Feb. 3
INDONESIA:
Rights groups criticize resumption of executions in Indonesia----11 more men
are scheduled for execution, with the majority of those on death row there on
drug charges
Rights activists inside and outside Indonesia have expressed alarm after the
country executed 6 people in January, officially resuming the death penalty
after a 1-year reprieve.
On Jan. 29, the government named the next 11 people to be executed, 8 of them
on drug-related charges, and, of those 8, 7 are foreigners.
In 2013, after an almost 5-year gap, the Southeast Asian country executed 5
people, then held off for a year before executing 6 people at the start of this
year, putting on notice about 150 people currently on Indonesian death row.
Some activists said the move is largely about domestic politics. Ricky Gunawan,
director of the Jakarta-based LBH Masyarakat Community Legal Aid Institute,
told Al Jazeera there is widespread domestic support for capital punishment for
drug trafficking within Indonesia.
"In Indonesia, drugs have always been seen as 'evil.' Narcotics ... are often
labeled as haram [forbidden]," Gunawan said, adding that "the government and
law apparatus treat this issue as a way to gain popularity or support."
Arrests, convictions and executions are "a way for the government to show that
they are tough against crimes," Gunawan said.
When Indonesian President Joko Widodo spoke about the fate of 2 Australians -
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are among the next 11 to be executed - he
told CNN, "We are not going to compromise for drug dealers. No compromise, no
compromise."
Widodo, who took office in the predominantly Muslim nation of roughly 250
million in October, said the two would not receive a reprieve from execution,
although both men filed a last-ditch appeal on Friday.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has personally asked for clemency for
Chan and Sukimaran, who were arrested in 2005.
Relations between the 2 neighbor countries have soured since it was revealed in
2013 that Australia had been spying on Indonesian officials, including former
president President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.
Executions not a deterrent
In its 2013 Death Sentence and Executions report, Amnesty International
indicated that there were at least 149 people on death row in Indonesia,
roughly half on drug-related charges.
Rights groups say that executing people on drug charges does not comport with
international standards.
Article 6 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights limits the acceptable use of capital punishment to crimes that meet the
threshold for being "the most serious crimes."
"According to international human rights jurisprudence, capital punishment
could only be applied to the crime of murder or intentional killing," Ravina
Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a Jan. 20 statement.
The Indonesian government has staunchly resisted the U.N.???s interpretation of
jurisprudence, which is why some rights groups focus on opposition to
executions rather than the offenses for which prisoners are being executed.
"Amnesty International opposes the death penalty for whatever reason, so it
doesn't matter if [the charge] falls under a heinous crime or not," said T.
Kumar, international advocacy director for the rights group.
"The death penalty is commonly used for drug offenses in many countries, mainly
in Southeast Asia, so that's nothing new there," Kumar said. "So what's new is
we have a new president in Indonesia so he's carrying out all the death
sentences, and refusing to give any consideration for clemency - he's pretty
much taking a tough line."
Rights activists questioned the effectiveness of that hardline approach when it
comes to curbing the flow of narcotics into the country.
Rick Lines, director of Harm Reduction International (HRI), a U.K.-based NGO,
said that after decades of study, criminologists and social scientists have
found "no evidence at all that the death penalty is a deterrent of crime,
whether drug crimes or other crimes."
"The fact that the majority of those arrested and sentenced to death are
low-level couriers in and of itself demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the
laws, as high-level traffickers and kingpins are not being caught in the legal
net leads to capital punishment," Lines said.
He added that executing the couriers would not stop the drug trade, "as there
will be a never-ending procession of poor and desperate people" willing to
assume the risk for financial or other rewards.
HRI estimates that as many as 1,000 people are executed on drug charges each
year in the Middle East and Asia alone.
(source: Al Jazeera)
************************
Indonesia's drugs strategy under fire
Indonesia's strategy in its war against drugs is under attack, with lawmakers
airing concerns over the prison drug culture and experts challenging the
deterrent effect of the death penalty.
President Joko Widodo has already sent 6 death row drug offenders to the firing
squad this year, and Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will be among
the next.
Mr Joko says the death penalty is needed because Indonesia's future is under
threat from a 'drugs emergency'.
His position is based on a study by the National Narcotics Board (BNN) which
finds up to 50 Indonesians die from drug-related causes each day.
Under pressure at a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta on Monday, BNN chief Anang
Iskandar reportedly admitted prison guards were involved in distributing drugs
behind bars.
He told reporters the BNN was aiming to dismantle up to 50 prison drug
networks, as well as rehabilitate 100,000 drug addicts this year.
Mr Anang backed the death penalty as a strong deterrent, as long as executions
were carried out regularly.
'If we do it in 2015, the next one should not be in 2016 or once a year, this
will not create a deterrent effect,' he said.
'A deterrent effect is only caused by continuous executions and the time
interval between should not be too long either.'
Indonesia's Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, an independent research
institute, says the evidence does not support the idea that capital punishment
is a deterrent.
'It's a myth,' institute director Supriyadi W. Eddyono said.
'Many studies have shown it.'
I find the BNN is not consistent either.
'There's the death penalty for some and on the other hand, there are domestic
drug dealers who receive remission.'
If they want to make tighter laws for drugs offenders, they should also limit
the remission given to drug offenders.
The institute is also preparing a legal challenge to Supreme Court advice to
limit the number of judicial reviews, known as PKs, to 1 per convict.
The courts are now considering an application from Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 33,
for a 2nd judicial review.
Their lawyers argue past errors were made in their case and that the Bali 9
ringleaders are reformed after 10 years' jail.Indonesia's Attorney-General HM
Prasetyo says the application does not alter his plans to include the
Australians in the next round of executions, on a date to be determined.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has reportedly been advised there is nothing that
can be done to save the two Australians from execution.The message was conveyed
to Mr Abbott on Australia Day by Indonesia's ambassador Nadjib Riphat Kesoema,
News Corp Australia reports.
2 celebrated Melbourne artists, Ben Quilty and Matthew Sleeth, visited
Kerobokan prison on Tuesday for a prison art workshop that had been planned
some time ago.
Quilty says both Sukumaran and Chan are doing well.
'They are carrying an enormous weight on their shoulders, but they are still
hopeful,' he told reporters.
Sleeth said it would be a shame to end their lives when they had done so much
to rehabilitate prisoners.
'I would like to see the Indonesian authorities celebrate their success in this
rehabilitation and in the art room, and keep it going.'
(source: Sky News)
**********************************
The Bali 9, and how not to argue for the death penalty
Barring some sort of last-minute miracle, 2 relatively young Australian men,
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, are going to be killed by the Indonesian
state. They will not be the first to die this way in 2015. 6 other drug
criminals have already been executed in Indonesia this year, and more are
scheduled.
The Brazilians and Dutch recalled their ambassadors in response to the last
executions, which involved two of their citizens. Australia is reportedly doing
what it can to save Chan and Sukumaran, but apparently to no avail, and it
remains to be seen if we would follow the Brazilian and Dutch examples. ACU
Vice-Chancellor Greg Craven has claimed that:
The attitude of Australia and Australians will become part of the reason why
these men are executed if we are not sending the right signals to Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Roy Morgan polling finds that 62% of Australians think their
government should not do more to stop the execution. A slim majority, 52%,
favour such executions going ahead. Yet as recently as 2009 Roy Morgan also
found a clear majority not in favour of capital punishment in Australia - not
even for murder.
That re-introducing the death penalty doesn't have majority support isn't
surprising. The consequentialist arguments against the death penalty aren't
hard to find. The irreversibility of execution means sickening and unfixable
miscarriages of justice are more or less inevitable.
The imperative to avoid those injustices makes the process extremely slow -
almost 15 years on average in the US, as of 2010 - and accordingly more
expensive than life imprisonment. As a deterrent it simply doesn't seem to
work, perhaps because, oddly enough, it turns out humans aren't rational,
cool-headed calculators who deliberate carefully and act accordingly.
We know all this, or at least we should.
So, it seems a large proportion of us are against the death penalty, but say we
are for executions abroad and don't want us to try harder to stop them. How do
we reconcile these apparently incompatible beliefs?
I suspect we're doing it with "arguments" that at bottom have nothing to do
with the death penalty as such, but are really just excuses for not caring
about it in particular cases. We don't like the death penalty, we just don't
want the discomfort of having to care about the people it's applied to. And so
we trot out a series of trite, cliched slogans.
'Do the crime, do the time'
The obvious rejoinder to this is that execution isn't "doing time" - even if
the years spent on death row is.
Philosophers continue to grapple with the surprisingly difficult question of
why death is a harm and why, by extension, killing is wrong. The closest thing
to a standard answer is that death deprives us of good years we would otherwise
have enjoyed.
But as the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus insisted, not existing for what
would have been the rest of your life is not the same as suffering for that
many years.
You might rephrase this as: "Do the crime, pay the penalty". But just how far
do we follow that principle? Penalties can be excessive, or unjust. So surely
for such a principle to have force, the penalty has to be proportional to the
crime.
If you say Chan and Sukumaran should accept their punishment, you're thereby
committed to saying that execution is a fitting punishment for drug trafficking
- a claim that needs to be argued for.
'They knew the risk they were running'
Radio host Garry Linnell offered a version of this argument in response to
artist Ben Quilty's candlelight vigil for the pair. He wrote:
Sukumaran and Chan knew the penalty if they were caught. You cannot arrive
anywhere in Indonesia without signs explicitly stating the consequences of
importing and exporting drugs on Indonesian soil. It is Indonesian law.
But this confuses moral responsibility with prudential responsibility. If you
leave your car unlocked with the window down and your laptop on the front seat,
someone might say that you "deserve" to have your laptop stolen. But being
imprudent in such a case isn't the same thing as moral culpability: that rests
with the thief. We wouldn't refuse to stop the thief, or let him off the hook,
simply because you'd been careless.
You can agree that Chan and Sukumaran were stupid to take the risk they did,
and even that what they did morally deserves punishment, given the misery and
death heroin brings with it. But the argument that "they knew the risks"
doesn't, on its own, make their execution appropriate. Those who assert this
still owe us an argument.
'Different countries have different laws and we should respect that'
Linnell, like many others, also insisted that:
... the Bali 9 controversy is equally about sovereign rights and the penalties
imposed on those who decide to flout them.
Sovereignty has moral weight, and it's not hard to imagine cases where it might
be ethically right to abide by local laws or norms you nonetheless disagree
with.
But, again, this only goes so far. It would be obscene to subordinate the
profound wrongness of killing - the very thing many death penalty proponents
appeal to - to the need to respect sovereignty or avoid giving offence. To say
that the laws of other countries must always be respected - no matter what they
demand - is not so much a statement of principle as a moral abdication.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with making arguments like this. It's
not so much ethical reasoning as ritual hand-washing.
If you honestly think that killing 2 young men, who are so effectively
rehabilitated that even their jailers want them to live, and destroying the
lives of their families, all for no deterrent effect, is somehow going to
achieve something - well, you have to argue for it.
If there's some knock-down argument that makes premeditated killing on the part
of the government appropriate, or shows how more death and misery is somehow
going to put the world to right, let's hear it. Those who think we shouldn't
care about this owe us better than rhetorical fig leaves for indifference.
Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika has said that the executions should take
place - just not in Bali. It seems it's OK for things like this to happen, so
long as they don't happen here, where we have to confront the full reality of
what is done when the state ends a life, of what it is to shoot a man tied to a
stake.
Sadly, many Australians seem to agree.
(source: The Conversation)
********************************************
Indonesia defers execution of Pinay drug convict
Indonesia has deferred the execution of a convicted Filipina drug smuggler
after the Philippine government sought a review of her case, the Department of
Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Tuesday.
The woman, who flew in to Indonesia from Malaysia, was arrested by authorities
at the Yogyakarta Airport on April 25, 2010 for alleged trafficking of 2.6
kilograms of heroin. She entered Indonesia as a tourist.
"We are already waiting for a schedule of that judicial request. In view of
that request, the actual execution has been deferred," Foreign Affairs
spokesman Charles Jose told a press briefing.
In its request, Jose said the Philippine government is seeking the commutation
of her sentence to life imprisonment.
Although the sentence was already upheld by the Supreme Court, Jose said all
death penalty cases in Indonesia are entitled to at least 1 judicial review.
"We are presenting new arguments. We'll see how this will be taken and
considered by authorities of Indonesia," he said.
In many countries, such as Indonesia and China, trafficking of large quantities
of prohibited drugs is punishable by death. Death penalty in Indonesia is
carried out through firing squad.
Since 2011, 5 Filipinos - all drug couriers - were put to death in China.
Despite the executions, many Filipinos continue to engage in drug trafficking,
citing lack of economic opportunities at home.
Citing a September 2014 data, the DFA said a total of 805 Filipinos who are
detained abroad for drug-related offenses.
(source: GMA News)
*****************
Jokowi's leadership could do with more compassion
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo completed his first 100 days in office last week
with mixed public reviews, but if there is one area where he has disappointed
some of his fans the most, it is in his lacking the compassion and spirit of
forgiveness expected from a leader who has almost all the other main
humanitarian virtues.
Jokowi won the presidential elections in July chiefly because of his popularity
among voters, rather than on his thin track record in government at the
national level. The 53-year-old man from Surakarta, Central Java, displayed all
the positive Javanese characteristics from humility to sincerity, virtues that
are rarely found among today's politicians and leaders, but characteristics
that people craved badly enough to vote for him.
But his decision at the start of his presidency to order the execution of the
dozens of people on death row, there chiefly for drug trafficking, came as a
big shock to some of his supporters who had hoped the new President would be
more compassionate and forgiving, especially in deciding to take the lives of
others. These are virtues that would have been consistent with his other
humanitarian traits.
Last month, the Attorney General's Office carried out the execution of 6 people
who have lingered on death row for years, including 5 foreigners, after
President Jokowi rejected their appeals for clemency, their last chance for
reprieve. The government says 11 others are now being lined up for execution.
There were 64 people on death row when Jokowi ordered the executions to start
as soon as he came into office in October. Unless he had a change of heart, all
will be executed. 11th-hour appeals for mercy from President Dilma Rousseff of
Brazil and King Willem of the Netherlands to spare the lives of their citizens,
who were among the 6 executed, were rejected. Australian Prime Minister Tony
Abbott has been on the phone with Jokowi this past week asking him to spare the
lives of 2 Australians in the list of 11 about to be executed.
Jokowi responded to these pleas by saying Indonesia is in the middle of a major
war against drug trafficking and these people violated Indonesian laws that
clearly stipulate death for violators.
His strong stance received widespread support from the Indonesian public. They
lauded the new President for taking a stand against the menacing drug threats
that have affected millions of Indonesians and their families and for standing
up against foreign leaders.
It's hard to accept Jokowi's explanation that there was nothing he could do to
stop the executions. He claimed it was the court that decided on the death
penalty, and not him, and that the order for execution is the natural
consequence of him following the law of the land. Jokowi cannot easily wash his
blood-stained hands. The Constitution grants the President the power to pardon
people and he could have commuted their sentences to life imprisonment if he
wanted to. When he rejects the appeals for clemency, he virtually signs their
death warrants. This episode leads to a disturbing thought that we may have
elected a war-mongering and vengeful president. After declaring war on drug
abuse early in his presidency, he became trapped by his own rhetoric, to the
effect that he simply had to order the executions of people on death row,
mostly drug traffickers, but also including sadistic murderers.
Jokowi may have won over domestic public opinion - many in fact compared him
with his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whom they thought of being too
lame on drug offenders. But a better comparison would be with great leaders of
the past, many of whom made compassion and forgiveness as part of the virtues
that raised them above others.
The late South African leader Nelson Mandela made forgiveness very much one of
his leadership qualities, one reason why he won the respect and admiration of
people around the world, not only of South Africans. "Forgiveness liberates the
soul. That's why it's such a powerful weapon," Mandela once said.
"You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than through acts of
retribution," he said another time as he fought against demands from fellow
black South Africans to take revenge against the whites for their brutality
during decades of Apartheid. Compassion and the spirit of forgiveness would
make Jokowi much stronger. They are not signs of weaknesses. They would even
elevate him from being just another elected politician into a true statesman.
Given all his other humanitarian traits and given that he came from a younger
generation of leaders not so tainted by the violent political culture, many
supporters had hoped Jokowi to lean closer toward human rights causes,
including on capital punishment.
All the arguments for and against capital punishment, from legal,
constitutional, moral and religious points of view, have been debated. Even the
Constitutional Court was divided when it ruled 5-to-4 in favor of retaining the
death penalty in 2008. Public opinion is very much in favor of retention and
the politician in President Jokowi has simply followed it and even strengthened
it through his rhetorical statements. He could have risen above public opinion
and shown compassion and forgiveness, but he chose not to.
The campaign to abolish capital punishment in Indonesia needs a public figure
or an icon to tip public opinion to its side. Obviously, Jokowi is not their
man.
(source: Endy Bayuni, The Jakarta Post)
***********************
Trial continued as objection rejected
A panel of judges in Denpasar District Court has decided to continue the trial
of an American couple charged with murder despite an objection from the
defendants' lawyers that the indictments were inaccurate and should be
annulled.
This decision means that the couple, Tommy Schaefer, 21, and Heather Mack, 19,
will face trial and could be sentenced to death.
"The indictment has been arranged carefully and fulfilled the material and
judiciary requirements; the objection from the lawyer is rejected," presiding
judge Made Suweda said in a hearing on Monday.
In a trial hearing 2 weeks ago, Schaefer's lawyer, Iswahyudi, said the
indictment was unclear and contained a factual error. The lawyer asked the
judge to return the indictment to the prosecutors.
"The indictment is unexamined, unclear and erroneous, so it is null and void,"
Iswahyudi claimed.
The same statement was also conveyed by Mack's lawyer, Novi Wirani, during her
hearing, which took place after Schaefer's with the same presiding judge. "An
indictment should be made carefully, clearly and completely, as required by
law, as an indictment will determine someone's fate, whether they are guilty or
not," Novi stated.
However, in the next session, prosecutors Eddy Artha Wijaya and Ni Luh Oka
Ariani assured that the indictment and the charges were very clear.
As the lawyers' objections have been rejected, the trial will continue on
Wednesday, Feb. 4, to hear witness statements.
If found guilty, the 2 Americans could face the death penalty as they have been
charged with premeditated murder under Article 340 of the Criminal Code.
Schaefer and Mack, who are expecting a baby girl on April 1, are accused of
murdering Mack's mother, 62-year-old American Sheila Ann von Weise-Mack. The
victim's body was found in a suitcase allegedly put in a taxi trunk on Aug. 12
by the young couple outside the luxury hotel in Nusa Dua where the 3 had been
vacationing.
Mack and Schaefer were arrested on Aug. 13, 1 day after the murder, at Risata
Bali Resort in Kuta, where they had stayed for the night.
According to the prosecutor's indictment, the murder was triggered by the
mother's rejection of Mack and Schaefer's relationship. Mack had reportedly
asked Schaefer to find a hit man to kill her mother before the incident took
place. "Heather Lois Mack wanted her mother, Sheila Ann von Weise-Mack, to die
and asked Tommy Schaefer to find people to kill her mother for US$50,000," the
indictment stated.
*****************************
Execution plan gets mixed reactions in Oz, says RI envoy
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's latest rejection of clemency for a group of
drug-case convicts, including two Australians, which will lead to the prisoners
being executed by firing squad, has sparked mixed reactions in Australia, says
Indonesian Ambassador to Australia Nadjib Riphat Kesoema.
"It is natural for every government to defend its citizens who are about to be
executed. The Australian government expects to be able to spare its citizens'
lives," Nadjib told The Jakarta Post recently.
"We also fully realize that taking someone's life is never an easy business.
However, the word is final and the law must be upheld."
The statement was made following Attorney General HM Prasetyo's latest
statement that prosecutors would execute foreigner prisoners and an Indonesian.
Nadjib also said that he had discussed the matter with various parties in
Australia by explaining that the situation in Indonesia had forced the
government to be firm, citing approximately 4.5 million people being exposed to
narcotics, its various by-products and also other drugs.
He added that of the figure, a million people could not access proper
rehabilitation.
"We are expecting some protests and mass rallies ahead as the result of the
executions," he said.
However, Nadjib went on to say that apparently the execution plan had also
drawn mixed reactions, as a portion of the Australian public also agreed to the
executions.
A survey conducted by Roy Morgan Research revealed 52 % of Australians agreed
that Australians convicted of drug trafficking in another country and sentenced
to death should be executed.
The same survey also showed that 62 % of Australians thought their government
should not do more to stop the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
The survey was conducted via SMS to 2,123 people from Jan. 23-27. The pair has
been detained at Kerobokan Penitentiary in Denpasar, Bali, for almost 10 years.
A call for mercy was aired at a concert on Thursday last week, where more than
2,000 Australians, led by local musicians, gathered in Sydney in a plea for
mercy for the 2 convicts.
Holding candles and signs reading "I stand for mercy", the crowd listened to
speeches and live music at Martin Place in the heart of the city, in a show of
support for Chan and Sukumaran, who recently lost their final appeals for
clemency.
The 2 men - members of an Australian drug-smuggling group dubbed the "Bali 9" -
were arrested in Bali in 2005 and sentenced to death the following year for
attempting to smuggle 8 kilograms of heroin off the Indonesian holiday island.
Sukumaran's grandmother Edith Visvanathan told the crowd that she was not
asking for him to be sent home.
"I only ask him [Jokowi] to give him his life and let him do something with
it," she said between sobs, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.
"Don't kill him, please don't kill him [...] please, President, please forgive
him."
Artist Ben Quilty, a friend of Sukumaran's who organized the concert, choked
back tears as he said the men's families would be touched by the outpouring of
support.
"Andrew and Myuran did really bad things, but they are good young men now," he
added.
Australia's Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson, who was in the audience, said
there was "no cause for governments to kill people".
"The death penalty is completely inconsistent with human rights principles and
disproportionate to the crimes being committed," he told AFP.
(source for both: The Jakarta Post)
***************
Rights groups criticize resumption of executions in Indonesia----11 more men
are scheduled for execution with the majority of those on death row there on
drug charges
Rights activists inside and outside Indonesia have expressed alarm after the
country executed 6 people in January, officially resuming the death penalty
after a 1-year reprieve.
On Jan. 29, the government named the next 11 people to be executed, 8 of them
on drug-related charges, and, of those 8, 7 are foreigners.
In 2013, after an almost 5-year gap, the Southeast Asian country executed 5
people, then held off for a year before executing 6 people at the start of this
year, putting on notice about 150 people currently on Indonesian death row.
Some activists said the move is largely about domestic politics. Ricky Gunawan,
director of the Jakarta-based LBH Masyarakat Community Legal Aid Institute,
told Al Jazeera there is widespread domestic support for capital punishment for
drug trafficking within Indonesia.
"In Indonesia, drugs have always been seen as 'evil.' Narcotics ... are often
labeled as haram [forbidden]," Gunawan said, adding that "the government and
law apparatus treat this issue as a way to gain popularity or support."
Arrests, convictions and executions are "a way for the government to show that
they are tough against crimes," Gunawan said.
When Indonesian President Joko Widodo spoke about the fate of 2 Australians -
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are among the next 11 to be executed - he
told CNN, "We are not going to compromise for drug dealers. No compromise, no
compromise."
Widodo, who took office in the predominantly Muslim nation of roughly 250
million in October, said the 2 would not receive a reprieve from execution,
although both men filed a last-ditch appeal on Friday.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has personally asked for clemency for
Chan and Sukimaran, who were arrested in 2005.
Relations between the 2 neighbor countries have soured since it was revealed in
2013 that Australia had been spying on Indonesian officials, including former
president President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.
Executions not a deterrent
In its 2013 Death Sentence and Executions report, Amnesty International
indicated that there were at least 149 people on death row in Indonesia,
roughly 1/2 on drug-related charges.
Rights groups say that executing people on drug charges does not comport with
international standards.
Article 6 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights limits the acceptable use of capital punishment to crimes that meet the
threshold for being "the most serious crimes."
"According to international human rights jurisprudence, capital punishment
could only be applied to the crime of murder or intentional killing," Ravina
Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a Jan. 20 statement.
The Indonesian government has staunchly resisted the U.N.???s interpretation of
jurisprudence, which is why some rights groups focus on opposition to
executions rather than the offenses for which prisoners are being executed.
"Amnesty International opposes the death penalty for whatever reason, so it
doesn't matter if [the charge] falls under a heinous crime or not," said T.
Kumar, international advocacy director for the rights group.
"The death penalty is commonly used for drug offenses in many countries, mainly
in Southeast Asia, so that's nothing new there," Kumar said. "So what's new is
we have a new president in Indonesia so he's carrying out all the death
sentences, and refusing to give any consideration for clemency - he's pretty
much taking a tough line."
Rights activists questioned the effectiveness of that hardline approach when it
comes to curbing the flow of narcotics into the country.
Rick Lines, director of Harm Reduction International (HRI), a U.K.-based NGO,
said that after decades of study, criminologists and social scientists have
found "no evidence at all that the death penalty is a deterrent of crime,
whether drug crimes or other crimes."
"The fact that the majority of those arrested and sentenced to death are
low-level couriers in and of itself demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the
laws, as high-level traffickers and kingpins are not being caught in the legal
net leads to capital punishment," Lines said.
He added that executing the couriers would not stop the drug trade, "as there
will be a never-ending procession of poor and desperate people" willing to
assume the risk for financial or other rewards.
HRI estimates that as many as 1,000 people are executed on drug charges each
year in the Middle East and Asia alone.
(source: Al Jazeera)
*************
Drugs smuggling British grandmother on death row in Bali moves a step closer to
execution----Lindsay Sandiford, 57, of Cheltenham, has been on death row since
2012
Death by firing squad for a British grandmother now seems certain after
Indonesia today revealed 2 Australian men will be among the next group of death
row inmates to be executed.
Lindsay Sandiford, 57, from Cheltenham, has been languishing on death row in
Bali since being convicted of attempting to smuggle 1.6million pounds' worth of
cocaine through the island's airport in 2012.
She maintains she was forced to transport the drugs to protect her children,
whose safety was at stake.
Since her arrest, she has been holed up in the squalid Kerobokan prison in
Bali.
She claims to have received little or no help from the Foreign Office since
then and fears the Indonesian authorities might construe that as a lack of
commitment by the government to her cause.
Revelations of an affair between fellow inmate Julian Ponder - nicknamed Bali's
Mr Big - and Alys Harahap, Britain's top diplomat in Bali have also handicapped
her efforts to evade the firing squad.
Ms Harahap stopped her visits to Kerobokan prison after the affair was exposed,
meaning Ms Sandiford may have been denied the full diplomatic support to which
she is entitled.
Ms Sandiford has now written a desperate letter to Foreign Secretary Philip
Hammond, who is due to visit Indonesia this month.
She has pleaded for funding to pay for a lawyer in the hope of escaping the
firing squad - but today's grim news that two Australians will be among the
next to die has dramatically weakened her hopes.
Indonesia's Attorney-General H.H.Prasetyo confirmed today that Andrew Chan and
Myuran Sukumaran, condemned ringleaders of the Bali 9 heroin-smuggling group,
will die with other condemned prisoners soon.
It was not clear when exactly the executions will take place. Appeals for
clemency have already been rejected.
The pair will face execution together for their plot to smuggle more than eight
kilograms of heroin in to Australia.
Mr Prasetyo told a press conference today: 'We have heard that many Australians
support the execution and it is one of the things that pushes us to feel we are
not making a mistake.'
Lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran, who have been on death row since 2006, have
filed an application for a 2nd judicial review.
Mr Prasetyo said he had heard this focused on the men's rehabilitation in
prison, but said this did not constitute new evidence.
If her execution goes ahead, Sandiford would be transferred from Bali to a
maximum security jail on Nusa Kambangan, off Java Island, for up 72 hours
before facing the firing squad.
The island is where the Bali bombers faced the firing squad and where 6 drug
criminals were executed 2 weeks ago.
The last round of executions took place shortly after midnight.
Executions are carried out by 12-man firing squads - only a proportion of whom
are given live bullets.
In their last 72 hours, prisoners are granted final requests and allowed to
spend time with family and friends as they see out their last hours in
isolation cells.
Prisoners are offered blindfolds to wear and are given the choice to stand, sit
or lie down when the firing squad carries out their execution from between 5
and 10 metres.
The Foreign Office said it stood 'ready to provide support at this difficult
time, if requested'.
It said it had consistently provided and offered consular support to Ms
Sandiford, which she currently declined to accept.
'We are closely following Lindsay Sandiford's case in Indonesia. We stand ready
to provide support at this difficult time, if it is requested,' said a
spokesman in the British embassy in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
'The UK strongly opposes the death penalty in all circumstances without
exception. We have made representations about the death penalty to the
Indonesian government, and we will continue to do so.'
Indonesia has some of the toughest drug laws in the world. It ended a four-year
moratorium on executions in 2013.
Last month, Indonesia executed convicts from Malawi, Nigeria, Vietnam, Brazil
and the Netherlands as well as 1 from Indonesia.
(source: Daily Mail)
VIETNAM:
Activists, religious dignitaries call for an end to Vietnam's death penalty
Religious dignitaries and civil activists in Vietnam as well as the
international community have called on the Vietnamese government to abolish the
death penalty.
An estimated 40 human rights activists, bloggers, journalists, democracy
advocates, relatives of two death row inmates, and dignitaries of Christianity
and indigenous sects of Cao Dai and Hoa Hao attended a special seminar,
"Abolishing the Death Penalty -- The Progression of Civilization," on Jan. 26
at the Redemptorists' pastoral center in Ho Chi Minh City. The event marked the
1st time local religions and civil organizations publicly voiced concern about
capital punishment.
European Union representatives and consulates of Australia, Germany and the
United States attended the event, which was co-organized by the Redemptorists'
Justice and Peace Office, Civil Society Forum, and Vietnam's Universal Periodic
Review Working Group.
"Human beings are created in the image of God, so human life is the most
important. The Fifth Commandment teaches, 'You shall not kill.' That means
murder is banned in any circumstances," said Redemptorist Fr. Anthony Le Ngoc
Thanh from the Justice and Peace Office.
Thanh said some local bishops and priests individually have called for the
elimination of death sentences. "However, the bishops' conference has not yet
petitioned the government to abolish the death penalty," he added.
Although Vietnam's constitution states everyone has the right to life and no
one shall be illegally deprived of his life, the country still imposes a death
sentence for 22 crimes. Courts throughout the country sentence approximately
200 people to death annually. Death sentences are often handed down to those
convicted of drug offenses and murder.
Hua Phi, a leader of Cao Dai, a syncretic belief system, blamed the rising
crime rate among young people on a sharp decline in moral standards caused by
atheist education.
The government should "eliminate the death penalty soon" and adopt a reform of
educational system focusing on human values, Phi said.
Nguyen Quang A, a human rights activist, told participants: "The death penalty
applied in Vietnam has drawn great attention from the international community."
During the Universal Periodic Review Working Group's 2nd cycle in 2014, Vietnam
received nearly 30 recommendations related to abolishing the death penalty, he
added.
However, A said, the government only accepted a few of the recommendations,
such as reducing the number of crimes subjected to persecution and seeking
reform toward the eventual abolition of the death penalty.
"We should popularize [for] the people the recommendations the government
promised and urge them to monitor how the recommendations are implemented in
the country," A said.
(source: National Catholic Reporter)
SOUTH KOREA----new death sentence
Soldier gets death penalty for deadly shooting spree
A military court on Tuesday sentenced an Army deserter to death for killing and
wounding about a dozen unarmed comrades in a shooting rampage at a guard post
close to the border with North Korea.
The court handed down the death penalty to the 23-year-old Army sergeant,
surnamed Lim, for killing 5 and wounding 7 others by detonating a grenade and
firing at his comrades at the border outpost on the east coast in June last
year.
He was also found guilty of running away from his unit with a rifle and a stash
of ammunition. 2 days later, he was captured while being under siege by
thousands of troops right after a botched suicide attempt.
Military prosecutors last month demanded the capital punishment for him on
charges of murder and desertion, arguing that he committed a "cruel and
premeditated attack" on unarmed comrades.
South Korea's military law stipulates that a soldier faces capital punishment
for killing a superior officer. One of the fallen soldiers was a staff sergeant
in Lim's unit.
(source: Yonhap News)
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