Oct. 8
JAPAN:
Japanese lawyers urge country to abolish death penalty
Japanese bar associations have formally adopted a policy against the death
penalty for the first time, demanding the government abolish execution by 2020
when Japan hosts the Olympics and an international conference on criminal
justice.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations urged the government Friday to
introduce life imprisonment to replace execution.
Japan has one of the world's lowest murder rates, making the need for capital
punishment unconvincing, the federation said. It also cited the risk of
wrongful convictions and the lack of evidence that the death penalty reduces
crime.
Nearly 130 prisoners are on death row in Japan, according to justice officials.
Crimes subject to a possible death penalty in Japan include murder and acts
such as arson or sabotage that cause death, usually in the most egregious cases
or involving multiple victims, as well as terrorist attacks and attempted
coups.
"We should face the fact that the death penalty ... is a serious and grave
violation of human rights by the state," the group said in a statement, adopted
after heated debate and objection by opponents at a convention in Fukui,
western Japan.
The statement said the possibility of mistrials and wrongful accusations could
not be denied. "Once carried out, the death penalty is irreversible and
fundamentally different from other punishment."
Four death row prisoners have been found innocent and released after being
granted retrials since the 1980s, including former professional boxer Iwao
Hakamada, who won release in 2014 after nearly 50 years on death row for a
wrongful murder accusation.
Japan and the U.S. are the only Group of 7 members that maintain the death
penalty, while 140 nations have ended the practice that opponents consider
cruel.
The prospect of any change is unclear as the majority of Japanese still support
the death penalty.
Some lawyers favor keeping the capital punishment as a way to address the
victims' feelings. At Friday's convention, a group of lawyers handed out
leaflets, unsuccessfully trying to vote down the federation-wide policy.
Membership in a local bar association is compulsory for Japan's more than
37,000 lawyers, and its members include a few hundred other people, such as
foreign lawyers.
(source: Associated Press)
INDONESIA:
ICJR calls for death penalty moratorium
A legal think tank, the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), has
called on the government to include a moratorium on the death penalty in its
reform packages aimed at rejuvenating the country's legal system.
ICJR executive director Supriyadi Widodo Eddyono said a moratorium on capital
punishment must be put in place if the government was serious about reforming
the country's legal system, given that numerous executions, including that of
drug trafficker Zainal Abidin in April last year, had been carried out without
fair trials.
Zainal filed a case review in 2005 over the ruling on his execution with the
Palembang District Court in South Sumatra. He had to wait 10 years, only to
have the Supreme Court reject his appeal.
"President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo has to ask the Attorney General's Office [AGO]
to stop handing down death sentences before the country's penal law system is
reformed," Supriyadi said in a statement on Friday.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Minister Wiranto has announced a
plan to issue legal reform packages that revolve around efforts to simplify
overlapping regulations, to create more effective legal enforcement
institutions and to improve legal culture.
Details of the reform packages, as well as their date of introduction, however,
remain unclear.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
MALAYSIA:
Let the rope fall, says Amnesty International Malaysia
It is time for Malaysia to demonstrate its commitment towards reforming death
penalty laws and put forward amendments to abolish the mandatory death penalty
in the next Parliament session, Amnesty International Malaysia says as the
world prepares to observe the 14th World Day Against Death Penalty on Monday,
Oct 10, 2016.
In recent years, Malaysia has shown some positive signs in rethinking capital
punishment including abolishing the mandatory death penalty for drug-related
offences. The government needs to urgently put forward amendments to death
penalty laws in the next Parliament session after several unexplained
postponements.
Former law minister Nancy Shukri had announced last year that death penalty
reforms would be put forward in the March 2016 Parliament session. However,
this did not come to pass.
"Our concern when it comes to the use of the death penalty is not just that
Malaysia remains one of 25 countries to still employ this archaic method of
punishment, but also that does so with a lack of transparency. The public
rarely has information on who is being executed and for what crimes.
"Transparency on the use of capital punishment is important as it is an
essential safeguard that not only allows for greater scrutiny to ensure the
rights of those facing execution are fully respected, but is also a
pre-condition for informed and meaningful debates on the issue," Amnesty
International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu said.
In October 2015, for example, the Prisons Department indicated that between
1998 and 2015 there had been 33 executions. However, Amnesty International,
which publishes a yearly report on death sentences and executions globally,
recorded only 22 executions in Malaysia for the same period. Globally, Amnesty
International recorded 1,634 executions in 25 countries in 2015 alone.
"The death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading. In an imperfect world with
a fallible justice system, it is never justified to take a life. The death
penalty is irreversible and final. Should Malaysia move to abolish the
mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences, the international community
would view it as a positive first step towards completely removing the death
penalty from Malaysia's law books," she said.
Amnesty International Malaysia is urging the Malaysian government - while it
still retains the mandatory and discretionary death penalty for various
offences - to be accountable for the lives it hangs:
Firstly, lawyers and families need to be provided with adequate notice of
imminent executions. This is to allow lawyers and families to seek any
available recourse against the execution. Secondly, prisoners, who often serve
long years on death row, should also be provided information on the status of
their pardon applications. Thirdly, the authorities should also annually
publish detailed information on the use of the death penalty including the
number of persons sentenced to death, the number of death sentences reversed or
commuted on appeal, and the number of instances in which clemency can still be
granted.
In 2016, 4 executions became public knowledge - the hanging of Ahmad Najib Aris
on Sept 23 and the triple executions of brothers Sasivarnam and Ramesh
Jayakumar, and Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu on March 25.
"The logic is simple - why the secrecy if the death penalty is an effective
deterrent to crime?"
#AbolishDeathPenalty 2016 Campaign
Amnesty International Malaysia and partner organisations will be launching the
#AbolishDeathPenalty 2016 Campaign which targets to provide information to the
public about the misconceptions of the death penalty. The 1st leg of the
campaign kicks off at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall from
Oct 9 to 16. It will feature an art installation which puts the visitor in the
shoes of a suspected drug trafficker or a defence lawyer.
The 2nd leg of the campaign will feature a photo exhibition by noted artist
Toshi Kazama and the set-up of a mock solitary confinement cell by Amnesty
International Malaysia at The Curve from Oct 19 to 23.
2 petitions will be placed on amnesty.my on Oct 10; the 1st for the Malaysian
government to abolish the death penalty and the 2nd, to urge the commutation of
Shahrul Izani Suparman's death sentence.
"For the last 2 years, Amnesty International has been campaigning on Shahrul
Izani's behalf because we believe that the death penalty is never the answer.
After over 13 years on death row for cannabis possession found when he was
riding a friend's motorcycle, Shahrul Izani needs to be spared the noose,"
Shamini said.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist
organisation with more than 7 million members in more than 150 countries
campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organisation investigates and
exposes abuses, educates and mobilises the public, and works to protect people
wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
(source: malaysiakini.com)
GAZA:
The EU Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemn death sentence issued in Gaza
The EU Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemn the death sentence issued in
Gaza on 5th October.
As in their most recent statement on 21st July, the EU Missions in Jerusalem
and Ramallah recall the EU's firm opposition under all circumstances to the use
of capital punishment.
The EU considers that abolition of the death penalty contributes to the
protection of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights. It
considers capital punishment to be cruel and inhuman, that it fails to provide
deterrence to criminal behaviour, and represents an unacceptable denial of
human dignity and integrity.
The de facto authorities in Gaza must refrain from carrying out any executions
of prisoners and comply with the moratorium on executions put in place by the
Palestinian Authority, pending abolition of the death penalty in line with the
global trend.
(source: Palestine News Network)
IRAN----imminent execution/URGENT ACTION
Help Halt Imminent Execution of 22-Year-Old Iranian Kurdish Woman (Iran: UA
227/16)
Urgent Action
Zeinab Sekaanvand Lokran, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, is at risk of
execution following an unfair trial in which she was convicted of the murder of
her husband. She was 17 years old at the time of the crime. She could be
executed as early as 13 October.
Iranian Kurdish woman Zeinab Sekaanvand Lokran, now aged 22, was sentenced to
death under qesas ("retribution in kind") in October 2014 after an unfair trial
before a criminal court in West Azerbaijan Province, which convicted her of
killing her husband. She was arrested in February 2012 at a police station
where she "confessed" to the murder of her husband, whom she had married at the
age of 15. She was held in the police station for the next 20 days where she
has said she was tortured through beatings all over her body by male police
officers. She "confessed" that she stabbed her husband after he had subjected
her to months of physical and verbal abuse and had refused her requests for
divorce. She was only provided with a (state-appointed) lawyer at her final
trial session, at which point she retracted her "confession" telling the judge
that her husband's brother, who she said had raped her several times, had
committed the murder. She said he told her that, if she accepted
responsibility, he would pardon her (under Islamic law, murder victims'
relatives have the power to pardon the offender and accept financial
compensation instead). The court failed to investigate Zeinab Sekaanvand's
statements and, instead, relied on "confessions" she had made without a lawyer
present to issue a verdict. Although she was under 18 years old at the time of
the crime, the court failed to apply juvenile sentencing provisions in Iran's
2013 Islamic Penal Code and order a forensic report to assess her "mental
growth and maturity" at the time of the crime.
In 2015, Zeinab Sekaanvand married a prisoner, also held in Oroumieh Central
Prison, West Azerbaijan Province, and became pregnant. Subsequently, the
authorities informed her that they would delay her execution until after the
birth. On 30 September, she was transferred to a hospital outside the prison
where she gave birth to a still-born baby. Doctors said her baby had died in
her womb 2 days earlier due to shock, around the same time as the execution of
her cell mate and friend on 28 September. She was returned from the hospital to
the prison the day after the birth, and has not been allowed to see a doctor
since for postnatal care or psycho-social support.
1) TAKE ACTION
Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:
-- Urging the Iranian authorities to immediately halt any plans to execute
Zeinab Sekaanvand and ensure that her conviction and death sentence are quashed
and that she is granted a fair retrial without recourse to the death penalty
and in accordance with principles of juvenile justice;
-- Calling on them to conduct a prompt, independent, and thorough
investigation into Zeinab Sekaanvand's allegations of torture and other
ill-treatment, and ensure that any statements obtained from her under torture
and other ill-treatment, coercion or without a lawyer present, are not used as
evidence against her in court;
-- Reminding them that there is an absolute prohibition on the use of the
death penalty for crimes committed by persons below 18 years of age under both
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, both of which Iran has ratified;
-- Immediately establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to
abolishing the death penalty.
Contact below official by 18 November, 2016:
Office of the Supreme Leader
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
622 Third Avenue, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017
Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei
Salutation: Your Excellency
(source: Amnesty International USA)
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