June 17
EGYPT:
Morsi Death Penalty Upheld
An Egyptian court yesterday confirmed the death sentence against ousted
President Mohamed Morsi over mass jailbreak during the 2011 political turmoil,
state-run Nile TV reported.
Another 5 members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, including its
general guide Mohamed Badie, were handed the same death verdict.
On May 16, Morsi and more than 100 others were sentenced to death for plotting
jailbreaks and attacks on police during the political turmoil 4 years ago in
which President Hosni Mubarak was removed.
The case is publicly known as the "Wadi al-Natron jailbreak."
The verdicts have been referred to the Grand Mufti, the country's highest
Islamic official who gives the religious judgment of all preliminary death
sentences, for his opinion. In yesterday's ruling, another 102 defendants,
including the famous preacher, Youssef Al-Qaradawi, who resides in Qatar, were
handed death sentences in absentia.
Also life sentences, which is 25 years in prison according to Egyptian laws,
were handed to 21 other defendants.
The verdicts can be appealed.
Some 130 other defendants, who are affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood and
members of the Palestinian Hamas movement and the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah
group, stand trial in the same case.
They are accused of breaking into prisons and kidnapping and killing police
officers. In addition to the death sentence, Morsi was also sentenced in April
by the Cairo Criminal Court to 20 years in jail over ordering the arrest and
torture of protesters in 2012.
(source: The Herald)
*****************
Egypt death sentences: Brotherhood calls for uprising as world condemns
'massacre of basic rights'
The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood has called for massive protests on Friday, 19
June after the Egyptian court upheld the death sentence of expelled president
Mohammed Morsi, even as the world condemned the verdict.
Morsi, the first democratically elected leader of Egypt, was sentenced to death
along with several other senior figures of the Brotherhood, which was banned
after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took over.
The enraged Islamist organisation has called for supporters to take part in the
"popular uprising," dubbing the court's verdict a "sham."
Given that almost all of the senior figures of the Brotherhood are imprisoned
and the group's movements heavily curtailed by the ruling government, it is
still unclear whether the protests by the Brotherhood - which was once
responsible for toppling dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011 - will have any impact
in Egypt.
"The Egyptian judicial system has become completely politicised. The many
hundreds currently sentenced to death have not been afforded the basic
protection of their right to a fair trial and due process before an independent
judiciary," wrote Sondos Essam, a former Brotherhood spokesperson, who
currently resides in the UK. Essam is the only woman among the 100 people,
whose death sentences have been upheld in the Wadi Natroun jailbreak case.
Meanwhile, condemnation has been pouring in immediately after the Cairo court
announced the judgement.
Scores of leaders have chided the Cairo administration headed by al-Sisi, a
former general, for the move.
Calling the death sentences a "massacre of law and basic rights," Turkey's
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "We call on the international community to
act to withdraw these death sentences, given under the instructions of the coup
regime, and to put an end to this path which could seriously endanger the peace
of Egyptian society."
A statement from the White House spokesperson Josh Earnest read: "We are deeply
troubled by the politically motivated sentences that have been handed down
against former president Morsi and several others by an Egyptian court today."
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also expressed strong concerns over
the death penalty.
(source: International Business Times)
*********************
Morsy Death Sentence Follows Flawed Trials ---- Mass Verdicts Against
Brotherhood Didn't Assess Individual Guilt
2 cases that resulted in former President Mohamed Morsy and 114 others
receiving death sentences on June 16, 2015, were compromised by due process
violations and appear to have been politically motivated. The convictions are
based almost entirely on security officials' testimony.
A Human Rights Watch review of both prosecution case file summaries found
little evidence other than the testimony of military and police officers to
support the convictions of Morsy and 130 others for a 2011 prison break, and of
Morsy and 35 others for conspiring with foreign powers against the state. The
convictions and recommended death sentences were initially handed down on May
16, 2015, and the full written judgments have not yet been made public.
"These prosecutions show that Egyptian courts are ready to sentence the
government's opponents to death with barely any regard for due process," said
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. "They follow in a
line of flawed mass prosecutions brought against the members of the Muslim
Brotherhood."
Although Egyptian criminal law requires establishing individual criminal guilt
to convict a defendant, the case files give no indication that prosecutors
investigated individual responsibility for the acts included in the charges.
The authorities have conducted a series of mass trials since 2013 in which
hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been sentenced to death
following proceedings that violated due process rights and failed to establish
individual guilt, Human Rights Watch said. Morsy was a leading Brotherhood
official until he resigned in 2012, after being elected president.
If there is credible evidence that the defendants in these cases are
individually responsible for committing the offenses with which they were
charged, prosecutors should present it publicly and ask the court to retry the
defendants in proceedings that meet international fair trial standards, Human
Rights Watch said.
The 2 cases against Morsy were tried simultaneously before the same court. In
one, Morsy and 130 others faced charges of murder, looting weapons, and
collaborating with foreign militants to break out of prison during the 2011
uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. In the other, Morsy and 35 other
defendants were charged with conspiring and sharing state secrets with foreign
powers, including Hamas and Iran.
Judge Shaaban al-Shami, head of the Cairo Criminal Court, oversaw both trials
as a special circuit judge appointed to hear cases of terrorism and national
security. The hearings were held in a special courthouse at Cairo's Police
Academy.
On May 16, 2015, al-Shami announced that he would refer more than 100
defendants, including Morsy, to the Grand Mufti, the country???s highest
authority on Islamic law, indicating that he had recommended the death sentence
for them. The law requires the Grand Mufti to offer his confidential and
non-binding opinion on death sentences before they are finalized. On June 16,
al-Shami confirmed almost all of those death sentences - 16 in the conspiracy
case and 99 in the prison break case. Only nine of those sentenced to death are
in custody; they are all are associated with the Brotherhood.
Among those in custody are: Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood???s supreme guide;
Khairat al-Shater, a deputy supreme guide; Rashad al-Bayoumi, another deputy
supreme guide; Essam al-Arian, the former deputy chairman of the Brotherhood's
Freedom and Justice Party (FJP); Saad al-Katatni, a former FJP member and
parliamentary speaker; and senior Brotherhood member Mohamed al-Beltagy.
Morsy, al-Bayoumi, al-Erian, Badie, al-Katatny, and Mohie Hamad, a member of
the Brotherhood's Guidance Office, received death sentences in the prison
breaks case, while al-Shater, al-Beltagy, and Morsy aide Ahmed Abdellaty
received death sentences in the espionage case. All but Abdellaty, al-Bayoumi,
and al-Shater also received life sentences.
All can appeal to the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest appeals court, which
may only examine cases for legal flaws, but not review the evidence on which
the court relied.
Human Rights Watch reviewed the prosecution's case summary for both cases. In
the prison break case, the prosecution relied on the testimony of 43 people,
most of them Interior Ministry security officers, to support the accusation
that jihadists based in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula had collaborated with militants
of the Gaza-based Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah movements to break through
Egypt's eastern border in the Sinai and free political prisoners and thousands
of imprisoned criminals during the 2011 uprising.
State Security officials detained Morsy and 34 other top Brotherhood officials
on January 28, 2011, after mass protests against Mubarak broke out. Within
days, they and thousands of inmates escaped from prisons across Egypt. The
authorities did not charge Morsy and the 34 other Brotherhood officials with a
crime in 2011, either before they were detained or after they left prison.
In the current cases, Morsy and 45 other defendants were accused of escaping
from prison by force and being complicit in murder and the infiltration of the
border by providing money, information, and material support, such as forged
identification cards and vehicles, to the militants who stormed the prisons and
killed policemen and prison guards in the process.
Prosecutors alleged that the prison breaks were the result of a conspiracy
between the Brotherhood and foreign powers. In the case file, they claimed that
76 defendants who were not in detention at the time, together with more than
800 militants, entered Egypt by force from the Gaza Strip, seized control of
part of the Sinai, destroyed government buildings, and kidnapped three police
officers, then attacked 3 prisons: Wadi al-Natroun, Abu Zaabal, and al-Marg.
The militants broke down prison walls, the case file says, killed guards and
inmates, and freed imprisoned members of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Brotherhood,
and more than 20,000 other prisoners.
In the 2nd case, prosecutors accused Morsy and 35 other defendants, 16 of whom
were tried in absentia, of conspiring with and giving state secrets to Hamas,
Hezbollah, Iran, the United States, and others between 2005 and 2013. Their
aim, prosecutors alleged, was to commit "terrorist attacks ... aimed at
spreading chaos and overturning the state in order to seize power, in addition
to opening communication channels with official and non-official foreign bodies
to gain their support for this."
Prosecutors accused Morsy and his presidential aides of sharing classified
national security reports with foreign powers via emails and giving classified
reports about the activity of Iranians in Egypt to members of Iran's
Revolutionary Guards. The defendants also faced charges of establishing,
joining, and supporting an "illegal group" - the Muslim Brotherhood - that
sought violent regime change and received military training in the Gaza Strip.
As with each of the 5 ongoing cases against Morsy, prosecutors did not bring
these charges until after Morsy was removed in July 2013 by then-Defense
Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was elected president in June 2014. Al-Sisi
was director of military intelligence at the time of the prison breaks.
Egyptian nongovernmental groups and politicians have long asked for an
independent investigation into the prison breaks and the security vacuum that
began on January 28, 2011, when mass protests defeated the security forces and
the armed forces deployed to the streets. In the months after the uprising,
amateur videos uploaded to YouTube, testimony collected by the Egyptian
Initiative for Personal Rights - an independent group, and media statements by
former prison officials and families of slain officers raised questions about
the security forces' possible reluctance to prevent the prison breaks or their
possible involvement in freeing or killing prisoners.
The 2 government-sponsored fact-finding reports about the events of the
uprising - one completed under an interim military government in 2011 and
another under Morsy in 2013 - have never been made public and appear not to
have been used by the prosecutor general to file charges.
On April 21, 2015, a judge sentenced Morsy to 20 years in prison for complicity
in the illegal detention and torture of opposition protesters by supporters of
the Muslim Brotherhood. He faces 3 other prosecutions for corruption, insulting
the judiciary, and leaking state secrets to Qatar.
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases and has called on the
Egyptian government to halt executions. Since Morsy's removal, the authorities
have executed seven people for allegedly committing violence against the new
government or its supporters and sentenced about 600 people to death.
"This prison break case was a missed opportunity to shine a spotlight on what
happened in Egypt during that chaotic period," Whitson said. "The families of
those who were killed during those prison breaks in Egypt are still waiting for
justice."
Prosecution File Analysis
Human Rights Watch obtained the prosecution's 64-page summary of the prison
break case and the 81-page summary of the conspiracy case.
In both cases, the prosecution failed to present any substantiating evidence to
support security officials' allegations of a Brotherhood conspiracy to attack
Egyptian territory, break out of prison and seize power, or to explain how
routine or publicly announced political meetings by members of Morsy's
administration constituted espionage. Some of the evidence presented to convict
members of the administration and others of espionage amounted to nothing more
than email discussions of foreign and domestic policy or efforts to arrange
policy conferences.
Further, the decision to charge Morsy and other Brotherhood members only after
they were removed from power and the failure to investigate any other party for
the prison breaks or alleged conspiracy - such as al-Sisi and other current and
former military officers who worked with the Brotherhood during the relevant
events - creates the appearance that these cases are politically motivated.
Prison Break Case
In the 1st testimony recorded in the prison breaks case file summary, a retired
South Sinai Security Directorate officer alleged that in January 2011, more
than 150 armed people in 4-wheel-drive vehicles had attacked security force
installations in the Sinai Peninsula and taken control of territory as far west
as the town of al-Arish. He asserted that they were the same people who later
attacked the prisons because what he saw in media coverage of the events
indicated that they had "used the same attacking techniques." He did not
provide any other evidence.
A lawyer on the defense team who asked not to be named told Human Rights Watch
that the defense asked al-Shami to request satellite imagery from Egyptian
security agencies to show whether alleged attackers had actually crossed the
Egyptian border at the time alleged, but he said that al-Shami refused their
request and another request to summon military witnesses to give evidence,
including al-Sisi, former Defense Minister Hussein Tantawy, and former Armed
Forces Chief of Staff Sami Anan.
The defense lawyer said that one of the National Security officers who
testified during the trial said that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF), which ruled Egypt immediately after the 2011 uprising, had made a deal
with the Brotherhood to allow it take power. The defense team asked al-Shami to
file charges against that officer and SCAF members, the lawyer said, on the
grounds that they had abetted the same alleged conspiracy for which Morsy and
others were being tried, but he said that the judge refused.
Morsy, who has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of any of his trials,
called and gave a live interview to the Al Jazeera Arabic television network on
January 30, 2011, shortly after his departure from Wadi al-Natroun Prison.
Speaking apparently from just outside the facility, he said that he and the
other detained Brotherhood leaders had heard sounds of a commotion and possibly
of teargas being fired the previous night, after which people in civilian
clothes who he thought may have been inmates' relatives had opened his cell
door and freed him and the other Brotherhood leaders. He told his interviewer
repeatedly during the 2011 interview that neither he nor his colleagues had
sought to escape, and gave their location and said they wished to contact the
authorities.
Several security officers testified that security forces arrested Palestinians
from among the attackers, but all of the more than 70 Palestinians charged in
the case were tried in absentia. Hamas, which has denied any role in the 2011
prison breaks, issued a statement on May 17, 2015, saying that 3 of those
sentenced to death in absentia by al-Shami had died - 1 in 2008, 1 in 2009, and
the 3rd in 2014, and that another had been imprisoned in Israel since 1996. In
response, al-Shami said that he would only acknowledge official documents and
that Hamas had not submitted death certificates.
In May, the Turkey-based Mekameleen television channel, which is generally
sympathetic to the Brotherhood and opposes al-Sisi, broadcast what the network
said was Anan, the former chief of staff, testifying at one of Mubarak's trials
soon after the uprising. In the leaked recordings, Anan answered questions from
Judge Ahmed Refaat, who oversaw the trials against Mubarak, and denied that the
SCAF was informed by intelligence agencies that Hamas, Hezbollah, or any other
foreign groups had breached Egypt's borders or tunnels.
Most officers testified that the clashes at the prisons were between militants
and prison guards, and that the guards fled after they ran out of bullets. One
National Security officer said that members of the Central Security Forces
(CSF) were asked to help but were overwhelmed by the attacks. Another National
Security officer stated that no reinforcements came when requested because of
the "security vacuum" but did not elaborate. The authorities have not
investigated why security forces did not protect prisons, a lapse about which
officers had complained in the media following the uprising.
Another witness, a National Security officer, said that only armed groups were
present during the attacks on the prisons, not relatives of the inmates, as
Morsy and others suggested. But several YouTube videos taken at the time showed
inmates' families at the prison walls.
Prosecutors also charged some defendants with killing 30 prisoners in Abu
Zaabal Prison but stated that police could not name those killed.
A section of the file, labeled the prosecution's notes, describes a secret
investigation by Lt. Col. Mohamed Mabrouk, a National Security officer, that
concluded that the prison breaks were part of a wider plot in which the United
States, Turkey, and the Brotherhood had conspired, with help from Hamas,
Hezbollah, and Iran, to seize power in Egypt and then sell part of the Sinai to
Palestinians. There is no evidence in the rest of the case summary to
substantiate Mabrouk's claims.
Mabrouk was shot and killed in front of his house in Cairo in November 2013.
Authorities arrested his alleged killers and accused them of belonging to the
jihadist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, also known as Sinai Province. They are
among 200 defendants on trial for acts connected with the group.
Conspiracy With Foreign Powers Case
Prosecutors built the 2nd case, involving alleged conspiracy with foreign
powers and espionage, entirely on investigations by the National Security
agency. The trial included 8 witnesses, most of them security officers, and
including 1 bystander. Much of the material cited in the case summary as
evidence of espionage consists of mere exchanges of political views and public
meetings.
Many accusations that the Brotherhood organized a conspiracy and seized power
through violence are contradicted by the events that followed the uprising,
including the victories of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in
parliamentary elections in 2011 and Morsy's election as president in 2012. The
SCAF itself appointed a Brotherhood leader to a constitution drafting committee
in March 2011, and Brotherhood leaders held regular meetings with the SCAF
after the uprising, some including al-Sisi.
The case summary states that State Security investigations showed that the
Brotherhood had sought to exploit "popular anger against the former regime [of
Hosni Mubarak]" since 2005 to seize power by violence. The prosecution linked
those efforts to what they called "the American statements on creative chaos
and the quest to build a new Middle East."
To support this allegation, the prosecution describes several meetings that
Brotherhood leaders attended in Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere
between 2006 and 2009 but without providing any evidence that these concerned
the alleged conspiracy or indicating what was discussed. Many of the meetings
were public workshops or with government officials.
According to the prosecution, some of the meetings involved the International
Union of Student Organizations in Turkey, while others involved various Hamas
leaders and another, in January 2011, involved a US Central Intelligence Agency
agent. The prosecution also referred to several trials of Brotherhood leaders
before State Security courts during the Mubarak government, prior to 2011, as
evidence of their conspiracy, despite the fact that these courts failed to
guarantee basic due process rights. They also referred to evidence from tapped
phone calls between Brotherhood leaders that the prosecution said had been lost
when protesters ransacked State Security buildings after the uprising.
Under Mubarak, Brotherhood leaders met regularly with Hamas leaders, sometimes
as part of mediation efforts sponsored by the Mubarak government.
Most of the emails listed by the prosecution as evidence of conspiracy contain
only exchanges of political views on American, French, and British foreign
policies in the Middle East. The prosecution file states that defendants
encouraged Brotherhood leaders to meet with European officials and explain
their thoughts. The evidence includes an account of a meeting between Gehad
al-Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman whose father was Morsy's foreign policy
adviser, and Norwegian parliament members and officials, after which one
Brotherhood member sent an email urging al-Haddad to push Brotherhood leaders
to respond to the parliament members' concerns about women's and Coptic
Christians' rights in Egypt.
Al-Haddad and his father, Essam al-Haddad, Morsy's foreign policy adviser, both
received life sentences.
Another email exchange cited as evidence involved Sondos Asem, a media
coordinator for Morsy's presidency, and Forward Thinking, a British research
organization and charitable organization that sponsors interfaith and conflict
resolution dialogues in the Middle East. In the email, Asem sought to arrange
meetings between Brotherhood leaders and European parliament members and
officials. The prosecution described Forward Thinking as an organization that
is dedicated to "serving intelligence goals of European countries in
cooperation with the United States."
The prosecution's evidence included recommendations emailed to Brotherhood
leaders by Emad Shahin, a professor at the American University in Cairo who
fled Egypt in 2014 and is currently a visiting professor at Georgetown
University. Shahin had written the leaders with the advice "not to waste the
historical opportunity and MB political credit" after the revolution and to
insist on democratic change and the military's noninterference in politics.
Prosecutors charged Shahin with complicity in the espionage by "providing
[other defendants] with email addresses to use for communication in
transmitting and receiving orders through the Internet."
Al-Shami sentenced Shahin and Asem, who is currently studying at the University
of Oxford, to death in absentia on the basis of their emails.
(source: Human Rights Watch)
**********************
Egyptian UN delegate defends capital punishment----On Tuesday, an Egyptian
court sentenced ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and 99 others to death
over a jailbreak during the 2011 uprising
Egypt's Permanent Delegate to the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday stressed
Egypt's respect for human rights and defended its death penalty, after
international criticism of its recent human rights record.
Ambassador Amr Ramadan's statements followed a Cairo court on Tuesday morning
upholding a May death sentence against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi
and 99 others, of whom 93 in absentia, over a prison break in 2011.
Egypt respects its international obligations to protect human rights and is
looking forward to strengthening its cooperation with the UN's Human Rights
Council to help all countries improve their human rights situation, he said at
the council's 29th session.
Ramadan said that he was astonished that some members were calling for the
abolition of the death penalty, explaining that neither the International
Declaration of Human Rights nor the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights prohibit the death penalty.
"In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may
be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force
at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions
of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide," states Article 6 of the covenant. "This penalty can
only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent
court.
Egypt applies to death sentence in the case of "terrorism-related crimes",
Ramadan said.
In May, 6 men were hanged after an Egyptian military court found them guilty of
"killing army personnel" in 2014 in the "Arab Sharkas" case, sparking
condemnation from human rights groups. Relatives and lawyers claimed that at
least 2 of the men had been detained before the incident.
Since Morsi's ouster in July 2013, Egypt has detained thousands of alleged
supporters of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails.
Militant attacks against army and security personnel have spiked, especially in
North Sinai.
(source: Ahram Online)
***************
EU is uncomfortable with Morsi death sentence
European Union said Egyptian court's decision to uphold Morsi death sentence is
in breach of Egypts obligations under international law
The European Union has said it expects Egyptian authorities to revise the death
penalty handed down to Egypt's 1st democratically-elected president Mohamed
Morsi.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement Tuesday that the
death penalty represented "an unacceptable denial of human dignity and
integrity".
"These sentences and procedures are in breach of Egypt's obligations under
international law," Mogherini said.
The 28-nation bloc reiterated its calls on the Egyptian authorities to uphold
the right to a fair trial based on clear charges and proper and independent
investigations.
Morsi was sentenced on charges of espionage and a mass jailbreak incident in
2011 during demonstrations that ousted then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Apart from the death penalty, he was also given a life sentence.
The Egyptian court had also sentenced 5 Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including
the group's head, Mohamed Badie, to death for participating in the jailbreak.
(source: World Bulletin)
***************
World must prevent death penalty on Morsi, says his lawyer----Legal
representative of Morsi calls on states to prevent death penalty and put a stop
to 'repression against Egyptians'
The world powers should go beyond condemning a death penalty against Mohamed
Morsi and take actual steps to prevent it, said a legal representative of the
former Egyptian president.
Rodney Dixon, a barrister and member of a legal team representing Morsi and the
Freedom and Justice Party in international courts, spoke Tuesday to Anadolu
Agency on an Egyptian court's decision to sentence to death Egypt's 1st
democratically elected president.
Dixon said the court's decision was "shocking" and "based on an anti-democratic
trial that was wildly condemned in Egypt and around the world".
He added that it also proved how the "current military government" had an
influence on courts.
Dixon called on world states to prevent such court orders and put a stop to the
"repression against Egyptians", saying: "Western governments, the U.N., the
European Union and the African Union, all need to stand together, not only
condemning but taking actual steps."
An appeal process would hardly yield any result as the courts did not operate
"according to the rule of law", he said.
"There is an appeal process in theory but in practice it is not an effective
one and not one that you expect in a democratic society," Dixon said.
"Therefore, it's hard to expect a decision change."
He added that Morsi's attorneys have taken measures to try to suspend the death
sentence, by filing a complaint to the African Commission, adding that a
complaint would also be filed to the United Nations.
Governments of western countries would also be asked to take diplomatic action
to prevent the sentence, Dixon said.
An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced former President Mohamed Morsi to death
over jailbreak charges. The court also sentenced 5 leaders of the Muslim
Brotherhood, including top leader Mohamed Badie, to death on charges of taking
part in a mass jailbreak in 2011.
Nearly 100 others were sentenced - in absentia - to the gallows, including
prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
The same court earlier on Tuesday sentenced Morsi and 16 co-defendants to life
in prison over charges of conspiring with Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's
Hezbollah to carry out "terrorist acts" in Egypt. The court also sentenced 16
defendants to death on similar charges.
(source: videonews)
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:
Father demands death penalty for son's killers
An Emirati man refused to pardon the killers of his 24-year-old son and sought
the capital punishment for them.
The bereaved father told the Ras Al Khaimah Criminal Court that he will never
pardon the defendants and sought the toughest penalty, as did the RAK Public
Prosecution.
He said all his children are in agreement over the demand for the death
penalty. They will soon submit an official letter to confirm that they do not
want to pardon the killers.
As per court records, the case dates back to August last year when the Mamura
Police Station in RAK was alerted about the murder by a duty doctor at the Saqr
Hospital.
He told the police that four Arab men rushed the deceased to the emergency room
of Saqr Hospital and fled the scene without giving any information.
With the aid of the video footages captured by the CCTV cameras outside the
hospital, the police managed to identify the suspects' car plate number. The 4
defendants, who were arrested later, told the police that they stabbed the
victim after they had a heated argument with him.
They were charged with premeditated murder and using drugs.
(source: Khaleej Times)
VIETNAM:
NA amends death penalty
Lawmakers yesterday agreed to abolish the death penalty for several crime
categories, but many insisted the death sentence for corruption remain, saying
that if the crime was not punished properly, it would cause disorder in
society.
Discussing the revised Penal Code at the on-going 9th National Assembly (NA)
session, deputies said that the number of death penalties should be reduced and
the numbers of those given amnesty increased.
The majority of the NA Committee for Justice members agreed to abolish seven
out of 22 categories attracting the death penalty, including robbery,
destroying important works, creating war and for war crimes.
In a talk with reporters, Nguyen Ba Thuyen from the southern province of Lam
Dong, welcomed the move, saying that the abolishment showed the humanity of the
revised code.
However, he disapproved the abolishment of the penalty for drug trafficking and
trading. "Traffickers and traders may take advantage of this regulation to
avoid the death sentence," he said.
Nguyen Thanh Binh from the southern province of Vinh Long said that war
criminals should not be abolished from the list of crimes attracting the death
penalty.
"This crime is especially serious which is against the human race and causes
serious consequences to a region or a country," he said.
Economic crime
However, the Minister of Planning and Investment, Bui Quang Vinh, opposed the
dropping of the crime "deliberate wrongdoing in State's economic management
regulations causing serious consequences" from the death penalty list. Many
deputies opposed him.
Vinh said that there should be economic measures to punish such crimes.
He argued that in some cases, the death penalty was not good as the Government
could not take the illegal money and properties back. But if the law-breaker
was let live, the Government would get the money returned," he said.
Vinh pleaded for a limit to the criminalisation of economic wrongdoing, saying
that there should be detailed regulations for different categories.
His views faced opposition from many NA deputies who said that economic
wrongdoing was corruption and it should not be tolerated.
Nguyen Thi Kha from the southern province of Tra Vinh said that she disagreed
totally with the minister's opinion.
"If the law-breakers are not discovered, they will live their luxurious life
into old age. Even if they are discovered, all they have to do to avoid the
death penatly is to pay a sum of money. This makes the law unfair and
distorted," she said.
Sharing her opinion, Nguyen Doan Khanh from the northern province of Phu Tho,
who is also the Deputy Head of the Central Party Committee's Inspection
Commission, said that removing economic wrongdoing from the death penalty would
hamper the fight against corruption.
Do Ngoc Nien from the central province of Binh Thuan said that the abolishment
of economic crimes from the death list would be unfair to others sentenced to
death and created a loophole for corrupt people.
"In order to get rid of the national problem of corruption, we should have had
stricter punishments. But we are going the opposite way by doing this," he
said.
"We cannot trade people's trust, change justice and tolerate corruption by
allowing money to replace the death sentence," he added.
A regulation not to apply the death sentence to law-breakers to those above 70
also faced opposition.
Many deputies said that many people at that ages committed serious crimes. Some
were even leaders of criminal rings, they said, urging for the maintenance of
the punishment on those above 70.
(source: Vietnam News)
IRAN----executions
2nd Video Footage of the Last Moments of Death Row prisoners before Going to
Gallows
The following video footage shows the last moments of 2 death row prisoners in
the public ward of Ghezel Hesar Prison before going to gallows. During the
recent 1 month more than 50 prisoners have been hanged in Ghezel Hesar Prison.
see:
https://hra-news.org/en/second-video-footage-last-moments-death-row-prisoners-going-gallows
The obvious calmness of the prisoners in this footage is the other face of the
social indifference towards the mass and hidden executions. The goal of
revealing this footage is to attract the attention of the civil society and
media to the matter of executions.
HRANA tries to halt the execution sentences in Iran, regardless of the charges
that have been put on the inmates whereas most of these prisoners have not had
fair trials during the due process. So that one could claim that these death
sentences are not even on the basis of Iranian Penal Code.
HRANA News Agency calls on all the Iranians to put their efforts in reporting
the human rights??? violations in Iran. You can send your reports to HRANA
through this email address:
i...@hra-news.org
(source: HRANA news agency)
**************
Iran executes Kurdish political prisoner Mansour Arvand
A well-known Kurdish political prisoner was executed without notice to family
earlier this week, sending shock and outrage through the opposition movement in
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Mansour Arvand, a 39-year-old former wrestler from Mahabad, had been sentenced
in 2011 for the capital crime of "Moharebeh," which has been translated from
Farsi as "enemy of God."
His death by hanging has angered Kurdish activists in Iran and abroad who had
expressed hope that the new government of President Hassan Rouhani would
improve the situation of many Kurdish political prisoners.
According to an opposition website, Arvand was also convicted of "propaganda
against the system and membership in the Kurdistan Democratic Party."
The National Council of Resistance in Iraq wrote: "During the 4 years of his
imprisonment in various prisons, including the intelligence prison of Mahabad
and Evin Prison, he underwent the most severe tortures and was suffering from
various illnesses because of that, including renal infection.
He was executed despite the fact that he had been told that his sentence had
been commuted to life in prison."
In 2011, Arvand was reportedly arrested in his home in Mahabad, a Kurdish city
in northwest of Iran. He spent months in custody of the Iranian Intelligence,
or Etelaat.
A year later, he was accused of collaboration with the Kurdistan Democratic
Party of Iran.
Arvand denied the allegations but in 2012 was sentenced to death by the Mahabad
Islamic Revolutionary Court, Branch 1.
Arvand was transferred in 2014 to Mahabad Prison and was allegeldy informed
that his sentence had been reduced to life imprisonment.
Last month, Arvand was transferred from Mahabad Prison to Miandoab Prison
without explanation, according to opposition reports.
On Monday, Arvand's family was called into the prison and informed that their
son was hanged the day before, according to the Human Rights Defenders
Association of Kurdistan.
According to Amnesty International, Iran executed 289 prisoners last year, the
2nd-most in the world. Amnesty claimed without verification at least 454 more
prisoners were executed without acknowledgment by the Iranian authorities.
(source: Rudaw.net)
****************
27 Executions in Iran -- 1 Execution Every 2 Hours So Far in June
In the absence of international reactions the Iranian authorities have executed
1 person every 2 hours in June 2015. Iran Human Rights (IHR) calls for
immediate international reactions to stop the mass-executions ongoing in Iran.
Official Iranian media has reported about the execution of 27 people yesterday
and today.
According to the website of the Iranian State Broadcasting, Jam News, 25
prisoners were hanged in the Rajaishahr prison of Karaj (west of Tehran)
Tuesday morning June 16. "Most of the prisoners were convicted of drug related
charges" said the report which called the prisoners "criminals and drug
traffickers". None of the prisoners were identified by name.
2 other prisoners were hanged in 2 different Iranian cities early this morning.
According to Tabnak news website, 1 of the prisoners was charged with Moharebeh
(waging war against God) for kidnapping, carrying arms and distribution of
alcoholic beverages. The prisoner who was not identified by name was 33 year
old and was hanged early Wednesday morning in the prison of Mashhad
(Northeastern Iran) said the report.
The other prisoner who was hanged on Wednesday morning was 43 years old and
identified as "M. Z.". He was charged with murder and hanged in the prison of
Sari (Northern Iran).
According to reports collected by IHR so far in June at least 206 people have
been executed in different Iranian cities. 60 of the executions have been
announced by the official sources while IHR has managed to confirm 146 other
executions which have not been announced by the authorities.
IHR condemns the arbitrary executions in Iran and calls for international
reactions. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: "The number
of executions in Iran is unprecedented in the last 20 years. So far in June the
Iranian authorities have executed 12 people each day, while the international
community continues its meaningful silence".
(source: Iran Human Rights)
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