May 2
INDONESIA:
British grandmother on death row: Woman convicted of smuggling cocaine faces
firing squad ---- After 8 people are executed in Indonesia for drug smuggling,
a British woman awaits the same fate.
Mostly she passes the time with knitting.
Her partner and 2 sons do not seem to be much in evidence and family contact is
limited to her loyal sister.
One of her few close friends was executed on Wednesday and neither lawyers nor
the British Government can do much for her now - no wonder Lindsay Sandiford
wants it all to be over.
To most Britons Bali is the paradise island, an idyllic holiday destination.
To Sandiford it is a squalid sinkhole where she will end her days - and
probably soon.
The 58-year-old grandmother has been on death row in Bali's Kerobokan jail for
more than 2 years after being convicted in December 2012 of smuggling cocaine
into Bali.
In January 2013 she was sentenced to death, which in Indonesia means facing a
firing squad.
Several legal appeals have bought her some time but they have also prolonged
her ordeal.
After learning that her final appeal to Indonesia's supreme court in 2013 had
failed she seemed more resigned, saying: "I'm not sure if I'm frightened.
"I just hope my death is painless.
"We're all going to die, it's just that I know it won't be old age or illness
that kills me."
A spate of executions in January, among them 4 foreigners, reportedly left her
depressed and listless.
According to an unnamed prison official: "Sometimes she talks about death.
"Sometimes she discusses any opportunity to escape the execution and at other
times she just seems to have surrendered."
After the execution this week of another eight prisoners, all of them convicted
of drug offences like Sandiford and including her "dear friend" the Australian
Andrew Chan, Sandiford is said to have declared: "I just want to get it over
with."
She may not have long to wait.
While protesting in general terms against the death penalty the British
Government has declined to pay for Sandiford's legal costs after her own funds
ran out, or to intervene in her case beyond appealing for clemency.
And so Lindsay Sandiford sits in the sweltering cell that contains her whole
world: a sprung mattress (a luxury compared with the reed mats other inmates
sleep on), a few clothes, bottled water and her knitting.
The toilet is a hole in the floor, the washing facilities a bucket and tap.
Her only glimpse of the outside world is a small courtyard and garden where
prisoners hang their washing.
The women's block in Kerobokan was intended for 39 prisoners but now holds 100
in 10 cells measuring 10ft by 8ft.
The prison has a chapel, a mosque, a tennis court and art room but since women
are kept confined to their own block it is doubtful they ever get to use them.
The only time they can leave is when they have visitors or for court
appearances.
Prison life is dangerous with inmates at the mercy of gangs.
Death row is in fact a death tower, a set of cells arranged in a circle and
facing each other but it is believed that Sandiford remains in the women's
block.
How has this middle-aged mother, grandmother and former legal secretary ended
up in this sorry predicament?
There is, it seems, more than one version of Lindsay Sandiford.
Originally from Redcar, North Yorkshire, she lived in Cheltenham where she
brought up two sons, Louis and Elliot and worked as a legal secretary.
In 2007 she moved to the Himalayas with her partner Shiva Ram and built up a
good business selling jewellery and pashminas to upmarket shops including
Harrods and Harvey Nichols.
I just hope my death is painless----Lindsay Sandiford
However in Cheltenham they remember another Lindsay Sandiford: a "neighbour
from hell" who clashed with the authorities over her 2 out-of-control boys.
The elder son Louis served 6 years for robbery and, as for her life abroad,
others claim she was a major supplier of hashish and cocaine to Bali's expat
community.
According to Sandiford she was coerced into smuggling 10.5lbs (4.8kg) of
cocaine from Bangkok to Bali because drug gangs in England were threatening to
kill her son Elliot, then 21.
"I knew they were asking me to do something dodgy," she said.
"They weren't asking me to bring in tulips or balls of cheese but I didn't know
if it was money, gold, jewellery, guns, marijuana or heroin.
She flew into Bali on May 19, 2012, and was stopped by customs officers who
found the packs of cocaine with a street value of 1.2million pounds.
Sandiford claims she was tied to a chair and had a gun held to her head before
she agreed to help the police.
"The narcotics police promised they would protect me.
"Instead they put an orange suit on me and marched me out in front of the
prison telling everyone I had sung like a bird."
Despite co-operating with the police in December 2012 Sandiford was sentenced
to death.
This shocked even the prosecutor who had asked for a 15-year jail term but the
judge ruled that the amount of cocaine justified the ultimate punishment.
Appeals to the Indonesian high court and then to its supreme court have failed
despite well-wishers donating thousands to pay for her defence.
But then Sandiford is said to be a difficult defendant who has gone through at
least 6 lawyers.
British QC Felicity Gerry, who was instrumental in saving a Filipina woman from
the firing squad, has visited Sandiford in Kerobokan and also appealed to the
Foreign Office to intervene.
Apart from her staunchly loyal sister Hilary, Ms Gerry appears to be virtually
the only support Sandiford has.
"If we have a woman who was coerced and manipulated then the UK Government has
a duty to assist," said the lawyer.
"I went to the Foreign Office in March with Mrs Sandiford's sister but since
then there has been only silence."
Even if reprieved Sandiford faces years in the hellhole of Kerobokan,
brutalised and removed from all she loves.
Who is to say that is preferable to midnight gunfire in the place the
Indonesians call Execution Island?
(source: The Express)
**************
Widodo's Desperate Executions
Indonesia makes no secret that drug-dealing convictions there carry the death
penalty, but until this year the law rarely enforced. Indonesia makes no secret
that drug-dealing convictions there carry the death penalty, but until this
year the law rarely enforced.
Indonesians sometimes joke that their country, which stretches roughly the
distance from Anchorage to Washington, D.C., is the biggest invisible place on
earth. It attracts international attention only through the thunderous
destruction of a tsunami, the blast of a terrorist bomb, or, most recently, the
crack of executioners' rifles.
Shortly after midnight on Thursday, a police firing squad shot through the
heart 1 Indonesian, 2 Australians, 4 Nigerians, and 1 Brazilian (who is said to
have suffered from mental illness), all of whom had been convicted of drug
smuggling. 1 French citizen and 1 Filipino were spared at the last moment, but
may still be executed. Preceding the shots was another deafening noise: the
nationalist chest thumping of Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Widodo portrayed appeals for mercy from Australian, French, and Brazilian
leaders, as well as from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as
affronts to Indonesia's national integrity. "This is our legal sovereignty," he
told foreign reporters who asked what effect the executions would have on
relations with other countries. "Don't ask me that again." Widodo was
effectively saying to Indonesian voters, "Just watch me face down those
bullying foreigners." This message, of course, comes not from a position of
strength but one of weakness. But Indonesia isn't just any nation. Its 250
million people are scattered across 13,500 islands, belong to over 3 hundred
ethnic groups, and speak twice that many languages. They are governed by over
500 district heads and parliaments, who are chosen in elections contested by 12
national and 3 local political parties. As a nation, Indonesia is held together
through patronage networks and elaborate horse-trading, much of it brokered
through the political pooh-bahs in Jakarta.
Widodo heads a minority coalition in the national parliament. That's not
insuperable in Indonesia's deeply transactional political system, but, as an
outsider to both Jakarta and the political elite, the President finds it hard
to wheel or deal his way out of the gridlock that the opposition gleefully
drives him into. As a result, he's unhealthily reliant on the power brokers in
his own political party, notably former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the
daughter of Indonesia's 1st President, Sukarno. She's sulky about the
popularity of a man she treats as her underling (he's often seen to touch his
forehead down to her hand, as one does to a respected elder or teacher), and
she has put many obstacles in his path. Most notably, Megawati engineered a
situation, too complicated to relate, that put the President on the wrong side
of a damaging conflict between the deeply unpopular police and the respected
anti-corruption commission.
Widodo has needed to reassert his credibility with Indonesian voters, to show
that he's more than just Megawati's puppet, that he's still fighting for the
interests of ordinary Indonesians. But because he can't get much done in the
legislature, he has chosen quick wins that can be had solely through executive
power. Executing foreign drug dealers is one of those. So is actively lobbying
for clemency for Indonesian nationals who are on death row in other countries,
such as Saudi Arabia. The sovereignty argument, it appears, only runs in 1
direction.
Indonesia, like its Southeast Asian neighbors Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam,
and like China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, makes no secret that drug-dealing
convictions carry the death penalty. Travellers arriving by plane (that's
almost everyone in this island nation) are informed of the fact on every
flight, and smoking guns grace banner ads from the Narcotics Control Board at
all major airports. But until this year Indonesia rarely enforced the law. Over
the 15 years before Widodo took office, 7 foreigners, and no Indonesians, were
put to death for narcotics-related offenses. Under Widodo, in the past year
alone 12 foreigners have been executed for drug smuggling, along with 2
Indonesians.
The executions have been surprisingly popular at home. In a poll published the
day before the latest round, 86 % of Indonesians said that they thought the
government should proceed with the killings. Most respondents echoed Widodo's
rhetoric: wicked foreigners are tearing at the fabric of Indonesian society by
luring young people into using drugs. The President backs up these phantoms
with shocking numbers. Over 50 young Indonesians die every day because of
drugs, and some 4 million Indonesians are abusing drugs. So the President says,
and so the Indonesian press reports. Killing drug dealers supposedly will wipe
out this terrible scourge and save a generation.
Widodo's death statistics, however, are so methodologically flawed that you
could use them to teach critical data review to teen-agers. As for the
prevalence of drug abuse, the most recent Indonesian survey that is in any way
comparable with those of other countries shows that, in 2011, just 4 % of young
Indonesians had ever tried drugs, including not only cannabis, speed, and
heroin but also glue (sniffed), cough medicine (drank excessive amounts), and
headache pills (mixed with soft drinks). That's down by 1/2 from a similar
survey 5 years earlier, and it pales in comparison with drug use among young
people in the United States and Europe. In the U.S., 35 % of students of a
similar age report having used cannabis, and 16 % have used hard drugs,
including ecstasy, coke, crack, LSD, and heroin. French 16-year-olds report
even higher levels of drug use.
Is Indonesia really facing a national catastrophe on the drug front? And, if
so, is killing drug mules the best response? Other countries, with rates of
drug use 10 times higher, don't seem to think so. They have other ways of
reducing drug-related deaths: making sure that people suffering overdoses have
access to life-saving naloxone, for example; providing injectors with easy
access to sterile equipment so that they don't get fatal infections; and
offering less dangerous drugs, such as methadone, to help people get off more
dangerous ones, such as heroin. (The U.S. is not a leader in drug-abuse harm
reduction, but it is doing better than Indonesia.) These policies will all do
more to reduce drug-related deaths than killing dealers, especially when the
dealers are trying to take drugs out of the country, and off the local market,
as was the case with the 2 Australians killed on Thursday.
That was not the only anomaly in their cases. The Australians' former lawyer
and the wife of one of the Nigerian prisoners both claimed that Indonesian
judges had asked for bribes in exchange for lighter sentences. In the case of
the Australians, the judges are said to have rescinded the offer after being
told by Jakarta to hand down a death sentence (if true, that would also be
illegal). The Brazilian smuggler had an established diagnosis of schizophrenia,
which, like any other mental illness, should have swept the accused out of the
path of a death sentence. These legal issues alone should be enough to trigger
full reviews, and there are similar oddities in most of the other cases.
Widodo, however, is far too weak politically to have hesitated over these
issues. He desperately needed to signal his strength at home, and he could most
easily do that through the crack of the firing squad. He doesn't give a fig how
it sounds to the rest of the world.
(source: The New Yorker)
***************
Common sense of the death penalty - Purna Cita Nugraha
"We would not permit the death penalty for criminals, but allow the murder of
thousands innocents."
Maybe those are the perfect words to capture President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's
response to such modern-day public opinions abroad in regards to the execution
of 8 death row inmates earlier this week.
President Jokowi in one of his media interview asked the press to expose more
on the victims of drug trafficking rather than capitalizing on sympathy of
those who had poisoned thousands of members of Indonesia's young generations.
Although the executions have been widely opposed abroad, most people in
Indonesia are seemingly OK with capital punishment, arguing that it is a matter
of sovereignty and is guaranteed by its respective law.
The classic debate between pros and cons has come back to the fore. The
opposite side brings along strong arguments on human rights, miscarriage of
justice, as well as international trends on abolitionism and discrimination.
The other side takes its tough position on sovereignty, retribution, justice,
due process of law and law enforcement.
At this point, the sanity of our prejudice is once again tested. It will lead
to a question of which way our common sense will guide us.
There are at least 3 senses that can help us to respond to the question.
First is the sense of diversity. In a world where forms of difference are
commonly accepted and dialogue between very different nations is essential, it
is important to uphold the respect for difference.
Be it abolitionist or retentionist, this is part of these differences. And most
people agree that both sides have their standpoints, values and arguments and
that neither abolitionist nor retentionist is on the losing or wrong side of
the road.
According to the Lowy Institute, in a country that has already abolished
capital punishment, like Australia, more than 30 % of its people say the
executions of Australian nationals Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran should have
gone ahead and 26 % of Australians believe that the death penalty should apply
to drug traffickers.
It showed us that even in an abolitionist country, there are still dissenting
voices of retentionism.
Second is the legal sense. The fact that the death penalty is still considered
part of positive law both nationally or internationally has provided states
with the right to enforce the death penalty in accordance with their national
interests.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), of which
Indonesia is a party, permits the use of the death penalty in limited
circumstances.
Article 6 of the ICCPR states that the sentence of death may be imposed only
for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of
the commission of the crime and can only be carried out pursuant to a final
judgement rendered by a competent court.
As for Indonesia, the death penalty remains part of ius contitutum and can only
be applied with respect to a court's decision.
Third is the sense of protection of the common good. The state has the right to
apply the death penalty for serious crimes because it must protect the common
good.
Common sense sometimes says that if we are to consistently defend the right to
life, we must oppose capital punishment. But, by supporting common rights to
use capital punishment in certain cases, we are actually continuing to defend
innocent life, protecting the common good from grave crimes.
Theodore Roosevelt once said that in regard to capital punishment, the trouble
is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up
at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown
individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask.
Indeed, the decision to use the death penalty is serious and must not be
lightly imposed. But the state does have the right to use the death penalty as
the ultimate punishment and last resort.
In the end, if our common sense leads us to what we call active controversy and
debatable territory, we need to rely more on our own wisdom.
It is up to the government and wisdom of its nation to determine what is right
for them. As for now, Indonesia under President Jokowi strongly believes that
the reinstated death penalty is the right decision to address the severe drug
problem in Indonesia.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
*******************
Death to all pleas: the executioner's wrong
Last week justice became travesty.
When Indonesia killed Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran, and six others, the
punishment did not fit the crime. The punishment became the crime.
Chan had found God, Sukumaran had found art. Once they were blind to these
things, then the light came; once they could see, now is darkness. The
condemned on their final steps to the firing squad sang Amazing Grace. Who
sings now for this Indonesian government?
President Joko Widodo says: "There shouldn't be any intervention towards the
death penalty because it is our sovereign right to exercise our law."
He's right.
It is their sovereign right to exercise their law. The pity, and the tragedy,
is that in exercising their rights, they have exorcised their moral
culpability. Australia recalls its ambassador and Indonesia sees it merely as a
few ripples on the ocean of international affairs.
A week has almost passed. On the Wednesday morning, just hours after the
executions, a family friend of Chan's said: "I think the anger's going to come
for a lot of us, it's not here yet. It's just sadness."
Prime Minister Tony Abbott concurred, saying to Australians, "You are
absolutely entitled to be angry" before as if talking to himself, "we've got to
be very careful to ensure that we do not allow our anger to make a bad
situation worse".
Chan's brother Michael, after seeing his sibling for the last time, said the
final goodbye was "torture".
This then was the world that opened up to family and friends in the past few
days: lamentation, grief and loss. No one would want this eternal embrace. Even
if the wounds heal over, under the surface there is still the hole where a life
used to be, always falling away.
There is no justification for a state to kill a drug smuggler. There is no
cultural, religious, political or societal reason to do so. Chan and Sukumaran,
on being found guilty of heroin smuggling, deserved to be in prison, and a long
time at that. They had been hoping to make a profit on other people's misery
and addiction, and the best they could say in defence is that at the time, like
most crims, they didn't think of the consequences of their actions. They
certainly didn't think they'd get caught.
But did they, because of their actions, deserve to die; that is, to not exist?
It is here that hopefully the Australian Federal Police might shed light soon
on why they didn't wait until they had entered this country to arrest them. Yes
there were agreements in place, but did no one think, wait a minute if we pass
this information on, odds are someone might be executed. Ministerial directions
to the AFP to take account of a country's stance on the death penalty when
seeking co-operation seem to bend in the wind.
There is no universal template for what is the heinous crime whose only
response can be state-sanctioned death. Crimes against humanity
notwithstanding, justice served by execution varies around the globe - from the
US to Saudi Arabia, China and Indonesia.
What then is justice? It depends on your point of view, where you are standing.
Justice has several pillars - punishment, deterrence, retribution and
rehabilitation, for instance. The latter presupposes that people can change.
Chan and Sukumaran were the proof of this. And yet, being where they were, that
is caught in the steel trap of a truculent politician, it meant nothing. For
Widodo, to deny death its day would have been, in effect, to denounce his own
political word - and to cripple the spine of campaigning that delivered him the
presidency.
The French philosopher Simone Weil wrote that "there is one, and only one,
thing in modern society more hideous than crime - namely, repressive justice".
Chan and Sukumaran were already off the street, indeed, they had been for a
decade. They were no longer a threat to society. How they were dealt with then,
in the end, came down to deterrence (showing others what may befall them) and
retribution (which is more muddied since they were caught taking drugs out of
the country).
Sukumaran told The Age's Michael Bachelard: "We were attempting to take drugs
out of Indonesia not importing [them]. We failed. We f---d up. We were wrong,
we know that. We're paying for that. Our families are paying for our mistake.
"We've changed. We've done so much in the last six to seven years, more than
most prisoners in prisons all over the world ... What use will executing us be?
It won't stop the drugs here. It will just be a cover so the big people [can]
continue doing what they are doing. We've changed. We don't deserve to be
executed. Our families shouldn't have to suffer like this."
The Jakarta Globe in an editorial on April 24 said: "A day that no rational,
compassionate human being could ever wish for appears to be at hand ... fellow
human beings are gunned down in a hail of bullets because the Indonesian
government wants to make a barbarous point.
"Why persist with a practice as savage as the death penalty when much of the
world cries out against it? What can Indonesia gain from this?"
Certainly, to the rest of the world it has lost more than it has gained. For
the exercise of its authority, defiantly so, it has diminished itself. It may
not care. From Widodo's public stance, this is the case. And yet Indonesia
appeals to other countries not to execute its citizens found guilty of crime.
When it comes to executions, the sanctity of life as a principle is marked or
put into practice by its degree of usefulness.
This is, of course, how hypocrisy works. American writer Ambrose Bierce defined
it thus: "Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo." This past week, we can alter it to
"extreme prejudice". Or as Shakespeare had Hamlet say to Ophelia: "God has
given you one face, and you make yourself another."
Not long past midnight the faces of Chan, Sukumaran and the other condemned
prisoners, were frozen in the past. Time had ceased for them.
Some people believe the past is always receding. Others, that it is never far
behind, always about to catch up. Some try to forget their past, some can't.
But in everyone the past and the present are one. And it is this blending that
creates a future. Except for Chan and Sukumaran. Death became them overnight.
While we were saying good night last Tuesday, putting the dog and cat into the
laundry, having a last look at the night sky and its canopy of stars, setting
the alarm for the early start the next day, on an island prison a clock was
ticking. The next morning one alarm did go off, and we arose to face another
day. On an island prison, another clock stopped. The coffins had already been
brought out, the mourning had begun.
Overnight Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran became death.
(source: Commentary, Warwick McFadyen, Brisbane Times)
*************************
2 Still at Risk of Imminent Execution
see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/uaa30514_5.pdf
(source: Amnesty International)
********************
Executed Indonesian May Have Been Denied Justice by Clerical Blunder: Supreme
Court
Jakarta. Zainal Abidin, the sole Indonesian among a batch of 8 drug offenders
executed on Wednesday, may have been denied justice because of a bureaucratic
blunder, the Supreme Court has revealed.
On its website, the final court of appeals said on Thursday that the case
review that it received from Zainal - and subsequently rejected 2 days before
he was put to death - had been submitted 10 years late.
The Palembang District Court in South Sumatra initially convicted Zainal in
August 2001 to 18 years in prison for possession of 58.7 kilograms of
marijuana. Prosecutors, who had sought the death penalty on trafficking
charges, mounted an appeal with the Palembang High Court, which duly handed
down the death sentence less than a month later.
In May 2005, Zainal???s lawyers filed a case review, or PK, a final form of
appeal that is heard by the Supreme Court. In keeping with procedure, the case
review was filed with the original court hearing the case, which was expected
to forward the case to the Supreme Court.
However, the Palembang District Court did nothing with the case for nearly 10
years, until April 8 this year, when it grew increasingly apparent that Zainal
would be among the next batch of inmates to be put to death.
"The Supreme Court's assistant clerk for special crimes did not receive the PK
until April 8, 2015," chief clerk Soeroso Ono said in the statement on the
website.
"That means that from May 2, 2005, until April 2015, the case was not in the
hands of the Supreme Court clerk. The Supreme Court had less than a week in
which to hear the review, from April 21, 2015, when it reached the judges, to
April 27, 2015, when the ruling was handed down."
Soeroso said it was worrying that the Palembang District Court had failed to
forward the case to the Supreme Court for nearly a decade, and urged courts
across the country to be more meticulous about sticking with judicial
procedures.
However, there was no explanation from the Supreme Court for why it had not
sought to stay Zainal's execution, given that his case review was still being
heard when prosecutors notified him about the impending execution.
Legal analysts have also expressed concern that the court's rejection of the
case review may have been influenced by the time pressure that the judges were
under, and that had the review been heard in 2005, as it was supposed to, the
outcome might have been different.
(source: The Jakarta Globe)
****************
EU Parliament Calls For Indonesia's Immediate Moratorium On Death Penalty
Members of all European Parliament political groups condemned the recent
execution of 8 people in Indonesia on Thursday, and called for an immediate
moratorium on the death penalty there.
In a debate on Thursday with international cooperation Commissioner Neven
Mimica, MEPs stressed that even though they respect Indonesia's sovereignty and
its fight against drug trafficking, the death penalty can never be justified.
MEPs urged the Indonesian authorities to abolish the death penalty, suggesting
that it be replaced with other sanctions, such as life imprisonment. Many also
questioned whether the people executed and those still on death row, among them
a French citizen, really had fair trials. They cited the execution of Brazilian
Rodrigo Gularte, despite his alleged mental illness, and a lack of lawyers and
interpreters.
Some MEPs referred to Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban's recent statement
about a possible restoration of the death penalty, saying that Europe should be
proud of its ban on the death penalty and should fight any attempt to
reintroduce it. Several underlined that the death penalty is inhuman and has
not been proven to prevent crimes.
Commissioner Mimica added that the EU is using all possible instruments,
including assistance to combat drug trafficking and political pressure, to
prevent recourse to the death penalty in any circumstances.
(source: Eurasia Review)
NORTH KOREA:
Kim Jong Un's N. Korea Prefers Mass Executions By Anti-Aircraft Cannons
North Korea has been executing its political prisoners and unwanted elite by
firing squad for decades. But a shot to the heart apparently isn't brutal
enough for Kim Jong Un, who's reportedly using anti-aircraft cannons to kill
dissidents, according to at least 1 watchdog group.
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and All Source Analysis Inc. (a
company that specializes in Image Intelligence), say the picture below, taken
on October 7 last year of a military training range about 12 miles north of
Pyongyang, proves that the country is now using anti-aircraft heavy machine
guns for executions.
At this small arms firing range, half a dozen ZPU-4 towed anti-aircraft guns
can be seen lined up in a row about 30 feet from a viewing area. Behind the
guns are said to be personnel and other equipment, while military trucks, a
trailer, and a bus can be seen parked on a nearby driveway. Beyond the guns
muzzles, at a distance of about 100 feet, are said to be a row of people lined
up waiting to be killed by the AAA guns turned executioner's tool.
The report accompanying the photo above offers a solid analysis that highlights
how they came to the conclusion that the satellite caught this high-level human
slaughter. This included a comparative analysis of pictures taken days after
the horrific satellite image was snapped.
It doesn???t take a military analyst to look at a ZPU-4 and realize that there
is no reason anyone would be playing target practice at a hundred feet on a
flat plane with such a weapon, especially against a backstop rated for pistol
and light rifle fire.
Horrifically creative forms of execution - all of which are a public affair to
various degrees - have been a cottage industry in North Korea's political
machine for many decades. Having prisoners try to escape falling mortars and
even using flame-throwers on supposed dissidents have also been reported during
the last 3 iterations of the "Kim Dynasty."
The most recent execution via mortar round was supposedly the result of a very
literal interpretation from a 2012 order given by Kim Jong Un to execute the
Vice Minister of the Army in a way that "no trace of him would be left behind,
down to his hair," at least according to state-ran media. O Sang-hon, a
minister at the Ministry of Public Security was recently executed by flame
thrower as a result of helping higher-up power brokers in the Party keep their
"illegal" business transactions secret. Oh and those guys that had the business
transactions to keep secret in the first place, including long-time high
ranking bureaucrat and Kim Family confidant, Jang Song-taek? They were all
executed as well by various horrible means.
(source: foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com)
NIGERIA:
Not Afraid To Die; 19 Nigerians Have Attempted Smuggling Drugs To Asia Since
January 2014
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said it has stopped 20 people
from smuggling drugs out of Nigeria.
The agency, in a statement on Thursday, said since January 2014, 19 Nigerians
and a Ghanaian have been arrested in Nigerian airports attempting to smuggle
106,914 kilogrammes of narcotics.
"16 of the suspects were apprehended at the Murtala Muhammed International
Airport Lagos while 4 others including a Ghanaian were caught at the Akanu
Ibiam International Airport Enugu,??? reports quote NDLEA Chairman, Ahmadu
Giade to have said.
"Their final destinations are Malaysia, China and Thailand where drug
trafficking is punishable by death."
3 Nigerians - Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Raheem Agbaje Salami and Okwudili
Oyatanze - were among 8 people executed by Indonesian authorities over
drug-related offences during the week.
Giade, while commiserating with their families, urged relevant authorities to
intensify anti-drug abuse campaign efforts.
"I sincerely sympathise with the families of the executed drug convicts.
"This is a moment of sober reflection on the illicit activities of drug
trafficking syndicates. This brings to the fore the bigger picture of those in
foreign prisons, those arrested here and others preparing to smuggle drugs.
"It is a wake-up call for stakeholders to step up their counter-narcotics
efforts. Apart from drug trafficking being a criminal act, narcotic smuggling
poses a serious threat to public health and safety."
A breakdown of the drugs nabbed from the 20 suspected smugglers showed that
83.08kg was seized at the Lagos airport while 23.834kg was intercepted at the
Enugu airport. The seized drugs included 89.024kg of cannabis, 9.375kg of
methamphetamine, 3.450kg of amphetamine, 2.89kg of heroin and 2.175kg of
cocaine.
The only Ghanaian among the suspects, Musa Idrisa, also known as Charles
Udenehi, was going to Bangkok, Thailand, with 450 grams of cocaine he had
ingested.
Among those arrested were three females, including Chidinma Okafor, a
professional dancer, caught with 3.450kg of amphetamine hidden in a pair of
jeans trousers while attempting to board a flight to Malaysia; Eze Maureen
caught with 6.200kg of cannabis on her way to China; and Alade Muyinotu found
with 1.725kg of cocaine and 1.715kg of heroin on her way to China.
Despite knowing the penalty for being caught with hard drugs in Asia, some
Nigerians still smuggle drugs to the continent.
According to Harm Reduction International (HRI), a drug-focused NGO, 32
countries impose the death penalty for drug smuggling. All, except America,
Cuba, Sudan and South Sudan are in Asia or the Middle East. However, executions
are extremely rare in most of these countries. 14, including Cuba and America
have the death penalty in their laws for drug traffickers but do not apply it.
HRI's most recent analysis show that only in 6 countries - China, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore - are drug offenders known to be
routinely executed. Indonesia may be added in the next analysis following
recent drug-related executions in the country.
(source: Information Nigeria)
**************
Nigeria urged to act as child bride languishes on death row----Amnesty
International leads calls condemning the Nigerian government for keeping child
bride Maimuna Abdulmumini behind bars
The Nigerian government is violating its own laws by keeping a child bride on
death row for murdering her husband almost a year after a regional court
dismissed the sentence handed down to her, according to a coalition of human
rights campaigners.
Maimuna Abdulmumini, 22, accused of burning her husband to death as a teenager,
remains in prison today despite the Economic Community of West African States
(Ecowas) Court of Justice ruling in June 2014 that the decision by a court in
the north of the country to impose the death penalty was a violation of her
fundamental rights.
As the 1 year anniversary of the ruling approaches, Amnesty International has
released a strongly worded statement calling on the Nigerian government to
curtail forced marriage as a matter of urgency and abolish the death penalty.
"Nigeria has a great deal of work to do to improve its record on human rights,
particularly when it comes to the rights of women and girls," says a
spokeswoman for Amnesty International UK.
"The gender gap last year was shocking. According to the UN???s Gender Equality
Index, Nigeria featured 152 on the list of 187 countries.
"An immediate way in which the new government can improve the human rights
situation is to abolish the death penalty, and do more to stop early and forced
marriage taking place."
Avocats Sans Frontieres (ASF), who filed the case with the Ecowas court and has
campaigned for Abdulmumini's release for over a year, add that "it would be
unacceptable for Maimuna Abdulmumini to remain on death row".
Abdulmumini was 13 when her husband, Ibrahim, burned to death in their marital
home. For the 5 months they were married, their relationship was characterised
by systemic abuse, according to Abdulmumini's lawyers. In response to questions
posed by the Guardian and asked through her legal team, Abdulmumini herself
said that her husband was "violent" to her in the the time they were married
and suffered from a mental illness.
After a legal process dragged on for five years, Abdulmumini was convicted of
murder and sentenced to death in December 2012. She has been in prison at
Katsina state jail ever since, her mental state gradually deteriorating as she
shares an already cramped cell with 5 other condemned women.
"Although our team has been at her side during all the proceeding initiated
before the Ecowas Court, one can hardly imagine how frustrating it is for
Maimuna Abdulmumini not to see yet the practical impact of the judgement,"
explains Angela Uwandu, from ASF Nigeria.
Born and raised in small village in Katsina state, in northern Nigeria,
Abdulmumini received a limited formal education in a 2-classroom school. Her
only lessons were focused on learning the English alphabet and studying Islam,
with her subject being Arabic.
When she turned her 13, her parents told her she would be married. In northern
Nigeria, where senators marry teenagers, this wasn't out of the ordinary; 17%
of girls in the country are married before the age of 15, according to the
charity Girls Not Brides. In the Muslim-dominated part of the country, nearly
1/2 of girls are married by the age of 15 and 78% are married by the time they
hit 18. All of this is despite child marriage being prohibited under Nigerian
law more than a decade ago.
In 2003, the Child Rights Act, raised the minimum age of marriage for girls to
18, but due to the west African country's complex federalised system, only 24
of Nigeria's 36 states have passed the legislation.
In the years following her husband's death and her trial, Abdulmumini remarried
and had a child, Habiba.
In a criminal trial in northern Nigeria, Abdulmumini's age at the time of the
crime was not taken into account. This is despite the death sentence being
prohibited for under-18s under international law.
Oliver Robertson, the death penalty and alternatives project manager at Penalty
Reform International, says "it is recognised worldwide that people must not be
sentenced to death for crimes committed before they were 18."
"This applies in all circumstances, regardless of whether local laws state that
girls are considered adult when they marry."
Mr Robertson suggests that Nigeria is failing to meet its obligations under
international law in its handling of the case.
"The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Nigeria has ratified, is
unequivocal about this, stating: 'Neither capital punishment nor life
imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences
committed by persons below 18 years of age'," he explains.
"A key reason why the death penalty is banned for offences committed while a
child is that children are still developing, and so are more able to reform and
change. Killing them prevents any chance of making a better life for
themselves, and for their family."
Abdulmumini's case has so far failed to gain attention in the international
media, beyond stories by the Guardian.
This is in contrast to other death penalty cases in Nigeria which have been
subject to lengthy campaigns by western NGOs.
Last year, Amnesty campaigned successfully for the release of Thankgod Ebhos, a
Nigerian man who spent 19 years on death row and was seconds away from being
executed before an intervention by the Ecowas court.
Traumatised by her time in prison and unable to see her young daughter,
Abdulmumini is desperate to be free and reconnect with Habiba.
As Robertson argues, states which have signed up to the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child have an obligation to take into account the interests of
children of prisoners when deciding on sentences.
"Countries have an obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child
to consider the best interests of the child in all situations that concern
them: the possible execution of a child???s mother undoubtedly passes that
test," he says.
"Children are not bargaining chips used by defendants to gain support or
sympathy. They are individuals with their own rights and needs, and these
rights and needs must be considered by the court."
(source: The Guardian)
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Saudi behaeds another Pakistani on drug trafficking charge
Saudi Arbaia beheaded a Pakistani convicted of drug smuggling on Friday, the
73rd execution in the kingdom so far this year.
Shirin Khan was put to death in Riyadh province after being found guilty of
smuggling heroin into the kingdom in swallowed balloons, the interior ministry
said.
In the whole of 2014, Saudi Arabia carried out 87 executions, and Amnesty
International has spoken of a "macabre spike" in the kingdom's use of the death
penalty this year.
The Gulf has become an increasingly important market for illicit drugs in
recent years, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says.
The Pakistani city of Karachi is a key transit point for heroin from
Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia has carried out a spate of executions of Pakistani
drugs mules.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable
by death under Saudi Arabia's version of Islamic sharia law. The cabinet has
affirmed that the kingdom's legal system ensures "justice for all", Saudi Press
Agency (SPA) reported.
But Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions, said in September last year that trials "are by all
accounts grossly unfair" and defendants are often not allowed a lawyer. He said
confessions were obtained under torture.
The Gulf state has carried out around 80 executions annually since 2011. In
comparison, Iran has executed more than 1,000 people since January last year,
Ahmed Shaheed said the UN special rapporteur on Iran.
(source: Daily Pakistan)
******************
3 More Beheaded: Saudi Arabia Sees 'Macabre Spike' in 2015 Executions
A Saudi national who murdered his father was among 3 people beheaded on
Thursday, the interior ministry said, bringing the total number of executions
in the kingdom this year to 72.
Authorities executed Abdullah al-Balawi after his conviction for stabbing his
father to death, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi
Press Agency (SPA).
SPA reported that the son had planned the murder, but it did not give his
motives.
Another Saudi, Fayez al-Atwi in Riyadh, was beheaded for gunning down a member
of the security forces while he was on duty.
The 3rd person executed was Abdullah al-Ruwaili, a Saudi found guilty of
"smuggling a large amount of banned amphetamine pills," said the ministry.
Both Balawi and Ruwaili were executed in the northwestern city of Tabuk.
The 3 cases bring to 72 the number of death sentences carried out this year,
compared with 87 for all of 2014, according to an AFP tally.
Amnesty International has criticized a "macabre spike" in the use of the death
penalty this year in Saudi Arabia, which the London-based watchdog group ranked
among the world's top three executioners of 2014.
Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable
by death under the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law. The interior
ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for carrying out the punishment.
In the first 3 weeks of August 2014, Saudi officials carried an average of more
than 1 execution per day. 1/2 of the executions carried out last year were for
non-lethal offenses, Amnesty International said.
Beheadings are most common form of execution in Saudi Arabia, with the acts
sometimes taking place in public. In January, activists leaked a video of an
executioner beheading a woman accused of killing her stepdaughter.
Saudi officials told CNN that beheadings are an integral part of their system
of Islamic law, and the only violation that took place at the gruesome scene
was the illegal filming of the act.
The man responsible for the video was arrested and was to be tried, a Saudi
official said, although months later, his fate in unknown.
"We emphasize respect for the right to life as one of the fundamental rights
guaranteed by the law. It should not make us forget the rights of other parties
violated by the perpetrators, which has to be seen with the same degree of
respect, Mohammed al-Muadi, of the government-backed Saudi Human Rights
Commission, told CNN in January.
While the kingdom does not appear to be affected by international pressure,
there are private discussions that could lead officials to consider methods
like lethal injection in the coming years, Saudi legal experts told CNN.
According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia's more than 90 executions in
2014 trailed only Iran's more than 289 and China, which is estimated to have
executed thousands, although numbers cannot be confirmed.
Iraq's more than 61 executions were the 4th most, while the United States' 35
were the 5th most.
The organization said there were 607 executions in 22 countries in 2014 - a
decrease of 22% compared with the year before.
(source: sputniknews.com)
****************
70 People Executed in Saudi Arabia This Year: Interior Ministry
A Saudi national convicted of murdering his father was beheaded on Thursday,
bringing to 70 the number of executions carried out this year in the kingdom,
the interior ministry said.
The number compares with 87 in the whole of 2014, according to an AFP tally.
Abdullah Al Balawi was convicted of stabbing his father to death, said a
ministry statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
He was executed in the northwestern city of Tabuk.
Amnesty International has criticized a "macabre spike" in the use of the death
penalty this year in Saudi Arabia, which the London-based watchdog ranked among
the top 3 executioners in the world in 2014.
Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy, homosexuality and armed robbery are
all punishable by death under the kingdom.
(source: Tasnim News Agency)
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