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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Iran hangs two in latest executions

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Iranian authorities have hanged two men convicted of murder in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province in the latest executions carried out by the Islamic republic, the judiciary said Monday.

Elias Raisi was found guilty of murder in a family dispute in 2020, and Ayoub Rigi of a killing using a military weapon over “personal differences” with the victim, said the judiciary's Mizan Online news website.

They were put to death Saturday after the victims' families refused to grant them clemency under Islamic law, the chief prosecutor in the provincial capital Zahedan, Mehdi Shamsabadi, was quoted as saying.

The latest executions came two days after the judiciary confirmed three people had been hanged for rape and armed robbery in the southern city of Shiraz.

Earlier this month, Iran's judiciary executed two men in connection with the protests over the September 16 death of Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country's strict dress code for women.

Majidreza Rahnavard, 23, was hanged in public on December 12 after being sentenced by a court in Mashhad for killing two members of the security forces with a knife.

Four days earlier, Mohsen Shekari, also 23, had been executed for wounding a member of the security forces.

The judiciary has said that so far 11 people have been handed death sentences over the protests, of whom two have been executed and two have been allowed retrials.

Campaigners say about a dozen other defendants have been charged with offences that could see them receive the death penalty.

According to London-based rights group Amnesty International, Iran is second only to China in its use of the death penalty, with at least 314 people executed in 2021.

Source: Agence France-Press, Staff, December 26, 2022





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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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