FEATURED POST

Before it is too late Biden must turn words into deeds on the death penalty

Published
Image
Joe Biden’s Catholic faith should inspire him to stop the federal death penalty in its tracks In the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, opponents of the death penalty are mounting a campaign to convince President Biden to commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row. Doing so would be a vindication not only of his announced anti-death penalty position but also of his Catholic faith .

Malaysian Minister: "An Eye for An Eye Leads to Blindness"

Published
A senior Malaysian minister on Sunday reportedly urged the government to abolish the death penalty amid outrage from rights groups.

The call came during a debate over executions — carried out in Malaysia by hanging — after Kuala Lumpur last month sought clemency from Singapore for a young Malaysian drug trafficker who is facing the gallows in the city-state.

Both Malaysia and Singapore have tough anti-drug laws and rarely seek clemency for nationals facing drug charges in other countries.

“If it is wrong to take someone’s life, then the government should not do it either,” Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Aziz told the Sunday Star newspaper.

“No criminal justice system is perfect. You take a man’s life and years later, you find out that another person did the crime. What can you do?” said the senior minister.

Local rights groups have long campaigned against the death penalty, which is mandatory for murder, drug trafficking and possession of firearms among other crimes in the country. Campaigners said the sentence was inhumane.

Malaysia filed a clemency plea to Singapore last month over the case of Yong Vui Kong, a 22-year-old who is facing the death penalty after he was convicted in 2008 of trafficking 47 grams of heroin into Singapore.

The case has received wide attention in the two countries. Yong, who was19 when he was arrested, said he has repented and pledged to campaign against drugs.

Amnesty International says Singapore has one of the highest per capita execution rates in the world. It put 420 people to death between 1991 and 2004.

Activists said Malaysia carried out 358 hangings between 1981 and 2005. 

Source: Agence France-Presse, August 29, 2010
Related content:

Comments

Post a Comment

Constructive and informative comments are welcome. Please note that offensive and pro-death penalty comments will not be published.

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Before it is too late Biden must turn words into deeds on the death penalty

Published
Image
Joe Biden’s Catholic faith should inspire him to stop the federal death penalty in its tracks In the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, opponents of the death penalty are mounting a campaign to convince President Biden to commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row. Doing so would be a vindication not only of his announced anti-death penalty position but also of his Catholic faith .
Read more

Singapore hangs 4th person in three weeks

Published
Image
SINGAPORE, Singapore — Singapore hanged a 35-year-old Singaporean-Iranian man for drug trafficking on Friday, its fourth in less than a month, despite appeals from Tehran to "reconsider" his execution. The United Nations and rights groups say capital punishment has no proven deterrent effect and have called for it to be abolished, but Singaporean officials insist it has helped make the country one of Asia's safest. Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad, a Singaporean citizen born in the city-state to a Singaporean mother and an Iranian father, was convicted in 2013 for drug trafficking.
Read more

As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

Published
Image
President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
Read more

Iranian Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh Appeals to Singapore President to Pardon Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad Set to Be Executed Nov. 29

Published
Image
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 28, 2024: Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer and recipient of numerous international awards, including the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, and the European Human Rights Award, has appealed to the President of Singapore to grant clemency to Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad, who is scheduled to be executed tomorrow, 29 November 2024.
Read more

France requests transfer of death row convict held in Indonesia

Published
Image
Jakarta (AFP) – France has asked Indonesia to transfer a French death row convict, who has been jailed for drug crimes in the Asian nation since 2005, a senior Indonesian minister told AFP on Friday. Indonesia is in discussion with three countries, including France, over the return of several high-profile detainees and aims to transfer the prisoners by the end of December. "The French embassy has delivered a letter from France's justice minister to Indonesia's law minister dated November 4 containing a request for the transfer of a French prisoner named Serge Atlaoui," senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told AFP in a message.
Read more

23rd Woman Executed in Iran in 2024

Published
Image
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 29, 2024: Fariba Maleki Shahivand, a woman on death row for murder, was executed in Khorramabad Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a woman was executed in Khorramabad (Parsilion) Central Prison on 24 November. Her identity has been established as Fariba Maleki Shahivand, a mother to a five-year-old girl. An informed source told IHRNGO: “Fariba was accused of unintentionally killing her sister-in-law and mother-in-law during an altercation four years ago, when her daughter was just one year old.”
Read more

Another Execution, Another Assault on American Values—Indiana Won’t Allow the Press to Be Present When the State Kills

Published
Image
On December 18, Indiana hopes to get back into the execution business. On that date, it plans to put Joseph Corcoran to death for the 1997 murder of four people, including his brother. Corcoran is one of eight men on Indiana’s death row—also called “X Row.” The others include an inmate who “stabbed two co-workers after he was fired,” another who “shot and killed a police officer,” and two people who each “killed multiple children.” Corcoran’s lawyers are seeking a stay of execution because he has long suffered from a serious mental illness. As they explain, he “cannot distinguish between reality and his delusions and hallucinations — his delusions are his reality.”
Read more

‘Time for compassion to prevail’: could the remaining Bali Nine members finally be coming home?

Published
Image
The new Indonesian president – who came to office with a questionable human rights record – has emerged as an unlikely champion for a prisoner swap deal In the dark of the early morning of 29 April 2015, two members of Australia’s so-called Bali Nine were each tied to a stake in a floodlit field on the Indonesian prison island of Nusakambangan. Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran refused blindfolds, and sang as they stood before a firing squad of 12. They were killed at 12.35am.
Read more

Idaho Supreme Court rejects Creech cruel and unusual punishment argument

Published
Image
The Idaho Supreme Court has ruled that a second attempt to execute an Idaho death row inmate would not violate his Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The Wednesday decision affirms an earlier district court decision, rejecting an appeal by Thomas Creech. Creech, 74, survived his first execution attempt in February after the execution team failed to establish vein access and called off the execution. 
Read more

Biden Has “Pardoned” Eight Turkeys. Will He Spare the Lives of 40 Human Beings?

Published
Image
With Trump returning to the White House, only mass commutations will stop another federal execution spree. Five days after Orlando Hall was executed in the federal death chamber, Donald Trump appeared in the White House Rose Garden for the 2020 Thanksgiving turkey pardon ceremony. The enormous white birds, Corn and Cob, stood ridiculously as Trump wished them a “very long, happy, and memorable life.” At the Special Confinement Unit inside the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, men on death row watched news coverage on TV.
Read more