Death Penalty News

Criminal justice, education, environment, medicine—nothing was spared from the war on science. On a rainy day in April, 100,000 demonstrators—led by some of the nation’s most prominent scientists—converged on the National Mall for the first ever March for Science. It was Earth Day, and many of them were there to protest the environmental policies of a president who once insisted that global warming was a Chinese hoax. But climate change wasn’t the only thing on the marchers’ minds. Donald Trump, after all, has a history of making dangerously unscientific statements about everything from vaccines to criminal justice to football. Satellite marches took place across the country and around the world; organizers estimated that some 1.1 million people participated. Many politicians were apparently unimpressed. 2017 obviously wasn’t the first year to be plagued by public policy decisions that disregarded scientific facts, but the Trump era has taken this phenomenon to a whole new l...

Jakarta. In 2017, the National Narcotics Agency, or BNN, killed 79 drug dealers in raids across the country, recorded 465,070 drug-related cases, and rehabilitated 1,523 addicts, a top official said on Wednesday (27/12). "There is a narcotics emergency, we take tougher measures to overcome the crime," BNN head Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso Budi said during a year-end press conference in Jakarta. Budi said 580,365 people have been arrested this year in drug-related cases. He added that BNN is closely cooperating with the Directorate General of Customs in combating the crime. Customs director general Heru Pambudi said the cooperation is necessary, as most of the drugs sold in Indonesia come from abroad. "We seized 2,2124 tons of narcotics this year, [last year] it was 1.1 tons," he said. Rehabilitation President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo last year ordered rehabilitation of 100,000 drug users. Unfortunately, only 1,523 people could unde...

The number of death row inmates in Japan as of Dec. 31 is expected to stand at 123, having remained above 100 since 2007, Justice Ministry officials said Thursday. In 2017 four convicts on death row were executed and four others died of illness, while death sentences were finalized for two other people. Of the four who were executed, three had been awaiting news about their requests for retrials. Of the three, one was aged 19 at the time of the crime. The hangings of inmates seeking retrials were the first since December 1999, while that of an inmate who committed a crime as a minor was the first since August 1997.  Both executions drew criticism from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and groups opposed to the death penalty. Capital punishment in Japan has drawn international criticism and the federation has called for its abolition by 2020, demanding the introduction of lifetime imprisonment instead. However, a majority of the Japanese public supp...

Iran human rights (Dec 22 2017): Four prisoners who were transferred to solitary confinement from ward 5 of Rajai Shahr Prison were executed in an unknown site on Moharebeh charges. According to a close source, on Saturday December 16, four prisoners were transferred to solitary confinement from ward 5 of Rajai Shahr Prison.  The prisoners, three of whom were identified as Moslem Mohammadi, Mohsen Kamali, and Abolfazl, were sentenced to execution in public on charge of armed robbery. One of the prisoners’ relatives confirm that the prisoners were hanged and their bodies were delivered to their families. There is no information regarding the time and the place of the execution. However, it seems that the execution was carried out on Wednesday December 20. At least eight more prisoners were executed in Rajai Shahr Prison on Wednesday.  A close source informed us that thes four prisoners were not among the other death row prisoners, who were executed in Rajai S...

Pope Francis recently increased his call for ending the death penalty’s usage worldwide. He said, “We have to restate that, however grave the crime that may be committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and the dignity of the person.” As a Catholic Republican legislator, who has previously sponsored death penalty repeal bills, I am encouraged by the Pope’s statement. For decades, ending capital punishment in the United States was predominantly seen as a pet project of the political left, but a bipartisan effort is required to pass repeal in many states, including here in Washington. Given the vast divide between conservatives and liberals, for years, it seemed that endeavors to end the death penalty in certain states were a fool’s errand. Yet, times have changed. The public is slowly turning against the death penalty. Growing numbers of conservatives, especially Catholics, are reconsidering capital punishment, and Republican legisla...

Largest mass execution in Egypt since six convicted jihadists were hanged in 2015 AIRO, Egypt — Egyptian authorities on Tuesday executed 15 prisoners convicted of attacks on security forces in the restive Sinai Peninsula, police officials said. The men were hanged in two jails where they had been held since military courts sentenced them for the attacks in the Sinai, where jihadists are waging an insurgency, the officials said. It was the largest mass execution carried out in the North African country since six convicted jihadists were hanged in 2015. The hangings come a week after the Islamic State group attacked a helicopter with an anti-tank missile at a North Sinai airport as the country’s defense and interior ministers were visiting. The ministers were unhurt in the attack but an aide to the defense minister was killed along with a pilot. IS’s Egypt affiliate has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers in attacks in the Sinai and also targeted civilian...

Judge accepts Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto had no knowledge of drugs in her bag in verdict on charge that carries a mandatory death sentence An Australian woman has been found not guilty of drug trafficking in Malaysia, a charge that carries a mandatory death sentence. On Wednesday afternoon a Malaysian judge found that Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto did not know that there were drugs in her bag when customs officials found 1.1kg of ice – a potent form of methamphetamine – in her luggage at Kuala Lumpur airport in December 2014. Exposto’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, said the judge was convinced of her innocence after hearing his client did not try to bypass searches at the airport. “The judge described her as naive, not merely innocent but naive,” he told reporters on Wednesday. After the hearing the judge ordered Exposto’s deportation from Malaysia, and she is currently being held in immigration detention. However the prosecution has indicated that it will a...

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Iran Human rights (Dec 20 2017): At least eight prisoners were executed at Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj mostly on murder charges. According to a close source, on the morning of Wednesday December 20, at least eight prisoners were executed at Rajai Shahr Central Prison.  The prisoners, mostly charged with murder, were transferred to solitary confinement from different wards of the prison in a group of 10 on Monday December 18. Four of the executed prisoners were identified as: Mostafa Chardouli from ward 2, Amir Abbas Ardestani from ward 3, Hamid Abdollahi from ward 6 (youth ward), and Nima Esma’ilian from ward 4. “Hamid was 24 and had been in prison for murder since he was 19,” said a close source to Iran Human Rights (IHR) about Hamid Abdollahi. Mohammad Qobad from ward 10 and Ali Ma’sumi from ward 7 were returned to their cells by either asking for time or winning the consent of the plaintiffs. Moreover, on Saturday December 16, four other prisoners from...

In retaining the use of the death penalty, India is in the company of Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and the US. Top it all, capital punishment has not proved a deterrent to violent crime in India. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the arc of the moral universe must bend towards a more reformative version of justice rather than a retributive one. At least 60 former Supreme Court judges have expressed concern over India’s criminal justice system in remarkably candid interviews conducted by the National Law University in association with The Death Penalty Project. Among the issues they have flagged are the frequent use of torture, fabrication of evidence in criminal cases, a flawed legal aid system, all of which contributed to wrongful convictions. That’s not all. Delays in judicial proceedings -- all too common in India -- mean that undertrials often spend longer in custody than the maximum time for which they can be sentenced for the crime in question. Worryingly, despite these r...