ASIA: TIME TO MOVE TOWARDS ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY

With Asia executing more people each year than any other part of the world, Amnesty International called Oct. 10, on World Day Against the Death Penalty, for India, South Korea and Taiwan to join the global trend and establish a moratorium on the death penalty immediately. China, Iran, Saudia Arabia Pakistan and the USA accounted for 88 per cent of the 1,252 known executions that Amnesty International recorded in 2007. In Asia, 14 countries still carry out executions but 27 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

“There is a window of hope and a chance for change in Asia. Today we are urging India, South Korea and Taiwan to join the global trend towards ending executions and set an example for the rest of the continent to follow," said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

India has not executed anyone since 2004, although death sentences are still handed down -- at least 100 in 2007 -- often in trials where poorer defendants have inadequate legal representation.
South Korea last executed people in December 1997, when 23 people were put to death. On 31 December 2007, six people had their sentence commuted to life imprisonment by the President. However, 58 prisoners remain under sentence of death. Taiwan has not carried out any executions since December 2005. This year two individuals have been sentenced to death, meaning Taiwan now has 30 people on death row.

"Death sentences continue to be imposed for a wide range of crimes and people executed often after unfair trials in a number of countries in Asia. There is also a terrible lack of transparency about the use of the death penalty," said Irene Khan. In Japan there have been 13 executions so far in 2008 -- compared to a total of nine in 2007 -- and more than 100 people are currently on death row. Hangings in Japan are typically shrouded in secrecy, with a prisoner being notified hours before the execution.
In Pakistan at present there are around 7,500 persons, including children, under sentence of death, mostly for murder, with at least 130 people executed in 2007 after trials that are often marked by their unfairness and lack of justice for defendants.

In Viet Nam, a total of 29 offences in the country’s Penal Code carry the optional death penalty, including drug trafficking crimes. Statistics on executions, by firing squads, are classified as a state secret but from January 2007 to the end of May 2008, Amnesty International documented, from media sources, 91 people, including 15 women, sentenced to death.

SAUDI ARABIA: DEATH BY DISCRIMINATION

The Saudi Arabian government continues to execute people at an average of more than two a week, Amnesty International said in a new report Oct. 10. Almost half of them - a disproportionately high number in relation to the local population - are foreign nationals from poor and developing countries.
“We had hoped that the much-heralded human rights initiatives introduced by the Saudi Arabian authorities in recent years would bring an end to - or, at least, a significant reduction in the use of the death penalty. Yet, in fact, we have witnessed a sharp rise in executions of prisoners sentenced in largely secret and unfair trials, making the need for a moratorium more urgent than ever,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

In 2007, there was a sharp increase in executions, with a total of at least 158 people put to death compared with 39 executions monitored by Amnesty International in 2006. So far this year, Amnesty International recorded a further 71 executions to the end of August, and the organisation fears that there could be a new surge of executions in the coming weeks following the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

"The Saudi Arabian government's continuing high use of the death penalty runs counter to the growing international trend towards abolition," said Malcolm Smart. "Moreover, the death penalty is carried out disproportionately and discriminately on national or ethnic grounds against poor foreign workers and Saudi Arabian nationals who lack the family or other connections that, fortunately, help others to be saved from execution."
All too often the defendants, particularly poor foreign migrant workers from developing countries in Africa and Asia, have no defence lawyer and are unable to follow the court proceedings which are in Arabic. They and many of the Saudi Arabians who are executed also have no access to influential figures such as government authorities or heads of tribes, nor to money, both crucial factors in securing a pardon. "The process by which the death penalty is imposed and carried out is harsh, largely secretive and grossly unfair. Judges, all men, have wide discretion and can hand down death sentences for vaguely-worded and non-violent offences," said Malcolm Smart. "Some migrant workers have even been unaware that they had been sentenced to death until the very morning of their execution."

Execution is usually by beheading, generally in public. In some cases, crucifixion follows execution.
Saudi Arabia is one of the few states in the world with a high rate of executions for women. It is also one of the few remaining countries to execute people for crimes they committed when they were still under the age of 18, in breach of international law. “It is high time for the Saudi Arabian government to step up to the plate on this issue and respect its obligations under international law," said Malcolm Smart. "As an elected member of the UN's Human Rights Council, the government should move quickly to reverse this ghastly trend and bring Saudi Arabia's legal and judicial practices into conformity with international standards. It must ban the death penalty for children, ensure fair trials, address rampant discrimination, and curtail judges’ discretionary powers in the use of this cruel, inhumane, and degrading punishment."

DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION DISCUSSIONS IN MOROCCO

The World Coalition Against Death Penalty reported on Oct. 27: A seminar to discuss the death penalty took place in Rabat on Oct. 11 and 12. It was organised by Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) and the Conseil Consultatif des Droits de l'Homme (CCDH – Consultative Council for Human Rights). Parliamentarians, judges, lawyers, academics, ulemas and human rights organisations gathered in thematic sessions linking capital punishment to five other concepts: human rights; Islamic beliefs; national legislation; criminology; and international position.

Chaired by Ahmed Herzenni, the president of CCDH, the opening session was marked by a speech by Moroccan Minister for Justice Abdelwahed Radi. Reminding those present that Morocco has suspended executions since 1993, Mr Radi explained that the number of prisoners sentenced to death has fallen substantially from 146 to 125 since 2004. Herzenni stated that the death penalty was only used in “rare circumstances”, recalling the royal pardon granted in July 1994 to all those sentenced to death in Morocco.

During two days of intense work, participants studied the ways and means to implement the recommendations of the Instance Equité et Réconciliation (Equity and Reconciliation Board), and in particular the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political rights.
The protocol, signed by 67 countries to date, binds states to “take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction”.

According to Richard Sédillot, an ECPM board member, “The international community considers that Morocco has abolished the death penalty in practice; it is a country that deserves abolition”. Each of the speakers then justified abolition providing objective and rational arguments. Statistics in hand, Driss El Yazami, President of the Conseil de la Communauté marocaine à l’étranger (Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad), refuted the deterrent effect on crime that is often cited by defenders of the death penalty. Using many concrete examples, Richard Sédillot highlighted the reality of countless judicial errors, arguing that no justice system is infallible.

Ahmed Abbadi, Secretary General of the Rabita Mohammédia des oulémas (Mohammédia Rabita of ulemas), brilliantly demonstrated that abolishing the death penalty was not contradictory to the principles of Islam. He argued that capital punishment is limited to a few specific circumstances, like apostasy, premeditated murder or high treason and explained that Islam “always empowers the iman to choose”. His enthralling intervention provoked many reactions among the captive audience. “The religious frame of reference cannot be a pretext for maintaining the death penalty”, declared Amina Bouayach, President of the Organisation Marocaine des Droits Humains (OMDH – Morocco Human Rights Organisation) to the Aujourd’hui Le Maroc newspaper, one of the many media organisations present.

Concerning that most basic of human rights, i.e. the right to life, the death penalty is still a very sensitive subject in Morocco. There is still no consensus on its abolition, as is proved by the country's abstention from the vote on the resolution for a moratorium on executions at the United Nations' General Assembly in 2007. Claudius Fischbach, Germany's ambassador's minister to Morocco, believes that, by taking that plunge, Morocco would be sending a strong signal as the first Arab state in the Maghreb to achieve abolition. Germany and the Republic of Ireland cofinanced the seminar.
ECPM will publish a report on this seminar on 10 December 2008, marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

NIGERIA: “WAITING FOR THE HANGMAN”

Amnesty International Oct. 21 said that hundreds of those awaiting execution on Nigeria’s death rows did not have a fair trial and may therefore be innocent. The organisation exposed a catalogue of failings in the country’s criminal justice system, saying that it is “riddled with corruption, negligence and a nearly criminal lack of resources”. At a press conference in Abuja to release a comprehensive report on the death penalty in Nigeria, the organization called on the government to establish an immediate moratorium on executions in light of its findings.

Joining in the call was the Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), a Nigerian legal organization working to promote good governance and the rule of law in Nigeria. LEDAP co-authored the report released Oct. 21. “It is truly horrifying to think of how many innocent people may have been executed and may still be executed,” said Aster van Kregten, Amnesty International’s Nigeria researcher, speaking from Abuja. “The judicial system is riddled with flaws that can have devastating consequences. For those accused of capital crimes, the effects are obviously deadly and irreversible.”
Some of the most serious findings revealed in Amnesty International and LEDAP’s report, “Nigeria: Waiting for the Hangman”:

• Confessions: most death penalty convictions are based on confessions alone. Confessions are often extracted under torture.
• Torture: although prohibited in Nigeria, in practice torture by police occurs on a daily basis. Almost 80 percent of inmates in Nigerian prisons say they have been beaten, threatened with weapons or tortured in police cells.
• Delays: death penalty trials can take more than 10 years to conclude; some appeals have been pending for 14, 17 and even 24 years.
• Negligence: many death row prisoners cannot even have their appeals heard because their case files have been lost.
• Conditions: life on death row is extremely harsh. Prisoners whose appeals are over are held in cells where they can see executions. After a prisoner has been hanged, other death row prisoners are forced to clean the gallows.
• Children: although international law prohibits the use of the death penalty against child offenders, at least 40 death row prisoners were aged between 13 and 17 at the time of their alleged offence.
• The majority of those on death row were sentenced to death based on a confession – in many cases, extracted under torture, according to Amnesty International and LEDAP research.
• “The police are over-stretched and under-resourced,” said Aster van Kregten. “Because of this, they rely heavily on confessions to ‘solve’ crimes – rather than on expensive investigations. Convictions based on such confessions are obviously very unsafe.”