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.
The monthly report on the state of the death penalty around the world is attached – thanks to Lesley.
Attached is the #Deathpenalty report for June prepared for the group by Lesley. It reports on the increasing tide of executions in #Pakistan. We note again that China doesn’t feature because, although they lead the world in the number of executions, it is a state secret.
NB: the date given in the report for the World Day Against the Death Penalty should be 10th not 11th October.
The monthly death penalty report is available here thanks to Lesley for compiling it. A great deal of interest in the subject in the past month especially the executions in Indonesia. The use of hair evidence by the FBI in America – which has led to a number of people being executed or dying on death row – has now been discredited. Another interesting development is the criticism by the French President Francois Hollande of the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Like the UK, France has big arms sales contracts with the kingdom but unlike the UK, feels free to criticise them for their barbaric public beheadings. The Willie Manning case is also featured.
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.
It has been revealed in the last week or so that FBI analysis of hair samples is seriously flawed and that as
many as 32 people have been sentenced to death based on this evidence, of whom 14 have been executed or have died in prison . The problem has arisen because of sloppy work by FBI examiners who have made claims about the ability to identify people from hair samples that are scientifically unsound. It is, according to the Washington Post, possibly the largest forensic science scandal in America’s history. Another 1,200 cases remain to be investigated.
Our view of the American justice system is strongly influenced by programmes like CSI and NCIS where clean cut, young, handsome and amazingly certain forensic examiners solve cases by clever scientific means. Stories often centre (or should we say ‘center’ for our American readers) around one of them poring over a crime scene and finding a tiny piece of evidence. Then back to the lab where they announce that said tiny piece of evidence is crucial in identifying the killer. Forensic scientist and police officers dash about the place and sure enough, find the killer who has a matching piece of evidence tying him to the scene. There seldom seems to be any doubt in what they say and we are left at the end of the episode with the right man or woman ‘going down’.
The problem is that not all science is like that. There is not always that degree of certainty, merely probabilities. When it comes to condemning a person to death – the ultimate penalty from which there is no retreat – then it is necessary to be certain. The problem is made worse because defendants who are poor are not able to employ lawyers able to challenge the evidence properly. Some lawyers may be doing their first capital trial and have little relevant experience.
You might think that having admitted a major flaw in the evidence given by FBI experts, speedy reviews would be underway to put matters right. Well no, not in every state there isn’t. Appeal courts often refuse to look at newly discovered evidence because claims of actual innocence are never grounds for habeas corpus relief.
The USA is the only country in the Americas with the death penalty and the southern states are the keenest users of it. As we have commented before, it may seem unfair that we frequently highlight the use of the death penalty in the States: China is the worlds biggest user of the death penalty, the precise number is unknown because it is a state secret, but it runs into thousands. Iran is close behind. The difference is that the States is the de facto leader of the free world. But there is a point here that China is a closed society which severely limits access to the internet and curtails a free press. America by contrast is a more open society and newspapers like the Washington Post are able to publish this information. So we can read about it and comment on what we see.
Amnesty is opposed to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances. It is the ultimate cruel and degrading punishment. It is not a deterrent and there is plenty of evidence to show that it acts against the poor and those least able to defend themselves. That one of the main methods of condemning people is flawed is yet another plank in the argument to end the use of this penalty in the USA.
Sources:
Washington Post: 18 April
Guardian: 23 April
Wikipedia
Social Science Research Network The Shifted Paradigm: Forensic Science’s Overdue Evolution from Magic to Law. William Tucker Carrington, University of Mississippi and M Chis Fabricant, Innocence Project Inc.
Reading this blog can sometimes seem depressing as we highlight individuals imprisoned for their beliefs; the widespread use of torture around the world; the use of the death penalty and recently, a desire by some of our (UK) politicians to abolish the Human Rights Act.
Successes
There are successes however, some of which have been a long time in the making. After six years of legal proceedings and campaigning by Amnesty members around the world, Shell Oil have at last been made to pay for the devastation caused by oil spills in the Niger Delta.
Others successes have been unprecedented. For the first time ever, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that UK secret services acted illegally in their surveillance activities.
And that’s not all. Because of you Guadalupe found justice in El Salvador. With a window of just 48 hours, we asked you to tweet El Salvador’s members of parliament calling for a pardon for Guadalupe – a young woman imprisoned after suffering a miscarriage. Every tweet counted: her pardon was granted by a majority of just one vote. Thank you. We’re continuing our work to ensure Salvadoran women are not criminalised by the total abortion ban in the country
Burma has dropped off the radar in the last couple of years and things have improved there. But not totally and there are still prisoners of conscience. For example, long-standing prisoner of conscience Dr Tun Aung has recently secured release.
February saw two historic victories in the age-old battle for the right to privacy and free expression. The USA and UK’s past intelligence-sharing on Communications surveillance was ruled illegal and the Security Services conceded their current regime for intercepting legally privileged communications is also unlawful. These landmark rulings, in which Amnesty were co-claimants, should mean there are more significant positive changes ahead.
A great step towards justice was made in January when three journalists imprisoned in Egypt had their sentences overturned on the basis of a flawed trial. Peter Greste was allowed to return home to Australia but Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed are awaiting a retrial in Egypt, currently set for 22 April. Egypt must now drop all charges against them and free, not retry these prisoners of conscience.
Forced to sign a confession after being kidnapped and tortured by marines, Claudia Medina Tamariz has had the last of the charges against her dropped, and she is now a free woman. Claudia thanked the 300,000 Amnesty members around the world who demanded justice. We continue to call for an investigation into the torture she suffered, and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
A month after Claudia’s release, the Mexican president came to the UK and we delivered your Stop Torture petition signatures to him – in a giant piñata. Ahead of the visit you called on the UK representatives meeting him to raise the issue of torture. Guess what? They did. Thanks to Amnesty supporters campaigning, the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Scotland all helped send a strong message: it’s time for Mexico to respect human rights.
So campaigning does sometimes work.
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.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 