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Iran: The death penalty is an inhumane punishment for death row prisoners, their families and society as a whole

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"Whether guilty or not, the outcome of the death penalty is the same. In Iran, the death penalty is by hanging, and it takes from several agonising seconds to several harrowing minutes for death to occur and for everything to be over."

Every year several hundred people are executed by the Iranian authorities.
According to reports by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and other human rights groups, death row prisoners have often no access to a defence lawyer after their arrest and are sentenced to death following unfair trials and based on confessions extracted from them under torture. 
These are issues which have been addressed in IHR’s previous reports. The current report is based on first-hand accounts of several inmates held in Iran's prisons and their families. The report seeks to illustrate other aspects of how the death penalty affects the inmate, their families and, as a consequence, society.
How does a death row inmate experience his final hours?
Speaking about the final ho…

Iraq: 19 Russian women handed life sentences for joining ISIS

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Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 560 women identified as IS militants.
Women are among 560 arrested for 'joining and supporting' the armed group that was defeated last December.

A court in Baghdad sentenced 19 Russian women to life in prison for joining Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in the country.

A Central Criminal Court ruling determined on Sunday the Russian women were guilty of "joining and supporting" ISIL, AFP news agency reported.

The women, many accompanied by their children, addressed the court through a translator - a Russian -language professor at Baghdad University hired by the Russian embassy.

A Russian diplomat at the hearing said the families of the women will be contacted and "informed of the verdict".

Another six women from Azerbaijan and four from Tajikistan were also given life sentences.

Most of the women on trial claimed to have been misled into making the trip to Iraq.

"I did not know we were in Iraq … I went with my husband and my children to Turkey to live there and then I suddenly discovered I was actually in Iraq," one of the accused said on Sunday.

Mass arrests


ISIL fighters surprised Iraqi forces with a lightning-quick offensive in 2014 and captured about one-third of the country, including the second-largest city Mosul, among others.

Since declaring victory over ISIL in late 2017, Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 560 women and 600 children identified as either as members of the group or relatives of fighters.

Earlier this month, an Iraqi court sentenced French national Djamila Boutoutaou to life imprisonment for joining the armed group.


Boutoutaou told authorities at the time she travelled with her husband thinking they would go on a holiday, but soon realised once in Turkey that her "husband was a jihadist".

Her husband was later killed in a military operation near Mosul along with their son. Boutoutaou subsequently surrendered to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq.

Experts estimate Iraq has detained more than 20,000 people over suspected ties to the group and has sentenced more than 300 people to death so far. Twelve ISIL widows were given the death penalty in February. 

Iraq's anti-terrorism laws empower courts to convict people who are believed to have helped ISIL, even if they were not directly involved in fighting.

Source: aljazeera.com, April 29, 2018


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Iraq

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Tennessee prepares electric chair, execution date unconfirmed

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While the details of the execution are still up in the air, but the state is preparing to send a death row inmate in Tennessee to the electric chair.
A jury sentenced Edmund Zagorski to death back in 1984 for the slayings of two men during a drug deal. 
Zagorski had been set to be executed at 7 p.m. Thursday, October 11, but that was halted after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday granted a stay over concerns of inadequate representation. 
As the state rushed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling and ensure the execution took place as scheduled, a separate federal judge barred the state from using lethal injection to kill Zagorski after it refused his request to die in the electric chair.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge of Tennessee's lethal injection protocol and lifted a stay of execution ordered by a lower court because of inadequate counsel.
The court issued the rulings Thursday night around the time Zagorski's execution ha…
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Malaysia: Minimum 30-years imprisonment to replace death penalty

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SANDAKAN: The death penalty will be replaced with a sentence of minimum 30 years behind bars said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Law), Datuk Liew Vui Keong.
He said in the proposed amendment to Section 39 (B) of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952, for instance, where a convicted offender was subjected to the mandatory death sentence, in addition there are also 17 other criminal offences that imposed the same sentence.
These offences, include waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, terrorism, murder, attempted murder during a life imprisonment, killing victims during kidnapping, possessing and using firearms as well as rape leading to death and rape of minors.
Liew said this in his speech at the Community Combat - DAPS (CCD) program here today.
His speech text was read-out by his political secretary, Martin Tommy.
Liew said based on the Prison Department's record, until October 11, there were 932 prisoners convicted or sentenced to death under Section 39 (B) of th…
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Botswana using fellow prisoners as hangmen for death row inmates - Official

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Botswana is allegedly using fellow prisoners to carry out executions of death row inmates, APA learned here on Monday.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence Justice and Security Segakweng Tsiane told the Public Accounts Committee that they decided to use inmates as hangmen after locals failed to respond to an advert that invited them to apply.
After failing to get candidates for the position, the government had to turn to the Department of Prisons for assistance.
"We turned to the Department of Prisons to capacitate us," Tsiane said.
She however could not state the number of death row inmates has Botswana executed since independence from Britain in 1966.
According to Tsiane, the inmates who had acted as hangmen are, however, left traumatised by the experience and now demanding that they be provided with counselling.
"They are offered counselling before carrying out the executions and after that," she said.
The official said the ministry has re-advertised t…
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Tennessee: Zagorski Execution Explained: If, When And How He Could Be Executed

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Edmund Zagorski was convicted of shooting two men then slitting their throats after setting up a fake drug deal. His execution was scheduled for Thurs., Oct. 11, but several legal battles have kept the courts from deciding if, when or even how he will die.
IF: Will He Be Executed?
There's a chance Zagorski may not be executed, but that ruling would have to come from the U.S. Supreme Court on one of two issues: Zagorski's lawyers claims that he had ineffective counsel during his original trial or their claim that the three-drug cocktail being used by the state is cruel and unusual punishment.
Of course, the Supreme Court could also rule that the execution could continue. If that's the case, that brings us to our next question: 
WHEN?
Governor Haslam granted Zagorski a temporary reprieve until Oct. 21, which is earliest the execution could take place. The Tennessee Department of Corrections will set a new date for the execution.
That doesn't necessari…
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Pakistan: Zainab's killer Imran Ali to be hanged in Lahore on Wednesday

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After 1-year-long lull, a condemned prisoner and notorious criminal Imran Ali will be executed in Lahore's central jail on Wednesday.
The prison staff has finalised arrangements to execute the serial rapist-cum-killer in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail on October 17. But, Zainab's father Amin Ansari has once again approached the Lahore High Court and demanded public hanging of the merciless killer.
An official said the murder convict would be given an opportunity to have a final meeting with his family inside the jail before his hanging. A team of doctors will also examine the prisoner before sending him to the gallows.
Imran Ali had raped and killed 7-year-old Zainab in Kasur district early this year. He has been accused of being involved in at least 9 cases of child rape and murder which he had confessed during the investigation of Zainab murder case. He was booked by police in 7 cases and the court announced its verdict in 5 such cases.
Imran Ali is one of the 8,000 prisoner…
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Arizona: Aussie mum who could face death penalty fronts court

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In an orange jumpsuit and shackled in chains, Australian Lisa Cunningham waved and mouthed the words "I love you" to her 21-year-old daughter in the public gallery.
Mrs Cunningham 43, was then ushered out of the courtroom, and back to jail in Maricopa County Jail, in Phoenix, Arizona.
The mother-of-four is awaiting trial on felony murder and child abuse charges, along with her American husband, former police detective Germayne Cunningham, over the death of seven-year-old Sanaa Cunningham.
Sanaa was Germayne's biological daughter, Lisa Cunningham’s step-daughter. The little girl died in February 2017, suffering a head injury, an open wound on her foot and a sepsis infection.
The prosecution also alleges Sanaa had injuries to her wrists consistent with being tied up using zip-ties.
The alleged crime, committed in Arizona, carries with it the death penalty.
The last time a woman was put to death in this state was in 1930; the Maricopa County Attorney believes this case fit…
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Letters from inmates on death row: An overview of why South Korea needs to abolish capital punishment

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Letters written on death row were given to the Hankyoreh by Lee Sang-hyeok, the attorney who set up the Council for the Abolishment of Capital Punishment in South Korea in 1989.
For more than 2 decades, from Mar. 1994 until this past July, Lee received 63 handwritten letters running for more than 200 pages that record the fear of death, guilt for crimes committed and remorse for family members left behind.
"Even the most heinous of criminals should be given a chance to sincerely repent for their crimes and apologize to their victims," said Lee while showing the letters. Lee's correspondence with Kim Jin-tae, 52, offers insight into the life of inmates on death row.
Kim Jin-tae was a death-row inmate until his death sentence was commuted to life behind bars by a special amnesty on the last day of 2002. During the decade between 1993 and 2002, he wore a red name badge on his chest and spent each day waiting for death. In 1992, Kim was arrested by the police on charges of …
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Texas: "It's wrong for an imperfect system to impose an irreversible punishment."

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In the remaining months of 2018, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is likely to reach a grim milestone. Of the 4 remaining scheduled executions in Texas, 3 defendants were convicted in Fort Worth or Dallas.
The next of those executions to proceed will be the 100th execution resulting from convictions in Tarrant and Dallas counties since our state resumed executions in 1982.
4 other individuals convicted in Tarrant or Dallas counties face execution in the remaining months of 2018.
Historically, Tarrant and Dallas county juries have returned a combined 181 death sentences in the modern death penalty era, more than any major metropolitan area in Texas except for Houston.
And while prosecutors across the nation are increasingly electing life without the possibility of parole over the huge expense of a death penalty trial, district attorney offices in Tarrant and Dallas continue to seek death sentences and advance executions, despite compelling evidence of waning public appetite for capital…
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Death penalty: How many countries still have it?

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Claim: Some 170 States have either abolished the death penalty or introduced a moratorium on its use.
Verdict: According to Amnesty International in 2017, 142 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
The UN Secretary General António Guterres marked the World Day Against the Death Penalty by praising the efforts of countries to end the practice.
He said "170 States have either abolished the death penalty or introduced a moratorium on its use."
A moratorium is an agreement to suspend a policy or action.
So, is he right?
The UN Secretary General's report on the death penalty presented to the Human Rights Council in September this year says that "some 170 States have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or in practice, or have suspended executions for more than 10 years."
As the UN has 193 members, this implies that 23 states carried out at least one execution in the past decade.
The UN says these figures are co…
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Indonesia: Busting the myths of the death penalty

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October 10 is World Day against Death Penalty. Indonesia is one of the few remaining countries that still implements capital punishment. 
Despite many rejections from various circles, the Indonesian government still believes the death penalty serves as an effective deterrent against crime.
In a book, Politik Hukuman Mati di Indonesia (The Politics of Capital Punishment in Indonesia), I wrote that research on the deterrent effect of the death penalty has yet to be conducted in Indonesia. 
Apart from the lack of empirical data, other arguments and studies around the world have shown the deterrent effect of capital punishment is a myth.
The rationale of capital punishment
Within penology, a branch of criminology that studies criminal sanctions, the idea that the death penalty has a deterrent effect rose with the influence of classic utilitarianism in the 18th century within the Western legal system.
Classic utilitarianism is a theoretical approach to ethics that was introduced by the ph…
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