Feb. 21
EQUATORIAL GUINEA:
Obiang Restores Death Penalty in Bid to Save Unpopular Regime
The Central African Equatorial Guinea, under President Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Mbasogo, is reviving the odious death penalty against 147 opposition activists
accused of "rebellion, attacks on authority and public disorder".
The activists include leaders of Citizens for Innovation (CI), many of whom
were rounded up after a purported coup plot discovered near the country's
border with Cameroon. Malabo's security minister accused citizens of Chad,
Sudan and the Central African Republic of taking part in the attempted putsch
but his version of events could not be confirmed.
Activists said they were detained and tortured at "Guantanamo" - the name given
to the central police station of the capital, Malabo.
CI charged: "The prosecutor wants to hide or to silence the atrocities and the
brutality of the crimes of torture ... we shall go to the international courts
and the ICC (International Criminal Court) for crimes against humanity."
UN envoy Francois Louceny Fall is reportedly being dispatched to confirm the
claims made by the regime.
President Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea for more than 3 decades, making
him one of Africa's longest-serving leaders. Rights groups label his
administration as one of the world's most corrupt.
According to the U.S. State Department, in reports filed prior to the Trump
administration, abuses by the Obiang regime have included: the limited ability
of citizens to change their government; unlawful killings by security forces;
government-sanctioned kidnappings; systematic torture of prisoners and
detainees by security forces; arbitrary arrest and incommunicado detention.
In 2017, President Obiang issued a temporary moratorium on capital punishment
but according to the opposition Convergence for Social Democracy, some 8 death
row prisoners were secretly executed by firing squad.
The Obiang clan is also in the spotlight for a judgment against Teodorin
Obiang, the vice-president and president's son, who was accused in a French
court of embezzling $180 million of public funds to finance his jet-set
lifestyle.
Teodorin was tried in absentia and sentenced to a three-year suspended judgment
for corruption. He was also given a suspended fine of $35 million for money
laundering, corruption and abuse. His lawyer said he will take the case before
the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the UN's top court, since, he
claimed, Teodorin had immunity as a government official.
The suspended sentences mean that Obiang will only face jail or have to pay the
fine if he is found to have re-offended in France.
(source: indepthnews.com)
BOTSWANA:
Execution of prisoner is an appalling step backwards
In response to the hanging of 28-year-old Joseph Tselayarona for the 2010
murder of his girlfriend and 3-year-old son, Deprose Muchena, Amnesty
International's Regional Director for Southern Africa, said:
"Joseph's execution is a step back for Botswana and it shows the government's
contempt for life. The death penalty is an abhorrent punishment and should
never be used in any circumstances.
"While many countries in the region are moving away from this cruel form of
punishment, Botswana is regressing.
"The death penalty has no place in the modern era. Instead of executing people,
the government of Botswana should immediately establish an official moratorium
on executions with a view to abolishing this cruel and inhuman punishment."
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception
regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or
the method used by the state to kill the prisoner. The death penalty is a
violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading
punishment. Amnesty International calls on Botswana to abolish the death
penalty for all crimes as have 105 countries in the world.
(source: Amnesty International)
SOUTH KOREA:
South Korea's 'Molar Daddy' gets death penalty for murdering teen girl
A court in South Korea on Wednesday (Feb 21) meted out the death sentence to a
man charged with killing a school friend of his daughter after sexually
molesting her, Yonhap news agency reported.
The Seoul Northern District Court handed down the gravest possible punishment
on 36-year-old Lee Young Hak, more infamously known as "Molar Daddy".
Lee had confessed to choking a 14-year-old girl to death in his home last
September after committing lewd acts on her body while she was drugged.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty.
They also sentenced his daughter, whose identity was not revealed, to 4 years
in prison for luring the friend to the house and helping her father dump her
body, Yonhap said.
But her sentence can be extended up to six years in case of an infraction
during her 4-year imprisonment.
The killing shocked the nation as Lee was publicly known after appearing on a
TV show in the 2000s, which portrayed him as a poor man suffering from a rare
dental disease while trying to eke out a living with a daughter who had the
same incurable illness.
Lee earned the nickname after losing all but one molar while treating the
disease.
(source: Striats Times)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Urgent Action Update: 12 Men at Imminent Risk of Execution (Saudi Arabia: UA
182.17)
The families of 15 Saudi Arabian men sentenced to death learned on 23 July that
the Court of Appeal had upheld their sentences. The 15 men are accused of
spying for Iran and were sentenced after a grossly unfair mass trial. They will
be at risk of imminent execution as soon as the Supreme Court upholds their
sentences.
12 Saudi Arabian men are at imminent risk of execution after the Supreme Court
ratified their death sentences. They are accused of spying for Iran and
sentenced to death after a grossly unfair mass trial.
TAKE ACTION----Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:
Urging the Saudi Arabian authorities to halt the execution of the 12 men and
quash their convictions, given the grave concerns about the fairness of the
trial, and to retry them in line with international fair trial standards
without recourse to the death penalty;
Calling on them to order a prompt, impartial, independent, and effective
investigation into the allegations of ill-treatment;
Urging them to immediately establish an official moratorium on executions with
a view to abolishing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.
Contact these 2 officials by 29 March, 2018:
King and Prime Minister
His Majesty King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud
The Custodian of the two Holy Mosques
Office of His Majesty the King
Royal Court, Riyadh
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Fax: (via Ministry of Interior)
+966 11 403 3125 (please keep trying)
Twitter: @KingSalman
Salutation: Your Majesty
Ambassador Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz,
Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia
601 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington DC 20037
Phone: (202) 342-3800 -- Fax: 202 295 3625
Email: i...@saudiembassy.net
Contact Form: https://www.saudiembassy.net/contact
Twitter: @SaudiEmbassyUSA
Salutation: Your Royal Highness
(source: Amnesty International USA)
INDONESIA:
Jakarta scrabbles to save 3 workers due to die in Saudi----But with only days
left, few expect them to be spared for killing bosses
3 Indonesian migrant workers sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for killing
their employers are due to be executed this month unless last-ditch efforts
from Jakarta can force a reprieve.
Former housemaid Tuti Tursilawati and Ety Thoyyib, both from Majalengka in West
Java, and Muhammad Zaini Misrin from Madura in East Java are scheduled for
execution "sometime" within the next 6 days, a local government official said.
A fixed date has not been set, he added.
A Saudi Arabian court sentenced them to death in 2011.
However the foreign ministry is racing against time and lobbying Riyadh for
clemency, according to Lalu Mohamad Iqbal, director of the Indonesian Foreign
Ministry's Citizen Protection Bureau.
"We are struggling to get them released," Iqbal told ucanews.com on Feb. 19.
The government has managed to get 79 of 100 Indonesians off death row from 2011
until January 2018, he said, adding none of the previous cases involved a
murder charge.
"The government offers legal assistance for any case involving Indonesians in
Saudi Arabia. We are [still] struggling to free those who are accused of
murder," he said.
At least 4 maids have been executed for killing their employers in Saudi in
recent years, according to Migrant Care, a group that focuses its attention on
Indonesian foreign laborers.
Migrant Care gave their names as Yanti Iriyanti, who was executed in 2008,
Ruyati (2011), Siti Zaenab (2015) and Karni (also 2015).
Risca Dwi, chairwoman of the Migrant Woman Protection Bureau at Women
Solidarity, said the government must use its bargaining power and diplomacy as
leverage in this case to help the workers.
"But I doubt they will be freed," she said.
"Saudi Arabia's legal system has become a stumbling block because the king
lacks the authority to pardon or release convicts who face a death sentence."
She said Jakarta could approach another council in Saudi Arabia that is
empowered to issue pardons but the chances of success were slim.
"The government must be able to convince the council because it has the
authority to release them," she told ucanews.com Feb. 19.
"But it's difficult to get them to listen for murder cases," she added.
Iti Sarniti, the mother of Tuti Tursilawati, can only sit and count the
agonizing days until her daughter is executed.
"I'm terrified she really is going to die," Sarniti told ucanews.com,
explaining that Tursilawati had gone to Saudi Arabia in 2009 to work for a
family in Thaif city, where she was taking care of an elderly person.
Review of moratorium
Wahyu Susilo, the executive director of Migrant Care, called on the government
to review its 2015 moratorium on sending workers to the wealthy Arab state.
It was not enforced until the end of 2017, a year in which over 36,000
Indonesians headed to the region to work.
"It should be re-evaluated because many Indonesians have been sent to work
there illegally despite the moratorium being implemented," Susilo said.
He said they could face considerable hardship there as their status would
render them vulnerable to exploitation with no guarantee of human rights
protection.
Azas Tigor Nainggolan, coordinator of the human rights desk for the Indonesian
Bishops' Commission for Justice, Peace and Pastoral for Migrant-Itinerant
People, urged the government to monitor migrant workers who head to Saudi
Arabia.
"The government should sanction rogue agents in Indonesia so they don't send
our people there," he told ucanews.com on Feb. 20.
"This would prevent more from becoming victims," he added.
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry said 576 migrant workers from the country have
appeared on death lists overseas since 2011, including in Malaysia and the
Middle East.
Of those, 393 have been released, it added.
(source: ucanews.com)
EGYPT:
Urgent Action
6 MEN TO BE EXECUTED IF LAST APPEAL REJECTED
On 12 February, the Supreme Military Court postponed the verdict of six men
appealing their death sentence to 26 February. If their appeal is rejected, the
men could be executed at any time???
Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:
* Calling on the Egyptian authorities to retry all those convicted in the case
before an ordinary, civilian court, without recourse to the death penalty, and
in proceedings that respect international fair trial standards and exclude
"confessions" and other evidence obtained through torture and other
ill-treatment;
* Urging them to establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to
abolishing the death penalty.
Friendly reminder: If you send an email, please create your own instead of
forwarding this one!
Contact these 2 officials by 26 March, 2018:
Defense Minister Colonel General Sedki Sobhi
Ministry of Defense
23 July St., AlKobba Bridge
Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt
Email: m...@mod.gov.eg
Salutation: Your Excellency
Ambassador Yasser Reda, Embassy of Egypt
3521 International Ct NW
Washington DC 20008
Phone: 202 895 5400
Fax: 202 244 513i Contact Form: https://goo.gl/q5EN69 (Click the "Contact Us"
button in the toolbar on the upper right hand side)
Salutation: Dear Ambassador
(source: Amnesty International USA)
PAKISTAN:
CII officials, provincial officers oppose public execution of Zainab's murderer
Provincial officials and religious leaders on Wednesday rejected the call for
the public execution of convicted rapist and murderer of 7-year-old Zainab Amin
of Kasur.
The matter of public executions under Pakistani law was discussed by the member
of the Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice in a meeting chaired by
Senator Javed Abbasi.
Law Minister Chaudhry Mehmood Bashir Virk, the law secretary, provincial home
secretaries, Council of Islamic Ideology (CII)'s representatives, and Punjab
and Balochistan Prisons inspectors general also attended the meeting.
Senator Abbasi questioned if the parliament would need to introduce an
amendment to the Pakistan Penal Code or whether the addition of a rule would
suffice.
"The Supreme Court (SC) had forbidden carrying out public hangings. We cannot
violate the Supreme Court's order by hanging [the convict] in public," Senator
Rehman Malik reminded the committee.
The standing committee was told by the Law Ministry that any moves that are not
in accordance with the Constitution must be avoided.
Law Minister Virk, while pointing out that public hanging would be considered a
violation of human rights, said: "Emotions aside, steps that are in conflict
with the Constitution should be avoided."
The provincial home secretaries shared the law minister's concern and said that
public hanging could cause the law and order situation to spiral out of
control.
Opposing the suggestion to carry out the death sentence in public, the CII said
that the execution must be carried out inside a jail, however, they suggested
that the sentence could be broadcast on electronic media.
The suggestion was, however, opposed by the Senators from all over the
province.
The Balochistan prisons inspector general said that amending the law for the
sake of one case would serve no purpose. "We cannot punish the entire society
by hanging a person in public," he insisted.
The standing committee directed the Law Ministry to submit a report clarifying
whether a public execution would violate the Constitution and the Supreme Court
order, and whether an amendment to the existing law would be required in order
to carry out public hangings.
Earlier in the day, the Lahore High Court (LHC) rejected a petition calling for
the public execution of the convict, Imran Ali, in the Zainab rape and murder
case.
The court disposed of the petition for being premature.
On Feb 17, an anti-terrorism court found Imran Ali guilty of the charges
brought against him, and handed him 4 counts of the death penalty, 1 life term,
a 7-year jail term and Rs 4.1 million in fines.
The 4 death penalties were for kidnapping, raping and murdering Zainab, and for
committing an act of terrorism under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The life sentence, along with a Rs1 million fine, was handed to Ali for sodomy;
another 7-year jail sentence and Rs1 million fine were imposed for
disrespecting the dead body by throwing it in a trash heap.
Ali faces further charges in the cases of at least 7 other children he attacked
- 5 of whom were murdered - in a spate of assaults that had stoked fears a
serial child killer was on the loose. He has confessed to all 8 attacks,
including the death of Zainab.
The victim girl's parents had also been demanding public hanging of the convict
to bring some curb on such crimes in Pakistan.
(source: Pakistan Today)
*********************
SC converts death sentence of woman to life imprisonment after 8 years
The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) has granted reprieve to a woman on death row
for the last 8 years, converting the sentence into life imprisonment.
In 2010, Nazia Anwar was accused of fatally stabbing her friend over the
repayment of Rs5,000 loan. She was convicted by a trial court under Section
302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and sentenced to death and a heavy
compensation.
Allegedly, Nazia had caused multiple injuries to her friend Fahmeeda Bibi on
October 12, 2010 following a heated argument over the repayment of the loan at
the deceased's home in the jurisdiction of Rawalpindi's Saddar Bairooni Police
Station.
Supreme Court for setting high standards for lawmakers
6 years later, Nazia's appeal against the death penalty was dismissed by the
Lahore High Court on April 21, 2016 - the high court upheld trial court's
decision.
Undeterred, Nazia then appealed to the SC where a three-member bench, headed by
Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and comprising of Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and
Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah converted her death sentence into life
imprisonment by majority of 2 against 1.
Justice Dost Mohammad did not affirm with the majority as he voted in favour of
her acquittal.
The SC order, issued in the second week of February, reads that the motive
behind murder as asserted by the prosecution remained unproven. "The law is
settled that if the prosecution asserts a motive but fails to prove the same
then such failure on the part of prosecution may react against a sentence of
death passed against a convict on the charge of murder."
The judgement, authoured by Justice Khosa, reads that the a thorough inspection
of the entire record of the case had proved beyond doubt that Nazia was
responsible for the murder but the story of prosecution had many inherent
obscurities ingrained therein.
Nawaz no-show: SC issues second notice to former PM in disqualification
time-period case
"It is intriguing as to why appellant [Nazia] would bring her 4-month-old child
to the spot, place him on the floor and belabor the diseased with a dagger in
order to kill her," the court order states. "I have, thus entertained no manner
of doubt that real cause of occurrence was something different which had been
completely suppressed by the both parties to the case and the real cause of
occurrence had remained shrouded in mystery."
"Such circumstances of evidences of this case have put me [in] caution in the
matter of the appellant's [Nazia] sentence and in the peculiar circumstances of
the case I have decided to withhold the sentence of death passed against the
appellant [Nazia]"
The apex court, however, dismissed Nazia's appeal to the extent of her
conviction for the offence under section 302 (b) PPC but partly allowed to the
extent of her sentence of death; reducing it to imprisonment for life.
The SC maintained the order of trial court to pay compensation to the heirs of
the deceased.
(source: The Express Tribune)
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