All posts tagged: death penalty

Last Rites | Jack Hanson

Last Rites | Jack Hanson

On September 24 at 6:01 PM—still business hours for many Americans—Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, fifty-five, having been led in chains to a room and strapped to a table, was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a barbiturate that, at lower levels, induces sleep, treats seizures, and calms anxious patients before surgery. It is also used to euthanize pets. Williams was accompanied by his imam, while his son and attorneys watched from an adjoining room. He was declared dead nine minutes later.  The execution took place at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri, the state where Williams, a Black man, had been incarcerated for twenty-one years for the 1998 killing of Felicia Gayle, a former journalist who was stabbed to death in her home. He had always maintained his innocence, and his trial had been obviously deficient. A racist jury selection process that reduced the number of Black jurors from seven to one (the prosecutor Keith Larner said that one prospective juror and Williams “looked like they were brothers”), unreliable and incentivized witnesses, …

‘Crossing the red line into politics makes you a target’

‘Crossing the red line into politics makes you a target’

Dozens of rappers have been arrested in Iran since the rise of hip-hop in the country in the early 2000s. But the death sentence pronounced on April 24 against the rapper Toomaj Salehi marks a turning point in the Iranian regime’s intolerance of artists with a political message. Exiled rap artists Justina and Ghogha told FRANCE 24 of their admiration for Salehi, “who scares the powers that be”. The last time Justina spoke to Toomaj Salehi was in November 2023. The dissident rapper had just been released on bail after spending more than a year in prison. “It was brief, I just wanted to check on him, but I didn’t want him to get into trouble for having been in contact with me. So we didn’t talk much,” recalled Iranian rap artist Justina, who lives in exile in Sweden. Less than two weeks later, after making a video where he denounced his detention conditions, Salehi was arrested again. In the footage, the emaciated but determined rapper directly faced the camera and recounted how his hands and legs …

Iran turning its prisons into ‘killing fields,’ says Amnesty

Iran turning its prisons into ‘killing fields,’ says Amnesty

PARIS —  Iran has turned its prisons into sites of mass killing with at least 853 people executed in the Islamic republic in 2023, over half of them on drug-related charges, Amnesty International said on Thursday. The London-based group said in a report that stronger international action was needed to halt the rise in executions, otherwise “thousands” risked being hanged in the coming years. The Iranian authorities have “persisted with their state-sanctioned killing spree which has turned prisons into killing fields,” Amnesty said. The figure for 2023 was up 48% on the previous year and 56% of executions involved drug-related charges, Amnesty said. Two other NGOs, Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), published a report last month giving the slightly lower figure of 834 people executed in 2023. The surge in executions came after Iran was convulsed by protests that erupted in September 2022. Nine people have been put to death in cases related to the protests. Rights groups including Amnesty have warned that the authorities are using executions to …

Record number of people executed for drug offences in 2023 | Death Penalty News

Record number of people executed for drug offences in 2023 | Death Penalty News

In its annual report, Harm Reduction International says at least 467 drug-related executions took place last year. At least 467 people were executed for drug offences in 2023, a new record, according to Harm Reduction International (HRI), an NGO that has been tracking the use of the death penalty for drugs since 2007. “Despite not accounting for the dozens, if not hundreds, of executions believed to have taken place in China, Vietnam, and North Korea, the 467 executions that took place in 2023 represent a 44% increase from 2022,” HRI said in its report, which was released on Tuesday. Drug executions made up about 42 percent of all known death sentences carried out around the world last year, it added. HRI said it had confirmed drug-related executions in countries including Iran, Kuwait and Singapore. China treats death penalty data as a state secret and secrecy surrounds the punishment in countries including Vietnam and North Korea. “Information gaps on death sentences persist, meaning many (if not most) death sentences imposed in 2023 remain unknown,” the report …

Pakistan court awards death penalty to student, 22, and life term to teen for ‘blasphemous’ WhatsApp messages

Pakistan court awards death penalty to student, 22, and life term to teen for ‘blasphemous’ WhatsApp messages

A court in Pakistan awarded the death penalty to a 22-year-old student and a life term to a teenager accused of blasphemy, according to reports. An additional district and sessions judge on Friday announced the sentences in the case of the student and a 17-year-old boy in Gujranwala over videos and photos sent over the phone, the Dawn newspaper reported. The two suspects had been booked by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the charges of sharing blasphemous material through WhatsApp, and a case was lodged in Lahore, it said. However, the case was referred by the Lahore High Court to a local court in Gujranwala for trial. The plaintiff alleged he had received the videos and photos from three different mobile phone numbers. The FIA said that it had examined the plaintiff’s phone and established that “obscene material” had been sent, Dawn said. Defence lawyers argued that the two students had been “trapped in a false case”, according to the paper. The blasphemy law seeks the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam and …

Iran executed ‘staggering total’ of 834 people last year, say rights groups

Iran executed ‘staggering total’ of 834 people last year, say rights groups

Iran executed a “staggering” total of at least 834 people last year, the highest number since 2015 as capital punishment surged in the Islamic republic, two rights groups said Tuesday. Issued on: 05/03/2024 – 06:15Modified: 05/03/2024 – 06:13 2 min The number of executions, which Iran has carried out by hanging in recent years, was up some 43 percent on 2022. It marked only the second time in two decades that over 800 executions were recorded in a year, after 972 executions in 2015, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty said in the joint report. The groups accused Iran of using the death penalty to spread fear throughout society in the wake of the protests sparked by the September 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Amini that shook the authorities. “Instilling societal fear is the regime’s only way to hold on to power, and the death penalty is its most important instrument,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam in the report, which described the figure of 834 as a …

France pays tribute to Badinter, ex-justice minister who fought to abolish death penalty

France pays tribute to Badinter, ex-justice minister who fought to abolish death penalty

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday led a national tribute to former French justice minister Robert Badinter, who dedicated his life to the fight against capital punishment, playing a pivotal role in banning the dreaded guillotine in 1981. The French president announced that Badinter would be laid to rest in the Panthéon.  Issued on: 14/02/2024 – 10:06 4 min Macron presided over a national tribute to Badinter at Place Vendôme, in front of the justice ministry in Paris. The French president announced that Badinter would be laid to rest in the Panthéon, which houses the remains of some of the country’s most celebrated men and women.  Badinter’s family had asked the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) and the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) not to take part in the tribute. The National Rally agreed not to attend but the radical left decided to send two of its MPs. A French lawyer, politician and author, Badinter was one of the country’s most respected intellectual figures. He died aged 95 on Friday, February 9. The soft-spoken attorney, who said …

‘One of those dominant figures in French politics’: Badinter remembered for humanitarian reforms

‘One of those dominant figures in French politics’: Badinter remembered for humanitarian reforms

Issued on: 09/02/2024 – 15:31Modified: 09/02/2024 – 16:34 03:42 France’s former justice minister Robert Badinter, who has died aged 95, “was a brilliant lawyer who in the 1970s became convinced that capital punishment should be abolished for humanitarian reasons”, says Paul Smith, associate professor in French atudies at the UK’s University of Nottingham, calling him “one of those dominant figures in French politics”. Read more on related topics: Source link

Robert Badinter, French ex-minister who fought to abolish death penalty, dies at 95

Robert Badinter, French ex-minister who fought to abolish death penalty, dies at 95

Former French justice minister Robert Badinter, who has died aged 95, saved many lives by dedicating his own to the fight against capital punishment, playing a pivotal role in banning the dreaded guillotine in 1981. Issued on: 09/02/2024 – 11:46Modified: 09/02/2024 – 12:32 3 min The soft-spoken attorney, who said he could not abide by a “killer justice system”, was widely vilified for pushing through legislation banning the death penalty at a time when most French people still supported the practice. He said later he had “never felt so lonely” in fighting capital punishment, which in France was carried out by beheading with the guillotine, a practice dating back to the French Revolution of 1789. But in years to come he would be hailed for his integrity and statesmanship. The son of a Jewish fur trader who was deported to a Nazi death camp during World War II, he had built a reputation as a lawyer for defending – often successfully – notorious cases that his peers wouldn’t dare touch. Avocat, garde des Sceaux, homme de l’abolition …

Australian writer Yang Hengjun given suspended death sentence in China

Australian writer Yang Hengjun given suspended death sentence in China

Australia’s government said Monday writer Yang Hengjun has been given a suspended death sentence in China, describing it as “harrowing news”. Issued on: 05/02/2024 – 05:44 2 min The Chinese-born Australian citizen has been in jail in China since 2019 on spying accusations and is said to be in ill health. “The Australian government is appalled at this outcome,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a news conference. Canberra understood that the death sentence could be commuted to life in jail after a period of two years, Wong said. “We will be communicating our response in the strongest terms,” the Australian minister said. The sentence was “the most harrowing news”, she told reporters. Wong said the Chinese ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, would be summoned to hear the government’s objection. “I want to acknowledge the acute distress that Dr. Yang and his family will be feeling today, coming after years of uncertainty,” she said. Yang’s verdict and sentence had been repeatedly delayed since his closed-door trial on national security charges in May 2021, she said. Australia …