Mixed Messages on the Death Penalty in Indonesia's Drug War

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWzOmYhoFp-0HE_DrROfCTJOO6_RcSXhSNfc_s7-Vc73quAPAOEzVRF2lTYFDYbs5mt974YBVQdnFzxO3Fj8lYP-5uFjvqzUIBdA1QMDxszJaxC85DY4bTlQNv1KbXLRe-mn53YZGRa0/s1600/Duterte+Widodo+Indonesia+9+SEPT+2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Philippine President R. Duterte (left) and Indonesian President J. Widodo" border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWzOmYhoFp-0HE_DrROfCTJOO6_RcSXhSNfc_s7-Vc73quAPAOEzVRF2lTYFDYbs5mt974YBVQdnFzxO3Fj8lYP-5uFjvqzUIBdA1QMDxszJaxC85DY4bTlQNv1KbXLRe-mn53YZGRa0/s400/Duterte+Widodo+Indonesia+9+SEPT+2016.jpg" title="Philippine President R. Duterte (left) and Indonesian President J. Widodo" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Philippine President R. Duterte (left) and Indonesian President J. Widodo</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Indonesian authorities are sending mixed messages on the death penalty. The country abstained on a UN resolution for its abolition, and the president hinted at ending it, but some senior political figures are calling for the increased execution of drug offenders.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On December 19, 2016, Indonesia was one of 31 countries that abstained from voting on a UN resolution that called for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, the Jakarta Post reports. The UN has voted on a resolution on abolishing the death penalty every 2 years since 2008. Indonesia has abstained on every such resolution since 2012; prior to this, it had consistently voted <i>against </i>the measures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Human rights advocates, including the Human Rights Working Group, praised the government's abstention, as Indonesia has built a reputation as a prolific executioner of non-violent drug offenders under President Joko Widodo.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between 2010 and 2014, despite numerous people being sentenced to death in Indonesia, no executions took place [NB: 5 executions were indeed carried out in Indonesia in 2013: <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/2013/03/indonesia-execution-of-adami-wilson.html" target="_blank">Adami Wilson</a>, <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/2013/05/indonesia-executes-three-murderers.html" target="_blank">Suryadi Swabhuana, Jurit bin Abdullah, Ibrahim bin Ujang</a>, <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/2013/11/indonesia-fifth-execution-confirms.html" target="_blank">Muhammad Abdul Hafeez</a>. No executions were carried out between 2009 and 2012. -- DPN]. This changed after Widodo entered office in October 2014, since which 18 people have been executed - all for drug trafficking.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many of those executed were foreigners whose respective governments engaged in futile diplomatic efforts to reduce their citizens' sentences. At least 2 death row inmates, including one who was executed last year, accused law enforcement of torture during their interrogation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite Widodo's renewal of the death penalty, he recently hinted at potential reform. In an interview with ABC News in November 2016, the president said, "We are very open to options. I don't know when but we want to move towards that direction [of abolishing capital punishment]."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While Widodo's remarks suggest that human rights progress may be on the horizon for Indonesia, statements from other authorities paint a far darker picture of the future of the country's drug policy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo stated in early December that executions were planned "in the near future", and that the state would be prioritising people convicted of drug-related crimes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In December, Budi Waseso - chief of the country's National Narcotics Agency (BNN) - told members of a new regional counter-narcotic taskforce, "Don't hesitate to shoot drug traffickers, drug dealers and drug users. Anyone involved in drug trafficking should be punished harshly, including traitors in the BNN body".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With echoes of President Rodrigo Duterte's calls for the slaughter of alleged drug offenders in the Philippines, Waseso's remarks suggest that a striking intensification of the Indonesian approach to drug policy may occur.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indonesian NGOs have repeatedly urged the government to officially end the death penalty, pointing out the lack of evidence for its supposed deterrent effect, and arguing that it contributes to societal harms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ardhany Suryadarma, Policy Manager for the EU-funded project, Asia Action on Harm Reduction, proclaimed: "These executions only exacerbate the stigmatisation of people who use drugs, driving them underground, and away from [harm reduction interventions, which] ... keep individuals safer and curb the HIV epidemic."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The country has, seemingly, reached a crossroads, and the next step that it takes in regard to the death penalty will clarify its place in a region that is increasingly divided on the matter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For example, Malaysia seems to have introduced a secret moratorium on capital punishment for drug-related offences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Conversely, President Duterte's state-mandated violence against people allegedly involved with drugs has left at least 6,000 people dead in the Philippines since July 2016. Despite international condemnation, his government advocates the continuation of his lethal campaign.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are clearly conflicting ideologies between different authorities in Indonesia, and it is unclear which path the government will take. The country is currently at a crossroads: will Widodo stay true to his word and move towards adherence to the UN resolution? Will Indonesia return to its traditional approach of state-mandated executions? Or will it begin implementing extrajudicial killings as seen in the Philippines?</div><br />Source: talkingdrugs.org, January 10, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Mixed Messages on the Death Penalty in Indonesia's Drug War

Philippine President R. Duterte (left) and Indonesian President J. Widodo Indonesian authorities are sending mixed messages on the death pen...

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Pakistan: The love of hanging

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbc_zsbdDalAnCERM7nttum4zrUSuCMpXhKNDF-AIa38ww8RPBYAeJEj9D5ThUCZJnVBTP263BoXqtIpmkryZzmbrIg8v3yGIlQtIw68ISLx-Zk72-GcufW8e8aqo4mZI-UZ1PLBvRyqE/s1600/Gallows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Gallows" border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbc_zsbdDalAnCERM7nttum4zrUSuCMpXhKNDF-AIa38ww8RPBYAeJEj9D5ThUCZJnVBTP263BoXqtIpmkryZzmbrIg8v3yGIlQtIw68ISLx-Zk72-GcufW8e8aqo4mZI-UZ1PLBvRyqE/s400/Gallows.jpg" title="Gallows" width="400" /></a></div>Pakistan chose to vote against the recent resolution in the United Nations General Assembly that had called for a global moratorium on the death penalty and was adopted by a majority of member-states.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The gist of this resolution has been adopted by the UN General Assembly every 2 years since 2007. The resolution adopted on Dec 19, 2016 was backed by 117 states, while 40 voted against it and 31 abstained. As against the voting pattern in 2014, the new supporters of the moratorium call were Guinea, Malawi, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Swaziland.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">South Asia maintained its fondness for the death penalty as Pakistan joined Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Maldives in rejecting a universal moratorium, while Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka voted in favour.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those who defend the death penalty as a principle enjoined by Islam may look at the division among the Muslim states (the category includes all members of the OIC).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those voting in favour of a moratorium included: Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Benin, Bosnia Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Suriname, Togo, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those who abstained included: Bahrain, Cameroon, Comoros, Djibouti, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda and the UAE.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Muslim states that voted against were: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Egypt, Guyana, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We find that 24 of the OIC's 57 member states voted in favour of the moratorium, while 13 abstained and only 18 voted against. In other words, Pakistan is in the minority group of 18 OIC member-countries that opposes the moratorium.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is for Pakistan's government and its Islamic scholars to ponder as to why a majority of the OIC members do not find any faith-based bar to the acceptance of a moratorium on capital punishment. They may also consider the possibility that, as in the case of some international treaties, reservations expressed in the name of religion are in fact dictated by the culture or custom of the countries concerned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What is more distressing for human rights activists, abolitionist groups and promoters of humanitarian laws in Pakistan is the authorities' aversion to any scrutiny of the rationale for their love of the death penalty regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What one hears of references to the death penalty during the Universal Periodic Review or at talks with the European Union on the GSP+ status is not the result of any serious deliberation. Indeed, one doubts if any discussion on the subject has ever taken place in Pakistan. That there is an urgent need for such a discussion can easily be established.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The recent cases in which the Supreme Court acquitted two individuals who had already been executed, or ordered the release of persons who had spent long years on death row, have strengthened the call for abolition of the death penalty on the ground of high risk of miscarriage of justice. A number of other issues that have surfaced over the past many years also need to be addressed. These are:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-- The view that the death sentence is not a deterrent to crime has not been challenged nor has the view that hangings brutalise society.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-- The Qisas law has prevented the president from pardoning death convicts or commuting their sentence although his power to do so under Article 45 of the Constitution remains intact. How does one explain the fact that the army chief can pardon a person awarded the death sentence by a military court while the president cannot do so?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-- The scholars agree that Islam prescribes the death penalty in only 2 instances. How does the state defend the fact that capital punishment is prescribed for 27 offences in the name of religion?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-- The judiciary has pointed out the problems it faces in cases in which capital punishment is mandatory if the evidence on record warrants a lesser penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-- The possibility of a minor or a mentally challenged person being executed keeps cropping up every now and then.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One ventures to suggest a look at the Indian response to the issue of the death penalty in view of the shared legal tradition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission of India recommended in August 2015, vide its Report No. 262, that "the death penalty be abolished for all crimes other than terrorism-related offences and waging war". The commission agreed to retain capital punishment for certain offences in view of the parliamentarians' plea that "abolition of death penalty for terrorism-related offences and waging war will affect national security", although in the commission's view "there is no valid penological justification for treating terrorism differently from other crimes."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The commission noted the significant steps taken during India's decades-long efforts to restrict the use of the death penalty: removal of the requirement of giving special reasons for awarding life imprisonment instead of death (1955); introduction of the requirement of imposing the death penalty (1973); and the Supreme Court's decision that the death penalty should be restricted to the rarest of rare cases (1980). The conclusion reached by the commission was:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Informed also by the expanded and deepened contents and horizons of the right to life and strengthened due process requirements in the interactions between the state and the individual, prevailing standards of constitutional morality and human dignity, the commission feels that time has come for India to move towards abolition of the death penalty."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the latest debate in the UN General Assembly, however, India again voted against the resolution calling for a moratorium although it could have shown some respect for the Law Commission's recommendation by abstaining. Which only goes to show that, in developing countries, state policies are often determined by authorities that are too timid to disturb the status quo or too proud of their conservatism to heed the counsel of experts who are conscious of the call of the age.</div><br />Source: dawn.com, January 6, 2017<br /><br /><br /><h2>Pakistan: Reviewing the death penalty</h2><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMrehjtnKWFCuyKdj8RCaoNR8xtTkR8f5XYwT9Vri3mpFfiaSO3xNRb0uLpRpxDhE3qOg7eG3b_207J_3H2hz2zyf5Y1lA5r8zAoj5rhmAAufnOv7X9Q4JaEcmcvvo-Wc-JDAkabngPM/s1600/Peshawar+Central+Prison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Peshawar Central Prison" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMrehjtnKWFCuyKdj8RCaoNR8xtTkR8f5XYwT9Vri3mpFfiaSO3xNRb0uLpRpxDhE3qOg7eG3b_207J_3H2hz2zyf5Y1lA5r8zAoj5rhmAAufnOv7X9Q4JaEcmcvvo-Wc-JDAkabngPM/s400/Peshawar+Central+Prison.jpg" title="Peshawar Central Prison" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The first thing you notice about the death penalty is how much preparation is involved. In two years, Pakistan has carried out 419 executions. 419 death row prisoners wore a hood as six warders accompanied them to the scaffold each time. 419 bodies remained suspended for 30 minutes after being hanged. Some of these bodies likely ended up in prison graveyards, unable to break free from jails even in death.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On December 17, 2014, Pakistan lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of the tragic terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. Originally lifted for terrorism related offences in March 2015, the moratorium was lifted for all capital offences. In the face of international opposition, the government has consistently maintained that the death penalty is the only effective means of fighting terrorism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, an analysis of the 419 executions that have occurred in less than 2 years by Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a rights group, reveals significant flaws in this narrative. In Pakistan, criminal culpability is at best, widely misunderstood and at worst, casually measured with irreversible consequences. The numbers that confirm this are frightening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">27 offences are liable for a black warrant in this country, explaining the macabre achievement of having one of the world’s most populated death rows.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 100th prisoner to be hanged after executions resumed was mentally ill, unaware until his death as to why he was being punished. Undiagnosed until 2014, Muneer Hussain was mentally unwell since childhood and later, killed two family members.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There have been at least six juveniles executed since the moratorium was lifted in December 2014. Between then and March 2016, at least 444 mercy petitions were sent to the President of Pakistan, including one for schizophrenic prisoner, Imdad Ali and Abdul Basit who is a paraplegic prisoner. So far, the known number of presidential pardons granted stands at zero.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Pakistan, the judicial system that enables the carrying out of death sentences warrants close examination. The legal infrastructure is faulty, mired in red tape, beholden to power, creating a permissive environment for the routine miscarriage of justice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In November this year, the Supreme Court exercised its suo moto right to reassess a case of kidnapping in Bahawalpur in Punjab, for which two brothers had been sentenced to death. Unsurprisingly, the prosecution’s case was riddled with contradictions, with insufficient evidence and incongruous eyewitness testimonies, and the SC acquitted the condemned prisoners. Only Ghulam Qadir and Ghulam Sarwar were no longer prisoners, having been executed last year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Given the Bahawalpur case, it is critical to overhaul a system that hangs the living, and exonerates the dead. The dearth of resources for law-enforcement incentivises corruption and other abuses of authority. Police lack forensic capabilities and other reliable means of investigation. As a result, there is over-reliance on confessions, easily obtained through torture.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1,424 cases of torture have been uncovered in just one district of Faisalabad from 2006 to 2012, according to Justice Project Pakistan</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">444 mercy petitions have been sent to the president between Dec 2014 and March 2016; none have been granted so far</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JPP uncovered 1,424 cases of torture in just one district of Faisalabad from 2006 to 2012. At 17, Abd-ur-Rehman was subject to such brutal torture following his detention that he admitted to every accusation levied at him, including being told that his name was Azam. Today, no one in Karachi Central Jail, where he remains imprisoned, knows him by the name he was born with. His involvement in an attempted burglary has kept him on death row for the last 18 years — well over half his life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Every defendant is entitled to effective legal counsel at all stages of proceedings under the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Pakistan is a signatory. Though Pakistan provides needy capital defendants with counsel at state expense, the quality of representation is poor. In fact, it is generally not perceived as acceptable for lawyers to be seen in a jail.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Such scant contact between lawyers and their clients in criminal cases actively enables the miscarriage of justice, given the former essentially forgoes the chances of uncovering potentially exculpatory evidence. But with a fee below the minimum wage (a minimum of Rs2,000, with a daily fee of Rs200), there is little motivation for a state-appointed attorney to pursue a case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">International law dictates that capital punishment be reserved only for the most serious crimes, subject to fair and legitimate processes that protect a defendant’s basic rights and provide avenues for post-conviction relief. Pakistan has not lived up to its obligations. At each stage of a defendant’s encounter with this system, severe violations emerge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Calling for anything short of a complete moratorium on executions means the continued killing of individuals whose rights have repeatedly been violated from the time of their arrest to their conviction and beyond. Sending even one innocent person – and the government sent two in the Bahawalpur case – to the gallows should prompt this step.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Given these systemic failings, legal reforms, while an important first step, are inadequately implemented at the local level. An executive mechanism to examine mercy petitions must be assembled which refers credible mercy petitions to the presidency.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because of the lack of transparency, it is recommended that independent actors such as the National Human Rights Commission, a statutory body constituted under the National Human Rights Commission Act 2012, conduct investigations into cases.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wrongful and unjust death sentences must be commuted. Because the death sentence warrants a high standard of proof, the state should also commute cases for individuals whose convictions were based primarily on confessions, in recognition of the high prevalence of custodial torture and inadequate safeguards in place.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Passing the Anti-Torture Bill, which has been pending since 2012, would be a good place to start. In short, Pakistan’s criminal justice system needs to undertake a detailed review of the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://www.dawn.com/news/1303817" target="_blank">Dawn</a>, Rimmel Mohydin, Zainab Malik, December 22, 2016. Rimmel Mohydin and Zainab Malik work on public and policy advocacy at Justice Project Pakistan.</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Pakistan: The love of hanging

Pakistan chose to vote against the recent resolution in the United Nations General Assembly that had called for a global moratorium on the d...

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The Growing Gap Between the U.S. and the International Anti-Death-Penalty Consensus

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYtit8NJDCRLIRlPKKePilrpPrgqvvSJJBLPmvCxqlhBl0iw0IaNUoc55CgHp6LLD3M9qJnPQVLaPhx25qJuvQiXgEPWYkagbnUz2SSF1ZOG8HSqdNmNxfTJNShoQ3hQP-meHLGxu_FI/s1600/Gallows%252C+Department+of+Corrections%252C+Smyrna%252C+Delaware%252C+1991.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYtit8NJDCRLIRlPKKePilrpPrgqvvSJJBLPmvCxqlhBl0iw0IaNUoc55CgHp6LLD3M9qJnPQVLaPhx25qJuvQiXgEPWYkagbnUz2SSF1ZOG8HSqdNmNxfTJNShoQ3hQP-meHLGxu_FI/s400/Gallows%252C+Department+of+Corrections%252C+Smyrna%252C+Delaware%252C+1991.jpg" title="Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991" width="373" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In employing the death penalty, the U.S. insists it abides by international law. But it declines to make the most important international commitment - to reject the penalty as a violation of human rights. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last week, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution calling for a worldwide "moratorium on the use of the death penalty" - the 6th that the U.N. has approved in the past decade. Each one has gained the support of more of the organization's members. The latest vote was 117 countries in favor to 409 against. (31 abstained, and 5 did not vote.) In addition to a call for a halt to executions worldwide, the resolution urges countries that maintain the death penalty to increasingly restrict its imposition and to apply international laws that protect the rights of those facing the penalty. The rights include that a death sentence may be imposed only for the "most serious crimes," defined as intentional crimes that have "lethal or other extremely grave consequences," and that execution be carried out only after "a final judgment rendered by a competent court," following a legal process that insures a fair trial and that provides access to appeal to a higher court and the opportunity to seek a pardon or a commutation of the sentence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the General Assembly, the United States cast one of the nay votes. Stefanie Amadeo, the deputy representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, explained the country's position, which is basically unchanged since the U.S. opposed the 1st resolution against the death penalty, in 2007: "The ultimate decision regarding these issues must be addressed through the domestic democratic processes of individual Member States and be consistent with their obligations under international law," which does not prohibit capital punishment. The position reflects the American reality of supporting the death penalty in principle, but increasingly outlawing it in practice. As Jeffrey Toobin reported recently, the U.S. maintains the death penalty under federal and military law and under the laws of 31 states - even though only 5 states conducted executions in 2016 and executed only 20 people in total, the lowest number in 25 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><h3>Global norms</h3><br />The U.S. stresses the importance of observing global norms. "Just as the United States is committed to complying with its international obligations," Amadeo said, "we strongly urge other countries that employ the death penalty to do so only in full compliance with their international obligations." Meanwhile, in the past 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has increasingly sought to restrict the application of the death penalty to the worst of the worst offenders - 1st, to people who commit the most heinous murders and, then, only to adults who commit them, excluding youth under the age of 18. In addition, it generally takes a decade or more for a state to carry out an execution because of challenges to a death sentence allowed under due process of law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among the states with the death penalty, 12 have not carried out an execution for a decade or more, and another five have not executed anyone for at least 5 years. In California, where the last execution was in 2006, there were 750 people on death row as of December 2nd. Rather than being executed (the state has executed only 13 people since 1978) it is much more likely that a death-row inmate will die as a result of natural causes or suicide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roger Hood, an emeritus professor at Oxford, and Carolyn Hoyle, who directs Oxford's Centre for Criminology, last year published the 5th edition of "The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective." Their book documents the many ways that people are sentenced to death in violation of international law - for drug-trafficking, for example, rather than for "the most serious crimes," in unfair proceedings and with no opportunity to ask for clemency, and while imprisoned in terrible conditions. These and other realities, they write, are moving "the debate about capital punishment beyond the view that each nation has, if it wishes, the sovereign right to retain the death penalty" to persuading "countries that retain the death penalty that it inevitably, and however administered, violates universally accepted human rights." Countries that employ the death penalty and insist that they are abiding by international law, including the U.S., decline to join in making the most important international commitment about the penalty, which is to reject it as a violation of human rights.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There has long been a gap between the idealism that the U.S. expresses when boasting of its dedication to the rule of law, especially the protection of individual rights, and the reality of its persistent refusal to abide by major international human-rights commitments. The U.S. was a leader in the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the U.N. adopted in 1948, but stopped supporting the international system to carry it out because, among other reasons, Jim Crow laws directly violated the declaration. There is a sizable list of human-rights treaties - on the Rights of the Child, for example, and on the International Criminal Court - that the U.S. has signed but not ratified. Even when the U.S. ratifies treaties, the government often adds a caveat that excludes protection of some basic rights.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a result, the U.S. has ended up in some rough company, particularly when it comes to the death penalty. In the past generation, the number of countries that have stopping using the death penalty has doubled, from about 50 to about 100. Of the 57 member states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and of the 35 member states of the Organization of American States, only the U.S. carried out executions last year. The countries that executed the most offenders were, in order, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. China executed thousands of people, though its secrecy about its use of capital punishment makes it impossible to know exactly how many. Excluding China, Iran (with close to 1000 or more), Pakistan (326), and Saudi Arabia (158) executed almost 9 out of 10 people put to death worldwide - "often after grossly unfair trials," according to Amnesty International, and "for crimes - including drug trafficking, corruption, 'adultery,' and 'blasphemy' - that do not meet the international legal standards for the use of the death penalty." In 2015, according to Amnesty International, at least 1634 people were executed, an increase of more than 50 % from the year before and the highest number in a quarter of a century. (The organization expects to release figures for 2016 in the spring.)<br /><br /><h3>The influence of the U.S. on the death penalty worldwide</h3></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The United States, in other words, ranks with countries that conspicuously are not in full compliance with their international obligations. And its responsibility is sometimes worse than guilt by association. As Maya Foa, the director of the death-penalty team at Reprieve, an international human-rights organization, told me, "The U.S. clearly leads and influences global death-penalty practice. Our partners, who are lawyers and human-rights defenders in jurisdictions that retain the penalty, tell us that the use of the death penalty by the U.S., a 'developed' nation, is used to justify the death-penalty practice in the jurisdictions they work in." Reprieve is providing legal and investigative assistance to people facing execution in 11 countries, in Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia, and in the U.S.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In August at a rally in Istanbul, after the failed coup attempt in Turkey, the BBC reported, the country's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said, "They say there is no death penalty in the E.U. ... Well, the U.S. has it; Japan has it; China has it; most of the world has it. So they are allowed to have it. We used to have it until 1984. Sovereignty belongs to the people, so if the people make this decision I am sure the political parties will comply." He said that the Turkish people might want to restore the death penalty to punish those responsible for killing hundreds of citizens during the attempted coup. That has not happened yet, but, if it does, its purpose, Erdogan suggested, will be a display of cold-blooded power.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The influence of the U.S. on the death penalty worldwide has sometimes been constructive. In 1976, for example, when the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a state to make the death penalty mandatory for any crime, it marked the beginning of the decline of mandatory death sentences around the world. "The fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment," the Court said, "requires consideration of the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Indian Supreme Court employed this logic when it struck down the mandatory death sentence in the country's penal code, in 1983. The legislature, it held, could not compel judges "to shut their eyes to mitigating circumstances and inflict upon them the dubious and unconscionable duty of imposing a preordained sentence of death." More recently, the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide reports, 18 other countries have followed suit and struck down the mandatory death penalty, including almost every Caribbean nation and Uganda, Malawi, and Kenya.<br /><br /><h3>Replacing Justice Scalia</h3></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In their latest edition of "The Death Penalty," Hood and Hoyle write optimistically about the U.S. example: "Those who campaign for abolition worldwide can hope that it will not be many years before the U.S. Supreme Court will be able to find that the majority of states, in line with a majority of countries worldwide, does not support the death penalty for anyone." Donald Trump has said that he will replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia - the Court's most vehement defender of the death penalty for almost 30 years - with someone in his mold. But, even when that happens, there will be a possibility that Justice Anthony Kennedy will join the Court's moderate liberals in striking down the death penalty, for reasons Justice Stephen Breyer articulated in 2015: "The Court in effect delegated significant responsibility to the States to develop procedures that would" insure the fairness of the capital-punishment system, he wrote. "Almost 40 years of studies, surveys, and experience strongly indicate, however, that this effort has failed." If the Court continues to uphold the death penalty, on the other hand, the gap between the U.S. and a large and growing majority of the rest of the world will continue to increase.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The New Yorker, Lincoln Caplan, December 31, 2016. Mr. Caplan, a former New Yorker staff writer, is a senior research scholar at Yale Law School and the author of the new book "American Justice 2016: The Political Supreme Court."</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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The Growing Gap Between the U.S. and the International Anti-Death-Penalty Consensus

Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991 In employing the death penalty, the U.S. insists it abides by international law. But it dec...

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United Nations Confirm Request of Universal Moratorium on Executions

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbc_zsbdDalAnCERM7nttum4zrUSuCMpXhKNDF-AIa38ww8RPBYAeJEj9D5ThUCZJnVBTP263BoXqtIpmkryZzmbrIg8v3yGIlQtIw68ISLx-Zk72-GcufW8e8aqo4mZI-UZ1PLBvRyqE/s1600/Gallows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Gallows" border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbc_zsbdDalAnCERM7nttum4zrUSuCMpXhKNDF-AIa38ww8RPBYAeJEj9D5ThUCZJnVBTP263BoXqtIpmkryZzmbrIg8v3yGIlQtIw68ISLx-Zk72-GcufW8e8aqo4mZI-UZ1PLBvRyqE/s400/Gallows.jpg" title="Gallows" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">December 19, 2016: The General Assembly of the United Nations confirmed the demand for an end to the death penalty by the vote of a new resolution calling on states to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the practice. This is the sixth pro-moratorium text adopted since 2007. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new resolution was adopted with 117 votes in favor (as in 2014), 40 no (two more than the 38 of 2014), while the abstainers were 31 (3 less than in 2014) and 5 absent at the time of vote (one more than in 2014). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although the text contains an amendment, voted in the Third Committee in November on a proposal of Singapore, referring to the prerogatives of States to decide which type of punishment to impose in the face of the most serious crimes, the positive steps in strengthening the text are definitely more relevant. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As for new votes in favor, coming mostly from the African continent and from countries that abstained before, they were those of Guinea, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, as well as that of the Solomon Islands and Sri Lanka. It casted a vote in favor also Nauru, that in 2014 was absent. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zimbabwe went from a contrary vote to one of abstention. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sergio D'Elia, Secretary of Hands Off Cain said: "I want to remind that the votes in favor for the first time in Swaziland and Malawi were the result of a mission of Hands Off Cain, with the support of the Italian Foreign Ministry. The mission was aimed exactly to get a favorable vote in the General Assembly, and in 2014 Zimbabwe had been a target country of our mission." </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[S]trengthened the front of no Burundi and South Sudan, previously in favor, and the Maldives, previously abstained. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Passed from a vote in favor to a vote of abstention the Philippines, Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Niger, while Lesotho, absent in 2014, abstained this year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among the absentees are the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal, both abstained in 2014, and Rwanda, formerly in favor. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This year's resolution has been strengthened in the part that requires states to "make available the relevant information about the use of the death penalty" (among other things, disaggregated by sex, age and race data, and also the number of prisoners on death row, and information about scheduled executions). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The General Assembly for the first time recognized the role that national human rights bodies to support local, national and regional debates on the death penalty. The Assembly for the first time highlighted the need for those who risk the death penalty to be treated with humanity and with respect for their dignity, in accordance with the international law on human rights. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The confirmation of the votes in favor of a universal moratorium on capital punishment is very important in a time when, faced with the emergency of terrorism, there is the danger of abdicating to the principles of law rather than strengthen them. The General Assembly vote shows us that we must continue to work to raise the threshold for the protection of human dignity in compliance with international treaties” said Sergio D'Elia, Secretary of Hands Off Cain. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">D’Elia concluded: “The new vote at the Palace of Glass, the sixth at the General Assembly in nine years, demonstrates that the path of dialogue, liberal and anti-prohibitionist, of the moratorium - and not the outright abolition of the death penalty - which since 1993 Hands Off Cain and the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty have chosen to propose in all international fora, has proved to be the main way to overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable , and open doors that otherwise be inaccessible”. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sources: <a href="http://www.handsoffcain.info/news/index.php?iddocumento=20318287" target="_blank">Hands Off Cain</a>, December 19, 2016</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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United Nations Confirm Request of Universal Moratorium on Executions

December 19, 2016: The General Assembly of the United Nations confirmed the demand for an end to the death penalty by the vote of a new reso...

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Attempt to remove UN’s LGBT rights expert defeated in narrow vote; still 10 nations where the penalty for gay sex is death

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgridpsJh9oYU0WYmeFPog-OJLQQtRJSfnRhHidba3v60Tuyyfwq21sEO5_MQgx1e3tEg_9oW-sdddrUCmTFqEvzSYrwaQOfK_8u3DjG9Z7_pU9qtOEk4911Qa4aBP1nb6ad3NBZueajow/s1600/UN_Headquarters_NYC_USA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="UN building NYC" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgridpsJh9oYU0WYmeFPog-OJLQQtRJSfnRhHidba3v60Tuyyfwq21sEO5_MQgx1e3tEg_9oW-sdddrUCmTFqEvzSYrwaQOfK_8u3DjG9Z7_pU9qtOEk4911Qa4aBP1nb6ad3NBZueajow/s400/UN_Headquarters_NYC_USA.jpg" title="UN building NYC" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ten nations with large Muslim populations have laws providing for the death penalty for same-sex activity. Only a few actually impose the death sentence. Exactly how many is a difficult question.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another attempt to remove the United Nations expert on LGBT rights has been defeated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/30/united-nations-votes-to-create-first-ever-lgbt-rights-watchdog/" target="_blank">The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council voted in June</a> to appoint an independent LGBT expert for the first time to monitor “violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity” around the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/11/05/the-uns-new-lgbt-expert-watchdog-may-lose-his-job/" target="_blank">Thai professor Vitit Muntarbhorn took up the role</a>, beginning to investigate abuse that the global LGBT community suffer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However a number of challenges have been brought by homophobic countries attempting to revoke his position – with a plot to axe the role <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/11/22/un-vote-to-keep-first-expert-on-lgbt-rights/" target="_blank">thwarted by a narrow margin last month.</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This week, the block of countries bitterly opposed to the role – including Russia, China and a number of African states – pushed a surprise amendment to the Human Rights Council’s annual report that would have indefinitely halted the work of the LGBT rights expert.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The amendment was voted down by a narrow margin, with 77 countries voting in favour and 84 against, with 16 abstentions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">870 human rights organisations from 157 countries around the world had signed an <a href="https://www.ishr.ch/sites/default/files/article/files/joint_sogi_letter_listofsignatories12152016.pdf" target="_blank">open letter</a> urging the governments represented in the General Assembly to continue the expert’s work.</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The result has been welcomed by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Vpfk1nqxbb4Y_m4W4c9d7hZ7CybfEO0jGgZqsL25Z8uhPvTJXyiiftlhgnZ8Ho7KaDcY8QC0b41zIIbv-KBcJ_M__F16Y6Rtgmq8ihl9sOATlzXYNqT6KOweXm5-3-VmdQ1AySdfdi8/s1600/Vitit+Muntarbhorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Vitit Muntarbhorn" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Vpfk1nqxbb4Y_m4W4c9d7hZ7CybfEO0jGgZqsL25Z8uhPvTJXyiiftlhgnZ8Ho7KaDcY8QC0b41zIIbv-KBcJ_M__F16Y6Rtgmq8ihl9sOATlzXYNqT6KOweXm5-3-VmdQ1AySdfdi8/s400/Vitit+Muntarbhorn.jpg" title="Vitit Muntarbhorn" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">ILGA’s co-Secretaries General Helen Kennedy and Ruth Baldacchino said: “ILGA is delighted that the mandate has once again been safeguarded.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Once more, States have reaffirmed the importance of monitoring human rights violations against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity, a crucial leap towards a world where all are treated free and equal.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">André du Plessis, UN Programme and Advocacy Manager at ILGA explained: “We commend what human rights defenders from all over the world were able to do by highlighting the need for states to respect the authority of the Human Rights Council.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“This outcome is important not only because it shows that States believe that violence and discrimination faced by LGBT persons around the world deserve attention, but also because it confirms the authority of the UN Human Rights Council, the leading human rights body in the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Never before had a country or group of countries attempted to challenge a special procedures mandate by the Human Rights Council with a fully functioning mandate holder.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“If the General Assembly would have reopened the Council’s annual report to block or defer resolutions with a selective approach, it would have fundamentally undermined the authority granted to the Council by the General Assembly, setting a dangerous precedent for the whole human rights framework.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Renato Sabbadini, Executive Director at ILGA said: “We are confident that the SOGI Independent Expert will work to build bridges, rather than to widen the gaps between our communities and those who think that we are seeking ‘special rights’.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Now more than ever, our communities need allies to ensure that ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,’ as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states, is a reality and not only a dream.”</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/12/19/attempt-to-remove-uns-lgbt-rights-expert-defeated-in-narrow-vote/" target="_blank">Pink News</a>, Nick Duffy, December 19, 2016<br /><br /><h2>10 nations where the penalty for gay sex is death</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Ten nations with large Muslim populations have laws providing for the death penalty for same-sex activity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only a few actually impose the death sentence. Exactly how many is a difficult question.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="http://ilga.org/downloads/02_ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2016_ENG_WEB_150516.pdf" target="_blank">2016 State-Sponsored Homophobia report</a> from ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, lists 13-14 places that threaten the death penalty for homosexuality, including the basic 10 plus several specific variations:</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>One where executions occur — and go unpunished — despite the fact that there is no death-penalty law (Iraq);</li><li>One that has approved a death-penalty provision but has not yet incorporated it into the nation’s laws (Brunei);</li><li>One that conducts executions but is not recognized as a nation (the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, ISIS and ISIL);</li><li>One where, in theory, a particular interpretation of its laws would provide for the death penalty but, in practice, no executions have been reported (United Arab Emirates)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ILGA list is quite similar to this blog’s list of those 14 countries, printed below:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A best-information-available list of countries/regions where executions for homosexual activity are carried out or are provided by current or future law:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Nations with such laws on the books; executions have been carried out</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/saudi-arabia/" target="_blank">1. Iran</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/saudi-arabia/" target="_blank">2. Saudi Arabia</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Nations with such laws on the books; no recent executions reported</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/sudan/" target="_blank">3. Sudan</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/yemen/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">4. Yemen</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Nations with such laws on the books in part of the country; no verified executions for homosexual activity</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/nigeria/" target="_blank">5. Nigeria</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/somalia/" target="_blank">6. Somalia</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Nations with such laws on the books; no executions reported</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/mauritania/" target="_blank">7. Afghanistan</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/mauritania/" target="_blank">8. Mauritania</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/pakistan/" target="_blank">9. Pakistan</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/qatar/" target="_blank">10. Qatar</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those are the “ten nations with large Muslim populations” mentioned in this article’s first paragraph.” In addition, executions and possible executions are an issue in four other places:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Nation with no such a law on the books; executions are carried out by militias and others</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/iraq/" target="_blank">11. Iraq</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Not recognized as a nation; carries out executions</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">12. Daesh/the <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/islamic-state/" target="_blank">Islamic State</a> (ISIS/ISIL)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Nation where such a law was scheduled to take effect in 2016 (but might not)</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/brunei/" target="_blank">13. Brunei Darussalam</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Nation where some interpretations of existing law would provide for the death penalty, but no executions have been reported</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/united-arab-emirates/" target="_blank">14. United Arab Emirates</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">News coverage in all of those nations is unreliable at best, so specific evidence of executions for same-sex intimacy is rare. What’s known about some specific countries is cited below.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Somalia, <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2013/03/gay-teen-stoned-to-death-in-somalia.html" target="_blank">a gay teenager was reportedly stoned to death</a> in 2013, but those reports have not been verified.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Nigeria, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6940061.stm" target="_blank">the BBC reported in 2007</a>, “More than a dozen Nigerian Muslims have been sentenced to death by stoning and for sexual offences ranging from adultery and homosexuality. But none of these death sentences has actually been carried out as they were either thrown out on appeal or commuted to prison terms as a result of pressure from human rights groups.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMZHK-o0UzZoXtkw3L9fnIiAHYqJ0vLmH5MgICH7pLc8Td43JlTdjsTRUi-x64eSmOSnJbcmtaSJxRjxxe2RokmuW-rNkX6LT0wEVLSrVkt3oaVjV3yOdsz21sKDn-FLKVxP3MUxgR8A/s1600/Homophobe+Bar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMZHK-o0UzZoXtkw3L9fnIiAHYqJ0vLmH5MgICH7pLc8Td43JlTdjsTRUi-x64eSmOSnJbcmtaSJxRjxxe2RokmuW-rNkX6LT0wEVLSrVkt3oaVjV3yOdsz21sKDn-FLKVxP3MUxgR8A/s400/Homophobe+Bar.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Sudan, the death penalty is in frequent use, but there are no recent reports of executions for same-sex intimacy. In 2014, Sudan ranked at No. 6 worldwide in number of executions (23+) for various offenses, just below the United States, with 35, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/act50/0001/2015/en/" target="_blank">according to Amnesty International</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Similarly, Yemen is No. 7 in frequency of executions overall, but the death penalty apparently has not been imposed recently for homosexual activity. <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/41501c7615.html" target="_blank">Researchers for Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board reported</a> more than 10 years ago, “Information on whether such sentences have been carried out was not found.” More recently <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/will-yemens-gay-community-survive-the-iran-backed-militias-trying-to-take-over/" target="_blank">an article on Yemen’s gay community</a> in The Tower magazine stated, “Traditionally, that death penalty is not enforced, but citizens have been imprisoned for their sexual orientation.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Saudi Arabia is No. 3 among the world’s most avid executioners, with 90+ in 2014. At least in the past, beheadings were imposed for homosexual behavior, including <a href="http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=3f7d4e1238" target="_blank">three men in 2002</a>. Imprisonment and lashings are <a href="http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Persecution_of_Homosexuals_%28Saudi_Arabia%29" target="_blank">a more common punishment for same-sex activity</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Iran is No. 2 in the world for frequency of executions, behind China. Those include executions for homosexual activity, although the facts are often unclear or misrepresented in such cases. (See, for example, <a href="https://76crimes.com/2015/07/20/bogus-hanging-in-iran-bogus-tweets-in-egypt/" target="_blank">“Bogus hanging in Iran, bogus tweets in Egypt”</a> and <a href="https://76crimes.com/2014/08/11/series-of-public-hangings-in-iran-including-2-for-sodomy/" target="_blank">“Series of public hangings in Iran, including 2 for sodomy.”)</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Evidence is a bit clearer about two war-torn areas — <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/iraq/" target="_blank">Iraq</a> and the territory controlled by Daesh/the <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/islamic-state/" target="_blank">Islamic State</a> (ISIS/ISIL). The ILGA report of 2015 noted that “Iraq, although [the death penalty is] not in the civil code, clearly has judges and militias throughout the country that issue the death sentence for same-sex sexual behaviours. … We are also aware that in the Daesh(ISIS/ISIL)-held areas the death penalty is implemented (although a non-State actor, it is listed in the report). ” For examples, see:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><a href="https://76crimes.com/2012/09/28/iraq-has-become-a-death-trap-for-gay-men/" target="_blank">Iraq has become a death trap for gay men</a> (September 2012)</li><li><a href="https://76crimes.com/2015/05/07/islamic-state-has-reported-15-lgbti-executions/" target="_blank">‘Islamic State’ has reported 15 LGBTI executions</a> (May 2015)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In some nations, the death penalty is on the books but is not imposed. ILGA in 2015 stated:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brunei Darussalam is <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/brunei/" target="_blank">due to activate the death penalty for same-sex sexual acts in 2016</a>, but it seems likely that like <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/pakistan/" target="_blank">Pakistan</a>, <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/afghanistan/" target="_blank">Afghanistan</a> and <a href="https://76crimes.com/tag/qatar/" target="_blank">Qatar</a> although it is on the statute, it will not be implemented.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ILGA reported in 2016 about Brunei: “there is no sign that the threatened death penalty is to be implemented.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the U.S. Department of State, Mauritania belongs in this category too. A <a href="https://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/cable.php?id=09NOUAKCHOTT815" target="_blank">U.S. Department of State cable from 2009, released by WikiLeaks in 2011,</a>indicated that Mauritania has never imposed the death penalty for homosexual activity or any other crime.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ILGA reported in 2016 that “although is understood that the United Arab Emirates has not implemented [the death penalty] under the Sharia code, it remains a possibility under interpretations current in the Emirates.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For more information:</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/02/24/here-are-the-10-countries-where-homosexuality-may-be-punished-by-death/" target="_blank">Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death</a> (Washington Post)</li><li><a href="http://old.ilga.org/Statehomophobia/ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2015.pdf" target="_blank">State-Sponsored Homophobia — 2015</a> (pdf) (ILGA)</li><li><a href="http://ilga.org/downloads/02_ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2016_ENG_WEB_150516.pdf" target="_blank">State-Sponsored Homophobia — 2016</a> (pdf) (ILGA)</li><li><a href="https://76crimes.com/2016/02/16/report-somalia-too-risky-for-lgbt-people/" target="_blank">Report: Somalia too risky for LGBT people</a> (February 2016, 76crimes.com)</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="https://76crimes.com/10-nations-where-the-penalty-for-gay-sex-is-death/" target="_blank">76Crimes.com</a>, Colin Stewart, December 2016 (?)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Attempt to remove UN’s LGBT rights expert defeated in narrow vote; still 10 nations where the penalty for gay sex is death

Ten nations with large Muslim populations have laws providing for the death penalty for same-sex activity. Only a few actually impose the de...

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Pakistan: Army chief signs death warrants of 13 terrorists

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNLDh0vIx2vh6VESZ7Qxe6Ffxi-uL41_6J_8seX7WTPA7hsNxvJLToMr-ZroK6VHhkYf4XLWY53SB4RyVEahk6L7HXutNAR-5fUlELI2Tq2UuJuAKgx4WTAJQHvcDChy6rUNCnoJ4LryI/s1600/Gallows+Malaysia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Gallows" border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNLDh0vIx2vh6VESZ7Qxe6Ffxi-uL41_6J_8seX7WTPA7hsNxvJLToMr-ZroK6VHhkYf4XLWY53SB4RyVEahk6L7HXutNAR-5fUlELI2Tq2UuJuAKgx4WTAJQHvcDChy6rUNCnoJ4LryI/s400/Gallows+Malaysia.jpg" title="Gallows" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday signed death warrants of another 13 'hardcore terrorists' who were found guilty of being behind a series of terrorist attacks, including those on Charsadda's Bacha Khan University, Rawalpindi's Parade Lane Mosque and the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The death warrants signed by Gen Qamar are his 1st since he assumed command of the army on November 29 and came on a day when the country was observing the 2nd anniversary of the Peshawar Army Public School attack.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that those who were handed the death penalty were involved in heinous offences related to terrorism, including killing and slaughtering of innocent civilians and officials of law enforcement agencies and armed forces of Pakistan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"These terrorists also include those who planned and executed attacks on Bacha Khan University Charsadda, Parade Lane Mosque Rawalpindi, Marriott Hotel Islamabad, Office of World Vision NGO in Mansehra and an educational institution at Nawagai Buner," the military's media wing added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the whole, they were involved in killing 325 people and in causing injuries to 366 others. Firearms and explosives were also recovered from their possession. These convicts were tried by military courts, the ISPR said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those who were handed down death sentence are identified as Latifullah Mehsud, Arafat, Wahid Ali, Abdul Rehman, Mian Said Raheem, Noor Muhammad, Sher Ali, Syed Qasim Shah, Muhammad Usman, Muhammad Riaz, Noorullah, Gul Zarin and Akbar Ali.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unlike the previous announcements about military courts' verdicts, the ISPR this time specifically did not identify convicts' affiliation with any militant group. Instead it said all convicts were members of a proscribed organisation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to ISPR, Latif Ullah Mehsud, Abdul Rehman, Sher Ali and Noor Muhammad were involved in killing of innocent civilians and attacking law enforcement agencies of Pakistan,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The charge-sheet against Arafat includes attacking Marriott Hotel Islamabad and Parade Lane Mosque Rawalpindi, which resulted in death of 110 people. Wahid Ali, Akbar Ali, Muhammad Riaz and Noorullah were convicted for being behind Bacha Khan University Charsadda attack. Mian Said Raheem was involved in killing of 15 civilians</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Syed Qasim Shah was involved in attacking Office of World Vision NGO, which resulted in death of 6 employees of said NGO.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Muhammad Waqar Faisal was given the death sentence for the killing of police constable Asad Abbas and in injuring a police constable and 2 civilians.</div><br />Source: The Express Tribune, December 18, 2016<br /><br /><h2>Call to end capital punishment</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It has been 2 years since the tragic attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. No amount of commiseration or time can ever mitigate the horror of that day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In response, Pakistan ended its 6-year-old moratorium on capital punishment as part of its National Action Plan (NAP). The government was adamant that only those convicted of terrorism would be executed. This was false, as the moratorium for all capital crimes was lifted just 3 months later in March 2015 - widely sounded by the state as the only effective means of fighting terrorism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An analysis of the 419 executions that have occurred so far reveals significant flaws in that narrative.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to data collected by Justice Project Pakistan, only 16 % of the executions carried out since December 2014 were related to terrorism charges.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The remainder have included several cases of wrongful execution such as juveniles, the mentally ill and the physically disabled, all of which are expressly forbidden in light of Pakistan's international legal obligations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This figure is even more problematic when considering that in as many as 88 percent of 'terrorism' cases, there was no link to a terrorist organisation or anything that can reasonably be defined as terrorism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is a dishonour to the memory of the APS attack victims for the state to take lives in their name, when they have no bearing on curbing the menace that caused their deaths.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pakistan has retained its notorious status of being the 3rd most prolific executioner in the world 2 years in a row. Under Pakistani law, 27 crimes carry the death sentence and an average of 258 death sentences have been imposed yearly from 2007 to 2015, explaining why the country has the highest populated death row in the world. Given these statistics, it is clear that Pakistan does not reserve the death penalty for 'the most serious crimes' as required by international law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The criminal justice system that so eagerly imposes death sentences in the country warrants close examination. Pakistan's faulty legal infrastructure remains inaccessible, corrupt, mired in red tape, beholden to power and usurped by influence and wealth, creating a permissive environment for the routine miscarriage of justice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is compounded by the lack of a meaningful appellate process for capital cases, a blatant violation of Pakistan's international human rights obligations. Until March this year, the Presidency had 444 pending mercy petitions. So far, the known number of presidential pardons granted stands at zero.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">NAP correctly observed that there is a need to "revamp and reform Pakistan's criminal justice system" but no significant effort has been made to do this so far. Like last year, even more cases of wrongful executions have come to light in 2016. In October, the Supreme Court acquitted 2 brothers in Bahawalpur after they spent 11 years on death row, only to find they had already been executed the year before. Another prisoner was found innocent a year after he had been found dead in his cell. There are likely many more cases like this, considering a condemned prisoner will spend an average of 11.41 years on death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pakistan has a series of upcoming UN reviews in 2017, where its adherence to its international legal commitments such as the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Convention Against Torture (CAT) and Universal Periodic Review (UPR) will be evaluated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Needless to say, Pakistan's broad scope of its application of the death penalty will feature heavily, and the country's representatives will have to explain why the innocent, the mentally ill, the physically disabled and juveniles have been executed under its watch. This will have a direct bearing on Pakistan's eligibility for the GSP plus trade status.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sarah Belal, Executive Director of Justice Project Pakistan adds: "Widespread and fundamental failings of the criminal justice system warrant an immediate suspension of the capital punishment regime in Pakistan. JPP will always stand with the families of those affected by terrorism, and hopes that their sacrifice is honoured appropriately. This cannot be the case if Pakistan continues to wrongfully execute innocent individuals, juveniles and persons with mental and physical disabilities."</div><br />Source: The Nation, December 18, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Pakistan: Army chief signs death warrants of 13 terrorists

Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday signed death warrants of another 13 'hardcore terrorists' who were found guilty of be...

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Think Centre, Forum Asia call for Singapore to vote for resolution on moratorium on use of death penalty

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocSMMi9QykL1JPSIggU-Bd-Rk2XYOaYkzWoEpPl1l524ZhGIHzm2ruORxZVsKrS7WgGZBNKAi6zYu3uKUT536fW7qt8gnTEBItybSBqUu7uU9n5lC21w19mPYAApSpwBuUj6PzzvE9b4/s1600/UN_Headquarters_NYC_USA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="UN Headquarters NYC" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocSMMi9QykL1JPSIggU-Bd-Rk2XYOaYkzWoEpPl1l524ZhGIHzm2ruORxZVsKrS7WgGZBNKAi6zYu3uKUT536fW7qt8gnTEBItybSBqUu7uU9n5lC21w19mPYAApSpwBuUj6PzzvE9b4/s400/UN_Headquarters_NYC_USA.jpg" title="UN Headquarters NYC" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Monday, 19 December 2016, in New York, the 193 member nations of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will vote on the resolution "Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Singapore has in the past shown little interest in human rights, and the government has always maintained broad powers to limit them. But since 1995 it has ratified 4 and signed 2 UN treaties. It has been trying to show that it does pay attention to the human rights practices within the country. The Think Centre and human rights groups view the "human rights framework" as applicable to all areas of governance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today's Singapore is gradually a party to more human rights conventions and wants to be recognised by its international peers for its efforts. This is good for international trade and rightly it should also be seen as good business sense. However, it should abandon any misguided hopes of undermining enshrined human rights principles in practice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Singapore laws, especially on the death penalty, are rooted in our colonial history, which the colonial masters used to reign in, control and exploit a disunited colony of immigrants. Such archaic colonial practices and attitudes should be reviewed and removed from the penal code.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We believe that the main aim of the majority of the nations that seek to vote against the resolution is to keep tight control over political power. Many of them achieve this through impunity; unabated discrimination and mistreatment of its peoples, at the expense of the most vulnerable. Singapore, by far one of the most developed and relatively peaceful nations, stands out as an oddity in keeping company with this group of mostly suppressive nations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2015, 104 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, 6 countries have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes, and 30 countries are abolitionist in practice. Among the 58 retentionist countries and territories, only 25 countries carried out executions that year. Many countries that still retain the death penalty also do not carry out the sentences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Singapore wants to play the cautious conservative on the issue of enacting a moratorium, which is a clear commitment in recognising the sanctity of human life, it can abstain and watch as it falls behind in moral authority among its peers. The Think Centre, however, urges the Singapore government to rise up to the moral challenge and vote for the resolution on moratorium on the use of the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The United Nations resolution on moratorium on the use of the death penalty calls on countries to: Progressively restrict the use of the death penalty and reduce the number of offences for which it may be imposed; and establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty; and calls upon States which have abolished the death penalty not to reintroduce it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Think Centre, a member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP) and Forum Asia, is for the abolishing of the death penalty for all crimes.</div><br />Source: theonlinecitizen.com, December 18, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Think Centre, Forum Asia call for Singapore to vote for resolution on moratorium on use of death penalty

On Monday, 19 December 2016, in New York, the 193 member nations of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will vote on the resolution ...

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