Islamic Foundation calls for death sentence if apostate fails to repent

The Islamic Foundation has called for self-declared apostate Mohamed Nazim to be stripped of his citizenship and sentenced to death if he does not repent and return to Islam.

Nazim claimed he was "Maldivian and not a Muslim" during a public question-and-answer session with Islamic speaker Dr Zakir Naik, the first time a Maldivian has publicly announced he is not a Muslim.

According to the Maldivian constitution all citizens are required to be Muslim, and the country is always described as a "100 %" Muslim country.

The 37 year-old angered many in the approximately 11,000-strong crowd with his statement during Dr Naik's 'Misconceptions about Islam' lecture on Friday.

Dr Naik responded that Nazim had read the wrong books and "deviated from Islam", and requested him "to read correct books on Islam, and Inshallah, you'll come back to Islam."

However Nazim did not relinquish the microphone and pressed Naik to clarify the penalty for apostasy.

"In Islam, there are many cases, it doesn't mean death penalty," Dr Naik explained. "But if the person who reverts who was a Muslim then converts to and becomes a non-Muslim and propagates his faith and speaks against Islam, and if it's Islamic rule, then the person should be put to death. But just because a person who is a Muslim becomes a non-Muslim, death penalty is not the ruling."

Nazim was escorted from the venue by police for his own protection, after members of the audience attempted to attack him.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said 2 men who tried to attack Nazim were arrested after they attacked the police officers protecting him. Nazim himself "was not injured because police protected him," Shiyam said.

He was taken to a police building where a crowd of protesters had gathered, calling for him to be punished. Shiyam confirmed that Nazim is now being held in an undisclosed location for 5 days while police investigate "in consultation with the Islamic Ministry and the Prosecutor General's office."

Today the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives issued a press statement calling on judges to give Nazim the opportunity to repent "and if he does not, then sentence him to death as Islamic law and Maldivian law agree."

"The Islamic Foundation believes that the person who announces apostasy should be punished according to Islamic laws," the NGO said, warning that Nazim represented "a disturbance to the religious views and the religious bonds that exist with Maldivians."

"Hereby if this man does not do his penance and come back to the Islamic religion, the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives calls to take the citizenship away from this man as mentioned in the Maldivian constitution."

If case crossed into areas not covered by the laws of the country, "then the judges should rely on Islamic law," the NGO stated, as per article 142 of constitution which says judiciary shall look into Islamic shar'ia on matters not covered in law, and sentence accordingly.

"So it is requested that the commissioner of police run the legal research on this man and take this to the Prosecutor General's office. We also request the Prosecutor General to go through this matter and to take this man to the criminal court for trial," the Islamic Foundation said.

A government official involved in the legal process, who requested that his name and department be kept anonymous, said he was "really worried" and described the case as "a very sensitive subject".

"Police are investigating the case," he said. "My understanding is that the court authorities will give [Nazim] opportunities to change his mind. I think he will be given every opportunity to think about his decision."

Minister for Islamic Affairs Dr Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari told Minivan News that Ministry officials had acted quickly to remove Nazim from the venue "for his own protection", and had now handed the matter over to the legal system.

"I don’t know if there is a penalty for apostasy according to Maldivian law," he said.

The Adhaalath Party issued a press statement claiming that the act violated the constitution of the Maldives and called on the government "to strengthen Islam and protect the constitution."

Religious NGO Jamiyyathul Salaf declined to comment on the matter during a press conference held today on another matter, however NGO Jamiyyathul Musliheen expressed "concern and regret" over the incident.

"Not a few number of Maldivian youths are moving further from the religion, and many of them are going renegade," the NGO said in a press statement, adding that "it is a responsibility of the government to strengthen Islam in the country."

President of the Human Rights Commission to the Maldives (HRCM), Ahmed Saleem, said "what happened was really unfortunate."

"I think the best thing will be to talk to him and to make him understand the situation and the repercussions, talks which HRCM will welcome," Saleem said.

He said he was unsure how the Maldivian government would handle the incident.

"I'm afraid of the reaction from the international community should we resort to harsh action," he said. "I don't think it would be in our interest – we have just been given a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. This is something we need to think seriously about before we start using harsh language."

Minivan News contacted several local human rights NGOs however they had not responded at time of press.

A senior government source, who requested anonymity, said he felt the case "will be a real test of how the government will abide by its international commitments."

Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair was on medical leave and unable to comment.

Minivan News was unable to reach Nazim himself for comment, however a person close to the matter described him as "a very sensible guy who will think of the people around him. But he will not give up on calling for people to be more honest about themselves. I think he will become a genuine refugee if he refuses to take back his words," she said.

Source: Minivan News, May 30, 2010

New China rules rule out torture in confessions

Embarrassed by a murder victim who turned up a decade after his "killer" was convicted, China's security and judicial authorities issued rules on Sunday to make it harder to convict suspects based on confessions secured under duress.

Under China's current system, confessions play a strong role in convictions and suspects have little access to lawyers or any other protection while in police custody. Suspects can be detained for some time before being formally arrested or charged.

2 new regulations set out procedures for assessing evidence in cases subject to the death penalty, and for excluding evidence obtained under duress, according to an announcemnt on the central government website.

Testimony taken under violence or threat and evidence from unamed sources must be excluded, and defendents may request an investigation into whether their testimony was obtained illegally, the new regulations state.

If the investigation is approved, prosecutors must provide the court with interrogation notes, tapes and videos of the interrogation and testimony of those present.

A campaign by legal reformers against abuse in police custody was given a new boost this month, when convicted murderer Zhao Zuohai was acquitted after his supposed victim returned home after disappearing for over 10 years. "Judicial practice in recent years shows that slack and improper methods have been used to gather, examine and exclude evidence in various cases, especially those involving the death penalty," the Xinhua news agency said.

It was citing the statement by the Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Justice.

In a similar case in 2005, a man who had confessed to killing his wife was released when she returned home after 11 years. His mother had died in police custody while attempting to defend him.

That case triggered a review of all death penalty cases.

Yang Jia, who attacked and killed 6 police officers in Shanghai, became a folk hero in China when he was tried and executed in 2008. Yang said he had been abused in custody when he was detained for stealing his own bicycle.

The revised regulations on evidence do not include measures sought by legal reformers to remove the rate of clearance - the solving of cases -- as a guage of police performance.

That could encourage police to resort to violence in order to "solve" cases and move them to trial, state-backed Xinhua noted in its English language report.

Source: Reuters, May 30, 2010

India: Delay in hanging leads to reduced sentences

New Delhi: The government may be unwittingly entitling condemned prisoners - including Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru - to a lesser life sentence by delaying decisions on their mercy pleas, Supreme Court rulings suggest.

The apex court has repeatedly held that excessive delay in executing the death penalty, leaving the condemned prisoner to suffer a "dehumanising effect" of "facing the agony of alternating between hope and despair" renders the capital punishment too inhuman to be inflicted, thus entitling the prisoner to the lesser sentence of life term.

The court rulings assume significance in view of the fact that Guru, who was sent to the gallows by a trial court in December 2002, recently moved the apex court seeking an early decision on his mercy plea.

"It seems to us that the extremely excessive delay in the disposal of the case of the appellant (a condemned prisoner) would by itself be sufficient for imposing a lesser sentence of imprisonment for life," ruled the apex court in 1971 on an appeal by West Bengal native Vivian Rodricks.

Rodricks was awarded capital punishment in 1964 for a murder committed in 1962.

"It is now January 1971, and the appellant has been for more than six years under the fear of the sentence of death. This must have caused him unimaginable mental agony," said the apex court.

"In our opinion, it would be inhuman to make him suffer till the government decides his mercy petition. We consider that this now is a fit case for awarding the sentence of imprisonment for life," the bench ruled.

In 1982, while hearing an appeal by the Uttar Pradesh government against an Allahabad High Court judgment acquitting a convict who had been awarded the death sentence by a trial court for killing three people in December 1972, the Supreme Court refused to impose the death penalty on him due to excessive delay.

Also read: Amnesty hails India's moratorium on death penalty

"The occurrence took place some time in December 1972, and more than eight years have elapsed since. The present appeal has been pending for five years. We feel that although the murders committed by the convict were extremely gruesome, brutal and dastardly, yet the extreme penalty of death is not called for in the circumstances of this particular case," said the apex court, awarding life term to the convict identified as Sahai.

Earlier, the apex court had virtually set a maximum limit of two to four years for executing the death penalty awarded to condemned prisoners. In case of a delay beyond this limit, the court converted the death penalty to life sentence.

In 1983, the Supreme Court relaxed the two-year norm for executing death sentences. It, however, upheld the principle that excessive delay in executing the death sentence entitled the condemned prisoner to lesser sentence.

"The prolonged anguish of alternating hope and despair, the agony of uncertainty, the consequences of such suffering on the mental, emotional and physical integrity and health of the individual can render the decision to execute the sentence of death an inhuman and degrading punishment in the circumstances of a given case," the apex court said in the Sher Singh versus Punjab case.

"A prisoner who has experienced living death for years on end is entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of this court for examining if, after all the agony and torment he has been subjected to, it is just and fair to allow the sentence of death to be executed," the court said.

Last September, while deciding an appeal by a condemned prisoner who killed his wife and five children in 2006, the apex court said: "It would be open to a condemned prisoner, who has been under a sentence of death over a long period of time for reasons not attributable to him, to contend that the death sentence should be commuted to one of life (sentence)."

The court, in fact, in its September 2009 ruling even advised the government to stick to a "self-imposed rule" to decide on condemned prisoners' mercy petitions within three months.

"We must say with the greatest emphasis that human beings are not chattels and should not be used as pawns in furthering some larger political or government policy," said a bench of Justice H.S. Bedi and Justice J.M. Panchal last September.

The latest high profile case which has seen the death penalty being awarded is that of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist in the 9/11 terror attacks. Already questions have been asked about when he will finally be hanged.

Source: sifynews.com, May 30, 2010

Provincial legislator gets death sentence with reprieve for corruption

TIANJIN, May 28 (Xinhua) -- A former senior legislator in northeast China's Jilin Province, Mi Fengjun, was sentenced Friday to death with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes.

Mi, former vice chairman of the Jilin Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee, was convicted of having accepted bribes worth more than 6.28 million yuan (919,258 U.S. dollars), a verdict handed down by the Tianjin Municipal No.1 Intermediate People's Court said.

The ruling also included the confiscation of all of Mi's personal assets and the lifetime deprivation of his political rights.

According to the court, Mi took bribes from people and institutions who sought to benefit from his influence after he took various senior posts both in Jilin and it capital city, Changchun, between February 1992 and February 2008.

Since he surrendered most of the illicit gains, the sentence was lighter than it would have otherwise been, the court said.

Mi was removed from his post and expelled from the Communist Party of China in February 2009 for the alleged violations.

Source: CCTV, May 28, 2010

Bali Nine: Has Scott Rush converted to Islam?

THE death-row inmate and Bali nine drug courier Scott Rush (pictured) has been circumcised by a man who snuck in to Bali's Kerobokan jail and covertly performed the operation in an Islamic prayer room.

The procedure, performed on Friday, is commonly part of the ritual when a person converts to Islam, although the religious orientation of Rush - who has previously professed to be a Christian - could not be established last night.

Agus Hartawan, Kerobokan's medical officer, confirmed the circumcision in a telephone interview yesterday as he was examining Rush in his prison clinic.

''The wound is healing properly and he is doing fine,'' Dr Hartawan said.

He then passed the phone to Rush, who, when asked if he had converted to Islam, said ''No comment'', adding he would be making no further statements.

Even so, the Herald understands Rush has been given the Islamic name Suleiman, and has been spending a lot of time in the past two weeks with a small group of Muslim prisoners.

The clandestine circumcision was undertaken at the prison's musholla, or prayer room, by members of an Islamic group who entered the prison with medical equipment.

According to one source, a white sheet was put up while the operation took place. It is believed a local anaesthetic was used.

Dr Hartawan expressed his anger at the security breach.

''I am now very upset,'' he said. ''Kebakaran jenggot! [My beard is on fire!] ''I heard it was done by LSM Islam [an Islamic non-government organisation].''

Rush has battled depression since he was incarcerated more than five years ago and has been particularly unsettled lately as he waits for his final legal appeal against his death sentence to be lodged this year.

Just last month, on April 28, he spoke to the Herald of his struggle with Christianity and its concept of redemption for sinners who confess.

Rush said while he had confessed to his crime, expressed remorse and prayed regularly, ''I'm still looking for forgiveness. I just feel so bad about everything, especially for what I've done to my parents and family.''

It is understood his interest in Islam peaked just days after that interview, when he attended a prayer session for the first time.

A week later, he was circumcised, provoking uproar among prison officials and astounding other inmates.

Circumcision is recommended when converting to Islam, but it is not compulsory. The only mandatory act in adopting Islam is Shahada, or bearing witness.

This usually involves a person stating before reputable Muslim witnesses that there is no god but Allah, and that the prophet Muhammad is his messenger.

Rush was 19 when he made his first overseas trip as part of the Bali nine heroin smuggling ring.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, May 11, 2010

'Anxiety' behind Rush circumcision

THERE are grave concerns for the mental well-being of death row inmate and Bali nine member Scott Rush, as friends and family come to terms with his decision to be circumcised at an Islamic prayer room.

The circumcision occurred after a doctor was smuggled into Kerobokan prison on Friday by a group of Muslims and raised questions about Rush's religion.

Circumcision is commonly a part of a conversion ceremony although Rush told members of his prayer group who visited him yesterday that he remained a Christian.

But according to a former psychiatrist who was part of the group, the young Queenslander was ''anxious, thought disordered and confused''.

''He exhibited naivety and did not seem to realise the implications of what he had done,'' the former psychiatrist, who asked not to be identified, reported back to Rush's family and legal team.

''He is an anxious, lonely and terrified young man. He is trying to find understanding in a world that no longer makes sense.''

The former psychiatrist said Rush showed signs of ''death row phenomenon'', a mental malady that affects people under a death sentence, leading to ''perception disorder''.

Rush has been on death row for 2½ years for his role in the syndicate that tried to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin to Australia. His final legal appeal is due shortly.

According to Kerobokan's section head of rehabilitation, Anang Huzaini, Rush has prayed with Muslims at the jail and ''he did at one point tell me he had converted to Islam''.

Rush now maintains he undertook the circumcision - apparently performed with a laser - for ''health reasons'', Mr Huzaini said. But the jail has a clinic for such operations.

Mr Huzaini said he would ask the prison doctor on Friday to consider whether Rush needed outside psychiatric assistance.

Source: Brisbane Times, May 12, 2010

US hopes Malawi gay pardon sends message 'around the globe'

Washington - The White House Saturday said it was "pleased" to hear that a gay couple in Malawi had been pardoned from a long prison sentence and hoped the decision would open new dialogue and send a global message.

In a statement, the White House press secretary was reacting to the decision by Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika to grant the pardon, which came as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the country.

The couple, Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, (pictured) had been sentenced to 14 years in prison after they openly celebrated their engagement. Homosexual acts are banned in the southern African country.

"We hope that President Mutharika's pardon marks the beginning of a new dialogue which reflects the country's history of tolerance and a new day for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights in Malawi and around the globe," the White House said.

The White House called for a renewed commitment to "ending the persecution and criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity."

Malawian's views on homosexuality are shared by many people in Africa, where gays suffer widespread discrimination, repression and, sometimes, violence.

The parliament of the central African nation of Uganda, where homosexuality is already prohibited, is considering a bill that would increase the penalties for homosexual acts from 14 years in jail to life, or even the death penalty, for some acts.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has described gays as "worse than dogs and pigs."

Source: EarthTimes, May 29, 2010

Saudi Arabia: Five convicts to appeal death penalty verdict

QATIF: The relatives of five people who have been sentenced to death for murdering a Saudi youth in Qatif are to appeal the verdict.

The men, who strangled the youth after luring him to a rural location pretending he would meet a young woman there, have 30 days to appeal the verdict, Al-Yaum newspaper reported. A relative of one of the convicts said the murder was unintentional and that only one of the five men was responsible.

“They did not plan to kill him but only rob him. They had been in contact with the victim via mobile phone for around a month and had pretended they were women,” he said.

Having arrived at the location, the young man was met by two men dressed as women. They then drove to a remote location.

“One of the attackers was sitting on the front seat near the driver while the second was sitting on the back seat behind him.

“The two men then attempted to strangle him. When they saw him faint, they took him to the emergency section of a nearby hospital. The hospital, however, refused to treat him, which then led them to go and tell the police,” he said, adding that by that time the youth had died. Ahmad Al-Sudairy, the lawyer representing the five men, expressed surprise at the verdict.

“We’ve never heard of such a verdict," he said, adding that he hopes the appeal court will overturn the verdict.

“If we go over the case, then we can see that the murder was committed by one of five men and that they did not plan to kill him but only rob him,” he said.

He further wondered how all of the five could have strangled the man to death, adding that the others should receive some sort of Ta'azir punishment.

Source: Arab News, May 29, 2010

Afghan citizen hanged in central Iran

One man was hanged in the prison of Isfahan (central Iran) early this morning.

Quoting Isfahan judiciary’s public relations, "Isfahan Metropolis News agency" (IMNA) reported that an Afghan citisen identified as Nour Jamal S. (26) was hanged in the prison of Isfahan early this morning. The man was convicted of smugling 1,385 kg of crack according to the report.

Afghan civil society has in the recent months protested several times against execution of Afghans in Iran. The protests started after unofficial reports on execution of 45 Afghan prisoners in 3 days in March 2010.

Source: Iran Human Rights, May 29, 2010

Ecuador: Indian town drops death penalty in murder case

An Indian community that sentenced a young man to death by hanging for the murder of another man softened his punishment Sunday, ordering him to do five years of community service instead.

Orlando Quishpe, 21, was also subjected to punishments that included carrying a heavy sack of dirt, an ice-water bath and a public whipping with a thorny plant while he was forced to beg forgiveness.

Ecuador's attorney general had threatened legal action against the community after it ordered Quishpe's execution last week, because the South American nation does not allow the death penalty.

The Indians refused the government's request that the suspect be handed over to the regular courts. Ecuador's constitution recognizes indigenous justice as long as it does not violate the charter or human rights.

An assembly of residents in La Cocha, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) from the capital, debated for 6 hours Sunday and dropped the death penalty.

They decided Quishpe will carry out "5 years of work in the field," community leader Ricardo Chaluisa told reporters. He said the work would be supervised by members of Quishpe's home community, Guantopolo.

Before he was turned over to leaders from Guantopolo, Quishpe, who works as a carpenter and is in a rock band, underwent a day of punishment.

Nearly naked, he first was made to hold a sack of dirt for 10 minutes. Tied to a whipping post, he was doused in an icy bath and beaten with nettles while he apologized to the townspeople – although he denied any guilt in the slaying of Marco Olivo, 21.

Olivo was beaten and then hanged with a belt on May 9. Town leaders accused Quishpe of using his belt in the killing. No motive for the attack has been released.

4 other young men underwent a day of punishment for the crime a week ago. The community said they confessed to participating in the attack.

Source: Associated Press, May 29, 2010

Taiwan: Legality of capital punishment upheld

DEATH ROW: Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu said there was no timetable for carrying out executions, although a plan to prioritize them was under consideration

The Justices of the Constitutional Court rejected a petition yesterday aimed at halting plans to execute the 40 inmates that remain on death row.

"The defendants are given the opportunity to defend and express themselves during the trial process ... There is no violation of the Constitution in the convictions," the Constitutional Court said in a statement.

"The request to suspend the executions is dismissed, as the court declines to review the case," the court said.

"Execution of the death row prisoners does not violate the two United Nations covenants that Taiwan has signed," the court said, in a reference to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The covenants were passed by the legislature on March 31 last year and later signed into law by President Ma Ying-jeou.

The petition was filed by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, on behalf of the 40 death row inmates.

Taiwan executed 4 of the 44 prisoners on death row on April 30, the 1st executions to be carried out since December 2005.

The Ministry of Justice said the 4 men had been tried and convicted of "grave offenses such as lethal kidnappings and murder" and their sentences had been confirmed by courts at various levels.

The executions came 5 weeks after former minister of justice Wang Ching-feng resigned amid a political storm sparked when she declared that she would not sign any death warrants during her term in office.

The justice ministry yesterday said it respected the Consitutional Court’s decision.

The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, however, said in a statement it was saddened by the decision, which it described as "deeply regrettable."

The non-profit organization, which has a team of volunteer lawyers, said it would make further comments on the judgment after it receives official confirmation of the decision from the Judicial Yuan.

Legal experts said the ministry could resume the execution of death row inmates at any time.

Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu said yesterday there was no timetable for carrying out more executions despite the court's decision.

The execution date of the 40 inmates currently on death row would be based on the gravity on their crimes, he said.

In a meeting with the Chiayi District Prosecutors' Office, the minister said a plan to prioritize the execution of inmates whose crimes involved brutal murders, including multiple deaths or killings within the family, was under consideration.

His comments came shortly after a report appeared in the Chinese-language United Daily News claiming that the ministry could carry out a 2nd round of executions before the end of the year.

Taiwan reserves the death penalty for serious crimes including aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery.

Source: Taipei Times, May 29, 2010

Death Penalty Dashes Migrant Workers’ Hopes

MANILA, May 11, 2010 (IPS) - Every day some 4,500 Filipinos leave their homeland in search of the proverbial green pastures. But some of them end up facing death instead.

Jakatia Pawa, 33, a mother of two working as a domestic helper in Kuwait, was convicted of killing her employer’s daughter despite the lack of evidence linking her to the alleged crime. She currently faces a death sentence in Kuwait.

Joselito Zapanta, 30, who works as a tile setter in Riyadh, claims he fought back when he was beaten by his Sudanese landlord. Early this year, the father of two was sentenced to death for the alleged accidental killing of his employer.

These are just two of the cases of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) on death row that have been documented by Migrante International, the largest alliance of Filipino migrant organisations, which claims that the plight of OFWs has gotten worse.

"Some cases have recently been commuted to life imprisonment, but there are roughly about 60 Filipinos on death row," Garry Martinez, chairperson of Migrante International, told IPS.

At least 26 of these come from the Middle East for crimes like homicide and murder in self-defense. Death row cases in China are also on the rise, mainly for drug-related offences, according to Migrante.

Local news reports cite the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) as saying some Filipinos are also facing death sentences in Malaysia, Kuwait, Brunei and the United States.

Roughly one-third or 58 countries around the world still hand out death sentences, according to the New York-based Amnesty International (AI), while 139 countries, including the Philippines, have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

According to the Commission on Population, an estimated 10 percent of the country’s 92 million population works abroad, making the Philippines one of the biggest senders of workers for overseas employment. Between January and November 2009 alone, some 1.28 million Filipinos were deployed abroad, said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, which monitors the overseas employment of Filipinos.

"Many leave the Philippines for other countries to work as migrant workers due to the lack of jobs, poor working conditions and wages and salaries which are inadequate for decent living in the country. But many of them end up isolated, abused, trapped and, worse, some are killed," Dr Aurora Parong, director of AI-Philippines, told IPS.

Migrante estimates that there are close to 5,000 overseas Filipinos languishing in foreign jails. Cases of mysterious deaths of Filipinos in foreign countries are also common. The non-governmental organisation receives five to six new cases daily.

Based on cases it has handled, Migrante said that OFWs have been turned away from Philippines embassies when they sought help, were not given legal counsel, and that they were forced, usually by the host country’s police, to make false confessions. Language and cultural barriers are also a major challenge.

"We received a letter written on toilet paper from several (Filipinos) on death row detailing how they were tortured for five days until they confessed to a crime they did not commit," shared Martinez. The victims, who were working in Saudi Arabia, were able to mail the letter to their families through the help of Filipino nurses based in the same country.

When sought for comment, the Office for the Undersecretary of Migrant and Workers Affairs (OUMWA) under the DFA could not give any updates on the cases of the OFWs facing the death penalty.

"I have no knowledge on these cases because the different (consular) desks assigned to the countries concerned are handling that," Bert Manayao, case officer of OUMWA, told IPS.

When asked what services they provided to OFWs in distress, Manayao said that they gave "legal assistance" but would not elaborate further. He added that it was difficult to deal with the cases of Filipinos who "pretended to be innocent" and that many OFWs were easily fooled into becoming drug mules.

According to its website, the OUMWA is mandated to deliver "timely assistance to Filipino nationals" and protect "the dignity, rights and freedom of Filipino citizens abroad."

The Philippine government, though, has been able to save several OFWs on death row in the past, by appealing to host countries’ governments, writing a ‘tanazul’ (letter of forgiveness) and offering blood money, a compensation paid by an offender to the family of the victim, said Migrante.

But this practice is unacceptable to some of the OFWs.

"For those in jail who are innocent, asking for forgiveness is like admitting that they committed a crime. What they want is for the Philippine government to defend them and fight for their innocence," said Migrante’s Martinez.

Fifteen years after the hanging of Filipina domestic helper Flor Contemplacion in Singapore sparked public outrage, Migrante laments that not much progress has been achieved to improve the plight of OFWs.

Despite the threats confronting Filipinos abroad, the labour export policy in the country remains strong, which Migrante attributes to the billions the government rakes in from mandatory contributions and fees required of departing OFWs as well as from their remittances, which hit 17.348 billion U.S. dollars in 2009, up from 16.426 billion dollars in 2008, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines.)

Now that the May 10 presidential elections are over, Migrante hopes that the next administration will do something concrete to address the hapless conditions of migrants, adding that six OFWs have been beheaded under outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s watch.

"What we want to see is the (government’s) willingness to reverse the labour export policy and ensure jobs locally so that these kinds of human rights violations no longer occur," said Martinez.

Source: IPS News, Kara Santos, May 11, 2010

"Measure for Measure" - On Justice, Law and The Death Penalty

Now, as fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mocked than feared; so our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And liberty plucks justice by the nose;
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.
Measure for Measure, 1. 3

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.
Measure for Measure, 2. 1

Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Measure for Measure, 2. 2

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
Measure for Measure, 2. 2

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Measure for Measure, 2. 2

O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Measure for Measure, 2. 2

The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope.
Measure for Measure, 3. 1

Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art.
Measure for Measure, 3. 1

If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.
Measure for Measure, 3. 1

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world.
Measure for Measure, 3. 1

The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
Measure for Measure, 3. 1

Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare.

Texas: Jury gives Milam death sentence

Labeled by prosecutors as a “monster” who deserves “the ultimate penalty,” convicted murderer Blaine Keith Milam (left) was sentenced late Thursday night to die by lethal injection for his role in the beating death of his girlfriend’s daughter.

Milam, 20, was convicted of capital murder May 17 for killing 13-month-old Amora Carson, the daughter of his girlfriend, Jessica Carson.

Amora Carson died from blunt-force trauma inflicted on her Dec. 2, 2008. Milam and Jessica Carson, both of Rusk County, said they repeatedly struck the toddler with an unknown object in an attempt to remove demons from the child during an exorcism. An expert during the trial said 23 of 24 bite marks found on Amora Carson’s body belonged to Milam.

Jessica Carson is in the Rusk County Jail awaiting her trial. Milam’s trial had been moved to the Montgomery County Courthouse from Rusk County because of pretrial publicity.

The six-woman, six-man jury deliberated more than eight hours Thursday before unanimously deciding to send Milam to death row.

For Milam to receive the death penalty, the jurors ruled he would be a continual threat to society and had a role in Amora Carson’s death. Although Milam’s attorneys argued their client was mentally retarded and was faced with mitigating factors in the murder, the jury rejected both claims.

After discharging the jury, Rusk County Judge J. Clay Gossett sentenced Milam to death by lethal injection, pending a mandatory appeal by the state. Because of the automatic appeal, no date for Milam’s execution was set.

As the decision unfolded, Milam’s mother, Shirley Milam, and his sister Teresa sobbed as they embraced each other.

While Rusk County District Attorney Micheal Jimerson and Texas Attorney General Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Tanner declined comment, Rusk County Sheriff Danny Pirtle lauded the jury for providing “some closure” for the family of Amora Carson.

Conroe attorney Stephen Jackson, a member of Milam’s defense team, said Milam “doesn’t really understand what just happened. He just keeps asking, ‘Why are they doing this to me?’”

“He is child-like and mentally retarded and this is wrong. We look forward to our appeal,” Jackson said.

Earlier in the day, prosecutors spent Thursday asking the jury to find Milam capable of committing acts of violence and that he would remain a continued threat to society.

Defense attorneys, however, argued Milam should be spared the needle because he is a person with mental retardation, and that there were mitigating factors in the murder of Amora Carson, such as Milam’s limited education and his substance abuse.

Tanner and Jimerson did not concur with that argument.

Tanner said there was only one reason for the trial – and that was Blaine Milam.

“It was his conduct, actions and decisions,” she said.

Milam was the primary actor in Amora Carson’s death, Tanner said.

“He is a monster,” she said, adding that Milam deserves the “ultimate penalty.”

“If he (Milam) was abused as a child, that would be mitigating evidence, but what could mitigate this, this, this and this!” Tanner said as she flashed a series of autopsy photographs of Amora Carson. Crystal Zapata, a high school friend of Jessica Carson, turned her tear-stained eyes away from the images.

Jimerson began the day posting a photograph of Amora Carson on the overhead viewer and talking about how the “special days” Milam had enjoyed while growing up would never come for the toddler.

“She looked to make people smile,” he said. “You can’t look into those eyes and imagine the pain she suffered.

The only day Amora Carson will enjoy is “a day of justice,” Jimerson said.

Lead attorney Rick Hagan, of Longview, reiterated the defense team’s argument that Jessica Carson bore the greater responsibility for her daughter’s death.

“(The crime) didn’t take place in a vacuum,” Hagan said.

The evidence is “obvious” that Jessica Carson is “equally guilty of murdering Amora Carson,” he said.

Hagan also brought up how Milam, a registered sex offender, had been on a work release program with Rusk County several days before Amora Carson’s death.

“I’m not telling you Rusk County had blood on their hands. If they had done their job and put him away, Amora Carson would still be dead.”

Jackson said Milam would not be the worst person on Texas’ death row and that Milam is not shrewd or cunning. Instead, Milam is a “simple person” who is “unintelligent.”

“He will be victimized if he goes to prison,” Jackson said. “He will be picked on from the word go.”

Although Milam had parents who loved him, Jackson said they provided him with “nothing” to extend his life.

Because of Milam’s family history of heart problems, Jackson told the jury that Milam would, in all likelihood, face a short life span whether or not he’s sent to death row.

“He’ll be dead within five to seven years if you say the death penalty,” Jackson said. “Given the medical conditions (in prison), I don’t think he’ll live much after his mid-40s.”

Jackson said life without parole would confirm that the state’s criminal justice system works and is “good.”

“Otherwise, we would take Blaine Milam and hang him from the highest tree,” he said.

Howard Roden can be reached at hroden@hcnonline.com.

Source: The Courier of Montgomery County, May 27, 2010

Mauritania: 3 members of a Mauritanian armed group sentenced to death for the murder of French tourists

URGENT ACTION APPEAL from Amnesty International

Three members of a Mauritanian armed group have been sentenced to death for the 2007 murder of four French tourists. Mauritania has not carried out any executions since 1987.

The three Mauritanian men, Sidi Ould Sidna, Maarouf Ould Haiba and Mohamed Ould Chabarnou, were sentenced to death on 25 May by the Criminal Court in the capital, Nouakchott. They had admitted to being members of the Islamist armed group Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

In court, they denied killing the French tourists, and their lawyers protested constantly that the men had given statements under torture after they were arrested, in January 2008, and that these had been used as evidence against them during their trial. For details of Amnesty International’s concerns about torture of alleged Islamists, see the report Mauritania: torture at the heart of the State.

Amnesty International met the three men several times, during two research missions in Mauritania, while they

were in custody. Each of them said they had been tortured for several weeks, one of them saying he had been tortured, beaten and humiliated every day for 18 days. Another said he had been tortured, deprived of sleep and food for a month, and threatened with rape and humiliation. The third one explained how he had been subjected to the ‘‘jaguar’‘ technique, in which his wrists and ankle were bound together and he was hung by them from a bar.

The three men were part of a group of 10 Mauritanian men charged in connection with these murders. The prosecuting authorities wanted a further two to be tried in absentia, as they are in hiding, but the court refused to try them. Of those convicted, beside the three sentenced to death, five were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to 10 years; a driver and a boatman, accused of helping the men escape after the attack on the tourists, were acquitted.

Mauritania has not executed anyone since 1987. However, there are concerns that the defendants in this case could be executed. Amnesty International opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The armed group Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), formerly know as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, are mainly active in Algeria. They claimed responsibility for several bomb attacks in Algeria in 2007, on both civilian and military targets. They now operate through a network of cells in neighboring countries, such as Mauritania, Mali and Niger. They have claimed responsibility for several recent abductions of Europeans, notably three Spanish aid workers abducted in November 2009, two Italian tourists taken hostage the following month and a French tourist abducted in Niger in April 2010.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:

- Urging the authorities to commute the death sentences handed down to Sidi Ould Sidna, Maarouf Ould Haiba and Mohamed Ould Chabarnou immediately;

- Calling on them to guarantee that they will continue applying the moratorium on executions which has been in place since 1987.

APPEALS TO:

President of the Republic

Son Excellence Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz

President de la Republique

La Presidence, BP 184

Nouakchott, MAURITANIA

Salutation: Dear President/Monsieur le President

Minister of Justice

Monsieur Abidine Ould Elkheir

Ministre de la Justice

Ministere de la Justice, BP 350

Nouakchott, MAURITANIA

Salutation: Dear Minister/Monsieur le Ministre

COPIES TO:

Mr. Mohamed El Moctar Ould Youba, Counselor

Charge d’Affaires ad interim

Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania

2129 Leroy Pl. NW

Washington DC 20008

Phone: 202 232 5700

Fax: 1 202 319 2623

Email: info@mauritaniaembassy.us

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if sending appeals after 08 July 2010.

MESA "Iran Letter" on recent violations of academic rights and persecution of scholars and students in Iran

Letters on Iran

May 26, 2010

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran

c/o H.E. Mohammad Khazaee

Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

622 Third Ave.

New York, NY 10017

Dear Ayatollah Khamenei,

I write you once again on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our profound outrage at the recent death sentences and executions, as well as continued harassment, imprisonment, and expulsions targeting university faculty and administrators, teachers, and non-violent student activists in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 3000 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

We are gravely alarmed and disturbed by the Iranian government's escalating and increasingly brutal violations of academic rights and the most basic rights of freedom of opinion and expression since our last letter to you on February 9, 2010 (http://www.mesa.arizona.edu/caf/letters_iran.html).

We are distraught over the recent executions of 5 prisoners on May 9, among them the Kurdish teacher and social justice activist Farzad Kamangar, a member of the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association. Kamangar had been arrested in 2006 and condemned to death in 2008 on the alleged charge of belonging to an armed separatist Kurdish organization and involvement in a series of bombings -- at a trial that lasted only a few minutes and during which no substantiating evidence was presented by the prosecution in support of these allegations. Moreover, all of these executions by hanging were carried out without prior notification to the accused, their families, or their legal representatives. During their detention, all of these individuals (Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heydarian, Shirin Alam Hooli, Farhad Vakili, and Mehdi Eslamian) were subjected to torture in an attempt to extract self-incriminating confessions from them.

Even while these executions continue to be harshly condemned by the international community, the revolutionary courts (with the full sanction of the head of the Iranian judiciary, Sadegh Larijani) have been handing down excessive, unwarranted sentences to many of the hundreds of teachers, university faculty, and students rounded up since the contested election of June 12, 2009. These cruel and harsh measures, fully endorsed by other officials such as Tehran's prosecutor-general Abbas Jafari-Doulatabadi, are widely seen not only as a continuation of the official policy of silencing peaceful critics of the state, but also as additional means of creating an atmosphere of fear with the approach of the anniversary of last summer's large-scale demonstrations in Iran in the aftermath of the presidential election.

In addition to harsh interrogation tactics, routine torture, forced self-incriminating confessions, and long prison sentences, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic has been zealous in accusing detained individuals of being "mohareb" (i.e., one who wages war against God) and sentencing them to death. We find extremely reprehensible the increasingly recurrent application by the Iranian judiciary of the noxious designation of mohareb, which carries the death penalty, particularly when sentencing individuals arrested for peaceful expression of independent thought (guaranteed by the constitution of the Islamic Republic as well as the UN Declaration of Human Rights) or for other acts that do not otherwise merit drastic sentences under the Iranian law. Among those currently awaiting execution for allegedly being a mohareb is the teacher Abdul-Reza Ghanbari. He was arrested during the Ashura street protests of December 27, 2009 for chanting anti-government slogans and was subsequently tortured, accused of belonging to an armed anti-regime organization, tried without access to an independent legal representative, and sentenced to death by hanging. We ask that this sentence be overturned immediately. While we welcome the recent commutation (to 3 ½ years imprisonment) of the original death sentence handed down to 20-year-old student activist Mohammad-Amin Valian of the central council of the Islamic Student Association of Damghan Science University, who had confessed to throwing stones at the security forces attacking the demonstrators during the Ashura street protests, we urge the Iranian judiciary to consider even greater lenience for Mr. Valian.

Since our last letter, there has been a chronically worsening climate of state-sponsored intimidation and persecution in the Islamic Republic of student activists, university and school instructors and administrators, intellectuals and scholars at large, as well as artists, trade unionists, and human rights and gender rights activists on patently ideological grounds. Teachers' rights activists and members of teachers' unions and councils have also been targets of systematic persecution. Many have been summoned to court and fined or sentenced for their peaceful advocacy of improved work conditions, better pay and benefits, greater job security, and/or criticism of the government's mistreatment of colleagues or student activists. The many teachers currently in detention on spurious charges include Hashem Khastar, a retired teacher and head of the Mashhad Teachers' Trade Union Center, who was arrested in June 2009, released a few weeks later, and then rearrested again on September 16. He is reported to be in poor health and lacking access to adequate medical care while in prison. Other jailed teachers' rights campaigners include Mohammad Davari, Rassoul Bedaghi, Ali-Akbar Baghani, Ali-Reza Hashemi, Mahmoud Beheshti Langaroudi, Hossein Bastaninejad and Ghorban Ahmadi. The arrests and intimidation of teachers' rights activists were stepped up with the approach of Labor Day and Teachers' Day celebrations in Iran (on May 1 and May 2 respectively).

Student groups and education rights groups singled out for intimidation and persecution by the state include the Council for Defending the Right to Education, the Islamic Student Association, and the Office for Fostering [Student] Solidarity (daftar-e tahkim-e vahdat), many of whose members are routinely arrested and/or fined, beaten, expelled from universities, and threatened by the authorities. We are particularly concerned about the case of Kouhyar Goudarzi, an expelled Sharif University (Tehran) student and a member of the alumni association of the Office for Fostering [Student] Solidarity as well as a member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters and a former member of the Islamic Student Association, who was arrested on December 20, 2009 on his way to the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. He was recently transferred to solitary confinement and his lawyer has been informed that his court file is missing. We are also anxious about the deteriorating health of the detained vice-secretary of the Tehran branch of the Office for Fostering [Student] Solidarity, Shabnam Madadzadeh. Two senior members of the same organization, Bahareh Hedayat and Milad Asadi (arrested in December 2009 for criticizing the government), were sentenced on May 20 to 9 ½ years and 7 years imprisonment respectively. The recent harsh and unjustified jail sentences meted out to student activists and to former students banned from continuing their education inside Iran also include 3 years for Arash Sadeghi, 1 year for Mohammad Youssef Rashidi, 15 years for Ali Kantoori, 4 years for Mehdi Khoda'i, 1 year and 74 lashes for Ali-Reza Azabad , 15 years for Ziaoddin Nabavi, 28 months for Mahdiyeh Golrou, 1 year and 74 lashes for Peyman Aref, 4 years for Hessam Salamat, 6 years for Majid Dorri (Nabavi, Golrou, Aref, Salamat, and Dorri are members of the Council for Defending the Right to Education), 9 years for Arsalan Abdi, 3 years for Saman Nouranian, and 6 years for Pouya Ghorbani, whose brother and wife were also arrested (his wife being sentenced to 2 ½ years imprisonment).

All of these detainees have reportedly been subjected to physical and/or psychological torture, including threats made against their families, as in the case of Ghorbani and Abdi. In the case of the latter, the authorities threatened to detain and harm his sisters as a means of extracting false confession from him. Hundreds more detained students currently await sentencing under similar conditions for non-violent activities and participation in street demonstrations, and many of them are being denied access to urgent medical care. These include the (Tehran) Allameh Tabataba'i University student Hamed Omidi, who was arrested for condemning the execution in November 2009 of a Kurdish activist Ehsan Fattahian. Omidi, who was previously tortured, was severely beaten following his condemnation of the recent executions of Kamangar, Heydarian, Alam Hooli, Vakili, and Eslamian on May 9.

The process of expelling student activists from university campuses and of "starring" and banning students from continuing their education inside Iran continues unabated. Among the most recent examples is the expulsion of five students from Shiraz University on May 18 (Esmail Jalilvand, Kazem Reza'i, Abdoljalil Reza'i, Hamdollah Namjou, and Younes Mirhosseini). There has also been a recent upsurge in the dismissal or forced resignation and retirement of university faculty and administrators as well as school teachers. These actions are indicative of an ongoing campaign to remove from campuses and schools those educators and students considered ideologically insubordinate to the state and at odds with the policies of the current Iranian administration. Some of the university faculty purged more recently via dismissals or pressured resignations and retirements include Dr. Morteza Mardiha of the Allameh Tabataba'i University and Dr. Touraj Mohammadi, Dr. Mohammad Shahri, and Dr. Sayyid Ali-Asghar Beheshti-Shirazi of the Elm-va-San'at University. Among other dismissed faculty at various universities are such distinguished professors as Mohammad Reza Shafiee-Kadkani, Saba Vasefi, Mahmoud Erfani, Amir-Nasser Katouzian, Reza Davari, Karim Mojtahedi, Ali Sheikholeslami, Hassan Bashiriyeh, Abolghassem Gorji, Mohammad Ashuri, and Jamshid Momtaz. We deplore public statements by government officials that openly call for "cleansing" university campuses of those deemed ideologically disloyal to the state on grounds of upholding secular worldviews, not adhering to the particular interpretation of Shi'i Islam advocated by the Iranian state, or diverging from the state's political ideology, as in the repeated statements made by the controversial minister of Science, Research, and Technology, Kamran Daneshjou (see payvand.com & blogs.nature.com).

These cases comprise only some of the random examples of the extensive and heightened persecution by Iranian authorities of independent-minded academics, scholars, students, and intellectuals, as well as the more broad-ranging callous violations of the basic rights of academic freedom, freedom of expression, and human rights by the authorities. Among others, we are particularly apprehensive about the fate of Shiva Nazar Ahari. Nazar Ahari, a prominent human rights and women's rights activist and journalist belonging to the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, is also one of the Islamic Republic's thousands of "starred and banned university students" and a member of the Council for Defending the Right to Education. She was arrested on December 20, 2009 along with Goudarzi and others en route to the funeral service for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. She has served prior jail sentences and is now being falsely accused by the authorities of belonging to a terrorist organization aiming to overthrow the Iranian regime, a pernicious allegation frequently made by the authorities against non-violent activists whom they seek to silence (with the charge carrying one of the harshest possible sentences under Iranian law).

In addition to these developments, which paint an increasingly bleak picture of the conditions in Iran, we stress once again that we remain concerned about the fate of those student activists, teachers, university faculty and administrators, and scholars and intellectuals arrested earlier on an array of unsubstantiated charges and who are still in detention. Among these are the student activist Majid Tavakoli, the former chancellor of the University of Tehran Dr. Mohammad Maleki, and the social scientist and researcher Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh. Tavakoli, a member of the Amir Kabir University of Technology's Islamic Student Association, was arrested following a speech he gave on December 7, 2009 (during the commemoration of the National Student Day in Iran), and was subsequently sentenced to 8 ½ years imprisonment. Tavakoli, whose health has been fast deteriorating in recent weeks, began a hunger strike on May 23 after being transferred to solitary confinement. The 77-year-old Maleki, arrested on August 22, 2009 and currently released on bail, is facing the charge of "mohareb," which carries the death sentence. Tajbakhsh, our internationally renowned and esteemed colleague, was arrested on July 9, 2009 and sentenced in October 2009 to 12 years imprisonment on the fabricated charge of espionage and endangering national security. We ask for the immediate revocation of all charges against these individuals.

We remind you as well that the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 23) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21) guarantee the basic rights of freedom of thought and expression. The Islamic Republic of Iran is currently by far one of the worst perpetrators of violent state-sponsored infringement of academic rights. We hope you will take the initiative to remedy these conditions and will respond to our letter. We also ask you to reflect on the ethical, moral, and social dimensions and ramifications of the injustice committed by Iranian authorities and the suffering inflicted on innocent people.

Sincerely,

Roger M.A. Allen

MESA President

Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania

cc: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Source: Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), May 27, 2010

Alabama executes Thomas Warren Whisenhant

ATMORE, Ala. -- Murderer Thomas Warren Whisenhant's long stay on Alabama's death row ended this afternoon.

Whisenhant (left), 63, said nothing before he was injected with the cocktail of drugs that sapped the life from his body. A doctor pronounced him dead at 6:20 p.m.

The Prichard native died three days short of his 32nd anniversary on death row at Holman prison, where he was the longest-serving inmate on death row. He became the 241st prisoner executed in Alabama, and the first since Max Landon Payne was put to death in October.

Whisenhant was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering Cheryl Lynn Payton, a Theodore convenience store clerk and mother of two, on Oct. 16, 1976. Payton was days away from her 24th birthday.

Whisenhant returned two days later to the field where he had left Payton to die and mutilated her body, removing a wristwatch that he gave to his wife as a present.

It was not Whisenhant's first act of violence. After his arrest, he confessed to killing two other women -- Venora Hyatt and Patricia Hit -- and attacking three others, including his own wife.

After a Mobile County jury convicted Whisenhant the following year, Payton's mother recalled this week, she believed his trip from the courthouse to the electric chair would be a short one.

"We thought it was going to happen within three to six months," Vivian Gazzier said Wednesday.

Instead, Gazzier waited three decades.

Whisenhant stood trial again in 1981 after an appeals court overturned the original conviction. On appeal after the second trial, the courts determined that improper statements by the prosecutor warranted a new sentencing hearing.

During those years, Gazzier lost her husband and the state switched its primary method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection.

Whisenhant becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Alabama and the 45th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.

Whisenhant becomes the 24th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 1212th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

There are 8 more executions scheduled in the USA in June, which, if carried out, would put the USA at the same total of 32 executions as were carried out in the first 6 months of 2009. The USA finished last year with 52 executions overall.

Source: al.com, May 27, 2010

Victim's Family Reacts To Execution

Alabama has executed its longest serving death row inmate.

Witnesses to the execution of Thomas Whisenhant Thursday night said he did not apologize for murdering a 23 year old Mobile woman. Whisenhant was pronounced dead at Holman Correctional Center at 6:20 pm Thursday.

He was executed for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Cheryl Payton in 1976.

After the execution, family members of the victim made emotional statements to the news media.

Douglas Payton, Cheryl Payton's husband, said Whisenhant "had no remorse. None whatsoever."

As for Thomas Whisenhant at the time of execution, Vivian Gazzier, Payton's mother, said, "He didn't say anything. He wouldn't look our way."

Another family member, Susanna Payton, said, "No adequate words exist to appropriately define justice, and there is not enough time left on earth to calculate the immense loss we have experienced."

Cheryl Payton's sister, Susan Payton, said, "On this day, we're uncertain that you could define today as closure. It is like a chapter in a book that you just read the next chapter and you hope that the next chapter might be better."

Edward Gazzier, Cheryl Payton's brother, said of Whisenhant, "We watched him die an easy death: a very, very, easy death."

Also speaking was the son of Vernora Hyatt.

Whisenhant had pleaded guilty to killing her and another woman.

He said, "It comes to a time when everybody says its over. It's never over."

After family members left, Whisenhant's attorney spoke.

Richard Cohen said, "The state has executed a man who is seriously mentally ill. Independent doctors for the federal government diagnosed Mr. Whisenhant as psychotic and a paranoid schizophrenic."

Whisenhant was the longest serving inmate on death row.

He served 32 years, 8 months and 20 days.

Source: WKRG News, May 28, 2010

China sentences Tibetan to suspended death sentence over 2008 riots

May 26, 2010: the Lhasa Intermediate People's Court in China sentenced Tibetan Sonam Tsering, 23, to a suspended death sentence, the India-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

Tsering, who was born in Ganzi, allegedly rioted and led others to riot in 2008 by setting cars and shops on fire and overturning police vehicles.

The Center said Sonam Tsering is the seventh Tibetan so far to be sentenced to death for the riots, including two already executed.

Source: Associated Press, May 26, 2010

Utah judge to hear petition from death row inmate

A state judge on Thursday will hear a petition from a condemned inmate set to die by firing squad next month who wants his death sentence vacated.

Ronnie Lee Gardner wants 3rd District Judge Robin Reese to order a new sentencing hearing in the 25-year-old murder case.

In April, Reese signed the warrant that set Gardner's June 18 execution date.

Attorneys for Gardner contend that the state court must consider the mitigating evidence presented during a federal appeal of the case before putting Gardner to death.

The attorneys also contend that executing Gardner after 25 years on death row no societal purpose — neither retribution, nor deterrence — and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Gardner, 49, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die in 1985.

Source: Associated Press, May 27, 2010

Judge considers request to stay Ronnie Lee Gardner execution but declines to grant new sentencing hearing

A judge agreed Thursday to consider staying the scheduled June 18 execution date of Ronnie Lee Gardner.

Third District Judge Robin Reese said he would take the motion to stay the execution under advisement and issue a ruling later Thursday or Friday.

The judge, however, did rule in favor of a prosecution motion for a summary judgment, meaning Reese confirmed Gardner's death sentence and declined to grant him a new sentencing hearing.

Defense attorney Andrew Parnes had asked that Gardner be re-sentenced, giving the death-row inmate a shot at receiving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. That sentence was not an option when Gardner was originally convicted.

Parnes argued that Gardner's equal-protection rights were violated when he was not given unlimited funding in order to present mitigating evidence when he was appealing his death sentence at the state level.

Reese, however, disagreed.

The Utah Supreme Court is scheduled to hear similar arguments on June 3 about why Gardner's sentence should be changed to life without the possibility of parole or whether a new sentencing hearing for Gardner should be ordered. The court agreed to hear the case quickly because of the pending June 18 execution date.

While the high court said it would consider all pending motions in Gardner's case, Reese had asked defense attorneys and prosecutors to address the issue of the motion to stay the execution while the Supreme Court considered new arguments in the case.

Parnes argued that the state statute is clear that when a petition for post-conviction relief is filed, the judge must issue a stay of the execution date.

But assistant attorney general Tom Brunker said the defense was merely trying to enter into a sort of round robin in which the state would have to re-file an application for the warrant, requiring another hearing and another execution date — something that could go on indefinitely.

On April 23, Reese signed an execution warrant authorizing Gardner's death by firing squad on June 18. Under Utah law, Gardner was allowed to choose between lethal injection and the firing squad as the method of death.

Gardner was sentenced to die in 1985 for murdering defense attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt from the old Salt Lake County courthouse. Gardner, who was appearing in court on a separate murder charge, also shot and wounded court bailiff George "Nick" Kirk.

Gardner has spent the last 25 years appealing the conviction on every level possible.

Source: Desert News, May 27, 2010

Iran: 6 prisoners hanged in Rasht and Zahedan; 8 executions in past 4 days

The Iranian regime hanged 6 prisoners in Rasht, northern Iran, and Zahedan, southeast Iran, to counter much feared nationwide protests in the current Iranian month of Khordad.

On Monday, May 24, 5 prisoners including a woman were hanged behind the medical center in Rasht prison. The regime has not yet reported the hangings.

Fars news agency, affiliated to the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC/Pasdaran) reported Wednesday, May 26, the execution of a prisoner in Zahedan identified as Jamshid M. He had only been arrested a month ago.

With the latest reports on hangings, the number of executions in past 4 days reaches 8 in Iran.

Rising number of executions, widespread arrest of young people under the cover of so called "social security plan," increasing suppression of women for "improper veiling" and other repressive measures on the brink of anniversary of the Iranian people’s courageous uprising, are aimed at intensifying the atmosphere of intimidation to prevent spread of social upheavals.

The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights organizations and in particular the UN Secretary General and High Commissioner for Human Rights to take urgent measures to stop the deteriorating trend of human rights violations and rising number of executions in Iran.

Source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, May 27, 2010