May 8
SAUDI ARABIA:
Beheading of 5 foreigners in Saudi Arabia triggers outcry from human rights
campaigners
Human rights groups have condemned Saudi Arabia after the beheading of 5
foreigners this week. Experts warn 2015 will mark a dramatic increase in public
executions, as 80 people have already been killed, compared to 88 in the whole
of 2014.
Despite mounting international criticism from foreign governments and human
rights campaigners, Saudi Arabia has shown no willingness to end public
executions. On Monday, a group of 5 men, sentenced to death for murder and
theft, were publicly beheaded.
The killings come about a month after Amnesty International decried what it
labeled as a "macabre spike" in state-sponsored executions.
Adam Coogle, a Middle East analyst for Human Rights Watch, said: "From January
to the end of July 2014 there were 15 executions, but they finished 2014 with
88, which shows clearly that the spike began last year and has continued,"
Coogle told the Independent.
Peggy Hicks, Global Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, called the jump in
beheadings "shocking."
Amnesty International said the wave of state-sponsored killings proves that the
change of leadership in the kingdom does not mean a change in how it views
capital punishment, which is carried out for a series of offenses, including
blasphemy, treason, murder and drug trafficking.
Indeed, since King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud ascended to the throne in
Saudi Arabia earlier this year, the outlook for human rights remains grim, said
Amnesty International.
"Any hopes that the arrival of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud might herald
an improvement in human rights in Saudi Arabia have been crushed," said Philip
Luther, Amnesty International's Director of Middle East and North Africa
programs.
Luther said the new king is overseeing an "ongoing crackdown on government
critics and peaceful activists, who continue to be intimidated, arbitrarily
detained and treated as criminals."
"The first months of his reign have also been marked by an unprecedented wave
of executions in a clear signal that the use of the death penalty is thriving
in the Kingdom."
Coogle, however, was hesitant to blame the jump in executions to King Salman's
accession in Saudi Arabia.
"Personally, I would hesitate to relate the spike to the change of leadership,"
he said. "He certainly hasn't done anything to stop it but the high rate really
began last August. It could be an issue with a backlog of prisoners or it could
just be that they are sentencing more people to death."
Excluding China, where statistics are not released, at least state 607
executions were known to have been performed globally in 2014, Amnesty
International said in a report released in March, compared to 778 in 2013, a
decrease of more than 20 %.
The report showed a dramatic jump in the number of death sentences handed down
in 2014 compared to the previous year - at least 2,466 compared to 1,925 - an
increase of more than 25 %. The watchdog said the change was mostly due to the
situation in Nigeria and Egypt, where hundreds of people were condemned to
death.
(source: rt.com)
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT:
European liberals: Hungary has crossed the line over death penalty and
migration issues
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) in the European Parliament has
condemned talk in Hungary of restoring the death penalty and "the xenophobic
and leading wording" of the government's national consultation on migration.
The ALDE statement was released ahead of a debate in the European Parliament's
Civil Liberties Committee on the situation of fundamental rights in the EU.
"The ALDE Group in the European Parliament firmly condemns both the call for
the re-introduction of the death penalty in Hungary and the xenophobic and
leading wording of its Government's public consultation on migration," the
statement said.
Responding to a recent question in Parliament by a lawmaker of the far-right
Jobbik party concerning capital punishment, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said
the issue deserved a public debate. "Hungary has crossed a line," the ALDE
statement said, calling on the European Commission to "act now".
(source: politics.hu)
SINGAPORE:
Death penalty will make Singapore an "outlier nation": Human Rights Watch
Singapore's execution of Mohammad bin Kadar on April 17, 2015, should be the
last use of capital punishment in the country, Human Rights Watch said today.
Singapore has about 25 people on death row. At least two, recently sentenced,
could face execution in the coming months. In place of these and other
potential executions, Singapore should join the 117 United Nations member
countries that in 2014 voted for a global moratorium on the death penalty and
move ultimately to abolish it.
"Singapore should realize that its use of the death penalty makes it an
increasing outlier among nations," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. "It's a barbaric practice that has no place in a modern
state."
Singapore authorities hanged 39-year-old Mohammad bin Kadar after he spent 8
years on death row for the 2005 murder of his neighbor, a 69-year-old woman.
The court determined that Mohammad bin Kadar, who had a borderline IQ of 76 and
was in a drug-induced state, knew what he was doing when he stabbed the victim
repeatedly, establishing he had an "intention to kill," which under Singapore
law made the death penalty mandatory.
Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions at the
time said in reference to a 2005 drug case in Singapore that having a mandatory
death penalty violates international legal standards. Making such a penalty
mandatory, thus eliminating the discretion of the court "makes it impossible to
take into account mitigating or extenuating circumstances and eliminates any
individual determination of an appropriate sentence in a particular case. ...
The adoption of such a black-and-white approach is entirely inappropriate where
the life of the accused is at stake."
In November 2012, Singapore's parliament revised the law to restrict the kinds
of drug and murder convictions for which the death penalty is mandatory. In
murder cases, death sentences are not mandatory if the convicted murderer had
"no outright intention to kill." Mohammad bin Kadar appealed his death sentence
on the grounds that the law had been amended, but his appeal was rejected.
According to Amnesty International, since the laws were amended, courts have
reviewed and eventually commuted death sentences to life imprisonment and
caning in at least 9 cases. However, the law still provides for mandatory death
sentences, in contravention of international standards.
At least 2 of those on death row in Singapore, Kho Jabing and Michael Galing,
received mandatory death sentences after being convicted in separate murder
cases. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its
inherent cruelty and irreversibility and urges the government to commute the
sentences of all those held on death row.
In July 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean reiterated the Singaporean
government's longstanding position on the death penalty, saying that "the death
penalty has been an effective deterrent and an appropriate punishment for very
serious offences, and [Singaporeans] largely support it. As part of our penal
framework, it has contributed to keeping crime and the drug situation under
control."
In its December 18, 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."
"How many people will Singapore execute before they understand that the death
penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime?" Robertson said. "Singapore
should join with the UN secretary-general in recognizing that the "death
penalty has no place in the 21st century.'"
(source: Human Rights Watch)
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