July 26
PAKISTAN:
Pak court stays hanging of 'mentally-ill' prisoner
A Pakistani court has stayed the execution of a former policeman, convicted for
killing his colleague, as it sought a report from jail authorities over his
family's claims that he is "mentally-ill".
The district and sessions judge here had earlier issued death warrant for the
convict, Khizar Hayat, for July 28.
However, the prisoner's mother filed a stay application through Justice Project
Pakistan (JPP), a non-government organisation working for prisoners' rights, in
the district court, which yesterday stayed the hanging.
JPP's counsel Sara Belal had told the judge that the jail authorities in 2008
diagnosed that Hayat, 41, had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
Arguing that national and international laws did not permit hanging of insane
persons, the lawyer requested the court to set aside death warrant and stop the
execution of Hayat.
Hayat, who was a police constable, was arrested in 2001 for killing a fellow
policeman. A trial court awarded him death sentence in 2003.
The Lahore High Court division had earlier decided the matter of Hayat's mental
health and allowed the execution after the jail officials told the court that
at the time of filing mercy petition before the President, the medical
examination of the condemned prisoner was conducted and he was found fit.
The medical officer concerned had also told the court that the prisoner was
having symptoms of depression for which anti-psychotic medication was provided
to him and he was a fit person.
Executions in Pakistan resumed in December last year, ending a 6-year
moratorium, after Taliban fighters gunned down 154 people, most of them
children, at a school at Peshawar.
Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism
offences, but in March they were extended to all capital offences.
More than 8,000 prisoners are on death row in Pakistan and about 160 convicts
have been executed since the Nawaz Sharif government lifted moratorium on death
penalty.
The Pakistani government had halted the executions during the month of Ramadan
that ended last week.
(source: Business Standard)
*****************
Islamist "Justice": Slow Painful Death for Christian Mother in Pakistan
While working as a farm laborer on a hot day, Asia Bibi was told to fetch
water. When she returned, Muslim coworkers refused to drink from the water,
saying it was unclean because a Christian had touched it.
6 years later, Asia Bibi still has not been executed. Instead, sick, isolated,
and regularly beaten by both prison guards and Muslim inmates, she has
evidently been left to rot to death.
Every time any Western organization calls for her release, Pakistani Muslims
threaten to take Sharia law into their own hands. One mosque prayer leader has
even offered $6000 to anyone who kills her -- a strong incentive, since many in
Pakistan would probably kill her for free.
According to Islamic law, the word of a Christian is not valid against the word
of a Muslim. Accusations of blasphemy against Christians by Muslims routinely
result in the Christians being imprisoned, beaten, and sometimes killed -- in
some cases even without evidence. Pakistan does not require proof of a crime,
only allegations -- often made for extraneous reasons, and totally unfounded.
Pakistan's authorities appear to have found a solution to at least one of their
problems in the international arena: Aasiya Noreen -- or "Asia Bibi" -- a
50-year-old Christian woman and mother of 5, who has been on death row for 6
years for allegedly insulting Muhammad.
Instead of executing Asia Bibi and further advertising to the international
community that theirs is a savage and backwards nation -- and instead of
releasing her and provoking millions of angry Muslims to turn on the government
and accuse it of supporting "apostasy" -- Pakistan's authorities appear to be
letting time, wretched conditions, severe maltreatment, and beatings slowly
kill her.
Asia Bibi and 2 of her 5 children, pictured prior to her imprisonment.
Recent reports state that she is deathly ill and "so weak she could hardly
walk." Mission Network News says that Asia Bibi has "internal bleeding,
abdominal pain, and is vomiting blood. If she does not receive immediate
medical care, she could die."
According to Bruce Allen of Forgotten Missionaries International, "She suffers
terrible pain, and she can hardly eat. ... Here's this woman, languishing in a
prison under this death sentence for a crime that she vehemently denies."
In June 2009, while working as a farm laborer on a hot day, Asia Bibi was told
to fetch water. Because she had drunk some of the water, the Muslim workers
refused it: both the cup and the water were, they said, unclean because a
Christian had touched them.
Before the "cup" incident, it seems, a feud between Asia and one of her Muslim
neighbors concerning property damage had existed.
After the "cup" incident, her enemies and some of the Muslim workers complained
to a Muslim cleric. They accused Asia Bibi of making insulting statements about
the Muslim prophet, Muhammad. Her official "crime," therefore, which she
vehemently denies, is "insulting" the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Shortly after the complaint was registered, a mob stormed her home and severely
beat her and her family, including her children. They put a noose around her
neck and dragged her through the streets. She was then arrested; and in
November 2010, a Punjabi court fined her and sentenced her to death by hanging,
in accordance to Section 295-C, which prohibits on pain of death any insult
against the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Because her case attracted attention and condemnation from the international
community, 6 years later, she still, mercifully, has not been executed.
Instead, however, sick, isolated and regularly beaten by prison guards and
Muslim inmates, she has evidently been left to rot to death.
In late 2011, a female prison-officer -- assigned to provide security for Asia
-- was discovered beating her, "allegedly because of the Muslim officer's
anti-Christian bias, while other staff members deployed for her security looked
on in silence."
In late December 2013, Asia Bibi, a Catholic, sent a message to Pope Francis,
saying that, "only God will be able to free me. ... I also hope that every
Christian has been able to celebrate the Christmas just past with joy. Like
many other prisoners, I also celebrated the birth of the Lord in prison in
Multan, here in Pakistan... I would have liked to be in St. Peter's for
Christmas to pray with you, but I trust in God's plan for me and hopefully it
will be achieved next year."
It was not. In 2014, a Pakistani court upheld her death penalty. Recently, Pope
Francis called for clemency for Asia Bibi while the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom pressed the Obama administration to designate
Pakistan a "country of particular concern."
Last year, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, citing Asia Bibi in particular, as well
others, called for the use of the $900 million in U.S. aid to Pakistan as
leverage to help persecuted religious minorities. If these funds are not used
as leverage, nearly $1 billion in U.S. aid can be seen as "rewarding" Pakistan
for being openly unjust to its minorities.
Christian minorities are still arrested for "defaming Muhammad" -- that is, if
a Muslim mob does not get to them first and burn them alive, as happened to a
Christian couple last year, and as was recently attempted against a mentally
disabled Christian man.
According to Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association:
Asia Bibi is by no means the only Christian on death row for blasphemy in
Pakistan. There are a number of others, and there are also other Christians who
are in there for crimes they did not commit, and are in effect in there because
they are Christians.
People have to contact leaders of their nations and ask them to engage on
dialogue with the Pakistani government for humanitarian rights alone renew the
primary place of human rights when they engage in dialogue with foreign
governments which habitually violate them. We see what happens when someone
tries to challenge the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, it got 2 key politicians
killed.
In a country with such animosity against Christians, I don't believe a Supreme
Court judge will be brave enough to exonerate her.
A report from 2012 found that "Since 1990 alone, 52 people have been
extra-judicially murdered on charges of blasphemy" in Pakistan.
Yet every time any Western entity calls for her release, Pakistani Muslims
threaten to take Sharia law into their own hands and murder her. 5 years ago, a
mosque prayer leader announced that anyone who manages to kill her would be
rewarded with $6,000. It is a strong incentive, considering that many in
Pakistan would probably kill her for free.
As Asia Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, puts it:
"The Maulvis [clerics] want her dead. They have announced a prize of Rs 10,000
to Rs 500,000 for anyone who kills Asia. They have even declared that if the
court acquits her they will ensure the death sentence stands.
"I am planning our protection. If she is set free I hope we are moved to a
safer country, as Pakistan cannot protect her.
"She has not made any mistake. We all know she has not committed any crime. We
all know how Pakistan treats Christians. She was framed, she never committed
any crime."
Even some of those who have stood up for Asia Bibi have been murdered: two of
her most prominent advocates, Governor Salmaan Taseer and Minority Affairs
Minister Shabaz Bhatti, were both slaughtered. Taseer was shot 27 times by
Mumtaz Qadri -- his own bodyguard -- as he left his mother's home. The
bodyguard cited as his motive that the governor was supportive of a Christian
woman accused of blasphemy.
After the murder, more than 500 Muslim clerics voiced support for the crime,
and further pushed for a general boycott of Taseer's funeral. Supporters of
Mumtaz Qadri blocked police who were attempting to arrest him, and some
supporters showered him with rose petals.
As for Bhatti, a Christian, Taliban-linked Muslims murdered him for his
outspoken position against Pakistan's blasphemy law and his support for Asia
Bibi. His car was ambushed and sprayed with bullets. A letter left at the scene
said that anyone who tried to tamper with Pakistan's blasphemy law would suffer
the same fate.
Bhatti, who received innumerable death threats, predicted his own murder. In a
prerecorded video released after his death, he said, "I believe in Jesus Christ
who has given his own life for us ... and I am ready to die for a cause ... I
am living for my community ... and I will die to defend their rights."
The investigation into his murder was so lax (a series of suspects were freed)
that it has been suggested that the Pakistani government may have been involved
in -- or at least sympathetic to -- his assassination, for being a Christian
and opposed to the blasphemy law.
Pakistan does not require proof of a crime, only allegations -- often made for
extraneous reasons, and totally unfounded.
Pakistanis' extreme sensitivity to any potential insult to Muhammad is
reflected in several laws in the nation's penal code. Section 295-C reads:
Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by
any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the
sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shall be punished with death,
or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.
Because non-Muslims -- particularly Christians, who by definition are known to
reject Muhammad's prophecy -- are more likely to be suspected of blasphemy, and
because, according to Islamic law, the word of a Christian is not valid against
the word of a Muslim, blasphemy accusations by Muslims against Christians
routinely result in the Christians being imprisoned, beaten and killed.
Sometimes the accused is killed even when there is no evidence.
In Pakistan, this scenario plays itself out over and over again. Christians,
who reportedly make up less than one percent of the population in Pakistan, are
especially vulnerable to charges of blasphemy.
Years before Asia Bibi was falsely accused, in 1994, Amnesty International
reported:
Several dozen people have been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan over the last
few years; in all the cases known to Amnesty International, the charges of
blasphemy appear to have been arbitrarily brought, founded solely on the
individuals' minority religious beliefs. . . . The available evidence in all
these cases suggests that charges were brought as a measure to intimidate and
punish members of minority religious communities . . . hostility towards
religious minority groups appeared in many cases to be compounded by personal
enmity, professional or economic rivalry or a desire to gain political
advantage. As a consequence, Amnesty International has concluded that most of
the individuals now facing charges of blasphemy, or convicted on such charges,
are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their real or imputed
religious beliefs in violation of their right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion.
The British Pakistani Christian Association has started a petition calling for
Bibi's release, and offers more ways to help Asia's case and help her husband
Ashiq with legal fees.
In a recent interview, Asia Bibi's husband said:
"I really love her and miss her presence. I cannot sleep at night as I miss
her. I miss her smile; I miss everything about her. She is my soulmate. I
cannot see her in prison. It breaks my heart. Life has been non-existent
without her. ... My children cry for their mother, they are broken. But I try
to give them hope where I can."
Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War in
Christians; gatestoneinstitute.org)
GAMBIA:
Gambian leader grants pardons but coup plotters remain on death row
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh pardoned several death-row inmates on Wednesday,
the 21st anniversary of his arrival to power, but notably excluded those
accused of launching a failed coup in December.
Days after warning that prisoners on death row should expect to have their
sentences implemented, Jammeh announced that "all those convicted of treason
from 2013 to 1994 and (who) are in death row or are serving life imprisonment
are hereby pardoned."
Among those benefitting from the amnesty are a former army chief of staff
convicted of treason in 2010 and 4 army captains convicted of trying to
overthrow the autocratic president in 2006.
Gammeh made no mention, however, of those convicted over December's foiled
attack on the presidential palace, while he was on a trip to Dubai.
In March, 3 soldiers were sentenced to death and 3 others given life sentences
by a military tribunal over the abortive coup, according to military sources
and the rights group Amnesty International.
The 6 were overlooked by the president in his speech, with the 50-year-old
leader instead announcing pardons for convicted murderers who had spent at
least ten years behind bars, with the exception of those jailed for
particularly gruesome murders or serious attacks on children.
Referendum
Jammeh has ruled the thin sliver of a country that straddles the River Gambia
in west Africa with an iron fist since seizing power in a bloodless coup in
1994
He is regularly accused of serious rights abuses. Last week, he gave notice of
an impending end to the country's three-year unofficial moratorium on
executions, in a move he presented as a response to a rising murder rate.
Last month, the government announced it would hold a referendum on expanding
the list of offences punishable by death to any crime deemed sufficiently
serious by parliament.
A date for the referendum has yet to be set.
In a statement Wednesday Amnesty International said the human rights situation
in the nation of 1.7 million people had "deteriorated sharply" over the past
year.
"A severe backlash following December's failed coup attempt has seen a spike in
the numbers of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances," Sabrina Mahtani,
the organization's west Africa researcher, said.
Amnesty linked the situation to the "steep rise" in illegal migrants from
Gambia trying to reach Europe and called on the international community and
regional Ecowas bloc to "address Gambia's declining human rights record".
(source: Africa Review)
IRAN----executions
Iranian Authorities Hang 3 Men to Death for Rape
3 prisoners were hanged to death in a compound at Ilam Central Prison on
Saturday morning, according to the Public Relations Department of the Province
of Ilam quoting Ilam's Chief Justice. The prisoners, announced as A.K., R.A.,
and N.SH, were reportedly executed for the mutual kidnapping and rape of a
woman. Their execution sentences were reportedly confirmed by Branch 22 of
Iran's Supreme Court.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
**************
Online panel of experts and politicians Monday discuss human rights abuses in
Iran
European lawmakers and U.S. human rights experts as well as official of the
Iranian Resistance will on Monday hold a live online conference on the
appalling state of human rights in Iran and the steps the international
community must take in response. In the 1st half of 2015 alone, the regime in
Iran has executed over 700 people, the equivalent of 1 person every 7 hours.
More than 1,800 people have been taken to the gallows during Hassan Rouhani's
presidency. European Union Foreign Policy Chief Ms. Federica Mogherini plans to
visit Iran on Tuesday to hold talks with officials of the Iranian regime
following the nuclear deal earlier this month. Human rights defenders have
described her planned trip and the silence of the EU with regards to the dire
human rights state in Iran as "shameful."
Monday's online panel will include Ms Julie Ward, a Member of the European
Parliament from the United Kingdom; Senator Lucio Malan, Secretary of the
presidency of the Italian Senate; Prof. Donna Hughes, leading international
researcher on human trafficking from the University of Rhode Island; Mr. Bruce
McColm, President of the Institute for Democratic Strategies and Mr. Mohammad
Mohadessin, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran. There will also be a video message from Giulio
Terzi, former Foreign Minister of Italy.
The panel will take questions by Twitter.
Send your questions to @4freedominIran unsing #IranFreedom
When: Monday, July 27, at 5:00pm European time (11:00am EDT)
The event will be broadcast live on Iranfeedom.org
(source: NCR-Iran)
***************
Mogherini's Iran trip encourages more executions ---- Mogherini's upcoming trip
to Tehran and meetings with those responsible for 120,000 political executions
and 700 executions in the past 6 months encourages further executions and
violates the values of democracy and human rights, and must be cancelled
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
reiterates that the upcoming trip to Iran by Ms. Federica Mogherini, High
Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,
and meetings with leaders of the ruling religious fascism encourage this regime
to continue torture and executions. It urges all supporters of human rights,
women's rights and democracy to take urgent action for the cancellation of this
trip. This and other trips to Iran under the mullahs' rule run counter to the
national interest of the Iranian people and their determination to overthrow
this regime and establish democracy and popular rule in Iran.
Ms. Mogherini plans to meet with those responsible for 120,000 political
executions and the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of
1988. Amnesty International in a press release on July 23 wrote that in the 1st
half of 2015 at least 694 prisoners have been executed in Iran, adding: "Iran's
staggering execution toll for the 1st half of this year paints a sinister
picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated,
judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale. ... We are likely to see more
than 1,000 state-sanctioned deaths by the year's end."
Ms. Mogherini will be meeting in Tehran with those bearing chief responsibility
for the export of terrorism and fundamentalism and the massacre of the innocent
peoples of Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. These officials should be tried for
crimes against humanity for their crimes both inside Iran and abroad.
In the nine months that Ms. Mogherini has taken the helm in Schuman Square,
some 1,000 prisoners have been executed in Iran, women have faced the most
severe pressures, and religious and ethnic minorities have faced extensive
repression and discrimination; however, Ms. Mogherini has refrained from
uttering even a verbal condemnation of these daily atrocities. This is
disgraceful for the European Union whose very foundation is based on countering
fascism and supporting democracy and human rights.
While every day hundreds of Iranian women are arrested, fined and flogged by
the agents of the regime on the bogus charge of 'mal-veiling', Ms. Mogherini
plans to please the mullahs and obey their instructions by wearing a veil in
her meetings with human rights criminals such as Hassan Rouhani, Ali Akbar
Rafsanjani, Javad Zarif and Ali Larijani. Ms. Mogherini's action is a blatant
insult to all Iranian women.
The NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee strongly condemns this trip and urges Ms.
Mogherini not to put salt on the Iranian people's wounds, even if she refuses
to doing anything to ease their pain and suffering.
The Iranian people, in particular the women, youth, political prisoners, and
the families of those who have been executed, expect human rights and women's
rights defenders in Europe and particularly in Italy to take action to halt
this visit which is considered as a dagger to the heart of democracy and human
rights.
(source: Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of
Iran)
PHILIPPINES:
Duterte: Death to human traffickers----Tough-talking mayor says modern-day
slavery as bad as drug peddling
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is pushing for the execution, through the death penalty,
of human traffickers, saying their crime is as worse as destroying the lives of
people through illegal drugs.
Duterte said while existing laws against human trafficking are "okay," the
death penalty should be carried out on traffickers to put emphasis on the
gravity of the crime.
He said if he were the President, he would not hesitate to execute human
traffickers and have the crime of human trafficking listed down as punishable
by death.
A massive crackdown on human trafficking, he said, would be carried out if he
were President. He said harshness is the only manner by which he would deal
with human traffickers, who had taken victims hundreds of people, many of them
children.
He said if he were to decide, he would offer all-out support for victims of
trafficking and their families so they won't hesitate to press charges against
their predators.
Last year, lawyer Barbara Mae Flores, prosecutor in the Department of Justice
in Southern Mindanao, said the low rate of conviction in human trafficking
cases was the result of pressures such as being scared, fear of stigma, lack of
financial means of the victims, and a tedious process to pursue a case against
aggressors.
"Sometimes victims will just have to desist from filing a case," Flores said.
For example, of 63 cases filed in Southern Mindanao since 2003, Flores said 11
had been dismissed because the victims were too scared to press charges. At
least 12 other cases had been archived for lack of witnesses.
One good news, though, she said, is that 30 of the cases are still active in
court, which means many victims were also willing to help prosecute human
traffickers.
Rolando Lopez, a former agent of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, said
during an antitrafficking summit here last year that human trafficking is "as
bad as drug trafficking."
"The money that is made in illegal drugs is the same in human trafficking,"
Lopez said.
Amy Muranko-Gahan, founding director of antihuman trafficking group Global
Impact, said the number of people being trafficked was "massive" as there are
27 million people "living in some kind of slavery" worldwide today.
"It's more than any time in history that we have slaves," she said.
Exploitation takes place when predators take advantage of the weaknesses of
vulnerable individuals for financial gain or turn them into some form of slave,
Muranko-Gahan said.
In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), for example, armed
conflicts and natural calamities, which trigger massive displacements, make the
5-province region a lucrative ground for human traffickers, according to ARMM
Executive Secretary Laisa Alamia.
Alamia said the economic hardships that come with displacements make people
vulnerable to human traffickers.
"Traffickers become creative nowadays as they lure parents on promises of jobs
and easy money for their children," Alamia said.
He said in 2014 alone, there were 387 victim-survivors of human traffickers in
Maguindanao, Sulu, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi.
Duterte admitted that arrests were being made like that of four trafficking
suspects, including a Malaysian, in Zamboanga City about 2 weeks ago.
Duterte was referring to the July 8 arrest reported by the Zamboanga City
Police and the rescue of 32 women, 11 of them minors.
He also cited the arrest in Northern Mindanao of Australian sex offender Peter
Gerard Scully, who now faces rape and human trafficking charges.
But to make the law more "biting," he said offenders should be sent to the
death chamber.
Duterte reiterated his belief that hardened criminals should not just be sent
to prison.
"Let's not allow them to commit more crime that would make life miserable for
law-abiding citizens," he said.
(source: Philippine Inquirer)
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