Aug. 2
TURKEY:
A step back from the death penalty----Tentatively, cautiously, we can say that
Turkey is dropping talk of reinstating capital punishment
There are very few aspects of the 15 July coup attempt in Turkey that did not
cause alarm abroad, but one that resonated more than most was the talk of
reinstating the death penalty.
It began the morning after the night before, with a call that rippled among the
jubilant, flag-waving, "God is great"-shouting crowds. "We want the death
penalty," they chanted over and again.
"I have received your message. We have received your message. We will do what
is necessary," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told one group at a rally on 16
July.
Let them hang
All of a sudden, Turkish commentators and politicians were talking of a "crime
of treason" that warranted the reinstatement of the death penalty.
The press carried interviews with parents of police officers killed in action,
demanding the ultimate punishment as justice for their children.
ORC, a polling company close to the government, found 91.5% of respondents
would support implementing the death penalty "in crimes of treason and
terrorism".
ORC on death penalty
And President Erdogan told CNN that he would sign a reinstatement of the death
penalty if parliament voted for it.
The reaction from outside the country was precisely the opposite: the European
Union, the White House and Amnesty International were among those warning the
implications of reintroducing capital punishment would be grave.
Take a deep breath
But 2 1/2 weeks after the failed coup, the indications are that the governing
AK Party is not going to propose reinstating the death penalty.
The 1st real signs came at the weekend when AK Party deputy leader Hayati
Yazici told Haberturk that stripping the coup plotters of their Turkish
citizenship could be alternative to the death penalty.
Yazici acknowledged the public demand for capital punishment during the
interview but pointed to the multitude of international treaties that his
country was a signatory to.
Bringing back the noose would mean pulling out of international commitments
like protocol 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights, whereas stripping
people of their citizenship and rendering them stateless is less tricky -
according to Watson Institute scholar Selim Sazak.
Earlier today, Monday, Mr Yildirim held separate talks with Kemal
Kili???daroglu, leader of the main opposition CHP, and nationalist MHP leader
Devlet Bahceli. The issue of capital punishment was not discussed, the prime
minister told the press after the meetings.
Any reinstatement, despite vociferous MHP support, cannot pass without the
governing party's backing. And there is little sign of the other opposition
parties supporting it: Mr Kilicdaroglu has been carefully non-committal on the
issue in his public remarks, while Selahattin Demirtas and the pro-Kurdish HDP
are vehemently opposed.
It may well be that Mr Yazici's comments were a test balloon sent up over the
weekend before Mr Yildirim's meetings today.
It may well be that the issue will fizzle once again into obscurity.
Indeed, few had discussed the death penalty since it was firmly abolished a
decade ago - the most prominent exception being a minister in response to the
brutal murder of a young woman early last year.
The 1st steps
It has been 15 years since Turkey's last coalition government started the
process of abolishing capital punishment.
The 1st step was a vast 36-article package of amendments to the constitution
passed on 3 October 2001. Number 15 among these articles was one that amended
the constitution to restrict the death penalty to instances of "war, the
imminent threat of war and terror offences".
It did pass (383 in favour; 74 opposed; 8 abstentions, invalid and blank
votes), but fewer MPs supported it and more MPs opposed it than almost any
other article in the package.
Even so, a law that appears monumental in retrospect stirred barely any emotion
at the time. Parliament and the press were more concerned about simultaneous
efforts to lift the political bans on religious leader Necmettin Erbakan and
the leader of the newly-formed AK Party, one Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Neither ban
was lifted then.
The Ocalan case
The 2001 law change meant Turkish courts could no longer sentence defendants to
death in peace time, but it did not change the status of 86 people waiting on
death row.
That came the following year, on 3 August 2002, when parliament voted by a far
narrower majority (253 in favour; 152 opposed; 6 abstentions and others) to
approve a law that converted all existing death sentences to multiple life
sentences.
PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and Sirri Sakik, a commander with the group, were
among those affected.
Devlet Bahceli's nationalist MHP - then a partner in the governing coalition -
opposed the law, as did a significant part of the fledgling AK Party.
In a general election precisely 3 months later, the electorate would boot the
MHP out of parliament and replace them with a landslide AK majority.
That AK government went on to sign Protocol 13 of the European Convention of
Human Rights, which bans the death penalty "in all circumstances, including for
crimes committed in times of war and imminent threat of war", on 9 January
2004. Parliament ratified it 2 years later.
(source: jamesinturkey.com)
NIGERIA:
AREPO: FG plans death sentence for vandals
The Federal Government, yesterday, spoke of plans to sponsor death penalty bill
against vandals and others who attack critical national assets.
This came on a day military and police authorities opened up on the prosecution
of Operation Awathe in the South Western Coast, promising to terminate
activities of vandals and militants who have terrorised the people of the area
and vandalised critical state assets. Assistant Inspector General, AIG, Zone 2,
comprising Lagos and Ogun states, Abdulmajeed Ali, who disclosed this in Lagos,
described vandals operating in Arepo and environs as criminals who would be
treated as such.
This came as Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, ordered the
destruction of boats, jerry cans and other facilities used and abandoned by
suspected militants at Arepo area of the state.
Commenting on the military operation against Arepo vandals, Ali said: "Threats
from pipeline vandals in Arepo area and its environs will soon be a thing of
the past."
The Police boss, who spoke on resumption of duty in the Zone at Onikan in
Lagos, said also that those operating at Arepo should not be called militants
but hoodlums, stressing that plans are in top gear to advise government to
sponsor a bill that will prescribe death penalty for the criminals.
He said: "I do not consider those groups as militants. They are hoodlums. They
are robbers, kidnappers in disguise. I have dealt with them before and I will
continue to deal with them in their hideouts. We are trying to get the
government prescribe capital punishment for them.
"I want to commend the Lagos State governor for the support given to the
Nigeria Police. I was impressed with all the equipment supplied by the
government. We shall continue to work in the 2 commands and ensure security. I
will start by declaring my vision of things that I will like to address and
things that I will not tolerate.
"The only thing that is constant in life is change and change is inevitable, we
should expect changes in all ramifications.
"It is crystal clear that based on the present security challenges in the two
zones; there will be a need to have an overall policing strategy for effective
security of lives and properties within the 2 zones.
"On issues of insecurity, I will continue to collaborate with the military and
other security agencies, with a view to achieving the common goal. I detest
terrorism, kidnapping, robbery and other vices. I consider them as murderers. I
will also assure you that anyone caught in these acts will be brought to book."
Operation Awathe: Military, Police open up
Meanwhile, Military and police authorities, yesterday, opened up on the
prosecution of Operation Wathe in the South Western Coast, promising to
terminate activities of vandals and militants. This is evident in the continued
bombardment of the criminal's hideouts by government troops as what started
like a one-off operation, last Thursday, continued with a mop-up, yesterday.
The ongoing operation involves Nigerian Navy, Air Force, Army, the Department
of State Services, DSS, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps and the
Police. Deploying aerial and land arsenals, the military has dealt severe blow
to the criminals that had long engaged in vices such as pipeline vandalism,
robbery, murder, rape and kidnapping.
Although the troops rained more shelling on Ishawo, Igando and Igbolomu areas
of Ikorodu in Lagos State, and Arepo, Awawa, Elepete and Ibafo in Ogun State on
Sunday.
Yesterday's operation was a kind of mop-up exercise since the surviving
criminals were nowhere in sight.
(source: vanguardngr.com)
IRAN:
A Former Police Officer Executed in Mashhad
Reza Sabzevari, 32, former policeman from Neyshabur was executed in Mashhad
prison on July 27. His family was informed to attend the last meeting in
Mashhad prison 1 day before. Mr. Sabzevari was married and had 2 children, 10
and 2 1/2.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA),
Reza Sabzevari, 32, former policeman from Neyshabur was executed in Mashhad
prison.
Mr. Sabzevari was an officer of Department of Fighting Drugs and has been
imprisoned since 1 year and a half ago.
There is no information about his charges.
According to informed sources his family has been told in a phone call to go to
Mashhad Prison to visit Mr. Sabzevari for the last time.
**********************
Almost 20 Sunni Death Row Prisoners Taken to an Unknown Location
Some hours ago, the prison guard of Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj handcuffed,
shackled, blindfolded a number of Sunni death row prisoners of ward 10 and
transferred them to an unknown location. This has raised concerns about the
possible execution of these prisoners.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the
special guard of Rajai Shahr Prison transferred a number of Sunni death row
prisoners of ward 10 to an unknown location.
A huge number of special guards raided ward 10 to transfer almost 20 death row
prisoners. The handcuffed, shackled and blindfolded the prisoners and took them
to an unknown place.
The yard of the ward had been closed since this morning.
This unexampled raid to ward just some days after airing the confessions of
some of these prisoners increases the probability of some prisoners???
execution in coming days.
(source for both: HRANA News Agency)
****************************
Call off execution of teenage prisoner ---- Alireza Tajiki was 15 years old at
the time of arrest
The Iranian Resistance calls on international human rights organizations to
take urgent action and demand the cancellation of the scheduled execution of
Alireza Tajiki who was only 15 years old at the time of arrest.
Repeated appeals by the family of Alireza Tajiki for revision of his case have
been rejected by the mullahs' judiciary. The young prisoner has been in jail
since 2012 and is going to be executed on Wednesday, August 3, 2016, in
Adelabad Prison of Shiraz.
Despite his age, Alireza Tajiki was denied access to a lawyer throughout the
investigation process and was tortured under interrogation to make false
confessions, a routine practice in Iranian jails.
In a statement on the pending execution of Alireza Tajiki, Amnesty
International wrote: "Imposing the death penalty on someone who was a child at
the time of the crime flies in the face of international human rights law ...
It is particularly horrendous that the Iranian authorities are adamant to
proceed with the execution when this case was marked by serious fair trial
concerns and primarily relied on torture-tainted evidence ... Iran's
bloodstained record of sending juvenile offenders to the gallows, routinely
after grossly unfair trials, makes an absolute mockery of juvenile justice and
shamelessly betrays the commitments Iran has made to children's rights."
55 executions have been registered between July 11 and 27 in Iran. This is but
a small part of the wave of executions taking place throughout the country.
Many executions are carried out secretly and their news do not leak out.
*****************
52 youths awaiting execution in Tehran Prison
At least 52 youths under the age of 32 are awaiting the implementation of their
execution sentences in Greater Tehran Prison (Fashafouyeh Prison), according to
reports from the prison.
Among these death-row inmates, 32 are imprisoned in Section 1 and another 20
are incarcerated in Section 2 of the prison.
According to informed sources, over 100 death-row prisoners in Unit 2 of
Ghezel-Hesar Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, who engaged in a series of
strikes and rioting have been transferred to Fashafouyeh Prison.
(source for both: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)
BANGLADESH:
Shazneen murder: Top court confirms death sentence for 1, acquits 4 others
The Supreme Court has upheld death sentence for 1 person and acquitted 4 others
in the murder of Shazneen Tasnim Rahman.
The 15-year-old girl, the youngest daughter of Transcom Chairman Latifur
Rahman, was raped and murdered at her home in 1998.
The final verdict on Shazneen's brutal killing has given the death penalty to
domestic help Shahidul Islam alias Shahid.
He was found guilty of raping and murdering Shazneen, who was a 9th grader at
Scholastica School.
It acquitted contractor Syed Sajjad Moinuddin Hasan, who was in charge of
renovating Latifur Rahman's house at that time. His assistant 'Badal, and
maidservants Estema Khatun Minu and 'Parvin' were also let off.
In 2003, the trial court ordered death sentences for 6 persons in the murder
and the High Court, in its 2006 verdict, upheld death for 5, but acquitted 1 of
the accused.
Plaintiff's counsel Abdul Mobin said that the 5, who were convicted by the High
Court, are now in jail.
"The matter of seeking a review of the verdict will be finalised after
discussing with the plaintiff and the State counsels," he said.
The defence, however, said that justice has been served.
"2 cases were filed over the incident. The Appellate Division resolved one of
them and the other with the judge's court has been scrapped," said counsel SM
Shajahan.
According to court documents, Shazneen's body was spotted inside her ground
floor bedroom by a domestic help on the night of Apr 23, 1998, when her father
was hosting a party on the 1st floor of their Gulshan home.
She was stabbed at least 20 times. A 3-inch-deep wound was found on the neck.
A case was filed the next day accusing Shahid, whose death sentence has been
upheld on Tuesday.
6 people were indicted for the murder. They were Shahid, contractor Hasan, his
assistant Badal, maid servants Minu and Parvin, and carpenter Saniram Mandal.
All of them were found guilty and given death sentences in the September 2003
verdict by the trial court.
The death references (seeking approval for execution) were forwarded to the
High Court the same year while the convicts also challenged the trial court
verdict.
In July 2006, the High Court upheld death for 5 and acquitted Mandal.
The 5 moved the Appellate Division against the sentence.
The State filed an appeal challenging Mandal's acquittal by the High Court,
which the court scrapped on Tuesday.
The hearings began in March this year and the court kept its verdict pending on
May 11 after concluding it.
(source: bdnews24.com)
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