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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, 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 “identity po…
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Indonesia: Cleric calls on govt not to carry out executions... during Ramadhan

A local leader of Indonesia's biggest Islamic organization has called on the Attorney General's Office (AGO) not to carry out the anticipated execution of several drug convicts during the fasting month of Ramadhan, which begins on July 6.

KH. Maslahuddin, the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Cilacap, Central Java, said it was hoped the government would respect the holiness of Ramadhan and give the death row inmates a chance to repent before God in the special month for Muslim people.

"After that, please carry out the execution as quickly as possible. Do not postpone it further," Maslahuddin told journalists last week. 

He said if necessary the executions could even be conducted before Ramadhan. "So that prosecutors, firing squad personnel, the Muslim death row inmates and other parties involved in the execution can be devoted to carrying out their Ramadhan religious services," Maslahuddin said. [Hypocrisy and bigotry rule the world - DPN]

He said it was important that the AGO not repeatedly postpone the execution of the convicts, especially in the case of those whose court ruling was already final and could not be legally challenged, so the punishment would create a deterrent effect on other drug crime perpetrators.

"It should be conducted as soon as possible -- the sooner the better. The execution and threat of the death penalty must be continuously communicated to the public so that potential perpetrators think twice before committing such crimes," said Maslahuddin.

Repeatedly postponing the execution of the sentences would only open room for perpetrators to file appeals or use other legal measures in an effort to escape the death penalty.

Citing an example, Maslahuddin said the second appeal and a repent and forswear request letter filed by drug convict Freddy Budiman at the Cilacap District Court were merely aimed at postponing the execution of his death sentence.

As reported earlier, the AGO confirmed it would soon carry out a 3rd round of executions conducted under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. However, the AGO has not yet provided details on the date of the execution and the number of inmates to be executed.

The government reportedly delayed the execution due to ongoing legal measures by lawyers of several convicts. The AGO executed 14 people convicted for drug crimes in 2 rounds last year.

Source: Jakarta Post, May 30, 2016

- Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com - Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
Location: Cilacap, Cilacap Regency, Central Java, Indonesia

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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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Iran: Shameful execution of Alireza Tajiki, arrested at age 15

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Following today’s execution of Alireza Tajiki, a young Iranian man who was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death as a child, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Magdalena Mughrabi said:
“By going ahead with this execution in defiance of their obligations under international law, and despite huge public and international opposition, the Iranian authorities have again cruelly demonstrated their complete disdain for children’s rights. This shameful act marks a critical turning point for Iran, and exposes the hollowness of the authorities’ claims to have a genuine juvenile justice system.”
“Alireza Tajiki is the fourth person executed in Iran this year who was arrested as a child. His execution, which was carried out despite his allegations that he was tortured into “confessing”, consolidates a horrendous pattern that has seen Iran repeatedly send people arrested as children to the gallows, often after deeply unfair trials.
“This execution is a …
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Maldivian and international human rights groups urge Maldives President to halt execution plans

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Leading Maldivian and international human rights organizations are calling on the President of the Maldives to halt plans to break a 60 year moratorium on executions.
A group of organizations – Reprieve, Amnesty International, the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, FORUM-ASIA, Maldivian Democracy Network, Transparency Maldives and Uthema – have sent a joint letter to the President of the Maldives, Abdulla Yameen, asking him to “change course and halt these planned executions.”
President Yameen has repeatedly spoken of his desire to carry out executions, despite the country’s Parliament having rejected a proposal to reinstate the death penalty in 2013. This week, the President suggested that executions would begin in September. There are concerns for three men who have had their death sentences confirmed by the Supreme Court.
In their letter to the President, the group of organizations said: “There is mounting evidence that those in line for execution – Hussein Humaam Ahmed, Ahmed Murrat…
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On death row, a whisper saved his life. He still does not know why

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Jakarta: Minutes before Indian truck driver Gurdip Singh was due to be killed by a firing squad the power went out in his cell on Indonesia's penal island Nusakambangan.
Four men had already been taken out to the killing field. Singh, who was sentenced to death for carrying 300 grams of heroin when arrested at the airport, was number five.
"They came, I said 'let me take a shower first'," Singh told Fairfax Media from Pasir Putih prison on Nusakambangan.
"After I was ready, they prayed for me, the officer placed the handcuffs on one of my hands when suddenly the power went out."
It was pitch black, outside the rain was torrential. When the power came back on Singh saw the prison governor walk towards them. "The prison governor said it to my ear: 'Singh, it is cancelled'."
Singh was among 14 convicted drug felons who were due to be shot dead on July 29 last year. Ten of them received a dramatic last minute reprieve for reasons never prop…
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Texas death row inmate Raymond Martinez found dead in cell

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After three decades on death row, the Harris County killer who left a trail of bodies across Texas in 1983 finally got his way.
Raymond DeLeon Martinez died Wednesday of natural causes. He never saw the inside of Huntsville's death chamber.
A diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic with an IQ of 65, Martinez was one of the state's longest-serving death row prisoners.
The erstwhile prison gang leader narrowly avoided an execution date in 2006, kept alive only by his attorneys' ferocity in fighting his case - which was awaiting a decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in light of the 71-year-old's intellectual disability.
"I think there was a decent chance that the ruling would have gone in his favor," said attorney Kenneth Williams, who represented Martinez toward the end of the decades-long appeals process.
"It was pretty obvious to me that he was a seriously mentally ill person so I think that it's unfortunate that the system doesn't deal…
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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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Florida Supreme Court strikes blow to death row inmates

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WEST PALM BEACH -- In a ruling that could prevent as many as 100 condemned inmates from seeking life sentences, the Florida Supreme Court this week rejected arguments that constitutional flaws with the state’s death penalty should benefit all 362 inmates on death row.
The much anticipated ruling strikes a blow to efforts to block the scheduled Aug. 24 execution of Mark James Asay for the 1987 shooting deaths of two Jacksonville men. It also will make it more difficult for all but one of seven men on death row for decades-old Palm Beach County murders to win life sentences as a result of the legal turmoil roiling the state’s death penalty.
While acknowledging that Asay and others may have other grounds to appeal their death sentences, the ruling is both far-reaching and troubling, said Robert Dunham, a lawyer and executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center.
“Now what you have is a situation in which for about 200 cases there may be costly resentencings …
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Gay Iranian Teenager Denied Lawyer and Executed for Allegedly Raping Other Teen

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A secondary school pupil has been executed in Iran after being convicted of raping another boy.
During a two-month trial in early 2015, in which he had no legal representation, Hassan Afshar, 19, was found guilty of “lavat-e be onf” – forced male to male anal intercourse.
“Homosexual conduct” remains illegal under Iran’s Sharia law and is punishable by fines, public flogging or execution.
Magdalena Mughrabi, an interim deputy director at Amnesty International, said Iran had proved that “its sickening enthusiasm” for putting juveniles to death, in contravention of international law, knew no bounds.
“Hassan was a 17-year-old high school student when he was arrested. He had no access to a lawyer and the judiciary rushed through the investigation and prosecution, convicting and sentencing him to death within two months of his arrest as though they could not execute him quickly enough,” she said.
“In a cruel stroke of irony, officials did not inform Hassan Afshar of his death sentence for…
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Nebraska death-row inmate John Lotter denied in latest appeal

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LINCOLN — Death row inmate John Lotter has failed in another attempt to have his sentence overturned in federal court.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently dismissed Lotter’s appeal of a lower-court decision that allowed his death sentence to stand for the 1993 killing of three people at a rented farmhouse near Humboldt, Nebraska. Regarded as a hate crime that targeted Teena Brandon, who was a transgender man and went by Brandon, the case inspired the 1999 critically acclaimed film “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Although the decision represents a blow to Lotter’s efforts to escape death row, he has another ongoing legal challenge that prevents the state from proceeding with his execution while the challenge is pending. In addition, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services has not yet replaced expired lethal injection drugs, a prison spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Lotter’s appeal centers on his argument that Nebraska’s system of allowing judges rather than juries to make final sentenc…
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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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