Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire
Promoting human rights from Salisbury UK
Below is the death penalty report for August thanks to Lesley for its preparation. It links in part to other items on this blog and in particular the decision by the UK’s Foreign Office to drop explicit reference to the abolition of the death penalty from its list of policies.
We attach an urgent action concerning Iran, which along with Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia are the world’s leading executioners of its citizens. This concerns a juvenile who was 15 at the time of the alleged crime. He was charged with the murder of a friend but was denied access to a lawyer at the investigation stage and he alleges he was tortured in custody.
His execution has been delayed to 10 August so this case is urgent. It is believed that an astonishing 72 juveniles have been executed between 2005 and 2014 and around 160 are currently on death row.
Please write if you have time.
The media has devoted considerable space to the #executions of five people in #Indonesia. It has been on 
the main news and in all of the main papers in the UK to a greater or lesser extent. There is a general sense of outrage that the execution and the manner of its doing – that is by firing squad – are barbaric. One would be forgiven for thinking that Indonesia is the only place where people are being executed.
It isn’t. We must not forget that China continues to execute more than the rest of the world put together although the precise number is not known because it is a state secret. Executions continue at a faster rate than previously in Iran. Public beheadings still continue in Saudi Arabia. And in the southern states of USA, many are executed after spending years and years on death row. Pakistan has been busy too. The list is a long one.
Amnesty is opposed to the death penalty in all cases. We should be outraged wherever it happens not just in one country such as Indonesia. If you feel outraged at the use of this penalty, why don’t you join us and write letters or send emails? Follow this site or the Amnesty site for urgent actions.
This is the monthly report on the state of death penalty around the world, thanks to Lesley for compiling it.
The news that Ray Hilton has been released after 28 years on death row is both heartening and shocking. That the state of Alabama should have so badly conducted his trial and then refused to allow the fresh ballistic evidence to be heard, which was the only evidence against him, is particularly shocking. There can be few better examples of the dangers of this penalty than a case such as this.
This month’s #deathpenalty report is attached thanks to Lesley. It makes depressing reading especially concerning countries in South East Asia and #Pakistan.
#stoptorture #deathpenalty. The November report on the death penalty is attached thanks to group member Lesley for compiling this.
Don’t forget you can access other sites with a human rights theme from the blog roll at the bottom of this page.
We attach a case raising a number of concerns in #Iran. Iran is one of the world’s leading countries in the use of the death penalty, second to China. This case involves a woman, Reyhaneh Jabbari who was arrested for murder but her trial was seriously flawed, she was denied legal help, kept in solitary confinement and ill-treated and possibly tortured. She was due for execution yesterday but following an outcry, it has been delayed for 10 days.
If you can find time to write that would be appreciated.
This is the April summary for the group on the #deathpenalty and its use around the world prepared by Lesley (Word).
Death penalty summary April 14
News this week that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was convicted of adultery and complicity in the murder of her
husband and sentenced to death by stoning in 2006, is to be given ‘a leave’ from prison by the Iranian authorities. The story was reported in the Guardian (20 March).
Readers of this site will know that the Amnesty group in Salisbury has campaigned on many occasions over the last several years on behalf of Sakineh. It was part of a worldwide campaign. We have sent cards to her prison, asked people to sign petitions and group members have written to the powers that be in Iran asking for her release. Many hundreds of Salisbury people signed our petitions. We – and the people of Salisbury who signed cards and petitions – can therefore claim to have played a small part in the successful outcome of this case.
The case caused a storm of outrage when it became national news. For many, it was the first time that the full horror of what stoning actually involves was brought home to them. Indeed, the group had to explain to many people what in fact it involved. Men are buried up to their necks and women up to the waist. Stones are delivered to the site which are neither too small nor so large that they would kill in one go. This in a country that wants to be in the nuclear age.
Sakineh was world wide news but the scale of executions by a variety of means is at an astonishing level in Iran. It is second only to China in the number carried out. They are on course for nearly a thousand this year dispelling the optimism surrounding Rouhani’s election last year.
Nevertheless, it does show that concerted international pressure can and does have the occasional beneficial effect even on the most isolated regimes.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 
