February 21
TRINIDAD:
Why bother with death sentence?
THE EDITOR: Our justice system is such an a-- with the implementation of one
law for the rich and another for the poor, which is used here on a daily basis.
It is at times difficult to believe we have a justice system at all. For
instance, what is the point of sentencing a murderer to death here when there
is no likelihood of that murderer ever being executed.
This is now a certainty as, despite all the murders, which keep rising, the
Government obviously has no intention of restoring the death penalty.
It is hell-bent on obeying the ruling of the Privy Council and keeping in the
good books of the human rights organisations at the expense of the innocent
lives of many of our citizens who are now living in daily fear of their lives.
GA MARQUES via e-mail
(source: Letter to the Editor, trinidad.co.tt)
CAMEROON:
Opposition leader and more than 100 supporters face the death penalty
Opposition leader Maurice Kamto is today due to be summoned by a military court
on charges which carry the death penalty, as the Cameroonian authorities
intensify their post-election crackdown on critics.
Kamto, the president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (Mouvement pour la
Renaissance du Cameroun-MRC) is the first of a group of 131 people arrested
last month and charged by the military court with rebellion, hostility against
the homeland, incitement to insurrection, offence against the president of the
republic, and destruction of public buildings and goods, to be summoned by an
investigating judge. They all face the death penalty.
Amnesty International considers the death penalty as the ultimate cruel,
inhuman and degrading punishment and a violation of the right to life.
Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry, Amnesty’s West and Central Africa regional
director, said:
“It is horrifying that the Cameroonian authorities are considering sentencing
Maurice Kamto to death simply for daring to participate in a peaceful protest.
He is one of many people who have been caught up in a wave of mass arrests as
authorities attempt to silence their critics.
“As well as having their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly
crushed, many of Cameroon's opposition members are now facing unfair trials by
military courts. We are calling on authorities to end this ruthless assault on
dissenting voices. Civilians should not be tried by military courts and should
not face the death penalty for exercising their human rights.”
International and regional human rights bodies including the African Commission
on Human and Peoples' Rights consider that military courts should not, in any
circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians.
Following his arrest on 28 January, Maurice Kamto, who was also a presidential
candidate, spent two weeks in detention, during which time his lawyers and
family saw him only once. He is detained at Yaoundé Principale Prison along
with 6 MRC supporters and officials. The rest of the 131 are detained in a
different prison. Amnesty believes that they should have never been arrested in
the first place.
On 19 February, 12 of another group of 15 opposition members arrested on 26
January in Yaoundé appeared before an ordinary court. According to the
prosecutor they had been arrested for attempting to participate in a banned
demonstration. The hearing was postponed until 25 February.
(source: amnesty.org.uk)
SRI LANKA:
Amnesty International Secretary General Kumi Naidoo writes to Sri Lankan
President Maithripala Sirisena
OPEN LETTER BY KUMI NAIDOO ON THE DEATH PENALTY
Your Excellency
I am writing to plead for the lives of prisoners who may soon be put to death
if executions resume in Sri Lanka.
More than four decades ago, your country stopped the implementation of this
ultimate, cruel, in human and degrading punishment, becoming one of the few
South Asian countries to do so. The death penalty is now only applied by a
shrinking minority of countries around the world. In December 2018, Sri Lanka
was among the 121 states that voted in favour of a resolution on the
“Moratorium on the use of the death penalty” at the 73rd United Nations General
Assembly. Only 35 states voted against the resolution.
Implementing the death penalty for drug-related offences is unlawful. The
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Sri Lanka is a
state party, restricts the use of the death penalty – in countries that have
not yet abolished it – to the “most serious crimes”, or intentional killing.
Executions are never the solution. As criminologists have extensively
demonstrated, including in studies for the United Nations, the death penalty
has no unique deterrent effect. If we look around the world, there are many
examples that bear this out. Consider the contrast between Hong Kong and
Singapore, 2 similar-sized cities. Hong Kong stopped executing people more than
half a century ago, while Singapore continues to implement the death penalty.
The murder rate in the 2 cities has stayed remarkably similar over the decades.
Even in countries that retain the death penalty, there is a growing recognition
that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent for drug-related crimes.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has long been one of the world’s most prolific
executioners. It has put to death thousands of people after convicting them of
drug trafficking in grossly unfair trials. But drug trafficking and
distribution remains rife, according to the Iranian government. “The truth is,
the execution of drug smugglers has had no deterrent effect,” as Mohammad Baqer
Olfat, Iran’s deputy head of judiciary for social affairs, conceded in 2016.
Iran has now relaxed its drug laws and commuted hundreds of death sentences for
people convicted of drug-related offences.
In October 2018, the Malaysian Government announced that it would be abolishing
the death penalty – a country that also relied on executions to combat drug
use.
Mr. President, you have favourably cited the example of the Philippines, but it
abolished the death penalty in 1987. Under President Rodrigo Duterte, what the
country has seen instead is a horrific wave of extrajudicial executions of
suspected drug offenders over the past three years. As Amnesty International
has documented, far from ridding the streets of crime, this murderous campaign
has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 people – including dozens of children
– in what may amount to crimes against humanity. The killings, which
overwhelmingly targeted people living in impoverished neighbourhoods, are
currently the subject of a preliminary examination by the Office of the
Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.
Putting your own people to death is an irreversible act. There is no coming
back from a flawed judicial process. The punishment is absolute. The mistakes
are irredeemable. When it comes to the death penalty, a coerced ‘confession’,
the bias of a judge, the failure to collect evidence, or an inadequate legal
defence can lead to someone innocent paying the ultimate price. When it comes
to extrajudicial executions, there is not even a pretence of due process.
Lastly, but most importantly, the death penalty is immoral. For those of us who
believe that human life must hold the highest value, taking it away is the
lowliest act. We understand this clearly when a person commits murder, but we
choose to forget it when the state puts someone to death, inflicting the same
pain and loss. Executions, Mr. President, are not a show of strength but an
admission of weakness. They represent the failure to create a society where the
protection of the right to life triumphs over the temptations of vengeance.
Amnesty International urges you to:
Immediately halt plans to execute 18 people, and review all cases of people
under sentence of death with a view to commuting their sentences to terms of
imprisonment;
Establish an official moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing the
death penalty, in line with seven resolutions adopted by the UN General
Assembly since 2007, including most recently resolution 73/175 which Sri Lanka
supported;
We hope that you will consider these recommendations.
Yours sincerely
Kumi Naidoo
Secretary General
Amnesty International
(source: Amnesty International)
INDIA:
Top Executioner
A scheme that gives incentives based on convictions secured has seen 23
convicts getting capital punishment in the last year and a half from courts for
raping and killing minors
Mahendra Singh Gond of Satna district, the convict who raped a 4-year-old girl,
was close to becoming the 1st man to be hanged under the new law providing for
death penalty to child rapists. He was to be executed on March 2 in Jabalpur
central jail. The Satna district and sessions court had issued a death warrant
for the convict. Later, the Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld the sentence.
However, a 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of
India, Ranjan Gogoi, stayed the death sentence on February 15.
Gond, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, is among the 23 convicts awarded death
sentence by various courts in the state for raping and murdering minors in the
last 1 1/2 years.
The London-based World Book of Records has already recognised and awarded the
state’s prosecution directorate for maximum capital punishments. The
prosecution officers have earned PM Modi’s praise several times for securing
death sentences from courts for such “Pishach(s)” (devils) in “5-5 days or a
week” of the crimes being committed.
However, barring one, none of the capital punishment cases has reached the High
Court level. Execution is still a far cry. The cases have to move several legal
ladders, not to mention the President’s clemency power, and this process will
take years. How many of these cases will be upheld or quashed or changed into
life imprisonment is in the realm of conjecture.
The High Court order upholding the death sentence of Gond was passed by a
division bench, which went along with the order of the trial court at Uchehara
town in Satna district that had awarded the capital punishment on January 25,
this year. Earlier, a Sessions Court in Nagod had sentenced Gond to capital
punishment on September 19, last year. The survivor’s statement which was
recorded through video conferencing was crucial in proving the school teacher
guilty.
According to the prosecution, the convict had raped the minor girl after
kidnapping her from her house in a village in Satna district on July 1, 2018 in
an inebriated condition. He later dumped her in the bushes. Gond was arrested
within a few hours.
After the girl’s family found her, she was rushed to a hospital. The girl was
violated so brutally that the state government decided to airlift her to Delhi
so that she could be treated at AIIMS. The minor underwent several injuries in
a month to get her intestines realigned.
Even as trial courts’ death sentence verdicts are awaiting hearing in the High
Court, the prosecution directorate of Madhya Pradesh is eyeing 4 “world
records” it believes it created in 2018—maximum number of death sentences
secured in 1 calendar year (21), fastest trial that resulted in capital
punishment (5 working days in a case in Katni), fastest trial that led to life
imprisonment (3 days, in Datia) and the fastest trial in juvenile court (one
day, in Ujjain).
Rajendra Kumar, director, public prosecution, Madhya Pradesh, says that these
records will be difficult for any country to achieve. He gives credit to better
teamwork, focused approach and proper strategy of the state prosecution
department.
Talking to India Legal, he also mentioned that another world record has also
come to the directorate for launching e-Prosecution mobile App he had
introduced a year ago. The award was given to Kumar at a function in the
presence of World Book of Records, London, president Santosh Shukla in Indore,
last month. The App is a work evaluation system of the prosecution staff. Marks
are given to every prosecution staff based on app-based evaluation and awards
are announced at the end of the month. The App tracks the daily activities of
the 1,000-odd government prosecutors across the state.
The reward system provides for 1,000 points for a death sentence, 500 for lifer
and 100-200 for maximum punishment in lower courts. The directorate also
honours “best prosecutors” and “pride of prosecution” every month to those who
have collected over 2,000 points. Those who fail to get more than 500 points
per month are strictly warned to improve their performance. Prosecutors keep a
daily log in the e-Prosecution App for each activity—from filing new case to
examining witnesses.
“The application has reduced pen work. Officers across the state update their
daily work schedule, which helps in keeping tabs on their work record,” says
Kumar. The 1984-batch IPS officer said that he thought of launching the App in
the wake of alarming rise in incidents of child rape and murders. Rattled over
the massive uproar following the rise in heinous crimes, the then chief
minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced to bring a bill providing death
sentence to child rapists.
In December 2017, Madhya Pradesh became the first state in India to pass a Bill
providing death penalty for rapists of girls aged 12 or below. The government
passed the Bill after the latest National Crime Records Bureau report showed
that the state had witnessed the highest number of rape cases in the country in
2016.
Even as MPs bill was pending with the president, in April 2018, the centre
issued an ordinance providing death for the rape of minors. In July, the Lok
Sabha passed the Bill, which also puts a 2-month deadline on the trial of rape
cases, and a 6-month time limit for disposal of appeals. The law also precluded
provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of rape or gang rape of a
girl less than 16 years. Since the Bill was adopted, MP’s trial courts began to
award capital punishment with amazing rapidity.
In some cases, the district bar associations officially passed resolutions not
to plead cases of an accused in child rape.
Senior advocate Avinash Sirpurkar, amicus curiae in the High Court, says, “I
don’t think this has ever happened in the history of MP”. While citing a case
of Naveen alias Ajay Gadke of Indore, he says that the accused did not get a
fair chance. Gadke, 26, was arrested for raping and killing a three-month-old
girl on April 20 and given death on May 12, 2018.
Since June last year, nearly 1,000 public prosecutors in the state have been
competing with one another to secure maximum punishment in criminal cases they
plead in courts. The competition is frenzied because the more convictions they
secure, the more marks they get and it is marks that have come to matter most
for the furtherance of their career prospects.
“They are competing with each other to score maximum points. With the reward
system in place, prosecutors now go the extra mile to log more points,” says
Kumar. He is confident that the higher courts will acknowledge and uphold “due
diligence” his prosecutors exhibited in securing death sentences in trial
courts.
Competition for earning more marks has indeed improved conviction rate from
20-25 percent till 2017 to over 60 %, claims Kumar. “Conviction rate has gone
up to as high as 61 % in IPC cases and even higher in criminal cases under CrPC
and other acts,” he further claims.
Anupam Pathak, assistant public prosecutor posted in Jabalpur, says before the
system was introduced, prosecutors sorely lacked motivation to pursue cases in
hands. “Now they are conscious about the price they might have to pay if they
don’t work diligently”. However, some prosecutors say the system is unjustly
frightening as they feel tremendous pressure to secure convictions, regardless
of how strong or weak the cases have been made out at the police investigation
level.
A district prosecution officer, who wishes to remain anonymous, laments that
the system is fraught with the risk of prosecutors making false submissions
even at the cost of fairness of the trial. It is the police’s investigation and
evidence-gathering mechanism that ensure convictions, he says.
Senior High Court lawyer Aseem Dixit, who has been a government advocate, feels
it is inherent in the tracking system that prosecutors compromise with their
independence from police but they seldom, if ever, exercise that independence
any way.
Another flaw in evaluating prosecutors based on convictions is that many of
their “successes” could just be reversed in higher courts. Government lawyers
at appellate stages—in High Courts and Supreme Court— change and the prosecutor
who secured a conviction initially will reap benefits even if the ruling is
subsequently thrashed.
Kumar seeks to dismiss such apprehensions. “In the case of reversal of
verdicts, prosecutors’ marks could be deducted and benefit snatched but that
will happen only when the higher courts set aside the verdicts with passing
strictures”.
Senior advocate and renowned criminal lawyer Rebecca John has been quoted by a
news portal as saying, “This scheme is a serious abnegation of all
constitutional principles settled over decades by courts of law, and poses a
direct threat to the fundamental right to life and liberty.”
The spate of capital punishments, however, has not helped abate rapes in the
state. It still continues to bear the egregious tag of being top in rape cases
in India.
(source: indialegallive.com)
PAKISTAN:
India seeks Jadhav’s retrial in civilian court or annulment of death sentence
The Indian legal team sought annulment of self-confessed Indian spy Kulbhushan
Jadhav’s death sentence or a retrial in a Pakistan civilian court with full
consular access on Wednesday.
Deepak Mittal, the joint secretary of India’s Ministry of External Affairs made
the concluding remarks by reading out the relief sought by India with regards
to Jadhav after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) adjourned the hearing
of the high-profile case till Thursday.
He asked the court to annul Jadhav’s death sentence by a Pakistani military
court, arrange his release and send him back to India. “If not so, then annual
his sentence and refer his case to a civilian court awarding India right to
appoint lawyer for his defence,” he remarked.
Earlier during the hearing, the Indian side reiterated its demand of granting
consular access to Jadhav after the top United Nations court resumed hearing of
the case.
The ICJ is conducting a four-day hearing, which begun on Monday, of the case of
self-confessed Indian spy Commander Jadhav, who was convicted of espionage by a
Pakistani military court and sentenced to death in April 2017.
During Tuesday’s proceedings, the Pakistani team ripped apart India’s
contradictory claims in the case and accused the South Asian arch rival of
using the top UN court for ‘political theatre’.
Pakistan rips apart India’s contradictory claims in Jadhav case at ICJ
As the Indian side begun presenting its arguments today, Harish Salve, the
Indian counsel criticised the language used by his Pakistani counterpart was
not in line with ‘dignity of this court’.
“This language was never used in this court earlier. Perhaps this court should
draw a line now on use of [such] language,” salve remarked.
“India never denies nationality of its citizens like Pakistan has been doing in
the past. On March 25 when Pakistan issued demarche to India on arrest of RAW
agent it did so because it knew Jadhav is Indian citizen.”
Salve said that carrying a passport of another country did not warrant death
penalty even under the Pakistani laws. “Pakistan had no other evidence to prove
Jadhav was involved in espionage and sabotage activities other than his
confession taken in custody,” he added.
“Article 36 of Vienna Convention covers people arrested on espionage charges.
Bilateral agreement on consular access cannot override Article 36 of the
convention.”
Salve, while talking about the military courts in Pakistan trying civilians,
said domestic law should never be considered a defense against a violation of
international law or obligation.
“In Pakistan, judicial review of Pakistan courts has narrow ambit, they have
not interfered with military court decisions many times,” he claimed.
Responding to Pakistan’s legal adviser Khawar Qureshi’s scathing criticism of
the Indian government during yesterday’s hearing, Salve said, “I would say that
there was a time when the world respected Pakistan, but today the world doesn’t
have the same respect in its present incarnation.”
He said while Jadhav’s trial was completed in 4 months, the trial of Mumbai
attack was still pending.
Deepak Mittal, the joint secretary of India’s Ministry of External Affairs made
the concluding remarks by reading out the relief sought by India with regards
to Jadhav.
He asked the court to annul death sentence of Jadhev by the Pakistani military
court, arrange his release and send him back to India.
“If not so, then annual his sentence and refer his case to a civilian court
awarding India right to appoint lawyer for his defence.”
The sitting was later adjourned for the day as the court will convene again
tomorrow to hear Pakistan’s 2nd round of submissions.
Earlier in the day, the ICJ had refused to entertain Pakistan’s request to
adjourn the hearing to appoint a new ad-hoc judge, citing the illness of
Tassaduq Hussain Jillani.
Jadhav was captured in Balochistan in March 2016. He confessed to his
association with the Indian intelligence agency – Research and Analysis Wing
(RAW) — and his involvement in espionage and fomenting terrorism in Pakistan.
Subsequently, the 48-year-old was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military
court on charges of spying and terrorism in April 2017. In May 2017, India
moved the ICJ against the verdict.
A delegation led by Attorney General for Pakistan Anwar Mansoor Khan and
comprising Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal, Director Foreign
Affairs Fareha Bugti, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Shujjat Ali
Rathore and others, is in The Hague to represent Pakistan’s case.
Indian Ministry of External Affairs officials Deepak Mittal, VD Sharma, S
Senthil Kumar and Sandeep Kumar, and India’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Venu
Rajamony comprise India’s delegation at the ICJ.
(source: Express Tribune)
TAIWAN:
Court upholds death penalty for arsonist----NO REMORSE:Weng Jen-hsien bought 20
liters of gasoline and waited until his family was celebrating Lunar New Year’s
Eve together before he burst in and set them on fire.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld convicted arsonist Weng Jen-hsien’s
death sentence.
Weng, 53, had twice previously been found guilty of killing 6 people, including
his parents and 3 relatives.
Weng had shown no remorse for his crime and there was no likelihood of
rehabilitation, the court said.
Weng was convicted of killing direct family members and relatives, which is
punishable by death or life imprisonment under the Criminal Code.
Weng purchased 20 liters of gasoline, which he placed into bottles and plastic
containers, and deliberately waited for a day until Lunar New Year’s Eve on
Feb. 7, 2016, when the victims had scheduled a family gathering, an
investigation found.
Weng ran into the house, doused his family members with gasoline and set them
alight, it found.
Weng killed his parents, 2 cousins, a cousin’s wife and his parents’ caregiver.
5 other relatives sustained burns.
The High Court ruling reaffirmed the previous 2 rulings, which said that Weng
had planned the murder — an extremely vicious crime — had no regard for human
life and was devoid of any moral values.
Throughout the investigation and court proceedings, Weng did not show any
remorse and his crime had affected family members and relatives, the court
said, adding that he remains a danger to his family.
Weng had said that he intended to kill all of his family, because he believed
that, being the youngest of the seven siblings, his parents had neglected him,
and that since childhood he had to do most of the work on the farm the family
owned in Taoyuan’s Longtan District . However, according to other testimony,
Weng had a malicious nature and his siblings had their share of farm labor.
When Weng’s elder brother was called as a witness, Weng said: “My family
members deserve no respect, they are worse than animals … If I could
reincarnate 10 times, I would kill you 10 more times.”
(source: Taipei Times)
SOUTH SUDAN:
South Sudan and the inhumanity of the death penalty----By Kur Ayuen Kou
I am deeply appalled by the continuous use of the death penalty as the best
form of punishment in our fractured society. In a span of one week, South Sudan
has carried out six executions on inmates, some of who have not exhausted all
their legal options, including the right to appeal for clemency to His
Excellency the President of the Republic. REST IN PEACE!
This is a worrisome development in a country that is preaching forgiveness,
tolerance and peace. It’s very painful that the government can embark on this
undertaking when it has other weighty state responsibilities.
As a concerned citizen of our nascent Republic, we are a call to duty when the
responsibility knocks on our doors. The duty to protect, preserve and defend
the constitution does not only lie with the government, it’s a collective
responsibility of every citizen. Our national heroes including our President
gave their lives to liberate millions of us from the bondage of slavery.
I am not writing for the sake of making noise, my writing on the subject is a
deep-seated belief in the application of fair justice. I am writing to correct
what is fundamentally wrong in our justice system that I bore witness.
The course of justice that led to the execution of these citizens is a
distinctive process which seems not to have been entirely observed. It starts
with a police officer responding to a crime and conducts an investigation. Once
the suspect is fully interrogated, he/she is presented before a court of law.
Upon conviction, he/she will be sentenced and convicted to the degree of
his/her crime. The convict has the right to appeal his conviction to higher
courts including the Appeal and the Supreme courts. After exhausting all legal
options, the convict has the right to apply for a pardon to his Excellency the
President of the Republic. If clemency plea is rejected by the President, it
would be automatically presumed that the President has confirmed the conviction
and sign the execution order.
In three of the 6 cases executed, these standards seem not to have been
followed. One guy whom I will not name for the sake of the grieving family was
tried in absentia even though he was in prison as a remand prisoner for more
than ten years. Three other individuals were still waiting for their appeal
judgement, 8 years since their conviction and subsequent appeal after fourteen
days as the law requires. The appeal court, the second highest court did not
pronounce any judgement prior to their executions. Have we now abandoned the
rule of law, the cornerstone of justice?
These oversights amount to culpability and the weaknesses of the justice system
in the Country. And the very reason why the death penalty should not be carried
out at all time. Fast it backwards, 2 underage brothers were executed in 2017
in complete violation of their rights under article 21 of South Sudan’s
Transitional Constitution as amended. This article restricts the use of the
death penalty on any person under the age of 18.
These excesses affirm the UN General Assembly’s resolution 62/149 which stated
that “Death Penalty undermine human dignity”. It further expounds that“any
miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty’s implementation is
irreversible and irreparable”.
When it comes to our laws, the South Sudan Transitional Constitution has those
safeguards. The right to life is the foundation of all human rights. The
constitution grantee it under article 11, Life and Human Dignity, “Every person
has the inherent right to life, dignity and the integrity of his or her person
which shall be protected by law; no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his or
her life”.but still state officers are not ready to do the right thing.
What is puzzling, from time to time and despite the glaring facts, there is a
concerted denial from the government about the use of the death penalty as a
form of punishment in the country. There is this narrative that South Sudan has
never executed anyone since its inception in 2011. You can’t fool all the
people all the time. The secrecy surrounding all these executions indicated
that the state is guilty of the practice. It’s inhumane and cruel to take out
human life of which all other rights depend on. If you are not alive, you
cannot claim any right. Anything that takes away human life from God gifted
existence is tantamount to murder, the very thing that needs to be corrected
with that form of punishment.
Death penalty retentionist deterrent hypothesis is discarded a long time ago.
Countries that are still carrying out the death penalty on some of the most
gruesome crime are still experiencing those crimes. It’s not the number of
people that you hanged through state sanction killing that deter others from
committing those same crimes. Human impulses determined the action that leads
to murder.
Resolution 62/149 of the UN General Assembly categorically declared that “there
is no conclusive evidence that death penalty deterrent argument by many
countries that retain capital punishment reduces crimes of murder from being
committed in those countries”.
We are a progressive society. To be held in the bondage of historical form of
justice as the best practices annihilate our best values as a society. Do we
love to see human being struggling like a chicken, pleading for his/her dear
life during the execution? With all the state power, his life is exterminated
without his wish.
It is time to rethink as a country on the use of the death penalty. I urge our
leadership, Religious and Political leaders, our Parliamentarians who are the
makers of our laws, the Executive headed by our President as the implementing
authority of those laws to look at the logic of the use of death penalty. At
the end of the day, you have 2 broken families and communities who have lost
their dear one. One as a result of a crime committed to what every form and the
other one, a state-sanctioned killing. We have been taught in school that 2
wrong don’t make a right.
We must, as a country revisited and revise those laws like the penal code and
the code of criminal procedures 2008. The discretion given by law to the
nearest family member in section 206 (b) of the penal code 2008 has been
repeatedly misused and has put so many innocent people at risk. Section 48 of
the same penal code,“Acts Committed by Several Persons in Furtherance of Common
Intention” is no exception. This section is being used without clearly
demarcating the element of action and intention of each accused in the crime.
As long as the prosecution and the complainant have bundled you together, be
sure you will be convicted together. Criminal actions that constitute a join
act must clearly outline in the text of the laws. Leaving it to individual
judicial officers to interpret has resulted in too many miscarriages of
justice.
We all believe as a country that laws are made to govern society, not to be
used against the people. Immediate corrective measures need to be undertaken to
arrest the situation, to stop further executions.
I personally appeal to our President’s usual human conscience to envoke his
moratorium commitment under the UN charter to stay further execution. South
Sudan as a member state of the United Nations has obligation under
international law to subscribe to best practices that are moving human dignity
forward. We should strive to uproot those gallows at our midst to the museums,
not to be seen ever again. It must never touch a human born.
In the absence of the constitutional court, I appeal to His Excellency the
President to consider setting up clemency review committee in his office to
advise him on existing cases of death sentences with the view to commute them
to life imprisonment.
(source: Commentary, Sudan Tribune)
IRAQ:
Kidnapped while picking truffles: Abductors execute 6, release 5
In separate cases of abduction in rural areas in Iraq's western Anbar province,
unknown gunmen have recently kidnapped 20 Iraqis while harvesting truffles. On
Tuesday, six were reportedly executed, while 5 others were said to have been
released.
The incidents appear to only be connected by the activity the civilians were
engaged in when the gunmen had picked them up, collecting the highly-valued
subterranean mushrooms which start to appear in the countryside and arid tracts
of land in Iraq around springtime.
Anbar is a Sunni-majority province and a number of the abductees are reportedly
from neighboring Shia-majority provinces, where local officials claimed that
Islamic State militants were behind the incidents. The terrorist organization,
however, has yet to publicly claim responsibility for the acts.
The latest kidnapping, seemingly the fourth such incident around the area since
early February, occurred in al-Nukhayb sub-district, south of Anbar, where 12
men were captured. 2 of the abductees were later released while six of them
were executed later in the day, Alsumaria reported, quoting local officials.
“Da’esh [ISIS] executed 6 of the abductees who are from al-Hira of Najaf
province and were kidnapped in al-Nukhayb,” said Ali al-Mayali, deputy Governor
of Karbala Province, where the bodies were first taken while en route to where
the victims' hometown of Najaf.
Four others were from Karbala, Mayali had previously said, while confirming
without giving specific details that two of them had been released. The father
of one of the men asserted they were freed because they were not carrying IDs.
Following the release of the 2, the deputy governor handed Baghdad an ultimatum
of 24 hours “to rescue our sons,” or “the local government would mobilize” to
do so, stating “known entities are behind their kidnapping.”
It is unclear exactly what the official was referencing by “known entities,”
but he has previously claimed Islamic State fighters were behind the abduction
of the 12 men.
On the same day, 5 other men were released. These were a group that was taken
in the northern part of Anbar, in Rawah District. One of the abductees, Salah
Falih, retold his story in an interview with Alsumaria and said they had been
held “on ransom.” He did not state whether their captors had released them
after payments had been made.
According to Falih, they had been abducted by a number of gunmen in 3 pickup
trucks. They were tied up, had their eyes covered, and taken to an unspecified
location “west” from their initial location.
After their blindfolds were removed, he added, he had seen “Da’esh banners.”
The group was then put in a compact room underground and kept there for 5 days.
They were later returned to their cars where they had been taken while busy
scouring for truffles.
Concurrent with the kidnapping of the 5 men, 3 more people just east of Rawah
in Haditha District were abducted who were also digging through rural areas for
the mushrooms, a security source told Kurdistan 24. The fate of these 3
individuals is unknown.
On Feb 08, this time in Salahuddin Province, the bodies of 3 other men were
found. They were alleged to have been killed by Islamic State fighters after
abducting them on Makhoul Mountain.
Locals in the provinces of Salahuddin, Diyala, Kirkuk, Anbar, and Nineveh have
repeatedly warned Iraqi military officials of growing activity by Islamic State
militants in the area. The group’s fighters often use mountainous areas or
other rural regions as bases or hiding spots, making it challenging for
security forces and the US-led coalition to find or track them.
Over the past year, they have carried out various insurgent attacks, including
explosions, kidnappings, and ambushes in multiple parts of the country despite
Iraq declaring victory against the Islamic State in December 2017.
(source: kurdistan24.net)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Saudi Scholar: My Father Faces the Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia for Supporting
Human Rights
Guests----Abdullah Alaoudh, senior fellow at Georgetown University in the
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. His father has been imprisoned in
Saudi Arabia since 2017.
While the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate
in Istanbul in October sparked international outrage, far less attention has
been paid to the ongoing Saudi repression at home. We speak with Abdullah
Alaoudh, whose father has been locked up in solitary confinement in Saudi
Arabia for his political activism since September 2017. Prior to his arrest,
prominent Islamic scholar Salman Alodah had been a vocal critic of the Saudi
monarchy who had called for elections with 14 million Twitter followers. But
for the past 17 months, Salman Alodah has been silenced. He was one of dozens
of religious figures, writers, journalists, academics and civic activists
arrested as part of a crackdown on dissent in 2017 overseen by Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We speak with Alodah’s son Abdullah Alaoudh. He is
a senior fellow at Georgetown University in the Center for Muslim-Christian
Understanding.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to look at Saudi Arabia’s ongoing crackdown on
dissent. While the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi
Consulate in Istanbul in October sparked international outrage, far less
attention has been paid to the ongoing Saudi repression at home.
Our next guest’s father has been locked up in solitary confinement in Saudi
Arabia for his political activism since September of 2017. Prior to his arrest,
prominent Islamic scholar Salman Alodah had been a vocal critic of the Saudi
monarchy who had called for elections. And his voice was widely heard. On
Twitter alone, he had 14 million followers. But for the past 17 months, Salman
Alodah has been silenced.
AMY GOODMAN: Salman’s son Abdullah Alaoudh is now speaking out about his
father’s imprisonment. In a recent New York Times op-ed headlined “My Father
Faces the Death Penalty. This Is Justice in Saudi Arabia,” he writes, “He was
chained and handcuffed for months inside his cell, deprived of sleep and
medical help and repeatedly interrogated throughout the day and night. His
deteriorating health—high blood pressure and cholesterol that he developed in
prison—was ignored until he had to be hospitalized. Until the trial, about a
year after his arrest, he was denied access to lawyers.”
Salman Alodah was one of the dozens of religious figures, writers, journalists,
academics and civic activists arrested as part of a crackdown on dissent in
2017 overseen by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
We turn now to Salman Alodah’s son Abdullah, who joins us from Chicago.
Abdullah Alaoudh is a senior fellow at Georgetown University in the Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about why your father was first
arrested, his condition now?
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: Thank you for hosting me.
He was actually part of a movement demanding and asking a constitutional
monarchy in Saudi Arabia. In 2011, he, along with other colleagues, signed a
petition and called the Saudi public to sign a petition asking and demanding a
civil and more democratic change in Saudi Arabia. But after the Arab Spring,
the Saudi regime did not seem to tolerate such discourse, so they—I mean, the
relationship between my father and the state deteriorated. However, when the
crown prince came to power, he actually started to crack down on the reformist
figures, like my father and others, and while at the same time taking their
ideas, like moderate Islam, representing it to the West as his own, but at the
same time cracking down on the very moderate voices of the kingdom that have
been historically spearheading the campaign against terrorism and extremism in
Saudi Arabia.
In 2017, when the rift between Qatar and Saudi Arabia started, he tweeted
seeking reconciliation between the two rulers, of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but
the crown prince took this to be a confrontation. And in a few hours, just
after his tweet, he was arrested by the state security forces and was locked up
in solitary confinement until today. Now the attorney general is seeking death
penalty against him on 37 charges, including “corrupting” the Earth and
“disagreeing with the ruler” and, you know, vague and very general charges like
this, and even having books that are banned by the kingdom.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But now, your father, before his arrest, was extremely popular.
Not only did he have millions of Twitter followers, he also had a TV show.
Could you talk about what his TV show addressed? And was the government’s
attempt to—well, the jailing of him a clear attempt to silence his voice?
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: Very true. He had a TV show on the state-sponsored TV channel
in Saudi Arabia called MBC. He, you know, presented a civil discourse seeking a
social change. He supported, you know, political rights and basic liberties in
Saudi Arabia. At that time, it was tolerated, until he condemned corruption in
Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia. The governor then of Riyadh, the
prince then, then-Prince Salman, who is king now, asked somebody in his office
to call my father, live, and, you know, disagreed with him and said, “You
should not talk about corruption in Saudi Arabia.” And after that episode, the
show was canceled. And then the Arab Spring erupted, and my father joined the
calls for a civil and peaceful transformation in Saudi Arabia toward a more
open and inclusive approach in politics in Saudi Arabia.
AMY GOODMAN: Abdullah, I’d like to turn to an excerpt from a video of your
father, Salman Alodah, produced in 2013. The video has more than 3 million
views on YouTube.
SALMAN ALODAH: [translated] Gandhi had a dream to feed all the dark tummies
rather than the racist colonizers. Mandela had a dream to hear the voice of
Africans chanting their national anthem. Martin Luther expressed his dream in
his speech “I Have a Dream,” that his four children should not be treated based
on their color. Let’s have our own dream, to have our light shining from
within, not from without, and combine our varying colors into a beautiful
painting. Like you, I long for the place where I played as a child and
cherished as a man. Like you, full of ambition and expectation and the desire
to be remembered when I’m gone. Like you, stung by words that judge me, in a
country I don’t recognize and in a place I don’t belong to.
AMY GOODMAN: Abdullah, that is your father’s voice, of course translated. Can
you talk about this video and the message your father wanted to convey? And
what kind of response did he receive to it?
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: The message was to condemn the discrimination, the social
discrimination, political discrimination, racial and religious discrimination,
in Saudi Arabia. He wanted to spread awareness in Saudi Arabia to the Saudi
public. This discourse is the very discourse that crown prince is fighting
against. The same rogue operatives who actually attacked Khashoggi in the Saudi
Consulate are actually seeking the same death, death penalty, against my father
for similar reasons: political and civil activism. In videos, in other videos,
my father chanted for political change, for social change. So, it was a pattern
in the past one year and a half that the Saudi crown prince—since the Saudi
crown prince ascended to power, that the reformist voices are attacked, while
at the same time the same discourse that these reformists presented will be
presented to the West like if it’s the crown prince’s ideas, just for PR
campaigns, without any real reforms or even real change in Saudi Arabia.
I’ll give you just a few examples. The crown prince, for example, talked about
empowering women, while at the same time he locked up in jail very prominent
activists, like Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef, Eman al-Nafjan. And there
are reports now, credible reports, about sexual harassment and other human
rights violations inside prison. So, at the same time when the crown prince
tried to promulgate to the West that he is supporting moderate Islam, he locked
up the very moderate voices of the kingdom, while embracing extremist voices
like Saleh al-Fawzan, who called for killing any dissident, Saleh al-Fawzan who
said anyone who disagrees with the Wahhabi doctrine is an infidel, and he
called for excluding those voices who are not within the same sect of Islam,
let alone Islam itself, or religion. Now, while—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, let me ask—
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: While also the crown prince—just to add one more, while the
crown prince also tried to present the economic transformation like it’s his
own, he locked up in jail the very economists who presented to him and others
for the past—you know, for the past 10 years, a plan to transform and diversify
the Saudi economy. So, he used all that. He did various superficial reforms to
do a PR campaign to the West, while locking up the very voices that actually
wanted to change the kingdom toward a more civil and civilized society.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, let me ask you. Your father has been held in solitary
confinement in prison in Saudi Arabia. Have you been able to communicate with
him at all, or other members of your family? What’s his condition like there?
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: Yeah, a few members of my family have communicated with him.
He has several, you know, health issues. Now he developed spinal issues because
of the way that they transferred him from one room to another, one cell to
another. They did not even care about his health, his age. He’s a 61- or
62-year-old. They did not care about his background, his popularity, his
family, his beloved ones. They just did not care about anything. He was
handcuffed. Chains were put on his feet. He was interrogated more than 24 hours
continuously, like for a few days. They wanted him to hallucinate at some
point, so he would just sign anything that they wanted him to. They just
treated him like hell.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I wanted to ask you—Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist
who was killed, was a friend of yours.
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk about the impact of his death? And also, are you
worried, speaking out this way, given how the Saudi government treats
dissidents, even those abroad?
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: Right. Actually, the case of Jamal Khashoggi is a
demonstration of how the pattern, you know, would do, how the pattern would
practice the authoritarian practices in Saudi Arabia, how the crown prince—I
mean, how far will the crown prince go. He reached someone in the Saudi
Consulate in Istanbul. And they did not care about the outcry of the West. They
did not care about the uproar. They just cared about how to consolidate power,
how to put all the power in one single hand.
The incident of Jamal Khashoggi should alarm the West that we tolerated such—if
we tolerated such practices. We are witnessing a Saddam Hussein that—I mean,
with the same conditions. We tolerated Saddam Hussein because we thought we
could support him to fight Iran. Now we are doing the same exact mistake with
the crown prince. We’re tolerating every catastrophe that he has done during
the past year and a half. He launched strikes against civilians in Yemen. He
put a prime minister of Lebanon under house arrest in 2018—in 2017, November.
He actually killed Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran journalist, inside the Saudi
Consulate in Istanbul. And we tolerated all these atrocities. He cut ties with
Canada over its wheat, for God’s sake, and we tolerated all that. And we
thought, “Well, we could be an ally with this crown prince in order to fight
Iran.” Well, guess what. That’s the same exact ground that we had supported
Saddam Hussein for, and look what we did and what happened.
AMY GOODMAN: Abdullah, are you afraid of speaking out, as we wrap up right now?
I mean, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered outside of Saudi Arabia, albeit in the
Saudi Consulate in Turkey. You’re speaking out here, on behalf of your father
and for reform in Saudi Arabia, in the United States. Can you go home? Do you
feel safe in the United States?
ABDULLAH ALAOUDH: I feel safe here. And I don’t know, though—and we witnessed
how far that the—how far the Saudi crown prince went. They reached outside. And
there are intercepted calls and reports of his calling the Saudi intelligence
to bring—to lure dissidents and figures who disagree with him from outside to
Saudi Arabia. They have no limits. So, yeah, but, I mean, I know I’m taking a
high risk, but it’s worth taking, because we have no choice. We have to speak
out. My father’s life is at stake. And not just my father. The feminist
activists are actually right now sexually harassed, abused, and human rights
violations are practiced inside prison. And hundreds of activists,
intellectuals, public figures, economists, their health and freedom is at
stake. So, it’s a risk worth taking to speak for all these people.
AMY GOODMAN: Abdullah, I want to thank you very much for being with us.
Abdullah Alaoudh is a senior fellow at Georgetown University in the Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding. We’ll link to your piece in The New York Times
headlined “My Father Faces the Death Penalty. This Is Justice in Saudi Arabia.”
(source: Democracy Now!)
EGYPT:
Execution of 9 men after an unfair trial a monumental disgrace
Responding to the news that Egyptian authorities have today executed 9 men
convicted after a grossly unfair trial for the 2015 killing of the country’s
former Public Prosecutor, Najia Bounaim, Amnesty International’s North Africa
Campaigns Director said:
“By carrying out the executions of these nine men today Egypt has demonstrated
an absolute disregard for the right to life.
“Those responsible for the attack that killed Egypt’s former public prosecutor
deserve to be punished but executing men who were convicted in trials marred by
torture allegations is not justice but a testament to the magnitude of
injustice in the country.
“These executions are a stark demonstration of the government’s increasing use
of the death penalty, bringing the total number of death sentences implemented
in the past three weeks to 15. Egyptian authorities must urgently halt this
bloody execution spree which has seen them repeatedly putting people to death
after grossly unfair trials in recent weeks.
“The international community must not stay silent over this surge in
executions. Egypt’s allies must take a clear stand by publicly condemning the
authorities’ use of the death penalty, the ultimate cruel, inhuman and
degrading punishment.”
Background:
The 9 were among 28 men sentenced to death for the killing of the former public
prosecutor in an attack in Cairo that took place in June 2015. Several of the
men said they were forcibly disappeared and tortured in order to confess to the
killing.
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.
(source: Amnesty International)
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