Death Penalty News

Paris, Tokyo - 22 August 2022 — The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Center for Prisoners’ Rights (CPR) denounce the use of solitary confinement and intrusive video surveillance of death row prisoners in Japan. Such measures amount to serious human rights violations and are grossly inconsistent with Japan’s obligations under international law. According to the latest available official figures, at the end of 2021 there were 107 prisoners (99 men and eight women) under death sentence in Japan. Almost half of them (47 men and two women) were in Tokyo Detention House. CPR research found that prisoners under death sentence in Tokyo Detention House are held in solitary confinement in 5.4-square-meter cells that are monitored 24 hours a day by closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras placed on the ceiling. There are no obstacles in front of the cameras, so everything is videotaped, including prisoners removing their clothes and underwear, as well as their use of toilets. Acco...

The following story has been Google translated from Belarusian. Read the original here . The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has appealed to the Pardon Commission under the President of the Republic of Belarus to invite Vice President and human rights activist Valyantsin Stefanovich to a meeting to consider the pardon petition of brothers Ilya and Stanislav Kostev . The possibility of the presence of representatives of state bodies, public associations and mass media at the sittings of the commission is enshrined in Clause 9 of the Regulations on the Procedure for Pardoning Convicts, Exempting from Criminal Liability Persons Assisting in Disclosure and Elimination of Consequences of Crimes approved by Presidential Decree99.1 250. In addition, paragraph 5 of the Regulation stipulates that the opinion of public organizations may be taken into account when considering a pardon application. FIDH is one of the leading international human rights organization...

(New Delhi, Paris) -- India’s execution by hanging early this morning of four men in Tihar prison in New Delhi , after five years without executions, is a step in the wrong direction and must be strongly condemned, FIDH and its member organization People’s Watch said today. In 2013, the four men – Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh – were found guilty of the gang rape and murder of a young woman in a New Delhi bus in 2012, and sentenced to death.  Their executions were postponed several times, as the defendants exercised all legal remedies available to them.  The case drew much-needed attention to the widespread trend of sexual and gender-based violence in India. “By not carrying out any executions for the past five years, the Indian authorities were taking steps towards joining the list of countries that were making progress towards the abolition of the death penalty. This morning’s executions are a step in the wrong direction, which...

Premier Su Tseng-chang’s remark on the death penalty sparked activist outrage last week, and discussions on the abolition of capital punishment will be a crucial item on Taiwan’s 2020 policy agenda. “Confirmed death sentences should be carried out,” Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said during a legislative inquiry on October 25, as the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) concluded its Congress in Taipei. Su made his remark when a DPP legislator asked if carrying out death penalty would violate the existing international covenants on civil rights. Taiwan's anti-death penalty community immediately criticized Premier Su’s response to the inquiry. In an open letter, Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡), executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP), and Wu Chih-kuang (吳志光), a law professor at Fu Jen Catholic University, questioned whether Su remembered his promise to explore alternatives to capital punishment from 15 years ago. The Case of Chiou Ho...

Paris-Geneva, January 11, 2019 - Human rights defender Israa Al-Ghomgham will appear before the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh on January 13, 2019 for participating in peaceful pro-democracy protests.  After spending more than three years in arbitrary detention, she faces the death penalty and, if convicted, would be the first female human rights defender sentenced to death in the Kingdom.  The Observatory calls for her immediate and unconditional release. On January 13, 2019, Ms. Israa Al-Ghomgham, a human rights defender from the region of Qatif, an eastern coastal city with a Shia majority, will appear before the Specialized Criminal Court - a jurisdiction originally set up to prosecute terrorist acts which is in fact dealing with so-called cases affecting “national security” and has been criminalising dozens of peaceful activists, including human rights defenders. The Observatory expresses its great concern over the physical and psychological integ...

When Thailand announced on Monday night that it had carried out its first execution in nine years , the news was met with shock. The country had refrained from imposing the death penalty since the lethal injection of two drug dealers in 2009. It had also repeatedly pledged to look into ditching capital punishment altogether. That changed on the night of 19 June 2018, when the Corrections Department said it had sent a 26-year-old man convicted of aggravated murder to the lethal injection chamber. What’s puzzling is the authorities’ refusal to discuss or explain the question of why him—and why now? As any journalist working in Thailand would tell you: once Thai bureaucrats keep mum about certain questions, it’s time to raise the alarm. Behind this surprising turn of events—which has virtually gone unreported by the media—is King Vajiralongkorn’s apparent refusal to grant the condemned man a royal pardon and stay his execution. This is a significant departure from his late ...

A death verdict is handed down to Siarhei Vostrykau (right) on May 19, 2016. Human rights report details abuse used to extract confessions in only European country to use death penalty The last European country to retain capital punishment has resumed sentencing people to death since EU sanctions against its president were dropped this year, according to a landmark investigation. In recent months Belarus has executed one person and condemned four more to death, with more cases pending in which capital punishment is likely, according to investigators with the Paris-based human rights organisation FIDH, and the Viasna human rights centre in Minsk. Described by investigators as a "scandal at the heart of Europe", about 400 people have been executed in Belarus since independence in 1991 - more than 1 a month. The human rights report documents the physical and psychological abuse used to extract confessions and the shocking conditions in which death row inmate...

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr Ali Mohammed al-Nimr has been sentenced to death by crucifixion for his participation in an illegal demonstration during the Arab Spring pro democracy uprising, despite the fact that at the time of the offence, he was a minor. He could be executed at any moment. "Saudi Arabia has already reached a macabre record of executions, with far more people executed thus far in 2015 than in all of 2014. Ali's execution would be the paradigm of horror of the country's application of the capital sentence" declared Karim Lahidji, FIDH President. "If it carries out the sentence, Saudi Arabia would be in violation of all international standards and commit a terrible crime." Ali al-Nimr, a high school student, had just turned 17 when he was arrested on 14 February 2012 during an anti-government protest in the Shiite province of Qatif. He was charged by the authorities with participating in illegal protests and other offences including ...

Indonesian president Joko Widodo The planned execution of 10 inmates convicted of drug-related offenses is a shameful stain on President Joko Widodo's policymaking, FIDH and its member organization KontraS said today. The 2 organizations reiterate their appeal to President Widodo for a halt to all executions and the commutation of all death sentences. "President Widodo's green light for more executions despite massive international calls for clemency is a shameful stain on his policymaking," said FIDH President Karim Lahidji. "He must immediately end this barbaric practice and ensure that Indonesia complies with its international human rights obligations." 10 individuals are scheduled to be executed by firing squad within days in Nusakambangan prison in Central Java. They are: Rodrigo Gularte (Brazil), Serge Atlaoui (France), Okwudili Oyatanze (Nigeria), Raheem Agbaje Salami (Nigeria), Sylvester Obiekwe (Nigeria), Martin Anderson (Ghana), Mary J...

On 11 November, international media reported the execution of 80 people in North Korea . The UN commission of inquiry on the human rights situation in North Korea was in Seoul a few days later to meet with some witnesses. In an open letter to the North Korean Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, FIDH demands an explanation. Dear Ambassador, The South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo has reported that on 3 November, as many as 80 people were publicly executed in your country. If confirmed, this would be profoundly shocking. FIDH, like thousands of civil society organizations worldwide, considers the death penalty as a violation of due process as well as a violation to the right to life, and a cruel, inhumane and degrading form of punishment. The international trend is already towards universal abolition. The silence of DPRK's authorities on the matter may only lead to impunity and to an arbitrary application of the death penalty. FIDH is additionally concerned by th...

Tokyo Execution Chamber The Japanese Government has so far failed to implement UN recommendations on the death penalty, as the country is about to be reviewed for a sixth time by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. [1] The 109th session of the Human Rights Committee is being held from 14 October to 1 November　2013 in Geneva. On 31 October, the committee will adopt a list of issues for the sixth periodic review of Japan, which will precede the actual review of Japan in July 2014. “We are concerned at Japan’s continued ignorance of recommendations by UN experts on the death penalty” , said the Center for Prisoners’ Rights Japan (CPR), and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in a joint statement. “The execution of Tokuhisa Kumagai, on 12 September, took place right after the International Olympic Committee selected Tokyo as the host city for 2020 Olympic Games. This further displays the extent to which the government remains impervious to internati...