Abdul Basit: Death row delay for Pakistan paraplegic

Source: BBC News (2 September 2015)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34128116

Pakistani prison officials have missed Tuesday's court deadline to explain how they would hang a paraplegic man.

Abdul Basit is paralysed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair after an illness he contracted while in prison.

He was convicted six years ago of murder but maintains his innocence. He was to be hanged in Lahore last month but this was postponed. A petition for his pardon was dismissed.

Hanging him would constitute cruel and degrading treatment, his lawyers say.

They add that this is prohibited under Pakistani and international law.

Pakistan has executed more than 200 people since reintroducing the death penalty in December 2014.

At the time the government said it was a measure to combat terrorism after the Taliban massacred more than 150 people, most of them children, in a Peshawar school.

Pakistan's jail manual gives no instructions on how to execute disabled prisoners.

A high court judge had told prison officials they had until 1 September to come up with specific steps if they were to be allowed to proceed with the execution of Mr Basit.

The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil says Mr Basit remains on death row but his sentence has effectively been stayed until the jail authorities come up with a clear plan for how they will execute him.

Executions around the world

Pakistan has executed more than 200 people since December 2014, almost all of them this year

Figures for executions in other countries in 2015 are as yet largely unavailable

In August, Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia had executed 102 people in the first six months of 2015, compared with 90 in the whole of 2014

By the end of last year, the other countries with the highest number of reported executions were Iran: 289, Iraq: 61, USA: 35, and Sudan: 23

In 2013 the numbers were: Iran: 369, Iraq: 169, Saudi Arabia: 79, Somalia: 68, USA: 39

China and North Korea refuse to divulge information on the number of executions that take place within their borders

Court acquits man after controversial death penalty case

Source: Asia One (2 September 2015)

http://news.asiaone.com/news/crime/court-acquits-man-after-controversial-death-penalty-case

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A defendant in a controversial death penalty case was declared innocent after his ninth appeal yesterday, exactly 20 years after his alleged crime.

Hsu Tzu-chiang is one of three men sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of a real estate businessman on Sept. 1, 1995.

Activists and Hsu's lawyers criticised the ruling on grounds that the sentence had been based on the confessions of his co-defendants.

The Taiwan High Court yesterday overturned Hsu's seven death sentences and two life sentences, declaring him not guilty.

The case had already gone through eight appeals on repeated retrials.

Hsu, in disbelief, turned to a nearby friend after the announcement and asked, "Is it not guilty?" Upon confirming the verdict, the defendant embraced his tearful mother.

"I have waited for 20 years," he said to a crowd of supporters waiting outside the high court. The sentence can still be appealed.

Hsu and two other men were sentenced to death for the alleged murder of real-estate businessman Huang Chun-shu in 1995.

The victim was kidnapped outside his home; after his murder, his disfigured body was abandoned in New Taipei City, and then Taipei County.

During the trial, defendants Huang Chun-chi and Chen Yi-lung were sentenced based on forensic evidence, while Hsu was convicted based on their testimony.

A fourth defendant had escaped to Thailand, where he died.

Activists have criticised Hsu's sentence and said that there was security footage proving he was elsewhere during the events.

The Judicial Reform Foundation has called the case deeply flawed, saying it demonstrates the need to implement a jury system in Taiwan to reduce judicial bias.

After the initial sentencing, one of the two defendants said he had accused Hsu as a way of getting revenge and that Hsu was innocent.

In 2001, Taiwan's Control Yuan released a report on Hsu's conviction that condemned the sentencing.

Hsu's case is one of the longest-running murder cases in Taiwan's history, and his acquittal falls exactly 20 years after the alleged murder. Huang Chun-chi and Chen Yi-lung remain on death row.

Panel favours abolishing death sentence in India

Source: New Straits Times (1 September 2015)

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/panel-favours-abolishing-death-sentence-in-india

A law panel tasked by India's Supreme Court to look into the death penalty has recommended that it be abolished for all crimes except those related to terrorism as it no longer has a deterrent effect.

While its recommendation could lead the government to consider taking a look at a partial ban, the final decision rests with the government.

"The death penalty does not serve the… goal of deterrence any more than life imprisonment," the commission said in its report.

"Retribution has an important role to play in punishment. However, it cannot be reduced to vengeance,'' added the executive body that deals with legal reform.

The commission suggested that instead of relying on the death penalty - which is carried out by hanging - the government and courts should look at compensation schemes and rehabilitation for victims, witness protection programmes and police reforms to raise the quality of investigation.

"It is for the government to make a call. The report is to start a debate and at some point make a clean break from the past,'' the commission's chairman, Mr A.P. Shah, a retired justice, told a press conference yesterday.

India is one of about 58 countries that still have the death penalty.

Its lower courts routinely hand down the death sentence, but this is usually commuted to life by the time it reaches the Supreme Court, which upholds the death penalty only in "rarest of rare" cases.

According to National Crime Records Bureau statistics, 4,321 out of 5,776 death penalties were commuted to life sentences between 2001 and 2011.

No execution was carried out between 2005 and 2011.

In the past three years, there were three executions, all terrorism-related cases.

Mohammed Kasab, the lone surviving gunman in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was hanged in 2012, followed in 2013 by Afzal Guru, who was convicted of the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament. In July, Yakub Memon was executed for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.

Human rights activists, while welcoming the law commission's report, said the Indian government was not ready for a complete ban, given India's deep concerns about being a terrorism target.

"It is recommendatory in nature but it basically makes it clear that the government will have to take a position on this,'' said Mr Suhas Chakma, director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights. "I don't think India is ready to abolish the death penalty entirely. If it is restricted to terror cases then there is hope for a forward movement."

The report comes at a time when there has been an intense debate on the merits of the death penalty following Yakub's execution.

Media organisations such as The Times of India and The Hindu have spoken out strongly in favour of abolishing the death penalty.

Political parties such as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its rival Congress party remain deeply divided on the issue.

BJP MP Varun Gandhi noted in a magazine article last month that 94 per cent of death-row convicts are either Dalits, formerly considered "untouchables", or from minority communities. He said the death penalty is an "anomaly" that needs to be corrected.

While the report was approved by a majority of the commission's nine members, three of them favoured retaining the death penalty, reflecting the deep divide in the country.

Despite the divisive nature of the issue, the commission's report argued that it "is logical we move towards abolition".

What Judicial Responsibility Must Mean in the Age of the Death Penalty

Source: The Wire (29 August 2015)

http://thewire.in/2015/08/29/what-judicial-responsibility-must-mean-in-the-age-of-the-death-penalty-9501/

The phrase "judicial responsibility" means not just the responsibility to uphold the law; it means the overarching responsibility to do justice. In Glossip v. Gross—which came up before the United States Supreme Court recently— a group of prisoners on death row in Oklahoma contended that the method of execution now used by the state violated the Eighth Amendment (which bars 'cruel and unusual punishment') because it creates an unacceptable risk of severe pain. They lost. Five judges did not agree with them.

Speaking for the minority of four, Justices Sotomayor and Breyer wrote dissenting opinions. Breyer spoke of judicial responsibility after listing out the factors which argue against death penalty. They are the lack of reliability, arbitrary application of the sentence, delay, lack of penological purpose. You can find these in any country where the law provides for death penalty, not least in India.

Rather than trying to "patch up the death penalty's legal wounds one at a time," said Breyer, "I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution."

We in India need to ask the same question.

Which is the right time to speak about the morality and correctness of death penalty? When a convict is facing the gallows and there are last minute reviews or pleas for pardon with the media going full blast about the bestiality of the crime and the victims praying for justice, the climate is surcharged. Not the right time. Once the convict is executed, there are human rights activists shouting that India has a black mark and others asking then what about the human rights of the deceased/s; the media is milking the moment to the last drop. Not the right time. When nothing is happening, no death row prisoner is waiting for the noose, the climate is calm, and no one is interested. Not the right time. So when do we engage the public with the question of whether a civilised society should take lives in the name of the people? That is what the state does, when it executes the death sentence.

"Choose life and then you and your descendants shall live" (Deuteronomy 30:19). Choose Life. This is the title of a book which records the dialogue between Daisaku Ikeda and Arnold Toynbee during the years 1972-1974 covering a wide range of issues including the death penalty. Ikeda says, "I feel that life, as an absolute entity worthy of the profoundest respect, must never be treated as a means of achieving anything other than life itself. The dignity of life is an end in itself." Toynbee responds "No human being has a moral right to deprive another human being of his life." Someone may ask what if that human being deprived other human beings of their lives, then what? Surely we are not in junior class shouting, "But he beat me first, Miss!" Yes, the convict took away lives and is guilty of murder. That is precisely why we are discussing the death penalty in the first place.

The death penalty is irreversible. The Innocence Project is a non-profit organization which demonstrates by DNA testing the "judicial errors" in death row cases. If an error is proved beyond doubt but the execution has been carried out, how does one compensate the 'victims' of judicial process? The executed cannot be resurrected. The executed cannot be reformed.

In 2000, the Madras High Court (Justice Sirpurkar and I) heard an appeal against the death penalty. A school-girl was raped and murdered by three persons. It was a sensational case. The trial court found it to be a case of the 'rarest of rare' and sentenced them to death. We commuted the sentence to life. I received several letters asking me if I was a woman, since the deceased was a victim of sexual violence. There was no platform from where I could say that we had not acquitted the accused, but we had commuted the sentence, for valid reasons regarding the circumstances of the accused. Sometime in 2014, I read a news item about a project in Tamil Nadu conducting courses for prisoners to rehabilitate and equip them with life skills. Among the life-term prisoners who had secured gold medals and state ranks was the first accused in the above case. This is not submitted as an argument against the death penalty, but as an argument for upholding the right to life. The state punishes not only as a deterrent, but to reform too.

There are many reports of studies in the US which indicate that the factors that circumstances that ought not to affect the imposition of the death penalty—such as race, gender or geography—often do. In India too, such extraneous factors affect the application of the death penalty. Count the number of persons who can afford the best legal counsel and have gone to the gallows and you will have your answer. Then is it judicially responsible to apply such a random game-changer when it comes to life and death?

The Coimbatore bomb blast is a classic case in which death penalty could have been awarded. Nineteen bombs exploded in the city on February 14, 1998, resulting in the deaths of 58 persons and injuries to 250 persons and huge loss to private and public properties. In all, 166 persons faced trial but the court did not sentence even one to death. Revisions were filed seeking enhancement of sentence. They were dismissed. The trial court had given very responsible reasons for not giving the death penalty though the public prosecutor had pleaded that this was a most fitting case for capital punishment. The court said that none of the accused was granted bail during the trial and this deprived them of securing the best legal counsel and collecting all the relevant materials to support their case. The long period in jail resulted in internal friction amongst the accused themselves which again was counter-productive to their conducting the case. The manner in which witnesses were examined and the cross-examination conducted had also caused prejudice. Only a few of the advocates who appeared for the accused had given their best to defend them. The accused had pleaded that the offence was a result of the sense of isolation they felt and the consequent loss of faith in the system. These circumstances weighed with the trial court. Each one of the reasons is an aspect of fair and equal access to justice—ensuring which is undeniably the responsibility of every judge. I was one of the judges who heard the appeals before the Madras High Court and hence my familiarity with the facts.

In the Naroda Patiya judgment, the trial court explained why the death penalty was not given. If there was a case which the court could have easily called the rarest of rare it was this. Yet the judge cited the rights of those on death row, the restricted use of the death penalty in a progressive society, and the fact that use of the death penalty undermines human dignity, to support her decision not to grant capital punishment.

Both cases—Coimbatore and Naroda Patiya— are scarred by the death of innocent victims. No one was awarded the death penalty and both the trial judges gave reasons for their decisions. But in similar cases, the death penalty has been awarded. This means there is an inconsistency in sentencing even in cases where numerous persons have been killed.

There are the victims who demand justice. It is allegedly to assuage their feelings that society insists on the death penalty. In a 1985 Stanford Law Review article, Lynne Henderson has written, "Common assumptions about crime victims—that they are all "outraged" and want revenge and tougher law enforcement—underlie much of the current victim's rights rhetoric. But in light of the existing psychological evidence, these assumptions fail to address the experience and real needs of past victims."

According to her study, the promise of an execution offered only a seemingly appealing mechanism to assign blame and to channel rage. Actually the crime victims felt that the endless repetition of their stories, the formal legal rules, and the years lost between appeals only served to increase stress and delay healing. Then is it only the "Roman crowd" which seeks a vicarious taste of blood?

In Justice: What is the Right Thing To Do?, Michael Sandel wonders if morality does not mean "something to do with the proper way for human beings to treat one another." Toynbee and Ikeda agree that human life as an entity deserves absolute respect. Sandel asks "Is morality a matter of counting lives and weighing costs and benefits, or are certain moral duties and human rights so fundamental that they rise above such calculations?" The Right to Life is not a subject-to right. It is fundamental because it is life which is fundamental.

In times of death penalty, I believe courts should close their ears to the ambient din. While hearing the case with all the patience at their command, courts must remember that the right to life rises above weighing costs and benefits, that as long as there is life, there is room for reform, that justice without delay provides better closure to victims than execution after decades, that every system is fallible and life is too precious to hang on to a fallible process. So it is better to be responsible and to Choose Life.

Chinese Law makers vote for abolition of Death Penalty for 9 more Crimes

Source: LiveLaw.in

http://www.livelaw.in/chinese-law-makers-votes-for-abolition-of-death-penalty-for-9-more-crimes/

National People’s Congress, the top law making body of Republic of China today adopted amendments to the Criminal Law, abolishing death penalty for nine more crimes.  Ninth amendment of criminal law was passed after a six-day bimonthly session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee. After this amendment crimes for which death penalty is a possible punishment stands reduced to 46. The amendment will come in force from November 1, 2015.

Now, according to the reports by Chinese media, death penalty cannot be awarded for the following crimes, anymore

1. Smuggling weapons
2. Smuggling ammunition
3. Smuggling nuclear materials
4. Smuggling counterfeit currency
5. Counterfeiting currency
6. Raising funds by means of fraud
7. Arranging for or forcing another person to engage in prostitution
8. Obstructing a police officer or a person on duty from performing his duties;
9. Fabricating rumours to mislead others during wartime.

It is the second time China has reduced the number of crimes punishable by death since the Criminal Law took effect in 1979. In 2011, China had ended death penalty for 13 economic crimes such as smuggling cultural relics, gold and silver; carrying out fraud related to financial bills; forging or selling forged exclusive value-added tax invoices; teaching criminal methods; and robbing ancient cultural ruins.. Even after the present amendment, there are still more than 45 varieties of crimes are punishable with death penalty in China. The   Article 48 of China’s Criminal Law says “The death penalty is only to be applied to criminal elements who commit the most heinous crimes. In the case of a criminal element who should be sentenced to death, if immediate execution is not essential, a two-year suspension of execution may be announced at the same time the sentence of death is imposed”. Death penalty cannot imposed on minors and pregnant women. However, it is a possible punishment for sexual crimes in China.

 In China, It is said that it executes more people a year than rest of the world combined. Last to be executed was reportedly a Chinese billionaire mining tycoon Liu Han is executed over his links to a ‘mafia-style’ gang.

Amnesty International Calls Saudi Justice System ‘Faulty,’ Criticizes High Execution Rate

Source: International Business Times (25 August 2015)

http://www.ibtimes.com/amnesty-international-calls-saudi-justice-system-faulty-criticizes-high-execution-2066706

Saudi Arabia executed one person in every two days on an average in less than a year, Amnesty International said in a report Tuesday. The London-based organization released a report, titled “Killing In the Name of Justice: The Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia,” in which it claimed that 175 executions had been carried out in Saudi Arabia from Aug. 2014 to June 2015.

According to the 43-page report, the Saudi regime executed 102 people between January and June 2015. There were 83 executions in 2014. The report also says at least 2,208 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia from January 1985 to June 2015.

Said Boumedouha, acting director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, called the Saudi justice system “faulty" and claimed that Saudi courts give death sentence to people for witchcraft, apostasy and adultery. The regime follows strict Islamic laws, which order execution for drug smuggling, rape and murder as well.

Iranian news agency Press TV has reported that Saudi authorities execute people for such crimes even if those are committed before the person reaches 18. According to an earlier Amnesty report, Iran is believed to have executed around 700 people in the first six months of 2015. Tehran, however, officially declared that the number was 246.

The Guardian reported that Indonesia decided in May that it will not send any more domestic workers to 21 countries in the Middle East. The decision was made after two Indonesian women, Karni binti Medi Tarsim and Siti Zainab, had been executed by Saudi authorities in April. The women were found guilty of murder.

According to 2014 estimates, Saudi Arabia has the third highest execution rate while the top two positions are held by China and Iran. Iraq and the United States come fourth and fifth consecutively.

Jakarta saves 12 citizens from Saudi death penalty

Source: The Straits Times (5 August 2015)

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/jakarta-saves-12-citizens-from-saudi-death-penalty

Indonesia said it has secured the release of 12 citizens from death row in Saudi Arabia this year.

The number of Indonesians freed from death row in Saudi Arabia since 2011 is 68, the Foreign Ministry's directorate of legal aid and protection said yesterday.

Ministry records show there are 24 Indonesian citizens at risk of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Of those, 12 face murder charges, nine are on adultery charges and three face black magic charges.

The ministry said that recently, the government managed to secure the release of Rika Mustikawati, a migrant worker.

In May 2012, a general court in Saudi Arabia sentenced Rika to death for allegedly performing witchcraft on her female employer.

In November 2012, a Saudi appeals court annulled the verdict and requested the general court to try Rika's case again with a new panel of judges. The ministry said this was made possible with the legal assistance provided by the Indonesian Consulate-General in Jeddah.

After a string of hearings, the court released Rika from death row, imposing on her only three years in prison.

The ministry said it has also sought clemency from the Saudi king for other Indonesian nationals sentenced to death.

"Indonesian representatives abroad have continued to make use of the good momentum created by recent meetings between Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and Saudi Arabia's king and foreign minister to accelerate the settlement of legal problems affecting Indonesian citizens in Saudi Arabia," said the ministry.

Pakistan hangs Shafqat Hussain despite claim he was a child at time of crime

Source: The Guardian (4 August 2015)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/04/pakistan-hangs-shafqat-hussain-claim-child-crime

The family of a man hanged in Pakistan despite claims he was a minor at the time of his crime have hit out at the justice system as human rights activists declared it a “deeply sad day” for a country seeing a surge in the number of executions.

Shafqat Hussain, whose execution had been repeatedly postponed amid international pressure, was hanged on Tuesday morning after Pakistan’s courts remained unconvinced by claims that he was a minor at the time he murdered a boy more than a decade ago.

He was executed at 4.30am local time in the central jail in the southern city of Karachi after four last-minute reprieves in recent months.

Pakistan has seen a spree of executions following the lifting of a death penalty moratorium following the attack in December by Taliban militants on a school in Peshawar that killed more than 130 teenagers.

Last week the European Union expressed its concerns about the “alarming pace” of executions, with more than 190 people hanged since December, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Hussain was sentenced in 2004 by an anti-terrorism court for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy who had gone missing from an apartment building in Karachi, where Hussain worked as a watchman.

The hanging took place despite last-minute attempts to spare him, including a request by the Sindh Human Rights Commission, a statutory body, for a supreme court inquiry into a case that has already been reviewed by the country’s top court.

Abdul Majeed, Hussain’s elder brother, said he and two cousins had rushed to the jail after officials warned them about the likely execution on Tuesday. “Shafqat was already like a dead man by the time we saw him,” he said. “His complexion was yellowish as if he had no blood in his body and he was crying and reciting verses from the Holy Qur’an. He requested us to take care of our old parents.”

He saw Hussain’s body after his execution and said there was a deep cut on his neck, suggesting the hanging had been botched.

Sumaira, Hussain’s sister, said it was impossible to “survive and fight for justice in Pakistan if you are from a poor family”, adding: “We had no money to contest the case or to free him from the cruel police.”

Hussain did benefit from the energies of human rights lawyers who took on his case. Central to their campaign has been the claim that he was just 14 at the time of the alleged crime, and therefore ineligible for execution under Pakistan’s law.

They also argued that Hussain was tortured by police into making a confession.

“Pakistan authorities have never undertaken a proper, judicial investigation into either issue,” the rights group Justice Project Pakistan said after Hussain’s execution. “Instead seizing and refusing to release key evidence such as Shafqat’s school record, which could have provided proof that he was under 18 when he was sentenced to death.”

The police have insisted Hussain was in fact 23 when he was arrested and that his age was never raised during his appeal.

Proving someone’s age can often be fraught with problems in a country were proper records are not always kept. In one court hearing the judges were reduced to an “ocular examination” of old photos of Hussain to try to ascertain his age.

We had no money to contest the case or to free him from the cruel policeShafqat Hussain's sister, Sumaira

Although one birth certificate emerged, the government said it was impossible to prove its authenticity.

Human rights special rapporteurs from the United Nations also became involved last month, complaining that Hussain’s trial “fell short of international standards” for not fully investigating the issue of his age or the allegations of torture.

Despite the vigorous efforts to spare Hussain, lawyers who have reviewed the case have remained unconvinced.

“There is no evidence that he was under age,” said Chaudhry Faisal Hussain, a prominent lawyer. He pointed out that the plea for an investigation into Hussain’s age was dismissed by Islamabad high court judge Athar Minallah, one of the country’s most respected human rights lawyers.

“This case has been needlessly lingered by civil society who want to create a parallel judicial system by creating media trials. Unfortunately people tend to believe what the media says.”

Despite international criticism of the number of executions, the government has remained firm as the death penalty is popular among the public, who widely regard it as an effective deterrent against crime and terrorism. Even a recent threat from the European Union to reconsider an important trade pact in light of the executions has not deterred the government.

“This is another deeply sad day for Pakistan,” said David Griffiths, from the rights group Amnesty International. “A man whose age remains disputed and whose conviction was built around torture has now paid with his life – and for a crime for which the death penalty cannot be imposed under international law.”

Pakistan clearing its death row backlog

Source: DW Made for minds (4 August 2015)

http://www.dw.com/en/opinion-pakistan-clearing-its-death-row-backlog/a-18625834

Despite rights group protests, Pakistan has hanged 'teenage' convict Shafqat Hussain. But the resumption of executions as a tool in the fight against terror is just a populist pretext, says DW's Florian Weigand.

To put it bluntly, I am against the death penalty. The punishment is, in essence, inhumane. It is often forgotten that it also burdens the judges with an enormous responsibility when they have to decide over life and death, particularly in cases where there is even the slightest doubt as to the defendant's guilt.

The Pakistani judiciary does not seem to be giving much thought to this responsibility. Since the government in Islamabad lifted the moratorium on capital punishment last December, 180 people have been executed. A further 8,000 prisoners in the South Asian nation's jails are awaiting the same fate.

It is not only suspected terrorists who are facing the death sentence in Pakistan. Capital punishment was actually reinstated to send those convicted of terrorism to the gallows - a reaction to the Taliban massacre at a Peshawar school, in which more than 150 people were killed, most of them children.

But, unfortunately, it now seems as if the proponents of the death penalty used this horrible incident as a populist excuse for a general resumption of executions. Even worse is the fact that death sentences are carried out even when there are doubts regarding the guilt of the offenders, as demonstrated in the case of Shafqat Hussain.

Pakistan just seems eager to clear its death row backlog. And it affects, as is the case elsewhere in the world, the underprivileged.

Shafqat Hussain comes from a poor Kashmiri family, on the edge of the Himalayas. There is no birth certificate that could prove he was a minor at the time of the crime. The family couldn't afford an effective and professional legal defense team. And the Pakistani judges seemed unaffected by UN demands to re-examine the case.

This combination of poverty, dubious legal proceedings and contempt for international criticism sends a devastating signal for similar cases. The case of Asia Bibi, for instance, has reverberated across the world.

As a member of a Christian minority, she stands accused of committing blasphemy against Islam - a crime punishable by death in Pakistan. Asia Bibi, whose case is based solely on accusations, is also from a poor background and received rudimentary education, at best.

She can't afford an expensive lawyer, and anyone defending her potentially endangers their own lives as they will be viewed as protecting a "blasphemer." This is why international human rights organizations have stepped into the breach. Even the pope has intervened on behalf of the fellow Christian.

Should her judges proceed in the same way as in the Shafqat Hussain case, then Asia Bibi will become another victim of Pakistan's judicial system. Even worse, the latest wave of executions could serve those seeking to get rid of political opponents, disturbing peasants or common people involved in land disputes or other kinds of private squabbles.

This is yet another reason why executions must be stopped - not only in Pakistan. Whoever ends up behind bars should have the opportunity to either be released or compensated, should conditions change at a later stage. An execution, however, is irreversible.

Death Penalty: An effective deterrent to prevent violent crimes or just a murder by the State?

Source: Merinews (24 Jul 2015)

http://www.merinews.com/article/death-penalty-an-effective-deterrent-to-prevent-violent-crimes-or-just-a-murder-by-the-state/15908153.shtml

Lone death row convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blastscase Yakub Memon moved the Supreme Court on Thursday, challenging the validity of the death warrant issued against him by a TADA court for execution on July 30, a move that has reignited the debate about whether the state has the right take the life of any one, no matter what the provocation and whether capital punishment is truly a deterrent of any sort.

It is a knotty issue. In Europe the death penalty is abolished in all countries except Belarus for peace time crimes and in all countries except Kazakhstan and Belarus for war time crimes. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment in practically all of Europe, and yet Europe remains a relatively crime free zone.

Now look at the United States. 31 of the 50 states permit death penalty, in the exercise of which 35 were executed last year while 3002 inmates remained on death row. And yet according to the office of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime which tracks crime statistics, the United States had a murder and homicide rate of 16.1, much higher than Europe.

In Asia, according to the Amnesty International report for 2014-15, titled The State of the World's Human Rights, showed the death penalty has been maintained, and even re-emerged, in law and practice across the Asia-Pacific. In 2014, China continued its extensive, and often undocumented, use of the death penalty and executions were carried out in Japan and Vietnam, including for economic offences.

India had no executions though the law remains on the books and the most recent executions including the matter of Yakub Menon looming on the horizon have been executions where the crime has had political overtones.

Is the death penalty an effective deterrent for preventing violent crimes as claimed by those would like to keep it on the books? A 2009 survey of criminologists revealed that over 88 per cent believed the death penalty was not a deterrent to murder. The murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in States with the death penalty.

While the country is beset with terrorism and insurgency, it will not be politically expedient to remove the death penalty from the statute books and any movement in that direction is unlikely in the country.

However some debate is required to specifically define "the rarest of rare" instances when the death penalty is to be awarded as per the directions of the Supreme Court as "rarest of the rare" is a term as subjective as it can get and because it is so ill defined, appeals and mercy petitions galore delay the whole process as each person involved in the appeals and mercy hearing process has to subjectively apply their mind to answer the question as to whether a particular incident can be classified as rarest of the rare.

That day is still too far away, when we will go Europe's way and completely abolish the death penalty, but the least the government and courts can do is to bring more clarity and sharpness on what is currently an essentially very subjective and therefore politically driven mechanism and minimise its misuse.

Capital punishment: On the way out—with grisly exceptions

Source: The Economist (4 July 2015)

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21656666-few-countries-are-applying-death-penalty-more-freely-global-trend-towards?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/on_the_way_out_with_grisly_exceptions

DEPENDING on where you are, the death penalty may look as if it is in rude health. On June 29th America’s Supreme Court upheld Oklahoma’s use of midazolam, a sedative, in executions—despite evidence that it can fail to cause unconsciousness, leaving those being killed in agony from the lethal drugs with which it is combined. Meanwhile some countries in the Muslim world, notably Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, are executing people with increasing enthusiasm. Several others, including Nigeria and Egypt, are sentencing large numbers to death, though most of those sentences are unlikely to be carried out.

Indonesia has executed at least 14 people this year for drug crimes, most of them foreigners. Between 1994 and 2014 it executed at most 30. Using figures from official and human-rights sources, Amnesty International, a watchdog, counts 352 executions in the first four months of this year in Iran, which for its size probably executes more people than anywhere else. The true figure may be much higher. Since ending a moratorium in December, Pakistan has hanged or shot at least 150 people. Saudi Arabia has beheaded or shot 100 already this year, more than in the whole of 2014. In May it advertised for eight new executioners (no experience required).

In Nigeria, which has not carried out an execution since 2013, 54 soldiers have been on death row since December for mutinying. They say they refused to fight against the jihadists of Boko Haram because they had not been adequately armed. Amnesty International says that 589 civilians were sentenced to death last year in Nigeria; 1,500-plus are on death row. Last week another nine joined them after being convicted of blasphemy by a sharia court in the northern city of Kano.

But despite these punitive hot spots, the global total of executions continues to fall—and the trend is towards abolition, whether de jure or de facto. Since December Fiji, Madagascar and Suriname have joined the countries without the death penalty, pushing the total over 100. Another 40 or so still have it, but do not apply it. In December a record 117 countries voted for a moratorium at the UN General Assembly; 37 voted against and 34 abstained. The number voting yes was notably higher than in 2007.

The Western world’s chief executioner, America, is putting fewer people to death, too. Last year it executed 35; even if every execution scheduled for this year were to be carried out, which is unlikely, the total would be no more than 33. Of the 31 states that still have the death penalty, half have executed no one since 2010. In May Nebraska passed a law repealing it, the 19th state to do so—and the first conservative one for many years.

In 1994 80% of Americans said they endorsed the death penalty in principle. The Pew Research Centre reckons that fewer than 60% do so today—and notes that young Americans are less keen than their elders. Blacks are solidly against, as are a small majority of Hispanics. Even the Supreme Court’s recent pro-death-penalty ruling gave comfort to abolitionists by providing a chance to rehearse their case. The death penalty, argued one of the four dissenting judges, Stephen Breyer, is “highly likely” to violate the constitution. Evidence suggested that innocent people, he wrote, had been executed. People on death row had frequently been exonerated. The system was blighted by racial discrimination. Delays between sentencing and executions may violate the eighth amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment. And he noted that it is not proven, anyway, to deter crime.

Even China, the global leader, is cooling on executions. The number is a state secret but the Dui Hua Foundation, an American NGO, reckons there were about 2,400 in 2013, the last year it has been able to track. Campaigns against corruption and terrorism mean the fall may not have continued last year. But the long-term trend is steeply down. In 1983 24,000 people are thought to have been executed. In 2012, when Dui Hua put the tally at 12,000, a deputy health minister said the fall had contributed to a shortage of organs for transplant.

One reason is that the president of the Supreme People’s Court, Xiao Yang, has sought to create a more professional and accountable judiciary. Another is that some modernisers are embarrassed by China’s position at the top of this ugly league table. And though most Chinese are still thought to approve of capital punishment for murder, revulsion has grown as the media expose wrongful convictions.

Introducing the latest edition of “The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective”, Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle, two experts at Oxford University, cite a Chinese professor, Zhao Bingzhi, recently conceding that “abolition is an inevitable international tide and trend, as well as a signal showing the broad-mindedness of civilised countries.” It was now, he added, “an international obligation”.

Mumbai bomber Yakub Menon's mercy plea rejected

Source: BBC News (21 July 2015)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33605248

India's Supreme Court has rejected a final mercy plea of a man found guilty of financing the 1993 serial bombings in the western city of Mumbai.

Yakub Memon will be the first person to be executed in India since a Kashmiri man, Afzal Guru, was hanged in 2013 for the 2001 attack on India's parliament.

The blasts in India's financial capital killed 257 people and wounded 713.

The attacks were allegedly organised to avenge the killings of Muslims in riots a few months earlier.

Memon is scheduled to be executed later this month. Before the Supreme Court hearing, the Maharashtra state government announced plans to hang him on 30 July.

In 2007, a special court in Mumbai handed out the death penalty to Memon, a chartered accountant, for playing a key role in the bombing conspiracy.

He is now lodged in a prison in the western city of Nagpur.

A total of eight members of the Memon family were initially accused of masterminding the bombings and dispersing funds for the attacks.

The eldest brother fled the country, and three other family members were acquitted for lack of evidence.

The alleged masterminds of the blasts, Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, have been on the run since 1993.

Executions are rarely carried out in India, but in the last four years there have been two hangings in the country.

Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November 2012.

New Thai Anti-Graft Law Extends Death Penalty to Foreigners

Source: The New York Times (14 Jul 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/07/14/world/asia/ap-as-thailand-anti-corruption.html?_r=0

Thailand has enacted a new anti-corruption law that extends a maximum penalty of capital punishment to foreigners.

Previous legislation provided various punishments, including a possible death penalty, for Thai officials convicted of bribery, though apparently no one was ever executed for the crime. The new statutes, which took effect July 9 and are part of a separate anti-corruption law, extend those punishments to non-Thais working for foreign governments and international organizations.

The military government that took power following the ouster of an elected civilian government last year has said countering corruption is one of its major goals.

Although such action is touted as part of a reform movement to clean up Thai politics, it is widely seen as targeting former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by a previous military coup in 2006. Thaksin was accused of corruption, but also built a powerful, populist political machine that challenged the privileges of the country's traditional elite, associated with the military and the royal palace.

Another provision of the new anti-corruption law states that a statute of limitations of 20 years no longer applies if the convicted person flees the country. Thaksin was convicted in 2008 of a corruption-related charge but fled abroad. The old statute of limitations would have allowed him to return in 10 years.

Several corruption-related charges are also pending against Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who was prime minister until shortly before the army ousted her government last year.

The secretary-general of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, Sansern Poljieak, has been quoted by Thai media as saying that the punishments under the new law are appropriate because graft involving public servants is a severe offense.

However, the new law also has critics.

"This is a huge step in the wrong direction," Amnesty International spokesman Olof Blomqvist said in an email. "Thailand should be working to remove the death penalty from the legal books, not expanding its scope."

Experts applaud growing debate on death penalty

Source: China Daily (9 July 2015)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-07/09/content_21229288.htm

Zhou Lei has followed the heated debate on WeChat on whether anyone involved in child trafficking should get the death penalty.

Zhou, a legal scholar, has not found the argument on the popular instant messaging tool annoying. Indeed, he spoke highly of it.

"It's progress that more Chinese have paid attention to the application of the death penalty, even though the subject of how to apply it still has a long way to go," said Zhou, a legal researcher from the Difficult Case Research Center at China University of Political Science and Law.

In his view, the death penalty has been controversial among the public, and the recent debate should be applauded "because some people have realized the extreme penalty cannot reduce crimes and would like to explain that to those with opposing views", he said.

In mid-June, a WeChat post with pictures and stories of abducted children called for child traffickers to get the death penalty. The message was reposted more than 540,000 times and stirred up public debate, pushing the death-penalty issue to the forefront.

Ruan Chuansheng, a criminal lawyer from Shanghai, said: "The most valuable thing is the debate itself, not figuring out an answer. It's good to see that more ordinary people consider the issue important."

The minimum penalty for traffickers of children under current Criminal Law is five years in prison, but in the most serious cases, including the abuse or killing of children, offenders can be put to death.

"It's good to see some people in the debate researched the law before they voiced opinions online. Further discussion of the issue and advice based on what is learned is more helpful to legislators who want to improve the law," Ruan said.

Since 2007, when China's top court began automatically hearing second appeals of death-penalty sentences, a major task of Chinese judicial bodies has been reducing death-penalty cases and helping guide the public's thinking on the issue, Ruan said.

Until about 10 years ago, grassroots courts could sentence someone to death and execute him or her, "which caused some unnecessary wrongful verdicts and did not protect human rights", he said. "But since the Supreme People's Court assumed the power to review such cases, every death sentence must be reviewed twice, reflecting the nation's cautious approach to the penalty."

Meanwhile, the number of crimes for which one can be put to death has gone down in recent years. Under current law, 55 crimes are subject to the death penalty, a reduction from the 68 on the statute books before a 2011 amendment cut the number.

In addition, a recent session of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, discussed abolishing the death penalty for an additional nine crimes.

The number of death-penalty cases "shows that our justices have realized that the extreme penalty cannot root out some socially complicated disputes, and sometimes it may accelerate the conflicts", said Deng Yong, a law expert at China University of Political Science and Law.

"The death penalty cannot keep some people from committing crimes, and the simple and violent punishment has not been the best solution to prevent offenses," Deng said.

"The country needs more sensible ways with wisdom to keep the public abiding by laws, such as imposing a higher cost for breaching rules."

However, it is not practical to eliminate the death penalty in today's China because a few criminals, including terrorists who inflict great harm on the public, still need to be regulated through harsher punishments, he said.

Justices must work hard in the long term to educate people seriously influenced by Chinese history, culture and tradition relating to revenge, "because the thought of 'a life for a life' has been ingrained in a number of residents' minds and cannot be transferred as quickly and easily as one would expect", he added.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn

Iran executes hundreds in brutal crane hangings at mega-prison outside Tehran

Source: International Business Times (2 July 2015)

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iran-executes-hundreds-brutal-crane-hangings-mega-prison-outside-tehran-1508986


Almost 400 people were executed for drug-related charges and about 108 for murder. IHR also said at least seven prisoners, all of whom were Kurdish, were killed for their political or ideological affiliations, amid allegations of unfair trials.

The remaining 70 inmates were killed for sexual crimes, mainly rape, and for "waging war against God" and "corruption on heart".

Nearly 40% of the executions were announced by official Iranian media and 34 people were executed in public spaces.

Hanging is a 'slow torture' in Iran

All the executions were carried out by hanging. IHR spokesperson Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told IBTimes UK that there are different ways of hanging inmates. In Iran, prisoners are usually pulled up by their necks with the use of cranes.

"It takes them many minutes to die, it's a way of torturing them along with the execution," Amiry-Moghaddam said. "Two years ago, a man had survived 14 minutes of hanging before dying. So hanging is not intended as the standard way of momentary pain. It's not that they just die, it is a slow strangulation."

IHR urged the international community to put pressure on Iran to halt pending executions and reduce its rate of use of the death penalty.

"We are talking about the worst execution surge in more than 20 years in Iran and this is happening while the relations between Iran and the European countries have not been better in many years," Amiry-Moghaddam said.

"The government of Mr Rouhani have defended the executions and in some cases members of his cabinet have asked for more. Besides the large number of executions, unfair trials and widespread use of torture to get confessions are major issues of concern."Saman Naseem was sentenced to death at the age of 17 following a gun battle in Sardasht between the Revolutionary Guards and Kurdish militant organisation PJAK(Amnesty)

Execution of juvenile offenders

The NGO also warned the Islamic republic executed at least one juvenile offender in 2015. Javad Saberi was hanged at the Rajaishahr prison of Karaj after being convicted of murder, despite the fact he suffered from mental illness.

The execution of juvenile offenders is in breach of both domestic and international laws. Iran allows capital punishment for juveniles in case of "qesas" (retribution-in-kind) and "hodoud" (offences and punishments for which there are fixed penalties under Islamic law).

However, article 91 of the Islamic Penal Code excludes the death penalty if the juvenile offender did not understand the nature of the crime or its consequences, or if there are doubts about their mental capacity.

The high-profile case of Saman Naseem, a 24-year-old man sentenced to death at the age of 17 and whose whereabouts are unknown today, prompted the international community to criticise Iran after it announced Naseem's execution.

Following pressure by several NGOs, Naseem has gone missing from his prison cell and his family do not know whether he is dead or alive.

Naseem was sentenced to death after being charged with "enmity against God" and "corruption on Earth", following a gun battle in Sardasht between the Revolutionary Guards and Kurdish militant organisation PJAK, of which he is believed to be a member.