Posts Tagged ‘Capital Punishment’
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 19th, 2010
Richard Beeston 19/1/10
It has taken nearly 22 years for Ali Hassan al-Majid to be judged by Iraqis for one of the worst massacres in modern history. Even through the smudged window of an Iranian military helicopter, it was clear a terrible crime had been committed against the inhabitants of Halabj, as part of a campaign by Saddam Hussein to teach Iraqi Kurds the cost of siding with the enemy – at that time Iran. Majid was on Sunday sentenced to death for ordering the gassing of Kurds in Halabja. Television reports said he would be hanged. On the ground, the scale of the slaughter became clear. Entire families had been killed by the poison chemicals. Some died together huddled in makeshift shelters that offered no protection against the gas. One family succumbed as they tried to escape by car. We found the vehicle crashed into a wall with the driver and all occupants dead and the keys in the ignition. The most poignant memory of that day was a father in traditional Kurdish dress lying dead at the entrance to his home, cradling a baby.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, 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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Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Michael Sainsbury; 24/12/09
China has begun sentencing 20 more ethnic Uighurs – some to death – for their part in riots which left 197 people dead in the remote western city of Urumqi on July 5, as the second batch of trials of more than 1200 people arrested as a result of the carnage began today, with at least one man sent for execution. In early December five people were sentenced to death and a further eight given prison terms, bringing to 17 sent to be executed in trials of the first two groups of people from the bloody unrest. Nine have been executed so far. The province of Xinjiang, of which Urumqi is the capital, remains locked down with internet, text messaging and international phone access cut off.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, China, Muslim
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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
Posted in Aid / Trade, Capital Punishment, China | No Comments »
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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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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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
4/11/09: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26300747-12335,00.html
A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert, newspapers reported today. The convict was arrested earlier this year after a seven-year old boy helped police in their investigation. The child left in the desert after the rape was three years old, Okaz newspaper said. International rights groups have accused the kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, of applying draconian justice, beheading murderers, rapists and drug traffickers in public. So far this year about 40 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion means tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.
Tags: Capital Punishment, Saudi Arabia
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Saturday, October 24th, 2009
Jonathan Watts: 24/10/09
Chinese authorities have carried out their first executions of Tibetans in connection with the deadly riots that swept Lhasa last year, according to exile groups. As the first reported judicial killings in the region for six years, the news has prompted overseas protests and concerns that proper legal procedures were not followed. Chinese state media have yet to confirm the executions. However, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, based in Dharamsala in northern India, said it had reports that they took place early on Tuesday. It identified three of the executed Tibetans as two men – Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak and a woman named Penkyi. A fourth was not named.
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Tags: Capital Punishment, China, Terrorism
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