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The Blissful Ignorance of American neo-Nazis

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The violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville reflects the dangerous, vicious, open-the-floodgates culture that having a Bully-in-Chief in the White House has created in America.
Hundreds of protesters descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017 for a “Unite the Right” rally. 
The rally was dispersed by police minutes after its scheduled start at noon, after clashes between rallygoers and counter-protesters, and after a torchlit pre-rally march Friday night descended into violence.
But later that day, as rallygoers began a march and counterprotests continued, a reported Nazi sympathizer drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one and injuring 19.
Self-described “pro-white” activist Jason Kessler organized the rally to protest the planned removal of a statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville. 
Kessler is affiliated with the alt-right movement that uses internet trolling tactics to argue against diversity and “id…
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2 Baluchi Juvenile Offenders Executed in Iran

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Watching a public execution in Iran (file photo)
Watching a public execution in Iran (file photo)
According to close sources, 2 Baluchi prisoners were hanged to death at Yazd Central Prison on drug related charges.

The executions were reportedly carried out on Monday February 1. 

According to the Baloch Activists Campaign, the names of the prisoners are Khaled Kordi and Moslem Abarian. 

A relative of Khaled Kordi confirms to Iran Human Rights that both prisoners were under the age of 18 at the time of their arrests. 

Iranian authorities carried out the executions without informing the family members of the prisoners.

The 2 prisoners were reportedly riding a bus to work when they were arrested by Iranian authorities for drug offenses. 

The relative tells IHR that he believes Khaled and Moslem were innocent and the drugs were planted on them by someone else on the bus.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iran is a signatory of, bans death sentences for offenses committed under the age of 18.

Source: Iran Human Rights, February 4, 2016


U.N. panel rebukes Iran for allowing sex, execution at 9 years old

Iran must reform its laws that allows girls as young as nine to be executed for crimes or forced into sexual relations with older husbands, a United Nations watchdog said on Thursday.

Iran continues to execute children and youth who committed a crime while under 18 years of age, in violation of international standards, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said, after its 18 independent experts reviewed Iran and 13 other countries.

"The age of criminal responsibility in Iran is discriminatory, it is lower and lower for girls, that is to say 9 lunar years while for boys it is 15. At 9 a girl can marry, even if the law sets the age at 13," said Hynd Ayoubi Idrissi, a panel member.

9 lunar years in the Iranian calendar is equivalent to 8 years and 9 months, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

The age for boys having criminal responsibility is 15, but the age for girls at 9 is "extremely low", Idrissi said.

The experts deplored that Iran "allows sexual intercourse with girls as young as 9 lunar years and that other forms of sexual abuse of even young children is not criminalised". They called for the age of sexual consent to be raised to 16.

Shaqayeq, 15, has been in prison for almost a year on the charge of armed
robbery from a Tehran chain store. Her death sentence has been issued and
she must reach 18 so the verdict can be carried out. Read more...
"The Committee is seriously concerned about the reports of increasing numbers of girls at the age of 10 years or younger who are subjected to child and forced marriages to much older men."

Girls suffered discrimination in the family, in the criminal justice system, in property rights, and elsewhere, while a legal obligation for girls to be subject to male guardianship is "incompatible" Tehran's treaty obligations, the panel said.

Iran made "positive progress" last year with a new Criminal Procedure Code that introduced juvenile courts, but nevertheless there were very serious concerns, the panel's chairman Benyam Mezmur told a news briefing.

"The age of criminal responsibility is very low and there are instances where the death penalty can apply for persons below the age of 18 or for offences they committed while below the age of 18," Mezmur said.

There were no figures for the number of executions of children or juvenile offenders, nor those imprisoned, due to secrecy surrounding the cases, he added.

Source: Reuters, February 4, 2016

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Indonesia: The journey from death row

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Waves of executions are part of Indonesian President Joko Widodo's hard line on drug convicts. Australians best remember those of Bali Nine leaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, shot by firing squad in 2015 despite all efforts to save them. With more than 200 people on death row, why do anti-death penalty activists now see a ray of hope?
IN A SMALL Christian prayer room at Cilacap jail, on central Java’s south coast, a death-row prisoner talks diffidently about her wedding dress.
The Indonesian migrant worker and convicted drug dealer was once married to an abusive husband but separated long ago after he shunted her off to work in Taiwan.
Merri Utami had planned to wear her new white dress, not to second nuptials, but to her execution by firing squad last year.
She had been preparing to meet Jesus.
According to Indonesian protocol, she would be tied to a stake in a remote jungle clearing on Nusakambangan penal island off the port town of Cilacap, blindfolded and shot dead in t…
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Marcellus Williams faces execution in Missouri despite doubts about conviction

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The state of Missouri is scheduled to execute Marcellus Williams on August 22 despite a lack of solid evidence used to secure his conviction and a new report from a DNA expert that his lawyers argue supports his claim to innocence.
“The death penalty is abhorrent in any circumstance, and as we have seen time and time again, the capital justice system is capable of error,” said Zeke Johnson, senior director of programs at Amnesty International USA. “The state of Missouri must not allow this execution to go forward, and must commute the sentences of all of those on death row. There is no acceptable way for the state to kill its prisoners.”
Williams was convicted of the 1998 murder of former St. Louis reporter Felicia Gayle by a jury consisting of 11 white jurors and one black juror. 
Williams is black and Gayle was white. There was no forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony linking him to the crime. 
The jury was not presented evidence of Williams’ background, which included severe a…
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Georgia executes Emmanuel Hammond

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JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia man convicted of killing an Atlanta preschool teacher more than two decades ago has been executed by state corrections officials.
Emmanuel Hammond (left) was put to death by injection Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson after state and federal courts turned down his appeals. The 45-year-old was pronounced dead at 11:39 p.m.
Hammond was convicted of the 1988 murder of 27-year-old Julie Love, who was abducted in north Atlanta after her car ran out of gas.
Prosecutors say Love was beaten and raped before Hammond took her into the woods, shot her to death and dumped her body into a trash pile.
Investigators didn't find her body until August 1989, when Hammond's girlfriend told police he was responsible for her disappearance.
Source: Associated Press, January 25, 2011

U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halts Georgia execution
The U.S. Supreme Court delayed the execution Tuesday of a death row inmate whose lawyers filed a last-minute appeal questioning the lega…
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Vietnam upholds death sentences against shipping execs in major corruption case

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But without a major overhaul of the country's public sector, stern sentencing may be only cosmetic, analysts say.
A court of appeals in Hanoi on Friday upheld the death sentences against two executives from the corruption-hit shipping industry after convicting them of pocketing nearly $12 million in deals made between 2006 and 2008, the latest punishment meted out as the ongoing crackdown on the public sector is widening.
At the first trial in February, Giang Kim Dat, the former sales manager of the troubled shipbuilder Vinashinlines, and Tran Van Liem, the company's former CEO, were sentenced to death for stealing more than VND260 billion ($11.65 million) from the company between 2006 and 2008.
In February, the firm’s former accountant, Tran Van Khuong, also got a life sentence for abetting the embezzlement, while Dat’s father Giang Van Hien received 12 years in prison for money laundering. Friday's appellate court upheld all these sentences.
According to the indictment, …
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As Sammantha Allen Heads for Death Row, Will Arizona Execute a Woman Again?

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The convicted murderer inadvertently became one of Arizona's capital punishment pioneers when she was hung 87 years ago for killing a Tucson rancher.
On February 21, 1930, she approached the gallows and remained silent and stoic before her hanging. But then something went awry. The rope sliced Dugan's neck and she was decapitated.
As Pinal County Historical Society President Lynn Smith likes to tell it, "Her head popped off when she was hanged and it went across the room and scared all the witnesses."
Sixty people saw the botched and bloody hanging that would cause the state Legislature to switch to gas chamber executions, according to an Arizona Daily Star report from back then.
"It was before sunrise and everybody ran out into the dark and her body went down into the basement," Smith said.
Smith oversees a collection of over 20 nooses used to carry out early executions at the Arizona State Prison at the Pinal County Historical Society and Museum.
Dugan&#…
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Damien Echols says he suffered brain injuries on death row, his wife calls for end to executions

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Six years ago Saturday (Aug. 19), Damien Echols woke for the last time on the wrong side of a set of jail bars. He spent 18 years in prison, convicted of the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis in 1993. He, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., denied any involvement and there were question about the evidence against them.
Echols told Talk Business & Politics the scars from his incarceration are still real. Each day he copes with physical and psychological damage he suffered while in prison.
“I spent 18 years in prison under abject conditions,” he said. “Ten years was spent in solitary torture. The brain injury I sustained will always plague me.”
The specific injury was not disclosed. Echols wife, Lorri Davis Echols told Talk Business & Politics her husband suffers from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He has had bouts of depression, and has spent years acclimating to life outside of prison.
“It’s been a roller coaster, but we’ve worked really…
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France condemns Iran execution of juvenile offender Alireza Tajiki

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France condemns the execution in Iran, on August 10, of Alireza Tajiki, a minor at the time of the events and at the time of his sentencing, and expresses its concerns about reports of the imminent execution of Mehdi Bohlouli, also sentenced to death when he was a juvenile.
This execution is contrary to the international commitments that Iran itself has signed on to, particularly the international Convention on the Rights of the Child.
It is also a step backward with respect to the positive developments we have seen on human rights in Iran, most notably the Iranian Parliament’s adoption of a law on August 13 limiting the scope of the death penalty.
France reiterates its unwavering opposition to the death penalty throughout the world and in all circumstances.
It encourages Iran to continue its efforts and to establish a moratorium with a view to its abolition.
Source: France Diplomatie, August 16, 2017


Rejecting international norms, Iran speeds the execution of minor offenders
On Tue…
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ISIS releases new pictures of gay man being thrown off a roof in Syria

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The terrorist group known as ISIS has released pictures of a man being thrown off a roof in Syria.
Thousands of LGBT people have been displaced in Iraq and Syria, as the terrorist group known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) continues to actively target and execute gay men.
This week, the group’s propaganda agency released three pictures of a man being executed for suspected homosexuality.
The pictures were identified as being taken in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, though differing reports identify the location as Damascus.
The first photo shows the man being dangled from the top of a high building by three assailants.
The second pictures shows the man after he has been pushed off the ledge, plunging to his death.
In the third picture, his bloodied body is shown on the ground, as the crowd jeers and pelts him with stones.
Other pictures released by the propaganda agency show the enforcement of horrific brutal practices, including amputating the arm of a thief. Pictures also…
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Iran: Four Prisoners Hanged, Authorities Silent

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A prisoner was reportedly hanged at Shirvan Prison on murder charges. 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Zanjan Central Prison on drug related charges.
According to close sources, the executions in Zanjan were carried out on the morning of Tuesday August 8, and the prisoners have been identified as: Hamza Rahimpour and Abbas Sooghi.
"Hamza Rahimpour was arrested and sentenced to death in 2014 on the charge of producing and selling 6 kilograms of crystal meth. Abbas Sooghi was arrested and sentenced to death in 2015 on the charge of four kilograms of opium and heroin," an informed source tells Iran Human Rights.
Iran Human Rights had reported on the imminent execution of these prisoners and urged the international community to take action.
An official Iranian source announced on Monday August 7 the execution of a prisoner at Zanjan Central Prison on murder charges. This brings the total number of prisoners who were reported as executed in Zanjan Prison last week to three.
…
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Iran: Call to Save 7 Prisoners on the Verge of Execution

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One of the prisoners was 17 when he committed the alleged "crime"
Seven prisoners sentenced to death in Gohar Dasht (Rajaieh Shahr) Prison in Karaj, have been transferred to solitary confinement. These victims are faced with an imminent death threat. 
Mehdi Bohlouli, who is now on the verge of execution after serving 15 years of imprisonment, was only 17 when arrested and this is the fourth time he has been transferred to solitary confinement for implementation of the death sentence.
Taking prisoners to the gallows to witness the shocking scene of the execution of other prisoners is a common practice of torture in the prisons of Iranian regime.
Transferring the young prisoner, Mehdi Bohlouli for execution is taking place while the execution of Alireza Tajiki, a young prisoner who was 15 years old at the time of his arrest, sparked a wave of hatred inside and outside of Iran, and international human rights organizations called it shameful and shocking. 
Alireza Tajiki was hang…
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