Iran executes more than 50 people so far this year

Source: UCA News (28 January 2023)

https://www.ucanews.com/news/iran-executes-more-than-50-people-so-far-this-year/100188

Iranian authorities have executed 55 people in 2023, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said Friday, adding that the surging use of the death penalty aims to create fear as protests shake the country.

Meanwhile, rights group Amnesty International said three young people sentenced to death over protests -- the youngest aged just 18 -- had been subjected to "gruesome torture" in detention.

IHR said it has confirmed at least 55 executions in the first 26 days of this year.

Four people have been executed on charges related to the protests, while the majority of those hanged -- 37 convicts -- were executed for drug-related offenses, IHR said.

At least 107 people are still at risk of execution over the demonstrations after being sentenced to death or charged with capital crimes, the group added.

With Iran's use of the death penalty surging in recent years, IHR argued that "every execution by the Islamic Republic is political" as the main purpose "is to create societal fear and terror".

"To stop the state execution machine, no execution should be tolerated, whether they be political or non-political," said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

He added that a lack of reaction from the international community risked lowering "the political cost of executing protesters".

'State-sanctioned killing'

Activists have accused Iran of using the death penalty as an instrument of intimidation to quell the protests which erupted in September following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the country's dress code for women.

UN rights chief Volker Turk has said Iran's "weaponization of criminal procedures" to punish demonstrators "amounts to state-sanctioned killing".

On Friday, Amnesty said three men sentenced to death in December had been subjected to torture "including floggings, electric shocks, being hung upside down and death threats at gunpoint".

They were convicted of inciting arson and vandalism during protests in September in Mazandaran province in Iran's north, Amnesty said in a statement.

Javad Rouhi, 31, suffered torture that included being "sexually assaulted by having ice put on his testicles," Amnesty said.

Mehdi Mohammadifard, 19, was kept for one week in solitary confinement in a mice-infested cell and was raped, leading to "anal injuries and rectal bleeding, which required hospitalization," it said.

Arshia Takdastan, 18, "was subjected to beatings and death threats, including having a gun pointed at his head if he did not 'confess' in front of a video camera".

Surging executions

IHR and other rights groups have yet to publish figures on executions in Iran for 2022.

But IHR said in early December that more than 500 people had been hanged by then -- the highest figure in five years -- while according to its data, at least 333 people were executed in 2021, a 25 percent increase compared to 267 in 2020.

As well as arresting thousands of people, Iranian security forces have also used what campaigners describe as lethal force to crack down on the protests.

IHR said that according to its latest count, security forces have killed at least 488 people, including 64 aged under 18, in the nationwide protests.

Of the 64 children, 10 were girls, it added.

Mohsen Shekari, 23, was executed in Tehran on December 8 for wounding a member of the security forces, while Majidreza Rahnavard, also 23, was hanged in public in Mashhad on December 12 on charges of killing two members of the security forces with a knife.

On January 7, Iran executed Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini for killing a paramilitary force member in November.

In another high-profile execution, Iran said on January 14 that it had executed British-Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari after he was sentenced to death on charges of spying for Britain. He had been arrested more than two years earlier.

Analysts say demonstrations have subsided since November, but the protest movement still remains a challenge to the Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Taiwan murder convict walks free after decade on death row

Source: Straits Times (26 October 2017)

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/taiwan-convict-walks-free-after-decade-on-death-row

TAIPEI (AFP) - A Taiwanese man who spent more than a decade on death row walked free Thursday (Oct 26) after being acquitted of murder in a retrial, boosting calls for the abolition of capital punishment.

Cheng Hsing-tse was condemned to death in 2002 after being found guilty of shooting a police officer during a gun battle in a karaoke parlour.

The death penalty was confirmed in 2006, when he had exhausted the appeal process.

But he was granted a retrial last year and released on bail when new evidence cast doubt on his conviction, suggesting he may have been tortured into admitting the crime.

The high court in central Taichung delivered its decision Thursday, overturning the original guilty verdict, saying Cheng's confession may have been forced and that evidence pointed to another culprit firing the fatal shots.

"I've waited for this acquittal for 15 years," Cheng told reporters on Thursday outside the court after the verdict.

Cheng was a follower of gangster Luo Wu-hsiung and was caught up in the gun battle after Luo fired a pistol at the ceiling and at bottles in a karaoke room in protest at the parlour's service.

Police stormed the venue and shots were fired by both sides, killing Luo and an officer named Su Hsien-pi.

Earlier verdicts found that Cheng fired the bullets that killed Su.

But judges on Thursday said after considering evidence of the firing positions, it could not be ruled out that Luo was the killer.

The high court said in a statement that Cheng's face had shown "obvious new bruising" during interrogations, "suggesting his confession wasn't voluntary".

The Control Yuan - the government's highest watchdog - recommended the supreme court prosecutor's office to apply for a retrial after investigating Cheng's case in 2014.

It said police forced a confession from Cheng "by means of torture" and certain autopsy findings were ignored.

Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions are reserved for serious crimes including aggravated murder.

The last execution was in May last year of Cheng Chieh, a former college student who killed four people in a stabbing spree on a subway in 2014.

There are currently 43 convicts on death row in Taiwan, according to campaign group Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.

Rights groups including Amnesty International have urged Taiwan's government to abandon the practice, but polls show a majority of the public still support it.