Tihar officials refuse RTI query on Afzal Guru

March 2, 2013 LUCKNOW: Can disclosure of certain details on Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, hanged at New Delhi's Tihar Jail "affect relations with a foreign state"? The prison department certainly thinks so. It would "pre-judicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the state, relation with foreign state or lead to incitement of an offence," the Tihar Jail said in a reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query by Urvashi Sharma of Lucknow. The prison headquarters (office of the director general of prisons) has cited various clauses which could jeopardize the relations of India with foreign countries if details like the copy of the 'black warrant' of Afzal Guru, copies of communication sent by ministry of home affairs after taking a decision on the mercy petition, and the total expenses, item wise on keeping Afzal in jail. Sharma had also sought copies of documents or letters generated, sent and received by the prison department during the process of deciding the place of burial. Sharma had also asked for the names of the executioner (s), list of people present during the burial of Guru's dead body and any photographs that "could be fraught with security concerns". But, she was taken aback by the curt response of the prison department stonewalling "innocent queries" like expenses incurred on his stay in Tihar Jail. "This is completely unacceptable. Why can they not part with communications leading to the rejection of his mercy petition and subsequent hanging," Sharma asked while speaking to IANS. She claimed had the prison department responded positively, several "conspiracy theories and human rights queries would have been satiated". "There has been several protests regarding the secretive circumstances Afzal Guru was hanged in and the quiet burial...(the) prison department of Tihar Jail and the union government must come clean on this matter," the RTI activist said, adding she was exploring options to file a review petition. Afzal Guru, a resident of Sopore in Jammu and Kashmir was convicted for plotting the terror attack on parliament on Dec 13, 2001 and was hanged Feb 9 at Tihar Jail after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition. Courtesy : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Tihar-officials-refuse-RTI-query-on-Afzal-Guru/articleshow/18763637.cms

SC to decide if review pleas can be heard in open court

New Delhi : Staying the execution of a murder case convict, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (March 6, 2013) decided to adjudicate whether the review petitions by all death row convicts should be heard in an open court and not by the judges in chambers. A Bench of Justices P Sathasivam and J S Khehar also agreed to delve on a contention if a decision on whether a convict should be condemned to death or not should be taken only by a five-judge Bench, as recommended by the Law Commission.The court has issued notices to the Centre and the Supreme Court Registry on a petition by G Sundarrajan alias Sunder, who has demanded appropriate amendments to the court rules for allowing hearing of review pleas of death row convicts in open court and also implementation of the Law Commission's recommendation in this regard. Courtesy : http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sc-to-decide-if-review-pleas-can-be-heard-in-open-court/1084087/1

UN chief reaffirms call for moratorium on death penalty

25 February 2013 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today reiterated his call for a global moratorium on applying the death penalty, stressing the United Nations’ long history of opposing the practice and the growing momentum among the international community to permanently end it. “A global moratorium is a crucial stepping stone towards full worldwide abolition,” Mr. Ban said in a message delivered by the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kyung-wha Kang.
“Capital punishment is inconsistent with the mission of the United Nations to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person,” Ms. Kang read, during an event at the Human Rights Council in Geneva organized by the International Commission against the Death Penalty, an independent body opposed to capital punishment. The UN General Assembly first voted on a moratorium in 2007, and again in December 2012 with the support of 111 countries, 41 against and 34 abstentions. The resolution called for a progressive restriction on the use of capital punishment and eliminating it entirely for felons below the age of 18 and pregnant women. Although not legally binding, the UN moratorium on executions carries moral and political weight.
“The United Nations system has long advocated the abolition of the death penalty. International and hybrid tribunals supported by the UN do not provide for capital punishment, nor does the International Criminal Court,” Mr. Ban’s message noted.
Approximately150 countries have either abolished the death penalty or do not practice it, but Mr. Ban noted that some recently reinstated the practice.
Thousands of people are executed each year, “often in violation of international standards, such as the right to fair trial and due process,” Mr. Ban said.
He added that the death penalty is still used for a wide range of crimes that do not meet the threshold of “most serious crimes” and based on information that is not transparent. In addition, sometimes “wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice” can occur in well-functioning legal systems that sentence and execute persons who have been ultimately proven innocent, Mr. Ban said. Courtesy : http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44217&Cr=death+penalty&Cr1=#.UTxh8zf7DzY

Right's group condemns Afzal's hanging

New Delhi, February 13 The Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN (WGHR), a coalition of 14 human rights organisations and independent experts, today denounced the execution of Afzal Guru on February 9 and demanded abolition of capital punishment by India.
The WGHR also condemned the indiscriminate and arbitrary use of state power for imposing capital punishment to Guru covertly, denying his family a last visit and refusing to hand over his body to his family. The group said death penalty embodied the idea of retribution which is as violent as the offence for which one is convicted, and is contrary to all civilised ideals of criminology and constitutionalism. During the second inter-governmental peer review of India's human rights (also known as the Universal Periodic Review) in May 2012, the UN Human Rights Council made 169 recommendations to the Government of India out of which 11 related to the abolition of death penalty and the adoption of an official moratorium on death penalty. None of these were accepted by India. "We are concerned against India aligning itself with the small minority of nations which favour death penalty. On November 21, 2012 a resolution was passed by the UN General Assembly's Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) on 'Moratorium on the use of the death penalty' by a record 110 votes but India voted against the motion," the coalition said in a statement. Courtesy : http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130214/nation.htm#7

Working Group of Human Rights (in India and the UN) Press Release 13th February 2013 - Capital Punishment not a deterrent : WGHR condemns the execution of Afzal Guru; Demands the abolishment of Death Penalty - http://www.wghr.org/pdf/WGHR%20Press%20Release%20on%20Afzal%20Guru%20Execution.pdf

India refused 11 recommendations made by UN Human Rights Council on the abolition of death penalty

NEW DELHI: In May last year, the UN Human Rights Council had made 11 recommendations related to the abolition of death penalty and the adoption of an official moratorium on death penalty to the Government of India but none of these recommendations were accepted. While no reason was given for turning down the recommendations, data generated by the Ministry of Home Affairs of India also supports the argument that death penalty has not been and is not a deterrent for murder. The murder rate in India has declined consistently in India over the last 20 years, despite the slowdown in the execution of death sentences since 1980.
In a press statement released by the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN (WGHR), a coalition of fourteen human rights organizations and independent experts, the organization has condemned "the indiscriminate and arbitrary use of state power for imposing capital punishment to Afzal Guru covertly, not allowing his family a last visit and not handing over his body to his family." WGHR stated that that death penalty embodies the idea of retribution which is as violent as the offence for which one is convicted, and is contrary to all civilized ideals of criminology and constitutionalism. "While none of the 11 recommendations made by the UNHCR were accepted by the Government of India, they nevertheless represent the growing concern in the international community against the continuation of death penalty in India... studies show that there is no scientific or empirical basis for claiming that death penalty has a deterrent effect on the incidence of crime," said the statement. Noted human rights expert Suhas Chakma, director of Asian Centre for Human Rights and a member of the WGHR said, "There is no law in the country which differentiates among the death-row convict to selectively fast track execution of certain persons. It is clear that the Government of India does not follow the inviolable principle of equality and non-discrimination with respect to the death-row convicts and the malafide intention of the Government stands exposed from the failure to inform the family and handover the dead body to the family." "What makes matters worse is that we have a President of the country who appears to be trigger happy and ready to rapidly comply with the government's wishes even if his actions are contrary to the humanistic traditions of Indian civilisation", said Miloon Kothari, convenor of WGHR and former Special Rapporteur of the UNHCR. Courtesy : http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-02-16/india/37132591_1_death-penalty-death-row-convicts-human-rights

1,455 death penalties awarded in India since 2001

NEW DELHI: Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in its report "The State of Death Penalty in India 2013" stated that as per the records of the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, a total of 1,455 convicts or an average of 132.27 convicts per year were given death penalty during 2001 to 2011. During the same period, the highest number of death penalty was imposed in Uttar Pradesh (370) followed by Bihar (132), Maharashtra (125), Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (95 each), Madhya Pradesh (87), Jharkhand (81), West Bengal (79), Delhi (71), Gujarat (57), Rajasthan (38), Kerala (34), Odisha (33), Haryana (31), Assam (21), Jammu and Kashmir (20), Punjab (19), Chhattisgarh (18), Uttaranchal (16), Andhra Pradesh (8), Meghalaya (6), Chandigarh and Daman and Diu (4 each), Manipur and Himachal Pradesh (3 each), Tripura and Pondichery (2 each) and Goa (1). In the rest of the States (Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim) and Union Territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Lakswadweep), no death penalty was imposed. "This implies that on average one convict is awarded death penalty in less than every third day in India. The rarest of rare case doctrine for application of death penalty has become routine. Death penalty is no longer the exception but the rule," said Suhas Chakma, coordinator, National Campaign for Abolition of Death Penalty in India and Director of ACHR. Thousands of convicts remain on death row. This is established by the fact that during 2001 to 2011, sentences for 4,321 persons were commuted from death penalty to life imprisonment with the highest number of commutation in Delhi (2462) followed by Uttar Pradesh (458), Bihar (343), Jharkhand (300), Maharashtra (175), West Bengal (98), Assam (97), Odisha (68), Madhya Pradesh (62), Uttaranchal (46), Rajasthan (33), Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Chhattisgarh (24 each), Haryana and Kerala (23 each), Jammu and Kashmir (18). ACHR called for abolition of death penalty stating that "The execution of Nathuram Vinayak Godse for assassination of none other than the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, has not acted as a deterrent against assassination of many prominent political leaders including former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, MP Lalit Maken and many other prominent political leaders." There is no scientific or empirical basis to suggest that death penalty acts as a deterrent against any crime. Though no execution had been carried out since the execution of Dhananjoy Chatterjee on August 14, 2004, the number of murder cases have been reducing. According to the National Crimes Record Bureau, in 2001 a total of 36,202 murder cases were registered in India. Though the population of India increased from 1.028 billion in 2001 to 1.21 billion in 2011, the murder cases indeed reduced to 34,305 in 2011. Commenting on the execution of Afzal Guru, ACHR stated that India must assuage the sentiments of the Afzal Guru's family members who have effectively been not informed about the impending execution on February 9, 2013. The state itself must not be flouting or circumvents the rules as it erodes the belief in the rule of law. Guru was hanged out of the queue and was denied the right to appeal against the rejection of mercy petition. "The interventions of the Supreme Court against rejection of mercy petition of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, the Guwahati high court against rejection of mercy petition of Mahendra Nath Das and the Madras high court against rejection of mercy petitions of Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan have established that the decision of the President of India on mercy petitions is further subject to judicial review and this opportunity to appeal has been denied to Afzal Guru," said Chakma. On the recent rejection of mercy petitions of four accused namely Gnanprakasham, Simon, Meesekar Madaiah and Bilavendran who were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in January 2004 in connection with the killing of 21 policemen in a landmine blast at Palar in Karnataka in 1993, Chakma said: "It appears that the Government of India in its attempt to address political fallout of the botched up execution of Afzal Guru and the expressed position of the members of the UPA Government on death penalty in certain cases will carry out further executions of death row convicts not connected with political sensitivities." According to ACHR, India must follow its own civilisational values. Mythologies of India are full of stories about criminals being reformed. Valmiki, the author of the epic Ramayana, was a highway robber known as Ratnakara until he came under the influence of Maharshi Narada to leave the paths of sin. Similarly, according to Buddhist literature, Daku Angulimala (dacoit who wears finger necklace/ garland of fingers) was a ruthless killer who was redeemed by a sincere conversion to Buddhism. India as the land of Valmiki, Lord Buddha and Gandhi must follow its own civilisational values and take effective measures to join the countries which have abandoned retributive justice system and abolished death penalty. Courtesy : http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-02-15/india/37118208_1_death-penalty-achr-murder-cases

Asian Centre for Human Rights - The State of Death Penalty in India Report 2013, 14th February 2013 - http://www.achrweb.org/reports/india/IndiaDeathPenaltyReport2013.pdf

Indian Rape Debate : Why death penalty is no solution By Ananth Guruswamy, Director of Amnesty International in India

New Delhi (CNN) -- The tragic case of the 23-year old woman who was brutally attacked, raped and left for dead by six men in New Delhi on December 16 has highlighted the unacceptable reality millions of women in India are facing. Violence against women is endemic -- more than 220,000 cases of violent crimes against women were reported in 2011 according to official statistics from the Indian government, with the actual number likely to be much higher. If there has been a silver lining to this horrendous case, it has been the enormous outcry from Indian society. What started as student-led protests in New Delhi has grown to encompass Indians from all walks of life and from the whole political spectrum. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets with the clear message that something has to change, and that women should no longer have to live in fear. But amid the many reasonable and constructive calls on the authorities to address the situation, there is unfortunately a growing chorus of voices calling for the six alleged perpetrators to be executed, or even for mandatory death sentence in cases of sexual violence. Five of the six suspects were formally charged in New Delhi on Thursday, with the authorities investigating whether the sixth suspect is under 18 and a juvenile. The five are expected to be charged with several offences including murder, which is punishable by death under Indian law. The anger felt towards the suspects is completely understandable, as is the desire to impose stricter laws around sexual violence to ensure that what happened in Delhi in December never happens again. But imposing the death penalty would just perpetuate the cycle of violence. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, regardless of the circumstances or the nature of the crime. It is the ultimate cruel and inhuman punishment, and a violation of a fundamental human right -- the right to life. There is no evidence to suggest that the threat of execution works as a special deterrent. This is reflected in a clear global trend moving towards the abolition of the death penalty. Today, 140 countries in the world have abolished executions in law or practice. Up until November 21, 2012, when the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 November Mumbai attacks, Ajmal Kasab was hanged, India had not carried out a single execution for almost eight years. Kasab's killing meant India took a significant step backwards and joined the minority of countries in the world that are still executing. With hundreds of prisoners still on death row in India, this is a key moment for the country and its use of the death penalty. The Indian authorities must not let the Kasab, execution and the outrage around the Delhi rape trigger a resumption of executions on a larger scale. What India needs now is not revenge, but to address the many underlying issues that are perpetuating endemic violence against women. The laws and the justice system must be reformed, and the definition of rape, which is currently far from adequate, should be amended. The woefully low conviction rate for these crimes must also be addressed, which today only perpetuates a culture of impunity. Imposing the death penalty for sexual assault cases would likely only worsen this situation, as judges would hesitate to give such an extreme sentence, and the legal process would become even lengthier and more complicated. The Indian police force has to be better trained to deal with survivors of sexual violence, and there is a need to develop support systems for survivors. Many women are reluctant to report crimes, fearing humiliation and degrading treatment by the police, or the social stigma that comes from society at large. There are also still serious systematic failures in the Indian justice system that raise questions about its efficiency. To even begin to talk about a method of punishment until these issues have been addressed is to seriously jump the gun. This sentiment has been echoed by many, including U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, who has called for legal reform while cautioning against the use of the death penalty. After a year in which both Afghanistan and Pakistan resumed executions after relatively long moratoriums, India now has an opportunity to show real leadership on a key human rights issue in the region. There is no question that the country's women deserve much better legal protection, but the death penalty is not the answer. Courtesy : http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/03/opinion/india-rape-amnesty/index.html