Archive for the ‘Capital Punishment’ Category
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Rob Stein; 3/5/10
An American doctors organisation has quietly decided to revoke the certification of any member who participates in executing a prisoner by lethal injection. The mandate from the American Board of Anesthesiologists reflects its leaders’ belief that ”we are healers, not executioners”, the board secretary, Mark Rockoff, said. Although the American Medical Association has long opposed doctor involvement, the anaesthetists’ group is the first to say it will harshly penalise a healthcare worker for abetting lethal injections. About half of the 35 states performing executions, including Virginia and North Carolina, require a doctor to be present at all executions. Other states have also recruited doctors, including anaesthetists, to play a role in executions involving lethal injections. In some jurisdictions, anaesthetists consult prison officials on dosages.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, health, USA
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Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
31/3/10
Human rights group Amnesty International has called on China to publicly state how many people it puts to death each year. In its annual report on the use of the death penalty worldwide, published on Tuesday, Amnesty said the number of people executed by Beijing last year was likely “in the thousands” – estimated to be more than the total in the rest of the world.”Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place. If this is true, why won’t they tell the world how many people the state put to death?” Claudio Cordone, the Amnesty International interim secretary general, said in a statement. The 41-page Death Sentences and Executions in 2009report refused to even estimate the toll in China, saying that the organisation believed publicly available statistics “grossly underrepresent” the actual figure.
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Tags: AI, Asia, Capital Punishment, Global
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Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
George Williams; 2/3/10
The Death Penalty Abolition Bill debated in Federal Parliament last week is the most important initiative on the death penalty for decades. If passed, it will block any state attempt to bring back capital punishment. In so doing, the law would be a clear and principled statement that Australia renounces the death penalty now and into the future. Although the death penalty has been absent from the statute book for 25 years – NSW was the last to eradicate it in 1985 – the new law is needed. The silence in federal law on capital punishment means the death penalty could be reintroduced by any state at any time. This is not only a legal but a political possibility due to statements made over many years by our leaders. The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, is the latest to try to have it both ways. He said recently he had ”always been against the death penalty”, but went on to say that, in the case of someone ”who cold-bloodedly brought about the deaths of hundreds or thousands of innocent people”, you ”start to think that maybe the only appropriate punishment is death”.
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Tags: Australia, Capital Punishment
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
26/1/10; (2 Items)
At least 24 people were killed last night and 40 wounded in three car bombings that shook the Iraqi capital. The first explosion occurred about 3.30pm (11.30pm AEDT), sending plumes of smoke rising hundreds of metres over the Abu Nawaz district, near the Palestine and Sheraton hotels, just across the Tigris River from the Green Zone. The second blast came just minutes later in the centre of Baghdad near the Green Zone, with the third close by soon after. The blasts struck near the Babylon and al-Hamra hotels, popular with Western journalists.
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Tags: Capital Punishment; Mercenaries, Iraq, Terrorism, USA
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Monday, January 18th, 2010
Arthur Macmillan; 18/1/10
Saddam Hussein’s notorious enforcer ”Chemical Ali” has been sentenced to death for ordering the gassing of Kurds in the Iraqi town of Halabja, an attack that killed an estimated 5000 people. Ali Hassan al-Majid was found guilty of the attack yesterday, state-run Al-Iraqiya television reported. It took place as the Iran-Iraq war drew to a close in 1988. Three-quarters of the victims were women and children. It is the fourth death sentence for Majid, who is better known by his macabre nickname. ”This judgment is a victory for all Iraqis, humanity and the Kurds because Halabja is the biggest crime of modern times,” said Majid Hamad Amin, the Minister of the Martyrs and Displaced in the Kurdish regional government.
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Tags: Iraq, Terrorism, USA
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Saturday, January 16th, 2010
16/1/10
A Baghdad court on Thursday sentenced 11 Iraqis to death for their roles in the first of a series of audacious attacks last year to target government buildings in the heart of the city. Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul Sattar Bayrkdar said a criminal court in Baghdad’s eastern Risafa district found the 11 defendants guilty of financing, planning and participating in the Aug. 19 bombings that devastated the foreign and finance ministries. The blasts killed more than 100 people. There have since been two other massive attacks in Baghdad primarily targeting government buildings, in October and December. Those attacks together killed more than 280 people and injured hundreds more.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, Iraq, Terrorism, USA
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Monday, January 11th, 2010
Abdul Rahman Shaheen, 11/1/10
Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council has approved a landmark decision with regard to execution of the death sentence. The council passed a legislation to make amendment in the Criminal Procedure Law by which death sentence shall be carried out with a unanimous decision instead of the existing majority vote. An overwhelming majority of 92 members voted in favour of the new amendment, while a few members opposed it.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, Saudi Arabia
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Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
Michael Sainsbury; 30/12/09
China has ignored last-minute pleas by the British government and executed its first European national for 50 years, putting convicted drug courier Akmal Shaikh to death yesterday. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “appalled and disappointed” after Shaikh, 53, died in the northwestern city of Urumqi for possessing 4kg of heroin. The British government and Shaikh’s family had claimed the former minicab company chief and father of three should not have stood trial because of a severe bipolar disorder. He had been denied an independent mental examination since his arrest in 2007.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, China, Drugs
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Saturday, November 28th, 2009
28/11/09; http://www.theage.com.au/world/abductors-executed-20091127-jx0c.html
China has executed two men for abducting and trafficking 15 children. The Supreme People’s Court said a 55-year-old man was executed for kidnapping nine children between April 1999 and October 2005, the Xinhua news agency reported. Five of the children, all boys aged between three and six, had been returned to their families, while the rest were rescued by police but had not found their parents. The other man put to death was executed for abducting six children between September 2005 and July 2006. Five of the children had been found by police but one five-year-old boy was still missing.
Tags: Children, China, Trade
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Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
25/11/09; http://www.theage.com.au/world/milk-scandal-executions-20091124-jh9k.html\
China has executed two people for their roles in a tainted milk powder scandal in which at least six children died and more than 300,000 became ill. The official Xinhua News Agency said yesterday the state had executed Zhang Yujun for endangering public safety and Geng Jinping for producing and selling toxic food. The scandal shocked China last year when children were given baby formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure. Melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics and fertiliser, was added to watered-down milk to fool inspectors testing for protein, and to boost profits.
Tags: Capital Punishment, China
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Friday, November 20th, 2009
20/11/09
A Russian court has effectively outlawed the death penalty in the country, ruling that a moratorium on capital punishment due to expire in January must remain in force. Valery Zorkin, head of the Constitutional Court, said the ban on executions must be extended until the country ratifies a European convention banning the death penalty. He said the end of the judicial moratorium on January 1 “does not make it possible to apply the death penalty on the whole of Russia’s territory. “This decision is final and may not be appealed,” he said after the ruling on Thursday.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, Russia
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Friday, November 20th, 2009
16/11/09
An Egyptian court sentenced two Christian men to death on Sunday for killing the husband of a relative who converted to Islam against the wishes of her family, court sources said. The brother and uncle of Mariam Atef Khilla were convicted of breaking into her Cairo home in 2008 and opening fire on her and her family, killing her husband and hitting her in the hand. The couple’s baby daughter was also wounded. The sources said the death sentence would be sent for review to the Grand Mufti. Khilla converted to Islam three years earlier to marry her husband in defiance of her family, security sources said at the time.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, Egypt, Marriage, Religion
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Friday, November 13th, 2009
13/11/09
A teenage Afghan girl has praised the death sentence handed to the Egyptian who imprisoned and sexually exploited her for the last four years, Al-Madinah daily reported on Thursday. Madinah police rescued the 14-year-old girl, known as Raziah, from her kidnappers earlier this year. A Madinah court sentenced Muhammad Al-Junaidi and his sister Jamalat to death by beheading, a decision endorsed by a committee of judges on Wednesday. His wives were also jailed for helping him. First wife Fatimah was sentenced to 10 years in jail, while second and third wives Merfat and Zainab were each imprisoned for one year and 500 lashes.
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Tags: Saudi Arabia, Sex Trade, Womens Rights
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Naseem Rakha; 11/11/09
Of all the arguments in support of capital punishment, perhaps the most emotionally compelling is that it provides “closure” for the loved ones of murder victims. Prosecuting attorneys, politicians and journalists commonly refer to how executions allow family members to “move on” from their pain, providing a sense of relief at knowing that “justice” was finally served. “Beltway sniper” John Allen Muhammad was executed Tuesday night for his role in the October 2002 sniper shootings in which 16 Washington-area residents were shot, and 10 killed. Among those who attended his execution were more than 20 family members of the victims. Did watching the killer die help any of those relatives move on with their lives?
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Tags: Capital Punishment, USA
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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
10/11/09; China has executed nine people over deadly ethnic unrest in its far-western Xinjiang region, regional authorities said last night, the first executions since the violence in July. “The first group of nine people who were sentenced to death recently have already been executed in succession, with the approval of the Supreme Court,” said a Xinjiang government spokeswoman. According to previous statements by the Xinjiang government, this first group consisted of eight members of the mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority and one majority Han Chinese.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, China, Muslim
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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
10/11/09; http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/china-executes-nine-over-xinjiang-unrest/story-fn3dxix6-1225795914593
China has executed nine people over deadly ethnic unrest in its far-western Xinjiang region, regional authorities said, the first executions since the violence in July. “The first group of nine people who were sentenced to death recently have already been executed in succession, with the approval of the Supreme Court,” Hou Hanmin, spokeswoman for the Xinjiang government, said.It was not clear when the executions took place.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, China, Human Rights, Terrorism
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