Source: The Straits Times (6 September 2022)
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-may-soon-do-away-with-mandatory-death-sentence-minister
PUTRAJAYA - Mandatory death and whipping sentences could become a thing of the past in Malaysia by early next year with amendments to the laws to be tabled in Parliament next month.
Instead, judges will have the discretion to hand down the two sentences.
"If everything goes well and there are no disruptions to the coming budget session, we will no longer have the mandatory death sentence in 2023," said Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
"This will also apply to whipping as it will be left to the discretion of the judges," he told The Star in an interview on Monday.
The Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Parliament and Law) said he intended to table the proposed amendments during the Parliament meeting starting on Oct 3.
"The amendments on the mandatory death sentences will cover amendments to 33 sections under the law and involve mandatory death sentences for 11 offences," he said.
The 11 offences comprise nine under the Penal Code and two under the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act.
On the fate of those now on death row, Dr Wan Junaidi said the government was still mulling over its options.
In June, it was reported that there were 1,342 death row inmates who were in limbo as to their fate.
Of the number, over 900 were convicted for drug trafficking while the remaining were for murder.
Of the total, 844 are Malaysians and 498 are foreigners from 40 countries.
The abolition of the mandatory death sentence was first raised by the Pakatan Harapan administration in 2018.
A moratorium on execution was then implemented.
On whipping, Dr Wan Junaidi said the proposed amendments would not do away with the punishment but again give judges the discretion on whether to impose it.
"Personally, I view whipping as very brutal and violent and simply inhumane.
"That is why I am suggesting that judges have the discretion to impose the punishment," he said, adding that most offenders suffer open wounds with many fainting after three strokes.
With discretion given, judges can weigh the gravity of the harm committed by offenders on their victims before imposing the punishment.
He said there might be instances where a judge might say no to whipping in some cases, but impose it on "sadistic" offenders who cause hurt to their victims.
Dr Wan Junaidi said he would meet the Attorney-General's Chambers soon to discuss the matter before seeking Cabinet approval to table the amendments.
On a separate matter, he said the recently passed anti-hopping law was expected to be enforced this month. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
Showing posts with label corporal punishment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporal punishment. Show all posts
Monday, 12 September 2022
Saturday, 25 September 2021
Taliban official: Strict punishment, executions will return
Source: WTOP News (23 September 2021)
https://wtop.com/asia/2021/09/taliban-official-strict-punishment-executions-will-return/
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.
“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told The Associated Press, speaking in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”
Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their harsh rule of the late 1990s. Turabi’s comments pointed to how the group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even if they are embracing technological changes, like video and mobile phones.
Turabi, now in his early 60s, was justice minister and head of the so-called Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — effectively, the religious police — during the Taliban’s previous rule.
At that time, the world denounced the Taliban’s punishments, which took place in Kabul’s sports stadium or on the grounds of the sprawling Eid Gah mosque, often attended by hundreds of Afghan men.
Executions of convicted murderers were usually by a single shot to the head, carried out by the victim’s family, who had the option of accepting “blood money” and allowing the culprit to live. For convicted thieves, the punishment was amputation of a hand. For those convicted of highway robbery, a hand and a foot were amputated.
Trials and convictions were rarely public and the judiciary was weighted in favor of Islamic clerics, whose knowledge of the law was limited to religious injunctions.
Turabi said that this time, judges — including women — would adjudicate cases, but the foundation of Afghanistan’s laws will be the Quran. He said the same punishments would be revived.
“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he said, saying it had a deterrent effect. He said the Cabinet was studying whether to do punishments in public and will “develop a policy.”
In recent days in Kabul, Taliban fighters have revived a punishment they commonly used in the past — public shaming of men accused of small-time theft.
On at least two occasions in the last week, Kabul men have been packed into the back of a pickup truck, their hands tied, and were paraded around to humiliate them. In one case, their faces were painted to identify them as thieves. In the other, stale bread was hung from their necks or stuffed in their mouth. It wasn’t immediately clear what their crimes were.
Wearing a white turban and a bushy, unkempt white beard, the stocky Turabi limped slightly on his artificial leg. He lost a leg and one eye during fighting with Soviet troops in the 1980s.
Under the new Taliban government, he is in charge of prisons. He is among a number of Taliban leaders, including members of the all-male interim Cabinet, who are on a United Nations sanctions list.
During the previous Taliban rule, he was one of the group’s most ferocious and uncompromising enforcers. When the Taliban took power in 1996, one of his first acts was to scream at a woman journalist, demanding she leave a room of men, and to then deal a powerful slap in the face of a man who objected.
Turabi was notorious for ripping music tapes from cars, stringing up hundreds of meters of destroyed cassettes in trees and signposts. He demanded men wear turbans in all government offices and his minions routinely beat men whose beards had been trimmed. Sports were banned, and Turabi’s legion of enforcers forced men to the mosque for prayers five times daily.
In this week’s interview with the AP, Turabi spoke to a woman journalist.
“We are changed from the past,” he said.
He said now the Taliban would allow television, mobile phones, photos and video “because this is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it.” He suggested that the Taliban saw the media as a way to spread their message. “Now we know instead of reaching just hundreds, we can reach millions,” he said. He added that if punishments are made public, then people may be allowed to video or take photos to spread the deterrent effect.
The U.S. and its allies have been trying to use the threat of isolation — and the economic damage that would result from it — to pressure the Taliban to moderate their rule and give other factions, minorities and women a place in power.
But Turabi dismissed criticism over the previous Taliban rule, arguing that it had succeeded in bringing stability. “We had complete safety in every part of the country,” he said of the late 1990s.
Even as Kabul residents express fear over their new Taliban rulers, some acknowledge grudgingly that the capital has already become safer in just the past month. Before the Taliban takeover, bands of thieves roamed the streets, and relentless crime had driven most people off the streets after dark.
“It’s not a good thing to see these people being shamed in public, but it stops the criminals because when people see it, they think ‘I don’t want that to be me,’” said Amaan, a storeowner in the center of Kabul. He asked to be identified by just one name.
Another shopkeeper said it was a violation of human rights but that he was also happy he can open his store after dark.
https://wtop.com/asia/2021/09/taliban-official-strict-punishment-executions-will-return/
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.
“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told The Associated Press, speaking in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”
Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their harsh rule of the late 1990s. Turabi’s comments pointed to how the group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even if they are embracing technological changes, like video and mobile phones.
Turabi, now in his early 60s, was justice minister and head of the so-called Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — effectively, the religious police — during the Taliban’s previous rule.
At that time, the world denounced the Taliban’s punishments, which took place in Kabul’s sports stadium or on the grounds of the sprawling Eid Gah mosque, often attended by hundreds of Afghan men.
Executions of convicted murderers were usually by a single shot to the head, carried out by the victim’s family, who had the option of accepting “blood money” and allowing the culprit to live. For convicted thieves, the punishment was amputation of a hand. For those convicted of highway robbery, a hand and a foot were amputated.
Trials and convictions were rarely public and the judiciary was weighted in favor of Islamic clerics, whose knowledge of the law was limited to religious injunctions.
Turabi said that this time, judges — including women — would adjudicate cases, but the foundation of Afghanistan’s laws will be the Quran. He said the same punishments would be revived.
“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he said, saying it had a deterrent effect. He said the Cabinet was studying whether to do punishments in public and will “develop a policy.”
In recent days in Kabul, Taliban fighters have revived a punishment they commonly used in the past — public shaming of men accused of small-time theft.
On at least two occasions in the last week, Kabul men have been packed into the back of a pickup truck, their hands tied, and were paraded around to humiliate them. In one case, their faces were painted to identify them as thieves. In the other, stale bread was hung from their necks or stuffed in their mouth. It wasn’t immediately clear what their crimes were.
Wearing a white turban and a bushy, unkempt white beard, the stocky Turabi limped slightly on his artificial leg. He lost a leg and one eye during fighting with Soviet troops in the 1980s.
Under the new Taliban government, he is in charge of prisons. He is among a number of Taliban leaders, including members of the all-male interim Cabinet, who are on a United Nations sanctions list.
During the previous Taliban rule, he was one of the group’s most ferocious and uncompromising enforcers. When the Taliban took power in 1996, one of his first acts was to scream at a woman journalist, demanding she leave a room of men, and to then deal a powerful slap in the face of a man who objected.
Turabi was notorious for ripping music tapes from cars, stringing up hundreds of meters of destroyed cassettes in trees and signposts. He demanded men wear turbans in all government offices and his minions routinely beat men whose beards had been trimmed. Sports were banned, and Turabi’s legion of enforcers forced men to the mosque for prayers five times daily.
In this week’s interview with the AP, Turabi spoke to a woman journalist.
“We are changed from the past,” he said.
He said now the Taliban would allow television, mobile phones, photos and video “because this is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it.” He suggested that the Taliban saw the media as a way to spread their message. “Now we know instead of reaching just hundreds, we can reach millions,” he said. He added that if punishments are made public, then people may be allowed to video or take photos to spread the deterrent effect.
The U.S. and its allies have been trying to use the threat of isolation — and the economic damage that would result from it — to pressure the Taliban to moderate their rule and give other factions, minorities and women a place in power.
But Turabi dismissed criticism over the previous Taliban rule, arguing that it had succeeded in bringing stability. “We had complete safety in every part of the country,” he said of the late 1990s.
Even as Kabul residents express fear over their new Taliban rulers, some acknowledge grudgingly that the capital has already become safer in just the past month. Before the Taliban takeover, bands of thieves roamed the streets, and relentless crime had driven most people off the streets after dark.
“It’s not a good thing to see these people being shamed in public, but it stops the criminals because when people see it, they think ‘I don’t want that to be me,’” said Amaan, a storeowner in the center of Kabul. He asked to be identified by just one name.
Another shopkeeper said it was a violation of human rights but that he was also happy he can open his store after dark.
Thursday, 30 April 2020
Saudi Arabia eliminates death penalty for minors
Source: Channel News Asia (27 April 2020)
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-eliminates-death-penalty-for-minors-12679054
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Sunday (Apr 26) ended the death penalty for crimes committed by minors after effectively abolishing floggings as the kingdom seeks to blunt criticism over its human rights record.
The reforms underscore a push by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to modernise the ultra-conservative kingdom long associated with a fundamentalist strain of Wahhabi Islam.
The death penalty has been eliminated for those convicted of crimes committed while they were minors, Human Rights Commission president Awwad Alawwad said in a statement, citing a royal decree.
"Instead, the individual will receive a prison sentence of no longer than 10 years in a juvenile detention facility," the statement said.
The decree is expected to spare the lives of at least six men from the minority Shiite community who are on death row.
The were accused of taking part in anti-government protests during the Arab Spring uprisings while they were under the age of 18.
United Nations human rights experts made an urgent appeal to Saudi Arabia last year to halt plans to execute them.
"This is an important day for Saudi Arabia," said Awwad Alawwad.
"The decree helps us in establishing a more modern penal code."
The kingdom has one of the world's highest rates of execution, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking facing the death penalty.
Saudi Arabia executed at least 187 people in 2019, according to a tally based on official data, the highest since 1995 when 195 people were put to death.
Since January, 12 people were executed, according to official data.
Human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about the fairness of trials in the kingdom, an absolute monarchy governed under a strict form of Islamic law.
On Saturday, the HRC announced Saudi Arabia had effectively abolished flogging as a punishment, which have long drawn condemnation from human rights groups.
The most high-profile instance of flogging in recent years was the case of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes in 2014 on charges of "insulting" Islam.
But "hudud" or harsher punishment under Islamic law such as floggings are still applicable for serious offences, a Saudi official said.
Hudud, which means "boundaries" in Arabic, is meted out for such sins as rape, murder or theft.
But "hudud" punishments are rarely meted out as many offences must be proved by a confession or be verified by several adult Muslim witnesses, the official added.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-eliminates-death-penalty-for-minors-12679054
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Sunday (Apr 26) ended the death penalty for crimes committed by minors after effectively abolishing floggings as the kingdom seeks to blunt criticism over its human rights record.
The reforms underscore a push by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to modernise the ultra-conservative kingdom long associated with a fundamentalist strain of Wahhabi Islam.
The death penalty has been eliminated for those convicted of crimes committed while they were minors, Human Rights Commission president Awwad Alawwad said in a statement, citing a royal decree.
"Instead, the individual will receive a prison sentence of no longer than 10 years in a juvenile detention facility," the statement said.
The decree is expected to spare the lives of at least six men from the minority Shiite community who are on death row.
The were accused of taking part in anti-government protests during the Arab Spring uprisings while they were under the age of 18.
United Nations human rights experts made an urgent appeal to Saudi Arabia last year to halt plans to execute them.
"This is an important day for Saudi Arabia," said Awwad Alawwad.
"The decree helps us in establishing a more modern penal code."
The kingdom has one of the world's highest rates of execution, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking facing the death penalty.
Saudi Arabia executed at least 187 people in 2019, according to a tally based on official data, the highest since 1995 when 195 people were put to death.
Since January, 12 people were executed, according to official data.
Human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about the fairness of trials in the kingdom, an absolute monarchy governed under a strict form of Islamic law.
On Saturday, the HRC announced Saudi Arabia had effectively abolished flogging as a punishment, which have long drawn condemnation from human rights groups.
The most high-profile instance of flogging in recent years was the case of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes in 2014 on charges of "insulting" Islam.
But "hudud" or harsher punishment under Islamic law such as floggings are still applicable for serious offences, a Saudi official said.
Hudud, which means "boundaries" in Arabic, is meted out for such sins as rape, murder or theft.
But "hudud" punishments are rarely meted out as many offences must be proved by a confession or be verified by several adult Muslim witnesses, the official added.
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