes.

Interviewed on Teleradio America Channel 45 from 8 to 9 am, Hungria said the
best way to fight crime in Dominican Republic is by providing study and work
opportunities for young people and build a culture of peace.

When asked about those who've voiced opposition to her candidacy, Hungria said
she assumed the commitment to work for a more gender-inclusive city and
citizens who like her, suffer from a disability, "those people who somehow feel
vulnerable by having an environment that isn't intended for their condition."

(source: dominicantoday.com)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 14



PAKISTAN----execution

Murder convict hanged in Haripur jail


A death row prisoner, convicted of murder, was executed in Haripur central jail
on Thursday morning, ARY News reported.

The execution of Imtiaz took place in Haripur jail for committing murder of a
man over a dispute in year 2005.

The execution of another death row prisoner Humayun was stopped after the 2
sides struck a compromise, the jail superintendent said. Humayun had killed his
father in year 2006.

The executions of 2 more convicts were also deferred in Gujrat and Faisalabad
prisons, jail officials said.

In Gujrat death row prisoner Arshad reached to a compromise deal with the
family of the victim, after which his execution was stopped.

In Faisalabad Central Jail, death row prisoner Nadeem alias Deema and the
aggrieved family were agreed over a compromise, after which his execution was
stopped. The convict had killed a man over a dispute 11 years ago.

Human rights group Amnesty International last week described Pakistan, with 326
hangings last year, as the world's 3rd most prolific country conducting
executions after China and Iran.

Pakistan had ended a moratorium on the death penalty after Taliban attackers
gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at Army Public School
in Peshawar on December 16, 2014.

The country had initially reinstated hangings only for those convicted of
terrorism, but later the decision was extended to all capital offences.

(source: Ary News)






IRAN----execution

Prisoner Hanged in Northwestern Iran


On Monday April 11 a prisoner was reportedly hanged at Tabriz's central prison
(located in the East Azerbaijan province, northwestern Iran) on rape charges.

The Kurdistan Human Rights Network has identified the prisoner as a man named
Ghader Mazaheri. Iranian official sources, including state media and the
Judiciary, have been silent about this execution.

(source: iranhr.net)






UNITED KINGDOM:

The UK needs to condemn executions in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran ---- The
rise in capital punishments worldwide should bring action from the UK???s
foreign office, but it has been criticised for deprioritising human rights


Driven by unprecedented execution sprees in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran,
the use of the death penalty has reached an all-time high, according to figures
published by Amnesty International. An alarming proportion of those executed
were carried out for non-violent crimes, including drug offences and attendance
at political protests.

UK human rights minister Baroness Anelay said the government was "deeply
troubled" by this resurgence in the use of the death penalty. But her words
rang hollow just hours after parliament's foreign affairs committee (FAC)
warned that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office's (FCO) recent approach "raises
questions about how energetically the government is raising human rights
issues".

Indeed, though the UK has historically been a leading voice in opposition to
the death penalty, the last year has seen a shift, with trade apparently given
precedence over human rights. In October 2015 the FCO's permanent
under-secretary, Sir Simon McDonald confirmed to the FAC that human rights were
"not one of our top priorities" and that "the prosperity agenda is further up
the list".

Baroness Anelay has repeatedly stressed that "we make our opposition well known
at the highest levels to countries which continue to apply [the death
penalty]". But as the MPs' report pointed out, ministers have all too often
dodged the issue in diplomatic settings, even in one case failing to remember
whether or not human rights had been discussed during a business delegation to
Egypt.

The countries driving a global surge in executions are among the UK's closest
allies. This gives us a voice.

It is easy for ministers to condemn the death penalty in principle from Foreign
Office briefing rooms. But if these words are to mean anything, the UK must be
willing to engage in targeted ways on specific cases, including making its
concerns public where appropriate. The countries driving a global surge in
executions are among the UK's closest allies. This gives us a voice and we
should use it in service of our values.

In Pakistan, for example, 400 people have been executed since December 2014,
when the Pakistani government began a brutal execution campaign waged under the
pretext of fighting terrorists. The vast majority of people hanged were charged
with crimes bearing no resemblance to terrorism and a number have been proved
to be juveniles. Despite this, the UK continues to cooperate with Pakistani
police forces which actively boast about the death sentences they secure.

In Saudi Arabia, the government has executed more than 80 prisoners this year
alone - a rate that has it on course to double its executions total for 2015.
The cause of the spree appears to be a simple attempt to crush dissent and
calls for reform, following the new king's accession to the throne. But instead
of condemning the execution of juveniles who participated in political
protests, the UK's response has been pusillanimous, with the foreign secretary
appearing to defend the country's actions on the basis that those executed were
"terrorists" - a characterisation which is demonstrably untrue.

The UK might not have the same diplomatic ties to Iran that we do to Saudi
Arabia or Pakistan, but our recent resumption of diplomatic relations with the
country presents an opportunity for genuine dialogue on human rights issues. In
this light it is far from encouraging that foreign secretary Philip Hammond
pledged to discuss drug enforcement efforts with Iran in the same year the
country executed more than 600 non-violent drug offenders.

When the UK uses its voice to oppose these injustices, it makes a difference.
In April 2013, David Cameron spoke out about the torture and abuse of 3 young
men facing death sentences for drug offences in the UAE. It's no coincidence
that the men were included in a pardon that saw them released from detention in
July that same year.

It is to be hoped that we will see similar targeted interventions in other
cases. Andy Tsege is a British father of three who was kidnapped in June 2014
and rendered to Ethiopia, where he has been held under sentence of death
imposed in absentia ever since. Rather than condemning the unlawful abuses, the
UK government has limited itself to pushing for consular access and a lawyer
for Andy.

The death penalty has never been about justice or law enforcement; citizens are
no safer for living under the shadow of the gallows. Capital punishment is, in
fact, all about power and positioning, and the governments of Saudi, Pakistan
and Iran see the death penalty as a political asset.

Nations that oppose the death penalty, among which the UK should be foremost,
should not shrink from showing our allies that its use carries a political
cost.

(source: Maya Foa is the death penalty director at Reprieve----The Guardian)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 15




SIERRA LEONE:

Death Penalty does not reform the prisoner- Amnesty International


The Director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone, Solomon Moses Sogbandi,
in an interview with Awoko Newspaper on Wednesday at their Circular Road office
in Freetown, declared that the Death Penalty (D.P) does not reform the
prisoner.

He made this declaration while he was commenting on the Amnesty International
Global Report on Death Sentences and Execution 2015, which was launched last
Tuesday by the organisation.

While he was giving the statistics of D.P globally, he said the global trend is
a bit worrying as there is 54% increase in it execution as at 2015, noting that
about 1,634 people were executed that year as compared to the 573 execution of
death penalty recorded in 2014. This figure, he pointed out, does not include
China where data on the use of D.P is classified as a state secret.

Mr Sogbandi said the report shows that three countries which are notorious for
the execution of death are Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as they carry 89% of
execution recorded.

Speaking on the reasons why they want the 'Death Penalty' to be removed from
the country's law books, he said "Death Penalty is a controversial issue all
over the world. There is no part in the world where the citizens have accepted
the D.P". He added that a consultation which they did around the country shows
that majority of the people in this country are not in favour of the Death
Penalty.

He furthered that countries that have abolished the D.P largely depend on
political will.

Secondly he said the D.P does not act as a deterrent, stating that countries
that have abolished the D.P have fewer incidences of violence and crimes than
those that still have it.

The D.P, he went on, does not promote the essence of punishment. "It is final
and does not reform the prisoner," he stressed.

The 3rd issue he raised was the issue of error in judicial review or trial.
According to him, the executers are humans subject to judicial error. He argued
that it is possible that the wrong procedure is used to try an individual
leading to his execution. "If the person is executed and there is new
evidence(s), there is no way that person will come back to answer," he
contended.

The director said even though the country has not been executing the death
penalty for over a decade, his argument is that they are still in the law books
and someday a leader may come who would start executing these laws.

He suggested that life imprisonment be an option though "it is left with the
government to see which action they will take in terms of people who commit
offences liable to or that can lead to D.P."

He called on the Inter-Religious Councils and the Attorney General to see how
best they can aid in the repeal of these laws for the country's statute books.

(source: awoko.org)






PHILIPPINES:

Philippine bishop warns against death penalty proponents ---- Support
candidates who respect the right to life, prelate says


A Philippine bishop urged Catholics not to vote for candidates who advocate the
revival of the death penalty in the country.

Bishop Jose Cabantan of Malaybalay said Filipinos, who will elect national and
local leaders on May 9, should choose officials who "respect the right to
life."

The prelate said church teachings emphasize the "value and inviolability of
human life" and the focus on "restorative justice" that will deter crimes,
improve law enforcement, and the justice system.

Data from the Philippine National Police show that in 2015 crime incidents
soared by 46 percent compared to the previous year.

Authorities, however, said the increase in the statistics did not mean a
worsening crime rate but was due in part to underreporting by local police
units in the past.

Louie Tito Guia of the Commission on Elections noted the "vital role" of the
Catholic Church in educating voters.

He said the church is the "most all-encompassing institution" in the country
that plays a big role in "political and social change."

Some 55 million Filipinos are registered to vote in the May 2016 elections.

(source: UCA News)

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

Davao del Norte Congress bet favors death penalty to curb drugs


Former Congress Rep Pantaleon Alvarez said he would favor the restoration of
death penalty?to ?help curb the problem on drugs in the province.

Alvarez, running for Congressional slot, for the 1st district of Davao del
Norte, presented a "2-pronged approach" which included the restoration of death
penalty and the increase of the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and
Development.

"One, restore death penalty against drug lords, drug pushers and corrupt public
officials. 2nd, increase the budget of DSWD to enable them to attend to
victims," he said adding that these actions need an act of Congress.

Alvarez was responding to a question duringthe Candidates Forum 2016, held at
the Aces Tagum College on Thursday, April 14. He was among the 5 candidates for
the 1st congressional district of Davao del Norte.

Panelist Aurora Lozada, a local veteran broadcaster, threw the question on
their strategy to address the problem on drugs.

"The children and the youth sector is the most volatile and the most crucial
among the sectors. Given the widespread threat on illegal drugs and
criminality, what will be your strategy in making the sector drug free and
crime free, developing them to responsible and contributing members of our
society?" Lozada said.

'Make rehabilitation accessible'

Former Tagum City Councilor Nicandro Suaybaguio,would disagree and ?blamed
corruption for the proliferation of drugs, wanting rehabilitation center to be
more accessible.

"We have the (Philippine National Police), the (Philippine Drug Enforcement
Agency), and all other agencies, However if there is corruption, there will
always be that problem," he said.

Suaybaguio said education among the youth on the effects of drugs should be
intensified.

Suaybaguio added that the province only have 1 rehabilitation center.

"Even if they have the will to change but the rehabilitation is not accessible,
nothing will happen," he said.

Another Congressional candidate, Atty. Emmanuel Mahipus, said there should be a
"convergent approach" between the public and private sector to address the
needs of the youth sector.

He will also push for the strengthening of families as basic unit of the
society.

"Drug is just a manifestation of a bigger problem and that problem is the lack
of family. And even the society and government could take care of the needs of
the youth. They were disregarded because of hunger, poverty," he said.

Former Tagum barangay Kagawad, Dexter Welborn said the youth should be elevated
from their situation of poverty and will provide help through cooperative
system.

Parents attention

Former Rep. Arrel Olano said the youth should be given attention by their
parents and the out of school youth should be "motivated to go to school."

"We will expand the function of (Technical Education and Skills Development
Authority) to reach all the youth who need further education and to enable them
look for jobs. If they have jobs they will be distracted from activities like
using illegal drugs," he said.

The Candidates Forum 2016 was organized by the Philippine Information Agency
and the Commission on Elections in Davao del Norte.

(source: davaotoday.com)






SINGAPORE:

$177k worth of drugs seized in CNB operations


More than $177,000 worth of drugs have been seized in multiple operations by
the Central Narcotics Board (CNB) this week.

The drug haul comprised more than 1.5kg of heroin, 329g of 'Ice', 80g of
cannabis, 153 ecstasy tablets, 26 Erimin-5 tablets and ketamine.

Some 103 suspected drug offenders were also arrested in one 4-day operation,
which started on Monday and ended on Friday (April 15).

This operation was supported by officers from the Singapore Police Force, and
spanned areas including Tampines, Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio, Clementi, Punggol,
Sembawang, Woodlands and Yishun.

In one of the the cases during the 4-day operation, 570g of heroin worth over
$40,000 and more than $2,000 in cash were seized by officers.

The 1st arrest in this case was made on Wednesday in the vicinity of Upper Boon
Keng Road, where a 52-year-old Singaporean man was caught with Erimin-5 tablets
and drug paraphernalia.

Nearby, officers noticed a 60-year-old Singaporean man behaving suspiciously,
and seized over 80g of heroin, seven Erimin-5 tablets and cash from him.
Follow-up investigations led to the capture of a 28-year-old Malaysian man the
next day, who was found with 450g of heroin in the vicinity of Somerset and is
believed to have been a supplier.

The CNB is continuing its investigations into all of the suspects.

It reminded the public that the Misuse of Drugs Act allows for the death
penalty if the amount of diamorphine (or pure heroin) trafficked exceeds 15g.

(source: Straits Times)






INDONESIA:

Indonesia's drug obsession is only making things worse


When Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, was elected as President of
Indonesia in late 2014, the world was enthralled. He was expected to be
different - the 1st President in the nation's history not connected to the old
power order. In fact, he came from a surprisingly humble background; he was a
former small-scale furniture salesman who rose to power by fighting corruption
and getting things done. Here was a young, populist leader at the head of one
of the world's largest countries and most populous Muslim nation.

Just a few months later, this goodwill disappeared when Jokowi made the
ill-advised decision to execute a dozen foreign nationals, including, most
notably, 2 citizens from neighboring Australia, for drug-related crimes. It was
the largest single use of the death penalty in Indonesia in nearly a decade and
created an international crisis.

While there was definitely some hypocrisy at play (where was the global outrage
when Saudi Arabia executed Indonesians in 2011?) the situation ended up being a
lose-lose for Indonesia. The global outcry tainted Jokowi and the country's
international standing. Moreover, and importantly, the impact on the country's
drug problem was, not surprisingly, pretty much nil.

Part of it was because the death penalty, as a tool of fighting crime, just
does not work. "We oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle," says
Andreas Harsono, Indonesia Researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW). "Moreover,
the death penalty does not deter drug trafficking." HRW also strongly believes
the death penalty will do nothing to stop drugs from entering countries like
Indonesia.

This shouldn't come as any surprise. Amnesty International, HRW, and other
civil society organizations believe that the death penalty is discriminatory,
prone to misuse by skewed justice systems, and does nothing to deter crime.
According to Amnesty, you are more likely to be sentenced to death if you are
poor or belong to a racial, ethnic or religious minority because of
discrimination in the justice system. Moreover, poor and marginalized groups
have less access to the legal resources needed to defend themselves.

This goes beyond the death penalty, which is just the most harsh tool in the
plethora of heavy-handed, police and military focused anti-drug tactics. And on
this, President Jokowi is, amazingly, doubling down. This past February, he
stated in a speech that drugs were Indonesia's top problem, calling for more a
aggressive, punishment heavy, anti-drug push.

Perpetuating bad policy

Think about that for a second. This is a country with rampant corruption,
severely lacking infrastructure, where tens of millions still don't have
Internet, 1 out of 2 Indonesians lack reliable clean water, and the education
system is ranked near the bottom of an survey by the Economist Intelligence
Unit. Those are all problems worth tackling, and each could be called the
country's top challenge. But drugs?

Certainly a problem, though many dispute the Government's figures of 4 million
addicts nationwide, with 30 dying each day. Just not the biggest one.

It's not just the diagnosis that's worrisome - so too is the prescription.
Indonesia's use of the death penalty was just one sign of a policy focused on
imprisonment and police tactics. As experiences from other countries shows,
such a "war on drugs" not only won't work, but can make things worse.

Jokowi's policies harken back to the experiences of countries like the United
States in the 1960s, when the so-called "War on Drugs" began. Heavy-handed
police tactics and a court system focused on imprisonment rather than
rehabilitation has left the country with the largest prison population in the
world, and no discernible reduction in drug use, as the recent heroin epidemic
attests.

The impacts on America's neighbor, Mexico - which economically more resembles
Indonesia than the United States - are even worse. There, in certain regions,
the war on drugs has become a literal war, with 27,000 killed, many civilians,
in 2011 alone. For comparison's sake, Indonesia estimates that 8,000 people die
from drugs in the country every year - a number that could probably be reduced
through better healthcare rather than more arrests and death penalty
convictions.

Jailing addicts alongside traffickers

Frighteningly, the country is already heading down the path of mass
incarceration - and seeing the impacts. Harsh new laws are being considered
that would increase punishment for drug offenses, potentially including
draconian penalties such as force-feeding drug traffickers their own narcotics
until they die. In fact, many of these drug laws are inspired by the U.S.
approach to drugs, which were promulgated in Indonesia through the United
Nations' failed narcotics policy. These laws, as they currently stand, do not
distinguish between drug traffickers and addicts, putting far too many addicts
into overcrowded prisons.

"Criminalising the consumption of even small amounts of drugs has led to a
massive increase in the number of prison inmates," said Michael Buehler, a
lecturer at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies,
to Al Jazeera. "Around 60 % of the 12,000 people locked up in the capital
Jakarta alone are imprisoned for substance abuse."

Focusing on improving social services such as health care could actually have
more impact on reducing drug usage in Indonesia than greater use of the death
penalty or putting more drug users in jail. In fact, the country estimates that
1.2 million drug addicts need immediate medical care, yet there are only 22,000
beds across the country. Expanding this system, and ensuing that addicts get
care, would be one step towards actually solving the problem.

"If the Indonesian government were really serious about protecting the
wellbeing of its citizens, it would pursue harm-reduction strategies aimed at
Indonesian drug users instead of executing drug traffickers," said Buehler.

Chief among these would be fighting corruption, as, according to World Press,
it is closely connected to the drug issue.

Understanding drug problems in Indonesia is complicated by the open secret that
drug dealing is tied to politics and the security forces. Many police and
soldiers test positive for drugs in their urine (usually Ecstasy, amphetamines,
or low-grade heroin).

There is still time for Jokowi to change his mind, and focus on the real
problems facing Indonesia. If he does, the world will stand behind him, because
even though he lost his goodwill last year, we're still eager for a Democratic,
populist hero in Southeast Asia. Shifting his priorities away from drugs and
focusing on Indonesia's social challenges, such as corruption, education,
health, or even gender inequality, would be a boon not only for the country's
240 million citizens, but for the world. These initiatives would likely have
the side effect of reducing drug use as well.

Let's hope that he comes to his senses soon, before it's too late.

(source: Nithin Coca, Global Comment)



CHINA:

Tomb raiding ringleader gets death penalty


China on Thursday sentenced the head of the country's most prolific tomb
raiding gang to death with a 2-year reprieve, a rare severe punishment which
analysts hope will serve as a warning to the unbridled tomb raiding industry in
China.

Ringleader Yao Yuzhong, from Chifeng in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,
was found guilty of several offenses including tomb raiding, looting and
selling stolen antiquities. His gang was highly organized, and would source
fund, explore, loot and trade relics, said the Chaoyang City Intermediate
People's Court of Northeast China's Liaoning Province on Thursday.

Altogether, 22 gang members received prison terms of varying lengths. Three
gang members received life sentences.

Under China's Criminal Law, tomb raiders can be sentenced up to over 10 years'
imprisonment or to a life sentence for the most serious violations.

Among 32 artifacts retrieved by police, 16 were under grade-one State cultural
protection. Another 77 relics still in the possession of the gang members were
ordered returned.

The gang's arrest was one of the biggest busts of its kind supervised by the
Ministry of Public Security since 1949. It was among 12 organized gangs
implicated in illegal excavations at Niuheliang, a Neolithic site in
northeastern Liaoning. Police apprehended 225 people and retrieved a total of
2,063 artifacts, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

This heavy punishment can serve as a deterrent to the unrestrained tomb raiding
industry in China, which has grown into a mature business in the underground
market, Ni Fangliu, a Nanjing-based expert on archeology and the history of
tomb raiding, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Busier than archaeologists

Observers noted that more excavations may have been made by tomb raiders than
official archaeologists in China, and that the antiquities recovered are
usually sold either overseas for a better price or purchased by some private or
even public museums.

Citing anonymous insiders, the Legal Weekly reported in 2010 that the number of
tomb raiders in China may have reached 100,000 in 6 provinces, including Hebei,
Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hunan and Gansu.

Tomb raiders are usually familiar with history to help them better locate the
tombs, such as historical rituals or traditional feng shui, as emperors' tombs
usually sit near mountains and rivers. Different dynasties had different
funeral practices, Ni said.

"Tomb raiding gangs sometimes make better use of new technologies, such as
directional explosion excavating equipment. They don't care that the ancient
tombs are damaged, all they want are the relics to make a profit," Liu Yang, a
Beijing-based lawyer specializing in cultural relics, told the Global Times.

Liu, who has been working to retrieve Chinese relics overseas, estimated that a
large proportion of the millions of relics in foreign countries could have
originated from tomb raiding.

Some 100,000 individual relics could be sent annually to distribution centers
in the Chinese mainland before being sent to Hong Kong and Taiwan before they
then reach the UK as the axis of the international hub for relic smuggling, the
Legal Weekly reported.

"Museums in China are also willing to pay for the raided relics. They can't
track the origin after they've changed hands dozens of times, and they also
stimulate the development and prosperity of tomb raiding," Ni said.

Urbanization threat

Apart from tomb raiding, Chinese cultural relics are threatened by urbanization
efforts, according to Xu Changqing, head of the institute of cultural relics
and archaeology of Jiangxi Province, who called for a balanced relationship
between infrastructure construction and cultural relic excavation and
protection.

"Some officials think they can protect the relics after economic development,
after building high-rises, but they actually begin at the wrong end, because
the heritage of thousands of years can be damaged in one day," Xu told the
Global Times, explaining that exploration, assessment and investigation of
relic resources are sometimes deemed as a delaying factor in urban development.

(source: ecns.com)






IRAN----female executed

Woman Prisoner Hanged in Northeastern Iran on Drug Charges----A woman sentenced
to death on drug charges was reportedly hanged in northeastern Iran on Thursday
morning Tehran time.


On the morning of Thursday April 14, a woman was reportedly hanged at Kashmar
Prison (located in the Razavi Khorasan province, northeastern Iran) on drug
charges. A report by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network identifies the prisoner
as Ameneh Rezaian, a 43-year-old woman who was arrested 2 years ago by Iranian
authorities on charges of possession and trafficking of narcotics.

The report makes mention of another woman at Kashmar Prison, Khavar B., who is
sentenced to death on drug charges and is currently on death row.

Iranian official sources, including state media and the Judiciary, have been
silent about Ameneh Rezaian's execution.

(source: iranhr.net)

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

UN rights chief calls for end to executions for drug offences


The United Nations human rights chief today appealed to Iran to halt executions
for drug offences until the new Parliament debates a proposed law that would
remove the mandatory death penalty for drug crimes.

"Given the broadening recognition in Iran that death penalty does not deter
drug crime and that anti-narcotics laws need to be reformed, I call on Iran to
take the important 1st step of instituting a moratorium on the use of death
penalty," said High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.

Last year, at least 966 people were executed in Iran - the highest rate in more
than 2 decades - the majority for drug offences. At least 4 of those executed
in 2015 were juveniles. So far this year, 60 executions have reportedly been
carried out in Iran, less than the number in the same period last year.

He, however, noted that 5 men were hanged last weekend, 3 of them on charges of
narcotics trafficking. The other 2 men were convicted of murder.

In at least 1 of the cases, that of Rashid Kouhi, there were serious concerns
about the fairness of the trial and the denial of his right to appeal. Kouhi
was sentenced to death in 2012 after he was found in possession of 800 grams of
crystal meth. He was executed last Saturday in Gilan province in northern Iran.

In December last year, 70 parliamentarians presented a bill to amend the
existing mandatory death penalty for drug offences. The bill provides for life
imprisonment in such cases. It remains to be seen whether it will be taken
forward in the new Parliament.

"There have been encouraging signs from within Iran towards reform of the law,
from the judiciary, the executive and the legislature and I hope the new
Parliament will adopt these changes," Mr. Zeid said. "But it is unfortunate
that executions for drug-related offences - crimes that clearly do not meet the
threshold under international human rights law for application of the death
penalty - continue to be carried out in the meantime."

He also expressed serious concerns about the large number of juvenile offenders
reported to be on death row in Iran. He urged the authorities to ensure that no
one is executed for offences committed under the age of 18, stressing that
there is a strict prohibition against the execution of juvenile offenders in
international human rights law, including in the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, which Iran ratified in 1975 and the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, which it ratified in 1994.

(source: UN News Centre)

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

5 prisoners transferred to solitary confinement for their execution


According to reports from Iran, 5 death-row prisoners from different wards in
Isfahan Prison, central Iran, have been transferred to solitary confinement in
preparation for their execution.

Iran's fundamentalist regime executed 8 prisoners on April 13 in Gohardasht
Prison, northwest of Tehran. The prisoners had been transferred to solitary
confinement earlier in the week.

These executions are taking place while Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
visited Iran in recent days to established trade relations between the Iranian
regime and Italy. The EU High Representative is expected to visit Iran soon.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on
Wednesday that the Iranian regime executed 14 prisoners in various prisons
across the country within a 5-day period.

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

(source: NCR-Iran)






PAKISTAN----executions

Another 4 Convicts Hanged in Pakistan


Murderers executed in Multan, Jhang, Sialkot and Larkana.

Pakistan on Wednesday hanged 4 more prisoners convicted of murder despite
international criticism over its surging use of the death penalty.

Amnesty International last week described Pakistan as the world's 3rd most
prolific executioner after China and Iran, with 326 hangings last year.

Wednesday's executions took place in Multan, Jhang and Sialkot in Punjab
province and in Larkana in Sindh province.

Anwarul Haq was executed in Multan for murdering his brother over a land
dispute in 2000, senior prisons official Chaudhry Arshad Saeed Arain told AFP.
Ghulam Farooq was hanged in Sialkot prison for murdering 2 women and a man due
to a family feud in 1999. Muhammad Irfan was hanged in Jhang for killing a
woman while robbing her home in 2006, Arain said, adding that 8 more prisoners
were likely to be hanged in Punjab on Thursday.

In Larkana, Waris Mir Bahr was hanged for the 1995 murder of a Pakistan
International Airlines employee during an attack on an airlines van carrying
cash, prison officials said.

Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty after Taliban attackers
gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in
Peshawar in December 2014. Hangings were initially reinstated only for those
convicted of terrorism, but later extended to all capital offences.

(source: newsweekpakistan.com)

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

Murder convict hanged at Central Prison Haripur


A convict on death row was hanged at Central Prison Haripur Thursday morning
while another inmate's was postponed after the complainant forgave him a few
hours before his execution.

A prison official told The Express Tribune Imtiaz Ahmed, a resident of Khaki
village in Mansehra, had been convicted by a district court for murdering a van
driver while attempting to kidnap him in 2005. He was awarded the death
penalty.

Subsequently, Ahmed's appeal was turned down by the Peshawar High Court and
Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The home department issued a black warrant against him 3 days before his
execution. "His mercy petition was rejected by the president last week," the
official said. "The last meeting between Ahmed and his family was arranged on
Wednesday. He was hanged at 5:30am in the presence of the magistrate, doctor
and jail administration officials."

On hold

The execution of another convict was postponed after the complainant decided to
forgive him.

The home department issued a black warrant against Muhammad Humayun Jamal, a
resident of Mardan, and he was going to be executed on Thursday at Central
Prison Haripur. Jamal was awarded capital punishment for murdering his father
in 2006. However, his brother, who had filed a complaint against him, decided
to forgive him and struck a deal through a district court in Mardan.

The deal was sent to the home department and jail authorities and will be
scrutinised. Until then, Jamal's execution has been postponed.

According to officials, there are 114 inmates at the facility who are on death
row. The appeals of over 30 of them have been rejected.

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

Who are we hanging? 'State policies fuelled terrorism'


Panelists at a discussion organised on Wednesday at the Lahore University of
Management Sciences (LUMS) highlighted major limitations of counter-terrorism
measures, legal problems in anti-terrorism legislation, social and moral
implications of death penalty and regular use of torture.

The event was moderated by journalist Rashed Rehman. Social scientist Ayesha
Siddiqa, Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) director Sarah Belal and lawyer Saroop
Ijaz spoke on the occasion. Ijaz highlighted problems with anti-terrorism
legislation like the difference between the academic and the state-derived
definitions of terrorism. He said no efforts had been made to date to reform
anti-terror legislation.

Siddiqa questioned the use of death penalty under the Anti-Terrorism Act and
its social and moral implications, especially with regard to law enforcement
agencies such as police. "The police in the Punjab are cognisant of every
single crime and criminal in the deepest corners of gali mohallas. Even with
that amount of information there is no control over crime as police are not
allowed to take any legitimate legal action," she said.

Belal presented an analysis on the increasing pattern of executions and how
extra-judicial methods such as torture were regularly utilised in order to
extract confessions from prisoners. "Of the 380 convicts hanged since December,
2014, only 39 had committed a terrorism offence or had links with terrorist
organisations. This brings it to 1 in 10 out of all those executed," she said.
Belal further elucidated on fundamental rights and due process challenges faced
by lawyers in defending clients set to be executed.

"Terrorism has not come to Pakistan out of the blue. It's the cumulative result
and the unintended consequence of policies implemented by our state
institutions and evil civil reprieves in projecting themselves through proxies
in the region, whether westward or eastward," Rehman said while concluding the
organisation.

The discussion was attended by people from all walks of life including
students, professionals and journalists. The initiative was taken by the JPP to
reexamine and raise awareness about reforming the Anti-Terrorism Act and
counterterrorism strategies. The JPP had earlier researched and released
Torture on death row, a report in 2014, which brought to the fore statistics
related to terrorism charges. The discussion was organised in collaboration
with the LUMS Model United Nations Society.

(source for both: The Express Tribune)

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

Are executions a deterrence?


In the wake of an ongoing execution spree in Pakistan, 4 more murder convicts
were hanged on Wednesday in different jails of Punjab and Sindh. The hanging of
convicts has become almost an everyday occurrence across the country. Amnesty
International's recent report described Pakistan as the world's 3rd most
prolific executioner after China and Iran, with 326 hangings last year.
Reportedly, among the 4 convicts, Anwarul Haq was executed in Multan for
murdering his brother over a land dispute in 2000. Ghulam Farooq was hanged in
Sialkot prison for murdering 2 women and a man due to a family feud in 1999.
Muhammad Irfan was hanged in Jhang for killing a woman while robbing her home
in 2006. In Larkana, Waris Mir Bahr was hanged for the 1995 murder of a
Pakistan International Airlines employee during an attack on an airlines van
carrying cash.

These cases bring to the forefront the sorry state of affairs of the justice
system in Pakistan where prisoners on death row remain languishing in jails for
years to eventually face the merciless procedure of hanging. There are no
studies on the agony those convicts and their families go through, living in
the limbo of not knowing. This becomes an additional punishment for those
convicts who become a victim of the faulty justice system, as not all who are
served the death penalty are actually guilty of committing the crime of 1st
degree murder. The existing jail system in Pakistan raises multiple questions
about zero respect for basic human rights. The ineffectiveness of police FIRs,
fabrication of cases through torture, a weak legal mechanism, and unfair trials
make the judicial system a murky phenomenon, entangling many innocent people in
a lifelong internment - literally and otherwise - of pain and endless wait.

Pakistan ended a 7-year moratorium on death penalty after Taliban attackers
gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at the Army Public
School in Peshawar in December 2014. Hangings were initially reinstated only
for those convicted of terrorism, but in March 2015, they were extended to all
capital offences. At a time when the death penalty is being abolished in most
countries, Pakistan is using this centuries old punishment as deterrence
against crimes. In reality, the death penalty has failed to prove a deterrent
against crime and terrorism. Pakistan needs to have solid reforms in its legal
and judicial system, and instead of relying on capital punishment that is
considered an inhuman act there is a need to introduce a reform culture in
which criminals would be treated as human beings. No society can succeed
without justice and fair play. In our country, for most, only the law of jungle
prevails. The law has 2 different definitions for the rich and the poor. If a
poor person even commits suicide, he cannot escape punishment, while a
well-to-do accused literally gets away with murder. Hanging offenders will not
bring peace to a terrorism-riddled Pakistan, or solace to those who lost their
loved ones to an act of brutality - be it the act of an individual or
terror-related. Pakistan must have a reform system based on human values of
repentance, rehabilitation, compassion and forgiveness. That would be the best
antidote to pain of victims while Pakistan fights a war to rid Pakistan of all
who inflict pain on human beings making them nameless statistics of terrorism.

(source: Daily Express)







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April 14




INDONESIA:

3rd round of executions to go ahead despite delays: AGO


The government has not yet finalized the date for the impending execution of
death-row convicts despite the attorney general's plan to conduct a third round
of executions at the beginning of 2016.

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) would still follow through with the
executions, but the exact time and location had not yet been confirmed, AGO
spokesman Agung Amir Yanto said on Thursday.

"Until now, neither the place nor which convicts [will be executed] have been
finalized," Amir said as quoted by Kompas.com.

Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said previously that a third round of
executions would be conducted in January following the deaths of 2 groups of
death-row convicts last year.

Amir said executing a person was a complicated matter.

"The death penalty is related to the loss of someone's life. It must be done
carefully so as not to violate human rights," he said.

Preparations for executions must be thorough, he continued, adding that it was
a complicated process especially when it involved foreign citizens.

The AGO must coordinate with the country of origin of foreign convicts,
including on the legal rights of the convicts in regards to their defense.

"The issue of the death penalty involves other things, including clemency,
judicial review, as well as health. And not only that, but also facilities,"
said Amir.

According to AGO data, there were 64 drug convicts sentenced to death as of
2015.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration executed 2 groups of death row
convicts, comprising 14 people, on Jan. 18 and April 29 last year.

2 of the convicts were Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran, whose executions in April caused tension between the 2 countries,
leading to Australia recalling its ambassador from Indonesia.

The government continues to enforce the death sentence on big players in drug
trafficking cases despite mounting criticism from other countries and human
rights activists, arguing that the death penalty would not have a deterrent
effect on drug traffickers and that consistency in law enforcement was the key
to curbing the distribution of drugs.

(sourice: The Jakarta Post)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 16




VIETNAM:

Pinay meted death in Vietnam


A court in Vietnam has sentenced another Filipino to death after she was found
guilty of smuggling nearly 1.5 kilograms of cocaine into the communist country
in 2013.

The state newspaper Thanh Nien News reported that Donna Buena Mazon, 41, was
meted the death sentence by a Ho Chi Minh City court on Friday.

Mazon was arrested on December 31, 2013 after security officials in Tan Son
Nhat International Airport found 2 bags of cocaine in her luggage.

She arrived on a Qatar Airways flight from Brazil.

The Filipino woman admitted that she was hired by a certain Precious Rudica as
a drug mule for a fee of $3,000 with flight tickets and visas.

The authorities failed to locate Rudica.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) refused to comment on the incident
saying it is still verifying the report.

"I have nothing to say at this time. We are still trying to verify and get more
information about the case," Assistant Secretary and DFA spokesman Charles Jose
told The Manila Times on Saturday.

In 2014, Emmanuel Sillo Camacho, 39, was also sentenced to death by a Hanoi
court for transporting 3.4 kilograms of cocaine from Brazil into Noi Bai
International Airport, also in December 2013.

Thanh Nien News quoted Camacho as saying that he smuggled the illicit drugs for
a Filipina, named Jessica who was living in Brazil. Jessica promised to find
him a job with a monthly salary of $1,000 to $1,500 in the South American
country.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest anti-drug laws. Anyone found guilty of
possessing more than 600 grams of heroin, or more than 20 kilos of opium, can
face the death penalty.

Dozens of foreigners, including Filipinos, have been sentenced to death for
drug offenses.

(source: manilatimes.net)






IRAN:

NCRI Women's Committee calls for annulment of death penalty in Iran ----
Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran calls for
annulment of death penalty, especially against women and youth


The misogynic mullahs' regime hanged Amene Rezaian, a female prisoner in
Kashmar Prison, on April 14, on the verge of a visit by the EU High
Representative Ms. Federica Mogherini to Iran. Rezaian, 43, had been in prison
for 2 years. Thus, the number of prisoners executed in the past 6 days stands
at 14. At this time, at least 1 other woman in the women's ward of this prison
awaits execution.

These executions stand in the face of calls by the international community for
the annulment of the death penalty. Mr. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, urged the Iranian regime on April 14 to annul
the death penalty for crimes related to narcotics saying: "Last year, at least
966 people were executed in Iran - the highest rate in more than 2 decades -
the majority for drug offences."

Speaking on the matter, the NCRI Women's Committee Chair Ms. Sarvnaz Chitsaz
stated that the increasing number of executions by the religious fascism ruling
Iran proves the fact that ignoring the tragic situation of human rights in
Iran, especially the execution of the youth and women, has no end but to
encourage this regime to continue on this criminal path. She stressed that all
relations with Iran must be preconditioned to the annulment of the death
penalty in the country, especially against women and juveniles.

(source: Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran






PAKISTAN:

President turned down 513 mercy petitions over last 5 years: Interior Ministry


The Pakistani president rejected as many as 513 mercy petitions of condemned
prisoners over the last 5 years, an Interior Ministry document revealed on
Friday.

The Interior Ministry, in a written response to a question raised by
Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Sirajul Haq, said that all mercy petitions sent to the
president during the time period were rejected.

Only 38 mercy petitions of condemned prisoners who were awarded a death
sentence are pending with the Interior Ministry, of which 13 cases are under
submission to the President Secretariat for decision, the document said.

"Appeals of these condemned prisoners have already been rejected by higher
courts," the Interior Ministry said.

Earlier this month, an Amnesty International report said Pakistan carried out
326 executions last year - the highest ever recorded by the organisation for
the country.

In 2015, Pakistan completely removed a 7-year moratorium on the death penalty
after a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan attack on Peshawar's Army Public School in
which at least 144 people, most of them children, were killed.

Amnesty said it received information that Pakistan was 1 of 2 countries that
had executed people in 2015 who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were
committed, and it said juveniles face the death sentence in several other
countries.

Champa Patel, Amnesty International's Director of South Asia Regional Office,
said that Pakistan had vaulted to the 3rd spot for recorded state executions in
the world. Patel added that most of those executed were not convicted of
terror-related offences, and there is evidence that at least 2 and possibly
more of them were juveniles when they committed their alleged crimes.

"The death penalty is always a rights violation, but its use in Pakistan is all
the more troubling given the serious fair trial concerns - including
insufficient access to lawyers and endemic police torture to extract
confessions," Patel said.

(source: Pakistan Today)

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

Pakistani Religious Group Demands Execution of Blasphemers


A Pakistani religious group on Friday demanded the immediate execution of a
Christian woman on death row and all others convicted under the country's harsh
blasphemy law.

Small groups from the Sunni Tehrik party held demonstrations in several
Pakistani cities warning the government against any attempt to amend the
blasphemy law.

A statement from the party accused the government of seeking to change the
blasphemy law to pave way for transforming the country into a secular and
liberal state.

The protesters demanded the execution of all those convicted of blasphemy
including Aasia Bibi, who was convicted in 2010. Her appeal was dismissed by
the Lahore High Court in 2014, but the supreme court stayed her execution in
2015 and suspended the high court verdict.

Bibi was arrested under the blasphemy law after she had a verbal clash with
Muslim women working at a farm harvesting berries in eastern Punjab province.
She was accused of insulting the prophet of Islam, a charge she has repeatedly
denied.

Governor Salman Taseer of Punjab and minority minister Shahbaz Bhatti were
murdered in 2011 after speaking in support of Bibi and calling for reform of
Pakistan's blasphemy law.

(source: Associated Press)



UGANDA:

Army will maintain death penalty, says General Wamala


The Chief of Defence Forces General Katumba Wamala maintains that the death
penalty as stated in the UPDF Act should stay.

Gen. Katumba was giving submissions to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs
Committee of parliament in relation to the Law Revision (Penalties in Criminal
Matters) Miscellaneous Amendment Bill, 2015, which was tabled by MPs Alice
Alaso and Fox Odoi.

(source: ntv.co.ug)






INDIA:

12 convicted for killing Bengal student


The Barasat court on Friday convicted 12 persons, including main accused
Shyamal Karmakar, in connection with the murder of college student Sourav
Chowdhury in Bamangachhi of North 24 Parganas.

The 21-year-old student of Mrinalini Dutta College in Birati was brutally
murdered following his abduction in the early hours of July 5, 2014 because he
had organised a protest against illicit hooch dens run by Shyamal, a local
miscreant, in the locality.

Later, the dismembered body of Sourav was found lying on railway tracks in
between Bamangachhi and Duttapukur stations, triggering a statewide uproar.

Probing the case, the police had arrested 14 accused out of 15 and
chargesheeted them with the depositions of 41 witnesses in September of 2014.

Public prosecutor Biplab Roy said, "9 accused - Shyamal Karmakar, Suman Sarkar,
Suman Das, Somnath Sardar, Amal Barui, Tapas Biswas, Tarak Biswas, Rakesh
Burman and Ratan Samaddar - were held guilty by seventh additional district
judge Daman Prosad Biswas of Sections 364 (abduction for murder), 302 (murder),
201 (destruction of evidence) and 34 (common intention) the Indian Penal Code
(IPC)."

"Shyamal was also convicted of Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act. 3 other
accused - Shishir Mukherjee, Poly Maity, now on bail, and Ratan Das - were
found guilty of Section 212 (harbouring the offenders). 1 accused, Anup
Talukdar, was acquitted while another, Uttam Shikari, turned approver with 1
more accused still absconding," he added.

The quantum of punishment will be announced by the court on Saturday. The 9
convicts of murder and other severe charges may get life imprisonment as the
minimum punishment or death penalty as the maximum.

Demanding death penalty for all the convicts, the victim's kin, friends and
neighbours took out a rally in the court premises. Sourav's father said, "We
want all the convicts be hanged."

(source: asianage.com)

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

Double murder case accused found guilty


A district court here on Friday found the 2 accused in the "Attingal double
homicide case" guilty of premeditated murder, conspiracy, and destruction of
evidence.

The suspects, Nino Mathew and Anushanthi, were software engineers and
colleagues at Technopark who allegedly shared an extramarital relationship. The
case pertained to the murder of Anushanthi's 4-year-old daughter, Saswathika,
her 60-year-old mother-in-law, Omana, and the attempt to murder her engineer
husband, Lijeesh.

The police case was that the "need to gratify their lust" had driven the
suspects to the "devilish acts" of murder. The trial court judge V. Shircy
would pass sentence on Monday.

It had emerged during investigation that the suspects had videorecorded their
intimate moments at office and outside, triggering salacious gossips and an
almost voyeuristic interest in the case.

(The 115 video clippings and hundreds of WhatsApp communications retrieved from
their computers had become part of classified evidence in the case.)

Lawyers, journalists and public had thronged the court as the final hearing
commenced at 3 p.m. The accused watched nonchalantly from the dock as their
respective counsels spiritedly opposed the prosecution's demand for death
penalty.

Mr. Mathew's counsel, Sasthamangalam Ajith Kumar, said there was no direct
evidence in the case. No one had witnessed the crime. A count of injuries and
circumstantial evidence alone were not enough to sentence a suspect to death.
The court rejected his plea to allow Mr. Mathew's wife to testify about her
husband's "devoted" character and "potential for reform." Ms. Anushanthi's
counsel quoted failing eyesight as a mitigating circumstance to be spared of
the death penalty.

Special Prosecutor Vineet Kumar argued for death penalty for both. The
conspiracy could be traced back to 2013. Ms. Anushanthi had provided Mr. Mathew
with sketch of her house.

She had pointed the by-road through, which he could escape unnoticed after the
crime.

He said Mr. Mathew casually killed an invalid woman, a child and then waited
armed for his "lover's" husband, his third prey, to arrive. In the meantime, he
cut off the jewellery from his victims' bodies to make the murder resemble a
crime for profit. Ms. Anushanthi evinced no interest in attending her
daughter's funeral or calling on her injured husband.

(source: The Hindu)






AUSTRALIA:

Supreme Court of Victoria: 175 years of murderers to conmen, habeas corpus to
hashtags


Bushrangers, murderers, conmen and thieves have all come and gone through
Victoria's Supreme Court over its 175 years of history.

"Whenever there has been a crisis or a serious problem in society, invariably
the Supreme Court has been right in the thick of it," Chief Justice Marilyn
Warren said.

The Eureka Stockade was an important first test for the court, when Ballarat
gold miners clashed with police in 1854.

The leaders of the rebellion were tried and all but one was acquitted, with the
rebellion leading to the establishment of the Court of Mines to oversee the
mining trade.

Ned Kelly was born at around the time of the rebellion, but his notoriety lives
on and he remains one of the Supreme Court of Victoria's best known clients.

"We've got lots of treasures, but probably one of the ones that we always get
people 'oohing and aahing' over is our Edward Kelly book, the Kelly book as we
call it," archives manager Joanne Boyd said.

Amongst artefacts on display to the public as part of the 175th anniversary
celebrations is a black execution cap and a piece of silk cloth judges would
place on top of their wig when pronouncing a death sentence.

Court once dealt out death penalty

In 1967, convicted murderer Ronald Ryan was hanged in Pentridge Prison. He was
the last man in Australia to face the death penalty.

Jean Lee, a single mother and prostitute, was hanged for her involvement in the
violent death and robbery of an elderly man in 1951. She was 31 years old.

"Every time I walk into court 4 ... I always think of Jean Lee. She was the
last woman hanged in Victoria, convicted of murder," Chief Justice Warren said.

"I've often wondered if she had some of the top QCs we now have acting at our
bar acting for her, if the outcome of the case might have been different."

(source: ABC news)






SINGAPORE:

CNB operation nets 103 suspects and more than 1.5kg of heroin


A 4-day islandwide operation by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) led to the
arrest of 103 suspects and the seizure of 1.5kg of heroin, 329g of 'Ice', 80g
of cannabis, 153 ecstasy tablets, 26 Erimin-5 tablets and some ketamine
estimated to be worth more than S$177,000.

CNB said in a news release on Friday (Apr 15) that the suspects were arrested
for various drug offences during the operation, which was carried out between
Apr 11 and 15.

According to CNB, more than 570g of heroin and more than S$2,000 in cash were
seized in 1 of the cases, following the arrests of 2 suspects along Upper Boon
Keng Road.

A 52-year-old Singaporean was found to have some Erimin-5 tablets and drug
paraphernalia in his possession while another Singaporean, 60, had more than
80g of heroin, seven Erimin-5 tablets and some cash seized from him.

CNB said follow-up investigations on the 60-year-old man led to the arrest of a
suspected drug trafficker. The 28-year-old Malaysian was arrested in Somerset,
with 450g of heroin recovered from him.

In a separate incident, CNB said another suspected drug trafficker and his
associate were arrested in Woodlands and Holland, respectively. More than 1kg
of heroin and a small amount of 'Ice' - worth more than S$73,700 in total -
were seized from them.

Investigations into the drug activities of all suspects are ongoing. The Misuse
of Drugs Act allows for the death penalty if the amount of diamorphine (or pure
heroin) trafficked exceeds 15g.

The operation was supported by officers from the Singapore Police Force, and
was conducted at various parts of Singapore including Tampines, Toa Payoh, Ang
Mo Kio, Clementi, Punggol, Sembawang, Woodlands and Yishun.

(source: channelnewsasia.com)




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[Rick Halperin]

April 17



INDIA:

Lawyer appointed for Yug killer


Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Saturday appointed Rajnish Vyas as counsel
for defending Rajesh Dhanalal Daware (19), prime accused in Yug Chandak murder
case. The court has kept the final hearing of the sensational murder case from
April 25.

According to Chandak family's counsel Rajendra Daga, the accused had refused to
have a lawyer and therefore, the court made arrangement for him through legal
aid. Daware's accomplice, Arvind Abhilash Singh (23), had already challenged
death sentence awarded to him while praying for leniency. The court had already
directed its registry to complete formalities like preparing paperbook of case
related to the cold-blooded murder of an innocent child, which had sparked off
outrage and candle light protests in the city.

On February 4, both convicts were awarded a rare double death penalty for
diabolical murder of 8-year-old Yug on September 1, 2014. This was 2nd such
verdict after a Yavatmal sessions court sentenced labourer Shatrughan Masram to
gallows for brutally raping and murdering a 2-year-old girl on August 14 last
year.

It was 2nd such diabolic killing in the city within 3 years after another
8-year-old child Kush Katariya was killed by Ayush Naresh Pugalia on October
11, 2011, for extracting Rs2 crore ransom from his parents. He was awarded a
rare double lifer by the court, which was enhanced to triple lifer by the
Nagpur bench.

(source: The Times of India)






SAUDI ARABIA:

3 Alleged Child Offenders Await Execution----Torture Allegations Ignored in
Unfair Trials


3 Saudi men are awaiting execution for alleged, protest-related crimes
committed while they were children. Saudi judges based the capital convictions
primarily on confessions that the 3 defendants retracted in court and said had
been coerced. The courts did not investigate the allegations that the
confessions were obtained by torture. Saudi Arabia's announcement on March 11,
2016 that it will execute another 4 men for terrorism offenses raises fears
that 1 or all 3 of the sentences could be carried out.

Human Rights Watch has obtained and analyzed the trial judgments that the
Specialized Criminal Court, Saudi Arabia's terrorism tribunal, handed down in
2014 against 1 of the men, Ali al-Nimr, and in a separate case, against Dawoud
al-Marhoun and Abdullah al-Zaher. The judgments reveal flagrant due process
violations, including denial of access to lawyers promptly after arrest or
during lengthy pretrial detention, when investigators obtained the confessions.

"Sentencing alleged child offenders to death is an appalling example of the
Saudi court system's injustice," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director.
"Not only are these 3 young men sentenced to death for alleged crimes they
committed as children, but the courts didn't even bother to investigate when
they said they were coerced to confess."

"Sentencing alleged child offenders to death is an appalling example of the
Saudi court system's injustice."----Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director

The 3 were arrested for their alleged participation in demonstrations by
members of the Shia minority in 2011 and 2012. Local activists told Human
Rights Watch that more than 200 people from Shia-majority towns and villages in
Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province have gone on trial for alleged protest-related
crimes since 2011.

Mostly Shia residents of Eastern Province towns such as Qatif, Awamiya, and
Hufuf have repeatedly held protests over discrimination by the government since
2011. Saudi Arabia's Shia citizens face systematic discrimination in public
education, government employment, and permission to build houses of worship in
the majority-Sunni country.

Al-Nimr was tried individually and sentenced in May 2014. The other 2 were
tried as part of a group and sentenced in October 2014. Al-Nimr and al-Marhoun
were 17 at the time of their arrests, while al-Zaher was 15.

Local media reported that Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court upheld al-Nimr's death
sentence in September 2015, and that the Supreme Court informed a relative of
al-Marhoun that it had upheld death sentences for al-Marhoun and al-Zaher in
October 2015.

On January 2, 2016, Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 47 men
convicted on terrorism-related charges, four of whom were Shia, including a
prominent cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, Ali al-Nimr's uncle. The trial judgement for
Ali Sa'eed Al Ribh, 1 of the other Shia men executed on January 2, indicates
that he was under 18 when he allegedly committed some of the protest-related
crimes for which he was sentenced to death in 2014.

In 2015, only Iran and Pakistan executed people for crimes committed when they
were under 18, according to Amnesty International. Both countries, as well as
Bangladesh and Maldives, also sentenced child offenders to death last year,
while previously convicted child offenders remained on death row in Indonesia,
Iran, Papua New Guinea, and Saudi Arabia.

Since the beginning of 2016 Saudi Arabia has executed 84 people. Saudi Arabia
executed 158 people in 2015, most for murder and drug smuggling.

Article 13 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia ratified in
2009, guarantees the right to a fair trial. Article 15 of the Convention
against Torture, to which Saudi Arabia acceded in 1997, obliges Saudi Arabia to
"ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result
of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings..."

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Saudi Arabia acceded
in 1996, stipulates a number of important rights for children accused of
committing crimes. They include the right to prepare an appropriate defense
with "legal or other appropriate assistance" (article 40.2), the right "to have
the matter determined without delay by a competent, independent and impartial
authority or judicial body in a fair hearing according to law, in the presence
of legal or other appropriate assistance," including the child's parents or
legal guardian (article 40.3), and the right to "not to be compelled to give
testimony or to confess guilt" (article 40.4). Article 37(a) prohibits capital
punishment for children in all cases. Saudi authorities appear to have violated
these obligations in the cases of al-Nimr, al-Marhoun, and al-Zaher, Human
Rights Watch said.

"Unfair trials of Shia citizens are simply another way Saudi Arabia has tried
to silence its citizen???s demands to end long-term discrimination," Whitson
said. "The authorities should not compound their repression by killing child
offenders."

Death Sentences for Child Protesters

The charges against the young men relate to their alleged role in the Eastern
Province protests. Al-Nimr's judgment states he was convicted for crimes that
included "breaking allegiance with the ruler," "going out to a number of
marches, demonstrations, and gatherings against the state and repeating some
chants against the state," and setting up a website on his Blackberry to incite
demonstrations. He was also convicted of attacking police with Molotov
cocktails and rocks, concealing men wanted by police, and helping the wanted
men avoid police raids. Prosecutors gave no details of any injuries to police
officers.

Al-Zaher and al-Marhoun, arrested in March and May of 2012 respectively, both
faced numerous charges including "participating in marches and gatherings ...
and chanting slogans against the state" as well as throwing Molotov cocktails
at police patrols. Al-Marhoun was also charged with attacking the Awamiya
police station, burglarizing a pharmacy to steal medical supplies to treat
wounded protesters, and supporting protesters by "buying water and distributing
it to them." Al-Zaher was separately charged with concealing men wanted by
security forces. The court convicted al-Zaher and al-Marhoun on all of these
charges.

The 3 men were detained without charge for up to 22 months and denied access to
lawyers before and during their trials. Family members told Human Rights Watch
that following al-Nimr's arrest in February 2012, authorities did not permit
them to visit for 4 months. The authorities called him before a judge for the
1st time in December 2013 without informing his family, allowing him to appoint
a lawyer, or providing a copy of his charge sheet. The court held 3 more
sessions before the authorities allowed al-Nimr to appoint a defense lawyer.
Yet, as the trial judgment records, despite court orders to the contrary,
officials at Dammam Mabahith Prison did not allow al-Nimr's lawyer to visit him
in prison to help prepare a defense before or during his trial.

A family member of al-Marhoun told Human Rights Watch that authorities also
held him without charge from the time of his arrest on May 21, 2012 until late
2013 before charging him and taking him to court. The family member said
authorities held him incommunicado at a detention facility for minors for two
weeks, and then held him incommunicado again for 1 month after transferring him
to Dammam Mabahith Prison. Defense lawyers for al-Marhoun and al-Zaher told the
court that neither boy had been permitted to have a parent or lawyer present
during interrogation.

The court found al-Nimr guilty on the basis of a confession he signed during
his interrogation despite his statements that one of his interrogators wrote it
and that he signed it under duress without reading it. The judgment stated that
although the investigator wrote the confession, it was admissible because
al-Nimr signed it. Family members said that al-Nimr agreed to sign the
statement only after interrogators told him that they would then release him.

The court also found al-Marhoun and al-Zaher guilty based on their confessions.
Defense lawyers for al-Zaher and al-Marhoun said that both boys had been beaten
and threatened with further beatings if they did not sign confessions written
by interrogators. One of al-Marhoun's relatives said that interrogators forced
him to provide an ink fingerprint on a written confession that he did not read
and that he had trouble speaking and eating because of his beatings.

Prosecutors presented no material evidence connecting al-Marhoun to his alleged
crimes other than the confession. For al-Zaher, prosecutors presented only the
confession and his arrest report, which stated that police "saw people with
Molotov bombs and chased one of them until they arrested him, and after
scanning the area they were in they found 33 glasses filled with benzene..."

Judges immediately dismissed the defendants' claims that interrogators coerced
confessions, without investigating the allegations that the evidence was
obtained by torture. In dismissing al-Nimr's torture claims, the judge ruled
that "Religious scholars have ruled that retracting a confession for a
discretionary crime is not acceptable.... Therefore, what the defendant has
retracted from what appeared in his legally signed statement is not permitted,
and what the defendant has argued regarding coercion was not proven to the
judges."

Lawyers for all 3 men asked the court to summon the people who interrogated the
defendants to clarify the circumstances of their confessions, but judges
ignored these requests.

Authorities are holding all 3 men in Dammam Mabahith Prison.

(source: Human Rights watch)






IRAN----executions

Iran regime hangs 3 while EU's Mogherini is in Tehran for trade deals


Iran's fundamentalist regime on Saturday hanged three prisoners in a jail in
Rasht, northern Iran, as the European Union's foreign policy chief Federica
Mogherini is in Tehran to build greater trade ties between the EU and the
regime.

The 3 prisoners were identified by the regime's judiciary in Golestan Province
only by their initials and ages: E. M., 29; D. A., 51; and F. V., 31.

The mullahs' regime has executed at least 17 people in the past week while
European officials have been paying visits to Tehran.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on
Wednesday that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the
climate of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the
society, especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials,
demonstrates that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this
medieval regime."

Ms. Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign
Affairs and Security Policy, arrived in Tehran on Saturday along with seven EU
commissioners for discussions with the regime's officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.

Her trip was strongly criticized by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI who said: "This trip which takes place in
the midst of mass executions, brutal human rights violations and the regime's
unbridled warmongering in the region tramples on the values upon which the EU
has been founded and which Ms. Mogherini should be defending and propagating."

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

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

Prisoners say EU officials' visits to Iran encourage more executions


A group of resilient political prisoners in Iran's notorious Evin and
Gohardasht prisons have written to the Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi
pointing out that at least eight prisoners were executed in Iran while he was
visiting Tehran earlier in the week to reestablish trade ties with the regime.
They also warned of a serious risk that other prisoners would be executed in
Iran in the coming days since the silence of European officials on the issue of
human rights during their visits to Iran only emboldens the regime to step up
its abuses.

On Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrived in
Tehran along with 7 EU commissioners for discussions with the regime's
officials on trade and other areas of cooperation.

The following is the text of the April 13, 2016 letter by a group of political
prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) and Evin prisons to Italian officials
after the execution of e8 prisoners in Gohardasht Prison, north-west of Tehran:

To the Prime minister of Italy:

We, the most of us, are the inmates that had warned you before about your visit
to Iran. In fact, the reason of our warning is not for bringing any political
propaganda and atmosphere but to mention that people like you do not value
humanity. So your travel to Iran will be the price for our execution. And it is
us, our families and our youths who must be sacrificed.

Dear Prime Minister of Italy, have you seen the red carpet of blood that is
spread for you today? Have you seen the trembling bodies of our fellow inmates
on the gallows? Have you seen the queue of those families who were waiting
behind the walls to receive the corpse of their children? Have you heard the
bitter sound of weeping and wailing of their children and families who were
waiting for the ambulance filled with the corpse of their loved ones.

Of course...of course you have not seen or heard any of them. Those who have
kept you in the waiting queue to sign the commercial treaties; they have also
kept our families waiting for the execution of their children. They use your
big posters and pictures to cover up the gallows of execution!

It is good for you to know that through your trip to Iran, the stream of new
executions will resume again even though they had been stopped for a while
because of international pressures. By traveling to Iran, you are to a large
extent giving political legitimacy and authority to these criminal and
murderous executions. At this moment we have just heard about the execution of
nine people. By coming to Iran, you have definitely given them the political
legitimacy and authority for further such executions.

We, the inmates of Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) prison, will file a complaint and
send it to the people, political parties and all human rights organizations in
Italy against your travel to Iran, because your travel to Iran is contrary to
all humanitarian and philanthropic principals.

Finally, for your information, we will write the names of some executed
prisoners who were sacrificed to give you their welcomes. We will also attach
the name of other inmates of this prison (Rajai Shahr) who are waiting in the
queue to be executed, because without any acceptance from the political
authorities like you, the prisoners cannot easily be executed by them. Please
excuse us for the bitter criticism and directness because the lives of human
beings and the forthcoming crimes do not leave us any political consideration.

Here are the names of some of those who have just been executed today: Ebad
Mohammadi, Hossein Moiinfar, Hamzeh Dowlatabadi,Mehdi Haqshenas...

Also, the following names are of only some of those people who are on the
waiting list to be executed. The number of names listed below is trivial in
comparison to the full number of names of this category:

First name, last name. Father's name

Nima Esmaiilian. Karim

Afshin Hashemi. Hossein

Ahmad Qasemi. Gholam-Ali

Mohammad Zarei. Esmaeili

Amir Khalilpour. Mirza

Reza Pourabbasyan. Hossein

Akbar Beyrami. Ali

Hossein Hassani. Hasan

Akbar Dehghan. Ayyaz

Mohammad Azizi. Mosayeb

Fariborz Jalali. Mohyeddin

Mohammad Khedmati. Issa

Issa Ebrahimi. Ebrahim

Bagher Basiri. Koochak

Fethullah Bakhtiari. Ali Akbar

Alireza Gharbali. Hossein

Saeed Eskandari. Jamshid

Esrafil Mohammadi. Qayum

Faramarz Fakhraei. Ali Asghar

Barat-Ali Rahimi. Muhammad Ali

Hossein Moiinifar. Ali Asghar

Azad Ardukhany. Sekhavat

Ali kavandi pour. Moosa

Alireza Afshar. Safar-Ali

Javad. Seifi

Khaled Mohammadian. Saleh

Mahmood. Khan Mohammadi

Hamid Shirkhani. Mansour

Ghorban Ali Heidari. Fathollah

Jabbar Mollah Hashemi. Asadollah

Saadi Babakhanyan. Javanmeer

Morteza Shafeghati. Ali

Mehrdad Saeb-ol-Afshar. Abdullah

Hassan Kandy. Fethullah

Sohrab Sanamy. Rahim

Kazem Khadem-e-Rezaeaian. Rahim

Mohsen Kazemi Abdi

Farma Salehi Abdollah

Hamzeh Dowlatabady

Mahdi Haghshenas

Koorosh Chakery. Zabihollah

Hossein Sadegh Kasmaee

The signatories of this letter:

1. Abol-Qasem Fooladvand 2. Khaled Hardani 3. Farhang Pour-Mansouri 4. Rasool
Hardani 5. Reza Akbari Monfared 6. Pirooz Mansouri 7. Shahram Pourmansouri 8.
Shahin Zoghitabar 9. Hassan Sadeghi 10. Saied Masouri 11. Saleh Kohandel 12.
Ali Moezzi 13. Alireza Golipoor 14. Masood Arabchoobdar 15. Amir Doorbani
Ghaziani 16. Saeed Shirzad 17. Farid Azmoudeh 18. Behzad Tarahomi 19. Iraj
Hatami ... etc. and the names of those political prisoners reserved for
security reasons.

CC:

UN Human Rights Council and Special Rapporteur

European Parliament

European Union

Liberal Democrat Party of Italy

The Five-Star Movement

Progressive Party of Italy

Social-Democratic Party of Italy

Radical Party of Italy

Labor party of Italy

Communist Party of Italy

The Center-Right Party

"Hands Off Cain" association

(source for both: NCR-Iran)






GUYANA:

Death penalty should be replaced with humane imprisonment


Dear Editor,

In a well expressed challenge to death penalty abolitionists 'What are the
alternatives to capital punishment?' (SN 5th April), Yvonne Sam asked about
alternatives.

Good point. If we are never going to execute murderers what are we going to do
with them? The answer is simple. Lock them up and keep them locked up until
they are no longer a danger to society. While they are locked up we should do
our best to rehabilitate them. We should help murderers to understand that
killing is wrong. To realise what a terrible thing you have done by taking the
life of another human being is a form of punishment in itself.

We should help prisoners to learn how to lead constructive lives in society.
When a murderer is no longer a danger to society he (it is usually a "he")
should be released. Unfortunately some people will never be rehabilitated and
they will never come out because they remain a danger to society.

Being locked up is punishment enough. The conditions in prison should not
further destroy human dignity or damage the human spirit. It is increasingly
obvious each day as the suffering and brutality continue in the Georgetown
Prison that we must get rid of that prison and replace it with something more
humane, not just for the prisoners but for the prison officers also. We could
learn from Halden (Norway) the most humane prison in the world whose inmates
include murderers. Halden is focussed on rehabilitation. All prisoners, even
murderers, go back into society. We don't have Norway's money or the social and
material equality that underpin Norwegian society. But we should do the best we
can. The new prison must give prisoners the physical, mental and spiritual
space to allow them to grasp the horror of what they have done, suffer remorse
and change from killers to people who value life. Prison officers must have
proper remuneration, safe working conditions and the right training to enable
them to focus on rehabilitation.

Ms Sam also mentioned that if we remove the death penalty we need to find
formidable deterrents to replace the death penalty. Absolutely. However we
should remember that the death penalty is not a deterrent. There is a lot of
argument about murder rates and the death penalty, but correlation is not
proof; the causal link is missing. No one has yet come up with evidence, beyond
reasonable doubt, that the death penalty works i.e. that someone who was about
to commit murder changed his mind because of the death penalty. On the
contrary, most murders are committed by people in the grip of some strong
emotion - rage, fear, jealousy. Often the murderer's reason and self-control
have been impaired by drugs or alcohol. The death penalty is irrelevant. It has
no restraining impact on the man who kills his wife in a jealous rage or the
affronted drunk wielding a cutlass. The death penalty also has no impact on
those who kill for money or because they are involved in drug wars or gang
wars. Killing is part of the job description. Rather than making society safer
the death penalty may even endanger the police. Would a killer submit to being
arrested, tried and sentenced to death or might he be tempted to kill the
police officer and get away if he can?

In December 2015, we foolishly extended the death penalty to terrorists. This
is the one group of people who really don't care if they die. Death at the
hands of the state is martyrdom - no deterrent effect there.

For the vast majority of people, taking the life of another human being is
simply unthinkable and evil. But for the tiny group whose moral framework is
defective, there needs to be an effective deterrent. That deterrent is the
certainty that they will be caught and sentenced. In other words the most
effective deterrent to murder is the knowledge that you won't get away with it.
We need a well trained, well-equipped and well-remunerated police force staffed
by individuals who have integrity. That, not the death penalty, is what will
protect us.

Next month we celebrate our Golden Jubilee of Independence. What a pity we
still have some colonial baggage.

In 1965 Great Britain abolished the death penalty for murder in the mother
country but kept it for British Guiana. It was unacceptable for the State to
kill a British citizen but fine to kill the colonial subjects. Perhaps even
now, we believe that our lives are less valuable. We have the highest suicide
rate in the world. We have the fourth highest road death rate. We have a murder
rate hovering around 18 per 100,000 compared to less than 1 per 100,000 in
Great Britain.

The Government should send a clear message that Guyanese lives are precious,
and that each one of us has dignity and a right to life. Announcing that the
death penalty will be replaced with humane imprisonment would be a good 1st
step.

Yours faithfully,

Melinda Janki

(source: Letter to the Editor, stabroeknews.com)

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April 18



TRINIDAD & TOBAGO:

Wishful AG thinking about prison security


So long as hanging remains the ultimate penalty provided for murder, "Death
Row" must retain for convicts a chilling association with incarceration without
end.

For long, however, no convicted Trinidad and Tobago killers have suffered the
death penalty. Given today's criminal justice procedures, nearly no one expects
the hanging of a convicted killer on just any fateful morning in Port of Spain.
Still, the "Death Row" title for the housing of murderers should imply, if
nothing else, giving effect to the last word in lock-up arrangements.
Prisoners, entitled to no expectation of release, and committed to death at the
end of a rope, likely see themselves as having nothing to lose.

It must be such considerations that had moved Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi,
presumably possessed of troubling intelligence about do-or-die escape plans, to
undertake a personal tour of "Death Row".

The Attorney General's walkabout, with National Security Minister Edmund
Dillon, accompanied a search by prison officers, newly equipped with an
all-disclosing scanner.

Efforts at searching and scanning led officials to thousands of "contraband"
items. The searchers uncovered items of which prisoners had been debarred
possession and use.

Seizures included cocaine and marijuana; razors; ammunition; cellphones; and
Wi-Fi devices. In that top-security setting, however, Attorney General Al-Rawi
had also been privileged to witness finding of a 22-inch flat-screen television
set.

Who is in charge here? This question ministers must have asked, as they put
their fingers into the multiple wounds of prison security.

That a 22-inch flat-screen TV found its way into "Death Row" must be understood
eloquently to speak volumes.

Immediately called into question are the disciplines of watchful regard
expected of prison officers. Moreover, those officers are presumed to be
subject to rigorous oversight by others at progressively senior levels.

As escapes, even with deadly consequences, have shown, T&T prison security
appears shot full of holes.

Such a conclusion, however, Mr Al-Rawi sees himself not allowed to draw.
Rather, he emphasises the positive, presumably entailed in the electronic
frustration of 1.5 million illegal calls and text messages into and out of just
1 detention centre.

The equipment to accomplish all this and more, so the Attorney General
suggested, had somehow not been turned on during the People???s Partnership
time in office.

As yet, the T&T public awaits the endorsement by prison officers of Mr
Al-Rawi's upbeat assessment of the potential of the new equipment. The
interception of nearly 2 million calls and texts, the officers will have noted,
did not serve to forestall murders of their colleagues, "hits" presumably
inspired from behind bars thought to be safe.

(source: Trinidad Express)






UGANDA:

Army rejects move to abolish death penalty


The Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF) has appealed to parliament not to
adopt the abolition of mandatory death penalty as provided for by the UPDF Act.
Section 128 of the UPDF Act 2005, provides for mandatory death penalty of Army
officers who disobey lawful orders, spread harmful information and propaganda,
those who disclose vital information to the enemies of the state and
indiscipline among other unlawful acts.

However clause 3 of the Law Revision (Penalties in Criminal Matters)
Miscellaneous Amendments Bill, 2015 which is currently before the parliament's
committee on legal and parliamentary affairs, for scrutiny, seeks to entirely
eliminate the death penalty from the UPDF Act.

The Bill instead proposes imprisonment for life as the maximum punishment that
may be imposed by the military courts in respect of the service offenses.

Appearing before the committee on Friday, Gen. Katumba Wamala, the chief of
defense forces, however opposed the abolition of death penalty saying the
proposal to entirely eliminate death penalty in the UPDF Act, shows lack of
appreciation on the part of the proponent of the Bill of the gravity of the
offences provided for in the provisions of the UPDF Act.

"We cannot run the Army, on the same platform as a labour Union. The Army
commands come with responsibility, if you fail to execute your duty there is no
reason as to why you shouldn't face maximum sentence," said Gen. Katumba

. Gen. Katumba noted that there is need for the Army to maintain death penalty
in the UPDF Act, to deal with indiscipline officers who indulge in offences
which relate to operations, security of the government installations and
military discipline.

The committee chaired by Kajara County MP Stephen Tashobya however differed
with Gen. Katumba saying death penalty denies people a chance to reform.

"Don't you think if somebody has committed a wrong and is not given a chance to
reform , it has an impact on their lives and family, Life is given by God and
the law you are quoting can take it away," said Tashobya.

Fox Odoi (West Budama North) added that; "In the East African Community, we
have countries like Rwanda, Burundi who don't subscribe to death penalty but do
you think UPDF is more disciplined than their Armies".

However Gen. Katumba who was accompanied by Brig Ramdhan Kyamulesire, the chief
of legal services UPDF, defended the penalty saying it only applies in
situations of great magnitude and danger to the country and the Army.

"It is not true that every offense one commits in the UPDF leads you to death
penalty. It depends on the magnitude," explained Katumba.

Explaining further, Brig Kyamulesire added that where an officer is not
satisfied with the death sentence, there is room for appeal through the martial
court and the Supreme Court.

He noted that the army also has other provisions such as life imprisonment and
dismissal from the Army for errant officers.

The Army stated that before the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Kigula case,
a sentence of death imposed by the field court martial would be carried out
immediately, however since the ruling of the Supreme Court that is no longer
the case.

Tabled before parliaments last year, the Bill seeks to amend a number of
sections in the panel code Act, Uganda People's Defense Forces Act, relating to
mandatory death penalty following the land mark Suzan Kigula case.

The private member's Bill by Serere woman MP Alice Alaso, also seeks to
restrict application of death penalty to the most serious crimes, by converting
the maximum penalties into imprisonment for life.

Article 22 of the constitution recognizes the sanctity of human life which can
only be taken away on execution of death sentence carried out after an
impartial and competent court.

(source: New Vision)






CHINA:

China clarifies criteria for capital punishment in graft cases


The maximum penalty for convicts found guilty of embezzling or accepting bribes
of 3 million yuan (about 460,000 U.S. dollars) or more in an "extremely serious
case" with "extremely vile impact" will be the death penalty, according to a
new judicial explanation issued on Monday.

The ruling was jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme
People's Procuratorate.

(source: Xinhua)






INDIA:

Kerala double murder: Man gets death sentence, double life term for woman


In the Attingal murder case, Kerala court on Monday has pronounced death
penalty for 1st accused Lino Mathew and life imprisonment for 2nd accused and
his lover Anu Shanthi, media reports.

On last Friday, the court had found Nino and his lover Anu Santhi - both
colleagues in a Technopark firm - guilty of murdering the latter's daughter
Swastika and mother-in-law Omana and attempting to murder her husband on April
16, 2014. Special public prosecutor on Friday made a plea to the court to
consider it as the rarest of rare cases.

According to the report, both accused have to remit Rs 50,00,000 each as fine.

From the fine amount of Rs10,000,000, Rs50,00,000 will go to Lijeesh and the

rest will be given to his father. The case was amongst the "rarest of the
rare," the court observed.

Anushanthi reportedly told the court that she did not conspire to kill her
daughter, according to a Malayala Manorama report. She reportedly said, "Don't
call me a mother who killed her own baby."

The murder took place at Attingal, on April 16, 2014, after Anu Shanthi's
husband Lijeesh objected to her extra marital affair with Nino Mathew. Lijeesh,
however, escaped the murder attempt and sustained injuries. Nino Mathew was
nabbed the same day and after he confessed to the crime, Anu Shanthi was also
arrested. After recording their arrests, the police recovered murder weapons
from his house- a matchete and a baseball bat, a towel that was used to wipe
the weapons clean and gold ornaments that he stole from the bodies to make it
look like a robbery attempt.

The duo has been charged of murder, conspiracy, attempt to destroy evidence and
theft. After the prosecution examined as many as 49 witnesses, 85 exhibits and
41 material objects, Judge V Shircy found Anu Shanthi equally guilty as she was
aware of Nino Mathew's plans.

A case of transmitting obscene material in electronic form was also charged
against the duo, after the police found self-shot videos of his sexual acts
with Anu Shanthi in his laptop and mobile phone that were recovered.

The crime was solved within 24 hours and charge sheet filed on the 83rd day of
the crime.

(source: Khaleej Times)






IRAN----executions

7 prisoners hanged en masse in Iran


According to reports from inside Iran, the mullahs' regime on Thursday hanged 5
men and 2 women in a prison in Birjand, north-east Iran.

2 of the victims were identified as Mohammad Niazi and Moheb Rahmati. The names
of the other prisoners were not given. They were accused of drugs-related
offences.

The hangings bring to at least 24 the number of people executed in Iran in the
past week alone, while European officials have been paying visits to Tehran. 3
of those executed were women.

Iran's fundamentalist regime on Saturday hanged 3 prisoners in a jail in Rasht,
northern Iran, as the European Union's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini
was in Tehran to build greater trade ties between the EU and the regime.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on
Wednesday that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the
climate of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the
society, especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials,
demonstrates that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this
medieval regime."

Ms. Mogherini, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy, arrived in Tehran on Saturday along with 7 EU commissioners
for discussions with the regime's officials on trade and other areas of
cooperation.

Her trip was strongly criticized by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI who said: "This trip which takes place in
the midst of mass executions, brutal human rights violations and the regime's
unbridled warmongering in the region tramples on the values upon which the EU
has been founded and which Ms. Mogherini should be defending and propagating."

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

(source: NCR-Iran)






NIGERIA:

Death-row congestion


How long should a convict on death row wait for death? This question came up
again on April 13 when the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Olufunmilayo
Atilade, paid a visit to the Kirikiri Prison in Lagos.

A report said that the Lagos State Controller of Prisons, Timothy Tinuoye,
asked Justice Atilade to "prevail on the government to do something" about the
171 condemned prisoners awaiting execution in the maximum security prison.

According to the report, Tinuoye observed that "governors had stopped signing
the execution warrants of such convicts following the controversy that trailed
Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole's approval of the execution of some
condemned criminals a few years ago".

Importantly, the prison chief suggested that the condemned prisoners be
relocated in order to decongest the prison. This death-row congestion is
inexcusable. As long as the death penalty is accommodated by the country's
justice system, there is no justification for keeping condemned convicts
waiting.

It is clear that the purpose of a death sentence is to facilitate death by
execution. It is counter-productive to have a condemned convict wait
indefinitely for the execution of a death sentence, particularly because of the
possibility that death may come during the waiting and consequently achieve
what the sentence didn't intend, which is death by causes other than execution.
If a condemned person does not die as a result of execution, it would mean that
the death sentence was foiled. What is the purpose of a death sentence that is
not put into effect, and which does not achieve death by execution?

Although there may be philosophical arguments against capital punishment, it is
complex enough to arrive at a death decision, and the complexity should not be
further complicated by last-minute indecision when it comes to executing the
decision. If judges are able to reach a death decision without the interference
of extra-judicial considerations, the authorities should be able to carry out
the decision without the hindrance of extra-legal thoughts.

The debate about the death penalty did not begin today and it is not about to
end. In the face of the emotionally charged controversy about the ultimate
penalty for the ultimate crime, it may well be that the structures of power
ought to take another look at the law. Hardball says: do something, instead of
doing nothing.

(source: The Nation)

***********

Oyo Governor Assents Death Penalty For Kidnapping


The Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has signed the new Kidnapping
(Prohibition) Bill 2016 into law.

Validating the bill at the Executive Council Chamber of the Governor's Office,
Senator Ajimobi commended the lawmakers for the accelerated passage, saying
that it would help in curbing crime and criminal activities in the state.

He vowed to enforce the law to the latter, warning kidnappers to steer clear of
Oyo State in their own interest.

A former Attorney General of the State, Barrister Adebayo Ojo, expressed
satisfaction with the law, saying it was a welcome development.

On his part also, the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Adeleye Oyebade,
promised that the new law would be implemented to the letter.

The bill had earlier been passed into law by the Oyo State House of Assembly,
following the submission of report by the Chairman, House Committee on
Judiciary and Justice, Honourable Olukayode Akande.

The Speaker of the House, Honourable Michael Adeyemo, and the Permanent
Secretary/Clerk of the House, Mr Paul Bankole, had earlier signed the bill
before the governor's assent.

Content Of The Law

As contained in the law, a convicted offender would be liable to life
imprisonment if the victim is released or rescued unhurt upon the payment of a
ransom while the kidnapper would be compelled to pay back the ransom.

Similar punishment awaits any person who procures, engages or gives information
culminating in the kidnapping of a victim, as the law considered the offence to
carry the same weight of kidnapping.

The law also stipulates imprisonment for any person who kidnaps or threatens to
kill, maim or cause bodily harm in order to compel another person, corporate
body or organisation to do or abstain from doing any act as a condition for the
release of the victim.

20 years imprisonment awaits anyone who makes an attempt to kidnap while
anybody who aids or abets kidnapping is liable to imprisonment for 15 years
upon conviction.

Besides, the law also stipulates 15 years imprisonment or any non-custodian
punishment that might be determined by the court for any person who puts
himself forward to be kidnapped for the purpose of extorting ransom from his
employer or any person.

According to the law, any property owner, who knowingly or willingly surrenders
his building over which he has control, to be used for the purpose of keeping,
is liable to 15 years imprisonment while such property would be forfeited to
the government.

Any person who willingly allows his or her electronics, equipment, instrument,
mechanical or movable item to be used for the purpose of kidnapping, aiding
kidnapping has also committed an offence and would be committed to prison for
10 years if convicted.

Similarly, any property, monies and other valuables owned or realised by
anybody convicted of the offence of kidnapping shall be forfeited to the
government for public use.

According to the law, any person who kidnaps another person by any other means
of instilling fear or tricks, with intent to demand ransom or compel another to
do anything against his will has committed an office.

It also declared as an offence, kidnapping in such manner as to prevent the
victim from disclosing to any other person, the place where he is being kept or
prevent anybody from having access to him with or without payment of a ransom
for his release.

(source: channelstv.com)






VIETNAM:

Society 2 Laos men caught smuggling 12 kg of heroin to Vietnam


Border guards in Nghe An Province in central Vietnam have arrested 2 Laos men
for smuggling nearly 12 kilograms of heroin into Vietnam.

The suspects, 40 and 45 years old, were caught on Sunday afternoon while
carrying the heroin and 15,000 ecstasy pills on a motorbike.

Officers said the batch was the biggest drug haul seized in the border province
this year.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. The production or sale of
100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is punishable by
death.

Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or
more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine also face the death penalty.

(source: Thanh Nien News)


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April 18



INDONESIA:

Indonesian President Defends Death Penalty for Drug Crimes


Indonesia's president is defending his country's use of the death penalty for
drug offenses, arguing that drug abuse constitutes an emergency.

Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws and more than 130 people on death row,
mostly for drug crimes. Authorities recently said Indonesia is preparing to
execute more foreigners convicted of drug offenses. Executions last year caused
an international outcry.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said Monday that "Indonesia currently has an
emergency, above all in drug abuse." He said 30-50 people a day die in
Indonesia because of drugs.

Jokowi said through an interpreter: "Implementation of the death penalty is
carried out very cautiously."

He spoke after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who underlined
Germany's opposition to capital punishment and its wish for Indonesia "not to
implement it if possible."

(source: Associated Press)

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

German president urges abolition of Indonesia's death penalty


German President Joachim Gauck urged his Indonesian counterpart to abolish the
country's death penalty during a meeting in Berlin on Monday, telling Joko
Widodo that, especially when it comes to human rights, government heads must
sometimes take the 1st step, according to attendees.

Reassuring Joko that Germany supports Indonesia's path towards more democracy,
Gauck said that it's especially in times of transformation that wise social
policy is needed to bring a society forward.

Gauck and Joko got into an intense discussion on the topic, with the Indonesian
president arguing that the death penalty was still necessary to fight against
drug-related crimes.

He added that with 85 % of the population supporting capital punishment, it was
not up to him to go against the will of the majority.

Gauck said that Germany's relationship with Indonesia was especially important
in the fight against radical Islamism, and that the archipelago showed that
Islam and democracy are far from incompatible.

(source: DPA)






CHINA:

5 Hongkongers could face death penalty over one of China's biggest cocaine
seizures----Police seized 400.5kg of cocaine hidden in flats occupied by Hong
Kong suspects in Shenzhen


5 Hongkongers could face the death penalty along with 4 others arrested on the
mainland and in Vietnam in connection with China's biggest seizure of cocaine
in recent years.

Announcing details of the operation yesterday, mainland police said they seized
400.5kg of the drug hidden in 2 flats occupied by the Hong Kong suspects in
Shenzhen last month. The haul had an estimated street value of HK$600 million
on the mainland.

Chinese woman, 67, accused of acting as drugs mule, travelling over 30 times
across China with narcotics strapped on her.

Mainland police said they had smashed the drug-trafficking syndicate
responsible, which was controlled by a Hong Kong drug kingpin and arranged a
1-stop service - cross-border delivery, storage and distribution, according to
the state-owned China News Service.'

Details were made public about a week before the International Drug Enforcement
Conference is held in Lima, Peru. It is understood mainland public security
officials will also attend to exchange intelligence with their counterparts
from South American countries that are sources of cocaine.

The latest seizure was based on a tip-off received by Shenzhen police last
month, with the Ministry of Public Security's narcotics division and the
Guangdong Public Security Bureau playing coordinating roles.

Chinese man growing poppies on his roof to make drugs caught by police after
posting videos of flowers online.

After identifying the key figures of the syndicate, Shenzhen police picked up 2
of the Hongkongers in the mainland city's Futian district on March 24. They
seized 140.2kg of cocaine from the flat the suspects were occupying.'

The next day, police arrested another Hong Kong man on the Shenzhen side at
about 1am when he tried to return to Hong Kong through the Huanggang border
checkpoint. In his rented flat, officers confiscated 260.3kg of cocaine.

With the help of Vietnamese police, another suspect was nabbed in Ho Chi Minh
City on April 10 and handed over later to the mainland authorities.

On the same day, another 2 suspects were arrested in Taishan, Guangdong.

Another Hongkonger was arrested along with an 8th suspect on April 11 in
Quanzhou, Fujian, and the last suspect was nabbed 2 days later in Taishan.

Some of the Hongkongers were said to have strong triad backgrounds.

Among the biggest seizures in the past, the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau in
June 2008 seized 530kg of cocaine with an estimated value of 500 million yuan,
the biggest haul since the establishment of modern China in 1949.

9 people were arrested in the bust, with the authorities believing they had cut
off a supply chain from South America.

Hong Kong's biggest cocaine seizure was a 649kg haul worth HK$760 million in
July 2012, which customs found in a cargo container from South America.

(source: South China Morning Post)


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April 19


IRAN:

If All Cultures Are Equally Valid, Can Iran Kill Gay People? ---- Gay Air
France attendants want to be excused from working flights to Iran, because Iran
applies the death penalty to gay people. It's yet another exposure of
multiculturalism's contradictions.

Air France is about to resume flights to Iran after an 8-year hiatus, and in an
internal memo told their female flight attendants that when they deboard in
Iran they must wear a headscarf to comply with Iranian laws. Not surprisingly,
the French flight attendants revolted. They claimed this would seriously
violate their right to the secularism that is so fundamental to the French
state. In response, Air France agreed to allow them to opt out of working
Iran-bound flights.

Now, another group of Air France employees is protesting the requirement that
they work this new route. Gay male flight attendants have started a petition
that would give themselves a similar option as their female colleagues. But
their cause goes beyond a violation of their secular rights. In Iran,
homosexuality is illegal, and not just in name only. The punishments range from
several dozen lashes to the death penalty.

If these flight attendants deboard in Iran, they risk arrest and death. Would
Iran jeopardize the recent diplomatic thaw by arresting a French citizen under
these charges? Probably not, although after Iran seized 10 U.S. sailors in
January it's hard to say. But that isn't the point.

The point is, while the West congratulates itself on the Obama administration's
diplomatic "achievement" vis-a-vis Iran, we are reminded that the Islamic
theocracy has serious problems with human rights, especially regarding the gay
community.

Multiculturalism's Contradictions

Although there has been some outcry over Iran's human rights record since the
Iran nuclear deal, media organizations have, for the most part, downplayed it.
They're more engrossed in human interest stories that conform to their
narrative that life in the Middle East is not so different from life in the
West. This is, of course, an important message for us to hear, and we should
encourage awareness of our similarities where they exist. But not at the
expense of hiding our differences or dismissing systematic violations of human
rights, and not to promote a progressive, utopic vision of multicultural bliss.

The fact is, there's a persistent problem with multicultural ideology that sees
evidence of injustice and discrimination everywhere at home, but turns a blind
eye abroad.

Take, for example, women's rights. In the United States, the Left sees bias,
sexual harassment, and micro-aggressions against women around every corner.
They have convinced themselves that men and women are paid radically different
salaries, culminating in last Tuesday's "equal pay day," even though when
looking only at earners who are not primary care-givers that difference all but
disappears.

Meanwhile, in many Muslim countries, a woman must get a man's permission before
being allowed to work at all. This is because women are largely restricted to
the "home sphere" as opposed to the "public" one. But a progressive will more
or less give you the old "separate but equal" line to justify what they claim
merely boils down to "cultural differences."

There's also a backlash against those who speak out on the issue. Ayaan Hirsi
Ali was disinvited from Brandeis University for her views on women and Islam,
and Mona Eltahawy's article "Why Do They Hate Us?" sparked outrage from the
Left.

How Multiculturalism Contradicts Freedom

The same hypocrisy is on display regarding gay rights in Muslim countries.
While the hardships of being homosexual in these countries are sometimes
reported in Western media, there is usually very little discussion of why
countries that adhere to Islam persecute homosexuality. That Western media
seems to have so little interest in this is surprising, given that more than 75
% of people in Lebanon, Turkey, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Jordan, and
Tunisia don't think society should accept homosexuality.

If all cultures are equal, no culture can be criticized.

The West is skittish about criticizing any aspect of Islamic culture,
regardless of how much it might fly in the face of progressive values, because
the multicultural framework forbids it. If all cultures are equal, no culture
can be criticized.

In academia, it's pedestrian to see posters for talks on hyper-specific aspects
of homosexuality in America and their attendant discriminations. Campus
activism for LGBT rights is a hallmark of the academy. So is the promotion and
defense of Muslim culture. But it's rare to see any acknowledgement of how
these two causes sometimes clash.

The Left Sacrifices Gay People to Islamists

As is the case with women's rights, multiculturalism ends up winning out over
the human rights of homosexuals in the Middle East. Progressives would prefer
to avoid insulting the Muslim community abroad rather than point out that they
have a systemic problem with how they view and treat homosexuality in their
countries.

As is the case with women's rights, multiculturalism ends up winning out over
the human rights of homosexuals in the Middle East.

This hypocrisy is especially pronounced at a time when so many people who have
invested in multiculturalism as a political philosophy and way of life are
gnashing their teeth over the trans bathroom fight now raging across the
country. Jimmy Buffett and Bruce Springsteen have even canceled their shows in
North Carolina and Mississippi to object to what they see as a grave injustice.

How trivial and unimportant this must seem to a man in Iran who is about to be
put to death for living with a male partner, or to the gay men living under
ISIS or the al-Qaeda-backed al-Nusra Front, who are thrown off buildings and
stoned to death. How little perspective this shows on the part of the Left. I'm
not arguing that all fights against discrimination at home are insignificant.
But there should be some awareness of how focused we are on gay rights in the
United States compared to what we are willing to brush aside in the name of
tolerance when it comes to Muslim societies. We're willing to chock it up to
cultural differences - if we dare to bring it up at all.

So as we celebrate the "historic" nuclear deal, we ought to remember that all
is not well in Iran. Air France employees, at least, are seeing it first-hand.

(source: M. G. Oprea is a writer based in Austin, Texas. She holds a PhD in
French linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin----The Federalist)






UNITED NATIONS:

Countries Clash Over Death Penalty at UN Drug Policy Session


The 1st U.N. special session to address global drug policy in nearly 20 years
bristled with tension Tuesday over the use of the death penalty for
drug-related offenses, as countries wrestled over whether to emphasize
criminalization and punishment or health and human rights.

The outcome document adopted by member states included no criticism of the
death penalty, saying only that countries should ensure that punishments are
"proportionate" with the crimes.

"Disproportional penalties ... create vicious cycles of marginalization and
further crime," Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told the gathering. He
also called for the decriminalization of marijuana for medical and scientific
purposes and said the international community's responses to drug issues is
"frankly, insufficient."

He said Mexico in the coming days would announce specific drug policies with an
emphasis on health and human rights.

Indonesia, which last year executed 14 people, mostly foreigners, convicted of
drug-related crimes amid an international outcry, defended its stance Tuesday,
saying the death penalty is not prohibited under international law.

China, which along with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran carries out
executions for drug offenses, signaled little flexibility on its approach.

"Any form of legalization of narcotics should be resolutely opposed," Public
Security Minister Guo Shengkun told the gathering.

Prior to this week's 3-day meeting, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders, rock star Sting and hundreds of others sent an open
to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon letter saying the war on drugs has
failed. It said that for decades, governments have focused resources on
repressing drug use, resulting in the imprisonment of millions of people,
mostly the poor and ethnic minorities, and mostly for non-violent offenses.

The letter's signers, including former presidents of Mexico, Colombia, Brazil,
Switzerland and others, joined a growing number of government officials and
drug policy analysts calling for a shift in global drug policy from emphasizing
criminalization to health and human rights.

Hundreds of government officials, representatives of non-governmental
organizations and individuals from civil society are attending the General
Assembly special session at U.N. headquarters.

The last special session on the topic in 1998 ended with the lofty but
unattainable goal of ridding the planet of illegal drugs by 2008.

On the non-medical use of drugs, the outcome document adopted Tuesday says
countries should "develop and implement countermeasures and supportive public
health, education and socioeconomic strategies to effectively address and
counter the non-medical use and misuse of pharmaceuticals that contain narcotic
drugs and psychotropic substances, while ensuring their availability for
legitimate purposes."

Last month, The Global Commission on Drug Policy - whose members include former
presidents of Mexico and Brazil, as well as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson - said in a statement that
discussions drafting the outcome document adopted Tuesday relied too heavily on
an outdated approach that emphasizes criminal justice and prohibition.

The group argued that the emphasis should instead be on alternative approaches
including abolishing capital punishment for drug-related offenses and a focus
on treatment.

(source: Associated Press)






MALAYSIA:

Drugs: Trial of salesman starts


The trial of a 29-year-old salesman charged with trafficking 2,510.4gm of syabu
began on Monday at the High Court here.

Leong Hon Choong, a West Malaysian, is accused of committing the offence at
10.30pm on Feb 12, 2015 at the office of the Narcotic Investigation Department
in the State police headquarters at Kepayan here.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Gan Peng Kun in tendering the opening address told
Judge Datuk Nurchaya Hj Arshad the prosecution would show that the totality of
the evidence will point to the irresistible conclusion that Leong in his own
behalf trafficked the said drugs.

He said the prosecution would prove that at 9am on Feb 12, 2015, a narcotic
raiding team was led to the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) Terminal
2 and on arrival, they saw the accused, Leong, bringing a black luggage bag.

They approached him and conducted a body search but found no incriminating
object.

Leong remained silent when he was asked whether he had any drugs and he and the
luggage were then brought to the police headquarters.

The police proceeded to inspect his luggage after a caution under Section 37B
of the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA) was read and translated in Mandarin for Leong.

The luggage which was locked was cut open.

DPP Gan said further evidence would be led by the prosecution to show that
police found 2 golden boxes with Chinese characters each containing four black
plastics with Chinese characters containing crystalline substances believed to
be dangerous drugs in the luggage.

He said that the 8 black plastics were kept inside a box and that the
prosecution would also adduce evidence the box was sent to the Chemistry
Department on Feb 16 and that the analysis on the crystalline substance was
found to contain 2,510.4 gm of methamphetamine (syabu).

The prosecution will rely on Section 37A of the DDA to invoke the presumption
provided under Section 37(d) of the DDA to show that Leong had in custody the
black luggage containing the dangerous drugs and therefore, deemed to have been
in possession and knew the nature of such drugs, said DPP Gan.

The prosecution is expected to call about 9 witnesses in the trial which is
scheduled for four days until April 21.

Leong, who stands charged under Section 39B of the DDA which carries the death
penalty, is represented by counsel Ram Singh.

(source: Daily Express)






UGANDA:

MP Atiku supports continuity of death penalty


Ayivu county Member of Parliament Bernard Atiku has voiced his support for the
maintaining of the death penalty.

The lawmakers' pronouncement comes in the wake of efforts to amend four laws
with reference to the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment for
the most serious offences/crimes.

But the Attorney General Fred Ruhindi while appearing before the Parliamentary
and Legal Affairs Committee on April 14 proposed that the Bill be merged with
the government's proposals prepared by the Uganda Law Reform Commission.

Atiku and some members of the public in Arua spoke in favour of the death
penalty. The private members bill is being moved by Serere Woman MP Alice
Alaso.

(source: newvision.co.ug)


INDONESIA:

Death penalty defended by Indonesian leader


Indonesia's president has defended his country's use of the death penalty for
drug offences, arguing during his visit to Germany that drug abuse constitutes
an emergency.

Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws and more than 130 people on death row,
mostly for drug crimes.

Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed last year after
trying to smuggle drugs through Bali in 2005, and Indonesian authorities have
recently said the country is preparing to execute more foreigners convicted of
drug offences.

President Joko Widodo said on Monday that Indonesia 'has an emergency, above
all in drug abuse'.

He said 30 to 50 people a day die in Indonesia because of drugs.

'Implementation of the death penalty is carried out very cautiously,' Joko said
through an interpreter.

He spoke after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who underlined
Germany's opposition to capital punishment and its wish for Indonesia 'not to
implement it if possible'.

(source: Sky News)

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

What deterrent? BNN reported huge increase in drug users in months after last
executions


Despite heavy criticism from the human rights activists and the international
community, Indonesia executed 14 people in 2015. All had been convicted of
drug-related crimes. Nearly a year after the last round of executions,
Indonesia looks prepared to move forward with a fresh wave of state-sanctioned
killings in the near future.

President Joko Widodo, after his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
once again defended Indonesia's use of the death penalty, saying "Indonesia
currently has an emergency, above all in drug abuse." He also once again cited
the figure that 30-50 people a day die because of drugs in Indonesia (a highly
dubious statistic).

Of course, in defending the use of the death penalty against drug smugglers,
President Jokowi and others in the government are making the assumption that
the death penalty acts as a deterrent to others who might try to smuggle, sell
or use drugs in Indonesia.

And that is a very questionable assumption. Many academics have argued that
there is no evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent using empirical
evidence. But most of that evidence is based upon homicide rates in other
countries like the United States. Perhaps, in the specific case of Indonesia
and drug crimes, circumstances are different enough that that data could be
considered inapplicable?

But now it has been nearly a year since April 29, 2015, when the Indonesian
Government, with the eyes of the whole world watching them, executed 8 people
for drug smuggling. If the government's assumption about the death penalty's
deterrent power is correct, then we should have seen a significant decrease in
drug use in the time that followed.

Instead, apparently just the opposite happened. According to data released by
the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), Indonesia actually experienced a huge
increase in drug users over the last year.

This is the point that is being argued by Matius Arif Mirdjaja, a preacher and
human rights activist who was baptised by former Bali 9 member Andrew Chan (who
was 1 of the 8 executed in April 2015) inside Bali's Kerobokan Prison.

As Matius pointed out, according to BNN???s own data, from May to December
2015, the number of drug users jumped by over 40%.

"In fact, the numbers of drug users, according to the head of BNN, increased
significantly, by 1.7 million, during the period of time from June to November
2015. In June 2015 they said there were 4.2 million users while in November
2015 there were 5.9 million," Matthew wrote to Tribunnews on Monday.

(We checked and BNN Chief Budi Waseso did indeed declare that there were 5.9
million drug users in Indonesia in November 2015, up from 4.2 million users in
June 2015.)

Matius also pointed out that during that same period BNN seized 620,345
kilograms of methamphetamines, 235 kilograms of marijuana and 580,141 pills of
ecstasy. As we know, there have also been plenty of major drug smuggling busts
in 2016 as well.

If the government really believes that the death penalty serves as any kind of
deterrent, how can they explain this radical increase in usage and the large
numbers of drugs still found to be flowing into the country?

Matius said the above numbers illustrate why executions simply do not act as a
deterrent to criminals - it simply has no psychological impact on them.

"Those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg, what is visible on the surface.
That is, the big problem is hidden just below the surface. Does this mean we
should just kill more drug smugglers? Or build more prisons?"

"They way to eradicate drugs is not to kill the dealers, but to alleviate
society's need to consume, through humanistic measures."

The government keeps saying the drug emergency in Indonesia is getting worse,
but doesn't that just prove that the executions had no real impact? Unless the
government wants to admit that it is simply killing criminals for the sake of
killing them, now is the time to admit that a different solution is needed.

(source: coconuts.co)

********

Why European Leaders Must Challenge Indonesia President Joko Widodo on Human
Rights Abuses


She was the only woman on the stage. On either side stood uniformed men, their
stern gaze bearing down on her. The 60-year-old woman from Indonesia's Aceh
province had been dragged out in front of a crowd to be punished for allegedly
selling alcohol. Wearing a white robe and loose-fitting headscarf that obscured
her face, she remained as anonymous as the hooded figure looming over her,
brandishing a cane. In all, she received 30 strikes, becoming the first
non-Muslim to be caned in Aceh since Indonesian authorities there introduced a
controversial brand of Sharia law.

She wasn't, however, the 1st woman to be punished in this cruel and inhumane
way. A widely circulated video from December 2015 shows a younger Muslim woman
being caned for supposedly drifting into "close proximity" of a man she wasn't
married to. In the video, the woman is shown emitting a cry of anguish each
time the cane snapped against her back. Before the cane could be raised for a
5th time, she fell forward, head first, on to the stage, unable to bear the
pain any longer.

When Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, also known as 'Jokowi,' tours Europe
this week, it will be as the leader of over 250 million people and a nearly
$900 billion economy, expected to continue growing over the next 5 years at a
steady clip of over 5 %. After meetings in Germany, he will be received by
officials in Brussels, and then be feted by U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer
George Osborne for 3 days. His final stop will be at The Hague, in the
Netherlands, the seat of international justice.

It would be a travesty if, in their conversations with President Widodo this
week, European leaders did not match their interest in Indonesia's resilient
economy with questions about the country's enduring human rights issues.

When he was elected in 2014, President Widodo made a series of commitments to
human rights, encouraging hopes of change - provoking comparisons with U.S.
President Barack Obama's rhetoric, and not just the 2 men's slight physical
resemblance. He promised to address historic human rights abuses, protect
freedom of religion, combat intolerance, implement police reforms, defend
women's rights, and protect Indonesia's indigenous people. On most of these
fronts, and others, Amnesty International has recorded a worrying trend in the
wrong direction.

As detailed in our annual death penalty report, in 2015, a year when the number
of countries in the world who have abolished the death penalty became a
majority, Indonesia executed 14 people. Within weeks of coming to power,
President Widodo balked at suggestions that they should be granted clemency.
Earlier this month, the Indonesian Attorney General announced plans for 10 more
people to be executed. To this end, he has even managed to secure a budget for
the planned executions.

President Widodo is not entirely oblivious to the injustice of the death
penalty. In cases involving Indonesians sentenced to death abroad, especially
in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, his government has offered them support. At home,
sadly, President Widodo has insisted that the death penalty should serve as a
deterrent, a notion that lacks credible evidence. In some cases, the death
sentences handed down by Indonesian courts were the product of manifestly
flawed legal proceedings. By our estimates, there are currently over 180 people
on death row in Indonesia.

Indonesia's jails have also worryingly come to house new prisoners of
conscience, dimming hopes that the release in 2015 of Filep Karma, a peaceful
protester jailed for over a decade, would prompt further releases. Earlier this
month, political activist Steven Itlay was charged with having committed
"rebellion" and faces life imprisonment. Johan Teterissa, a former
schoolteacher and political activist from Maluku province, remains behind bars
8 years after his arrest. His crime was to have led a peaceful demonstration,
performed a traditional war dance, and unfurled a banned Malukan flag.

In Maluka, Amnesty knows of 29 prisoners of conscience, and a further 27 in the
restive easternmost region of Papua, where just this month peaceful protests
were met by police arrests in 7 different cities. Far from breaking with
Indonesia's past, it appears to be business as usual. Indeed, as the bruises
administered to the 60-year-old woman last week will attest, the scope of human
rights abuses in Indonesia is widening.

The European leaders who meet President Widodo this week might consider asking
what her name is, and whether he recalls the hopeful pledges he made to her and
millions of other Indonesians 2 years ago.

(source: Opinion; Papang Hidayat is Amnesty International's Indonesia
Researcher----Newsweek)






INDIA:

HC upholds death for man for rape


The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has upheld the death sentence
awarded to a man for rape and murder of a 6-year-old girl in Shravasti district
of Uttar Pradesh in 2012, observing that leniency in such cases will send a
wrong message to the society.

A division bench of Justices Surendra Vikram Singh Rathore and Pratyush Kumar
delivered the judgement yesterday dismissing the appeal of convict Chhotkau and
answering the reference sent by the sessions court for confirming the death
penalty.

On March 29, 2014 Sessions Judge, Shravasti, had awarded death sentence to the
convict and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on him for murder. He was also
sentenced to life imprisonment and a fine of another Rs 50,000 imposed on him
for rape.

Chhotkau had filed the appeal challenging the order of the sessions court.

"In such cases, leniency by the court will send a wrong message to the society.
Such type of cases deserve exemplary punishment so that persons of deviant
behaviour may choose not to do so.

"We are of the view that this case is rarest of the rare. When by his deviant
behaviour and abnormal sexual urge, the culprit has forfeited his right to be
alive in the society, we think death sentence is the only punishment which can
be warded to him," the High Court observed.

On March 8, 2012, the victims uncle had reported to police station Ikauna that
his niece aged about 6 years was taken by Chhotkau. The girls body was later
found from the sugarcane fields in Shravasti.

The FIR in this case was registered against Chhotkau under sections 302
(murder) and 376 (rape) of IPC.

(source: India Today)






CHINA:

China seizes 400kg of cocaine in biggest bust in years


Chinese police have broken up a cross-border drug-trafficking ring in raids
that seized more than 400 kilograms of cocaine - the country's biggest seizure
in recent years, authorities said.

9 suspects, including 5 from Hong Kong, were detained over the course of the
operation, public security authorities in the southern province of Guangdong
said in a statement.

Under Chinese criminal law they could face execution. Chinese courts have a
near-100 % conviction rate and the death penalty can be imposed for smuggling,
selling, transporting or manufacturing more than one kilogram of opium, 50
grams (1.8 ounces) of heroin or methamphetamine, or a "relatively large amount'
of other drugs.

A total of 400.5 kilograms (883 pounds) of cocaine was seized, a "record
amount" for a single case anywhere in the country in recent years, the police
statement said Monday.

(source: Manila Times)






BANGLADESH:

One to walk gallows for killing wife


A Dhaka court has awarded the death penalty to Md Sharif for killing his wife
at Savar in 2014.

Judge SM Kudduszaman of Dhaka district and sessions judge court handed down the
verdict in the presence of the convict on Monday.

The court recorded depositions of 14 out of 21 prosecution witnesses during the
trial proceedings in the sensational murder case.

On June 7, 2014, Sharif stabbed his wife Shilpi Aktar and sister-in-law Shila
Aktar in his bedroom on suspicion over an extramarital affair at Jadurchar
Hemayetpur of Savar upazila,

Later, Shilpi died during treatment at a hospital.

The victim's mother Samiron Begum lodged a case with the local police station
in this connection.

Sub-inspector Abdul Kashem, also investigation officer of the case, submitted a
charge sheet against Sharif in the case on August 28, 2014.

(source: Dhaka Tribune)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 20



ISRAEL/GAZA:

EU Condemns Death Sentences in Gaza for Suspected Collaborators With Israel


The European Union released a statement earlier today in which it condemned the
military courts in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for sentencing to death 5
convicts accused of collaborating with Israel.

"The EU Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemn the 5 death sentences issued
by military courts in the Gaza Strip on 18 April," said the EU statement.
"These include 3 new death sentences and the confirmation of 2 previous ones,
all on the grounds of collaboration with enemy forces."

"This brings to ten the total number of death sentences to be issued in Gaza
this year," the EU added.

Death sentences for convicted informants and collaborators with Israel are
nothing new for the Hamas regime as the terror organization has executed many
such individuals over the years. However, the EU focused less on opposition to
the punishment of suspected collaborators with Israel and more on the use of
the death penalty in general.

"As in their most recent statement on 13 April, the EU Missions in Jerusalem
and Ramallah recall the EU's firm opposition under all circumstances to the use
of capital punishment," the EU stressed in its statement.

"It considers capital punishment to be cruel and inhuman, that it fails to
provide deterrence to criminal behavior, and represents an unacceptable denial
of human dignity and integrity," the statement continued.

The EU expressed its belief that the removal of the death penalty would help to
serve as a step forward in the advancement of human rights under the Hamas
terror regime in Gaza.

The EU also asked that the Hamas authorities in Gaza abide by the decision of
the Palestinian Authority, which only governs over Palestinian communities in
Judea and Samaria and not in Gaza, to implement a moratorium on the death
penalty.

"The authorities in Gaza must refrain from carrying out any executions of
prisoners and comply with the moratorium on executions put in place by the
Palestinian Authority, pending abolition of the death penalty in line with the
global trend," insisted the EU.

(sources: Tazpit News Agency/Jewish Press)






EGYPT:

Kafr El-Sheikh Death Row Political Detainees in Day 6 of Hunger
Strike----Protesting severe abuse for themselves in detention, as well as for
their families in visits, prisoners of conscience refuse all food for 6th day
running.


Death penalty detainees, in the case known as "the bombing of Kafr El-Sheikh
stadium", started a full hunger-strike which is now in its 6th day running,
because of the brutal treatment of some prison officers, who threw 1 of them in
solitary confinement to punish him, and took away all their personal
belongings: food, blankets and medicine.

Notably, orders were never signed by the military governor in Alexandria. Thus,
locking detainees in solitary confinement is certainly in violation of the law.

Moreover, detainees' families are subjected to the worst and most humiliating
treatment, and the most savage insults during visits.

Relatives of the detainees exhort all human rights organizations to intervene
to stop the abuses practiced by the prison administration and guards against
their loved ones.

(source: ikhwanweb.com)






MAURITANIA:

Mauritania must quash the death sentence against blogger


Mauritania must quash the death sentence handed down to a blogger for apostasy
and release him unconditionally, Amnesty International said today, ahead of his
appeal court hearing in the south-western city of Nouadhibou tomorrow.

Mohamed Mkhaitir, 33, was sentenced to death in December 2014, after a year in
pre-trial detention, for writing a blog that criticized those who use Islam to
discriminate against certain groups in the society. It is the 1st time the
death sentence has been imposed for apostasy in Mauritania since the country
gained independence in 1960.

"The death penalty should not be used in any circumstances, the sentencing of
Mohamed Mkhaitir to death for writing a blog that criticized those who use
religion to discriminate is unjust and it shows how far the Mauritanian
authorities will go to try and stamp out dissent", said Gaetan Mootoo, Amnesty
International West Africa researcher.

"The Mauritanian authorities must quash the death sentence and immediately and
unconditionally release him."

Mohamed Mkhaitir is a prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for the peaceful
expression of his right to freedom of expression. Amnesty International
considers the use of penal sanctions to compel religious belief is a violation
of international human rights law, particularly the African Charter on Human
and Peoples' Rights, to which Mauritania is state party.

The organization opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception,
regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime. The death penalty
violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and it is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

(source: Amnesty International)






IRAN:

10 executions, including 2 women, concurrent with Ms. Mogherini's trip to Iran

From April 14 to 16, concurrent with the visit of the EU High Representative to

Iran, the antihuman clerical regime sent 10 prisoners to the gallows. 3 were
executed in Rasht central prison on April 16 while the other 7, including 2
women, were collectively hanged in Birjand central prison on April 14. Prior,
on the verge of the visit by the EU representative and the Italian Prime
Minister, 14 prisoners had been executed.

Officials of the Iranian regime, who are fearful of a revolt by the army of the
unemployed and hungry, are ratcheting up suppression and slaughter on a daily
basis to rein in social protests. The head of the regime's commerce chamber
noted: "Security may be harmed by economic factors such as an increase in
unemployment, stagnation and huge governmental debts to the private sector...
and this situation has been passed on from the year 94 [last Persian year 1394]
to year 95. The brittle climate of business is unable to absorb political
tensions... Playing politics in the economic climate may imperil national
security." (Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC Quds Force - April 17)

The relationship of European countries with the religious fascism ruling Iran
and visits by their officials to Tehran amid their continued shameful silence
and inaction regarding the horrendous and systematic violation of human rights
in Iran emboldens this regime to continue with its torture, executions,
slaughters, suppression of women and ethnic and religious minorities, and its
defiance of international law and conventions. Improvement of economic and
political relations with this medieval regime ought to be preconditioned to
improvement of human rights and in particular a halt to executions.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)

**********

30 Executions Carried Out in Last 10 Days


Iranian authorities have hanged 4 prisoners in northwestern Iran on drug
charges. This brings the total of prisoners who have been executed in Iran in
the last 10 days to 30.

On the morning of Tuesday April 19, 4 prisoners were reportedly hanged on drug
charges at Urmia's central prison, Darya. According to the Kurdistan Human
Rights Network, the names of the 4 prisoners are: Majid Moradi, Ahmad Mohi,
Alireza Sarian, and Mansour Raziani. Iranian officials sources, including state
media and the Judiciary, have been silent about these executions.

The rate of executions in Iran had significantly decreased during a 3-month
period, from the outset of 2016 until after the Iranian parliamentary election
and the Nowruz holiday. However, executions have resumed since April 2016.
According to Iran Human Rights, 30 people have been executed in Iran in the
last t10 days alone.

(source: iranhr.net)








INDONESIA:

Indonesian delegate booed at UN meeting after defending use of death penalty on
drug offenders


World governments at a UN meeting on the global drug problem were urged Tuesday
to move away from repression, abolish the death penalty for drug offenses and
step up treatment.

In the 1st such meeting in nearly 20 years, the UN General Assembly adopted a
document that marks a shift away from the "war on drugs" launched in the 1970s,
with its heavy-handed approach centered on law enforcement and criminalization.

"Drug policies that focus almost exclusively on the use of the criminal justice
system need to be broadened. They need to be broadened by embracing a public
health approach," said World Health Organization (WHO) director Margaret Chan,
drawing applause.

The 3-day special session was requested by Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala,
which have felt the brunt of the war on drugs with an explosion of crime and
violence.

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto said the fight against drugs must be seen
from a "human rights perspective" and warned that harsh penalties for drug use
"create a vicious cycle of marginalization and crime."

Saying that his country had paid a "high price" for failed global drug
policies, he also backed calls for decriminalizing marijuana use for medical
and scientific purposes.

Delegates from the European Union, Switzerland, Brazil, Costa Rica and Uruguay,
among others, called for abolishing capital punishment for convicted drug
felons, a practice widely used by China, Iran and Indonesia.

Indonesia's delegate drew jeers when he declared that the use of the death
penalty was a matter for individual states to decide, in a statement backed by
Singapore, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran and Pakistan, among other countries.

The document adopted at the session makes no reference to the death penalty but
calls on government to "promote proportionate national sentencing policies...
whereby the severity of penalties is proportionate to the gravity of offenses."

Pakistan said it was gravely concerned by the trend toward legalizing the use
of marijuana and other drugs.

Uruguay became the 1st county to fully legalize marijuana in 2013 and Canada is
among countries looking at a similar measure.

"This would give a fillip to drug demand, thus igniting the supply chain having
direct fallouts on our region," Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali
Khan warned.

"We have dreamed of a drug-free society rather than a drug-tolerant society,"
he said.

China's Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun agreed: "Any form of legalization
of narcotics should be resolutely opposed."

- Hong Kong success -

Some 27 million people worldwide are living with drug-use disorders, and more
than 400,000 of them die each year, according to the WHO.

Drug use by injection accounts for 30 % of new HIV infections outside Africa
and contributes to epidemics of hepatitis B and C in all regions.

The WHO's Chan singled out Hong Kong as a success story, saying methadone
treatment for drug users had been key to reducing petty crime.

"People with drug dependence can be helped and returned to productive use in
society," she said.

The adopted document calls for "appropriate medication-assisted therapy
programs, injecting equipment programs as well as antiretroviral therapy and
other relevant interventions."

Ethan Nadelmann, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance, which is pushing for
reform, said the UN text was a "notable improvement" but still "quite limited
and disappointing."

"Those in favor of maintaining the status quo, notably the Russians and their
allies, won the bigger battles in the negotiations leading up to this week's
meeting," he said.

Last week, the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Nigeria joined
celebrities Sting and Michael Douglas along with businessman Warren Buffett to
call for an end to the "disastrous" war on drugs.

"Humankind cannot afford a 21st-century drug policy as ineffective and
counterproductive as the last century's," the letter to UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said. "A new global response to drugs is needed, grounded in
science, compassion, health and human rights."

(source: coconuts.co)






KYRGYZSTAN:

Bakyt Torobaev proposes to introduce death penalty for pedophiles


Candidate for the post of Speaker Bakyt Torobaev (Onuguu-Progress) said in
Parliament that he considers it necessary to introduce the death penalty for
pedophiles.

"I think it's necessary to introduce the death penalty for pedophiles, those
who rape children. Probably, punishment for terrorists should be toughen. But
the decision to change the Constitution should be taken together," Bakyt
Torobaev said.

Recall, Kyrgyzstan abandoned the capital punishment - the death penalty, as it
took up a number of international obligations. Since 1998, our country has a
moratorium on the death penalty and in 2006, when the Constitution was adopted,
the death penalty has been abolished and replaced by life imprisonment.

(source: eng.24.kg)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 20



INDIA:

6-yr-old's rapist, killer sentenced to death


The Lucknow bench of high court awarded death penalty to a 25-year-old man for
raping a 6-year-old girl and strangulating her to death in a sugarcane field.
"In such a case, leniency by court will send out wrong message. The offender's
age is no mitigating circumstance and with his deviant behavior he has
forfeited his right to live so death sentence is the only punishment for him.

Dismissing the appeal of the convict challenging the judgment of trial court
and accepting the reference made by the Shravasti district judge, a bench of
justice S V S Rathore and justice Pratyush Kumar observed that since the case
is rarest of rare, it deserves exemplary punishment so that persons of deviant
behavior may think better than committing such an act.

The incident occurred in Semgarha village under Ikauna police station,
Shravasti on March 8, 2012 on the occasion of Holi. The convict Chhotkau took
the of 6-year-old away with him and when the girl did not return for long, the
villagers went searching and found her body in a sugarcane field. Many
villagers had seen the youth taking her away. After the incident, the youth
fled from his house.

Later, he was nabbed and put to trial. The district judge conducted his trial
and awarded him capital sentence on March 29, 2014 and the district judge sent
the reference of capital sentence to the high court under section 366 of the Cr
P C. Meanwhile, the convict also filed appeal against the verdict from jail.

Advocate Atul Verma argued that the case was based on circumstantial evidence
and that the convict was implicated falsely at the instance of the village
pradhan over a property dispute. Finally, he demanded leniency to award life
term considering his age. Strongly opposing the plea, government attorneys
argued that the convict deserved only death penalty.

(source: The Times of India)






CHINA:

Chinese crypto techie sentenced to death for leaking state secrets----31 others
caught up in spying row

A computer technician at a Chinese state encryption lab has been sentenced to
death for selling government secrets to foreign intelligence agencies.

For nine years Huang Yu, 48, sold 150,000 state documents for "a foreign spy
organization" and earned over $700,000, Shanghai Daily reports. These included
ciphers for the Communist Party, government, military and financial
communications.

"He had offered a great deal of classified information in 10 years, which
caused serious threats to our core government and military departments," the
state safety bureau of Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, said in a statement.

According to state media, Yu contacted the unnamed foreign intelligence agency
offering documents for sale after becoming unsatisfied with his job. His
contact offered $10,000 for the first tranche of files and a monthly salary of
$5,000 to get more, and also trained Yu in espionage techniques.

For a while all went well, but then Yu was fired from his job for poor
performance. In order to keep the documents - and paychecks - coming, Yu
reportedly pressured his wife - who also worked at the center - for more
information. He also stole state documents from his brother-in-law's computer
while repairing it.

However, Yu's wealth and his frequent visits to Hong Kong and other Asian
countries, caught the eye of the authorities. After an investigation he was
arrested and charged in 2011, but this is the 1st time the news has been made
public.

While Yu now faces the death penalty, his wife was sentenced to 5 years in
prison, and his brother-in-law to 3 years, for "negligence," and 29 of his
former colleagues have also been punished.

(source: theregister.co.uk)






NIGERIA:

Delta legislature prescribes death penalty for kidnappers


The Delta House of Assembly on Tuesday passed the Anti-kidnap Bill, prescribing
death sentence for kidnappers and life imprisonment for accomplices. The
passage of the bill by a unanimous vote of the members present followed a
report presented by the house's Committee on Rules, Business, Legal and
Judicial Matters at plenary in Asaba.

Presenting the report, Chairman of the committee, Mr Rueben Izezi, said that
the bill, when signed into law, would also give life imprisonment and
forfeiture of all property within the state for anyone whose property was used
for kidnapping.

The bill, which was initiated by the Executive, also provides life imprisonment
for persons who initiated a compromise, settlement or refused to give testimony
in court in respect of charges for kidnapping.

In his remarks, Speaker of the assembly, Chief Monday Igbuya, said that at the
committee of the whole, the bill was considered clause by clause and section by
section.

"I must also commend members for giving considerable attention to this bill,
which is to the benefit of the people of the state," he said.

Igbuya, therefore, directed the Clerk of the House, Mrs Lyna Ochulor, to
forward a clean copy of the bill to the governor of the state for his assent.

(source: financialwatchngr.org)


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April 21



SAUDI ARABIA:

President Obama Can Help Save Saudi Youth Facing Beheading----He can save lives
and help ease religious tensions in the region.


One concrete outcome that President Obama could pursue on his visit to Saudi
Arabia is saving the lives of three Shia youth sentenced to be executed, most
likely by beheading, for participating in nonviolent protests. Sparing their
lives could also help ease the Shia/Sunni tensions that have engulfed the
region.

Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher are members of the
minority Shia community that has, for decades, been demanding equality and full
civil rights. The Shia represent 10-15 percent of the Saudi population and live
mainly in the oil-rich Eastern province. Ever since the Saudi state was founded
in 1932 by forming a pact with the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, the Shia in
Saudi Arabia have endured state-sponsored discrimination, social
marginalization, and campaigns of violence waged by anti-Shiite hardliners.
According to Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human
Rights Watch, "All the Saudi Shia want is for their government to respect their
identity and treat them equally. Yet Saudi authorities routinely treat these
people with scorn and suspicion." The persecution of the three youth is deeply
sectarian, and reflects the long history of oppression the Shia have faced in
Saudi Arabia.

Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables in 2008 reported a campaign to close Shia mosques
and prevent Shia celebrations, as well as ongoing arrests of people trying to
take part in these celebrations. There is also discrimination in the education
system. Shia cannot teach religion in public schools and Shia pupils are told
by Sunni teachers that they are infidels. Saudi textbooks traditionally
characterize Shiism as a form of heresy worse than Christianity and Judaism.
Shia cannot become school principals and there are unofficial restrictions on
the number of Shia admitted to universities.

The discovery of oil in the Eastern Province brought the Shia jobs as skilled
and semi-skilled workers, but they receive little of the contracting wealth the
industry generates and they complain that the region does not get its fair
share of the oil revenue. Shia are also discriminated against in government
employment, especially in positions that relate to national security, such as
the military, police, or the security services. There has been only 1 Shia
minister, appointed by King Abdullah in 2014 as the Minister of State, and only
a handful of Shia members have been appointed to the 150-seat Shura Council
that advises the king.

The Sunni-Shia divide, and the resulting persecution of Shia, becomes more open
and dangerous in times of regional upheaval and heightened tensions with Iran.
The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent rise of Iranian influence in
the region intensified the hostilities. The Saudi government began to view
dissent among the Shia as part of an Iranian conspiracy to destabilize the
kingdom.

This was the climate during which the 2011 Shia protests took place, inspired
by the Arab Spring. The protests began with calls for Shia rights and the
release of political prisoners, but in the summer of 2012, after at least 16
people died at the hands of government forces, the demands turned into
far-reaching calls for a constitutional government and an end to the monarchy.

Ali, Dawood, and Abdullah were among the hundreds arrested during those
protests. Their grossly unfair trials were based on "confessions," extracted
under torture, that they attacked police. Dawood was so badly beaten that he
signed a blank piece of paper; his tormentors later filled in the "crime"
without even bothering to show it to him.

These young men were sentenced to death for activities that, in the United
States, are guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution. The fact
that they were sentenced to death for actions committed as juveniles is all the
more shocking.

Saudi Arabia is one of the only countries in the world that executes people
arrested as minors. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the
Saudi government is a party, prohibits capital punishment for individuals who
were under 18 at the time of the alleged crime. So do the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human
Rights. While the United States itself still uses the death penalty, in 2005
the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for juveniles was cruel and
unusual punishment and therefore prohibited by the Constitution.

Aside from the issue of minors, Saudi Arabia is one of the top three
executioners worldwide, surpassed only by China and Iran. In 2015, Saudi Arabia
broke its own previous records, executing 158 people. This year, if the current
rate is maintained, Saudi Arabia will execute about 320 prisoners, almost one a
day.

If the Saudi government beheads these young men, it will further ignite
sectarian hatred. On January 2, the government executed a prominent Shia
cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr (Ali al-Nimr's uncle), causing outrage among the
Shia community inside the kingdom and abroad. Sheikh al-Nimr preached
nonviolence, but was sentenced to death for "inciting sectarian strife" and
"calling to overthrow the regime," among other vague charges. In Iran, an angry
mob burned the Saudi Embassy, and the Saudis reacted by cutting off diplomatic
relations.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said: "Sheikh al-Nimr's
execution blatantly disregards the right to dissent and the right to religious
freedom of Shia Muslims in the country and contributes to sectarian discord
both within Saudi Arabia and in the region. It is long past due for the
government of Saudi Arabia to honor international standards of justice and
ensure the religious freedom and equal protection rights of everyone in the
Kingdom, including its Shia Muslim citizens."

In his Atlantic interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, President Obama rightly
commented that Saudi Arabia needs to "share" the region with Iran. The same
would apply internally: the Saudis need to share the nation with their own Shia
minority. Given the uproar following Sheikh al-Nimr's execution, saving the
lives of these young men could ease tensions and show the Saudis that the U.S.
government will no longer close its eyes to their grotesque human rights
record.

(source: Medea Benjamin is cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK and author of
a forthcoming book on Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of the Unjust; alternet.org)






MALAYSIA:

Teen murder case set for May 19 mention


The Magistrate Court here fixed May 19 for mention of a case where a security
guard was charged with the murder of a 17-year-old schoolgirl.

Magistrate Nur Azzuin Abd Moati set the date today pending permission to
transfer the case to the Penang High Court after the case was brought up.

Tarmizi Yaakob, 20, is accused of murdering the victim on Oct 25, 2015, between
7.30am and 7.30pm at the Bandar Baru Perda flats in Teluk Kumbar.

The charge under the Penal Code carries the mandatory death penalty upon
conviction.

DPP Shafiq Mahadi prosecuted while the accused was unrepresented in the murder
case.

Sessions Court Judge Helmi Ghani earlier had also fixed May 19 for mention and
case management of 2 rape charges against Tarmizi.

He is accused of raping Intan Suraya at the same date, time and place and faces
a maximum 20 year prison sentence and whipping upon conviction.

He is also accused of raping a 21-year-old clerk at a home in Teluk Kumbar,
between 4.30am and 5.30am on Oct 8, 2015.

He claimed trial to the 2 counts of rape and was defended by Sukhindarpal Singh
while DPP JG Kamini prosecuted the case.

(source: The Sun Daily)






INDONESIA:

Indonesian bishops come to the aid of death-row convict ---- Lawyers say new
evidence shows that prisoner received unfair trial


The Indonesian Catholic bishops' conference is seeking the repeal the death
sentence of a Catholic man convicted of drug trafficking. The conference's
Advocacy and Human Rights Forum, consisting of 11 volunteer lawyers, is
offering legal aid to a 54-year-old Catholic layman named Christian, who was
arrested in November 2007 on drug trafficking charges, convicted and sentenced
to death.

The team asked for a judicial review for the case on March 28, saying that
there is new evidence to show that the conviction was unfair.

"New evidence shows that the verdict should have led to his release or at least
a light punishment," Azas Tigor Nainggolan, team coordinator, said at the April
20 judicial review hearing in West Jakarta District Court.

The prosecution's key witness in the case said he was forced, intimidated and
tortured by investigators from both the police and the National Narcotics Board
to testify that he knew Christian as a member of his drug trafficking network,
he added.

"This is against the standard operating procedure of crime investigations into
drug-related cases by the National Narcotics Board," Nainggolan said.

His forum has uncovered at least 300 death penalty convictions that were the
result of unfair trials.

Father Paulus Christian Siswantoko, executive secretary of the bishops'
Commission for Justice, Peace and Pastoral for Migrant-Itinerant People that is
working with the team of lawyers, said he believes Christian to be a victim.

"This is the reason why the Indonesian bishops' conference has decided to offer
legal aid. Moreover, this effort is in accordance with the Catholic Church's
teaching of rejecting the death penalty," Father Siswantoko told ucanews.com.

He expressed the hope that the case regarding Christian will encourage
President Joko Widodo to review his policy on the death penalty.

"Christian's case shows how bad our trial system is. The government should
improve itself before thinking about executions," Father Siswantoko said.

Christian told ucanews.com that his lawyer provided by the National Narcotics
Board failed to defend him properly and when he was convicted, "my lawyer
clapped his hands."

Christian says he is looking forward to being back with his family.

The next hearing for his case is scheduled to be held next week.

(source: ucanews.com)

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

4 charged with drug trafficking


3 men and a teenager were charged with drug trafficking at the High Court
yesterday.

Lee Chen Shian, 39, Sia Yak Kwong, 37, Sia Puong Ping, 49, and a 13-year-old
boy were charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drug Acts 1952,
punishable under Section 39B(2) of the same act read together with Section 34
of the Penal Code.

The section provides for the death penalty upon conviction.

The charge said they were caught trafficking Methamphetamine weighing 73.46
gramme at 12.32pm on Jan 11 at a house in Hua Kiew Road.

Lee is also charged under Section 12(2) of the same Act and punishable under
Section 12(3) of the same Act for alleged possession of Methamphetamine
weighing 0.43 gramme.

It carries a fine up to RM100,000 or jail term of not more than 5 years or
both.

Sia, on the other hand, is facing 2 charges under Section 12(2) of the same Act
for alleged possession of Ketamine weighing 7.15 g and Methamphetamine weighing
17.76. Possessing Ketamine is punishable under Section 12(3) of the same Act.

The charge for possessing Methamphetamine is punishable under Section 39A(1)(r)
of the same Act which provides for a jail term between 2 and 5 years and
whipping of between 3 and 9 times, on conviction.

The accused are to appear in court again on May 18 for further mention of their
cases.

(source: theborneopost.com)



UNITED NATIONS:

Countries clash over death penalty at UN drug policy session

The 1st UN special session to address global drug policy in nearly 20 years
bristled with tension Tuesday over the use of the death penalty for
drug-related offenses, as countries wrestled over whether to emphasize
criminalization and punishment or health and human rights.

The outcome document adopted by member states included no criticism of the
death penalty, saying only that countries should ensure that punishments are
"proportionate" with the crimes.

"Disproportional penalties ... create vicious cycles of marginalization and
further crime," Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told the gathering. He
also called for the decriminalization of marijuana for medical and scientific
purposes and said the international community's responses to drug issues is
"frankly, insufficient."

He said Mexico in the coming days would announce specific drug policies with an
emphasis on health and human rights.

At least 685 people around the world were executed on drug-related offenses in
2015, said Chiara Sangiorgio, a death penalty expert with Amnesty
International. The rights group says 30 countries have laws that punish
drug-related offenses with the death penalty.

Indonesia, which last year executed 14 people, mostly foreigners, convicted of
drug-related crimes amid an international outcry, defended its stance Tuesday,
saying the death penalty is not prohibited under international law.

China, which along with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran carries out
executions for drug offenses, signaled little flexibility on its approach.

"Any form of legalization of narcotics should be resolutely opposed," Public
Security Minister Guo Shengkun told the gathering.

Prior to this week's 3-day meeting, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders, rock star Sting and hundreds of others sent an open
to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon letter saying the war on drugs has failed.
It said that for decades, governments have focused resources on repressing drug
use, resulting in the imprisonment of millions of people, mostly the poor and
ethnic minorities, and mostly for non-violent offenses

The letter's signers, including former presidents of Mexico, Colombia, Brazil,
Switzerland and others, joined a growing number of government officials and
drug policy analysts calling for a shift in global drug policy from emphasizing
criminalization to health and human rights.

Hundreds of government officials, representatives of non-governmental
organizations and individuals from civil society are attending the General
Assembly special session at UN headquarters.

The last special session on the topic in 1998 ended with the lofty but
unattainable goal of ridding the planet of illegal drugs by 2008.

On the non-medical use of drugs, the outcome document adopted Tuesday says
countries should "develop and implement countermeasures and supportive public
health, education and socioeconomic strategies to effectively address and
counter the non-medical use and misuse of pharmaceuticals that contain narcotic
drugs and psychotropic substances, while ensuring their availability for
legitimate purposes."

Last month, The Global Commission on Drug Policy - whose members include former
presidents of Mexico and Brazil, as well as former UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson - said in a statement that
discussions drafting the outcome document adopted Tuesday relied too heavily on
an outdated approach that emphasizes criminal justice and prohibition.

The group argued that the emphasis should instead be on alternative approaches
including abolishing capital punishment for drug-related offenses and a focus
on treatment.

(source: The Jakarta Post)






TAIWAN:

Nearly 9 out of 10 in Taiwan want to keep death penalty: poll


Out of every 10 people in Taiwan, there are nearly 9 who oppose the idea of
abolishing capital punishment, mainly because they think such a move would
undermine public order and deprive the authorities of a deterrent to would-be
criminals, according to a poll released Thursday.

The survey by the Cabinet's National Development Council (NDC) found that 87.9
% of Taiwanese want the death penalty to be retained, 4.8 % are against it, and
7.3 % have no clear position on the issue.

In a statement, the NDC said concern over the deterioration of public order was
the main reason cited by those who want the death penalty to remain on the law
books.

They indicated that in the absence of the death penalty, there would be no
deterrent to potential criminals, the NSC said.

The people who supported the abolition of the death penalty, however, said they
did not think it was an effective deterrent and that it was a violation of
human rights, according to the poll.

The government has no right to deprive people of the right of life, those
people argued.

Asked about the link between capital punishment and public order in Taiwan, 82
% of the respondents said the death penalty can deter people from committing
crime, while 10.9 % said the enforcement of capital punishment does not help to
improve public order.

On the question of whether the death penalty should be replaced with life
imprisonment with no parole, 68.7 % of the respondents opposed such an idea,
while 25.3 % supported it.

Among the 3,013 people surveyed, 83.6 % said they agreed to the idea of a law
revision to allow only the death penalty for serial killers and those who
murder children. Only 10.3 % of the respondents opposed that idea.

The poll was conducted amid renewed debate over the death penalty after a
4-year-old girl was decapitated by a 33-year-old man in Taipei on March 28. It
was the 2nd random, brutal child killing case in Taipei in less than a year.

The NDC conducted the survey April 12-17 via telephone interviews on randomly
selected people aged 20 and over in Taiwan. It had a confidence level of 95 %
and a margin of error of plus or minus 1.79 % points.

(source: focustaiwan.tw)






CHINA:

China Sets New Judicial Guidelines for Death Penalty for Corrupt Officials


Officials found guilty of graft involving 3 million yuan could face death
penalty under the new judicial guidelines.

Chinese officials who will be found guilty of graft involving 3 million yuan
could face the death penalty under new judicial guidelines, the South China
Morning Post reported.

The corruption threshold was an increase from the previous 100,000-yuan worth
of bribe accepted.

Under the new rules, "defendants convicted of 'especially serious' offences of
graft of between 1.5 million yuan and 3 million yuan . . . could also face the
death penalty," the article said.

These offences include embezzling money for illegal activities, embezzling
funds allocated for disaster relief and refusing to hand over funds considered
illicit.

The new standards were jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court and Supreme
People's Procuratorate as a replacement to those stipulated in the Criminal Law
in 1997.

The old rules have been receiving criticisms as they are said to be outdated,
speaking of inflation and income growth.

For the previous years, China has seen seldom imposition of the death penalty
among senior corrupt officials. Instead, most of those convicted for graft are
only suspended for 2 years, which can later be commuted to life imprisonment if
proven that they committed no additional offences.

Such is the case of Liu Zhijun, former railways minister, who was found to have
taken 60 million yuan in bribes. In 2013, he was given a suspended death
sentence, but last year, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Zhou Yongkang, a former security tsar, was also jailed for life after he and
his family took a whopping 129 million yuan in bribes.

2-year death sentence suspensions may be issued should there be mitigating
factors, including voluntary return of ill-gotten wealth or confession,
according to judicial interpretation.

Under the recently issued amendments, there will also be a new threshold for
the prosecution of officials. Suspects of bribery involving 30,000 yuan are
likely to face prosecution, while those suspected to have embezzled or received
10,000 yuan in bribes could also face the court.

Previously, the threshold for an official's criminal prosecution was at least
5,000 yuan in bribes.

(source: en.yibada.com)






TURKEY:

Survey: 93.5 % of Turks support death penalty for rape


According to a survey conducted by the Ankara-based Objective Research Center
(ORC), 93.5 % of participants said they would support reintroducing the death
penalty for crimes such as rape, treason or terrorism.

A previous survey carried out by ORC in March indicated support for such a law
at 92.6 %.

Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002, 18 years after Turkey last executed
a prisoner during the post-1980 coup period. The previous exercise of the death
penalty was largely confined to periods after military coups, such as the 1961
hanging of former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes after the military coup in
1960, and the hanging of three prominent left-wing militants in 1972.

The death penalty was replaced in 2002 by aggravated life imprisonment, or life
sentence in isolation with restricted access.

Turkey briefly considered the penalty of chemical castration for sex offenders,
which never passed the stage of draft legislation. Ismail Ok, a lawmaker from
the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said at a press conference
yesterday that he presented a draft proposal to Parliament to enact a law
stipulating sex offenders be castrated. "If you don't want a repeat of these
serious crimes against our children and women, we have to implement this," Ok
said.

(source: Daily Sabah)






EGYPT:

Ensure Fair Trial for 8 Men


see:
ttp://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/egypt-ensure-fair-trial-for-eight-men-ua-9116

(source: Amnesty International)


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April 21




BANGLADESH:

Youth gets death penalty for friend's murder


A court on Thursday convicted and sentenced a young man to death for the 2011
murder of his friend in the Lalkhan Bazar area of the port city.

Jahed Mahmud, 26, a resident of Baghmoniram area of the city, is said to had
taken his friend Kafil Uddin, then a 2nd year student at the International
Islamic University, to a hill on the south side of Jamiatul Falah Mosque in
Lalkhan Bazar following dinner at a local restaurant on December 18, 2011.

There he later strangulated Kafil, before snatching his laptop and cash. Police
recovered Kafil's body from the hill on December 19. The same day, Kafil's
father Mohammad Rafiq filed a case with the Kotowali Model Police Station.

Jahed was put under arrest in connection with the murder same days later, and
the Police submitted the chargesheet accusing him on May 3, 2012.

After examining the records and 11 witnesses, Additional Session's Judge
Mohammad Shah-e Nur handed down the verdict.

(source: prothom-alo.com)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan and the Death Penalty----Since lifting its moratorium on the death
penalty in 2014, Pakistan has become one of the world's leading executioners.


In its "Death Sentences and Executions Report 2015," Amnesty International
ranked Pakistan as the 3rd most prolific executioner in the world, right after
China and Iran. Taken together, Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia accounted for
almost 90 % of all recorded global executions (excluding China's figures, as
the number of executions is considered a state secret by Beijing). While
Amnesty's report only covered the year 2015, since 2014 Pakistan has hanged at
least 389 death row inmates.

After a brutal terrorist attack on schoolchildren in Peshawar, Pakistan lifted
a 6-year de facto moratorium on use of the death penalty - 1st for
terror-related cases and then, in March 2015, in all capital cases. In making
its decision, government seemed quite convinced that capital punishment was the
only effective way to deal with the scourge of terrorism. When the moratorium
was lifted, it was viewed in the broader context of Pakistan's fight against
terrorists and militancy.

But after following this policy for almost a year and a half now, a quick
glance at the data of executions carried out in Pakistan calls this narrative
into question. As per the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 389 death
row convicts have been hanged through mid-April 2016. Out of these, 49 were
tried by the Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs) and 12 by the military courts. Based
on the HRCP data, only around 10 % of those executed in Pakistan were
associated with terrorism, while 73 % are ordinary murderers. The others were
convicted of murder after rape, murder after robbery, or murder after
kidnapping. The Pakistani government's assertion that the moratorium on death
penalty was lifted to tackle terrorism loses ground here.

Furthermore, Pakistan employs a broad definition of "terrorism." Subsection (b)
of Section 6(1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, as amended in 2013, spells out
terrorism as "the use or threat of action" intended "to coerce and intimidate
or overawe the Government or the public" or "create a sense of fear or
insecurity in society." Any murder can be deemed to "intimidate" the public and
"create a sense of fear" in the neighborhood. No wonder more than one in 10 of
all death row prisoners in Pakistan is tried as a "terrorist."

It's also a very unfortunate reality that juveniles and people with
disabilities were also among those executed in Pakistan. Several such
controversies have come to the fore during the trials of non-terrorism related
case in ATCs, which resulted in condemning juveniles to death. Shafqat Hussain,
for example, was allegedly sentenced to death when he was 14 years old; he was
hanged in August 2015. Likewise, Aftab Bahadur was hanged in June 2015 despite
pleas from international human rights groups that he was a juvenile when
convicted of murder. Amnesty International reports that 5 men who were
juveniles at the time of their crimes were among those executed by Pakistan in
2015.

Meanwhile, a paraplegic death row prisoner received a last-minute stay of
execution in November 2015 to the relief of many human rights activists in the
country. However, the news that the officials were simply uncertain of how to
hang a man incapable of standing up unsupported was both sickening and painful.

There are also questions about the fairness of the judicial process. There have
been cases where the court-appointed lawyer does not ever meet the suspect
outside of court, present evidence in his defense, or properly challenge
witness statements. Poorer families cannot hire afford to private lawyers and
very often lose the battle of life against poverty.

Despite these issues, there seems to be strong public support for the death
penalty. According to a Gilani Research Foundation Survey carried out by Gallup
Pakistan in February 2016, 92 % of Pakistanis said they support "the rule of
hanging terrorists." Out of those who were in favor, 64 % said that they
support it "a lot" while 28 % said they support it "to some extent." However,
the specific question that this survey asked was whether people were for or
against the hanging of terrorists. As we've seen, the vast majority of
executions have little to do with terrorism, at least as the public would
conceive of it.

There's more at stake here than morality. Pakistan was granted Generalized
System of Preferences-Plus (GSP+) status by the EU in 2013, while its
moratorium on executions was still in place. That status, which provides
duty-free access to the EU market, has provided huge economic benefits -
according to The News, "Pakistan's exports to EU rose by 21 % in the 1st year
of the scheme alone." Yet EU officials have warned that human rights issues -
including use of the death penalty - could see Pakistan's GSP+ status
suspended. Pakistan survived the 1st EU compliance report, but there will be a
reassessment in 2017. If the Pakistani government wants to avail itself of GSP+
benefits beyond 2017, it must take seriously the implementation of UN
conventions on human rights.

With Pakistan's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) due in 2017 too, it would be a
wise decision to start putting Pakistan's house in order now. The death penalty
is sure to feature as a main issue in the review process, as are the hangings
of alleged juvenile convicts. Pakistan has ratified the International
Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the
Rights of the Child and has, hence, committed not to impose the death penalty
on anyone who was a juvenile at the time of the crime.

It is vitally important that Pakistan start respecting these commitments and
rethinking its policies now rather than later making apologetic defenses of its
position. Pakistan has indeed gone too far in its policy of executions, and it
is time it starts doing more (or perhaps less) on the issue.

(source: Madiha Batool is a professional working as an Adviser on Political and
Economic Affairs in a diplomatic mission in Pakistan. She studied International
Human Rights Law at King's College, London and International Relations at
Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad----The Diplomat)






UGANDA:

Ruling Date Set for Kampala Bombs Case


After close to 6 years of trial, the High Court in Kampala yesterday set May 18
to deliver the judgment on the case of 13 men suspected to have carried out
twin terror strikes in Kampala, which killed at least 76 people who were
watching World Cup finals on July 11, 2010.

The victims were watching the World Cup football final between Spain and the
Netherlands live on television at Kyadondo Rugby Club in Lugogo and Ethiopian
Village Restaurant in Kabalagala, all in Kampala.

The High Court set the judgment date following the conclusion of the hearing of
the case which started in March last year. Yesterday the 2 court assessors
advised presiding judge Owiny-Dollo to convict the suspects for the offences of
terrorism.

The 2 assessors, Ms Juliet Kasendwa and Mr Robert Lubega Sebunya, gave their
layman's opinion on the case. On the charge of murder, both assessors advised
the court to convict all the accused before calling for a similar conviction
for the charge of attempted murder against them all.

Mr Lubega, who was the first assessor to give his opinion to court, advised
Justice Owiny-Dollo to convict the 12 suspects on 3 counts of terrorism, saying
the prosecution had proved the case against them beyond reasonable doubt.

"Prosecution witness number one Muhamood Mugisha told court during the trial
that he had joined the al-Qaeda-associated al-Shaabab militant group in Somalia
where he trained with some of the accused in the case. This coupled with
evidence of prosecution witness number 2 Mr Idris Nsubuga, who told court of
how he participated in the detonating of 1 of the bombs at Kyadondo Rugby Club
plus the corroborating evidence of other witnesses like police, I am satisfied
that Accused 1 to Accused 12 participated in the Kampala bombing.." Mr Lubega
said. " I therefore advise this honourable court to find each accused guilty as
charged," he added.

Judgment day

At the tail end of the court session yesterday, Justice Owiny-Dollo asked both
the prosecution and the defence teams to show up early in court on the judgment
day as he begins reading his verdict at 9am. He cited the voluminous judgment
that he is writing which he said he would not want the reading to spill over to
the following day.

"Judgment in this case will be delivered on May 18, this year at 9 O'clock,"
Justice Owiny-Dollo announced.

The case involves 13 bomb suspects who are accused of carrying out the twin
terror bombings of football fans watching the 2010 World cup football final
between the Netherlands and Spain in Kampala.

At least 76 people were killed and dozens of others injured with varying
severity. The suspects have been on trial on charges of terrorism, murder,
attempted murder and being accessories to terrorism.

On Monday this week, justice Owiny-Dollo said he will strike out the remaining
charge against some of the suspects belonging to a terrorism group al-Shaabab.

They are liable to the maximum penalty of death if they are convicted of
terrorism and murder.

The suspects

The suspects are: Omar Awadh Omar, Muhammed Hamid Suleiman, Hussein Hassan Agad
alias Hussein Agade, Idris Magondu alias Christopher Magondu, Yahya Suleiman
Mbuthia, Habib Suleiman Njoroge, Suleiman Hajjir Nyamandondo, Muhammed Ali
Muhamed, Isa Ahamed Luyima, Hassan Haruna Luyima, Batematyo Abubakari, Dr
Ismail Kalule and Muzafaru Luyima.

(source: The Monitor)






NIGERIA:

Kaduna govt seeks death penalty for 50 Shiite members


After secretly burying 347 Shiite members killed by Nigerian soldiers last
December, the Kaduna State Government on Thursday asked its High Court to
sentence another 50 Shiite members to death for allegedly causing the death of
a soldier.

The government had filed a 5-count charge against the accused before Justice
David Wyom.

It accused them of criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, culpable homicide,
disturbance of public peace and wrongful restrain.

In the petition, Counsel to the government, Mr Bayero Diri said that the
offences are punishable under Sections 97, 221, 102, 106 and 225 of the Penal
Code Law, Laws of Kaduna State 1991.

The government said that the offence was committed between December 12 and 14,
2015 in Zaria.

It alleged that the suspects among other things shot dead one Cpl. Yakubu
Dankaduna of the Nigerian Army "with a gun when he alighted from the convoy to
disperse the IMN members." Section 102 of the penal code prescribes death
sentence for such offence.

The prosecution told the court that they intend to present 39 witnesses.

The plea of the accused persons was not taken as the Judge adjourned sitting
till May 16.

The 50 suspects were among the 265 persons currently in custody, who were
arrested during the Shiites clash with the Army on Dec. 12 and Dec. 14, 2015.

(source: thenewsnigeria.com)


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April 23



IRAN----execution

Iran regime hangs prisoner in southern port city


The mullahs' regime has hanged a prisoner in the port city of Bandar Abbas,
southern Iran.

The 31-year-old prisoner, identified only by the initials H. M., was hanged on
Wednesday, April 20, in Bandar Abbas Central Prison, according to the Iranian
regime's judiciary in Bushehr Province.

The hanging bring to at least 35 the number of people executed in Iran since
the start of last week, while European officials have been paying visits to
Tehran. 3 of those executed were women.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement last week
that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate of
terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."

Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran last Saturday along with
seven EU commissioners for discussions with the regime's officials on trade and
other areas of cooperation.

Her trip was strongly criticized by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI who said: "This trip which takes place in
the midst of mass executions, brutal human rights violations and the regime's
unbridled warmongering in the region tramples on the values upon which the EU
has been founded and which Ms. Mogherini should be defending and propagating."

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

(source: NCR-Iran)






NIGERIA:

Bus driver gets death penalty for stealing N68,000----He said that the convict
and his gang had pretended to be passengers in the commercial vehicles in which
they dispossessed the unsuspecting victims of cash.


An High Court in Makurdi, Benue State has sentenced a a bus driver, Tanko
Inalegwu, who robbed passengers of N68,000, to death by hanging.

In his ruling, Justice Hwande held that the prosecution proved before the court
that the convict conspired with others, now at large to rob their victims of
various sums of money totalling N68,000, on October 10, 2013.

He said that the convict and his gang had pretended to be passengers in the
commercial vehicles in which they dispossessed the unsuspecting victims of cash
at the old Customs House, North Bank, Makurdi - after which they pushed out the
three victims from the moving vehicle.

The Judge stated that contrary to the victim's claim, evidence tendered before
the court showed clearly that the convict was a key player in the robbery.

Report said the convict had confessed to the police that he committed the
offence, but later made a U-turn, claiming that he made the confessional
statement after being tortured by the Police.

Justice Hwande said that the confessional statement provided enough ground for
the verdict of the court and his conviction.

(source: pulse.ng)






SINGAPORE:

Heroin trafficker escapes the gallows----He gets life term after arguing drug
addiction, mental illness impaired 'mental responsibility'


A 30-year-old heroin trafficker, who failed to escape the death sentence in
three previous attempts, yesterday succeeded in getting the High Court to
sentence him to life imprisonment instead.

Justice Choo Han Teck accepted the defence's argument that Jeffery Phua Han
Chuan's ketamine addiction, coupled with a persistent depressive disorder,
impaired his mental responsibility when he smuggled more than 100g of heroin
into Singapore at Woodlands Checkpoint.

Phua was convicted in September 2011 by the same judge and given the death
penalty, which was then mandatory for those convicted of importing more than
15g of heroin. His appeal against the conviction was dismissed in July 2012.

After exhausting the avenues of appeal, Phua filed two criminal motions in a
bid to get his convictions overturned. His applications were dismissed in March
2014 and September last year.

In 2013, law amendments kicked in, giving judges the discretion to sentence
drug couriers to life imprisonment instead of death, if certain conditions are
met.

This gave death row inmates like Phua a chance to be re-sentenced.

Phua, represented by Mr Michael Chia, applied to be re-sentenced on the basis
that he suffered an abnormality of mind that impaired his mental responsibility
for his acts.

The prosecution accepted that Phua was a courier but disagreed that he had
diminished responsibility. A hearing was held to hear psychiatric opinions from
both sides.

Dr Munidasa Winslow, for the defence, and Dr Kenneth Koh, for the prosecution,
both agreed that Phua had a persistent depressive disorder and ketamine
addiction.

Dr Winslow said this "substantially impaired his judgment, impulse control and
decision-making in agreeing to be a courier, without seriously thinking through
the possible consequences of his actions".

Dr Koh disagreed. He said Phua was able to plan and perform complex, organised
actions in committing the offence. Phua also agreed to import the drugs 2 weeks
before the actual offence, so his decision to go ahead cannot be said to have
been made on impulse, he added.

But Justice Choo said, given that Phua was a chronic ketamine abuser, his
decision-making ability and impulse control would be impaired during the 2-week
period. He concluded that Phua's mental illness and ketamine addiction did
impair his mental responsibility for the act.

He said: "I am satisfied, from the facts and medical evidence... that the
applicant was probably incapable of resisting any internal rationality that
might have dissuaded him from committing the offence."

(source: straitstimes.com)






MALAYSIA:

Man to go on trial Aug 1-4 over murder of relative


A 31-year-old local man charged with murdering his 3 year-old relative in
Beaufort will go on trial on Aug 1-4.

High Court Senior Assistant Registrar Herlina Muse fixed the date for Mohd
Saifulrizan Sainan during further case management, Thursday.

Saifulrizan had on Oct 22, 2015 pleaded not guilty to murdering the boy at 7am
on Nov 21, in a stream at Kampung Jempangan in Beaufort. The offence under
Section 302 of the Penal Code carries the death sentence on conviction.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Gan Peng Kung prosecuted while Saifulrizan was
represented by counsel Ram Singh.

Meanwhile, the prosecution in a drug trafficking case involving a 29-year-old
salesman closed its case after calling 5 witnesses.

High Court Judge Datuk Nurchaya directed the defence and the prosecution to
file their submissions on April 25 and May 3 via email respectively and set
June 30 for oral clarification.

Leong Hon Choong, a West Malaysian is accused of trafficking 2,510.4gm of syabu
at 10.30pm on Feb 12, 2015 at the office of the Narcotic Investigation
Department in the Kepayan police headquarters here. He faces the death penalty
if convicted under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act.

DPP Gan appeared for the prosecution while Leong was defended by Ram.

In the Magistrate's Court, 6 men were jailed and fined for taking syabu.

Bakrin Abdul, Rasdi Kandi, Anuar Akub, Marjun Abu, Webster Zaunuddin and Jago
Dangin admitted to committing the offence at separate locations here last
month.

Magistrate Stephanie Sherron Abbie ordered Bakrin and Rasdi to pay a fine of
RM2,000 or 4 months' jail each while the rest were handed 6 months' jail.

Chief Inspector Lim Swee Beng prosecuted.

(source: Daily Express)






INDONESIA:

Indonesia affirms death penalty as a state's sovereignity


The Indonesian government has affirmed that having the death penalty on its
statute is part of the sovereignty of a state, according to a press statement
issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received by ANTARA
here on Friday.

A joint statement regarding the death penalty was issued by the Ambassador of
Indonesia to Austria, Slovenia, and the UN agencies in Vienna, Rachmat Budiman,
after the ratification of the final document of the Special Session of the UN
General Assembly on the Narcotics and Drug issues, in New York, USA.

The ambassador asserted that the death penalty and the mode of its execution is
part of the implementation of criminal justice system decided by competent
authorities of each country.

"There is no international law prohibiting the death penalty and its
implementation. Every country has a sovereign right to determine its own
political, legal, economic and social systems, corresponding to its interests
and conditions," he said.

Besides Indonesia, several like minded states have the same stance on death
penalty as part of the legal system of sovereign states, including China,
Singapore, Yemen, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran and Sudan.

The joint statement is very important to show that there are differences among
countries on death penalty issue.

Drug abuse is a serious problem in many countries. "In view of that, the death
penalty is an important component in the criminal justice system that can be
applied in case of a very serious drug related crime. The execution has to be
in compliance with the principles of law and justice," Rachmat said.

The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem
is one of the main UN forums on narcotics and drugs issues, which was attended
by 193 of the UN member states. The last special session on narcotics and drugs
was held in 1998.

According to the Indonesian Permanent Representative to the UN in New York,
Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, the Special Session is very important for
Indonesia.

The forum can be used by the Indonesian government to deliver information about
and explain to the international community the national policies and
achievements in combating drug abuse.

"The Indonesian government is very serious in addressing drug abuse. We are
protecting our people from narcotics," Ambassador Djani said.(*)

(source: antaranews.com)




MAURITANIA:

RSF urges supreme court to overturn blogger's death sentence


Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Mauritania's supreme court to overturn
the death sentence that was imposed on the blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed
Mkhaitir in December 2014 on a charge of apostasy. The sentence was upheld on
appeal yesterday.

Under Mauritanian law, this 31-year-old non-professional journalist has the
right to request the supreme court's clemency on the grounds of repentance. "We
are dismayed by the Nouadhibou appeal court's decision to confirm this young
blogger's death sentence," said Constance Desloire of RSF's Africa desk.
"Mkhaitir's life must at all costs be spared. We urge the supreme court to take
account of the sincerity of the regret he has been expressing since the day he
was jailed in January 2014."

Article 306 of Mauritania???s criminal code says: "Any Muslim guilty of the
crime of apostasy will be sentenced to death unless he first repents (...) If
he repents before the sentence is carried out, the prosecution will refer the
case to the supreme court with a view to restoration of all his rights."
Mkhaitir has repeatedly expressed regret ever since his arrest in connection
with an article on the Aqlame website in which he criticized the manipulation
of religion by those who want to maintain the caste system. The court said the
article contained "flippant comments about the Prophet" but Mkhaitir has always
denied wanting to attack Islam.

Mkhaitir is the 1st person to be sentenced to death for apostasy in Mauritania
since independence in 1960. An Islamic republic since 1991, Mauritania is
ranked 48th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index.

(source: rsf.org)






TAIWAN:

Taiwan supreme court upholds death sentence for subway slasher


Taiwan's supreme court on Friday upheld the death sentence given to a
university student over a random May 2014 knife attack in a subway car in the
capital Taipei that left 4 people dead and 22 injured.

The denial of Cheng Chieh's 3rd and final appeal draws a line under one of the
most shocking crimes to strike the island's prosperous and generally
non-violent society in years.

Before the attack, Cheng posted a message on his Facebook page saying he
"wanted to do something big." During sentencing by a lower court, he was quoted
as saying that he would not mind receiving a death sentence.

Memories of the case were revived last month with an apparently random knife
attack and decapitation of a 3-year-old girl in front of her mother in Taipei.
A 33-year-old man with a history of drug use and mental illness has been
arrested in that case.

Some social scientists have questioned whether social alienation, joblessness
and a loss of hope in the future were fueling such actions among young men.

Despite a legal push to abolish the death penalty, it continues to receive
strong support among the public. Executions are carried out by a single gunshot
to the head.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Victims' families hail MRT killer death penalty verdict


Families of the victims killed by Cheng Chieh in the Taipei MRT stabbing spree
said justice was done after the Supreme Court returned a final verdict
upholding the death penalty for the convicted murderer Friday.

"The death penalty for Cheng Chieh should have long been finalized," said the
father of Chang Cheng-han, 1 of the 4 victims who died in the shocking attacks.
"Justice has finally been done."

The father said the Supreme Court message will correct the misconception that
killers will not be given the death penalty in Taiwan - a claim made by a man
who has been on trial for allegedly killing a child he randomly came across in
the streets.

The father said if Cheng had been executed sooner, the random killings that
Taiwan has seen since the MRT tragedy would not have occurred.

The Supreme Court, handing down its final verdict condemning the convicted
murderer to death, said Cheng had shown no remorse for the attacks and there is
no indication that he was mentally ill when committing the crime.

Cheng went on a killing spree on a MRT train running on Line 5 in May 2014.
Four passengers were killed and 22 others injured.

The mother of Hsieh Ching-yun, who was also killed in the MRT attacks, said the
Supreme Court "answered the call of the public" by upholding the death penalty
for Cheng.

But she demanded that Cheng be executed within five years. "We have to see it
(death penalty) done. I don't want to go (die) without seeing it done," she
said.

Chiu Mu-sen, whose wife Pan Pi-chu was killed by Cheng, said after learning of
the verdict that "there is still justice in Taiwan."

The Ministry of Justice said it does not have a schedule for Cheng's execution,
in response to speculation that the convicted murderer would soon be executed.

"The Ministry of Justice does not have a timetable for execution," said Deputy
Justice Minister Cheng Ming-tang. "The Ministry of Justice carefully handles
executions."

Currently, there are 43 death-row inmates. But the ministry has been slow in
executing them amid mounting calls for the abolition of death penalty.

But the Supreme Court justices presiding over Cheng's trial said capital
punishment is part of Taiwan's criminal code, and it remains the judges'
responsibility to mete out the death penalty when necessary before it is
abolished.

Cheng defense attorney argued that the procedure of diagnosing Cheng's mental
state was flawed, but the justices said even if there had been a flaw, it would
not have swayed the court's judgment in a case where the defendant clearly knew
what he was doing when committing the murders.

Meanwhile, the Taipei MRT company said it is working to further improve the
security of the metro system.

Yen Pang-chieh, general manager of the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp. (TRTC), told
city councilors during a meeting that more security cameras have been installed
and police patrols have been stepped up on the MRT system since Cheng's killing
spree.

(source: China Post)






UNITED KINGDOM:

Swindon lawyer heads to America to fight for justice on death row


A lawyer from Swindon will head to Florida next month, not for a holiday, but
to work with lawyers fighting for inmates on death row.

Catherine Dunmore, 27, who grew up in Chiseldon, is currently volunteering with
two organisations in London after shifting the focus of her successful legal
career from international arbitration to human rights law.

The former Ridgeway School student will be spending three months in the United
States working on a voluntary basis with an organisation called Amicus.

They provide legal representation for the most vulnerable death row inmates in
the US penal system - she will be based in the Fort Lauderdale area of Florida,
just north of Miami.

"I'm a qualified lawyer but at the moment I'm spending some time switching my
area of focus towards human rights issues," said Catherine.

"This is something I've been keen to do for quite a few years, ever since I was
at secondary school and volunteered with Amnesty International - since then
I've always been against the death penalty.

"I always believed it would be a great experience to be able to go out to
America to make a difference on these cases.

"Obviously there is work that can be done from the UK but in terms of actually
meeting with people and getting to grips with the situation on the ground it
makes all the difference to be able to go out there - I feel now is the right
time to go out and do this."

Florida is 1 of 31 American states to still have the death penalty and as of
January this year 389 people were awaiting execution there - over 40 have legal
appeals pending.

Catherine's work will mainly focus on cases that are at a pre-trial stage
rather than those going through the lengthy appeals process.

She will spend her time preparing legal arguments and meeting with defendants
in prison as well as their families to prepare mitigation evidence in an effort
to avoid the death penalty in the first place.

Catherine added: 'I'm hoping I can draw on my experience and the legal
abilities that I've got.

"Although it is a different legal jurisdiction there are a number of
transferable skills such as meeting with clients and families as well as legal
research which are very similar.

"I also hope to do a Masters in September and this will allow me to be better
informed on a number of the issues involved."

Catherine is self-funding her trip which she estimates will cost around 4,000
pounds once she includes travel, accommodation and living costs.

She has been grateful for the help of friends and family but she hopes that
others who are passionate, as she is, about challenging the death penalty, will
be able to support her efforts.

To get behind Catherine you can visit
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/help-catherine-fight-for-justice-on-death-row

(source: swindonadvertiser.co.uk)





**********

Convenient truths? UK govt lambasts Egypt, Iran over death penalty but
virtually silent on US


Britain's Foreign Office (FCO) has lambasted Bahrain, China, Egypt, Iran and
Saudi Arabia over their draconian use of the death penalty, but has failed to
extend the same level of scathing scrutiny to the United States.

The government department made the criticisms in its annual human rights
report, published Friday.

The study spanned key areas relating to human rights, including
non-discrimination, counter-terrorism, migration and the refugee crisis,
conflict, the United Nations (UN), the international criminal justice system,
torture prevention, the death penalty and countries deemed to be "a priority"
with respect to human rights.

The report highlights grave injustices and human rights abuses concerning the
death penalty, including the execution of teenagers sentenced to death for
supposed criminal offenses they carried out as children. It criticizes Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan and Iran for this practice in particular.

Juveniles on death row

The human rights report also draws attention to the plights of Dawood
al-Marhoon, Ali al-Nimr and Abdullah al-Zaher, all of whom were handed death
sentences as under-age minors for alleged offenses relating to political
protests.

In addition to this, it casts light on the significant rise of executions in
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, warning that the majority of those killed in
Iran had been convicted of drug-related crimes.

Human rights charity Reprieve has previously criticized Western complicity in
these executions, connected to counter-narcotics operations. However, the UK
report fails to draw attention to its own glaring complicity.

Director of Reprieve's death penalty team Maya Foa welcomed the report's
denunciation of what she described as "the dire human rights situation" in
states such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but said the government must
act on its rhetoric.

"These 3 countries have presided over an unprecedented wave of executions this
year - including of non-violent drug offenders, political protesters and those
arrested as children," she said.

"We welcome the FCO's commitment to avoid British involvement in such abuses
through cooperation with these countries' law enforcement bodies. We now need
to see real action and specific targeted interventions to back up these words -
human rights must not be deprioritized in favor of other interests."

Convenient truths? Neither Egypt nor Bahrain were noted in the FCO's 2014
report as states "of concern" where human rights are concerned. However, both
were included in the 2015 report. Reprieve notes, however, the FCO's language
has been softened in this context, flagging "priority countries" rather than
"countries of concern."

While the FCO's report listed Britain's allies Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as
countries whose human rights records require scrutiny, the US did not feature
on the list. A spokesperson for the FCO told RT its opposition to the death
penalty applies to all states, including allies.

While its 2015 human rights report acknowledges that the draconian punishment
was abolished in Nebraska in 2015 - and Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington
State have put in place moratoria - criticism of the US criminal justice
system???s use of the penalty is almost non-existent in the report.

According to Reprieve, there are currently 525 people on death row in the US.
While the group welcomes the fact citizens will no longer be executed in
Nebraska, it is calling for an end to all executions across the US and beyond.

US drone warfare

The Obama administration has also been sharply criticized by human rights
campaigners for its covert drone warfare, which inflicts untold misery and
human suffering in some of the world's most crisis-ridden states.

These drone strikes are shrouded in secrecy, carried out in remote or volatile
regions, and are conducted generally in the absence of judicial oversight
against presumed terrorists. However, little is heard in the West of the
innocent civilians' lives that are shattered in their wake.

As 2015 came to a close, 12 British nationals faced the death penalty in states
across the globe. The FCO states in its report that it unequivocally opposes
the measure and intervenes in an appropriate fashion to stop the execution of
British nationals where possible.

This intervention includes high-level political lobbying and formal
representations on behalf of UK citizens in multiple states, including
Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt and the US. The government body also works
intimately with lawyers hired by UK citizens on death row, and is supported in
this respect by Reprieve and the Death Penalty Project (DPP).

(source: rt.com)




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[Rick Halperin]

april 24



EGYPT:

Egypt military court postpones verdict on 28 Morsi supporters for 3rd time


In February, the court sentenced eight of the 28 defendants to a preliminary
death sentence but did not issue sentences for the remaining 20 defendants

An Egyptian military court postponed on Sunday the issuing of a verdict in the
trial of 28 alleged supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi who were
accused of planning attacks on military and police personnel to 29 May.

In February, the court sentenced 8 of the 28 defendants to death. The court did
not issue sentences for the remaining 20 defendants.

15 of the defendants are detained, while the rest are on the run and being
tried in absentia.

The court referred its initial death penalty verdicts to the Grand Mufti of
Egypt -- the country's leading authority on religious edicts - for a
non-binding consultation as per Egyptian law.

In March, the court postponed issuing a verdict in the case until 3 April
without stating reasons. The verdict was further postponed on 3 April to 24
April.

The court is set to confirm or reverse the death sentences and rule on
1st-degree sentences for the 20 remaining defendants.

The awaited verdicts will be subject to appeal in the military cassation court.

(source: ahramonline.com)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Saudi court approves death sentence for activist


Saudi Arabia's Court of Cassation endorsed Saturday a death sentence handed
down to an activist from the Shia community, 4 months after the execution of a
respected cleric by Riyadh sparked international outrage.

The court approved the sentence handed down to Yusof al-Mosheykhas, a citizen
of the Shia-dominated city of Awwamiyah in the eastern region of Qatif, Naba'
TV reported.

According to the report, Mosheykhas was arrested 2 years ago after he attended
several anti-government protests in his hometown. He was convicted of attempted
terrorist act in an initial trial and was incarcerated in January 2014.

Rights campaigners expressed concern about the imminent execution of
Mosheykhas, saying the activist could be put to death in an unknown location
without prior notice. That has been the case for other Saudis and foreigners
convicted of involvement in terror activities.

Back in January, Saudi Arabia executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a highly respected
Shia cleric and an outspoken critic of Riyadh from Qatif, only to trigger
massive condemnations around the world.

Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, an oil-rich region which includes Qatif and
Awwamiyah, was the scene of clashes between people and police since an uprising
began there in early 2011.

Riyadh has faced criticism by human rights groups and governments in the West
over its imposition of numerous restrictions on freedom of speech and the harsh
way the courts deal with dissent. Notable activists, including Raif Badawi, a
31-year-old blogger who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail
for his writings on the internet, has been behind bars in Saudi Arabia since
2012.

On Friday, the United Nations torture committee called on the Saudi government
to stop physical punishment, including flogging and amputations, carried out
against the convicts in the kingdom while it expressed concern about the abuse
of bloggers, activists and human rights lawyers in prisons.

(source: presstv.ir)






AUSTRALIA:

Australia should do more to stamp out capital punishment


The Bali 9 ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing
squad on the Indonesian island of Nusa Kambangan a year ago next Friday. Even a
year on, it stands as yet another case of barbarism in the cause of political
expediency, lives cut short and the potential for good extinguished for no
reason.

The 9-year legal wrangle that surrounded their conviction and incarceration,
further complicated by the murky behaviour of authorities, not least the
Australian Federal Police, ended with the execution of the pair. Naturally,
they had support from those against the death penalty, but their long residency
on death row garnered such widespread sympathy and support from Australia and
elsewhere that for a while it seemed some good could come from such a
groundswell of opposition.

The Bali 9 pair faced execution along with criminals from the Philippines,
France, Nigeria, Ghana, Indonesia and, potentially, a mentally ill Brazilian.
The 2 Australians' lives were not worth more or less than the fellow condemned
or the thousands executed in Indonesia and other countries each year. But when
the pair were hurriedly taken to Nusa Kambangan, the barbarity of capital
punishment was brutally underscored, hopes for reform were replaced by impotent
outrage. Australia recalled its ambassador Paul Grigson in protest. It was
unprecedented, but he was back in Jakarta by the following June.

Indonesia's justification for killing offenders in the name of deterrence was
exposed as a fraud. To many in the West, the need to punish for punishment's
sake remains an Old Testament throwback to an-eye-for-an-eye. It has no place
in any modern, civilised, democratic nation. Indonesia's culpability in
reviving executions for convicted drug criminals and denying the Australian
pair clemency was no better or worse than the policies of China for killing
political prisoners or indeed so many states in the US for killing murderers.
It is simply wrong.

6 Australians have been executed since 1986 and around the world today there
are some dozen or so in jails, detained for serious offences or charged with
crimes that carry the death penalty. They include Peter Gardiner, the dual
Australia-New Zealand citizen caught with 30 kilograms of methamphetamine. This
week he is awaiting a Chinese court decision on whether or not he is to face a
firing squad.

Generally, Australia could make sure capital punishment is prominent in its
broader discussions about human rights and justice issues with countries to our
north, not least China. Nearly 90 % of the 1634 people Amnesty International
estimates were executed around the world in 2015 occurred in just 3 countries:
Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. However, these figures exclude China, where
numbers are thought to top 1000 but remain a state secret.

There will always be different opinions on the fundamentals of crime and
punishment. Many people favour capital punishment, but we support the
contention that having fewer world citizens exposed to the death penalty
represents a giant step forward for the common good of humanity.

Australia abolished the death penalty in 1973, accepting that the extinguishing
of a human life by the state is repugnant. Clearly, judicial killing can never
equal the score; it is the victory of revenge over redemption. The practical
argument, too, is persuasive. Death is absolute. It leaves no room for error or
doubt, and abuse by unaccountable authoritarian regimes. Information remains
limited but Amnesty International claims 150 US prisoners sent to death row
since 1973 have later been exonerated. Others have been executed despite
serious doubts about their guilt.

By pushing for the abolition of the death sentence everywhere, Australia will
make itself a more credible advocate for Australians anywhere.

(source: Editorial, Sydney Morning Herald)

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

Life after Myuran and Andrew: The legacy of the executed Bali 9----It is a year
since Bali nine members Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed in
Indonesia, but they are not forgotten.MO<

We speak to 2 prisoners inside Bali's Kerobokan jail about the legacy of
executed Australian Myuran Sukumaran.

One of the life-affirming legacies of executed Bali 9 members Myuran Sukumaran
and Andrew Chan can be found on a crowded footpath in Kuta.

On a stool outside a jewellery shop, Billy Surya Adji sits sketching in his
makeshift B Billy gallery, oblivious to the snarl of traffic along Legian Kaja
Street.

His body is dead, but still his soul is here.

Billy met Chan and Sukumaran inside Bali's Kerobokan jail, where he was serving
more than 4 years for possessing crystal meth and marijuana, in 2013.

Sukumaran persuaded him to join drawing classes in the BengKer (workshop), an
oasis of art the man once known as the "ringleader" of the Bali 9 heroin
smugglers had helped establish behind bars.

"When I started focusing on painting, I stopped [taking drugs] completely,
because Myuran hated drug users," Billy says. "He would get so angry he would
throw stuff."

When Billy was clean, he started playing tennis, where he met Chan, who was
involved in the jail's church and sport activities.

"Andrew was a jokester. He would taunt us during tennis, saying 'you will lose,
you will lose, you will lose' ... and then he would end up losing himself."

Billy says he would probably still be using and selling drugs if he hadn't
started painting and playing tennis.

Now, he works as an artist, with commissions coming from passers-by and his
Facebook and Instagram accounts.

"I believe the reason I am clean is first the painting, Myuran's influence and
the tennis."

Just after midnight on April 29, 2015, Chan and Sukumaran were among 8
prisoners tied to a post and shot dead on the penal island of Nusakambangan?,
known as Indonesia's Alcatraz.

Nine years earlier, they had been sentenced to death for their role in a foiled
attempt to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin from Indonesia to Australia.

Chan's widow, Febyanti Herewila?, recalled the men died singing 10,000 Reasons
(Bless the Lord), the same song they had sung at their wedding less than 72
hours earlier.

"They all managed to finish the first verse and the second halfway and then
they took him," she said at Chan's memorial service. "Andrew managed to end it
well."

The men's Indonesian lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, would later describe it as the
darkest moment of his life. "I failed. I lost." he tweeted at 4am.

Todung, Indonesia's most famous human rights lawyer, has been fighting for the
abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia since 1979.

Until the bitter end, he had been hopeful President Joko Widodo would grant
mercy. "My clients changed ... they did not deserve to die," he says.

"I noticed Andrew became a very religious person, preaching, giving sermons in
Kerobokan, and then you see how Myuran did all his paintings, sharing his
knowledge with the other inmates.

"They did not do any drugs. There are other inmates who still do drugs, but not
Andrew, not Myuran, they are clean. That's why I thought they deserved to be
pardoned."

Late in 2015, a draft bill for a new criminal code was submitted to Parliament.

Under the draft, which is yet to be debated, Todung says someone given the
death penalty could have their sentence commuted to life or 20 years if they
could demonstrate they had changed.

"That's the 3rd way, the Indonesian way, in solving this problem," he says.

"[Indonesia] wanted to find a way to answer the criticism from the human rights
and international communities. I think Andrew and Myuran contributed to ...
this whole process. That is the legacy, that is the contribution of Andrew and
Myuran."

The last ghastly days before the executions will be forever etched in my mind.
The anguished wailing of Raji Sukumaran? as she begged the President for her
son's life. Chan's brother, Michael, holding back tears, as he said no family
should ever have to experience this.

Sukumaran entrusted his beloved art room and T-shirt printing business in the
jail to two Iranian prisoners serving life sentences at Kerobokan.

He asked Denise Payne and Tina Bailey, who taught yoga, art and dance classes
at Kerobokan jail, to help the Iranians.

"He told us to remind them that when he was gone his ghost would come back and
haunt them if they didn't make sure the programs continued," Bailey recalls.

Walking back into Kerobokan jail after the executions was incredibly difficult.
The loss of the men is still felt viscerally there.

"The first yoga class was so painful. Everyone was teary-eyed the whole time.
It was such an obvious void," Payne says.

"But even if I didn't want to, it was like Myuran was pushing me: 'Come on
Payne, you made a promise."

The latest T-shirt design from the jail's workshop features a striking image of
Sukumaran releasing doves of peace from a map of Australia.

Ali Reza Safar Khanloo, who was asked to take over the T-shirt printing studio,
is sending the design to Sukumaran's family to commemorate Myuran's birthday in
April.

"I want to show to his family we are here and we are always thinking of you,"
he says.

Ali's relationship with Sukumaran was like that of a father and son.

"When he left, I understand why he was pushing me. Sometimes when I need help
and I am stressed about the work or the guards, I think: 'What would Myuran
do?' Suddenly people come to order a T-shirt and I feel Myuran has sent someone
to me."

Rouhallah Series Abadi also still feels Sukumaran's presence. Rahol, as he is
known, was entrusted with the art room.

"Please help people in here; they need some colour," Sukumaran told him.

"I get goosebumps every morning I walk in here," Rahol says. "His body is dead,
but still his soul is here."

Keeping the rehabilitation programs going inside Kerobokan has not always been
easy.

"Myuran had funding from sources we never knew about," Payne says. "Tina and I
had to figure out what to do. How to organise lunches, how to keep people
motivated to keep going. There was a lot of trial and error, a lot of cash out
of our own pockets."

A generous donation meant Payne was able to buy 20 yoga mats. However, within
months, they had been stolen or commandeered as mattresses in the jail. "We
need new mats always."

But somehow everyone has pulled together. Ali is experimenting with producing
skateboards and bags, as well as T-shirts, in the prison workshop.

Former inmates - including Billy Surya Adji - return to Kerobokan jail to
attend Bailey's art classes.

"I miss Myuran and am committed to keeping his story alive and the story of the
power of art to transform people's lives alive," Bailey says.

"I saw it in him and I see it in others. That is why I keep doing what I do,
believing it will make a difference."

Bailey served communion to Sukumaran and his family on Nusakambangan two days
before he died. The day of the executions, she prepared his last paintings -
still wet to the touch - to be sent back to Australia.

"So, in a way, I was surrounded by Myu that day."

7 months after his death, GQ Magazine named Sukumaran artist of the year. His
mentor, Archibald Prize-winning artist Ben Quilty?, is not yet ready to speak
about his friend and student.

He says he will have more to say next year, when a show of Sukumaran's work
tours Australia. It will open in Sydney, about the 50th anniversary of the
death of Ronald Ryan, the last man legally executed in Australia.

Meanwhile, Febyanti Herewila told Marie Claire magazine she hoped to open a
youth centre on Sabu Island near West Timor in honour of Chan.

It was something the couple, who were both pastors, dreamed of doing together;
holding music classes and providing a place for young people to play sport and
learn.

Julian McMahon was the longest-serving member of Chan and Sukumaran's team of
Australian lawyers, working for the 2 men pro bono for almost a decade.

Death penalty cases have been part of the Melbourne barrister's work for 13
years - he also represented Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen, who
was hung in Singapore in 2005.

He believes Chan and Sukumaran's legacy in Australia has been a calm level of
acceptance at both the public and political level that the death penalty is
unacceptable.

"I think it's been a developing idea basically since the execution of Van
Nguyen, which many people rightly thought was an appalling outcome," McMahon
says.

"The public consciousness was awakened to the reality of executions, which
hadn't really featured in public life for a long time. It was on a slow burn
until the lead-up to the executions of Chan and Sukumaran. Their case led to
such intense analysis, discussion and political input, it is now beyond dispute
that we simply understand as a nation the death penalty is unacceptable."

McMahon is the president of Reprieve Australia, dedicated to eradicating the
death penalty worldwide. Historically, it has sent young legal interns to
assist with death penalty cases in the United States, but it is refocusing its
advocacy to the Asia Pacific region.

The fight against the death penalty is like other long-term human rights
battles, such as slavery or sexual abuse, McMahon says.

The voices opposing the death penalty in Europe and the Americas have never
been as strong. (German Chancellor Angela Merkel tackled the Indonesian
President about the thorny issue during his trip to Europe last week.)

At the same time, Amnesty International reported a 54 % increase in executions
globally in 2015. Indonesia is preparing for a fresh round of executions.

"Simultaneously there are gains and losses," McMahon says.

But he is buoyed by the Australian government's activism.

In September, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the United Nations General
Assembly that Australia would use a seat on the UN's Human Rights Council to
wage a tireless campaign to end the death penalty around the world.

Australia, France and Norway will co-host the Sixth World Congress against the
death penalty in Oslo in June.

"The Australian government has clearly stepped up its focus and willingness to
fight the death penalty," McMahon says.

"If we were sitting having a beer three years ago, would Australia have been
one of the major sponsors of an anti-death penalty conference, with someone as
senior as Philip Ruddock leading the delegation? I wouldn't have said: 'Yeah,
that would happen'."

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)






IRAQ:

Report: Islamic State Executes 250 Women for Refusing Slave Marriage


Kurdish news outlets have reported the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) executed 250
girls and women who refused to become their sex slaves or enter temporary
marriages with terrorists.

"At least 250 girls have so far been executed by IS for refusing to accept the
practice of sexual jihad, and sometimes the families of the girls were also
executed for rejecting to submit to IS's request," announced Said Mamuzini, the
Kurdish Democratic Party spokesman.

The Islamic State has implemented this practice since they took over large
areas of Syria and Iraq for their self-declared caliphate.

In December 2014, Iraq's Ministry of Human Rights claimed that the Islamic
State murdered 150 women because they refused to marry or engage in sexual acts
with the terrorists.

"At least 150 females, including pregnant women, were executed in Fallujah by a
militant named Abu Anas Al-Libi after they refused to accept jihad marriage,"
said the Ministry. "Many families were also forced to migrate from the
province's northern town of Al-Wafa after hundreds of residents received death
threats."

The militants buried the victims in mass graves in the city. The families who
left lost many children after the militants stranded them in the desert.

8 months later, another report from Mosul surfaced that said the Islamic State
killed another 19 women who refused to have sex with terrorists.

"Isis [has] executed 19 women in the city of Mosul during the past 2 days,"
declared Mamuzini. "The penalty decision came on the background of the refusal
to participate in the practice of sexual jihad."

Militants claim they adhere to a very conservative interpretation of Islam, one
that apparently allow them to run brothels and keep sex slaves. They allow
women from the West to perform "sexual jihad" for the terrorists. A 2013 edict
allows this behavior "to boost the morale of fighters." Islamic State issued
its own edict in June after conquering towns in Iraq. Jihadists set up brothels
filled with kidnapped females and placed British women in charge. One Yazidi
sex slave begged the West to bomb the brothel at which she was held to end her
suffering. A video in November showed militants laughing and joking about
buying female Yazidi slaves.

The Islamic State issued a manual that teaches militants how to treat their
female slaves.

"It is permissible to buy, sell, or give as a gift female captives and slaves,
for they are merely property, which can be disposed of," wrote the author.

The author writes that men can use the females as sex slaves only when the
master is the exclusive owner of that slave.

"If she is a virgin," the guide explains, "he [her master] can have intercourse
with her immediately after taking possession of her. However, is [sic] she
isn't, her uterus must be purified [first]..."

It also encourages pedophilia.

"It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn't reached
puberty if she is fit for intercourse."

(source: breitbart.com)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 25



TAIWAN:

Taiwan not about to replace death penalty with life imprisonment: Ma


President Ma Ying-jeou said Monday that although some countries in the world
have replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole, Taiwan
is not thinking of following suit.

The president was responding to a question on the death penalty issue, during a
news conference on the release of the second national report on the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

According to Ma, replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without
possibility of parole has given rise to many problems.

For example, the public might find it hard to accept the idea of the country
providing lifelong support for people convicted of serious crimes, he said,
adding that prison population management can be another problem.

Furthermore, putting criminals in prison for the rest of their lives is no less
harmful to human rights than executing them, Ma said.

Based on these reasons, the Ministry of Justice is not considering replacing
the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole, he added.

He said the government's current policy is to keep the death penalty but use it
judiciously.

Over the past 20 years, Taiwan has abolished all the laws that prescribed the
death sentence as the sole penalty and has been reviewing those laws that
maintain it as an optional penalty, Ma noted.

Judges and prosecutors have also been very cautious in handling cases in which
the death penalty is applicable, he said.

As a result, Ma said, the number of people sentenced to death has dropped to 6
per year on average from a high of 18 per year in the past.

People in Taiwan cannot yet accept the idea of removing the death penalty from
the law books, the president said, adding that abolition of capital punishment
is not yet a global trend either.

Although the United Nations has adopted several resolutions calling on states
that maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium on its use, the
countries that retain capital punishment still account for 60 % of the world's
population, Ma said.

(source: focustaiwan.tw)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan jail 'withheld medical records' which could stop execution of
paralysed man


A Pakistan jail which plans to hang a paralysed man on death row has been
accused of withholding crucial medical documents which could be used to stop
his execution, the Telegraph has learned.

Abdul Basit, who faces the grisly prospect of being hanged in his wheelchair,
was granted a temporary stay of execution in November when the country's
President ordered a full medical examination to determine whether he was too
ill to face the gallows.

"If you can't pardon somebody who's been paralysed because of your jail's
negligence, who is going to be eligible for a pardon?"----Sarah Bilal, Justice
Project Pakistan

The reprieve was granted amid fears that Basit would be decapitated or suffer
prolonged strangulation during his execution, as the prison has no guidelines
on how to hang prisoners who are unable to mount the scaffold.

With his latest stay of execution set to expire on Monday, Basit's legal team
have urgently appealed for access to an MRI scan confirming he has suffered
irreversible damage to his spine, which they claim was caused by botched
treatment for tubercular meningitis infection he contracted in prison in 2010.

The scans could prove that Basit's condition is so severe that he cannot be
executed humanely and would offer him a chance of clemency, his lawyers say.

Prison officials refused to grant them access to the scans, prompting Basit's
lawyers to file contempt of court proceedings against the superintendent of
Faisalabad's Central Jail.

A Lahore judge on Thursday night ordered Faisalabad prison authorities to make
the MRI scan available to Basit's lawyers, but dismissed the contempt claims.

"As his legal counsel we have a right to access medical records of our client,"
said Sarah Bilal, of Justice Project Pakistan, a non-profit law firm.

"The judge directed them to give us the MRI scans. That's where the spine scan
will show what damage has been done to his spine."

"If you can't pardon somebody who's been paralysed because of your jail's
negligence, who is going to be eligible for a pardon?"

Faisalabad prison officials insist they have shared all available documents
with Basit's counsel, but initially said they could not provide copies of the
original MRI scans.

The Pakistani government has not confirmed whether it will extend Basit's
reprieve, meaning a new death warrant could be issued by the Faisalabad
district court as soon as next Monday.

Its plan to execute a paralysed prisoner has been condemned by the United
Nations, which says the procedure is illegal and has demanded that Basit's
death sentence is commuted.

Meanwhile, Basit said in a written message passed to the Telegraph by the legal
charity Reprieve that he is living in fear and hopes the Pakistani president,
Mamnoon Hussain, will show him mercy.

"Before the President halted my execution the 2nd time, I had no hope that I
would live. But the last 2 stays have given me a hint of hope that Mr.
President acknowledges that I am a helpless paralysed man who cannot even stand
on my feet," he wrote.

"I don't know what will happen when my stay expires. I don't know if they will
hang me or let me live."

Basit, a former administrator at a medical college, was convicted in May 2009
of the murder of the uncle of a woman with whom he was allegedly in a
relationship.

He has always maintained his innocence.

Pakistan has seen a surge in executions since the country lifted its moratorium
on the death penalty in response to the Peshawar massacre, in which hundreds of
schoolchildren were gunned down by the Taliban.

Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve's death penalty team, told the Telegraph:
"It's deeply worrying that the Pakistani authorities may now be gearing up to
try and execute Abdul Basit - a paralysed man who once again faces the prospect
of being hanged in his wheelchair.

"Following 4 previous last minute stays, the government has still given no
explanation of how it plans to avoid a horribly botched execution.

"The international community must urgently call on Pakistan's President to halt
this cruel spectacle, and grant Basit's plea for mercy on line with the
Rapporteur's recommendations."

(source: The Telegraph)






INDIA:

HC to begin confirmation hearing in Yug Chandak case from today


After Nagpur Sessions Court awarded double death penalty to Rajesh Daware and
Arvind Singh, the perpetrators involved in kidnapping and diabolical murder of
8 year old Yug Chandak, Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court will hear the
confirmation hearing from April 25. A division bench consisting of Justice
Bhushan Gavai and Justice Swapna Joshi will hear the confirmation and cross
appeals filed by the accused persons.

As per section 366 of the Criminal Procedure Code, confirmation hearing before
the High Court is mandatory in which entire evidence is examined and assessed.
The record sent by Sessions Court was placed before the High Court 3 weeks ago
and registry was directed to prepare the paper book at the earliest and in any
case before April 17. The High Court has already issued notices to both the
convicts Arvind Singh and Rajesh Daware.

Arvind Singh and Rajesh Daware have also filed appeals challenging conviction
by Principal District and Sessions Judge. The appeals will be heard along with
confirmation hearing. The High Court had appointed Adv Rajnish Vyas to defend
Rajesh Daware while Arvind Singh had filed the appeal through his counsel C R
Thakur.

The Sessions Court found Rajesh and Arvind guilty of kidnapping for ransom
under section 364A of the IPC and for murder of the child under section 302 and
awarded a rare double death penalty. The Principal District Judge had also
refused to show any leniency to both accused cited cruel mentality of accused,
grid for the money, rage and no value for human life as compelling reasons for
handing down death penalty to accused duo who hatched a deliberate and
well-planned conspiracy after thoughtful process that led to killing of an
innocent child.

The Sessions Court had also awarded lifer to Rajesh and Arvind along with fine
of Rs. 10,000 each for hatching a criminal conspiracy. Also the two accused
were also sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs. 5,000
after being found guilty of destroying the evidence.

Government Pleader and Public Prosecutor Bharati Dangre will represent the
State while Adv Rajendra Daga will appear for aggrieved Chandak family. C R
Thakur and Rajnish Vyas are representing the appellant-convicts.

(source: The Hitavada)






VIETNAM:

Battling Corruption in Vietnam


Corruption in Vietnam ranges from low-level bribery of traffic police for
questionable violations, known colloquially as 'coffee money', to
headline-grabbing scandals involving banks and government officials. The issue
is a major one for the country, and the central government considers addressing
corruption in Vietnam a top priority.

Vietnam routinely performs poorly in global corruption rankings, coming in
112th out of 168 in Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions
Index. The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), meanwhile warns that
"corrupt practices are widespread in Vietnam," adding that "anyone doing
business in the country is likely to encounter, or hear of, corruption in one
form or another."

Such warnings should come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time in
Vietnam, as the media regularly reports on corruption cases involving
high-level executives misappropriating enormous amounts of money.

For example, in January the Hanoi People's Court sentenced Pham Thanh Tan, the
former general director of the State-owned Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development (Agribank), to 22 years in prison. Lengthy prison sentences were
given to two other bank officials in the case, which caused losses of US$108
million) (VND 2.4 trillion) at an Agribank branch.

These extended sentences are illustrative of the hard line taken by Vietnam's
justice system when corruption is actually punished. Perhaps the most notorious
example of a harsh crackdown came in 2013 when 2 former officials of the
Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), 1 of Vietnam's many money-losing
state-owned enterprises (SOEs), were sentenced to death for their involvement
in a blockbuster case involving international arrests worth $17.3 million (VND
366 billion).

Invoking the death penalty for white-collar crime may seem heinous to
outsiders, but many Vietnamese lawmakers approve of the practice. Last year the
government announced a plan which would allow defendants in serious corruption
cases to avoid the death penalty if they return half of the money or property
they gained through their offenses.

Members of the National Assembly (NA) objected to the move, arguing that it
would hinder justice while being unfair to poorer people who are put to death
for offenses related to drugs. It remains to be seen whether the proposal will
be approved or not.

Vietnam's Anti-Corruption Efforts

In Q1 of this year the Government Inspectorate conducted 1,553 administrative
inspections and 33,927 specialised inspections nationwide, uncovering economic
law violations worth $1.04 billion (VND 23.3 trillion) and involving nearly
2,000 hectares of land. The government body also asked to reclaim $33 million
(VND 732 billion) for the State budget and 335.6 hectares of land, while also
collecting fines worth $29 million (VND 643 billion).

Oddly, amidst these massive figures, only four corruption cases involving six
people totalling $139,500 (VND 3.1 billion) were actually announced. The
Inspectorate pledged to step up surprise inspections in Q2 in order to detect
violations of any kind.

Tackling the problem at a grass roots level the Vietnam government and the
World Bank have been involved in the Vietnam Anti-Corruption Initiative (VACI)
for more than 6 years. The programme raises public awareness of anti-corruption
laws while also educating people on their important role in detecting and
reporting corruption.

The Vietnam Anti-Corruption Initiative (VACI) implemented by the Vietnam
government with the support of the World Bank promotes transparency,
accountability and integrity, with the goal of reduce corruption in Vietnam.

While such government initiatives are important, the struggle to eradicate
corruption in Vietnam will ultimately come down to the people of Vietnam.
Currently it is accepted that most bureaucratic procedures will involve some
sort of bribe or other form of 'greasing squeaky wheels'.

Driver's licenses and other official forms and documents can be bought, which
has its conveniences, but is detrimental to the development of the country. The
tide will only truly turn once everyday people start saying "no" to officials
who expect money-filled envelopes before they go about doing their job.

(source: aecnewstoday.com)



NIGERIA:

Arisekola Proposes Capital Punishment For Drug Traffickers


The Federal Government has been urged to introduce capital punishment as
penalty for drug trafficking in the country.

This, according to its proponent and Chairman, Association of Online
Practitioners, Wole Arisekola, will serve as a deterrent to drug traffickers in
the country.

Speaking yesterday in Ibadan on the increasing rate of drug trafficking in the
country, Arisekola disclosed that he was moved to propose death penalty for
drug offenders due to the harms heroine, cocaine and other prohibited drugs do
to mankind.

"The other reason for this proposal is the increasing number of Nigerians that
are being held overseas for drug offenses. Some of them are even executed in
the process', he said.

While speaking further, he noted that "many Nigerians are being executed in
Malasia and other Asian countries while several of them are being jailed in
Mexico, Colombia and other parts of the world."

"I am of the view that the introduction of death penalty will deter Nigerians
from further involvement in this crime".

Arisekola, who is also the publisher of Street Journal magazine, an online
publication, recalled that "General Muhammadu Buhari, as Head of State in 1994
introduced this same measure and it drastically reduced the rate of drug
trafficking among Nigerians."

"Now, as a civilian President, it will be necessary that he works with members
of the National Assembly to ensure this law is in place."

He added further that the present efforts of government to market Nigeria
abroad will be of little effect as long as Nigerians are still being held on a
daily basis for drug offenses across the world.

(source: The Street Journal)






UNITED KINGDOM:

Britain Has Downgraded Its Global Campaign To Abolish The Death Penalty----The
Foreign Office funds human rights projects around the world, but documents seen
by BuzzFeed News suggest the Conservatives are less keen to pay for campaigns
against capital punishment in countries such as China.


The British government has downgraded the global abolition of the death penalty
on the list of priorities for its international human rights fund, BuzzFeed
News can reveal, following a change in focus after the Conservative election
victory that opponents say is a sop to nations such as China and Saudi Arabia.

The abolition of the death penalty was the top objective in 2014-15 of the
Foreign Office's Human Rights and Democracy Programme, a fund that awards
millions of pounds a year to organisations in other countries in order to
"promote and protect" human rights.

However, after the Conservatives won an outright majority at the 2015 general
election, officials changed the fund's priorities "in line with manifesto
commitments".

These changes saw abolition of the death penalty reduced from being the fund's
top objective to a passing reference in the final bullet point, according to
documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Abolition of the death penalty is now hidden in a subsection under the
jargon-heavy objective of introducing a global "human rights risk-management
approach to security and justice interventions".

The Liberal Democrats said the priorities were changed because the government
wants nothing to "come between potential trade with countries like China and
Saudi Arabia, who happen to be ardent proponents of the death penalty".

The UK has made a strong pitch to the Chinese government for investment in
major infrastructure projects such as the Hinckley Point nuclear power plant
and the High Speed 2 railway line, welcoming the Chinese president on a state
visit.

The government has also been keen to protect its relationship with Saudi
Arabia, which it considers to be a key ally in the Middle East especially in
terms of sharing intelligence on terrorism.

The UK's change of priorities coincides with executions hitting a 25-year high
worldwide in 2015, according to research by Amnesty International. China and
Saudi Arabia, along with Iran and Pakistan, were identified as the most
prolific users of capital punishment.

As the use of the death penalty is considered to be a state secret in China,
there are no precise figures on how many people are executed. However, Amnesty
said the country put more than 1,600 people to death last year.

Saudi Arabia executed at least 158 people in 2015, according to Amnesty - a 75%
jump from the previous year and the highest number recorded for the kingdom
since 1995.

During the coalition government years between 2011 and 2015 the Foreign Office
backed 42 different campaigns fighting for the abolition of the death penalty
around the world. This included projects specifically targeted at Iran, China,
and Saudi Arabia.

Foreign Office documents from this era describe the effort to combat the death
penalty as a major diplomatic focus, especially in China where the British
government funded 8 different campaigns to abolish the death penalty during
that 4-year period.

However, the Human Rights and Democracy Programme's commitments for 2015-16
show the Foreign Office currently has no specific funding for projects to
abolish the death penalty in China, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.

Instead, it is funding general global campaigns against the death penalty, plus
a handful of specific projects in Botswana, Honduras, Guatemala, Japan, and the
US.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Tom Brake accused the government
and the foreign secretary of changing focus to encourage trade with countries
such as China and Saudi Arabia.

"Abolition of the death penalty is one of the cornerstones of liberal values,
and as arguably the most flagrant violation of human rights, should be at the
core of our government's international human rights campaign," he told BuzzFeed
News.

"It is clear that in his shameful mission to downgrade human rights in British
foreign policy, Philip Hammond is abandoning the fight against the death
penalty."

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "Our work to abolish the death penalty
around the world has a prominent place in the strategy for the Magna Carta Fund
for Human Rights and Democracy as it did under its earlier name (Human Rights
and Democracy Programme). The FCO is entirely committed to promoting abolition
of the death penalty around the world, including in China - where it continues
to be a major focus for our project work and advocacy."

(source: buzzfeed.com)


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April 25



IRAN----executions

3 Prisoners Hanged in Northern Iran


According to a report by the press department of the Judiciary in Gilan, 3
prisoners were hanged at Lakan Rasht Prison on Saturday April 16.

2 of the prisoners, identified as D.A (51 years old) and F.V. (31 years old),
were reportedly executed on murder charges and the other, identified as A.M.
(29 years old), reportedly on drug charges.

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

Prisoner Hanged in Southern Iran


A prisoner was reportedly hanged at Bandar Abbas's central prison on murder
charges.

According to a report by the Judiciary in Hormozgan, a prisoner, identified as
H.M. (31 years old), was hanged on murder charges on the morning of Wednesday
April 20.

(source for both: Iran Human Rights)

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

Call to save 10 prisoners about to be executed


The Iranian Resistance calls on international human rights organizations to
take urgent action to save the lives of 10 prisoners transferred to solitary
confinement in preparation for their antihuman execution in prisons in Karaj
(Ghezel-Hessar) and Zahedan.

On April 24, the regime's henchmen transferred 7 prisoners on death row to
solitary confinement in Ghezel-Hessar prison in preparation for their
execution.

Three other prisoners on death row in Zahedan's central prison were transferred
to solitary confinement one more time. Transfer of prisoners to the quarantined
ward, special to the prisoners about to be executed, or taking them to the
hanging poles to see the execution of other prisoners, are ordinary methods
employed to pressure and psychologically torture prisoners in the prisons of
the velayat-e faqih regime.

On April 18, Mullah Sadeq Larijani, head of the regime's judiciary, defended
the death sentence by saying: "By the laws of the Islamic Republic, we don't
have execution for the sake of killing people; rather, this is Qisas which is a
sort of right." Mullah Rouhani, the so-called moderate President of this
regime, has similarly described death sentences as "divine command" and "laws
of a parliament that belong to the people."

The wave of executions, especially of young people, demonstrates the regime's
fear of popular discontent and increasing protests by the disgruntled Iranian
people and in particular millions of youths who are tired of poverty,
corruption, addiction, unemployment and other social problems, which are the
product of the mullahs' rule, and demand the overthrow of the religious fascism
ruling Iran.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)






PAKISTAN:

Death-row paraplegic in Pakistan pleads for mercy as stay of execution expires


A severely disabled prisoner on Pakistan's death row has called on the
country's President to spare his life, as a stay of execution granted to him in
January expired.

Abdul Basit, who is paralyzed from the waist down, has had his execution halted
at the last minute 3 separate times in the past year, after his lawyers raised
concerns that his execution could be illegal. Pakistan's Supreme Court has said
Basit's execution must comply with the country's Prison Rules, which set
Pakistan's execution procedure - however, the rules contain no provisions for
the hanging of prisoners in wheelchairs.

The Pakistani government has said it is carrying out an 'inquiry' into Basit's
medical condition, but has sought to block his lawyers from accessing the
results of its tests on him. This weekend, the most recent stay of execution
granted to Basit, in January this year, was due to expire.

In comments to the Telegraph that were published today, Basit said that he
still hoped that the President of Pakistan, Mamnoon Hussain, would grant a
petition for mercy submitted by his lawyers. He said: "The last 2 stays [of
execution] have given me a hint of hope that Mr. President acknowledges that I
am a helpless paralyzed man who cannot even stand on my feet. I don't know what
will happen when my stay expires. I don't know if they will hang me or let me
live."

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment, Juan Mendez, has said that Basit's execution would be
illegal under international law, and has called on Pakistan to permanently
commute Basit's death sentence in line with the petition for mercy submitted to
the country's President.

Pakistan is thought to have the largest death row in the world, at over 8,000
people. The government resumed executions in December 2014, and has claimed to
be executing only 'terrorists.' However, an investigation this year by
international human rights organization Reprieve and the Justice Project
Pakistan found that, of 351 prisoners executed since 2014, only 1 in 10
involved people who could be linked to militancy.

Commenting, Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said:

"It's deeply worrying that the Pakistani authorities may now be gearing up to
try and execute Abdul Basit - a paralyzed man who once again faces the prospect
of being hanged in his wheelchair. Following three previous last minute stays,
the government has still given no explanation of how it plans to avoid a
horribly botched execution. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has confirmed
that Abdul Basit's death sentence is illegal and should be commuted. The
international community must urgently call on Pakistan's President to halt this
cruel spectacle, and grant Basit's plea for mercy."

(source: reprieve.org.uk)






UNITED KINGDOM:

Life and Death Row: Love Triangle - your new true crime TV obsession----Like
Making a Murderer for the time-starved telly addict, BBC3's novel new
documentary series about death-row inmate Emilia Carr drops in daily bite-size
episodes with a guaranteed cliffhanger every time


It's fitting that Life and Death Row is on BBC3, the network given its own
death penalty on 15 February 2016 when it became an online-only channel. But,
like an inmate marked for execution, BBC3 has found ways of continuing its
appeal. This week's new series of the award-winning court-case documentary has
been reworked for the digital crowd.

The first 3 series of Life and Death Row were documentaries built to fit the
hour-long slots that have been the basic unit of television for most of its
history. But the 4th instalment, Love Triangle, has been divided into 8
10-minute episodes, which will be available online at 11am and 4pm every day
until Thursday.

This is a radical decision, as 2 US legal series that have clearly influenced
this show - Serial and Making a Murderer - stuck to traditional half-hour or
hour-long chunks, even though they were made for WBEZ radio and Netflix
respectively.

Yet the short segments prove very effective. As in all real-life crime stories,
the audience's suspicions and sympathies swing, but the bite-size chunks
guarantee frequent cliffhangers, as if viewers are jurors at a trial conducted
by a weak-bladdered judge who keeps taking adjournments at especially tense
moments.

We gradually piece together the true-life story of Emilia Carr, sentenced by a
Florida jury to death by lethal injection for the 1st-degree murder and
kidnapping of Heather Strong, with whom she competed for the romantic
attentions of Joshua Fulgham, who is serving 2 life terms for the abduction and
killing of Strong.

Some viewers will presumably stockpile episodes and watch in one block at the
end of the week. But encouragement to take a bite twice daily is provided by
the dropping online, alongside episodes, of supporting material that includes
witness statements and police interviews.

An obvious risk of the flourishing genre in which trials are reinvestigated by
documentary is to give the impression that everyone in US penitentiary is
innocent. In this case, as in the Steven Avery proceedings in Making a
Murderer, the concern may be more over the purity of the process (both involve
confessions secured without legal counsel present) than the probity of the
suspects. The conviction of Carr also raises interesting questions about
whether women and especially those with young children (Carr gave birth to her
4th child in jail) should be treated differently from men with regard to
imprisonment or execution.

For UK viewers, another discussion rumbling under Life and Death Row is whether
the British legal system should be more hospitable to film-makers. The
interviews here with Carr, lounging in her orange prison-issue jumpsuit, would
not be possible with a British convict, and the easy availability of suspect
and witness videos, plus courtroom footage, is the reason the murder doc is a
US genre.

With discussions currently taking place over the extent to which cameras should
be admitted to British courts, viewers of Life and Death Row will reflect
(especially if they have also seen Making a Murderer) on whether such TV
projects usefully subject the judiciary to scrutiny or whether, as some lawyers
argue, they risk turning the public into a baying court of appeal that has not
heard all of the evidence.

For me, Love Triangle sensitively balances the protestations of the convicted
with the claims of the victim, who cannot be interviewed. One of the detectives
talks about the importance of "making Heather a person", and, by doing so
through interviews with relatives, the programme avoids succumbing to the
appeal-lawyer fever that can overtake such shows. The new format also makes a
strong case for the post-execution potency of traditional networks that migrate
online. Whether you find that encouraging or worrying may depend on your age.

(source: Mark Lawson, The Guardian)






SRI LANKA:

Best alternative to death penalty


I write to canvass support for the Death Penalty to be reintroduced as a
deterrent, considering the horrific crimes being committed almost on a daily
basis in our country today. The response to an article I wrote recently has
been enormous, in fact quite a few have made a suggestion which I thought I
should share with the reading public. When a murderer is convicted and
sentenced to death, if that penalty is not being carried out, then the murderer
should be placed in 'solitary confinement' for the rest of his life.

That will be an appropriate punishment. There appears to be a reluctance to put
an end to the life of the murderers even though they have been sentenced to
death. Yes solitary confinement for life would indeed be a form of punishment
better than merely sentencing them to life imprisonment.

Little Seya and Vidya

When I was Chairman of the Prisons Inspection Board, I realised that most
criminals did not regret the crimes they had committed. They lived happily in
prison. They should also be whipped in public. That is the most appropriate
punishment for these monsters, such as the man who took the life of that child,
Seya, and the man who took the life of that girl, Vidya.

Do these criminals deserve to live after the crime of taking the lives of
little Seya and Vidya Just imagine the fear and pain that Seya and Vidya would
have suffered at the hands of these despicable monsters. How if they were
children of any of ours Would this not have haunted us all our lives Just
imagine the pain that their parents would be going through.

No, these monsters have no right to live. They must be put to death or if the
government does not wish to carry out death penalty, they must be whipped in
public and sentenced to solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.

In reference to carrying out the death penalty, if the President feels delicate
to sign the final order to carry out the death sentence, then he could refer it
to a bench of three SC Judges to examine the record of the case and make the
order to carry out the sentence. There are many of us citizens prepared to
volunteer to see that the execution is carried out. If hanging be considered
gruesome then let us introduce the fatal injection, as is the system in some
States of the US.

As stated earlier, I was for some years chairman of a committee which inspected
prisons. I have met many who had been sentenced to death for premeditated
murder, including a man who had been sentenced to death for the murder of that
great humanist Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, (yes they live happily in prison). When
I asked the man found guilty of Neelan's murder as to whether he regretted the
horrible crime he had committed, he laughed. I have no regret that I had the
monster beaten up. Yes I had the monster given a beating. Unfortunately I could
not have had him hanged.

Arms Bazaars

I note that countries which have become 'civilized and enlightened' after the
World War II, and organization in the West, have called upon us to do away with
the death penalty, they have conveniently forgotten the crimes they were a
party to even in recent years in Vietnam and Laos and the fact that they did
not stop the mass murders in Bosnia and in many other places and that it is
their arms that is killing thousands in the Middle East. Their Arms Bazaars
never had it so good.

We, for our protection, must retain the death penalty for premeditated heinous
murder and perhaps also consider enforcing the death penalty for drug barons
who are finishing off our youth to make their money and to live happily.
Countries that retain the death penalty know what a deterrent it has been and
of how life has been made safe for law abiding citizens. The government owes
this to us, we must hang them or put them to death by other means, all
pre-meditated murderers and other criminals who have committed horrendous
crimes or, at the very least, make them suffer in solitary confinement for the
rest of their lives.

(source: K Godage, Daily Times)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 26



MAURITANIA:

UN rights office deplores death sentence against Mauritanian blogger


The United Nations human rights office today deplored the confirmation of the
death sentence for apostasy against a Mauritanian blogger, Mohammad Ould
M'Kaitir, by the appellate court on 21 April.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR),
Mr. Ould M'Kaitir was convicted in the first instance by the criminal court in
Nouadhibou in December 2014 for an article he had published online. He had
expressed repentance on several occasions since, including during the appeals
hearing, OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville told the regular bi-weekly news
briefing Geneva.

"We should like to stress that under the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, to which Mauritania became a State party in 2004, the death
penalty, if not abolished, can only be applied for the most serious crimes,"
the spokesperson said.

"We hope that the Supreme Court, which has now been seized with the case, will
overturn the death sentence against Mr. Ould M'Kaitir," he added.

(source: UN News Centre)






TAIWAN

Taiwan 'not thinking of' putting end to death penalty, Ma says


President Ma Ying-jeou said Monday that although some countries in the world
have replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole, Taiwan
is not thinking of following suit.

The president was responding to a question on the death penalty issue, during a
news conference on the release of the 2nd national report on the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

According to Ma, replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without
possibility of parole has given rise to many problems.

For example, the public might find it hard to accept the idea of the country
providing lifelong support for people convicted of serious crimes, he said,
adding that prison population management can be another problem.

Furthermore, putting criminals in prison for the rest of their lives is no less
harmful to human rights than executing them, Ma said.

Based on these reasons, the Ministry of Justice is not considering replacing
the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole, he added.

He said the government's current policy is to keep the death penalty but use it
judiciously.

Over the past 20 years, Taiwan has abolished all the laws that prescribed the
death sentence as the sole penalty and has been reviewing those laws that
maintain it as an optional penalty, Ma noted.

Judges and prosecutors have also been very cautious in handling cases in which
the death penalty is applicable, he said.

As a result, Ma said, the number of people sentenced to death has dropped to
six per year on average from a high of 18 per year in the past.

People in Taiwan cannot yet accept the idea of removing the death penalty from
the law books, the president said, adding that abolition of capital punishment
is not yet a global trend either.

Although the United Nations has adopted several resolutions calling on states
that maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium on its use, the
countries that retain capital punishment still account for 60 % of the world's
population, Ma said.

(source: China Post)






SRI LANKA:

Lankan President commutes death sentences of 83 inmates


Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena has decided to commute the death
sentences of 83 prisoners who are either on death row or serving life.
imprisonments.

President Sirisena has taken the decision to spare the lives of the prisoners
based on the recommendations made by a committee appointed following a request
by the joint committee of the Ministries of Law and Order and Prisons Reforms
and Justice to review the death sentences, reports Lanka Page.

The Commissioner General of Prisons Nishan Danasinghe said they expect more
death row inmates to receive the same concession in future.

Although Sri Lankan courts give death penalty in serious crimes such as murder,
rape and drug trafficking, no executions have been carried out since 1976.

All death penalty cases have been commuted to life in prison.

Sri Lanka last year decided to vote in favor of a UN resolution for moratorium
on death penalty.

(source: Business Standard)






PHILIPPINES:

Philippines Presidential Frontrunner Says He'd Kill His Drug-Using
Child----Admits he probably agrees with people who call him a killer.


Voters in the Philippines are choosing a new president in a couple of weeks and
Rodrigo Duterte, mayor of Davao, has opened up a 12 point lead over Sen. Grace
Poe.

Duterte has made international headlines a number of times over some of the
outlandish things he's said - most recently that he felt he should have been
allowed to rape a woman who was gangraped during a prison riot first, since he
was the mayor of the town where it happened and she was good-looking.

Despite his reputation for speaking before he thinks, Duterte has bristled at
comparisons to Donald Trump. "Donald Trump is a bigot, I am not," Duterte
explained.

The Philippines' presidential frontrunner is at it again, insisting he would
murder his own children if they did drugs. The issue came up in the last debate
before the election, with Duterte vowing to be a harsh president. "They say I
am a killer," Duterte, who as mayor of Davao has seen a dramatic rise in
vigilante death squads in his city. "Maybe I am."

When he was asked what he would do if he caught one of his children doing
drugs, he told the moderator he'd kill them. The Philippines is one of several
Southeast Asian countries where certain drug crimes carry the death penalty. In
the island nation, possession of as little as .3 ounces of heroin, cocaine, and
other narcotics, or 17 ounces of marijuana, is punishable by death.

Similar suggestions have been made for the United States. Most recently, Maine
Gov. Paul LePage (R), proposed beheadings for drug traffickers caught in his
state.

(source: reason.com)



NORTH KOREA:

Pyongyang imposes death penalty for dealers in drugs and S. Korean videos


North Korea is executing people who distribute illegal drugs and South Korean
videos, says the Korea Institute for National Unification.

The institute published "North Korean Human Rights Report 2016" on Monday after
conducting in-depth interviews with 186 North Korean defectors who came to
South Korea from the end of 2014 to last year.

According to the report, three North Koreans including a Hyesan University of
Agriculture and Forestry student were shot dead in Hyesan, Yanggang Province in
2013 because they distributed drugs and South Korean videos.

2 men were also executed at Hyesan airport in 2014 after being charged with
smuggling drugs and watching South Korean dramas. The defectors said 11 people
had been sentenced to death for the same offences since 2011.

North Koreans did not face the death penalty just for distributing South Korean
TV programs. However, they were sentenced to death when police caught them
dealing in or buying illegal drugs as well as the videos.

The institute said illegal drugs were widely distributed in North Korea.
Because of the growing number of cases involving drug dealing and distribution
of South Korean videos, North Korean authorities had recently launched a
crackdown and introduced severe punishment.

(source: Korea Times)






INDIA:

Yug Chandak final hearing: Prosecution cites 3 key witnesses on 1st day


The final hearing of Yug Chandak murder case began on Monday with prosecution
strongly asking for maintaining death penalty for both perpetrators - prime
accused Rajesh Dhanalal Daware (19) and Arvind Abhilash Singh (23). The killer
duo was present during the hearing in afternoon amid tight security with
gun-wielding cops keeping a close watch on them to prevent any untoward
activity. Yug's father Dr Mukesh Chandak and a couple of his relatives also
attended the hearing.

Both convicts were awarded a rare double death penalty on February 4 by Nagpur
sessions court for diabolical murder of 8-year-old on September 1, 2014, that
sparked off huge outrage and protests in the city.

Government pleader Bharti Dangre started the proceedings while citing
testimonies of three key witnesses and the 'last seen theory'. She was assisted
by additional public prosecutor Jyoti Vajani and Chandak family's counsel
Rajendra Daga. She also cited ransom calls made by accused to deceased's
father, Dr Mukesh Chandak, on the same day that Yug was kidnapped. The 1st call
was made for Rs10 crore while 2nd one was for Rs5 crore and both were made from
public telephone booths.

She informed that Dr Chandak immediately lodged the FIR after which police
machinery was set into motion. Explaining 'last seen theory' she named three
witness who last saw the child with killers. The first one was watchman of Guru
Vandan Apartments, where Chandaks reside, who saw Singh carrying Yug with him
on a motorcycle. Another witness Biharilal Chhabria, staying in same
apartments, also saw the second accused with the child. The 3rd witness Ranjan
Tiwari, a nearby shopkeeper, saw the eight-year-old going with both accused
from his shop.

A division bench of Justices Bhushan Gavai and Swapna Joshi then adjourned the
hearing till Tuesday. The hearings would continue on a day-to-day basis till
arguments from both sides are over. It was 2nd diabolic killing in the city
within 3 years after another 8-year-old child Kush Katariya was similarly
killed by Ayush Naresh Pugalia on October 11, 2011, for extracting Rs2 crore
ransom from his parents. He was awarded a rare double lifer by the court, which
was enhanced to triple lifer by the Nagpur bench.

Govt appoints Vajani to assist prosecution

State's Law and Judiciary Department has appointed additional public prosecutor
Jyoti Vajani, to assist the prosecution in the confirmation case of death
penalty to Yug Chandak's perpetrators in Nagpur bench. A March 31 letter by
under secretary SG Deshmukh requested her to join the public prosecutor during
the arguments. Vajani had pleaded for the prosecution while arguing the case in
sessions court that awarded capital punishment to the accused duo earlier. In
the past, she had successfully pleaded for prosecution in many such cases in
which the accused were sentenced to gallows.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Release of the NLU Delhi Death Penalty India Report on 6th May 2016


The Centre on the Death Penalty at National Law University, Delhi announces the
release of the 'Death Penalty India Report' on 6th May 2016.

Based on interviews with all prisoners on death row and their families carried
on from June 2013 to January 2015, the Report documents the socio-economic
profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India and provides an in-depth
understanding of their interaction with the criminal justice system.

The release of the 'Death Penalty India Report' shall be at the Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library (Teen Murti Bhavan Auditorium) on 6th May 2016 at 5.30 pm.

Welcome Address would be by Professor (Dr.) Ranbir Singh, Vice Chancellor,
National Law University, Delhi followed by the presentation of the Report by
the Centre itself.

There shall be a Panel Discussion amongst Hon'ble Mr. Justice Madan B. Lokur,
Judge, Supreme Court of India; Ms. Nitya Ramakrishnan, Advocate, Supreme Court
of India and Dr. Anup Surendranath, Director, Centre on the Death Penalty.

The whole event shall be moderated by Mr. Omair Ahmad, Books Editor, The Wire
and concluded by Remarks from Professor (Dr.) GS Bajpai, Registrar, National
Law University, Delhi.

The Death Penalty Research Project has been carried out by National Law
University, Delhi in collaboration with the National Legal Services Authority
(NALSA), and was approved by Honourable Justice Sathasivam in his capacity as
the Executive Chairman of NALSA.

(source: livelaw.in)

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

Kerala: People's manifesto calls to abolish death penalty


The people's manifesto, a draft released by an activist group in Kozhikode,
scrutinises the current development strategies followed by the state
administration and proposes a sustainable model to uplift the marginalised
people in the state. The manifesto has been released as part of 'Occupy Kerala'
campaign, a movement against corporate-model development and anti-environmental
activities in the name of development.

The draft has covered areas like health, energy, trade and labour. It stresses
agriculture-based development and says that growth should be based on
sustainable and participatory democracy. It also proposes to abolish the death
penalty in India. "Death penalty has been eliminated in about 150 countries but
there was no increase in the crime rate there. Kerala has to stand for
abolishing death penalty as a progressive state," the document says.

Another take is to form a transgender justice board to address the problems of
transgender minorities. "Kerala is the 1st state that unveiled a transgender
policy but the attitude of most people remains unchanged and this campaign will
promote the rights of transgenders," the manifesto says.

Dr. Asad, one of the pioneers of the campaign, says that they intend to
showcase all the atrocities happening under the label of development. "We aim
to address all the basic issues that an administration has to follow. Dalits
are the victims of development and they are the most neglected section in
society. We have to hold them with us rather than ignore them as a forsaken
community," he says. A 2-day camp and discussions took place as part of the
campaign and the manifesto was drafted thereafter.

(source: Deccan Chronicle)






IRAN----executions

2 Prisoners Executed


According to recent reports, a prisoner was hanged on Sunday April 24 at Sari
Prison on murder charges and a prisoner was hanged on Thursday April 21 at
Zahedan's Central Prison on drug charges.

The press department of the Judiciary in Mazandaran has identified the prisoner
from Sari as H.H., 27 years old, executed on murder charges.

According to a report by the Campaign of Baluch Activists, the prisoner from
Zahedan is Javad Sanji, executed on drug charges. Iranian official sources,
including state run media and the Judiciary, have been silent about Javad
Sanji's execution.

(source: Iran Human Rights)

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

Dowlat Nowrouzi: Execution rate rising in Iran under Rouhani


Dowlat Nowrouzi, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of
Iran in the United Kingdom, says the rate of executions in Iran are rising
during Hassan Rouhani's presidency.

In an interview with ncr-iran.org on Tuesday, Ms. Nowrouzi said that recent
trips by European officials to Iran have not led to an improvement of the human
rights situation by the mullahs' regime.

Earlier this month while the head of European Union diplomacy Ms. Federica
Mogherini visited Tehran, 10 people, including 2 women, were executed, Ms.
Nowrouzi pointed out.

"The recent trips not only did not help the terrible human rights situation in
Iran; they only aggravated it," she said.

She added that according to the United Nations the execution rate in Iran hit a
record last year.

"In reality and based on the reports by the UN Special Rapporteur on human
rights in Iran only last year 966 people had been executed in Iran, while we
know that the real figure is much higher," Ms. Nowrouzi said.

"In the aftermath of the nuclear deal the human rights situation has not
improved for the better; rather, it is getting much worse."

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."

Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with 7 EU
commissioners for discussions with the regime???s officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.

Her trip was strongly criticized by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI who said: "This trip which takes place in
the midst of mass executions, brutal human rights violations and the regime's
unbridled warmongering in the region tramples on the values upon which the EU
has been founded and which Ms. Mogherini should be defending and propagating."

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

(source: Iran Human Rights)



VIETNAM:

Thai woman, 3 Vietnamese sentenced to death for drug trafficking


A court in Hanoi sentenced 3 Vietnamese and a Thai woman to death on Monday for
drug trafficking.

Investigation found Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang, 53, from Ho Chi Minh City, learned
about the illegal trade in late 2011 and started hiring several people to help
her transport drugs across regional borders.

Police in Hanoi, Quang Ninh Province and HCMC busted the ring in October 2012,
seizing 24 kilograms of heroin and more than 2 kilograms of methamphetamine.

They arrested Trang and 3 of her smugglers Le Xuan Phu, Phan Thi Lien, and
Pornpirom Upapong from Thailand, local media reported.

The members told police Trang was the mastermind and hired them to transport
drugs across regional countries including China, Cambodia, Nigeria, Malaysia,
Thailand and the Philippines.

Police said the gang also hired some Africans who used money to lure poor
Vietnamese women, who had little knowledge about drug laws, into the illegal
business.

They are still looking for these suspects.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. The production or sale of
100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is punishable by
death.

Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or
more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine also face the death penalty.

(source: Thanh Nien News)






PAKISTAN:

Fears that wheelchair-bound prisoner on death row will have a 'horribly botched
execution'


A paralysed prisoner on Pakistan's death row has called on the country's
President to spare his life, as a stay of execution granted to him in January
expired on the weekend.

Abdul Basit, 44, who has no movement from the waist down, has had his execution
halted at the last minute 3 separate times in the past year, after his lawyers
raised concerns that his execution could be illegal (as the country's prison
rules have no provisions for the hanging of prisoners in wheelchairs).

According to the country's law, a prisoner sentenced to death should be able to
"reach the execution point on his own feet".

Campaigners have argued that hanging a man in a wheelchair runs a high risk of
the execution going wrong, potentially leading to slow strangulation or
decapitation.

Maya Foa, a director at the anti-death penalty NGO Reprieve, said in a
statement that the government has still given no explanation of how it plans to
avoid a "horribly botched execution."

Basit has been on death row since 2009, convicted of murdering a man in a
financial dispute. He has always maintained his innocence.

He became paralysed in 2010 after he contracted tuberculosis meningitis in the
prison. Complications with the illness - which lawyers say were a result of
negligence - caused him to lose all movement in his limbs, and he was rendered
incontinent and put in a wheelchair.

Wassam Waheed, a spokesman for legal aid group Justice Project Pakistan, told
The Independent

Basit has "spent 6 years on the prison floor, unable to move and reliant on
others for personal hygiene".

Basit's family and his legal team are calling on the government to grant him
clemency, despite no pardon having been granted to any death-row prisoner since
a moratorium on executions was lifted in the country in 2014.

Basit's wife Musarat told The Independent: "It is not only my husband who is
being punished by the legal system.

"It is his entire family who is suffering through this, especially my children.
They haven't visited their father in years as he didn't want them to see him
lying on jail floor, not able to walk".

After visiting her son in prison yesterday, Basit's mother Nusrat Perveen told
The Associated Press that her son had lost a lot of weight and looked skeletal.

"His life has become a bigger punishment than death ... he is living in
conditions worse than hell".

She urged the country's president to pardon her son.

"I beg Mr President, Mr Prime Minister and the judiciary, please have mercy on
my son. He has already suffered a lot. He is already half dead. What will they
get if they execute a paralysed man, a helpless paralysed man who is already in
prison for life? Basit deserves mercy."

Representatives at legal aid group Justice Project Pakistan say that in the
absence of instructions from the Federal Government, "the jail authorities are
likely to forward a request for a fresh warrant of execution in the coming
days".

(source: news.com.au)






SINGAPORE:

Young Malaysian rider arrested with a kilo of drugs faces death penalty


Singaporean authorities arrested a young Malaysian rider who was carrying
heroin and meth worth $86,000 at the Woodlands checkpoint.

The 20-year-old motorcyclist had in his possession almost one kilogram of
drugs, which far exceeds the minimum amount of contraband that attracts death
penalty in Singapore.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB)
said in a joint statement that apart from the heroin, about 120 gram of meth
also was recovered from the rider.

The rider arrived at the checkpoint at 5.20 in the morning on Monday. The
checkpoint authorities discovered a packet of heroin weighing 460 grams on him
and arrested him.

They then handed him to the central narcotics bureau officials, who recovered
another packet of heroin from him which contained the same quantity of the
contraband.

Drug related offences get harsh punishment in Singapore, including death. The
island republic has been in the forefront of nations that vouch for strict
punishment for drug crimes.

Under Singapore's Misuse of Drugs Act provides anyone trafficking heroin above
15 grams can be punished with death.

In a speech at a UN conference last week, Singapore's Minister for Home Affairs
and Law K. Shanmugam said the country will never go soft in its fight against
drugs.

"We believe that drugs will destroy our society. With 200 million people
traveling through our borders every year, and given Singaporeans' purchasing
power, a soft approach will mean our country will be washed over with drugs,"
Shanmugam said.

(source: ibtimes.com)

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April 26



PAKISTAN:

Grant Clemency to Abdul Basit (UA 96/16)


A Pakistani man convicted and sentenced to death for murder in 2009, Abdul
Basit, is at risk of execution. His execution has been stayed 3 times, all at
the last minute, in July, September and November 2015. He became paralysed in
2010 due to the inhumane conditions in which he was kept in Central Jail
Faisalabad.

see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/pakistan-grant-clemency-to-abdul-basit-ua-9616

(source: Amnesty International USA)






SUDAN:

Darfur rebel group warns against executing one of its commanders


The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has warned the Sudanese
government against the consequences of carrying out the death sentence issued
against its leading figure El-Tom Hamid Tutu since 5 years ago.

Tutu was held captive by the Sudanese army during a joint attack launched by
the JEM and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) against
army position in Al-Tayes area in South Kordofan.

On 28 August 2011, the Kadougli general court sentenced Tutu to death by
hanging and the ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court in March 2012.

In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Wednesday, JEM spokesperson Gibril
Adam Bilal said the proceedings of the execution of the death penalty have
already begun on Tuesday morning at the maximum-security Kober prison in
Khartoum.

"The Kober prison administration transferred on Tuesday morning JEM's leading
figure and prisoner of war El-Tom Hamid Tutu from the death cells to the death
arena following the recitation of the death sentence in preparation for its
implementation" read the statement.

Bilal called on the rights groups to urgently intervene to prevent the
execution of the death sentence against Tutu and the rest of the movement's
hostages and to seek to secure their release.

He denounced the government move and described it as an arbitrary ruling
against a prisoner of war.

The statement further expressed JEM's full readiness to defend its prisoners by
all possible and not possible means.

"JEM reminds the government that the execution of the prisoners of war wouldn't
be tolerated as other kinds of crimes [committed by the government] and we
won't respond at a later time [but immediately]" Bilal said.

Tutu was handed the death sentence after he was found guilty under articles
(50), (51), (60) and (62) of the 1991 Criminal Code relating to waging war
against the state, undermining the constitutional order and wearing military
uniform.

(source: Sudan Tribune)






SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi officials admit - executed prisoner was a juvenile


In interviews with Al Arabiya, unearthed and translated by Vice News, several
Saudi security officials speak of arresting a group of people they knew to be
juveniles. The group appears to include Mustafa Abkar, who was killed as part
of a mass execution in January this year despite having been 13, it's thought,
at the time of his arrest. In the interviews, the officials describe the young
people they have arrested as 'vulnerable'; General Said al-Qahtani, Director of
Police for Mecca, says 'one of them hadn't reached 14 years old', while Special
Forces General Major Sultan al-Maliki says 'some we arrested thought the matter
was over and they would return to their families.'

The comments have emerged amid concerns over the use of the death penalty
against juveniles in Saudi Arabia. After January's mass execution of 47 people,
it emerged that several juveniles were among those killed - including Mustafa,
and Ali al-Ribh, who was in school when he was arrested in 2012, in relation to
political protests.

There are also fears that 3 more juveniles could soon be executed for an
alleged role in political protests. Ali al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher and Dawood
al-Marhoon were all children when they were arrested in 2012; all 3 were
tortured into 'confessions' that were used to sentence them to death.

(source: publicnow.com)






MALAYSIA:

Lorry driver charged with murder of wife, daughter----Court fixes May 30 for
mention of Rawang murder case


A lorry driver was charged at the Selayang Magistrate Court here today with the
murder of his wife and baby daughter 2 weeks ago.

No plea was recorded from the accused who only nodded his head when the charge
was read separately in front of Magistrate Iriane Isabelo.

Satvender Singh Pirthpar Singh, 30, was charged with the murder of his wife D
Kamaljit, 34 and 7 month old Ishlyn Kaur Sandhu at No 31, Jalan RP 10/9, Taman
Rawang Perdana 2, Rawang, at 3.55am and 4.15am last April 14.

The court fixed May 30 for mention following submission of the chemistry report
and the post-mortem results.

Earlier, lawyer Y Sheelan, who appeared on behalf of Satvender Singh, requested
for his client to be allowed access to treatment and to lodge a police report
as he alleged he had been injured in police custody.

Magistrate Iriane said she would have to refer to the Prisons Department to
ascertain the proper procedure before giving her decision.

Satvender Singh was charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder
which carries the death penalty upon conviction.

(source: bernama)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 27




INDONESIA:

Bali 9 member Michael Czugaj moved to remote jail after found with traces of
drug----We speak to 2 prisoners inside Bali's Kerobokan jail about the legacy
of executed Australian Myuran Sukumaran.


Bali 9 member Michael Czugaj is among 66 prisoners who have been transferred to
a remote jail in East Java after prison authorities said they caught him with
traces of the drug ice in Bali's Kerobokan jail.

The shock move comes two days before the 1st anniversary of the execution of 8
drug offenders in Indonesia, including Bali nine co-ordinators Myuran Sukumaran
and Andrew Chan.

The future of rehabilitation projects Sukumaran helped establish in Kerobokan
jail, including art classes and a T-shirt printing business, are in doubt after
the 2 Iranian prisoners he entrusted to take over after his death were also
moved.

The transfer of 66 prisoners to Madiun Prison in East Java at 4am on Wednesday
morning was so sudden that prisoners did not have time to collect clothes or
even cigarettes.

7 foreigners were moved, including Czugaj and 6 Iranians.

The head of Bali's prison division, Nyoman Putra Surya Atmaja, said prison
officers had found traces of used sabu sabu (ice) when they searched Czugaj's
cell.

"He was heavily addicted to drugs. He admitted to using drugs, but we only
found a trace of used drugs," Mr Nyoman said. "Legally we can't charge him with
evidence. He said he got it from a visitor. But he never said who. That's why
we moved him. So he is kept away from his Bali drug network."

Mr Nyoman said the 66 prisoners who had been transferred were those who were
"emotionally easy to provoke and who caused disturbances".

The transfer comes a week after a riot broke out at Kerobokan jail, with fires
lit and prison bars broken after 11 members of the notorious Laskar Bali gang
were admitted to the prison.

Those involved in the jail rehabilitation projects expressed shock, sadness and
anger at the transfer of Iranians Ali Reza Safar Khanloo and Rouhallah Series
Abadi, whom Sukumaran had asked to continue running Kerobokan jail's T-shirt
printing business and the art room.

"In the short term I don't see anyway for the BengKer (prison workshop) to
remain viable. I feel really sad," one insider told Fairfax Media.

"For them to destroy the BengKer is just mean. What a mess. What a waste of
years of effort."

The insider said Rahol and Ali, as they are known, had been a calming influence
on the jail.

Rahol, who helped organise supplies and weekly classes in the art room,
recently spoke of how much he missed Sukumaran and still felt his presence in
Kerobokan.

"His body is dead but still his soul is here," he said.

Ali had been experimenting with producing skateboards and bags, as well as
T-shirts, in the prison workshop.

He had recently designed a T-shirt featuring a striking image of Sukumaran
releasing doves of peace from a map of Australia, which he wanted to send to
Sukumaran's family to commemorate Sukumaran's birthday on April 17.

"They are saying they are transferring the troublemakers - it's just revenge
from the warden and chief of security," one prisoner said.

"With the workshop I have no idea what is going to happen. What they are doing
is totally making me confused. It's like they don't care about the
rehabilitation programs."

"This is the saddest day. Like we are fighting a losing battle," said another
prisoner.

However Mr Nyoman, the head of Bali's prison division, said Rahol and Ali were
not the leaders of the art room and T-shirt printing businesses.

"The leaders are prison guards. Not prisoners.The guards are still there," he
said.

And Dadang Iskandar, the prison officer in charge of the BengKer, said the
programs would continue "just with different members".

He said Indonesia always made decisions in the best interests of prisoners:
"All the prisoners were transferred with good intentions."

April 29 marks the 1st anniversary of the execution of eight drug offenders,
including Chan and Sukumaran, on Nusakambangan island, known as Indonesia's
Alcatraz.

The 2 Australians had been sentenced to death in 2006 for their role in the
foiled attempt to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin from Indonesia to Australia.
Czugaj is serving life imprisonment.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo had refused to grant Chan and Sukumaran
clemency, despite claims the Australians had reformed in prison.

Their legal team argued that Chan had become a pastor in prison and both men
helped establish rehabilitation programs behind bars, including art, yoga,
computer and cooking classes.

(source: smh.com.au)






PAKISTAN----executions

2 murder convicts hanged


2 murder convicts were hanged at the Faisalabad Central Jail on Tuesday. A
spokesperson for the Prisons Department said Imran alias Hayat Ali, son of
Nawaz, and Tahir, son of Rafiq, residents of Chak 55, had killed 4 of their
rivals on February 5, 2005. Jaranwala police had registered a case against them
and had presented the challan in an anti-terrorism court. The trial court had
sentenced them to death and the apex court upheld the decision.

(source: The Express Tribune)






IRAN----executions

10 prisoners hanged in Iran in new wave of executions


Iran's fundamentalist regime has hanged at least 10 people in prisons since the
weekend, in what has been described as a new wave of executions.

Earlier on Wednesday at least 6 other death-row prisoners in Ghezelhesar Prison
in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, were transferred to solitary confinement for
their imminent execution.

The regime's judiciary in Mazandaran Province announced that a 27-year-old
prisoner identified by the initials Z. Ch. was hanged in a prison in Sari,
northern Iran, on Sunday, April 24. Earlier in the week, the judiciary had
announced that a 2nd 27-year-old prisoner, identified only by the initials H.
H., was also hanged in prison in Sari on Sunday.

Elsewhere, the regime's judiciary in Qazvin Province announced that an unnamed
man was hanged in Qazvin Central Prison, north-west of Tehran, on Tuesday.

At least 5 prisoners were hanged on Saturday in Zahedan Central Prison,
south-east Iran. Another 3 prisoners were hanged in the same prison on Tuesday.

3 of those executed in Zahedan were identified as: Jamshid Dehvari, 30; Sadeq
Rigi, 35; and Mohammad Sanchouli, who is believed to have been 22 years old.

Mr. Sanchouli had been behind bars for the past 5 years including time he
served in the prison's ward for juveniles. He is believed to have been under 18
at the time of his arrest.

The hangings bring to at least 46 the number of people executed in Iran since
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."

Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with 7 EU
commissioners for discussions with the regime's officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.

Her trip was strongly criticized by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI who said: "This trip which takes place in
the midst of mass executions, brutal human rights violations and the regime's
unbridled warmongering in the region tramples on the values upon which the EU
has been founded and which Ms. Mogherini should be defending and propagating."

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

The NCRI in a separate statement on Sunday warned that 10 death-row prisoners,
transferred to solitary confinement in Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) Prison in Karaj
and Zahedan Prison, are at imminent risk of execution. It called on
international human rights organizations to take urgent action to save their
lives.

(source: NCR-Iran)







SAUDI ARABIA:

These Are the Juvenile 'Offenders' Saudi Arabia Executed in January


This is the 2nd in a 3-part VICE News series on the execution of juveniles in
Saudi Arabia, in which we examine the arbitrary and sinister processes which
constitute the Saudi justice system and its "counterterrorism" strategy, and
reveal previously unreported examples of children caught up in its net.

"[Those arrested in the raid] were kids, to the extent that some we arrested
thought the matter was over and they would return to their families."

Speaking directly into the camera in a documentary released last year, Saudi
Arabian Special Forces General Major Sultan al-Maliki was very clear. A group
of alleged terrorists rounded up by the authorities in 2003 were far away from
their adult years.

The scene cuts to footage from the arrest, honing in on the face of one boy who
looks scared, confused, and disorientated.

The boy was one of a group of youngsters from the African country of Chad who
had been deceived into thinking they were coming to Mecca to study the Quran,
according to the documentary - released by the Saudi government-funded news
outlet Al Arabiya - and subsequent reports in Saudi press.

Instead, the Quran course "turned out to be a terrorist, criminal course, with
disastrous results for those [juveniles] who were deceived," General Said
al-Qahtani, Director of Police for Mecca, tells the viewer. "One of them hadn't
reached 14 years old," he notes.

Al-Qaeda targets "vulnerable people" who "don't have the capacity to act or
reject," explains Brigadier General Mudief al-Talhi. "They bring misguided
children over and brainwash them," says an unnamed Major General.

In most parts in the world, children who are recruited, groomed, and deceived
by terrorist organizations are seen as victims. Not in Saudi Arabia. These boys
never went home to their families. Instead, at least 1 is known to have spent
the next 12 years languishing in jail - and on January 2 this year he was
executed.

The official Interior Ministry list of 47 people killed in a mass execution
that day, combined with reports in Saudi press, which is all controlled by the
state, identifies one of the dead as Mustafa Abkar, a Chadian reportedly born
in 1987 who was arrested during a raid in June 2003. The major operation
targeted a terrorist cell in Mecca thought to be responsible for a string of
bombings in Riyadh in May 2003, and was the same raid depicted in the Al
Arabiya film.

The birth year of 1987, reported by newspaper Okaz, means Abkar could not have
been any older than 16 when he was detained - but Saudi activists believe Abkar
was the 13-year-old described by General al-Qahtani, and that he was the young
boy the camera zooms in on.

According to a source who spoke to the Middle East Eye, Abkar had no access to
a lawyer and did not even get a court hearing until 2014, a single appearance
in front of a judge at the end of which he was sentenced to death.

Abkar was not the only juvenile so-called offender to be capitally punished on
January 2. While the mass execution was widely reported, what went largely by
the wayside was the detail that at least three of those were prisoners whose
alleged crimes are believed to have taken place when they were children.

Information about any prisoner or judicial proceeding in Saudi Arabia is hard
to come by - the justice system is notoriously arbitrary and secretive, and the
media often offers only sparse or fragmented details. But alongside Abkar, on
the official list of those executed on January 2 were two names recognized by
activists as men who were arrested as minors, which can confirmed by piecing
together multiple press reports.

One was also arrested in the June 2003 operations targeting the Mecca terrorist
cell that Abkar was charged with being part of. Amin Mohammed Aqla al-Ghamidi
was arrested as he walked along a street in the city with a school friend,
according to his father. According to a birth date reported by Okaz, he was 17
when he was detained while the European Saudi Organization of Human Rights
reported he was 14.

Saudi Arabian authorities picked him up after raiding a nearby apartment that
they said was being used to plot an "imminent terrorist act." He was an "expert
in making explosives," reported Okaz following his execution.

"My young boy wouldn't be able to fathom let alone undertake such huge and
Islamically-forbidden act alone," Amin's father Mohammed Al-Ghamidi told
Al-Riyadh newspaper a week after his arrest. "It's clearly the work of older
men preparing to commit criminal acts." His son loved studying, was one of the
best students in his class, and had just had a university application accepted,
he said.

Abkar and al-Ghamidi were not the only minors arrested in the June 2003
operation, according to leading Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. "Half of
those arrested at the apartment were children," it reported shortly after the
raid. Recruiting children was a deliberate tactic of al-Qaeda, it pointed out,
referring to a comment once reportedly made by Osama bin Laden: "We're keen on
young recruits between 15 and 20 as they are the most adaptable to the concept
of Jihad for the sake of God."

Children are indeed ideal targets for terrorist groups, said Dan Collison,
program director at War Child, because they can be so easily influenced.
"Children haven't yet formed the confidence and the critical thinking skills to
differentiate between an adult that's helping them and an adult exploiting
them," he said. "Their choices and decisions are very susceptible to those
around them - those influences can be very positive, but they can also be
utterly malign."

While it was clear that some children committed very serious, violent crimes,
acknowledged Collison, one thing was very clear: "A child should not be
convicted of terrorism. A terrorist act is a political act, and a child doesn't
have the capacity to act in that way. They have been neglected and let down by
people who are supposed to be looking after them, but they are not terrorists.
Whether a child is recruited by al-Qaeda, or an armed group in Sierra Leone,
they are victims of armed conflict."

To convict a child of terrorism was a terrible breach of their rights, he said
- to execute them was "unthinkable."

The final juvenile offender killed by Saudi Arabia on January 2 was not an
alleged terrorist. His crime was protesting. Ali Said al-Ribh was detained on
February 12, 2012, when he was 18 years and 2 months old. He was charged with
participating in protests which took place throughout 2011 and early 2012
during the Saudi Arabian response to the Arab Spring.

Thousands of Shia Muslims - a religious minority which faces systemic
discrimination inside the kingdom - took to the streets in the country's
Eastern Province to demand better treatment and the release of political
prisoners. Hundreds were rounded up and thrown in jail, including multiple
juveniles.

Around 200 "laughable" trials have taken place, said Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Saudi Arabia researcher Adam Coogle, most of them based on confessions which in
court the defendants withdrew saying they were tortured into making them or
didn't know what they were signing. Around 15 people were sentenced to death,
including al-Ribh and 3 other juveniles whose cases have received international
attention - Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher - who are
still alive.

Al-Ribh was tortured while in custody, according to information gathered by
anti-death penalty NGO Reprieve. After 5 hearings, he was sentenced to death
for crimes including using weapons against security forces during a protest and
using his Blackberry to help organize demonstrations. He always denied any use
of violence. The Saudi authorities did not inform his family of the execution
and have kept the location of his burial secret, said Reprieve.

'Prosecutors and judges are free to criminalize any act in accordance with
their own interpretation of precepts of Islamic law'

All the young men discussed in this article were tried in Saudi Arabia's
Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), a secretive tribunal set up in 2008 to try
terrorism suspects but which has been increasingly used to try dissidents and
peaceful activists. It has no laws or statutes specifying its jurisdiction that
have been made public, and anyway, Saudi Arabia has no written law.
"Prosecutors and judges are free to criminalize any act in accordance with
their own interpretation of precepts of Islamic law," notes HRW.

Aside from the fact the SCC and the wider Saudi justice system violate basic
principles of due process, executing people for crimes they committed when they
were juveniles is a clear and egregious violation of international law -
including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - to both of which Saudi Arabia is a
signatory.

Treating children recruited by terrorist organizations as criminals rather than
victims, and sentencing people to death for protesting, would also be regarded
as morally and legally indefensible in much of the world.

Despite this - and despite Saudi Arabia brutally crushing political dissent,
practicing torture, and executing more people per capita than any other country
except Iran - those who could potentially hold sway over the kingdom remain
loath to condemn or sanction it in any substantial way.

The oil-rich state remains a close ally of the West, lauded for its role in the
so-called war on terror, and enjoying a status as the number 1 buyer of
American and British-made arms. The US has sold arms worth $47.8 billion to
Saudi Arabia under President Barack Obama - nearly triple the $16 billion under
George W. Bush - while under Prime Minister David Cameron the UK has sold $9.68
billion-worth.

When asked to comment on the January 2 execution, Britain's Foreign Secretary
Philip Hammond told BBC Radio: "Let us be clear, first of all, that these
people were convicted terrorists." Such a comment suggested Hammond was
alarmingly misinformed, said Reprieve, and came "dangerously close to condoning
Saudi Arabia's approach."

In a statement on January 3 UK Minister for the Middle East Tobias Ellwood said
the country is "firmly opposed to the death penalty" and had "expressed [its]
disappointment at the mass executions." He said the government expected that
"Ali al-Nimr and others who were convicted as juveniles will not be executed,"
but he did not say anything about those convicted as juveniles who had been
killed the previous day.

The US State Department produced similarly insubstantial comments. "We have
previously expressed our concerns about the legal process in Saudi Arabia and
have frequently raised these concerns at high levels of the Saudi Government,"
said John Kirby, spokesperson for the Bureau of Public Affairs on January 2.
"We reaffirm our calls on the Government of Saudi Arabia to respect and protect
human rights, and to ensure fair and transparent judicial proceedings in all
cases."

Obama visited Saudi Arabia last week, meeting King Salman in Riyadh to discuss
bilateral relations.

Reprieve urged the US president to raise the cases of al-Nimr, al-Marhoon, and
al-Zaher, whose families still wake up every day not knowing if they will be
alive at the end of it. The young men, who were aged 17, 17, and 15 when they
committed their so-called criminal acts of attending protests, are sentenced to
die by beheading. Al-Nimr and al-Zaher were also sentenced to crucifixion - the
displaying of their beheaded bodies in a public place.

No such overtures were made. At a press briefing in Riyadh on Friday White
House Press Secretary Ben Rhodes was asked whether the president had discussed
human rights, and whether he had raised certain cases that had received
attention in the US. While there had been been a "very candid discussion" about
human rights, Obama "did not raise individual cases," said Rhodes.

It is "absolutely shocking" that the US and the UK are standing by while
juvenile offenders are executed by their ally, said Reprieve. "It is appalling
to see [from watching the Al Arabiya documentary] that Saudi officials were
well aware that they were executing several juvenile [offenders] on January 2,"
said Maya Foa, director of the organization's death penalty team. "Any Saudi
concerns over the 'vulnerability' of juvenile prisoners, mentioned in the film,
were entirely absent when they executed Mustafa Abkar and Ali Al Ribh on the
basis of forced 'confessions.'... Now more than ever, the international
community must call on Saudi Arabia to halt juvenile executions, once and for
all."

(source: vice.com)






KENYA:

Court upholds death penalty for former MP Betty Tett's son


The High Court yesterday upheld a death sentence handed to former Assistant
Minister Betty Tett's son.

David Tett was sentenced to death in 2013 for robbery with violence.

High Court judge James Wakiaga said there was enough evidence to show that
actual violence occurred against the victims.

"I agree with the trial court's findings and dismiss this application," said
Justice Wakiaga, adding that the prosecution's case was proved beyond
reasonable doubt.

Wakiaga said that upon evaluation of the evidence before him, he agreed with
the trial court's finding that the prosecution had proven all the elements of
the offence.

He added that Mr Tett's conduct at the scene and thereafter pointed to his
participation in the commission of the offence he was charged with.

In 2013, Magistrate Kiarie Waweru handed Tett the death penalty after he found
him guilty of violently robbing his father, William Tett of Sh1,000, credit
cards and a mobile phone all valued at Sh157,000 at their Karen home on
September 6, 2011.

David committed the offence jointly with others who were not before the court
while armed with a revolver and a knife. The prosecution said the accused went
to their house accompanied by two other men and ordered his father to give them
money. They tied him with ropes and robbed him before escaping.

David had pleaded for leniency, saying he was remorseful and wanted to
reconcile with his family. However, the magistrate said the only sentence
provided for by the law for the capital offence was death.

When he appealed the judgement in 2013, David, said he was suffering from an
ailment which could not be treated in prison.

He wanted the court to order that he be taken to Kenyatta National Hospital. He
was expected to file a medical report from the prison department.

David also filed an application for bail pending the determination of his
appeal.

(source: standardmedia.co.ke)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 27



PERU:

Peruvian bishops: death penalty 'unacceptable'


The Catholic bishops of Peru have released a statement in opposition to the
death penalty, urging all Christians to work for its abolition.

"Today the death penalty is unacceptable," the bishops argue. They go on to
state that "all Christians and people of good will are obliged not only to
fight for the abolition of the death penalty-- legal or not-- but to try to
improve prison conditions, in respect for the human dignity of prisoners."

(source: catholicculture.org)






EGYPT:

Ibrahim Halawa: UN intervenes in case of Irish man imprisoned in Egypt


The Egyptian government has rejected UN allegations about the treatment of an
Irish man imprisoned without trial for more than 2 1/2 years.

Ibrahim Halawa was 17 when he was arrested during a siege on the Al-Fath mosque
in Cairo in 2013. The 20-year-old could face the death penalty.

3 of his sisters were also arrested at the Al-Fath mosque, but were later
released on bail.

The family say they were on holiday at the time and had sought refuge in the
mosque to escape the violence outside.

They deny claims that Ibrahim is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is
Egypt's oldest and largest Islamist organisation.

The current Egyptian government has declared it a terrorist group, a claim it
rejects.

Ibrahim Halawa and 492 others have been charged with murder and a range of
other serious offences.

Their trial has been adjourned 13 times.

1 of his sisters travelled from Dublin to Belfast on Wednesday to meet the
family's lawyer.

Somaia Halawa said she is deeply concerned about the way her brother has been
treated.

"He was electrocuted, he was beaten, he was tortured. He never attended a
trial, he has no access to a lawyer," she said.

Those concerns are shared by the United Nations.

It has emerged that officials from the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights wrote to the Egyptian government last year.

They described Ibrahim Halawa's case as "a matter warranting immediate
attention".

The letter said he had been shot in the hand during his arrest and did not
receive proper medical treatment.

It said he was being held in "deplorable conditions", and that prison officers
had subjected him to physical and psychological abuse.

The UN team also said it was "in contravention of basic guarantees of fair
trial and due process of law" that he had not had adequate access to a lawyer.

In response, the Egyptian government denied that Ibrahim Halawa was shot in the
hand during his arrest, or had been beaten while in prison.

It said a medical examination had found "traces of old wounds" but no recent
injuries, and described his general health as "sound and stable".

The response did not directly address the concerns raised about lack of
adequate access to a lawyer.

The Halawa family has welcomed the UN intervention.

"It is very, very important to our campaign because this just proves what we
have been saying for almost 2 1/2 years, and people have been denying that this
is actually happening to Ibrahim," said Somaia Halawa.

But the family and their legal team said the Irish government should do more.

'Gloves off'

"It's got to a stage now where the family believe that it's time for the gloves
to come off," said solicitor Darragh Mackin.

"It's time to put pressure on the Egyptian government directly and that
diplomacy may not work in circumstances whereby it's a grave breach of
international law and a grave breach of Ibrahim's human rights as an Irish
citizen."

The Halawa family saidy they are alarmed by reports from Egypt in recent days
that all of those charged may have been declared guilty without a trial taking
place.

Their legal team said it will be asking the Irish government to seek
clarification of the situation.

(source: BBC news)


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[Rick Halperin]

April 28



PAKISTAN----executions

2 death row convicts hanged in Haripur----The dead bodies of the prisoners were
handed to their heirs after execution.


2 death row convicts were hanged in the Central Jail Haripur on early Thursday
morning, Dunya News reported. The dead bodies of the prisoners were handed over
to their families after the execution.

According to details, death row convict Ali Raza was hanged for killing a man
in 2004 while prisoner Farhad was executed for murdering a man in 1997.

6-year moratorium on death penalty was lifted on December 17, 2014 for those
convicted for terrorism a day after the deadly attack on Army Public School in
Peshawar that left 150 persons including mostly children dead. There are more
than 8,000 prisoners on death row in the country.

(source: Dunya News)






INDONESIA:

A year after the Bali 9 executions, Indonesia prepares firing squads again ----
Deaths of 8 prisoners, including 2 Australians, prompted a huge outcry - and a
pause in executions. But now foreigners on death row fear their own sentences
could be just weeks away


There's chatter that it's on.

Talk that the death squad is at the ready; that a new, bigger execution ground
is in the making. Officials say it could be just weeks away.

And after the circus last year, the security minister Luhut Panjaitan hopes
there will be less "drama" this time around.

1 year after the international uproar and the diplomatic fallout over the
execution of 8 drug traffickers - including 2 Australian men, Bali 9 pair
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran - it appears more executions could be on
Indonesia's horizon this year. Among the foreigners on death row in Indonesia
are 2 Britons, convicted drug smugglers Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth Cashmore.

"I still don't want to believe it," says lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, who this
time last year was fighting to save the lives of Chan and Sukumaran. "Yes,
there will probably be a statement, but in the end I don't think there will be
any executions. I refuse to believe it."

After 14 prisoners were executed at dawn in 2 separate rounds in early 2015, a
3rd round has been on hold for the past year, ostensibly for economic reasons,
but perhaps, in part, for political ones, too.

Yet after whatever fallout there might have been, Australia's recalled
ambassador has returned (after a 5-week protest), and executions are back on
the agenda.

This month, even as Indonesia was being booed at the United Nations for
reiterating its support for the death penalty for drug offenders - a punitive
action that runs counter to international law - the attorney general Muhammad
Prasetyo indicated that another round would go ahead.

British prime minister David Cameron said he had raised the case of Sandiford -
the English woman sentenced to death for smuggling almost 4kg of cocaine into
Bali - during an official visit to Jakarta last year. But on Jokowi's return
visit to London earlier this month, there were no indications that her case -
or that of fellow death row Briton Gareth Cashmore - was revisited.

When questioned on the matter by German chancellor Angela Merkel on a recent
visit to Berlin, Indonesian president Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, defended capital
punishment as a justified approach to the country's "drug emergency".

There is nothing definitive yet, no date, and no official list of the next
prisoners to face the firing squad: the Indonesian government is keeping its
cards close to the chest. But some are still operating on the assumption that
it is probably just a matter of time.

"The last information we received is that the attorney general has asked the
parliament for the budget for the 3rd round," says Putri Kanesia, from the
Jakarta-based human rights organisation Kontras. "But they should stop and
evaluate the 1st and 2nd batch. There were a lot of unfair trials."

According to Amnesty International, there were at least 165 people on death row
in Indonesia at the end of 2015, and more than 40% of those were sentenced for
drug-related crimes. Indonesia has some of the harshest drug laws in the world,
and Jokowi has stated that no drug prisoner will receive a pardon from him.

But the Kontras team is currently pushing to get the case details of one death
row prisoner on to the president's desk.

Allegedly tortured in detention, and told by his lawyer that he did not have
the right to appeal, Yusman Telaumbanua was, Kontras claims, a minor when the
crime for which he was convicted was committed. This would make it illegal to
execute him under Indonesian law.

"We learned from the experience of Mary Jane Veloso," explains Kanesia,
referring to the last-minute - albeit temporary - reprieve granted by the
president to the Filipino woman slated to be killed alongside Chan and
Sukumaran a year ago.

"We have to give Jokowi information about unfair trials that led to the death
penalty," she says. "Maybe we can make him think twice."

Fresh to the presidency, and to foreign affairs, some say Jokowi failed to
anticipate the diplomatic blowback of signing off on the executions last year.
The more the international community jumped up and down, the more the stakes
were raised - and the harder it became for him to back out without looking
weak.

The reality, and perhaps the uncomfortable truth for some looking in at
Indonesia's drug policy, is that the executions generated strong support at
home.

"I think the discourse around drug policy for Jokowi has always been and
continues to be a very political, politically convenient decision," says
Claudia Stoicescu, a doctoral researcher at Oxford University's centre for
evidence-based intervention.

"He's seen a lot of support from Indonesians on this kind of punitive
discourse, both in terms of drug policy, and this combative language with the
war on drugs, but also with the death penalty."

Retrospectively, the lack of diplomatic finesse on the international stage did
not do Chan or Sukumaran any favours.

"Some statements by [then] prime minister Tony Abbott and also foreign minister
Julie Bishop, those probably should not have been made," Lubis, the Bali 9
lawyer, told the Guardian during an interview at his Jakarta law firm. "Because
that offends Indonesia - not only the government, but the Indonesian people. So
it was very unfortunate."

When Abbott implied that Indonesia owed Australia "a favour" in return for the
A$1bn donated in aid for the 2004 tsunami, angry Indonesians started a coin
collection drive to "pay back" their neighbour. Plastic bags full of silver
coins were later delivered to the embassy in Jakarta.

Other countries with citizens on Indonesia's death row have also been
forthright in their opposition to Indonesia's use of firing squads. French
president Francois Hollande said his government was "doing everything to keep
Serge Atlaoui alive"; the Frenchman, accused of being the "chemist" for an
ecstasy factory outside Jakarta, exhausted all legal appeals in mid-2015.

British prime minister David Cameron said he had raised the case of Sandiford,
who was sentenced to death for smuggling almost 4kg of cocaine into Bali -
during an official visit to Jakarta last year. But on Jokowi's return visit to
London earlier this month, there were no indications that her case - or that of
fellow death row Briton Cashmore - was revisited.

But a year on, and holding a stronger position in the parliament, it might not
be as politically advantageous for Jokowi to conduct further executions in
2016.

Lubis - who recently agreed to take on Sandiford's case - is optimistic that
the president might be re-evaluating his hardline stance.

"Now I believe he understands the pressure, the criticisms. And that has
probably made the attorney general a bit more cautious," he says, "Myuran
Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed on 29 April last year, so this is going
to be the 1st anniversary. So I guess they feel the heat."

But do they? The president and his government have continued their enthusiastic
drug crusade, with Jokowi reiterating just weeks ago on the global stage that
between 30and 50 Indonesians die each day because of drugs.

Last November, the head of the National Narcotics Agency, BNN, even
outlandishly suggested that drug offenders should be placed on a prison island
surrounded by crocodiles and piranhas.

Yet a look at the numbers shows that Indonesia might not be facing a drug
emergency at all. According to the 2015 UNODC World Drug Report, Indonesia is
on the lower end of the scale when it comes to drug usage around the region,
and certainly ranks far lower than north America and Australia.

"No, there is certainly isn't an emergency," says Stoicescu, who has done the
breakdown in her research. "In that sense, the way he [Jokowi] has used the
numbers and the statistics has also been in a very selective, opportunistic
way, to lend credibility to these political aims."

Professor Irwanto, a psychologist at Atma Jaya University in Jakarta, agrees
the war on drugs talk is not only misguided, but counterproductive. The
government, he argues, should shift its resources toward harm reduction,
rehabilitation, and education, approaches that have helped countries with far
worse drug problems than Indonesia.

Ultimately, there could be an escape from the death penalty for drug offenders,
but it could come too late for most. A provision in the new draft of the
Indonesian criminal code, which could allow for inmates to have their sentences
commuted to life imprisonment if they are rehabilitated after 10 years, is
currently awaiting debate by the Indonesian parliament.

The new draft is a so-called "priority" bill, but given the house of
representatives managed to pass only 3 laws in total in 2015, it is likely to
be years before it is even discussed.

That Chan and Sukumaran were rehabilitated failed to save them, but a year on,
Lubis is still grappling with why they were killed at all.

"I still, you know, find it difficult to reconcile with myself because I know
they were changed. They became very reformed people. So they did not deserve to
die," he says.

"So I am still struggling to have peace with myself."

(source: The Guardian)

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

Memories of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran can help us fight the death
penalty ---- Immense public support surrounded the Mercy Campaign's effort to
save 2 Australians from death row. We can't let the lessons learnt from that go
to waste


A year on, people still approach me to talk about what they were doing and how
they were feeling the night of the Indonesian executions.

The partner of an accounting firm told me how he couldn't sleep that night, and
spent until dawn watching Sky news and crying.

A mobile phone wholesaler in Melbourne jumped on a last minute flight to Sydney
because he heard there was a vigil in Martin Place and he wanted to be around
people who cared.

Others - whose churchgoing habits were dusty - found themselves praying.

On the Mercy Campaign Facebook page, conversations went on through the night:
"I can't believe this is actually happening" or "I can't believe how affected I
am by this".

For the 1st part of last year, it felt like the executions were all anyone
could talk about. Would Indonesia do it? Could Australia intervene? Should
Australia intervene? Did the "Bali 9" pair Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan
deserve it?

There was an emotional tenor that ran through the debate that marked it as
different from other issues. Both Julie Bishop and Tanya Plibersek were at
their most compassionate and eloquent when speaking about the death penalty in
parliament.

People signed petitions (the Mercy Campaign collected 250,000 signatures),
attended vigils, wrote to the Indonesian president directly, begging that
Chan's and Sukumaran's lives be spared. Thousands of songs, pieces of artwork,
poems and videos were created pleading for mercy. We used to post them on the
campaign Facebook page, but towards the end there were so many that we couldn't
keep track.

And yet ...

A year ago 8 men - among them the Australians Chan and Sukumaran - were killed
by firing squad in Indonesia, while their families kept vigil on the mainland,
close enough to hear the gunshots.

After the sound came the fury. Australia withdrew its ambassador to Indonesia,
foreign minister Julie Bishop did not rule out reducing Australia's foreign aid
to Indonesia then-prime minister Tony Abbott also didn't mince words:

We respect Indonesia's sovereignty, but we do deplore what's been done and this
cannot be simply business as usual.

Then a lull.

No one else has been killed by firing squad in Indonesia, although plenty
remain on death row. The global outpouring of condemnation surely played a part
in this but that hasn't been the local rationale.

Earlier this year, Indonesian media reported that economic concerns over the
executions had lead to an unofficial moratorium but this is cold comfort.
Unless there is a total abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia, those on
death row are vulnerable to sudden announcements about executions - the
government needs to give only 3 days notice for an execution.

So it could happen again, and rumours are that it could happen soon. It's
already happening - all the time - in the United States, Vietnam, China, Japan,
Yemen, Egypt, India, North Korea, Malaysia just to name a few.

Australians have shown they can organise and unite en masse against the death
penalty when their citizens are at risk of being executed (Indonesia has shown
the same capacity when its citizens are subject to the death penalty abroad).
It was Chan's and Sukumaran's wish that the fight against the death penalty
continue regardless of the outcome of their own clemency plea.

Here are some of the lessons we learnt from the Mercy Campaign.

Empathy is crucial

Sukumaran, Chan and their families were leading the news bulletins for more
than 50 days from the end of 2014 to their deaths in April 2015. The more we
heard their story - about the work they were doing in prison, about the
community they built in Kerobokan, about their rehabilitation - the more
difficult it was to cold-heartedly dismiss their plight.

Many people commenting on the Mercy Campaign Facebook page would often say, "I
feel like I know them."

The media has power

There was little empathy for Sukumaran and Chan in the early days of their
incarceration when News Corp media assigned them cartoonish monikers of the
Enforcer and the Kingpin. That proved a hard perception to shake. When
journalist Mark Davis gained access to Kerobokan he asked them about this tag.
They both burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.

What drug kingpin drives a second hand car and lives with his parents, asked
Andrew.

In the end, Chan and Sukumaran's executions stung Indonesia's economy, not its
conscience

Sukumaran told The Monthly: "I'm still looking for my 'green Mercedes' and my
'many girlfriends'."

Yet coverage of Myuran and Andrew in News Corp papers shifted markedly in the
final years of their lives. The Courier-Mail published a powerful editorial in
January 2015 denouncing the executions and The Australian ran a compelling
front page with every living prime minister pleading with the Indonesian
president for mercy. News Corp's stance had well and truly softened and public
opinion followed. By the end of their lives, some of the most compassionate
pieces of journalism about Sukumaran and Chan were written by News Corp
journalists.

The clemency movement is diverse

The Catholic church has had a long and noble tradition in this country in
taking the lead in activism on death penalty cases, from Ronald Ryan to Van
Nguyen. This time, while there was support from institutions such as the
Australian Catholic University and regular vigils at churches in Melbourne,
other groups and individuals from vastly different spheres stepped up and
became very powerful advocates for clemency.

Supporters for clemency included the artist Ben Quilty, musicians such as
Temper Trap and the Presets, broadcaster Alan Jones, the legal community -
particularly in Melbourne - some unions, and clergy from a variety of faiths,
including Christian and Muslim.

It was an incredible coalition of people from both the left and right, and
everything in between. The apolitical nature of the campaign and this diversity
and made the movement for clemency inclusive and stronger.

Politicians showed leadership - and that matters

There are so many pressing social issues - such as treatment of asylum seekers
- where there is no leadership from the ruling party, and also no dissent from
the opposition. Yet last year, support for clemency was bi-partisan, sending a
strong message that Australia does not support the death penalty, either here
or abroad.

A year on, and now our politicians - indeed all of us that deplored the
executions in Indonesia - need to keep fighting to ensure that it doesn't
happen again.

(source: Opinion, Brigid Delaney (Brigid Delaney was a co-founder of the Mercy
Campaign); The Guardian)

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

Indonesia executions 1 year on: Mary Jane lives but death penalty questions
linge----It has been 1 year since Filipina Mary Jane's reprieve and the
execution of 8 others. What's the situation now?


The anguished cry of a sister about to lose her brother, dust clouds kicked up
by dozens of reporters and police, and the heavy sensation of dread.

These stand out in my memory of April 28 last year, the day before Indonesia
executed 8 people on Nusakambangan, Central Java, for drug offenses.

Incongruous in the chaos were 2 little boys, Mark Darren and Mark Daniel, the
sons of Filipina Mary Jane Veloso.

Aged 6 and 12, they were told to say their last goodbyes to their mother before
she "went to heaven."

That night, Veloso, 30, was taken from her cell and was walking to the firing
squad when she was pulled back, granted a temporary reprieve.

In a dramatic turn, the woman who allegedly recruited Veloso had surrendered to
police. The single mother had always argued she was duped into carrying 2.6kg
of heroin into Indonesia in 2009.

Shots heard after midnight signaled the firing squad had done its grim work.
But at Cilacap port, we were in the dark about Veloso's fate.

I sent a text message to her attorney. I've heard a rumor. Is Mary Jane alive?

Edre Olalia's ecstatic reply came: "YES!!!!!"

Recruiters on trial

Maria Cristina Sergio and Julis Lacanilao, the couple accused of setting up
Veloso, are finally on trial after protracted pre-trial legal arguments.

Olalia says this case and others expose the great danger that innocent people
will be executed because of errors.

Criminal justice systems everywhere are imperfect, he says. They are
complicated, confusing and corruptible.

"In countries that impose the death penalty, we know as a fact there can be
mistakes," he says.

"We know also the system is very prejudiced against those who have no power,
who have no influence or wealth."

Veloso will have the chance to tell her story at this trial. At her 2010 trial
in Indonesia, she was not provided a qualified translator.

Discussions between Manila and Jakarta continue to determine how her testimony
will be presented.

The death penalty was abolished in the Philippines in 1986, reintroduced in
1993 and suspended again in 2006.

2 presidential candidates - Rodrigo Duterte and Grace Poe, are in favor of
returning capital punishment.

Olalia says this is a populist stance that ignores policy approaches that
actually work.

However, looking at the root causes of criminality and strengthening
investigative bodies don't grab headlines.

"Crimes must be punished and people must be held accountable, but we will not
solve a problem by presenting another problem," he says.

Indonesia's stance

Indonesia argues its death penalty is not only for those who commit the most
serious crimes - drug trafficking, terrorism, murder and treason - but as a
warning to future perpetrators.

However there's still no evidence the death penalty deters drug crime.

Lawyer Ricky Gunawan has just returned from the UN General Assembly Special
Session on drugs, where he gave an impassioned plea to end the death penalty.

"We are going nowhere with drug policy," he says. "Indonesia is still using the
old punitive measures which have not resulted in any positive difference."

Gunawan, of LBH Masyarakat (Community Legal Aid Institute), says the annual
report of the BNN (National Narcotics Agency) itself shows the continued rise
of drug crimes.

But instead of changing tactics, BNN chief Budi Waseso wants more regular
executions.

On April 7, 10 foreign drug convicts' names were reported in the media,
supposedly the next candidates for executions.

Attorney General HM Prasetyo was quoted as saying he was only waiting for their
final legal appeals and better weather.

His spokesman later told Australia's ABC he was only joking.

Eventually, Indonesia's lawmakers will debate a revision of the criminal code
that would see a death sentence commuted to life or 20 years' jail after 10
years of good behavior.

"This would be good because we know many death row prisoners, after 10 years'
imprisonment, show change," Gunawan says.

"It's difficult, politically, to see Indonesia abolishing the death penalty
now, but this would be a good compromise."

Chan and Sukumaran

The story of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran rallied the support of many
Australians.

Chan had transformed from Bali 9 drug smuggler to pastor within 10 years, while
Sukumaran dedicated himself to becoming an accomplished painter.

After legal, diplomatic and community appeals failed to save the reformed pair
from execution, many questioned whether Australia shouldn???t be a more
consistent and louder voice against the death penalty worldwide.

A parliamentary committee has been considering how Australia's government can
improve its advocacy.

Julian McMahon, who was a lawyer for Chan and Sukumaran, now serves as
president for Reprieve Australia.

"The Chan-Sukumaran case asked not only the public, but also the Australian
parliament, to take a firm position on the death penalty," he says.

"Opposition to more executions anywhere is the only acceptable position for a
government.

"In my opinion, they're doing it well now. Having said that, there's obviously
a lot more to be done.

"A number of nations who are great friends of Australia have taken backward
steps in recent weeks."

Not only is Indonesia openly discussing more executions, but Japan and Malaysia
have conducted secretive executions. Death penalty Malaysia is moving towards
reform of its mandatory death penalty for some drug crimes, with proposed
amendments anticipated to be introduced to parliament in May. But last month it
sent 3 men to the gallows, giving their families only 2 days' notice the
decade-old sentence for murder would be carried out.

Meanwhile, a Malaysian man is set to be hung in Singapore, after his final
appeal was quashed.

Kho Jabing was sentenced to death in 2010 for killing a Chinese worker in a
robbery.

There have been talks between the 2 governments concerning the 31-year-old, but
Malaysia finds itself in the difficult position of asking for its citizen to be
spared death while its own justice system executes.

Amnesty International reports 2015 was the worst year in a quarter of a century
for the death penalty.

At least 1,634 people were put to death last year, 90 % of them in 3 countries:
Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The figures exclude China, where it's believed thousands are executed each year
in secret.

Amnesty International Malaysia's Shamini Darshni says the rational arguments
against the death penalty endure.

"The death penalty is a very emotional argument but we have so much research to
show it doesn't actually prevent crimes, prevent future crimes or help the
crime rate, and it robs a prisoner of the chance for rehabilitation," she says.


--

The 8 people executed on April 29, 2015

Andrew Chan, Australia - a member of the Bali 9 drug smugglers. In his decade
of imprisonment he became a pastor and helped many fellow inmates through
counselling.

Myuran Sukumaran, Australia - dubbed a ringleader of the Bali 9 along with
Chan, he became an accomplished painter behind bars and helped inmates find
purpose and skills through art programs.

Rodrigo Gularte, Brazil - executed despite being twice diagnosed with
schizophrenia. Arrested at Jakarta airport in 2004 with 6kg of cocaine, Gularte
did not understand he was going to be executed until the final moments.

Martin Anderson, Nigeria - arrested in Jakarta in 2003 for possessing about 1.8
ounces of heroin. Police shot him in the leg during his arrest and the injury
troubled him for his remaining years.

Okwuduli Oyatanze, Nigeria - sentenced to death in 2002 for attempting to bring
2.5kg of heroin through Jakarta in capsules inside his stomach. He was a gospel
singer whose deep Christian faith touched many who met him.

Raheem Salami, Nigeria - was homeless in Bangkok when he was offered $400 to
take a package of clothes to Indonesia. He was arrested in Surabaya with 5.5kg
of heroin and originally sentenced to life in prison in 1999.

Silvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Nigeria - convicted in 2002 of smuggling just over a
kilogram of heroin into Indonesia. He was lured to Pakistan with the promise of
work, but instead offered the task of flying to Indonesia with what he thought
were capsules of goat horn powder.

Zainal Abidin, Indonesia - A laborer from Palembang, Abidin was transferred for
execution despite having a live judicial appeal. 2 men convicted with Abidin,
who he claimed were the masterminds of a plot to sell marijuana, served prison
sentences and were released.

(source: rappler.com)

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

Brits facing death by firing squad in Indonesia could be executed 'within
weeks'----Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth Cashmore have been sentenced to death by
firing squad


2 Brits are among those thought to be executed in Indonesia by firing squad
'within weeks' - a year after the country caused international outrage after
killing 8 men.

Foreigners on death row in Indonesia fear that the execution of their sentences
could be just weeks away, The Guardian reports.

Last April, the country was widely condemned after a group of prisoners was
executed after midnight on Nusakambangan Island - including Australian men
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, Nigerian men
Martin Anderson, Sylvester Nwolise, Okwudili Oyatanze and Raheem Salami, and
Indonesian Zainal Badarudin.

Officials said the prisoners were to be given the choice to stand, kneel or sit
before the firing squad, and to be blindfolded. Their hands and feet were to be
tied.

Another round of executions has been on hold since then.

But Brits Lindsay Sandiford, from Teeside, and Gareth Cashmore, from Yorkshire,
are among those now facing death after being convicted of drug smuggling.

No official date or list of the prisoners facing death by firing squad has yet
been released by Indonesia.

"I still don't want to believe it," lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis - who last year
was fighting to save Chan and Sukumaran - told The Guardian.

"Yes, there will probably be a statement, but in the end I don't think there
will be any executions. I refuse to believe it."

According to Amnesty International, 27 people were executed in Indonesia
between 1999 and 2014, with no executions carried out between 2009 and 2012.

The organisation has said there were at least 121 people on death row as of
April 2015, including 54 people convicted of drug-related crimes, 2 on
terrorism charges and 65 convicted of murder.

(source: The Independent)

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

Lawyer condemns move


A Myrtleford lawyer who acted for Bali drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran has expressed her disgust at the impending resumption of executions.

Veronica Haccou said she was "very, very concerned" that Indonesia was planning
to kill 14 prisoners at once.

Speaking on the eve of the 12-month anniversary of the pair's execution, Haccou
said she accepted the death penalty was a "very contested topic".

"But at the end of the day if we say that no one has the right to take another
person's life, then especially where the justice system is far from perfect
then there must be other ways to impose appropriate punishment."

Ms Haccou is continuing to fight for the abolition of the death penalty as a
board member of Reprieve Australia.

Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 34, were shot dead on the prison island of
Nusakambangan, along with 6 other prisoners, on April 29, 2015.

Ms Haccou helped them for 8 years alongside notable Melbourne human rights
lawyer Julian McMahon.

Ms Haccou said education played a key role in trying to abolish the death
penalty, especially through helping young Indonesians understand their
country???s obligations under international law.

"12 months ago on Anzac Day was the date the death warrants were read out to
both of the boys," she said.

"They were very dignified, very polite, but also they were there to tell the
truth in terms of they didn't agree the punishment was appropriate given how
they had been rehabilitated."

While the anniversary was a "very, very, very tough period of time" this did
not mean "we don't respect the families of victims of drug crimes. Of course we
do.

"But we are talking about 2 young men who made a really, really bad mistake
when they were 21 and 24," she said.

"They were in prison for 10 years and during that time they went ahead in leaps
and bounds.

"They had turned themselves from being criminals - there's no other way of
saying it - to rehabilitated young men who made a difference to others around
them."

(source: The Border Mail)

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

Prisoners on death row in Indonesia could be saved under proposed law
change----Death row prisoners in Indonesia may in the future have an avenue for
a reprieve.


A groundbreaking new penal code that would allow for prisoners on death row in
Indonesia to have their sentences commuted to a jail term could be passed as
early as next year, according to the country's justice minister.

This could save the lives of some of the estimated 180 people sentenced to
death in Indonesia - if they could demonstrate they had reformed after 10 years
behind bars.

Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly told Fairfax Media he hoped the new
draft of the criminal code would be passed by Parliament next year.

"Under the revision of the penal code we are doing now, we want the death
penalty to still be there, but it can be changed, commuted," Mr Yasonna said.

"If possible we would like to finish it up next year. The progress looks good."

Mr Yasonna's comments come on the eve of the 1st anniversary of the execution
of 8 drug offenders, including Bali 9 co-ordinators Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew
Chan.

President Joko Widodo refused to grant the Australians clemency, despite their
well-documented reform and rehabilitation, including Chan becoming a pastor and
Sukumaran establishing art and computer classes for inmates at Bali's Kerobokan
jail.

After a year-long break from executions - which government ministers attributed
to the weak economy - prison authorities have been ordered to prepare for a
fresh round on Nusakambangan, known as Indonesia's Alcatraz.

The timing of the executions and the names and nationalities of those who will
face the firing squad have not yet been disclosed.

However Fairfax Media has been told they are likely to be Indonesians after the
international outcry following the 2 rounds of executions last year, when 12 of
the 14 killed were foreigners.

Chief Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan said Indonesia wanted to avoid the
"soap opera" surrounding last year's executions.

He said this time only 3 days' notice of the timing would be given, as
stipulated under Indonesian law.

Last year's April 29 executions became a circus, with Chan and Sukumaran flown
to the island where they were executed accompanied by 2 Sukhoi fighter jets.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said at the time she couldn't comprehend the
dramatic display of military might, given the pair had never done anything to
suggest they were violent.

Chan and Sukumaran's Indonesian lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, told Fairfax Media
the international pressure could not be underestimated.

He said a draft of the revised penal code, which included the option to commute
the death penalty, had been submitted to Parliament late last year.

"I think the government expedited the submission of this draft criminal code
partly because of the death penalty protest," Dr Todung said.

"They want to find a way to answer the criticism of the human rights community.
I think Andrew and Myuran contributed to the expedition of the whole process."

However Dr Todung pointed out the low success rate in Parliament passing bills
and said he believed it would take Parliament more than a year to deliberate
the draft criminal code.

Putri Kanesia, from Jakarta-based human rights organisation Kontras, said she
was pessimistic about the new penal code, given it had been in the pipeline for
many years.

In 2007, the Indonesian Constitutional Court upheld the validity of the death
penalty, but also recommended that a death-row prisoner who showed
rehabilitation after 10 years have their sentence commuted to imprisonment.

The Indonesian President, Mr Joko, again defended the death penalty during a
visit to Europe this month, saying Indonesia was at an emergency level in the
war against drugs.

Mr Joko's "position on death for drugs is a genuine one" but also boosts his
political popularity, says Tim Lindsey, director of Indonesian law, Islam and
Society at the University of Melbourne's Law School.

Certainly, the legal team for Chan and Sukumaran saw Mr Joko's stance as
pivotal to their failure to succeed in the final weeks of their lives to get
Indonesia's Judicial Commission to investigate claims by the duo's former
lawyer, Mohammad Rifan, that judges and prosecutors asked for bribes to commute
their death sentence to 20 years during their 1st trial.

The commission, a nominally independent body that examines the probity of
judges, refused to summon the Bali 9 pair for interviews even though they were
key witnesses to the bribery and had provided statements.

"They admitted it would be really, really hard for them to be interviewed,"
said one senior member of the Indonesian legal team. "They said the President,
the executive, the lawmakers were united in performing the executions. They
essentially said it was too bad."

Right up until just hours before their execution, lawyers, eminent Indonesians,
diplomats and others were beseeching the chair of the Judicial Commission,
Marzuki Supraman, to intervene, to no avail.

"While there are many in civil society and government who oppose executions -
even in cabinet - many law enforcement officials, with an eye to promotion,
appointment, extension of tenure, now seem reluctant to take a stand against
the President's position," said Professor Lindsey.

"Many think this explains the Judicial Commission's shameful reluctance to call
on the government to halt the executions of Sukumaran and Chan, at least until
they had a chance to give evidence about the allegations of corruption by
judges in their original trial - allegations that, if proven, might well have
led to them avoiding the firing squad."

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

Threat to Bali 9's Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's legacy upsets families


As the families of Bali nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran? struggle
with the anniversary of their execution, news that 2 Iranian inmates entrusted
with their legacy have been suddenly shifted from Kerobokan prison has added to
their anguish.

Ali Reza Safar Khanloo? and Rouhallah Series Abadi? were among 63 prisoners
moved this week from the Bali prison that was home to Chan and Sukumaran for
more than a decade, part of a cohort judged to be "emotionally easy to provoke
and who caused disturbances".

"It's pretty upsetting," said Andrew Chan's brother Michael. "Knowing those 2
Iranian boys are going ... there, pretty much, goes the painting studio and
BengKer [workshop] as well."

The workshop, housed in an building that had previously been used by inmates to
manufacture the drug ecstasy, has long been at the heart of the Bali nine
pair's rehabilitation programs.

Used initially to conduct computer training classes, the space later morphed
into an art and craft studio, with inmates undertaking painting, jewellery
making and T-shirt printing.

Ali and Rouhallah, also known as Rahol, oversaw the facility after the death of
the Australians.

Chan and Sukumaran were killed in the early hours of April 29 last year.
Michael Chan says the emotions are raw. "This week has been tough," he says.

The family will mark the anniversary on Friday with a quiet "get-together" at
their Sydney home. Andrew Chan's wife Febyanti Herewila - they married on the
eve of the execution - has flown in for the occasion.

Like Michael Chan, she is disturbed that Indonesia has announced it will end a
moratorium on executions since the pair were killed alongside 6 other drug
traffickers a year ago.

"What is Andrew's legacy? Of course, the 1st one is to abolish the death
penalty," she said in comments posted on the website of Reprieve, an anti-death
penalty group.

"Andrew wants the young people from around the world to learn from his life,
Whatever decisions you make today will determine your future."

Andrew Chan was an obsessive rugby league supporter and devoted fan of the
Penrith Panthers.

Now the season is in full swing, his brother - a Canterbury Bulldogs fan - says
his absence has hit home.

"I miss the good old banter we used to have," he says. "This time of year, he'd
be telling me how good his team is. I'd be telling him how shit his team is."

The Sukumaran clan remains deeply wounded by the loss of Myuran and, according
to family friends distressed at the precarious future of the Kerobokan
workshop.

A church service will be held for Myuran Sukumaran on Saturday.

Next year an exhibition of his artwork, curated by his painting mentor Ben
Quilty, will be held.

(source for both: Sydney Morning Herald)

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April 28



AUSTRALIA:

17 Australians on or facing death row a year after Bali 9 deaths ---- Figures
show Australian federal police provided information for 'potential death
penalty situations' 74 times in past year


In the year since Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran faced an Indonesian firing
squad, their wishes appear to have been posthumously granted, at least in part
- no more Australians have been added to the list of those potentially facing
the death penalty.

But of at least 17 Australians still thought to be at risk of execution
overseas, life on death row has become a grim reality for at least 1 man and
the fate of another could be known within days.

On the anniversary of the execution of Chan and Sukumaran over a thwarted plan
to smuggle heroin out of Bali, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did
not respond when asked how many Australians in jail could face capital
punishment.

It is understood there has been no change to the number Dfat confirmed last
year, with groups including the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties not
aware of any new cases.

But, in the past year, the prospect of execution drew closer for a former
Adelaide jockey given a suspended death sentence in China for smuggling ice.

And a verdict on another ice smuggling case in China, which will decide the
fate of a young dual Australian and New Zealand citizen, could be just days
away.

The 2 men are among as many as 11 Australians thought to be held over drug
prosecutions in a single southern Chinese city, Guangzhou. The possibility of
execution by lethal injection or firing squad looms for all of them.

In Malaysia, an Australian woman could be hanged if found guilty of drug
smuggling. In Vietnam, a Sydney man faces the prospect of secret execution by
lethal injection of locally manufactured chemicals of "unknown efficacy",
according to Amnesty International.

While the number of Australians on or facing death row held steady, the level
of involvement by the Australian federal police in transnational investigations
that could result in death penalties declined - but was still significant.

Figures provided to Guardian Australia show the AFP provided information for
investigations known as "potential death penalty situations" 74 times in the
past year.

This was down from 100 times in 2014 and 89 times in 2012 but more than the 50
times in 2013.

Of those 74 information exchanges in 2015, 11 of them were with the approval of
Michael Keenan, the minister for justice, as required in cases where suspects
are already charged or convicted.

It is not known how many of these related to Australian citizens.

Guardian Australia was told that information provided by the AFP could include
criminal history or lack thereof in Australia, which may be used by the accused
to bolster their defences. The AFP has faced prolonged criticism for its role
in tipping off Indonesian authorities about the plot of the "Bali 9", which led
to Chan and Sukumaran's executions.

A Guangzhou customs official in 2014 cited growing cooperation with the AFP in
recent years after a surge in drug arrests in the city involving Australians.
In China, possession of more than 100g of an illicit drug automatically results
in a trafficking charge and a possible death sentence.

Andrew Chan's brother Michael recently told Reprieve Australia that while the
anniversary of his death was "a rollercoaster ride for the family to come to
terms with the loss", it was important to maintain public discussion of capital
punishment.

"Countries need to look at ways to rehabilitate prisoners instead of executing
them," he said. "We need to keep talking about this issue so we can abolish the
death penalty for good.

"I know this was what Andrew wanted and also need to speak up for the rest of
the people that are on death row so they can be heard."

Chan's widow, Febyanti Herewila, said his legacy was a renewed push for the
death penalty to be abolished and the principle of "a 2nd chance".

"Also Andrew wants the young people from around the world to learn from his
life," she said. "Whatever decisions you make today it will determine your
future."

Countries that apply the death penalty on those convicted of using, dealing or
trafficking drugs include Indonesia, Thailand, China, Singapore, Malaysia,
Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates.

Anthony Roger Bannister, 43 (China)

Australian jockey Bannister was handed a suspended death sentence last June
after his March 2014 arrest for drug smuggling in Guangzhou. More than 3kg of
crystal methamphetamine was found in envelopes stuffed into 8 handbags in his
luggage. Bannister claimed to have been set up after being promised a lucrative
divorce settlement. Bannister, whose death sentence could be commuted to life
in prison after 2 years of good behaviour, vowed to appeal the ruling, Fairfax
Media reported.

Peter Gardner, 25 (China)

A dual New Zealand/Australian citizen, Gardner was arrested at Guangzhou
airport, China, on 8 November 2014 after customs officials allegedly found 30kg
of methamphetamine in his bags.

A verdict in Gardner's trial in Guangzhou's municipal intermediate court was
expected before the end of April. But his lawyer, Craig Tuck, told Guardian
Australia that no date had yet been set.

"It is difficult to say [when it will be]," Tuck said. "The warrant to detain
is reviewed this month."

Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, 52 (Malaysia)

Exposto, a grandmother from Sydney, faces death by hanging if convicted in the
Malaysian high court of smuggling 1.1kg of ice.

She was arrested in December 2014 at Kuala Lumpur airport, en route from
Shanghai to Australia.

Exposto has claimed she was the victim of a sophisticated online romance scam
and was duped into being an unwitting drug mule.

Her lawyer, Tania Scivetti, told Guardian Australia her case was fixed for
hearing from 20 June to 24 June.

Malaysian law carries a mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking. 3
Australian nationals have been executed by the state: Michael McAuliffe in
1993, and Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers in 1986.

Bengali Sherrif and Ibrahim Jalloh (China)

Sherrif and Jalloh were arrested by Chinese authorities at Guangzhou airport in
June 2014. Sherrif was sentenced last April to a suspended death penalty for
attempting to smuggle methamphetamine to Australia. Like Bannister's, Sherrif's
sentence could also be commuted to life in prison after 2 years of good
behaviour.

Jalloh went on trial last July, his lawyers arguing he had an intellectual
disability that allowed him to be duped into acting as a drug mule. Prosecutors
argued he was fit to stand trial as a Chinese psychiatrist found he had only
"slight mental development delay", Fairfax reported. The progress of his case
is not known.

Pham Trung Dung, 37 (Vietnam)

Dung was sentenced to death in June 2014 after being discovered with more than
4kg of heroin as he boarded a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Australia in May
2013. Dfat said at the time: "We understand that he has the right of appeal.
Whether he decides to do so is a matter for the man and his lawyers." It is not
known whether Dung appealed.

Amnesty International has raised concerns about the secrecy of Vietnam's
executions and its use of domestically produced chemicals for lethal injection.

The 5 Australians who have received death penalties for heroin trafficking in
Vietnam have had their sentences commuted to life in prison, according to the
New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties.

Henry Chhin (China)

Chhin, convicted of attempting to mail 270g of ice to Australia, was given the
death penalty with a 2-year suspension in March 2005.

It is still not clear whether Chhin remains on death row or not.

The then 35-year-old from Sydney was arrested in Shenzhen in May 2004 for
attempting to mail 270g of methamphetamine to Australia, the Shenzhen Daily
reported. The box, which allegedly contained the drugs and computer software,
was intercepted by Shanghai police 2 days before. Local police said another
700g of the same drug was found in kitchen cabinets and the sitting room of
Chhin's residence.

(source: The Guardian)






IRAN:

17 executions in 4 days including at least 3 young prisoners


The antihuman mullahs' regime hanged 17 prisoners in the time span of April 23
to 27. On Wednesday, April 27, 6 prisoners were collectively hanged in
Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) Prison. 1 of the prisoners by the name of Milad
Mostakhdem had been taken to the hanging pole for the 7th time, a known method
used by the regime's henchmen to psychologically torture prisoners.

On April 26, 3 young men - aged between 22 to 30 years - were executed in
Zahedan's central prison while another prisoner was executed in Qazvin prison.
2 other prisoners were hanged in a prison in the city of Sari on April 24. And
5 prisoners were collectively hanged on April 23 in Zahedan's central prison.

As such, the number of executions in April reaches 52. The objective of these
arbitrary and collective executions is to intensify the climate of horror and
fear and prevent the explosion of popular discontent and loath, especially of
the youth, against the Iranian regime.

These executions happening concurrent and after visits to Tehran by the Italian
Prime Minister and the EU High Representative demonstrates that visits by
European officials not only fail to result in any improvements in human rights,
but embolden this regime in its brutal and systematic violation of human
rights. Economic and political relations with this regime lack all legitimacy
and need to be preconditioned to an improvement of human rights, particularly a
halt in the executions.

The Iranian Resistance calls on the Iranian people, especially the courageous
youths, to stand up against the crimes and collective and daily executions by
this regime and to express their solidarity and sympathy with the families of
those executed and the prisoners.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)


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April 29



EGYPT:

UN urged Egypt to halt rights violations in Ibrahim Halawa case


The United Nations urged the Egyptian government to take "all necessary interim
measures" to halt alleged violations of the human rights of Irish citizen
Ibrahim Halawa.

Mr Halawa, 20, is being prosecuted alongside 493 co-defendants in mass trial
for allegedly participating in a political protest in 2013.

He is the only Irish citizen among the group. Belfast firm KRW Law,
representing Mr Halawa, says he and hundreds of others were seeking refuge in a
Cairo mosque from violent clashes between security forces and protesters.

Mr Halawa, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, has been charged with serious
offences, all of which he strongly denies. His lawyers believe that, if
convicted, he may face the death penalty.

The UN intervention took place last year, but details have only just emerged in
a report published ahead of the 31st Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The UN communication to Egypt states: "While awaiting a reply, we urge that all
necessary interim measures, including Mr Halawa's Bail or unconditional
release, be taken to halt the alleged violations, prevent their re-occurrence,
and in the event that the investigations support or suggest the allegations to
be correct, to ensure accountability of any person responsible for such
violations."

Solicitor Darragh Mackin of KRW Law said: "We warmly welcome the communication
by the UN to the Egyptian Government on behalf of Ibrahim Halawa.

"The communication in many ways exonerates the family's position, and the UN
should be commended in tackling the alleged breaches of human rights and
international law in Ibrahim's case.

"We now urgently call upon the Egyptian Government to take the interim measures
as stipulated by the UN, and release Ibrahim immediately."

Solicitor Gavin Booth of KRW Law added: "We welcome the representations by the
United Nations in this case. It is clear Ibrahim is being failed, as he is
subject to an unfair system of law and immediate steps need to be taken to
secure his release."

Mr Halawa will next appear in court on 29 June 2016.

(source: irishlegal.com)






INDIA:

Kundapur: In rare instance, man gets death penalty for killing girl in 2010


In a historic judgement, the Kundapur additional district and sessions court on
Thursday April 28 awarded death penalty to a man for murdering a girl 6 years
ago.

Satish Poojary, a resident of Hemmady, has been found guilty of murdering
Akkayya alias Latha Poojary in June 2010.

Latha hailed from a poor family and earned her livelihood by tying beedis. In
June 2010, she joined a private educational institution in Kundapur as an ayah.
At the time, Satish, who was 34, was running a fancy store in Hemmady. He had
also contested the gram panchayat elections twice and lost both times.

Latha and Satish were friends, but over a period of time, Satish misused her
friendship for his own benefits. Their friendship grew into an affair and
Satish took advantage of her to gratify himself. When Latha felt that the
situation was going out of hand, she began pressuring him to marry her. But
Satish used to evade the topic, and angered at his behaviour, she began
blackmailing him. Feeling mentally harassed by Latha, Satish decided to put an
end to the matter.

One day, when she was returning from work by school bus, she asked the driver
to drop her at Tallur, saying that she had to visit a friend. It was Satish
that she had come to meet. Satish came to the spot in a friend's Omni and took
her Maravante beach. He then used her churidar shawl to strangle her in the
Omni itself. By then, the time was past 3 pm. To avoid suspicion, Satish parked
the Omni, with Latha's body in it, in front of his shop till 7 pm. Thereafter,
he drove to Kolur cross at Kundabaradandi in Halkady and threw the body. Before
leaving the spot, he took away the gold ornaments she was wearing and flung
away her footwear and umbrella nearby.

The body was soon discovered and a sense of anxiety gripped the locals. A team
led by the then DySP Vishwanath Pandith, comprising Madan Gaonkar who was
serving in Kundapur police station, Gangolli inspector Gopal Naik and Sathish
Kumar carried out the investigation. The most important lead in the case was
the series of phone calls. Latha had 2 mobile phones, and the call records
showed that she was in constant touch with Satish. Moreover, on the day of the
murder, Satish received calls after 7 pm, which were traced to a mobile tower
in Aloor. During interrogation on these points, Satish admitted his guilt and
narrated the whole story. About 5 or 6 of his friends were also questioned.
Satish was then jailed, but was soon out on conditional bail. Confident that
the case would be closed, he attended the hearing on Thursday.

After the hearing ended, judge Rajshekar V Patil convicted Satish and sentenced
him to death. As soon as the verdict was pronounced, Satish broke down.

There were 28 witnesses in the case. Advocate Srinivas Hegde was the public
prosecutor.

(source: daijiworld.com)






KENYA:

Abolish death penalty charge, former CIC commissioner Kamotho Waiganjo urges


A former commissioner at the defunct CIC Kamotho Waiganjo has called for the
abolishing of the death penalty charge for crimes.

"Death penalty has not been practised since 1987. This shows that it only
exists in the Kenyan Constitution on paper.

Therefore it does not apply," the former constitution implementation
commissioner said.

Waiganjo asserts that the death penalty charge is ineffective and irrelevant.

He spoke at a time 2 Somalis in Mandera were sentenced to death by hanging
after being found guilty of robbery with violence and murder.

According to the Commissioner for Prisons, the number of inmates who are on
death row in Kenya stands at 1,582.

Kenya national Commission of Human Rights holds a strong position that death
penalty amounts to "cruel, inhumane and degrading.

The rights lobby also contends that enhancement of human dignity and protection
of human entitlements will be reinforced if the death penalty is abolished.

In the pre-colonial Kenya, death penalty was applied on serious crimes such as
witchcraft, sorcery and murder especially among the Kisii, Turkana and Luo
communities.

(source: The Star)






PHILIPPINES/INDONESIA:

Mary Jane Veloso: what happened to the woman who escaped execution in
Indonesia? ---- Filipina who was temporarily spared at 11th hour, as the Bali 9
pair and 6 others were killed, remains on death row amid uncertain future


A woman who was temporarily spared death by firing squad last year remains on
death row in Indonesia with her life precariously wagered on an slow-moving
court case.

Mary Jane Veloso won sympathy in her home country of the Philippines, as well
as within Indonesia, after she said she was duped into smuggling drugs. And in
a shock turnaround, Indonesian president Joko Widodo - known as Jokowi -
delayed her killing with a temporary reprieve just hours before she was due to
be executed in April 2015.

Indonesia shot dead 8 others that night, including 2 Australians, Andrew Chan
and Myuran Sukumaran, who fought a years-long campaign for clemency and were
part of the Bali 9 heroin-smuggling ring. 4 Nigerians, a Brazilian and an
Indonesian were also killed.

Sparing the domestic worker and mother-of-2 was unexpected and several Filipino
newspapers wrongly reported on their front pages the next day that she had been
killed. The Philippine Daily Inquirer ran the headline: "Death came before
Dawn."

But in the year that has passed, the outburst of joy and relief has given way
to a lengthy human trafficking trial in the Philippines and no guarantees that
Veloso will be taken off death row even if she can prove she was tricked.

Migrante International, a group that promotes the rights of overseas Filipino
workers, says Veloso's life depends of the speedy trial and conviction of her
accused traffickers, Maria Kristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao.

But the group complains that the defence has employed delaying tactics by
filing motion after motion to keep the case in the early stages of legal
proceedings.

"Mary Jane is still facing the threat of execution," Migrante International
vice-chair Rina Anastacio told the Guardian. "Unfortunately the trial is going
very slowly."

Hours before Veloso was due to be killed last year, Sergio handed herself in to
police in Manila, and the Philippines president, Benigno Aquino, made an appeal
to his Indonesian counterpart on the basis that Veloso would be needed as a
witness in the case against her alleged recruiter.

Key to the last-minute reprieve was that the Philippines invoked a regional
treaty (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations mutual legal assistance
treaty, or Asean MLAT) signed to fight transnational crimes in south-east Asia,
which obliges Indonesia to help provide Veloso as a witness to the human
trafficking court case.

Filipino officials have travelled to Indonesia to discuss the case that they
hope can save her life.

Activists fear that Veloso, who has already been convicted in an Indonesian
court, could yet be executed if the trial is overly delayed, as she is being
kept alive only to give testimony. Her supporters want the Indonesian
government to allow Veloso to fly home so she can testify in person in court.

They hope a swift conviction in the Philippines will show that Veloso was a
pawn and might persuade Indonesia to spare her life.

The plan is far from certain. Indonesian officials suggest executions could
restart again this year after a short hiatus, and the attorney general said in
January the country was "ready" to execute Veloso.

Attorney general Prasetyo told Rappler: "We will look at the verdict, perhaps
the verdict can be new evidence to appeal for clemency from the president. But
surely Mary Jane will not be free from punishment. The fact is that she
smuggled drugs to Indonesia."

Veloso's lawyer Edre Olalia lamented the slow pace of the human trafficking
case. "After 1 year, we have unfortunately only presented her sister as
prosecution witness so far. This week, we are calling her mother to the witness
stand," he said.

Olalia said Veloso was given a reprieve following what he described as bold
legal tactics and an overwhelming local and international campaign - "and her
peculiar circumstance of being a credible victim of human trafficking plus the
human side of her being a young, poor mother of little boys forced by poverty
to work abroad".

Veloso, who fled Dubai after an attempted rape and moved to Indonesia via
Malaysia to find work, says she was tricked by a trafficking gang to smuggle
2.6kg (5.7lb) of heroin 6 years ago. The drugs were found in the lining of her
suitcase at Yogyakarta airport.

Olalia joined Veloso';s parents and children during a prison visit in January
to celebrate her 31st birthday. He said: "Her family communicates with her by
phone from time to time."

Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer and political analyst at Indonesia's Universitas
Jenderal Achmad Yan, said Veloso's story resonated with Indonesians who, like
Filipinos, have a large emigrant population, some of whom are exploited. "Lots
of people here in Indonesia were against her execution because her story was so
close to home ... it's not unlike Indonesians in the Middle East."

With the potential for public anger following her still-planned execution,
Sulaiman said: "The Indonesian government had to be really sure that Mary Jane
is what they consider as a big dealer. Not just a mule."

He suggested that if a new date was set for her death by firing squad, there
might be "uproar again", but added: "The wheels of justice grind very slowly
here in Indonesia, so people tend to get distracted. It is hard to maintain
pressure over Mary Jane."

Indonesia has some of the toughest anti-drugs laws in the world and the
president says the nation is facing a "drug emergency", calling for a stronger
fight, including rejecting clemency.

Since Widodo took office, 14 drug convicts have been executed. Most of them
were foreigners. Close to 90 convicted drug traffickers are currently on death
row in Indonesia.

Capital punishment was outlawed in the Philippines in 2006.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Death by firing squad is barbaric. I know, I saw it.----An Australian pastor
was the last person to see Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran alive. Here, she
reveals what really happened in the last few minutes of their lives.


On the 12th of January this year, Christie Buckingham crawled into a ball on
the sofa and sobbed.

It should have been the 32nd birthday of her friend, convicted drug trafficker
Andrew Chan, but he was dead.

She didn't want to speak with anyone, she didn't want any consolation.

It was the 1st time she'd allowed herself a moment to cry since witnessing the
brutal execution of Andrew and fellow "Bali 9 ringleader" Myuran Sukumaran last
April, and she hoped this outpouring of tears would wash away some of the
grief.

"I wept for the waste," she says. "I wept for the total senselessness of it and
the overwhelming feeling of injustice. It's just too awful."

Christie was the last person to see the young Australians alive.

The mother of 3, a minister at Melbourne's Bayside Church, had been one of the
pastoral carers to the convicted drug traffickers while they were on death row
at Bali's notorious Kerobokan Prison.

When their final appeal for clemency was rejected in January last year, Myuran
asked her to be his official witness at the execution.

As the first anniversary of their deaths approaches, Christie has agreed to
share intensely painful memories of that night to fulfil a pledge she made to
Andrew and Myuran that she'd never give up fighting against the death penalty.

"Every day, Myu made me promise I would speak up and even in his final minutes,
when he was chained to the pole waiting to be shot, he made me reiterate my
vow. Death by firing squad is so utterly barbaric and it achieves absolutely
nothing.

"I was told on the night that if Myu didn't die instantly, I would have to
witness them shooting him in the head. I didn't know this beforehand; it was my
worst nightmare. As a mother, it was so important to me how the family received
him back. I couldn't let them see their son with a bullet in his head and I
didn't want him to have any pain."

There are 2 distinct memories that will haunt the petite Irish-born cleric
forever: the sound of the shackles rattling as the guards chained the prisoners
onto makeshift wooden crucifixes to be shot and the thunderous noise of the
200-strong firing squad leaving the killing fields after the execution (4
Nigerians, an Indonesian and a Brazilian were also executed at the time).

"The shooters had 60 seconds to leave the area after firing and I hadn't given
any thought to what that sound would be like, it was terrifying," she says.
"The total silence after they'd gone was something of a strange relief because
I knew then that Myu had died instantly."

How she became involved with the Bali 9

Christie Buckingham had no intention of becoming involved with the so-called
Bali 9.

In fact, she had zero sympathy for the 9 young Australians who were arrested in
Bali in April 2005 for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin from
Indonesia into Australia.

She even wrote in her journal at the time, "how dumb can you get and still
breathe, nevertheless God, still show your mercy".

One of Christie's closest friends from Bible college, Gayle Bonnet-Dwjie had
established a church in Bali helping prisoners and the poor.

They had cut their missionary teeth together helping drug addicts on the
streets of St Kilda in Melbourne.

Gayle's church was supporting Australian Schapelle Corby, who was arrested in
2004 for bringing cannabis into Bali, and she asked Christie's congregation to
pray for her, too.

When Christie and her husband, fellow minister Rob, visited Bali for a
conference, Gayle invited them to Kerobokan to meet the young Australian
prisoners.

"I was reluctant because there was such a media circus around Schapelle,"
Christie says, "but niggling me in the back of my mind was the scripture, 'I
was in prison and you visited me'."

Christie says she instantly knew the boys were rehabilitated.

By that stage, Andrew had established a church inside Kerobokan and Myuran had
found his calling teaching English, computer skills and art to others on death
row.

As she was leaving, Christie invited them to contact her if there was anything
they needed and within two weeks of returning to Australia, a letter arrived
from Andrew asking for first-aid supplies, books, pens, pencils and computer
equipment, so they could teach the other prisoners English.

"I've worked with people in this field for 30 years and I can spot a fake a
mile off, and I could see that these 2 boys were totally reformed and not only
did they want to rehabilitate themselves, but others, too," she says.

Never did Christie imagine, though, that she would be with them the moment they
died.

Each of the 8 prisoners executed was allowed a spiritual advisor to accompany
them, administer last rites, witness their death and sign their death
certificates.

When the boys' final legal appeal was rejected and their death warrant signed,
Andrew asked his long-time friend, Salvation Army chaplain, David Soper, to be
his witness and Myuran asked Christie to take on that role.

"I could not leave him in his darkest hour," she says. "I constantly thought
about how I would want my son or daughter to be treated and I fixed my mind on
that. I had a steely determination that no matter what happened, they were
going to be treated with dignity, despite the horrendous situation around
them."

The final farewell

At dusk on the evening of April 29, 2015, Christie and the other witnesses
farewelled the prisoner's families and legal teams at the port of Cilacap,
Indonesia, and boarded a small boat to Nusa Kambangan or "execution island" as
it is known.

The island of the damned houses 1500 death-row inmates in medieval concrete
cells dotted among dense rainforest, rubber plantations and fields of the
graves of those who???d already faced their fate.

It is at best inhospitable, at worst utterly gruesome.

Greeted by intense humidity and a haze of mosquitoes, Christie was taken to
Myuran's cell, where she faced the daunting task of calming his mind and soul,
while the minutes cruelly ticked down on his life.

The 1st thing he did was offer her the last of the chocolate he had been given
as a final treat.

They prayed, sang, joked and talked until just after midnight, when the guards
arrived to take them to the killing field.

As they were marched out of their cells, Andrew led the prisoners in a chorus
of Amazing Grace.

It was pitch black, but armed guards held a lantern at her feet so Christie
could see where she was going.

"We were down to the last few minutes and with every step I thought to myself,
'I'm still standing, I'm still breathing, keep going ... God, let me be what I
need to be for these boys'. Then I heard Andrew in his very ocker Australian
accent belt out, "Saviour he can move mountains, my God is mighty to save", and
we all sang back with him and the atmosphere changed instantly."

Christie was the last chaplain to leave the field.

She refused to go even though she could hear the marksmen lining up their
rifles behind her.

She placed her hand on Myuran's heart and asked if he felt any unforgiveness.

When he said, "No", she asked if he had any final words. He said, "I want to
forgive the people who have to do this."

The guards tapped Christie on the shoulder, but she refused to go. Behind her
the firing squad was lining up the prisoners' hearts with target lasers.

"I was aware of what was happening behind me, but I hadn't got Myuran into the
spiritual place where I'd promised I'd let him go. I put my hand up and said,
'1 more minute'." He was chained to the pole on an angle slightly higher than
her, so she stood on tippy toes and raised her arm high to block the line of
sight so he could not see the lasers dotting his chest.

"We started singing Bless the Lord and I said, 'Is there anything else you want
to say?' He said, 'I trust you, Jesus', and we kept on singing. The guard took
me by the arm then, so I said to My very calmly, 'I'm just going to take one
step back, My. Can you still hear me?' and he said, 'Yeah, I can hear you'.
Then I said, 'I'm going to take a few steps to the side, My. Can you still hear
me?' and he said, 'Yeah I can hear you', and we kept singing. Then I said, 'I
love you. I'll see you on the other side'."

As she was walking off, Andrew called to her.

"I rushed to Andrew and put my hand on his heart, and I said, 'Bless you,
Andrew, I love you and I'll see you on the other side', and he said, 'I love
you, too, Mrs B. Keep being God's woman', which is what he'd always said to me.
That moment will stay with me forever.

"I said to them, 'Keep singing', so Andrew started to sing again and as I
walked off to the side of the field where the other witnesses were, the guard
put up a plastic sheet to block our view and they fired. It was an ethereal
experience. I felt like I was watching it from the outside, but I was in it.
Whilst there was nothing right about their dying, they did everything with such
courage.

"I'm reluctant to talk about my grief because mine was not the biggest grief.
Their families were so incredibly courageous, under such duress, but equally,
they also carried so many people with their courage and spirit."

The executions that made headlines

The executions and the intense last-minute fight to stave them made headlines
around the word.

Thousands rallied against the death penalty and candlelight vigils were held in
Australia and overseas. Yet Christie says she was shocked by the level of
vitriol pitched towards Andrew and Myuran, and those wanting them to be freed.

"People I've never met wrote letters to me, rang me, tweeted me, dropped
horrible parcels at my door, like pictures of drug-addicted kids. That stupid
line 'They've done the crime, they should do the time' drives me crazy because
that's exactly what we wanted, that they pay time, not with their life."

Last May, A few days after returning from Nusa Kambangan, Christie stood at her
kitchen bench to light the candles on her youngest daughter's birthday cake.

She was struck by the surreality of the 2 worlds she'd been navigating. She
paused and stared at the 3 girls standing in front of her, aged 17, 14 and 7.

Her eldest, Gigi, is nearly the same age as the 2 youngest Bali Nine drug
mules, Scott Rush and Matthew Norman, were when they were arrested.

"It really hit me when I saw my own girls that, at that age, you make good
decisions and bad, that comes with being a teenager.

It shouldn't cost you your life. People deserve 2nd chances. Without 2nd
chances, there is no hope. In the words of Andrew Chan, we must keep hope
alive."

(source: The Australian Women's Weekly)

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

Police have 30 days to make case against Jessica


The Jakarta Police have extended the detention of Jessica Kumala Wongso for
another 30 days. As the final extension of her detention period, the police
must present sufficient evidence against her in that time, or set her free.

Jessica, 27, who is suspected of murdering her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin, has
been in detention since Jan. 31. The Jakarta Police have extended her detention
until May 28, Jakarta Police general crimes division head Sr. Cmr. Krishna
Murti said on Thursday as reported by kompas.com.

Investigators have asked for the district court's permission for the detention
extension, he said.

Jessica was detained after the Jakarta Police named her as the sole suspect for
the murder of Mirna, who died after drinking a cyanide-tainted coffee at a cafe
in the Grand Indonesia mall in early January.

Police investigators are allowed to detain a suspect for a maximum 120 days
under the Criminal Law Procedures Code ( KUHAP ). However, if the police cannot
complete the dossiers before her detention period ends, then Jessica must be
released from detention, according to the KUHAP.

For the 90 days that Jessica has been in detention, the police's case dossier
has 2 times been rejected by the prosecutor's office as incomplete. The police
submitted the dossier to the prosecutor's office for the 3rd time on Friday.

The police seek to charge Jessica with pre-meditated murder. If she is found
guilty, she could face the death penalty.

Hidayat Bostam, one of Jessica's lawyers, said he came to the Jakarta Police
headquarters on Thursday to sign the detention extension and check on his
client's condition.

Jessica was unwell, and had complained of difficulty breathing, Bostam said,
adding that he would ask permission from the police to have a doctor check her
lungs.

(source: Jakarta Post)

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

Fight goes on after Myuran and Andrew


When Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan faced their certain death last year,
pastor Christie Buckingham remembers how they sang Bless the Lord until the
end.

"(I remember) their kindness, their courage ... the way that they smiled at
those about to take their lives."

She also recalls the promise she made to continue their fight against the death
penalty.

Friday marks 1 year since the 2 men were executed by firing squad just after
midnight or 3.25am (AEST) on the island of Nusakambangan - 10 years after being
found guilty of smuggling 8.3kg of heroin out of Indonesia.

Sukumaran and Chan were among 14 drug traffickers executed in Indonesia last
year, amid intensifying condemnation from human rights activists and
international governments.

The pressure continues with German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressing her
country's wish for Indonesia to put an end to capital punishment, during
Indonesian President Joko Widodo's recent visit to Europe.

Despite this, Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan and Attorney General Muhammad
Prasetyo have flagged executions are likely to resume this year.

Head of Central Java's Corrections Division Molyanto said they were currently
building more isolation cells - where those awaiting execution are kept - at
Nusakambangan prison.

But he denied reports that the "execution field" is being extended.

Sukumaran and Chan's Australian barrister Julian McMahon said it was
"surprising" further executions were back on Indonesia's agenda.

"The fact is after the international dismay in April 2015 executions have now
stopped for 12 months. The reason has not been publicly identified, except by
reference to economic priorities. But most commentators think that
international reaction would be very relevant," he told AAP.

Indonesian lawyer Dr Todung Mulya Lubis - who tweeted "I failed. I lost" after
his clients' executions last year - has been campaigning against capital
punishment in the country since 1979.

Since then he feels they have made "small progress".

"We have made people aware of the death penalty ... I believe over time we will
be able to score some wins."

While he cannot see the abolition of the death penalty happening in Indonesia
"any time soon", he hopes a bill tabled before parliament last year might prove
a "middle way".

Under the proposed changes, if people show they have rehabilitated themselves,
they could see their execution commuted to a life sentence.

He also noted "the international campaign must also be more tactful not to
embarrass Indonesia".

According to the Commission for Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS)
in Indonesia, more than 100 people are on death row in the country. Just over
half of these are for murder while two face capital punishment for terrorism
offences.

The rest are due to be executed for drug offences.

Mr McMahon said "this week was proving very difficult for the families as they
come to grips with their own grief and the loss of Andrew and Myuran."

In their last few years, he said the pair had "uplifted, educated and improved
many prisoners."

"If they had lived that example would have so easily multiplied out for the
benefit of more and more prisoners."

(source: The Mercury)

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[Rick Halperin]

April 29




IRAN----executions

At Least 4 Prisoners Were Executed For Drug Offences

2 of the 4 prisoners who were transferred to solitary confinement on Wednesday
27. April were hanged yesterday morning in the Central Prison of Karaj (west of
Tehran). According to close sources these prisoners were identified as "Mehdi
Bagherzadeh" and "Esmaeil Tanabi".

Iran Human Rights (IHR) had reported about the transfer of 4 prisoners (2
brothers) to solitary confinement in preparation for execution on April 27. All
the 4 prisoners were sentenced to death for possession and trafficking of 8
kilograms of heroin in one case.

Mehdi Bagherzadeh and his younger brother Abbas Bagherzadeh were the 2 brothers
who were scheduled to be executed. Mehdi was executed while Abbas was together
with another prisoner identified as "Farhad Esmaeili" were returned to their
wards. Sources have reported that they remain under imminent danger of
execution.

Another member of the Bagherzadeh family (Isa Bagherzadeh, another brother) was
hanged 5 months ago.

(source: iranhumanrights.net)






INDONESIA:

Pacquiao's effort to save Mary Jane Veloso hampered by slow trial


About year ago today, Manny Pacquiao visited Filipino death row convict Mary
Jane Velasco in Indonesia and made an appeal to the country's president Joko
Widodo to spare spare the life of the suspected drug mule from execution by
firing squad.

It its 2nd appeal to the Indonesian government, the Philippine authorities
argue that Veloso is a victim of human trafficking and does not deserve the
death penalty.

Veloso, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW), was arrested in 2010 by Indonesian
authorities after they found 2.6 kilos of heroin in her suitcase.

Veloso denied owning the package containing the illegal drug saying she wasn't
aware of its contents as she was just asked to carry it by her recruiter.

Veloso, who only made it to her 1st year high school, did not fully understand
the questions being asked during the proceedings as she was provided only with
a student translator.

In his appeal, Pacquiao said: "His Excellency, President Joko Widodo, I am
Manny Pacquiao. On behalf of my countryman, Mary Jane Veloso, and the entire
Filipino people, I am begging and knocking on your kind heart that Your
Excellency will grant executive clemency to her by sparing her life and saving
her life from execution."

In July 2010, Pacquiao flew to Indonesia along with wife Jinkee to fulfill his
promise to meet Veloso at the Wirogunan prison in Yogyakarta.

Together, they prayed with Veloso breaking down in tears as she tightly
embraced Manny and Jinkee.

"We're hoping to help save Mary Jane's life. I think Mary Jane is a victim of
human-trafficking," Pacquiao said after visiting the single mother of two young
children.

Veloso is surviving on a reprieve granted by the Indonesian president on appeal
from the Philippine government. As far as Indonesia is concerned, Veloso is
still a death convict and execution by firing squad can take place anytime
soon.

"Mary Jane is still facing the threat of execution," Migrante International
vice-chair Rina Anastacio told the Guardian. "Unfortunately the trial is going
very slowly," she said.

Indonesia has some of the toughest laws in the world for drug offenders and if
the ongoing trial in the Philippines drags on for years, there is no assurance
Indonesia will hold on to the temporary reprieve accorded to Veloso.

(source: digitaljournal.com)


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April 30



INDONESIA:

Indonesia prepares to execute up to 13 prisoners, including many foreigners


Exactly a year after Indonesia sent the 'Bali 9' drug convicts to the firing
squad inviting harsh censure from the world for the mass killing, Jakarta has
said it's preparing to execute up to 13 prisoners in the next few days.

Indonesian Attorney General M. Prasetyo said on Friday preparations are
underway to carry out the execution of several death row prisoners.

The executions could take place as early as next week and the attorney
general's office is coordinating with the appropriate institutions, Prasetyo
said, according to the Jakarta Globe newspaper.

The executions are likely to take place at the same Nusakambangan prison island
where 8 drug convicts belonging to the so-called Bali 9 trafficking ring,
including 2 Australians, were shot dead on April 29 last year.

The report says up to 13 convicts will be executed and this includes between 7
and 10 foreign nationals. The identities of the death row inmates to be
executed imminently were, however, not released as yet.

The date for the executions is not deiced yet, Prasetyo said, but local reports
claimed the chatter in the administrative circles hinted that the executions
will take place on May 7.

The official added that Nusakambangan prison off the coast of Cilacap, Central
Java, would be "the ideal place."

"We will see later, when [the executions] will take place," Prasetyo was quoted
as saying by Tempo.co, the Post said.

Indonesia has harsh laws in place that make it easy to award death penalty for
an array of crimes, especially drug related crimes.

President Joko Widodo declared a "drug emergency" in the country after coming
to power, speeding up a process to carry out a large number of pending
executions in mainly drug offences.

Before the execution of 8 convicts on the same day on April 29 last year,
including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Jakarta sent to death 6
prisoners in January.

At a recent UN conference on narcotics, Indonesia defended its wide use of the
death penalty in drug trafficking cases.

"Indonesia and like-minded countries ... face diverse challenges in handling
drugs and the death penalty is 1 of the options based on sovereignty of the law
in each country," a foreign ministry statement said.

(source: IB Times)






CHINA:

China's 'Valentine's Day' killer acquitted of 1998 murder


A Chinese man sentenced to death for the Valentine's Day murder of his
girlfriend 18 years ago has been acquitted, a court said, the latest wrongful
conviction overturned in the country.

Liu Jiqiang, 52, was found guilty of strangling and stabbing his lover on
February 14, 1998, earning him the notorious nickname "Valentine's Day killer"
in the Chinese press.

But after spending nearly 2 decades on death row, the Higher People's Court of
Jilin province in northeast China dismissed his conviction citing insufficient
evidence, the court said Friday on its official Sina Weibo microblog.

Liu initially admitted to the killing, but his lawyers said his confession was
obtained as a result of torture and illegal questioning, according to Xinhua
news agency.

He was handed the death penalty in December 1999 with a 2-year reprieve which
in China often means life in prison.

He unsuccessfully appealed his guilty verdict twice, in 2002 and 2003,
according to Xinhua.

China's courts are tightly controlled by the ruling Communist party, which has
vowed to overturn mistaken verdicts in the face of widespread public anger.

Liu's case is the latest to highlight miscarriages of justice in the country,
where forced confessions are widespread and more than 99 % of criminal
defendants are found guilty.

\ In February, the high court in eastern Zheijiang ordered the release of Chen
Man who had been jailed for more than two decades on murder charges.

Of those exonerated in recent years, Chen had spent the longest time in prison,
23 years, state media said.

In 2014, a court in the Inner Mongolia region cleared a man who was convicted,
sentenced and executed for rape and murder in 1996 at the age of 18.

The reversal of the verdict came 9 years after another man confessed to the
crime.

(source: Agence France-Presse)






TAIWAN:

Chang Ho-ling escapes execution


The High Court yesterday commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence
handed down to Chang Ho-ling, who was convicted of the murder of his wife and 2
daughters in a case that has wound through the courts for 10 years.

The ruling has sparked controversy and protests from the victims' relatives and
the judiciary, along with members of the public, who believe life imprisonment
is too lenient.

Chang, now 49, was found guilty of using ether to asphyxiate his wife, Tsai
Ting-yu, and their 2 young daughters at their home in New Taipei City in 2006,
then tampering with the crime scene to make it look like suicide through gas
poisoning. After a forensic investigation pointed to murder, Chang confessed.

Chang had been carrying on an extramarital affair with a woman surnamed Su, who
reportedly advised Chang to do away with his wife and daughters to start a new
life with her, and in an effort to please his new lover, Chang filmed the
killing of his wife for Su to watch, the courts found.

As the case went through the courts, judges upheld the original ruling of 2
death sentences for Chang for the murders of his daughters and 1 life prison
term for murdering his wife.

However, the latest ruling commuted the death sentence because judges said
there remains a possibility of Chang's rehabilitation, citing a psychiatric
report.

The mother of victim Tsai Ting-yu spoke out yesterday to condemn the judiciary.

"The judges were too lenient on Chang," she said. "Before, the ruling was
always the death sentence. Now all of a sudden it has changed to a life
sentence. We cannot accept it and we will appeal this decision."

She broke down in tears when talking to reporters.

"For 10 years, I have attended all the trial hearings. It has drained my mind
and taken a toll on my failing health. I cry every day when I think about my
daughter and my granddaughters. The sentencing was too lenient. The courts have
not given us justice," she said.

Lin Hung-sung, the prosecutor who pursued the case and brought the charges
against Chang, also said it was not right that Chang should escape the death
penalty.

"I felt very bad today when I heard the ruling. Even I cannot accept it, so how
can the victims' families accept this decision?" Lin said. "The ruling must be
appealed so justice can be served."

(source: Taipei Times)






NIGERIA:

Abduction nation: Despite death sentence, kidnappings thrive


Daily Trust checks show that an average of 25 Nigerians are kidnapped every
month, while 278 Nigerians have been abducted between May 2015 and April 2016.
Also, amounts ranging from N250,000 to millions of naira have been demanded as
ransom, bringing the total sum to N3.3bn.

The rising wave of the crime across the country has left many more afraid of
kidnappers than armed robbers or even insurgents. Gone are the days when only
expatriates, wealthy individuals and petroleum industry workers were the main
targets. Today, anyone can fall victim.

The failure of security agencies at resolving many cases has made matters
worse, with many families caving in and agreeing to pay ransom. While there are
instances where the police rescue victims without payment of ransoms, there are
also many where huge amounts were paid to kidnappers.

There are also instances where the police claim credit for rescuing victims
without ransom payments, only for the families of victims to counter the claims
by publicly announcing how much they paid to secure the release of their loved
ones.

According to reports, most of the kidnappers said they engaged in it because
they needed money to solve personal problems as they have no job.

Victims suffer psychological trauma, lack of trust, fear, torture and in some
cases even rape, among others.

The 14 April 2014 abduction of about 276 Chibok school girls in Maiduguri by
the Boko Haram insurgents remains indelible even as it drew world attention
including reactions from US President Barack Obama and other world leaders.

The scourge of kidnapping has forced many states to enact laws recommending
capital punishment and long prison sentences for those convicted of kidnapping.

This month alone 32 cases of kidnapping were reported in Enugu, Kano, Cross
River, Imo, Rivers, Kaduna, Abia, Kogi, FCT, Delta and Benue states. Since
kidnapping is not contained on the exclusive list of the Nigerian Constitution,
it is States Houses of Assembly that can enact laws on it.

Kidnapping was made a capital offence in 2009 in Abia, Akwa, Ibom, Anambra,
Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states to curtail the wave. No kidnapper has however
faced the death penalty since the enactment of the laws.

Before the Cross River State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, signed into law a bill
that prescribes death penalty for convicted kidnappers in the state, and before
the Kogi State Executive Council under former Governor Idris Wada approved
death penalty for kidnapping and other related criminal activities in the
state, Governors Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa and Adams Oshiomhole of Edo states
approved the death penalty for kidnappers in 2013. The Delta State House of
Assembly also passed the Anti-Kidnapping Bill 2013, imposing a death sentence
on any person convicted of kidnapping in the state, into law.

How Nigeria would tackle the menace remains to be seen in the face of other
socio-economic and security challenges, even as the nation is held to ransom by
kidnappers.

(source: dailytrust.com.ng)






JAMAICA:

'Don't waste your time,' Montague


A plan by the Minister of National Security Robert Montague to undertake
consultations on the legal impediments to the resumption of hanging, has been
described as a waste of time by attorney-at-law and human rights activist Nancy
Anderson.

"It's a waste of time. Anyone can just pick up the law and see what it says
about hanging, and it's a law made by our courts, not by the Privy Council or
anybody else," she said in an interview with The Gleaner.

The security minister is, however, of the view that the consultations are
necessary.

"Persons who intend to break the law must know that the punishment will be
sure, swift and just. In that regard I have asked the minister of state,
Senator Pearnel Charles Jr, to consult with a number of agencies, including the
Attorney General's office and the Ministry of Justice to determine if there are
legal impediments for the resumption of hanging in Jamaica," he said while
speaking at the Passing out Parade and Awards Ceremony for constables at the
National Police College of Jamaica at Twickenham Park in St Catherine.

While pointing out that the death penalty remains on the books, Anderson argued
that the consultations ordered by Montague are unnecessary given that the legal
impediments are already known.

"We already know what the legal impediments are. They were clearly set out in
the Peter Dougal case," she said.

Anderson, in pointing to a 2011 ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of
41-year-old farmer and construction worker, Peter Dougal, argued that the
conditions laid down by the court make it highly unlikely that anyone in
Jamaica will ever be hanged again.

The 2011 judgement in the Dougal v. R case ruled that the prosecution must give
written notice that they will be seeking the death penalty. In addition, if the
person is convicted by a jury, the judge must be convinced that the murder
committed is of the worst kind, that there is no chance for rehabilitation of
the offender and that there can be no other punishment that can be given except
the death penalty.

Montague, in responding to questions from journalists in regards to the
reaction of Jamaica's international partners to any move to resume hanging,
noted that hanging remains on Jamaica's books and that the laws of Jamaica
superseded international treaties.

"My international partners, the 1st thing they will tell you is that they will
obey the laws of whatever country they are operating in," he said.

Jamaica has not executed anyone since 1988, but the Government reaffirmed its
commitment to retaining the death penalty through a 2008 conscience vote in
Parliament.

(source: Jamaica Gleaner)






VIETNAM:

Vietnam sentences Singapore man to death for trafficking heroin


A court in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday sentenced a Singaporean man to death for
trafficking 2.5 kilograms of heroin.

Lee Loke Dah, 40, was arrested at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in
December 2014 with a plastic bag containing thousands of capsules. Further
tests confirmed that the drug was heroin.

The man, who had entered the country 4 days earlier, told investigators that he
stole the bag from a stranger in a hotel in District 5 and that he was not
aware of the drug.

Prosecutors rejected these claims. The court found him guilty of drug
trafficking.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. The production or sale of
100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is punishable by
death. Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin
or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine also face the death penalty.

(source: Thanh Nien News)


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May 2



SAUDI ARABIA:

Women more resistant to beheading: Saudi Executioner----Most of those going to
execution appear to be in trance; The executioner denied reports that those
sentenced to death are drugged just before their execution.


Convicted women sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia have been more resistant to
beheading than men, prompting authorities to change the execution method to
shooting, a well-known Saudi executioner has said.

Abu Bandar Al Bishi, a massive man who has beheaded scores of convicted
criminals in public places in the Gulf Kingdom, said most of those brought to
the execution area appear to be in "trance" ahead of their death.

Quoted by the Saudi daily Sabq, he denied social media reports that those
sentenced to death are drugged just before their execution.

"Those brought for execution are not drugged...there is no medical intervention
in their execution...they just appear to be in trance or half dead," Bishi
said. "As for women, they are more resistant to execution than men...we used to
behead them but the verdict has been changed to executing them by shooting.

He said many convicts make requests just before their execution, adding that
one asked for a cigarette. "Of course we did not give him a cigarette...if he
had asked to pray before his death, then it would have been much better."

Bishi said he uses a gun to execute women by shooting them in the head, adding
that he does not stick to doctor's instructions to shoot them in the heart.

"The doctor draws a mark towards the heart on the convict's back...but I shoot
them in the head because the bullet may miss the heart target if the convict
moves.

(source: emirates247.com)






PHILIPPINES:

Filipino Catholic groups endorse opposition candidates ---- Son of late
dictator Marcos picks up support from key pro-life, charismatic groups


The Philippine's largest Catholic charismatic movement and other pro-life
groups have endorsed candidates identified with the country's political
opposition for the May 9 presidential and vice presidential race.

On May 1, the influential El Shaddai Charismatic Renewal Movement distributed
"sample ballots" that carry the names of Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who are running for president and vice president,
respectively.

The group, which claims a following of 3 to 8 million Filipinos, earlier called
on its members not to vote for presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who has
come under fire for joking about the rape and murder of an Australian
missionary.

Binay, meanwhile, has figured in several money-laundering investigations of
alleged ghost accounts in a series of corruption charges, while support for
Marcos could pave the return to power of the Marcos family, who ruled the
country in a dictatorial grip for 2 decades until 1986.

El Shaddai leader Mariano "Mike" Zuniega Velarde, better known as Brother Mike
Velarde, said he will make the official announcement of candidates that his
group will support on May 3, when the result of an informal survey of members
comes out.

"On Tuesday, I will make it known to you," said Velarde. "I have distributed
something like a survey form. We will know the sentiments of everyone," added
the charismatic leader.

Velarde said candidates for president, vice president, and senators were
invited to address an overnight prayer vigil and celebration over the weekend,
but only Binay, Sen. Grace Poe, and administration candidate Manuel Roxas
attended the event.

Among the vice presidential candidates only Marcos and Sen. Francis Escudero
attended.

"We did not forget them. We invited them here. But it seems they forgot us. So
if they forgot us, we can also forget them," said Velarde.

'One step away from presidency'

Velarde allowed candidates who were present at the overnight vigil to speak
before the crowd after the celebration of the Eucharist.

Poe, who comes second in most poll surveys among presidential candidates vowed
a "fair government" if ever elected. "Like what God wants us to do, I will do
my best to fight poverty," she said.

"As a mother, I will look into the welfare of the family ..., a family with
enough income, a family that can provide education to the children, a family
with enough food on the table," Poe said.

Binay promised a leadership that "recognizes, respects, and follows the Word of
God ..., a leadership the respects women, a leadership that shows good example
to children."

Roxas, who arrived late during the celebration, reminded the people of their
responsibility during the coming elections. "Shall we continue with a path that
has already brought us this far, or are we going to turn around?" said Roxas.

"May the Lord guide us in our decision," he added.

Marcos, meanwhile, called for unity for the country to "experience change,
development, and a good life." He called on Filipinos to join him to face a
"beautiful future that we can only achieve through unity."

Anti-death penalty, anti-abortion

Other Catholic "pro-life" groups said they will be supporting the candidacy of
Binay and Marcos because of the candidates' anti-death penalty and
anti-abortion stance.

Congressman Lito Atienza, representative of the Catholic conservative Buhay
(Life) Party in Congress, said his group has banded with the Pro-Life
Philippines Foundation, which claims some 2.5 million members, to support Binay
and Marcos.

Atienza expressed fear that if Poe, who used to live in the United States, is
elected president, "she will promote abortion and the use of contraceptives
that pro-life groups oppose."

"Only Binay has a clear-cut position on preserving the sanctity of life. He
values life," said Atienza.

"We followed [Marcos'] political career and found that he is pro-life. All his
legislations are geared at protecting and preserving life," said Eric Manalang,
president of Pro-Life Philippines Foundation.

Another conservative Catholic group, the Servant Communities, also announced
its endorsement of Binay and his running mate Sen. Gregorio Honasan, a former
military colonel.

Velarde said whoever El Shaddai and the other Catholic groups will support in
the coming elections will win. "Remember this, whoever it is we agree to
support will win," he said.

(source: ucanews.com)






INDONESIA:

Next round of Indonesian executions doesn't include Mary Jane----The Filipina
on death row was given a last-minute reprieve last year


Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who is on death row for allegedly smuggling drugs in
the country, will not be among the next round of criminals executed by the
Indonesian government.

In September, Indonesia halted executions, saying it was not their priority at
the moment, but has recently announced it would resume them again.

The update raised fears as to whether Veloso would be among those to be
executed, but the Attorney General's Office quelled concerns of Veloso's
inclusion.

"We respect the legal process that is taking place in the Philippines," said
Attorney General HM Prasetyo, as quoted by local reports.

He did not disclose as to when the next round of executions would be, only
saying it would not be in May, and that "it is only a matter of time."

Indonesia has been in the spotlight in past months due to their death penalty,
specifically their executions of foreign nationals.

Australia, for instance, had mounted a sustained campaign to save its citizens,
who had been on death row for almost a decade, with the prime minister
repeatedly appealing for them to be spared. The appeals did not work.

Amnesty International has also condemned the executions as "utterly
reprehensible" in a statement from research director for Southeast Asia and the
Pacific, Rupert Abbott.

The Penal Code of Indonesia states that death-sentenced inmates are to be
executed by firing squad, out of public view. The inmate is informed of his or
her execution only 72 hours in advance. The inmate can stand or sit, and have
his or her eyes covered by a blindfold or a hood.

Case pending

On April 29, 2015, the execution of Veloso, one of 9 drug convicts scheduled
for execution, was delayed.

The 8 other drug trafficking convicts - which included 7 foreigners and one
Indonesian - were put to death early that morning on a prison island after
Indonesia defied international criticism and heartrending pleas from relatives.

Prasetyo said an exception was made for Veloso "because there was a last-minute
plea from the Philippine President. There was someone who surrendered today.
She claimed she was the one who recruited Mary Jane."

In 2010, Indonesia sentenced the 30-year-old Veloso to death on charges of drug
smuggling. Veloso, a single mother of 2 from Nueva Ecija, had flown to Malaysia
with the intention of securing a job as a domestic helper.

She claimed that her recruiter, Maria Kristina Sergio, had duped her into
flying to Indonesia and bringing a suitcase with 2.6 kilograms of heroin hidden
in the lining. Veloso has consistently maintained her innocence.

Sergio's case is pending in Philippine courts.

In January however, Prasetyo told Rappler they have not yet decided when to
execute Veloso, but they "are ready" if ever it is ordered.

He said however, that the government is still waiting for the outcome of
Sergio's ongoing case - although a guilty verdict will not automatically change
her status of being on death row.

"We will look at the verdict, perhaps the verdict can be new evidence to appeal
for clemency from the president," he said. "But surely Mary Jane will not be
free from punishment."

He added, "The fact is that she smuggled drugs to Indonesia, and she was caught
red handed at the airport."

Urged whether the "punishment" means death, Prasetyo only said, "we'll see."

(source: rappler.com)






AUSTRALIA:

Operation Fox Hunt: Law council says extradition treaty with China is 'a joke'


The national peak body representing the legal profession in Australia has urged
the federal government not to ratify an extradition treaty with China, citing
concerns the mainland's criminal justice system lacked procedural fairness and
was "steadily marching in the wrong direction".

Addressing the parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in Canberra on
Monday, the Law Council of Australia said there was no way to guarantee those
extradited would be granted a fair trial, nor were there any effective measures
to prevent torture or China going against diplomatic assurances and
administering the death penalty.

"There's no consequence, what's Australia going to do?" David Grace, QC, of the
Victorian Bar told the committee.

"What's the reality? Is Australia going to haul China before the international
court of justice? I mean, it's a joke, that's a reality of it."

Australia has an extradition treaty with China that was signed in 2007 but
never ratified. The agreement, however, was tabled in March for the committee's
consideration, a month before Malcolm Turnbull's first visit to China as prime
minister.

China has recently stepped up international efforts to repatriate economic
fugitives and corrupt officials who have fled overseas.

Australia, meanwhile, is hoping to secure greater assistance from China to stem
the trade of illicit drugs, particularly crystal methamphetamine - also known
as "ice" - flowing from southern China.

The council also expressed concern over the omission of a "common safeguard in
Australia's extradition treaties to ensure protection of an extradited person's
right to a fair trial, namely the ability to refuse a request where extradition
would be 'unjust or oppressive'".

"Unless these concerns are addressed the Law Council opposes the ratification
of this treaty," council president Stuart Clark said.

The agreement with China, like other bilateral extradition treaties, has a "no
evidence" threshold which essentially takes information presented by Chinese
police seeking extradition at face value, without necessarily needing evidence
to substantiate the claim.

Legal experts and human rights groups share concerns that any extradition
agreement in force must inherently place faith in the integrity of China's
party-controlled law enforcement and judicial systems ??? frequently criticised
for pursuing the Communist Party's political agendas.

China last month relaunched its Fox Hunt and Skynet operations targeting
suspected economic criminals and corrupt officials hiding overseas. Chinese
authorities routinely cite Australia, along with the US and Canada, as the most
popular havens for the fugitives.

Leanne Close, deputy secretary of the criminal justice group in the
Attorney-General's Department, told the committee the treaty was "not an
automatic process for extradition, rather a framework for decision-making".

The unratified treaty provides grounds for refusal for political offences and
if there are fears of torture or inhumane punishment. In cases where the person
sought may be sentenced to death, Australia can "undertake" that the death
penalty not be imposed - or if imposed, that it not be carried out.

"Australia's longstanding experience with death penalty undertakings with
extradition cases is that such undertakings have been honoured," Ms Close said.

Asked by the committee whether China could execute those extradited without
Australia's knowledge, officials from the Attorney-General's Department said
the government "would know about it".

"In the arena of international crime co-operation that would be an extremely
serious event if it happened - and it would have consequences," said Catherine
Hawkins of the department's International Crime Co-operation Division.

Mr Grace cited a pervasive crackdown on hundreds of mainland lawyers who have
been detained, harassed or threatened for representing the interests of their
clients as further evidence that China's legal environment was deteriorating.

He also pointed out that other countries like the US and Canada were not moving
towards an extradition treaty despite China also pushing for the return of its
wanted fugitives.

Australia can already consider extradition requests from China under the United
Nations Convention against Corruption and the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organised Crime.

"Risks of torture, lack of due process and politicisation of the judiciary
should make the Australian government think long and hard before embarking on
an agreement which may serve to legitimise China's justice system," said Elaine
Pearson, Australia director of Human Rights Watch.

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)



SINGAPORE:

Family of convicted murderer pleads for his life


Anguished family members of convicted murderer Jabing Kho, 32, are pleading
with Sarawak leaders to try and save him from the gallows by imploring
Singapore President Tony Tan to grant him clemency.

Jabing's mother Lenduk Baling, 55, said the family had exhausted every legal
avenue to save her only son after the Singapore Court of Appeal upheld Kho's
death sentence on April 5, 2016.

"We know that the odds are not in our favour. But we (family) will try any
means possible to overturn the death sentence against my son to life
imprisonment. I have lost my husband, I cannot bear to lose my only son," said
Lenduk who fought back tears when speaking at a press conference yesterday.

She also admitted to have spoken to the Singaporean authorities by offering
herself to undergo the death sentence in place of her son.

Also speaking was Jabing's sister Jumai Kho, 28 who said the unfolding saga has
become a mentally and physically challenging ordeal for the family ever since
her brother was arrested in the republic.

"We are mentally and physically tired. Despite that fact, we will never give up
on our desire for Jabing not be imposed the death penalty but granted clemency
for life imprisonment," said Jumai who together with her mother arrived in
Sarawak on April 13 after attending the sentencing by the Singapore Court of
Appeal on April 5.

She also said with the backing from Sarawakian state assemblyman or members of
parliament, at least their voices in the republic would be louder.

"I am just a sister and housewife. No one in Singapore is willing to hear the
pleading voices of mine or my mother's," she added.

Also present at the press conference were representatives of the Advocates'
Association of Sarawak who called on the Malaysian government to support any
further application for clemency.

"We are not condoning the actions by him (Jabing) but we are urging the
government to do its utmost to intercede with the Singaporean authorities to
commute Jabing's death sentence to one of life imprisonment," said association
president Leonard Sim explaining that their views were purely based on
humanitarian ground.

He said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Nancy Shukri and Chief
Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem had given their assurance that the
State and Federal Governments were doing all they could to save Jabing from the
gallows.

Also present were representatives from the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty
Campaign (SADPC) and We Believe in Second Chances who will be submitting a
petition within this next few days to the Singapore president to grant clemency
to Jabing.

Kirsten Han, a member of We Believe in Second Chances during the press
conference revealed that the last clemency granted by the president was in
1998.

Both organisations, she said would also be urging the Cabinet of the Republic
of Singapore to advise their president in granting the clemency as they
strongly believed that every human being deserved a second chance in life.

Jabing was convicted of murder under Section 300 (c) of the Penal Code on May
24, 2011 which carried the mandatory death sentence at the time of conviction.

In 2012, the Singapore parliament amended the Penal Code to give judges the
discretion to sentence offenders convicted under Section 300 (c) to life
imprisonment with caning.

On Nov 18, 2013, Justice Tay Yong Kwang resentenced Jabing to life imprisonment
and 24 strokes of the cane.

However on Jan 14, 2015 the Court of Appeal by a majority decision (with 2 out
of the 5 judges dissenting) overturned Justice Tay's decision and sentenced
Jabing to death.

Jabing was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6, 2015 after his petition to
president of Singapore for clemency failed. However, the execution was
temporarily stayed pending the hearing on Nov 23, 2015 of his application to
review and set aside the sentence.

On April 5, 2016, the Court of Appeal upheld Jabing???s death sentence, lifting
the stay of execution that they had issued in Nov 2015 after Jabing's lawyer
filed a criminal motion at the 11th hour.

(source: theborneopost.com)






JAMAICA:

Hanging? No, minister!---Golding warns of backlash from int'l development
partners


The Opposition yesterday poured cold water on National Security Minister Robert
Montague's announcement that he is contemplating the resumption of hanging in
Jamaica, arguing that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to murder
and is not the solution the country's nagging problem of violent crime.

According to Opposition spokesman on justice and governance, Senator Mark
Golding, countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty generally
remain the safest, with the least number of murders.

"Those states in the United States which retain and apply the death penalty
(for example Texas) are not the states which enjoy the lowest murder rates in
the US. The active use of the death penalty in Jamaica did not prevent the
carnage of murders in 1980," Golding said.

Noting that it is not necessary for the resumption of hanging at this time, he
said that murders have declined by 40 % since the extradition of Christopher
'Dudus' Coke in 2010, during an era where the death penalty was not a factor.

He said that the Opposition is of the view that the death penalty cannot be the
solution to Jamaica's problem of violent crime.

"Violent crime in Jamaica has several root causes, and curbing it requires
solutions that address those causes," he said.

Golding suggested that Jamaica needs, among other things, growth with equity
that creates good-quality employment opportunities for our people, so that they
aren't drawn towards criminal organisations and violent crime.

He added that the modernisation and strengthening of the justice system need to
be continued, and the implementation of the Justice Reform Programme should not
be allowed to lose momentum.

"I do not regard minister Montague's announcement, that the Government is
seeking "to determine if there are any legal impediments for the resumption of
hanging in Jamaica", as a serious policy initiative that will be implemented.
The Government can't hang more people; nor, as a practical matter, can
Parliament. Only the courts can make that happen, and the courts are governed
by the rule of law and, in particular, the human rights guarantees in our
Constitution," Golding said.

In addition, he said that the reactivation of the death penalty after 28 years
would bring condemnation and adverse criticism on Jamaica from international
development partners that are not in support of capital punishment.

Last week, Montague said Government remains committed to mobilising all the
resources at its disposal to wage a "relentless war" against criminal elements
"intent on destroying our nation". To this end, he said the Administration is
currently exploring the possible resumption of hanging.

Noting that it forms part of the crime-prevention strategies aimed at creating
safer communities by tackling "lawless elements", Montague said his state
minister, Pearnel Charles Jr, has been asked to consult with several
stakeholders, including the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Office,
to determine if there are any "legal impediments" to be addressed.

He said the ministry's overall approach to creating safer communities is based
on 5 key pillars of crime prevention: social development, situational
prevention, effective policing, swift and sure justice processes, and reducing
re-offending.

(source: Jamaica Observer)

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

PNP warns of death penalty backlash


The Opposition Peoples' National Party (PNP) says Jamaica may face
international backlash if it carries out the death penalty.

National Security Minister Robert Montague has indicated that his ministry is
looking at how the barriers preventing the use of the death penalty can be
removed to allow the execution of criminals in a bid to tackle the country's
high crime rate.

However, the Opposition spokesperson on Justice & Governance, Senator Mark
Golding, argues that any legislation which seeks to broaden the circumstances
in which the death penalty may be imposed would be ruled by the Courts to be
unconstitutional.

Golding further argues that the reactivation of the death penalty will bring
condemnation on Jamaica, and even possibly adverse action by the country's
international development partners that are strongly against the death penalty.

(source: Jamaica Gleaner)

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May 2



PHILIPPINES:

Miriam wants death penalty re-imposed


Presidential candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago now wants the death penalty
re-imposed following rampant criminality in the streets and thievery in
government.

She bared her change of mind on capital punishment during a no-holds barred
interview with STAR editors and reporters at the newspaper's offices in Port
Area, Manila last Saturday.

Santiago said she voted against re-imposing the death penalty when it was
discussed in the Senate.

"But today, yung mga ginagawa ng mga kababayan natin, eh makakapatay ka talaga
eh (With what our countrymen are doing, you would really want to kill). Yes,
I'm seriously reconsidering my previous decision."

Santiago said the influence of the Catholic Church had also swayed her previous
decision.

"Before the arguments were very clear-cut," she said. "And I felt I had no
choice because of the lobby of the Catholic Church perhaps."

Santiago said she also wants death penalty for plunderers.

"The moment (one) flunks an ... investigation, off you go," she said.

Santiago remains optimistic on her chances in the presidential race despite the
"commercial survey firms," which she said were in a conspiracy with her rivals
to force her to withdraw.

Santiago said she was still "enthusiastic," although the campaign had taxed her
physically.

"I could have rested but instead I went stumping all over the country and they
(grabbed) me all around," she said. "But I'm very enthusiastic because the
crowds are so big, you can see them on TV."

(source: Philippine Star)


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[Rick Halperin]

May 3



IRELAND:

1916 court martials and executions: Sean MacDiarmada----Proclamation likely a
factor in death sentence


Sean MacDiarmada's court martial was one of the lengthiest of those carried out
involving the leaders of the Rising.

In addition to the charge of staging an armed rebellion with the intention of
assisting the enemy, MacDiarmada faced an additional charge of causing
"disaffection among the civilian population of His Majesty".

He was found guilty of the former charge, but not guilty of the latter.

His court martial took place on May 9th, 1916, and was presided over by Lieut
Col Douglas Sapte assisted by Lieut Col Philip Bent and Maj Francis Woodward.

More time was taken over MacDiarmada's trial presumably because of pressure on
Gen John Maxwell from London to ensure that proper procedure was followed.

The 1st witness for the prosecution was Det Constable Daniel Hoey of the Dublin
Metropolitan Police, who was later assassinated by Michael Collins's "squad"
during the War of Independence.

Hoey said he had observed John McDermott (as he was known to the police) for 3
1/2 years and saw him associate with the leaders of the Irish Volunteers
including Thomas Clarke, Patrick Pearse and Joseph Mary Plunkett.

Hoey said the Irish Volunteer newspaper was MacDiarmada's chief source of
income. A copy of the newspaper was produced as evidence.

Second Lieut WH Ruxton of the 3rd Royal Irish Rifles said he encountered
MacDiarmada on the last day of the Rising when they were gathering surrendered
rebels at the top of Parnell Street.

MacDiarmada, who was struck down by polio in 1911 and lost the use of one leg,
told him that he could not walk to custody. Ruxton continued: "One of the
others told me his leg was paralysed. I asked the accused, 'how did you get
into this affair?' The accused replied to the effect that he had his place in
the organisation."

It would appear from MacDiarmada's file that the court martial members wished
to establish that the man known to the authorities as John McDermott was
actually Sean MacDiarmada.

Edward Gannon, a clerk at Mountjoy Jail, recounted that the accused had spent
time there in June 1915 and had signed his name Sean MacDiarmada.

The bottom half of the Proclamation with MacDiarmada's signature also appears
in his court martial file, but there is no account of the sequence of events
that led it to it being produced as evidence.

Maxwell was under a lot of political pressure to stay the executions so the
production of the Proclamation as evidence may have been significant in his
decision to approve the death penalty for MacDiarmada and Connolly.

Also there is a note written by MacDiarmada on Easter Monday which was produced
in evidence. It states: "I want all you men to report to me at Liberty Hall by
11am, today Monday with full equipment - Sean MacDiarmada."

He was the penultimate leader of the rebellion to be executed. He was shot by
firing squad on May 12th just before James Connolly's execution. In his last
letter he wrote to his brothers and sisters, "I die that Ireland might live."

**********

1916 courts martial and executions: Willie Pearse----Was he executed because of
his name?


Willie Pearse, the brother of Patrick, was the only one of those who were
executed to have pleaded guilty at his court martial.

Willie Pearse was tried on May 3rd, 1916, the same day his brother was
executed.

The court martial members were Brig Gen Ernest Maconchy, Lieut Coll Arthur Bent
and Maj Francis Willoughby Woodward.

3 other volunteers, John Dougherty, John McGarry and JJ Walsh, were tried with
Willie Pearse and each received the death penalty, but their sentences were
commuted, Dougherty and Walsh to 10 years' penal servitude; McGarry to 8 years.

Evidence against them was given by Lieut SL King, of the 12th Royal
Inniskilling Fusiliers who was taken prisoner by the rebels outside Clerys and
held in the GPO for the week.

King claimed Dougherty pointed a rifle at him and told him that he would shoot
him if he did not put his hands up. Dougherty denied the claim.

McGarry protested that he had "no intention of assisting the enemy. I had no
position or rank of any sort".

Walsh went further, stating that he was only a private in the volunteers, was
completely immersed in his business and never fired a shot in the GPO. Instead
he claimed to have been on "water and sand duty" in the event of fire.

King reported seeing Willie Pearse and surmised that he was an officer, but did
not know his rank.

Though Willie Pearse pleaded guilty, he denied any involvement in the planning
of the Rising. "I had no authority or say in the arrangements for the starting
of the rebellion. I was throughout only a personal attache to my brother PH
Pearse. I had no direct command."

Many historians believe that Willie Pearse was only executed because he was
Patrick Pearse's brother. His execution took place on May 4th, the day after
his brother.

(source for both: The Irish Times)






INDONESIA:

Indonesia sets up firing squads for new executions that could include Lindsay
Sandiford


Indonesian police have set up "several" firing squads ready for deployment to a
notorious prison island as the country finalises preparations for a fresh wave
of executions of drug smugglers.

2 British death row inmates, including grandmother Lindsay Sandiford, could be
among the next batch of prisoners tied to a stake and executed.

Commander Aloys Darmanto, the Central Java police spokesman, said on Tuesday
that the provincial mobile brigade unit has established several firing squads
to be sent when needed to Nusakambangan prison island.

A larger execution ground is also reported to have been prepared as Indonesia
is expected to press ahead "within weeks" with putting drug traffickers to
death, after a 1-year hiatus.

"Everyone is ready, including prison officials," he told the Jakarta Globe.

It was on Nusakambangan last April that 14 convicts were executed, including 2
Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who were leaders of the Bali 9
drug trafficking ring.

"All firing squads from the mobile brigade unit are preparing themselves for
the execution," Cdr Aloys said. "We are just waiting for further instructions
from the Attorney General."

He refused to reveal how many firing squad members have been trained as that
might indicate how many inmates will be executed.

"1 team will consist of 7 to 8 shooters," the officer said. "The number will be
adjusted later."

Muhammad Prasetyo, the attorney general, said in April that the next round of
executions would be carried out "soon" and that the inmates would include some
foreigners currently on death row. Executions could be implemented any time
from June, diplomats believe.

Sandiford, a grandmother from Cheltenham caught trying to smuggle cocaine into
Bali in 2013, is the most high profile foreigner on death row.

A fellow Briton, Gareth Cashmore, 36, was sentenced to death in 2012, a year
after he was initially given a punishment of life imprisonment when crystal
meth was found in his luggage.

Joko Widodo, the president, ordered the re-implementation of the death penalty
after he was elected in 2014, saying that the "war on drugs" was a national
priority.

Mr Widodo recently toured Europe, including a two-day stop in London for
meetings with David Cameron focused on lucrative trade deals. Mr Cameron raised
Sandiford's fate when he visited Jakarta last year, but it was not clear
whether he mentioned the cases of the Britons at their latest meeting.

The Indonesian leader seems certain not be influenced by public international
condemnation after forging ahead with last year's executions despite outrage in
Australia.

On the German leg of his European tour, he described drug trafficking as
"national emergency" after Chancellor Angela Merkel talked of her country's
opposition to capital punishment.

The Diplomat, a regional news website, reported that Luhut Pandjaitan, the
country's security chief, wants to ensure the next round of executions are
completed with less "commotion" than last year.

(source: telegraph.co.uk)






SINGAPORE:

Singapore's 'Jolly Hangman' About to Strike----Changing laws send murderer on
torturous trip through justice system


On Feb. 17, 2008, a 24-year-old Sarawakian migrant working in a rag and bone
company in Singapore was drinking an apparently potent substance called
"Narcissus Ginseng Wine Tonic" with 4 friends when they got the idea to rob
someone. After they split up and 3 of them went their separate way, Jabing and
his friend, Galing Anak Kujat, also from Sarawak, went after 2 Chinese workers
whom they assaulted for the cellphone of one, named Cao Ruyin.

Jabing sneaked up in back of Cao and brained him with a tree branch. The victim
sustained 14 skull fractures and a brain injury and died 6 days later. Jabing
sold the cellphone for S$300 and the 5 split the money, with the extra S$50
going for wine.

The celebration didn't last long. Jabing and Galing were arrested 6 days after
the crime. In 2010, a high court sentenced the pair to death by hanging under
what was then Singapore's mandatory statute. But the intervening 6 years
illustrate the changing nature of Singapore's death penalty laws, in the
meantime subjecting Jabing to a distressing trip through the justice system,
which now is likely to kill him despite having previously vacated and otherwise
delayed his death sentence.

24 Hours from Death

Jabing was 24 hours from being hanged in November last year when his lawyers
saved him with a stay of execution, if temporarily. He and his allies,
including many of the world's human rights organizations, are now hoping
against hope that a clemency petition to President Tony Tam will save him. Tam,
however, has already rejected clemency despite widespread appeals attempting to
get him to reverse his decision. Sources in Singapore say that is probably
unlikely.

The case has attracted the attention of a wide range of representatives of
other countries and human rights organizations including the United Nations
Human Rights Office for Southeast Asia, which issued a statement in April after
Jabing's sentence was most recently upheld by the Court of Appeal.

"We are gravely concerned that Mr. Kho is at imminent risk of hanging as the
court has lifted the stay of execution," said Laurent Meillan, OHCHR's acting
regional representative in Bangkok, in a prepared statement. "We are also
concerned that he has been forced to endure years of immense suffering as his
sentence has been changed on a number of occasions."

Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch,
called Singapore's decision to defend the death penalty "a further indication
of complete disregard for international human rights standards."

Death Penalty Stance Changes

Whatever happens to Jabing, over the past 2 decades Singapore's approach to
capital murder has changed markedly. In the mid-1990s, the country had the
world's second-highest execution rate, estimated by the United Nations at 12.83
executions per million people. The highest was Turkmenistan, which has since
abolished the death penalty.

Singapore has undergone a revolution of sorts. With an unofficial ban in place,
it didn't execute anyone between 2011 and 2013 although executions resumed in
2014 with 2 and in 2015 with 4. Jabing is the 1st to face the gallows in 2016
although there are believed to be about 30 individuals on death row. Singapore
doesn't print figures and its executions are not publicized. Normally the
family receives a letter a week before the execution, scheduled quietly and
with only the letter for advance notice.

The justice system received a good deal of unwelcome notice in 2010, when a
British author named Alan Shadrake wrote a book, Once a Jolly Hangman, that
charged the Singapore judiciary system with an appetite for hangings of the
poor and the young for murder, drug trafficking and firearms offences, but
allowing high-ranking criminals, wealthy foreigners and well-connected drug
lords to escape.

Shadrake made the mistake of flying back into Singapore for the book launch and
was promptly arrested and charged with 14 counts of contempt of court. He ended
up spending 6 weeks in a Singapore prison.

Bell Tolls for Murderers

Jabing and Galing were sentenced in July of 2010. At that time, conviction for
murder earned a mandatory death sentence. Both appealed, with Galing's lawyers
arguing that Jabing had led the way against Galing's wishes, but that he had
gone along with the crime. His conviction was downgraded to "robbery with
hurt," as the statutes call it, in May of 2011. Galing ended up receiving 18.6
years in prison and 19 strokes of the cane.

In 2012, as Singaporean attitudes began to change - although 95 % of the
general public approve of the death penalty - with the parliament amending the
penal code to allow for limited discretion in capital cases, permitting judges
to hand down life sentences with caning should circumstances warrant. All death
row inmates were allowed to have their death sentences reviewed by a High Court
Judge.

In November 2013, Jabing's lawyers appeared before Justice Tay Yong Kwang to
argue that the Narcissus Ginseng Wine Tonic, which had been classified by the
Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore as containing excessive levels
of methanol in 2009 could have poisoned him to the point where it affected his
mental state.

Although Tay rejected the submission since it hadn't been raised at either the
trial or the 2011 appeal, the judge downgraded Jabing's sentence to life
imprisonment and partly because of his age and partly because the branch he
picked up to brain Cao was lying on the pavement nearby and that the attack was
"opportunistic and improvisational and not part of a prearranged plan.

Jabing's celebration of deliverance - although 24 strokes of the cane is itself
a barbaric form of punishment - didn't last long. The prosecution appealed. On
Jan. 14, 2015, 3 of 5 judges in the Court of Appeal again sentenced Jabing to
death. 2 of the 5 dissented, saying the condemned man had been on death row for
6 years and that he had earlier been given a life sentence with caning.

"We urge Your Excellency to be merciful and to commute the death sentence of
Kho Jabing to one of life," said a letter requesting clemency signed by 14
Singaporean citizens. "Our judicial system is the best in the world. We cannot
and should not allow this case to tarnish this image. To us, it is a clear case
of bias because the judgement of the majority reveals this when the majority
judges refused to review findings of fact made in the CA (Conviction)
decision."

There are no more legal avenues open. "Jabing's only hope is for the Singapore
cabinet to advise the President to grant him clemency," the 14 Singaporeans
wrote in their appeal for clemency. "It is a long shot, but Jabing's family are
ready to try. And as long as they are willing to keep fighting, we will
continue to support and help them however we can."

(source: asiasentinel.com)






BANGLADESH:

4 Pakistan collaborators of Kishoreganj to hang, another gets prison until
death


A war crimes tribunal has handed down death sentence to four Razakars of
Kishoreganj and prison until death to another.

These 5 were found responsible for abductions, torture and killings to help
Pakistan to abort Bangladesh's birth in 1971.

The 3-member International Crimes Tribunal headed by Justice Anwarul Haque
delivered the verdict in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Only Kishoreganj lawyer Shamsuddin Ahmed among the convicts was present in the
dock when the judgment was read out.

His brother retired army captain Md Nasiruddin Ahmed, Razakar Commander Gazi
Abdul Mannan, Ajharul Islam and Hafiz Uddin are all fleeing from justice.

All of them, except Ajharul Islam, have been given the death penalty.

The trial had brought up the crimes against humanity they committed at a number
of villages in Kishoreganj's Karimganj Upazila during the Liberation War.

Their counsel said they will appeal against the verdict as they did not get
justice.

The prosecution said they were pleased with it.

The convicts now have 1 month to move the highest court.

The court in its verdict said the government would be able execute those
awarded the death penalty by hanging or shooting them until they are dead.

It has also ordered the home secretary and the inspector general of police to
take the initiative to arrest the fugitive convicts, and seek assistance from
the Interpol if needed.

Right after the judges finished reading out the verdict, Shamsuddin Ahmed, the
only convict present in court, said, "False witness, false judgment... Verdict
based on fake witnesses."

However, as he was speaking in very low volume, it was not clear whether the
judges heard his protest from the dock at the end of the courtroom.

Then he was taken to the tribunal's lockup. Some of his family members were
also present in the courtroom.

The sentences

All 5 were accused in charges 1, 3, and 4 brought by the prosecution for
abduction, torture in captivity, and murder.

Nasiruddin was accused of killing under charge 2, Shamsuddin of murders under
charge 5, Mannan of abduction, torture in captivity, and murder under Charge 6
and arson under Charge 7.

Charge 1: The killing of 8 and wounding of another of Bidyanagar and Ayla
villages of Kishoreganj's Karimganj from 1pm to 5pm on Nov 12, 1971.

Sentence: Death penalty for Shamsuddin, Nasiruddin and Mannan. Imprisonment
until death for Ajharul and Mannan.

Charge 2: The murder of Miah Hossain of Ayla Village on Nov 13.

Sentence: Death penalty for Nasiruddin.

Charge 3: Abduction and murder of Karimganj Upazila's Md Abdul Gafur at Khudir
Jungle Bridge on Sep 26.

Sentence: Death for Hafiz. Prison until death for Shamsuddin, Nasiruddin and
Ajharul. Mannan acquitted.

Charge 4: The abduction of Md Fazlul Rahman Master and his confinement to a
bungalow used by Peace Committee as their office. He was tortured and murdered
there on Aug 23.

Sentence: Prison until death for all 5.

Charge 5: The killing of Paresh Chandra Sarkar in Ramnagar village on Sep 7.

Sentence: Death penalty for Shamsuddin.

Charge 6: Abduction, torture and murder of Abu Bakar Siddik and Rupali from
Purba Nabaid Kalipur Village on Aug 25.

Sentence: Prison until death for Mannan.

Charge 7: The torching of 20 to 25 houses at Atkaparha village on Sep 15.

Sentence: Mannan sentenced to imprisonment for 5 years.

Shamsuddin Ahmed

Kishoreganj District Bar Association member Shamsuddin was born in 1956 at
Karimganj Upazila's Karimganj Madhyaparha village, according to his school
records.

The chargesheet said he had joined the Razakars during the war in 1971 and
engaged in war crimes in the district.

He went underground for a while after Bangladesh won the war against Pakistan,
but surfaced later.

He completed BA in 1982 and LLB in 1991. Four years later, he completed BEd
from Mymensingh Teachers Training College.

After working as a teacher since 1985, the war criminal retired in 2004 and
later enrolled in Mymensingh District Bar Association as an advocate.

Nasiruddin Ahmed

Born in 1954, former army captain Nasiruddin, Shamsuddin???s elder brother, had
joined the Razakars when the war broke out.

Both brothers received training from Razakar Commander Gazi Abdul Mannan,
according to the chargesheet.

Nasiruddin went into hiding like his brother after the war. After coming out,
he joined the army of independent Bangladesh.

The army sent him into forced retirement in 2002 over ethical grounds.

Gazi Abdul Mannan

Born in 1927 at Karimganj's Charparha, Mannan became a Razakar commander during
the war and was the local organiser of atrocities.

The court documents showed that he was directly involved in different crimes
against humanity including abduction, torture in captivity, murder and arson
along.

Hafiz Uddin

Hafiz was born in 1949 at Karimganj's Khudir Jungle. He received education in
local madrasas.

The war crimes tribunal's investigators had found proof of his involvement in
many crimes during the war after he joined the Razakar Force.

Ajharul Islam

Ajharul was born in 1956 at Karimganj's Haidhankhali village and received
education in local madrasas like Hafiz.

He was also involved in many war crimes in 1971 after he joined the Razakar
Force.

Case details

The prosecution's investigation team started their probe against these 5 war
criminals in June 2013 and finished it in November last year.

Police arrested Shamsuddin Ahmed from Mymensingh's Nandail on Nov 27, 2014.

The tribunal had taken the charges into cognisance 3 days after they were
submitted on May 10 last year. The 5 were indicted on Oct 12, which paved the
way for their trial.

25 people, including the investigation officer, testified to the prosecution,
but the defence produced no witnesses.

On Apr 11, the tribunal kept its verdict pending after the arguments ended.

23rd verdict

After coming into power in 2009, the Awami League-led government set up the
International Crimes Tribunal on Mar 25 in 2010 to try war criminals.

Tuesday's verdict, sentencing 4 Kishoreganj Razakars to death and imprisonment
until death to the 5th, was the 23rd announced by the tribunal.

In its 1st verdict, the special court had sentenced former Jamaat-e-Islami
Rukon Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar to death on Jan 21, 2013.

He has been absconding since the case was filed and has not appealed against
the verdict.

On Feb 5 that year, the tribunal sentenced Jamaat assistant secretary general
Abdul Quader Molla to life imprisonment, which sparked a nationwide campaign
demanding his death sentence.

Forced by the mass protest, the government amended the International Crimes
Tribunal Act, arming the State, like the defendants, with the right to appeal
against tribunal verdicts concerning war crimes.

Following a prosecution appeal, the Supreme Court, on Sep 17, revised Molla's
sentence to death penalty after finding him guilty of previously unproven
murders and rape.

The Jamaat leader was executed on Dec 12.

In its 3rd verdict, the tribunal sentenced senior Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain
Sayedee to death on Feb 28, 2013 for his wartime atrocities.

The Appellate Division, however, commuted the punishment to imprisonment until
death on Sep 17 last year after Sayedee, known as 'Deilya Razakar' in 1971,
appealed against the death sentence.

In the 4th verdict, another Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Mohammad
Kamaruzzaman was sentenced to death on May 9, 2013. He was executed on Apr 11
last year after the apex court upheld the sentence.

In the 5th judgment, the tribunal, on Jun 15, 2013, sent former Jamaat chief
Ghulam Azam to jail for 90 years for engineering wartime atrocities in 1971.

However, the 92-year-old Jamaat guru died at the BSMMU hospital on Oct 23, 2014
while undergoing treatment.

On Jul 17, 2013, the ICT, in its 6th verdict, gave Jamaat Secretary General Ali
Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid the death sentence after he was proven guilty of mass
killings and torture of Hindus during the war.

The Appellate Division on Jun 16 last year upheld the sentence against the
former commander of Al-Badr, a militia Pakistan had raised to crush the Bengali
struggle for independence.

In its 7th verdict, the ICT sentenced former BNP MP and Chittagong's wartime
terror Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death on Oct 1, 2013. His sentence was
upheld on Jul 29, 2015.

Both Chowdhury and Mujahid were simultaneously hanged for their horrific war
crimes in the Dhaka Central Jail on Nov 22 last year.

Next, former BNP minister Abul Alim was sentenced to imprisonment until death
on Oct 9, 2013.

The 84-year old died at the BSMMU hospital's prison cell on Aug 30, 2014 while
undergoing treatment.

In the 10th verdict, the ICT on Nov 3, 2013, sentenced Al-Badr leaders
Ashrafuzzaman Khan and Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin to death for killing 18 Bengali
intellectuals during the last days of the war.

Both are absconding.

The 11th verdict came on Oct 29 in 2014, in which Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman
Nizami was given the death sentence for his involvement in mass murders, rapes,
and the massacre of Bengali intellectuals.

Nizami, who, the verdict said, had 'consciously and deliberately' misused the
name of Allah and Islam 'to ruin and root out the Bengali Nation', had appealed
against the judgment.

The verdict on his petition will be delivered on Thursday.

In the 12th verdict, the ICT, on Nov 2, 2014, sentenced former Al-Badr leader
of Chittagong Mir Quasem Ali to death. The Jamaat executive council member was
also the organisation's financial backbone.

The Supreme Court scrapped his appeal against the sentence, upholding the death
penalty on Mar 8 this year.

In its next verdict, the tribunal, on Nov 13, 2014, gave Faridpur's former
Razakar commander Zahid Hossain, better known as Khokon Razakar, the death
sentence. He is still on the run.

On Nov 24 the same year, Md Mobarak Hossain, a former Razakar commander from
Brahmanbarhia and an expelled Awami League leader, was given the death penalty.

On Dec 23 that year, in the 15th verdict, former Jatiya Party minister Syed
Mohammed Kaiser was sentenced to death for his war crimes. In 1971, he was a
Muslim League leader from Habiganj.

On Dec 30, Jamaat Assistant Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam, who led the
notorious Al-Badr militia in Rangpur during the war, was sentenced to death for
the slaughter of 1,400 Hindus.?

In its 17th judgment, announced on Feb 23 last year, the ICT handed down the
death penalty to senior Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Abdus Subhan.

On the next day, the tribunal sentenced Pirojpur's Razakar militia leader Abdul
Jabbar to prison until death. The former Jatiya Party MP and vice-chairman is
still absconding.

In the 18th verdict delivered on May 20 last year, Razakars Mahidur Rahman and
Afsar Hossain Chutu of Chapainawabganj were also sentenced to prison until
death.

On Jun 9 the same year, the tribunal sentenced Kishoreganj's absconding Razakar
commander Syed Md Hasan Ali to death.

The verdict said the "death be executed by hanging the accused by the neck till
he is dead or by shooting him till he is dead".

The tribunal, in the 20th verdict, delivered on Jul 16, 2015, awarded
Patuakhali's Forkan Mollik, who was a close and notorious associate of local
Razakars, the death penalty for rapes and killings during the war.

On Aug 11, Bagerhat's Razakars leaders Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias 'Siraj
Master' was given the death sentence and Khan Akram Hossain imprisonment until
death for their war crimes.

The tribunal, in its 22nd verdict, on Feb 2 this year, sentenced to death
former Razakar commander Md Obaidul Haq alias Abu Taher and member of the
notorious militia Ataur Rahman Noni for mass killings in Netrokona.?

(source: bdnews24.com)





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

4 Bangladesh war crimes convicts get death sentences


A special tribunal in Bangladesh today handed down death penalty to 4 men for
committing war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War by siding with Pakistani
troops as the court directed authorities to seek help from Interpol in nabbing
3 of them who are on the run.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) in the capital also awarded
"imprisonment until death" to a fifth war criminal for carrying out atrocities
in northern Kishorganj.

The 5 were found responsible for abductions, torture and killings to help
Pakistan to abort Bangladesh's birth in 1971.

All the convicts were former members of Razakar Bahini, a Bengali-manned
auxiliary force of the Pakistan army in 1971.

7 charges were brought against them including mass killing, murder,
confinement, torture, arson and looting committed in their locality in 1971.
Gazi Abdul Mannan, 88, said to be a commander of Razakar camp, Nasiruddin
Ahmed, 62, his brother Shamsuddin Ahmed, 60, and Hafiz Uddin, 66, have been
given death, while Azharul Islam, 60, has been given imprisonment until death.

Only one of them, Shamsuddin, faced the trial in person while the rest,
including a former Bengali captain of the Pakistani force, were tried in
absentia.

Witnesses said the 3-member special tribunal led by Justice Anwarul Haque
sentenced one of the fugitives the imprisonment until death.

The court, in its 330-page verdict summary, ordered their immediate arrest and
directed authorities to seek help from Interpol if necessary.

The verdict came as Bangladesh Supreme Court said it will pronounce the final
verdict on May 5 on the death sentence it handed down to chief of
fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, Motiur Rahman Nizami, deciding his fate over
crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

Bangladesh has so far executed 4 war crimes convicts since the process began to
try the top Bengali perpetrators of 1971 atrocities in line with the electoral
commitment of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2008.

2 others have earlier been handed down "imprisonment until death" penalty
instead of capital punishment on grounds of their old age as they exceeded 80.

They subsequently died in the prison cells of a specialised state-run hospital
due to old age ailments.

(source: Press Trust of India)

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[Rick Halperin]

May 3




PAKISTAN:

Pak army courts sentence 11 Taliban militants to death ---- The 11 belonged to
the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan which is waging a bloody insurgency against the
military and the government.


Pakistan military courts have sentenced 11 Taliban militants to death for
terrorism-related offences, the army said on Tuesday.

The nation has hanged hundreds of people -- 326 last year alone -- since
lifting a moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014.

The "hardcore terrorists" had been convicted of offences including killing and
kidnapping civilians, attacks on the armed forces and police, and destruction
of schools and communications infrastructure, an army statement said.

The 11 belonged to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan which is waging a bloody
insurgency against the military and the government.

Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for over a decade
following its decision to side with the US-led coalition which toppled the
Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Since June 2014 its troops have been engaged in a full-scale offensive against
Taliban and other militants in the North Waziristan and Khyber tribal districts
in the northwest.

The fight gained renewed impetus following a Taliban massacre at a Peshawar
army school in December 2014 in which 134 children were killed.

The attack sparked widespread outrage and led to a series of measures aimed at
combating terror.

Among other measures the government ended a six-year moratorium on executions
-- initially only for people convicted of terrorism but later for all capital
offences.

Pakistan also amended its constitution to allow military courts to try terror
suspects for a 2-year period.

Supporters of the courts say cases previously dragged on for years and many
suspects escaped punishment due to legal loopholes or intimidation of
witnesses.

But the country's growing use of the death penalty has come in for
international criticism.

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

COAS confirms death sentence of 11 militants


General Raheel Sharif, Chief of Army Staff, Tuesday confirmed death sentences
awarded to another 11 hardcore terrorists, who were involved in committing
heinous offences.

According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the convicts were involved
in killings and kidnappings civilians, attacks on Armed Forces and Law
Enforcement Agencies, destruction of schools and communication infrastructure.

The convicts were tried by military courts.

Details of each case is attached.

1. Muhammad Umar S/O Daleel Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces of
Pakistan and Law Enforcement Agencies which resulted in death of soldiers and
injuries to police officials. He was also involved in fabrication of
explosives. He admitted his offences before the Magistrate and the trial court.
He was tried on 3 charges and awarded death sentence.

2. Hameedullah S/O Muhammad Ghazi (Convict Number 1), Rehmatullah S/O Umar Din
(Convict Number 2), Muhammad Nabi S/O Dilawar Shah (Convict Number 3) and
Moulvi Dilbar Khan S/O Kashkar (Convict Number 4). These four convicts were
active members of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. They were involved in attacking
Law Enforcement Agency which resulted in death of Senior Superintendent of
Police Muhammad Hilal Khan, Colonel Mustafa Jamal and Captain Ishfaq. They were
also in possession of fire arms and explosives. The convicts admitted their
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. Convict numbers 1 and 2
were tried on 3 charges, convict number 3 was tried on 2 charges and convict
number 4 was tried on 1 charge and all were awarded death sentence.

3. Rizwan Ullah S/O Taj Mir Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in killing of a civilian,
kidnapping WAPDA employee and attacking Armed Forces which resulted in injuries
to an officer and a soldier. He was also in possession of fire arms and
explosives. He admitted his offences before the Magistrate and the trial court.
He was tried on 5 charges and awarded death sentence.

4.Gul Rehman S/O Zareen. The convict was an active member of Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces which resulted in death of
a civilian and a soldier. He was also in possession of explosives. The convict
admitted his offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried
on 2 charges and awarded death sentence.

5. Muhammad Ibrahim S/O Maseen. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces and
destruction of Babu Chamtalai Bridge which resulted in death of civilians and a
soldier. He was also in possession of explosives. The convict admitted his
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried on 4 charges
and awarded death sentence.

6. Sardar Ali S/O Muhammad Akram Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces and
destruction of educational institutions which resulted in injuries and death of
soldiers. He was also in possession of explosives. The convict admitted his
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried on 3 charges
and awarded death sentence.

7. Sher Muhammad Khan S/O Ahmed Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in killing of a civilian and
attacking Armed Forces which resulted in injuries and death of soldiers. He was
also in possession of fire arms and explosives. The convict admitted his
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried on 4 charges
and awarded death sentence.

8. Muhammad Jawad S/O Muhammad Musa. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Law Enforcement
Agencies and killing of a civilian. He was also in possession of fire arms,
ammunition and explosives. The convict admitted his offences before the trial
court. He was tried on 4 charges and awarded death sentence.

(source: samaa.tv)






JAMAICA:

Opposition says no to hanging


The Opposition yesterday poured cold water on National Security Minister Robert
Montague's announcement that he is contemplating the resumption of hanging in
Jamaica, arguing that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to murder
and is not the solution the country's nagging problem of violent crime.

According to Opposition spokesman on justice and governance, Senator Mark
Golding, countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty generally
remain the safest, with the least number of murders.

"Those states in the United States which retain and apply the death penalty
(for example Texas) are not the states which enjoy the lowest murder rates in
the US. The active use of the death penalty in Jamaica did not prevent the
carnage of murders in 1980," Golding said.

Noting that it is not necessary for the resumption of hanging at this time, he
said that murders have declined by 40 % since the extradition of Christopher
'Dudus' Coke in 2010, during an era where the death penalty was not a factor.

He said that the Opposition is of the view that the death penalty cannot be the
solution to Jamaica's problem of violent crime.

"Violent crime in Jamaica has several root causes, and curbing it requires
solutions that address those causes," he said.

Golding suggested that Jamaica needs, among other things, growth with equity
that creates good-quality employment opportunities for our people, so that they
aren't drawn towards criminal organisations and violent crime.

He added that the modernisation and strengthening of the justice system need to
be continued, and the implementation of the Justice Reform Programme should not
be allowed to lose momentum.

"I do not regard minister Montague's announcement, that the Government is
seeking "to determine if there are any legal impediments for the resumption of
hanging in Jamaica", as a serious policy initiative that will be implemented.
The Government can't hang more people; nor, as a practical matter, can
Parliament. Only the courts can make that happen, and the courts are governed
by the rule of law and, in particular, the human rights guarantees in our
Constitution," Golding said.

In addition, he said that the reactivation of the death penalty after 28 years
would bring condemnation and adverse criticism on Jamaica from international
development partners that are not in support of capital punishment.

Last week, Montague said Government remains committed to mobilising all the
resources at its disposal to wage a "relentless war" against criminal elements
"intent on destroying our nation". To this end, he said the Administration is
currently exploring the possible resumption of hanging.

Noting that it forms part of the crime-prevention strategies aimed at creating
safer communities by tackling "lawless elements", Montague said his state
minister, Pearnel Charles Jr, has been asked to consult with several
stakeholders, including the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Office,
to determine if there are any "legal impediments" to be addressed.

He said the ministry's overall approach to creating safer communities is based
on five key pillars of crime prevention: social development, situational
prevention, effective policing, swift and sure justice processes, and reducing
re-offending.

(source: stluciatimes.com)

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

An option to the death


The death penalty debate, we see, has returned in what is clearly an unending
cycle that inflames passions more than it stimulates rational discourse.

That is somewhat understandable, given Jamaica's perennial problem with crime,
especially murders, committed in an environment where our justice system is
struggling to cope with heavy case loads.

The current debate has been triggered by National Security Minister Robert
Montague's announcement at a police graduation last week that he is looking
into the possibility of a resumption of hanging.

In that address Minister Montague told guests, and by extension the nation,
that he had asked his junior minister, Mr Pearnel Charles Jr, to consult with
several stakeholders, including the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney
General's Office, to determine if there were any "legal impediments" to the
Government applying the death penalty.

The measure, Mr Montague said, would form part of the Government's crime
prevention strategies aimed at creating safer communities by tackling "lawless
elements".

He added that the Administration remained committed to mobilising all the
resources at its disposal to wage a "relentless war" against criminal elements
"intent on destroying our nation".

Minister Montague will no doubt receive widespread public support on this
issue, given the number of heinous crimes committed in the country over time,
and especially so since the start of this year.

Readers will recall that in 2010, after the murders of eight people in the St
Catherine community of Tredegar Park, as well as other brutal crimes committed
in August that year, the call for a resumption of the death penalty was loud
from Jamaicans living in the United States.

We agree that the scum who commit these vile acts, for instance the 2 criminals
who gunned down police corporal Judith Williams last Thursday morning, should
not be allowed to simply roam free as if they did nothing wrong.

Neither should the villainous individual who commissioned her murder, if the
information we have received so far is proven to be true.

People who have no regard for the sanctity of life, and the fact that each
human being has a right to life, should be deprived of their freedom.

They belong in an institution that will not only punish them, but will
hopefully have some impact in reforming them into responsible adults.

Against that background, we reiterate our position that the Government should
look seriously at the option of having convicted murderers, especially those
found guilty of the most cold-blooded, premeditated homicides, serve life
sentences without the possibility of parole.

That, we hope, will send a strong message to those who believe that life is
theirs to take and that they can do so without facing the consequences of their
action.

(source: Editorial, Jamaica Observer)






VIETNAM:

Singaporean man gets death penalty in Vietnam for trafficking 2.5kg of heroin


A Singaporean man has been sentenced to death for trafficking 2.5kg of heroin,
according to a report by Vietnam's English daily Thanh Nien News.

Lee Loke Dah, 40, who appeared before a Ho Chi Minh City court last Friday
(April 29), had been arrested at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in December
2014.

He had in his possession a plastic bag with thousands of capsules in it, which
further tests confirmed was heroin.

Vietnamese news site VnExpress reported that the capsules had been disguised to
resemble peanut candy.

In his defence, Lee - who had entered Vietnam four days prior to his arrest -
told investigators that he had stolen the bag from a stranger in a hotel he was
staying at in District 5.

Prosecutors, however, rejected his claims and the court found him guilty of
drug trafficking.

Under Vietnam's drug laws, a person convicted of possessing or smuggling more
than 600g of heroin can face the death penalty.

(source: straitstimes.com)






IRAN:

Iran regime continues its spate of brutal hangings


Iran's fundamentalist regime on Tuesday, May 3, hanged 2 prisoners in the
north-western city of Ardebil.

The regime's judiciary in Ardebil Province said the 2 unnamed prisoners were
hanged in Ardebil Central Prison earlier in the day.

Separately, the mullahs' regime hanged 2 young prisoners earlier this week in
the north-eastern city of Mashhad.

The unnamed prisoners, aged 25 and 28, were hanged at dawn on Sunday, May 1 in
Mashhad Central Prison. The 28-year-old prisoner was only identified by his
initial A.

The regime's judiciary in Hamedan Province, western Iran, said that the
authorities have hanged a prisoner, identified only by the initials M. R., in
Nahavand's central prison.

On Monday there were reports that 3 death-row prisoners in Qezelhesar Prison in
Karaj, west of Tehran, and 1 death-row prisoner in Greater Tehran Prison
(Fashafouye Prison) were transferred to solitary confinement in Qezelhesar's
Ward 1 in preparation for their imminent execution.

They were identified as Ahmad al-Tafi, Abdolhamid Baqeri, Majid Imani, and Reza
Hosseini.

The hangings bring to at least 57 the number of people executed in Iran since
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.

Commenting last week on the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran,
Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: "In the month of April, during and
after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy
chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran."

"The increasing trend of executions indicates that the visits of senior
European officials to Iran not only have failed to improve the human rights
situation; rather, they have given a message of silence and inaction to the
mullahs. This has emboldened the clerical regime in stepping up executions and
suppressing the Iranian people. This is the regime that has been the record
holder of executions per capita globally in 2015. This bitter reality is not an
issue of pride for any of the guests of the religious fascism," he added.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."

Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with seven
EU commissioners for discussions with the regime's officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

(source: NCR-Iran)


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[Rick Halperin]

May 4



JAMAICA:

An eye for an eye?


The majority of nations that execute citizens do so based upon the premise that
death is the most powerful deterrent, deserved retribution, and that no mercy
should be shown to the merciless. It is against this background that advocates
of capital punishment argue that murder is the most callous of all crimes and
only the strongest punishment available will serve as a deterrent.

They further assert that if murderers are put to death, potential murderers
will contemplate their predisposition to engage in violence and criminality
based on the trepidation of likewise losing their life. Therefore, with our
nation's growing reputation as one of the most barbarous places on the planet,
it is understandable that Jamaicans at home and in the diaspora will always
muse about the resumption of hanging and the effect it may have on the
heartless among us.

So last week when the Hon Robert Montague, minister of national security,
signalled his intention to explore the possibility of reopening the gallows for
business, it was music to the ears of many. However, both the minister and the
public must be made aware that it is not the severity of the punishment that
deters crime; it is the certainty of being apprehended. Yes, the fear of being
caught is an immensely more powerful deterrent than the punishment itself. It
is therefore imperative that the police and the criminal justice system in
general buttress the perception that criminals will be caught quickly and by
any means necessary.

The most important aim of punishment is considered to be deterrence and this is
based on the theoretical premise that less crime within the society makes it a
better place to live for all its citizens. Interestingly, after many decades of
empirical research across the world, the validity of the death penalty as a
deterrent cannot be unequivocally substantiated.

The 1st of the studies that examined the deterrent effect of the death penalty
was Thorsten Sellin's (1959) pioneering research which concluded that the death
penalty had no distinguishable effect on America's homicide rates. Sellin's
research reviewed data on the murder in each state and found that the states
without the death penalty had lower homicide rates. In fact, for many years an
abundance of research proved that the occurrence of homicides is generally
higher in states and countries with the death penalty. To further review the
validity of Sellin's findings one needs to look at the state of Texas, the
mecca of executions in America.

Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report (2013)
showed that Texas had the highest number of executions since 1976 when the
death penalty was reinstituted in the USA, and as of July 24, 2014, the Death
Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reports that Texas performed 515 executions
during the period. This was 404 more executions than Oklahoma, which has the
second highest execution rate.

Yet, Texas recorded a higher homicide rate than 27 other states in the year
2012. Texas's murder rate was higher than 12 of the 18 states which do not have
the death penalty. Additionally, the FBI (2013) data show that the state with
the highest overall murder rate in 2012 was Louisiana, which has the death
penalty. Even some unrepentant proponents of the death penalty conceded that in
87 % of states, capital punishment had no effect on the homicide rate or
actually caused murders to increase. The vast majority of criminologists
worldwide consistently cull the credibility of the death penalty's deterrent
effect and found that it was no more significant a preventive sanction than
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Most Jamaican citizens will argue that we should not, under any circumstances,
use taxpayers' money to 'feed' the murderous monsters. However, a little known
fact is that it costs the taxpayers significantly more from conviction to
execution within a 15-year period than to feed a prisoner for 30 years. The
reality is that adjudicating death penalty cases takes more time and resources
compared to murder cases where the death penalty sentence is not pursued as an
option. These cases are more costly because there are procedural safeguards in
place to ensure the sentence is just and free from error.

One measure of death-penalty costs was reflected in the time spent on costly
appeals. Then, when all is said and done, much of the bill for the various
appeals is paid by taxpayers. What we need is comprehensive reform of the
criminal justice system and not archaic rhetoric, because it is clear that
beyond its retributive value, resuming the death penalty will not be beneficial
to Jamaica and will in no way, shape or form quench our bloodthirstiness.

(source: Column, Richie Lindo, Jamaica Observer)






CHIINA:

New Legal Guidelines Set Clearer Criteria for Punishments in Graft Cases----The
rules issued by the country's top court and prosecutor's office have expanded
the definition of bribery and pushed up the requirements for the death penalty


A new set of legal guidelines for judges and prosecutors handling graft trials
have revised the minimum threshold for cases that qualify for criminal
prosecution and clarified where capital punishment can be used, a move legal
experts say will reduce confusion in courts.

The document released by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's
Procuratorate, the prosecutor's office, on April 18 said that defendants found
guilty of embezzling funds or accepting bribes worth more than 3 million yuan,
or about US$ 460,000, will receive the death penalty. Previously, officials
convicted of taking bribes worth 100,000 yuan or more could be sentenced to
death.

The guidelines apply to graft trials involving government workers, including
bureaucrats and employees of state-owned enterprises.

The benchmark for a case that qualifies for criminal prosecution has also been
raised. A criminal case can be brought if bribe is 30,000 yuan or more, up from
5,000 yuan, the document shows.

The guidelines supplement revisions made to the Criminal Law in November, and
replace sentencing criteria set out in 1997, which have long been criticized
for being out of date.

Under the new rules, embezzling funds or receiving bribes worth 10,000 yuan to
1.5 million yuan is defined as a "relatively serious offence" and carries a
prison sentence of 3 to 10 years. Those suspected of taking 1.5 million yuan to
3 million yuan in bribes are labeled "serious offenders" and will face a
minimum jail term of 10 years and this can go up to life imprisonment.

If defendants are convicted of "especially serious" offences with an "extremely
vile impact," such as stealing funds earmarked for disaster relief efforts,
they may face the death penalty, the document show.

This is the 1st time in 2 decades that the sentencing criteria for graft cases
have been revised. Several legal experts said the guidelines were more lenient
than what they expected.

Most graft cases involve amounts between 100,000 yuan and several million yuan,
said Sun Guoxiang, a law professor at Nanjing University, in the eastern city
of Nanjing, and under the new rules, most defendants may get less than 10 years
in prison, much shorter than some of the previous jail terms meted out.

Widening the Net

The guidelines, however, have broadened the definition of what qualifies as
graft, said Sun, and includes a clearer definition of violations, closing a few
legal loopholes.

For example, accepting expensive gifts from a subordinate will be regarded as
bribery under the new benchmark, even if no specific request was made by the
giver at the time of presenting the gift. Earlier, such practices fell outside
the definition of graft because it was difficult to establish a link between
accepting gifts and officials' decisions and professional conduct, Sun said.

The definition of a bribe was expanded to include writing off an individual's
or company's debt, having a house renovated for free, paid trips, club
memberships and other benefits.

"(The guidelines) eliminate confusion," said Zhang Qingsong, a lawyer at
Beijing Shangquan Law Office.

Previous rules emphasized on heavy penalties, but the revision stresses
broadening the definition of corruption and setting clearer criteria for
punishments, said Huang Jingping, a law professor at Renmin University in
Beijing.

"The function of the Criminal Law is to define timely and definitive
punishments for all forms of corrupt practices," said Huang.

An immediate death penalty sentence has rarely been imposed on senior officials
convicted of corruption in recent years. Officials charged with committing
grave violations were given a suspended death sentence that came into effect
after 2 years. These sentences could be commuted to life imprisonment or
reduced even further.

In 2013, former railroad minister Liu Zhijun was given a suspended death
sentence for taking 60 million yuan in bribes. The sentence was commuted to
life imprisonment in 2015.

In June 2015, Zhou Yongkang, the former domestic security tsar, was jailed for
life after being convicted of accepting 130 million yuan worth of bribes along
with his family and leaking state secrets.

Criminal charges have been brought against 22 ministerial-level officials
accused of corruption since the Communist Party's anti-graft campaign started
in late 2012, Caixin calculated based on media reports. They were convicted for
taking bribes totaling over 500 million yuan. 3 were sentenced to life in
prison.

"If lighter punishments don't lead to a rise in corruption cases, it will show
that the new rules have deterred unlawful behavior," said Zhang.

Zhu Yongming, a lawyer appearing in criminal cases, said the country needs
"comprehensive institutional arrangements, such as a system for officials to
disclose their assets to the public and an effective supervision mechanism."

Corrupt officials can be punished by organs other than the courts. The Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party's anti-graft agency, first
carries out an investigation into suspect officials and detains them in some
cases. Officials who are found guilty of "violating party discipline," a
euphemism for graft, can be demoted, or removed from their position and
expelled from the party. The anti-graft agency only hands over cases that
qualify for criminal prosecution to the state prosecutor's office.

"How do you effectively connect the party's disciplinary organs and law
enforcement units is an issue that needs to be addressed," said Sun. "The main
problem is how administrative and party penalties are used to punish officials
whose offences do not qualify for criminal prosecution," said Sun.

(source: Caixin Online)






PAKISTAN----execution

Death penalty : A convict executed, another gets a lifeline


A murder convict was hanged at the district jail on Tuesday morning. The
execution of another convict was put off on Tuesday after his family reached a
settlement with the petitioners.

Jail authorities said Asghar Ali, a resident of Khushab, had murdered his
brother, his brother's wife, and their 4 children over property in Noshera,
Khushab, in 2007. They said a trial court had sentenced him to death. Later,
Sargodha Sessions Judge Abdul Nasir had issued black warrants for Ali. The jail
authorities handed over the body to Ali's family.

Separately, the execution of a murder convict was put off after the petitioner
settled with the defendant. A Prisons spokesperson said a trial court had
sentenced Haq Nawaz, son of Bakhsh, to death for murdering his mother-in-law
Ejaz Bibi in a Kotwali City police precinct, Jhang, in March 2001.

Black warrants had been issued for Haq Nawaz's execution to be carried out on
May 3 at Jhang District Jail. It was put off after the petitioner said they had
settled with the defendant

(source: The Express Tribune)

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

No Justice for Juveniles


On 10th June 2015, Aftab Bahadur was executed after spending 22 years on death
row in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail. Bahadur, a Christian man, entered the
formidable walls of his death row cell at the age of 15 and left only when he
walked to the gallows at the age of 39. He was working as an assistant to a
plumber when he was arrested and tortured by the police into giving a
confession for murdering a woman and her 2 sons. Aftab relayed that the police
had asked him for a bribe of PKR 50,000 in exchange for his freedom which he
was unable to afford. Thereafter he was convicted and sentenced to death under
a law that provided for expedited trials for 'terrorists'. The only eye-witness
to the crime recanted his statement claiming that he had been tortured by the
police into implicating Aftab for the murder and that he had never even been
present at the time the crime took place. Writing from his cell a few days
before his execution he stated," For many years - since I was just 15 years old
- I have been stranded between life and death. It has been a complete limbo,
total uncertainty about the future."

As we approach the 1 year anniversary of Aftab Bahadur's execution, the
Government of Pakistan has executed over 387 prisoners since the lifting of the
moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014. At least 5 of those executed
- including Aftab Bahadur - were juveniles at the time of committing their
alleged offences. In a study conducted by the Justice Project Pakistan titled
"Juveniles on Death Row" it was discovered that at least 10% of Pakistan's 8000
death row prisoners were juvenile offenders. This puts the number of juveniles
facing execution at a startling figure of 800. Executions of persons who were
juveniles at the time of committing the alleged crimes is strictly prohibited
under international law through the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), that Pakistan became a party to in 2010.
Domestically, the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), a law enacted to
provide protections for juvenile offenders in 2000, also bars executions for
juvenile and provides for separate courts, jails and trials for juveniles. A
2001 Presidential Commutation Order extended the benefit of the law to juvenile
offender convicted prior to the enactment of the law on the condition of an
inquiry into their juvenility.

Despite these protections in place, how is it that juveniles continue to be
executed? Pakistan has one of the lowest birth registrations rates in world.
Only 27 % of births in the country are registered with figures going much lower
in rural areas. Upon arrest these children are left with no proof of age to
prove their juvenility. Exacerbating the problem, police in Pakistan often
record a person's age at the time of their arrest based upon a visual
assessment of their physical appearance without any verification. Often times,
police record the age of juvenile offenders as above 18 in order to avoid
application of protective safeguards provided under the JJSO. During the course
of the trial and appeals, Courts inevitably rely upon the arbitrary assessment
provided by the police, despite, production of government-issued documents,
including NADRA ID cards by the accused party. Ansar Iqbal was executed on 29th
September 2015 despite the existence of a NADRA issued ID card that showed him
to be 15 at the time of committing the offence. The Trial Court chose to rely
upon the police assessment of his age of "22/23" years - a decision that was
upheld by the High Court and the Supreme Court. The Courts' failure to rely
upon NADRA issued ID cards impairs the integrity of the very national
registration system that has been the subject of monumental reform projects and
foreign funding in recent years.

A purview of case-law on the determination of juvenility in court proceedings
shows that there is virtually no consistent pattern that Courts in Pakistan
follow. The courts are free to rely upon birth certificates or school leaving
records over medical assessments in one case or medical assessment over any
documentary evidence in another. At the end of the day the Court's decision
comes down to the discretion of the individual judge presiding and often times
such discretion is inclined towards deeming the accused to be an adult. Not
only is such arbitrary practice harmful to the integrity of the criminal
justice system, it also violates the fundamental principle of benefit of doubt
being granted to the person claiming juvenility.

Additionally, juvenile offenders often fail to raise the plea of juvenility at
the stage of investigation and trial as a result of inadequate legal
representation - which is usually the case. When such plea is raised at the
stage of the appeal there are instances of superior courts failing to consider
the supporting evidence by deeming it as not being raised at the 'correct
time'. Such a lack of consistent practice and jurisprudence, leads to severe
human rights violations in the investigation and prosecution of juvenile
defendants and eventually to executions that are in blatant violation of
domestic and international law.

In the state reports submitted under the United Nations International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) the government of Pakistan has unequivocally stated that no
juvenile offenders have been executed in Pakistan. However, what these reports
fail to mention is that the criminal justice is severely lacking in reliable
mechanisms to identify juveniles and thereby bring them within the protections
that are due to them under law. There is a dire need to develop consistent
age-determination protocols in order to ensure that determination of juvenility
by the police and by the courts is conducted in a manner that is fair, just and
transparent. The National Commission on Human Rights, established under the
National Commission on Human Rights Act, 2012, is the body with the requisite
powers to formulate and implement such protocols. It is essential that the
Government of Pakistan provides the necessary cooperation and assistance to the
NCHR to undertake such an essential endeavour.

It has been a year since the world lost Aftab Bahadur, and over 23 since he
lost his freedom at the age of 15 - an innocent victim of a defunct juvenile
justice system. How many more children will meet the same fate?

(source: The Nation)






BELARUS:

see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/belarus-commute-gennadii-yakovitskii-s-death-sentence-ua-1816


(source Amnesty International)






BANGLADESH:

Man to die for killing wife in Tangail


A Tangail court yesterday sentenced a man to death for killing his wife for
dowry in Madhupur upazila of the district in 2012.

The death penalty awardee is Mohammad Nasir Uddin, son of Meser Ali of Kaitkait
village in the upazila.

According to the prosecution, Nasir married Noorjahan Begum, daughter of Ziaul
Haque of Poddarbari village in the upazila in March 2012. After the marriage,
he demanded Tk 20,000 as dowry from his father-in-law.

On the night of September 2, 2012, Nasir picked up a quarrel with Noorjahan
over the issue. At one stage, he strangled her.

On the following day, victim's father Ziaul Haque filed a murder case with
Madhupur Police Station, accusing Nasir.

Police arrested Nasir and produced him before the court where he gave a
confessional statement under Section 164.

After examining case record, Judge Mohammad Shorfuddin Ahmed of Women and
Children Repression Prevention Tribunal in Tangail handed down the verdict.

(source: The Daily Star)

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

Nilphamari court sentences man to death for counterfeit currency


A man in Nilphamari has been given the death penalty in a case involving
counterfeit currency notes.

47-year-old Badshah Dhali was arrested on Jul 7, 2014 at a house at Syedpur
town while making fake currencies.

The case details say counterfeit currency notes as well as equipment to make
those were found with Dhali.

Police booked him under the 1974 Special Powers Act.

The court of Nilphamari's District and Sessions Judge delivered the verdict on
Wednesday in the presence of the convict.

Additional Public Prosecutor Azizul Islam Pramanik said the case was filed
under the Act's Sections 25 (a) and (b) of, which keeps the provision of death
sentence as the maximum penalty.

(source: bdnews24.com)



NIGERIA:

Kaduna govt seeks death penalty for 256 shiites


The Kaduna State Government on Tuesday arraigned another batch of 91 members of
the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) before a Kaduna High Court, seeking death
sentence for the accused.

The government had on April 21 arraigned 50 members of the sect on similar
charges.

They were among the 266 sect members arrested during the Shiite/Army clash
between Dec. 12 and Dec 14, 2015 in Zaria.

256 of the arrested persons are facing charges including death sentence, while
10 others are facing other charges in different courts in the state.

They were arraigned on a 5-count charge for criminal conspiracy, culpable
homicide, unlawful assembly, disturbance of public peace and wrongful restrain.

Mr Dari Bayero, who led the prosecution, told Justice Hajara Gwadah that the
accused persons were being charged "pursuant to Sections 97, 102, 106, 221 and
256 of the Penal Code Law of Kaduna State.

"My Lord the charge before you is for mention. We humbly apply that the names
of the accused persons be called out for identification. My Lord the 1st, 13th,
34th, 39th, 57th , 66th and 70th accused persons are not in court and are
absent.

"They were released on bail and are aware of this date particularly the accused
person No. 57 who we have proof of service on.

"My Lord the 1st accused person was released on bail to one Ibrahim Haruna who
is Resident at Zaria. My Lord we hereby apply for a bench warrant against the
57th accused person.

"My Lord same is also applied against all the accused persons that are absent.
I also apply for a short date for further arraignment."

On his part, Mr Festus Okoye, who led the defence team, said the prosecution
had not served any of the accused persons with the charge since the case was
filed on March 22, 2016.

"My Lord our 1st application is that the prosecution should serve the charges
on all the accused persons.

"My Lord, the application for bench warrant against the accused persons that
are not before the court is not proper. My Lord the 1st accused and his surety
were not served with a copy of this charge and hearing notice and thus, are not
aware that the matter comes up today.

"The 13th accused person was released because he was critically ill. There is
also no evidence that he was served with the charge or hearing notice. The 39th
and 70th accused persons were released on bail because they are minors and were
not served against today. I don't have information on the 57th accused person."

The defence counsel requested the court to order the prosecution to serve the
accused persons that were not in court and their sureties.

After listening to the submissions, the Judge issued a bench warrant against
the 57th accused person.

"Bench warrant against 57th accused person is hereby granted. Accused persons
are to be served personally.

"Case adjourned to June 1, 2016 for arraignment," Gwadah declared.

(source: The News)


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[Rick Halperin]

May 4




INDONESIA:

Indonesia is preparing to execute prisoners, police official confirms ----
Spokesman says firing squad has been in training, risking backlash from foreign
governments with citizens on death row


Indonesia is preparing to execute several prisoners, a police official has
said, confirming reports that a year-long pause in the death penalty could be
nearing an end.

Authorities have not said how many prisoners will face the firing squad or if
foreigners will be among them. 2 Britons, Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth
Cashmore, are on death row in the south-east Asian nation, which has a
notoriously hardline attitude towards drug offences.

"We have had a warning since last month to prepare the place," said the Central
Java provincial police spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.

"We carried out some rehabilitation of the location, like painting and repairs,
because there will probably be more people who will be executed," he said,
adding that the firing squad had been training and receiving counselling.

He declined to say how many prisoners would be executed, or when, or if there
would be foreigners among them.

After 14 prisoners were executed in January and April 2015, drawing widespread
international condemnation, scheduled executions were postponed, with officials
saying the government preferred to focus on reviving the economy.

But President Joko Widodo's administration has pledged to resume executions by
firing squad at an island prison on Nusa Kambangan, claiming they are a
necessary response to the country's "drug emergency".

The most recent round of executions, in which eight men, including seven
foreigners, were shot dead in April last year, sparked condemnation from
Australia and Brazil, which had pleaded for their nationals to be spared. 2
Australian men, the Bali 9 pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were
executed, prompting the temporary withdrawal from Jakarta of Canberra's
ambassador.

Authorities have not given a breakdown of the numbers of people sentenced to
death, but according to Amnesty International, there were at least 165 people
on death row at the end of 2015, and more than 40% of those were sentenced for
drug-related crimes.

Many of them are foreigners, and citizens of France, Britain and the
Philippines are known to be among them.

Sandiford, from the UK, was sentenced to death after being convicted in 2013 of
trying to smuggle almost 4kg of cocaine into Bali.

Cashmore was sentenced to life imprisonment - later raised to death by firing
squad - after he was caught with 6.5kg of crystal meth in his luggage at
Jakarta airport in 2011.

A Philippine maid, Mary Jane Veloso, got a last-minute reprieve in April last
year in response to a request from Manila after a woman whom Veloso had accused
of planting drugs in her luggage gave herself up to police in the Philippines.

Her lawyer said he hoped she would not be in the next batch of prisoners to be
executed. "The execution of Mary Jane should be delayed because we are waiting
for the legal process in the Philippines," said the lawyer, Agus Salim.

A lawyer for Serge Atlaoui, a French national, said authorities had not
contacted the French embassy on whether his client would be executed in the
next batch. Atlaoui, who denies being the "chemist" for an ecstasy factory
outside Jakarta, exhausted all legal appeals in mid-2015.

The government typically informs the embassies of foreign convicts only days
before their executions.

Indonesia imposed a moratorium on executions for 5 years before resuming them
in 2013. It has executed 14 people, most of them foreigners, under Widodo.

Indonesia's representative at a UN narcotics conference was jeered last month
when he defended the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a penalty
that is contrary to international law.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Death penalty calls for schoolgirl's rapists


The mother of an Indonesian schoolgirl killed following an alleged gang rape
has called for the death penalty for the youths accused of the attack.

Prosecutors have called for sentences of 10 years for the 7 youths, but the
girl's parents and activists say tougher penalties need to apply and parliament
must address violence against women.

Yuyun, 14, left school at around lunchtime on April 2 when she was allegedly
set upon by a group of 14 males in her village in Bengkulu, Sumatra.

The gang had drunk palm liquor or 'tuak' before snatching her, raping her and
strangling her, Bengkulu Provincial Police spokesman Sudarno told AAP on
Wednesday.

The schoolgirl's bound body was found 2 days later, dumped near the crime
scene. Some of the alleged perpetrators are believed to have taken part in the
search.

Sudarno said prosecutors have called for the 7 youth - aged 16 and 17 - who are
currently facing trial, to be jailed for 10 years for the offences of 'forced'
sex and violence causing death.

But the teenager's mother Yani said she wanted to see her daughter's attackers
receive the death penalty or life.

'All of you other mothers, please take care of your daughters. Let Yuyun be the
only victim ... There shall be no more other than Yuyun.'

5 men, aged up to 23, have been arrested with a search underway for the
remaining 2 alleged perpetrators.

The case was pushed into the national spotlight this week after activists waged
a social media campaign.

1 such Jakarta-based activist, Kate Walton, said she first heard of Yuyun's
case last week and had been 'shocked' to discover it had garnered so little
attention.

Utilising local media reports, Ms Walton has been gathering data on cases like
Yuyun, and by her count 44 women and girls have been killed by men in Indonesia
since the start of the year.

'We are trying to demonstrate that cases like Yuyun are not isolated,' she told
AAP.

Adriana Venny, from the women's group Komnas Perempuan, said they had placed a
draft bill before parliament more than 2 years ago to tackle sexual violence,
but it had been languishing in the 'temporary list'.

The bill seeks to increase penalties, widen Indonesia's limited definition of
rape and include further sex offences, she said.

Venny hopes parliament will finally listen.

'It's time to push and to pass this bill immediately because we can wait no
longer,' she told AAP.

On Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo tweeted: 'We're all in grief for
the tragic departure of YY. Catch and punish the perpetrators ... Women and
children must be protected from violence.

(source: skynews.com.au)





**********

3rd round of death penalty a matter of choosing a day: Attorney General


It is now only a matter of choosing the day on which the 3rd round of
executions of drug convicts will be carried out, Attorney General Muhammad
Prasetyo said on Tuesday.

The Attorney General's Office ( AGO ) has begun preparations for the
executions, set to take place on the notorious prison island of Nusakambangan
in Cilacap, Central Java.

"There is only the choosing of the specific date. That's what I haven't been
able to decide," Prasetyo said on Tuesday as quoted by newsportal Kompas.com.

He refused to disclose any details about what was delaying his decision. He
also refrained from answering questions from reporters regarding the number of
convicts who are to be executed.

The Attorney General has confirmed that Filipino Mary Jane Veloso and
Indonesian drug kingpin Freddy Budiman are not on the list.

Veloso exclusion is due to an ongoing legal process in a separate but related
case in her country.

Meanwhile, Freddy, who was found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills
from China to Indonesia in 2012, has filed for a case review, Prasetyo said.

The prosecutors will execute convicts whose verdicts are final, he added.

Prasteyo said he hoped the third round of executions would be carried out
without any public uproar, such as that which has previously arisen after the
executions of death row convicts.

"We do not want any racket. I have said many times, this is not something that
is fun, but we have to do it nonetheless. Because no matter what, it concerns
the well-being of the nation," he said.

Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen Condro Kirono said he had prepared the
firing squad, doctors as well as clerics and priests for the executions. He
said a firing squad of 14 personnel was deployed to execute 1 convict.

However, he did not know the exact date either, as coordination between the AGO
and police had been made prior to the execution.

There were 65 drug convicts on death row as of 2015, according to AGO data.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration has executed 2 groups of
death-row convicts, both of which were carried out last year and comprise a
total of 14 people.

The 1st round was conducted on January 18 with 6 drug convicts executed.

The 2nd round shortly after, on April 29, especially dominated media headlines,
since several of the 8 people who were executed were foreigners whose deaths
caused tensions between Indonesian and the respective home countries of the
convicts.

(source: The Jakarta Post)

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

Gang Rape, Murder of Indonesian Girl Sparks Call for Reform


The rape and murder of a teenage girl by 14 men has reignited calls in
Indonesia for a sexual violence law that is languishing in Parliament to be
enacted.

The attack on the girl in Bengkulu province in western Indonesia occurred April
2 and went largely unnoticed at a national level until social media users began
highlighting its brutality.

Activists from the Alliance for Community Care of Victims of Sexual Violence
called on the government on Tuesday to urgently pass the Elimination of Sexual
Violence Act.

Half of the suspects are less than 18 years old and the maximum sentence they
can receive because of Indonesia's child protection law is 10 years.

A local police chief in Bengkulu, Eka Chandra, said trials have begun for the 7
minors and prosecutors are seeking 10-year sentences.

Local media reported the girl was dragged into a forest by 1 of the
perpetrators on her way home from school. She was found 3 days later.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection,
said the adult suspects could receive the death penalty if there is evidence
the girl's murder was premeditated.

2 of the men are still at large.

(source: Associated Press)






TAIWAN:

Cheng Hsing-tse freed from death row----5,231 Days in Jail: Cheng was happy to
be reunited with his mother in time for Mother's Day after 14 years in prison.
He is to be retried after new evidence surfaced


The Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled that death-row
inmate Cheng Hsing-tse should be released on bail pending a retrial on the
charges that have seen him imprisoned for 14 years, including 10 on death row.

The 49-year-old Cheng, who has always maintained his innocence, walked out of
the Taichung Prison in the afternoon and was met by family members and
supporters, including representatives of the Taiwan Association for Innocence
and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.

After 5,231 days of incarceration, Cheng said: "This taste of freedom is a
really great feeling."

"I have been imprisoned for the past 14 years, but now I am so happy that I can
spend this Mother's Day with my family," he said as he embraced his mother.

Some supporters came with sunflowers and handed one to Cheng, as they hailed
his release as a victory for human rights and shouted: "Cheng is innocent of
the crime" and "We don't want to have any more wrongful convictions."

Cheng's attorney Law Bing-cheng said the day has been late in coming because
his client is innocent and has been jailed for too long.

"Today he is set free, and for this we have to thank the prosecutors and the
judges. This case has also set milestones in Taiwan's judiciary, because it is
the 1st time that a man whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court is
going to receive a retrial. I am certain Cheng has the courage to face the
retrial so that he can clear his name," Law said.

Yesterday's decision barred Cheng from leaving the country or going out to sea.

Cheng's case has gone through 7 trials and 7 retrials, including the Supreme
Court upholding his death sentence in 2006.

A retrial was ordered after Cheng's defense team presented new evidence raising
doubts about his conviction for the death of police officer Su Hsien-pi during
an exchange of gunfire at a KTV parlor in Taichung in 2002 and prosecutors
concurred.

The prosecutors' application in March for a retrial was the 1st time in the
nation's history that a retrial has been sought in a case where the Supreme
Court's final ruling upheld the original death sentence.

Cheng is the 5th death row inmate to be released from prison for a retrial,
including the Hsichih Trio case of Su Chien-ho, Liu Bin-lang and Chuang
Lin-hsun, who were found not guilty in 2012.

Human rights groups have long highlighted what they said were defects in the
original investigation and questionable evidence used by prosecutors, including
a confession that Cheng had been tortured and coerced into making.

After re-examining the forensic evidence and findings from a new investigative
report, Taichung prosecutor Wu Tsui-fang decided a retrial was needed because
the evidence indicated that another suspect had fired the fatal gunshot that
killed Su, not Cheng.

(source: Taipei Times)






SINGAPORE:

See:https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-republic-of-singapore-cabinet-of-the-republic-of-singapore-savejabing-grant-clemency-to-sarawakian-kho-jabing

(source: change.org)






IRAN----executions

Iran regime hangs another 5 prisoners


The mullahs' regime in Iran on Tuesday hanged 5 prisoners, including a man in
public.

4 death-row prisoners were hanged in Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj, west of
Tehran.

They were identified as Ahmad al-Tafi, Abdolhamid Baqeri, Majid Imani, and Reza
Hosseini.

Another prisoner, identified only by his first name Avaz, was hanged in a
public square in the port city of Nour, northern Iran, on Tuesday.

The hangings bring to at least 62 the number of people executed in Iran since
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.

Commenting last week on the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran,
Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: "In the month of April, during and
after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy
chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran."

"The increasing trend of executions indicates that the visits of senior
European officials to Iran not only have failed to improve the human rights
situation; rather, they have given a message of silence and inaction to the
mullahs. This has emboldened the clerical regime in stepping up executions and
suppressing the Iranian people. This is the regime that has been the record
holder of executions per capita globally in 2015. This bitter reality is not an
issue of pride for any of the guests of the religious fascism," he added.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."

Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with 7 EU
commissioners for discussions with the regime???s officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the
2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to
at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East
and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as
President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation
in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was
greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the
executions as examples of "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that
belong to the people."

(source: NCR-Iran)

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

3 Prisoners Hanged in Iran


On Sunday May 1, 1 prisoner was reportedly hanged at Nahavand Prison (in the
western province of Hamadan) and 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Mashhad
Central Prison (in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan).

According to a report by the Judiciary in Hamadan, the prisoner hanged at
Nahavand was executed on murder charges. The report identifies the prisoner
only by the initials, M.R.

The state-run news site, Rokna, reported on the executions of the 2 unrelated
prisoners in Mashhad, but did not publish their names or initials. According to
the report, 1 of the prisoners was hanged on murder charges while the other was
a 25-year-old hanged on rape charges.

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

2 Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges


2 unrelated prisoners with drug related charges were reportedly hanged at
Ardebil Central Prison on the morning of Tuesday May 3. According to the press
department of the Judiciary in Ardebil, 1 of the prisoners was charged with
possession of 70 grams of heroin and crytal meth while the other was charged
with trafficking 1 kilogram and 700 grams of heroin.

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

4 Prisoners in Danger of Execution on Drug Charges in Ghezel Hesar Prison


4 prisoners on death row on drug related charges have been reportedly
transferred to solitary confinement cells in Ghezel Hesar Prison in preparation
for their executions. The prison is located in the city of Karaj (northern
Iranian province Alborz).

According to close sources, 3 of the prisoners were transferred from Unit 2 of
Ghezel Hesar Prison and 1 of the prisoners was transferred from Tehran Central
Prison (also known as Fashafouye). These prisoners have been identified as:
Majid Imani, Abdolhamid Bameri, Ahmad Altafi, and Reza Hosseini (from Tehran
Central Prison).

According to IHR's annual death penalty report, Iranian authorities executed at
least 638 people in 2015 on drug related charges. After China, Iran is home to
the most executions in the world. IHR reported at least 969 executions carried
out in 2015 alone.

(source for all: Iran Human Rights)






INDIA:

Soumya's mother hits out at delay in execution of rapist


Sumathi, mother of 23-year-old Soumya who was pushed out of a train and raped
and murdered on the tracks in 2011, said delay in execution of the man
convicted in the case contributed to the recurrence of the similar rape and
murder of the law student at Perumbavoor.

Govindachami, the convict, was awarded death penalty by a fast track court in
November 2011 and the sentence was subsequently upheld by the high court in
December, 2013. "But he is still alive as his appeal is pending in the Supreme
Court. The government has not yet appointed a special prosecutor in the case.
Legal experts say an advocate closely familiar with the case should be arguing
the case in the Supreme Court as the conviction was largely based on
circumstantial evidences and not on the basis of the testimonies of
eye-witnesses,'' Sumathi said.

"We must ensure that no more mothers have to wet the earth with their tears for
their daughters. The accused in such cases must be handed out quick and extreme
punishments, which will have a deterrent value. In fact, the public must be
allowed to handle such cases,'' Sumathi said. She, however, pointed out that
the investigations in the Perumbavoor case had several lapses. The brutality
came to light only after 2 or 3 days of the incident and the accused is still
absconding, she said.

In the Soumya case, the investigating team led by DSP Radhakrishnan Nair and CI
Sasidharan as well as the Special prosecutor A Suresan had meticulously
followed up the case and this led to the awarding of death sentence to
Govindachami, She said.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Listening to the Unheard: The Experience of Interviewing Death Row
Prisoners----Student researchers who interviewed death row prisoners in India
and their families spoke to The Wire about their experiences.


In May 2013, a group of people based out of the National Law University in
Delhi decided to try and fill a big data gap in India - information on the
death penalty and death row prisoners. Their aim was to conduct a research
project that would look at the socio-economic background of death row
prisoners, their experiences in the criminal justice system, what their
families went through and so on. A comprehensive empirical base for talking
about the death penalty in India.

Led by Anup Surendranath, a teacher at NLUD, the project tied up with the
National Legal Services Authority, making it easier for them to gain access to
the death row prisoners. In spite of that, there was 1 state that gave them no
access at all and another that did not let them meet a section of prisoners.
Though the project hired a few lawyers and legal researchers, a majority of
those doing the fieldwork and data entry were student volunteers from NLUD. In
the 2 1/2 years that a project lasted, close to 90 student researchers worked
on it at different points in time. Some of them stayed for close to the entire
period.

For most of these students, these experiences were different from ones they'd
ever had before. Not only did they go to various prisons, speaking with
prisoners who had been sentenced to death and faced perhaps the harshest side
of the criminal justice system, they had also travelled to extremely remote
locations across the country looking for the families of the prisoners,
speaking to them about their experiences. About a week before the release of
the report that contains all their work, they sat down with The Wire to talk
about their experiences, what made them keep working with project and what they
had learnt about India's criminal justice system.

"(The students) have given up on a lot of their internships for this project.
Sticking with the same thing for so long is very rare among competitive law
school students, because it's still only 1 line on your CV - whether you worked
for 24 months or two," Surendranath said, smiling at the student researchers
present in the room.

Research experiences and stories from the fieldwork

"I joined the project almost as soon as I joined college," said Gale Andrews, a
3rd year student who worked with the project for 2 1/2 years. "Since we were
just starting out, it seemed like a really exciting thing to do, and I think
Anup sold it very well."

"There is this one family I keep taking about. It was a completely remote area,
a tiny mud house with a thatched roof. I had met the prisoner about a week
before that and he was 2 years older than me. He seemed like a sweet, friendly
guy. I remember that I was taking notes during his interview, translating from
Hindi to English simultaneously. When we asked him how much he had studied, he
said proudly that he could write his name. When we asked if he could write it
in English, he said 'No, I'm not that good yet, I can only write it in Hindi'.
The idea that he was 2 years older than me and he's so proud of just writing
his name - whereas it didn't even occur to me that it's so natural for me to be
so literate," Andrews said. "When I went and met the family, the thing that
struck me was when we asked them for the lawyer's contact details. This was a
question we always asked. They pointed to the wall - they'd written lawyers
number in chalk because they don't keep paper or a pen at home. They also don't
have a telephone; they just use the village phone. Just seeing how disconnected
they were - they didn't know anything about the case, they don't have the money
to visit the prisoner. They didn't even know what the case was about, they only
learnt things from rumours in the neighbourhood. It was impossible to get
information from them for the project because they're so alienated from
everything, they had no access to information. It just hits you then how unfair
things are when they play out."

"For me, that's why I stayed on with the project," she added, explaining her 2
1/2-year stint with this project instead of going for other internships. "Every
time it kills you that you're staying up till 2 am filling up a sheet, you
think okay, you're filling up this sheet because eventually it will come out -
and that's what they wanted, they wanted their stories to come out. So what
kept me going was knowing that we were the only ones willing to listen to them,
and for them that was so valuable."

"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them, and no one
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of
responsibility."

Some of the students had trouble explaining to their parents why they wanted to
travel across the country, meeting not only death row prisoners in jails but
also their families, spread across states. "We're in the same batch, but I
didn't join the project the same time as Gale did," said Jagata Krishna
Swaminathan. "I joined it later because my parents were wary of sending me off
into different parts of the country. I'm from Bangalore and at one point the
project was look for Kannada speakers to do the interviews in Karnataka. That's
when my parents agreed, because they said 'Okay, Karnataka we know'."

"I don't think I've ever worked this much for anything else in my life, and if
you ask me I don't think I could give you a clear answer," Swaminathan added.
"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them and no one
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of
responsibility."

"I think it's fair to say that even though we remember the entire experience,
everyone has that one story that you carry with you. For me it was to do with a
female death row prisoner," she said, remembering the case of a prisoner she
met just after the landmark Shatrugan Chauhan judgment. Before this judgment,
death row prisoners were kept in separate barracks. "For a female prisoner,
what being kept in a separate barrack translates into is basically 1 or 2 women
being completely isolated from everyone else, unlike the men's death row
barracks in the state, which had about 30-35 prisoners. The isolation that the
prisoner we met felt was then far greater. I also met her husband on death row
and he was talking about how he was only allowed to meet her once in every 15
days. She didn't really have much contact with people, so every time he met her
he felt that she was deteriorating, that he could just see her giving up
slowly. When I went in to meet her, she was eating breakfast so I was waiting
for her to finish. While waiting I was talking to other people there - some of
the prisoners and the prison guard. The guard pointed to this dark room at the
very end of a hall, saying that's where she had to stay before, though now
she's is allowed to stay with the others."

"The 1st prisoner interview I did was someone in solitary confinement," said
Chinmay Konjia, relating the experience that shocked him most. "It was quite
shocking. Our proximity to the prisoner was such that the person was inside the
cell and we were standing outside. It was horrific. People had told us about
certain other states and the prison authorities being extremely cooperative -
letting the prisoners out so that they could sit down and talk face to face. I
was absolutely not prepared for something like this. This was also the 1st
female prisoner that Anup interviewed. For solitary confinement, you're taken
in through doors after doors. She was allowed to leave their rooms for about 15
minutes a day, and looking at the size of their room that was just unimaginable
for me. Everything from eating to going to the toilet happened within that
room. Even when you go out for those 15 minutes, there is nobody except the
prison guards. Such things really got to me."

"Of course the interviews went well despite us not being prepared for
everything that we saw, because people want to share their stories. Later we
met the husband of this prisoner, who was in the male solitary confinement. He
explained to us how we wouldn't be able to comprehend their lifestyle - from
small things like mosquitoes in the jail to things like they can't be given
thick blankets, because it's too hot, but they can't be given given thin
blankets, because then there's a danger of them hanging themselves. It was all
so surreal. Every time the people in solitary confinement would hear even a
small thing like a lock being turned, they think today's the day that
everything is going to come down. These things were extremely tough, at least
for me," he added.

"Also, for some of the prisoners we met, the number of years that they had
spent inside the jail was unthinkable. People often use the 5% number to argue
for the death penalty, saying it's really the rarest of rare cases," he
continued, referring to the fact that less than 5% of people sentenced to death
by trial courts are finally sentenced to death by the Supreme Court. "What you
are forgetting in this whole debate is the 15-20 years that a person has spent
on death row. You could see the impact of those years once you meet these
prisoners. It's not the same thing those in life imprisonment go through. The
minute you are accused the rules in prison change for you. There'll be solitary
confinement, shorter meeting period, etc. Everything changes because you're on
death row. You're not even allowed to work, meaning that the little bit of
money you could send to your family is also gone. Families told us about how
they've had to keep living off debt, since one of their only earning members
had been locked up. But even then, these families somehow get you a bottle of
Thums Up to drink."

The sensitivities of family interviews

Given what they wanted to talk about, interviews with prisoners' families also
had to be dealt with extremely carefully. The researchers did not use a set
survey-like questionnaire. Though they had guidelines, they were encouraged to
allow the conversation to progress naturally. "When we went out to talk to
people, we were very aware that the fact that someone from their family has
been sentenced to death will probably be constantly playing on their minds. So
the 1st effort was always to try and make them comfortable with us, talking to
them a little, trying to get to know them, introducing ourselves. If you just
go question by question, like a survey, not only are they less comfortable, I
think you also give up on a lot of valuable information," said Lakshya Gupta.
"In a way I think we were well-placed to conduct these interviews - we're just
law students, so harmless I guess, and people are more comfortable talking."

Surendranath agreed that allowing families and prisoners to speak naturally was
very important. "They often wanted to talk about things that weren't relevant
to our project, like how they didn't do it, for example. This was never a
question, but since it was the 1st time they were getting to talk about it,
prisoners wanted to express themselves. We understood that we should let them
talk, not say things like 'we don't want to listen to this, it's not why we're
here'. We learnt to slowly guide them into conversations you do want to have. I
think emotionally it was a huge challenge to explain the utility of any of
this, or why they should give you their time. I guess a lot of that went into
making this permanent - just confronting that repeatedly," he said, referring
to the full-time Centre on the Death Penalty that emerged out of the project,
working on litigation as well as research.

Students also talked about the dual risk while preparing for family interviews
- if you did all the background research, there was the chance you could form a
bias on the case and perhaps against the family, whether you wanted to or not.
But go in blind, and you can come across as completely ignorant, as if you
haven't done your homework.

Difficult to be prepared for everything

"I think in some ways we were really unprepared," Surendranath added. "I don't
think any of us could envisage the intensity of some of the reactions from
families who didn't want to talk to us. The sensitivities around them having
moved because of the case - we predicted it to some extent, that families might
have moved, there might be stigma. You can't just go around asking neighbours,
'Jinke bete ko phaansi ki saza mili hai woh kahaan milenge? (Where is the
family whose son has been sentenced to death)'. There are a lot of sensitive
things to care of."

Shreya Rastogi, a legal researcher with the project and now a litigator with
the centre, echoed Surendranath's sentiments on some things being impossible to
prepare for. "Sometimes it was something as simple as the fact that you would
expect, at least for family interviews, that you're going to into someone's
house, to sit down and have a conversation. But then you realise the situation
in which some of these families are placed. Like for instance, this one family
interview I was a part of, the family had been thrown out of their house
because of the kind of the media pressure that was built around that case. They
were basically living on the street outside the jail. There's a culpability
that's attached to the family as well - they weren't even allowed to gather
their things. Let alone if the prisoner is guilty, the family is facing the
punishment too. This is in Bombay and we did the interview in July, so if you
know Bombay at all you know that it's always pouring. So we couldn't even find
a dry place where we could sit down and talk to them. Those are the kinds of
situations where you find yourself doing these interviews and then you're
supposed to cover their socio-economic circumstances, which is staring at you
in the face while you do the interview. The part of that interview that will
really stick with me was that even though they had absolutely nothing on them,
at the end of the interview they offered if they could take me to the nearest
chaiwallah and buy me some tea. How can you have nothing and still have
something to offer?"

Each case and each state was also extremely different, making it harder for the
team to know what to expect.

Thinking about the criminal justice system

Going through this process, students felt they had a new perspective on the
criminal justice system, the people in it and cases they read.

"I want to talk about the jail and police authorities. There are usually 2 ways
we speak about them, 2 narratives, both of which are very black and white. One
is about how they're great, how they're authorities so they must be respected,
all of that. Not criticising them at all. The other is to see them as
adversaries, imposing an oppressive system. While there's merit to both, 1
thing that struck me is that they're just cogs in a much larger oppressive
system" said Pawani Mathur. "I think we forget that they're also human beings
who are also affected by this process, though they may not show it. There were
jailors that we met who were extremely sympathetic. One of the cases in
Chhattisgarh, for instance, the jailer would call me up voluntarily and ask,
'What's happening in the case? Tell me because I want to tell him.' That was
very important for me, to appreciate the grey in all these situations. They
also say things like, 'He's not that bad, there's no need to hang him. But we
have to do what we have to do'."

Mathur also talked about an encounter with the legal system that left her
surprised. "We discovered some new facts on a case during out research process,
which weren't on record during the trial. It was about the age of the accused.
So then Anup sent us back looking for proof, we did some more research. We
collected all their school certificates, got it all verified by the sarpanch.
We did so much groundwork, as a student I didn't even know all of that was
necessary before you could file a case. We didn't have any litigators at that
time so we gave the case to somebody outside. One thing that really struck me
was that when the case went before a court, some of us were standing at the
back when the judgment was to be announced. We couldn't properly hear what was
going on. Then suddenly there was a commotion and everyone walked out. We had
no idea what happened, so we went outside and asked the lawyers. He told us
'Dismiss ho gaya (It got dismissed)'. And we didn't even hear it. Before all
the commotion happened, one of the judges at the bench made a reference to a
Sanskrit shlok (he only gave the meaning, not the shlok itself). And the
meaning was something like if a king doesn't ensure adequate punishment, then
the sin of the offender is passed onto him. And I thought okay, it's
problematic, but okay. But this was before I knew he'd dismissed the case and
was then saying it. In my head it was just that all of that work, that journey,
all of that came down to one Sanskrit shlok. It really showed how the judge
views himself, and how he viewed the justice system and his position in it."

"I think working on the project has had an impact on how I read cases," added
another student researcher, Devina Malaviya. "Because earlier I used to read
cases as very matter of fact documents. But after going through this entire
process and doing this analysis, you start viewing cases very differently. You
realise its not just about that 1 case, there's probably a back story to it
that hasn't been mentioned here. Its about the family of the accused as well,
and of course the victim. It's not just 'X vs. State of Maharashtra', that X
has a life, a backstory."

"So many of the prisoners have told us they had no idea what happened in
courts. And nobody explains anything to them."

Seeing the accused and how their case is handled is something others took away
from the project as well. "For me, the impact it's had is what can we do
different as lawyers or law students," said Swaminathan. "You're seeing how no
one is paying attention to the accused, one of the parties present with the
biggest ramifications. But the focus is always on other things. The prisoner
always looks so lost about everything. They don't know what's happening, what
they're supposed to do. They're supposed to plead with the judge, saying my
lawyer isn't here, I don't have their number. So many of the prisoners have
told us they had no idea what happened in courts. And nobody explains anything
to them."

"So when I did my internship elsewhere, with a lawyer, in my head I would keep
going through the lawyer's questionnaire for the project that asked did you do
X, Y and Z, and the answer was almost always no," added Andrews. "It plays in
my mind, how much is the lawyer actually doing for the accused, how much are
they talking to them? That one rare lawyer, who may not be very senior, but you
can see is not ignoring the accused, actually interacting, is the one you know
you want to work with. I just can't get over the image of the prisoner saying I
don't know anything that's happening in my case."

The intricacies of how cases are handled was also brought into question.
"Another thing you start to really question is the quality of evidence," said
Rastogi. "The evidence used to sentence people to death is largely
circumstantial, to use that to sentence people to death is so bizarre. They
have a witness who isn???t very sure, who just identified a figure. Or when you
meet the prisoner they tell you they were made to sign blank sheets of paper
and then stories written on them on the basis of which the weapon is apparently
discovered. You have that evidence along with the medical evidence, and the
decal evidence in some cases is also just post mortems with signs of rape,
maybe some clothes with blood recovered that could be the accused's. And that's
about it. So one of the most baffling things is that there is so much
side-stepping in the system. Even if you might have the right person, the
investigation is so flawed. And that procedure goes through our courts,
unchallenged."

"I think 1 assumption people seem to have is that the accused is equally placed
with the state, without taking into account instances of torture, etc. You
can't expect prisoners to say 'I won't sign this document because it doesn't
exactly match what I said'. There's also almost blind reliance on 'expert
evidence'. Sometimes with blood stains all they do is match the blood group -
which could belong to 1/4 of the population - and call that expert evidence,"
added student researchers, in agreement with Rastogi.

"The more you look at this system and hear the prisoners' stories, it just
seems like a weird, absurd, dark comedy," said Maitreyi Misra, head of the
research unit at the Centre on the Death Penalty. "With DNA evidence, judges
are just so taken in because its some new-fangled science, that must be true
because its science. You're explaining things to prisoners in a language they
don't know. Nobody is understanding each other, but somehow they all think
they're in it together."

The Death Penalty India Report will be released on May 6.

(source: The Wire)






SRI LANKA:

5 Charged with Death Penalty


5 suspects who were found guilty over a murder in Lunawa, Moratuwa were given
capital punishment today.

The order was given by Panadura High Court judge Vikum Kaluarachchi.

The 2nd defendant of the case was released from all accusations while the other
5 were charged leveled against 13 indictable offenses.

The death penalty receivers are residents of Lunawa, Panadura and have
committed the murder of Pradeep Kumara who resided in the same area on 7th
January 2002.

(source: hirunews.lk)

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[Rick Halperin]

May 4




INDIA:

Rajya Sabha passes Anti-Hijacking Bill


Rajya Sabha today passed the Anti-Hijacking Bill, 2014, which provides for
death penalty even if ground handling staff and airport personnel are killed
during such acts.

In the earlier Bill, hijackers could be tried for death penalty only in the
event of death of hostages, such as flight crew, passengers and security
personnel.

The amendments in the Anti-Hijacking Bill, 2014 were cleared by the Cabinet In
July 2015.

Besides broadening the definition of hijacking, it also provides for an
enhanced punishment to the perpetrators as well as the area of jurisdiction.

Following the amendments, the perpetrators of hijacking would now be punishable
with death penalty where such an act result in the death of any person.

The Anti-Hijacking Bill 2014, introduced in Rajya Sabha in December 2014, was
referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and
Culture.

The panel submitted its report in March 2015, suggesting various changes
including making hoax calls a punishable offence and providing adequate
compensation for victims of hijacking.

The panel had asked the government to look at adequately defining the terms
'hostage' and 'security personnel'.

Earlier on discussion on the bill, A U Singh Deo (BJD) said the bill does not
have provisions for improving security and intelligence gathering.

He added that India should make an agency to handle airport security on the
lines of TSA in the US, which was created post 9/11.

V P Singh Badnore (BJP) said that there should be provisions for the safety of
the Parliament building as well as the President's estate, which are close to
the airports.

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajpathi Raju said that the issues of security
zone is looked after by Home Ministry.

Deputy Chairman P J kurien asked Raju to convey to the Ministry the concerns
raised by the member over the security of the Parliament building and the
President's estate.

During Special Mention, Vijay Jawaharlal Darda (Cong) raised the issue of
restructuring of the Bureau of Civil Aviation.

Basawaraj Patil (BJP) demanded for a better utilisation of the ESI Hospital in
Gulbarga (Karnataka).

Lal Singh Vadodia (BJP) raised the issue of improving the post office net
banking services.

Vishambhar Prasad Nishad (SP) demanded to make the Prime Minister Crop
Insurance premium free.

Vivek Gupta (TMC) raised the issue of release of MGNREGA funds to states.

(source: siasat.com)






INDONESIA:

Kalla: Death Penalty Is Just a Waiting Game


Vice President Jusuf Kalla handed over a file related to the next round of
executions of death-row inmates to the Attorney General's Office on Wednesday
(04/05).

However, Kalla said the Supreme Court had already issued verdicts in the cases
long ago and that the executions now only constituted a waiting game.

"The Supreme Court has the authority to order executions and the verdicts have
been issued a long time ago, but the time of the execution, that is up to
[Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo]," Kalla said.

The 3rd round of executions was supposed to take place early this year but it
was postponed due to shortages in the AGO's annual budget. Until now, there has
been no confirmation from the AGO of when the executions will take place.

Among those on death row are Frenchman Sergei Areski Atlaoui, Briton Lindsay
Sandiford and Mary Jane Veloso of the Philippines. However, the AGO confirmed
on Tuesday that Mary Jane Veloso will not be facing the firing squad in the 3rd
round of executions.

"We only have to set the execution date. That is what we are still unable to
decide at this moment. As for the executions, we have never said that we would
stop them, because the war on drugs will never end," Prasetyo said on Tuesday.
He added that the government made the execution of drug convicts a priority.

The attorney general is still keeping the names of the inmates and dates of the
execution a secret, saying only that his office will need to make sure that all
of the death-row inmates' legal options have been exhausted.

Most of the inmates executed last year were foreigners, prompting a wave of
international condemnation over Indonesia's use of capital punishment, as well
as diplomatic pressure from many countries. After the execution, Australia
temporarily recalled its ambassador to Indonesia.

Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) director Supriyadi W Eddyono urged
the government to cancel all executions, saying that there has been errors in
some inmates' death-row verdicts. He gave the example of Zainal Abidin, whose
dossier had been missing for a few years but then suddenly reappeared with a
verdict ordering the death penalty.

Supriyadi also said that the AGO was unable to explain the method used to
determine the order in which inmates are scheduled to be executed.

The next round of executions is set to take place at the notorious Nusa
Kambangan prison island near Cilacap, Central Java, where 14 convicts,
including Australia's so-called Bali 9 duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan,
were executed last year.

(source: Jakarta Globe)

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

Indonesia police: We've trained shooters for next round of executions----'We
have also prepared the facility for the bodies,' police said


Indonesia is preparing for a new round of executions, police said Wednesday,
May 4 around a year after Jakarta sparked global outrage by putting 7 foreign
drug convicts to death by firing squad.

Officials recently started getting ready after an order from the
attorney-general's office, which oversees executions, said Central Java police
spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.

"We have been making preparations," Darmanto told AFP. "We are ready whenever
the order comes."

Darmanto said preparations included ensuring locations where the executions
would take place were ready. For last year's executions, the drug convicts were
taken to a jungle clearing on the island, which houses several high-security
prisons, and tied to stakes before being shot.

"We have also prepared the facility for the bodies," he said.

"Each death row convict will face a group of 10 shooters and one group
commander. We have selected and trained the personnel."

There has been growing speculation in recent weeks that executions were set to
resume after a year-long hiatus, but high-ranking officials in Jakarta have so
far said little. There was no immediate comment Wednesday from the
attorney-general's office.

He said no date had been set for the executions, which will take place on the
prison island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, and he did not know who would
face the firing squad.

Firing squad

Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has repeatedly insisted that drug
traffickers must face the firing squad to stem rising narcotics use. There are
scores of drug convicts on death row in the country, including Indonesians and
foreigners.

The execution in April last year of 7 foreigners - 2 Australians, a Brazilian
and 4 Nigerians - and an Indonesian for drug offenses sparked international
fury.

Since then, no one else has been put to death, but officials had continued to
insist publicly that it was the country's right to use capital punishment."

Among the foreigners on death row are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary
Jane Veloso, who were both pulled from the last round of executions.

Veloso will not be included in the next round of executions.

A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is on death row in Bali after she was
caught smuggling a huge stash of cocaine into the resort island.

The executions last year of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran in particular caused tensions, with Indonesia's neighbour Australia
temporarily recalling its ambassador from Jakarta.

The April round was the 2nd under Jokowi. Since he took office in 2014, 14 drug
convicts - mostly foreigners - have been executed.

(source: rappler.com)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistani Muslims Charged With Blasphemy After Sikh's Turban Desecrated


5 Muslim employees of a Pakistani transport company were arraigned on blasphemy
charges after a Sikh man complained they desecrated his turban during an
argument about a delayed bus.

Mahindar Paul Singh complained to police after the May 1 brawl on a bus journey
from Faisalabad to Multan.

Singh said one employee threw his turban on the ground during the altercation
-- an act tantamount to desecration under the Sikh religious code.

Singh said that, since he is a Pakistani national, the attackers should be
charged with blasphemy according to the same law that non-Muslims have been
prosecuted under when accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad or desecrating
the Koran.

Pakistani authorities agreed, leading to the start of legal proceedings on May
3.

Blasphemy carries the death penalty and is a hugely sensitive issue in
Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Rights activists criticize Pakistan's blasphemy laws, saying they often are
used to carry out personal vendettas against minorities.

(source: Radio Free Europe / Raio Liberty)






TAIWAN:

Death penalty debate needs to be undertaken with care


Nobody is indifferent to the public's opinion on death penalty. According to a
survey from National Chung Cheng University's Crime Research Center conducted
in February, more than eight in 10 Taiwanese people are against the abolition
of the death penalty. That trend is still consolidating and developing to this
day across all layers of society, including among politicians across the
political spectrum. In response to several grisly murders carried out in broad
daylight in recent months, President Ma Ying-jeou stated last month that Taiwan
is not thinking of replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without
parole for the time being. In publicly choosing one side of the debate on death
penalty, the president threw his weight behind those who are calling for a
"robust justice system" in which death penalty is issued when "necessary." Yes,
but how do you define situations in which a death sentence is "unavoidably
determined"? This question remains unanswered, just like the acute differences
of opinion existing between opponents and supporters of the death penalty.
Still, the relevance of this issue was highlighted earlier this week after the
release of Cheng Hsing-tse, previously convicted for killing a police officer,
after 14 years in jail. The Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court granted
Cheng a retrial on Tuesday due to new evidence discovered in March, indicating
that the police officer's injury and Cheng's location at the time did not
match.

This is not the 1st time, however, that our judicial system erred in its
approach to death penalty. In 1996, Jiang Guoqing, a 20-year-old solider then,
was accused of abducting, raping and eventually murdering a 5-year-old girl in
a toilet at the R.O.C.'s Air Force Combatant Command after a piece of toilet
paper was found there had Jiang's semen and the girl's blood on it. Security
forces were accused of torturing Jiang to extract confessions. Soon, he was
executed in response to the public pressure. In 2011, however, someone serving
in the military at that time admitted that it was him who had committed the
horrible crime. The reason why there was Jiang's semen on the toilet paper was
simply because he was masturbating on the same toilet prior to the incident. In
the Su Jianhe case, security forces were also accused of torturing Su and his
two friends to extract confessions for a double killing in 1991. The trio was
forced to admit that he had committed the crimes after a series of tortures.
However, evidence show that the trio was "very likely" not present when the
crime occurred. Yet, it took the judicial system 21 years to find that Su is,
in fact, innocent. That is an important argument on the death penalty debate,
which needs to be undertaken with care in order to leave seek for justice
instead of revenge.

After all, the main argument in Taiwan, Europe and the United States for
opposing the death penalty is the risk of executing the innocent. In the U.S.,
for instance, there have been indications that support for the death penalty is
on the decline. While the majority of Americans still favor the death penalty
for those convicted of murder, support is at its lowest point for the past 40
years. A new survey has revealed that 56 % are in favor of the death penalty
for people convicted of murder, while 38 % are opposed. The percentage of those
who support the death penalty has declined 6 % points since 2011, when in the
1980s and 90s support often surpassed 70 %. Do you remember the case of Lloyd
Schlup, who was convicted of murder while in prison in 1985, though videotape
footage showed him to be in a different location during the time of the murder
and several witnesses swore that he was not at the scene of the crime. Schlup
was finally given the chance to prove his innocence when the United States
Supreme Court corrected a lower court's overly narrow approach to the degree of
proof needed to support a claim of innocence. But shortly after, Congress
passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which
replaced the Supreme Court's standard with one that is virtually impossible to
meet. Schlup was granted the chance for a new hearing after the federal
District Court judge reviewed the evidence of his innocence. However, if the
standards equivalent to those now imposed by Congress had applied to Schlup's
case at the time, he would not have gotten relief and would probably have been
executed. That is another reason for pushing for a careful debate on death
penalty in order for justice to be served, meaning that it invokes proper fear
among the public, hopefully preventing similar cases from being repeated in the
future. If the public are dupes, however, and innocent victims are executed
then we also have to warn that democracy is a dupe. That is equally worrisome.

(source: Editorial, The China Post)






BANGLADESH:

4 to walk gallows for murder in Pirojpur


A court here yesterday sentenced 4 people to death for killing a man in
Zianagar upazila of the district in 2010.

The death penalty awardees are Sheuli Begum, 30, 40, Asad Majhi, Farid Ahmed
and Belal Gazi of Kalaron village in the upazila.

The District and Sessions Judges' Court also fined the four Tk 50,000 each,
court sources said.

According to the prosecution, Sheuli Begum, wife of Manik Majhi had an
extramarital affair with Asad Majhi of the village. At one stage, they planned
to kill Manik.

On the night of May 25, 2010, Asad, Farid and Belal with the help of Sheuli
entered Manik's house and stabbed him indiscriminately, leaving him dead on the
spot.

Deceased's younger brother Mizanur Rahman filed a murder case with Indurkani
Police Station the following day.

Sub-Inspector Mahbubur Rahman of the police station submitted the charge-sheet
against the 4 in 2011.

After examining the case record and 19 witnesses, Judge Mohammad Golam Kibria
handed down the verdict.

(source: The Daily Star)






NIGERIA:

Nigerian senate recommends death penalty for kidnappers----Recommendation comes
day after police rescue ex-Senator Anisulowo, who was kidnapped in southwestern
Ogun State


Nigerian senate has recommended the death penalty for anyone involved in
kidnapping, which is a rising phenomenon in the country's southern region where
victims have included senators and schoolchildren.

The recommendation was made as lawmakers Wednesday unanimously adopted a report
of the Senate Joint Committee on police affairs, national security and
intelligence.

In his remarks, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce said: "Kidnapping is a very serious
problem with grave implications in several areas of the economy."

The committee has the mandate to make recommendations on how to deal with
unabated cases of abductions and hostage-taking, some of which resulted in
deaths.

It recommended that a law prescribing death penalty for abduction be enacted as
a national response for the phenomenon. It was unanimously adopted.

Senators took turns to describe their experiences as they shared how their own
relatives got kidnapped and demands were made for ransom.

Senator Adamu Aliero of the ruling All Progressive Congress recounted the
ordeals of abductees and what their families go through during such experience.
"Anyone convicted of kidnapping should be sentenced to death," Aliero said.

The adoption of the committees' report came a day after police rescued a former
Senator Iyabo Anisulowo, who had been abducted last Wednesday in southwestern
Ogun State. Her abductor had demanded 2 million naira ($10,152) in return for
her freedom.

Incumbent Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu recalled how he was abducted
on September 10, 2000, and kept for two days before he was released.

Nigeria's most prominent abduction was the April 14, 2014, ferrying away of
some 276 schoolchildren by Boko Haram militants. Only 57 of those girls have so
far been accounted for, with 219 still believed to be held in captivity.

(source: aa.com.tr)


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May 5



PAKISTAN:

Convicted kidnapper: Man sentenced to death


An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Wednesday handed down death sentence to a man
for kidnapping a jeweller, and taking ransom before releasing him.

Special Judge ATC-II Asif Majeed Awan convicted Amir alias "Teddy" for
kidnapping Saleem Iqbal and obtaining Rs100,000 as ransom for his safe release.

The court also ordered confiscation of moveable and immovable assets of the
convict.

Iqbal said that Amir kidnapped him at gunpoint and asked his brother for
Rs100,000 as ransom.

He said his brother paid the ransom for his release.

The court handed down the death penalty on counts of kidnapping for ransom and
terrorism.

(source: The Express Tribune)






INDONESIA:

Fate of foreign death row inmates unknown as Indonesia prepares for new round
of executions


Despite having drawn heavy condemnation from governments and human rights
groups, Indonesia is gearing up for another round of executions, but the fate
of the foreign death row inmates remains uncertain.

A police official said Indonesian authorities were preparing the location of
the sentencing and the firing squad at Nusakambangan Island. This was taking
place a year after foreign nationals were executed for drug-related offences.

"We have had a warning since last month to prepare the place," Central Java
provincial police spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We carried out some rehabilitation of the location like painting and repairs
because there will probably be more people who will be executed."

Darmanto also said members of the firing squad were currently receiving
training and counselling.

However, it was still uncertain how many would receive the death sentence in
the impending round of executions and whether it involved any foreign
nationals.

On April 29 last year, Indonesia executed 7 foreigners and one Indonesian for
drug crimes amid intense international pressure to stop the executions.
Filipina mother-of-2 Mary Jane Voloso, who was part of the group, was given a
late reprieve.

Among the 8 were Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The other
foreigners were 3 Nigerian men, 1 Ghanian and 1 Brazilian. Last year, 14
executions were carried out, inciting protests from the international
community.

Veloso is also reported to be spared from the coming round of executions
pending her testimony in a Filipino court against against Maria Kristina
Sergio, who is accused of duping her into smuggling 2.6 kilogrammes of heroin
into Indonesia, Coconuts Jakarta reported.

A British grandmother convicted of smuggling $2.5 million worth of cocaine into
the resort island of Bali in 2012 is also among those currently on death row.
57-year-old Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced by a district court to face a
firing squad after she was found guilty of the charges.

During the trial, she said she was forced to carry the drugs by a gang that
threatened to hurt her children. She lost an appeal 3 months later after the
Bali High Court upheld the lower court???s ruling.

Last month, Indonesian president Joko Widodo said his administration was firm
on use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses, calling drug trafficking
a "national emergency".

According to a report published by Amenesty International last month, at least
367 executions were carried out in 12 Asia-Pacific countries. The figure was a
huge increase on the 32 executions in nine countries recorded in 2014, almost
exclusively due to the rise in Pakistan.

Meanwhile in Singapore, the family of a Malaysian man on death-row for killing
a construction worker in a botched robbery attempt has launched a petition
urging for clemency.

The petition comes after the 31-year-old Kho Jabing exhausted all legal avenues
following an appeal by prosecutors to overturn the 2013 sentence to life
imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane last year.

Last month, the appeals court in Singapore threw out his 11th-hour bid to quash
the death sentence.

Kho and his friend reportedly killed Chinese national Cao Ruyin during a
robbery attempt in Geylang Drive in 2010.

(source: asiancorrespondent.com)

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

Police: Indonesia set to resume executions----Indonesian President Joko Widodo
has repeatedly insisted that drug traffickers must face the firing squad to
stem rising narcotics use.


Indonesia is preparing for a new round of executions, police said Wednesday,
around a year after Jakarta sparked global outrage by putting seven foreign
drug convicts to death by firing squad.

Officials recently started getting ready after an order from the
attorney-general's office, which oversees executions, said Central Java police
spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.

He said no date had been set for the executions, which will take place on the
prison island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, and he did not know who would
face the firing squad.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has repeatedly insisted that drug traffickers
must face the firing squad to stem rising narcotics use. There are scores of
drug convicts on death row in the country, including Indonesians and
foreigners. "We have been making preparations," Darmanto told AFP. "We are
ready whenever the order comes."

There has been growing speculation in recent weeks that executions were set to
resume after a year-long hiatus, but high-ranking officials in Jakarta have so
far said little. There was no immediate comment Wednesday from the
attorney-general's office.

The execution in April last year of 7 foreigners - 2 Australians, a Brazilian
and 4 Nigerians - and an Indonesian for drug offences sparked international
fury.

Since then, no one else has been put to death, but officials had continued to
insist publicly that it was the country's right to use capital punishment.

Among the foreigners on death row are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary
Jane Veloso, who were both pulled from the last round of executions.

A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is on death row in Bali after she was
caught smuggling a huge stash of cocaine into the resort island.

Darmanto said preparations included ensuring locations where the executions
would take place were ready. For last year's executions, the drug convicts were
taken to a jungle clearing on the island, which houses several high-security
prisons, and tied to stakes before being shot.

"We have also prepared the facility for the bodies," he said.

"Each death row convict will face a group of 10 shooters and one group
commander. We have selected and trained the personnel."

The executions last year of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran in particular caused tensions, with Indonesia's neighbour Australia
temporarily recalling its ambassador from Jakarta.

(source: Free Malaysia Today)






BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh court rejects Islamist leader's final death sentence appeal ----
Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of Jamaat-e-Islami party, could face hanging at
any time


Bangladesh's supreme court has rejected a final appeal by the leader of the top
Islamist party against a death sentence for atrocities committed during the
1971 war of independence, lawyers say, meaning he could be hanged at any time.

The supreme court in January upheld the death penalty for Motiur Rahman Nizami,
head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for genocide, rape and orchestrating the
massacre of top intellectuals during the 1971 war.

Nizami, 73, a former legislator and minister under Khaleda Zia when she was
prime minister, has been in jail since 2010, when he was charged with war
crimes by a tribunal set up by the current prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, that
year.

The war crimes tribunal has sparked violence and drawn criticism from
opposition politicians, including leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, that it is
victimising Hasina's political opponents.

"All the legal battles are over," Nizami's lawyer, Khandaker Mahbub Hossain,
told reporters on Thursday. "Now it is up to him whether he will seek clemency
from the president or not."

Hundreds of people flooded the streets of the capital, Dhaka, to cheer the
verdict, but there has been no report of violence, although Jamaat called a
nationwide strike for Sunday in protest.

Authorities have deployed additional security forces in Dhaka and elsewhere as
similar previous judgments triggered violence that killed around 200, mainly
Jamaat activists and police.

No Peace Without Justice, a non-profit body based in Italy, has called the
tribunal's proceedings "a weapon of politically influenced revenge whose real
aim is to target the political opposition".

The government denies the accusations.

The verdict comes as the Muslim-majority nation suffers a surge in militant
violence in which atheist bloggers, academics, religious minorities and foreign
aid workers have been killed.

In the last month alone, 5 people, including a university teacher, two gay
activists and a Hindu have been hacked to death by suspected Islamist
militants.

The government has blamed the increase in Islamist violence on Jamaat-e-Islami,
but the group denies any link to the attacks.

4 opposition politicians, including three Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, have been
convicted by the war crimes tribunal and executed since late 2013.

About 3 million people were killed, official figures show, and thousands of
women were raped, during the 9-month war, in which some factions, including the
Jamaat-e-Islami, opposed the break from what was then called West Pakistan. But
the party denies that its leaders committed any atrocities.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Noose tightens on Nizami for war crimes as Bangladesh Jamaat chief loses last
legal battle


Bangladesh's highest court of appeals has thrown out top war criminal Motiur
Rahman Nizami's last-ditch appeal to review his death penalty for atrocities
during the 1971 War of Independence.

The Supreme Court's decision clears the final legal hurdle for the government
to hang the Jamaat-e-Islami chief for directing rapes, mass murders, and
massacre of intellectuals to stop Bangladesh emerge out of Pakistan as an
independent nation.

But the former Al-Badr militia chief can beg President Md Abdul Hamid to save
his neck, but he will have to repent of his crimes.

In the event he decides that he will not seek mercy, or if the president turns
down a clemency petition from him, the government will execute the death
sentence.

The 4-strong Appellate Division bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar
Sinha pronounced single-word judgment on Thursday.

The top judge took his seat in a tense court room and only uttered,
"Dismissed".

The other members of the bench were justices Nazmun Ara Sultana, Syed AB Mahmud
Husain and Hasan Foez Siddique.

On Mar 16, the death warrant issued by the International Crimes Tribunal was
read out to Nizami after the Supreme Court published the full copy of his
verdict the day before.

He moved the chief justice-led court on Mar 29 to review his death penalty,
well before the 15-day time limit for the last legal recourse. The court heard
arguments for some 2 1/2 hours on Tuesday.

Assisted by SM Shahjahan, Khandker Mahbub Hossain argued for Nizami at the
court hearings on his review appeal filed.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the State and he was aided by
Additional Attorney General Md Momtaz Uddin Fakir and Assistant Attorney
General Bashir Ahmed.

An official of the Supreme Court Registrar's Office said a certified copy of
the full verdict on the review petition will soon be sent via the tribunal to
Dhaka Central jail.

Nizami, a close confidante of Jamaat ideologue and another war criminal Ghulam
Azam, who had died in prison, is now lodged in Kashimpur prison in Gazipur.

His counsels said that Nizami and his family will decide whether to go for
presidential clemency.

"All the legal battles are over," said lawyer SM Shajahan, who assisted chief
defence counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain at the court hearings on the review
plea.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said that the whole nation was
relieved over the verdict.

"It finally secured justice for the killings of intellectuals. Nizami inspired
the Al-Badr and was responsible for the massacre of the intellectuals."

The highest appeals court's decision was greeted with celebrations and
handshakes outside the courtroom and enlivened by full-throated slogans in the
streets.

It elicited jubilation and relief among war veterans and supporters of war
crimes trial who had pushed for maximum penalty, including the Ganajagaran
Mancha.

Mancha activists and supporters brought at a procession at Dhaka's Shahbagh
intersection as soon as the verdict was pronounced.

"The scrapping of review plea concludes all the legal proceedings. This is a
major victory for the people of Bangladesh.

"The nation has waited long for the notorious war criminal's punishment," said
Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarker.

The Jamaat supremo is the fifth war criminal to carry a verdict for maximum
punishment that is at the final stages of execution. He is the second
politician after his deputy Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid to have served as
minister and going to be hanged for war-time atrocities.

On Jan 6 this year, this appellate court rejected a plea to overturn his
conviction and the death sentence given by a special war tribunal's verdict.

In its verdict on Nizami's appeal, the apex court had said nothing short of a
death sentence can be the apt punishment given the gravity of the horrific
crimes he had committed.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), in Oct 29, 2014 verdict, found the
former influential minister in BNP chief Khaleda Zia's government guilty of 8
out of the 16 charges.

The 72-year old divisive figure from Pabna was the chief of Islami Chhatra
Sangha, then the student wing of Jamaat. He commanded the Al-Badr militia
created by the Pakistan Army that was notorious for its ruthlessness.

He was also instrumental in the formation and running of the Razakar and Peace
Committee, forces to help the Pakistan generals.

The Al-Badr brigade had gone on a genocidal rampage to cleanse the Bengali
nation-in-the-making. Its loyalists killed some of the best brains who formed
the spine of secular nationalism that undermined Pakistan's race-based founding
principles.

Most of them were killed just a few days before the final victory on Dec 16.

The Jamaat linchpin already carries death penalty handed down in 2014 for his
role in arms trafficking related to Chittagong 10-truck arms haul case.

The 5 appeals verdicts of war crimes cases handed down so far are of Jamaat
assistant secretaries general Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, secretary
general Mujahid, the party's Nayeb-e-Amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee, and BNP
leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.

Sayedee's death sentence was commuted to prison term until death.

The 4 others' death sentences were upheld and they have been executed.

Ghulam Azam, who led the party during the war, and former BNP minister Abdul
Alim died while waiting for the hearing of their appeals.

From killing grounds to the Cabinet

Born on Mar 31, 1943 in Monmothpur village of Pabna's Santhia Upazila, Nizami
succeeded his guru at the helm in 2000.

He was chosen for the top job after he led the party's Dhaka City unit for 4
years until 1982.

A year later, he was made assistant secretary general before being promoted to
secretary general in 1988.

He got his Kamil degree in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Dhaka's
Madrasa-e-Alia in 1963.

Nizami later graduated from the Dhaka University in 1967.

Inspired by the political preaching of Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi, who founded
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in Lahore in 1941, Nizami joined its student wing Chhatra
Sangha.

He swiftly rose through the ranks of the political outfit, operating in the
then West and East Pakistan, and became Chhatra Sangha president in 1966.

Nizami retained the post for the following 5 years and throughout Bangladesh's
struggle for independence from Pakistan.

After the war, Nizami fled with Ghulam Azam to the UK.

In 1978, Bangladesh's 1st military dictator Gen Ziaur Rahman repatriated them
and brought Jamaat back into politics.

Nizami was elected to Parliament in 1991 and again in 2001 on a BNP-led
coalition ticket.

He served as the agriculture minister until 2003 and thereafter as industries
minister until 2006.

(source: bdnews24.xom)

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[Rick Halperin]

May 5



INDIA:

Why The Use Of The Death Penalty Needs To End


It is strange that we are currently governed by a system that directly relies
on the use of vastly differentiated standards of what makes the "rarest of
rare". The definition of the "rarest" is left to judges governed by personal
viewpoints on what constitutes extreme rarity.

Capital punishment has shown itself to be ineffective in having any deterrence
to criminals. Capital punishment is used by the State to placate its citizens
by sending the message that it is getting rid of the criminal, completely. The
citizenry don't seem to have thought far enough to understand - or perhaps have
ruminated over and accepted - that the responsibility of execution belongs to
them individually.

The taxpayer pays for the execution of criminals governed by a system that did
not have any deterrence on them in the first place.

The taxpayer has failed to consider even the inhumane method of execution:
death by hanging. The focus in jurisdictions that practice capital punishment
has been on finding less painful, or painless, methods of administration of
death. Justice Bhagwati, the lone dissenter in Bachan Singh's case, described
in detail the method of execution of the death penalty which makes for
harrowing reading.

The situation in India as it exists today is reliant upon the judiciary giving
out the death penalty only in the rarest situations. The crime has to be of
such repugnance that it can be classified as being beyond comprehension. The
criminal, having committed such a crime, has lost all value to society and is
beyond redemption.

It has, however, proved itself a highly contentious area of litigation. The
biggest issue by far is the impossibility of standardisation of what
constitutes a crime repugnant enough. It is left to the wisdom of the
adjudicating authority to decide what crimes can be considered the rarest of
the rare. The logical conclusion then is this: death must be awarded by courts
in all cases that exceed the case that is the most probable in the "rarest of
rare" category.

This has led to the discrepancies in the application of capital punishment.
Crimes are looked at through subjective degrees of scrutiny. What may
constitute an offence punishable by death in one case would not apply to the
next.

Therefore, the focus in recent years has been on the lack of uniform
application of the death penalty and the procedural aspects of death penalty
litigation across the higher and lower judiciary. The focus has been augmented
by calls for the development of standards and guidelines to govern the use of
the death penalty.

Further, civil society has called for better treatment of convicts awarded the
death penalty and on death row. This has shown itself in judgments passed by
the Supreme Court in 2015 where it has focused not on the question of the
constitutionality of the death penalty itself, but the question of the
treatment given to such convicts awarded the death penalty in terms of mental
and physical agony. The case of Shabnam v. Union of India focused on the right
of condemned prisoners to die with dignity, and that the execution could not
take could not take place in an arbitrary, hurried and secret manner.

In recent years, 3 executions have taken place. All three executions have been
on convictions on terror and terror-related offences. It certainly appears that
Supreme Court judges are fighting the mandatory imposition of capital
punishment for the "rarest of the rare" cases. In most cases, the conviction
made by the lower courts is upheld but the sentence of death commuted to life
imprisonment. There is, therefore, a tendency among judges of the Supreme Court
to impose a virtual moratorium on the death penalty, except in cases involving
terrorism.

It is interesting to note the case of Anders Breivik. Breivik carried out the
deadliest attack on Norwegian soil since the Second World War. In 2011, Breivik
killed 77 people, most of them children.

Norway did not execute Breivik. Norway and Western Europe do not have capital
punishment. It showed the maturity of the legal system, and of the progress of
development of humanistic thought to a continent which had caused itself great
injury over ferocious wars.

The issue of the use of the death penalty is one that has only one answer: we
have to get rid of it, in its entirety. Beyond the problems in the correct
execution of the doctrine of "rarest of the rare", capital punishment itself
has been the subject of criticism historically as well as contemporaneously on
very basic grounds: that the State does not have the right to take away life.

Modern philosophical thought finds it repugnant to be party to the execution of
individuals, whatever their crime. The viewpoint has been to try and reform the
convict into a contributing member of society. Even if reform has been found to
be impossible, modern philosophers such as Mohandas Gandhi, Fyodor Dostoevsky
and Bertrand Russell have balked at the simple fact that capital punishment is
a euphemism for legalized death.

For thinkers such as these, the focus has been on the influence of social
psychology vis-a-vis the individual perspective. Capital punishment, in their
view, would put the responsibility of execution of convicts on each citizen of
their nation, making it a personal responsibility. Social psychology, on the
other hand, tends to dilute the responsibility of the execution itself on the
basis of the "greater good".

One of the threads connecting thinkers such as the ones noted above are their
dedicated tendencies towards pacifism, non-violence and forgiveness. It is
these principles that India as a nation needs to practice. To the architect of
the constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, capital punishment went against the
principles of non-violence and the spirit of welfare on which the nation was
formed.

In a global society witnessing the emergence of increasingly insular and
repressive governments, India needs to show the path to non-violence and
forgiveness. India has the resources, history and legal and philosophical
thought to be able to move beyond what is an outdated method of punishment. All
that is required today is political will and general consensus.

(source: The Citizen)


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May 6



UGANDA:

Murder Cases Dominate Supreme Court Session

Murder cases have dominated the list of cases listed for criminal session
before the Supreme Court starting May 9.

According to the cause list dated April 28, the court deputy registrar has
listed 12 murder cases involving 17 people whose sentences were upheld by the
Court of Appeal.

Other cases listed include manslaughter, rape and defilement.

The cases

The murder cases include that of a UPDF soldier, Lt William Obote, who is
challenging a conviction and life imprisonment sentence for murdering his wife
Grace Katherine Acan, in 2005. Lt Obote was sentenced by the High Court in
Lira.

A one James Mulindwa is also challenging a life imprisonment sentence for the
murder of a friend in 2009. He was sentenced by the court in Mbarara.

In another appeal, 3 murder convicts Lawrence Okello, Dennis Mujuni and Alyenyo
Marks are challenging a death penalty while Henry Kazarwa is challenging a life
sentence for the murder of a bar owner in Mbarara District in 2009.

Also on the list is Lt Jonas Ainomugisha who is fighting a death sentence over
a 2001 murder of Tibarabihire John at Nyakahita village in Bushenyi District,
Gad Magezi who is challenging a life imprisonment sentence as well as Julius
Mumbere who was convicted in regard to the Kasese attacks in which many
civilians, police officers and Uganda People's Defence Forces soldiers were
killed.

Meanwhile, the court has directed prison authorities to produce the appellants
in court for hearing of their cases.

The Supreme Court is the highest judicial organ in the country and it is mainly
an appellate court.

(source: The Monitor)






JAMAICA:

Human rights groups come out against reviving hanging


2 human rights groups have come out against a proposal by Minister of National
Security, Robert Montague, to revive hanging in Jamaica.

In a joint statement, Stand Up for Jamaica and Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) said
re-instituting the death penalty is not the answer for curbing the country's
crime problem.

Stand Up for Jamaica's Executive Director, Maria Carla Gullotta, has taken
issue with the national security minister's comments arguing that they could
have serious implications.

Gullotta contends that the state should protect and preserve life at all cost.

JFJ Chairman, Horace Levy, argues that there should be a moratorium on carrying
out the death penalty given the state of the justice system.

Levy stresses that the lobby group is strongly committed to the abolition of
the death penalty.

Both groups argue that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to
crime and does not address the root causes of crime.

They say instead of reviving what they say is an inhumane and ineffective
practice, the Government should focus on fast tracking the critical reforms
needed in the justice and law enforcement systems.

(source: Jamaica Gleaner)






IRAN:

The Case of 100 Death Row Prisoners to be "Clarified" within 3 Months;
Authorities


It was announced to at least 100 death row prisoners, in prison of Urmia that
in the next 3 months their "case" will become clear. This rare action has
created a wave of concern among prisoners and their families.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA),
recently, the authorities of Urmia Prison called at least a hundred prisoners
who have been sentenced to death on charges of "murder" and have served more
than 5 years, to the prison's Pray Hall (Hosseinieh) and took the address and
details of the plaintiffs.

An informed source in a conversation with HRANA, by announcing this news, also
said: "The authorities of Urmia prison called these prisoners in Husseinieh and
asked the address and details of their accusers. At least about 100 prisoners
were called."

The source said: "They were told that during the next three months their case
would become clear. The authorities said: 'We will say to plaintiffs to ask for
execution or we will release you on the bail. Because, the prison does not have
enough space.'"

It should be mentioned that, the unusual procedure of calling a large number of
death row prisoners caused a wave of concern among prisoners in Urmia prison
and their families.

(source: HRA News Agency)






PAKISTAN:

Abbottabad jirga members are deserving of death: Mufti Naeem


Prominent religious scholar Mufti Mohammad Naeem has called for death penalty
for all members of a jirga that is allegedly involved in ordering murder of a
woman in Abbottabad area, Samaa reported.

"It's highly deplorable that a lady is burnt alive on behest of a jirga only
because she helped in someone's love marriage ... This (the act of ordering
murder) is totally un-Islamic since our religion allows adult couple to marry.
Therefore, all members part of the jirga are 'wajib-ul-qatl' (deserving of
death), they should be murdered in Qisas (retribution)," he said while speaking
to Samaa.

A 17-year-old girl, Ambreen, was allegedly killed in Makol village of
Abbottabad on April 29 on orders of a local jirga for facilitating her friend
Saima's elope and love marriage.

Police said the jirga was headed by Pervez, a local government councilor who
has also been arrested.

Police said Ambreen was drugged, strangled and then her body set ablaze in a
Suzuki van.

Police have arrested 13 jirga members. The victim's parents was also arrested
because they supported the jirga decision. All the accused were due to appear
in a local anti-terrorism court today.

Saima ran away on April 23, locals said. Saima's father, who had been out of
town at that time, returned to the village on April 24, and started looking for
his daughter. He and some other locals alleged Ambreen's involvement in
facilitating Saima's marriage.

Ambreen was drugged till she fell unconscious and then, was strangulated to
death. She was then tied up to a seat inside a minivan and set ablaze.

Police moved the Ambreen's charred body to Ayub Medical Complex for an autopsy.

The girl was later identified as the daughter of Riasat, a labourer who works
in Balochistan's Gadani area.

An FIR has been registered against the jirga members in the case under Section
302 of Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act.

1 of the first people to have alerted the authorities about the horrific case
was an Islamabad-based professional Abdullah Khan. On April 29, he had posted a
picture of what appeared to be a charred corpse inside a burnt Suzuki van and
had posted it on his Twitter feed.

He followed this story through that day and kept tagging journalists, which
helped bring the case to the notice of the authorities.

However, today Mr Khan tweeted that the police had also picked up his
brother-in-law and sister.

(source: samaa.tv)



BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh court rejects Islamist leader's final death sentence appeal ----
Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of Jamaat-e-Islami party, could face hanging at
any time


Bangladesh's supreme court has rejected a final appeal by the leader of the top
Islamist party against a death sentence for atrocities committed during the
1971 war of independence, lawyers say, meaning he could be hanged at any time.

The supreme court in January upheld the death penalty for Motiur Rahman Nizami,
head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for genocide, rape and orchestrating the
massacre of top intellectuals during the 1971 war.

Nizami, 73, a former legislator and minister under Khaleda Zia when she was
prime minister, has been in jail since 2010, when he was charged with war
crimes by a tribunal set up by the current prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, that
year.

The war crimes tribunal has sparked violence and drawn criticism from
opposition politicians, including leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, that it is
victimising Hasina's political opponents.

"All the legal battles are over," Nizami's lawyer, Khandaker Mahbub Hossain,
told reporters on Thursday. "Now it is up to him whether he will seek clemency
from the president or not."

Hundreds of people flooded the streets of the capital, Dhaka, to cheer the
verdict, but there has been no report of violence, although Jamaat called a
nationwide strike for Sunday in protest.

The verdict comes as the Muslim-majority nation suffers a surge in militant
violence in which atheist bloggers, academics, religious minorities and foreign
aid workers have been killed.

In the last month alone, 5 people, including a university teacher, 2 gay
activists and a Hindu have been hacked to death by suspected Islamist
militants.

The government has blamed the increase in Islamist violence on Jamaat-e-Islami,
but the group denies any link to the attacks.

4 opposition politicians, including 3 Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, have been
convicted by the war crimes tribunal and executed since late 2013.

About 3 million people were killed, official figures show, and thousands of
women were raped, during the 9-month war, in which some factions, including the
Jamaat-e-Islami, opposed the break from what was then called West Pakistan. But
the party denies that its leaders committed any atrocities.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Clemency his last resort


After yesterday's verdict, top war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami has no other
legal option left to save his neck.

The review petition of Nizami - kingpin of notorious al-Badr force that
collaborated with the Pakistani Army in 1971 - filed against his death sentence
was rejected yesterday by the top court after a hearing.

Nizami at this stage can only seek presidential mercy admitting his crimes of
instigating genocide, murder and rape in Dhaka and Pabna. But if he chooses not
to seek clemency or the application is turned down by the president, he can be
hanged any day upon the government decision.

The Appellate Division will now send its short order or the full verdict to the
jail authorities who would ask the convict about his wish.

The incumbent chief of Jamaat-e-Islami and former minister had been sentenced
to death by the International Crimes Tribunal for his involvement in the murder
of over 500 people and rape of 30-40 women during the Liberation War. The
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court also upheld his capital punishment.

As the chief of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, Nizami used
to instigate his fellows to annihilate the freedom fighters to protect Pakistan
and Islam.

Apart from holding the helm of death squad al-Badr, Nizami was also
instrumental in the formation and running of razakar force and Peace Committee
to collaborate with the Pakistani occupation forces.

While delivering speeches at different parts of the country during the war,
Nizami abused Islam by saying "Pakistan is the house of Allah," "Hindus are
always enemies of Muslims" and "Islam and Pakistan are one and indivisible."

"We hope that the full order will be released by the Supreme Court very
shortly. The jail authorities will receive it [via the war crimes tribunal] and
ask the convict about seeking the presidential mercy," said Attorney General
Mahbubey Alam.

The 1-word order "dismissed" came after the 4-member bench headed by Chief
Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha took their seats in the court around 11:30am
yesterday. The other members of the bench are Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana,
Justice Syed AB Mahmud Husain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.

The courtroom was jam-packed with lawyers, freedom fighters and journalists.
Special security measures were taken on and around the Supreme Court premises.

Following the order, Nizami's lawyer SM Shajahan told reporters that all the
legal battles are over. Now the client and his family members would decide
whether to seek mercy or not.

His party Jamaat announced to observe a daylong hartal on Sunday in protest
against the verdict.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said that the whole nation was relieved after
the verdict. "The verdict finally secured justice for the killings of
intellectuals. Nizami inspired al-Badr force and was responsible for the
massacre of the intellectuals," he said.

Youth platform Gonojagoron Moncho welcomed the judgement, saying the death
sentence brought to an end the "hopeless" situation created by the 'unnecessary
delay" in bringing the war criminals to justice. "I believe it is a huge
victory for the people who waited for a long time to see him punished,"
spokesperson Imran H Sarker said.

Meanwhile, freedom fighters and the leaders and activists of Pabna unit Awami
League and its affiliate bodies brought out victory processions in the town and
distributed sweetmeats. They demanded that the execution is carried out without
delay.

Superintendent of Police Alamgir Kabir said that the law enforcers were kept on
high alert in the district to thwart any attempt of subversive activities by
the Jamaat-Shibir men.

The Supreme Court released full verdict of the appeals case on March 15. The
tribunal issued the death warrant the following day. On March 29, Nizami moved
a review appeal against the Appellate Division order that upheld the tribunal's
death sentence on January 6.

Nizami is the 5th war criminal to carry a verdict for maximum punishment that
is at the final stage of execution. He is the second politician after his
deputy Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, another senior commander of al-Badr force,
to have served as a minister and going to be hanged for war-time atrocities.

The tribunal on October 29, 2014 found him guilty of 8 out of 16 charges and
gave him death sentence on four charges. The Supreme Court upheld his capital
punishment on 3 charges and acquitted him on the other.

In its verdict, the apex court said that nothing short of a death sentence
could be the apt punishment given the gravity of the horrific crimes the war
criminal had committed.

(source: Dhaka Tribune)

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

see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/bangladesh-halt-the-execution-of-motiur-rahman-nizami-ua-6616

(source: Amnesty International






AFGHANISTAN:

Ghani should not sign execution orders of terror convicts: Amnesty
International


The Amnesty International has urged President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani not to sign
the execution orders of prisoners convicted of terror offences.

The appeal by Amnesty International comes as the Taliban group made a plea to
international organizations to intervene and stop the Afghan government to
implement death sentences.

In its latest release titled "Afghanistan: The death penalty is no solution to
terrorism" Amnesty International said 'Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani
should not sign execution orders."

"By hastily seeking retribution for the horrific bombings that killed over 64
people in Kabul last month, the government of Afghanistan's plans to execute
those convicted of terror offences will neither bring the victims the justice
they deserve, nor Afghanistan the security it needs," said Jameen Kaur, Amnesty
International's Deputy Director for South Asia.

"There is no evidence that the death penalty serves as a deterrent, and there
are fears that it will only serve to perpetuate a cycle of violence without
tackling any of the root causes."

"The death penalty is a cruel and irreversible punishment. In a context where
there are very serious questions about the fairness and transparency of the
legal process, the use of torture by security forces to extract confessions,
and the narrow window for appeal, there is a particular risk of mistakes being
made that cannot be corrected."

"Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without
exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; guilt,
innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the
state to carry out the execution."

This comes as a spokesman for the Presidential Palace said last week that a
list of militants convicted of terror offences has been forwarded to President
Ghani.

(source: Khaama Press)






INDIA:

Bombay HC invokes 'collective conscience of society' to confirm death penalty
to duo who kidnapped and murdered an 8 year old boy


When a person who is educated and aware of the ramifications of such crime
commits such a crime in a broad day light with a meticulous planning and
executes the same, in our view, it could aggravate the circumstance rather than
mitigate the same, the Bench said.

The Bombay High Court has confirmed Death Penalty awarded to duo who were
convicted for kidnapping and murdering an 8 year old boy. Division Bench
comprising of Justices B.R. Gavai and Swapna Joshi observed that the collective
conscience of the Society demands that a message be penetrated that such an
abhorrent act would not be tolerated by the Society and the persons indulging
in the heinous act must be dealt with sternly.

In the instant case, the accused who were employed by father of an eight year
old boy, in order to take revenge against him, kidnapped the boy and killed him
by smothering. Later they concealed his body beneath a bridge wherein normally
nobody goes. They even demanded ransom from father, even after killing the boy.

INVOKES COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE OF SOCITY

The Court dismissing their appeal against conviction and confirming death
sentence awarded by the Trial Court said "Are these circumstances such where
the Society would expect us to take a lenient view. Would the Society expect of
us to show leniency in favour of the persons who had kidnapped the unsuspecting
innocent child and nibbed his life in the bud before permitting it to flower.
Would the Society expect the holders of judicial power centre to leave the
persons with normal life imprisonment, who tortured the minor child and the
entire family only in order to become rich overnight. It will not be out of
place to mention that, after the incident had occurred, conscience of the
Society in the entire region was shocked. There was an uproar in the entire
region and a sort of fear psychosis in the Society. The mothers were afraid of
sending their children to Schools. They were under an apprehension as to
whether their children having gone to School would return home alive or not.
The entire region witnessed agitations, processions and candle marches shocked
by the gruelling event. Does the collective conscience of the Society expect of
the judicial power centre to ignore all these aspects?"

GOOD ACADEMIC CAREER OF ACCUSED AN AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCE

The court upon being highlighted about good academic career of the accused,
said that it would be an aggravating circumstance rather than being a
mitigating circumstance. The Bench said "We could understand such a crime being
committed by an illiterate person. But, when a person who is educated and aware
of the ramifications of such crime commits such a crime in a broad day light
with a meticulous planning and executes the same, in our view, it could
aggravate the circumstance rather than mitigate the same."

ABHORRENT ACTS WOULD NOT BE TOLERATED

Invoking 'collective conscience of society', the Court said that the instant
case would fall into 'rarest of rare category' and a message needs to be
penetrated that such an abhorrent act would not be tolerated by the Society and
the persons indulging in the such heinous act must be dealt with sternly.

(source: livelaw.in)

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

Most on death row in India are 1st time offenders


A total of 241 persons out of the 385 death row inmates in India are 1st time
offenders, new findings contained in the "Death Penalty India Report" released
on Friday said. For the study, 373 of all the 385 death row inmates in India
were interviewed from July 2013 to January 2015 by the Center of Death Penalty
at National Law University, Delhi.

The study found that around 60 % of the prisoners did not complete secondary
education and nearly 75 % belong to economically vulnerable sections.

Education levels affect the extent to which the death row prisoners are able to
understand details of the case filed against them; lack of which results in
alienation from the system.

Education level

Further, 3/4 of the prisoners sentenced to death belong to backward classes and
religious minorities. While this finding does not imply direct discrimination,
it reflects structural concerns which disempowers the marginalised, as
explained below.

Prior criminal record

Pendency of legal proceedings greater than 5 years is considered a grave
violation of speedy justice by the Supreme Court. While the median duration of
trial for the death row prisoners was around 4 years, trials went beyond five
years for 127 prisoners. Though lengthy trials happen to be a concern in
general, it has more significance in the case of death penalty. The seriousness
of charge forces the families to hire a private lawyer than rely on poor
quality of free legal aid provided by the government. The report finds that
while the high fee of private lawyers - opted by more than 60 % of the
prisoners during trial and high court - deepens the economic vulnerability of
the already poor families, it doesn't ensure access to competent legal
representation. This makes it difficult for an accused to "navigate through the
various stages of the legal process without sufficient socio-economic and
political resources."

Trial duration varies with nature of the crime. Overall, 'murder simpliciter'
or accidental murder constituted most of the cases, followed by 'rape with
murder'.

The study found that median duration of trials and High Court proceedings in
cases involving sexual offences is the lowest as compared to other cases.
State-wise analysis also shows that trails were fastest in cases of sexual
offence.

According to researchers, in a legal system beset with structural delays, it
must be examined why the courts deliver faster decisions in cases of sexual
offence when so is not the case for other offences. "While there certainly must
be speedy trials, lopsided durations indicate a far deeper malaise", the report
said. Note that for Supreme Court proceedings - later stage of the legal
process - sexual offences cases have the longest median duration.

Social background

Access to legal representation is critical during interrogation and
investigation phases. The report states: "We heard numerous accounts of the
accused being tortured and forced to sign blank sheets of paper, followed by a
staged recovery of facts that go on to become critical to prove the guilt of
the accused during the trial." The study found that 185 of the 191 prisoners
who shared information didn't have a lawyer during interrogation. Most of them
claimed they had experienced custodial violence and were tortured in police
custody. Even at the time of being produced before a magistrate - where legal
representation has been recognised as a fundamental right by the Supreme Court
- 169 of 189 prisoners who shared information didn't have a lawyer.

Alienation experienced by prisoners through lack of awareness of proceedings
increased as cases rise in the appellate system. One of the prisoners, who was
interviewed, said, "Whenever I would enquire, the lawyer would refuse to
answer, telling me to mind my own business." Some were unable to meet or even
get to know their lawyers. "These factors significantly contribute to raising
serious concerns about the fair trial credentials of judicial proceedings in
capital cases," the report said.

Nature of crime

The researchers conclude that the realities of criminal justice system in India
are largely ignored and a misplaced confidence is constructed around it. While
the research doesn???t talk about abolition or retention of the death penalty,
it makes a case for the debate to move beyond nature of the crime and the
purpose of punishment to the structural concerns plaguing the criminal justice
system.

(source: The Hindu)


TAIWAN:

Minister slams Supreme Court----WILD CARD: Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay
asked if convicted killer Tseng Chih-chung's ruling meant people with good
school grades can do anything they want


Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay yesterday criticized a Supreme Court ruling
in which the judges cited the high grades convicted killer Tseng Chih-chung
received at school when commuting his death sentence to life in prison.

In Wednesday's ruling, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal by prosecutors
for Tseng to receive the death penalty and upheld a decision by the Taiwan High
Court's Hualien Branch in February to sentence him to life in prison, the same
sentence his girlfriend, Tsai Ching-ching, received.

The couple was convicted of the 2012 murder of Tsai's mother, Chen Yi, due to a
dispute over money, in which the couple killed Chen, put her body in a plastic
bag and dumped it into the sea off the coast of Hualien County.

In the 1st and 2nd rulings on the case, judges in lower courts handed Tseng the
death sentence on account of his contrived attitude in court and trying to
evade guilt by framing the victim's husband.

Prosecutors found that Tseng and Tsai planned to get married, but they did not
have jobs or any income, so they asked for financial assistance from Tsai's
mother.

The couple plotted the murder after Tsai's mother scolded them for not trying
to earn a living and rejected their request for NT$1 million, according to the
prosecutors who conducted the investigation.

After appeals were lodged by the defense team following the 1st and 2nd
rulings, the case was sent to the High Court for a retrial last year.

Wednesday's ruling concurred with the cited reasons of the High Court decision,
which stated that Tseng had performed well in high school and university with
good academic achievements and good behavior, and also earned merit citations
when serving his compulsory military service, and therefore "there remains the
likelihood of his rehabilitation."

The judges also cited the nation's adoption of the the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights in 2009 as a reason for commuting the death penalty.

When asked about the judgement yesterday, Luo said: "It sounds a bit strange.
Does it mean that from now on people who perform well in school can do anything
they want? It seems to be the logic behind the ruling."

Luo said she was not at liberty to discuss legal cases under judicial
consideration, but added: "Is it justified after this ruling that society makes
its own judgement?"

(source: Taipei Times)

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[Rick Halperin]

May 6




PHILIPPINES:

Rodrigo Duterte, the Filipino Donald Trump, favoured to win presidential
race----Former mayor of Davao has garnered broad support with tough talk and
anti-crime agenda


Rodrigo Duterte's straight-talking - if foul-mouthed - manner and
tough-on-crime policies have earned him comparisons with Donald Trump. The
former mayor of Davao is leading in the polls and could win Monday's general
election in the Philippines.

The Philippines may be heading into a new era of strong-man rule if its general
election Monday produces a win for presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who
has been dubbed the Filipino Donald Trump and earned an international
reputation for his foul language and outrageous comments.

The 71-year-old is known for his unfiltered speeches, which have included
insults against women and the Pope, whom Duterte called a "son of a whore" for
holding up traffic in Manila on a recent visit.

He is a former state prosecutor, and his tough-on-crime position is so tough
that he has been accused of running death squads in the southern city of Davao,
where he has been mayor for over 20 years.

The squads are thought to be a kind of vigilante group that takes justice into
its own hands and has killed more than 1,000 people, according to Human Rights
Watch.

Instead of the death squads being a problem for Duterte, however, "they are a
political platform," wrote Phelim Kine, the deputy director of HRW's Asia
division, in an article last summer.

Duterte's supporters see him as the people's candidate. Popular news website
Rappler has said he represents a politics of the extreme and 'voices the
helplessness and rage of Filipinos.'

Duterte is from the conflict-ridden southern region of Mindanao, where two
Canadians were taken hostage by the radical Muslim group Abu Sayyaf last
September.

One of them, John Ridsdel, was executed last week. Duterte reacted by saying
that beheadings must stop.

"It's too early to comment. I'm not yet the president of the Philippines. But
this has to stop," he told Inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily
Inquirer newspaper and several other publications.

'Kill them all'

Duterte insists his city is an oasis of law and order in a troubled region.

But his critics say, at what cost?

\ "Am I the death squad? True. That is true," said Duterte last year while
discussing his time as mayor.

"Duterte built a reputation on making Davao City one of the safest cities in
the Philippines," said Marc Singer, a director at Pacific Strategies and
Assessments, a risk consultancy based in Manila.

'Other than his law and order platform, Duterte has had said very little about
his plans for the country.'- Marc Singer, risk consultant, Pacific Strategies
and Assessments

"It is true he has made Davao City a safer place for tourism and investment.
However, according to national police data for 2015, Davao City has the
4th-highest incidence of crime among cities in the Philippines."

Duterte has said he would hunt down criminals with the help of the military and
police and if they resisted, he would "kill them all."

He has pledged to revive the death penalty and execute as many as 100,000
criminals if he becomes president, thus earning him such monikers as Duterte
Harry, Dirty Harry and The Punisher.

"I say let's kill five criminals every week, so they will be eliminated," media
quoted him as saying in December.

Short on policy

Singer says that while Duterte's campaign has attracted a lot of noise, it's
short on substance.

"Other than his law and order platform, Duterte has said very little about his
plans for the country, but he caters to Filipinos' desire for change," he said.

He's a populist who draws huge crowds, and he's certainly not the establishment
candidate. That would be Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, the ruling party's
candidate, who is the grandson of the country's first president and has the
endorsement of the current president, Benigno Aquino.

Philippines Presidential Elections

Duterte was denounced at home and abroad after he made jokes about the rape and
murder of an Australian missionary.

Like Trump, ?one of the areas that has gotten Duterte in the most hot water is
the subject of women. Duterte has publicly praised the powers of Viagra,
admitted to having 2 wives and 2 girlfriends and his comments on women have
been even more off-colour than Trump's.

In early April, he made international headlines with his comments on the rape
and murder of an Australian woman who was doing missionary work in a Davao
prison when she was taken hostage and killed during a prison riot in 1989.MO<
Duterte described seeing her face as her body was being taken out of the prison
and noting that she looked "like an American actress, a beautiful one."

Duterte has been less strident than some on the contentious issue of
territorial claims in the South China Sea. He has said he would rather attempt
to find a resolution with China before tuning to the U.S. for help asserting
Filipino claims in the region.

"I was angry because she was raped, that's one thing," he said, "But she was so
beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste."

When the Australian and American ambassadors to the Philippines complained,
Duterte responded: "Shut your mouth." He said he would cut ties with their
countries if he was elected.

1st in the polls

There is another side to Duterte, though. He is a self-described socialist,
lives in a modest home and has poured city funds into helping kids with cancer.
Although his image was somewhat tarnished by allegations that came out in the
final days of the election campaign claiming that he failed to declare $4.5
million US in income.

One of the big differences between him and Trump is that Duterte is the odds-on
favourite to win on Monday.

Duterte's closest rival is former interior minister Mar Roxas. He is the
establishment candidate and comes from Philippine political royalty. His
grandfather, Manual Roxas, was a prominent politician before and after colonial
rule and served as the first elected president of the Philippines
post-independence.

According to recent polls, Duterte has the support of around 33 % of voters,
more than any other candidate, so he could very well be elected. Around 54
million Filipinos are eligible to vote in this election, including those who
work overseas.

Some see his popularity in terms similar to those used when describing Trump's
surprising rise.

'He voices the helplessness and rage of Filipinos forced to make do in a
country where corruption is casual and crime is ordinary.'- Rappler news site

?Duterte represents "the politics of the extreme," said a recent polemic on the
English-language Filipino news site Rappler, which bills itself as a "social
news network" devoted to community engagement and social change.

"He says screw the bleeding hearts, and to hell with the bureaucracy. He voices
the helplessness and rage of Filipinos forced to make do in a country where
corruption is casual and crime is ordinary.

Duterte has appealed to Filipinos fed up with crime and corruption. He has said
he would crack down on criminals and 'kill them all' if necessary.

"Duterte has their backs, and he says the struggle ends here, today. He goes
beyond anger, even beyond solutions. ... Duterte offers retribution."

But the piece also offered a warning that echoed some of the hand-wringing that
has accompanied the more vocal - and at times violent - manifestations of
Trump's growing support.

"The streets will run red," if Duterte keeps some of the law-and-order promises
he's made on the campaign trail, it warned.

(source: CBC News)


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[Rick Halperin]

May 7



JAMAICA:

Human rights groups urge Jamaica to shelve idea to resume hanging


Forget the death penalty and instead focus on fast tracking critical reforms in
the justice and law enforcement systems.

That's the advice 2 human rights groups - Stand Up for Jamaica (SUFJ) and
Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) - have given to National Security Minister Robert
Montague following his announcement that government is exploring the
possibility of bringing back the death penalty.

Montague said the state minister in his ministry, Senator Pearnel Charles Jr,
has been instructed to consult with several stakeholders, including the
Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Office, to determine if there are
any "legal impediments" to be addressed in resuming hangings.

But the groups say there's an abundance of evidence that shows capital
punishment is not an effective deterrent to crime, with several countries who
continue to impose capital punishment still seeing high rates of violent crime.

"Instead of reviving an inhumane and ineffective practice, Government should
focus on fast-tracking the critical reforms needed in the justice and law
enforcement systems," they said in a joint statement. "Capital punishment does
not address the root causes of crime and this is where we feel Minister
Montague should focus his attention."

SUFJ and JFJ also suggested that if Jamaica is to be a part of the global
village then it must accept international norms in order to avoid the
consequences of losing critical support and funding from donors and
international partners who have clearly expressed their opposition to the death
penalty.

They added that while they understood the minister's need to send a strong
message, "he could have been more prudent in making his comments about the
resumption of hanging".

"Minister Montague's comments about a resumption of the death penalty has fed
into the frustrations of many Jamaicans and has served to ignite passions about
what is a very widely debated issue," said SUFJ Executive Director Carla
Gullotta.

"If we are not careful, this frustration could lead to citizens taking matters
into their own hands once they come to appreciate the well-established legal
impediments which make the resumption of hanging highly unlikely in Jamaica,"
Gullotta added.

(source: caribbean360.com)






AUSTRALIA:

Bali 9: Turnbull government considers plan to gag AFP in death penalty cases


Australia's federal police would be forbidden from sharing information about
drug crimes if it could result in the death penalty under major changes being
considered by the Turnbull government.

Just after the 1-year anniversary of the executions in Indonesia of Australian
drug smuggling ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, a parliamentary
review led by retiring Liberal MP Philip Ruddock has called for new guidelines
to prevent such cases ever occurring again.

The bipartisan report recommends the Australian Federal Police obtain
guarantees that prosecutors in partner countries will not seek to apply the
death penalty in drug cases before sharing information. In situations where
such guarantees cannot be obtained, the AFP should withhold the information.

"The need to combat transnational crime cannot override the need to uphold
Australia's human rights obligations and avoid exposing people to the death
penalty," the report says.

The AFP - widely condemned for tipping off Indonesian authorities about Chan
and Sukumaran's Bali 9 heroin plot - would have to take a much more careful
approach under the plan. In "high risk" cases it would defer to the
Attorney-General to make the final decision about how to proceed.

Crucially, the new AFP guidelines would apply to foreign nationals as well as
Australian citizens.

The AFP has defended its role in the Bali 9 case, saying it did not have enough
evidence to arrest the Australians before they left for Indonesia. The AFP has
not responded to requests for comment to the new report.

Official police figures released under Freedom of Information laws last year
showed the AFP puts hundreds of people at risk of the death penalty every year
- 95 % of them for drug offences - with its information sharing.

The report also calls on the government to redouble its efforts to have the
death penalty abolished worldwide, particularly in Australia's region and in
the United States.

Mr Ruddock, who has long been a leading advocate for the abolition of the death
penalty, delivered the report as his final act in parliament before calling
time on his 43-year political career.

"There is no place for the death penalty in the modern world," Mr Ruddock said.

Amnesty International said the report was commendable and urged the government
to adopt all the recommendations.

The Human Rights Law Centre's director of advocacy and research, Emily Howie,
echoed that sentiment.

"Under current laws and guidelines, if the Bali 9 case happened again tomorrow,
nothing would prevent the AFP from acting in the same way. Change is clearly
needed and this important report provides a blueprint for meaningful and human
rights-compliant reform," she said.

The Law Council of Australia said the report should send a clear message to our
regional neighbours like Indonesia that Australia will "relentlessly campaign"
to see the death penalty abolished.

The report also recommends the Attorney-General's department conduct a review
of its extradition and mutual assistance arrangements to ensure they align with
Australia's international obligations.

Chan and Sukumaran were executed by firing squad on the Indonesian prison
island of Nusa Kambangan on April 29 last year.

Australia abolished the death penalty in 1973, the same year Mr Ruddock was
first elected.

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)






PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

Papua New Guinea tells UN it accepts court decision on Manus Island illegality
---- Human rights council assessment meeting advised that arrangements are
being made for the 905 men still under detention


Papua New Guinea has told the United Nations it accepts a court decision that
the Australian-run detention centre on Manus Island is illegal, and is working
to make "appropriate arrangements" for the men detained within.

Overnight on Friday, Papua New Guinea appeared before the Universal Periodic
Review, a human rights council assessment where countries publicly critique
other states' human rights records.

Several countries raised the issue of the death penalty in PNG, calling on the
country to impose a moratorium on capital punishment. PNG has not executed
anybody since 1954, but the punishment remains legally active.

Sarufa told the UPR session that PNG would not be swayed by international
pressure to end the practice.

"The death penalty under international law is not illegal. And for Papua New
Guinea, the death penalty is part of our penal code. On the issue of a
moratorium that has been proposed by a number of delegations, this is a
sensitive issue, and ... under the UN charter, each and every country has
sovereign right to make decisions in its own national interest.

"We have a law that prescribes the death penalty as part and parcel of our
judicial system. And until and unless the appropriate authority which is the
national parliament of Papua New Guinea decides, based on the sentiments of
Papua New Guineans, we still have, in our penal code, the death penalty."

(source: The Guardian)






INDIA:

Death row inmates as alive as dead bodies: Report highlights flaws in justice
system


The execution of Yakub Memon, one of the accused in 1993 Bombay bombings, last
year ignited the debate on 'capital punishment' with pro- and anti-death
punishment brigades making ferocious arguments to prove their points. While
arguments against Yakub's hanging addressed specific procedural facts of the
case, it also brought forth the debate on the desirability of the death
sentence as we call it in India.

The massive unrest that was witnessed on the JNU campus over the last 3 months
was an offshoot of long resentment of a group of students over the execution of
Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. At the heart of it, however, was the
objection to the death sentence in principle.

In this backdrop, 'Death Penalty India Report' released on Friday by the Center
of Death Penalty at National Law University, Delhi assumes great significance
as it raises serious questions on the criminal justice system in the country.

Anup Surendranath, Director, Centre on the Death Penalty National Law
University, while presenting the report said that the report tends to reflect
upon "this unique and harshest punishment in the criminal justice system in
India as it is administered today" and in doing so tends to make serious
efforts to find the answer to these questions: What is the state of the
criminal justice system that we use to sentence people to death? How do prisons
treat the death row prisoners? What kind of legal assistance do they get? What
kind of evidence is used in these cases? And what are the sentencing practices
in these cases?

"And in that sense the idea of the report is to introduce the aspects the
administration of the death penalty that are just absent from the
conversation," said Surendranath. "And I think by the virtue of being the most
unique and harshest of punishment available the compliance and fidelity to
constitutional protections and the rule of law must be at its highest. And that
is what we were testing. What we see is the complete breakdown of the criminal
justice system," he added.

In terms of who gets the death penalty, the report states that around 70 % of
death row prisoners are from the economically vulnerable background. 64 % of
them are primary or sole earner in their families at the time of the arrest; 76
% of them either belong to Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) or
Other Backward Castes (OBC) or are religious minorities that include Muslims
and Christians. 23 % of death row prisoners never went to school for a single
day and 62 % of death row prisoners did not complete their secondary education.
Around 30 % are those who belong to religious minorities/OBC/SC/ST class, did
not complete the secondary education and are economically vulnerable.

Experience in police custody

"Rampant narrative of custodial tortures is what we heard while interviewing
these prisoners. Most basic constitutional procedures are not followed by the
police. Eighty percent of prisoners told us that they suffered in police
custody," said Surendranath.

This is what the report states: "The forms of torture described by the
prisoners often left permanent effects on their health and bodily integrity.
Permanent loss of eyesight and hearing, irreparable damage to limbs and other
bodily parts, spinal injuries are some of the lasting effects of custodial
violence that prisoners complained of. Amongst prisoners subject to intense
electric shocks over significant periods in police custody, we often heard
about severe recurring headaches. 1 prisoner claimed that he had developed
epilepsy after being subject to prolonged electric shocks in police custody.
The inability to eat any food due to intense pain and swelling, urinating
blood, fractures in different parts of the body, bleeding from the mouth, ears
or anus were other debilitating consequences that prisoners suffered after
being subjected to custodial violence."

Denied basic constitutional safeguards

According to the report, 64.5 % prisoners said they were not produced before
the magistrate within 24 hours. "Out of the 258 prisoners who spoke about
production before a Magistrate, 166 said that they were not produced before a
Magistrate within 24 hours. Narratives of police custody for periods up to
seven days, which sometimes even extended to several weeks or months, were
documented." 97 % of the interviewed prisoners did not have lawyers when the
police interrogated them. Even while being produced before the magistrate 90
percent of them were not represented by a lawyer.

Commenting on this aspect, Surendranath said, "These are questions that do not
enter death penalty adjudication. Courts do not seem to grapple with the
reality how these cases come to them, how these cases are carried out and what
are the procedural violations. If you have to impose this punishment, I truly
believe that it must have absolute gold standard of compliance. But you are so
far away from basic procedural compliance with constitutional and legislative
safeguards."

Issues of Juveniles

9 persons sentenced to death by trial courts in the past 15 years were found to
be juveniles by the high courts. Determining the age of the convict becomes
very difficult as most have had no documented proof owing to their
socio-economic background and bone density test is not considered very
authentic.

Referring to one such case, the report states, "Chiranjiv, a prisoner sentenced
to death in 2013 for the rape and murder of a minor, claimed that he was a
juvenile at the time of the incident. It must be noted that this aspect was not
considered by the trial court in its judgment and neither is it known if this
was raised by Chiranjiv's lawyer. Chiranjiv had studied till the 10th standard
and thereafter, was working in a brick kiln. After the incident, his family
severed all contact with Chiranjiv, and only after he was sentenced to death,
did they begin to visit him and provide support. During his interview, he said
that he was hopeful that his sentence would be commuted by the High Court, and
otherwise he was ready to go to every forum available to him, including the
Supreme Court, and thereafter the Governor and President. More than anything,
he longed to be with his family. Chiranjiv committed suicide in prison a few
months after we met him. He was only 20 years old".

Talking about a case where 2 brothers were convicted and claimed to be
juvenile, Surendranath said that while the elder one had gone to school for few
months and had documents to prove his age the younger brother had none. In
another case the prisoner who had spent 19 years in jail, 16 years on death
row, was found to be juvenile after Centre on the Death Penalty took initiative
and after much efforts could find the documents to prove his age. But he termed
it as 'pure luck' which is not possible in most of the cases.

Improper legal aid system

The report states that lack of competent legal representation and the
minimalistic (bordering on non-existent) sentencing practices are of particular
concern. "Very often the concern about the quality of legal representation has
been couched in terms of inadequacies of the legal aid system. More than 60 %
of the prisoners sentenced to death had private lawyers in the trial court and
high courts. It must be a cause for extreme concern that prisoners and their
families wanted to avoid the legal aid system at all costs and therefore went
to great lengths to ensure that they had private legal representation," reads
the report.

It adds, "While this deepened their economic vulnerability, it did not ensure
access to competent legal representation. It is evident that the problem of
legal representation in capital cases cannot be meaningfully characterised as
one of legal aid against private representation. The concern with competent
legal representation in capital cases is much broader and cannot be restricted
to just legal aid lawyers. This was perhaps most amplified at the stage of
sentencing where the sentencing hearings seem to be conducted merely to meet
the technical requirements of the law and very little else. Given the paucity
of relevant sentencing information being brought before the courts, it is not
surprising that the sentencing parts in judgments tend to focus almost
exclusively on the nature of the crime".

Victimisation of the families of the convicts

The report also tries to bring out the fact that there are very serious and
real social costs to the experience that prisoners and their families go
through. "The social and economic consequences along with debilitating forms of
ostracisation that families face heighten their vulnerability, driving them
deeper into destitution."

"The faith of the families in the criminal justice system is further eroded as
the case moves into the realm of the appellate courts and the mercy
jurisdiction. The irony of the legal system is such that the closer a prisoner
gets to execution, the administration of justice gets more opaque from the
perspective of families. It is difficult for the families of prisoners to get
any substantial information about the proceedings in the High Court and that
problem only worsens when the case moves to the Supreme Court. There is no real
protection against such multiple axes of vulnerability and the tendency to see
the suffering of prisoner families as morally acceptable collateral costs must
be resisted," reads the report.

Raising serious questions on the legal aid assistance provided to the accused
persons the report states, "Defense lawyers hardly have any information about
the individual they are representing that can be meaningfully used in
sentencing hearings. As mentioned earlier, the very idea of a sentencing
hearing is to consider all circumstances of the individual beyond the crime in
question. A comprehensive understanding of the prisoner's background requires
an extensive interaction by the lawyer. Unfortunately, that is severely lacking
in the manner in which the prisoners in this study were represented. It is a
combination of the inability of the accused to afford quality representation
along with structural issues regarding the nature of criminal defense in
India".

Inadequate trial

Out of the 225 prisoners who spoke about their presence during the trial
proceedings, only 57 (25.3 %) said that they were present during all hearings.
The responses of the remaining prisoners varied from attending the majority of
proceedings to being present for the examination of a few witnesses. Another
practice was taking the prisoners to the court premises and then confining them
in the court lock-up, without actually producing them in the courtroom.

No talks of reformation and rehabilitation

The Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, while upholding the
constitutionality of the death penalty, placed significant emphasis on
reformation. However, according to the report this is not addressed in any
substantive manner.

Accused not even provided with proper documents

According to the report, while section 207 of the CrPC provides that the
Magistrate shall, without delay, furnish the accused with a copy of the
chargesheet and other documents such as the first information report,
statements made by persons which the police may seek to examine as witnesses
and judicial confessions before the Magistrate, it is blatantly violated. "Out
of the 255 prisoners who spoke about receiving the chargesheet, 60 said that
they never received a copy of the chargesheet. Among the 195 prisoners who did
receive a copy, there was a widespread concern that they received it after the
commencement of the trial, or after the pronouncement of the trial court
judgment. Further, it was a challenge to understand the language in which the
chargesheet was written while others could not read it at all as they were
illiterate," it says.

Not even informed about the ground of arrest

According to the report, of the 219 prisoners who spoke about being informed
about the ground of arrest, 136 said that they were not informed about the
same. Common practices included asking individuals to accompany the police
officials for false and often vague reasons such as 'answering a few questions'
or 'signing some documents'.

graphic

There were 385 prisoners under the sentence of death during the course of this
project. 373 of those prisoners across 20 states and one Union Territory
(Andaman & Nicobar Islands) are a part of this study (Graphic 1).1 The
remaining 12 prisoners who do not form part of this study were sentenced to
death in Tamil Nadu. Despite our numerous attempts, the Government of Tamil
Nadu did not grant us permission to conduct prison interviews, citing lack of
security clearance from 'agencies' in Delhi. We were never informed who these
'agencies' were.

Amongst the 373 prisoners, 361 were men and 12 were women. While Uttar Pradesh
had the highest number of prisoners sentenced to death (79) in absolute
numbers, Delhi had the largest proportion in terms of the prisoners sentenced
to death in comparison with the population (1.79 persons per 10 lakh
population), with 30 prisoners sentenced to death. The prisoners interviewed in
the project were incarcerated in 67 prisons, of which 42 were central prisons
and 25 were district prisons. Of these 67 prisons, 30 had gallows.

(source: firstpost.com)

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

30% Death Row Convicts Eventually Acquitted: Study


Out of every 100 prisoners given the death sentence by trial courts in India,
30 are acquitted, reveals the National Law University or NLU's Death Penalty
India Report released on Friday. The 1st of its kind report also says only 5 %
of death sentences are upheld by higher courts.

The report is based on in-depth interviews with 373 of the 385 death row
inmates in India, their families and jail authorities conducted by the National
Law University between June 2013 and January 2015.

80 % of all death row prisoners interviewed for the study said they were
tortured in police custody. Complaints ranged from waterboarding, cigarette
burns, forced nudity, pulling out fingernails to electric currents.

11 death row cases that came to the Supreme Court were dismissed without a
hearing on technical grounds, the report adds.

"The report shows our criminal justice system not just needs procedural but
systemic reform. The legal aid system is a joke. No one really has any faith in
it," Supreme Court Judge Justice Madan B Lokur said.

The report also shows there is a great distrust in the legal aid system in the
country - even those prisoners who can't afford private lawyers try to hire
them - even if they have to sell their assets, jewellery, land for it.

70 % of those sentenced to death had never discussed their case details with
their lawyers at trial stage. Of those who moved High Court, over 64% haven't
even met their lawyers and 44 % don't even know the names of their lawyers when
the case moved to the Supreme Court, the study reveals.

The study also shows most death row prisoners are from poor families. 74 % are
economically vulnerable - of those 63.2 % were either primary or sole earners
in their family.

Anup Surendranath, director, Death Penalty Centre Of National Law University
told NDTV, "They don't know anything about their cases, nobody is telling them
anything. Every day they live in fear. So many of them told us that when they
hear footsteps at night, they were they will be taken away to be killed. We
need to think about as a society," he said.

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

Resolution In Rajya Sabha Seeks Abolition Of Capital Punishment


A private member resolution was on Friday moved in the Rajya Sabha seeking
abolition of capital punishment and an imposition of moratorium on all death
sentences till the necessary amendments are made to the existing laws.

"The time has come for India to say emphatic "no" to capital punishment by
making amendments to various laws, which have provision for death penalty so as
to abolish capital punishment in the country. Till that time, impose moratorium
on execution of death sentences," said D Raja of CPI while moving the
resolution.

The resolution should not be linked to any particular case as the issue is
related to confronting the humanity, he said, adding, "I am not making it as an
ideological issue at this point of time. It is more than that."

Asserting that India should take a stand on this issue, Mr Raja said the
majority of the UN members have voted in support of the UN General Assembly
resolution calling for a moratorium on death penalty and India is among the
minority of member countries still voting against the resolution.

About 120 countries have abolished capital punishment and few of them have
stopped the practice of execution, he added.

"The situation now has fast changed. The world is moving towards jurisprudence
based on humanism and correction of individuals committing crimes. But we are
still lagging behind. We are still stick on to the colonial laws. We need to
change our mindset," Mr Raja noted.

Stating that crimes have socio-economic factors, Mr Raja said, "The issue
should not be looked at from just legal and technical point of view. It should
be looked at pyschological, sociological and polical angle."

Quoting a study by students of Delhi-based National Law University, Mr Raja
said the research shows that there are caste and religious biases in the
imposition of death penalty in India, indicating that 94 % of the persons given
death sentences for terror related cases belonged to dalit caste or religious
miniorities.

Even the Supreme Court has admitted to "errors and miscarriage of justice due
to arbitrary application of death penalty" and the Law Commission Chairman
Justice A P Shah has also said that there is "serious need to re-examine" the
issue of death panalty.

Mr Raja said this resolution was earlier submitted to the Upper House in July
2015 but it was not taken up due to various reasons. Even his party colleague
late C K Chandrappan had moved a private member bill on this issue way back in
2004.

(source for both: ndtv.com)

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

RS members debate abolition of death penalty----His short speech on capital
punishment prompted Congress MP Jairam Ramesh to ask how Swamy could make a
speech without making any allegations.


For the 1st time since he became a member last week, Subramanian Swamy spoke in
the Rajya Sabha uninterrupted, without making any provocative remarks and
without being disturbed by the Opposition.

Swamy stood up to speak on two other occasions in the past week, and both times
he created a flutter by linking Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and her family with
the AgustaWestland helicopter scam.

On the 1st occasion, in fact, he could not even complete a sentence, having
brought up Sonia's name at the start of his speech. The 2nd time, on Tuesday,
he could speak for more than 15 minutes but amid strong protests by the
Congress.

On Friday afternoon, in the presence of just 15 members in the Rajya Sabha,
Swamy got up to speak again, but this time it was not about AgustaWestland or
anything to do with the Gandhi family. He participated in a discussion on a
resolution on the abolition of capital punishment that was moved by CPI member
D Raja. His short speech on capital punishment prompted Congress MP Jairam
Ramesh to ask how Swamy could make a speech without making any allegations.

Swamy spoke strongly in favour of retaining capital punishment, arguing that no
country of "any importance" had abolished the death penalty. "It is a futile
debate," he said, while calling the campaign against death penalty a "part of a
fashionable international movement of NGOs".

"The US has it, Russia has it, all the Arab countries have it, Iran has it.
Even the country with which Raja's party has fraternal relations, China, has
death penalty. You (Raja) have not been able to convince China to abolish death
penalty, you want India to abolish it. Only some crazy liberal nations have
done away with capital punishment," Swamy said.

He claimed the Congress was confused on the issue. "They (Congress government)
hanged Afzal Guru but they want the killers of Rajiv Gandhi to be set free.
They do not want to subject them to capital punishment even when the Supreme
Court has said that is the rarest of rare case," he said. "In my opinion, India
is not going to change. We are going to have capital punishment, but the
safeguards are necessary. The Supreme Court has already laid down those
safeguards," he said.

Earlier, D Raja argued that India must say an "emphatic no" to capital
punishment and till such time that a decision in this regard is taken, there
should be a moratorium on execution of all death sentences. "The world is
moving towards a new kind of jurisprudence, one based on humanism, one based on
correction of individuals committing crimes, may be, even heinous crimes. But
we still lag behind ... We still stick to colonial relics, on colonial laws,"
he said.

The CPI member said a study by National Law University had shown caste and
religious biases in award of death penalty and indicated that 94 % of those
given capital punishment in terror-related cases were either Dalits or belonged
to religious minority communities.

"I am not making an insinuation ... I am not casting aspersions on any
individual judge or court. But all said and done, we are all human beings, and
we have been talking about corruption. Corruption does not only mean
involvement of money. It can mean involvement of caste bias or religion bias as
well," he said.

(source: Indian Express)


SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi executes Jordanian drug smuggler


Saudi Arabia on Thursday put to death a Jordanian convicted of drug
trafficking, in the kingdom's 91st execution this year.

Maher al-Ghurabli had been found guilty of smuggling amphetamine pills into the
kingdom, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Authorities carried out the sentence against him in the northwestern region of
Tabuk, which borders his Jordanian homeland.

Most people put to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.

Ghurabli's is the 91st execution of a local or foreigner this year, according
to an AFP tally.

The executions include 47 for "terrorism" on a single day, January 2.

Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions.

Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia had the 3rd highest number of people
put to death last year -- at least 158.

That was far behind Pakistan, which executed 326, and Saudi Arabia's regional
rival Iran, which executed at least 977, said Amnesty, whose figures exclude
secretive China.

(source: ahram.org)






EGYPT:

Egypt court spares ousted president Mohamed Morsi the death penalty


An Egyptian court recommended death sentences on Saturday for 6 codefendants of
Mohamed Morsi but not for the ousted Islamist president in their trial on
espionage charges.

The presiding judge in the trial asked the mufti -- the country's official
interpreter of Islamic law -- to consider death sentences for the 6
codefendants, saying the court would convene again on June 18 after the mufti's
response.

It will then pronounce its verdict and sentence for the remaining 5 defendants,
including Morsi, on charges of having supplied Qatar with classified documents.

Egyptian law requires the mufti to sign off on death sentences. His opinion is
not binding but is usually respected by courts.

Qatar was a main backer of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement while he
was in power between 2012 and July 2013, when the military overthrew and
detained him.

He has since been sentenced to death, life in prison and 20 years in three
separate trials.

(source: Agence France-Presse)






NIGERIA:

Lawmakers Urged To Recommend Death Penalty For Treasury Looters


Following the recommendation of death penalty for kidnappers, the Senate has
been urged to take a step further and recommend same punishment for treasury
looters.

This call was contained in a statement issued by the chairman, Association of
Online Media Practitioners, Wole Arisekola.

He noted that while the recommendation made during the week by the senators
prescribing death penalty for kidnappers was laudable, the lawmakers should go
a step further by also recommending same punishment for public officials who
loot the treasury.

Arisekola, in the statement noted that "the same law should be passed on
corrupt public officials because corruption is worse than kidnapping", noting
that "kidnappers cannot kidnap the whole nation but corruption kills the entire
nation".

He stressed further that "corruption is the bane of our underdevelopment, it is
the reason behind all the social ills including kidnapping. It is the reason
why there are no drugs in hospitals, why our roads are in deplorable
conditions, the educational sector is in comatose and why the whole nation is
still in darkness."

It stated further that "One must however, commend the senators for rising to
the occasion by recommending death penalty for kidnappers who are making the
country unsafe for all, it is also patient that we should tackle the foundation
of crime in our society before we deal with criminals".

He expressed firm optimism that "this proposal, I belief, if considered and
passed by the lawmakers, will act as a deterrent to whoever might be nursing
any idea of defrauding this great nation of ours now or in the future".

(source: leadership.ng)

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

3 kidnappers sentenced to death


A Delta State High Court sitting in Effurun, has sentenced 3 persons, Augustin
Akpojivi, Dawel James and Collins Enye, to death by hanging for kidnapping.

The Court which also found the 3 accused persons guilty of 3 other counts of
conspiracy to commit a felony to wit: kidnapping, illegal possession of
firearms, demanding property with menace and stealing, sentenced them? to 20
years imprisonment with hard labour.

2 other accused persons were however lucky as they escaped the death sentence,
having been discharged and acquitted by the Court.

The 2 acquitted persons are Samuel Okoloda and Precious Victor Ochuko. They
were acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence linking them to the crime by
prosecution.

Earlier during trial, the Prosecution told the Court that Dawel James, a driver
by occupation, conspired with Augustin Akpojivi (29), also a driver, and
Collins Enye (23), a commercial motorcycle rider; and others now at large, to
kidnap his employer, one Rufus Uzoma Allwell, staff of Warri Refining and
Petrochemical Company (WRPC), while armed with guns and demanded for a ransom
of N2million before releasing their victim.

The Court heard that Dawel James who was the driver to the kidnapped victim
master minded the kidnap of his boss and received part of the N2million ransom
paid by the elder brother of his boss.

Reacting to the Court Judgement, the State Attorney-General and Commissioner
for Justice, Barr Peter Mrakpor hails the Court verdict and expressed optimism
that the judgement of the Court will send a strong signal to criminally minded
persons in the State that it was not business as usual.

He commended the exceptional courage displayed by witnesses in the matter who
came out willingly without pressure to give evidence in Court during trial and
called on others to emulate the patriotic spirit put forward by the Prosecution
Witnesses.

(source: The News)






SOMALIA:

5 Sentenced to Death for Baidoa Attack


Somali military court has on Saturday sentenced 5 people to death for their
role in Baidoa attack on February.

According to the chairman of the court Liban Abdi Yarrow four of the men were
found guilty for their involvement in the attack that resulted death of over 30
people and wounded many more on 28 February.

The 5th person was found guilty for killing a civilian. Armed group Alshabaab
claimed the responsibility of the double explosion attacks that rocked the
South Western Somali city.

Despite over whelming human rights groups condemnations Somali military court
continues with the execution of Alshabaab members found guilty for attacks
against government targets.

(source: allafrica.com)






BANGLADESH:

Pakistan concerned over review application dismissal on death sentence for JI
leader in Bangladesh


Pakistan has expressed deep concern over dismissal of the review application on
the death sentence by the Bangladesh Supreme Court for Jamaat-e-Islami leader
Motiur Rahman Nizami.

In a statement issued today, Foreign Office said Pakistan has been following
the reaction of the international community and human rights organizations to
the controversial trials in Bangladesh related to the events of 1971.

It said there is a need for reconciliation in Bangladesh in accordance with the
spirit of Tripartite Agreement of April 1974, which calls for a forward looking
approach in matters relating to the events of 1971.

Meanwhile, Punjab Assembly, in unanimously passed resolution on Friday,
expressed concern over rejection of the review application of Motiur Rehman
Nizami by the Bangladeshi Supreme Court.

The resolution was moved by the Parliamentary Leader of Jamaat e Islami in
Punjab Assembly Dr. Waseem Akhtar.

The resolution urged the federal government to contact Organization of Islamic
Cooperation and the United Nations for halting implementation of the death
penalty.

Earlier, Bangladesh's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Motiur Rahman
Nizami for war crimes yesterday.

(source: Radio Pakistan)


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[Rick Halperin]

May 8




AFGHANISTAN----executions

6 Taliban inmates on death row hanged: Afghan govt


6 Afghan Taliban inmates on death row were hanged on Sunday, government sources
said, in the first set of executions approved by President Ashraf Ghani since
he came to power in 2014.

"In accordance with the Afghan constitution... Ghani approved the execution of
6 terrorists who perpetrated grave crimes against civilians and public
security," the presidential palace said in a statement.

A government source told AFP that all 6 were Taliban inmates, but did not
release further details about their offences.

In 2012, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Afghan government to "end
its sudden surge of executions and institute a moratorium on further
executions" after the Afghan government executed eight people, ending a
four-year virtual moratorium on the use of the death penalty, during which only
2 people were reportedly executed, according to the HRW.

The NGO cited the "weakness of the Afghan legal system and the routine failure
of courts to meet international fair trial standards", which make Afghanistan's
"use of the death penalty especially troubling".

(source: Daily Times)

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

Taliban Publicly Execute 2 Women in Northern Afghanistan


Taliban insurgents publicly executed 2 women, 1 of them in an apparent honor
killing, in northern Afghanistan recently, according to Afghan officials,
members of the victims' families and a video posted online.

The killings, which were thought to be unrelated, took place in recent months
in northern Jowzjan Province, in predominantly Uzbek areas where Taliban
presence has traditionally been weak except among ethnic Pashtuns.

The killings came to light after a video was circulated of one of them and
officials discovered evidence of the other.

In 1 of the cases, a pregnant 22-year-old woman named Rabia, a mother of 2
young children, was accused by her husband of adultery, tried and convicted by
the Taliban on the spot, and then publicly shot 3 times. Members of her family
said that her husband had concocted the adultery charge because of a land
dispute between their families, and that he had wanted to inherit his wife's
interests in the land.

"They buried her without even allowing her family to participate in her
funeral," said Shakera, her aunt, who like many Afghans has only 1 name.

"I know she was a very innocent woman," Shakera said, speaking by telephone
from her home in the provincial capital, Shibarghan. "She did not have the
heart to be unfaithful."

Another motive for the Taliban to kill her, Shakera said, was that 2 of Rabia's
uncles were militia commanders loyal to the Uzbek leader, Abdul Rashid Dostum,
who is also first vice president of Afghanistan.

According to the deputy police chief of Jowzjan Province, Col. Abdul Hafeez,
the apparent honor killing took place in Memlek village in the district of
Faizabad. The district governor of Faizabad, Saira Shekib, who is one of
Afghanistan's few female governors, said it had been personally carried out by
the Taliban's shadow governor in the district, whom she identified as Qari
Rasool.

The killings were reminiscent of similar executions carried out frequently from
1996 to 2001, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and killed many women
convicted of so-called moral crimes by shooting them in the head at the
National Stadium before large crowds. In rural areas, where the group holds
sway, they have often stoned women to death for suspected moral offenses.

The 2nd Jowzjan execution is believed to have taken place four months ago,
though the video surfaced only in the past couple days. The victim is seen in a
blue burqa, sitting on the ground. A Taliban court convicted her of killing her
husband, whose family crowded around the execution site and loudly voted to
execute her.

The victim's identity was not known, but Colonel Hafeez said that the
authorities believed that the video was genuine and that the execution had
taken place in the Khanaqa district. The executioner's face is covered, but he
was believed to be the district's Taliban commander.

The children of Rabia, the victim in the suspected honor killing, were not
present when the Taliban official summarily executed her in the yard of her
home. But according to Shakera, Rabia's 3-year-old daughter found her mother's
bloodied sandals after the killing and recognized them.

"She ran to her grandma asking where is her mother," Shakera said. "The grandma
did not have an answer for her."

Rabia's 6-month-old son had still been breast-feeding at the time his mother
was killed, Shakera said, and members of the family say they have been unable
to afford enough powdered baby formula for the infant. Both children remained
with the father's family.

(source: New York Times)

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

Horrific video shows Taliban publicly killing woman over adultery ---- The
woman is forced to kneel in a dessert before she is shot dead


A horrific video has emerged online which purportedly shows the execution of a
woman by the Taliban militants in northern Jawzjan province.

The woman was reportedly executed in Khanqa village in Aqcha district with the
footage showing the woman is forced to kneel in a dessert before she is shot
dead.

The execution is carried out by a Taliban insurgent who has covered his face
with a scarf and shooting the woman with an Ak-47 rifle from behind.

The local officials have not commented regarding the report so far to confirm
the exact date and location of the incident.

The brutal killing of the woman refreshes the savagery of the group while they
were ruling the country in early 90s.

The group executed a woman in a stadium in capital Kabul in a similar way which
sparked international condemnation.

The group still continues to try convicts in desert courts in areas where they
have influence and publicly execute the convicts after they are awarded death
sentence.

The latest video is followed amid concerns by the rights organizations that the
condition of the women in northern parts of the country is rapidly getting
worse amid deteriorating security situation.

(source: rawa.org)






THAILAND:

21 Malaysian 'drug mules' face death penalty in Thai court


The 21 Malaysians arrested in Thailand recently on suspicion of being 'drug
mules' could face the death penalty under the country's Narcotics Act for
possession and sale of Category 1 Substances.

"The suspects can face the death penalty following the large seizure of
methamphetamine ('ice') and heroin from them. The police, on their part, have
obtained strong evidence against them.

"However, despite the possibility of facing the maximum sentence of death under
the stipulated charge, Thai courts seldom hand down the death penalty and
prefer the long-term jail sentence, instead," he told Bernama on Sunday.

On March 23 and 24, the Malaysians, in 2 groups of 15 and 6 men were arrested
by Thai Railway police at 4 different train stations and in a passenger van.

Seized from them were 226kg of methamphetamine and 8kg of heroin kept in
backpacks.

The train they were travelling in was enroute to Butterworth from Hualamphong,
Bangkok.

Thai police have described the drug haul as one of the largest confiscated in
recent times, which could fetch about RM400mil in Europe.

The Thai police officer also divulged that based on information obtained, there
was a link between the Malaysian suspects and a major drug trafficker whose
nationality he declined to divulge.

In an interview with Bernama previously, Police Col Puttidej Bunkrapue from the
Thai Railway Police said investigations revealed the drug smuggling attempt by
the 21 Malaysian suspects was masterminded by 3 men.

The 21 Malaysians are currently under remand at Bangkok's Central Correctional
Institution for Drug Addicts.

(source: Bernama)






BELARUS:

EU Condemns Belarus After Latest Execution


The European Union has expressed concern after news that Belarus, the only
country in Europe still to apply capital punishment, had executed another
prisoner.

In a statement issued on May 7, the EU said the recent execution of Syarhey
Ivanua was "particularly disturbing" due to the fact his complaint was pending
with the UN Human Rights Committee. The EU also said the death sentence against
Syarhey Khmelevsky, which was upheld by the Belarus Supreme Court on 6 May, has
also been confirmed.

In its statement, the EU said it expected Belarus to join a global moratorium
on the death penalty as a 1st step towards its abolition.

(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)






IRAN:

Prisoners Moved to Solitary Confinement in Preparation for Execution


On Saturday May 7, at least 3 prisoners in Rajai Shahr Prison (located in the
city of Karaj, northern Iran) were reportedly moved to solitary confinement in
preparation for their executions. According to close sources, the prisoners are
each sentenced to death on murder charges and their names are: Mohammad Abdi,
Seyed Jafar Jafaripanah, and Fariborz Jalali. Close sources say these 3
prisoners are scheduled to be executed on the morning of Wednesday.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






NIGERIA:

Lagos lawmaker advocates capital punishment for corrupt politicians


Following the proposed capital punishment prescribed by the Nigerian senate for
kidnappers, the Deputy Whip, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Omotayo
Oduntan, has also prescribed same punishment for corrupt politicians.

Oduntan made the call at a media parley held at the Assembly Complex in Ikeja,
Lagos, while reacting to Senate's prescription of death penalty for kidnappers.

The lawmaker, who decried the rising cases of kidnapping, said such step would
deter many young people from engaging in the crime.

"I am in support of capital punishment for kidnappers. It will serve as
deterrent to many who thought the crime is a way to make cheap money. It will
reduce the rate of criminality, it is not normal at all for young people who
think they can make quick money through kidnapping be engage in such crime,"
she said.

The lawmaker urged the National Assembly to extend same punishment to
politicians who embezzled public funds to serve as deterrent to others.

"As I am in support of capital punishment for kidnappers, politicians who
embezzle public money should be given the same punishment to serve as deterrent
to others who might want to toe that line.

"Criminality and corruption will reduce to the barest minimum with capital
punishment. It is not normal to embezzle money that is meant for generation and
the generations to come," she said.

She, however, urged the Federal Government to provide jobs for citizens,
stressing that the kidnappers saw the menace as a quick means of getting money.

According to the lawmaker, all efforts must be made to ensure that masses
experience change in their socio-economic life.

She said, "I will advise all women in position of authority to be fair to
people, be honest, be a good example to other women. They (women politicians)
should be mirror of courage, good character, honesty and let them be committed
to uplift the common man in the streets."

Reacting to the crisis in the Edo State House of Assembly and emergence of a
female Speaker, Mrs. Elizabeth Ative, Oduntan urged the new speaker to ensure
she makes a good impact and leaves a good legacy behind.

The lawmaker urged the rich in the country to help the poor masses come out of
hardship and suffering. She also urged the citizens to be patient with the
President, expressing optimism that the economic would improve for the
betterment of all.

(source: today.ng)






EGYPT:

Egyptian court recommends death penalty for journalists, Mursi verdict
postponed


An Egyptian court on Saturday recommended the death penalty for 3 journalists
and 3 others charged with endangering national security by leaking state
secrets and documents to Qatar.

Jordanian national Alaa Omar Sablan and Ibrahim Mohammed Helal, who both work
for Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera, and Asmaa Al Khateeb, a reporter for
Rassd, a pro-Muslim Brotherhood news network, were sentenced in absentia. They
can appeal.

The sentence is the latest since a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood after an
army takeover stripped former president Mohammed Mursi of power in 2013
following mass protests against his rule. Mursi and other Brotherhood leaders,
as well as leading figures from the 2011 popular uprising that toppled Hosni
Mubarak, many of them secular activists and journalists, are now in jail.

Following Saturday's ruling, a final decision is expected on June 18, after the
sentence has been referred to the top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for
a non-binding opinion.

Judge Mohammed Shireen Fahmy, who announced the verdict, also said that a
ruling against Mursi and several others charged in the same case, would be
postponed to the same date.

Prosecutors in Saturday's case argued that Mursi's aides were involved in
leaking sensitive documents to Qatari intelligence that exposed the location of
weapons held by the Egyptian armed forces.

Defence lawyers said that documents were moved out of the presidential palace
to protect them during growing protests against Mursi's rule, but this process
was not the responsibility of the president and the documents presented in the
case show no signs of spying.

"The case's documents are devoid of any type of espionage or participation in
it," a defence lawyer told Reuters.

Mursi has been sentenced in 3 other cases, including the death penalty for a
mass jail break during the 2011 uprising and a life sentence for spying on
behalf of Hamas.

Qatar had supported Mursi, who is in jail along with thousands of Brotherhood
members, many of whom have been sentenced to death on separate charges.

Relations between Qatar, a Gulf Arab state, and Egypt have been icy since July
2013 when Egypt's then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew Mursi.

Sisi says the Brotherhood poses a serious threat to security despite the
crackdown, which has weakened what was once Egypt's most organised political
group.

(source: Reuters)


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May 8




PAKISTAN:

Capital punishment to 2 postponed for 10 Days


The death penalty awarded to two persons in famous murder cases has been
postponed in Central Jail Mirpur for 10 days on the appeal of the families of
convicts forforgiveness.

According to Jail authorities, the schedule followed byissuance of the death
warrants after rejection of the mercypetitions of both of the culprits by the
President of Azad Jammu &Kashmir, the murderers Muhammad Yaqoob s/o Raja
Muhammad and Ghazenfer son of Ghazen, both residents of Kotli district of AJK,
were to be put on gallows in the Mirpur Central Jail on Friday (May6, 2016)
morning, Syed Yasir Hussain Kazmi, Deputy SuperintendentCentral Jail told APP
on Saturday.

The convict Mohammad Yaqoob had axed Imam of a mosque Muhammad Javed at
Tattapani village to death few years ago. Similarly the other assassin
Ghazenfer had shot dead his relative Raja Illayas, Naib Tehsildar at Gulpur few
years back.

Both the accused were awarded death penalty in the murder charges by a district
criminal court of AJK and the capital punishment kept intact by the Supreme
Court of AJK - as the appeals of both the culprits against the punishment were
turned down by the apex court, the Deputy Jailer said.

The award of capital punishment was postponed reportedly for 10 days after the
families of the murderers moved to the victim's families for clemency for
patch-up between the rival groups, he added.

(source: APP)






INDIA:

Bara massacre: After 15 years on death row, families of accused say they've
lost track of their cases


15 years after they were sentenced to death, families of those convicted for
the Bara massacre here have lost track of their cases. A media visit draws
curious villagers to the house of one accused, seeking to know if there is
something new.

Ajay Das alias Ajay Mochi is not among them. His mother was pregnant with him
when father Krishna Das alias Krishna Mochi was given death along with 6
others, in the February 13, 1992, killings of 35 upper-caste Bhumihars.

Sitting on a cot outside his mud-and-thatch house at Dhiwra village, 2 km from
Bara, Ajay says he has grown tired of media visits. Admitting that he never
goes to Bhagalpur jail to meet Krishna, now 58, Ajay says, "They tell me my
father used to be an excellent clarinet player. I am living with the burden of
not having seen him."

The case of Krishna Mochi is reflective of the points raised in the Death
Penalty Research Project.

Ajay is the youngest of Krishna's 4 children, including a daughter. All the
sons work as daily wagers. Krishna was not allowed to attend the wedding of any
of the 4.

Ironically, adds the family, Krishna used to be the member of a village wedding
band. His father Chaitu Das, who died 5 years ago, was also a known band
master.

The Bara massacre, in which MCC (now CPI-Maoist) members killed 34 Bhumihars,
was part of a string of caste clashes in the area. The 1992 massacre itself was
believed to be the fallout of 6 previous killings in 1990-91 in which 59
Scheduled Caste men and agricultural labourers were killed.

In 1997, the upper castes carried out a revenge attack for the Bara massacre,
leaving 58 Dalits dead in Laxmanpur-Bathe.

For the Bara massacre, the Gaya District and Sessions court gave death to
Nanhelal Mochi, Krishna Mochi, Bir Kuer Paswan and Dharmendra Singh on June 8,
2001. The Supreme Court endorsed this in April 2002. In 2009, the designated
TADA judge of Gaya sentenced Vyas Kahar, Naresh Paswan and Bugal Mochi to
death. Of them, only Dharmendra was an upper caste, having turned against the
dominant Bhumihars.

Later, Naresh was acquitted on grounds of lack of evidence and shoddy
investigation, while the sentence of Vyas and Bugal was commuted to life.

Bhagalpur Central Jail authorities say the mercy pleas of the 4 other death row
convicts, Nanhelal, Krishna, Bir and Dharmendra, were dispatched to the
President on March 3, 2003. Says Vira Maharaj, a jail official, "Once a mercy
petition is despatched, we get to know its status only when it is rejected."

In the Laxmanpur-Bathe case, incidentally, all the 26 upper caste accused
convicted by a lower court were acquitted by the Patna High Court on grounds of
inadequate evidence.

Says Krishna's wife Chandramani Devi, "My husband was framed just because we
were not dependent on upper castes for a living. He earned good money playing
at weddings."

Son Vinay says they go to meet Krishna at Bhagalpur, 225 km away, only when
they can save some money. Jitendra Das, who is married to Krishna's daughter
Basanti, says, "Whenever we meet him, he requests us to plead his case. He has
not lost hope yet."

A few metres away from Krishna's house are razed structures that were once
homes of Nanhelal and Bhugal. Their families shifted to Baddi Bigha village in
Gaya after their Dhiwra houses were set on fire in 1994, allegedly by some
upper caste men.

Nanhelal has 2 sons and Bugal 6. All are daily wagers.

Naresh, who was among those sentenced to death, was acquitted in 2013. The
family of his brother Krishnandan Paswan says Naresh had taken the help of
upper castes to get out.

Naresh now lives in his wife's village in Gaya and works as a daily wager.

The family of another death convict, Bir, 70, lives at Khutwar village, 1.5 km
away from Dhiwra. His younger brother Karu says the Bara massacre accused were
given death because they were SCs. "Earlier, police used to come. Now no one
comes to share any information."

The 80-year-old Rajo Devi, who has spent 24 years now in wait of son Krishna,
says they are helpless. "Vakil kabhi kehta hai Dilli se chitthi aayega, kabhi
kehta hai Patna se aayega (The lawyer sometimes says relief will come from a
Delhi court, sometimes he says Patna)."

(source: Indian Express)

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

On death row, dying many deaths


The human rights of prisoners in death row are grossly violated, shows Death
Penalty India Report

"I left my sleeping child at home because the police called me to sign
documents. I never got home after that," said Akira. She is among the 136
prisoners on death row who claimed to have not been informed of the reason for
their arrest, a constitutional right.

To prepare the Death Penalty India Report, released on Friday, National Law
University, Delhi, interviewed 373 of the 385 death row prisoners in India. The
report does not talk about the innocence of these prisoners. But their stories
highlight gross violations of human rights and the fallacies in the legal
system. From not getting access to lawyers to being forced to confess to
crimes, prisoners shared experiences of being a death row prisoner.

Month-long torture

Zaid, accused in a terror case, was detained in a mansion used by investigative
agencies. He was tortured for over a month before a formal arrest was recorded.
Mahmud, Zaid's co-accused, was severely beaten and electrocuted in the
genitals. He was blindfolded during the entire duration of police custody
except when he was given food.

Zaid recalled that Mahmud's skin would peel off as he removed his clothes.
Finally, Zaid, Mahmud and other accused were acquitted by the Supreme Court.
The court expressed anguish at the incompetence of the investigating agencies
as these men had already spent 11 years in prison. A majority of the prisoners
shared their experiences of custodial violence with the researchers. All this,
when as per law, the police are supposed to take "reasonable care of the health
and safety of an accused under custody." Rollers were pressed over Amarpreet's
body when she was arrested. As a result, she suffered a miscarriage.

The report says that of the 92 prisoners who said they had confessed in police
custody, 72 admitted to making statements under torture. Roshni said she was
repeatedly tortured to confess. As she was tied to a chair and beaten up, she
suffered a bone injury in her leg.

No hearing

As The Hindu reported on Friday, the structural loopholes in the administration
of the death penalty denied many prisoners a fair trial. Ramrang never got a
chance to speak with his lawyer. And so he was not asked a single question by
the judge and was sentenced to death without getting any opportunity to defend
himself. As he worries about his family, he remarked: "Be it the government,
the police or the judge - no one heard our pleas." The report says harsh prison
conditions and inhuman treatment of prisoners form an integral part of the
punishment.

Hanut, who has served more than 12 years in prison, revealed that until 2010,
there were no toilets in the prison. He was provided with a steel tub to
relieve himself. "Give us punishment, but until then at least treat us like
human beings," he said.

Sharing his experience of the violence, Javed said: "Just kill me. But don't
inflict this repeated torture on me." An opportunity to pursue studies has
great significance for reform. The Supreme Court has noted that a prisoner can
be sentenced to death only if she is beyond reform. Moinuddin, however, was
unable to continue his studies in prison. His repeated requests were rejected,
for he was a prisoner sentenced to death.

(Names of prisoners have been changed by the researchers to maintain anonymity)

(source: The Hindu)

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

Man gets death penalty for killing minor boy


A local court on Saturday awarded death sentence to one Manish Kumar alias
Nepali Mandal (25) after finding him guilty of kidnapping and subsequently
killing a 10-year-old boy on April 9, 2012. The court also slapped a fine of Rs
25,000 on Manish.

The judgement was delivered by the court of ADJ-V Jyoti Swaroop Shrivatava
which termed the case as "rarest of rare". The court held Manish guilty of
kidnapping the boy, committing unnatural sex with him, plucking his eyes and
concealing the body after murder.

Additional public prosecutor (APP) Shushil Kumar Sinha said Manish had
kidnapped Aditya Rajkamal, son of Raju Mandal, a resident of Jamalpur, in broad
daylight with the help his 2 friends - Amit Jha and Manoj Kumar - who are still
absconding.

"After abduction, the kidnappers demanded Rs 50,000 as ransom from the parents
of Aditya for his safe release. They even allowed the boy to talk to his
parents before killing him," said the APP.

The parents, instead of paying ransom to the kidnappers, brought the matter to
the notice of the police. The police arrested Manish and recovered the body of
Aditya Kumar from a drain.

The news of Aditya's murder spread like wildfire in Jamalpur and the entire
town rose against the crime by holding protest rallies and demonstrations.

(source: Times of India)






BANGLADESH:

2-day strike in Bangladesh begins to protest Islamist party chief's death
sentence


A two-day nationwide shutdown called by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami began on
Sunday morning in protest of an apex court verdict that upheld death penalty
for the Islamist party's chief for 1971 war crimes.

Hours after the Appellate Division bench of Bangladesh Supreme Court (SC) on
Thursday dismissed the final review petition of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami
party's Ameer (president) Motiur Rahman Nizami who is now behind the bar, the
party called the 48-hour non-stop nationwide hartal for May 8 and 9.

Nizami, who is Jamaat chief since November 2000, now only has the option of
seeking the president's mercy to stall his imminent execution.

On account of the strike, the traffic on short routes in and around Dhaka was
almost regular as almost no activities of pro-hartal activists were visible.
Man-paddled cycle rickshaws were dominating the city streets while presence of
private cars was thin due to fear of possible vandalism and arson attack.

In other parts of the country, the shutdown also reportedly have almost no
impact on people's routine life.

Academic activities also hampered to some extent to a number of educational
institutions though attendance in the government and private offices was as
usual. But businesses in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country opened as per
schedule Sunday morning.

No major incidents have so far been reported.

74 year old Nizami served as the agriculture and industries minister in Khaleda
Zia's 2001-2006 cabinet. Nizami's party says he was deprived of justice. But
the government says the trail met proper standards.

Nizami is among the top Jamaat leaders who have been tried in 2 war crimes
tribunals which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasian's Bangladesh Awami League-led
government formed in 2010 to bring the perpetrators of 1971 to book.

Nizami was indicted in 2012 with 16 charges of crimes against humanity,
including looting, mass killings, arson, rape and forcefully converting people
to Muslims during the 1971 war.

The indictment order said Nizami was a key organizer of the Al-Badr, an
auxiliary force of then Pakistani army which planned and executed the killing
of Bengali intellectuals at the end of the war.

(source: Shanghai Daily)

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

US Congress HR commission asks Bangladesh to halt Nizami's execution


Human rights commission of the United States Congress has urged Bangladesh to
stay the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami terming the
legal process through which the death penalty was handed down was 'faulty'.

In a press release issued on Friday, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of
the United States Congress said its co-chairs urged Bangladesh to stay
execution in Bangladesh case for "lack of due process."

On 16 November 2015, said the press release, co-chairs of the Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission joined respected international observers in expressing
serious concerns over death penalty convictions handed down by the
International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh ICT,B, due to "irregularities that
raised due process issues and led to doubts about the fairness of the trials."

At that time, it read, the cases in question were those of Salauddin Quader
Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mojaheed. On November 22, 2015 both were
executed.

"Now there is another case, that of Matiur Rahman Nizami, accused by the ICT of
crimes including genocide, and also sentenced to death."

Saying that there can be no doubt that victims and survivors of the atrocities
committed during the 1971 war for independence have a right to justice, the
human rights commission recalled that states are obligated to ensure due
process and guarantee fair trials, even for the worst perpetrators. "The stakes
are highest in death penalty cases because no redress is available after the
fact," it observed.

"We thus reiterate our call-shared by former US ambassador-at-large for war
crimes issues, Stephen Rapp, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and
international human rights observers-to Bangladeshi authorities to proceed in
accordance with international law and standards of due process and fair trials,
as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a State Party,
and halt any executions that fail these standards," the rights body urged
Bangladesh.

(source: prothom-alo.com)






INDONESIA:

Bali duo legal team discuss death penalty


The Indonesian lawyer for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran says it is time for
activists fighting to end the death penalty in the country to engage with the
Islamic community about the cause.

Indonesian lawyer Dr Todung Mulya Lubis and Australian barrister Julian McMahon
led the long legal fight against the executions of the Bali 9 duo, who were
shot by a firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan in April last
year.

Speaking just over a week after the 1-year anniversary of their deaths, Dr
Mulya said it was time to start a dialogue with the Islamic community around
executions.

"It was taken for granted by those death penalty activists that you cannot
converse with them, as they are extremists. But I think it's time for us to do
that," he told the ASEAN Literary Festival on Sunday in Jakarta.

When he began campaigning against the death penalty in Indonesia in 1979 he
said he was accused of being anti-Islamic and anti-Pancasila (the 5 moral
principles said to make up Indonesian life and society).

"Every label was put on me ... But I'm pleased to know there are more and more
people now talking about the death penalty."

Mr McMahon said while it was common for the 21st century to be described as
something belonging to Asia, economic growth and leadership was not enough.

"In that context you have to think of society as a whole, and that includes
crime and punishment.

"There is no evidence that shows that executions have any value in terms of
being a deterrent," he added.

The comments come after Indonesia's Attorney-General HM Prasetyo flagged that
executions in the country were likely to resume this year.

While there has been no announcement as to when this will happen, Security
Minister Luhut Panjaitan has said he did not want to see a repeat of the
"drama" like what occurred in the lead up to the Australians' executions,
during which there was intense foreign media attention and diplomatic pressure
on Indonesia, as well as strident international appeals and pleas from family
members.

He has said that the law stipulated Indonesia only needed to give 3 days'
notice as to when an execution was going to take place.

(source: The Australian)






CARIBBEAN:

Human rights groups urged CARICOM countries to abolish death penalty


The UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group is
calling on 2 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to implement a number of
recommendations that will improve their human rights records in the future.

According to the draft report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic
Review, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname are being urged to
implement measures including acceding to or ratifying the Second Protocol to
the International Covenant on Civil a and Political Rights (ICCPR), which
promotes international commitment in abolishing the death penalty.

In addition, the Caribbean countries are being urged to sign and ratify the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) as well as sign or ratify the Optional
Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).

The human rights record of several CARICOM countries are being examined by the
UN body.

In the case of St. Vincent and the Grenadines it is also being asked to
implement comprehensive guidelines under the Domestic Violence Act to ensure a
coordinated response for victims of violence by police, courts, health and
social welfare agencies and undertake a public advocacy campaign to combat
gender-based violence, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders.

Kingstown is also being urged to implement targeted training for law
enforcement officials on responding to cases of domestic violence, and ensure
that all allegations are fully investigated and to take steps to ensure the
provision of adequate shelter, including staffing and durable resources, for
victims of domestic violence.

The CARICOM countries are also asked to continue strengthening programmes to
combat domestic violence, including an awareness-raising plan and to continue
the actions taken to reduce domestic violence and violence against women in all
its forms.

The Caribbean countries are urged to reinforce measures to combat violence
against women, including legislative amendments to the Criminal Code and the
Domestic Violence Act and by awareness raising campaigns.

(source: Antigua Observer)


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[Rick Halperin]

May 9



IRAN----execution

1 Prisoner Hanged Publicly In Western Iran


1 prisoner was hanged publicly in the "Azadi" (Liberty) Square of Kermanshah,
western Iran. The public execution was carried out in front of hundreds of
people Sunday morning May 8.

According to the Iranian state-run news agencies Fars and YJC the prisoner who
was identified as "Fardin R." was convicted of Moharebeh (waging war against
God), through participation in an armed robbery. few people had been injured
under the robbery but no one had been killed, said the report.

The Azadi (Liberty) Square of Kermanshah has been the site of several public
executions in the past.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






IRELAND:

On this date in history: 1916: British execute insurgents involved in Dublin
rising - archive; 9 May 1916: The work of rounding up the rebels proceeds
vigorously. In county Wexford already 300 are in custody


23 more death sentences after trials by court-martial were announced in last
night's official report issued from Headquarters in Ireland. Of these 4 have
been carried out - the men who have been shot (says the announcement) were very
prominent in the rising - and 19 commuted to various terms of penal servitude.
Edmund Kent, a member of the "Provisional Government," is 1 of the 4 rebels who
suffered the death penalty. Altogether 12 men have been executed and 66 persons
sentenced to various terms of penal servitude.

The work of "rounding up" the rebels proceeds vigorously. In county Wexford
already 300 rebels are in custody, including 6 women, and in Galway exhausted
and dejected prisoners are being brought in.

In Ulster, as elsewhere, many persons connected with the Sinn Fein movement are
also being arrested; 1/4 of the membership in Belfast are said to be custody.
For the punishment of looters a special court has been set up in Dublin.

Editorial: The Dublin executions

The Dublin military executions are becoming an atrocity - 4 more men were shot
yesterday - and there is no sign that they are about to stop. Mr. REDMOND
raised a protest in the House of Commons yesterday, but apparently quite in
vain. Mr. ASQUITH refused to give any pledge that a term should be placed to
these proceedings, and, so far as appears, they may continue as long as seems
good, to the military authorities in Dublin. What ground is there for these
severities, and what purpose are they expected to serve? A dozen men have now
been executed, and we do not know how many more condemned to long terms of
penal servitude.

We can understand that it may have been desired in the first instance that
swift punishment should be seen to follow the offence and that an example
should thus be set and a stern warning given. But this purpose has long since
been served, and the effect of further severity inflicted by tribunals setting
in secret and without any of the ordinary safeguards of justice can only be to
cause a revulsion of feeling in favour of the criminal and to convert traitors
into heroes.

The thing is not only wrong, it is pre-eminently foolish. It neither is, nor
will it be, mistaken for a proof of strength. It is, on the contrary, a sure
sign of weakness.

Nothing is easier than to shirk responsibility and leave the courts-martial to
follow their own devices. But to do this is merely to show, in the punishment
of the rising, the same shortsightedness and incapacity which are largely
responsible for the failure to anticipate and provide against it. Persistence
in these bloody punishments is, we are certain, condemned by instructed Irish
opinion in all parties.

An Act of Indemnity, if one is necessary in view of the Defence of the Realm
Acts and Regulations, will in due course be passed by Parliament for the
military agents in the Government. The Government itself may find it less easy
to obtain one in the court of public opinion and of history.

(source: The Guardian)






JAMAICA:

Disappearing death row


The 1st dwindling of the death row population began in 1992 when the Offences
Against the Person Act was amended.

The amendment paved the way for 2 categories of murder: capital and
non-capital. Capital murder attracted the mandatory death penalty, while for
non-capital, the sentence was life imprisonment, but the judge must state how
many years the prisoner must serve before he could be eligible for parole. The
amendment applied retroactively and resulted in the commutation of sentences of
life imprisonment for a large number of convicts.

Parliament was compelled to amend the act in 2005 following the outcome of the
Privy Council's landmark ruling in 2004 in the Jamaican case of Lambert Watson,
who had challenged the mandatory death sentence. The Privy Council struck down
the mandatory death sentence and ruled that it was unconstitutional.

Sentencing in murder cases is now left solely to the discretion of judges, but
there are relatively few cases in which the death penalty is imposed. In 1999,
Watson was sentenced to death for the murder of his common-law wife, Eugenie
Samuels, and their nine-month-old daughter, Georgina Watson.

It was reported that they were fatally stabbed as a result of a maintenance
case brought against Watson.

BEFORE THE AMENDMENT

Following Watson's victory, his death sentence was commuted.

Before the amendment, the death penalty was mandatory for more than one murder
conviction, the murders of members of the security forces, correctional
officers, justices of the peace and judicial officers during the execution of
their duties, as well as witnesses and jurors, contract killings, and murder
committed during the furtherance of certain offences.

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn disclosed that 95 % of the
murder cases now before the court are non-capital, which does not attract the
death penalty.

A 7-member jury now hears such cases and unanimous or majority verdicts are
accepted.

Llewellyn said the other 5 % are classified as capital murders, but she said
that since the formula in the Daniel Dick Trimmingham Case, even when the Crown
asks for the death penalty, it is very rare that judges will accede to it.

"The threshold that one has to reach based on the Trimmingham formula and
adopted by the Court of Appeal, has rendered it unattainable for the
pronouncement of the death penalty," Llewellyn said.

However, she said prosecutors will still ask for the death penalty in
appropriate cases as the law was still on the books.

(source: Jamaica GLeaner)






MALAYSIA----female may face death penalty

Drug Trial Date Set For Fijian Woman Detained In Malaysia


A trial date has been set for a Fijian in a Malaysian prison facing serious
drug charges.

Christin Nirmal, 27, will appear on November 1-4 after being detained on
February 15 last year.

She was caught with about 1.51 kilograms of methamphetamine at the Kuala Lumpur
Airport while she was travelling from Hong Kong.

She is being held under Section 39 (B) of Malaysian Dangerous Drugs Act of
1952.

Carrying more than 50 grams of methamphetamines, also known as ice, can warrant
the death penalty in Malaysia, which like its neighbours Indonesia, has strict
anti-drug trafficking laws.

A Government brief providing an update on Nirmal, a mother of 3, stated that a
trial date has been set for November 1 to 4

Nirmal is currently being represented by Rashid Zulkifli Adocates & Solicitors
and Death Penalty Project Lawyers. The legal charge is pro bono.

Her case was last heard at the Shah Alam High Court on 25 March 2016. Her
lawyers requested to write a Letter of Representation to the Prosecution to
either withdraw or reduce the charge against Nirmal. The next case management
date is set for May 27.

She is currently being held in remand at Kajang Women's Prison in Malaysia.

She was detained on 25 January 2015 for charges of drug trafficking. If
convicted by the High Court of Malaysia, Nirmal could face the possibility of a
death sentence.

Fijian High Commission in Malaysia continues to provide Nirmal with the
necessary support and assistance through regular visits to the prison,
attending court hearings, and arranging dietary meals.

The High Commission has also been following up on issues raised by Nirmal,
providing personal amenities and assisting in obtaining legal representation.

It has opened up a Prison Account for Nirmal which is replenished with RM500
(Fijian$250) during monthly visits. RM stands for Malayasia currency Ringgit.

Out of the RM500, RM450 is paid for her special meal plan as she suffered
digestive problems with the normal prison food.

The Fijian diaspora through their church service also contribute RM100
(Fijian$52) to the Mission's monthly prison visit. This enables Nirmal to
attend to her other basic needs.

According to the brief, Nirmal raised a few issues regarding her treatment at
the prison. These included: deteriorating health condition, discrimination
against foreign prisoners, verbal and physical abuse, language barrier, and
unhygienic food and water supply.

The High Commission communicated the issues raised to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of Malaysia who then referred these to the prison authorities. The
Prison Department provided an explanation and assured their support.

(source: Fiji Sun)


SINGAPORE:

Group appeals for death row inmate to be given 3 more months


A petition urging for clemency for Jabing Kho, a murder convict on Singapore's
death row, could buy the Sarawakian 3 more months.

An initiative called We Believe in Second Chances is putting together a last
bid move, getting as many people as possible to sign a petition, which will be
submitted to the Singapore President Tony Tan.

"Usually from the day the petition is submitted, there is around three months
before the President's decision is announced," said Kirsteen Han, a founding
member of the group, which is also working with the Singapore Anti-Death
Penalty Campaign.

Han, who held a press conference with Jabing's family members last Sunday,
urged for more support from Sarawakian politicians.

Jabing's sister, Jumai Kho, said: "We understand the hanging can be anytime. We
wish to have the Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem's help. Help us appeal to
Singapore. Ask for a lesser penalty. Don't have him hanged."

Their mother Lenduk also spoke with reporters, saying "I'm truly sorry for his
actions. I only have 1 son. I'm asking for help not to have him hanged. It's
(a) heavy (burden). I feel it," she said.

Leonard Shim, president of the Sarawak Advocates' Association, lent his
support. He said no one was questioning Singapore's legal system, however,
"everyone deserves a 2nd chance".

"We believe in 2nd chances. Our agenda here today is also to call for an
abolishment of the death penalty in Malaysia, particularly on drug related
offences," Shim said.

Jabing was convicted in May, 2011, for causing the death of a Chinese citizen,
Cao Ruyin, in 2007.

In 2012, the Singapore Parliament amended the Penal Code to give judges the
discretion to sentence offenders convicted under s 300(c) to life imprisonment
with caning.

This change was applied retrospectively and Kho was afforded an opportunity to
have his death sentence reconsidered.

On November 18, 2013, Justice Tay Yong Kwang re-sentenced Kho to life
imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane.

But on January 14, 2015, the Court of Appeal, by a majority decision (with 2
out of the 5 judges dissenting) overturned Justice Tay's decision and sentenced
Kho to death.

On April 5 this year, the Court of Appeal upheld Kho's death sentence, lifting
the stay of execution that they had issued in November 2015, after Kho's lawyer
filed a criminal motion at the 11th hour.

Jabing has now exhausted all legal avenues, leaving clemency as the only
option. His defence has always insisted that Jabing did not possess the
intention to kill, nor was the murder premeditated.

(source: The Star)






BANGLADESH:

Supreme Court releases full verdict that dismisses Nizami's review plea


The Appellate Division has released its full verdict that dismisses war
criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami's review to overturn his death penalty.

The document will now be sent to Dhaka Central Jail, where the death-row
convict is presently lodged, through the war crimes tribunal.

The jail authorities will then read it out to Nizami and ask him if he will
seek mercy from Bangladesh's president after admitting his guilt.

The verdict was released around 3pm Monday after the judges signed on the
document, said the Appellate Division's Additional Registrar Arunav
Chakraborty.

"We will now send it to the judicial court, the International Crimes Tribunal."

Nizami was sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal on Oct 29,
2014 for atrocities committed as commander of Al-Badr, a vigilante militia that
assisted the Pakistan army during Bangladesh's Liberation War.

An Appellate bench, headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha, on Jan 6 upheld the
maximum penalty for the Jamaat-e-Islami chief, after an appeal hearing.

His death warrant was issued by the war crimes tribunal after the Supreme Court
published the full copy of its verdict on March 16.

The same bench dismissed his review petition on May 5.

Nizami was brought to the Dhaka Central Jail from Gazipur's Kashimpur Jail on
Sunday night.

The resolution of Nizami's review petition ended the legal battle against his
conviction and death penalty. He reserves the right to seek mercy as stated in
Section 49 of the Constitution.

The government will ask the jail authorities to carry out the execution if he
does not use the option or is denied mercy by the president.

The members of Nizami's family visited him in prison after the review petition
was turned down.

They, however, said nothing about the possibility of the 73-year-old seeking
mercy.

Abdul Quader Molla, who came to be known as the 'Butcher of Mirpur' for rapes
and murders during the Liberation War, was the 1st to be executed after being
condemned by the first tribunal, set up in 2010.

The Jamaat assistant secretary general was hanged in the Dhaka Central Jail on
Dec 12, 2013.

Md Kamaruzzaman, another assistant secretary general of the party that has been
dubbed as a 'criminal organisation' by the tribunal, was the 2nd to be hanged,
on Apr 11, 2015, for crimes against humanity.

The review petitions of both men had been heard and dismissed within a day.

The government, before going ahead with their execution, said they had not
sought presidential mercy.

Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and BNP leader Salauddin
Quader Chowdhury were sent to the gallows together on Nov 21, 2015 after being
denied mercy by the president, the government had said.

The Appellate Division is due to hear review petitions filed by both the
prosecution and defence for the case of another top Jamaat leader, Delwar
Hossain Sayedee, whose sentence was reduced from death to imprisonment until
death following an appeal.

**********

5 get death in Habiganj over teenage boy's murder


A Habiganj court has sentenced 5 men to death for the murder of 13-year-old boy
in 1994.

The boy, Ziaul Haque, was killed in Baniachong Upazila over a land dispute his
parents had with the convicts.

The court of Habiganj's Additional District and Sessions Judge Mafroza Parvin
delivered the verdict on Monday.

It awarded the death penalty to Ali Haider, 50, Abdul Ahad, 46, Renu Mia, 45,
Habib Mia, 52 and Ranju Mia, 45. Of them, Ranju is absconding.

Additional Public Prosecutor Abdul Ahad Faruk said that the teenager was
murdered on May 13, 1994. Police recovered the body the next day.

Charges were pressed against 6 people over the killing, but 1 of them died
during the trial.

(source for both: benews24.com)






TAIWAN:

Cannes Festival entry focuses on Taiwan death penalty debate


A prize-winning Taiwanese film exploring the use of the death penalty will
screen at the Cannes Film Festival later this month, adding to recent increased
debate about the island's use of capital punishment.

Leon Lee's 23-minute film titled "The Day To Choose" puts its main character, a
lawyer and strong opponent of the death penalty, in the difficult position of
choosing how to punish the murderers of his wife.

Taiwan retains the death penalty despite calls to abolish it in line with
international practice, but some have argued it is necessary in extreme cases
such as the beheading of a 4-year-old girl on a Taipei street in March.

Lee, a student in the German language department at Soochow University,
developed the film with his producer Cheng Kuang-yu, based on a script that
Cheng had long wanted to realize.

"What I really want to discuss in this short film is not only the issue of
capital punishment, but how much a human will stick to (his or her ideals) when
faced with adversity," Lee told Reuters on the set of the film.

The picture will screen in the short film corner at the prestigious annual
Cannes festival in France on May 11-22 and has already won "Best Drama Short
Film" at the 2016 Universe Multicultural Film Festival in California last
month.

(source: Reuters)


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[Rick Halperin]

May 9




INDONESIA:

Bali 9 lawyer calls for death penalty discussion a year on from executions


The Indonesian lawyer for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran says it is time for
activists fighting to end the death penalty in the country to engage with the
Islamic community about the cause.

Indonesian lawyer Dr Todung Mulya Lubis and Australian barrister Julian McMahon
led the long legal fight against the executions of the Bali 9 duo, who were
shot by a firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan in April last
year.

Speaking just over a week after the 1-year anniversary of their deaths, Dr
Mulya said it was time to start a dialogue with the Islamic community around
executions.

"It was taken for granted by those death penalty activists that you cannot
converse with them, as they are extremists. But I think it's time for us to do
that," he told the ASEAN Literary Festival yesterday in Jakarta.

When he began campaigning against the death penalty in Indonesia in 1979 he
said he was accused of being anti-Islamic and anti-Pancasila (the 5 moral
principles said to make up Indonesian life and society).

"Every label was put on me ... But I'm pleased to know there are more and more
people now talking about the death penalty."

Mr McMahon said while it was common for the 21st century to be described as
something belonging to Asia, economic growth and leadership was not enough.

"In that context you have to think of society as a whole, and that includes
crime and punishment.

"There is no evidence that shows that executions have any value in terms of
being a deterrent," he added.

The comments come after Indonesia's Attorney-General HM Prasetyo flagged that
executions in the country were likely to resume this year.

While there has been no announcement as to when this will happen, Security
Minister Luhut Panjaitan has said he did not want to see a repeat of the
"drama" like what occurred in the lead up to the Australians' executions,
during which there was intense foreign media attention and diplomatic pressure
on Indonesia, as well as strident international appeals and pleas from family
members.

He has said that the law stipulated Indonesia only needed to give three days'
notice as to when an execution was going to take place.

(source: tvnz.co.nz)

***********

Death-row convicts moved to Nusakambangan ahead of executions


Several death-row inmates have reportedly been moved to Nusakambangan prison
island in Cilacap, Central Java, signaling that their executions will be held
in the near future.

3 death-row convicts from Tembesi prison in Batam were quietly transferred to
Nusakambangan prison on Sunday evening. They are inmates whose verdicts were
final and binding.

Using official prison authority vessel KM Pengayoman, the three inmates from
Batam were taken across from the Wijayapura Quay in Cilacap to "execution
island" at around 8 p.m. local time. They are Agus Hadi, 53; Pudjo, 42; and
Suryanto, 53.

"They are death-row inmates from the Batam Class II Penitentiary," Abdul Aris,
warden of Batu prison in Nusakambangan, told journalists on Sunday. They were
convicted for drug-trafficking charges, he went on.

Abdul further explained that the 3 Batam inmates were put together with several
other death-row convicts in Batu prison. There were 59 death-row convicts
waiting for their executions in Nusakambangan, he added.

Last port of call - Police and security officers secure areas around the
Wijayapura Quay in Cilacap, Central Java, ahead of the 2nd round of executions
of drug convicts in April 2015.

Law and Human Rights Ministry Central Java chapter head of correctional
institution division Molyanto confirmed the transfer of the 3 death row inmates
from Batam to Nusakambangan.

However, he could not yet confirm whether they would be executed in the
upcoming round of executions, the third under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's
administration.

"Nusakambangan today received three drug inmates who have received the death
penalty. Concerning whether they are on the list of convicts to be executed, we
still don't know," Molyanto told journalists on Sunday.

Earlier, Attorney General M Prasetyo confirmed the execution of drug-related
death row inmates whose verdicts were final and binding would be carried out
soon, saying that all preparations had been made and it was now just a matter
of time, he said.

Prasetyo further said that the 3rd round of executions would be conducted on
Nusakambangan, the same location as the previous executions of 14 drug convicts
in January and April 2015.

(source: The Jakara Post)






PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

PNG appeal to stave off death penalty


Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court has deferred a ruling until next month in a
case in which a lawyer asked the court to convert a death penalty for his
client to a 30-year jail sentence.

The case follows the killing of a woman in Milne Bay 11 years ago when two men,
Sedoki Lota and Fred Abanko, beheaded her after allegations she practised
sorcery.

The Post Courier reports that both men were convicted of wilful murder in 2007
and Justice Mark Sevua sentenced them to be hanged by the neck.

The judge and Abanko have since died.

Lota's lawyer's grounds of appeal are that Justice Sevua had erred in
exercising the court's discretion by giving a sentence that was too harsh and
out of proportion to the crime.

(source: Radio New Zealand)






INDIA:

Youngest prisoner on death row now cleared of charges


At 33, he has spent half his life now in jails, on trial in various cases. In 5
of those alleged to have been committed by him when still a minor, he was
sentenced to death. He has been acquitted in all since, but remains the
youngest prisoner to have served time on death row as per the Death Penalty
India Report released last week.

Lawyer Hashmath Pasha says the resident of Kurubarahalli village in Kolar
district, who was one of the first members of the notorious Dandupalya gang
arrested by police, was named as accused in 48 cases, including theft, dacoity,
murder and rape.

Apart from the cases where he was given death, he has been acquitted in all
cases but 3. In 2 of those cases, he is serving life imprisonment, while in 1
case of murder, he has been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years. He
is lodged in Hindalaga jail in Belagavi.

The gang, whose members are related to each other, has been linked to criminal
activities since the 1930s. The 33-year-old lost parents when very young, and
his sisters are married to alleged members of the gang.

A police report on the gang accuses it of 74 murders, including of 40 women. At
its height at the time of the 1999 arrests, the gang was said to have more than
30 members, including women and children. They were known to stab, behead
people they robbed, and often to rape them.

"The 33-year-old was arrested in 1999, when aged around 18 according to police.
The cases registered against him were reported from 1996. It shows he was a
minor then," Pasha says.

In 2015, Pasha approached the Civil Court in Bengaluru praying that his client
be considered a minor in criminal cases linked to him. A school headmaster, C M
Naryanaswamy, testified that as per their records, the accused was born on
August 16, 1982. The court is yet to pronounce its verdict on this.

While police insist he never enrolled in school and is illiterate, retired DSP
Chalapathy, who carried out arrests of the Dandupalya gang in 1999 agrees he
was around 18 when held. "We arrested him on December 9, 1999, for a dacoity
and murder," he says.

Police say he admitted to a theft and dacoity at the time, but admit that
perhaps he was not aware his gang had murdered 2 persons during the dacoity.
They also admit that information provided by him had helped them arrest other
members of the gang.

(source: Indian Express)

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

New report on death-row prisoners poses questions to the political and judicial
establishment


The 1st comprehensive report on death-row prisoners by the National Law
University, which identified 385 prisoners and received access to 373 of them,
reveals certain infirmities that would question the basis upon which death
penalties are awarded. Confirming studies in other countries that the death
penalty is more likely to be imposed on poorer victims, the NLU report says
that 74.1 % of those on death row hail from economically vulnerable groups. The
implications of this are immense: what it tells us is the quality of legal help
that they could afford, the most crucial factor that would have ensured that
these prisoners were spared the gallows. The report also notes that 61 % of the
prisoners had not completed secondary school, which explains socio-economic
status and their inability to study case files and court documents to build a
better defence case for themselves. More damningly, the report notes that of
191 of the prisoners who spoke about legal assistance, 68 % said they had never
met their lawyers at the high court level and 44 % did not even know the names
of the lawyers representing them in the Supreme Court. Interface between the
lawyer and the client is key to a successful defence, and the lawyer gathering
a better understanding of the case.

Even the role of the State's legal aid services has been questioned by the
death-row prisoners who complained that these lawyers extorted money from them.
As many as 185 of these prisoners said there was no lawyer available to them
while in police custody, and 169 prisoners said there were no lawyers to
represent them when first produced before a magistrate. This essentially brings
out the class distinctions between a rich and a poor person and the latter's
disadvantages. Even the role of the lower judiciary becomes suspect in this
scenario as the Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted, that even a terrorist
like Ajmal Kasab, deserves to get legal representation, without which the
entire judicial process becomes vitiated. The report will energise proponents
for abolition of the death penalty and their argument that life imprisonment in
jail for the duration of the convict's natural life is a more humane, but
equally severe punishment. The study also tells us that 25 % of the prisoners
were Dalits or Adivasis, 34 % were OBC's, 20 % belonged to religious minorities
and 24 % belonged to the general category. While this would broadly correlate
with the share of these communities in the larger population, the conjunction
of backward caste and lower class identities cannot be rejected outright. Last
year, the Law Commission had recommended a gradual phase-out of the death
penalty and retaining it only for terror cases. But the NLU report also reveals
that it is in terror cases that the judicial process has been most vitiated.
The disposal of terror cases, on average, takes over 8 years at the trial
stage, and six years at the appeal process. In contrast, death row prisoners in
other cases spent an average of 3 years in jail during the trial stage and 2
years during the appellate stage. But that is where the inhumanity also begins.
The researchers found that 1,810 death penalties were awarded by trial courts
between 2000 and 2015. But just 5 % of all death penalties were confirmed by
higher courts. In the last 12 years, just three executions have taken place
which indicates that the political executive is even less disposed towards
death penalties than the higher judiciary. This raises the question of why
prisoners have to be put through death row where they are kept in solitary
confinement and not allowed to work and even tortured. It is time that the high
court and Supreme Court pull their weight and tell trial court judges to be
more circumspect when awarding punishments. It is time, again, for Parliament
and the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the death penalty.

(suorce: Daily News & Analysis)

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

Poverty and the death row


Opposition to the death penalty is often rooted in arguments about its
irreversibility, its essential cruelty, the possibility of error and the false
sense of justice in doing unto convicted murderers what they had done to their
victims. In the Indian context, politics surrounding the prisoners' ethnic
origin or linguistic affinity is often the basis for pleas for clemency. Rarely
is a more compelling reason invoked: the possibility of an offender's economic
background, educational level, social status or religious identity working
against his interests in legal proceedings. A report released on Friday by the
National Law University, Delhi, on the working of the death penalty in India
provides validation and proof for something that those familiar with
administration of justice knew all along: that most of those sentenced to death
in the country are poor and uneducated; and many belong to religious
minorities. In addition, a revealing number is that as many as 241 out of 385
death row convicts were 1st-time offenders. Some may have been juveniles when
they committed capital offences, but lacked the documentation to prove their
age. Against the salutary principle that those too young and too old be spared
the death sentence, 54 death row convicts whose age was available were between
18 and 21 at the time of the offence, and 7 had crossed 60 years of age. An
average prisoner awaiting execution is likely to be from a religious minority,
a Dalit caste, a backward class, or from an economically vulnerable family, and
is unlikely to have finished secondary schooling.

The late President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, had once said a study by his office
into the background of convicts seeking mercy showed "a social and economic
bias". He digressed from his prepared text during a public lecture to ask, "Why
are so many poor people on death row?" The link between socio-economic standing
and access to competent legal counsel and effective representation is quite
strong. A question of concern that arises is whether these statistics indicate
systemic bias or institutionalised prejudice. It is not uncommon that legal
grounds unavailable to the vulnerable are invoked in favour of the influential.
A recent instance is that of four prisoners from a political party who were
sentenced to death for burning a bus during a protest and killing 3 women
students. The court, while commuting their sentence, invoked the ???doctrine of
diminished responsibility??? and reasoned that those gripped by mob frenzy were
not fully cognisant of the situation around them. While invoking any ground to
commute a death sentence to life is welcome, the impression is inescapable that
such relief often comes at a very late stage and only to those with the means
to pursue legal remedies till the very end. When a judicial system that is seen
as favouring the influential resorts to capital punishment, it will be
vulnerable to the charge of socio-economic bias. Law and society, therefore,
will be better served if the death penalty itself is abolished. These
statistics must reinforce the larger moral argument against the state taking
the life of a human being - any human being - as punishment.

(source: Editorial, The HIndu)

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

Man gets death penalty for killing minor boy


A local court on Saturday awarded death sentence to one Manish Kumar alias
Nepali Mandal (25) after finding him guilty of kidnapping and subsequently
killing a 10-year-old boy on April 9, 2012. They even allowed the boy to talk
to his parents before killing him," said the APP. The court held Manish guilty
of kidnapping the boy, committing unnatural sex with him, plucking his eyes and
concealing the body after murder. The police arrested Manish and recovered the
body of Aditya Kumar from a drain. "After abduction, the kidnappers demanded Rs
50,000 as ransom from the parents of Aditya for his safe release.

A local court on Saturday awarded death sentence to one Manish Kumar alias
Nepali Mandal (25) after finding him guilty of kidnapping and subsequently
killing a 10-year-old boy on April 9, 2012. The court also slapped a fine of
25,000 on Manish. Rs The judgement was delivered by the court of ADJ-V Jyoti
Swaroop Shrivatava which termed the case as "rarest of rare". The court held
Manish guilty of kidnapping the boy, committing unnatural sex with him,
plucking his eyes and concealing the body after murder. Additional public
prosecutor (APP) Shushil Kumar Sinha said Manish had kidnapped Aditya Rajkamal,
son of Raju Mandal, a resident of Jamalpur, in broad daylight with the help his
2 friends - Amit Jha and Manoj Kumar - who are still absconding. "After
abduction, the kidnappers demanded Rs 50,000 as ransom from the parents of
Aditya for his safe release.

They even allowed the boy to talk to his parents before killing him," said the
APP. The parents, instead of paying ransom to the kidnappers, brought the
matter to the notice of the police. The police arrested Manish and recovered
the body of Aditya Kumar from a drain. The news of Aditya's murder spread like
wildfire in Jamalpur and the entire town rose against the crime by holding
protest rallies and demonstrations.

(source: nyoooz.com)

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

Hijackers to get death penalty


India finally has a stringent anti-hijacking law in place that provides for
death penalty for accused even if those killed in such an act are ground
handling staff and airport personnel.

In the previous bill, hijackers could be tried for death penalty only in the
event of death of hostages.

To make the anti-hijacking law much tougher, it was decided to repeal the
Anti-Hijacking Act 1982 and replace it with a new one that would include death
sentence as a punishment.

The Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982, was last amended in 1994.

After the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 in December, 1999, it was
felt necessary for providing the award of death penalty to perpetrators of the
act of hijacking. The incident of 9/11, where aircrafts were used as weapons,
also created the need to further amend the existing Act.

The new Bill provides death punishment for the offence of the hijacking, where
such offence results in the death of a hostage or of a security personnel; or
with imprisonment for life and the moveable and immoveable property of such
persons shall also be liable to be confiscated.

The amendments in the Anti-Hijacking Bill, 2014 were cleared by the Cabinet In
July 2015 and passed by Rajya Sabha last week.

The new law provides for death penalty even if ground handling staff and
airport personnel are killed during such acts. In the earlier Bill, hijackers
could be tried for death penalty only in the event of death of hostages, such
as flight crew, passengers and security personnel.

(source: Defence Aviation Post)

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[Rick Halperin]

May 9




AFGHANISTAN:

The death penalty will not deliver security in Afghanistan


The death penalty will deliver neither the justice that victims deserve nor the
security that Afghanistan seeks, Amnesty International said today.

6 men were executed on May 8, 2016 after they were convicted for their
involvement in a series of high-profile violent attacks - including the 2011
killing of former President and head of the High Peace Council, Burhanuddin
Rabbani, and an attack on a Kabul supermarket in the same year.

The executions mark the 1st time the government of President Ashraf Ghani has
resorted to this cruel, unjust and irreversible punishment this year. Since a
bombing last month in Kabul that killed more than 64 people, the Afghanistan
government has vowed to implement the death penalty more frequently.

"The families who lost loved ones in violent attacks deserve justice for these
appalling crimes," said Champa Patel, Amnesty International's South Asia
Director. "But the death penalty merely serves as vengeance, perpetuates the
cycle of violence, and fails to address any root causes."

"Afghanistan should immediately halt all executions and establish a moratorium
on the implementation of the death penalty as a 1st step towards its full
abolition. At a time when most of the world has turned its back on this cruel
practice, President Ashraf Ghani is moving in the wrong direction."

"There is no evidence that the death penalty acts as a particular deterrent. In
Afghanistan, where there are very serious questions about the fairness and
transparency of the legal process, and the use of torture or other
ill-treatment by security forces to extract 'confessions' from the defendants,
the injustice of the punishment is only compounded."

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception,
regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; guilt, innocence or
other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the state to
carry out the execution. The death penalty violates the right to life and is
the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

BACKGROUND

In a recent speech in Parliament, President Ashraf Ghani said that his
government will "deal severely with those who shed the blood of our innocent
people and soldiers," and "show no mercy when punishing them." The Taliban have
repeatedly threatened reprisal attacks for any executions of its members.

In 2015, Amnesty International recorded 1 execution in Afghanistan, and at
least 12 new death sentences were imposed for murder and rape.

Afghanistan's resort to executions breaks with the global trend towards
abolition of the death penalty. The majority of the world's countries have now
abolished this punishment for all crimes and 140 countries are abolitionist in
law or practice. 4 more countries - Congo (Republic of), Fiji, Madagascar and
Suriname - abolished the death penalty in 2015 and Mongolia adopted a new
Criminal Code which will repeal this punishment from September 2016.

The death penalty has often been applied in Afghanistan following proceedings
that did not meet international fair trial standards.

(source: Amnesty International)






GLOBAL:

It is with great pleasure that ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty)
invites you to register to the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty,
taking place from the 21st till the 23rd of June at the Oslo Opera House under
the sponsorship of Norway, France and Australia.

Every 3 years, this international event gathers, political representatives,
lawyers, and experts from across the world with the aim of developing new
strategies towards universal abolition.

Following the 2015 regional Congress in Kuala Lumpur, this 6th World Congress
will focus on the advances and setbacks of our cause on the Asian continent
during a plenary session. A 2nd plenary session will be devoted to the
importance of national human rights institutions in the fight for abolition.

6 roundtables, 6 workshops, speed-dating amongst participants, various side
events, and an entire cultural programme will be organised on the fringe of
these great debates. For more information on the organisation and the
programming, please visit our website at congress.abolition.fr

Please note that registration for the Congress is free of charge but
compulsory.

(source: ECPM)

*********

Every 3 years, the association ECPM organises the World Congress Against the
Death Penalty, in order to federate abolitionist actors and to create new
strategies towards universal abolition.

After Strasburg in 2001, Montreal in 2004, Paris in 2007, Geneva in 2010, and
Madrid in 2013, ECPM invites you to take part in the 6th World Congress Against
the Death Penalty which will take place at the Opera House of Oslo (Norway)
from June 21 to 23, 2016.

1300 participants from over 80 countries are expected, including around 20
ministers, 200 diplomats, parliamentarians, academics, lawyers and members of
the civil society.

You'll find more information about the debates, the organizers and an online
form to register here: http://congres.abolition.fr/en/

Don't hesitate to share the information with your networks!

(source: SAS)

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