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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 | Lawyer of Mahsa Amini's family sentenced to one year in prison for "propaganda activity" against Islamic Republic

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An Iranian court has sentenced the legal representative of Mahsa Amini's family to one year in prison for "propaganda activity" against the Islamic Republic, according to an activist group.

The France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network said that Branch 28 of the Islamic Revolution Court of Tehran also banned Saleh Nikbakht from online activities for a period of two years.

Nikbakht, 72, was put on trial over interviews he gave to domestic and foreign media, in which he criticized the government's handling of Mahsa Amini’s death and its aftermath.

The Ministry of Intelligence, the plaintiff in the case, alleged he had pushed the Amini family to seek legal redress for Mahsa’s death in police custody in September last year.

The 22-year-old woman had been arrested by the morality police for allegedly wearing the mandatory headscarf improperly.

The authorities claim she died of natural causes, but eyewitnesses and her family say she was beaten while inside a police van that took her to a detention center.

Amini’s death sparked months of nationwide protests. 

More than 500 people were killed in the clampdown by security forces and over 20,000 were unlawfully detained, including dozens of lawyers. Following biased trials, the judiciary has handed down stiff sentences, including the death penalty, to protesters.

Source: iranwire.com, Staff, October 17, 2023


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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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