FEATURED POST

There's A GOP Plan For An Execution Spree If Trump Wins The White House

Published
Image
Buried on page 554 of the plan is a directive to execute every remaining person on federal death row — and dramatically expand the use of the death penalty. During the final six months of Donald Trump’s presidency, his administration carried out an unprecedented execution spree, killing 13 people on federal death row and ending a 17-year de facto federal execution moratorium.

Belarus: First death sentence in 2017

Published
Belarus prison
"Self-incrimination is used by the prosecution as the main evidence of guilt,
whilst the right to an effective legal defence is systematically violated."
Paris-Minsk. FIDH and its member organisation in Belarus Human Rights Centre "Viasna" denounce the first death sentence in 2017 and regret the Belarusian authorities continue to ignore calls to render Europe a death penalty-free zone.

On 17 March 2017, 32-year-old Aliaksei Mikhalenya was sentenced to death by the Gomel Regional Court of Belarus for two murders committed with particular cruelty. 

Although Aliaksei Mikhalenya has the right to appeal the sentence in Supreme Court in Belarus, the appeal court rarely commutes death sentences and the chances to get the Presidential pardon are illusionary, as revealed in the joint FIDH-HRC report "Death penalty in Belarus: Murder on (Un)Lawful Grounds". 

As the report demonstrates, throughout investigation and trial, self-incrimination is used by the prosecution as the main evidence of guilt, whilst the right to an effective legal defence is systematically violated. 

In general, the application of death penalty in Belarus is accompanied by severe human rights violations at each stage of the judicial proceedings and during detention.

Furthermore, considerable secrecy surrounds the application of death penalty in Belarus. Information concerning the death penalty is withheld from the general public, whilst information on detention conditions for death convicts and execution procedures is not publicly available. 

The exact number of persons convicted to death and executed in Belarus is unknown. 

The families of death convicts are neither informed in advance of the date of the execution, nor immediately thereafter, the body is never handed over to relatives and the location of the burial site is kept secret.

Belarus is the only country in Europe that applies death penalty. 

For the duration of negotiations around EU restrictive measures against Belarusian officials and businesses, the executions had been on hold. However, upon the lifting of sanctions in February 2016, executions resumed and by December 2016 reached their highest number since 2008: four convicts executed in secrecy in 2016.

Being a founding member of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, FIDH and its member organisation HRC "Viasna" urge the EU and other actors to use all leverages at their disposal to put an end to the capital punishment in Belarus.

Source: FIDH, March 21, 2017

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
Location: Minsk, Belarus
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

Published
Image
The following document is a written record of convicted killer Hamida Djandoubi's last moments before he was guillotined in a Marseilles prison on September 10, 1977. This written record -- dated September 9 -- was written by a judge appointed to witness the execution. Djandoubi's execution was the last execution carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. Then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had voiced his "loathing for the death penalty" before he was elected to office, flatly turned down Djandoubi's appeal for clemency and chose to let "Justice run its course", as he did on two previous instances ( Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977). Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was executed in Marseilles' Baumettes prison in September 1977. The following text was writ
Read more

U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

Published
Image
In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.
Read more

Iraq executes 11 people convicted of terrorism crimes

Published
Image
Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death and life sentences in recent years for people convicted of membership in a terrorist group. BAGHDAD – Eleven people were executed on Monday at Al-Hut prison in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya after they were convicted and sentenced to death of terrorism crimes, two security sources said.
Read more

Alabama approves second nitrogen hypoxia execution

Published
Image
The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the nitrogen hypoxia execution of Alan Eugene Miller, setting the stage for the state to have at least four executions this year. Miller's execution would be the second carried out using nitrogen gas, the Alabama Attorney General’s office says. Miller, now 59, was convicted of killing three people during a pair of 1999 workplace shootings in suburban Birmingham. He was living in Autauga County at the time.
Read more

Mississippi | Biloxi man gets death penalty for torture, murder of toddler

Published
Image
A Mississippi Coast man is headed to death row for his role in the beating and suffocation death of his 2-year-old stepson — all because the toddler soiled his diaper and took too long to get a juice box out of the refrigerator. A jury in Harrison County Circuit Court in Biloxi deliberated for just over two hours Friday before handing down the death sentence against Joseph David Heard, 41, in the Dec. 27, 2021, killing of his stepson, Hayden Lee Bataille, of Biloxi. 
Read more

Singapore | Court of Appeal overturns man’s death sentence, cites prosecution’s inconsistent case

Published
Image
SINGAPORE - The Court of Appeal has overturned the conviction of a 63-year-old man who had been sentenced to death for heroin trafficking because the prosecution had run an inconsistent case during his trial regarding when the drugs were delivered to him. In a written judgment delivered by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon on May 8, the court said the evidence did not support a finding being made beyond a reasonable doubt on when exactly the two bundles of heroin were delivered to Mohamed Mubin Abdul Rahman.
Read more