I'm writing about this because of the news today that a 56 year old British woman has been sentenced to death for being caught with almost 5 kilos (over 10 lbs) of cocaine concealed in the lining of her suitcase on arrival on a flight in Bali from Bangkok.
Firstly, let me state very clearly that I am opposed to capital punishment - killing is wrong and state sanctioned killing (which is what capital punishment is) is no different.
However, the laws on this matter that apply in the UK, the EU and many other countries around the world, which forbid capital punishment, do not apply in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China or indeed the USA, however much I may find their justice systems appalling - I live in the real world, though, and know that sovereign countries do what they think is correct. Nobody travelling to countries in the Far East which operate a very harsh criminal justice system with regard to drug smuggling is left in any doubt about it - the first time I flew into Kuala Lumpur, for example, I recall that although I was well aware of their laws on this matter, I was still somewhat 'thrilled' in a morbid kind of way by the warning printed in heavy red ink on the landing card that the consequence of carrying more than 10 grams (grams, not kilos) of drugs was a MANDATORY death sentence; it certainly focusses the mind. Many of the countries in that part of the world, such as Indonesia have similarly harsh policies. There is no secret about it - everyone who travels there is made aware of the consequences. I got a similar 'thrill' the first time I flew into the USA and had to complete the landing card which asked one to state whether one 'was now or had ever been a member of the Communist Party' - I knew long before I travelled there that this was one of the landing-card questions.
The bottom line is that if you travel to a country that imposes capital punishment for trafficking in drugs, and you carry almost 5 kilos of cocaine in your luggage to that country, then you must be prepared to live (or in this case die) with the consequences.
Lindsay Sandiford, the British woman in the Indonesia incident, has apparently apologised for her crime, fair enough, and has stated in 'mitigation' that she "would never have become involved in something like this but the lives of my children were in danger and I felt I had to protect them", which is put into context by the British human rights charity Reprieve being quoted as stating that she had been: "targeted by drug traffickers who exploited her vulnerability and made threats against her children". As an appeal is apparently going to be lodged by the condemned woman, I imagine that these factors will be investigated and taken into consideration, if this was not done [adequately] at the trial.
Showing posts with label Capital Punishment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capital Punishment. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Friday, 5 August 2011
Petition to retain the ban on Capital Punishment
I support the principle that capital punishment, which in plain language is judicial killing by the State, is wrong in all circumstances. The State should not be in the business of executing people. Crimes for which people are convicted according to law do require punishment - that punishment should be strict, but humane. Some will argue that persons convicted of certain particularly heinous crimes (wilful murder, torture, rape to take a few) deserve no compassion and no rights. I don't necessarily disagree with either argument, but it is not the 'immortal soul' (if such exists) of the convicted person which concerns me, rather what it says about the societies and people who sanction judicial killing. Do we really wish to liken ourselves not just to the US's of this world, but to the Irans and Chinas, too?
A number of people convicted of murder in recent years have had their convictions overturned; in some cases they have been exonerated completely and in other cases new evidence has come to light which has cast sufficient doubt upon the original conviction for it to have been suspect. Were investigative processes always completely accurate during the period when capital punishment was still in force? Forgive me, but I simply do not believe it. What is completely certain, however, is that once someone has been executed, the punishment (as distinct from the conviction) can never be retracted.
I do believe, however, that a term of punishment should be observed strictly - a sentence of 'life imprisonment' should mean precisely that. There should be no parole, ever, under any circumstances, unless new evidence comes to light casting doubt upon the original conviction. So someone suffering from a terminal illness and who was serving a term of life imprisonment would die in prison - there should be no nonsense about allowing someone home to die.
It is on this basis that I have signed the e-Petition for the retention of the ban on captial punishment. If you share this basic view and if you wish you can sign the petition here.
A number of people convicted of murder in recent years have had their convictions overturned; in some cases they have been exonerated completely and in other cases new evidence has come to light which has cast sufficient doubt upon the original conviction for it to have been suspect. Were investigative processes always completely accurate during the period when capital punishment was still in force? Forgive me, but I simply do not believe it. What is completely certain, however, is that once someone has been executed, the punishment (as distinct from the conviction) can never be retracted.
I do believe, however, that a term of punishment should be observed strictly - a sentence of 'life imprisonment' should mean precisely that. There should be no parole, ever, under any circumstances, unless new evidence comes to light casting doubt upon the original conviction. So someone suffering from a terminal illness and who was serving a term of life imprisonment would die in prison - there should be no nonsense about allowing someone home to die.
It is on this basis that I have signed the e-Petition for the retention of the ban on captial punishment. If you share this basic view and if you wish you can sign the petition here.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Executions of British citizens abroad and the extradition of British citizens
Let's be clear about this, I am strongly oppposed to the use of capital punishment (i.e. state executions) under any circumstances. Such judicial punishments are formally prohibited in the UK and throughout the whole of the European Union and in many other countries, too.
However, the writ of the British government and of the European Union is severely limited. Other countries have quite a different view (and laws to back it up) on the whole topic of capital punishment - notably the US, Iran and China, to name three, albeit three of the better-known (not to say 'notorious') examples.
Today a British citizen has been executed in China, having been convicted of drug smuggling. The fact that he was smuggling drugs seems not to be in doubt. It is contended by those who pleaded for clemency in his case that he was 'tricked' into carrying a suitcase containing 4 kilos of heroin into China. Some trick! It is further contended that the executed man was mentally unstable and that his [undoubted] crime should be judged in the light of this. To put it crudely, we are being asked to accept that being mentally unstable should be a 'free pass' to commit crimes in other countries and not suffer the punishments that those other countries consider appropriate. Try telling that to the US (or Iran) the next time it executes someone on what we consider ill-judged grounds and see how much notice it takes!
Quite frankly the British government has enough trouble on its hands with its [perfectly deplorable] habit of trashing our own legal system and diminishing the rights of UK citizens within our own borders (things over which it actually has some control), without trying to 'lecture' other countries how they should run their own judicial systems.
Whilst I deplore today's judicial exceution of Mr Akmal Shaikh in China, I do wish the British government would use its political capital on things over which it actually can have some influence, rather than making empty gestures in matters where it succeeds only in making itself (and us) look silly and ineffectual. I refer specifically to the case of Gary McKinnon, a British citizen currently under threat of extradition to the USA and which our own Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, says he has no power to halt on medical grounds. Remind me, which British government was it who committed us to a decidely lop-sided Extradition Treaty with the US? Oh yes, our present Labour government!
Both Mr Akmal Shaikh and Mr Gary McKinnon have been said to have been (in the case of the former) and be (in the case of the latter) suffering from schizophrenia (i.e. what is I understand also known as a 'bipolar disorder') - see (*) below. So it is OK to send Mr McKinnon across the Atlantic to the [not always so very] tender mercies of the US judicial system, because the US is supposedly a fellow-democracy, albeit the country that permitted Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to happen (with its use of 'water torture' and other, to put it brutally frankly, crimes against humanity), but not OK for a sovereign country such as China, which happens not to conform to our 'prissy' notions of democracy, to follow its own judicial path?
Or what about our oh-so-ethical British government that allowed our knee-jerk unequal Extradition Treaty with the US, supposedly designed to help reduce the risk of terrorism, to be subverted by using it to allow US authorities to pursue British citizens whose only 'crime' (if it is ever judged as such) was against a British company in Britain? I refer of course to the 'NatWest three' who were extradited some time ago to the US on frankly spurious charges (so far as the US is concerned) seemingly with the sole aim of using pressure upon them to get them to implicate others.
Basically we have a British government that makes loud noises about protecting British citizens' rights in situations which it cannot alter, but singularly fails to protect the rights of British citizens when it has the power to do so. And we wonder why some Chinese refer to Britain as a 'paper tiger', or why Britain has today been told by Iran's government that it will have its 'cheeks boxed' if it doesn't shut up?
Why does our current British government even bother? It has, quite frankly, not the faintest notion of what conducting an effective dipolmatic policy entails and its notions of an 'ethical foreign policy' make me want to retch! If the actions of our present Labour government did not make us all, in Britain, look so silly and pathetic I could laugh if it concerned some other poorly-governed country, rather than our own - as it is, all I want to do is have a drink to deaden the horror of being led by such donkeys!
Now to calm myself down after my rather too habitual (of late) 'ranting' against our ineffectual shambles of a Government, may I just remind my fellow British citizens that the ability of our government to protect us when we are abroad is very strictly limited; we no longer live in an era when 'gunboat diplomacy' will be used to rescue us when we do, or are accused of doing, something wrong according to another country. I've visited and lived in a number of coutries which have very different notions to us on matters of crime and justice, including both China and (just to take a couple of other random examples) Malaysia and Thailand. I vividly recall the landing form I had to complete the first time I visited Kuala Lumpur and which bore a red-printed warning about the punishment for 'drug-trafficking' being death; I knew about this beforehand, so I wasn't surprised, but it still came as something of a shock to see it in print. The definition of 'trafficking' was for amounts in excess of 50 grams, if I recall correctly, just as in China. Four kilograms is eighty times greater than that!
Put simply, if you can't do the time (or suffer the consequences, however unfair we may consider them to be) don't do the crime! It really is that simple. Otherwise stay at home.
(*) - a commenter has kindly corrected what I wrote about the mental disorder from which the executed man was said to have suffered; the commenter writes "No. Bipolar is what used to be known as manic depression. Schizophrenia is a level of mania well beyond." However, I do not believe this affects the basic premise of my article.
However, the writ of the British government and of the European Union is severely limited. Other countries have quite a different view (and laws to back it up) on the whole topic of capital punishment - notably the US, Iran and China, to name three, albeit three of the better-known (not to say 'notorious') examples.
Today a British citizen has been executed in China, having been convicted of drug smuggling. The fact that he was smuggling drugs seems not to be in doubt. It is contended by those who pleaded for clemency in his case that he was 'tricked' into carrying a suitcase containing 4 kilos of heroin into China. Some trick! It is further contended that the executed man was mentally unstable and that his [undoubted] crime should be judged in the light of this. To put it crudely, we are being asked to accept that being mentally unstable should be a 'free pass' to commit crimes in other countries and not suffer the punishments that those other countries consider appropriate. Try telling that to the US (or Iran) the next time it executes someone on what we consider ill-judged grounds and see how much notice it takes!
Quite frankly the British government has enough trouble on its hands with its [perfectly deplorable] habit of trashing our own legal system and diminishing the rights of UK citizens within our own borders (things over which it actually has some control), without trying to 'lecture' other countries how they should run their own judicial systems.
Whilst I deplore today's judicial exceution of Mr Akmal Shaikh in China, I do wish the British government would use its political capital on things over which it actually can have some influence, rather than making empty gestures in matters where it succeeds only in making itself (and us) look silly and ineffectual. I refer specifically to the case of Gary McKinnon, a British citizen currently under threat of extradition to the USA and which our own Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, says he has no power to halt on medical grounds. Remind me, which British government was it who committed us to a decidely lop-sided Extradition Treaty with the US? Oh yes, our present Labour government!
Both Mr Akmal Shaikh and Mr Gary McKinnon have been said to have been (in the case of the former) and be (in the case of the latter) suffering from schizophrenia (i.e. what is I understand also known as a 'bipolar disorder') - see (*) below. So it is OK to send Mr McKinnon across the Atlantic to the [not always so very] tender mercies of the US judicial system, because the US is supposedly a fellow-democracy, albeit the country that permitted Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to happen (with its use of 'water torture' and other, to put it brutally frankly, crimes against humanity), but not OK for a sovereign country such as China, which happens not to conform to our 'prissy' notions of democracy, to follow its own judicial path?
Or what about our oh-so-ethical British government that allowed our knee-jerk unequal Extradition Treaty with the US, supposedly designed to help reduce the risk of terrorism, to be subverted by using it to allow US authorities to pursue British citizens whose only 'crime' (if it is ever judged as such) was against a British company in Britain? I refer of course to the 'NatWest three' who were extradited some time ago to the US on frankly spurious charges (so far as the US is concerned) seemingly with the sole aim of using pressure upon them to get them to implicate others.
Basically we have a British government that makes loud noises about protecting British citizens' rights in situations which it cannot alter, but singularly fails to protect the rights of British citizens when it has the power to do so. And we wonder why some Chinese refer to Britain as a 'paper tiger', or why Britain has today been told by Iran's government that it will have its 'cheeks boxed' if it doesn't shut up?
Why does our current British government even bother? It has, quite frankly, not the faintest notion of what conducting an effective dipolmatic policy entails and its notions of an 'ethical foreign policy' make me want to retch! If the actions of our present Labour government did not make us all, in Britain, look so silly and pathetic I could laugh if it concerned some other poorly-governed country, rather than our own - as it is, all I want to do is have a drink to deaden the horror of being led by such donkeys!
Now to calm myself down after my rather too habitual (of late) 'ranting' against our ineffectual shambles of a Government, may I just remind my fellow British citizens that the ability of our government to protect us when we are abroad is very strictly limited; we no longer live in an era when 'gunboat diplomacy' will be used to rescue us when we do, or are accused of doing, something wrong according to another country. I've visited and lived in a number of coutries which have very different notions to us on matters of crime and justice, including both China and (just to take a couple of other random examples) Malaysia and Thailand. I vividly recall the landing form I had to complete the first time I visited Kuala Lumpur and which bore a red-printed warning about the punishment for 'drug-trafficking' being death; I knew about this beforehand, so I wasn't surprised, but it still came as something of a shock to see it in print. The definition of 'trafficking' was for amounts in excess of 50 grams, if I recall correctly, just as in China. Four kilograms is eighty times greater than that!
Put simply, if you can't do the time (or suffer the consequences, however unfair we may consider them to be) don't do the crime! It really is that simple. Otherwise stay at home.
(*) - a commenter has kindly corrected what I wrote about the mental disorder from which the executed man was said to have suffered; the commenter writes "No. Bipolar is what used to be known as manic depression. Schizophrenia is a level of mania well beyond." However, I do not believe this affects the basic premise of my article.
Friday, 7 December 2007
Gay young man executed in Kermanshah, Iran
More public exceutions in Iran.
A 21 year old young man has reportedly been executed in Iran on 5th December for having allegedly committed the crime of 'gay rape' (i.e. gay sex) at the age of 13 years. (thru Bill at billandkent, who had it from Towleroad)
Earlier this year I wrote here about public executions in Iran when a woman and two men were hoisted aloft on a crane by the neck. I last wrote about public excecutions of gays in Iran here. It will be recalled that President Ahmandinejad, during a recent visit to the United Nations in New York, gave the students at Columbia University the benefit of his considered thoughts on the matter:
That's why gays are classified in Iran as 'rapists'; let's call this 1984-style 'Newspeak' for what it is - a lie!!!!!!
Makvan Mouloodzadeh - aged 21 executed in Kermanshah, Iran 5th December 2007  |
A 21 year old young man has reportedly been executed in Iran on 5th December for having allegedly committed the crime of 'gay rape' (i.e. gay sex) at the age of 13 years. (thru Bill at billandkent, who had it from Towleroad)
Earlier this year I wrote here about public executions in Iran when a woman and two men were hoisted aloft on a crane by the neck. I last wrote about public excecutions of gays in Iran here. It will be recalled that President Ahmandinejad, during a recent visit to the United Nations in New York, gave the students at Columbia University the benefit of his considered thoughts on the matter:
"In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I do not know who has told you that we have it." |
That's why gays are classified in Iran as 'rapists'; let's call this 1984-style 'Newspeak' for what it is - a lie!!!!!!
Sunday, 31 December 2006
A sad, and probably accurate, forecast about Iraq ...
... in the wake of the execution of Saddam Hussein and the way, and by whom, it was carried out. Zeyad at Healing Iraq has a link to a mobile telephone video recording of Saddam being hanged and a translation of what the exchanges were just prior to the trap-door being opened; the comments are less inflammatory (but still somewhat inflammatory) than some have been reporting, it would seem. Zeyad also has some comments about what he thinks (fears) might be in store for Iraq now; unfortunately the 'permalink' for this post is defective, but it is entitled "Saddam Hangs (Updated)" and was posted on 30th December 2006 at 1.25pm.
Saturday, 30 December 2006
Speculation is rife about the imminent execution of Saddam Hussein
There are strong rumours tonight that Saddam Hussein is to be executed early morning Saturday, Baghdad time, perhaps around 6am (or about 03.00 GMT).
I oppose the death penalty, even for monsters such as the former President of Iraq; quite apart from my moral objections, though, it seems to me that death in this case would be far too easy on the former tyrant - surely a much more fitting outcome and punishment would be for Saddam Hussein to be kept under conditions of strict security for the remainder of his natural life?
However my qualms are of no importance, I suppose. The Iraqis appear to favour execution as punishment and if lancing the boil that Saddam's life represents is thought likely to have the potential to reduce violence there then I cannot see much utility in 'manning the barricades' over this issue. I don't rejoice in the prospect of any human being dying, far less a human being being deprived of life in an officially-approved execution, but the world will carry on very nicely without him. In summary, "Good Riddance, Saddam!" .
UPDATE: (Saturday 30DEC06 03.47 GMT) The deed has been done; it was reported on BBC News24 about 30 minutes ago and is now confirmed here. Two of his co-defendants are also reported to have been executed. I can now go to bed, if not happily, at least with some sense that a malign influence has been removed.
I oppose the death penalty, even for monsters such as the former President of Iraq; quite apart from my moral objections, though, it seems to me that death in this case would be far too easy on the former tyrant - surely a much more fitting outcome and punishment would be for Saddam Hussein to be kept under conditions of strict security for the remainder of his natural life?
However my qualms are of no importance, I suppose. The Iraqis appear to favour execution as punishment and if lancing the boil that Saddam's life represents is thought likely to have the potential to reduce violence there then I cannot see much utility in 'manning the barricades' over this issue. I don't rejoice in the prospect of any human being dying, far less a human being being deprived of life in an officially-approved execution, but the world will carry on very nicely without him. In summary, "Good Riddance, Saddam!" .
UPDATE: (Saturday 30DEC06 03.47 GMT) The deed has been done; it was reported on BBC News24 about 30 minutes ago and is now confirmed here. Two of his co-defendants are also reported to have been executed. I can now go to bed, if not happily, at least with some sense that a malign influence has been removed.
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