I/IV. http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=4576&Yakub/Memon:/Glimmer/of/Victory/in/Defeat
Yakub Memon: Glimmer of Victory in Defeat SEEMA MUSTAFA. Thursday, July 30, 2015 Protest against Yakub Memons execution NEW DELHI: Yakub Memon was not saved in the final analysis, but the conspiracy to turn his death into an issue of communal conflagration was defeated by the resilience of democratic India that struggled for the commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment, and raised a united voice against capital punishment. The strong and visible resistance from all sections of Indian society to the relentless efforts of the state to hang the Mumbai bomb blast accused turned the aftermath into a defeat for communal forces. The exploitation of the death, that many political leaders admitted to The Citizen, was in the offing was stopped because of the fight back by those opposing the death sentence. Divisive voices, after a long gap, were overtaken by progressive voices for rights and justice as political leaders, lawyers, judges, academics, journalists and others united to counter the blood thirstiness exhibited by many of those clamouring for the execution. The resistance to the efforts to communalise the hanging by BJP and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in particular came out on the streets through protests against capital punishment by activists cutting across professions and communities. In fact after the hanging a rather defensive senior Shiv Sena MP told reporters in Parliament that actually his party was trying to stop the communalisation and violence in the state, and it was “unfortunately the BJP” that was trying to foment polarisation on religious lines. Efforts to polarise on religious lines were visible when Hyderabad leader Asaduddin Owaisi was fielded through television channels to make the Memon case a “Muslim” issue. His hard rhetoric did trigger a counter response but before this could gather ground, democratic India had stepped in with a petition signed by luminaries from all walks of life for mercy for Memon, and the abolition of capital punishment per se. >From then on the debate entered the television studios with lawyers and activists giving the counter pro-hanging view strong rejoinders. A case in point was of Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Gandhi, who actually made garrulous Times Now anchor Arnab Goswami fighting for Memon’s execution, fall silent when he took up on remarks that he had clearly found offensive. On all television discussions, the voices speaking against death penalty, mercy for Memon, and advocating life imprisonment instead of execution, were able to drown the bias of anchors and question the ‘prejudiced’ views of the BJP spokespersons. Interestingly, old issues of unresolved justice were raised on almost all fora with articles, editorials even in the regional Hindi media, and television debates pointing towards the discrimination and the bias shown against the minorities by the legal system. Reminders of the cases in Gujarat, of the Babri Masjid demolition, of the violence against Sikhs, and the absence of convictions in the communal violence that killed over a 1000 Muslims in Mumbai before the bomb blasts were all raised. In fact Congress leaders Mani Shankar Aiyer and Shashi Tharoor spoke out against the death penalty in defiance of the official party line supporting Memon’s execution. Similarly BJP leaders Shatrughan Sinha and Ram Jethmalani took a similar position, even signing a petition to the President, against the official BJP line. The final imprint on the demonstration of Indian democratic resilience came through 29-30 July night when activists gathered for a vigil in a bid to persuade President Pranab Mukherjee to accept Memon’s mercy petition. That he felt the pressure was indicative from the long, nearly three hour meeting he had with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the issue, although in the final analysis he went with the government. However, this was followed by the lawyers ---Prashant Bhushan, Indira Jaising, Vrinda Grover and many others---who rushed with a petition to the residence of the Chief Justice of India for yet another hearing on the case. They said they were armed with new data, basically centering around the rule books and an earlier apex court judgement that stipulated a delay of 7 and 14 days respectively between the rejection of a mercy petition and the execution. The senior lawyers stood outside the CJI residence for hours, until 230 am when finally the Supreme Court bench was constituted and the hearing to consider their plea was conducted. The plea was rejected but not before it had been demonstrated that India had a judicial system that could convene a court in the dead of night, to hear a petition if the need so arose. And that the lawyers were not turned away without a proper hearing by a SC bench at the CJI’s residence. And secondly, that the determination of secular and just India could not be decried as it was evident in the last efforts of lawyers and activists to knock at these doors for justice. Memon was not allowed, thus, to be turned into a Muslim issue but was taken up by the progressive forces across the country as the showcase for justice. And finally, if the same unity and foresight had been shown from the very beginning the story might have been different for Memon. As one of the lawyers said, “we have all learnt a lesson, through Memon’s death, and at grave cost. Never again.” This is perhaps the biggest victory, despite the apparent defeat. The right wing forces controlling the government at the moment were clearly told, as was the world, that the pulse of India is democratic and progressive; and that the forces had finally united in Memon’s case to fight for justice. For those in the struggle to save democracy with freedoms and rights in India this is a major turning point after the Lok Sabha elections last year, with the coming together of civil and political society for justice. Perhaps Memon, in agony towards the end of his life and yet optimistic that the judicial system would not let him down as reports from the Nagpur jail suggested, might not have died in vain after all. II/IV. http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-editorials/is-a-yakub-memons-death-more-valuable-than-possible-compromise-of-indias-credibility/ Is Yakub Memon’s death more valuable than possible compromise of India’s credibility? July 30, 2015, 7:14 AM IST ET Edit in ET Editorials The point about Yakub Memon is not that he was as pure as the driven snow. Rather, it is that, if you don’t do it right, you could end up staining the snow with the dirt you want to wash off. That Yakub was instrumental, wittingly or not, in carrying out the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993 is not in doubt. That he should get severe punishment is not in doubt. What is debatable is whether he deserved to hang. Two separate considerations weigh on the matter. One is the desirability or otherwise of capital punishment and whether the present case meets the rarestof-rare-cases criterion. The other is if there were mitigating circumstances or not, that should have been taken into consideration by the government or the courts. We oppose capital punishment in principle. It does not deter crime and contains the possibility of innocent people being put to death merely because they did not get a proper defence. Beyond this, the judicial process’ goal is to deliver justice, not revenge. When the main perpetrators of the individual acts leading up to setting off the bombs, for complicity in which Yakub Memon has been found guilty, have not been awarded the death sentence, it is difficult to see in Yakub the rarest-of-the-rare case warranting death. Then, there is the mitigating circumstance. This rests on an article by B Raman, a senior official of India’s spy agency, RAW, who was instrumental in getting Yakub to get his family to flee Karachi via Dubai and come to India and face trial. Raman did not write about an explicit deal with Yakub. But then, Raman was anything but a softhearted romantic. If he wrote there were circumstances that warranted sparing Yakub’s life, that would not be out of sentiment but because of a solid reason. Raman is not alive to testify what that solid reason was. It was up to the government to find out what it was, from other spooks of the time. Because, if Yakub cooperated because he had been promised leniency, India’s failure to keep its word would jeopardise future deals of such nature. Is a Yakub Memon’s death more valuable than possible compromise of India’s credibility? This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Economic Times. III/IV. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/07/india-execution-of-yakub-memon-cruel-and-inhuman/ India: Execution of Yakub Memon cruel and inhuman 30 July 2015, 10:30 UTC The execution of Yakub Memon marks another disheartening use of the death penalty in India, Amnesty International India said today. Yakub Abdul Razak Memon was executed by hanging this morning at the Nagpur Central jail. The 53-year-old was convicted for his involvement in a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in March 1993 which killed 257 people. In 2007, he was convicted and sentenced to death under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) Act, a law that contained provisions incompatible with international fair trial standards. His mercy petition to the President of India was rejected in April 2014. Yakub Memon’s mercy petition to the Governor of Maharashtra and a second petition to the President were rejected on Wednesday. Early on Thursday morning, the Supreme Court rejected an application seeking the suspension of the execution for 14 days. “This morning, the Indian government essentially killed a man in cold blood to show that killing is wrong." Aakar Patel, Executive Director, Amnesty International India “This morning, the Indian government essentially killed a man in cold blood to show that killing is wrong,” said Aakar Patel, Executive Director, Amnesty International India. “This execution will not deliver justice for the 1993 Mumbai blasts. It is a misguided attempt to prevent terrorism, and a disappointing use of the criminal justice system as a tool for retribution.” Several concerns around the execution were raised by activist groups, including issues of whether courts had considered all relevant circumstances during sentencing, and the length of Yakub Memon’s detention. “Indian authorities often find it convenient to hold up capital punishment as a symbol of their resolve to tackle crime, and choose to ignore more difficult and effective solutions like improving investigations, prosecutions and care for victims’ families,” said Aakar Patel. The use of the death penalty in India has been repeatedly acknowledged by Indian courts to be arbitrary and inconsistent. There exists no credible evidence that the threat of execution is more of a deterrent to crime than a prison sentence. This fact has been confirmed in multiple studies carried out by the UN and in many regions around the world. ***Yakub Memon’s execution is the third in under three years in India, after an eight-year hiatus. India is among a minority of countries which continue to use the death penalty. 140 countries, more than two-thirds of the world’s countries, around the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.*** [Emphasis added.] Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. It opposes it as a violation of the right to life as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. IV. http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=4567&YAKUB/MEMON://MISCARRIAGE/OF/JUSTICE YAKUB MEMON: MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE PRAKASH KARAT Thursday, July 30, 2015 Rapid Action Force deployed at Memon’s family residence at Mahim. NEW DELHI: The execution of Yakub Memon is a miscarriage of justice. There is no other way to describe the hanging of a man when there were strong mitigating circumstances to commute his sentence. Yakub Memon was certainly guilty of a crime – involvement in the conspiracy which led to the heinous bomb blasts in Mumbai which took the lives of 257 persons. But his role and the nature of the offence did not warrant capital punishment. The ends of justice would have been served if he had been awarded a life sentence, just as the ten others whose death sentences were commuted to life. Yakub Memon was singled out for disproportionate punishment because his brother Tiger Memon, the main conspirator along with Dawood Ibrahim eluded the law. Yakub Memon was prepared to return from Pakistan and cooperate with the authorities. He provided valuable information and evidence as to how the ISI in Pakistan assisted the conspirators, a fact attested to by a former senior intelligence officer, the late B. Raman. The Supreme Court dismissed the revision petition disregarding these mitigating factors. The three-member bench of the Court also rejected his curative petition, overruling the procedural errors raised by Justice Kurian Joseph in the earlier two-member bench. The President of India could have exercised the powers accorded to him under Article 72 of the Constitution to supersede the judicial verdict and commute the sentence. It is unfortunate that this was not done. The last execution before Yakub Memon was that of Afzal Guru in March 2013. The secret way in which he was hanged and the violation of his rights showed that the execution was politically determined. Even the Supreme Court’s decisions on appeals on the death penalty have been inconsistent and marked by the views of the individual judges who constituted the bench. In 2014 the Supreme Court commuted the death sentences in some important terrorist cases. The three persons convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case which was a major terrorist attack, got their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Soon after, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar who was sentenced to death for a terrorist blast, also got his sentence commuted to life. In both these cases, there was strong political backing for commuting their sentences in Tamilnadu and Punjab respectively. The fact is since 2004, in the past eleven years, only three convicted persons have been hanged. If we exclude Ajmal Kasab, who was a Pakistani national, the other two are Muslims, Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon. This has reinforced the perception that Muslims get targeted in the criminal justice system and are judged by a different standard, something the likes of Owaisi use to heighten communal feelings. The blood lust displayed by the BJP, Shiv Sena and others with regard to those accused of terrorism is selective. We are seeing how cases involving Hindutva terrorism – Ajmer Sharief, Malegaon and Samjhauta Express blasts – are being scuttled with official connivance. Leave alone the death penalty, it is doubtful if any of the Hindutva terrorists will be convicted even. Yakub Memon’s fate underlines the need for the abolition of the death penalty, a demand which the CPI(M) has been making. Capital punishment is arbitrary. The “rarest of rare” doctrine is interpreted subjectively by individual judges. The bulk of those who are convicted on the death penalty are poor and who belong to the socially oppressed sections according to a study by the National Law University, Delhi. 75 per cent of those who are death row convicts are economically vulnerable i.e. the poor, 75 per cent belong to the backward classes and minorities. Many former judges and jurists have come out against the death penalty. It is necessary to mobilize public opinion and the political parties to support the removal of the death penalty from the statute books. The CPI(M) will actively work towards this end. (Prakash Karat is the former general secretary of the CPI(M) and one of the signatories to the citizens petition to the President of India to accept the mercy petition of Mumbai bomb blast accused Yakub Memon) -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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