Death Penalty News

Buddhists, along with a growing number of members of other religions, believe that the death penalty is fundamentally unethical. From the Buddhist perspective, non-violence, or not harming others, is the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. His Holiness the Dalai Lama signed Amnesty International’s pledge against the death penalty several years ago, and has spoken out against it on multiple occasions. He opposes the death penalty because it punishes the person and not the action. Buddhism does allow ending the life of another when it is done in self-defense, and the argument could be made that, sometimes, capital punishment could be viewed as a society’s attempt at self-defense. But when there are other means available to prevent a person from harming others, such as imprisonment, it would seem that the less lethal option should be favored. Countering violence with violence only results in more violence. The true enemy is our own self-cherishing and self-grasping tendencies, and the n...

October 26, 2011: in Saudi Arabia, an unknown UAE donor gave more than $4 million (Dh14.69m) to save a teenage Saudi killer from the gallows and allow the boy to return to his family after awaiting execution in prison for many years, a Saudi newspaper said. The family of Faisal Al Ruwaili in the northwestern town of Jouf has managed to raise around SR2 million ($540,000) while it has also received some funds into a special bank account set up for donations, 'Sharq' Arabic language daily said. The victim’s family had demanded diya (blood money) SR20m, prompting the defendant’s family to appeal for help. “A UAE benevolent person donated more than SR16m to close the account, which now has SR20m, the diya demanded by the victim’s relatives…this person refused to disclose his or her name and sources said they believe she is a woman,” the paper said. “Sharq is pleased to convey the good news to Failal’s family and wishes that God the Almighty preserve and protect this person who ...

San Quentin's brand new execution chamber Georgia's decision to go forward with the execution of Troy Davis in the face of an international outcry calling for time, clarity and justice has, once again, galvanized anti-death penalty consciousness here at home. What passes for fairness in parts of this country, and make no mistake, we're talking about "parts of this country," is the issue. 16 states in the U.S. have no death penalty, 4 of them having done away with it since 2007. Of the remaining 34, some use it so rarely their citizens forget it's actually on the books. A quick glance tells us the most active killing states comprise the "Old South," and a look at the racial makeup of death row today suggests to many that it is a relic of slavery. But a closer look tells us even more. One of the reasons the death penalty was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 was the arbitrariness of its application. 2 identical crimes committed in the sam...

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality (aka ‘Kill the gays’) bill was reintroduced to parliament today. The bill includes the death penalty for some offenses, provides for Ugandans fleeing the country to be extradited, requires that all people in Uganda report homosexuals and would ban advocacy by anyone for LGBT human rights. The bill has been the focus of massive international condemnation since it was first introduced in 2009. President Obama called it “odious.” It ran out of time at the end of the last parliament in May and there has been speculation ever since as to whether it would be reintroduced and if so when. The parliament is considering a large number of other bills and the country has been convulsed by mass protests by the opposition and increasing concerns that the government is becoming more authoritarian. The reintroduction of the bill could be seen as a deliberate distraction from those concerns. Chief proponent of the bill, David Bahati MP, who last year defended the bill to...

KUALA LUMPUR — A Malaysian court sentenced a Japanese woman to death on Tuesday for smuggling methamphetamine into the country in what an official said was the first such case involving a citizen of Japan. A high court in Shah Alam near the capital Kuala Lumpur found Mariko Takeuchi guilty of drug trafficking, said a court official. A customs official said the verdict marked the first time a Japanese national had been arrested for smuggling drugs into Malaysia, which is known for its tough anti-drug laws. Drug smuggling carries a mandatory death penalty by hanging in Malaysia. Takeuchi, a 36-year-old former nurse, was arrested in October last year at Kuala Lumpur International Airport after arriving from Dubai with 3.5 kilograms of the drug. Takeuchi has testified that she was duped by a man into carrying a bag containing the methamphetamine but did not know the drugs were inside. The customs official said Dubai is a frequent transit point for drugs destined for Malaysia, whi...

Iran Human Rights, October 24: Three prisoners were hanged in three different prisons in Iran early this morning October 24, reported the Iranian state media. According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA, one unidentified prisoner was hanged in the prison of Ardebil (northwestern Iran) this morning. The prisoner was convicted of buying and carrying 488 grams and 25 centigrams of heroin according to the report. The state run Fars news agency reported that one prisoner was hanged in the prison of Jam (southern Iran) this morning. The prisoner was identified as Ali Rafeipour who was convicted of murdering a security officer by the name Mazaher Rahimi in 2003. The report didn’t mention how old Ali Rafeipour was at the time of the alleged offence. Another prisoner who was scheduled to be executed in the prison of Jam for murdering to people, was forgiven by the mother of the victims, said the report. A third prisoner was hanged in the town of Khoramdareh (west of Iran) this morning...

The entrance to the Mahari Hotel in Sirte, where at least 53 persons were apparently executed. (Sirte) – Fifty-three people, apparent Gaddafi supporters, seem to have been executed at a hotel in Sirte last week, Human Rights Watch said today. The hotel is in an area of the city that was under the control of anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata before the killings took place. Human Rights Watch called on Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) to conduct an immediate and transparent investigation into the apparent mass execution and to bring those responsible to justice. “We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently Gaddafi supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte, and some had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, who investigated the killings. “This requires the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities to investigate what happened and hold accountable those responsible.” The condit...

Tehran, 24 Oct. (AKI) - Iran on Monday executed two people by hanging in the country's northwest, according to national media. One man was executed in Khoramdareh for beating a policeman to death, while the second was hanged in Arbedi for drug trafficking, the Fars news agency reported. Homicide and drug trafficking crimes carry the death penalty in Iran. Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, the United States and Yemen are the countries that execute the highest numbers of people, according to human rights group Amnesty International. Source: IGN, October 24, 2011

Iran Human Rights, October 23: According reports from sources Iran Human Rights (IHR) has been in contact several groups of prisoners in Mashhad’s Vakilabad prison have been executed secretly during the months of August and September 2011. All together at least 19 executions have been reported and confirmed in this period. Seven of the confirmed executions were conducted on August 11. Coinciding with the 11th day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It has been claimed that executions are not conducted in the month of Ramadan in Iran. But IHR has previously reported executions in the month of Ramadan. However, the executions in the month of Ramadan are not announced by the Iranian authorities. Another group of seven prisoners were secretly executed on September 20, and at least five prisoners were executed in the period of August-September 2011. Details about the latter group are being investigated. According to these reports all these prisoners had drug-related ch...

San Quentin's brand new execution chamber Amid renewed efforts to repeal California's death penalty and nearly 6 years into a de facto moratorium on executions, San Quentin's death row has quietly piled up an unprecedented number of inmates who have exhausted their legal appeals and would face imminent death by lethal injection if the state resumes carrying out the ultimate punishment. At least a dozen inmates could be executed in a span of a few months if an oft-stalled legal challenge to the state's lethal injection method is resolved, roughly the same number of condemned murderers California has put to death in more than three decades of capital punishment. A Bay Area News Group review shows 12 death row inmates have been turned away in their appeals all the way through the U.S. Supreme Court, generally considered the final stage in the lengthy death penalty review process. At least 2 other inmates have lost their appeals through the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of A...

An Indonesian domestic worker may be at imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia. She may have exhausted all her appeals and could be executed as early as November. Tuti Tursilawati, aged 27, was sentenced to death for the murder of her employer. She reportedly arrived in Saudi Arabia on 5 September 2009 to work for a man in the city of Ta'if, in the western province of Mecca. According to reports, her employer abused her sexually during the time she was working for him: on 11 May 2010, he attempted to rape her; she hit him with a stick to defend herself, and he died as a result. She fled and was allegedly raped by nine men. She was subsequently arrested by the police in Ta’if. No investigation was reported to have taken place into the alleged rape. Tuti Tursilawati was sentenced to qisas (retribution in kind) in around June 2011. She was reported not to have had a lawyer during the first two months of her trial but only an interpreter. It is unclear as to what her status is an...

The South Dakota Department of Corrections this week officially altered its lethal injection procedures to allow for a one-, two- or three-drug execution process. Corrections Secretary Denny Kaemingk signed off Wednesday on the new injection policy, according to a news release sent out Friday by DOC spokesman Michael Winder. The new system will allow the state to use either sodium thiopental or pentobarbital during one-drug lethal injections. It also allows the state to substitute pentobarbital for sodium thiopental as the initial sedative in the other two methods. On Friday afternoon, Winder confirmed that the state does have pentobarbital in its possession. Because of ongoing litigation, he declined to comment further. Death penalty opponents long have argued that one-drug executions are less likely to cause unnecessary pain and suffering for condemned inmates. Travis Schultze, organizer of South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, opposes executions regardless of th...

Christopher Johnson On Thursday (Oct 20), 38-year-old Christopher Johnson was executed by lethal injection in an Alabama prison after only four years on death row. The average time between sentencing and death in the US is currently about 14 years, but Johnson consistently declined to appeal or ask for clemency. He had murdered his six-month-old son to spite his estranged wife. Opponents of the death penalty said that Johnson was an example of death penalty “volunteers” who are using execution as a kind of assisted suicide. John Blume , of Cornell Law School, has studied the phenomenon. He found that of 93 inmates who declined to appeal their sentences between 1977 and 2003, 88% had histories of mental illness. Apparently Johnson was never evaluated for psychiatric illness and the jury was not told of his history of sexual abuse as a child, exposure to drugs and alcohol, and severe behavioural problems as a youth. Blume contends that many of the volunteers are not competent to wa...

The death sentences against Loghman Moradi and Zaniar Moradi, two members of Iran's Kurdish minority have been upheld by the Supreme Court. They could now be executed at any time. Zaniar (or Zanyar) Moradi and Loghman (or Loqman) Moradi were sentenced to public hanging on 22 December 2010 by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. They have been convicted of "enmity against God" (moharebeh) and "corruption on earth" for allegedly murdering the son of a senior cleric in Marivan, Kordestan province, north-eastern Iran, on 4 July 2009. They have also been convicted of participating in armed activities with Komala, a Kurdish opposition group. The trial reportedly lasted 20 minutes but the two men appealed the sentences. A 12 October 2011 report stated that the Supreme Court had upheld the verdicts. According to information, Loghman and Zaniar Moradi have been verbally notified of the Supreme Court's decision. Amnesty International is investigating reports ...

The first execution in Oregon since 1997, and only the third in this US state since 1962, looks set to be scheduled for 6 December. Questions remain about the mental competence of the condemned prisoner, who has chosen to give up his appeals against his death sentence. Oregon has carried out two executions since judicial killing resumed in the USA in 1977 – one in 1996 and one in 1997. Both were of inmates who had given up appeals against their death sentences. Now Gary Haugen, a 49-year-old man, is expected to receive an execution date of 6 December after waiving his appeals. He and Jason Van Brumwell were sentenced to death in 2007 for the murder of fellow inmate David Polin in Oregon State Penitentiary in 2003. At the time of the murder, Gary Haugen was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 1981 of the murder earlier that year of his former girlfriend's mother. On automatic appeal in 2010, the state Supreme Court affirmed his c...

October 19, 2011: A Saudi woman convicted of burning her husband to death was beheaded today, the interior ministry said. Ghazala bint Nasser al-Balawi was condemned to death after being found guilty of killing Ali al-Shehri by pouring petrol in his house, setting it on fire after having locked the man inside asleep, it said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency. Her beheading in Riyadh brings the number of executions this year in the kingdom to 65. Sources: AFP, October 19, 2011

Iran Human Rights, October 20: Three prisoners were hanged in the prison of Qazvin (west of Tehran) early this morning. The official website of the Iranian judiciary in Qazvin reported that three young men were hanged in the prison of this city this morning, Thursday October 20. The men were convicted of murdering a 39 years old man identified as Gholamreza. The men were not identified in the report. According to the Iran Human Rights’ sources, the young men were identified as "Hamidreza", "Meghdad" and "Rahman". Age of the men is not known but the alleged murder took place in December 2006. Source: Iran Human Rights , October 20, 2011 -  [ فارسى ]

Iraq's presidency approved on Thursday the executions of 53 people, including 5 foreigners, according to the head of the presidency council office. "There are 53 people who have been approved for execution -- among them are 5 foreigners," Nassir al-Ani told AFP. He provided no further details of who the people were who would be executed, or the nationalities of the foreign prisoners. Ani heads the office of the presidency council, comprised of President Jalal Talabani and his 2 deputies Tareq al-Hashemi and Khudayr al-Khuzaie, which must approve all death sentences in Iraq. Last month, Abdelsattar Birakdar, the spokesman of the Higher Judicial Council, said 338 death sentences had been issued so far this year, and 3 executions had been carried out. Iraq's Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said in December 2010 that Iraq has executed 257 people, including 6 women, since 2005. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is an ardent supporter of capital punishment, but Presi...