Jan. 8
PAKISTAN:
Extrajudicial killing: Sindh govt seeks presidential pardon for 5 Rangers
personnel
The provincial authorities have sent a petition to President Mamnoon Hussain,
seeking pardon for the 5 Rangers personnel who were convicted by the
Anti-Terrorism Court over charges of killing a student in Karachi in 2011.
The young man was shot at by the Rangers personnel at the Benazir Bhutto Park
in Boat Basin area of Clifton in 2011 and was then left to die inside the park.
A month ago, the petition to grant pardon and remit/commute sentences of the
Rangers personnel under Article-45 of the Constitution was sent to the
president, the official said.
The fatal shooting was filmed by a cameraman and telecast on various TV
channels, sparking a public backlash over the brutality of trained paramilitary
troops. Families of the convicted security personnel approached the prison
officials, subsequently, the IGP Prisons sent an application to the Home
Department.
The Home Department also submitted a summary before the Sindh chief minister,
which was approved and sent to the Governor's House. As per procedure, the
Governor's House has moved the summary to the Prime Minister's House to seek
opinion and submit the same before the president for the pardon of the
convicted personnel.
Private TV channels reported that the president has granted pardon to the
convicted Rangers personnel namely Shahid Zafar, Muhammad Afzal Khan,
Baha-ur-Rehman, Muhammad Tariq and Manthar Ali. It may be recalled that a
constable was awarded the death penalty and his colleagues were jailed for life
for the murder under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of
the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997.
The killing of Sarfraz Shah had triggered public outcry, prompting the then
chief justice of Pakistan to take suo moto notice in this regard. Subsequently,
both the Rangers chief and the Sindh Police chief were removed over orders of
the top court.
(source: Pakistan TOday)
INDIA:
Bootleggers may face death penalty in UP as Guv gives nod to bill
Lucknow, Jan 8 Those dealing in illicit or spurious liquor in Uttar Pradesh may
face the gallows as a stringent bill providing for death penalty and life
imprisonment to such offenders, passed by the state legislature recently, got
the governor's nod.
Uttar Pradesh now becomes the 3rd state after Delhi and Gujarat to have an Act
under which bootleggers may be sent to the gallows, if consumption of spurious
liquor leads to loss of life.
The UP Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2017, has the provisions of death penalty, life
sentence and a fine to the tune of Rs 10 lakh and not less than Rs five lakh in
case of death due to consumption of spurious liquor.
It also provides for rigorous imprisonment up to ten years and not less than 6
years in case of disability caused by consumption of spurious liquor and fine
to the tune of Rs 5 lakh and not less than Rs 3 lakh.
Hooch tragedies take a heavy toll every year in Uttar Pradesh. In July, 17
people died in Azamgarh after they consumed spurious liquor. In 2015, 28 people
were killed in a similar incident in the Malihabad area of Lucknow.
(source: outlookindia.com)
VIETNAM:
Vietnam starts high-profile trial over oil firm losses
Vietnam put 22 executives on trial over losses at the state oil firm on Monday,
including a businessman Germany accuses Hanoi of kidnapping from a Berlin park
and the communist state???s first politburo member to face trial in decades.
The executives are accused over losses at state oil firm PetroVietnam. The most
serious offences could carry the death penalty.
A widespread crackdown on fraud and mismanagement in the energy and banking
sectors has gathered pace since the security establishment gained greater
influence in the ruling party last year.
The trial opened under high security at the Hanoi People's Court. Crowds
gathered outside but there was no public access.
The most senior former executive on trial is Dinh La Thang, who was arrested
last month. He is a former politburo member who was dismissed from his post
over the losses at PetroVietnam and then stripped of his role as party head of
Ho Chi Minh City.
Also on trial is Trinh Xuan Thanh, who Germany says was kidnapped last year and
taken home against his will to face accusations over losses of more than $150
million at a subsidiary of PetroVietnam.
Thanh appeared on state television in August and said he had decided to return
home and turn himself in.
Neither Thang nor Thanh made any comment at the court and Reuters was unable to
contact the lawyers representing them.
Government critics have voiced suspicions that the corruption crackdown is
politically motivated, at least in part, and aimed against those close to
former prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who lost out in an internal power
struggle in 2016.
The trial is due to last until Jan. 21.
In a separate case linked to the corruption crackdown, a fugitive Vietnamese
tycoon was arrested in Hanoi on Thursday after being sent home from Singapore,
where he was accused of immigration offences.
Phan Van Anh Vu, 42, told his lawyers he was also a senior officer in Vietnam's
secret police and was trying to get to Germany and could have details of the
operation in which Thanh was spirited home from Berlin last year.
(source: Reuters)
EUROPE:
Why Europe's wars of religion put 40,000 "witches' to a terrible death----The
persecution of witches came down to a battle for the 'market share' of
post-Reformation Christians, according to a paper by 2 economists
It was a terrifying phenomenon that continues to cast a shadow over certain
parts of Europe even today. The great age of witch trials, which ran between
1550 and 1700, fascinates and repels in equal measure. Over the course of a
century and a half, 80,000 people were tried for witchcraft and 1/2 of them
were executed, often burned alive.
And then trials disappeared almost completely.
Their appearance was all the more strange because between 900 and 1400 the
Christian authorities had refused to acknowledge that witches existed, let
alone try someone for the crime of being one. This was despite the fact that
belief in witches was common in medieval Europe, and in 1258 Pope Alexander IV
had to issue a canon to prevent prosecutions.
But by 1550 Christian authorities had reversed their position, leading to a
witch-hunt across Christendom. Many explanations have been advanced for what
drove the phenomenon. Now new research suggests there is an economic
explanation, one that has relevance to the modern day.
Economists Peter Leeson and Jacob Russ of George Mason University in Virginia
argue that the trials reflected "non-price competition between the Catholic and
Protestant churches for religious market share".
As competing Catholic and Protestant churches vied to win over or retain their
followers, they needed to make an impact - and witch trials were the
battleground they chose. Or, as the 2 academics put it in their paper, to be
published in the new edition of the Economic Journal: "Leveraging popular
belief in witchcraft, witch-prosecutors advertised their confessional brands'
commitment and power to protect citizens from worldly manifestations of Satan's
evil."
They reach their conclusion after drawing on analyses of new data covering more
than 43,000 people tried for witchcraft in 21 European countries.
The data shows that witch-hunts took off only after the Reformation in 1517,
following the rapid spread of Protestantism. Leeson and Russ argue that, for
the 1st time in history, the Reformation presented large numbers of Christians
with a religious choice: stick with the old church or switch to the new one.
"And when churchgoers have religious choice, churches must compete," they say.
The phenomenon reached its zenith between 1555 and 1650, the years when there
was "peak competition for Christian consumers", evidenced by the Catholic
Counter-Reformation, during which Catholic officials pushed back against
Protestant successes in converting Catholics to the new ways of worshipping
throughout much of Europe.
The new analysis suggests that the witch craze was most intense where
Catholic-Protestant rivalry was strongest. Churches picked key regional
battlegrounds, they say, much like the Democrat and Republican parties in the
US now focus on key states during the presidential election.
This explains why Germany, ground zero for the Reformation, laid claim to
nearly 40% of all witchcraft prosecutions in Europe. Scotland, where different
strains of Protestantism were in competition, saw the 2nd highest level of
witch-hunts, with a total of 3,563 people tried.
"In contrast, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland - each of which remained a
Catholic stronghold after the Reformation and never saw serious competition
from Protestantism - collectively accounted for just 6% of Europeans tried for
witchcraft," Russ observes.
By around 1650, however, the witch frenzy began its precipitous decline, with
prosecutions for witchcraft virtually vanishing by 1700. Leeson and Russ
attribute this to the Peace of Westphalia, a series of treaties in 1648, which
brought a close to the 30 years' war and ended decades of religious warfare in
Europe.
But the use of terror to impress a message on the population has not abated,
they suggest. "The phenomenon we document - using public trials to advertise
superior power along some dimension as a competitive strategy - is much broader
than the prosecution of witches in early modern Europe," Leeson says. "It
appears in different forms elsewhere in the world at least as far back as the
9th century, all the way up to the 20th and Stalin's show trials' in the Soviet
Union."
(source: The Guardian)
IRAN:
Iranian Judiciary Official Calls For 'Maximium Penalty' For Protest Leaders
A top Iranian judiciary official has said antigovernment protest leaders should
be handed the harshest possible sentences, while President Hassan Rohani
suggested demonstrations were driven by opposition to his ultraconservative
rivals in the ruling elite.
Rohani and Hamid Shahriari, deputy head of Iran's judiciary, spoke on January 8
-- nearly 2 weeks after the start of a series of protests that have shaken the
country and attracted attention worldwide.
The ISNA news agency quoted Shahriari as saying that "surely those who
organized and led the unrest against the establishment can expect the maximum
penalty."
The death penalty is the most severe sentence imposed by courts in Iran, where
it can be applied for a range of crimes including treason, murder, and drug
trafficking.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a powerful military branch
created to protect the Islamic system established after the shah's 1979
overthrow, has repeatedly described the antigovernment protests as acts of
"sedition."
Foreign Powers Blamed
State media outlets have claimed that the protest leaders were either members
of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, an exiled dissident group that backs the
overthrow of the Islamic Republic, or monarchists.
Iran's government also claims that the protests have been fomented by foreign
powers including the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
At least 22 people have been killed and 1,700 arrested in the government's
crackdown against the protests that began on December 28.
An Iranian lawmaker said on January 8 that a 22-year-old man who was arrested
by police had died in prison.
Lawmaker Tayebeh Siavashi told the semiofficial ILNA news agency that he was
informed by authorities that the detainee "committed suicide in jail."
At a special session of parliament on January 7, Iranian lawmakers discussed
how to deal with dissenting demonstrators.
They said later that low-level protesters, particularly students, are to be
released in waves while the leaders are to be punished.
State media reports suggest that hundreds of detainees, including many students
and other young people, have been released since January 6 after signing a
pledge not to "re-offend."
Meanwhil Rohani, a relative moderate in a system in which Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds ultimate power, said on January 8 that the Iranian
people "have a legitimate right to demand that we see and hear them and look
into their demands."
Rohani suggested the real targets of the protests have been the powerful
conservative clerics who oppose his plans to expand individual liberties and
promote better relations with Western countries.
"It would be a misrepresentation and also an insult to Iranian people to say
they only had economic demands," Rohani told the state-run Tasnim news agency.
"People had economic, political, and social demands"
"We must simply accept the fact that the people have the last word," Rohani
said. "We [politicians] must accept that we are now sitting in a glass house."
In comments echoing Tehran's claim that the intelligence services of foreign
countries were behind the protests, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
warned other countries not to foment insecurity in Iran.
Zarif told a security conference in Tehran on January 8 that "no country can
create a secure environment for itself at the expense of creating insecurity
among its neighbors."
The official IRNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying that "such efforts" will
only backfire.
The United States has rejected Iran's claims that Washington was behind the
protests, which have led to the deaths of 22 people and the arrest of more than
1,700 others.
CIA chief Mike Pompeo denied on January 7 that his agency had any role in the
protests, but predicted the unrest "is not behind us."
President Donald Trump has praised the protesters and said that Washington
would throw its support behind them at a suitable time.
"Such respect for the people of Iran as they try to take back their corrupt
government," Trump wrote on Twitter on January 3. "You will see great support
from the United States at the appropriate time!"
In other tweets, he has described Iran as "failing at every level" and declared
it is "TIME FOR CHANGE!"
EU Invites Zarif
On January 7, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the European Union
would invite Zarif for talks about the antigovernment protests.
Gabriel told ZDF TV in Berlin that "together with the EU's foreign policy chief
[Federica Mogherini], we agreed to invite the Iranian foreign minister, if
possible next week."
"We very quickly affirmed that we support the freedom to demonstrate and that
the state should support this," Gabriel said.
The IRGC suggested on January 7 that the protests had been quashed, saying
"Iran's revolutionary people" and security forces had "broken down the chain"
it claimed was created by the United States, Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia,
militants, and monarchists.
But RFE/RL has received credible reports that protests continued in at least 9
cities across Iran on January 6, including Tehran, where social media footage
showed gatherings despite a large police presence.
Reformists Deny Foreign Involvement
Meanwhile, a group of 16 prominent reformists living in Iran issued a statement
rejecting the government's claim that the protests were organized and
orchestrated by foreign countries.
The signatories said, "Despite the fact the enemies of the country always try
to take advantage of such events, we should know that any kind of foreign
interference would not be possible without the existence of internal
conditions."
Access to the Telegram messaging app remained blocked on January 8 in Iran,
despite claims from Iran's FARS news agency on January 7 that the restrictions
on Telegram had been "fully lifted."M
"The parliament is not in favor of keeping Telegram filtering in place, but it
must pledge that it will not be used as a tool by the enemies of the Iranian
people," Behrouz Nemati, a spokesman for the parliament's presiding board,
said.
Almost 1/3 of Iran's 80 million people use Telegram as their main source of
news and as a way of bypassing the highly restrictive state media.
(soure: rferl.org)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Stop executions in Saudi Arabia----A warning 2 years on from mass execution
2 years on from a mass execution that saw political protesters - including
children - killed, the government of Saudi Arabia shows no interest in halting
a brutal wave of repression.
Hundreds of people have been executed in the last 2 years, and now several
young protesters face imminent execution on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's
watch. The international community - including Theresa May, who is soon to host
the new Crown Prince - must hold him to his promises of 'reform' by demanding a
halt to all executions immediately.
2 years since the Saudi authorities carried out a mass execution of 47 people,
Reprieve is warning of fresh repression in the Kingdom under the new Saudi
Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
On 2nd January 2016, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people in 1 day. Among them were
several political protesters and juveniles. Our research has shown that in
2017, several smaller mass executions were carried out in the Kingdom, with 141
people executed overall. Some 70% of the year's executions were carried out
after the new Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, took power in June.
Reprieve has raised concerns for 14 political protesters who face imminent
execution, after their death sentences were upheld in July 2017. The 14 were
convicted on the basis of 'confessions' extracted through torture. Among them
is a disabled man, Munir al-Adam, and a juvenile, Mujtaba al-Sweikat.
The new year will see Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman being hosted in London
by Prime Minister Theresa May.
(source: reprieve.org.uk)
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