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Biden Has “Pardoned” Eight Turkeys. Will He Spare the Lives of 40 Human Beings?

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With Trump returning to the White House, only mass commutations will stop another federal execution spree. Five days after Orlando Hall was executed in the federal death chamber, Donald Trump appeared in the White House Rose Garden for the 2020 Thanksgiving turkey pardon ceremony. The enormous white birds, Corn and Cob, stood ridiculously as Trump wished them a “very long, happy, and memorable life.” At the Special Confinement Unit inside the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, men on death row watched news coverage on TV.

Yemen | Houthi court sentences Yemeni women’s rights activist to death

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AL-MUKALLA: A court in Houthi-held Sanaa on Tuesday condemned a women’s rights rights activist to death for spying, sparking an uproar in Yemen and abroad against the Iran-backed militia.

Abdul Majeed Sabra, a Yemeni lawyer, told Arab News that the Specialized Criminal Court of First Instance in Sanaa sentenced Fatema Saleh Mohammed Al-Arwali, an activist and head of the Yemeni branch of the Arab League’s Arab Women Leadership Council, to death for gathering military intelligence and sending key Houthi locations to the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen to be bombed.

The militia had kidnapped Al-Arwali while she was traveling to the southern city of Aden from Houthi-controlled Taiz. She was abducted and family requests to know her whereabouts were ignored.

The Houthis put Al-Arwali on trial early this year, but barred her from receiving legal representation.

Yemeni officials, as well as local and international rights organizations and activists, severely denounced the death sentence and urged the militia to release Al-Arwali and end its harassment of activists.

Dozens of Yemeni activists, lawyers and academics signed an online petition demanding that the Houthis release the activist, adding that her lawyer was barred from the courtroom during the first trial session and Al-Arwali was condemned to a lightless underground detention facility for almost a year.

“We urge that the death sentence imposed on her be overturned. We urge human rights and civil society groups to unite in opposition to this unfair sentencing that undermines justice,” the Yemeni activists said in the petition.

Amnesty International and the Geneva-based SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties also released separate statements criticizing the death sentence and urging the Houthis to free Al-Arwali.

“Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, without exception, and calls on the Houthis to immediately quash Al-Arwali’s death sentence and ensure she promptly receives a fair trial in line with international standards or is immediately released,” the organization said on X (Twitter).

Source: arabnews.com, Staff, December 6, 2023


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Location: Sana'a, Yemen
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