Pakistan’s announcement that it has lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in response to the Dec. 16 attack on the Army Public School and College in Peshawar continues to draw severe criticism from human rights groups, which say that this contravenes international treaties signed by Pakistan.

“We are extremely concerned over the death penalty for Shafqat Hussain, who is likely to be among those facing execution by hanging,” Clive Stafford Smith, director of the UK-based rights group Reprieve, told IPS in an email interview.

Shafqat Hussain, then 14, was working as a watchman in Karachi when seven-year-old Umair Shah went missing from the neighbourhood in April 2004. A few days later, Umair’s family received calls from Hussain’s mobile phone demanding a ransom of Rs500, 000 (7,800 dollars) for the boy’s release, according to Hussain’s lawyers.“We are extremely concerned over the death penalty for Shafqat Hussain [convicted while still only 15 ], who is likely to be among those facing execution by hanging” – Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve

Police arrested Hussain, who admitted to kidnapping and killing Umair, whose body had been recovered from a nearby stream.

Stafford Smith said that Hussain later withdrew his confession because it had been made under duress, but an anti-terrorism court sentenced him to death although Hussain was only 15 at the time. He called for suspension of Hussain’s death penalty in view of the fact that Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Child, which prohibits the death penalty for children.

Amnesty International echoed similar concerns over Pakistan’s decision to resume the death penalty in response to the attack on the Army Public School and College which killed 148 – mostly children – and said that Hussain should have been tried in a juvenile court and not been given the death penalty, which cannot be imposed on minors in Pakistan.

Chiara Sangiorgio of Amnesty International said that Hussain’s case was not isolated because there were at least seven other death row prisoners who claimed to be under 18 when they committed their offences. Two had been convicted by anti-terrorism courts.

“The majority of people in Pakistan do not have a birth certificate, so it becomes very difficult for them to prove that they are juvenile … unless they have a good lawyer,” she said.

In a statement, Human Rights Watch pointed out that Hussain’s family had sent an appeal to the president to commute his sentence to life imprisonment, but to no avail. It deplored the fact that Hussain is now set to be executed after the lifting of moratorium.

On Dec. 24, the European Union (EU) also criticised the lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty and called for its immediate reinstatement.

“We believe that the death penalty is not an effective tool in the fight against terrorism,” said EU envoy to Pakistan Lars-Gunnar Wigemark in a statement. “The EU remains opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances and expresses hope that the moratorium will be re-established at the earliest.”

The government has already executed six convicted militants in Punjab province – on Dec. 19 and 21 – including those involved in attacks on former President General Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 and the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in October 2009, as part of its announced policy to speed up execution of death row inmates.

On Dec. 21, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan announced that the government plans to execute about 500 prisoners on death row in the coming weeks as revenge for the death of schoolchildren in the Peshawar attack.

“Terrorists deserve no mercy as they are killing our people, soldiers and schoolchildren,” Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told a meeting of all political parties in Islamabad on Dec. 24. Come what may, we will go ahead with our plans of hanging the condemned prisoners, Sharif told the meeting.

Reprieve, which spearheads the anti-death penalty campaign, notes that Pakistan has also signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which prohibits execution and therefore Pakistan must reinstate the moratorium in fulfilment of its international commitment.

“Killing a man who was arrested as a juvenile and tortured into a ‘confession’ will not bring justice and will merely add to the tragedy of the Peshawar school attack,” Clive said.

Meanwhile, Sarah Belal of Justice Project Pakistan quoted Hussain’s older brother Gul Zaman as telling reporters outside  Karachi prison: “The authorities applying the death penalty to terrorists, no problem for me, but they’re going down the wrong road executing ordinary criminals.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The lethal injection room at San Quentin State Prison, completed in 2010. Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

By Ramy Srour
WASHINGTON, Oct 9 2013 (IPS)

Authorities in the southern state of Texas are refusing to return lethal injection drugs purchased from two compounding pharmacies, despite calls from the firms not to use their substances for executions.

The move comes after foreign drug companies have largely stopped exporting drugs for lethal injections to the United States, forcing those U.S. states that still impose death penalties to look to domestic compounding pharmacies to supply them with the required drugs.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), pharmacy compounding is a practice in which a licensed pharmacist combines, mixes, or alters a drug’s ingredients to create a medication specifically tailored to the needs of an individual patient.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s (DCJ) refusal has to do with the drug pentobarbital, a substance usually administered as an animal anaesthetic and as a remedy for epilepsy and seizures in humans. The move comes only a few days after one of the two companies involved, Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy (WCP), had expressly requested that the drugs be returned.

“The drugs were purchased legally and we were upfront with the vendors that their names would be subject to public disclosures after the purchase,” Texas DCJ’s spokesman Jason Clark told IPS. “We are not going to return the drugs.”

Clark declined to offer any additional comments, as the issue is currently at the centre of litigation in Texas.

Calls by IPS to WCP for comment were not returned by deadline. However, in an Oct. 4 letter, the owner and pharmacist-in-charge of WCP demanded that the DCJ “immediately return the vials of compounded pentobarbital in exchange for a refund”. According to the company, the sale, which saw WCP providing the State of Texas with eight doses of pentobarbital, took place because Texas had misrepresented the facts.

“Based on the phone calls I had with [the Texas] DCJ, it was my belief that this information would be kept on the ‘down low’ and that it was unlikely that it would be discovered that my pharmacy provided these drugs,” WCP’s Jasper Lovoi wrote. “Now that the information has been made public, I find myself in the middle of a firestorm that I was not advised of and did not bargain for.”

The letter is now being used as evidence in a lawsuit that was filed last week in Texas, challenging the execution of three prisoners on death row.

The other company involved in the controversy, Pharmacy Innovation, has also denied any knowledge of the drugs’ purpose. The company said that it was “completely unaware that the drugs … were purchased with the intent to use them for lethal injections,” according to a new report by the U.K.-based Reprieve, an advocacy group.

As soon as it was informed, the company reportedly cancelled the order before it could be filled.

Asked for comment, Pharmacy Innovation referred IPS to David Ball, of the Ball Consulting Group, LLC, a health communications firm affiliated with the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists (IACP), a trade association.

“Although it’s true that compounding pharmacies have been approached by some states to provide them with substances that would assist them in certain government practices, we should remember that drugs such as pentobarbital cover only a very small part of what compounding pharmacies do,” Ball told IPS.

“In fact, they represent a miniscule and infinitesimal part of the drugs produced by compounding pharmacies,” he said.

Ball declined to comment on the controversy between the Texas DCJ and Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy.

A new lethal mix

U.S. states turned to compounding pharmacies for drugs for lethal injections only as recently as 2011. That was necessary after drug companies stopped selling sodium thiopental (ST), the substance previously used for executions in the United States.

These drug companies, most based outside the United States, reported facing legal obstacles because of the unconstitutionality of death penalty in their home countries.

The Italy-based Hospira, for instance, announced in 2011 that it would stop producing the drug altogether. The British government, too, banned the export of ST.

That same year, the Denmark-based Lundbeck announced that it would “deny distribution of [pentobarbital] to prisons in U.S. states currently active in carrying out the death penalty by lethal injection.”

So far, the domestic compounding industry has offered a viable alternative to U.S. states still carrying out the death penalty. Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado and South Dakota, for instance, currently rely on compounding pharmacies for their supply of pentobarbital.

But the recent developments in Texas suggest that this trend may be short-lived.

Death penalty opponents are pushing the U.S. FDA to outlaw the practice of compounding pentobarbital. Thus far, however, the agency has refused to do so, noting only that the broader practice of compounding is currently under scrutiny.

“Pharmacy compounding can serve an important public health need if a patient cannot be treated with an FDA-approved medication,” the agency says. For instance, if a patient needs a medication made without a certain dye because of an allergy, pharmacy compounding can be an important solution.

Nonetheless, the industry’s involvement with the production of pentobarbital has clearly become a point of significant concern for the compounding sector.

Meanwhile, the State of Texas is proceeding with the Wednesday night execution of Michael Yowell, a plaintiff in the Texas litigation, for the murder of his parents in 1998.

“Bleeding”, “vomiting”, “a quarter or even a third” of bodyweight lost, “torture”. These are characteristic descriptions from testimony by hunger strikers at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay of their experience being force-fed at the hands of U.S. officials, published in a report released Thursday.

The report, produced by Reprieve, a U.K.-based legal assistance and advocacy group that is representing more than a dozen of the Guantanamo prisoners, collates testimonies from the prisoners’ unclassified letters, calls and discussions with attorneys.“It diminishes the standing of the U.S. in the world that we don’t follow the established ethics of the medical profession." -- Dr. Scott Allen of Physicians for Human Rights

The views “from the inside” presented in these descriptions are extremely disturbing, and advocates say they raise serious questions concerning the United States’ commitment to human rights.

“From a medical standpoint, the force-feeding of a competent hunger striker is a serious violation of ethics,” Dr. Scott Allen, a medical advisor to the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights, told IPS.

Allen spent seven years as a physician working within the U.S. prison system, during which time he dealt with hunger strikers. He points out that force-feeding is counter to the standards of the World Medical Association. Further, those standards have been accepted by the American Medical Association, which has expressed opposition to the practices at Guantanamo Bay.

There are currently some 140 U.S medical personnel tasked with carrying out the force-feedings that are being done to 45 hunger strikers at the detention centre. More than 100 detainees are currently on a hunger strike that has gone on since February, in protest of what they view as their indefinite detention.

The accounts from inmates in the Reprieve report indicate that U.S. practices go even beyond the concerns expressed by Allen and the associations he mentions.

Some of the accounts describe forcible cell extractions (FCEs), as the procedure of physically removing prisoners from their cells and subjecting them to force-feeding is officially known.

The U.S. military has claimed that strikers “present themselves daily, calmly, in a totally cooperative way, to be fed through a tube”. Prisoner accounts of FCEs contradict that claim, however.

“They wanted me to undergo tests and, when I refused, they called in the anti-riot [FCE] squad, who stormed into my hospital room,” Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian detainee who was cleared for release in 2007, is cited in the report as saying. “They shackled my hands and feet to the bed and then force fed me intravenously for twenty-four hours.”

Of the 166 detainees in Guantanamo, 86 have been cleared to be let free, but they remain held in the prison because of complications that have arisen in facilitating their releases.  

Another prisoner quoted by the report, Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian national who was cleared for release in 2009, explains in graphic detail the pain he has experienced as a result of being force-fed.

“I vomited blood for three days. I had a very strong cough and felt that my throat was injured,” Dhiab recounts. “[A] while ago they broke a rib in my chest. After it healed, the FCE again broke the same rib. It happened over and over again and the injury gets worse.”

Adversarial approach

In a manual outlining standard operating procedure for 2013, which was leaked to the press, Guantanamo officials express their approach to hunger-striking patients using terminology reminiscent of war.

“Just as battlefield tactics must change throughout the course of a conflict, the medical responses to Guantanamo detainees who hunger strike has evolved with time,” the manual states.

As Dr. Allen notes, this adversarial approach would constitute a highly atypical stance for medical professionals to take toward their patients. Moreover, he says, it is not one which is likely to solve the issue.

“Handling the strike this way will lead the doctors to lose the trust of their patients,” he says. “And having no trust means there will be little chance of properly resolving the strike.”

The debate over force-feeding has rekindled talk of Guantanamo officials being engaged in torture, a public debate that seemingly ended after President Barack Obama banned the practice of water-boarding (a form of interrogation that simulates drowning) there in 2009.

Indeed, there are accounts in the Reprieve report which explicitly call force-feeding torture.

“The force-feeding itself is simple torture,” explains Shaker Aamer, a Saudi prisoner cleared for released in 2007 and again in 2009. “Now they are using the metal-tipped tubes, forcing them in and pulling them out twice a day, leaving people vomiting on themselves in the restraint chair, and so forth.”

Just as the controversy surrounding water-boarding was viewed by many as damaging to the United States’ international image, so the continuing subjection of inmates to force-feeding may degrade the country in the minds of citizens and governments around the globe, Dr. Allen explained to IPS.

“It diminishes the standing of the U.S. in the world that we don’t follow the established ethics of the medical profession,” he says.

There is currently political pressure building on the administration of President Obama to end the use of force-feeding.

Influential Senators Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin sent a letter to the administration on Wednesday imploring it to end the force-feeding and ultimately close the prison.

“The growing problem of hunger strikes is due to the fact that many detainees have remained in legal limbo for more than a decade and have given up hope,” the letter states. “This should be alarming to all of us, and it is imperative that the Administration outline a formal process to permanently close the Guantanamo facility as soon as possible.” 

Guantanamo captives in January 2002. Credit: US Navy/public domain

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jul 9 2013 (IPS)

A federal judge here has taken the unusual step of formally calling on President Barack Obama to halt the forcible feeding of dozens of hunger-striking detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, warning that the practice appears to contravene international law.

But District Court Judge Gladys Kessler said the court system lacks jurisdiction to stop the force-feedings, which have been ongoing since February and currently affect around 45 inmates twice a day. The case had been brought on an emergency basis on behalf of a Syrian detainee, Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who wanted the force-feedings to be stopped for Ramadan.[Obama] has the power to address the hunger strike – he could end it tomorrow by starting to free prisoners his own government has cleared for release.” -- Cori Crider of Reprieve

During the month of Ramadan, which started Tuesday in much of the world, most practicing Muslims are required to fast during the daytime. Three similar motions by other detainees are still pending.

“It is important to stress that this is an issue now of life and death: people are being force-fed and their lives are on the line,” Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a watchdog and legal advocacy group, told IPS.

“Their continuous indefinite detention is a now matter of urgency and should not left to political wrangling. We do think the president has the authority to end not only the continuous indefinite detention but also the cruel, inhumane force-feeding at Guantanamo.”

On Monday, Judge Kessler noted that the courts are legally barred from considering the conditions of detention of anyone the United States has “properly detained as an enemy combatant”.

Yet “there is an individual who does have the authority to address the issue,” she wrote in her decision. “[T]he President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority – and power – to directly address the issue of force-feeding of the detainees at GuantanamoBay.”

In May, more than a dozen human rights groups wrote to U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, requesting that he “order the immediate and permanent cessation of all force-feeding of Guantanamo prisoners … capable of forming a rational judgment as to the consequences of refusing food.”

Force-feeding factory

Judge Kessler also outlined a forceful legal and ethical case for why the president should intervene.

“[The] Petitioner has set out in great detail … what appears to be a consensus that force-feeding of prisoners violates Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits torture or cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment,” Judge Kessler noted, referencing an argument the United Nations and others have made.

“[I]t is perfectly clear … that force-feeding is a painful, humiliating, and degrading process.”

Also on Monday, the U.S. musician and activist Yasiim Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) released a graphic video of himself being force-fed. The clip, produced in conjunction with Reprieve, a legal rights organisation representing Abu Wa’el Dhiab, has since gone viral.

“The judge’s ruling leaves Obama with nowhere to hide,” Cori Crider, Guantanamo attorney and strategic director at Reprieve, said Tuesday. “He has the power to address the hunger strike – he could end it tomorrow by starting to free prisoners his own government has cleared for release.”

On Tuesday, U.S. military personnel at GuantanamoBay confirmed that Muslim detainees required to undergo force-feeding would be fed only when the sun is down, in accordance with religious diktat during Ramadan.

Yet the Pentagon has been careful to state that detainees are receiving such treatment as an “accommodation, not a right”, a reference to the fact that detainees continue to be legally exempt from U.S. protections that take into account religious belief.

“It is really outrageous that Guantanamo commanders are offering this supposedly religious gesture to accommodate Guantanamo detainees’ Ramadan fasting by rearranging the schedule of the force-feedings,” the ACLU’s Dakwar says.

“This adds insult to injury. It’s unacceptable to have the force-feedings in the first place, and therefore it’s beyond the pale to do so after the daily Ramadan fasting.”

Lawyers for Reprieve, meanwhile, have expressed concern that that the night-time force-feeding schedule could pose dangers to detainees’ health.

There will be “just 10 hours and 44 minutes [between sunset and sunrise] for respondents to implement two force-feedings of 45 detainees for up to an hour of feeding time and four hours of total observation time per detainee”, Crider and others warn in a brief filed on Jul. 5.

“[Even] if this can even be achieved, GuantanamoBay will become a veritable force-feeding factory.”

Obama legacy?

According to the U.S. military, 106 of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo are currently considered to be on hunger strike, protesting what they see as their indefinite detention after many have remained imprisoned without charge after a dozen years. Of these, military officials view 45 detainees to be so weak as to necessitate forceful feedings.

Importantly, nearly all of those receiving force-feedings – including Abu Wa’el Dhiab – have been cleared for release, many for several years. But they remain trapped in a legal limbo due to U.S. laws prohibiting the transfer of some detainees, particularly Yemenis, back to their homeland.

Still, many rights groups have increasingly noted that President Obama has powers available that could alleviate key issues in this process.

Indeed, President Obama himself has expressed sentiments similar to Judge Kessler’s, but has repeatedly insinuated that his hands are tied. In May, during a major national security speech in which he suggested that the U.S. government would begin winding down the “war on terror”, including reviving a push to close Guantanamo, the president directly criticised the force-feedings at the detention centre.

“Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike,” the president stated on May 23. “Is that who we are? Is that something that our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that.”

Yet on Monday, Obama’s Department of Justice refused to halt the Ramadan force-feedings. And on Tuesday, White House spokesperson Jay Carney was noncommittal on Judge Kessler’s verdict, again trying to spread responsibility for the situation to Congress.

“The president made clear in April, and I think it holds true today, that we don’t want these individuals to die, and the action being taken is to prevent that from happening,” Carney said.

“[H]e calls on Congress to work with him to ensure that we can lift the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen … But the long-term goal here has been … we need to close this facility because it’s in our [national security] interest to do so.”