May 4
HUNGARY:
Hungary Will Not Re-Introduce Death Penalty Despite Growing Debate
Hungary has no plans to introduce the death penalty, "it is only a matter up
for debate," Prime Minister Viktor Orban told European Parliament president
Martin Schulz. Orban and Schulz discussed the issue over the phone, cabinet
chief Janos Lazar said. Viktor Orban also told European People's Party leader
Joseph Daul and group leader Manfred Weber that a debate is ongoing in Hungary
about the death penalty but European Union laws will be respected, Lazar added.
The cabinet chief repeated Viktor Orban's comments in connection with the
recent brutal murder of a shop assistant in Kaposvar, stating that the
introduction of the "3-strikes" law and real life sentences did not have
sufficient effect to prevent crime and therefore the death penalty should be
"kept on the agenda". "The unbelievable social outcry that has emerged in
connection with serious crimes might not be heard in Brussels but it is heard
in Budapest," Janos Lazar added. Hungary respects the EU legal system, but the
EU in turn, as an important guardian of democracy, should not reject any debate
that concerns its citizens, he said. Later PM Viktor Orban told commercial Echo
TV that a decision on the death penalty was premature, but the debate on it
should continue. He said the loud critical response from Brussels showed that
"some people in Brussels do not want to allow debate."
Meanwhile the radical nationalist Jobbik party said it would initiate a day of
debate in parliament about the reintroduction of capital punishment, party
leader Gabor Vona said. Vona said international treaties do not ban the death
penalty, but there are even some members of Jobbik who oppose it. He called the
death penalty "justifiable," citing brutal murders as examples where it would
be a just punishment. Concerning the planned free trade agreement between the
EU and the US, he sharply criticised the government for "not raising hell"
about the possibility of large US companies "ripping off Europe". Commenting on
migration, he said Jobbik would support the government if it indeed took action
in this area. He said Hungary needed no refugees at all but it should make
preparations for granting safe haven to ethnic Hungarian asylum-seekers from
Ukraine.
(source: Hungary Today)
PHILIPPINES:
More Filipinos on death row in Malaysia, Saudi, China
Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and China top the list of countries where there are
Filipinos on death row with 34, 28 and 21 Philippine nationals, respectively,
according to Malacanang.
Citing a report by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Palace on Sunday said
there were also 2 Filipinos on death row in the United States and one each in
Indonesia, Kuwait and Thailand, bringing to 88 the total number of Filipino
facing the death penalty.
Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. told the Inquirer, however, that
"no case is imminent for execution."
"All death penalty cases are either already given a reprieve or are on appeal,"
Coloma said in a text message.
"The death penalty with a 2-year reprieve could be commuted to life
imprisonment for good behavior," said Coloma, quoting Foreign Affairs Assistant
Secretary and spokesperson Charles Jose.
Assistance
According to Coloma, all Philippine embassies and consulates had been directed
by Malacanang to extend all the help necessary to Filipinos on death row under
the DFA???s Assistance to Nationals program, including legal assistance and
appeals coursed through diplomatic channels.
"On the preventive side, extensive education and information are conducted by
the Department of Labor and Employment and its attached agencies in
collaboration with the Philippine Information Agency and other government media
organizations," Coloma said.
Massive
Already, he said, a massive information and education campaign against drug and
human trafficking was being conducted in the country's regions and provinces to
educate overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) while they are still in the country.
He also raised the need to increase awareness on the perils posed by human and
drug trafficking syndicates, particularly an intensified information drive on
the issue among OFWs and other Philippine nationals based abroad. It is
necessary for OFWs to know and comply with the laws of their host countries, he
said.
In China, trafficking in illegal drugs is punishable by a prison terms of at
least 15 years, life imprisonment or death, the DFA said.
In most Muslim countries, the offense is punishable by death under Sharia law.
Coloma said the government was doing everything to protect the rights of
Filipino citizens in trouble in the various parts of the world.
Citing the case of drug convict Mary Jane Veloso, he said a criminal syndicate
had duped the Nueva Ecija native into "being an unwitting accomplice or courier
in their human and drug trafficking activities."
Last Wednesday, Veloso was given a last-minute reprieve after President Aquino
brought up her case with Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
(source: Philippine Daily Inquirer)
PAKISTAN:
Halt executions please! ---- The investigations of the police before the
commencement of a criminal trial fabricate the whole scene in order to mislead
the courts and to save the people with power and money
Initially, executions were carried on terrorism related charges but, in the
wake of the Peshawar tragedy, the government of Pakistan decided to lift the
moratorium on March 10 of this year and reinstated this heinous punishment for
all death penalty offences. The PPP-led coalition government, in 2008, had
placed a moratorium on executions following pressure on the government by the
European Union and human rights' groups.
On April 21, 17 inmates were executed in Pakistan, the highest number of
executions in a single day since the reversing of the country's self imposed
ban. The prisoners were executed in different jails in Punjab and Balochistan.
16 inmates were executed in cities like Faislabad, Gujranwala, Gujarat, Lahore,
Multan, Sialkot and Rawalpindi while 1 execution was carried out in Machh Jail,
Balochistan. According to different news agencies, Iqbal and Latif were hanged
for shooting 4 people, including 1 woman. 3 men, Muhammad Hussain, Nizamuddin
and Azam, were hanged in the central jail in Faisalabad. The first 2 were
convicted for the murder of 3 people in 1998 while Azam was convicted for
murdering 7 people from one family in 2004. Another 3 persons were hanged in
Rawalpindi's Adiala jail for murder. Separately, in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail,
2 convicts were hanged for murder. 2 men were hanged in Sialkot jail for the
gang-rape of a minor in 1999 while 1 person was hanged in Multan's central jail
for committing murder in 2000. Another man was executed in Sahiwal's central
jail for murdering a man in 1998, while convict Azhar Mehmood was hanged in
Gujarat's district jail for murder in 1995. A convict named Riaz Ahmed was also
hanged for murder in Machh jail. There are about 8,000 death row prisoners in
Pakistan. Out of 8,000 death row prisoners many of them are innocent and have
been falsely implicated in criminal cases but are still languishing there. This
is all due to the ineffective criminal justice system of Pakistan where people
with deep pockets easily manipulate prosecution evidence, implicating innocent
people. The investigations of the police before the commencement of a criminal
trial fabricate the whole scene in order to mislead the courts and to save the
people with power and money.
Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan say that it is the only way
available for the government to deal with the scourge of terrorism and
militancy in the country. However, human rights groups across the world and
within Pakistan categorically oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty in
Pakistan. They have further contended that executing prisoners is no answer to
dealing with terrorism in Pakistan. There is a need to revise national and
international policies in order to deal with terrorism and militancy.
My contention on the opposition to execution is that right to life is embodied
as a natural right in Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan and in plain
wording it can be said that no one can take that right to life, not even the
courts that provide justice. Taking away the right to life by execution is
unnatural and inconsistent with the principles of natural justice. In any
civilised society execution is seen as barbaric and inhumane. Since the lifting
of the moratorium the ratio of crime in Pakistan lies at the same level where
it was before the lifting of the moratorium. Advanced countries now have
reached the conclusion that capital punishment is no answer to decreasing the
crime ratio.
My 2nd contention is that the death penalty is irreversible; once a prisoner is
executed, it is all over. Pakistan is a country where a number of legal
mistakes can happen and the courts can also commit mistakes while conducting a
criminal trial. The prevailing corruption in society has also belittled the
criminal justice system in the country whereby chances of the innocent being
declared guilty have increased manifold.
My last and biggest contention is that there is a need to develop non-penal
social engineering in Pakistan. Instead of executing prisoners, all
stakeholders should come together to a point where they provide rehabilitation
to prisoners, even to condemned prisoners in jails so that when they are
released from jail they play a positive and responsible role in society.
Keeping them in jail for years actually makes them hardened criminals and puts
them under immense mental torture. Advanced countries like the UK, Germany and
France are no longer party to the death penalty. They abolished the death
penalty years ago and now do not intend to reinstate it in their criminal
justice systems. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and China are amongst those
countries that execute thousands of prisoners every year. The non-penal social
engineering doctrine in Pakistan - even in countries where the death penalty is
a part of the criminal justice system - makes the system of punishment a bit
more humane. Prisoners languishing in violent and notorious jails are denied
basic rights and jail staffs treat them like animals. They should have dignity
too.
In culmination, I submit that government officials seriously reconsider their
decision of lifting of the ban on the moratorium. Executing condemned prisoners
is no answer to defeating terrorism. There is a need to revise national and
international polices pertaining to foreign policy and internal security. The
state of Pakistan now also has to realise that only secularism is a solution
for the sorting of extreme forms of militancy and terrorism. Pakistan's action
plan to combat terrorism seems plausible to the general public but it has no
ingredient for bringing peace and harmony to Pakistan in the long run. It is a
mere political slogan that the national action plan will bring peace and
harmony.
(source: Editorial, Sarmad Ali; the writer is an advocate of the High
Court----The Daily Times)
*****************
To the benefit of nobody
Judicial killing has taken many forms down the ages, none of them pretty and
all of them grotesque to a greater or lesser degree. The Indonesian government
executed 8 drug traffickers in the last week. They were tied to crosses before
being shot, were reported to have refused to be blindfolded and sang "We shall
overcome" together before the firing squads did their work. Pakistan recently
hanged its 100th man since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in
the wake of the massacre at the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar last
December. The moratorium was initially only lifted for those convicted in
terrorism cases but later it was lifted for all cases in which the death
penalty had been awarded.
There are thousands on death row in the country and Pakistan, complete with its
deeply flawed judicial system, has 27 offences which carry the option of the
death penalty. There is ample evidence, anecdotal and empirical, that the wider
population supports the death penalty, and there are elements of that
population which even support the public execution of criminals by methods
which much of the rest of the world regards as barbaric.
Looking at the list of those executed thus far there are few who have been
hanged for acts of terrorism, and most of those hanged had committed acts of
domestic violence, often killing multiple people. Their convictions are for the
most part long-standing and they had exhausted all roads of appeal. There have
been a handful of 'high-profile' executions but thus far there is not a lot of
evidence that the lifting of the moratorium has done much to deter terrorism.
Indeed, the converse effect may be in play - those who commit terrorist acts
often do so with the desire for 'martyrdom' at the forefront of their minds so
it is questionable whether the death penalty has played the role of an
effective deterrent in such cases.
The Pakistan legal system, as noted above, determines 27 offences that are
punishable by death. These go far beyond what most of the rest of the world
regards as the threshold for 'most serious crimes' as described in Article 6 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In Pakistan, a person
may be sentenced to death for sabotage of the railway system, gang-rape, drug
smuggling, trading arms - the list goes on. What is really problematic is that
the determination of guilt in respect of any or all of these offences is flawed
from top to bottom, and given that many of those recently hanged were convicted
at a time when police procedures were even more lax, primitive and corrupt than
they are today; the chances of innocent men having had their necks stretched is
disturbingly high.
A few cases where men are condemned to die have attracted international
attention, that of Shafqat Hussain who is due to hang on May 6 being one of
them. His case is an example of the inherent flaws in the system - judicial,
investigative and custodial. The dispute surrounding Shafqat Hussain is less
about his guilt or innocence and more about his age at the time of his
conviction and whether he was a juvenile at that point, thus making the death
sentence inappropriate. As of today, it appears he will hang, as will unknown
numbers of others, some of whom will not have been truly guilty of a capital
offence - and that is wrong.
The lifting of the moratorium after the APS atrocity today looks like little
more than a knee-jerk reaction with a strong element of populism deeply
embedded. The government was quickly able to take and implement a decision that
gave the impression of 'doing something' in response to the APS killings. In
reality, the hanging of a succession of men who for the most part have
committed what may be classed as 'crimes of passion', does absolutely nothing
beyond satisfy a public that is under the illusion that it does. And that is
also wrong.
(source: Editorial, Express Tribune)
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