June 1
NIGERIA:
Amnesty International Seeks Abolition Of Death Penalty In Nigeria
Global rights group, Amnesty International has launched an 8 point human rights
agenda, asking the Federal and State Governments to urgently implement
recommendations from previous reports about human rights violations in Nigeria.
Amnesty International also asked for an abolition of death sentence and as well
an end to torture as a means of extracting information from suspects during
interrogations.
Speaking at a news conference in Abuja, the country director of the human
rights organization, Osai Ojigho maintained that both the Federal and State
Governments need to do more to address cases of human rights abuses, adding
that the new political dispensation provides politicians another opportunity.
Over the years, Amnesty International has documented reports about human rights
abuses across Nigeria. Some of those reports are often very critical about the
operations of government agencies especially the police and the Nigeria
military.
At the news conference in Abuja, the human rights organization did not release
a new report, but proposed 8 point human rights agenda for the new political
dispensation in Nigeria.
The organization said it wants government to end violence against women and
girls, stop torture and abolish death penalty.
In line with the rights group’s request, many agree that the issue of torture
as a means of extracting information from suspects should be abolished,
however, many others disagree with the human rights organization on their quest
to abolish the death penalty.
Although many countries around the world have abolished capital punishment,
death penalty is still practiced in some countries including China, the United
States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia
and Iran.
(source: channelstv.com)
MAURITANIA:
Blogger Mkhaïtir's Fate Lies in the Hands of the President
On June 22, Mauritanians will elect a new President. This political transition
offers the current head of state an unprecedented opportunity to close the case
of blogger Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mkhaïtir, detained for the last 5 years for
comments deemed blasphemous. The blogger's continued detention worries his
supporters and illustrates the increasing deterioration of civil liberties in
Mauritania. The fate of Mkhaitir, detained since November 2017 without any
legal basis, now lies in the hands of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the
only person with the power to order his immediate release.
The outgoing president, who came to power through a coup d'état in 2008 and has
since been elected twice, will not be running for reelection in June 2019.
Throughout his last term, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz welcomed the firmness of the
Mauritanian authorities with respect to Mkhaïtir's case and argued that his
release would threaten his security as well as the country's stability.
The period between the final results of the election and the inauguration of
the new head of state could offer a decisive moment to order the blogger's
release.
Aycha Mkhaïtir has only one request for President Aziz: the immediate release
of her brother, whose health is deteriorating day by day. Aycha's message is
clear: "We are simply asking for Mohamed's rights to be respected, we’re
running out of time!"
In December 2013, Mkhaïtir had published an online article denouncing the
religious justification for maintaining the caste system in Mauritania, which
some Mauritanians tried to legitimize by citing examples from the life of the
Prophet Mohammed – wrongly so, according to the blogger. Mkhaïtir himself
belongs to the marginalized blacksmiths' caste. A few days after expressing his
views, the blogger was arrested and charged with apostasy.
In December 2014, after 1 year of pre-trial detention, Mkhaïtir was sentenced
to death for apostasy and insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Since then, his
lawyers have been fighting a legal battle that seemed almost lost in advance.
In 2016, judges first reduced the charges from apostasy (zendagha) to
non-belief (ridda), while maintaining the death sentence. His lawyers then
decided to file an appeal. During the Supreme Court ruling on the case in
January 2017, thousands of protestors stormed the hearing, demanding the
blogger's execution. The Supreme Court then quashed the ruling of the court of
appeal and sent the case back to a new panel of judges.
In November 2017, the court of appeal of Nouadhibou eventually reduced
Mkhaïtir's sentence to two years' imprisonment and a fine, for non-belief. His
lawyers believed that at the end of the hearing, Mkhaïtir would be released and
taken to a place of safety, under the eyes of international observers.
Instead, Mkhaïtir's family and representatives were left without news of the
young man for several months. Meanwhile, the Mauritanian government adopted a
new law on apostasy with the mandatory imposition of the death penalty in cases
of "blasphemous comments" and "sacrilegious acts," with no possibility of
commuting the sentence if the defendant repented. Although the death penalty
still features in Mauritanian legislation, it has not been applied since the
late 1990s.
Mkhaïtir is being held arbitrarily and without justification in a secret
location since November 9, 2017. His lawyers have been denied permission to
visit him ever since the date when he should have been released. His brothers
and sisters fear that his health could deteriorate further. "Mohammed is not
allowed to leave the room in which he is locked up, he can only interact with
the guards who bring him food and who wear hoods over their faces," said Aycha,
who points out that her brother has a mobile phone with which he communicates
with his family. There are serious concerns for the blogger’s psychological as
well as physical health. Mkhaïtir is apparently suffering from glaucoma which
could leave him blind if the Mauritanian authorities continue to block him from
accessing the medical treatment his condition requires.
Since the start of the prosecution, the Mauritanian authorities have been
playing the "security" card and suggesting to their Western allies that a
release could provoke an uprising by religious radicals. According to the
Justice Minister's latest comments on the case, Mkhaïtir is currentlyin
administrative detention. His supporters have said that the way Mkhaïtir has
been demonized is weighing on his family, whose very name, because of its
notoriety, has led to their stigmatization.
Mkhaïtir's family and supporters agree that President Aziz has politicized the
case and should now order the blogger's release before the inauguration of his
successor. With a more stable security situation than its neighbors in the
Sahel, Mauritania has no excuse for violating human rights principles. Its
international partners should break the silence on this case and persuade the
Mauritania to release Mkhaïtir before the end of his term.
(source: Human Rights Watch)
VIETNAM:
Lao man sentenced to death for smuggling 10 kilos of drugs to Vietnam
A court in the central province of Nghe An sentenced a Lao man to death on
Friday for carrying 10.7 kilos of drugs into Vietnam.
The indictment said Tho No Bi, 37, had been hired by another Lao national late
last year to bring drugs of different kinds into Vietnam to find customers.
He then reached a man in northern Vietnam, who ordered six kilograms of
methamphetamine and 48,000 ecstasy pills. The package was expected to fetch
$48,000 and Bi was offered payment worth around $230 for the transaction.
He was arrested when carrying the drugs on his back, trekking through the
border into Vietnam at Que Phong District of Nghe An.
He was charged with illegal trade of narcotics.
He admitted the crime, saying his family of nine kids usually had to struggle
with poverty and hunger. He himself did not have a stable job and the income
from farming could not help him and his wife afford raising their children, Dan
Tri reported.
But the judge panel said the drug amount was "especially large" and that he
should be sentenced to death.
Vietnam is known to have some of the world’s toughest drug laws.
Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or
cocaine or more than 2.5 kg of methamphetamine face the death penalty.
The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal
narcotics is also punishable by death.
Vietnam is a key trafficking hub for narcotics from the Golden Triangle, an
intersection of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, the world's 2nd largest drug
producing area after the Golden Crescent in South Asia.
(source: vnexpress.net)
PAKISTAN:
2 sentenced to death for kidnapping, killing child in Abbottabad
An anti-terrorism court on Friday sentenced to death 2 Abbottabad men for
kidnapping and killing a child in 2016. Accused Tuseef Ahmed and Hassan Ali
were awarded twice the death penalty and fine. The ATC Abbottabad heard the
case for four years after the assassination of the 3 years old minor Marwa
Faizan on 30 December 2016.
According to details, Tuseef Ahmed and Hassan Ali were arrested on January 1,
2017. A case was registered against them on December 31, 2016 under sections
302 (murder) and 365-A (kidnapping) of the Pakistan Penal Code and sections
11-N (punishment for funds raising) and 7-A (death sentence for killing
someone) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. A 4-year-old was kidnapped from
Abbottabad's Tanolian Jangi Syedan.
It is pertinent to mention here that Marwa Faizan was kidnapped in Abbottabad
for Rs0.5 million in ransom and was the child killed after brutal torture when
parents failed in delivering the ransom payment. Marwa's dead body was found
from a shopping bag that police recovered from the floor of kidnappers' house
at Jhangi area of Mirpur Police Sstation Muhammad Aslam grandfather of Marwa
had registered FIR in Mirpur police station. The police traced the kidnappers
when they called for ransom money and arrested 2 suspects Hassan and Tauseef.
(source: Business Recorder)
INDONESIA:
American and 4 Other Foreigners Facing Death Penalty After Being Arrested in
Bali Indonesia for Selling Cocaine
Police in Denpasar, Bali have arrested an American, 2 Spaniards and 2 Russians
for selling cocaine and marijuana on Bali on Friday.
The 3 men and 2 women were paraded at a police news conference in the Bali
provincial capital, Denpasar, days after being arrested.
They were arrested between May 20 and 24 in the tourist hotspot of Kuta, said
Denpasar police chief Ruddi Setiawan.
He said the arrests began when police caught a 33-year-old Russian man,
identified only as Nikita, arranging cocaine sales by phone to foreign
tourists.
Police seized 20.18 grams of cocaine and 44.14 grams of marijuana from the
group.
“We are still investigating how they got that cocaine and marijuana,” Setiawan
said. “We believe they are part of an international syndicate and got the drugs
from abroad.”
Police identified the 31-year-old American suspect as Ian. A Russian woman, 31,
was identified as Maria and a Spanish woman, 33, as Laura. A 37-year-old
Spanish man identified as Juan had operated a restaurant in Kerobokan near
Denpasar for a long period of time, police said.
Indonesia has strict drug laws and dozens of convicted smugglers are on death
row. Its last executions were in July 2016, when an Indonesian and three
foreigners were shot by a firing squad.
An Indonesian court last week sentenced a Frenchman to death for smuggling
ecstasy to Lombok, next to Bali, even though prosecutors had sought a 20-year
sentence.
(source: Associated Press)
EGYPT:
The Egypt Death Penalty Index: a groundbreaking new tool in the fight for human
rights in Egypt
Egypt is in the midst a human rights crisis. Since coming to power in 2013, the
regime of current President Abdelfattah el-Sisi has overseen more than 144
executions and handed preliminary death sentences to more than 2,400 people. 10
of these were children.
Ahmed Saddouma was arrested when he was 17 for a crime he couldn’t possibly
have committed – it took place 3 weeks after his arrest. He was then tortured
into making a false confession and sentenced to death in a mass trial of 30,
mostly adult, co-defendants.
Ahmed’s case is one of those we know about. But Egypt has handed out so many
death sentences – both preliminary and confirmed – in recent years that it has
overwhelmed the human rights activists, media outlets and policymakers trying
to keep track. Many cases go unreported to international human rights
mechanisms and media outlets. People get lost in the system.
In response to this crisis, Reprieve has created the Egypt Death Penalty
Index–- an open-source website that aims to track every single death sentence
recommended by Egyptian courts since the January 25th 2011 revolution. The
Index – at www.egyptdeathpenaltyindex.com – is a free, centralised database for
anyone wishing to learn more about Egypt’s application of the death penalty as
a whole, or about individual death penalty trials or defendants, where Reprieve
is at liberty to publish that information. The site includes statistical
analysis of trends in Egypt’s application of the death penalty as well as an
option to download the full dataset in its raw form. The Index also offers an
option for users to submit any missing information they may possess related to
the death penalty in Egypt to site moderators, for verification and possible
addition to the site, provided that such data can lawfully be publicised. You
canread more about how to use the site at:
https://egyptdeathpenaltyindex.com/how-to-use/
This data compiled by Reprieve for the Index project is information that the UN
General Assembly has said should be provided by any country that continues to
apply the death penalty. The vast majority of executing states, including
Egypt, have resolutely failed to do this, so it has fallen to civil society
groups like Reprieve to build out these datasets from scratch.
We hope that this website will be a live, real-time report of capital
punishment in Egypt, and serve as an invaluable resource to defendants and
their families, human rights defenders, the legal community and the media. Most
importantly, though, we hope that the international community – countries, and
their leaders, that maintain strong ties with Egypt and so have real
opportunities to influence el-Sisi’s regime – see this information as a wake-up
call and start taking action wherever possible to curtail Egypt’s unlawful
application of the death penalty.
(source: reprieve.org.uk)
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