July 30
INDIA----execution
Yakub Memon's execution: Death penalty no answer to terror
As the Supreme Court's verdict ended Yakub Memon's final hope to stop his
hanging, a majority of voices opined that death penalty was not the answer to
terrorism, and underlined that he was not the main accused.
"You have to differentiate between this person, who has surrendered before the
court and the other people who are in Pakistan," CPI-M politburo member Brinda
Karat told IANS.
"The senior officer in-charge of the operation himself wrote that death
sentence was not correct," she said commenting on the resurfacing of an article
by former RAW official B. Raman, who had written that Memon had entered into an
agreement with the government.
Activist John Dayal said he was "deeply saddened at the court ruling". "I
continue to oppose the barbaric concept of death penalty which has never
deterred determined criminals. I am ashamed and embarrassed as a citizen at the
gloating I see on TV channels. I wonder if this will expedite the process of
justice for the victims of targeted violence against the citizens of India in
1984, 1993, 2002, 2008 and 2014", said Dayal.
Hyderabad Lok Sabha member Asaduddin Owaisi said Memon was given the death
sentence because he did not have any political backing, unlike the killers of
former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and former prime minister Rajiv
Gandhi.
Owaisi, head of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, said if Memon was
to be hanged, the perpetrators of the Babri mosque demolition should also be
hanged.
"If capital punishment given by court of law can bring closure to innocent
victims of a bomb blast, I demand capital punishment should also be given to
actual sin, the demolition of the Babri Masjid," he said.
Social activist Sandhya Gokhle echoed similar views. "The decision is
disappointing. Even yesterday, there was a difference of opinion amongst the
judges. He was denied justice after spending 20 years in prison. They should
have considered the RAW official's letter. This is a vendetta because he is
Tiger Memon's brother, otherwise the other people associated with the case have
not been given death penalty," Gokhle said.
Author K.R. Meera, who wrote the book "Hang Woman", said: "We can't put an end
to terrorism by hanging one person." Ved Marwah, a former Indian Police Service
(IPS) officer who was also the governor of Manipur and Mizoram, said the
Supreme Court has done the right thing by not intervening at this late stage.
He, however, added: "My personal views on death penalty are that a life
sentence should be the last recourse." There were a few others who supported
the death penalty.
Former Border Security Force director general Prakash Singh said: "The Supreme
Court has taken the right decision. A message should go to those carrying out
terrorist activities."
"In fact, I find it disappointing that in an incident where 250 people died,
only one person could be hanged. It is also very late despite cases being
registered under TADA." He also questioned the authenticity of the article by
the ex-RAW official, saying its resurfacing after so many years was very
"mysterious".
Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut said: "Now they will know what is death, what is the
pain. The pain Mumbai faced. The government and the Supreme Court have taken
decisions in consonance with the views of the people of India."
(source: Deccan Herald)
**************************
Hanging Yakub Memon Makes Us Murderers Too
The news of the hanging of Yakub Memon has been greeted across the country with
reactions ranging from dismay to scarcely-concealed bloodlust. I joined the
public debate by expressing my sadness that our government has hanged a human
being, whatever his crimes may have been. State-sponsored killing diminishes us
all, I added, by reducing us to murderers too. I stressed that I was not
commenting on the merits of this or any specific case: that's for the Supreme
Court to decide. My problem is with the principle and practice of the death
penalty in our country.
The overwhelming evidence suggests that the death penalty cannot be justified
as an effective instrument of the state. Look at the numbers: there's no
statistical correlation between applying the death penalty and preventing
murder. About 10 people were executed from 1980 to 1990 for the offence of
murder under section 302 of the India Penal Code, but the incidence of murder
increased from 22,149 to 35,045 during the same period. Similarly, during
1990-2000, even though about 8 people were executed, the incidence of murder
increased from 35,045 to 37,399. However, during 2000-2010, only one person was
executed and the incidence of murder decreased from 37,399 in 2000 to 33,335 in
2010. No correlation: QED.
The death penalty does not actually deter an individual from committing an
offence. In fact, studies show that an individual is rarely aware of the legal
implications of his acts - in other words no criminal decides not to commit a
crime because he is aware that a death sentence might follow. Additionally, the
ambiguous application of the "rarest of the rare" principle enunciated by the
Supreme Court further disables an individual from determining what offence
would actually lead to a sentence of death penalty, and what would instead lead
to life imprisonment. For any punishment to be an effective deterrence, it is
important for ordinary people, especially potential criminals, to understand a
clear relation between an offence and its punishment; but the odds of being
hanged even for murder are very unpredictable indeed.
Studies have also proved that the application of the death penalty in India
depends on various variables such as the biases of the judiciary, the
arbitrariness of the Executive, social and communal biases, public outrage
(especially against those complicit in terrorism or crimes against women
involving rape and murder), the economic status of the accused (many more poor
criminals are executed than well-off ones), and the quality of legal
representation. The judicial use of expressions like "the collective conscience
of the community has been shocked" to justify the death penalty testifies to
the room for subjectivity and the grave risk that ill-informed media rhetoric
can affect a decision.
Our existing criminal justice system leaves much room for errors and biases,
especially because the system is created and implemented by humans. There is a
possibility that the investigating agency is not able to collect sufficient and
relevant evidence, the legal counsel is not competent enough to assess and
defend his case, the judge is influenced by personal biases and media reports,
and a lengthy criminal trial destroys the evidence. All such factors can never
lead to an error-free assessment; it's a worrying basis to take a human life.
These factors leave much room for the arbitrary and disproportionate
application of capital punishment. While 436 death sentences were imposed by
the lower courts in the four years from 2010-13, 280 were commuted to life
imprisonment and only 2 people were actually executed. However, all death
sentences have not been commuted: many stay in an appalling limbo for decades.
There are no comprehensive parameters to ascertain whether a person has been
rightfully executed. It is morally difficult to justify taking such an extreme
step when there is so much ambiguity about both the fairness of the death
penalty and its efficacy.
The Law Commission had organized consultations just a couple of weeks ago to
assess the effectiveness of the provisions governing the death penalty in India
and the purpose of the penalty itself. This had been prompted by the Supreme
Court taking note of the errors, the arbitrariness, and the judicial bias
affecting the award of a death sentence. Unsurprisingly, based on the evidence
and the opinions presented at the Law Commission's hearings, there was a
general consensus on the inability of the courts to adopt a fair and
non-discriminatory approach to the death penalty, and overwhelming opinion in
favour of its abolition.
I am told my comments on social media this morning were met by a response from
the government that I should not be politicizing the issue. I don't see
anything political in my statement of principle. But since politics has been
mentioned, let me respond that it would be disingenuous to suggest that the
imposition of the death penalty is free from any political motivations. After
all, the final decision on mercy petitions or to commute a death sentence is
taken by the political executive, which advises the President, who has the
final say in deciding the execution of a death sentence but, is expected to act
in accordance with the guidance of the Council of Ministers. The decision is
therefore bound to be influenced by popular public opinion and political
calculation.
The fundamental issue remains that innumerable studies and statistics support
the view that there is no direct correlation between death penalty and
deterrence. So why have it? The answer is simple: revenge and retribution. He
killed (or participated in killing), therefore he should be killed. Is that a
worthy act for a State? Should our society be practising the philosophy of 'an
eye for an eye'? Revenge is not an acceptable justification for any
governmental punishment. And the inept criminal justice system and the existing
judicial and economic biases, which are further aggravated by inflamed public
opinion, can hardly ensure the fair use of the death penalty, so we may in some
cases be exacting revenge on the wrong people. Innocent, reformed and
reformable people have been given the death penalty even though they no longer
pose any serious danger to society.
There's only one possible conclusion as far as I'm concerned. The provisions
governing capital punishment cannot be reformed. Therefore the death penalty
should be abolished.
(source: Dr Shashi Tharoor is a 2-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman
of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union
Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the
former UN Under-Secretary-General----ndtv.com)
**************
India executes Mumbai bomb plotter Yakub Memon----Media caption Yakub Memon,
who has been executed by hanging, tried using all legal routes to plead for
mercy, as Yogita Limaye reports
India has carried out the execution of Yakub Memon, the man convicted of
financing the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings.
Memon was hanged at a prison in Nagpur in the western state of Maharashtra.
The serial blasts killed 257 people, and were allegedly to avenge the killing
of Muslims in riots a few months earlier.
India rarely carries out death sentences - only 3 other people have been
executed since 2004.
There was tight security around the Nagpur prison on Thursday morning, and in
parts of the state capital, Mumbai.
The March 1993 blasts targeted a dozen sites, including the Bombay Stock
Exchange, the offices of national carrier Air India and a luxury hotel.
Yakub Memon with a police guard in MumbaiMemon was sentenced to death in 2007
after being convicted of providing financial and logistical support for the
bombings.
Memon was hanged hours after the Supreme Court dismissed a final plea to stay
the sentence.
His lawyers had argued that executions can only be carried out after 7 days
have passed following the rejection of a mercy petition.
The court opened its doors in the dead of the night to hear his last appeal for
mercy, but rejected it just before dawn.
The court ruled that because his first mercy petition had been rejected last
year, the execution met the required rules, said media reports.
History of Mumbai attacks
March 1993: Series of explosions kill 257 people and injure 713
August 2003: 4 bomb attacks kill 52 people
July 2006: 7 bombs go off on crowded trains within 11 minutes, killing more
than 180 people and wounding hundreds
November 2008: Gunmen carry out a series of co-ordinated attacks across 7
high-profile locations, including 2 luxury hotels, city's main commuter train
station, a hospital, a restaurant and a Jewish centre, killing 165 people.
Pakistan-based militants blamed for the attacks and peace efforts between the 2
countries derailed. 9 of the attackers also killed. Pakistani national Mohammad
Ajmal Amir Qasab, who was captured alive, hanged in November 2012.
July 2011: 3 near-simultaneous explosions during Mumbai's evening rush hour
kill 18 people and injure 131
Memon, a chartered accountant, was sentenced to death in 2007 by a special
court in Mumbai after being convicted of providing financial and logistical
support for the bombings.
He was the only one of 11 people convicted for the bombings to have his death
sentence upheld on appeal. The sentences on the others were commuted to life
imprisonment.
The additional chief secretary of the state government confirmed to the BBC
that Memon's body would not be buried inside the prison compound, and would be
handed over to his family once a post-mortem had been carried out.
The Yakub Memon case
05 August 1994: Yakub Memon is picked up from the New Delhi railway station; he
claims he gave himself up in Nepal eight days earlier.
27 July 2007: 12 including Memon sentenced to death, 20 given life sentences.
21 March 2013: Supreme court commutes sentences of 10 but confirms death
penalty for Memon, saying "his commanding position and the crime of utmost
gravity" warranted no less.
May 2014: President Pranab Mukherjee rejects Yakub's mercy petition.
9 April 2015: Supreme Court rejects mercy plea, confirms death for Yakub.
30 July 2015: Supreme Court rejects final petition filed by Memon - he is
executed hours later.
Memon's case has divided opinion in India, with many calling for the suspension
of the death sentence.
Yakub Memon's brother, Tiger, is widely seen as having been the mastermind
behind the attacks, alongside gangland boss Dawood Ibrahim. Both remain in
hiding.
Several influential journalists, politicians and members of civil society had
sent a letter to the president asking for him to "spare him from the noose of
the death for a crime that was master-minded by someone else to communally
divide India".
(source: BBC news)
************************
Amnesty expresses 'disappointment' over Yakub verdict
Amnesty International on Wednesday expressed disappointment over the dismissal
of Yakub Memon's plea against his scheduled execution on Thursday in connection
with the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, saying the death penalty is a cruel and
inhuman punishment.
"It is extremely disappointing that India is going to be on the verge of
executing another person yet again. The death penalty is a cruel, inhuman
punishment. It hasn't been shown to have any deterrent effect around world,"
said Shailesh, senior policy advisor, Amnesty International.
(source: The Free Press Journal)
*******************************
Political war of words erupts over Memon's execution
A political war of words erupted on Thursday over the execution of 1993 Mumbai
blast convict Yakub Memon, with a section of opposition leaders speaking
against the death sentence.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh fired the first salvo, saying that
the BJP- led government should show "similar commitment" in all cases of terror
as it showed in the case of Yakub Memon.
"I hope similar commitment of the government and the judiciary would be shown
in all cases of terror, irrespective of their caste, creed and religion," he
said in a tweet following Memon's execution in the Nagpur central jail on
Thursday morning.
Party colleague and former union minister Shashi Tharoor said he was "saddened"
by Memon's execution.
"Saddened by news that our government has hanged a human being. State-sponsored
killing diminishes us all by reducing us to murderers too," Tharoor tweeted.
"There is no evidence that death penalty serves as a deterrent, to the contrary
in fact. All it does is exact retribution, unworthy of a government," the
Thiruvananthapuram parliamentarian said.
"I'm not commenting on the merits of a specific case; that's for the Supreme
Court to decide. Problem is death penalty in principle and practice," he added.
Communist Party of India (CPI) parliamentarian D. Raja, meanwhile, said that
the death penalty should be done away with in the country.
"India should say an emphatic no to capital punishment.... It does not mean we
do not have sympathy with those (blast victims') families, but by snatching
away one life will not bring back all those lives," Raja said.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader and Hyderabad parliamenarian
Asaduddin Owaisi said the government should ensure death sentence in all
similar cases.
"Death sentence should also be given to Babu Bajrangi, Maya Kodnani, Col.
Purohit and Swami Aseemanand," he said.
While Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani are accused in the Gujarat riots, Col.
Purohit and Swami Aseemanand are accused in the Malegaon blast.
The ruling BJP slammed the leaders opposed to the hanging, Tharoor and
Digvijaya Singh were foresaken by the Congress as well, which said it was their
"personal views".
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the views were that of the leaders
concerned and not of the Congress.
Former home secretary and BJP parliamentarian R.K. Singh said those making such
comments did not have national interests on their minds.
"These people don't think about national interest. Whether he (Yakub) had to be
hanged or not was not to be decided by the government but the court, and the
president uses his judgement after that...," he said.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said justice
had been done.
"Justice has been done; this increased the people's faith in the judicial
process. He got 2 decades to prove his innocence, and he was proven guilty," he
said.
Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon, convicted in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts,
was hanged till death at Maharashtra's Nagpur central jail on Thursday morning.
(source: Business Standard)
**************************
CPDR Protests Against The Unjust Death Penalty To Yakub Memon
The Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) planned demonstrations
to protest against the government???s plan to hang Yakub Memon on 30 July at
the Nagpur Central Jail. The demonstrations were planned today (28 July 2015)
at 5 pm Near Dadar Railway Station (East). There was a significant support from
youth organizations and students to the demonstrations and we expected a good
turnout of activists and public support. During the entire day the Police
repeatedly phoned up the CPDR activists, whose numbers were given on the CPDR
pamphlet and kept asking the details about demonstration and about the police
permission, clearly to spread scare among the activists.
The venue, the East side of the Dadar Railway Station was already filled up by
police and media people. As the activists reached the spot with placards,
pamphlets and banners, they were pounced upon by the police who whisked them
away to the Matunga Police Station. The activists however managed to shout
slogans and throw some pamphlets to people. In all they arrested about 50
people which included students of Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) and
some other institutes, and were charged under Unlawful Assembly and Mumbai
Police Act. They were detained for nearly 3 hours during which the police
reverberated with various slogans denouncing the death penalty to Yakub Memon.
Advocate Pradeep Mandyan of CPDR reached the Police Station and mediated their
release on PR. Among the arrested were Maharukh Adenwala, Susan Abraham, Suresh
Rajeshwar, Monica Sakhrani, Jyoti Punyani, Arun Fereira, Sudhir Dhawale and
Feroze Mithiborwala of Bharat Bachao Andolan.
Other activists escaped the arrest and distributed pamphlets at various railway
stations including CST.
Anand Teltumbde is General Secretary of Committee for Protection of Democratic
Rights
(source: countercurrents.org)
**********************
Death penalty wrong in principle and practice: Tharoor
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said that although he did not want
to comment on the execution of 1993 Mumbai terror attacks convict Yakub Memon
but said that death penalty is wrong in principle and practice.
"I am not commenting on the merits of any case because that is for the Supreme
Court to decide. My position is that death penalty is wrong in principle and
practice. Lots of studies have been conducted which confirm that death penalty
has no deterrent effect, statistics also suggest that," said Tharoor. Memon's
body was handed over to his family members after the 1993 Mumbai terror attacks
convict was hanged in the Nagpur Central jail earlier today.
Meanwhile, security has been tightened outside the terror attack convict's
Mumbai residence following his execution.
Memon was hanged at the Nagpur Central jail today morning after his 2nd mercy
plea before President Pranab Mukherjee was rejected late last night.
(source: The Times of India)
*******
Death penalty in 'peace-loving' India may not be right, says NCP
Commenting on 1993 Mumbai terror blast convict Yakub Memon's execution, the
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Thursday said that implementing capital
punishment in 'peace-loving' India may not be right.
"Debate over whether or not the capital punishment should be implemented is
going on in the whole world and also in our nation. Personally I feel that in a
peace-loving place like India, where we use names of people like Gandhiji,
punishment like this may not be right," Tariq Anwar told ANI.
"I think in the future we will reach to a conclusion. Whatever happened with
Yakub, our court took the decision. We believe in the court. We don't doubt
that Yakub was guilty. He was guilty and he needed to be punished, but the rest
of the nation was suggesting that he shouldn't be hanged and given some other
punishment," he added.
"Maybe the Supreme Court didn`t accept the suggestion. Now, that he is hanged,
we need to decide in the future whether or not the capital punishment should
exist," said Anwar, adding "The way the whole world is debating on the capital
punishment, I think we will soon reach to a conclusion."
Memon's 2nd mercy plea before President Pranab Mukherjee was rejected late last
night.In an unprecedented move, a 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court presided
over a fresh hearing of the case throughout the intervening night of Wednesday
and Thursday before dismissing the final appeal for mercy by Yakub, the only
person to be sentenced to death for the series of bombings in Mumbai.
While Yakub Memon's lawyer Anand Grover had sought a reprieve of 14 days to
challenge rejection of mercy plea by the President, Attorney General Mukul
Rohatgi maintained that if mercy petitions are filed over and over again, death
warrants will never be executed.
The apex court had on Wednesday also dismissed the curative petition of Yakub,
saying proper procedure was followed in disposing of Yakub's curative
petition.Memon was convicted for being the "driving spirit" behind the blasts
that killed at least 257 people at separate landmarks in the financial capital,
including the Bombay Stock Exchange and two crowded markets.
(source: Zee News)
****************
Society's Severest Criticism
The past fortnight saw the execution of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani
Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist who had been captured in the attacks on Bombay in
November 2008, just days before the fourth anniversary of the same attack. Not
surprisingly, death penalty abolitionists used the opportunity to argue their
case against state execution (yet again) before the public. It is not difficult
to be sceptical of state power and fear its familiar abuse. However, the Indian
judiciary has set the bar quite high with its "rarest of the rare" doctrine
that there is less to fear in terms of judicial error in the awarding of
society???s severest criticism.
The question whether the death penalty should exist is not a matter of law but
of philosophy. That it has been upheld repeatedly by the highest court of the
land is enough to cement its legal position. Yet laws reflect societal values,
and the real question that faces us is if a law that allows the state to take
the life of an individual should be on the books in the first place.
Those who oppose the death penalty do so on multiple grounds - its
irreversibility, its low correlation to deterrence, the rejection of
retribution and vengeance as one of the foundational elements of justice, and
its inhumanity. Barring the 1st concern, the rest seem like a haute-bourgeois
tantrum, insisting upon the imposition of a saccharine prettiness on society.
The emphasis on mercy, reformation, and rehabilitation find little resonance
with the victims of crimes; the unbridled optimism - naivete? - that comes
through is neither practical nor sound. What the abolitionists seem to have
lost sight of is that the penalty is considered only for the severest of crimes
committed in the most exceptional manner.
So far, the proponents of the death penalty have defended the practice while
the opponents have fired a barrage of questions. There are, however, a few
questions for them too: firstly, what is their rejection of collective
retribution based on? 2nd, what is the success rate of rehabilitation of the
most dangerous criminals, and what is the potential for recidivism? 3rd, what
exactly is inhuman about a state execution in which efforts have been made to
ensure that death is quick and painless? 4th, what makes institutionalised
mercy a virtue?
The notion of retribution is ancient and has religious - middah kenegged middah
- as well as secular - lex talionis - origins. Interestingly, the principle was
supposed to curb retributive impulses of a wronged party in early societies!
Apart from finding some basis in utilitarian principles such as the removal of
a criminal from society serving the greater good, capital punishment also has
some support from deontological ethics. The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant,
believed that retributive justice was not merely about punishment but also
about respect. Treating a criminal as a case of social maladjustment was not
only an enormous loophole but also ignored the rationality of the perpetrator
of a crime. If the basis of law and society sees man as a rational actor, it is
hardly logical to disregard so foundational a belief when it comes to criminal
behaviour.
The new mantra of rehabilitation that has taken hold of prison reforms has
certainly had its successes, but most of these have been among inmates who have
been incarcerated for non-violent crimes. One wonders if rehabilitation would
work on hardened criminals capable of carrying out the rarest of the rare
crimes. Would it have worked on Ajmal Kasab? Osama bin Laden? Uday Hussein?
Were one inclined towards an emotional plea, a brief summary of former
president Pratibha Patil's pardons would be appropriate here. Logic alone,
however, should suffice (but the emotional impact of coming face to face with
gruesome crimes should be noted). Faced with a death sentence, everyone is keen
on disavowing their crimes, but what is the probability - and danger - of
recidivism? No longer is the question merely a philosophical inquiry but it can
have devastating consequences on thousands of lives.
It is also alleged that state execution is inhuman. The act itself seems quick
and relatively painless - hanging by the long drop method causes severe trauma
to the upper cervical spine and causes near instantaneous death. This is far
kinder than the victims of those the state apparatus has sentenced to death,
but that is neither here nor there. The assertion is that voluntary taking of
life is cruel and unusual. This assumption, however, takes no account of the
context in which a human life is being taken and the process by which that
decision has been reached; nor does it consider the consequences of not doing
so. Arguing that the death penalty is not humane tries to make an absolute
moral judgement. The only problem is that everything functions within limits.
A final point for consideration is the option before the state for clemency.
Mercy is not an act that can be deserved, or one would then be entitled to it.
It is, properly considered, an act that one has no claim to. Furthermore, the
mercy being sought is not personal but institutional. There is yet another
twist - one must be careful to distinguish between charity, pity, forgiveness,
and mercy. The 1st has no implication of pardoning or reducing guilt, the 2nd
refers to the adjustment of guilt to an appropriate level, the 3rd is quite
clear in its intent, and the fourth implies a 2nd chance a moral improvement.
Unfortunately, this is a personal decision, one that society cannot make
collectively. Mercy, if shown, can meaningfully come only from the kin of the
victims - who but the wronged can bestow such a magnanimous gift?
People like Kasab, bin Laden, and Hussein are not merely criminals; those who
commit the rarest of rare crimes represent a tumour in society that must be
excised. If rehabilitation were truly the answer, there would be no war, no
hatred, no racism, no strife of any kind today. We would all be generous,
happy, eco-friendly, virtuous, community-conscious, and dharmic individuals.
The horror of some crimes forces us to reflect upon those members of our
species that have gone wildly wrong, and it is too close for comfort - it could
have been us. Our discomfort must not, however, lead us to specious moral
arguments. In that Great Book, the Mahabharata, we learn a most important
lesson from Draupadi in the Vana Parva: "Revenge is not always better, but
neither is forgiveness; learn to know them both so that there is no problem."
(source: Jaideep Prabhu, swarajyamag.com)
****************
On India's Continued Use of the Death Penalty
Capital punishment or the death penalty has been abolished completely in 103
countries. 50 countries have not used it for the past 10 years or more or they
practice a moratorium. Public opinion against the death penalty around the
world is increasing. According to Amnesty International, 37 countries had the
death penalty in 1994, compared with 22 today. In Europe and Latin America, the
practice has essentially been entirely banished and an increasing number of
African countries are reviewing their laws. Recently, 2 victims, 1 in China and
the other in the US, were found to be innocent following their executions. Can
the state give back their lives?
India, the world's largest democracy shamelessly continues to apply the death
penalty. On Sunday the famous Bollywood star, Salman Khan, tweeted against the
death penalty for Yakub Memom who was accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb
blasts case and was ultimately executed on the July, 30 2015. Immediately after
the tweet, he received support from former Bollywood star and present BJP
Member of Parliament, Shatrugan Sinha.
What followed was a shameful reflection on the rich heritage of India as a
tolerant and non violent country. Goons from the BJP and Shiv Sena gathered in
large numbers and protested in front of Salman Khan's house. The actor withdrew
his tweets.
Without going into the merits of the case, one needs to understand that the
state is meant to protect its subjects, not necessarily by killing those who
have caused harm to fellow subjects of the state. If revenge is the answer, the
state need not exist. Hammurabi's code of laws was discarded as draconian ages
ago. There is no greater glory to the state than showing mercy and compassion
to its offenders.
Death penalty has been there since time immemorial and the argument is that it
acts as a deterrent to those who may think of committing a heinous crime, but
has it had the desired result over thousands of years? One who has made up his
mind to terrorize and kill innocents is never deterred by the consequences of
his action.
The Indian public needs to understand that terrorism is not the biggest killer
in India, poverty and misguided government policies are. Farmer suicides have
killed more than 300,000 farmers since independence in 1947. (There was a 26%
increase in farmer suicide in 2014 alone).
Diseases, unsafe roads and railways are the biggest killers and the state does
not highlight these issues as there are no political gains to be had.
More than 200 prominent people in India have sought clemency for Yakub Memon.
By killing Yakub Memom, will the 250 victims of the 1993 blasts be brought back
to life, or would his execution bring solace to all the families of those
victims?
What has happened to this country of Mahavira, Buddha, Ashoka the Great? The
world over we Indians are respected for the Gandhian ideals of truth and ahimsa
(non violence). We were the torch bearers of Human Rights around the world.
Would the hanging of Yakub Memom satisfy our collective thirst for blood? Here
I am reminded of the few lines of George Orwel's essay, A Hanging:
It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to
destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid
the puddle I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life
short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we
are alive. All the organs of his body were working - bowels digesting food,
skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming - all toiling away in
solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop,
when he was falling through the air with 1/10 of a second to live. His eyes saw
the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw,
reasoned - even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together,
seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in 2 minutes, with
a sudden snap, 1 of us would be gone - 1 mind less, 1 world less.
The greatest pleasure and the path to inner peace is in forgiving and not
seeking revenge. Forgiveness would surely elevate India as a morally powerful
country ready to take up the leadership role for those who are victims of
terrorism.
(source: Paul Newman, International Policy Digest)
*************************
After Yakub Memon's execution, here's the case to retain death penalty
The hanging of Yakub Memon gives us a good reason to start the debate over the
death penalty. I would like to make out a case in favour of retaining the death
penalty.
The main arguments trotted out in favour of the abolition of capital punishment
are these. First, we should not be party to taking precious human life. 2nd,
sentencing someone to death when facts may later prove him or her innocent
means irreparable injustice will be done. 3rd, death is never a deterrent. And,
a 4th, that retribution should never be the aim of capital punishment. It is
primitive and barbaric to seek death even for the worst crimes.
Let me agree that none of these arguments are invalid in toto. But they are not
as strong as they appear to be at first glance.
Let's take the 1st argument. Every human life is precious, no doubt. The right
to life is the most fundamental of rights. No state should be allowed to take
it away easily.
But no fundamental right is without riders either. Free speech, property and
faith, all these are rights subject to reasonable restrictions. Sure, the right
to life is even more fundamental, but this only means that the right to take it
away has to be foolproof and not amenable to subjective readings.
When someone is a terrorist, killing people at will, or a serial murderer or
rapist, is this person's right to life all that sacrosanct all the time?
Also, we need to evaluate the death sentence compared to the alternative: a
life sentence. Is living life in a dingy cell somehow more humane than sending
the killer to the hangman? When suicide bombers voluntarily kill themselves for
psychic gains, why is the right to life somehow so sacrosanct? They want to die
anyway - and they don't believe in other people's right to live.
Let me add 2 more elements to this argument. Why is only human life so
valuable, and not that of animals or other fauna? Why is it so unethical to
hang a human being, but perfectly all right to murder animals by the million
when this causes global warming, makes our diets excessively fatty and
cholesterol-laden, and also leads to needless suffering to creatures whom we
dominate?
Moreover, what if keeping a person alive can cause even more deaths? Keeping
Maqbool Butt alive led Kashmiri separatists to the kidnap and murder of an
Indian diplomat in Birmingham in the early 1980s. Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, Indian
Mujahideen, Al Shabaab, and ISIS will do anything to get the release of their
jailed comrades. Keeping Maulana Masood Azhar and Sheikh Omar in jail caused
the Kandahar Indian Airlines hijack and may even have contributed to the 9/11
mass murders at the Twin Towers. When keeping deadly killers alive in jail can
tempt their compatriots to indulge in more killings, how is this justified?
When it comes to demented people who kill or rape for pleasure and revenge, and
when they do so out of mental sickness, is it better to keep them rotting in
jail or end their suffering and potential threats to society - including other
jailbirds?
Sometimes, the greater good is more important than the life of one individual.
Hence the death penalty is not something we should reject out of sheer emotion.
Let's take the next argument - that sending someone to the gallows when he may
be innocent is the worst form of injustice. This is a reasonably good argument,
but we need to examine it closely for its implications.
There are 2 kinds of states - malevolent ones, that are run by dictatorships
and hence outside the rule of law, and democratic ones, which do give the
accused a chance to prove their innocence. In the 1st case, there is no point
arguing against the death sentence since that kind of regime is against any
argument that is not in favour of it.
In democratic regimes, where the rule of law is reasonably expected to operate,
the accused have a chance to prove their innocence. Let's remember, Yakub Memon
got 21 years to prove his innocence, and failed. However, the real issue here
is whether he (and others on death row) got reasonable support from the law so
that they don't end up on the gallows for want of an adequate defence. In big
cases, the courts themselves provide legal support; the real problem lies with
the poor and weak in criminal cases that do not catch the public eye. It is a
travesty that the bulk of the people languishing on death row are from these
segments of society. This problem needs remedying by strengthening the law - a
law which provides state legal support for the poor. Maybe, a group of
concerned citizens can serve as watchdog to ensure that this gets done.
That still leaves the question of the non-guilty facing a death rap because of
poor evidence gathering by the criminal investigation teams.
This is a valid argument, but not an overpowering one. Reason: the fact that
mistakes will be made occasionally should not be used to kill the idea of death
penalty in the rarest of rare cases. Once we create a basic list of crimes that
fits this "rarest of rare" category, the rules for applying the death sentence
can be tightened suitably so that convictions based on weak evidence should
automatically attract nothing more than lifers. This is a reasonable safeguard
to have - and it can be codified into law.
The 3rd argument, that capital punishment is never a deterrent, is actually the
weakest of them all. If death is no deterrence, is a jail term (even a lifer) a
better deterrent? Ask yourself: if you intend to kill, not out of some degree
of temporary insanity or driven by extreme emotion, nothing is a deterrent. If
you kill after plotting assiduously for it, you are prepared for any
consequences. So death or jail will be no deterrent anyway. I believe that
punishment itself does not deter too many crimes involving the killing of
people, but it is still needed to send out a message to society. Punishment is
how we educate ourselves on what is acceptable or unacceptable to a society.
This is the prime purpose of any punishment, death or jail, regardless of
whether it deters or not.
The last argument, that death penalty cannot become a form of retribution, I
personally disagree with. States punish crimes with punishment, including
death, so that people don't take law into their own hands and seek retribution
directly. Punishment by the state is vital to keep ordinary citizens from
taking the law into their own hands - some form of retribution is vital for
closure, for righting wrongs. Of course, an occasional Gandhi or a Buddha may
not want retribution, but most societies are held in place by the promise of
retribution for wrongs inflicted, and not by the forgiving nature of the
wronged. Retribution is a human emotion that needs to be acknowledged - just as
love, anger and hate are - and punishment is vital if society is not to sink
into wanton lawlessness.
These are some of the reasons why I think the death sentence should be
retained. But it cannot be wayward and arbitrary. We need a specific set of
crimes which are defined as rarest of rare and not leave it to the imagination
of all-to-human judges to decide this. This is what the debate on capital
punishment needs to focus on, not whether it should be abolished.
It may be possible to abolish death penalties in extremely advanced countries
where people are normally law abiding and the state is strong enough and has
enough resources to even attempt to correct the behaviour patterns of deadly
criminals. But India is not anywhere near that stage. We need the death penalty
for our own reasons at this stage in our development as a civilised society.
Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that we must do what the Joneses do to
their killers in Scandinavia or Europe. That way lies chaos and disaster.
(source: R Jagannathan, firstpost.com)
INDONESIA:
NU clerics want death penalty for corruption
Muslim clerics across the nation have urged law enforcement agencies and courts
to be steadfast in dealing with corruption and money laundering, and bold
enough to hand down death sentences to those found guilty of corruption.
The religious leaders from the country's largest Islamic organization Nahdlatul
Ulama (NU) said corruption and money laundering were extraordinary crimes
against humanity because of their adverse impacts on the nation, state and
community. "We clerics are in favor of the death penalty if conditions are
supportive and requirements are met," NU Syuro board chairman for legal affairs
Ahmad Ishomuddin told the media in Yogyakarta on Wednesday.
The recommendation on the death penalty for those involved in corruption was 1
of the 7 points of the "Recommendation on Prevention and Eradication of
Corruption and Money Laundering" directed at the government.
The recommendation was part of the conclusion of the 2-day Nusantara
(archipelago) Cleric Assembly themed Building Pesantren Anti-corruption
Movement, organized by the NU and the Gusdurian Network National Secretariat in
Yogyakarta, which began Tuesday. Gusdurian is a network of activists who
promote the ideas on peace and pluralism of former president Abdurrahman "Gus
Dur" Wahid.
The meeting was attended by 30 religious figures from 27 cities in 10 provinces
across the country.
"Among the requirements [for the death penalty] are if corruption and money
laundering are committed at a time when the country is in peril, during
economic or social crises, or committed repeatedly," added Ishomuddin.
Meanwhile, Umar Faroeq, from the Ma'had Jami'ah Pesantren STAI Mathali'ul Falah
Islamic boarding school in Pati, Central Java, said Nusantara clerics also
studied about the death penalty handed down to corrupt people from the
viewpoint of Muslim clerics long ago.
"It exists in the Maliki and Hanafi [Islamic teaching] schools, and the
condition is very clear, that is, when it is done repeatedly," said Umar. He
added that an edict on the death penalty for corrupt people had not been issued
by clerics from long ago because they were very careful and paid attention to
aspects of human rights. "But now we are in a time of crisis and it's time to
implement it," he pointed out.
Umar said the recommendation also described various forms of corruption, such
as bribery, embezzlement, looting, extortion, power abuse, theft and fraud.
Money laundering is categorized as a sin according to Islamic perspectives,
because it is part of a conspiracy of sin and enmity, harms the government,
business world and economic system, encourages crime and puts people in danger,
he added.
Gusdurian Network coordinator Alissa Wahid said the recommendation also served
as a basis for the NU to carry out anti-corruption measures based in Islamic
boarding schools. "The recommendation will enable Islamic boarding school
caretakers and Islamic-based schools as well as members of the NU community to
understand corruption," said Alissa.
The eldest daughter of Gus Dur added that the recommendation would also be
conveyed to clerics attending the 33rd NU Congress in Jombang, East Java, in
early August.
Meanwhile, Yogyakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Yogyakarta) director Hamzal
Wahyudin said he agreed that serious measures needed to be taken to eradicate
corruption, but disagreed with the death penalty for such offenses.
"The death penalty is against basic human rights so it is not feasible in
Indonesia," said Hamzal.
He said there were alternative forms of punishment that could serve as
deterrents, such as a life sentences, deprivation and revoking the political
rights of those found guilty.
"I believe they are sufficient," he stressed.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
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