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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Antigua & Barbuda: UN wants death penalty off the books

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Antigua & Barbuda
Antigua & Barbuda
Several countries at the United Nations (UN) have recommended that the government of Antigua & Barbuda establish a formal moratorium on capital punishment.

The recommendations, which came from among approximately 44 country representatives at the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR), continued despite the representatives being advised that a de facto moratorium has existed since the 1990s.

The 1st representative to raise the matter was from Australia. "Establish a formal moratorium on the death penalty with a view to ratifying the second optional protocol to the international covenant on civil and political rights," she advised.

Many other countries followed suit. Panama's representative said, "Consider establishing an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty ..." while another Latin American country, Honduras, advised the same.

The United Kingdom's (UK) representative said, " ... respect national legal procedures and the standards required by the Privy Council and the UN for the protection of the rights of prisoners sentenced to death."

In response, Antigua & Barbuda's representative at the review, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Senator, Maureen Payne-Hyman, assured the group that in practice a moratorium exists.

"With the issue of the death penalty, that's a very touchy and vexing issue in the Caribbean. In Antigua, it does not matter what type of crime you've committed, you're not executed," she said.

Portugal responded by advising that the government abolish capital punishment "both in practice and in law." Many similar recommendations followed.

The UPR is conducted on the human right records of all UN member states. The latest review was Antigua & Barbuda's 2nd. The 1st review was conducted in 2011.

Superintendent of Her Majesty's Prison (HMP) Albert Wade confirmed that there are no inmates awaiting the execution of a sentence of death or "on death row" as any such inmates were ordered to be re-sentenced by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Source: Antigua Observer, May 10, 2016

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Location: Antigua and Barbuda
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