Global focus on Asia's executioners

Human rights activists worldwide are this month campaigning for an end to the death penalty in Asia.

The sixth World Day Against the Death Penalty, held this Friday 10 October 2008, is focusing on six countries which exemplify important issues in the region:

• Japan - secrecy and a lack of transparency
• Pakistan - unfair trials
• Viet Nam - with a high number of offences punishable by death
• India and Taiwan - encouraging the introduction of a moratorium, and
• South Korea - highlighting calls for abolition.

According to the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), which organises the annual day of action, the region is home to 60 per cent of the world's population. Some 95 per cent of people in the region lives in a country with the death penalty.

"In many cases, trials are unfair, the death penalty is used for a wide range of crimes, including non-violent ones (drug trafficking, embezzlement), and the lack of transparency characterizes the legal system in many countries,"it said.

The WCADP said however there were some positive changes in the region that raised hope for a "death penalty-free Asia".

"Over the last few years, the total numbers of death sentences and executions have decreased in Asia," it said in a statement.

"Periods of moratorium (i.e. the temporary suspension of executions) are longer and more frequent.

"Alongside these improvements, there are more and more organized Asian activists in favor of the abolition of the death penalty."

Think regionally, act globally
The campaign is centred on collecting signatures on a series of petitions targeting governments in the six countries.

Campaign events in Asia and around the world will raise awareness of the region's use of the death penalty and encourage the six countries to take specific steps towards abolition.

The 2007 World Day Against the Death Penalty helped build support for the United Nations (UN) resolution calling for a moratorium on executions. The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution by an overwhelming majority on 18 December 2007, with 104 member states voting in favour, 54 countries voting against and 29 abstentions.

Related stories:
Victims opposing the death penalty -- 10 October 2007
Sign the global petition against executions -- 3 September 2007
New voice against Asia's executions -- 10 October 2006
World Day call for Australian leadership -- 10 October 2006
Global protest against failure of justice -- 10 October 2006
Call to action on 10 October -- 4 September 2006

Australia: Rudd supports Bali executions

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd today confirmed his support for the execution of the three Bali bombers, saying they 'deserve' the 'justice' they will receive.

Rudd was responding to comments by the three yesterday that there would be revenge attacks if they were executed, and expressing no remorse for the October 2002 bombing.

"The Bali bombers describe themselves as holy warriors," Rudd said on Fairfax Radio in Perth (story also here).

"I say the Bali bombers are cowards and murderers pure and simple and frankly they can make whatever threats they like.

"They deserve the justice that we delivered to them."

The final step
Rudd’s remarks today complete his move in recent months to take over the policy -- and the double standards -- of his predecessor, John Howard.

Under the previous prime minister, the Australian government supported particular executions where the government's political self-interest was involved, while arguing that it was "universally" opposed to the death penalty.

Confirmation of Australia's position under Rudd will again draw accusations of hypocrisy from across the region, and undermine the country's diplomatic attempts to argue for clemency for its own citizens facing execution overseas.

A gradual shift
Rudd told a media conference on 18 July 2008 that the government was opposed to the death penalty, but would not intervene in the cases of foreign nationals facing execution.

At that stage he stopped short of endorsing the use of the death penalty, arguing only that Australia would limit intervention to cases involving its own citizens.

"I would say by way of general principle the following, that together with the Liberal Party, our policy has been one of stated universal opposition to the death penalty, but in the case of foreign terrorists, we are not in the business of intervening on any of their behalf’s," he said.

However, before he was elected prime minister, Rudd called for a consistent position on the death penalty and international action towards abolition.

On 3 December 2005, the day after Australian citizen Van Tuong Nguyen was hanged in Singapore, Rudd told a media conference: "It is important that our policy [on the death penalty] is consistent."

Rudd's biographer Robert Macklin said in June last year that "one of his important foreign policy objectives" if he became prime minister would be to campaign for worldwide abolition of the death penalty.

Bombers facing death
Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas and Imam Samudra yesterday appeared in public outside their prison in Central Java for the Islamic holiday Idul Fitri.

The three men were sentenced to death for the bombing, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

"If anybody kills us, God willing, there will be retaliation," Samudra said yesterday.

He also said the executions would not be carried out, and he had no regrets over what he had done.

Lawyers for the three men are currently mounting a constitutional challenge against Indonesia's death penalty, arguing execution by firing squad amounts to torture.

Related stories:
Australian government reminded of death penalty opposition -- 23 September 2008
Australia defends selective appeals for life -- 16 August 2008
'Only Australians' should be spared execution -- 06 January 2008
No Australian government will oppose terrorist executions -- 10 October 2007
Australia: Rudd would oppose death penalty -- 24 June 2007
Australia 'should act against death penalty' -- 03 August 2006

Australian government reminded of death penalty opposition

The Australian government has been reminded of the stance it took on the death penalty before it won office, after a member of parliament introduced a resolution yesterday calling for clemency for three young Australians under sentence of death in Indonesia.

New South Wales MP Chris Hayes introduced the private member's bill yesterday, which noted three members of the so-called 'Bali 9' faced execution for drug trafficking, and called on the Australian government to advocate clemency.

A shorter version of the same resolution was introduced on 29 May 2007, by Robert McClelland, who is now attorney-general in the Rudd Labor government.

The two resolutions differ in three significant respects, with the latest resolution:

* expressing "opposition to the imposition of the death penalty", whereas the earlier version explicitly opposed only "the imposition of the death penalty on any Australian citizen"

* calling on the Australian government to "advocate clemency for these three Australian citizens [on death row in Bali], as and whenever appropriate", and

* encouraging law reform to implement the Indonesian Constitutional Court's October 2007 recommendation that alternatives be provided to a mandatory death penalty.

Robert McClelland was publicly rebuked by his leader Kevin Rudd during the 2007 election campaign, after he made public remarks encouraging consistent opposition to the use of the death penalty and "shrewd diplomatic activism" for abolition within the region.

(Thanks to Cynthia Banham for the tip about the Hayes resolution, in her article in today's Sydney Morning Herald.)

Related stories:
Australia defends selective appeals for life -- 16 August 2008
'Only Australians' should be spared execution -- 06 January 2008
Three of 'Bali 9' off death row: Indonesia -- 6 March 2008
Indonesia: Right to life and execution -- 30 October 2007
No Australian government will oppose terrorist executions -- 10 October 2007
Australia: Rudd would oppose death penalty -- 24 June 2007
Australia 'should act against death penalty' -- 03 August 2006

Japan: New minister sends three to death

Japan's new justice minister has taken time out of the country's current political turmoil to sign death warrants for three men who were hanged yesterday [11 September].

Okiharu Yasuoka approved the execution of three men, all aged in their 60s, just weeks after he was reappointed minister in August.

Yasuoka denied the executions were linked to the expected resignation later this month of the cabinet of prime minister Yasuo Fukuda.

"I screened the cases carefully and strictly, and carried out [the decision] firmly as the person responsible for protecting law and order," Yasuoka said at a media conference announcing the executions.

"The decision wasn't timed."

The justice ministry yesterday confirmed the three men were: Yoshiyuki Mantani, 68, Mineteru Yamamoto, 68 and Isamu Hirano, 61. The AFP newsagency reported they were hanged in Osaka and Tokyo for crimes including murder.

According to the Mainichi Daily News, Hirano was executed just 23 months after his death sentence was confirmed, when the penalty is rarely carried out within two years.

It also said Yamamoto's sentence was the first handed down by a system designed to speed up trials, with only three hearings before the case closed.

Killing again
When Yasuoka served a previous period as justice minister, between July and December 2000, he also reportedly ordered three executions.

Executions in Japan were resumed in 1993, after a moratorium of nearly three and four months. Mainichi reported there have been 73 executions in total since then.

Related stories:
Executions in Japan -- 2006 - 2008 -- 12 April, 2008
Japan: Minister steps up rate of hangings -- 12 April, 2008
Japan: Sixteen hanged in thirteen months -- 04 February, 2008
Long wait, sudden death in Japan -- 28 August, 2006

Firing squad: Seven minutes to die

The Catholic priest who witnessed the execution of two drug traffickers in Indonesia in June has described how he sang hymns while the men took seven minutes to die.

Father Charlie Burrows was present when firing squads shot the two Nigerians in the middle of the night, in a forest clearing on Nusa Kambangan Island, Central Java.

Samuel Iwachekawu Okoye and Hansen Anthony Nwaoysa (or Antonious) were tied to crosses with their hands behind their backs and hoods over their heads, he told an Australian journalist.

The men prayed and sang hymns with the priest while they were shot, according to the report by Cindy Wockner.

"After they were shot they were hurting," Father Burrows said.

"They were moaning and it takes seven minutes to die, the blood was coming out. So then I tried singing a few hymns when they were dying. So you could say it's torture, shooting people. It's torture.

"It's torture. It's seven minutes to die so the heart is trying to pump the blood to the brain, the brain is still alive and as long as there's blood getting to the brain the brain is not going to die."

The report said the 65 year-old Irish priest, who has worked in Indonesia for 35 years, choked with tears when he recalled the execution and described the noises made by the dying men in those seven minutes.

It said officials and members of the two firing squads "stood stunned and uneasy" while they died.

'Take off my shoes'
Father Burrows said one of the prisoners requested a drink of water, and then asked the priest to take his final possessions for his wife.

"Antonious was thirsty so he asked for a drink of water ... and then for another and the prison guard was probably nervous and said you'll get a pain in your belly from the water and he said: 'The last thing I'm worried about is a pain in my belly, I'm going to be dead in a few minutes'," Father Burrows said.

"He had a handkerchief and a 100,000 Rupiah note and he asked me to take those out of his pocket and give them to his wife.

"Then he said, 'Father, are you still there, would you come forward and take off my shoes'. So I went forward and took off the shoes and he wanted his wife to get the shoes."

Related stories:
Indonesia: Seventh execution in six weeks -- 11 August, 2008
Indonesia: More to die for drugs -- 12 August, 2008
Indonesia: Record number executed in four weeks -- 20 July, 2008
Indonesia: Drug offenders executed, more to come -- 29 June, 2008
Executions in Indonesia since 1995 -- 26 September, 2006

Uncertain when Islamist bombers will die

Time is running out for the Indonesian government to execute three Islamist terrorists this week for the October 2002 Bali bombing.

Attorney-General Hendarman Supandji has reportedly said he wanted the men shot before the start of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting and forgiveness.

This year Ramadan is expected to begin at sunset on 31 August.

However it is not clear whether the attorney-general has signed the necessary orders, and whether there would be enough time for authorities to make the final preparations.

Indonesian media report the Bali police and prosecutors are working together to coordinate arrangements for the executions.

Death row prisoners in Indonesia are usually given 72 hours notice when a date is set.

Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Ali Ghufron (also known as Mukhlas) and Imam Samudra were convicted of organising the bombing, in which 202 people died.

The men are being held in a prison on Nusakambangan Island, off the coast of Central Java.

In July 2008, two Bali prosecutors reportedly inspected a field on the island where the executions would be carried out.

If they are not executed this week, the government is expected to wait until after Ramadan, rather than risk a religious backlash.

The prisoners have said in the past that they welcomed their execution, although they would prefer to be beheaded, which they claimed was a more 'Islamic' form of execution.

Constitutional challenge underway
The three may be shot while the country's Constitutional Court is considering their challenge to the standard method of execution.

In mid-August, the court agreed to hear an application from the men's lawyers arguing execution by firing squad amounted to torture.

"The appellants have a constitutional right not to be tortured," the application said. They argued that a delay between the shots by a firing squad and their deaths would constitute torture.

The court asked them to expand on their submissions at the court's next hearing, set down for this week.

The bombers' lawyers also have sent a letter to the attorney-general requesting a delay until a Constitutional Court challenge is completed.

The application is widely seen as a further legal manoeuvre designed to delay the executions, but the government has said it would have no bearing on when the sentences were carried out.

"Preparations are continuing - we don't need to wait for a decision from the Constitutional Court. When we are ready, we will execute," a government spokesman said after the preliminary court hearing on 14 August.

Law and Human Rights Minister Andi Mattalatta said in early August that the constitutional challenge had no implication for the impending executions.

"Execution is one problem and the decision of the Constitutional Court is another," he said.

"There is no relationship."

'Foreign pressure' claim
The defence legal team also attempted to incite opposition to the executions by portraying the government as giving in to foreign pressure.

"The question now is why is the Attorney-General's office in a hurry to execute them?" lawyer Adnan Wirawan said.

"Are they under the pressure of the Australian community to execute the three bombers right away?"

'Security tightened'
The Antara newsagency has reported that security had been tightened around Nusakambangan Island in preparation for the executions.

According to the report, the head of Nusakambangan's Batu Correctional Institute, Sudijanto, issued a circular on 11 August prohibiting local fishermen from the waters around the island, citing security reasons.

Related stories:
Bali executions will inspire martyrs: expert -- 25 February 2008
Bali bombers may soon get their wish -- 10 November 2007
Bali: Execution closer for bombing leaders -- 09 October 2007
Bali bombers lodge appeals -- 08 December 2006
Execution delay for Bali bombers -- 21 August 2006
Bali bombers closer to execution -- 11 April 2006

Australia defends selective appeals for life

The Australian government has again opened itself up to accusations of double standards over the death penalty, with the confirmation it would only consistently oppose the execution of Australian citizens.

Foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith said this week he would raise the cases of three Australians on death row in Indonesia but not the three convicted Bali bombers.

Australian newspapers reported that Cabinet recently discussed whether the government could argue more effectively -- and avoid accusations of hypocrisy in Asia -- if it opposed all executions (stories here and here).

"I'm not going to indicate what may or may not have been discussed at Cabinet, but our position is quite straightforward. We don't support the use of capital punishment," Smith reportedly told Australia's Nine Network.

"When an Australian overseas has been convicted and is subject to capital punishment as a sentence, we make representations on behalf of Australian citizens.

"When it comes to other individuals who aren't Australian citizens, we'll make a judgment on a case-by-case basis as to whether it's appropriate to make representations or to join in representations at a regional or multilateral level."

The report said Smith pointed to Australia's recent involvement in international appeals for Iran to stop executing children.

"But the Prime Minister and I have both made clear that we don't propose to make representations on behalf of terrorists who have been subject to the death penalty," he said.

"So I won't be making any individual representations so far as the Bali bombers are concerned."

New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark said at a media conference on 21 July that her government did not support the execution of the bombers.

"The New Zealand Government does not support the death penalty under any circumstances," she said.

"Clearly these men are guilty of heinous crimes and those crimes, in any jurisdiction, would justify them [getting] very serious penalties available under law but the New Zealand Government will not and does not support the death penalty."

Government silence
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said last October, when he was opposition leader, that he would only speak out against the execution of Australians overseas.

Rudd humiliated his opposition colleague Robert McClelland, now commonwealth attorney-general, scolding him for public remarks that Australia should consistently oppose executions.

"When it comes to the question of the death penalty, no diplomatic intervention will ever be made by any government that I lead in support of any individual terrorist life," Rudd said at the time.

Drawing a line -- against comment
The language used by Rudd in October 2007 and Smith this week refers to no "diplomatic resources" or "individual representations" being devoted to appeals in terrorist cases.

The policy appears to mean that ministers will not draw any public link between the government's policy of "opposition" to the death penalty and the execution of a non-Australian.

In practice, it is therefore likely that the Australian government will take no consistent public position on the execution of foreigners, apart from some exceptions determined on "a case-by-case basis".

Although there have been claims a Rudd government would push for abolition of the death penalty through multilateral forums, there has so far been no public sign that the new government is doing anything new at the international level.

Amnesty International Australia has argued over several years that the country undermined its credibility in opposing the death penalty if it only took a stand when Australian lives were at stake.

Principally hypocritical
The new Labor government's position on the death penalty is similar to the policy of the previous conservative government -- with one important difference.

Under former Prime Minister John Howard, the Liberal-National government claimed it opposed the death penalty "consistently" and "in principle", but it only made representations when Australian citizens faced death.

However this inconsistency was further undermined when Howard and senior government ministers repeatedly indicated their support for particular executions being carried out.

Related stories:
'Only Australians' should be spared execution -- 06 January, 2008
No Australian government will oppose terrorist executions -- 10 October, 2007
Australia: Rudd would oppose death penalty -- 24 June, 2007
Australia 'should act against death penalty' -- 03 August, 2006

Asia death penalty in decline: Researcher

An expert in the use of the death penalty across Asia has said that "in the long run" it will probably disappear in the region, in line with trends in the rest of the world.

Professor David Johnson from the University of Hawai'i told the Associated Press there had been dramatic declines in the number of executions in Asia, and he expected a trend towards abolition as the death penalty became increasingly seen as a human rights issue.

"I think in the long run, probably the death penalty is going to disappear in Asia as it seems to be doing in many parts of the rest of the world," he said.

He pointed to reductions in the number of executions in China and Singapore, two leading executing states, and Pakistan's proposal to commute the death sentences of about 6,000 prisoners.

The death penalty was being viewed more as a human rights issue, rather than an issue of criminal justice, which tended to undermine public confidence in it as a form of punishment.

Professor Johnson said "the frame that regards the death penalty as a human rights issue has become more conspicuous and salient in Asia than it was in the past".

"And when you frame the death penalty as a human rights issue instead of a crime issue, you invite anxiety and concern and resistance to the death penalty because, after all, it's a state killing," he said.

While the death penalty was strongest in authoritarian states, even there its use was in decline.

"The most dramatic execution decreases occurred in the rapidly developing democracies of South Korea and Taiwan, but declines have also occurred in nations such as India and Malaysia," he said.

"When development and plural democracy take root in Asia, the decline of the death penalty usually comes sooner rather than later."

A book on the death penalty in Asia, co-written by Professor Johnson, will be published later this year.

He was visiting Australia this month to speak on the death penalty at Griffith University and the Australian National University.

Indonesia: More to die for drugs

Indonesian officials have again flagged a surge in drug executions, with comments suggesting up to 39 prisoners would be executed before the end of 2009.

The remarks raise concerns of an increase in executions generally, with seven shot for drugs and murder in the past six weeks, and preparations underway for execution of the three Bali bombers.

According to a report by Reuters, Bonaventura Daulat Nainggolan, a spokesman for the attorney general, said last week the executions would be carried out this year and in 2009.

"The president has rejected clemency for 39 people, so the next stage for them is execution," said head of the national police drugs unit Indradi Thanos.

The seven recent executions in Indonesia include two Nigerian men shot on 26 June for heroin trafficking.

Coordinating for death
Attorney-General Hendarman Supandji said in late July that his office would speed up the execution of the 57 drug offenders on death row.

The National Police Chief and Chairman of the National Anti-Narcotic Body (BNN) said at the time his agency was "coordinating closely with the Attorney General`s Office as the agency responsible for carrying out executions".

"To give them a lesson, drug traffickers must be executed immediately," General Sutanto told a function for the International Day against Drugs Abuse and Trafficking.

Related stories:

Indonesia: Seventh execution in six weeks -- 11 August, 2008
Indonesia: Record number executed in four weeks -- 20 July, 2008
Indonesia: Drug offenders executed, more to come -- 29 June, 2008
Executions in Indonesia since 1995 -- 26 September, 2006

Indonesia: Seventh execution in six weeks

The Indonesian Government has executed another convicted murderer, the seventh person shot by firing squad in about six weeks.

Rio Alek Bulo was shot dead by a 12-man firing squad shortly after midnight last Friday morning (8 August), according to an AFP report quoted by the Antara newsagency.

The report said the execution was confirmed by senior prosecutor Abdul Hakim Ritonga.

"His last request to meet his wife and children were fulfilled," Ritonga was quoted as saying.

Bulo had been dubbed "Hammer" by newspapers, after he killed four people with a hammer while stealing their cars.

He was convicted of the murders in 2001, and in 2005 he reportedly killed a fellow prisoner.

Five of the seven latest executions in Indonesia were for murder and two for drug trafficking.

Indonesia executed four convicted murderers on three nights in late July 2008.

Related stories:
Indonesia: Record number executed in four weeks -- 20 July, 2008
Indonesia: Drug offenders executed, more to come -- 29 June, 2008
Executions in Indonesia since 1995 -- 26 September, 2006

Public executions in China's Olympic crackdown

China's security crackdown ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games included the public execution of three men last month in the western Xinjiang province.

The Washington Post reported that the local government took "several thousand" students and office workers by bus to a public square shortly after dawn on 9 July.

Three prisoners were brought out and shot dead by an execution squad, witnessed by the crowd lined up in front of a vocational school.

The three were part of a group of 17 convicted of being members of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which has fought for independence for the region's Muslim Uighur people.

Officials reportedly announced during the execution that they were captured in January 2007 in a raid on a terrorist training camp, in which 18 other members of the group were killed.

The others captured in the raid received sentences from 10 years to life.

According to The Washington Post, the executions "went down poorly".

"It was not a good thing, what the Chinese did," said a Uighur witness on condition of anonymity.

The executions were a clear message of control in the region ahead of the Olympics, as well as a public demonstration of the harsh consequences for those with alleged links to terrorist groups.

Chinese authorities have claimed several times in recent months to have foiled terrorist plots aimed at disrupting the Olympics.

But apart from the photographs released showing this week's alleged attack in Xinjiang, the government has provided little evidence to back up the allegations of a series of planned attacks.

Related stories:
China’s deadly world record under attack -- 27 February, 2008

Execute corrupt officials: Indonesia's speaker

The Speaker of Indonesia's House of Representatives this week supported the use of the death penalty for corruption offences, despite the global trend towards abolishing it for economic crimes.

Agung Laksono encouraged other members of the House to support the suggestion, claiming it would help prevent the serious social consequences of corruption, according to the Antara newsagency.

"Therefore, there must be legal punishment for corrupters so severe that it will also have a deterrent effect," he said on Wednesday.

He claimed the use of severe penalties such as capital punishment had caused drastic declines in corruption in some countries, although he was not reported as offering any evidence to support the statement.

"This means, the death penalty is an effective means to fight corruption," he said.

"I hope the idea of making corruption punishable by the death sentence will be responded to favourably by House members and the government."

The Jakarta Post reported today that some parliamentarians and anti-corruption activists supported the proposal.

It said in the past six months the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had arrested six current parliamentarians and scores of high-ranking officials, including a former governor of the Bank of Indonesia.

Governors and former ministers had been jailed for graft since the KPK was formed in 2004.

"I think we must be tough on extraordinary corruption," KPK deputy chairman for prevention Haryono Umar said.

The newspaper said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had encouraged public discussion of the death penalty for those convicted of corruption.

'Not serious enough'
The proposal would violate international law, which requires that -- where it is used -- the death penalty should be restricted to the "most serious" crimes.

United Nations human rights experts have argued that this means it should be reserved for "cases where it can be shown that there was an intention to kill which resulted in the loss of life".

Field of death
The latest discussion comes amid reports that Indonesia is continuing preparations to execute the three Bali bombers.

Antara reported on the same day that two prosecutors from Bali had inspected the site where it was planned to execute the men.

The representatives from the Bali Higher Public Prosecutor's Office visited a field on Nusakambangan Island, off Central Java's southern coast, where the men will be shot by firing squad.

Related stories:
Indonesia: Record number executed in four weeks -- 20 July, 2008
Bali executions will inspire martyrs: expert -- 25 February, 2008
Bali bombers may soon get their wish -- 10 November, 2007
Executions in Indonesia since 1995 -- 26 September, 2006

Viet Nam: Reduction in death penalty offences?

Viet Nam is considering a further reduction in the number of crimes that attract the death penalty, according to a report last week by China's Xinhua newsagency.

The Vietnam News reportedly said on 15 July that the Ministry of Public Security had proposed the death penalty be removed from 12 offences.

Xinhua's report said the proposal would amend Article 35 of the Criminal Code, which provides for the death penalty.

The changes would limit its use to "only those committing the most heinous crimes and people considered to be a serious danger to the community and the nation's security".

The 12 offences included:

• appropriating property by fraud
• smuggling
• producing and trading fake goods and medical products
• being involved in producing, storing and circulating counterfeit money, bonds and checks
• organising the illegal use of drugs
• hijacking planes or ships
• corruption
• taking and giving bribes
• destroying army weapons or technical equipment
• being involved in an invasion
• "anti-human crimes", and
• war crimes.

Gradual reductions
Human rights campaigners have long urged Viet Nam to reduce the scope of the death penalty.

After increasing the number of capital offences to 44 in 1992, Viet Nam reduced it to 29 offences in July 1999.

In April this year, Amnesty International said there were at least 25 known executions in Viet Nam in 2007, which placed it fourth on the list of the top executioners in the world.

Xinhua said Viet Nam sentenced 116 people to death in 2006 and 95 in 2007.

Dramatic increase but positive signs
In June 2006, an Amnesty International alert said there had been a "dramatic increase in Viet Nam's use of the death penalty, especially for drug-related crimes".

"Concern about the use of the death penalty in Viet Nam is compounded by the routine unfairness of trials that do not conform to international standards," the organisation said.

However, it said there were "some positive signs that the death penalty is being discussed within the Vietnamese government".

Related stories:
Drug penalty violates international law -- 06 May, 2007
Viet Nam death penalty "not deterring drugs" -- 25 November, 2006
Asia leads the world's known executions -- 15 April, 2008
20,000 waiting to be killed -- 23 April, 2006

Indonesia: Record number executed in four weeks

Despite what The Jakarta Post described last week as "an increasingly anti-capital punishment sentiment in Indonesia", the government has executed as many people in the past month as it did in the previous three years.

Indonesia has executed six people since June, after three convicted murderers were shot in East Java late last week.

According to reports by The Jakarta Post and newsagency Antara, a woman named Sumiarsih, 60 (also reported as Sumiasih, 59), and her son Sugeng, 44, were executed at Banten, East Java early on Saturday morning (19 July).

They were convicted, along with two other members of their family, of murdering a marine and four members of his family in 1988.

The previous night (18 July), Usep, alias Tubagus Yusuf Maulana, was executed for poisoning eight people in June and July 2007, after they had come to him as a shaman who could "multiply their money".

On 10 July, Ahmad Suradji, 57, was executed in North Sumatra for murdering 42 women and girls over an 11 year period.

Two Nigerian men were shot on 26 June for heroin smuggling offences. Samuel Iwachekawu Okoye and Hansen Anthony Nwaoysa were executed on Nusakambangan prison island, central Java.

Nwaoysa was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle 600 grams of heroin from Pakistan to Jakarta in January 2001. Okoye was arrested at Jakarta airport with 3.8 kilograms of heroin in the lining of his luggage after flying in from India.

Several recent reports have suggested authorities may be preparing to execute three men sentenced to death over the October 2002 bombing on Bali, which killed 202 people and injured 200.

Related stories:
Indonesia: Drug offenders executed, more to come -- 29 June, 2008
Executions in Indonesia since 1995 -- 26 September, 2006
Bali executions will inspire martyrs: expert -- 25 February, 2008

Japan: Dead man recording

In a country known for the official silence surrounding its use of the death penalty, people in Japan have been confronted with an image of their execution chamber -- by a recording made 50 years ago.

The execution of the unknown prisoner, recorded at Osaka detention centre in 1955, has given people a rare and gruesome insight into their country's death penalty, which -- apart from the type of rope used -- has changed little since.

The recording, originally made to train prison workers, was aired in early May as part of a documentary broadcast by Nippon Cultural Broadcasting. (Listen to it on the website of The Guardian newspaper.)

Film-maker Tatsuya Mori stressed the importance of presenting the reality of the death penalty, particularly since the government was trying to conceal it.

"If the justice ministry masks the reality, then it is up to the media to expose it," he told the Asahi Shimbun newspaperpaper.

"There is great significance in letting the public know the truth."

According to the Asahi Shimbun, the station denied it was taking a stand on the death penalty by airing the recording.

"We aren't trying to make a statement for or against the death penalty," a spokesman said.

"Our only intention is to present the reality of executions and let our listeners decide for themselves."

The recording shows the prisoner joking with prison staff, before the trapdoor opens and the rope snaps tight. Buddhist priests are audible chanting in the background while the hanging takes place.

His death is confirmed after 14 minutes.

More hangings, in secret
Japan has executed 10 prisoners so far this year, as the current justice minister Kunio Hatoyama accelerates the pace of hangings.

In the country's notoriously secretive death penalty system, a prisoner can spend decades waiting to be hanged, often receiving as little as a few hours' notice they are about to die.

The government has only recently begun confirming the names of the people it has executed.

Human rights campaigners have frequently condemned the lack of official information about the use of the death penalty, saying it has suppressed and distorted public debate about its use.

Related stories:
Executions in Japan despite appeal plans -- 18 June, 2008
Executions in Japan -- 2006 - 2008 -- 12 April, 2008
Japan: Minister steps up rate of hangings -- 12 April, 2008
Japan: Sixteen hanged in thirteen months -- 04 February, 2008
Long wait, sudden death in Japan -- 28 August, 2006