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Indonesia | 14 years on death row: Timeline of Mary Jane Veloso’s ordeal and fight for justice

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MANILA, Philippines — The case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking, has spanned over a decade and remains one of the most high-profile legal battles involving an overseas Filipino worker. Veloso was arrested on April 25, 2010, at Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, after she was found in possession of more than 2.6 kilograms of heroin. She was sentenced to death in October – just six months after her arrest. Indonesia’s Supreme Court upheld the penalty in May 2011.

Iran | Elderly man, 81, hanged in Chaharmahal Bakhtiari; 10 Scheduled to Be Executed at Rajai-Shahr Prison

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Elderly man, 81, hanged in Chaharmahal Bakhtiari with another inmate

2 murder convicts including an 81-year-old man were hanged in Chaharmahal Bakhtiari Province at dawn on Monday, January 27. 

The state-run ROKNA news agency reported the executions but it did not specify in which prison the executions took place.

ROKNA cited Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province as saying, “One of the prisoners with Kh. Gh. initials, 81, resident of Boroujen, had been sentenced to death in 2017.”

The other prisoners, with initials of A. Gh., 31, resident of Khan-Mirza, had been sentenced to death in 2013, the public prosecutor Abdulreza Ali-Mohammadi said.

Iran’s deliberate use of capital punishment has been a constant source of international outrage and condemnation. 

According to several independent international bodies, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran and Amnesty International, Iran is the leading state in executions per capita, 2nd only to China in terms of figures. 

Iran also tops the charts in the number of executions of minors and juvenile offenders.

At least 273 people including 9 juvenile offenders and 17 women were executed in 2019.

36 were executed for drug related charges. The actual numbers are higher because most executions in Iran are carried out secretly, away from the public eye where only the masterminds and perpetrators are witness to them.

10 Prisoners Scheduled to Be Executed at Rajai-Shahr Prison


On Tuesday, January 28, at least 10 death-row prisoners were transferred to the solitary confinement of Rajai-Shahr Prison for execution.

According to IHR sources, on Tuesday, January 28, at least 10 prisoners were transferred to the solitary confinement of Rajai-Shahr prison in the Iranian city of Karaj.

Prisoners Behnam Gharadaghi, Nima Dashtyarpour, Mehdi Fotovvat, Sajjad Zahiriyeh and Mohammad Nikbonyad are identified by IHR sources.

Most of the prisoners are sentenced to death for murder charges. If they cannot win the plaintiffs’ consent, they will be executed on Wednesday. 

According to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code (IPC) murder is punishable by qisas which means “retribution in kind” or retaliation. In this way, the State effectively puts the responsibility of the death sentence for murder on the shoulders of the victim’s family. 

In qisas cases, the plaintiff has the possibility to forgive or demand diya (blood money).

In 2019, most of the executions in Iran were carried out for murder charges.

There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent.

Source: iranhr.net, Staff, January 29, 2020


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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: Iran
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