Death Penalty News

“Unfortunately, we have no death penalty." A TV presenter and key Vladimir Putin ally has said he wants the death penalty to be used against Russia's own soldiers as Moscow continues to struggle in its war against Ukraine. A series of battlefield disasters, including losses in areas Russia has recently illegally annexed, have prompted allies of the Russian president to publicly criticise the war machine's top figures. Presenter Vladimir Solovyov, a key mouthpiece for Putin, has said he finds it unfortunate the death penalty can no longer be used on members of the military who have failed to achieve their aims. The withdrawal of Russian forces from the strategically important town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine on Saturday has prompted criticism from other powerful Putin allies, including Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Solovyov has always been a cheerleader for the war, but in a clip shared by US journalist Julia Davis his assessment appeared more downbeat. He said: “Those who...

Demonstrators gathered in Paris on Saturday to demand the release of Benjamin Brière, a French national who was arrested in Iran in May 2020 and accused of spying. His family denies the accusations and his sister told FRANCE 24 that her brother was being held illegally without a trial. “We want to show that Benjamin Brière exists, that he’s not just a passive hostage waiting for something to happen,” his sister Blandine Brière, 31, told FRANCE 24. Brière’s loved ones have been consumed with worry and a sense of powerlessness since he was detained in May 2020 near the Turkmenistan-Iran border. Brière, 36, was on an overland trip across Asia when he was arrested near the Iranian border and accused of spying. His sister however said her brother had not yet had a court hearing. “There is no valid reason to keep him where he is,” said Blandine. “It’s wrongful confinement." Nearly 2 years after his arrest, demonstrators gathered for a solidarity protest in Place du Trocadero in Paris to...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian authorities indicted a French tourist on charges of spying and spreading propaganda against the system, his lawyer said Sunday. It was the latest in a series of cases against foreigners amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West. Benjamin Berier was arrested in May last year after taking pictures in a desert area where photography is prohibited and asking questions “in the media” about Iran’s obligatory Islamic headscarf for women. Under Iranian law, a spying conviction can bring up to 10 years in prison and a conviction on a charge of spreading propaganda against the system can be punishable by three months to a year. Berier’s indictment was handed up by the justice department in the northeastern city of Mashahd. It wasn't immediately clear when his trial would take place. Rights groups accuse hard-liners in Iran’s security agencies of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West. Tehran denies...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has charged a French tourist with spying and “spreading propaganda against the system,” his lawyer said Monday, the latest in a series of cases against foreigners at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and the West. Benjamin Berier was arrested some 10 months ago after taking pictures in a desert area where photography is prohibited and asking questions “in the media” about Iran's obligatory Islamic headscarf for women, his lawyer Saeed Dehghan wrote on Twitter. Authorities were holding Berier at a prison in the northeast city of Mashhad, Dehghan said. Prosecutors recently presented the propaganda charges in a court hearing, he added, without specifying when.  Under Iranian law, a spying conviction can lead to up to 10 years in prison. Berier has become the latest Westerner held on widely criticized espionage charges. On Sunday, prominent British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe reappeared in a Tehran court to face similar accusations ...

"There is never any excuse for extracting forced 'confessions' through torture or other ill-treatment and broadcasting them in chilling videos." Iran's authorities have used crude propaganda tactics to dehumanize death penalty victims in the eyes of the public and divert attention away from the deeply flawed trials that led to their death sentences, said Amnesty International in a new report published today. Broadcasting injustice, boasting of mass killing highlights how the Iranian authorities embarked on a media campaign following the mass execution of 25 Sunni men accused of involvement in an armed group on 2 August 2016, by flooding state-controlled media outlets with numerous videos featuring forced "confessions" in an attempt to justify the executions. "By parading death row prisoners on national TV, the authorities are blatantly attempting to convince the public of their 'guilt', but they cannot mask the disturbing trut...

Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo Ahead of three-day visit to Australia, Jokowi says Indonesians are ‘very open’ to changing their minds on execution laws Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo has indicated his country wants to move towards abolishing the death penalty. Speaking ahead of a three-day visit to Australia, Widodo told the ABC he thinks Indonesians will change their minds on execution laws as citizens in Europe had done in the past. “We are very open to options,” he said. “I don’t know when but we want to move towards that direction.” The execution in Indonesia last year of Australian drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran strained relations between the two countries. Widodo’s trip to Australia will be his first bilateral visit since Canberra withdrew its ambassador to Indonesia in protest against the executions. “Indonesia has regulations, Indonesia has its own law, which still allows execution. That’s what I complied to,” the president ...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called the death penalty a cruel and inhumane practice - one that 65 countries globally retain for terrorism-related offenses - which is the focus of this year's World Day against the Death Penalty. "It has no place in the 21st century," Mr. Ban stressed in his message for the Day, commemorated annually on 10 October. "To be legitimate and effective, counter-terror measures, like all security operations, must be anchored in respect for human rights and the rule of law," he added Yet death sentences for terrorism are often handed down after unfair and speedy trials by military or special courts. In his message, the UN chief noted that confessions were often obtained under duress or in other ways in which the right to appeal is not respected. Some States even sought to criminalize the legitimate exercise of fundamental freedoms by including vague definitions in counter-terrorism legislation. ...

Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee (right) NCRI - Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee an Iranian writer and human rights activist has been sentenced to six years' imprisonment in Iran for writing a story about stoning. She faces years of imprisonment even though her writing has not even been published. The Iranian authorities found the piece, when the writer and her activist husband Arash Sadeghi were detained by men believed to be members of the Revolutionary Guard on 6 September 2014. She was found guilty of "insulting Islamic sanctities" and "spreading propaganda against the system". Amnesty International called the verdict "ludicrous" and the trial "farcical". Victims of stoning in Iran, mostly women accused of adultery are executed by having rocks savagely thrown at them until they are dead. Ms Ebrahimi Iraee's work describes the emotional reaction of a young woman who watches the film The Stoning of Soraya M - which tells the true story...

Saudi Arabia told a UN committee last week that it does not sentence children to death, despite submitting written evidence in which it admitted people can be executed for crimes committed aged 15, anti-death penalty charity Reprieve has found. The Saudi delegation told the UN’s child rights committee last Wednesday that, “The crime must have been committed by a perpetrator who is an adult at the time in order for them to be sentenced to capital punishment.” The delegation claimed that “the age of liability is always 18”. However, this was directly contradicted by Saudi Arabia’s written evidence to the same UN committee, which contained a buried admission that children as young as 15 can face the death penalty, although the execution is not carried out until they turn 18. Earlier this month, Reprieve wrote to Theresa May and urged the British prime minister to raise the cases of Ali Al-Nimr , Abdullah Al-Zaher and Dawood Al-Marhoon , three juveniles who were sentenced t...