Sri Lanka reinstates death penalty for drug crimes ahead of polls
Sri Lanka's president on Wednesday signed death sentences for 4 people convicted of drug-related offences in a decision analysts said is aimed at boosting his chances of re-election later this year.
Maithripala Sirisena was elected as a reformist in January 2015, but has struggled to fulfill pledges including addressing human rights abuses, eliminating corruption and ensuring good governance.
He has been under increasing pressure since a political crisis last year, and more recently faced criticism for his handling of Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed more than 250 people.
"I have already signed the death penalty for four (convicts). It will be implemented soon and we have already decided the date as well," Sirisena told reporters in Colombo, without giving details.
He said the four could appeal their convictions on charges of trading and trafficking in drugs.
Many Sri Lankans, including several influential religious leaders, are in favor of reinstating the death penalty to curb rising crime, though rights groups have warned that such a measure would be ineffective.
"The death penalty does not deter crimes any more effectively than other punishments," said Kumi Naidoo, secretary general of rights group Amnesty International.
"Executions are never the solution," he added.
The last execution in Sri Lanka was 43 years ago.
The country's last hangman quit in 2014 without having to execute anyone, but he cited stress after seeing the gallows for the first time. Another hangman hired last year never turned up for work.
The president's hardline policy is in part inspired by the Philippines' so-called "war on drugs," where thousands have died in encounters with police.
"He is trying to project himself like the Philippines president ... but I doubt whether it is enough. It won't give him much political mileage now," political columnist Kusal Perera told Reuters.
Sirisena declined to comment on whether he will stand as the presidential candidate for his center-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which has recommended him as the candidate for the election expected in the last 2 months of 2019.
Source: Dhaka Tribune, Staff, June 26, 2019
Sri Lanka president signs death warrants to end moratorium
Executions by hanging would be the first carried out in Sri Lanka since 1976 when a moratorium was implemented.
Sri Lanka's president signed death warrants on Wednesday for 4 drug offenders who will "very soon" become the first people executed in decades on the island.
Maithripala Sirisena said he completed formalities to end a 42-year-old moratorium on the death penalty, which he said was needed to clamp down on a rampant narcotics trade.
"I have signed the death warrants of four. They have not been told yet. We don't want to announce the names yet because that could lead to unrest in prisons," Sirisena told reporters at his official residence.
He did not say when the executions would be carried out, only that it would be "very soon".
An official in Sirisena's office said the president wanted the hangings to be a powerful message to the illegal drugs trade.
Sirisena said there were 200,000 drug addicts in the country and 60 percent of the 24,000 prison population were drug offenders.
His remarks came a day after Amnesty International said it was "alarmed" over media reports of preparations to resume executions.
"Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena must immediately halt his plans to resume executions," Amnesty said in a statement.
Sri Lanka is a party to the international convention on civil and political rights, which sets the abolition of the death penalty as a goal to be achieved by countries, it added.
No executioner
Sirisena in February announced the country would carry out the first executions in decades, saying he had been inspired by President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly anti-drug campaign in the Philippines.
The president has also appealed to human rights organisations not to pressure him.
Criminals in Sri Lanka are regularly given death sentences for murder, rape, and drug-related crimes. But since 1976 their punishments have been commuted to life imprisonment.
The country currently has no executioner.
The justice ministry said more than a dozen people had been shortlisted to fill the position, but no formal appointment has been made.
While Sri Lanka's last execution was more than four decades ago, an executioner was in the post until his retirement in 2014. 3 replacements since have quit after short stints at the unused gallows.
Source: aljazeera.com, Staff, June 26, 2019
‘Sri Lanka gearing up to hang drug offenders’
Prisons authorities say they have not received any official communication
Following up on his earlier pledge to hang drug offenders, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has recently signed papers for the execution, according to a top government source.
The move is in connection with the ‘National Drug Prevention Week’ being observed from June 23 to July 1, the senior official source told The Hindu, on condition of anonymity.
The government or the President’s office has so far not officially commented on the development, which comes three months after President Sirisena announced that he had fixed a date to hang convicted drug traffickers, effectively lifting a 4-decade-old moratorium on capital punishment.
Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday said it was “alarmed to learn” that the Sri Lankan government was preparing to execute at least 13 prisoners convicted in drug-related crimes. In a statement, Amnesty urged Mr. Sirisena to immediately halt his “plans to resume executions” for drug offenders, referring to earlier media reports suggesting “preparations are under way”.
However, Sri Lanka’s Commissioner General of Prisons T.M.J.W. Thennakoon dismissed the reports as “completely wrong”. “As of June 25, 8 p.m., I have received no official communication from the Presidential secretariat regarding this,” he told The Hindu, when contacted on Tuesday.
Last week, local media reported that President Sirisena was considering signing papers to execute drug offenders. In a full-page government advertisement on the ‘National Drug Prevention Week’, carried in the state-run Daily News on Monday, the words ‘Death penalty for drug dealers’ were highlighted in bold, red font within a circle, resembling a stamped seal.
Sri Lankan courts have sentenced many convicts to death in the past, but no one has been executed since 1976, with their sentences invariably commuted to life. The most recent verdict came last week, when the Colombo High Court awarded death sentence to a man found guilty of possessing 4.40 grams of heroin in 2013.
“We are dismayed by these reports that will see Sri Lanka surrender its positive record on the death penalty. Executions will not rid Sri Lanka of drug-related crime. They represent the failure to build a humane society where the protection of life is valued. The last thing that Sri Lanka needs right now is more death in the name of vengeance,” said Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International, Colombo.
Amid growing instances of drug trafficking in and via Sri Lanka, President Sirisena has repeatedly made a case for severe punishment for drug offenders. After his announcement on reviving the death penalty, authorities advertised for a hangman with “excellent moral character”.
The recruitment process is going on, but the Department of Prisons is yet to appoint anybody to the position, Mr. Thennakoon said.
According to official figures, nearly 460 persons currently in prison, including 5 women, have been awarded confirmed death sentences.
Source: The Hindu, Staff, June 26, 2019
Sri Lanka: Urgent Action
Amnesty International has received reports indicating that the President was due to consider signing execution warrants as early as the week of 24 June.
Should this be confirmed, up to 13 prisoners would be put at imminent risk of execution.
There is completely secrecy around the dates of any scheduled executions, as well as identities of the death row prisoners most at risk.
Amnesty International has not been able to confirm whether the individuals had fair trials, access to lawyers or whether they were able to engage in a meaningful clemency process.
Sri Lanka has not implemented this ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment for more than four decades. It should continue to honor a tradition that chooses life instead of vengeance.
Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to one or both government officials listed. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them.
President Maithripala Sirisena
Presidential Secretariat
Galle Face
Colombo 01
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Fax: +94 (11) 2340340
Ambassador Rodney Perera
Embassy of Sri Lanka
3025 Whitehaven Street NW
Washington DC 20008
Phone: 202 483 4025 // Fax: 202 232 7181
Salutation: Dear Ambassador
Dear H.E. President Maithripala Sirisena,
I write to you to express my concern about the decision to consider signing execution warrants to execute the 13 prisoners who are currently on death row.
Executions are not a show of strength, but a display of weakness. They represent the failure to create a humane society where the right to life is protected. Sri Lanka does not need more lives to be taken in the name of vengeance.
I understand that you are determined to combat drug use and drug-related crime in Sri Lanka. However, there is no evidence that implementing the death penalty will help achieve that goal.
By seeking executions for drug-related crimes, the death penalty in Sri Lanka is being used in circumstances that violate international law and standards. Executions have failed to act as a unique deterrent to crime in other countries, could claim the lives of people who may have been convicted through unfair trials, and could disproportionately affect people from minority and less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds.
I implore you to reconsider your decision to hang these 13 prisoners, and commute their sentences Please retain Sri Lanka’s positive death penalty record and establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolish the death penalty entirely.
Yours sincerely,
Source: Amnesty International, Staff, June 26, 2019
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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
