Jan. 25
PAKISTAN:
2 more LeJ activists to be hanged on Feb 3
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday issued death warrants for 2 murder
convicts belonging to banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) for February 3.
Attaullah and Muhammad Azam had been convicted for killing Dr Ali Razi Peerani
in the area of Soldier Bazar in June 2001.
The ATC had awarded capital punishment to them, over which the 2 approached the
Sindh High Court and then Supreme Court, but both the appellate courts rejected
their appeals.
Finally, Attaullah and Azam appealed before the president, who dismissed their
mercy appeals as well.
In 2013, the ATC issued death warrants for these convicts, but due to the
moratorium the 2 could not be hanged.
The ATC again issued death warrants against the 2 on December 19, 2014 for
December 30, but the heirs of the convicts moved a petition in the Sindh High
Court that had declared the issuance of black warrants as contradictory to the
rules.
On Saturday, the ATC reissued death warrants against Attaulah and Abdullah for
February 3.
The last execution in Karachi was carried out on January 15, as
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi activist Mohammad Saeed alias Maulvi was hanged inside the
Karachi Central Jail.
An anti-terrorism court had found the man guilty of shooting deputy
superintendent of police (retd) Syed Sabir Hussain Shah and his young son Syed
Abid Hussain Shah and sentenced him to death in April 2001. Saeed had killed
both his victims on sectarian grounds in an ambush near the Malir City railway
crossing.
An anti-terrorism court had issued black warrants for his execution on January
3 after the years-long moratorium on death penalty was lifted in the wake of
the Peshawar school attack. Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan
had announced that more than 500 convicted terrorists would be hanged across
the country.
Mercy appeal of the convict was also turned down by the president. Strict
security measures were taken outside the Karachi jail and besides extra
contingents of police, army and Rangers personnel were also deployed in and
outside the prison premises.
So far 19 death row prisoner have been executed in the country since Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on death penalty on December 17,
2014, a day after the carnage in Peshawar. The moratorium had been in place
unofficially since 2008.
(source: The News)
************************
Death penalty won't solve terror: Ayesha Jalal
The lifting of moratorium on death penalty in Pakistan had been demanded by the
military high command for a long time, said Pakistani academic Ayesha Jalal at
a seminar here on Saturday.
The moratorium was lifted after Taliban gunmen attacked an army school in
Peshawar and killed more than 130 children in December last year.
Describing the revocation of the moratorium as a "sort of knee-jerk reaction,"
Ms. Jalal said: "I do not believe that going back to death penalty will solve
the problem of terror which is deeply embedded and needs to be addressed at
multiple levels by Pakistan."
She claimed that the move points to the "inefficacy of the judiciary which
cannot convict people fast enough or adequately enough."
Ms. Jalal said that it was the problems in the judicial system that was
"driving the return of capital punishment."
She said there was an "ideological dimension" on lifting the ban on capital
punishment as it was the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto of
the Pakistan Peoples Party who introduced it.
"The party that is currently occupying power in Pakistan [Pakistan Muslim
League (N)] has been in favour of death penalty." She claimed that the U.S. was
"losing interest in Pakistan," adding that the U.S. "interest in Pakistan has
been in the Army and nothing else." "Those who want Pakistan to retain its
democracy would like to see America taking less interest in Pakistan," Ms.
Jalal added.
(source: The Hindu)
NIGERIA:
'Obey Laws of Foreign Nations'
The Federal Government has appealed to Nigerians travelling abroad to adhere to
the laws, rules and regulations of nations they visit to avoid running foul of
the law and finding themselves in trouble.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Danjuma
Sheni, made this appeal while speaking on the recent execution of 2 Nigerians,
Daniel Enemuo and Solomon Chibuike Okafor (who had been travelling as a
Malawian citizen) by Indonesian authorities for drug trafficking.
12 Nigerians remain on death row in the Asian nation which maintains a hard
stance against drug trafficking related offences. "Most substantially, we as
Nigerians must also look inwards; we must ensure that our nationals, as they
move around the world must take full cognisance of the fact that certain
countries, particularly in Asia, have the death penalty and do not take issues
pertaining to drug trafficking lightly," he said.
(source: All Africa News)
MALAYSIA:
Kedah police seized drugs worth RM110,000
Kedah police had seized more than 3 kilogrammes of heroin and syabu with street
value of RM110,000 following the arrest of 7 traffickers in separate arrests in
Alor Star and Langkawi between Wednesday and Friday.
State Narcotic Investigation Department chief Superintendent Abd Razak Md Zin
said in the 1st bust, police nabbed 2 men after seizing 2.3kg of heroin and
407gm of syabu in their Toyota Vios car at Kuala Kedah on Wednesday.
He said in another haul the following day, police arrested a 32-year-old drug
trafficker upon his arrival at Kuah Jetty in Langkawi and seized 250gm of syabu
from the suspect, who later led police to a house in Kedawang.
"In the follow up raid, the Langkawi Narcotic Investigation Department rounded
up two men and a woman after seizing 72.6gm of heroin and 0.5gm of syabu plus a
WY pill from the suspects," he said in a Press conference at the state police
contingent headquarters here today.
Abd Razak said in a separate raid in Langkawi on Friday, police nabbed a
38-year-old drug trafficker in Taman Nilam and seized 100gm of heroin from the
suspect.
He said all cases were being investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous
Drugs Act 1952 which carries mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
(source: New Straits Times)
IRAN----executions
At least 12 people have been executed for drug-related charges in Iran today.
2 prisoners were hanged in the prison of Arak (Central Iran) early Sunday
morning 25. January. According to the official website of Iranian Judiciary in
Markazi Province, both the prisoners were executed for drug related charges.
The prisoners were identified as "Milad Z" charged with possession and
trafficking of 2950 grams of heroin, and "Alireza A" for possession and
trafficking 2950 grams of heroin, said the report.
Earlier today Iran Human Rights reported about executions of 10 prisoners for
drug-related charges in Kerman (Southeastern Iran).
*************
Executions of Kerman: 10 Prisoners hanged for Drug-Related Charges
Today----Besides today's executions of 10 prisoners, there are reports about 3
group executions during the last week in Kerman. None of these executions are
announced by the official sources.
10 prisoners were hanged in the prison of Kerman early Sunday morning 25.
January. All the prisoners were convicted of drug-related charges. None of the
executions have been announced by the official Iranian sources.
According to the reports by reliable sources Iran Human Rights (IHR) has been
in contact with 8 of the 10 prisoners executed today are identified as: 1)
Rahmatollah Mokhtari, 2) Mohammad Shahriari, 3) Ebrahim Abai, 4) Mehri Raeisi,
5) Mansour Behrouzi, 6) Hassan Ramyar, 7) Ghodratollah Roudbari, and 8)
Mohammad Karim Morad Zehi. Names of the 2 other prisoners are not known yet.
The families of the prisoners were informed about the executions and were given
the chance to meet them for the last time.
According to IHR sources there have been 3 group executions on Sunday January
18, Tuesday January 20 and Thursday January 22 in the prison of Kerman. IHR is
investigating about the details around these executions.
In December 2014 IHR reported about the unannounced mass-executions of
drug-convicts in the prison of Kerman.
Despite the fact that several Iranian officials have announced that they are
not happy about the high number of executions for drug-related charges, IHR has
noticed a sharp increase in the number of drug-related executions during the
past few months.
(source for both: Iran Human Rights)
******************
10 Prisoners Hanged in Taibad Prison
10 prisoners, who had been charged with drug related crimes, were executed in
Taibad prison by hanging.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), on 11th
January, 10 prisoners, who had been charged with drug related crimes, were
executed in Taibad prison by hanging.
1 of them was named "Mohammad Rasool Etemadi Khah" but there is no information
about the others name, yet.
Iranian official Media have not reported these executions, yet.
(source: Human Rights Activists News Agency)
********************
Freedom Hanging from a Rope in Iran
Despite an outcry from the international community and several human rights
organizations against the use of capital punishment in Iran, the world still
sees an increasing amount of images of hangings being carried out, ones that
are justified by the Iranian regime as being a righteous duty for them.
Under the rule of Hassan Rouhani, Friday morning news was again met with 9 more
prisoners being hung in Iran, including 3 as public executions. 3 other men
were put to death in the city of Bonab, where this increase in number has
caused the international human rights organizations to be worried and on their
toes as to when the Iranian regime would strike again.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) highlights how capital
punishment in Iran, has escalated to such an extent that quite a number of
executions are not even privy to the public. A group of 5 prisoners was hanged
in Adelabad Prison, in the city of Shiraz, that was kept quiet by the
authorities.
It has been reported that since Hassan Rouhani has become President of this
clerical regime, over 1,200 people have been executed and hundreds more have
been subjected to degrading and inhumane punishments such as amputation,
flogging in public and being paraded naked in streets. The NCRI has been
frequently denouncing this oppressive regime, by highlighting cases of death
penalties under any justification. On New Year's Day, it was reported by them,
that 14 prisoners were hanged, including 4 women. The United Nations General
Assembly last month slammed the violations of human rights by the Iranian
regime, where it criticized it for using inhuman punishments and its 'mullah'
dictatorship to cause fear for its civilians, through these unnecessary
executions.
The Iranian Resistance has repeatedly condemned the carrying out of medieval
punishments and executions by the clerical regime in Iran and has called for
referral of the regime's violations of human rights record to the United
Nations Security Council. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the Iranian opposition
has elaborated on the movement's vision for a future Iran, through their Ten
Point Plan. In that, they have made it quite clear that they support and are
committed to the abolition of death penalty, where for this to be possible,
separation of religion and state is necessary. Only then would any form of
discrimination against the followers of any religion and denomination will be
prohibited.
The International Federation For Human Rights , has also criticized the
continuation of the death penalty in Iran, providing insight into this 'state
terror policy' of Iran, one that violates the basic human right of all human
beings born free and equal in dignity. At a time when momentum is gathering
across the world to abolish capital punishment, the Islamic Republic of Iran
currently ranks 2nd for number of executions and 1st for per capita executions
in the world. Iran can never be free, unless it can break away from the
shackles of its 'mullah' leaders, ones that are breeding fear and extremism
through these hangings.
(source: Iran Focus)
AUSTRALIA:
Take aim, fire at will: Australian hypocrisy on a high pedestal
The Australian media is engaged in a surreal form of hypocrisy by criticizing
the execution of those convicted of drug trafficking in Indonesia. Canberra's
exceptionalism stands out as it puts its double standards with respect to human
lives and dignity on a high pedestal, problematizing the death penalty only
when Australians are put before the firing squad.
First, Indonesian state treatment of convicted drug traffickers differs only
slightly from Australia's treatment of asylum seekers. Asylum seekers
desperately trying to seek refuge in Australia and convicted drug traffickers
vacationing in Bali are similar "abject bodies": individuals that the sovereign
state does not want and plans to effectively and efficiently dispose of.
In a nutshell, the only difference between Indonesian and Australian treatment
of "abject bodies" lies merely in each country's preferred legal methods and
the distance considered comfortable and acceptable by its public. Indonesia
provides open and accessible trials, opportunities for appeal, sympathetic
media coverage, rehabilitation programs and a chance at being granted
presidential clemency.
On the other hand, Australia seemingly prefers secretive on-the-spot
extra-judicial actions, better known as "on-sea-matters" that the Abbott
government refuses to comment on. Furthermore, Indonesia prefers openly using
its own firing squad, having solid legal justification and being fully
accountable for the lives it takes.
Meanwhile, Australia prefers the outsourcing and subcontracting of their deeds
to private companies and offshoring them to distant locations that are
conveniently out of sight and out of the mind of its public, such as Manus
Island, Nauru and Cambodia. In July 2014, the forced return of Australian-bound
refugees to Sri Lanka also indicated that Canberra is content with practices
bordering on "forced disappearance" of civilians at sea while effectively
breaching international legal principles of non-refoulement, the UN Refugee
Convention and UN Convention against Torture. Asylum seekers, sometimes
including children, in Australian detention facilities have undergone hunger
strikes, sewn their lips shut, inflicted self-harm and attempted suicide,
swallowed razorblades and even burned themselves to death in protest at the
"Australian solution".
Currently, 700 asylum seekers are on hunger strike in Manus Island. 2 asylum
seekers from the camp, Reza Barati and Hamid Kehazaei, have already died but
not a single asylum seeker has been successfully resettled to date. This makes
the facility more of a death camp than a resettlement camp.
Second, insistence on saving individual Australians misses the bigger picture
which should be the abolition of the death penalty and upholding human dignity
in Indonesia, Australia and beyond. When former president Yudhoyono left his
presidency, he controversially granted Schapelle Corby parole. His act of
conceited generosity fostered Australian exceptionalism, giving the impression
that the death penalty is avoidable by turning convicted Australians into media
darlings, concluding backroom negotiations, having your appeal heard by the
president and finding legal loopholes that Australians can exploit.
Before concerned Australians can start seeing the bigger picture and join ranks
with like-minded liberals and reformists in Indonesia, Australian parents will
continue to worry about their youth vacationing in Bali, knowing that once
caught experimenting with recreational drugs, their loved ones might be sent to
the firing squad.
Third, implying that executions will affect bilateral relations to the
disadvantage of Indonesia is ridiculous. Former Australian prime minister John
Howard and opposition leader Simon Crean were not opposed to the execution of
convicted terrorists Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Imam Samudra in 2008 and
Canberra, through its counterterrorism aid, had actually subsidized the bullets
used to execute them. Australian media coverage of their executions was
surprisingly detailed and even savored many of its graphic moments.
Australia's main ally, the United States, enforces the death penalty in the
majority of its states and one of Canberra's largest trading partners and
paymaster, China, performs one of the highest numbers of executions worldwide
and has only stopped harvesting organs from executed prisoners this year. If
anything, Australian hypocrisy and exceptionalism risks worsening its public
image in Indonesia as a neighbor that not only disrespects international law
and Indonesia's borders, but now also Indonesian law and legal corridors.
Australian government appeals are neither heroic nor heartfelt; Canberra is
merely trying to save their own "subject bodies" from the firing squad, while
slowly disposing of "abject bodies" it does not want through inhumane detention
camps or returning them to foreign regimes that will probably finish the job
for them. Indonesia paying "blood money" to save the "subject bodies" of
Indonesian domestic workers in Saudi Arabia from beheading is no less
hypocritical as these efforts are done against the backdrop of killing off
"abject bodies" that were once warmly received as guests in Bali.
Australia and Indonesia betray human rights and violate human dignity alike by
abusing the criminalized and illegal "abject bodies" in surprisingly similar
ways, differing only in their preferred legal methods and comfortable distance
acceptable to their respective publics. All lives matter greatly, not just
Australian ones.
Any debate that does not start from these fundamental premises of equality of
human life and dignity is not worth visiting and is a waste of the Indonesian
public's valuable attention and time.
(source: Pierre Marthinus; The writer is executive director for the Marthinus
Academy in Jakarta----The Jakarta Post)
********************************
Australian stars and public figures plead for mercy for Bali 9
Asher Keddie, Germaine Greer and Alan Jones are among those who have thrown
their support behind 2 Australians facing the death penalty in Indonesia, in a
powerful star-filled video calling for mercy.
Sydney-based artist Ben Quilty who formed a bond with Bali nine death row
inmates Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan over art classes at the notorious
Kerobokan Prison posted the video to social media on Saturday.
"Some of my favourite people are standing for mercy," he wrote. "Myu and
Andrew, we are walking this path with you."
Sukumaran and Chan have spent nearly a decade behind bars in Bali for their
roles in an attempt to smuggle heroin into Australia from Indonesia.
Both Australians have recently lost their final bids of clemency to Indonesian
President Joko Widodo.
Their deaths by firing squad are considered imminent.
The impassioned video features Australian stars and public figures expressing
their opposition to the killing of the reformed men and includes quotes from
Kerobokan inmates whose lives they have touched.
Among the familiar faces to express support are Megan Washington, Claudia
Karvan, Missy Higgins, Bryan Brown, Richard Roxbugh and David Wenham.
The video, which was also uploaded to the Mercy Campaign website, points to an
online petition addressed to Mr Widodo calling for the Australians to be
spared, which has garnered more than 1500 signatures and was forced to relocate
due to the heavy web traffic it was receiving.
Written in English and Indonesian the petition argues both men have turned
their lives around and helped other prisoners do the same.
"They are a true credit to the Indonesian Penal system, which has enabled their
rehabilitation," it states.
"They deserve to be in jail, but not to be killed."
Quilty is also putting together a tribute concert for the men.
**************************
Aussies on death row part of a grim line to have faced possible death sentence
Death row inmates Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan stand in a grim line of
nearly 90 Australians who have faced a possible death sentence overseas in the
past 30 years.
1/3, or 28, of the 87 Australians arrested abroad for capital crimes were
sentenced to execution. Only 16 were acquitted or had the charges dropped,
while drug trafficker David McMillan managed to escape Thailand's Klong Prem
prison in 1996 before he could be tried.
Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia handed down the most death sentences, while
Malaysia and Singapore are the only countries to have executed Australians
since mid-last century.
Indonesian lawyers for Sukumaran and Chan will lodge a 2nd request for judicial
review this week. If rejected, the Sydney men will become the 5th and 6th
Australians to be executed since 1967, the year of Australia's last execution,
the hanging of Ronald Ryan.
19 of the 28 death sentences were later commuted to jail terms. At least 3
Australians - Chan, Sukumaran, and Pham Trung Dung in Vietnam - remain on death
row, while four others arrested last year, await sentencing.
The fate of Harry Chhin, who received a suspended death sentence in 2005 in
China, remains unknown. His case was set for review in 2007, but his status, in
a country that regards prisoner executions as a state secret, is unknown.
Only 1 death row inmate, Donald Tait, has managed to escape execution by having
his Thai verdict overturned.
Of those arrested overseas for capital crimes, 9 in 10 were detained for drug
offences. The smallest amount was carried by Aaron Cohen, who was sentenced to
life in a Malaysian prison in 1985 after being caught with 34 grams of heroin.
Cohen, who was 19 when arrested and reportedly born a heroin addict, was
detained with his mother Lorraine. She was sentenced to death. Both were
pardoned in 1996.
The youngest, Gordon Vuong, was only 16 when he was sentenced to 13 years in a
Cambodian jail in 2005. The oldest, an unnamed 71-year-old woman, was arrested
in Vietnam allegedly with 2.8 kg of heroin in December last year.
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties considered the death penalty "barbaric",
said president Stephen Blanks.
"Every criminal is entitled - even the worst murderers, the worst drug dealers
- to the opportunity to reform themselves."
The number of Australians arrested overseas each year has tripled in the past
20 years, mirroring a rise in travel overseas, figures from the Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade show.
In 2014, nearly 370 Australians were imprisoned overseas and more than 1200
Australians were arrested while abroad.
(source for both: Sydney Morning Herald)
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