Source: BBC News (6 January 2021)
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55555417
The death penalty handed out to a former Chinese finance chief found guilty of corruption has been heavily criticised by human rights groups.
Lai Xiaomin was arrested in 2018 on charges of taking 1.8bn yuan (£200m, $280m) in bribes over a 10-year period.
It is one of the most severe sentences to stem from President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive.
Human Rights Watch said "China is clearly taking a major step backwards."
Chinese officials said crimes committed by Mr Lai were during his time as chairman of Huarong Asset Management. The financial firm was set up in 1999 to to take bad debts off China's largest state-owned banks.
On Tuesday, a court in the northern city of Tianjin, said his crimes had "caused serious losses to the interests of the country".
"Imposing the death sentence on Lai Xiaomin for financial crimes, such as bribe taking, is outrageous and unacceptable and clearly violates China's commitments to respect international human rights standards," Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch told the BBC.
'killing the chicken to show the monkeys'
Mr Robertson said the death penalty should be immediately commuted to prison time.
"By imposing this sentence, China is clearly taking a major step backwards on rights in what appears to be an effort to create fear among businessmen."
Human Rights Watch calls the tactic 'killing the chicken to show it to the monkeys' so it "makes an example of one person to instil obedience in all the others."
Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, added that President Xi "has little intention to end or slow down the campaign" to stamp out corruption.
Human Rights Watch added that it opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as "inherently cruel, and believes it violates of the right to life and fundamental dignity that all human beings possess."
The group has called on the Chinese government to impose an immediate moratorium on its use.
Cleaning up
Under Mr Lai's leadership, Huarong raised vast amounts of capital and expanded aggressively into investment banking services.
The asset management company which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, also developed its own brokerage, insurance and leasing arms.
Caixin, a finance magazine in China, reported that 100 properties developed by a Huarong subsidiary in south China were distributed to Mr Lai's ex-wife and mistresses.
China's Communist Party has taken an increasingly tough stance on corruption among government officials and corporate executives, with more than one million punished.
In 2016, China raised the threshold for capital punishment related to corruption to 3m yuan from 100,000 yuan, but the penalty has seldom been used.
"China's leaders clearly continue to rely on the death penalty as a deterrent, but it seems they have a message to send to the broader public about their willingness to use it," Joshua Rosenzweig, head of Amnesty International's China team, told the BBC.
"If this signals a return to the so-called 'strike hard' approach to crime, then it could have really serious consequences for China," he added.
Mr Lai had previously worked at China's central bank and banking regulator.
Wednesday, 21 July 2021
China Sentences Former Bank Chief to Death in Rare Move
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (6 January 2021)
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/china-sentences-former-bank-chief-to-death-in-rare-move-20210106-p56rzm.html
Beijing: The former head of state-owned China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd has been sentenced to death for bribe taking in one of the harshest punishments for economic crimes in recent years.
Lai Xiaomin, 58, was also found guilty by the Second Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin of lesser charges including corruption and bigamy.
Life sentences and suspended death sentences commuted to life after two years are frequently handed down in corruption cases, but death sentences without the chance of reprieve have become rare in recent years. Such sentences are automatically appealed to China's highest court.
Lai was placed under investigation by the ruling Communist Party's corruption watchdog in 2018 and expelled from the party later the same year.
In its ruling, the Tianjin court cited the “especially enormous” size of the bribes Lai accepted, saying they exceeded 600 million yuan ($120 million) in one instance. In total, it said Lai collected or sought to collect 1.79 billion yuan over a decade in exchange for abusing his position to make investments, offer construction contracts, help with promotions and provide other favours.
He was also convicted of embezzling more than 25 million yuan in state assets and starting a second family while still married to his first wife.
Although Lai provided useful details about malfeasance by his subordinates, the seriousness of his bribe-taking and “degree of harm caused to society" were not enough to win him leniency, the court said in its ruling.
“Lai Xiaomin is lawless and greedy in the extreme," the ruling said. “His crimes are extremely serious and must be punished severely under law."
Huarong is one of four entities created in the 1990s to buy non-performing loans from banks, helping to revive the state-owned finance industry. Such asset management companies expanded into banking, insurance, real estate finance and other fields.
Lai was accused of squandering public money, illegally organising banquets, engaging in sexual dealings with multiple women and taking bribes, the anti-corruption agency said in 2018.
Investigators seized hundreds of millions of yuan in cash from Lai’s properties, the Chinese business news magazine Caixin reported in 2018.
Lai was one of hundreds of officials at government agencies, state companies and the military who have been detained in an anti-corruption crackdown launched in 2012.
Other senior officials snared in the crackdown include a former head of China’s insurance regulator.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/china-sentences-former-bank-chief-to-death-in-rare-move-20210106-p56rzm.html
Beijing: The former head of state-owned China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd has been sentenced to death for bribe taking in one of the harshest punishments for economic crimes in recent years.
Lai Xiaomin, 58, was also found guilty by the Second Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin of lesser charges including corruption and bigamy.
Life sentences and suspended death sentences commuted to life after two years are frequently handed down in corruption cases, but death sentences without the chance of reprieve have become rare in recent years. Such sentences are automatically appealed to China's highest court.
Lai was placed under investigation by the ruling Communist Party's corruption watchdog in 2018 and expelled from the party later the same year.
In its ruling, the Tianjin court cited the “especially enormous” size of the bribes Lai accepted, saying they exceeded 600 million yuan ($120 million) in one instance. In total, it said Lai collected or sought to collect 1.79 billion yuan over a decade in exchange for abusing his position to make investments, offer construction contracts, help with promotions and provide other favours.
He was also convicted of embezzling more than 25 million yuan in state assets and starting a second family while still married to his first wife.
Although Lai provided useful details about malfeasance by his subordinates, the seriousness of his bribe-taking and “degree of harm caused to society" were not enough to win him leniency, the court said in its ruling.
“Lai Xiaomin is lawless and greedy in the extreme," the ruling said. “His crimes are extremely serious and must be punished severely under law."
Huarong is one of four entities created in the 1990s to buy non-performing loans from banks, helping to revive the state-owned finance industry. Such asset management companies expanded into banking, insurance, real estate finance and other fields.
Lai was accused of squandering public money, illegally organising banquets, engaging in sexual dealings with multiple women and taking bribes, the anti-corruption agency said in 2018.
Investigators seized hundreds of millions of yuan in cash from Lai’s properties, the Chinese business news magazine Caixin reported in 2018.
Lai was one of hundreds of officials at government agencies, state companies and the military who have been detained in an anti-corruption crackdown launched in 2012.
Other senior officials snared in the crackdown include a former head of China’s insurance regulator.
Saturday, 17 July 2021
Dramatic Drop in Saudi Executions After Laws Changed in 2020
Source: Bloomberg (18 January 2021)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-18/dramatic-drop-in-saudi-executions-after-laws-changed-in-2020
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Saudi Arabia, for years one of the world's most prolific executioners, dramatically reduced the number of people put to death last year, following changes halting executions for non-violent drug-related crimes, according to the government’s tally and independent observers.
The Saudi government’s Human Rights Commission said Monday it documented 27 executions in 2020. That's compared to an all-time high of 184 executions the year before as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The change represents an 85% reduction in the number of people put to death last year, compared to 2019.
"The sharp decrease was brought about in part by a moratorium on death penalties for drug-related offenses,” the Saudi rights commission said.
When asked by The Associated Press, the commission said the new law ordering a stop to such executions came into effect sometime last year. The new directive for judges does not appear to have been published publicly and it was not immediately clear whether the law was changed by royal decree, as is typically the case.
The AP previously reported that Saudi Arabia last year also ordered an end to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors and ordered judges to end the controversial practice of public flogging, replacing it with jail time, fines or community service.
The force behind these changes is 34-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has the backing of his father, King Salman. In an effort to modernize the country, attract foreign investment and revamp the economy, the prince has spearheaded a range of reforms curtailing the power of ultraconservative Wahhabis, who adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam that many Saudis still practice.
For years, the kingdom's high rate of executions was in large part due to the number of people executed for non-lethal offenses, which judges had wide discretion to rule on, particularly for drug-related crimes.
Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia third in the world for the highest number of executions in 2019, after China where the number of executions is believed to be in the thousands, and Iran. Among those put to death that year by Saudi Arabia were 32 minority Shiites convicted on terrorism charges related to their participation in anti-government protests and clashes with police.
While some crimes, such as premeditated murder, can carry fixed punishments under the Saudi interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, drug-related offenses are considered “ta’zir,” meaning neither the crime nor the punishment is defined in Islam. Discretionary judgments for “ta’zir” crimes led to arbitrary rulings with contentious outcomes.
The kingdom has long been criticized by independent rights groups for applying the death sentence for non-violent crimes related to drug trafficking. Many of those executed for such crimes were often poor Yemenis or low-level drug smugglers of South Asia descent, with the latter having little to no knowledge of Arabic and unable to understand or read the charges against them in court.
Saudi Arabia carries out executions mainly by beheading and sometimes in public. The kingdom had argued that public executions and those of drug traffickers serve as a deterrent to combat crime.
“The moratorium on drug-related offenses means the kingdom is giving more non-violent criminals a second chance," the president of the government's Human Rights Commission, Awwad Alawwad, said. In a statement obtained by the AP, he said the change represents a sign the Saudi justice system is focusing more on rehabilitation and prevention rather than solely on punishment.
According to Human Rights Watch, there were just five executions for drug-related crimes last year in Saudi Arabia, all in January 2020.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-18/dramatic-drop-in-saudi-executions-after-laws-changed-in-2020
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Saudi Arabia, for years one of the world's most prolific executioners, dramatically reduced the number of people put to death last year, following changes halting executions for non-violent drug-related crimes, according to the government’s tally and independent observers.
The Saudi government’s Human Rights Commission said Monday it documented 27 executions in 2020. That's compared to an all-time high of 184 executions the year before as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The change represents an 85% reduction in the number of people put to death last year, compared to 2019.
"The sharp decrease was brought about in part by a moratorium on death penalties for drug-related offenses,” the Saudi rights commission said.
When asked by The Associated Press, the commission said the new law ordering a stop to such executions came into effect sometime last year. The new directive for judges does not appear to have been published publicly and it was not immediately clear whether the law was changed by royal decree, as is typically the case.
The AP previously reported that Saudi Arabia last year also ordered an end to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors and ordered judges to end the controversial practice of public flogging, replacing it with jail time, fines or community service.
The force behind these changes is 34-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has the backing of his father, King Salman. In an effort to modernize the country, attract foreign investment and revamp the economy, the prince has spearheaded a range of reforms curtailing the power of ultraconservative Wahhabis, who adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam that many Saudis still practice.
For years, the kingdom's high rate of executions was in large part due to the number of people executed for non-lethal offenses, which judges had wide discretion to rule on, particularly for drug-related crimes.
Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia third in the world for the highest number of executions in 2019, after China where the number of executions is believed to be in the thousands, and Iran. Among those put to death that year by Saudi Arabia were 32 minority Shiites convicted on terrorism charges related to their participation in anti-government protests and clashes with police.
While some crimes, such as premeditated murder, can carry fixed punishments under the Saudi interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, drug-related offenses are considered “ta’zir,” meaning neither the crime nor the punishment is defined in Islam. Discretionary judgments for “ta’zir” crimes led to arbitrary rulings with contentious outcomes.
The kingdom has long been criticized by independent rights groups for applying the death sentence for non-violent crimes related to drug trafficking. Many of those executed for such crimes were often poor Yemenis or low-level drug smugglers of South Asia descent, with the latter having little to no knowledge of Arabic and unable to understand or read the charges against them in court.
Saudi Arabia carries out executions mainly by beheading and sometimes in public. The kingdom had argued that public executions and those of drug traffickers serve as a deterrent to combat crime.
“The moratorium on drug-related offenses means the kingdom is giving more non-violent criminals a second chance," the president of the government's Human Rights Commission, Awwad Alawwad, said. In a statement obtained by the AP, he said the change represents a sign the Saudi justice system is focusing more on rehabilitation and prevention rather than solely on punishment.
According to Human Rights Watch, there were just five executions for drug-related crimes last year in Saudi Arabia, all in January 2020.
Kazakhstan abolishes capital punishment
Source: Euractiv (4 January 2021)
https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-asia/news/kazakhstan-abolishes-capital-punishment/
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a decree abolishing the death penalty in Kazakhstan, according to a statement released by his office on Saturday (2 January).
The new law makes permanent the existing moratorium on state executions, introduced in 2003 by the first president of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The move was largely expected. Tokayev, a former high-ranking UN official who was elected in June 2019, announced that his country would join the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolishing the death penalty. The announcement was made in his speech at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in December 2019.
Russia, Tajikistan and Belarus are now the only three countries in Europe and Central Asia which haven’t yet signed or ratified the Second Optional Protocol. Belarus is the only country in Europe to carry out executions.
Capital punishment in Kazakhstan has been abolished but was still permitted for war crimes or terrorism, as the UN Convention allows. In 2008 and 2016, Kazakhstan voted in favour of the UN Moratorium on the Death Penalty.
While the former Soviet republic has not carried out an execution in almost two decades, death sentences have continued to be handed down to those convicted of serious crimes.
Tokayev has spared convicts sentenced to death. One of the last pronounced death sentences in Kazakhstan was reportedly that of mass murderer Ruslan Kulekbayev who shot and killed eight police officers and two civilians during a rampage in the country’s largest city, Almaty, in 2016. He will now serve a life sentence instead.
The last state-sanctioned executions carried out in the country were in May 2003, when 12 people were put to death by firing squad.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-asia/news/kazakhstan-abolishes-capital-punishment/
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a decree abolishing the death penalty in Kazakhstan, according to a statement released by his office on Saturday (2 January).
The new law makes permanent the existing moratorium on state executions, introduced in 2003 by the first president of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The move was largely expected. Tokayev, a former high-ranking UN official who was elected in June 2019, announced that his country would join the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolishing the death penalty. The announcement was made in his speech at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in December 2019.
Russia, Tajikistan and Belarus are now the only three countries in Europe and Central Asia which haven’t yet signed or ratified the Second Optional Protocol. Belarus is the only country in Europe to carry out executions.
Capital punishment in Kazakhstan has been abolished but was still permitted for war crimes or terrorism, as the UN Convention allows. In 2008 and 2016, Kazakhstan voted in favour of the UN Moratorium on the Death Penalty.
While the former Soviet republic has not carried out an execution in almost two decades, death sentences have continued to be handed down to those convicted of serious crimes.
Tokayev has spared convicts sentenced to death. One of the last pronounced death sentences in Kazakhstan was reportedly that of mass murderer Ruslan Kulekbayev who shot and killed eight police officers and two civilians during a rampage in the country’s largest city, Almaty, in 2016. He will now serve a life sentence instead.
The last state-sanctioned executions carried out in the country were in May 2003, when 12 people were put to death by firing squad.
Sunday, 9 May 2021
COVID-hit Indonesia orders executions via Zoom, video apps
Source: Public News (23 April 2021)
https://publicnews.in/world/covid-hit-indonesia-orders-executions-via-zoom-video-apps/
Amnesty says virtually 100 inmates sentenced nearly by judges since early final 12 months.
Indonesia has sentenced a number of prisoners to demise over Zoom and different video apps in the course of the coronavirus pandemic in what critics say is an “inhumane” insult to these dealing with the firing squad.
The Southeast Asian nation turned to digital courtroom hearings as COVID-19 restrictions shut down most in-person trials, together with homicide and drug trafficking circumstances, which might carry the demise penalty.
Since early final 12 months, virtually 100 inmates have been condemned to die in Indonesia by judges they might solely see on a tv monitor, in line with Amnesty International.
The Muslim-majority nation has a number of the world’s hardest drug legal guidelines and each Indonesian and international traffickers have been executed, together with the masterminds of Australia’s Bali Nine heroin gang.
This month, 13 members of a trafficking ring, together with three Iranians and a Pakistani, realized via video that they’d be shot for smuggling 400kg (880 kilos) of methamphetamine into Indonesia.
On Wednesday, a Jakarta courtroom sentenced six fighters to demise utilizing a video app over their position in a 2018 jail riot wherein 5 members of Indonesia’s counterterror squad had been killed.
“Virtual hearings degrade the rights of defendants facing death sentences – it’s about someone’s life and death,” mentioned Amnesty International Indonesia director, Usman Hamid.
“The death penalty has always been a cruel punishment. But this online trend adds to the injustice and inhumanity.”
‘Clear disadvantage’
Indonesia has pressed on with the digital hearings even because the variety of executions and demise sentences dropped globally final 12 months, with COVID-19 disrupting many legal proceedings, Amnesty mentioned in its annual capital punishment report this week.
Virtual hearings depart defendants unable to completely take part in circumstances which can be typically interrupted in international locations with poor web connections, together with Indonesia, critics say.
“Virtual platforms … can expose the defendant to significant violations of their fair trial rights and impinge on the quality of the defence,” NGO Harm Reduction International mentioned in a latest report on the demise penalty for drug offences.
Lawyers have complained about being unable to seek the advice of with purchasers attributable to virus restrictions. And households of the accused have typically been barred from accessing hearings that will usually be open to the general public.
“These virtual hearings present a clear disadvantage for defendants,” mentioned Indonesian lawyer Dedi Setiadi.
Setiadi, who defended a number of males sentenced to demise within the methamphetamine case this month, mentioned he would attraction their case on the grounds that digital hearings had been unfair.
Relatives of the defendants weren’t given full entry, the lawyer mentioned.
Death penalty sentences are sometimes commuted to lengthy jail phrases in Indonesia and an in-person trial may need caused a much less extreme verdict, in line with Setiadi, who described his purchasers as low-level gamers within the smuggling ring.
“The verdict could have been different if the judges had talked directly with the defendants and seen their expressions,” he mentioned. “A Zoom hearing is less personal.”
Indonesia’s Supreme Court, which ordered on-line hearings in the course of the pandemic, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
But the nation’s judicial fee instructed AFP news company that it has requested the highest courtroom to think about returning to in-person trials for severe offences, together with circumstances with capital punishment.
There are almost 500 folks, together with many foreigners, awaiting execution in Indonesia, the place condemned prisoners are marched to a jungle clearing, tied to a stake and shot.
https://publicnews.in/world/covid-hit-indonesia-orders-executions-via-zoom-video-apps/
Amnesty says virtually 100 inmates sentenced nearly by judges since early final 12 months.
Indonesia has sentenced a number of prisoners to demise over Zoom and different video apps in the course of the coronavirus pandemic in what critics say is an “inhumane” insult to these dealing with the firing squad.
The Southeast Asian nation turned to digital courtroom hearings as COVID-19 restrictions shut down most in-person trials, together with homicide and drug trafficking circumstances, which might carry the demise penalty.
Since early final 12 months, virtually 100 inmates have been condemned to die in Indonesia by judges they might solely see on a tv monitor, in line with Amnesty International.
The Muslim-majority nation has a number of the world’s hardest drug legal guidelines and each Indonesian and international traffickers have been executed, together with the masterminds of Australia’s Bali Nine heroin gang.
This month, 13 members of a trafficking ring, together with three Iranians and a Pakistani, realized via video that they’d be shot for smuggling 400kg (880 kilos) of methamphetamine into Indonesia.
On Wednesday, a Jakarta courtroom sentenced six fighters to demise utilizing a video app over their position in a 2018 jail riot wherein 5 members of Indonesia’s counterterror squad had been killed.
“Virtual hearings degrade the rights of defendants facing death sentences – it’s about someone’s life and death,” mentioned Amnesty International Indonesia director, Usman Hamid.
“The death penalty has always been a cruel punishment. But this online trend adds to the injustice and inhumanity.”
‘Clear disadvantage’
Indonesia has pressed on with the digital hearings even because the variety of executions and demise sentences dropped globally final 12 months, with COVID-19 disrupting many legal proceedings, Amnesty mentioned in its annual capital punishment report this week.
Virtual hearings depart defendants unable to completely take part in circumstances which can be typically interrupted in international locations with poor web connections, together with Indonesia, critics say.
“Virtual platforms … can expose the defendant to significant violations of their fair trial rights and impinge on the quality of the defence,” NGO Harm Reduction International mentioned in a latest report on the demise penalty for drug offences.
Lawyers have complained about being unable to seek the advice of with purchasers attributable to virus restrictions. And households of the accused have typically been barred from accessing hearings that will usually be open to the general public.
“These virtual hearings present a clear disadvantage for defendants,” mentioned Indonesian lawyer Dedi Setiadi.
Setiadi, who defended a number of males sentenced to demise within the methamphetamine case this month, mentioned he would attraction their case on the grounds that digital hearings had been unfair.
Relatives of the defendants weren’t given full entry, the lawyer mentioned.
Death penalty sentences are sometimes commuted to lengthy jail phrases in Indonesia and an in-person trial may need caused a much less extreme verdict, in line with Setiadi, who described his purchasers as low-level gamers within the smuggling ring.
“The verdict could have been different if the judges had talked directly with the defendants and seen their expressions,” he mentioned. “A Zoom hearing is less personal.”
Indonesia’s Supreme Court, which ordered on-line hearings in the course of the pandemic, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
But the nation’s judicial fee instructed AFP news company that it has requested the highest courtroom to think about returning to in-person trials for severe offences, together with circumstances with capital punishment.
There are almost 500 folks, together with many foreigners, awaiting execution in Indonesia, the place condemned prisoners are marched to a jungle clearing, tied to a stake and shot.
Friday, 23 April 2021
China, Middle East dominate 2020 list of top executioners: Report
Source: Al Jazeera (21 April 2021)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/21/executions-death-penalties-continued-in-2020-amid-covid-report
While the year 2020 witnessed an overall decline in the number of global death penalties, some countries increased the number of executions they carried out.
In its annual global review of the death penalty, Amnesty International said that the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus pandemic contributed to a trend of decline in global executions between January and December 2020. But authorities in 18 countries continued executing last year.
Amnesty relied on official figures, judgements, media reports and information from families, individuals and civil societies to collate data for its report titled Death Sentences and Executions in 2020.
Commenting on the findings, Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said in a statement: “As the world focused on finding ways to protect lives from COVID-19, several governments showed a disturbing determination to resort to the death penalty and execute people no matter what.”
“The death penalty is an abhorrent punishment and pursuing executions in the middle of a pandemic further highlights its inherent cruelty,” Callamard said, adding that many people on death row were unable to access in-person legal representation under these conditions, which is considered “a particularly egregious assault on human rights”.
Although the figures in the report provided an overall reflection of the global breakdown of executions in 2020, they were on the lower end of estimates for many countries.
Data on the use of the death penalty is classified information in some countries, including China and Vietnam, whereas in countries like Laos and North Korea, little or no information is available due to restrictive state practices.
Top six executing countries
China is believed to be “the world’s most prolific executioner”, executing thousands of people each year, said the report.
But with Chinese authorities classifying the total number of death sentences and executions as state secrets, it is difficult to verify the exact number carried out.
After China, four Middle Eastern countries – Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – accounted for 88 percent of all known executions in 2020, said the report.
Iran came in as the second-highest global executioner with more than 246 executions carried out between January and December 2020.
Among those executed was journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was hung on December 12. He was once-exiled over his online work that helped inspire nationwide economic protests in 2017.
Coming in third was Egypt, which at 107 executions, tripled the number of yearly executions in 2020 compared with the year before.
The 2020 toll was the highest since the number of executions peaked in 2013, following the military overthrow in July 2013 of Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi. At least 109 executions were carried out in 2013, according to Amnesty.
Dozens of those executions were related to political violence. Many of the trials were marred by serious human rights violations, including torture and enforced disappearances, said the report.
The spike in executions in Egypt occurred between October and November when the government executed 57 people, including four women. Several human rights organisations decried the executions.
In fourth place, Iraq executed more than 45 people last year. That total was still less than half the number of executions carried out by the Iraqi authorities in 2019, said the report.
Several of those cases involved prisoners in terrorism-related crimes, who according to the United Nations human rights experts, faced trials that were unjust.
With at least 27 executions, Saudi Arabia was considered the fifth top global executioner in 2020, according to the report.
Despite this, the number of recorded executions in Saudi Arabia fell by 85 percent from 184 in 2019.
Criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record has grown since King Salman named his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) as crown prince and heir to the throne in June 2017 and Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul in October 2018.
In a huge setback, the US became the only country in the Americas to carry out executions in 2020 after the Trump administration carried out the first federal execution in 17 years in July 2020.
And yet, in 2020, the US reached its lowest figure of executions in almost 30 years.
International law violations
Additionally, Amnesty recorded several executions that violated international law including one public execution and three people executed for crimes that occurred below the age of 18 in Iran.
In violation of international law, people with mental or intellectual disabilities were also put to death in countries including the US, Japan, the Maldives and Pakistan, said the report.
Meanwhile, many counties are believed to have imposed death sentences following proceedings that did not meet international standards for fair trials in Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt and Singapore among others.
In China, Iran and Saudi Arabia at least 30 executions were linked to drug-related offences.
Lowest in decade
The total number of known global executions in 2020 was at least 483, said the report, which marked the lowest number of executions recorded by Amnesty in at least 10 years.
The figure represented a 26-percent decrease in the number of executions compared with 2019 and a 70-percent fall from 1,634 global executions in 2015. This drop was primarily linked to reductions in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, according to the report.
Furthermore, the number of known executing countries fell from 20 in 2019 to 18 in 2020.
At the same time, at 1,477 the report recorded a 36-percent decline in newly imposed death sentences in 2020 globally, compared with the previous year. According to the report, this decline was partly due to the coronavirus pandemic disrupting and delayed criminal proceedings globally.
No executions were recorded in several countries that executed people in the previous two years, including Afghanistan, Belarus, Japan, Singapore and Sudan.
Abolishing death penalty
Meanwhile, the US state of Colorado and Chad abolished the death penalty in 2020, which as of April 2021, brought the number of countries to have abolished the death penalty for all crimes to 108.
With Kazakhstan committing to abolish the death penalty and Barbados concluding reforms to repeal the mandatory death penalty, the number of countries that abolished it in law or practice reached 144.
“Despite the continued pursuit of the death penalty by some governments, the overall picture in 2020 was positive,” said Callamard.
“We urge leaders in all countries that have not yet repealed this punishment to make 2021 the year that they end state-sanctioned killings for good,” she added.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/21/executions-death-penalties-continued-in-2020-amid-covid-report
While the year 2020 witnessed an overall decline in the number of global death penalties, some countries increased the number of executions they carried out.
In its annual global review of the death penalty, Amnesty International said that the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus pandemic contributed to a trend of decline in global executions between January and December 2020. But authorities in 18 countries continued executing last year.
Amnesty relied on official figures, judgements, media reports and information from families, individuals and civil societies to collate data for its report titled Death Sentences and Executions in 2020.
Commenting on the findings, Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said in a statement: “As the world focused on finding ways to protect lives from COVID-19, several governments showed a disturbing determination to resort to the death penalty and execute people no matter what.”
“The death penalty is an abhorrent punishment and pursuing executions in the middle of a pandemic further highlights its inherent cruelty,” Callamard said, adding that many people on death row were unable to access in-person legal representation under these conditions, which is considered “a particularly egregious assault on human rights”.
Although the figures in the report provided an overall reflection of the global breakdown of executions in 2020, they were on the lower end of estimates for many countries.
Data on the use of the death penalty is classified information in some countries, including China and Vietnam, whereas in countries like Laos and North Korea, little or no information is available due to restrictive state practices.
Top six executing countries
China is believed to be “the world’s most prolific executioner”, executing thousands of people each year, said the report.
But with Chinese authorities classifying the total number of death sentences and executions as state secrets, it is difficult to verify the exact number carried out.
After China, four Middle Eastern countries – Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – accounted for 88 percent of all known executions in 2020, said the report.
Iran came in as the second-highest global executioner with more than 246 executions carried out between January and December 2020.
Among those executed was journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was hung on December 12. He was once-exiled over his online work that helped inspire nationwide economic protests in 2017.
Coming in third was Egypt, which at 107 executions, tripled the number of yearly executions in 2020 compared with the year before.
The 2020 toll was the highest since the number of executions peaked in 2013, following the military overthrow in July 2013 of Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi. At least 109 executions were carried out in 2013, according to Amnesty.
Dozens of those executions were related to political violence. Many of the trials were marred by serious human rights violations, including torture and enforced disappearances, said the report.
The spike in executions in Egypt occurred between October and November when the government executed 57 people, including four women. Several human rights organisations decried the executions.
In fourth place, Iraq executed more than 45 people last year. That total was still less than half the number of executions carried out by the Iraqi authorities in 2019, said the report.
Several of those cases involved prisoners in terrorism-related crimes, who according to the United Nations human rights experts, faced trials that were unjust.
With at least 27 executions, Saudi Arabia was considered the fifth top global executioner in 2020, according to the report.
Despite this, the number of recorded executions in Saudi Arabia fell by 85 percent from 184 in 2019.
Criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record has grown since King Salman named his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) as crown prince and heir to the throne in June 2017 and Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul in October 2018.
In a huge setback, the US became the only country in the Americas to carry out executions in 2020 after the Trump administration carried out the first federal execution in 17 years in July 2020.
And yet, in 2020, the US reached its lowest figure of executions in almost 30 years.
International law violations
Additionally, Amnesty recorded several executions that violated international law including one public execution and three people executed for crimes that occurred below the age of 18 in Iran.
In violation of international law, people with mental or intellectual disabilities were also put to death in countries including the US, Japan, the Maldives and Pakistan, said the report.
Meanwhile, many counties are believed to have imposed death sentences following proceedings that did not meet international standards for fair trials in Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt and Singapore among others.
In China, Iran and Saudi Arabia at least 30 executions were linked to drug-related offences.
Lowest in decade
The total number of known global executions in 2020 was at least 483, said the report, which marked the lowest number of executions recorded by Amnesty in at least 10 years.
The figure represented a 26-percent decrease in the number of executions compared with 2019 and a 70-percent fall from 1,634 global executions in 2015. This drop was primarily linked to reductions in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, according to the report.
Furthermore, the number of known executing countries fell from 20 in 2019 to 18 in 2020.
At the same time, at 1,477 the report recorded a 36-percent decline in newly imposed death sentences in 2020 globally, compared with the previous year. According to the report, this decline was partly due to the coronavirus pandemic disrupting and delayed criminal proceedings globally.
No executions were recorded in several countries that executed people in the previous two years, including Afghanistan, Belarus, Japan, Singapore and Sudan.
Abolishing death penalty
Meanwhile, the US state of Colorado and Chad abolished the death penalty in 2020, which as of April 2021, brought the number of countries to have abolished the death penalty for all crimes to 108.
With Kazakhstan committing to abolish the death penalty and Barbados concluding reforms to repeal the mandatory death penalty, the number of countries that abolished it in law or practice reached 144.
“Despite the continued pursuit of the death penalty by some governments, the overall picture in 2020 was positive,” said Callamard.
“We urge leaders in all countries that have not yet repealed this punishment to make 2021 the year that they end state-sanctioned killings for good,” she added.
Wednesday, 7 April 2021
Lame Duck Executioners
When historians look back and evaluate the Trump presidency, one focus will be the instigation of the federal death penalty. Until the execution of Daniel Lee Lewis on Jan 14, 2020, no federal prisoner had been executed in 17 years. The execution of Lisa Montgomery was even more extreme - no woman had been put to death by the federal government in 67 years, the last one being in 1953.
Apart from restarting federal executions, another quagmire was Trump's insistence on carrying out executions even after election defeat. Whether one supports or opposes the death penalty, both sides can likely agree that it is a political issue. And political issues can bring political rewards. In the United States, prosecutors gain accolades when a sentence of death is pronounced. And then a second time - in the not so usual instance - if the accused is put to death.
Politicians often have much to gain. Preaching that law and order is necessary, and that the death penalty keeps our communities safe, brings donations and votes. Judges who oppose the death penalty draw the wrath of police organizations, and can end up as grass by the wayside.
Jilted lovers and defeated politicians share similar mindsets. Like Monday morning quarterbacks, 'what did I do wrong, what could I have done better', are questions which dog the mind. Those who lose in love and politics often indulge in drastic actions. And this phenomenon is hardly indigenous to the United States.
In September 2009, The Democratic Party of Japan, an opposition party, took control of the Japanese parliament. It was only the second time in postwar history that the stalwart conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was sidelined. Human rights activists and progressives celebrated the victory. In particular, they welcomed the appointment of (Ms) Keiko Chiba, a practicing attorney, as Justice Minister. Chiba had a firm record of supporting human rights, actively opposed the death penalty, and was a member of a non-partisan abolitionist caucus within the parliament.
Death penalty abolitionists in Japan breathed a sigh of relief. From December 2006 until January 2009 - a period of 25 months - Japan had hung 32 prisoners. The country disposed of nearly one third of its death row. By comparison, the US as a whole would have had to carry out more than 700 executions to keep pace.
On July 11, 2010, ten months after assuming office, Chiba, who had served in parliament off and on since 1996, lost her bid for re-election. It is extremely rare for a sitting minister to lose a race for office in Japan. However, in a somewhat unusual move, she was allowed to remain on as minister of justice until the end of her parliamentary term.
A Shocking Reversal
Some two weeks after defeat, Chiba turned face. She ordered two executions. And to add fuel to the fire, she did something no other justice minister had even contemplated: opening the Tokyo gallows, which had never been photographed, to the press (albeit without the noose).
Executions in Japan are shrouded in secrecy. Prisoners need not be informed of when they will hang, and we surmise that most do not know until the morning of the execution. Until about 10 years ago, the Ministry of Justice did not even make public announcements of executions. The public and relatives of the deceased heard the news after the ministry informed prisoner's attorneys, who then alerted concerned family and human rights organizations.
Say it ain't so Keiko
Chiba's title, Minister of Justice, was a bit of a misnomer. A proper translation of the title 'Ministry of Justice' (Houmusho) is better rendered as the 'Ministry of Laws' (as it is called in the Philippines and in Singapore). The ministry is charged with maintaining the dominant social narrative: citizens should work hard, not complain, avoid litigation, and listen to authority. 'Justice' is hardly part of the agenda.
Quite often, ordering an execution is a rite of passage for new justice ministers. Many authorize them soon after appointment. Executions assuage upper-level bureaucrats, fellow ruling party politicians, as well as the public which supports capital punishment.
From the outset, Chiba refused to execute. Why did she renege? The most likely guess is that the apparatchiks teased, "See what your abolitionist tendencies have wrought? We told you to execute and you ignored us. You should have listened. The Japanese public believe in the death penalty. Now you are a lame duck minister."
Penal Populism
Long before running for office, Donald Trump firmly supported the death penalty. In 1989, he paid for several full-page articles, including in The New York Times, screaming for the reinstitution of the death penalty in New York state. This was revenge against five black men who were then alleged to have attacked a white woman and became known as the Central Park Five.
The Central Park Five were falsely accused. All were later exonerated. One would expect a normal mind to bear remorse for advocating what would have constituted wrongful executions. Or at the very least, to avoid making the same mistake twice.
Donald J. Trump was not of a normal mind. And one wonders if former justice minister Chiba also became temporarily deluded. Be it the US, or Japan, support for the death penalty brings political rewards, and from opposition can foster political reprisals. The US and Japan are the only large, advanced democracies that conduct executions. And until complete abolition is reached in both countries, penal populism - political actors teasing voters with executions and other severe criminal justice policies - will likely continue to woo the public.
Michael H. Fox is associate professor at Hyogo University and
director of the Japan Innocence and Death Penalty Information Center
(www.jiadep.org)
Drug Smugglers Are Being Sentenced to Death via Zoom
Source: Vice (7 April 2021)
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgzejk/drug-smugglers-are-being-sentenced-to-death-via-zoom
Courts in Indonesia and Singapore are using video calls to sentence to death people convicted of drug trafficking, according to drug harm reduction experts.
Harm Reduction International (HRI), which published its annual report into global drug war death penalties on Wednesday, told VICE World News that 19 drug offenders were sentenced to death in Indonesia during virtual hearings held on video apps such as Zoom and WhatsApp between March 2020 and March this year. Two people convicted of drug trafficking were handed death sentences over Zoom calls in Singapore last year.
The report said use of video calls for trial hearings and to administer death sentences introduced due to COVID-19 constituted a “significant violation of their fair trial rights”.
Lawyers for defendants said the video conference calls, which featured defendants speaking from prison, were often prone to interruption and “freezing” due to bad internet connections. Indonesia has some of the lowest internet speeds in the world.
In addition, they said the online format meant they could not properly consult with defendants, and that proceedings were not always be witnessed by the general public, including family members. A number of those sentenced to death were foreign nationals, some of whom who had no access to court interpreters. Lawyers also said Zoom calls were lacking in terms of security and confidentiality.
“We cannot record the process, nor take screenshots or photos unless we get the judges’ permission. Virtual hearings mean the whole process is not open for the public because the link is distributed limitedly,” lawyers who defended some of the traffickers told HRI.
The virtual death sentences in Indonesia include the case of three Malaysians, Kumar Atchababoo, Rajandran Ramasamy, and Sanggat Ramasamy, who were sentenced to death via an online video call in November after being convicted of attempting to smuggle 28.6kg of methamphetamine into Indonesia last January. A defence lawyer said he would be appealing the decision as the online trial meant he could not communicate with his client. In February a Pakistani national and a Yemeni national were handed death sentences for methamphetamine smuggling after an online Zoom trial and sentencing.
In Singapore last May, Punithan Genasan, a 37-year old from Malaysia, was sentenced to death by hanging via a sentencing hearing held on Zoom. Genasan, who had denied the charges, was sentenced after being found guilty of a heroin smuggling charge dating back to 2011.
“The use of virtual platforms to conduct criminal proceedings, especially those which result in a death sentence, can expose the defendant to significant violations of their fair trial rights and impinge on the quality of the defence,” said the report.
As of October 2020, according to the report, there were 355 people on death row in Indonesia, of which 214 were convicted for drug offences – a 29 percent increase from 2019. Indonesia has a reputation for harsh treatment of its addicted drug users, and has seen a clampdown on its tourists drug scene since 2019.
The report found that despite the COVID pandemic there was a rise in death sentences handed out for drug offences. In 2020, courts sentenced 213 people to death for drug offences, an increase of 16 percent from the previous year, with Vietnam (78) and Indonesia (77) representing three quarters of all death sentences given for drugs. In June five people, including a mother and her daughter, were sentenced to death for their role in smuggling 26.4kg of heroin into Vietnam from Laos.
However, the number of executions for drug offences tumbled last year by 75 percent, due to the pandemic and also a near moratorium on drug crime executions in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top executioners for drug offences for the past decade. There were 30 confirmed executions for drug offences in 2020, down from 116 in 2019. All of the executions took place in 3 countries, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
One case involved an Egyptian truck driver who was arrested with a stash of amphetamine hidden in a truck he was driving transporting in Saudi Arabia in 2017. Human rights groups said he was tortured so badly he missed two court hearings and was denied legal representation. His family wasn’t informed of his arrest, conviction and execution, in January last year, which they found out about from fellow prisoners and a newspaper article.
Data on the death penalty for drug offences is “grossly insufficient” according to HRI, partly due to a lack of information on executions in China and Vietnam, with both nations reported to routinely execute people for drug offences. Vietnam considers the death penalty a matter of state secrecy.
The report said 35 countries still retain the death penalty for drug offences. There are at least 3,000 people currently on death row for drug offences worldwide.
“The fact that countries continued to sentence people to death for drug offences amidst a global pandemic is abhorrent and emblematic of an overly punitive approach to drug control. Too many countries remain reluctant to move away from capital punishment and their false belief that the death penalty deters drug offences,” said Naomi Burke-Shyne, executive director at HRI.
“While the record low number of executions for drug offences is certainly welcome, executions are only the tip of the iceberg. Executions are the most visible part of a hugely problematic system, characterised by human rights violations.”
There were no drug offence executions in the US in 2020. Although in February last year former President Donald Trump praised countries, including China, which impose the death penalty for drug offences, saying, erroneously, that “states with a very powerful death penalty on drug dealers don’t have a drug problem.” Incumbent President Joe Biden has pledged to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level. In December 2020, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted its eighth resolution calling for a moratorium of the death penalty, with record-breaking support from 123 countries.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgzejk/drug-smugglers-are-being-sentenced-to-death-via-zoom
Courts in Indonesia and Singapore are using video calls to sentence to death people convicted of drug trafficking, according to drug harm reduction experts.
Harm Reduction International (HRI), which published its annual report into global drug war death penalties on Wednesday, told VICE World News that 19 drug offenders were sentenced to death in Indonesia during virtual hearings held on video apps such as Zoom and WhatsApp between March 2020 and March this year. Two people convicted of drug trafficking were handed death sentences over Zoom calls in Singapore last year.
The report said use of video calls for trial hearings and to administer death sentences introduced due to COVID-19 constituted a “significant violation of their fair trial rights”.
Lawyers for defendants said the video conference calls, which featured defendants speaking from prison, were often prone to interruption and “freezing” due to bad internet connections. Indonesia has some of the lowest internet speeds in the world.
In addition, they said the online format meant they could not properly consult with defendants, and that proceedings were not always be witnessed by the general public, including family members. A number of those sentenced to death were foreign nationals, some of whom who had no access to court interpreters. Lawyers also said Zoom calls were lacking in terms of security and confidentiality.
“We cannot record the process, nor take screenshots or photos unless we get the judges’ permission. Virtual hearings mean the whole process is not open for the public because the link is distributed limitedly,” lawyers who defended some of the traffickers told HRI.
The virtual death sentences in Indonesia include the case of three Malaysians, Kumar Atchababoo, Rajandran Ramasamy, and Sanggat Ramasamy, who were sentenced to death via an online video call in November after being convicted of attempting to smuggle 28.6kg of methamphetamine into Indonesia last January. A defence lawyer said he would be appealing the decision as the online trial meant he could not communicate with his client. In February a Pakistani national and a Yemeni national were handed death sentences for methamphetamine smuggling after an online Zoom trial and sentencing.
In Singapore last May, Punithan Genasan, a 37-year old from Malaysia, was sentenced to death by hanging via a sentencing hearing held on Zoom. Genasan, who had denied the charges, was sentenced after being found guilty of a heroin smuggling charge dating back to 2011.
“The use of virtual platforms to conduct criminal proceedings, especially those which result in a death sentence, can expose the defendant to significant violations of their fair trial rights and impinge on the quality of the defence,” said the report.
As of October 2020, according to the report, there were 355 people on death row in Indonesia, of which 214 were convicted for drug offences – a 29 percent increase from 2019. Indonesia has a reputation for harsh treatment of its addicted drug users, and has seen a clampdown on its tourists drug scene since 2019.
The report found that despite the COVID pandemic there was a rise in death sentences handed out for drug offences. In 2020, courts sentenced 213 people to death for drug offences, an increase of 16 percent from the previous year, with Vietnam (78) and Indonesia (77) representing three quarters of all death sentences given for drugs. In June five people, including a mother and her daughter, were sentenced to death for their role in smuggling 26.4kg of heroin into Vietnam from Laos.
However, the number of executions for drug offences tumbled last year by 75 percent, due to the pandemic and also a near moratorium on drug crime executions in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top executioners for drug offences for the past decade. There were 30 confirmed executions for drug offences in 2020, down from 116 in 2019. All of the executions took place in 3 countries, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
One case involved an Egyptian truck driver who was arrested with a stash of amphetamine hidden in a truck he was driving transporting in Saudi Arabia in 2017. Human rights groups said he was tortured so badly he missed two court hearings and was denied legal representation. His family wasn’t informed of his arrest, conviction and execution, in January last year, which they found out about from fellow prisoners and a newspaper article.
Data on the death penalty for drug offences is “grossly insufficient” according to HRI, partly due to a lack of information on executions in China and Vietnam, with both nations reported to routinely execute people for drug offences. Vietnam considers the death penalty a matter of state secrecy.
The report said 35 countries still retain the death penalty for drug offences. There are at least 3,000 people currently on death row for drug offences worldwide.
“The fact that countries continued to sentence people to death for drug offences amidst a global pandemic is abhorrent and emblematic of an overly punitive approach to drug control. Too many countries remain reluctant to move away from capital punishment and their false belief that the death penalty deters drug offences,” said Naomi Burke-Shyne, executive director at HRI.
“While the record low number of executions for drug offences is certainly welcome, executions are only the tip of the iceberg. Executions are the most visible part of a hugely problematic system, characterised by human rights violations.”
There were no drug offence executions in the US in 2020. Although in February last year former President Donald Trump praised countries, including China, which impose the death penalty for drug offences, saying, erroneously, that “states with a very powerful death penalty on drug dealers don’t have a drug problem.” Incumbent President Joe Biden has pledged to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level. In December 2020, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted its eighth resolution calling for a moratorium of the death penalty, with record-breaking support from 123 countries.
Monday, 1 February 2021
COVID-19 stops the executioner, reducing executions by 85 per cent in 2020
Source: AsiaNews (18 January 2021)
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/COVID-19-stops-the-executioner,-reducing-executions-by-85-per-cent-in-2020-52101.html
Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The number of executions dropped considerably in Saudi Arabia in 2020 following recording breaking years (see 2019). Because of a shortage of executioners, Saudi authorities have also launched a recruitment drive.
Although the Saudi kingdom, still ruled as an absolute fiefdom, led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, is sending out signals of reform and modernisation, critics note that many people, some minors at the time of their offences, are still on death row.
According to data provided by the Saudi Human Rights Commission, “only” 27 people were executed last year, with a decrease of 85 per cent over the previous year.
One reason, experts say, is a moratorium on capital punishment for crimes related to drugs and drug trafficking.
At the same time, restrictions and lockdowns imposed by the authorities to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic have cut down the number of crimes.
For the president of the Commission, Awwad Alawwad, this is a sign that “the kingdom and its judicial system are focusing more on rehabilitation and prevention rather than punishment.”
In 2019 the executioner struck 184 times, a record according to several international NGOs.
Reprieve, an anti-death penalty NGO, counted 25 executions for 2020, the lowest figure since they started keeping records in 2013.
However, the number could jump significantly this year as pandemic-related restrictions were the main factor in last year’s drop.
In fact, a third of the executions recorded last year, Reprieve explains in a note, “were carried out in the month of December alone,” and in the last quarter, the trend saw a rapid increase over previous quarters.
In April, Riyadh had announced a moratorium on the death penalty for offenders who were minors at the time of their crimes.
However, at least five people sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were underage are still waiting on death row, this according to the Saudi Human Rights Commission.
The latter also notes that decree announcing the moratorium was never published in the Official Gazette. What is more, Saudi Arabia’s official news agency, SPA, also failed to mention it as one of the main events of 2020.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/COVID-19-stops-the-executioner,-reducing-executions-by-85-per-cent-in-2020-52101.html
Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The number of executions dropped considerably in Saudi Arabia in 2020 following recording breaking years (see 2019). Because of a shortage of executioners, Saudi authorities have also launched a recruitment drive.
Although the Saudi kingdom, still ruled as an absolute fiefdom, led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, is sending out signals of reform and modernisation, critics note that many people, some minors at the time of their offences, are still on death row.
According to data provided by the Saudi Human Rights Commission, “only” 27 people were executed last year, with a decrease of 85 per cent over the previous year.
One reason, experts say, is a moratorium on capital punishment for crimes related to drugs and drug trafficking.
At the same time, restrictions and lockdowns imposed by the authorities to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic have cut down the number of crimes.
For the president of the Commission, Awwad Alawwad, this is a sign that “the kingdom and its judicial system are focusing more on rehabilitation and prevention rather than punishment.”
In 2019 the executioner struck 184 times, a record according to several international NGOs.
Reprieve, an anti-death penalty NGO, counted 25 executions for 2020, the lowest figure since they started keeping records in 2013.
However, the number could jump significantly this year as pandemic-related restrictions were the main factor in last year’s drop.
In fact, a third of the executions recorded last year, Reprieve explains in a note, “were carried out in the month of December alone,” and in the last quarter, the trend saw a rapid increase over previous quarters.
In April, Riyadh had announced a moratorium on the death penalty for offenders who were minors at the time of their crimes.
However, at least five people sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were underage are still waiting on death row, this according to the Saudi Human Rights Commission.
The latter also notes that decree announcing the moratorium was never published in the Official Gazette. What is more, Saudi Arabia’s official news agency, SPA, also failed to mention it as one of the main events of 2020.
Sunday, 20 December 2020
End death penalty quickly, Bar urges govt
Source: Free Malaysia Today (19 December 2020)
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/12/19/end-death-penalty-quickly-bar-urges-govt/
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Bar wants the government to speed up the legislative process to abolish the death penalty and bring about certainty to those on Death Row.
Its president Salim Bashir said this group of prisoners had to undergo psychological torture from the time the capital punishment was imposed by the courts to the day it is carried out, which sometimes takes more than a decade.
It is estimated that more than 1,000 prisoners are now awaiting execution in Malaysia.
“Hopefully, the government will make its decision soon to bring closure to their long wait,” Salim said.
He said that there had been a moratorium on carrying out hangings since 2018, pending a decision on the abolition of the death penalty.
Salim said it also took time for such prisoners to exhaust their appeals before the courts and clemency applications.
“Previously, executions were carried out after a long wait when convicts were old and sick and this was considered to be ruthless,” he said.
Salim was speaking days after convicted drug trafficker Chu Tak Fai, who spent 27 years in jail, including 12 years on death row, was finally given his freedom.
The 50-year-old Hong Kong national left for home last week after the Sultan of Kedah gave him a final pardon.
Chu had his capital punishment commuted to natural life imprisonment in 2006 and later to life imprisonment for 20 years.
The jail term was to begin from 2016. In March this year, the sultan granted him his freedom.
The bill to abolish the mandatory death penalty for 11 serious offences was scheduled to have been tabled at the March parliamentary sitting this year. However, the change in government delayed the matter.
The bill had proposed that a jail term of up to 30 years be imposed once an accused is sentenced for offences like murder and drug trafficking.
Meanwhile, rights group, Eliminating Deaths and Abuse in Custody Together (EDICT), said many were not as lucky as Chu and no one could fathom the pain and agony that he went through while in isolation in Death Row.
“Chu would have remained unproductive during the prime years of his life in prison,” said its chairman M Visvanathan.
Visvanathan also said long term inmates should be allowed to assimilate with the local community like first working with prison staff and later taking up jobs outside.
“Our prison reform is long overdue and now is the opportune time to take progressive steps,” he added.
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/12/19/end-death-penalty-quickly-bar-urges-govt/
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Bar wants the government to speed up the legislative process to abolish the death penalty and bring about certainty to those on Death Row.
Its president Salim Bashir said this group of prisoners had to undergo psychological torture from the time the capital punishment was imposed by the courts to the day it is carried out, which sometimes takes more than a decade.
It is estimated that more than 1,000 prisoners are now awaiting execution in Malaysia.
“Hopefully, the government will make its decision soon to bring closure to their long wait,” Salim said.
He said that there had been a moratorium on carrying out hangings since 2018, pending a decision on the abolition of the death penalty.
Salim said it also took time for such prisoners to exhaust their appeals before the courts and clemency applications.
“Previously, executions were carried out after a long wait when convicts were old and sick and this was considered to be ruthless,” he said.
Salim was speaking days after convicted drug trafficker Chu Tak Fai, who spent 27 years in jail, including 12 years on death row, was finally given his freedom.
The 50-year-old Hong Kong national left for home last week after the Sultan of Kedah gave him a final pardon.
Chu had his capital punishment commuted to natural life imprisonment in 2006 and later to life imprisonment for 20 years.
The jail term was to begin from 2016. In March this year, the sultan granted him his freedom.
The bill to abolish the mandatory death penalty for 11 serious offences was scheduled to have been tabled at the March parliamentary sitting this year. However, the change in government delayed the matter.
The bill had proposed that a jail term of up to 30 years be imposed once an accused is sentenced for offences like murder and drug trafficking.
Meanwhile, rights group, Eliminating Deaths and Abuse in Custody Together (EDICT), said many were not as lucky as Chu and no one could fathom the pain and agony that he went through while in isolation in Death Row.
“Chu would have remained unproductive during the prime years of his life in prison,” said its chairman M Visvanathan.
Visvanathan also said long term inmates should be allowed to assimilate with the local community like first working with prison staff and later taking up jobs outside.
“Our prison reform is long overdue and now is the opportune time to take progressive steps,” he added.
Thursday, 26 November 2020
Explaining Southeast Asia’s Addiction to the Death Penalty
Source: The Diplomat (25 November 2020)
https://thediplomat.com/2020/11/explaining-southeast-asias-addiction-to-the-death-penalty/
On November 17, the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of capital punishment. It passed convincingly: a total of 120 nations voted for the resolution, which called for nations to restrict the use of the death penalty, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.
One curious fact was that of the 10 nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, only three – Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Philippines – voted to support the resolution. Singapore and Brunei voted against it, while the remaining five nations – among them some of the region’s most eager users of the death penalty – abstained.
The U.N. vote indicates an increasingly widespread international consensus against the use of the death penalty. As the General Assembly stated in a December 2007 resolution, “there is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty’s deterrent value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty’s implementation is irreversible and irreparable.”
But the vote also highlighted Southeast Asia’s continuing use of – and defense of – capital punishment, despite the tireless efforts of the region’s death penalty abolitionists. To start with, it is no surprise to see Singapore sitting squarely in the “NO” column. Anyone who has descended into Singapore’s Changi Airport will be familiar with airlines’ chirpy reminder that Singapore imposes the death penalty for drug trafficking offenses. According to Amnesty International, Singapore is one of four countries known to have carried out executions for drug-related violations in recent years. The country reportedly has 50 people on death row who have exhausted all appeals.
Moreover, the city-state has been among the most forthright and confident defenders of the death penalty as a punishment for serious crimes. This was reflected in Singapore’s introduction of an amendment to the U.N. resolution that asserts the “sovereign right of all countries to develop their own legal systems, including determining appropriate legal penalties.” The amendment was adopted by a vote of failed to pass, but was also supported by 33 other countries, including by Brunei, Laos, and Vietnam.
Some of those nations that abstained from the vote also continue to hand down death sentences. Take Indonesia. While the country has not executed anyone since 2016, the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) points out that it has approximately 274 people on death row, including 60 people who have been there for more than 10 years. In 2019, Indonesian courts handed down at least 80 death sentences in 2019, up from 48 in 2018.
Vietnam and Laos, two other nations that abstained on the U.N. vote, do not publicize statistics on the use of the death penalty. But according to HRW, Vietnam may have executed as many as 429 people between 2013 and 2016.
Even those Southeast Asian nations that supported the U.N. resolution are uncertain allies of abolition. One of them, Malaysia, holds approximately 1,324 people on death row. While the reformist government that was elected in 2018 pledged to ban capital punishment, this has since been watered down into a pledge that it will merely abolish the mandatory use of the death penalty – a step in the right direction, but a small one.
The Philippines banned the death penalty in 2006, but since taking office in 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte has on various occasions threatened to reintroduce it, particularly for drug-related crimes. Indeed, one could mount a case that Duterte has introduced a de facto form of capital punishment in his violent “war on drugs,” which by one estimate has killed more than 12,000 people – many innocent, all without trial – since 2016.
Curiously, the nation with possibly the best record on capital punishment is Cambodia, a country whose government is not otherwise known as a staunch defender of human rights. The country banned the death penalty prior to the arrival of a U.N. peacekeeping mission in 1992-93. Indeed, with Prime Minister Hun Sen having mostly subverted the democratic institutions introduced by the U.N. mission, the ban on the death penalty may well turn out to be its most lasting legacy.
What explains Southeast Asia’s addiction to the death penalty? On one level, the region’s governments continue to cling to an outmoded zero-tolerance mentality toward crime, despite the scant evidence that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime. As evidenced by the language of Singapore’s proposed amendment to the U.N. resolution, the issue has also teased out an anti-colonial reflex on the part of some Southeast Asian nations, for whom foreign criticism has caused them to dig in their heels.
Whatever the causes, the result of the latest U.N. vote suggests that it will be some time before Southeast Asian nations move toward full abolition of capital punishment.
On November 17, the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of capital punishment. It passed convincingly: a total of 120 nations voted for the resolution, which called for nations to restrict the use of the death penalty, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.
One curious fact was that of the 10 nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, only three – Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Philippines – voted to support the resolution. Singapore and Brunei voted against it, while the remaining five nations – among them some of the region’s most eager users of the death penalty – abstained.
The U.N. vote indicates an increasingly widespread international consensus against the use of the death penalty. As the General Assembly stated in a December 2007 resolution, “there is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty’s deterrent value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty’s implementation is irreversible and irreparable.”
But the vote also highlighted Southeast Asia’s continuing use of – and defense of – capital punishment, despite the tireless efforts of the region’s death penalty abolitionists. To start with, it is no surprise to see Singapore sitting squarely in the “NO” column. Anyone who has descended into Singapore’s Changi Airport will be familiar with airlines’ chirpy reminder that Singapore imposes the death penalty for drug trafficking offenses. According to Amnesty International, Singapore is one of four countries known to have carried out executions for drug-related violations in recent years. The country reportedly has 50 people on death row who have exhausted all appeals.
Moreover, the city-state has been among the most forthright and confident defenders of the death penalty as a punishment for serious crimes. This was reflected in Singapore’s introduction of an amendment to the U.N. resolution that asserts the “sovereign right of all countries to develop their own legal systems, including determining appropriate legal penalties.” The amendment was adopted by a vote of failed to pass, but was also supported by 33 other countries, including by Brunei, Laos, and Vietnam.
Some of those nations that abstained from the vote also continue to hand down death sentences. Take Indonesia. While the country has not executed anyone since 2016, the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) points out that it has approximately 274 people on death row, including 60 people who have been there for more than 10 years. In 2019, Indonesian courts handed down at least 80 death sentences in 2019, up from 48 in 2018.
Vietnam and Laos, two other nations that abstained on the U.N. vote, do not publicize statistics on the use of the death penalty. But according to HRW, Vietnam may have executed as many as 429 people between 2013 and 2016.
Even those Southeast Asian nations that supported the U.N. resolution are uncertain allies of abolition. One of them, Malaysia, holds approximately 1,324 people on death row. While the reformist government that was elected in 2018 pledged to ban capital punishment, this has since been watered down into a pledge that it will merely abolish the mandatory use of the death penalty – a step in the right direction, but a small one.
The Philippines banned the death penalty in 2006, but since taking office in 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte has on various occasions threatened to reintroduce it, particularly for drug-related crimes. Indeed, one could mount a case that Duterte has introduced a de facto form of capital punishment in his violent “war on drugs,” which by one estimate has killed more than 12,000 people – many innocent, all without trial – since 2016.
Curiously, the nation with possibly the best record on capital punishment is Cambodia, a country whose government is not otherwise known as a staunch defender of human rights. The country banned the death penalty prior to the arrival of a U.N. peacekeeping mission in 1992-93. Indeed, with Prime Minister Hun Sen having mostly subverted the democratic institutions introduced by the U.N. mission, the ban on the death penalty may well turn out to be its most lasting legacy.
What explains Southeast Asia’s addiction to the death penalty? On one level, the region’s governments continue to cling to an outmoded zero-tolerance mentality toward crime, despite the scant evidence that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime. As evidenced by the language of Singapore’s proposed amendment to the U.N. resolution, the issue has also teased out an anti-colonial reflex on the part of some Southeast Asian nations, for whom foreign criticism has caused them to dig in their heels.
Whatever the causes, the result of the latest U.N. vote suggests that it will be some time before Southeast Asian nations move toward full abolition of capital punishment.
Asian Nations Reject UN Vote Against Death Penalty
Source: Human Rights Watch (24 November 2020)
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/25/asian-nations-reject-un-vote-against-death-penalty
(Bangkok) – Eleven countries from the Asia-Pacific region were among the small minority that voted against a United Nations resolution opposing the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 17, 120 UN member states voted in favor of a resolution in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly reiterating a call for a moratorium on the use of capital punishment. In December, the General Assembly plenary is expected to adopt the resolution, which shows the world’s rejection of this inherently cruel and irrevocable form of punishment.
Only 39 countries voted against the resolution. The 11 from the Asia-Pacific region were: Afghanistan, Brunei Darussalam, China, India, Japan, the Maldives, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, and Tonga.
“It’s no surprise the governments that voted against a death penalty moratorium include some of the most serious rights violators in the world,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The fact that 11 Asian and Pacific governments voted against the UN resolution, including many that still carry out executions, shows how far the region needs to go to develop justice systems that respect human rights.”
The countries voting in favor of the moratorium should urgently take necessary steps towards abolition of the death penalty, and should press the 39 countries that voted against the measure to place a moratorium on executions. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.
The UN member states’ call for a moratorium effectively neutralizes an amendment to the resolution that Singapore introduced on behalf of 33 countries – including many in Asia – that asserts the “sovereign right of all countries to develop their own legal systems, including determining appropriate legal penalties.”
The resolution went further than previous versions. For the first time, women were acknowledged as a group who are subject to the discriminatory application of the death penalty. Disadvantaged and minority groups were again recognized as disproportionately represented among death row inmates. The resolution raised concerns about the use of the death penalty against children, in particular the need to restrict the death penalty’s use when an individuals’ age cannot be determined.
Previous resolutions called for governments to be transparent about the death penalty by publishing information about the age, race, sex, and nationality of people on death row, including the numbers of people sentenced, awaiting executions, and those whose sentences were commuted on appeal. Asian governments that still use capital punishment have shown little transparency regarding death penalty statistics, Human Rights Watch said.
The seven General Assembly resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions adopted since 2007 demonstrate a growing global consensus against the death penalty. However, many people in Asia are still being put to death. At the end of 2019, at least 26,604 people were languishing on death row around the world. By the end of 2019, Pakistan had one of the world’s largest known death row populations. Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka also have swelling numbers of inmates on death row, while in Singapore there are reportedly 50 people on death row who have exhausted all appeals. In many of these countries, the death penalty is mandatory for a range of offenses, including non-violent drug offenses, despite calls from the UN special rapporteurs on summary executions and on torture that “executions for drug crimes amount to a violation of international law and are unlawful killings.”
It is largely accepted that China is the world’s largest executioner followed by Iran. Dui Hua, a nongovernmental organization that tracks China’s death penalty statistics, estimates that 84,000 executions occurred in China between 2002 to 2018, though the numbers appear to be declining significantly since a 2007 decision allowing the Supreme People’s Court to review all death sentences. The exact numbers of death sentences carried out in China are unknown and remain a state secret. It has not been possible to get accurate figures from North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos. Human Rights Watch has documented public executions in North Korea, especially in political prison camps (kwanliso). Despite executions being considered a state secret in Vietnam, the Ministry of Public Security reported in early 2017 that authorities executed 429 persons between 2013 and 2016.
Malaysia, which voted in favor of the moratorium, holds approximately 1,324 people on death row. In October 2018, the Malaysian government imposed a moratorium on executions and announced its intention to abolish the death penalty. In March 2019, however, it backtracked, announcing that it would maintain the death penalty but would merely end the mandatory application of the punishment. While the moratorium on executions appears to remain in place, the Malaysian government has yet to take steps to end the use of the mandatory death penalty.
Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam were among the 24 countries that abstained from voting. Indonesia, which has not executed anyone since 2016, has approximately 274 people awaiting execution, including 60 people who have been on death row for 10 years. At least 80 death sentences were handed down in 2019, a significant increase from the 48 handed down in 2018.
More than 15 Asia-Pacific countries voted in favor of the resolution. These included Sri Lanka and the Philippines, despite their moving in the opposite direction. Last year, the Sri Lankan government threatened to end its 43-year de facto moratorium, which the courts rejected. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly threatened to reinstate the death penalty.
In its December 2007 resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, the UN General Assembly stated that “there is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty’s deterrent value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty’s implementation is irreversible and irreparable.”
“The shocking number of people sitting on death row in Asia make the region an aberration in the global move towards abolition of the death penalty,” Robertson said. “UN member states that supported the moratorium should band together to put concerted pressure on countries to get rid of the death penalty and commute all death sentences.”
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/25/asian-nations-reject-un-vote-against-death-penalty
(Bangkok) – Eleven countries from the Asia-Pacific region were among the small minority that voted against a United Nations resolution opposing the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 17, 120 UN member states voted in favor of a resolution in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly reiterating a call for a moratorium on the use of capital punishment. In December, the General Assembly plenary is expected to adopt the resolution, which shows the world’s rejection of this inherently cruel and irrevocable form of punishment.
Only 39 countries voted against the resolution. The 11 from the Asia-Pacific region were: Afghanistan, Brunei Darussalam, China, India, Japan, the Maldives, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, and Tonga.
“It’s no surprise the governments that voted against a death penalty moratorium include some of the most serious rights violators in the world,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The fact that 11 Asian and Pacific governments voted against the UN resolution, including many that still carry out executions, shows how far the region needs to go to develop justice systems that respect human rights.”
The countries voting in favor of the moratorium should urgently take necessary steps towards abolition of the death penalty, and should press the 39 countries that voted against the measure to place a moratorium on executions. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.
The UN member states’ call for a moratorium effectively neutralizes an amendment to the resolution that Singapore introduced on behalf of 33 countries – including many in Asia – that asserts the “sovereign right of all countries to develop their own legal systems, including determining appropriate legal penalties.”
The resolution went further than previous versions. For the first time, women were acknowledged as a group who are subject to the discriminatory application of the death penalty. Disadvantaged and minority groups were again recognized as disproportionately represented among death row inmates. The resolution raised concerns about the use of the death penalty against children, in particular the need to restrict the death penalty’s use when an individuals’ age cannot be determined.
Previous resolutions called for governments to be transparent about the death penalty by publishing information about the age, race, sex, and nationality of people on death row, including the numbers of people sentenced, awaiting executions, and those whose sentences were commuted on appeal. Asian governments that still use capital punishment have shown little transparency regarding death penalty statistics, Human Rights Watch said.
The seven General Assembly resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions adopted since 2007 demonstrate a growing global consensus against the death penalty. However, many people in Asia are still being put to death. At the end of 2019, at least 26,604 people were languishing on death row around the world. By the end of 2019, Pakistan had one of the world’s largest known death row populations. Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka also have swelling numbers of inmates on death row, while in Singapore there are reportedly 50 people on death row who have exhausted all appeals. In many of these countries, the death penalty is mandatory for a range of offenses, including non-violent drug offenses, despite calls from the UN special rapporteurs on summary executions and on torture that “executions for drug crimes amount to a violation of international law and are unlawful killings.”
It is largely accepted that China is the world’s largest executioner followed by Iran. Dui Hua, a nongovernmental organization that tracks China’s death penalty statistics, estimates that 84,000 executions occurred in China between 2002 to 2018, though the numbers appear to be declining significantly since a 2007 decision allowing the Supreme People’s Court to review all death sentences. The exact numbers of death sentences carried out in China are unknown and remain a state secret. It has not been possible to get accurate figures from North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos. Human Rights Watch has documented public executions in North Korea, especially in political prison camps (kwanliso). Despite executions being considered a state secret in Vietnam, the Ministry of Public Security reported in early 2017 that authorities executed 429 persons between 2013 and 2016.
Malaysia, which voted in favor of the moratorium, holds approximately 1,324 people on death row. In October 2018, the Malaysian government imposed a moratorium on executions and announced its intention to abolish the death penalty. In March 2019, however, it backtracked, announcing that it would maintain the death penalty but would merely end the mandatory application of the punishment. While the moratorium on executions appears to remain in place, the Malaysian government has yet to take steps to end the use of the mandatory death penalty.
Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam were among the 24 countries that abstained from voting. Indonesia, which has not executed anyone since 2016, has approximately 274 people awaiting execution, including 60 people who have been on death row for 10 years. At least 80 death sentences were handed down in 2019, a significant increase from the 48 handed down in 2018.
More than 15 Asia-Pacific countries voted in favor of the resolution. These included Sri Lanka and the Philippines, despite their moving in the opposite direction. Last year, the Sri Lankan government threatened to end its 43-year de facto moratorium, which the courts rejected. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly threatened to reinstate the death penalty.
In its December 2007 resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, the UN General Assembly stated that “there is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty’s deterrent value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty’s implementation is irreversible and irreparable.”
“The shocking number of people sitting on death row in Asia make the region an aberration in the global move towards abolition of the death penalty,” Robertson said. “UN member states that supported the moratorium should band together to put concerted pressure on countries to get rid of the death penalty and commute all death sentences.”
Monday, 2 November 2020
Saudi justice reform falls short as the death penalty is still inflicted on minors
Source: Asia News.it (30 October 2020)
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Saudi-justice-reform-falls-short-as-the-death-penalty-is-still-inflicted-on-minors-51453.html
Riyadh (AsiaNews) – Saudi prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty in cases involving minors even though the practice was cancelled for crimes committed before the age of 18, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports.
According to the human rights advocacy group, Saudi prosecutors recently called for the execution of eight people, accused of offences of opinion and protest-related crimes. In one case the accused was only nine at the time of the alleged crime.
Last April, King Salman issued a royal decree ending death sentences for crimes committed by minors, imposing instead a maximum sentence of 10 years in a juvenile detention facility. However, the decree has not yet taken effect, and rights groups warn that the death penalty is still in place.
Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Saudi Arabia has signed, the death penalty is outlawed for crimes committed by minors.
Overall, the Wahhabi kingdom has one of the worst human rights records in the world with violations committed mainly by its police and security forces.
Human Rights Watch recently obtained and analysed the charge sheets for two group trials that included the eight men in 2019.
Some of the crimes listed were allegedly committed when the defendants were aged 14 to 17. One of them, now 18, is charged for a nonviolent crime he allegedly committed when he was 9. All eight men have been in pretrial detention for up to two years.
“Saudi spin doctors are marketing judicial reforms as progress,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. But the reality is very different since “prosecutors appear to blatantly ignore them and carry on as usual”.
For Page, “If Saudi Arabia is serious about reforming its criminal justice system, it should start by banning the death penalty against alleged child offenders in all cases.”
In the case of the eight on trial, the prosecutor, who responds directly to the monarch, has levelled charges that do not resemble recognisable crimes, such as “seeking to destabilise the social fabric by participating in protests and funeral processions,” “chanting slogans hostile to the regime,” and “seeking to incite discord and division.”
All of the accused are from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, where most of the country’s persecuted Shia minority live.
What is more, the new decree does not apply to qisas (retributive justice offences, usually for murder) or hudud crimes, serious crimes defined under the country’s interpretation of Islamic law that carry specific penalties.
Sources told HRW that two of the defendants, al-Nimr and al-Faraj, were denied legal counsel and tortured during questioning at the start of their detention.
Last year, Saudi Arabia executed 37 people in a mass execution. One of them was a minor at the time.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Saudi-justice-reform-falls-short-as-the-death-penalty-is-still-inflicted-on-minors-51453.html
Riyadh (AsiaNews) – Saudi prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty in cases involving minors even though the practice was cancelled for crimes committed before the age of 18, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports.
According to the human rights advocacy group, Saudi prosecutors recently called for the execution of eight people, accused of offences of opinion and protest-related crimes. In one case the accused was only nine at the time of the alleged crime.
Last April, King Salman issued a royal decree ending death sentences for crimes committed by minors, imposing instead a maximum sentence of 10 years in a juvenile detention facility. However, the decree has not yet taken effect, and rights groups warn that the death penalty is still in place.
Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Saudi Arabia has signed, the death penalty is outlawed for crimes committed by minors.
Overall, the Wahhabi kingdom has one of the worst human rights records in the world with violations committed mainly by its police and security forces.
Human Rights Watch recently obtained and analysed the charge sheets for two group trials that included the eight men in 2019.
Some of the crimes listed were allegedly committed when the defendants were aged 14 to 17. One of them, now 18, is charged for a nonviolent crime he allegedly committed when he was 9. All eight men have been in pretrial detention for up to two years.
“Saudi spin doctors are marketing judicial reforms as progress,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. But the reality is very different since “prosecutors appear to blatantly ignore them and carry on as usual”.
For Page, “If Saudi Arabia is serious about reforming its criminal justice system, it should start by banning the death penalty against alleged child offenders in all cases.”
In the case of the eight on trial, the prosecutor, who responds directly to the monarch, has levelled charges that do not resemble recognisable crimes, such as “seeking to destabilise the social fabric by participating in protests and funeral processions,” “chanting slogans hostile to the regime,” and “seeking to incite discord and division.”
All of the accused are from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, where most of the country’s persecuted Shia minority live.
What is more, the new decree does not apply to qisas (retributive justice offences, usually for murder) or hudud crimes, serious crimes defined under the country’s interpretation of Islamic law that carry specific penalties.
Sources told HRW that two of the defendants, al-Nimr and al-Faraj, were denied legal counsel and tortured during questioning at the start of their detention.
Last year, Saudi Arabia executed 37 people in a mass execution. One of them was a minor at the time.
Wednesday, 30 September 2020
Kazakhstan takes important step towards abolishing death penalty
Source: Amnesty International (24 September 2020)
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/kazakhstan-takes-important-step-towards-abolishing-death-penalty/
Reacting to news that Kazakhstan has signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, committing it to abolish the death penalty, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:
“This news encourages us as Kazakhstan gets closer to join the ever-growing family of nations that have left this shameful punishment behind. Kazakhstan must now take the final step by abolishing the death penalty in law for all crimes and ratifying the Optional Protocol without reservations.”
Russia, Tajikistan and Belarus are now the only three countries in Europe and Central Asia which haven’t yet signed or ratified the Second Optional Protocol. Belarus is the only country in the region still to carry out executions.
“Abolition of this type of punishment globally remains a priority for Amnesty International.”
Background
Kazakhstani President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev announced that his country would join the protocol on the abolition of the death penalty in his speech at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in December 2019.
Kazakhstan retains the death penalty for terrorism-related offences and has had an indefinite moratorium on the use of the death penalty since 2003. Courts stopped imposing the death penalty in 2004, but an exception was made in 2016, when the death penalty was imposed on a man who was convicted of a mass shooting in Almaty. He remains the only person on death row in Kazakhstan.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/kazakhstan-takes-important-step-towards-abolishing-death-penalty/
Reacting to news that Kazakhstan has signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, committing it to abolish the death penalty, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:
“This news encourages us as Kazakhstan gets closer to join the ever-growing family of nations that have left this shameful punishment behind. Kazakhstan must now take the final step by abolishing the death penalty in law for all crimes and ratifying the Optional Protocol without reservations.”
Russia, Tajikistan and Belarus are now the only three countries in Europe and Central Asia which haven’t yet signed or ratified the Second Optional Protocol. Belarus is the only country in the region still to carry out executions.
“Abolition of this type of punishment globally remains a priority for Amnesty International.”
Background
Kazakhstani President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev announced that his country would join the protocol on the abolition of the death penalty in his speech at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in December 2019.
Kazakhstan retains the death penalty for terrorism-related offences and has had an indefinite moratorium on the use of the death penalty since 2003. Courts stopped imposing the death penalty in 2004, but an exception was made in 2016, when the death penalty was imposed on a man who was convicted of a mass shooting in Almaty. He remains the only person on death row in Kazakhstan.
Saturday, 19 September 2020
Singaporean Earns Temporary Reprieve in Capital Drug Case
Source: The Diplomat (17 September 2020)
https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/singaporean-earns-temporary-reprieve-in-capital-drug-case/
Thanks to a last minute judicial intervention, a Singaporean national has narrowly avoided the sentence imposed on him by the country’s High Court in 2016. At dawn on September 18, the 44-year-old Syed Suhail Bin Syed Zin was scheduled to be executed by hanging at Singapore’s Changi Prison for drug trafficking offenses.
The reprieve was announced on Facebook today by the human rights lawyer M Ravi, who wrote that judges had agreed to an interim stay of execution. The decision will delay the sentence pending an appeal to the High Court’s earlier dismissal of Ravi’s request for a judicial review into Syed’s case.
Before the last minute stay, Syed’s case had attracted considerable attention from death penalty abolitionists and human rights groups, who described it as another instance of the inhumanity of the death penalty in general, and the cruelties of Singapore’s system in particular.
According to High Court documents, Syed was arrested in August 2011 and charged with possession of 38.84 grams of heroin. In January 2016, the court found Syed guilty of drug trafficking under Singapore’s draconian Misuse of Drugs Act. The law carries a mandatory death sentence for offenses involving more than 15 grams of heroin.
Singapore’s use of the death penalty is intimately associated with the city-state’s zero tolerance policy toward illicit drugs. Over the years it has resulted in dozens of hangings, including of many foreigners. In May, Punithan Genasan, a 37-year-old Malaysian national, was sentenced to death via Zoom on a heroin trafficking charge dating back to 2011.
Singapore is one of four countries known to have carried out executions for drug-related offenses in recent years, according to Amnesty International.
Since Syed’s execution date was announced on September 14, death penalty abolitionists have highlighted the callous way that his case was handled. According to Think Center, a local non-governmental organization, Syed’s family was informed barely a week ahead of the set execution, and told to make funeral arrangements. No allowance had been made for them to travel from Malaysia before the execution of the sentence, given the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. The organization described the forty-something Syed’s sentence as “a grim reminder that Singapore’s factory of death has never ceased.”
Then there is the question of whether the death penalty even serves its intended function. In a recent article on Medium, Singaporean journalist and anti-death penalty campaigner Kirsten Han argued that the Singaporean government’s view of the death penalty – that it deterred drug use, and therefore saved more lives in the long run – failed to address the complex root causes of drug use and dependency. According to the organization Human Rights Watch, Syed began using heroin in 1999, and spent two extended stints in a drug rehabilitation center trying to recover from his addiction before his arrest on trafficking charges.
“At the end of the day, the capital punishment regime is a lazy way to ‘solve’ a problem,” Han wrote. “It allows us to take the ‘easy’ way out and not talk about things like the intersection of class and race when it comes to crime and policing, or about more holistic and restorative ways of dealing with drug use and abuse.”
Shortly after the announcement of the reprieve, Han welcomed the news, but said that similar stays had been granted in the past and still ended in execution. “This development gives us hope and time,” she told The Diplomat, “but I don’t think we can say it’s any indication that the Singaporean judiciary is softening on capital punishment.” Singaporean courts have the power to grant clemency, but have not done this for a death row inmate since 1998.
On the same day, however, Singapore’s Court of Appeal also reversed its own decision to convict a Nigerian national of a capital drug trafficking charge, nearly a decade after his arrest. This news casts at least a glimmer of hope that lawyers working on Syed’s behalf will manage to overturn his sentence, if not his conviction.
“I dream of better days because hope is my only possession,” Syed wrote in a handwritten letter that he sent to his lawyer M Ravi a few days before his scheduled hanging. He added: “I love Singapore. Everything I love is here. Being Singaporean, though, has expedited my execution.”
Thanks to the lawyers and activists toiling on his behalf, that execution has been delayed – at least for now.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/singaporean-earns-temporary-reprieve-in-capital-drug-case/
Thanks to a last minute judicial intervention, a Singaporean national has narrowly avoided the sentence imposed on him by the country’s High Court in 2016. At dawn on September 18, the 44-year-old Syed Suhail Bin Syed Zin was scheduled to be executed by hanging at Singapore’s Changi Prison for drug trafficking offenses.
The reprieve was announced on Facebook today by the human rights lawyer M Ravi, who wrote that judges had agreed to an interim stay of execution. The decision will delay the sentence pending an appeal to the High Court’s earlier dismissal of Ravi’s request for a judicial review into Syed’s case.
Before the last minute stay, Syed’s case had attracted considerable attention from death penalty abolitionists and human rights groups, who described it as another instance of the inhumanity of the death penalty in general, and the cruelties of Singapore’s system in particular.
According to High Court documents, Syed was arrested in August 2011 and charged with possession of 38.84 grams of heroin. In January 2016, the court found Syed guilty of drug trafficking under Singapore’s draconian Misuse of Drugs Act. The law carries a mandatory death sentence for offenses involving more than 15 grams of heroin.
Singapore’s use of the death penalty is intimately associated with the city-state’s zero tolerance policy toward illicit drugs. Over the years it has resulted in dozens of hangings, including of many foreigners. In May, Punithan Genasan, a 37-year-old Malaysian national, was sentenced to death via Zoom on a heroin trafficking charge dating back to 2011.
Singapore is one of four countries known to have carried out executions for drug-related offenses in recent years, according to Amnesty International.
Since Syed’s execution date was announced on September 14, death penalty abolitionists have highlighted the callous way that his case was handled. According to Think Center, a local non-governmental organization, Syed’s family was informed barely a week ahead of the set execution, and told to make funeral arrangements. No allowance had been made for them to travel from Malaysia before the execution of the sentence, given the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. The organization described the forty-something Syed’s sentence as “a grim reminder that Singapore’s factory of death has never ceased.”
Then there is the question of whether the death penalty even serves its intended function. In a recent article on Medium, Singaporean journalist and anti-death penalty campaigner Kirsten Han argued that the Singaporean government’s view of the death penalty – that it deterred drug use, and therefore saved more lives in the long run – failed to address the complex root causes of drug use and dependency. According to the organization Human Rights Watch, Syed began using heroin in 1999, and spent two extended stints in a drug rehabilitation center trying to recover from his addiction before his arrest on trafficking charges.
“At the end of the day, the capital punishment regime is a lazy way to ‘solve’ a problem,” Han wrote. “It allows us to take the ‘easy’ way out and not talk about things like the intersection of class and race when it comes to crime and policing, or about more holistic and restorative ways of dealing with drug use and abuse.”
Shortly after the announcement of the reprieve, Han welcomed the news, but said that similar stays had been granted in the past and still ended in execution. “This development gives us hope and time,” she told The Diplomat, “but I don’t think we can say it’s any indication that the Singaporean judiciary is softening on capital punishment.” Singaporean courts have the power to grant clemency, but have not done this for a death row inmate since 1998.
On the same day, however, Singapore’s Court of Appeal also reversed its own decision to convict a Nigerian national of a capital drug trafficking charge, nearly a decade after his arrest. This news casts at least a glimmer of hope that lawyers working on Syed’s behalf will manage to overturn his sentence, if not his conviction.
“I dream of better days because hope is my only possession,” Syed wrote in a handwritten letter that he sent to his lawyer M Ravi a few days before his scheduled hanging. He added: “I love Singapore. Everything I love is here. Being Singaporean, though, has expedited my execution.”
Thanks to the lawyers and activists toiling on his behalf, that execution has been delayed – at least for now.
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