Posts Tagged ‘Capital punishment’
Verma Committee Full Report Rape, Crime Against Women
Following is the Report submitted by The Verma Committee .
Verma Committee Report on Crime against women.
The Committee was formed to look into crimes against women on Wednesday ruled against recommending the death penalty even in the rarest of the rare rape cases, and did not favour lowering the age of a juvenile from 18 to 16.
Essential pints.
No to Death Penalty.
Don’t allow army men to take cover under AFSPA.
“There is an imminent need to review the continuance of the AFSPA and AFSPA-like legal protocols in internal conflict areas as soon as possible,” it said. “This is necessary for determining the propriety of resorting to this legislation in the area(s) concerned.”
“According to the Working Group on Human Rights, the murder rate has declined consistently in India over the last 20 years despite the slowdown in the execution of death sentences since 1980. Hence we do take note of the argument that introduction of death penalty for rape may not have a deterrent effect,” the Committee recommended.
The Committee also said that in the proposed Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 2012, the minimum sentence for punishment for rape should be enhanced to a minimum of 10 years (currently it is 7 years) with maximum punishment being life imprisonment.
The Committee said castration would be unconstitutional and inconsistent with basic human rights treaties to expose any citizen without their consent to potentially dangerous medical side effects.
On the issue of reducing the age of a juvenile from 18 to 16, Mr. Verma said: “Assuming that a person at the age of 16 is sent to life imprisonment, he would be released sometimes in the mid-30s. There is little assurance that the convict would emerge a reformed person.”
The Committee has criticised lack of reformatory and rehabilitation policies in jails and juvenile homes.
“Personnel guilty of sexual offences in conflict areas should be tried under ordinary criminal law”
Text of the Verma Committe(former chief justice of India Jagdish Sharan Verma)
“
21. It is an admitted fact that women in India have
suffered in various aspects of life and physical
health, mental well-being, bodily integrity and
safety, social relations, political empowerment,
education and knowledge, domestic work and
non-market care, paid work and other projects,
shelter and environment, mobility, leisure
activities, time autonomy, respect, religion, and if
we may add, self-esteem / self-autonomy. We are
of the opinion that Indian women have
substantially suffered on most of these counts as a
consequence of which the de facto equality
guaranteed by the Constitution has not become a
reality for them.
. It is shocking to note that even after the recent
horrific incident of gang rape, many political
leaders, including members of Parliament/State
legislatures, spiritual gurus with large followings
and other eminent persons have been making
statements reinforcing the gender bias. Some have
even blamed the victim for having facilitated the
rape by her own behaviour. Some of the worst
examples are:
(i) Shri Anisur Rahman (Communist Party of
India (Marxist) – West Bengal): “We have
told the chief minister in the assembly that the
government will pay money to compensate rape
victims. What is your fee? If you are raped, what
will be your fee?”
(ii) Shri Asaram Bapu: “Only 5-6 people are not
the culprits. The victim is as guilty as her
rapists… She should have called the culprits
brothers and begged before them to stop… This
could have saved her dignity and life. Can one
hand clap? I don’t think so,”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/realtime/justice_js_verma_committee_report.pdf
Saudi Arabia Beheads Sri Lanka Maid Video
An immigrant housemaid was beheaded on a trumped up charge of killing an infant of her employer ,on Wednesday.
This relates a three-year old complaint .
There was also a charge that she altered her age in her passport.
The girl lost her parents in the Tsunami that struck the Southern Coast of India and Sri Lanka and she was illiterate.
Saudi Arabia went ahead with the execution despite requests for clemency from Sri Lanka and Human Rights Organisations.
The plight of immigrant labor ,especially of low-level jobs that of maids, building workers is shocking, in the Gulf Countries, and especially in Saudi Arabia.
The ill-treatment meted out to them is Saudi Arabia remains unreported because of stringent laws on freedom of expression.
Rizana Nafeek’s Passport.
Excerpts from a Report:
Posted on Mon Aug 13 2012 01:39:10 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time) by bayouranger
Revealed in report by Nepalese Embassy in Riyadh. Since 2000 more than 3 thousand Nepalese migrant workers have died. One in every 162 people.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews / Agencies) – In 12 years over 3 thousand Nepalese migrant workers in Saudi Arabia have died because of their poor working conditions and exploitation. Of a total of 484,701 migrants in the Arab country, the average is 1 in every 162. The shocking findings were revealed in a report by the Nepalese Embassy in Riyadh, which identifies the abuse of black market alcohol a major cause of deaths. Udaya Raj Pandev, Nepal’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia and promoter of the study, explains that to withstand the grueling and demeaning working conditions, thousands of workers give in to the vice of alcohol circumventing bans in force in the Muslim country. According to the diplomat, over 30 people die each month due to alcoholism. Many of them come home exhausted, drink and die in their sleep. Another factor is accidents in the workplace….
Over 8 million migrant workers fill manual, clerical, and service jobs, constituting more than half the national workforce. Many suffer multiple abuses and labor exploitation, sometimes amounting to slavery-like conditions.
The kafala (sponsorship) system ties migrant workers’ residency permits to their “sponsoring” employers, whose written consent is required for workers to change employers or exit the country. Employers abuse this power to confiscate passports, withhold wages, and force migrants to work against their will.
In August Jadawel International, owned by Saudi Arabia’s third richest man, Shaikh Muhammad bin Issa Al Jaber, was six months in arrears with salary payments, as in previous years, and managers threatened workers not to pursue complaints in labor court.
Some 1.5 million migrant domestic workers remain excluded from the 2005 Labor Law. As in years past, Asian embassies reported thousands of complaints from domestic workers forced to work 15 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week, and denied their salaries. Domestic workers, most of whom are women, frequently endure forced confinement, food deprivation, and severe psychological, physical, and sexual abuse.
In December 2010, authorities made no attempts to rescue an Indonesian migrant domestic worker who had worked for 10 years without pay and whose sponsors were “renting” her out to other houses, according to one Saudi woman who informed authorities. In November 2010, authorities in Abha, southern Saudi Arabia, recovered the body of Kikim Komalasari, a 36-year-old Indonesian domestic worker, bearing signs of extensive physical abuse. In September an appeals court overturned a three-year prison sentence for the employer found guilty of severely assaulting Sumiati Mustapa, her Indonesian domestic worker. In June the government beheaded Ruyati binti Sapubi, an Indonesian domestic worker convicted of murdering her employer who allegedly refused to allow binti Sapubi to return home. Courts sentenced another Indonesian domestic worker to death for killing her employer after he allegedly tried to rape her.
Saudi Arabia continued to deport hundreds of Somalis to Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, despite the acute violence there. Criminal Justice and Torture
Detainees, including children, commonly face systematic violations of due process and fair trial rights, including arbitrary arrest and torture and ill-treatment in detention. Saudi judges routinely sentence defendants to thousands of lashes.
Judges can order arrest and detention, including of children, at their discretion. Children can be tried and sentenced as adults if physical signs of puberty exist. The Interior Ministry said it had executed Bandar al-Luhaibi, a child, in October for killing his grandmother.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2917666/posts
Rizana Nafeek’s mother, repeatedly appealed to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to pardon their daughter but the death penalty was ratified on Wednesday
A complaint from the Employer is enough to arrest you.
As a rule the Middle east employers collect the workers’ passports and threaten them.
Raping of housemaids are routine.
As the Passports are with the employer they can not complain.
False complaints are lodged.
Time that International pressure is applied.
PS.Though it might sound inhuman, let me say this.
‘ What about killing of fishermen from Tamil Nadu who are shot regularly in the sea near Rameswaram, on a charge that they crossed international waters?
Don’t they have a family?
Even if they have transgressed , why shoot them dead?
Pakistan with whom India’s relations are far from being warm, never shoots down those who stray into their territory!
To Indian Media.
‘Why is it it is always “Tamil Nadu Fishermen” and not Indian Fishermen?
Story:
A maid convicted of killing a baby has been beheaded in Saudi Arabia, despite being only 17 at the time of the crime.
Rizana Nafeek was beheaded by sword in Dawadmy, near the capital Riyadh, on Wednesday morning.
The execution went ahead despite years of international appeals from Miss Nafeek’s family and human rights groups.
Supporters of the housemaid, from Sri Lanka, say the age on her passport was changed so she could get work and that according to her birth certificate she was just 17 at the time.
The Sri Lankan government said it ‘deplores the execution’ and human rights groups also condemned her death.
Miss Nafeek was sentenced to death in 2007 after her Saudi employer accused her of strangling his four-month-old baby two years earlier after a dispute with the child’s mother.
But Miss Nafeek always protested her innocence and said the baby had choked to death while being bottle fed.
Her parents repeatedly appealed to King Abdullah to pardon their daughter.
The Sri Lankan government also appealed against the death penalty but the Saudi Supreme Court upheld it in 2010.
It was again ratified by the Saudi interior ministry yesterday.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2259967/Saudi-Arabia-beheads-maid-Rizana-Nafeek-murdering-baby.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
‘Don’t Execute Me,I am Fat’
A killer pleads not to execute him because he is too fat to be executed humanely.
You don’t get words to comment on this!
Story:
AP Photo Ohio inmate Richard Cooey (l.), who was executed in 2008, argued he was too overweight to die by lethal injection. Now, Ronald Post (r.), who’s set to die Jan. 16 by lethal injection, is saying the same, according to a new court filing. Post wants his execution delayed.
An Ohio inmate scheduled to die by lethal injection wants his upcoming execution delayed because he’s too obese.
Convicted killer Ronald Post, who tips the scales at more than 480 pounds, filed federal court papers Friday claiming that executing him in his current condition could result in a “torturous and lingering death.”
The 53-year-old was sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of an Ohio hotel clerk, and is scheduled to die Jan. 16 with a single dose of pentobarbital, typically injected through the arms.
Post believes his weight, vein access, scar tissue and other medical problems raise the likelihood his executioners would encounter severe problems. He’s also so big that the execution gurney might not hold him, his lawyers said in the court filing, according to the Associated Press.
“Indeed, given his unique physical and medical condition there is a substantial risk that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and lingering death,” the filing said
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/fat-execute-convicted-ohio-killer-ronald-post-lethal-injection-delayed-article-1.1161880#ixzz2HOCFAYyh
China Telecasts Death Row Interviews to Stem Crime Rate.
A good attempt to reduce crime rate.
Unfortunately people seem to think it is an entertainment!
Interview of criminals before execution in China.
“In one scene, a prisoner in his 20s falls to his knees before his parents, who have been allowed to see him. He pleads: ‘Father, I was wrong. I’m sorry.’
Moments later, his parents see him about to be led away to his death. His distraught mother apologises for beating him once as a child and implores her son: ‘Go peacefully. It’s following government’s orders.’
Prison officers then push her aside and drag him away.
In another scene, a firing squad of about 20 men is briefed by a senior officer before executing condemned prisoners. ‘Some criminals will be very tough and difficult. That means they’ll be dangerous,’ the officer tells them.
Officials in the ruling Communist Party regard the series as a propaganda tool to warn citizens of the consequences of crime.
Inmates are selected for Ms Ding by judiciary officials who pick out what they consider suitable cases to ‘educate the public’. So far, the show’s makers claim, only five condemned prisoners who were asked have refused to be interviewed.
Convicted criminals in China can be put to death for 55 capital crimes, ranging from theft to crimes against the state. However, the show focuses exclusively on murder cases, conspicuously avoiding any crimes that might have political elements.
The case that has drawn the largest number of viewers so far is that of Bao Rongting, an openly gay man who was condemned to death for murdering his mother and then violating her dead body.
Three extra episodes were devoted to his story as viewing figures soared. Homosexuality is still regarded as taboo in most of China, and the sensational trailers described his interviews as ‘shining a light on a mysterious group of people in our country’.
When Bao was executed, no family members turned up to say farewell. His final conversation before being led to his death was on camera with a decidedly wary Ms Ding, who admitted to being unsettled by his sexuality. In a remarkable scene, he asks if she will do him a last favour by shaking his hand before he dies. She hesitates, before lightly touching his hand with her finger and then pulling it away.
She later confessed to being unsure if she should have shaken his hand, saying with obvious distaste: ‘There was a lot of dirt under his nails. For a long time there was a feeling in this finger. I can’t describe that feeling.’
The series has made a household name of Ms Ding, who is married and has a young son. She is often recognised in the street while doing her shopping with her family.
Denying her show is exploitative, she said: ‘Some viewers might consider it cruel to ask a criminal to do an interview when they are about to be executed. On the contrary, they want to be heard.
‘When I am face-to-face with them I feel sorry and regretful for them. But I don’t sympathise with them, for they should pay a heavy price for their wrongdoing. They deserve it.’
However, she admits to being haunted by those she has interviewed. She once woke on a train in the middle of the night and, looking out of her window, saw a vision of the executed prisoners she had interviewed standing in a line beside her carriage.
‘Their faces were so real and all of them were standing there looking at me,’ she said. ‘I was horrified – I have heard so many cases. It is really not good for me at all. I have too much rubbish in my heart.’
Lu Peijin, the boss of TV Legal Channel in Henan province, said Ms Ding came up with the concept for the show and he agreed immediately, but that getting approval from officials was a long process.
‘I thought it was a great idea right away,’ said Mr Lu, who said that the stated aim of the show was not to entertain but to ‘inform and educate according to government policy’.
‘We want the audience to be warned,’ he said. ‘If they are warned, tragedies might be averted. That is good for society.’
Mr Lu said Ms Ding’s feminine image endears her to both audiences and the prisoners she interviews. ‘We say she is the beauty with the beasts,’ he said.
China is believed to kill more prisoners every year than the rest of the world combined, and the communist state has been widely criticised over its use of the death penalty.
There is no presumption of innocence under Chinese law. The condemned are often put to death as little as seven days after their convictions are confirmed by the Supreme Court.
The exact number of executions is a state secret, but it has been estimated that about 2,000 prisoners a year are executed in China, although rates are believed to have fallen in recent years.
Haunted: Miss Ding, who also conceived of the programme, has had visions of the executed people she has interviewed
China is concerned that the BBC documentary will damage the country’s image overseas and lead to fresh accusations of human rights abuses. Ms Ding and her colleagues have been banned from giving any further interviews.
Officials are particularly upset because next week’s BBC broadcast comes at a politically sensitive time – only days after China’s pseudo-parliament, the National People’s Congress, begins its annual session in the capital Beijing.
A Chinese TV executive who works on Interviews Before Execution said: ‘When the party officials realised the extent of the footage the BBC would use, they were very concerned about it.
Father Kills Baby-acquitted as ‘he suffered from post natal depression’
Beautiful baby: Harriet Bruton-Young died aged just 6 months Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390463/Mark-Bruton-Young-acquitted-murdering-baby-suffered-post-natal-depression.html#ixzz1NLKrL01f
What high-sounding non-sense!
He should have been awarded death penalty.
A depressed father who trawled the internet for ways to kill babies before his daughter was found dead in her cot spoke of his ‘long ordeal’ as he walked free from court yesterday.
Architect Mark Bruton-Young posed smiling with his wife, who has stood by him throughout, after being found not guilty of murdering their baby Harriet.
During his two-week trial, the prosecution claimed he had smothered six-month-old Harriet with a pillow after struggling with male post-natal depression.
