Death Penalty Thailand

US death penalty sentencing again reversed

2012-01-18T07:45:00.000+07:00

Today marks the end of a very long ordeal for four Chicago men who were unjustly convicted as teenagers. After 17 years, Michael Saunders, Harold Richardson, Vincent Thames and Terrill Swift—have finally been exonerated of the 1994 murder of Nina Glover. The State’s Attorney’s Office announced at a hearing today that they are dismissing the indictments against the four men. The decision follows a judge’s November 2011 order to vacate the four convictions.Saunders, Richardson, Thames and Swift have spent most of their adult lives in prison. They were between the ages of 15 and 18 when they arrested. Based on false confessions and without a shred of physical evidence, they were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 30-40 years in prison. Their cases, and others in Cook County, reveal a dangerous pattern of injustice based on false confessions. The Innocence Project is calling on Cook County to conduct a review of all cases involving juvenile confessions. In the past four months, ten people have been exonerated through DNA testing in Illinois after being unjustly convicted based on confessions they gave as teenagers.Thailand also bases convictions on forced confessions, unsupported by credible evidence. However the possibility of reversing sentences hardly exists. The only way of reforming the death penalty is to abolish it, whether in the US or in Thailand or elsewhere.

Hangings in Iran, an Infamous Record

2012-01-12T10:52:00.002+07:00

During the first week of 2012, the Iranian authorities achieved a new record by hanging 1 person in every 4 hours. They executed 39 people in different cities, including three in public in the western city of Kermanshah. According to Amnesty International, more than 600 executions were carried out in Iran in the first 11 months of 2011. This is a marked increase over at least 553 executions recorded in the whole of 2010 and is likely to make 2011 the worst year in two decades since 1991, when at least 775 executions were recorded

Abolition of Death Penalty in Thailand - a beginning

2012-01-07T11:30:00.006+07:00

The 2nd Five Year Human Rights Plan of Thailand contained a brief announcement of intention to abolish the death penalty. It is already the fourth year of the plan and there seemed no movement on the issue. It was worrying that in its Universal Peer Review presentation to the Human Rights Council, no mention was made of abolition. But many countries recalled the promise to address abolition. They raised questions at the UPR session and recommended action on the issue.
The Union of Civil Liberty and Amnesty International were happy to learn in a meeting with officials in the Ministry of Justice that action to achieve abolition is indeed taking place. The unit with responsibility on abolition is the Rights and Liberties Department. The following is their detailed plan of action for the year 2010.

Detailed plan of activities to promote abolition by the Rights and Liberties Protection Department, Ministry of Justice

Activities in Year 2012 Months
1. Study the abolition of death penalty in various countries, both abolitionist and retentionist; the criteria and tendency in each, so as to establish the consequences of abolition 2 months
2. Study to determine the highest sanction which replaces the death penalty in countries which have abolished the death penalty 1 month
3. Study all Thai laws which incur the death penalty, aspects of such laws, and the level of violence for which sentence is imposed 3 months
4. Study the statistics of trials which have imposed the death sentence and trials which have resulted in executions over the last 10 years 2 months
5. Interview experts in human rights, legal matters, and judicial procedure, victims of crime, persons who were condemned to death, and the general public 1 month
6. Organize workshops in the four regions of Thailand and in Bangkok, for participants from every province to survey opinion on the theme, “The attitude of Thai society to abolition of the death penalty” 1 month
7. Make submission to committees and sub-committees on the proposal to abolish laws imposing the death penalty, presenting opinions and proposals resulting from studies 1 month
8. Prepare a summary of studies and suggestions for further action on the theme “Abolition of laws which impose the death penalty” as proposed in the 2nd National Human Rights Plan, for discussion by the Rights and Liberties Protection Department. 1 month

We welcome this concrete initiative which we will support in every way possible.
However, we are troubled that the collection of opinion throughout the country is not preceded or accompanied by a campaign to inform public opinion. The Thai public are unaware of progress made elsewhere and changing world wide choices on the death penalty. There is danger that uninformed opinion may win the day. There is also a glaring lack of reference to political leadership which has been essential to achieve abolition in every country in the world.
We are also worried by interest shown in the "highest sanction" which might replace the death penalty. This is surely "life sentence, without parole". Such a sanction is only another form of the death penalty, and just as unacceptable. We are proposing a maximum sanction equivalent to that available to the International Criminal Court, a maximum sentence of 30 years, or, in exceptional circumstances, a life sentence. Both, however, would allow for parole. Consideration for parole in case of a life sentence would begin after 25 years.

Death Row Thailand - empty!

2011-11-16T18:16:00.006+07:00

Male prisoners condemned to death are detained in Bang Kwang prison, in segregated areas of Buildings 5 and 7, which for want of another name is often referred to as Death Row, even if the areas do not have a topological similarity or penitentiary identity with those in the US,home of death rows. Women prisoners condemned to death are held in the Women's Central Prison, Ladphrao, and are not segregated at all from other women prisoners. However, relatives know exactly where they are and when they may be visited. Until Bangkok was flooded. First, it was reported that 600 prisoners had been moved from the flooded area of Bang Kwang in 17 buses, to be distributed in prisons elsewhere in the country. Now, we are told that Bang Kwang, this massive old high security prison, has been emptied of all prisoners, and its prisoners are being held in unknown locations. This is no small matter, Bang Kwang is already an overcrowded prison, with 4,191 prisoners, 676 of them condemned to death and permanently shackled. Where are they? The website of the Corrections Department has provided a phone number and an email address to make inquiries during the flood emergency. Emails remain unanswered and the telephone rings without response. These 676 people are already vulnerable and under severe stress. They desperately need the support of relatives, lawyers, and others who relate to them. The feeling of being out of sight in unknown locations must be especially traumatic. One could quote all kinds of rules of prison practice requiring relatives to be notified of the place of imprisonment, but this crisis is beyond rules. There is a grave injustice in moving prisoners en mass to unknown locations and letting the days pass with no news release of what is happening to them.
In fact, the treatment of prisoners is not very different from the treatment of ordinary citizens throughout the country. God-like decisions are made on which areas will be flooded, which dams will release water, which water gates will open or close, when and where mysteriously planned walls of sandbags will rise and fall, without explanation to those who suffer the consequences. But, at least, the public fight back, ask questions, act against the flood barriers in their utter frustration.
Prisoners are treated as non-persons with no rights, chained, and restrained against every norm of human dignity.
Women prisoners live in even more inhumane conditions.
Where are they? Thai prisons are already among the most crowded in the world; undoubtedly prisoners are being forced into even more intolerable conditions. Are they receiving food and water? One does not dare to ask whether they receive adequate food and water, as these are hardly available to the ordinary citizen in the flooded areas.
What is happening? Let the prisoners telephone their relatives, friends, and supporters. Or at least make a news release on the issue.

Death Penalty and Thailand's Universal Periodic Review

2011-10-07T22:09:00.006+07:00

I have been analyzing the references to the death penalty in the Thai UPR process, which took place on 5th October in the headquarters of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. In all ten countries raised the issue:
France: moratorium + abolition. good basic reference
Nicaragua: abolition, even for grave crimes
Canada: passing reference only
Slovakia: moratorium + abolition + prison conditions. excellent
Turkey: amazing. reference to human rights plan and the issue of death penalty for drugs
Switzerland: good basic reference
Argentina: good basic reference
Hungary: best reference, mention of human rights plan, abolition, and application of death penalty to non-violent crimes
UK: Advance question on reference to death penalty in 2nd National Human Rights Plan and on 2nd OP of ICCP
Czech Republic: Advance question on 2nd OP of ICCPR

Glaring absence of Netherlands who financed UCL projects against death penalty.
Surprisingly strong support from Slovakia, Turkey, and Hungary.

Letter to US Ambassasor in Thailand

2011-10-05T11:45:00.001+07:00

October 4, 2011 11:33 am, Nation Newspaper
On September 21, in Jackson, Georgia, the 42-year-old Afro-American Troy Davis was put to death.

The execution of Davis has shocked the world. You may reply that the execution was "prescribed by law and after due process". This is no longer a sufficient reply. The great majority of members of the world organisation you helped found already formally request a moratorium on such actions. International law continues to require ever more narrow interpretation of the phrase "most serious crimes" of Article 6.2, edging closer to an outright rejection of capital punishment.

"Any man's death diminishes me," wrote John Donne. Personally, I felt the diminishment. All capital punishment is abhorrent. The executioners speak with contempt of the "weaklings" who cannot stomach judicial killing. In fact it is the strong who object, and do not just turn away with a tear in the eye.

The reason that the death penalty is a necessary deterrent has long been shown to be a falsehood. The arguments are well known. One must counter that the state, or any human agent, does not have the authority to deprive anyone of life. It is thus written in the highest rule of life, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

You may respond further that it is the duty of an ambassador to uphold the laws of the state she represents. I think not. The death penalty is a matter of conscience, and no state may impose it on any of us. You lived in the Philippines at the time that the death penalty there was abolished. For one reason or another you may not risk a personal opinion on the issue, but at least you may report the revulsion felt throughout the world to the execution of Troy Davis. He spent 20 years on the ill-named "death row". We can have no real understanding of the horror of such an experience. I can guess a little from conversations with the condemned in Bang Kwang prison. Madame Ambassador, you know the French language; doubtless you have read in its emotive original Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamne by Victor Hugo. You may be familiar with the writings of Robert Badinter, who visited his clients, the last men to be executed in France, every day between their condemnation and execution. In response to the news of the execution of Troy Davis he spoke of: a judicial assassination; a stain on US history; a defeat for humanity

A man has been kept on death row for 20 years; a punishment considered cruel, inhumane and degrading by the European Court of Human Rights. As one of the founding members of the UN and as a permanent member of the Security Council, the US has an exceptional responsibility to this body. I ask whether it is appropriate that your country has declined to accept the call for a moratorium on the death penalty, first passed by majority vote on December 8, 2007 and since then twice repeated with an increased majority.

I am aware that your country claims to follow the letter of the law in retaining the "right" to capital punishment, by adding to Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sotto voce, the phrase rejected by the General Assembly of 1948, "except in cases prescribed by law and after due process". Eleanor Roosevelt urged the rejection of this amendment. More explicitly, your country claims the justification allowed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 6.2, "sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime".

But we are no longer in 1948, nor even 1966, the date of the International Covenant referred to. In 1966, Article 6.6 indicated that the allowance of Section 6.2 was a temporary measure, allowing time to adapt to the full requirement of abolition: "6.6 … Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment by a State Party to the present Covenant".

In 2011, attitudes to the death penalty have greatly changed. In his report to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN secretary-general points out that, "About 140 of the 192 state members of the United Nations are believed to have abolished the death penalty or introduced a moratorium either legally, or in practice."

When we consider details of this case, the story becomes worse.

In 1991 Troy Davis was condemned to death for the murder of a white policeman in 1989. There was no physical evidence that he committed the crime, nor was the weapon ever produced. His condemnation followed the evidence of 9 witnesses who identified him as the murderer. Seven of those witnesses later retracted their evidence, some saying that their evidence was given under pressure of police persuasion. The identification parade was carried out in a way which is no longer tolerated; before seeing the parade, witnesses had been shown a picture of Troy Davis, and told that this was the man they were expected to identify. The identification parade is now known to be a very flawed process.

The standard of evidence in the trial was far short of the standards for capital punishment. You will be aware that the standard of evidence in cases involving the death penalty is far more demanding than is the case in other criminal trials. In all probability Troy Davis was innocent.

The execution was delayed for four hours until the Supreme Court ordered the lethal injection to proceed. Is there another Victor Hugo, who can decode for us this ultimate inhumanity? President Obama declined to intervene. Before he died, Troy Davis declared that the movement to abolish the death penalty will go on. Indeed it will, Troy. This case has shocked many, and may well prove decisive in leading to abolition. One may also truly pity the wife of the slain policeman who declared her satisfaction that vengeance was achieved.

This letter is addressed to Your Excellency ahead of October 10, World Day for Abolition of the Death Penalty. One ambassador in Thailand has submitted her plea to the government of Thailand to proceed with abolition. Other ambassadors have assured me that they avail of every opportunity to make the same submission to the Royal Thai Government. Perhaps Your Excellency can find some diplomatic way to express support for an initiative parallel to that taken in the Philippines.

Danthong Breen is chairman of the Union for Civil Liberty.
10 1Email0

Troy Davis Executed

2011-09-22T17:22:00.006+07:00

On 21st September 2011, at 23h08, in Jackson, Georgia, the 42 year old Afro-American, Troy Davis, was put to death.
In 1991 he was condemned to death for the murder of a white policeman in 1989. There was no physical evidence that he had committed the crime, nor was the weapon ever produced. His condemnation followed the evidence of 9 witnesses who identified him as the murderer. 7 of these witnesses later retracted their evidence, some of them saying that their evidence was given in response to police persuasion. The identification parade was carried out in a way which is no longer tolerated; before seeing the parade, the witnesses had been shown a picture of Troy Davis, and told that this was the man they were expected to identify. Study of witness by identification parade is now known to be a very flawed process.
The standard of evidence in the trial is far short of the standards for capital punishment. In all probability Troy Davis is innocent.
Execution was delayed for four hours until the Supreme Court ordered the lethal injection to proceed. President Obama declined to intervene.
Before he died, Troy Davis declared that the movement to abolish the death penalty will go on. Indeed it will, Troy. This case has shocked many, and may well prove decisive in leading to abolition. In passing, one may pity the wife of the slain policeman who declares her satisfaction that vengeance is achieved.

Comment by Robert Badinter who abolished the death penalty in France
- a judicial assassination
- a stain on US history
- a defeat for humanity
A man has been kept on death row for 20 years; a punishment considered cruel, inhumane, and degrading by the European Court of Human Rights

Another lesson for Thailand

2011-09-17T22:28:00.006+07:00

Once again an illustration of the ill-practice of Thai officialdom in taking US practice on the death penalty as a model.
A stay of execution has been granted to Duane Buck just hours before he was to be put to death in Texas on Thursday.
Mr. Buck, an African-American, was convicted of murder in 1997. At the sentencing, a psychologist who was an expert witness said “yes” when asked if “the race factor, black,” increased the chances that Mr. Buck would again do something dangerous.
In Texas, this is a pivotal question: if the state does not prove “future danger” beyond reasonable doubt, it cannot sentence a convict to death. The prosecution got the answer it wanted. The jury sentenced Mr. Buck to death.
"The gross racism in Mr. Buck’s case is proof again that the death penalty is cruel and unusual because it is arbitrary and discriminatory, as well as barbaric, and must be abolished." (From Editorial, NYT, 17th September 2011)

Whispers and Rumours

2011-09-08T19:02:00.002+07:00

In his annual report on the death penalty Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General, takes note of the recommendations to Retentionist countries, made on the occasion of their Universal Peer Review (UPR) before the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Thailand will undergo such a review on 5th October of this year and its death penalty practice is certain to be raised. There will be two issues, one on continued use of the death penalty, the other on shackling and other abuses of detention for those on death row. Regarding the death penalty an informant in the Rights and Liberties Protection Department of the Ministry of Justice reveals that they have already been instructed to prepare legislation for abolition. Meanwhile the death row of Bang Kwang prison is alive with rumour that shackling will be abolished. If these two tendencies are realised, we can expect Thailand to take the place of honour in next year’s report on the death penalty to the Human Rights Council.

Slaugther in Norway and the Death Penalty: Thai reaction

2011-07-26T20:26:00.004+07:00

สังหารหมู่ในนอรเวย์ กับการไม่ลงโทษประหารชีวิต

สมศรี หาญอนันทสุข
สมาชิก แอมเนสตี้ อินเตอร์เนชั่นแนล ประเทศไทย

การละเบิดที่กรุงออสโล และการสังหารหมู่อย่างโหดเหี้ยมที่เกาะอูโทยาในวันที่ 22 กรกฏาคม ที่ผ่านมา เป็นข่าวสะเทือนขวัญไปทั่วโลก และเป็นเหตุการณ์ที่ยอมรับกันไม่ได้ ไม่ว่าใครจะอยู่เบื้องหลังการกระทำของชายคนร้ายวัย 32 ปี หรือจะมีกี่คนที่ร่วมมือในการโจมตีครั้งนี้ เหตุการณ์ดังกล่าวหากเกิดขึ้นในประเทศไทย และหากชายผู้นี้เป็นคนไทยที่ก่อคดี แล้วถูกจับได้ในเมืองไทย คงถูกศาลเตี้ยรุมประชาทัณฑ์ จนครอบครัวต้องย้ายบ้านหนีไปแล้ว

คนไทยที่อ่านหรือดูข่าวนี้ คงตกใจไม่แพ้ชาวต่างชาติ ซึ่งกำลังติดตามอย่างใจจดใจจ่อเพราะอยากจะรู้ว่าอะไรที่ทำให้คทาชายชาวนอรเวย์ผู้นี้ต้องลงมือวางระเบิด ยิงสังหารหมู่ อย่างเลือดเย็นมากๆ ที่ผ่านมาสื่อมวลชนไทยหลายแขนงวิพากษ์วิจารณ์ และบางคนลุ้นให้มีการลงโทษประหารชีวิต รวมทั้งสื่อที่ไร้คุณภาพบางแขนง เชื่อว่าประเทศนอรเวย์จะลงโทษคนคนนี้ดังเช่นที่หลายประเทศ (รวมถึงประเทศไทย) มีแนวโน้มจะกระทำกัน ที่หนักไปกว่านั้นผู้เขียนได้ฟังผู้อ่านข่าวสองท่านเมื่อวันอาทิตย์ที่ผ่านมาซึ่งพูดอย่างสะใจว่า ประเทศนอรเวย์ควรจะประหารชีวิตชายผู้นี้และสัปให้เป็นชิ้นๆ ฟังแล้วก็อดรู้สึกอเน็จอนาจใจกับเรื่องทั้งสองเรื่องไม่ได้ ก็คือเรื่องการสังหารหมู่ที่นอรเวย์ และทัศนคติของสื่อมวลชนไทยที่ซาดิสย์ไม่แพ้กัน

มันน่าสนใจว่า ผู้อ่านข่าว และคนไทยจำนวนมากไม่ทราบเลยว่าประเทศในยุโรปเขาไม่มีการลงโทษแบบนี้นานแล้ว โดยเฉพาะสมาชิก 27 ประเทศของสหภาพยุโรป (EU) ซึ่งกำหนดเป็นกฏระเบียบเลยว่าหากประเทศใด ยังมีการลงโทษประหารชีวิตอยู่ ก็จะเป็นสมาชิกไม่ได้

อย่างไรก็ตาม สำหรับประเทศนอรเวย์ (และสวิสเซอแลนด์) แม้จะไม่ได้เป็นสมาชิกสหภาพยุโรป แต่ก็ได้ปฏิบัติเช่นเดียวกับประเทศอื่นในแถบเดียวกัน และรัฐบาลทุกชุดของประเทศเขาก็ไม่เห็นด้วยกับการลงโทษที่ป่าเถื่อนทุกรูปแบบ เขาจึงออกกฏหมายยกเลิกโทษประหารฯให้นักโทษธรรมดาตั้งแต่ปี 2448 (คศ. 1905) หรือร้อยกว่าปีที่แล้วและยกเลิกคดีอาญาทุกคดีในปี 2522 อีกทั้งยังลงนามในปฏิญญาและอนุสัญญาหลักๆ ถึง 14 ฉบับ หรือเกือบทั้งหมดที่ระบุไว้ในรายงานของ แอมเนสตี้ อินเตอร์เนชั่นแนล

หากมองเรื่องการโจมตีด้วยระเบิดที่กรุงออสโลและที่เกาะอุโทยา จากตรรกะธรรมดาๆ ต้องยอมรับว่าเป็นเรื่องน่าสพึงกลัว และต้องลงโทษค้นร้ายที่เกี่ยวข้องทุกคน ไม่มีข้อยกเว้น แต่จะลงโทษอย่างไร หากถามรัฐบาลของประเทศเขาและประชาชนทั่วไปในนอรเวย์ว่า เรื่องนี้น่าจะทำให้รัฐสภาของเขานำโทษประหารชีวิตกลับมาใช้เพื่อป้องปรามการกระทำที่อาจจะเกิดขึ้นอีกในอนาคต หรือไม่ อย่างไร

ผู้เขียนขอถือวิสาสะ ยืนยันแทนคนนอรเวย์ได้เลยว่า รัฐบาลและประชาชนนอรเวย์เขาเลิกคิดถึงการลงโทษแบบตาต่อตา ฟันต่อฟัน และข้ามพ้นการลงโทษเก่าๆเช่นนี้ไปไกลเกินกว่าที่เราคิดมากแล้ว ทั้งนี้เป็นเพราะเขามีความศิวิไลย์มากกว่าเรา และเขาไม่เห็นว่ามีหลักประกันอะไรที่ โทษประหารชีวิตจะช่วยยับยั้งไม่ให้ผู้กระทำผิดผู้นี้ คิดวางระเบิด และสาดกระสุนใส่บรรดาเยาวชนเหล่านั้น เพราะผู้ที่คิดทำอะไรได้ถึงขนาดนี้ส่วนใหญ่ ไม่กลัวการถูกประหารฯอยู่แล้ว บางคนถึงขนาดติดระเบิดพลีชีพวิ่งไปยังเป้าหมาย เพื่อตายพร้อมๆกันโดยไม่ต้องคอยโทษประหารด้วยซ้ำไป

ดังนั้นโทษแบบนี้จะมีความหมายอะไร มีไปก็คอยแต่จะสร้างภาพพจน์ไม่ดีให้กับประเทศชาติ สู้เรามาคิดใหม่ ตรากฏหมายใหม่ ให้ลงโทษตลอดชีวิตดีกว่า เพื่อให้ผู้ที่กระทำผิดในลักษณะนี้มีชีวิตอยู่ในคุกให้เราได้ศึกษาถึงต้นเหตุปัจจัยที่ทำให้เขาคิด วางแผน และลงมือกระทำการนั้น ไม่ว่าสาเหตุจอมาจากการเล่นเกมส์คอมพิวเตอร์มากไป หรือมีพฤติกรรมเรียนแบบจากที่ไหน หรือเป็นความเชื่อทางศาสนา ลัทธิที่สุดโต่ง หรือเป็นผู้ก่อการร้าย หรือเป็นปัญหาทางจิตล้วนๆ ที่อาจจะเกิดขึ้นอีกกับสมาชิกของอีกหลายครอบครัวในอนาคตก็ได้

จึงอยากจะเตือนสติคนไทยหลายคนว่า เมื่อเราจะกำจัดความรุนแรงด้วยการใช้วิธีที่รุนแรง มันอาจจะกำจัดคนๆนั้นด้วยการเพิ่มคนตายให้กับประเทศนอรเวย์อีกหนึ่งคน แต่ความรุนแรงที่เสริมเพิ่มเข้าไปนั้น มันจะฝังลึกในจิตใต้สำนึกผู้คนทั่วไปมากกว่าเก่าหรือเปล่า หรือสู้เรานำกรณีความรุนแรงนี้มาเป็นประโยชน์ศึกษาให้ถึงต้นเหตุ เพื่อนำผลการศึกษามาเฝ้าระวัง ป้องกันคนต่อๆไปไม่ให้มีโอกาสกระทำการเช่นนี้ จะดีกว่าหรือไม่

Also
H.E. Nordgaard Katja,
Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway
Bangkok, Thailand

It seems to me that many people from inside and outside the country are calling for bringing back death penalty to Norwegian society after the bombing and shooting by Anders Behring Breivik. I hope your respected government will not consider capital punishment for the final solution and will be able to clam down the anger of the people.

I understand that this incident has caused a big tragedy (76 dead) which no one can accept it but death penalty is not an ideal solution for any problem. Norway is a developed country, high moral and abolished DP since 1905. It is a model of HR and Peace and it is well respect place for Nobel prize for the world.

With our awareness and concern, there are many ways of punishment to assure security and confidence for people, ie. extending the penalty period from 21 years to be more years, promulgate a new law for life sentence for heinous crime (not for every cases) or consider it case by case, etc.

Bringing back DP to the Kingdom of Norway will be a big shaking for our international norm and undermine our human right principle against DP.

We join the sorrow of victims' relatives and the grief of all people and God bless you all.

Somsri Hananuntasuk
Member of AI Thailand
ED of ANFREL

UPR Triumvirate

2011-07-19T14:16:00.008+07:00

It bodes ill for progress towards abolition of the death penalty in Thailand that the three countries chosen to respond to Thailand's human rights report on October 5th, the UPR "triumvirate" are countries which themselves retain the death penalty.

Cuba, commuted the death sentences of the remaining 3 death row inmates in 2010. The last execution was carried out in 2003.
In Indonesia, 98 people remained under sentence of death at year end 2010. New death sentences that year totaled 7 and 10 persons were executed in 2008
In Nigeria the number on death row is approximately 824, and there were 151 new death sentences last year. The last execution was in 2006.

Figures for Thailand are: prisoners on death row 759; death sentences in 2010,53; most recent executions, 2 persons in 2008.
In summary, Cuba is very low on the list of retentionist countries, while Indonesia, Nigeria, and Thailand are comparable middle level executioners. The only hope of strong recommendation to abolish the death penalty rests with interventions from countries attending the UPR.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

2011-07-16T20:35:00.003+07:00

One must not shuffle about with the death penalty. In 2009, the Ministry of Justice published a second Human Rights Plan for the years 2009 to 2013. In section 3.1 of the plan we are informed that Parliament has discussed the death penalty, agreeing to abolish the penalty and to replace it with life imprisonment. The document originates from the Ministry of Justice. In an annex to the plan, government ministries and departments, respond to the plan, accepting its proposals. Among the signatories are Mr. Kasit Phirom, Minister of Foreign Affairs. On October 5th, Thailand is scheduled to present itself for a Universal Peer Review (UPR) of its human rights record before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at present displays a report which the Royal Thai Government will present at the Review. Strangely, there is no mention of abolition of the death penalty. It is impossible that this is some careless omission. In its previous appearance before the UN Human Rights Council the Government was advised that current interpretation of international law recommends abolition. Since that time the UN General Assembly has voted three times in favour of a Moratorium on executions worldwide to be accompanied by national reflection on abolition.
What is the Government doing? Have they reversed the decision in favour of abolition? Ominously, regarding the death penalty, the UPR submission speaks of the importance of paying attention to public opinion throughout the country. By this statement, it appears that the Government is falling back on an old cliche, that abolition must wait a majority in public opinion. As the government, now three years into the human rights plan, has made no effort to introduce a public debate or to present evidence for an informed discussion, we can only assume that it intends yet again to quote the uninformed opinion of a majority to block progress on abolition. This is a failure in moral leadership, and a betrayal of the stand taken in the 2nd human rights plan. Is this a decision of the Ministry of Justice? By what right do they reject the plan and the signatories who accepted its proposal? Will they try to justify this stand in Geneva in the coming October, or hope that it will quietly pass unnoticed?

Protest against the death penalty for homosexuality

2011-06-06T11:32:00.004+07:00

Death Penalty Thailand on Saturday 25th June joins in world rejection of the death penalty for homosexuality.

Nine countries still enforce the death penalty against homosexuals:
Afghanistan, Saudia Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Soudan, Yémen.

Allah is All-merciful

Conference on Prison Conditions in Thailand

2011-06-04T20:03:00.004+07:00

As the possibility arises that Thailand will replace the death penalty with life imprisonment, we turn our attention to conditions of long term imprisonment. On 31st May UCL organised an afternoon conference on prison conditions in Thailand. What follows is a BBC report on the conference.
Prisoners in Thailand kept 'shackled and cramped'
By Vaudine England BBC News, Bangkok
An independent rights group in Thailand, the Union for Civil Liberties, has opened a campaign to improve conditions in Thailand's jails. It has issued a report on prisons which highlights overcrowding, the use of shackles and the lack of medical care. The group has campaigned against the death penalty and praises the government's promise to commute death sentences to life imprisonment.
That makes improving prison conditions even more important, it says.
Thailand's prisons are built to hold about 100,000 people - but according to the government's own figures, they are holding more than twice that number.
As a result, the conditions, says the Union for Civil Liberties, are horrendous.
People have to sleep in tight rows on hard floors. In these sleeping cells, each prisoner has an average of one square metre - as opposed to the four to six square metres described as the minimum by the Council of Europe.
Danthong Breen, chairman of the union, says the overcrowding is shocking.
"In the women's prison it's particularly bad. You have 200 women in a single cell," he told the BBC. "If one of them has to get up at night to go to the toilet, they all shift a bit and when she comes back the space is gone and she has to stand up all night.
"The level of crowding is inhuman and inhumane."
The other horror, he says, is the widespread use of shackles.
These are welded on to the ankles of long-term prisoners and are not removed, even during illness, until the sentence is served.
The United Nations has criticised the practice. The Thai foreign ministry has promised to end it. The constitutional court ruled the practice was wrong.
But the reality of the over-crowding and a ratio of warders to prisoners of about one to 45, makes the practice hard to stamp out.
Prisoners with money are able to improve every aspect of their life behind bars, Mr Breen says. But a lack of government money is holding back investment in new facilities and extra staff.
The civil liberties group suggests Thailand could look more at using non-custodial sentences. It estimates at least half of those jailed are being held for drugs offences.
And it hopes that whatever government emerges from elections next month, the promise to no longer impose the death penalty is kept.

Not revenge, but forgiveness is sweet

2011-06-04T19:55:00.002+07:00

Victim of 9/11 hate crime fights for attacker's life
Days after the 9/11 terror attacks, 31-year old laborer Mark Stroman went on a shooting spree in the Dallas area. In a drug-fueled mission of revenge, he killed two South Asian immigrants and shot another — Rais Bhuiyan — in the face at close range, blinding him in one eye.
Shortly after his arrest, Stroman boasted of his role as "Arab Slayer."
Now, as Stroman faces imminent execution in Texas, an unlikely champion is fighting to save his life: Bhuiyan, who spent years recovering from the wounds he suffered in the attack.
"I've had many years to grow spiritually," said Bhuiyan, a Muslim who immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh and now works as technology professional in Dallas. "I'm trying to do my best not to allow the loss of another human life. I'll knock on every door possible."Bhuiyan began collecting signatures late last year on a petition asking the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Stroman's death penalty sentence to life in prison without parole through his website World without Hate.
Among those supporting his cause are some relatives of the two victims who were killed.
'Unprecedented' The odds are stacked against Stroman, 41, who is held in the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, where he is scheduled to be executed on July 20.
The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles holds the power to recommend a commutation to the governor, but it has only done so in one death penalty case since December 2000, when the current Gov. Rick Perry took office. That recommendation was denied by Perry.
By Kari Huus, Canada msn news June 3

Not in Our Name: Relatives of Victims on Death Penalty

2011-05-01T18:14:00.004+07:00

One of the arguments most often quoted in support of the death penalty, in Thailand as elsewhere, is that it is necessary to give justice to relatives of the victims of capital crime. Increasingly these relatives are denying that capital punishment is in their interest, as the following newspaper account relates:

"As the country has increasingly turned against capital punishment as barbaric and horrifyingly prone to legal abuses, defenders are pointing to the emotional needs of the families of murder victims — “co-victims” to those who study crime — as justification. Many family members, however, have said they want no part of that.

When New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007 and New Mexico did in 2009, each did so with the support of co-victims. In Connecticut, the Legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee has now approved a bill that would repeal that state’s death penalty, again with the support of victims’ families.

The family members say that rather than providing emotional closure, the long appeals process in death penalty cases is actually prolonging their suffering. They also say it wastes money and unjustifiably elevates some murders above others in importance. In an open letter to the Connecticut Legislature, relatives of murder victims — 76 parents, children and others — wrote that “the death penalty, rather than preventing violence, only perpetuates it and inflicts further pain on survivors.” New York Times, 30th April 2011

Imprisonment for life without parole

2011-04-21T18:51:00.004+07:00

As Thailand moves to abolish the death penalty, there are fears that, following US example, it will replace death by imprisonment for life without parole. The following leads one to doubt the wisdom of imitating US practice:

In the United States, dozens of 13- and 14-year-old children have been sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole after being prosecuted as adults. While the United States Supreme Court recently declared in Roper v. Simmons that death by execution is unconstitutional for juveniles, young children continue to be sentenced to imprisonment until death with very little scrutiny or review. A study by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) has documented 73 cases where children 13 and 14 years of age have been condemned to death in prison. Almost all of these kids currently lack legal representation and in most of these cases the propriety and constitutionality of their extreme sentences have never been reviewed.
Most of the sentences imposed on these children were mandatory: the court could not give any consideration to the child’s age or life history. Some of the children were charged with crimes that do not involve homicide or even injury; many were convicted for offenses where older teenagers or adults were involved and primarily responsible for the crime; nearly two-thirds are children of color.

Death Penalty in Thailand

2011-04-11T17:33:00.003+07:00

Current Death penalty Statistics

For all crimes
Sex. Appeal Court. Supreme Court... Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.....432.............170......................74............................676
Female….46..............24.......................13.............................83
Total....478.............194.......................87...........................759

For drug related crimes
Sex....Appeal Court....Supreme Court....Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.......183..............42......................59.........................284
Female.....55...............1.......................12..........................69
Total.......220..............62......................71........................353

For crimes of homicide and others
Sex....Appeal Court....Supreme Court....Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.......249..............128......................15.......................356
Female…....9.................4........................1........................14
Total......258..............132......................16.......................406

Source: Department of Corrections, Bangkok, 30th March 2011

In 2010 the total number of those under sentence of death numbered 708. The increase to 759 is consistent with the 53 reported death sentences in the last year.

Execution of three Filipinos on drug charges in China

2011-04-02T11:43:00.004+07:00

On Wednesday 30th March 2011, three Filipinos, Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, aged 32; Elizabeth Batain, aged 38, and Ramon Credo, aged 42 were executed by lethal injection in China. They were charged with smuggling heroin weighing 4 to 6 kilos into the country. By Chinese law the smuggling of a quantity exceeding 50 grams is subject to the death penalty.
Pleas for clemency made by the President of the Philippines were rejected by Chinese authorities.
In a statement made by a spokesperson of the Chinese government:
"In China, our judicial authorities handled the case independently and we grant equal treatment to foreign drug traffickers. The involved individuals rights and treatment are ensured and safeguarded according to the law. China has fulfilled its international obligations in the process.”
This is not so. In international law the death penalty may be inflicted only for the most serious crimes which is interpreted as intentional homicide. The UN Human Rights Council has insisted that drug related crimes do not come under the ambit of “most serious crimes”.
China must not deny the experience of most countries in the world, nor the shared moral sense of the majority in rejecting the death penalty

The three executed were drug mules recruited by foreign drug syndicates preying on jobless Filipinos, not professional drug dealers. In one of the cases there is doubt that the carrier was aware of the nature of the carried package. They appear to have been first time offenders.
They carried the drugs through an ineffective surveillance in Manila International Airport, a process which must be investigated.

The three condemned Filipinos were allowed to meet with their families for one hour before execution. One of the three was unaware that the visit was a prelude to her execution, and her family tried to hide from her the significance of their visit.

The drug trade is the largest crime problem in the world and cannot be solved by the death penalty. The Chinese government should study the case of Hong Kong where the death penalty has not been used in 40 years and where the drug problem is no different than in the comparable city of Singapore, which surpasses even China in its rate of execution per population unit (Evidence may be found on an earlier posting on this blog: See Archives; December 2008)

Many other Filipinos are under death sentence in China and elsewhere. The death penalty has been abolished in the Philippines for the last nine years.
13 Thai women are awaiting execution on drug charges in China

Thailand dissociates itself from countries which insist on their right to use the death penalty

2011-03-23T09:50:00.006+07:00

The representative of Egypt in the United Nations General Assembly has presented on 10th March the "right" of a group of countries to retain the death penalty.

Thailand is no longer amongst this group, a choice consistent with its proclaimed decision to abolish the death penalty, in respect of the right to life of all human beings

"(d) Capital punishment has often been characterized by some as a human
rights issue in the context of the right to life of the convicted prisoner. However, it is first and foremost an issue of the criminal justice system and an important deterring element vis-à-vis the most serious crimes. It must therefore be viewed from a much broader perspective and weighed against the rights of the victims and the right of the community to live in peace and security;
(e) Every State has an inalienable right to choose its political, economic,
social, cultural, legal and criminal justice systems, without interference in any form by another State. Furthermore, the purposes and principles of the Charter of the
United Nations, in particular, Article 2, paragraph 7, clearly stipulates that nothing in the Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State. Accordingly, the question of whether to retain or abolish the death penalty, and the types of crimes for which the death penalty is applied, should be determined by each State, taking fully into account the sentiments of its own people, state of crime and criminal policy. On this question, it is improper to attempt to create a universal decision or to prescribe to Member States actions that fall within their domestic jurisdiction, or attempt to change, by way of a General Assembly resolution, the stipulations under international law that were reached through a comprehensive negotiation process;
(f) Some Member States have voluntarily decided to abolish the death
penalty, whereas others have chosen to apply a moratorium on executions.
Meanwhile, many Member States also retain the death penalty in their legislations.
All Member States are acting in compliance with their international obligations.
Each Member State has decided freely, in accordance with its own sovereign right
established by the Charter, to determine the path that corresponds to its own social,
cultural and legal needs, in order to maintain social security, order and peace. No
Member State has the right to impose its standpoint on others.
The permanent missions to the United Nations listed below wish to request the
circulation of the present note verbale as a document of the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly.
New York, 11 March 2011
1. Afghanistan
2. Antigua and Barbuda
3. Bahamas
4. Bahrain
5. Bangladesh
6. Barbados
7. Botswana
8. Brunei Darussalam
9. Central African Republic
10. Chad
11. China
12. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
13. Democratic Republic of the Congo
14. Dominica
15. Egypt
16. Equatorial Guinea
17. Eritrea
18. Ethiopia
19. Grenada
20. Guinea
21. Guyana
22. Indonesia
A/65/779
11-26164 5
23. Islamic Republic of Iran
24. Iraq
25. Jamaica
26. Kuwait
27. Lao People’s Democratic Republic
28. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
29. Malaysia
30. Myanmar
31. Niger
32. Nigeria
33. Oman
34. Pakistan
35. Papua New Guinea
36. Qatar
37. Saint Kitts and Nevis
38. Saint Lucia
39. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
40. Saudi Arabia
41. Sierra Leone
42. Singapore
43. Solomon Islands
44. Somalia
45. Sudan
46. Swaziland
47. Syrian Arab Republic
48. Tonga
49. Trinidad and Tobago
50. Uganda
51. United Arab Emirates
52. Yemen
53. Zimbabwe

One more State in US abandons death penalty

2011-03-10T08:08:00.004+07:00

Governor Pat Quinn signed into law on Wednesday 9th March 2011 legislation abolishing capital punishment in the State of Illinois, 16th State in the US to stop the death penalty. It seems that change in US must come one state at a time, such is the tenacity of the old way of vengence.
While signing the law, Quinn said: "Our system of imposing the death penalty is inherently flawed."
“It's not possible to create a perfect, mistake-free death penalty system."

Death Penalty persists in Asia

2011-03-07T07:44:00.005+07:00

ADPAN REGRETS YET MORE EXECUTIONS IN TAIWAN

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) says the latest executions of five men in Taiwan on 4 March 2011 calls into question the Taiwan government's stated intention to abolish the death penalty.

This brings the number of executions to nine since last year and goes against the global trend towards abolition.

The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP), who are members of ADPAN, pointed out today that, "carrying out any executions at this point in time would violate both domestic and international law." Taiwan has legally committed itself to the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 2009, which includes the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence, and incorporated it into domestic law the same year.

The executions today of Wang Chih-huang, Wang Kuo-hua, Chuang Tien-chu, Kuan Chung-yen and Chong De-shu were carried out by shooting. None of the family members were informed before the executions took place.

Bizarre reasoning of Taiwan spokesmen.
Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) said on Friday that the latest executions were of people “who had committed atrocious crimes and who had killed between three and five people.”
He added that the five people executed had exhausted all possible legal avenues and “there were no reasons not to execute them. We had to deal with them according to the law.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said he understood the dilemma of the government because of international pressure and the backlash from local civic groups, but said that if the government does not carry out executions, it will leave a bad impression on society and that it will not be fair for those on death row.
Wu expressed hope that the ministry would continue to execute death-row inmates and “complete the execution of all inmates this year.”
Entertainer Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰), whose daughter was murdered in 1997, said: “It is a good thing to execute them, because it helps to solve a lot of problems.”
“Isn’t it good for the government to save the money used to incarcerate them to take care of the underprivileged?” Pai asked.
James Lee (李光章), director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs Lee said Taiwan has been trying to make European countries understand that the executions were carried out according to the law, as Taiwan followed the rule of law.
As Taiwan is a country that respects human rights, it has been working toward reducing the use of capital punishment before a consensus is reached on revising the laws to eliminate the death penalty, he added.

Appalling, but wonderful

2011-03-06T16:30:00.003+07:00

Giving Life After Death Row
By CHRISTIAN LONGO
Published:NYT, March 5, 2011
EIGHT years ago I was sentenced to death for the murders of my wife and three children. I am guilty. I once thought that I could fool others into believing this was not true. Failing that, I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter. But gradually, the enormity of what I did seeped in; that was followed by remorse and then a wish to make amends.
I spend 22 hours a day locked in a 6 foot by 8 foot box on Oregon’s death row. There is no way to atone for my crimes, but I believe that a profound benefit to society can come from my circumstances. I have asked to end my remaining appeals, and then donate my organs after my execution to those who need them. But my request has been rejected by the prison authorities.
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, there are more than 110,000 Americans on organ waiting lists. Around 19 of them die each day. There are more than 3,000 prisoners on death row in the United States, and just one inmate could save up to eight lives by donating a healthy heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and other transplantable tissues.
There is no law barring inmates condemned to death in the United States from donating their organs, but I haven’t found any prisons that allow it. The main explanation is that Oregon and most other states use a sequence of three drugs for lethal injections that damages the organs. But Ohio and Washington use a larger dose of just one drug, a fast-acting barbiturate that doesn’t destroy organs. If states would switch to a one-drug regimen, inmates’ organs could be saved.
Another common concern is that the organs of prisoners may be tainted by infections, H.I.V. or hepatitis. Though the prison population does have a higher prevalence of such diseases than do non-prisoners, thorough testing can easily determine whether a prisoner’s organs are healthy. These tests would be more reliable than many given to, say, a victim of a car crash who had signed up to be a donor; in the rush to transplant organs after an accident, there is less time for a full risk analysis.
There are also fears about security — that, for example, prisoners will volunteer to donate organs as part of an elaborate escape scheme. But prisoners around the country make hospital trips for medical reasons every day. And in any case, executions have to take place on prison grounds, so the organ removal would take place there as well.
Aside from these logistical and health concerns, prisons have a moral reason for their reluctance to allow inmates to donate. America has a shameful history of using prisoners for medical experiments. In Oregon, for example, from 1963 to 1973, many inmates were paid to “volunteer” for research into the effects of radiation on testicular cells. Some ethicists believe that opening the door to voluntary donations would also open the door to abuse. And others argue that prisoners are simply unable to make a truly voluntary consent.
But when a prisoner initiates a request to donate with absolutely no enticements or pressure to do so, and if the inmate receives the same counseling afforded every prospective donor, there is no question in my mind that valid organ-donation consent can be given.
I am not the only condemned prisoner who wants the right to donate his organs. I have discussed this issue with almost every one of the 35 men on Oregon’s death row, and nearly half of them expressed a wish to have the option of donating should their appeals run out.
I understand the public’s apprehension. And I know that it could look as if what I really want are extra privileges or a reduction in my sentence. After all, in a rare and well-publicized case last December, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi released two sisters who had been sentenced to life in prison so that one could donate a kidney to the other. But I don’t expect to leave this prison alive. I am seeking nothing but the right to determine what happens to my body once the state has carried out its sentence.
If I donated all of my organs today, I could clear nearly 1 percent of my state’s organ waiting list. I am 37 years old and healthy; throwing my organs away after I am executed is nothing but a waste.
And yet the prison authority’s response to my latest appeal to donate was this: “The interests of the public and condemned inmates are best served by denying the petition.”
Many in the public, most inmates, and especially those who are dying for lack of a healthy organ, would certainly disagree.
Christian Longo, a prisoner at Oregon State Penitentiary, is the founder of the organization Gifts of Anatomical Value From Everyone.

Death Sentences in Thailand

2011-02-16T20:27:00.002+07:00

There are 708 prisoners condemned to death in Thailand, two have been executed during the last eight years. The tendency is that death sentences are being commuted to life imprisonment by Appeal Courts. But the overall number of those sentenced is not decreasing. In the last year, 53 death sentences were handed down in Courts of First Hearing, showing that a breath of change has yet to reach the judiciary.
Meanwhile, the Government has declared, in its current five year human rights programme, an intention to abolish the death penalty. So why does the awful torture of living under penalty of death, shackled and in crowded cells, separated from the slight amenities of the general prison population, still go on?

Iran, Asia's second executioner after China

2011-02-16T20:22:00.002+07:00

Iran is considered an Asian country, located on Asia’s Western border. As such it is on ‘The Next Frontier” where the death penalty plague still rages.
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(Paris, 16 February 2011) – Other nations and the UN should speak out against a wave of executions in Iran, the Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi and six human rights organizations said today.
At least 86 people have been executed since the start of 2011, according to information received by the six organizations. At least eight of those executed in January were political prisoners, convicted of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) for participating in demonstrations, or for their alleged links to opposition groups.
The increase in executions follows the entry into force in late December 2010 of an amended anti-narcotics law, drafted by the Expediency Council and approved by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Officials have also vowed to step up enforcement measures against drug trafficking. Sixty-seven of those executed in January had been convicted of drug trafficking. The true number of executions may be even higher, the groups said, as there are credible reports that some executions that are not officially announced are taking place in prisons.
The recent executions also raise fears for the lives of two men, Saeed Malekpour and Vahid Asghari, believed to have been sentenced to death by Revolutionary Courts following separate unfair trials in which they were accused of “spreading corruption on earth.”
Iran executes more people than any country other than China. The hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners currently on death row may include more than 140 who were under the age of 18 at the time they allegedly committed their offence. International law prohibits the execution of persons for offences that they committed while under 18.
In many cases, lawyers of those sentenced to death are informed of their clients’ executions only after they have taken place, despite the legal requirement for 48 hours’ notice.

A Pause in Execution in Singapore

2011-02-09T19:37:00.002+07:00

New Hope for Sentenced Malaysian
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Feb 4, 2011 (IPS) - A young Malaysian’s legal battle to escape the hangman’s noose in Singapore is finding new hope. "He has a 50-50 chance of being spared," Madasamy Ravi, the lawyer appearing for 23-year-old Yong Vui Kong, said in a telephone interview from the city-state.

The 41-year-old lawyer, who traded a lucrative career in corporate law in 2003 to become an outspoken human rights crusader, stepped in to take up Vui Kong’s case shortly after the Malaysian was sentenced to death in December 2009 by a Singaporean court that found him guilty of trafficking 47.27 grams of heroin. Vui Kong was only 19 when arrested in mid-2007 under Singapore’s draconian Misuse of Drugs Act.

The efforts to save Vui Kong won a reprieve mid-January when the Court of Appeal reserved judgment, in what anti-death penalty activists say is the young Malaysian’s last hope. Ravi argued in the court that his client had been deprived of a fair clemency process.

The lengthy appeals process has emboldened Singapore’s small group of anti-death penalty campaigners. "Vui Kong’s case since the sentence has taken a surprisingly long time. It has been dragging on and this, for us, is change from the status quo," says Sinapan Samydorai, a director of regional affairs at the Think Centre, a local, independent human rights lobby. "This is an opportunity to push for change."

Samydorai faces a formidable challenge. During 1991-1999, Singapore recorded 13.57 executions per one million population. Saudi Arabia, with 4.64 executions per one million population, was a distant second, according to a UN Secretary-General’s report assessing capital punishment.

But such numbers are far from conclusive, because the Singapore government has always been "secretive about the number of executions," says Lance Lattig, a South-east Asia researcher at Amnesty International.

"Singapore might or might not be in the first place (today) when it comes to executions per capita," Lattig said in an e-mail interview. "Either way, the government’s secrecy about its record on executions suggests that this is one indicator Singapore isn’t entirely proud of."

In November, 76-year-old Malaysia-based British author Alan Shadrake was sentenced to six weeks in jail for contempt of court and fined 15,400 dollars for the contents of his book: ‘Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice In The Dock’.

Shadrake was arrested in July last year when he visited Singapore to launch his book. The book includes an interview with Darshan Singh, the chief executioner at the city-state’s Changi Prison. Singh reportedly executed about 1,000 men and women from 1959 till he retired in 2006, the book notes.

In at least 11 passages of the book Shadrake questioned the impartiality of the judiciary in making rulings on death penalty cases.

Critics question the rationale of the country forging ahead with a mandatory death penalty for drug traffickers and murderers – while keeping the number of executions hidden.

"They justify executions to deter crime but they don’t publish the details," says Danthong Breen, chairman of the Union of Civil Liberty, Thailand’s oldest human rights organisation. "It is extraordinary. They treat the details of executions as a state secret."

But what is not a secret is the manner in which condemned prisoners meet their death: all hangings take place at dawn on Friday.

The law that sets out a mandatory death penalty for anyone trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin or over 30 grams of cocaine, and the manner of execution still enjoy wide public support, according to polls.

Bangkok Post Survey on Abolition of Death Penalty

2010-12-20T20:07:00.003+07:00

The govt has declared an intention to abolish the death penalty, as announced in the human rights plan for the years 2009-2013. Do you endorse the govt’s plan?

* Start date:Dec 18, 2010
* End date:Dec 19, 2010
* Voters: 1,479 times

* yes
36.4%
* no
63.6%

Human Rights Day 2010

2010-12-10T19:08:00.001+07:00

Parliament to debate dropping death penalty
• Bangkok Post Published: 10/12/2010 at 12:00 AM
As the World Day for Human Rights is celebrated once again today, Thailand has a new stance on the issue. For the first time, the government has declared an intention to abolish the death penalty, as announced in the human rights plan for the years 2009-2013.
On Oct 20 last year, the cabinet approved and proclaimed the Second National Human Rights Plan, which was circulated to all relevant government offices for adoption in a human rights programme to be implemented by ministries, departments and in the development planning of local authorities.
This second strategic plan promises a development of the legal system and its structure, including its enforcement for the protection of human rights according to human rights policy.
The most important measure relate to the death penalty. Parliament will discuss the abolition of the death penalty and its replacement with life imprisonment.
The parliamentary debate creates a different perspective to that of individual debate which is usually based only on moral arguments. From a political viewpoint, the death penalty is counter to the rule of law and respect for the human rights due in a democratic society.
There is great wisdom for a political perspective on the death penalty to be found in the experience of the Council of Europe, the vast association of 47 states that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific and embraces a wide spectrum of cultures.
"Capital punishment brutalises society by legitimising cold-blooded killing as justice. It is a fallacy that it prevents violent crime or that it can be considered as justice," said the director-general of the EC on Human Rights in Strasbourg in January 2007.All its member states are convinced that abolition of the death penalty is a mark of civilised living. In a response to the counter example that US adherence to the death penalty legitimises capital punishment, the European Court of Human Rights argued in July 1989 that even the conditions on death row in the United States went beyond the threshold set by the European Convention on Human Rights. This is an indictment of the US practice of capital punishment as "unfair, indiscriminate, and arbitrary".
Now there are 58 countries that still retain capital punishment, while 104 countries have abolished it and 35 have stopped executions in practice.
At least 714 people were executed in 2009, though this total does not include China, which did not provide a figure. The 18 countries known to have conducted executions last year were: Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, the US, Vietnam and Yemen.
In Thailand, 708 persons were condemned to death, 65 of them by the Supreme Court, according to figures of the Corrections Department as of August 2010.
It will be argued that the Thai population is massively in favour of the death penalty. As they will be, until the reasons for abolition are explained and laid out by an informed political leadership.
Already, the number of executions in Thailand has dropped to only two cases in the last six years. As in most other countries maintaining the death penalty, there is a dichotomy between legal procedure and actual practice.
While executions have virtually ceased, sentences of death are passed with the same frequency as in the past, leading to the misery of overcrowded jails and blocked legal procedure. Living conditions for prisoners condemned to death are inhuman, especially due to the permanent shackling once the death sentence is passed in the court of first instance - a practice prohibited in international law and ruled unacceptable by the Administrative Court.
Many members of the Thai administration are aware of the worldwide rejection of the death penalty and favour abolition. But the debate will not be easy. It is likely that there will be opposition to change from at least two important ministries. The Interior Ministry recently announced an initiative, relying on a mass signature campaign, to halve the quantity of drugs which would lead to a penalty of death, thereby almost doubling the numbers condemned.
The Justice Ministry has suggested proceeding with executions in cases where a royal pardon has not been granted within 60 days. Fortunately, the Corrections Department has refused to carry out executions where the process of royal pardon has not been explicitly completed.
As stated in the Second Human Rights Plan, the proposal is to replace the death sentence with life imprisonment. This needs careful consideration and expert advice. Life imprisonment can mean many things in many countries. Imprisonment without ever the possibility of release may even be more inhumane than the death penalty. In many countries a life sentence means a period of 15 to 30 years, with particular rules on when parole may be granted. It is unlikely that the Thai population, accustomed to sentences of inordinate length, would accept such a short period, suspecting that a corrupt system might allow inappropriate remission of sentence and release.
There is a genuine fear that violent persons would repeat their crime and many would prefer that all offenders be imprisoned for ever, rather than that some would be released and offend again.
An experienced representative of the Council of Europe has proposed that progress be made in stages, beginning with a moratorium on all executions. This allows a population to grow in acceptance and also gives time for an information campaign to promote a new appreciation of human rights where human life is inviolable.
There will be difficulties, sometimes after the occurrence of a particularly awful crime. There will probably be crowd-pleasing politicians who will call for restoration of the death penalty. Slavery, the mutilation of prisoners and, increasingly, torture have been banished from judicial systems. The death penalty too has had its day.
________________________________________
Danthong Breen is Chairman of the Union for Civil Liberty, a human rights organisation based in Bangkok.

Change in vote by Thailand regarding Moratorium

2010-11-16T20:34:00.003+07:00

On 11 November the UN General Assembly's Third Committee adopted its third resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. The resolution, adopted by 107 votes in favour, 38 against with 36 abstentions of which there were 17 votes in favour, 11 against with 8 abstentions from the Asia Pacific region.

The following countries from Asia and the Pacific positively changed their vote compared to 2008: Afghanistan (from against to abstention); Bhutan (from abstention to in favour); Kiribati (from absent to in favour); Maldives (from against to in favour); Mongolia (from against to in favour); Solomon Islands (from against to abstention); Thailand (from against to abstention). This is a notable and positive swing from Asia and the Pacific confirming regional steps towards abolition and the worldwide trend. is particularly encouraging.

For Thailand which changes its stance on any legal position at the pace of an arthrithic snail, this is a thundering advance. It reflects the fact that the Thai government has declared its intention to achieve abolition over the next five years in its published human rights policy for 2009 to 2013. Signed, sealed, and acknowleged by every government ministry and department.

Six Weeks Jail for Shadrake

2010-11-16T19:10:00.005+07:00

The Shadrake case has reached its predicted conclusion in Singapore. As reported by the BBC:A Singapore court has sentenced the UK author Alan Shadrake to six weeks in prison for insulting the judiciary in a book he wrote about the death penalty.
The 76-year-old was found guilty last week, and faces a further trial on defamation charges.
He was also ordered to pay a S$20,000 (£9,585; $15,400) fine.
In his book, Once a Jolly Hangman - Singapore Justice in the Dock, he criticised how the death penalty is used, alleging a lack of impartiality.
Prosecution lawyers had sought a prison term of 12 weeks.
Shadrake offered an apology, which High Court Judge Quentin Loh called "nothing more than a tactical ploy in court to obtain a reduced sentence".
Shadrake's lawyer, M Ravi, said an appeal was unlikely to succeed.
He said his client was in ill health and regretted that he had received no support from the British public.
Mr Ravi added that Shadrake did not have any money and the fine could not be paid.
Judge Loh said that Shadrake would have to serve an additional two weeks in prison if he failed to pay the fine.
Malaysia-based Shadrake was arrested in July when he visited Singapore to launch his book.
The book contains interviews with human rights activists, lawyers and former police officers, as well as a profile of Darshan Singh, the former chief executioner at Singapore's Changi Prison.
It claims he executed around 1,000 men and women from 1959 until he retired in 2006.
"I think I've been given a fair hearing," Shadrake told the media after the verdict was issued last week.
US-based Human Rights Watch and other rights groups had urged Singapore to exonerate the author.
Separately, Shadrake is being investigated by the police for criminal defamation; his passport is being held by the police.

Is there no end to the legal shananigans of Singapore. They make a speciality of imprisoning the unimpeachable. If the offence were real the sentence would have been much greater! No doubt the aged owl in the background has been consulted. Another vindictive and senseless sentence which is a real cause of contempt for the Singapore legal system.
For a discussion of the true picture of Singapore's judicial system see:
"Beyond Suspicion?, The Singapore Judiciary", Francis T. Seow, Yale Southeast Asia Studies, 2006

Lobbying Thai Government on Abolition

2010-10-21T15:03:00.003+07:00

The newly proposed Government five year plan (2009-2013) on human rights includes abolition of the death penalty, and promises a parliamentary debate on the issue. Members of parliament are little informed of the issues involved and it is certain that there will be strong opposition; both the Ministry of Justice and the Interior Ministry favour the Death Penalty.

This development poses a new task to those engaged in the movement for abolition, to make available to political parties and parliament, a summary of the arguments for abolition, from the point of view of political leaders. Following the recent participation in a seminar on the death penalty and drugs, of a notable Council of Europe spokesperson for abolition, Dr. Renate Wohlwende, we have become aware of the great achievement of the Council in abolishing the death penalty over the whole of Europe. We have translated into Thai and will make available to all members of parliament a small Council of Europe booklet which draws on the wide experience of the Council in answering questions and of pointing a way to abolition.
The following is a newly written forward introducing the booklet to the intended readers:
Forward
Soon, the death penalty will pass. Slavery too came to an end; today, it is inconceivable that individuals could own, buy and sell, other human beings. At present, we are striving to rid the world of torture. Slavery, torture, the death penalty were, each in turn, considered essential to uphold human society.
First, some enlightened persons realized that such practices were profoundly wrong. Then one country after another abolished them, while others fought a rearguard action, insisting on their ‘right’ to have slaves, to torture, and now to execute criminals.

The Council of Europe, its 47 nations being the largest regional association on earth, has been overseeing the passing of the death penalty which is now rejected by all its members. Throughout the years it has accumulated wisdom and experience in answering the worries of those who fear the transition to abolition from a practice as old as history. In this short booklet answers are proposed to all the questions and objections which have been raised. It offers arguments for leaders to ponder themselves and to propose to their citizens. The task is great, and is often aggravated by concealment in the past of facts and numbers relating to executions. Besides, the time is short. During the 2010 World Assembly for Abolition of the Death Penalty, held in Geneva, it was predicted that, based on the current rate of change in world opinion, the death penalty could end by the year 2015. The time coincides with that of the Second National Human Rights Plan for the promotion of human rights announced by the Royal Thai Government and which proposes abolition of the death penalty. It is time to explain to Thai people why the step to abolition is a step owed to human dignity. This modest booklet provides the essentials of that lesson.

Union for Civil Liberty

Singapore and the Death Penalty

2010-10-21T10:54:00.011+07:00

Singapore is the most vociferous promoter of the death penalty in Asia. A British author has dared to question the justice system which is merciless in imposing the death sentence. He has been arrested and is presently on trial in Singapore.
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The government goes after the author of a book questioning the fairness of the courts; Jakarta Globe, October 18, 2010

This week the Singapore government is taking on a 75 year old British author for publishing a book arguing that the country's secretive but mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking is unevenly applied against poor and marginalized defendants while the wealty or well connected are spared.

If the past is any precedent, Alan Shadrake, who wrote 'Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock' and had the bad judgment to go to Singapore to publicize the book, can expect to be jailed for "scandalizing the judiciary".

The opening argument was made by a deputy attorney general, Hema Subramania. The Civil Division lawyer focused on 14 passages from Shadrake's book, arguing that "insinuations and imputations contained in these 14 statements constitute an attack to

on the entire judicial system in Singapore". She argued that the very title of the book contained an "underlying insinuation" that "Singapore judges have been guilty of misconduct and deserve to be judged".

In response, the defence lawyer, Ravi, argued that the "serious minded and compassionate" book had to be considered as a whole. "Only by reading the book by its entirety can one properly determine how a reader would understand and interpret the selected quotations", he said, adding that analysis of the judiciary was "a public duty to civil society"
The prosecution raised the issue of whether the content of Shadrake's book was true, an intriguing tactic since truth is not a defense to a contempt charge, but a judge can allow a defendant to argue issues voluntarily injected by the prosecution.

In discussing whether Shadrake had engaged in fair criticism, Subramaniam alleged that there was not "an iota of truth in any of the statements or allegations in the respondent's book". Ravi characterized the Singaporean government's response to his client's book as "somewhat hypersensitive".

Singapore, whose justice system has been heavily criticized for its political bias, has never lost a case like this, and unless something totally unexpected happens, it won't lose this one. In that regard, Shadrake's trial highlights not just the controversy over Singapore's use of the death penalty against traffickers in minute amounts of drugs, but the broader issue of freedom in speech in a city state where sticking your head up is an invitation to get it shot off.
A wide range of human rights groups say the Singapore courts are used as a tool to silence critics. Any political or press criticism of the government results automatically in defamation suits that have been unanimously won by the prosecution and fines and charges that have bankrupted the opposition and sent major news organizations scrambling for cover.

In July 2008, the International Bar Association issued a 72-page report concluding that “Singapore cannot continue to claim that civil and political rights must take a back seat to economic rights, as its economic development is now of the highest
order. In the modern era of globalization, isolationist policies and attitudes are no longer tenable.”

For his part, Shadrake remains defiant. For his first hearing in the High Court, he entered the building holding up his fingers in a V for Victory salute and shouting “Freedom and Democracy for Singapore.” The government has since backed away from the criminal defamation charge, although it hangs in the air as a threat, and Shadrake was charged with a species of contempt of court called “scandalizing the judiciary,” in other words, writing something that could make the court system look bad.

In the months since his arrest – his passport was confiscated, marooning him on the island – he has been granting interviews, basking in his demi-celebrity, repeatedly reiterating his intent to fight the charge and undergoing an angioplasty for a blocked aorta. While the Singaporean government has offered Shadrake leniency if he would purge himself of the alleged contempt by apologizing, he has so far refused to do so.

He is being defended by perhaps Singapore’s most prominent defense lawyer, M Ravi. Sometimes, it seems that the defendant in every high-profile death penalty or free expression case in the city-state is represented by M Ravi. That is close to the truth. For a nation with a population of more than five million, Singapore has a tiny number of lawyers, about 3500. Critics argue that young Singaporeans don’t enter the law because they see the profession as a closed shop in which a handful of loyalist firms land the lucrative government contracts and litigation work; others, including Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew, bemoan a general lack of local legal talent. Many Singaporean lawyers seem reluctant to represent clients in politically sensitive cases. It is not advisable, lawyers say, to practice any kind of law that brings lawyers into conflict with the government.

That can’t be said about Ravi. In the last decade, he has represented death row inmates Vignes Mourthi and Shanmugam Murugesu, whose appeals were unsuccessful, and Yong Vui Kong, whose appeal is pending. It was Mourthi’s case that formed a major part of Shadrake’s book. Shadrake charged that Mourthi, a 23-year-old Malaysian, was convicted on the basis of a handwritten transcript of a conversation with an undercover officer. However, the officer faced allegations of rape, sodomy and bribery at the time he testified against Mourthi, and subsequently was jailed for 15
months on bribery charges. Those charges were kept from the court.

Ravi has an aggressive and somewhat discursive courtroom style that can yield dividends. In the Yong case, Ravi backed the government into a corner, forcing it to admit that the President of Singapore does not make an independent judgment on clemency petitions but merely executes the will of the Cabinet.

David Chong Gek Sian, the prosecutor, is not the usual hard-bitten career prosecutor from Central Casting. Rather, he looks and acts like the mild-mannered law professor he was. The man who will be leading the charge to imprison and fine Shadrake is not a criminal law lifer. After obtaining his law degree from the National University of Singapore and a master’s from University College London, Chong worked in a private civil practice for about five years before accepting a post at NUS. His academic
publications focus on maritime and arbitration law. During his years in the Attorney-General’s Chambers, he has worked in various policy positions as well as the Internal Affairs Division.

Chong is currently posted to the Civil Division, and contempt cases are,technically, civil rather than criminal actions. He has won before, in recent years successfully pursuing the Wall Street Journal Asia on a similar charge, resulting in yet another judgment against the paper and its editors as usual.

Justice Quentin Loh Sze On is hearing the case. Alan Dershowitz, the outspoken criminal defense attorney and Harvard Law School professor, has stated that he would rather defend a client before an old judge than before a new judge. In Dershowitz’s opinion, an old judge is more likely to rule fairly while a new judge is too concerned with promotion and the potentially career-debilitating impact of freeing an unpopular defendant.

Quentin Loh is a very new judge. He was appointed a judicial commissioner in September 2009, and was promoted to Judge of the High Court less than six months ago. The Shadrake trial is his first high-profile case with political implications, and it will be absorbing to see how Justice Loh handles the myriad evidentiary and procedural issues which Ravi will raise.

Justice Loh’s background is similar to the prosecutor’s. After obtaining a degree from NUS, Justice Loh spent much of his career in private practice specializing in construction, insurance and arbitration. Prior to his elevation to the bench, Loh was a managing partner of Rajah & Tann, the establishment law firm which has represented many of Singapore’s most important government-linked corporations, including SingTel and the real estate unit of GIC, the sovereign wealth fund chaired by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Under Singaporean law, there is no right to a jury. Loh will make the ultimate decision of guilt or innocence and, if he finds Shadrake to be in contempt, will determine the sentence. Consequently, despite the fact that the courtroom this week will be packed with lawyers, clerks, security and reporters, it could be said that Shadrake and his defense team will be performing for an audience of one.

That is not quite true. Justice Loh will be performing for his own audience, headed by Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Hsien Loong, and a cast of cadres hanging about the Istana.

History Lesson: The Guillotine in Vietnam

2010-09-19T19:07:00.006+07:00

Then...
Rusting in a war museum in Ho Chi Minh City's humid, tropical air, the guillotine was imported to Vietnam by French colonialists in the early 20th century.
GRUESOME: Prisoners had to lay face down, with their head slid through a wooden neck clamp, which can be seen on the guillotine displayed at The War Remnants Museum.
Another guillotine, also abandoned by the defeated French, is in Vietnam's northern capital, Hanoi. With hands tied behind their back, each victim was forced to stand, facing a wooden plank, and was then strapped against it. The plank would then be turned horizontally to form a bench, thrusting the person face down so their head could be slid through the guillotine's wooden, two-part, vertical lunette neck clamp.
If not blindfolded, they could stare into a wooden "zinc head tub" bucket, or wicker basket, into which their head would soon drop. The bucket was shielded by a wooden screen to contain any splashing blood.
The guillotine's looming 4.5-metre-tall frame consists of two upright beams, about 38 centimetres apart. To perform a beheading, an executioner stands next to the frame and releases a metal lever allowing a spring-pincer, at the top of the guillotine, to release the heavily weighted, slanted blade.
In the blink of an eye, the 50-kilogramme, razor sharp diagonal steel blade descends, with the speed of gravity, inside a two-metre-long greased track. The detached head falls forward. The blade simultaneously hits two shock-absorbing metal springs, embedded in each side at the base of the vertical frame, to protect the guillotine from the force of the impact, resulting in a few post-chop bounces of the blade.
The executioner could then choose to hold up the head by its hair, and show it to onlookers. The decapitated body would be rolled off the bench and into a long, rectangular, wicker or cane body basket situated alongside the guillotine.
The basket was usually lined with flattened zinc, sprinkled with blood-absorbing sawdust and capable of holding four bodies.
A dangling rope, permanently looped over a brass pulley at the top of the guillotine's frame _ and attached to the top of the blade _ was then pulled, slowly hoisting the blade for the next kill. The guillotine is portable, designed to be disassembled.
Bangkok Post, "America and the Guillotine", 19th September 2010

And Now...
Executions: Condemned criminals are taken before dawn to a desolate site, read the court’s verdict, offered a bowl of noodle soup and a cigarette, and allowed to write a last letter home.
Then they are tied to a wooden pole, gagged with a lemon and blindfolded, and shot by five policemen. The commander then fires a last “humane shot” into the convict’s ear. According to reports in the official press, many policemen suffer trauma after completing their duty as “executioners”.
....
Statistics on the number of death sentences and executions are not made public. Indeed, following criticisms by international human rights organisations, in January 2004, Vietnam adopted a decree classifying death penalty statistics as “state secrets”. According to the Vietnamese and international press, at least 100 people are executed each year in Vietnam. In 2007, 104 death sentences were pronounced, including 14 women. In 2010, the official legal magazine Phap Luat (Law) reported 11 death sentences for the month of January alone.
"Vietnam: from 'Vision' to Facts", FIDH/VCHR September, 2010

13 Young Thai Women Condemned to Death in China

2010-08-28T13:08:00.004+07:00

In the latest data from the Department of Corrections listed below, there are 68 women condemned to death on drug charges in Thai jails. The figure is sharply increased if we include Thai women condemned to death abroad. At the same time as we were debating in Bangkok the linkage of Drugs and the Death Penalty also reported below, 13 young Thai women were condemned to death in China on drug charges.
All of the women are under 40 years of age, the youngest is 20, and several others are in their twenties. The little that is known of their predicament is reported by an article in the Thai women’s magazine “Koosang Koosom“ by a reporter who accompanied relatives of the girls who were allowed to visit them in a Guangzhou jail in Guangdong province. A Thai monk accompanied the group and was allowed to address the young women for 4 minutes. Two newspaper reporters were present at the meeting but were prohibited to speak to the prisoners.
Some of the women are from Isaan. One 22 year old from Samut Prakhan had opened a beauty parlour in Pattaya where a young black man made friendly overtures to her. A woman in Aranyapradhet was also courted by a young black who invited her to accompany him abroad on the understanding that they would marry on their return to Thailand. A 33 three year old in Bangkok who graduated in accountancy often spent time on the Internet. She told her mother that she had a black foreign friend who was inviting her to help in carrying some documents in a cloth bag relating to trading in the South of Thailand. Her mother asked to meet this friend but her daughter left home. She phoned from Chumphon, then from the South of Thailand, and finally from Mumbai. In answering her mother’s question she said that she did not know the nature of the work she was doing. A final telephone call was from China, saying that she would return home in a few days. Ten days later a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed her that her daughter had been arrested and sentenced to death on drug charges in Guangzhou.
A 35 year old from Ubon Ratchathani was invited to Malaysia to go here and there. All of them ended their journeys in the Women’s Prison of Guangzhou and were sentenced to death.
On further enquiry the news reporter learned that the heroin is produced in Afghanistan. It is transported through Pakistan to India. The Thai women were the ‘mules’ who transported the heroin on the final stage to Guangzhou, a densely populated area which was the one of the new China’s rapidly developed prosperous centres, where the drug market also flourished. The 13 Thai women were seduced by promises of independence and freedom, to participate in the international drug trade, schooled by false lovers who made it all seem easy and without risk. Most, or all, are first time offenders who began by being duped to become minor players in a world wide trade where the profits go to the organizers and the pain is borne by the foolish carriers.

Details of their trial are unknown other than that their offence is drug related. China’s courts pass a death sentence for possession of a quantity of drugs exceeding 50 grams. (The writer of the article appears shocked by this limited amount, unaware that in Thailand the death penalty may be imposed for a quantity of only 20 grams). More persons are executed in China than in the rest of the world, but in recent years it appears that authorities are learning that the death penalty does not solve crime, least of all drug crime. They are aware too that abolition of the death penalty has become a criterion of civilized life throughout the world and that the barbaric, and often public, executions in China are presenting a revolting picture of an inhumane Chinese justice system. Already, a ruling has been made that all death sentences throughout the country must be reviewed by a central court, a measure reducing the number of executions handed down by incompetent and arbitrary courts throughout the country. In addition there is in place a policy of suspension of death sentences for one year to observe and assess the potentiality of the prisoner for reform. If after one year the prognosis is positive, the sentence of death is changed to one of imprisonment. In the most favourable of cases where the prisoner shows genuine regret and a will to reform, imprisonment may be reduced to ten years. This is the hope of the 13 young Thai women. One may be confident that the resilience of these women, and certainly their regret at having fallen into this awful trap, will lead to their emergence from the prison of Guangzhou. They will need the help of their families of which there is no doubt, and also of the support of the consular services of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, embodied in a programme called “Last Hope Project”.

Chinese imprisonment is extremely strict but also punctilious. The health and wellbeing of prisoners is guaranteed. Nothing can be taken for granted, there is no relaxation of security and nothing resembling a ‘human face’ to the prison system.
But when one compares it with the appalling conditions of imprisonment in the Thai corrections system, the arbitrariness of judgment, the death penalties imposed on the word of police witnesses, and what can only be called, the vindictiveness of the treatment of drug related convicted prisoners, the condition of the 13 Thai women in Guangzhou is not the worst fate of all. Would that a “Last Hope Project” could be extended to Thai prisoners in Thai jails. It is important that the fate of the 13 young women be known to Thai people. Popular opinion is likely to be sympathetic to their case and wish them well to return to their homeland. And, hopefully, this sympathy may extend to the unfortunates who suffer even worse conditions and less hope of a positive outcome, in our own jails on Thai soil.

18 Countries that Killed in 2009 Include Thailand

2010-08-24T22:44:00.002+07:00

Around the world
* There are 58 countries that still retain capital punishment, while 104 countries have abolished it and 35 have stopped executions in practice.

* At least 714 people were executed in 2009, though the total does not include China, which did not provide a figure.

* The 18 countries known to have conducted executions in 2009 were: Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, the United States, Vietnam and Yemen.

* Hanging, shooting, beheading, stoning, electrocution and lethal injection are common methods of executing people.

* The countries that executed the most people include Iran with at least 388, Iraq at least 120, Saudi Arabia at least 69, and the United States with 52. But China has likely conducted more executions than the rest of the world combined.

* There are 35 countries that in practice have a moratorium on executions. These are Algeria, Benin, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Myanmar, Nauru, Niger, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Congo, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Tonga, Tunisia and Zambia.

* In the United States, death sentences and executions have been falling due to heated debate about innocent people being put to death, as well as the high costs of the process, including facilities and trial costs. There was a de-facto moratorium on executions from late 2007 to early 2008 as the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the lethal injection method, which it rejected in April 2008.

Latest Statistics for Prisoners Condemned to Death in Thailand

2010-08-16T21:06:00.010+07:00

Death Penalty Statistics after Judgment in Court of First Instance Thailand,
16th August 2010

For all crimes
Sex... Appeal Court... Supreme Court... Juridical Process Complete.... .Total
Male....375.............199......................53............................627
Female...68...............1......................12.............................81
Total....443.............200......................65...........................708

For drug related crimes
Sex....Appeal Court....Supreme Court....Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.......165..............56......................50.........................271
Female......55...............1......................12..........................68
Total.......220..............57......................62........................339

For crimes of homicide and others
Sex....Appeal Court....Supreme Court....Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.......210..............143......................3........................356
Female......13...............-.......................-.........................13
Total.......223..............143......................3.......................369

Source: Department of Corrections, Bangkok

Stop Execution in Iran

2010-08-16T20:40:00.003+07:00

Sakinseh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, 43 years, was condemned to death for adultery.
Sakineh M Ashtiani, has two children, and has been imprisoned in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz since 2005. She was already lashed 99 times in 2006. She was sentenced to death by stoning but due to international outcry the sentence to death by stoning was cancelled. It was reported that it was still possible that she would be hanged. However, in a new development she was put on a state-run TV programme where she confessed to adultery and involvement in the murder of her husband. Speaking shakily in her native Azeri language, which could be heard through a voiceover, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani told an interviewer that she was an accomplice to the murder of her husband and that she had an extramarital relationship with her husband's cousin. Her lawyer claimed that his client, a 43-year-old mother of two, was tortured for two days before the interview was recorded in Tabriz prison, where she has been held for the past four years. "She was severely beaten up and tortured until she accepted to appear in front of camera. Her 22-year-old son, Sajad and her 17-year-old daughter Saeedeh who had strongly defended the innocence of their mother, are completely traumatised by watching this programme". She is now in danger of execution either by hanging, or by stoning, the possibility of the latter punishment being reintroduced by the new charge of murder.
Whatever the complexities of the case, her execution clearly lacks all legitimate legal procedure. It is unspeakable that she should be stoned to death on any count.
Iran is reckoned to be an Asian country so that we have a particular interest in the case. We recommend that our readers address their dismay and rejection of the awful punishments unjustly menacing this woman. We may do so on arguments of justice, but we can also appeal to the motivation of an Islam whose primary attribution of Allah is that he is All Merciful.
The name and address of the representative of Iran in Thailand are:
H.E. Mr. Majid BIZMARK
106&106/1 Soi Charoen Mitt,
(Ekamai Soi 10) Sukhumvit 63,
Khlong Tan Nuea, Watthana,
Bangkok 10110
whose duty is to convey the communications of Thai people to his superiors.

Confession without proof not acceptable

2010-08-14T21:47:00.003+07:00

In Thailand as in Japan too much reliance is placed on confession
In the mind of the Courts, the police, and the general public the confession of an accused person is the ultimate proof of guilt. Police in Thailand, work hard to get a confession of guilt, which shortcuts the need to have credible evidence. The prisoner is offered a reduced sentence, prison rather than execution, if they will sign a confession. But experience world wide shows that a confession of guilt is not necessarily a proof of guilt. Recently I attended a trial where the judge offered leniency for such a confession. Conviction should not rest on a confession alone, and this awful trading of a reduced sentence for a confession is not justice.

A recent case in Japan illustrates the issue.
In December 1991 Mr. Sugaya, then a 45-year-old divorced school bus driver with no friends, was arrested by Japanese police in connection with the grisly murder in 1990 of a 4-year-old girl. After 13 hours of interrogation, during which Mr. Sugaya says the police kicked his shins and shouted at him, he tearfully admitted to that murder and to killing two other girls. He was convicted of one murder and sentenced to life in prison.
But last year, after prosecutors admitted that his confession was a fabrication made under duress and that a DNA test used as evidence had been wrong, Mr. Sugaya was released. A court later acquitted him.
The disclosure that Mr. Sugaya had been wrongfully imprisoned for more than 17 years shocked Japan even more than his conviction as a serial killer had.
Mr. Sugaya said the question he is now asked the most is why he confessed so quickly to crimes he did not commit. Describing himself as insecure and “excessively spineless,” he said his willpower just seemed to collapse after what he said were hours of police officers screaming at him so loudly that his ears still ring 19 years later. He said he finally confessed to all three killings just so the ordeal would end.
During his years of imprisonment, he said, he met other convicts who told him they too had been convicted because of false confessions. Now at the age of 63 he tours Japan to relate his experience in order to save others from sharing his fate.

Drugs and the Death Penalty

2010-08-03T10:15:00.002+07:00

Seminar in Bangkok on 29th July 2010
In countries where enforcement of the death penalty is still considered compatible with the observance of human rights covenants, the accepted reading of international law is that it must be limited to the punishment of “most serious crimes”. It is further interpreted that “most serious crimes”, should intend only intentional homicide.
The enforcement of the death penalty for drug crimes is an area of serious dispute. There is no doubt that drugs are a major source of crime in the present day world, but that the problem can be solved by inflicting the death penalty on the agents of the drug trade is an altogether different proposition.UCL is against the death penalty in any form and for any crime, but there are special arguments against its imposition on drug charges. Such arguments are the subject matter of this seminar.

Council of Europe and Keynote Speaker
The Council of Europe is the largest grouping of countries in the world, in an area stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and including countries of the most varied cultures, histories, and religious beliefs. It has accumulated a vast experience in statehood and the promotion of civilized living. The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg (France), now covers virtually the entire European continent, with 47 member countries. Founded on 5 May 1949 by 10 countries, the Council seeks to develop throughout Europe common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals.
From its foundation in 1949 the Council has emphasized that abolition of the death penalty is an essential element of Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law. Since 1985 abolition is a condition of membership of the Council.
Keynote Speaker
The keynote speaker of the seminar on drugs and the death penalty is Mrs. Renate Wohlwend, member of parliament of Lichtenstein and delegate to the Council of Europe, former Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Rapporteur on the death penalty for the Assembly. Dr. Wohlwend, has been speaking and writing on abolition of the death penalty for over a decade. She can draw on the experience of member states of the Council to illustrate the essential contribution of abolition to civilized living, and to respond to problems which still beleaguer states hesitating to abandon capital punishment.
"In Europe no governing party has lost an election due to abolition. The prior introduction of a moratorium on executions has helped to reassure the general public that stopping executions does not mean rising crime," Renate Wohlwend
“Capital punishment, like torture is simply wrong”
“The death penalty only brutalizes society by further legitimizing cold-blooded killing as justice. It is a fallacy that it prevents violent crime”. Death is not justice, Council of Europe publication.

Thou Shalt Not Criticise Singapore

2010-07-19T08:30:00.007+07:00

Author critical of Singapore is arrested

Singapore police arrested a British author on Sunday, a day after he launched a book alleging double standards in the city-state's use of the death penalty.

Alan Shadrake, who wrote the book "Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice on the Dock,'' was detained on charges including criminal defamation and contempt of court, police said in a statement.

Shadrake's arrest came a day after the launch of his book, which contained an interview with Darshan Singh, the long-time chief executioner at Singapore's Changi Prison, who has since retired.

The book also features interviews with local human rights activists, lawyers and former police officers on various cases involving capital punishment in the city-state, which carries out the death penalty by hanging.

In Singapore, the death penalty is mandatory for murder, treason and drug trafficking, among other crimes.

Once a Jolly Hangman

2010-07-15T17:27:00.006+07:00

Singapore Justice in the Dock: Alan Shadrake, SIRD, Petaling Jaya, 2010
In November 2007 the United Nations General Assembly approved a world wide moratorium on the death penalty by a two to one majority. Singapore put itself at the head of the minority who voted against the moratorium, declaring its right to execute and that the death penalty was necessary to maintain law and order in the tiny state. It fiercely rejected the experience of most countries in the world and repeated again old arguments which have been rejected, not only on moral grounds, but also from the experience of criminology which demonstrates that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent. Quite apart from its opposition vote, Singapore spoke with a voice of righteousness and even moral superiority. However, there is always a weak point in the Singapore position. If, as it claims, the death penalty is maintained as a deterrent, why must it be so secretive about it. Everything to do with the death penalty in Singapore, the number of those executed, the process itself, is kept secret; one would expect that deterrence would require publicity.
At last the veil has been lifted. In his book "Once a Jolly Hangman", Alan Shadrake reveals more than has ever been known about Singapore's death practice. His main source is an interview with the 'Jolly Hangman', Darshan Singh who was executor of about 1000 men and women in the grim Changi Jail.
Shadrake further researches the cases of several notable victims of the hangman and of some who escaped Singapore's vaunted judicial system. The truth emerges that Singapore executions do not follow a just judicial system. Especially where foreigners are involved, those with power and wealth can escape the gallows, the poor and ignorant are hanged until they die.
It is not a well written book. There is a lot of extraneous material. There are too many printing errors as if it was never proofread. But it performs a unique service in letting us see the horrible reality of hanging, typified in the assurance given by the hangman to each of his victims, the last words they ever heard,"I am sending you to better place than this". But it is the hypocrisy of the Government of Singapore which arouses the greater horror which effectively says to each victim "Singapore will be a better place without you", unless there are reasons of state to let you go your way.
"Once a Jolly Hangman" is banned in Singapore

Champion against Shackles

2010-07-15T10:10:00.003+07:00

Shackled before Government House
On the morning of Tuesday 13th there appeared before Government House in Bangkok a 40 year old man in prison clothes, wearing shackles. His name is Benny Moafi, an Iranian and Swedish citizen; his legal campaign for prisoners on death row has already been recorded on this website. Benny has submitted the legal briefs against the permanent shackling of prisoners condemned to death. His case is a brilliant indictment of this practice and his arguments are based on Conventions of International Law ratified by Thailand, as well as on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the first time in Thailand that a legal case has taken this dramatic approach, and Benny's arguments were studied as a test case in a recent legal workshop organized by the International Commission of Jurists in Bangkok. The Administrative Court on 15th September 2009 gave a favourable decision in the case. Unfortunately, implementation of the Court Order has been blocked by an appeal against the decision by the Department of Corrections. During the long delay for the appeal decision, the prisoner, whose case is subject of the exemplary trial, remains shackled. Benny is following the course of the appeal. However, international interest in the case is growing, and in a recent meeting with ngo representatives the Minister of Foreign Affairs has promised redress.

Benny Moafi graduated in law while himself a prisoner. He has just been released on parole after ten years of imprisonment. He has fought innumerable legal cases and complaints on behalf of other prisoners, most of whom are too poor to pay for any legal representation. One prisoner remarked that the day when Benny was himself released from prison, a statue to him should be raised before each of the prisons in Bangkok where he has served. At present he is pursuing over 200 cases in the courts.

And now he has turned to his own case, to claim that he has been wrongly imprisoned for ten years on falsified evidence. The case is a maze of Minos and the wheels of justice turn ever so slowly. At last the patience of Benny is reaching exhaustion, ten years of his life have gone by and he has ambitious legal plans to implement, if he can be truly free again. He has addressed a letter to the Prime Minister calling attention to the injustices he has suffered, as is the right of any inhabitant of the Kingdom when all else fails.
This site wishes to honour this great campaigner for justice and to support the call for justice he is now making on his own befalf.

For further details on the protest of Benny Moafi see the link on the right.

Sufficient Evidence

2010-07-06T19:36:00.004+07:00

On July 2nd I attended the trial of a drug case which could carry the death penalty. The drugs found as evidence were 'discovered' by police in a car which had been parked outside the hotel room of the accused. He claimed that the car had been parked there by a friend who had promised to return to collect it within the hour. Plain clothes police arrested him in his hotel room in the account of the accused, but outside a 7/11 store according to police. He was brought to a police station where after an hour or so he was brought out to witness the search of the car in the presence of many police men standing around. All the car doors were open. A police man climbed onto the back seat, felt underneath with his hand, and produced a plastic bag of a crystalline substance, to the cheers and laughter of the onlookers. The defendant claimed that he had never entered the car, nor driven it. A receipt showed that the car had indeed been rented by the 'friend'.
Fingerprinting is a relatively simple technology which has been in use for over a hundred years. Surely it would have been easy to check the interior of the car for fingerprints of the accused, and the plastic bag found there. Nor was there a forensic examination of the hands or clothes of the accused for traces of drugs.
He may be condemned to death. On what evidence?

Revenge in Thailand

2010-05-27T20:00:00.003+07:00

Calls for Revenge in a Buddhist Country

The recent riots and killings in Bangkok are giving rise for calls for revenge, the execution of those responsible, as expressed in the previous posting on this site.

Albert Pierrepoint, the British executioner during the years 1933 to 1955, hanged 608 people. He summed up his experience in the words:

"The fruit of my experience has this bitter aftertaste .....
Capital Punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge."

Are the Buddhists of Thailand deaf to this bitter realisation?

Death Penalty Warning

2010-05-20T07:41:00.003+07:00

"The government's Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES) has warned that people who are guilty of terrorism charges could face a possible death penalty."
19th May 2010

Response:The threat by the DSI that people convicted of terrorist charges in the current situation in Thailand could face a possible death penalty is ill-advised and ill-timed. It reveals the mentality of government agencies within hours of the largest massacre of Thai civilians in recent Thai history, that they are ready to threaten further death.
It is ill-advised to invoke a penalty which is against the most fundamental of human rights and which is rejected by the large majority of the nations on earth. Moreover, there is strong evidence that a threat of capital punishment is not an effective deterrent against any crime. It is ill-timed to invoke the charge of terrorism which the government has used as justification throughout the present crisis, before such a charge has been explained or proved by evidence, at a time when government responsibility for the deaths of unarmed civilians is been questioned. It can only add fuel to the fire of resentment widespread in the country. There most urgent need now is for understanding, reconciliation, and mediation. While justice is required for acts which are illegal, this justice must not be burdened with the threat of a punishment which is no longer acceptable in international law, and which would prolong the contempt of the right to life we have witnessed in recent days.
Finally, one may recall to the DSI that the second human rights five year plan on human rights, passed by the government in 2009 and acknowledged by all government ministries, includes the proposal to abolish the death penalty.

An End to the Dance of Death

2010-03-08T19:53:00.008+07:00

ประกาศใช้แผนสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติ ฉบับที่ ๒
(ยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตเป็นจำคุกตลอดชีวิต)
********
มติคณะรัฐมนตรีเมื่อวันที่ ๒๐ ตุลาคม ๒๕๕๒ เห็นชอบและให้ประกาศใช้แผนสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติ ฉบับที่ ๒ (๒๕๕๒ – ๒๕๕๖) โดยให้หน่วยงานที่เกี่ยวข้องนำแผนไปสู่การปฎิบัติด้วยการแปลงแผนสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติไปสู่แผนบริหารราชการแผ่นดิน แผนปฎิบัติราชการกระทรวง กรม แผนพัฒนาขององค์กรปกครองส่วนท้องถิ่น
แผนดังกล่าวนี้ในยุทธศาสตร์ที่ ๓ พัฒนากฎหมายและกลไกทางกฎหมายรวมทั้งการบังคับใช้กฎหมาย เพื่อส่งเสริมและคุ้มครองสิทธิมนุษยชน โดยมีกลยุทธ์คือการปรับปรุงกฎหมายและกลไกทางกฎหมาย รวมทั้งการบังคับใช้กฎหมายเพื่อคุ้มครองสิทธิมนุษยชนให้สอดคล้องกับหลักสิทธิมนุษยชน ซึ่งมีตัวชี้วัดระดับกลยุทธิ์ ที่สำคัญคือ กฎหมายที่มีอัตราโทษประหารชีวิตได้เข้าสู่การพิจารณาของรัฐสภาให้มีการยกเลิกให้เป็นโดยจำคุกตลอดชีวิต

On 20th October 2009 the Thai Cabinet approved and proclaimed a Second National Human Rights Plan for the years 2009 to 2013. It was circulated to all relevant offices of Government for adaptation in a Human Rights Programme for implementation by ministries, departments, and in the development planning of local authorities.
This second strategic plan entails a development of the legal system and its structure, including its enforcement for the protection of human rights according to human rights policy.

The most important measure relates to the death penalty. The Parliament will discuss the abolition of the death penalty and its replacement by life imprisonment.

At the time of its proclamation the Human Rights Programme received little media attention. The Programme will be introduced to all Government Agencies by the Prime Minister in an April meeting

Issues raised in the Geneva Assembly for Abolition

2010-03-06T00:58:00.004+07:00

"If you want to keep the death penalty, you have to pay for it. This stark message came from a consideration of the inadequacies of the legal process leading to death sentences. Prosecutors are funded to a level three to four times more than the defence, and the facilities available to the prosecution are far beyond those available to defenders. Even in the wealthiest country of all there is no legal aid for appeal, the condemned are buried in their cells and forgotten as they await their fate. The scales of justice do not stand on a level base. The death rows of the world feature the worst aspects of the prison system where the crowds destined for execution are detained in conditions that fall far short of human dignity."

In Thailand all prisoners on death row are shackled permanently; the Corrections Department claims that this measure is necessary as it cannot afford adequate staff to ensure control of death row prisoners. The Administrative Court has ruled that this is the problem of the Corrections Department, and that prisoners should not be ill-treated as a consequence. The Corrections Department refuses to accept the ruling and appeals.

Increasing Scope of Death Penalty

2010-03-04T09:57:00.007+07:00

Press Conference to Announce Campaign Extending Death Penalty for Drug Offenses
“On 13th January 2010, in the Ministry of Interior, Mr. Chuawat Chanwarakun, the Minister of Interior, signed a petition to modify three regulations for the control of drugs, the Drug Control Act of 1976, the Drug Punishment Act of 1979, and the Effective Punishment of Drug Offenders Act of 2002. The Minister announced that his action was in support of the Interior Ministry 'Cleansing Campaign', aimed at putting an end to drug offenses, for the good of the country.
……..
Mr. Chuawat indicated that the punishment indicated article 65, namely life imprisonment, and a fine of 1 to 5 million baht, should be increased to life imprisonment, and a fine of 1 to 5 million baht, or, the death penalty. In article 66, the punishment for possession of addictive substances of more than 20 gms from four years to life imprisonment, should be increased to life imprisonment, a fine of 1 to 5 million baht, or the death penalty for a quantity exceeding 10 gms.
………
For article 93 which deals with inducing others to be addicted; if the drug involved is heroin the punishment should be doubled. In addition if the person induced is a woman or a juvenile, the punishment should be death. Amphetamines should also be included.”

The Campaign aimed to collect 10,000 signatures to support submission of the bill to Parliament. Another spokesman of the Ministry expressed the opinion that “more than 10 million people all over the country would sign”

Increased Penalties: Comment

The initiative of the Ministry of Interior to increase punishments for drug offenses, with a consequent increase in grounds for sentence of death is against Thailand’s commitments to international treaties. The reasons given for the increase are not supported by any evidence. Finally, the method of submitting the plea for legal change by mounting a campaign for public signature, is wholly inappropriate and ill advised.

Increased Penalties contravene international commitments
The increasing rejection of the death penalty throughout the world finds its inspiration in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “Everyone has the right to life”, which expressed a growing realization of the wrongness of the death penalty. The words of the Universal Declaration were expanded in Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCP), “Every human being has the inherent right to life”. Provision is made for countries “which have not abolished the death penalty”, the negative expression itself indicating that abolition should be the norm. “Sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes”. The intention of the Covenant that abolition is the norm is added in the final sentence of Article 6, “Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party to the present Covenant”, ICCP Art. 6.6
Thailand ratified this Covenant on 29th October 1996, but, contrary to the final injunction just quoted, has since justified its continued use of the death penalty by alluding to the acceptance in Article 6 that some countries have not abolished the death penalty, and need not do so.

The meaning of the words of the Universal Declaration, and of the International Convention, have been further clarified throughout the years, especially regarding the phrase ‘most serious crimes’. The strongest such clarification was issued by the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva on the occasion of the Report submitted in July 2005 to the Human Rights Committee regarding Thailand’s fulfillment of its obligations to the Covenant. In the final observations delivered by the Human Rights Committee is the admonition, “The State Party should review the imposition of the death penalty for offences related to drug trafficking, to reduce the categories of crime punishable by death”, CCPR/CO/84/THA par.14. In short, the Committee points out that drug-trafficking charges are not the ‘most serious crimes’ for which the death penalty is tolerated as a temporary expedient on the way to total abolition, referred to in Article 6.6.

Thailand ratified ICCP and submitted its first report referred to above in July 2005. It is unfortunate that despite the very wide representation of Government Departments on the occasion of the report, the Ministry of Interior was not represented. Nevertheless, they must be aware of the content of ICCP itself and of the comments made by the UN Human Rights Committee, of which the text was to be published and disseminated throughout the country. CCPR/CO/84/THA par.25. How then can the Ministry not only assent to the continued application of the death penalty for drug related crimes, but even attempt by its present action to increase the categories of crime punishable by death?

Increased Penalties not effective
At present the number of countries which have effectively abandoned the death penalty amounts to 149 countries, while only 25 countries persist in actual executions. The rapid increase in countries opting for abolition over the last twenty years follows the conviction that the death penalty is ‘useless and ineffective’. This is not the place to go into the details of this evidence, which has been well reported in the successive editions of ‘The Death Penalty’ by Roger Hood. The relevance to Asian countries is exhaustively treated in ‘The Next Frontier’ by David T. Johnson and Franklin E. Zimring . In a press conference to reveal the campaign of the Ministry of Interior to increase Penalties for drug trafficking, Mr. Saksiam Chidchop claimed that the policy was an adoption of the successful policy of Malaysia and Singapore. The evidence for such a claim is simply not available. Singapore does not reveal the total number of executions; less still does it differentiate executions on drug charges from those for other crimes. One would expect that such statistics would be openly displayed if the intention of the executions is deterrence. There are indications that the policy is not working, on the basis of such evidence as the relatively low street cost of drugs in Singapore, which would be unlikely if the trade was strongly deterred. In the case of Malaysia the reduced availability of drugs has been ascribed to the small number of international flights through it airports rather than to drug suppression punishment. The present consensus is that capital punishment does not succeed as a deterrent for either drug related or any other crimes: “..as far as some crimes threatened by capital punishment in several countries are concerned, such as importing or trading in illegal drugs, economic crimes, or politically motivated violence, there simply is no reliable evidence of any kind relating to the deterrent effects of executions” Hood, p.320, op.cit.. So much for calling on the examples of Singapore and Malaysia to persuade people to sign a petition to extend the death penalty for drug crimes!

Inappropriate Campaign for Public Signature
While it is true that public opinion concerning the death penalty has relevance, democratic government is not government by public opinion. The question has been examined by William Schabas , who writing in a chapter entitled “Public Opinion and the Death Penalty” identifies the opinion of ‘an informed citizenry’ as the motive force in evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of maturing society, and lead to acceptance of abolition. Nothing can be more wrong than to present an abstract poll that has elicited generalized emotional responses. It is certain that the signature campaign of the Ministry of Interior is not based on an educational campaign to explain the issues at stake; the option is to sign the petition or not, based on obedience to the immense forces for influence of the ministry, and an abhorrence of the evils of drug trade. Just as the drug trade was not solved by the criminal extrajudicial killings of 2003 to 2004, so, an extension of the death penalty will be equally ineffective. Drugs are an evil in society, and must be fought by cutting off the sources of supply, by social remedies to the distress that influences people to turn in despair to the mirage of drug induced relief. The task is the whole reform of society depending on education, the growth of a meaningful prosperity and culture, including a retreat from the use of violence, in which abolition of the death penalty will set a standard.
The submission of a government act by signature of 10,000 citizens was intended in the constitution to allow a way for the population to whom other avenues were closed to have their voice heard. The Ministry of Interior is already an organ of government and has the way available to submit its suggestions for democratic debate. The attempt to force the issue by a mass signature campaign headed by its officials, employees, and dependents is not an appropriate approach. It would be useful indeed if the Ministry initiated an informed debate on the issues of Capital Punishment as recommended in the UN General Assembly majority votes of 1997 and 1998 to be accompanied by a Moratorium on all executions for whatever crime.

Close of 4th World Congress on Abolition

2010-03-02T20:36:00.003+07:00

Say No to the Death Penalty

The 4th World Congress for Abolition of the Death Penalty opened in the UN Palais the Nations in Geneva on 24th February and ended on 26th February.
1,700 men, women, and children gathered from all over the world. Those from countries which retain the death penalty told their stories which were sad to tears, but also full of hope for the end of this ancient curse which is recorded from the beginning of our history. Others, from countries where the death penalty has been abolished, came to give their support. Sometimes, they recalled with regret that the death penalty was a legacy of colonialist times, which somehow persisted when other liberties were achieved. Or, they came to acknowledge that the death penalty was an inheritance of the past which affects us all; as expressed so movingly in the words of John Donne, “The death of any man diminishes me”. All are united in the movement for abolition, which has become a worldwide tide of hope. The number of abolitionist countries continues to rise, now reaching 140. On the other hand, not only do the countries retaining the death penalty decrease in number, but in many of the others, even in the most brash in claiming the right to execute, the number being put to death is decreasing each year. A growing optimism pervades the movement for abolition. From the timeline of executions worldwide, one scholar predicted that it will all be over by the year 2025. It is even possible that rejection of the death penalty may reach a flood and achieve total abolition by 2015. What country would dare to be the last place on earth to exercise the awful trade of judicial execution, or to be identified as the homeland of the last person ever to be executed, whose name will surely be remembered for ever to the shame of humankind?

Corrections Department Appeals that Shackles are Necessary

2010-01-31T18:35:00.003+07:00

Thailand Not Bound by International Treaties
Document to Appeal Court
12th October 2009
Judgement on the case of Malcolm Denis Lim, Plaintiff,
and Corrections Department, Defendant.
Concerning the judgement of the Administrative Court that the use of shackles in Klong Prem prison is an illegal abuse of the Plaintiff and the order to remove the shackles within 30 days, the Corrections Department does not agree and submits the following appeal document:
1. The document quotes the Corrections Department Act of 1936, listing the five exceptions when shackles may be used. See p.3 above:
The document refers to the discernment of the prison in deciding that the use of shackles is necessary to prevent escape. The facts relating to the prisoner should be considered, but also the conditions of the prison, the level of security, the number of prisoners, and the number of prison officials. From such considerations the defendant considers that the free circulation of the prisoner would entail the danger of escape, and that therefore shackles are necessary.
2. The document recalls the disciplinary offense of the defendant while in custody in Bambat prison, of being in possession of a type 2 drug, showing the propensity to re-offend and possibly unite with others to escape.
3. While Building 2 of Klong Prem prison is specially dedicated to the confinement of those imprisoned on account of serious crimes, there are problems with the level of security. The number of persons detained there is 787, including 40 persons condemned to death, 438 to life imprisonment, and another 309 persons. Many quarrels occur in this group and they use telephones which are frequently smuggled into the prison, so that there is a possibility that prisoners may conspire to break out and escape. Regarding the number of warders; during working hours there is one warder to 41 prisoners. Due to possible absences or special tasks requiring warders to accompany prisoners, the ratio is further reduced. At night time there is one warder for 196 prisoners. By UN standards the ratio of warders should be 1 to only 5 prisoners. In these circumstances there is reason for the exceptional use of shackles allowed in Section 14(1) and 14(3) of the Corrections Department Act, 1936. If the order to remove shackles from one person is made, others will make the same plea as the plaintiff. When they too are released from shackles, the prisoners can join together in causing trouble, join in protest, attack warders, and cause damage to prison property, as is regularly reported.
4. Regarding the argument of the Court that even if the prisoners held in Building 2 were to escape, they would still be within the confines of Klong Prem prison, the defendant responds that if the prisoners held in Building 2 escape, prisoners in other buildings will follow their lead and chaos will spread throughout the whole prison, leading to possible casualties among both prisoners and staff of the prison. Similar revolts can spread to other prisons. This outcome always follows within days as news media spread accounts of such events, resulting not only in escapes but in violent clashes and increased violence when prisoners can move about freely. Prison officials who warn the prisoners may also be attacked, as prisoners already condemned to death cannot be subject to a higher punishment for their criminal acts. Officials who supervise Building 2 are very aware of the danger which would ensue if shackles are removed, and fear for their lives in the service of their country.
5. Regarding the judgement of the Administrative Court that the Corrections Department must act according to the UN Minimum Standard Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, may we point out that these documents refer to international agreements and are only legally binding in so far as member countries draft them into their own legal systems, which is not yet the case in Thailand. Hence the Corrections Department is not bound by these agreements
6. Regarding the judgement of the Administrative Court that the fact that the Corrections Department claim that it is not yet ready on account of the buildings involved, the security system in place, and the strength of the workforce in the prisons, is injurious to the plaintiff, we point out that the Corrections Department aims and is determined to conduct the prisons in the most natural manner possible, but in a way that maintains conditions of penal detention and the corrective treatment of those imprisoned. But the available budget, the size of the workforce, the state of the buildings, the technology of controlling inmates, and the system to protect security are all limited. At the same time, the number of prisoners is increasing as well as there being an increase in the number and novelty of ways of evading laws and regulations. The Corrections Department continually strives to overcome such problems. However, as not all the problems can be solved, some difficult compromises must be made between the facilities which the prisoners should enjoy (such as freedom of bodily movement) and secure public order, the safety of personnel and property. The use of shackles must be considered. However, if prisoners wearing shackles are injured or show symptoms of injury, medical opinion may order the immediate removal of the restraints.
7. Regarding the judgement of the Administrative Court that the use of shackles is against the document of the Corrections Department of 10th June 2005, section 3, which forbids the use of shackles as a disciplinary punishment, may we point out that Klong Prem Prison did not use shackles as a disciplinary punishment. The truth of the matter is that the Plaintiff was in possession of a type 2 narcotic while detained in Bambat Central Prison showing that the behaviour of the Plaintiff was not according to civil law or prison regulations, and revealed a tendency to re-offend and possibly harm others or make an escape.
8. The Corrections Department wishes to assert that if the Plaintiff holds that the Corrections Department has illegally abused his rights on account of the order by Klong Prem Prison to shackle him according to Article 14 of the Corrections Department Act, he should have appealed against the order, according to Article 44 of Corrections Department Administrative Procedures of 1996. If he has not made such an appeal, he does not have the right to bring the present case, according to the Supreme Administrative Court ruling 186/1966.

In addition, the Corrections Department wishes to submit a further document for the consideration of the Administrative Court. The Corrections Department asserts that its treatment of the Plaintiff has been just and legal, and requests that the Court of Appeal repeal the decision of the Administrative Court.

(Additional document referred to at the end of the appeal, is a summary of five prison revolts which occurred in various prisons within the previous year, which led to 3 deaths, many injuries, and damage to prison property}

The Dignity of Mongolia

2010-01-15T12:20:00.008+07:00

Mongolia announces moratorium on Death Penalty
"Mongolia is a dignified country ... and our citizens are dignified people," President Tsakhia Elbegdorj said in a speech to Mongolia's parliament. "Therefore, I ask Mongolia to put behind us this death penalty which degrades our dignity to death."

The BBC reported that one person was executed in Mongolia in 2008 and nine people are believed to be on the country's death row. Although abolishing the death penalty outright seems to be an uphill political battle for Elbegdorj, he has the power to commute sentences to life and to prevent any executions from taking place on his watch.

Mongolia has a population of 2.9 million and 9 people on death row. Thailand has 65 millions and 857 people on death row. Mongolia by its announcement of a moratorium will spare those 9 people from a degradation of dignity. Like Thailand, Mongolia had voted against the UN General Assembly vote in favour of a world wide moratorium on the death penalty, in 2007, and again in 2008.

Good News from New York

2009-12-30T18:10:00.006+07:00

This website is unlikely to be noted as a good news site. However, there is this to say: in a report carried in the New York Times, only hours before year end:
There were days upon days in New York City when not a single person was murdered in 2009.
It has been the lowest murder rate since records were first kept in 1962.
New York does not execute people.

The Scandal of Shackling

2009-11-25T20:12:00.003+07:00

The permanent shackling of prisoners in Thai jails who are condemned to death remains a serious scandal. The comment of the UN Human Rights Committee on this issue was especially forceful; “The use of shackling and long periods of solitary confinement should be stopped immediately”. UCL has followed the issue of one prisoner with particular interest. The prisoner submitted a complaint to the Administrative Court that his being shackled was against Thai law, prison regulations, and International Law. The Court responded by ordering that the shackles of this prisoner be removed while they considered the case. However, after the shackles were removed the prisoner, who was being held in Klong Prem prison, was transferred to Bang Kwang prison where he was again shackled. When the prisoner protested at such an infringement of a court order, the authorities replied that they knew nothing of such an order. Finally, on 16th September 2009, in a long and closely reasoned judgment, the Court handed down the decision that the shackles be removed. The prison was given 30 days to comply with the order. Two months later the prisoner remains shackled. The prisoner was informed verbally that the Correction’s Department was appealing the Court order. Details of the appeal are not available to the prisoner or to anyone else. The judgment applies only to the prisoner who lodged the appeal. Other prisoners must undertake a similar lengthy legal process to win relief.
Like most shackled prisoners, the above prisoner suffers from lesions caused by the chains, as shown in the accompanying photograph.
Meanwhile we are investigating reports that a prisoner remanded for deportation in the Bangkok Remand Prison has died on the 1st August 2009 from an infection caused by shackles. Fellow prisoners are prepared to testify but as the body has most likely been cremated, it is unlikely that adequate proof can be obtained.

There is no humane way to execute

2009-11-14T06:39:00.004+07:00

Following a news item posted below concerning a failed execution in Ohio, USA:
Ohio plans execution method untried on prisoners
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio announced plans to switch from the usual three-drug cocktail used to execute inmates to a one-drug method which has never been tried on prisoners.
Under the three-drug method, the first drug makes the prisoner unconscious, the second paralyzes him and the third stops his heart — a process that death penalty opponents argue is excruciatingly painful if the first drug doesn't work.
The single-drug technique amounts to an overdose of anesthesia.
Death penalty opponents hailed the decision as making executions more humane but expressed reservations about using such an untested method. The same drug is commonly used to euthanize pets and in some parts of Europe has been used in assisted suicides.
Richard Dieter, director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, noted the new practice would essentially be an experiment performed on inmates.
"They're human subjects and they're not willingly part of this," Dieter said. "This is experimenting with the unknown, and that always raises concerns."
The inmates who are going to be executed could challenge the constitutionality of what's being proposed in Ohio.

The lesson for Thailand is that there is no humane way to kill people

Open Letter to Prime Minister

2009-10-31T17:09:00.004+07:00

On 10th October, World Day for Abolition of the Death Penalty, five human rights organizations submitted the following letter to the Prime Minister:

จดหมายเปิดผนึกถึง ฯพณฯ นายกรัฐมนตรี

10 ตุลาคม 2552

เรื่อง การคัดค้านโทษประหารชีวิต

เรียน ฯพณฯ นายกรัฐมนตรี

ในนามขององค์กรพัฒนาเอกชนด้านสิทธิมนุษยชน ที่ทำงานด้านสิทธิมนุษยชนในประเทศไทย ขอแสดงความเสียใจเป็นอย่างยิ่งที่รัฐบาลไทยนำโทษประหารชีวิตกลับมาใช้อีกครั้ง ซึ่งก่อนหน้านี้ประเทศไทยมีความพยายามที่จะละเว้นโทษประหารนี้ไปตั้งแต่ปี 2546 แต่เมื่อวันที่ 24 สิงหาคม ที่ผ่านมา นายบัณฑิต เจริญวานิชและนายจิรวัฒน์ พุ่มพฤกษ์ ผู้ต้องโทษที่รอการประหารกลับถูกประหารชีวิตโดยไม่มีการบอกกล่าวแก่ตัวผู้ต้องขังและครอบครัวให้ทราบล่วงหน้า

ในฐานะองค์กรพัฒนาเอกชนด้านสิทธิมนุษยชน เราขอประณามการกระทำของรัฐบาลในการกระทำดังกล่าว ซึ่ง ในช่วงระยะเวลาหกปีที่สังคมไทยได้มีความพยายามเปลี่ยนแปลงทัศนคติเกี่ยวกับการใช้โทษประหารชีวิต และขอคัดค้านการใช้โทษประหารชีวิต เพื่อปกป้องสิทธิมนุษยชน โดยมีเหตุผลดังต่อไปนี้

1. ปัจจุบันนานาอารยประเทศมีความตระหนักเพิ่มมากขึ้นว่าสิทธิในการมีชีวิตอยู่เป็นสิทธิมนุษยชนพื้นฐานขั้นต่ำสุด ซึ่งที่ผ่านมาประเทศส่วนใหญ่ทั่วโลก (ปัจจุบัน134ประเทศ)ได้ยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตไปแล้ว โดยยึดถือหลักการที่ว่า ไม่มีผู้ใดสามารถทำลายชีวิตของใครได้ หรือ ไม่มีผู้ใดมีอำนาจที่จะทำลายชีวิตของผู้ใดได้

เราจึงขอถามท่านว่าเหตุใดประเทศไทยจึงยังคงประหารชีวิตประชาชนของตนเอง การที่รัฐบาลของท่านเคยแสดงเจตจำนงที่จะเคารพสิทธิมนุษยชนอันเป็นหลักประกันหนึ่งในระบอบประชาธิปไตยแต่เหตุใดในทางปฏิบัติกลับตรงกันข้ามกับเจตจำนงดังกล่าว เหตุใดหลักธรรมคำสอนของพุทธศาสนาซึ่งหล่อหลอมวัฒนธรรมไทยไม่ได้นำไปสู่การเคารพชีวิตทุกชีวิตและไม่นำมาสู่การยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตได้เลย ความจริงความเข้าใจของศาสนาพุทธไม่ต่างจากศาสนาอิสลามซึ่งพระอัลเลาะห์ผู้สง่างามและมีเมตตากรุณา ได้แสดงเจตนาในหลักการที่สอดคล้องกันกับพุทธ คือหากสามารถที่จะให้อภัยผู้กระทำผิดและสร้างความปรองดองกันได้ ก็ควรจะทำ(อัลกุรอาน 42: 40-43)

ความปรารถนาให้ยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตของผู้คนทั่วโลกปรากฏเป็นที่ประจักษ์จากผลการลงมติในที่ประชุมสมัชชาสหประชาชาติเมื่อวันที่ 8 ธันวาคม พ.ศ.2550 และอีกครั้งในปี 2551 โดยมีมติให้ทุกประเทศทั่วโลกงดเว้นโทษประหารชีวิตเพื่อเป็นหนทางนำไปสู่การยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตในที่สุด ถึงแม้มติดังกล่าวไม่ได้เป็นข้อบังคับแต่กลับส่งผลเชิงศีลธรรมอย่างมหาศาล (มติที่ 620149 ว่าด้วยการยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิต)

2. การประหารชีวิตผู้ต้องขังคดียาเสพติดเมื่อวันที่ 24 สิงหาคมที่ผ่านมาส่งผลต่อเนื่องกับผู้ต้องหาคดียาเสพติดรายอื่นๆ ตามรายงานกติการะหว่างประเทศว่าด้วยสิทธิพลเมืองและสิทธิทางการเมืองของสหประชาชาติระบุว่า ความผิดข้อหาเกี่ยวกับยาเสพติดไม่ถือเป็นความผิดให้ต้องโทษประหารชีวิต รัฐบาลไทยในฐานะภาคีของกติกาดังกล่าวไม่สามารถเพิกเฉยได้ เนื่องจากคำสั่งให้ประหารชีวิตผู้ต้องขังทั้งสองรายนี้จำเป็นต้องผ่านกระทรวงยุติธรรม และปลัดกระทรวงยุติธรรมคนปัจจุบันได้เข้าร่วมในที่ประชุมรายงานดังกล่าว ณ กรุงเจนีวาด้วย (CCPR/CO/84/THA)

3. การประหารชีวิตผู้ต้องขังทั้งสองรายโดยแจ้งให้ทราบเพียงหนึ่งชั่วโมงล่วงหน้า ซึ่งถือเป็นการกระทำที่น่ารังเกียจและไร้มนุษยธรรมอย่างสิ้นเชิง ผู้ต้องขังถูกปฏิเสธที่จะมีโอกาสเตรียมตัวก่อนถูกประหาร มิได้พบครอบครัวและญาติพี่น้อง ทำธุระส่วนตัวและอบรมสั่งเสียบุตร ความไร้มนุษยธรรมยังขยายไปถึงครอบครัวที่ไม่มีโอกาสได้พบหน้าและเอ่ยคำร่ำลาเป็นครั้งสุดท้าย

4. ความอยุติธรรมดังกล่าวยังส่งผลถึงผู้ต้องขังรายอื่นๆ ที่ต้องอยู่อย่างหวาดผวานับจากนี้ไป โดยที่ไม่สามารถรู้ได้เลยว่าชั่วโมงสุดท้ายของชีวิตจะมาถึงเมื่อใด

5. นอกจากนั้นคำสั่งประหารชีวิตที่ไม่โปร่งใส จากเบาะแสข่าวว่า เป็นเพราะผู้ต้องขังทั้งสอยังคงพัวพันกับการค้ายาเสพติดขณะอยู่ในเรือนจำ หาก เบาะแสดังกล่าวมีมูลความเป็นจริง พวกเขาควรเข้าสู่กระบวนการยุติธรรมเพื่อให้มีการพิสูจน์ความผิดต่อไป ทั้งนี้ผู้ต้องขังที่ต้องโทษประหารชีวิตทุกคนย่อมมีสิทธิที่จะได้รับการสันนิษฐานเบื้องต้นว่าเป็นผู้บริสุทธิ์จนกว่าศาลจะพิพากษาว่ากระทำผิดจริง และไม่มีใครสามารถถูกทำให้จบชีวิตได้โดยเหตุจากเบาะแสที่ไม่มีข้อพิสูจน์ได้

กล่าวโดยสรุป การประหารชีวิตนั้น เป็นการละเมิดสิทธิมนุษยชนที่ร้ายแรงที่สุดที่ไม่สมควรเกิดขึ้นซ้ำแล้วซ้ำอีกในสังคมใดๆ และพวกเราในฐานะองค์กรด้านสิทธิมนุษยชนร้องขอให้ประเทศไทยได้ไตร่ตรองถึงพันธะสัญญาแห่งการเคารพสิทธิมนุษยชนที่พัฒนามาอย่างยาวนาน และการประกาศจุดยืนร่วมกับนานาอารยะประเทศ ในการปฏิบัติตามมาตรฐานที่ว่าโทษประหารชีวิตเป็นมาตรการอันป่าเถื่อน ถือเป็นการกระทำฆาตกรรม ที่ระบบยุติธรรมของประเทศที่พัฒนาแล้วโดยทั่วไป มิอาจสามารถยอมรับได้

ลงชื่อ ประธานกรรมการ
(ดร. แดนทอง บรีน)
สมาคมสิทธิเสรีภาพของประชาชน(สสส.)

ลงชื่อ เลขาธิการ
( นายเมธา มาสขาว )
คณะกรรมการรณรงค์เพื่อสิทธิมนุษยชน(ครส.)

ลงชื่อ ผู้อำนวยการ
(นายบุญแทน ตันสุเทพวีรวงศ์)
ศูนย์ข้อมูลสิทธิมนุษยชนและสันติธรรม

ลงชื่อ ประธานมูลนิธิ
( นายสมชาย หอมลออ )
มูลนิธิผสานวัฒนธรรม

ลงชื่อ ผู้อำนวยการ
(นางสาวจันทร์จิรา จันทร์แผ่ว )
เครือข่ายนักกฏหมายสิทธิมนุษยชน

ลงชื่อ ประธาน
(นายโคทม อารียา)
มูลนิธิเพื่อสิทธิมนุษยชนและการพัฒนา

(English translation)
Open letter to the Prime Minister

We, representatives of non-governmental organizations dedicated to the protection of human rights of the Thai people, are deeply saddened by the action of your Government in resuming executions after a six year hiatus. In December 2003 four persons were executed, after which a six year de facto moratorium on executions occurred. This period came to a sudden, unannounced, unexplained, and brutal end on 24th August last with the execution of Bundit Jaroenwanit and Jirawat Poompreuk.

We submit to your Government that in the last six years a large change in perspective regarding the death penalty has taken place, illustrating ever more clearly the contravention of human rights involved in resuming executions:
1. A realization that the Right to Life is the most basic of all human rights has grown stronger. The great majority of countries in the world (to date 134 countries) have ceased to apply Capital Punishment, convinced that human life is indeed inviolable.
We question why Thailand is continuing to put to death its own citizens. Do not the claimed respect for human rights of a democratically elected government recommend an opposite course of action? Does not the largely Buddhist ethic which inspires Thai culture not lead to a respect for all living things which would favour abolition? Indeed, such a Buddhist understanding finds resonance in the Muslim emphasis on the favour shown by Allah, most Gracious and Merciful, on those who forgive a mortal injury and make reconciliation (Koran 42: 40-43).
The wish of the nations of the world is revealed in the majority vote of the United Nations General Assembly on 8th December 2007, and repeated in 2008, recommending that all nations of the world progress to abolition of the death penalty, meanwhile observing a Moratorium on its application. While not mandatory, the measure has immense moral significance. (Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 620149)
2. The executions of 24th August concerned persons condemned on drug charges. It was clearly pointed out to representatives of the Royal Thai Government on the occasion of the first report on compliance with the Covenant on Social and Political Rights that drug offences do not constitute crimes subject to the death penalty. The order to execute two prisoners for drug offenses must have passed through the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry cannot be ignorant of the fact that such a sanction cannot be justified in international law as a current Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry was present in Geneva during the submission. (CCPR/CO/84/THA)
3. The execution of the condemned prisoners with a one hour notice is a totally repugnant and inhumane act. The condemned were denied the opportunity to prepare for death, to take leave of their families and relatives, to arrange their affairs and instruct their children. The inhumanity extends to their families, who could not meet one last time with their family member, to hear their last wishes, and the disposal of their affairs.
4. Consider too the injustice done to other prisoners who must now live with the terror that every hour may be their final hour of life.
5. In the absence of transparency regarding the order to execute, rumour is rampant that the executed had again offended by drug dealing within the prison, thus justifying their execution. If there is truth in this accusation they should have been subject to further legal procedure; even in death, persons have a right to the presumption of innocence and not to be executed by appeal to rumour.

In conclusion, the executions are an outrage against human rights, which must not be repeated. Let Thailand read the signs of the times and take a stand with the majority of the nations of the world, renouncing for ever the barbarous and unnecessary practice of judicial murder, which masquerades as legalized Capital Punishment.

Signed on behalf of: by
Union for Civil Liberty Danthong Breen, Chairman

1. Campaign Committee for Human Rights (CCHR)
2. Peace and Human Rights Resource Center (PHRC)
3. Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF)
4. Union for Civil Liberty (UCL)
5. Human Rights Lawyers Association

A reply from the Prime Minister's Office is shown above. It acknowledges receipt of the letter and states that it has been passed on to the Ministry of Justice for consideration

Abominal Practice, Failed Execution

2009-10-17T18:59:00.000+07:00

The El Pais weekend supplement prints the affidavit of the American death row inhabitant Romell Broom - who has now been granted a temporary reprieve following 18 failed attempts to administer him the lethal injection on 15 September. "(...) 15. After applying the towels, the nurse tried to access my veins, once in the middle of my left arm and three times more on the left. After the third attempt to access the veins, the nurse said the heroin had damaged my veins. That comment upset me because I have never used heroin and other drugs intravenously. I replied to the nurse that I never had used heroin.16. The nurse kept saying that the vein was there but could not get it. I tried to work helping to tie my own arm. A prison officer walked over, patted my hand to indicate that he also saw the vein, the nurse tried to help me locate it. 17. The chief enforcement officials said they would do another break and returned to tell me to relax. 18. Then I broke down. I began to mourn because I ached and my arms were swollen. The nurses were clicking needles into areas that were already swollen and bruised (.) 23. After a while, the director, Terry Collins, entered the room and told me they were going to suspend the execution. Collins said that he appreciated my cooperation and taking note of my attempts to help the team. He also expressed confidence in the team performance and professionalism. The director told me that Collins would call Governor Strickland to inform of the situation."

No Simple Matter

2009-10-06T16:53:00.001+07:00

"Ultimately, every state should pause and consider that ending the life of a healthy man or woman is no simple matter and that even in the 21st century, executioners do not have their job down to anything like a science. No government should put people to death until it can show that the condemned person will not be racked with pain, catch on fire or prove so difficult to kill, as in Mr. Broom’s case, that the executioners are forced to try again another day."
Editorial, New York Times, October 3rd. Reference to the ‘horribly botched failed execution’ of Romell Broom in recent days. Thailand too has had it botched executions.

World Day against Death Penalty

2009-10-05T10:11:00.003+07:00

10th October is the day when those protesting the death penalty throughout the world raise again the issue of this ancient barbaric curse in a minority of states. The majority of the world has already rejected this form of legalised murder, most recently Brazil, 139 countries in all. Thailand remains among the minority who still think it a right of the state to punish by death.
It is a morally repugnant punishment, it is useless and ineffective, and devalues the humanity of all of us. Let it end forever.
This year the objective of the World Abolition movement is to introduce abolition to the young, especially 13 to 18 year olds. It is the responsibility of this generation to see the end of Capital Punishment.

Execution Chamber in Bang Kwang Prison

2009-09-25T07:23:00.004+07:00

Having at first refused to allow filming of the death chamber in Bang Kwang prison, it appears that the prison governor allowed Aljazeera to enter! A few years ago strong protest stopped the filming of an execution in Thailand. Present policy appears to promote the deterrent effect of executions by approaching as close as possible to the actual event of execution. The permission to film throws doubt on the aversion to execution expressed by the governor of the prison.
The compliance of the monk shown in the film, is typical of Buddhist monks in Thailand. While agreeing that the death penalty may 'theoretically' be against Buddhism teaching, they support Government policy on the death penalty.
See accompanying link in right hand column to "Bang Kwang, Execution Chamber"

Abolish the Death Penalty

2009-09-22T07:38:00.001+07:00

UCL welcomes the following Editorial Opinion in the Bangkok Post
EDITORIAL
Death to the death penalty
Published: 22/09/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
Late last month, on a quiet Monday afternoon, warders locked down Bang Khwang prison and prepared for two executions. A pair of convicted drug dealers, Bundit Charoenwanich, 45, and Jirawat Phumpruek, 52, were given one hour to contact their families, eat a last meal and make their peace in this world. Then they were taken to the execution room and injected with a series of drugs, the last of which ended their lives.
It was the first time in six years that authorities had ordered an actual execution. They should be the last such prisoners to die by execution. It is time that Parliament and the government end all use of the death penalty.
There are several problems with judicial executions, and no acceptable advantage. Carrying out a death sentence always risks the chance of killing the wrong person. Police, prosecutors and courts are dedicated and efficient, but not infallible. There have been plenty of wrongful convictions over the decades of Thai justice. If even one death sentence is wrongfully carried out, the death would be on the conscience of the nation. A wrongful conviction already takes months or years from an innocent person's life. Nothing could be worse than taking his or her life.
The main reason to abolish the death penalty for terrible crimes is that it brings no true result. Justice and punishment, in the form of imprisonment, parole or work programmes, are meant to prevent further crime. To an extent, they work. While many criminals continue their ways after release, others "go straight" so that they can live freely, without worry about being imprisoned. Crimes are prevented daily by the presence of police and the courts, as would-be robbers, speeders, thieves and others stick to the law in order to avoid punishment.
Study after study over the past 50 years has proved that the death sentence is no deterrent to the terrible crimes it punishes, such as drug trafficking, premeditated murder, violent and sexual abuse of children. While proponents of the death penalty argue facetiously that execution will assure that such criminals do not carry out their acts again, there are many ways to assure that. Indeed, no rational person would accept the end of the death penalty without parallel assurances that such violent acts against society can be punished by true life imprisonment, without early release.
Abolishing the death penalty in Thailand will be an unpopular act by the government, without doubt. Even in advanced Western countries, the majority of citizens always have opposed the abolition of the ultimate penalty. Yet such abolition around the world, from Canada to Cambodia, and from Austria to Australia, has never caused an upsurge of any kind in capital crimes. If anything, the threat of lengthy, even lifetime incarceration seems to be a greater deterrent than the former death penalty. Indeed, in recent cases in the United States, federal prisoners in so-called Supermax prisons have sued the government against their lifetime sentences under harsh, maximum security rules.
The only remaining argument in favour - that it provides an emotional release of sorts for victims and a horrified public - is unacceptable. Justice is not a form of vengeance, like some feel-good ending to a movie. Law and punishment are serious matters.
Last year, a majority of the United Nations General Assembly voted for the first time to oppose the death penalty. For now, the government should order a true moratorium banning more executions, pending a rewrite of the criminal code to ban the death penalty altogether.

Failed execution: after two hours of torture

2009-09-17T03:28:00.006+07:00

In the state of Ohio, USA, an attempt on Tuesday, 15th September, to execute Romell Broom, a 53 year old condemned prisoner, failed. Those trying to carry out the execution tried to find a suitable vein to inject the poisons, in both arms and in one leg of the prisoner, but could not succeed, despite the cooperation of the condemned person who himself tried to indicate suitable locations for the lethal injection. Heavy bleeding and painful movement of the prisoner were observed, causing him to break down in tears. After two hours the attempt was abandoned. The execution is rescheduled in 10 days time. The defense lawyer will appeal a repeat attempt to execute Romell, citing the cruelty of the procedure.
The crime for which the death sentence was passed took place 25 years ago.

Resumption of Executions in Thailand

2009-09-05T20:53:00.005+07:00

As Thailand resumes executions of those condemned to death we look again at our bed fellows among the countries retaining the death penalty:

1 China, the major executioner;
China today announced the launch of its national organ donation system, revealing for the first time the extent of its reliance on transplants from executed prisoners.
A senior health official disclosed just how dependent are China’s hospitals on the organs from criminals, whose kidneys, livers and hearts may be removed in ambulances that wait at the execution ground for doctors to pronounce a prisoner is dead.
Despite a 2007 regulation barring donations from people who are not related to or are emotionally connected to the transplant patient, the China Daily newspaper said 65 percent of organ donations come from death row.

2. Saudi Arabia;
The death penalty continued to be applied extensively after summary and secret trials. Defendants are rarely allowed legal assistance and can be convicted solely on the basis of confessions obtained under duress or deception. As in previous years, capital punishment was used disproportionately against the poor, including many migrant workers from Asia and Africa, and women. In April, Amnesty International received secretly filmed footage of the public beheading of a Jordanian man convicted of drugs offences.
At least 102 men and women, 39 of them foreign nationals, were executed in 2008. Many were executed for non-violent offences, including drug offences, “sodomy”, blasphemy and apostasy. Most executions were held in public.
In January, the parents of Moeid bin Hussein Hakami, who was beheaded in 2007, took the unusual and brave step of lodging a complaint with the authorities about the execution of their son. He was aged 13 at the time of the crime and was 16 when beheaded. The parents were not told in advance of his execution and, according to reports, they were not informed of his place of burial.

3. Iran;
At least 346 people were executed, including at least eight juvenile offenders sentenced for crimes committed when they were under 18. The actual totals were likely to have been higher, as the authorities restricted reporting of executions. Executions were carried out for a wide range of offences, including murder, rape, drug smuggling and corruption. At least 133 juvenile offenders faced execution in contravention of international law. Many Iranian human rights defenders campaigned to end this practice. The authorities sought to justify executions for murder on the grounds that they were qesas (retribution), rather than ‘edam (execution), a distinction not recognized by international human rights law. In January, new legislation prescribed the death penalty or flogging for producing pornographic videos, and a proposal to prescribe the death penalty for “apostasy” was discussed in the parliament, but had not been enacted by the end of 2008.
In January, the Head of the Judiciary ordered an end to public executions in most cases and in August judicial officials said that executions by stoning had been suspended, although at least 10 people sentenced to die by stoning were still on death row at the end of the year and two men were executed by stoning in December.

4. USA
A typical case!
People should have no illusions about the brutal injustice of the death penalty after all of the exonerations in recent years from DNA evidence, but the case of Cameron Todd Willingham is still shocking.
Mr. Willingham was executed for setting a fire that killed his 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins, but a fire expert hired by the State of Texas has issued a report casting enormous doubt on whether the fire was arson at all. The Willingham investigation, which is continuing, is further evidence that the criminal justice system is far too flawed to justify imposing a death penalty.
After the fire, investigators decided, based in large part on burn patterns on the house’s floors, that it was intentionally set. Prosecutors charged Mr. Willingham, who escaped from the burning home, with capital murder. Mr. Willingham protested his innocence until the day the state killed him by lethal injection in 2004.
The following year, Texas created the Forensic Science Commission to investigate charges of scientific mistakes or misconduct, and the panel began looking into the Willingham case. It commissioned Craig Beyler, a nationally recognized fire expert, to examine evidence.
Mr. Beyler issued a report last week that painted an ugly picture of what passes for expert scientific investigation and testimony in a capital case in Texas. The report found that the official inquiry into the Willingham fire did not meet prevailing scientific standards of the time, much less current ones.
The investigators “had poor understandings of fire science,” Mr. Beyler said, and their “methodologies did not comport with the scientific method.” He determined that the opinions of one main investigator were “nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation.”
The report concluded that a “finding of arson could not be sustained.” The Forensic Science Commission is now asking the state fire marshal’s office for its response. It anticipates issuing a final report next year.
The commission is to be commended for conducting this inquiry, but it is outrageous that Texas is conducting its careful, highly skilled investigation after Mr. Willingham has been executed, rather than before.

Are these the models for a country boasting a Buddhist culture, which teaches an inalienable respect for life, and the primacy of forgiveness and loving kindness?

Executions in Thailand after six year break

2009-08-25T08:02:00.005+07:00

Drug dealers put to death: Bangkok Post

Writer: KING-OUA LAOHONG
Published: 25/08/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

Two convicted drug traffickers at Bang Khwang prison have been executed by lethal injection.

Bundit Jaroenwanit, 45, and Jirawat Poompreuk, 52, yesterday became the country's fifth and sixth people to be executed by lethal injection, which replaced death by shooting in 2003.

The atmosphere at Bang Khwang prison in Nonthaburi was subdued yesterday when the two learned they were about to die.

They were given 60 minutes to call or write to their loved ones. They were then offered a last meal and a chance to listen to a sermon from a monk invited from Wat Bang Praek Tai.

They were blindfolded and given flowers, candles and incense sticks before being taken to the execution chamber.

The two, their legs manacled, turned their faces towards the temple as they were laid out on beds.

They received three injections. The first was a sedative, the second a muscle relaxant and the third a drug that stops the heart beating.

See link "Bang Kwang 24th August"

แถลงการณ์

เรื่อง ขอคัดค้านโทษประหารชีวิตเพราะขัดกับหลักสิทธิมนุษยชน

ตามที่ กรมราชทัณฑ์ ได้ดำเนินการประหารชีวิตนักโทษ 2 คน ในคดีความผิดเกี่ยวกับยาเสพติด เมื่อวันที่ 24 สิงหาคม ที่ผ่านมา นั้น สมาคมสิทธิเสรีภาพของประชาชน (สสส.) มีความเห็นว่าเป็นการกระทำที่ผิดพลาดของประเทศไทยอีกครั้งหนึ่ง ด้วยเหตุผลดังต่อไปนี้

ประการแรก เนื่องมาจากว่า สมัชชาสหประชาชาติได้ลงมติโดยเสียงข้างมากส่วนใหญ่ เมื่อเดือนธันวาคม ปี 2550 และลงมติอีกครั้งเช่นเดียวกันในเดือนธันวาคม ปี 2551 ว่า ให้มีการใช้มาตรการชลอหรือขยายช่วงเวลาการประหารชีวิตออกไป เพื่อมิให้มีการลงโทษประหารชีวิตจริง

ประการ ที่สอง คือว่า ทุกประเทศทั่วโลกต่างแสดงออกถึงการเย้ยหยันการลงโทษประหารชีวิต เพราะ ถือว่าการประหารชีวิตเป็นโทษที่ละเมิดสิทธิมนุษยชนขั้นพื้นฐานของความเป็น มนุษย์ ซึ่งหมายถึงสิทธิในการมีชีวิตอยู่รอดและมีความมั่นคงปลอดภัยในชีวิต นั่นเอง

ประการ ที่สาม กติการะหว่างประเทศว่าด้วยสิทธิพลเมืองและสิทธิทางการเมือง กำหนดให้ประเทศที่ยังไม่ยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิต จะใช้การประหารชีวิตได้ ในกรณีความผิดที่มีลักษณะอุกฉกรรจ์เท่านั้น ซึ่ง โทษสำหรับความผิดอุกฉกรรจ์ไม่รวมความผิดเกี่ยวกับยาเสพติด แต่เมื่อวันที่ 28 กรกฎาคม 2548 ผู้ แทนประเทศไทยได้รายงานในที่ประชุม ต่อคณะกรรมการสิทธิมนุษยชน ตามพันธกรณีของกติการะหว่างประเทศว่าด้วยสิทธิพลเมืองและสิทธิทางการเมือง ที่ประเทศไทยได้เข้าผูกพันไว้ว่า คดียาเสพติด ในประเทศไทยนั้น เป็นคดีอุกฉกรรจ์ จึงเป็นการขัดแย้งกับหลักการของกติกาฯดังกล่าว

ประการ สุดท้าย การลงโทษประหารชีวิต ไม่สามารถยับยั้งอาชญกรรมและการกระทำผิดที่เกี่ยวกับยาเสพติดอย่างได้ผล เมื่อเทียบกับการลงโทษด้วยมาตรการอื่น

สสส.จึง ขอคัดค้านโทษประหารชีวิต เพราะ ถือเป็นการลงโทษที่โหดร้าย ไร้มนุษยธรรมและย่ำยีศักดิ์ศรีของมนุษย์ ซึ่งไม่สมควรมีโทษนี้ ต่อไปในประเทศที่มีอารยะ และควรเปลี่ยนเป็นโทษจำคุกตลอดชีวิตตลอดไป แทนการลงโทษประหารชีวิต

ณ วันที่ 25 สิงหาคม 2552

ผู้แถลง ดร.แดนทอง บรีน ปะธานสมาคมสิทธิเสรีภาพของประชาชน(สสส.)

Statement by UCL
It is wrong that Thailand has executed two men on 24th August 2009:
It ignores the majority vote of the United Nations General Assembly in December 2007 and again in December 2008 in favour of a universal moratorium on the death penalty.
It flouts the greater certainty expressed world wide that the death penalty is a transgression of the most basic of all human rights, the right to life.
It goes against the interpretation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expressed to representatives of the Royal Thai government by the UN Human Rights Committee, on 28th July 2003, that drug offenses did not constitute a crime subject to Capital Punishment within the terms of the Covenant which it has ratified.
The execution of the two with a mere one hour notice is a flagrant transgression of the procedures established by the UN for the enactment of Capital Punishment.
It is a useless measure of no greater consequence than other punishment in the fight against drugs.
It is a cruel and inhumane punishment, with no place in a civilised state.
It is counter to the Buddhist belief in the sanctity of life
Danthong Breen
Union for Civil Liberty, Thailand

Death Penality Campaign for Buddhist Monks

2009-08-03T03:31:00.005+07:00

Completion of Campaign for Aholition
The Union for Civil Liberty in Thailand has just completed a campaign for abolition of the death penalty in Buddhist centres of learning throughout the country. The objective was to enlist the support of Buddhist monks in a campaign against the death penalty, in the expectation that the Buddhist abhorrence of killing any creature would make them natural allies. 22 seminars were held; the total number of participants was 1,404+ with an average of 70 at each seminar. The attitude of Thai monks to the death penalty may be indicated by quoting two reactions from a recent seminar:
1.“The first principle of Buddhism is an absolute prohibition on inflicting harm or on killing, actions which violate life itself. Capital Punishment belongs to ancient times. We are in a new world and civilization has progressed. Punishment should entail respect for the value of life and not have recourse to the death penalty which has no purpose. Instead, the guilty person must be given the opportunity to do good for the period of life that remains and so make restitution for the evil done in the past.”
2.“I agree with the death penalty. All creatures on the earth are subject to Fate (Gam) and are ruled by its outcome and circumstances. Those who do what is right will achieve good, those who do what is evil will suffer evil”.

Our aim has been to recall to monks that the first reaction is a truer expression of Buddhist teaching.

Prison Conditions

2009-07-05T16:23:00.009+07:00

หัวหน้าฝ่ายการแพทย์แห่งเรือนจำ ลาซองเต
คัดจากบันทึกความทรงจำของ เวโรนิค วาสเสอร์

“ที่เรือนจำลาซองเตนี้เราไม่สามารถที่จะทำหรือคิดแบบครึ่งๆกลางๆ ถ้าไม่กระตือรือร้นและทำงานอย่างเต็มที่ ก็อาจรู้สึกเฉยๆและทำงานแบบเสียไม่ได้ แต่ไม่มีทางที่จะทำเป็นทองไม่รู้ร้อนและทำงานแบบเครืองจักรเครื่องยนต์ได้ ต้องคิดและทำอย่างจริงจัง ถ้าคิดไม่ได้แบบนี้ก็ไม่สมควรทำงานที่นี่”

ในขณะที่การบริการทางการแพทย์ที่เรือนจำทั่วไปได้ขึ้นถึงขีดมาตรฐาน บางสิ่งบางอย่างไม่ได้เปลี่ยนไปเลย เช่น ระบบสุขอนามัยซึ่งไม่ถูกสุขลักษณะ และเป็นอันตราย สถานที่เก่าแก่ ความขี้เกียจ การสั่งจำจองโดยไม่มีการวางแผนล่วงหน้า กิจกรรมที่ไม่มีคุณค่า การขาดความใกล้ชิด การสำส่อนทางเพศ การขาดความรัก การรอคอยที่ไม่สิ้นสุด ความหวังสลาย ความโกรธ และสิ้นหวัง ความรุนแรง การทำร้ายตนเอง การพยายามฆ่าตัวตายซึ่งบางครั้งก็สำเร็จ มาตรการป้องกันความปลอกภัยที่มากเกินไปและหวาดระแวง การค้นตัวครั้งแล้วครั้งเล่า การใส่กุญแจมือ และบางครั้งโซ่ตรวนขา กฐเกณฑ์ที่ตั้งตามอำเภอใจ การยั่วเย้าทีไร้เหตุผลและน่าอับอาย ระบบที่ถ่วงดุลกับผู้อ่อนแอ การกักขังแยกที่ยาวนานบางครั้งถึงหลายปี ห้องขังดัดสันดานที่มีลักษณะคล้ายกับยุคกลาง และท้ายที่สุด คือ การถูกริดรอนเสรีภาพในสถาบันที่น่าจะเป็นตัวแทนแห่งสิทธินี้

ดอสตอเยฟสกี้เขียนไว้ว่า “เราไม่สามารถจะวัดขีดอารยธรรมของชาติหนึ่งชาติใดได้ถ้าไม่ไปดูเรือนจำเสียก่อน” อันนี้ก็ได้กระทำกันแล้ว

ข้อมูลที่ได้จากการค้นคว้านั้นมากหลายนัก รายงานโดยวุฒิสมาชิกและวุฒิสภาใช้หัวข้อว่า “คุกคือสิ่งที่น่าอับอายของสาธารณรัฐ”

เราทุกคนมีความผิดเท่าเทียมกันที่ทำให้เกิดสภาพนี้่ขึ้น แต่คำถามเฉพาะหน้าคือ เรามีอารยธรรมหรือเปล่า?

ข้าพเจ้าได้เข้ามาเกี่ยวข้องกับเรื่องเหล่านี้ก็เพราะไม่มีทางเลือกทางด้านศีลธรรมอย่างอื่น จรรยาบรรณทางแพทย์เขียนไว้ว่า “แพทย์ไม่สามารถจะแยกตัวเป็นอิสระจากงานอาชีพได้ไม่ว่าจะเป็นลักษณะใด เมื่อแพทย์นั้นรักษาคนไข้ใดก็ตามผู้ซึ่งไร้อิสระ แพทย์คนนั้นต้องไม่ยอมรับหรือทนกับการกระทำที่เป็นภัยต่อกาย ใจ หรือเกียรติของผู้ถูกคุมขัง ทั้งทางตรงและทางอ้อม สัตยบรรณฮีพโปคระตีสข้อที่สิบ ที่แพทย์ทุกคนต้องสาบานไว้ว่า “หน้าที่แรกสุดคือต้องรักษา สงวน และ เสริมสร้างไว้ซึ่งสุขภาพ ทุกประการ…ต้องนับถือทุกบุคคล ต้องเข้าขัดขวางและป้องกันผู้ที่อ่อนแอ หรือผู้ที่โดนย่ำยีทางด้านคุณธรรม” อุดมการณ์ของข้าพเจ้านั้นเป็นบทเรียนราคาแพงเพราะการมีความจริงใจและการเคารพในสิทธิ์ของผู้อื่นนั้นไม่ได้ให้คุณแก่ข้าพเจ้าเลย

อย่างไรข้าพเจ้าก็ไม่เสียใจ ข้าพเจ้ารักสถานที่นี้ และบุคคลทั้งหลายที่อยู่ในนั้น ข้าพเจ้าได้เรียนรู้มากมาย เคยมีช่วงเวลาที่หมดหวังท้อแท้ใจ แต่บางครั้งก็สุขและสะเทือนอารมณ์

คุกนั้นเป็นโรงเรียนแห่งความอดทน การรับฟังและนับถือผู้อื่น เราต้องไม่ลืมว่านักโทษนั้น ก็คือประชาชนผู้ซึ่งแม้เคยต้องขังมาก่อน ต่อไปก็จะได้กลับไปมีอิสระอีกครั้งหนึ่ง

เมื่อเดือนกุมภาพันธ์ ปี คศ 2000 ประธานเนติบัณฑิตสภาแห่งกรุงปารีส ประกาศว่า จะให้มีผู้แทนทางด้านกฐหมาย ประจำอยู่ที่เรือนจำเพื่อดูแลสิทธิของนักโทษ และช่วยว่าความในศาลด้วย น่าขันที่ว่าสิ่งเดียวกันนี้ก็เกิดขึ้นในเรือนจำทหารด้วย (?) กฐหมายทีออกเดือนเมษายน 2000 นั้นเกี่ยวกับประเด็นสิทธิของพลเมืองทั่วไปเมื่อมีปัญหากับหน่วยงานของรัฐทั้งหลาย แต่ส่วนราชทัณฑ์ กลับคิดว่าตัวเองอยู่นอกเหนือกฐหมายนี้ และได้มีหนังสือสอบถามไปทางไปยังสภานิติบัญยัติ ว่าตัวต้องทำตามกฐข้อน้ีหรือไม่ อยากถามง่ายๆว่า ส่วนราชทัณฑ์นั้นเป็นหน่วยงานของรัฐหรือเปล่า? นักโทษนั้นเป็นพลเมืองหรือเปล่า? คำตอบทั้งสองข้อคือไช่ และจะมีผลกระทบต่อไปในอนาคตด้วย

รายงานของคณะกรรมาธิการเมื่อเดือนมีนาคม ได้ชี้ให้เห็นทางออกทางการเมืองของบทลงโทษ โดยรับรองสิทธิของผู้ต้องขัง และเรียกร้องให้มีองค์กรอิสระบริการทางด้านกฐหมายให้นักโทษ ในที่สุดสิทธิก็ได้เดินเข้ามาในเรือนจำ และทนายความก็ได้ยื่นขาเข้ามาหนึ่งข้างในคุกแล้ว เพื่อกันมิให้ประตูปิดได้อีก

ข้าพเจ้าหวังว่าความหวังยิ่งใหญ่เมื่อปี 2000 นั้นจะไม่แตกสลาย คุกนั้นเป็นเพียงสถานีเปลี่ยนเส้นทางเท่านั้น ยังมีเรื่องราวที่เกิดขึ้นก่อนหน้าและหลังจากนั้นอีก…

การปรับปรุงเปลี่ยนแปลงอย่างใหญ่หลวงของบทลงโทษนั้นมีผลกระทบไปถึงประมวลกฐหมายอาญาทั้งหมด เมื่อเดือนมิถุนายน ปี 2000 กฐหมายซึ่งชี้บ่งว่าบุคคลที่ยังไม่ถูกตัดสินว่าผิด เป็นผู้บริสุทธิ์ นั้น น่าจะทำให้ผู้พิพากศามีสิทธิ์ไม่ยินยอมให้มีการจองจำแบบ สั่งขังระหว่างรอดำเนินคดี การขังแบบนี้ควรเป็นข้อยกเว้นเท่านั้น 40%ของนักโทษที่ประเทศฝรั่งเศสนั้นเป็นผู้ต้องขังที่อยู่ระหว่างพิจารณา นี่แสดงให้เห็นว่าประเทศฝรั่งเศสนั้นมิได้เป็นแบบอย่างที่ดีของการใช้สิทธิมนุษยชนเหมือนที่ประเทศจะพึงปราถนาเลย

ทุกๆปี มีพลเมืองประมาณ 1000 คนที่โดนจำขังโดยที่ทางการตัดสินแบบคลาดเคลื่อน และไม่ควรลืมว่าผู้ต้องขังบางคนมิได้กระทำผิดโดยแท้จริง นี่ข้าพเจ้าอ้างถึงพวกเข้าเมืองแบบผิดกฐหมาย (37% ของผู้ถูกกักขังทั้งหมดที่ ลาซองเต) ซึ่งเป็นความผิดที่ฝ่ายบริหารควรจัดการ ไม่สมควรที่จะได้รับโทษทัณฑ์ และผู้ติดยาเสพติด ทั้งพวกมิจฉาชีพเล็กๆน้อยๆ ผู้ซึ่งสมควรจะได้รับการช่วยเหลือทางด้านสุขภาพ และสังคม เพราะการลงโทษโดยการคุมขังนั้นไร้ผล ทั้งข้าพเจ้ายังคิดไปถึงผู้เยาว์ ที่ทั้งร้อยทั้งร้อยกระทำผิดอีก ทั้งบุคคลที่เป็นโรคจิต ผู้ซึ่งไม่สมควรอย่างยิ่งที่จะมาอยู่ในคุก และข้าพเจ้าก็คิดไปอีกถึงผู้ต้องขังหญิง ที่บางครั้งคลอดลูกในขณะที่ถูกล่ามโซ่อยู่ และนึกถึงเด็กอ่อนที่ต้องประสพกับการเสื่อมโทรมทางด้านจิตใจ และ ร่างกาย…

เห็นได้ชัดเจนว่าพวกเราไม่มีจินตนาการกันเลย คำตอบเดียวที่เรามีก็คือ คุก ห้องขังสำหรับทุกคนที่คุกคามเรา ที่กันบุคคลออกไปจากสังคม เป็นสถานที่รองรับบุคคลที่เราไม่รู้ว่าจะทำอะไรกับเขาดี

ตลอดแปดปีที่ข้าพเจ้าทำงานที่ลาซองเต ข้าพเจ้าได้พบกับผู้คนที่อยู่นอกขอบข่ายของสังคม คนยากจนที่บ่อยครั้งไม่มีโดกาสได้รับการดูแลรักษาทางด้านการแพทย์ที่เรือนจำมีไว้ให้ การต้องถูกติดคุกนั้นได้กลายมาเป็นแบบอย่างของการรักษาคนจนไปเสียแล้วหรือ?

เราผู้มีหน้าที่ต่างๆกัน เพราะว่าไม่มีการต่อต้านอย่างจริงจรัง จึงได้ปล่อยให้สกานการณ์นี้กลายเป็นเรื่องธรรมดาของสังคมไป

จริงๆแล้วไม่มีใครสนใจปัญหาที่เกิดขึ้นในเรือนจำ จนกระทั่งปีนี้ซึ่งสนใจจนเป็นแฟชั่น อยากให้แนวนิยมนี้อยู่นานหน่อย…

แล้วไม่ใช่ว่าคนทั่วไปไม่รู้เรื่องปัญหาผู้ต้องขังอย่างเดียว เรายังต้องหยิบยกประมวลกฐหมายอาญาขึ้นมาพิจารณากันอีกครั้ง เพื่อใคร่ครวญว่า การกดกันตัวบุคคล การถูกลดสภาพความเป็นคน การทำให้เขาต้องรับคำสั่งตลอดการ ต้องอับอาย และโดนโปรแกรม และถูกส่งเข้าโรงพยาบาลโรคจิต คนมีอำนาจกว่าย่อมอยู่เหนือคนอ่อนแอ ทั้งนี้เหมือนกับจะพูดอย่างไม่ต้องเสแสร้งว่า “ที่นี่ แกเป็นแค่เศษมนุษย์เท่านั้น”

อำนาจนี้ใช้ในที่ปิด โดยไม่มีความโปร่งใส ไม่มีการควบคุมจากภายนอก สักวันหนึ่งต้องลงเอยด้วยสภาพการณ์ที่เลวร้าย นี่ก็คือธรรมชาติของมนุษย์ และผลลัพธ์ก็เหมือนๆกันหมดในทุกสถาบันปิด

คุกนั้นทั้งทำให้อุ่นใจทั้งสร้างภาพพจน์ เราบอกตัวเองว่านี่คือสถานที่กักขังผู้ร้าย ที่มีคนเฝ้าแน่นหนา ทำให้เราผู้อยู่ข้างนอกนอนตาหลับ แต่ตามความเป็นจริงแล้วไม่ใช่เช่นนั้นเลย ผู้ต้องขังนั้นเปรียบเสมือนอยู่ในระหว่างเวลาละคอนเปลี่ยนฉาก ก่อนที่จะออกมามีชีวิตอีกครั้ง ถึงแม้ว่าจุดประสงค์คือการรักษาความแลอดภัย จุดมุ่งหมายควรจะเป็นว่า ผู้ต้องขังผู้ซึ่งเมื่อได้รับโทษทัณฑ์ตามความผิดแล้ว จะได้ออกมาเป็นคนที่ดีกว่าตอนเขาเข้าคุก เพื่อที่เขาจะไม่กระทำผิดอีก

หรือจะเลือก ให้นักโทษออกมาจากคุกโดยมีความโกรธและเกลียด เราควรเปิดโอกาสให้มีการปลดปล่อยมากขึ้น ให้มีความหวังเสมอว่าจะได้รับอิสระ ตามสถิติถ้าผู้ถูกคุมขังต้องจำคุกเต็มอัตราเท่าไหร่ จะมีความเป็นไปได้สูงที่เขาเหล่านั้นจะกระทำผิดอีก ถ้าขังนานเกินไป ผู้ต้องขังจะเสียคนไปเลย ในประเทศฝรั่งเศสนั้น การปลดปล่อยแบบมีเงื่อนไข ได้ลดลงมาเกือบครึ่ง…

มีทางเลือกมากมายกว่าที่จะต้องเป็นการจองจำ เช่น การควบคุมทางด้านตุลาการ การให้ผู้ต้องขังมีอิสระบ้าง การให้ผู้กระทำผิดซึ่งเป็นผู้เยาว์แก้ตัว ให้นักโทษอาศัยอยู่นอกคุกได้โดยมีหรือไม่มีผู้ควบคุม ให้ใช้แรงงานทั่วไป

แต่ทางเลือกเหล่านี้ไม่มีการจัดหาให้อย่างเพียงพอ และกฐหมายก็ไม่ได้ช่วยให้เกิดมีขึ้น เราต้องสร้างตัวเลือกอื่นขึ้นมาอีก ทางเลือกใหม่นี้ต้องมีอำนาจตุลาการเข้ามาเกี่ยวข้องเพื่อให้เป็นไปตามความต้องการของกฐหมาย และพร้อมมีสิทธิ์ได้รับความช่วยเหลือทางด้านกฐหมายทุกขั้นตอน ในขณะเดียวกันทางเรือนจำก็ต้องทำตัวเป็นสถาบัน ศึกษาและสังคม เราจะเป็นคนของสังคมได้อย่างไรถ้าเราต้องใช้ชีวิตอยู่ในที่ที่ไม่มีการสมาคม ถ้าเราเริ่มนับถือผู้ต้องขังได้เมื่อไร เมื่อนั้นเราก็หวังได้ว่าเขาจะนับถือตัวเขาเอง และผู้อื่นด้วย

เรือนจำนั้นเป็นสถานที่ที่ไร้อิสระอยู่แล้ว ไม่จำเป็นต้องเพิ่มความอับอายขายหน้า เข้าไปอีก ประเพณีของศาสนายิวคริสเตียนที่ต้องล้างบาปโดยการทุกข์ทรมานนั้นมิได้พิจารณาผลเสียทางด้านจิต ก็คือ การทุกข์ทรมาน และ การอับอายขายหน้า เป็นบ่อเกิดแห่งความโกรธแค้น และทำให้กระทำผิดอีก ในสถานการ์ณที่ก้าวร้าวและรุนแรงเช่นนี้ ย่อมเป็นไปไม่ได้ที่ ผู้ต้องขังจะกลับตนเป็นคนดี แก้ไขอดีต และก้าวไปข้างหน้าในสังคมได้

ไม่ใช่ว่าสถานกักกันสมัยใหมๆ่ที่ยุติธรรมและมีเมตตาจิตเท่านั้นที่เริ่มเปลี่ยน เราทั้งหลายต้องเปลี่ยนให้ได้ลึกถึงจิตวิญญาณ

ถ้าจะให้บังเกิดผล เราต้องมีมนุษยธรรมแต่ไม่จำเป็นต้องอ่อน คุกนั้นเป็นสถานกักกันที่กดดันความเจริญเติบโต ผู้ต้องขังน่าจะมีสิทธิส่วนตัว ที่จะทำงานบ้าง เรียนรู้ หรือฝึกงาน ไม่ใช่เพียงที่จะกลับไปอยู่ในสังคมได้อีกโดยไม่กระทำผิดอีกเท่านั้น แต่เพื่อให้เขาแก้ตัวให้กับสังคมที่เขาได้ทำผิดไว้ด้วย

งบประมาณที่จัดขึ้นเพื่อปรับปรุงและเปลี่ยนแปลงหน่วยงานราชทัณฑ์นั้นไม่ควรนำไปใช้แต่การสร้างเรือนจำใหม่ๆ แต่ควรเป็นการฝึกสอนเจ้าหน้าที่เรือนจำด้วย เพื่อที่การปฎิรูปจะเป็นไปอย่างมีประสิทธิภาพยิ่งขึ้น อาชีพนี้ยากนักควรต้องมีการ ลงทุน เพื่อที่พวกเขาจะได้ไม่เป็นแค่พนักงานผู้ถือกุญแจ… การลงทุนนี้เป็นทางเลือกอีกอย่างแทนที่การสร้างคุก และก็ไม่น่าจะแพงไปกว่าค่าใช้จ่ายในการคุมขังผู้ต้องหาหนึ่งคน

ข้าพเจ้าเพียงพอแล้วกับสถานกักกัน กับการไม่เชื่อมโยงกัน กับระบบบริหารงาน และ เหนือสิ่งอื่นได ข้าพเจ้าต้องหนีไปจากสถานที่ปิดนี้ แปดปีที่เหมือนถูกจองจำนั้นพอแล้ว ข้าพเจ้าไม่อยากจากที่นี่ไปโดยไม่บอกอะไรเลย และไม่ต้องการเขียนเรื่องเล่าที่น่าอ่านกว่านี้เพียงเพื่อว่าจะไม่ได้โดนว่า โดนโจมตี หรือมีคนอิจฉา แต่ก็ได้รับการสนับสนุนอย่างมากมาย ถ้าจำเป็นจริงๆข้าพเจ้าก็จะกลับมาทำงานที่นี่อีก

The most recent posting contains up to date details of death row in Bang Kwang prison. Concerned with the death penalty we are continually reminded of the awful conditions of detention, especially for those condemned to death. The most blatant offence against the humane treatment of prisoners is the permanent shackling of detainees. Remedies are not in piecemeal improvement of abuses, but rather in a total change in the penal system. In the following extract from a book which led to upheaval in the French prison system the principles of such a change are passionately laid out.

Chief Medical Officer of La Santé Prison
Extract from the memoir of Veronique Vasseur
“At La Santé, one cannot be lukewarm. Either one is passionate and one goes the whole way, or one becomes indifferent, and performs one’s function very badly. One cannot just maintain a technical and professional attitude. Either you commit yourself, or it is not worth the bother”.

While the extension of medical services in the prisons has reached normal standards, other things are unchanged: hygiene conditions which are precarious and unhealthy, aged locations, laziness, detention without planning, valueless activities, absence of intimacy, promiscuity, absence of affection, endless waiting, hopes which are always frustrated, anger and hopelessness, violence, self mutilation, attempted suicides as well as actual suicides but also security that is sometimes excessive and paranoid, repeated body searches, handcuffs or sometimes leg irons, arbitrary regulations, useless and humiliating teasing, systems of balance which weigh on the most vulnerable, prolonged isolation which can go on for years, medieval disciplinary quarters, and, finally, a total lack of rights in a place meant to represent them.

Dostoyevsky wrote: “We cannot judge the level of civilization of a nation without visiting its prisons”. This, at least, has been well taken care of …
The findings are overwhelming. A report made by members of parliament and senators bears the heading “Prisons, a Shame for the Republic”.
We are all responsible for this state of affairs. But the immediate question is: are we civilized?
I became involved because I had no other moral choice. The code of medical ethics reads; ‘The doctor may not depart from her professional independence in any form whatever’ Article 5. ‘A doctor examining or caring for any person deprived of liberty must neither directly nor indirectly, even by being present, favour or tolerate any action against the physical or mental integrity, or the dignity of the detainee’ Article 10. My Hippocratic oath reminds me that ‘My first duty is to reestablish, to preserve and to promote health in all its aspects… I respect all persons, I will intervene to defend them if they are weak and vulnerable, or when their integrity or dignity are threatened’. My idealism cost me dearly, honesty and respect do not pay.
I regret nothing. I profoundly loved this place and its occupants. I have learned much. I have had moments of despair, but also great joys and much emotion.
A prison is a school of tolerance, of listening and respecting others. It must never be forgotten that a detainee is a citizen who, deprived of liberty during a more or less long intermission, is called to join again the free world.
In February 2000, the President of the French Bar in Paris, announced that there would be a permanent legal representative within the prison to care for the rights of the detainees and to plead on their behalf in court disputes. By an amusing coincidence this practice had already become a reality in all French prisons. The law of April 2000 established the rights of citizens with regard to the administration. The penal administration, abusively considering itself apart, queried the Council of State, whether it was subject to this regulation. The question is fundamental. Is the penitential administration an administration or not? Is a detainee a citizen? The answer in both cases was yes, and will have considerable effect on the future.

A Commission report in March shows the way for a truly political penitentiary. It affirms the rights of the detainees and calls for the creation of an independent control charged with verifying the application of laws behind bars. At last, rights have found an entry into prisons and lawyers have a foot in the door to stop it being closed again.
I hope that the immense hopes of the year 2000 will not be shattered, a prison is only a transit station, there is a before and an after…..
The upheaval in the penal institutes has had repercussions in the whole judicial world. In June 2000, a law on the presumption of innocence foresees a liberty judge who should take a stand on the demand for provisional detention by the judge preparing the case for the courts….. Provisional detention should be the exception; 41% of those arrested being detained and excessively long provisional detentions show that France is no longer the model of human rights it has always wished to be.
Every year, about 1,000 persons are imprisoned by error. Nor should we forget those who should not be there at all. I think especially of illegal immigrants (37% of those in La Santé), their offence being an administrative matter they should not be subject to the penal code. I think too of the drug addicts and small time delinquents, whose treatment should be health and socially based; repressive punishment is ineffectual. I think too of minors, who offend again at a rate of almost 100%. Also the psychically disturbed, who have no place in the prison system….I think too of imprisoned women, who sometimes give birth while shackled, and of their babies who suffer psychic and motor disequilibrium….
It appears that we lack imagination. A sole response: prison, prison for all those who derange us, to exclude from society those with whom one does not know what to do….
During my eight years in la Santé, I met with, apart from some exceptions, a marginal population, poor, often without access to care and taking the opportunity of access to prison medical services. Has imprisonment become a mode of treatment of poverty?
We have all, each at her level of responsibility, by our lack of protest, allowed this situation to develop into the habitual routine of our society.
In fact nobody was interested in prisons. Until becoming a fashion this year; if only it could last….
Not only is it that many have no connection with the prison system. The Penal Code must be re-examined, its role in oppressing individuals, breaking down their personalities, making them creatures of response to orders, humiliation being programmed and institutionalized.. Power is exercised by the strongest over the weakest. In effect what is being said, without the hypocrisy, is ‘Here, you are no longer anything!’
Such power, in an enclosed area, without any transparency, without external control, can only end in aberration. Such is human nature and the outcome is the same in all closed institutions.
Prison reassures as much as it engenders fantasy. One says to oneself, that is where evil is contained. It is well guarded and we can sleep peacefully in our beds. But the reality is otherwise. The detainee is in a state of intermission and must re-emerge. Even though the goal is security, the objective is that he who has fulfilled his penalty emerges a better person than when he entered the prison, so that he will not re-offend.
The alternative would be for the freed prisoner to emerge in hatred and anger. One must envisage more permissions to leave prison, more anticipated liberations. According to statistics, the more the full penalty is served, the higher the probability of re-offense. If the penalty is too long, the prisoner is destroyed for ever. In the last fifteen years in France, conditional release has decreased by half…
There are already many alternatives to prison – judicial control, semi-liberty, penal reparation for minors, outside placement, with or without supervision, general works…but these arrangements remain insufficient and justice avails too little of them. One must invent new alternatives. These procedures must be judicial as is wished by lawyers, and with the right to legal assistance at every stage. It is equally necessary that the prison play an educative and social role, one cannot have a social being in an asocial setting… It is only in respecting the detainee that one can hope that he regains self-respect and the respect of others.
A prison consists in the deprivation of liberty. It is useless, and also ineffectual to add humiliation. The judeo-christian tradition which promotes redemption by suffering is oblivious of psychological evidence: suffering and humiliation generate hatred, vengeance, and lead to re-offence. One does not re-establish oneself, make amends for the past, and take a step towards society, in an environment of violence and force.
It is not only in fair new prisons and with benevolent law that change occurs, a profound change in spirit is required.
To have effect, one must be humane, which does not entail laxity. Actually prisons fulfill their function as guardian efficiently, but, paradoxically, with a certain permissiveness which avoids the growth of revolt. The detainee should have a personalized sanction. He should have rights, be able to accomplish tasks, acquire a formation, and serve an apprenticeship. And that not only to re-enter society and avoid re-offense, but also to make reparation to society whose laws have been transgressed.
Budgets for reform of the prison system should not be dedicated only to constructing new prisons but also to the formation of better prison officials without whom no prison reform can be effective. Theirs is a difficult occupation and which requires individual investment so that they are not just carriers of keys…Investment must also be made in alternatives to prison, which, besides, would cost must less than a stay in prison.
I have had enough of prison, of its incoherencies, its administrative loads and, above all, I need to escape this closed milieu. Eight years in confinement is enough. I did not wish to leave this place without saying anything, nor did I wish to write what might have been more acceptable rather than earning condemnation, attack, jealousy, but also immense support. If necessary, I would do it all again…

Bang Kwang Improves

2009-07-01T10:38:00.004+07:00

Conditions in Bang Kwang Prison
A year ago Bang Kwang Prison was listed by the Times Newspaper as one of the ten worst prisons in the world. However, conditions there have improved; there is now at least one worse prison in Thailand itself! The following is an up to date summary of the conditions for Death Row prisoners, most of whom are held in Bang Kwang.

OVERVIEW OF THE CONDITIONS OF DETENTION IN DEATH ROW
The Prison of Bang Khwang in Nonthaburi, Bangkok, consists of 13 buildings. Apart from building 8 (factories), 9 (kitchen), 10 (solitary confinement), 11 (executions) , 12 (hospital), 13 (university and pigs), 15 (coffee shop), each of them is composed of cells of similar size and capacity. The total capacity of the prison is 4,000 and the number of prisoners amounts at present to about 4130.
Building 1 which used to host all death row inmates is now closed and death row prisoners are located in buildings 2 and 5, separated from other prisoners, including those condemned to life imprisonment.
Death row prisoners are between 20 to 30 people to a cell, all together, without any distinction regarding their age, offence or the status of their case. They sleep on blankets lying on the floor. Electric lights are on 24 hours a day. They can shower every day but are provided infrequently with toiletries. They are chained at the ankles 24 hours a day for the entire length of their stay on death row.
Their daily routine is as follows :
The cells open at 7.30 am for breakfast. They can go out to exercise and/or study until 11.00 am. Lunch is served between 12.30 and 1 pm. They are locked back in their cell at 2.30 pm or 3 pm depending on the day. No dinner is served. The two daily meals are composed of rice and a soup with pieces of meat or fish. They can take as much rice as they want for lunch. No free coffee or tea are available.
They have no possibility to meet with other prisoners. They can only study or exercise among themselves.
They are allowed 2 visits a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The first round of visits starts at 1 pm until 1.45 pm and the second round starts at 1.45 until 2.30 pm. Visitors must arrive half an hour prior to the visiting time.
They are allowed phone calls twice a week for 5 minutes. The use of cell phones is prohibited.
They are allowed to write letters. However, the content is censored and the letters cannot be too long or contain any explicit complaint.
In case of ill-treatment, prisoners can submit a complaint to prison authorities. However, the death row inmates in Bang Khwang are usually a lot more subject to depression than to physical violence. That is why moral support from the outside, especially from families and friends, is so essential to them.

Death Penalty Does Not Deter Murder

2009-06-18T09:01:00.004+07:00

โทษประหารชีวิตไม่สามารถยับยั้งอาชญากรรม
โทษประหารชีวิตไม่สามารถยับยั้งอาขญา¬กรรม-จากข้อมูลการศึกษาของมหาวิทยาลัย Colorado at Boulder

88%ของนักอาชญาวิทยาชั้นนําชองประเทศไม่เชื่อว่าโทษประหารชีวิตนั้นจะสามารถยับยั้งฆาตกรรมได้นี่ก็คือ ข้อมูลจากการศึกษาค้นคว้าซึ่งตีพิมพ์วันนี้ ในวารสาร Journal of Criminal Law andCriminology ของมหาวิทยาลัย Northwestern University School of Law ซึ่งเขียนโดยศาสตราจารย์ MichaelRadelet ประธานคณะสังคมศาสตร์แห่งมหาวิทยาลัย Colorado at BoulderและTracy Lacock ทนายความ ผู้ฃึ่งเคยเป็นนักศึกษา ของมหาวิทยาลัยเดียวกันนี้มาก่อน ศาสตราจารย์ Radelet ผู้ซึ่งเป็นหนึ่งในผู้เชี่ยวชาญชั้นนําของประเทศ ทางด้านโทษประหาร กล่าวว่า ข้อมูลการค้นคว้าที่ชื่อว่า "Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists" นั้น ได้ลบความเชื่อโดยสิ้นเชิงว่าโทษประหารนั้นทําให้อาชกรรมลดลง Radelet กล่าวต่อไปว่าข้อมูลนี้ได้แสดงให้เห็นว่าการที่วงการทั่วไปต่อต้านการยั้บยั้ง
โทษประหารชีวิต เพราะเชื่อว่าจะทําให้อาชญากรรมลดลงนั้น แท้จริงแล้วเป็นความคิดที่ผิด เมื่อได้ถูกสํารวจอย่างจริงจังโดยผู้เชี่ยวชาญทางด้านนี้โดยตรงและข้ออ้างต่างๆเพื่อสนับสนุนโทษประหารนั้น ออกจะอ่อน เมื่อเทียบกับผลลบอื่นๆ เช่น ค่าใช้จ่ายสูง การตัดสินแบบไม่เป็นธรรม การฆ่าคนบริสุทธิ์และการดึงเอาทุนใช้จ่ายจากมาตรการประสิทธิภาพที่ควรจะได้ช่วยลดอาชญากรรมและช่วยเหลือผู้ถูกกระทํา การศึกษาข้อมูลนี้ กระทําโดยการส่งแบบสอบถามให้กับนักอาชญาวิทยาชั้นนํา ชองประเทศอเมริกา รวมทั้งนักวิจัยแห่งสถาบัน American Society of Criminology และผู้ได้รับรางวัล Southerland Award จากสถาบันเดียวกันนี้ รวมทั้งประธานสถาบันท่านปัจุบันทุกท่าน American Society of Criminology นี้เป็นสถาบันชั้นสูงสุดของนักอาชญาวิทยาทั่วโลก ผู้ตอบแบบสอบถามดังกล่าว 77 ท่าน มิได้ถูกถามตามความเห็นส่วนตัวเลย ว่าคิดอย่างไร
กับโทษประหารแต่ทว่าได้ขอให้ตอบคําถามตามพื้นฐานของข้อมูลที่ได้จากการวิจัยเชิงประจักษ์ ที่เกี่ยวกับประเด็นนี้ Radeletได้พบว่า 87% ของนักอาชญาวิทยาเชื่อว่า การยับยั้งโทษประหารชีวิตนั้น จะไม่มีผลกระทบเลยกับอัตราฆาตกรรมและอีก 75% ของผู้ถูกถาม ตอบเป็นเสียงเดียวกันว่า "การถกเถียงเกี่ยวกับประเด็นโทษประหารนั้นทําให้สภาคองเกรสและผู้ออกกฐหมายของรัฐเบี่ยงเบนความสนใจไปจากการแก้ปัญหาอาชญากรรมที่แท้จริง"
ทั้ง RadeletและLacock เขียนต่อไปว่า ข้อมูลการวิจัยครั้งนี้ ได้แสดงให้เห็นว่า นักอาชญาวิทยาชั้นนําของโลกส่วนใหญ่จะเชื่อว่าการวิจัยเชิงประจักษ์ได้แสดงให้เห็นว่าเหตุผลที่ทั่วไปอ้างเพื่อยับยั้งโทษประหารนั้น เป็นความเห็นที่ไม่ได้อยู่ในรากฐานแห่งความเป็นจริง นักอาชญาวิทยาเหล่านี้ได้ออกความเห็นอย่างพร้อมเพรียงกันว่าโทษประหารนั้นมืได้มีผลยับยั้งอาชญากรรมมากไปกว่าการถูกจําคุกระยะยาวเลย การศึกษาข้อมูลนี้ได้รับทุนจาก Sheilah's Fund แห่ง Tides Foundation ของเมือง San Francisco โดยที่ Death Penalty Information Center Washington DC เป็นผู้จัดการให้

According to New CU-Boulder Study

Eighty-eight percent of the country's top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide, according to a new study published today in Northwestern University School of Law's Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology authored by Professor Michael Radelet, chair of the sociology department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Traci Lacock, an attorney and CU-Boulder graduate student in sociology.

The study titled "Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists" undermines deterrence as a rationale for maintaining the punishment, said Radelet, one of the nation's leading experts on the death penalty.

"These data show that deterrence, which in many circles is the strongest justification for the death penalty, falls on its face when closely examined by those who are best qualified to study and evaluate it," Radelet said. "Any justifications for the death penalty that might remain pale in comparison to drawbacks such as high costs, arbitrariness, executing the innocent and diverting resources from more effective ways to reduce crime and assist victims."

The study was conducted by sending questionnaires to the most pre-eminent criminologists in the country, including fellows of the American Society of Criminology, winners of the American Society of Criminology's prestigious Southerland Award and recent presidents of the American Society of Criminology. The American Society of Criminology is the top professional organization of criminologists in the world.

The 77 respondents were not asked for their personal opinion about the wisdom of the death penalty, but instead to answer the questions only on the basis of their understandings of the empirical research available on the subject.

Eighty-seven percent of the expert criminologists also believed that abolition of the death penalty would not have any significant effect on murder rates, Radelet said. And 75 percent of the respondents agreed that "debates about the death penalty distract Congress and state legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime problems."

"Our survey indicates that the vast majority of the world's top criminologists believe that the empirical research has revealed the deterrence hypothesis for a myth," Radelet and Lacock wrote. "The consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment."

The study was funded by Sheilah's Fund at the Tides Foundation in San Francisco and was arranged through the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

Santi Asoke and the Death Penalty in Thailand

2009-06-16T21:23:00.007+07:00

The union for Civil Liberty is currently conducting a series of 20 seminars on the death penalty throughout Thailand. Recently a seminar was held in the main temple of Santi Asoke, a noted Buddhist grouping founded by Phra Bodhirak, previously a well known media figure. Santi Asoke is noted for its interest in the reform of Thai society. The seminar began with an address given by Phra Bodhirak. Santi Asoke is firmly opposed to the death penalty. Strictly vegetarian, they also avoid the killing of any living being.

“พ่อท่าน สมณะ โพธิรักษ์ เป็นผู้เปิดสัมมนาและปาฐกถา ได้แดสงความเห็นว่า “สิทธิมนุษยชนกับโทษประหารชีวิต เราต้องเข้าถึงระบบโลกที่เรียกว่าสมมุติสัจจะ กับระบบธรรมที่เรียกว่าปรมัตถสัจจะถ้าเราไม่เข้าใจสองส่วนนี้อย่างชัดเจนแล้วจะปนกัน แล้วจะบังคับให้คนนั้นมาเป็นอันนี้ คนนี้มาเป้นอันนั้น ยกตัวอย่างง่ายๆ จะให้พระหรือผู้ที่อยู่ในธรรมวินัยนี้แล้วไปประหารชีวิตใครไม่ได้ ปาราชิกเลย มาเป็นสมณะแล้วไม่มีสิทธิจะไปฆ่าใคร นี้คือโลกของปรมัตถ์สัจจะ
ดังนั้น คนที่อยู่ในกรอบนี้ใครจะร้ายแรงอย่างไรไม่มีสิทธิฆ่าเขา เพราะศาสนาเข้าใจถึงเรื่องกรรมวิบาก กรรมวิบากเป็นของตน ใครชั่วใครเลวจะได้รับกรรมวิบากเอง คนไม่ต้องไปซ้ำเติม กรอบนี้ไม่มีสิทธิไปฆ่าใคร จะผิดจะถูกใครจะมีความร้ายแรงขนาดไหน ไม่มีสิทธิไปฆ่าเขา ชีวิตเป็นของเขา ให้เขารับวิบากกรรมของเขาเอง
ทีนี้ในเรื่องของสมมุติสัจจะ ก็มีกรอบของการลงโทษกันเอง เขาก็จะรับผิดชอบกันเองวิทบากที่เขาทำกันเอง นี่เป็นเรื่องของอจินไตย เป็นเรื่องที่ไม่ใช่โทษประหารชีวิตหรอก เขาเองก็ฆ่ากันเอง อาฆาตมาดร้ายฆ่ากันเอง ขนาดมีกฎหมายซ้อนอยู่แล้วด้วยว่า คุณไม่ฆ่าเขากฎหมายเขาก็ฆ่าคุณ เขายังไม่กลัวกันเลย เขายังละเมิด นี้คืออำนาจของเวรภัย อำนาจของวิบาก อำนาจของกิเลส นี้คือโลกของสมมุติสัจจะ เพราะฉะนั้นจะมาตั้งกฎเกณฑ์ว่าไม่มีการประหารชีวิต คนก็ฆ่ากันเองอยู่ดี แต่ไม่เป็นไรหรอกเรื่องสมมุติ การไม่มีประหารชีวิตเป็นปรมัตถสัจจะ ชีวิตของเขาเป็นของเขา เขาจะทำผิดทำชั่วอะไรเป็นเรื่องของเขา ไม่มีสิทธิไปประหารชีวิตเขา เป็นแต่เพียงไล่เขาออกจากหมู่คณะไป
ถ้าจะให้อาตมาออกความเห็นโดยส่วนตัว การที่จะไปละเมิดฆ่าใครก็ไม่สมควรอย่างยิ่ง ใครเขาจะชั่วจะเลวอย่างไร อาตมาเชื่อกรรม เชื่อวิบาก กรรมเป็นของของตน วิบากเป็นของของตน ใครเป็นคนชั่วขนาดไหนเขาเขาจะรับวิบากของเขาเอง จะมีคู่วิบากจัดสรรของมันเอง ไม่ต้องห่วงหรอก ในสังคมมนุษย์มันจะเกิดของมันเอง เพราะฉะนั้นปล่อยเขาไปเถอะ และจะเป็นไปตามวิบาก ถ้าใครเชื่อกรรมเชื่อวิบาก... เพราะฉะนั้นการกำหนดโทษประหารชีวิตอาตมาว่าไม่สมควรกระทำ แต่มีโทษที่ต้องแรงมีข้อกฎเกณฑ์ไม่ให้เขามีโอกาสมาทำชั่วในหมู่กลุ่มนั้นๆ ได้อีก สมัยโบราณเขาเนรเทศไปอยู่เกาะที่คนเลวอยู่ แต่สมัยนี้ไม่มีเกาะให้อยู่แล้ว สูงที่สูดในระดับจองจำตลอดชีวิตก็น่าจะพออันนั้นก็รุนแรงแล้ว
เสริมเรื่องสิทธินิดนึง พระพุทธเจ้าสอนเรื่องสิทธิไม่ใช่เรื่องตามใจตนเอง การจะใช้สิทธิไม่ใช่เพื่อบำเรอกิเลสตยเอง เพราะมันจะต้องมีกรอบธรรมเนียมประเพณี วัฒนธรรมความสมควร ไม่สมควรของสังคม เรียกว่ามารยาทสังคมก็ได้ หรือคุณธรรมสังคมก็ได้ ส่วนปัญหาที่จะไปประหารชีวิตนั้นเป็นปัญหาปลายเหตุ เพราะคนจะไม่มีความรุนแรง ไม่มีความเลวร้ายถึงปานนั้นถ้าคนมาลดกิเลส ถ้ามาแก้ปัญหาที่ต้นเหตุเรื่องปัญหาของสิทธิ ปัญหาของการลงโทษอะไรพวกนนี้จะเบาลง สังคมจะไม่มีโทษรุนแรงเลย”

The Torture of Waiting for Execution

2009-06-12T19:49:00.001+07:00

Victor Hugo in ‘The Last Day of a Condemned Man’ describes with all the passion and clarity of his art ‘the slow succession of tortures which comprise the process of execution.’ In 1829 he outlined the great misrepresentation of the process of execution which is still current today; ‘they think that the execution is only the fall of a blade, nothing before, nothing after. They do not think of the sufferings of the spirit as they vaunt the power of killing with little physical pain’, a pain deemed insignificant because it only lasts half a second.
Talking with a prisoner on death row, a few days ago, I perceived the suffering, indeed the torture, of indecision, of the long wait for either execution or some kind of reprieve. It is a torture which generates bouts of extreme depression and hopelessness, negating any purpose in life, even an indifference to a further stage in the legal process.
For six years now, no one has been executed in Thailand, although death sentences are still handed down at a rate of more than one a week. Prison officials ask the condemned why they worry, no one is actually being executed. But the threat that it may all start again at any moment is an exquisite torture, like the notorious dripping of a water tap which never ceases; already a cruel and inhumane pain.

Death Penalty Thailand Statistics - 8th June 2009

2009-06-10T22:02:00.007+07:00

All cases, present status

M/F***Appeal Court******Supreme Court******Complete********Total
M***********442***************223**************104*****************769
F************64****************13***************11******************88
Total*******506***************236**************115*****************857

Death Penalty for Drugs

M***********175****************67***************73*****************315
F************53****************12***************10******************75
Total*******228****************79***************83*****************390

Death Penalty for Homicide and related crimes

M***********267***************156***************31*****************454
F************11*****************1****************1******************13
Total*******278***************157***************32*****************467

Capital Crime in Thailand

2009-05-20T12:15:00.005+07:00

Those who work for abolition of the death penalty dread the occurrence of vicious and totally inexcusable homicides. Cases of homicide which incur the death penalty fall into three categories:
1. Cases where despite the requirement in law that the evidence be clear and convincing, allowing for no other interpretation than the guilt of the accused, reasonable doubt persists and the possibility exists of wrongful conviction. A famous case in the Philippines which greatly helped abolition related in the court records that the accused had said such and such. Subsequent examination of t he condemned person by a doctor revealed that the accused was deaf and dumb, throwing doubt on the whole legal process. More generally, many cases occur where examination of the evidence reveals serious flaws and unanswered questions. Abolitionists can refer to such cases as 'unsafe' convictions.
2. Most cases are convincing enough. and may even include a plea of guilt by the accused. But it is seldom that evidence is overwhelmingly strong, as it must be, independently of a guilty plea which may have been induced by seemingly endless interrogation or other cause. Above all, there are extenuating circumstances. The accused may have led a blameless life and the crime appear quite out of character. Or the accused may have serious deficiencies of intelligence, be uneducated, have little understanding of legal procedure. Many accused are poor and disadvantaged, or may have been subject to abuse. In the words of Pascal, 'to understand everything is to forgive everything'.
3. Finally, there are crimes which are blatant, where the evidence is indeed overwhelming. Or there are crimes that are so vicious and cruel that the concept of mercy can hardly be considered. Cases like this awake feelings of revenge, feelings that no punishment is sufficient. There is also a fear that the guilty person is a monster who could repeat the crime if not executed. It is indeed difficult to argue against the death penalty in such cases. But argue we must, in the name of humanity itself.

While Thailand approaches a period of six years without the death penalty, it is a tragedy that cases of the third kind still occur. In one case the death sentence was handed down on a woman who had hired four men to kill her 56 year old husband to benefit from a 2 million baht insurance cover she had taken out on his life. The four men were also found guilty of murder but the death sentence against them was commuted to a 25 year sentence on account of their admission of guilt. Surely, a cut and dried case!

On the 14th April there occurred a particularly cruel crime.
"On Friday, robbers killed Apisa Tasi, 12, and her sister Orawan, 7, by hanging them at the back of their house in Ban Koh Mi in tambon Klong Hae, Haadyai. Their hands and legs were bound.
Police believe at least two robbers raided the house. They took 13,000 baht in cash and two-baht weight in gold jewellery.
The girls were left alone as their grandfather and his wife went out to tap rubber trees. Their mother was not in the house during the raid."
Police surmise that the girls would have recognised the killers who were probably their relatives, and were killed to avoid detection. A horrendous crime for such a paltry motivation. It is likely that arrests will be made and we will witness strengthened support for the death penalty.

And yet, everyone has the right to life.

Updated Thai Death Penalty Figures

2009-03-16T07:00:00.006+07:00

Total Number Condemned to Death: 754 persons

All legal process completed: 91 persons
Cases still under Appeal: 428 persons
Cases under review by Supreme Court: 235 persons
New death sentences handed down in 2008: 57 persons (approximate figure)

Total number of cases of condemnation by Court of First Instance, Appeals Court, and Supreme Court in the year 2008: 232 persons

Source: Government source, spokesperson for Bang Kwang prison management: 11th March 2009

Capitalist argument for abolition

2009-02-25T19:14:00.005+07:00

Well, glory be! Abolition is being achieved because it is cheaper than executions. We know that capitalism is amoral, but that it should act in favour of a moral issue to save money! Alleluia.

When Gov. Martin O’Malley appeared before the Maryland Senate last week, he made an unconventional argument that is becoming increasingly popular in cash-strapped states: abolish the death penalty to cut costs.
Mr. O’Malley,Democrat and a Roman Catholic who has cited religious opposition to the death penalty in the past, is now arguing that capital cases cost three times as much as homicide cases where the death penalty is not sought. “And we can’t afford that,” he said, “when there are better and cheaper ways to reduce crime.”

Lawmakers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire have made the same argument in recent months as they push bills seeking to repeal the death penalty, and experts say such bills have a good chance of passing in Maryland, Montana and New Mexico.

Unfortunately, such arguments are unlikely to be valid in Thailand, where summary legal proceedings leading to capital punishment are unlikely to be more expensive than long term imprisonment. But, on the other hand, the low cost of appallingly overcrowded prisons, inadequate warder to prisoner ratios, and primitive conditions may indeed make lifetime imprisonment a cheaper option. Must we really engage in such economics of death? Hrdefender has just returned from a visit to Bhutan where operative Buddhist beliefs have banished the death penalty for the last hundred years, and vegetarianism, to spare the lives of animals, is a preferred life style.

The Blooded Stone - Stoning in Iran

2009-02-08T20:11:00.002+07:00

The issue of death by stoning is the most tortuous of all death penalty issues. The following article is a remarkable attempt to confront the practice on all fronts, including the sensitive issue of the claim that the practice is derived from Koranic teaching. The article is long, but its content is momentous. Many of the arguments are those we have exchanged with our Muslim friends in Thailand during seminars on the death penalty..

The Bloodied Stone
Execution by Stoning
Emadeddin Baghi

A few weeks ago the media published a report regarding the imminent stoning of a man and a woman in Qazvin for the charge of adultery committed with a married woman. Upon hearing the news, Ayatollah Shahrudi, the head of the Iranian Judiciary, immediately ordered the suspension of this act. What happened was yet another manifestation of the important role played by the media in informing Iranian officials about the atrocities that occur hidden from the eyes of everyone. But two weeks later a piece of news stunned everyone. The judge in the case ordered the stoning of the man and since there were not enough pious people present, he implemented the sentence with the help of a few members of the police force. This time the issue of stoning that had been placed in the back burner for a while made headlines and the concern about its repetition came to life again.

I am writing this piece not to engage in sophistry but to address a serious issue that constitutes one of our contemporary legal quandaries. I have been a student of Islamic jurisprudence and knowledge as well as sociology and in recent years I have focused my religious studies on the issue of capital punishment (execution, qessas, and stoning).

The real and fabricated images of stoning in the foreign media and their destructive impact on Islam and Iran are well-known and there is really no reason to discuss them. What motivates me to write is the recent implementation of several stoning sentences and the existence of 9 people in line to be stoned, some of whom asides form being accused of illicit relationships are also charged with murder.

Another motivation is the fact that the head of the judiciary does not consider these sentences as beneficial and has ordered their suspension. Although this order has significantly reduced the issuance of these sentences, still some judges continue to hand them out (the Qazvin example being the latest) since the head of the Judiciary’s order has yet to find legal expression, keeping the relevant laws of the Islamic penal code in force. Hence my plea for legislation that eliminates and replaces stoning as a more definite path for preventing such verdicts.

Considering that Iran’s civil and criminal code is inspired by the Islamic juridical tradition and popular culture is also intertwined with religion, legal reform requires understanding of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and new independent interpretation (ijtihad), the responsibility for which lies with religious leaders (fuqaha). I believe that the use of reasoning regarding the need to eliminate and replace stoning is more beneficial and effective than relying on slogans, false claims, and commanding language. So long as there is hope in someone listening and having an impact through reasoning, words spoken in anger remain unsatisfying and should stay in cover.

Here, I would like to discuss stoning from eight different vantage points:

1. Human Rights
2. The Qur’an
3. Traditional Islamic Jurisprudence
4. As a Case Study
5. Interest of Islam
6. Legal Perspective
7. Emotional Impact
8. Historical and Sociological Perspective

Human Rights

From the point of view of human rights, the stoning sentence is against human goodness and dignity in two ways. First, the right to life is an intrinsic right that cannot be taken away. In other word, it is the right to life that should shape law and be the criteria for forging it and not the other way around. Second, the way the stoning punishment is meted out is violent and an insult to human dignity. Now the question is what is the relationship between stoning as a punishment and Islamic laws?

The Qur’an

The stoning verdict in traditional Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is a legal command but it has no basis in the Qur’an. Verse 15 and 16 of al- Nisā (which is said to have been voided with Verse 2 of Nur specifying 100 lashes for adultery) talks about the punishment for adultery for the first time in the following terms: “If any of your women are guilty of adultery, take the evidence of four [Muslim] witnesses amongst you against them, and if they testify, confine them [women] to houses until death claims them, or Allah ordains for them some [salvation] path.” And “if two among you are guilty of vileness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, leave them alone for Allah is kind and merciful.”

Al-Zamakhshari says in Al-Kashshaf that the meaning of this verse is prison for life for the adulterer which was the punishment for this offense at the outset of Islam and was later voided by Verse 2 of Nur which states, “The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with a hundred stripes: let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their punishment.” At the same time, al-Zamakhshari thinks that the verse was probably not voided and adds that the objective of this verse is to keep the woman in the house to protect her from the repetition of the committed sin and men’s aggression, hence creating conditions for her marriage.

Allameh Tabatabai, one of the prominent thinkers of Shi’i Islam, says the following regarding the two verses:
Interpreters have narrated that when the lashes verse in Nur descended upon him, the Prophet said this is the same remedy and path that God had promised in Verse 15 of al-Nisā. Perhaps this appearance is another appearance in this verse and this is what should be understood from the language of this verse that the command is not permanent and will soon be voided since it is said: ‘and or the Almighty will offer a remedial path.’ In this sentence the issue pf permanent imprisonment of the woman is connected to the testimony of witnesses and not the occurrence of the indecent act. In short, the only time the permanent incarceration command is issued by the sovereign is when four witnesses testify about the woman’s action and if the witnesses do not testify no judgment is rendered, even if the sovereign is certain about the judgment… What exists is the interpretation of incarceration for life but even that is not in prison; rather it is commanded to keep them in homes until their death arrives. This also has a clear reason in order to make the work of Muslims easier and avoid hardship and that is why it is commanded ‘until death arrives’ or that ‘a salvation path is prescribed’; the intent is salvation from life imprisonment. And that there is ambivalence and commanded ‘this or that’ is a reference to the hope that life imprisonment be voided as it did happened since the lashing command voided life imprisonment… and the issue of imprisonment after the death did not become effective. Hence if the verse is about adulterous women, there is no doubt that it has been voided by the lashes verse.

According to what Allameh Tabatabai has said, and the majority of Qur’an interpreters o have said similar things, if Verse 2 of Nur was descended in order to strengthen the previous command there is no reason for the Legislator to avoid mentioning the punishment of stoning and only limit himself to lashing and give the responsibility of stoning (which is the harshest of death punishments) to others. Instead we can say that in such an important instance the Legislator has expressed the command himself and if there was a need for replacement he has done it himself so that the possibility of legislation in such an important instance is not given to others.

And if the verse was descended to lessen the previous punishment (life imprisonment), a harsher punishment such as execution or death by stoning cannot be rendered.

Accordingly, among the two verses generally seen as related to the punishment for adultery, only one remains. This is Verse 2 of Nur which commands 100 lashes for adulterous men and women. Whatever else beyond the 100 lashes has come in Islamic jurisprudence is based on several narrations but these have been questioned by several religious scholars and followers of hadith, such as Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Javad Gharavi, as having many weaknesses and deficiencies. According to Gharavi, the important point is that the aforementioned verse expresses a command and it is impossible for it to express only part of a command, leaving the rest unsaid and for the followers to complete.

Execution and capital punishment are the harshest of punishments and the Almighty himself says that the life of one person is equivalent to the life of a whole people and the murder of one is like commanding the slaying of a whole people (al-Ma’idah 32). How is it possible for the Almighty not to specify such a punishment, which is the worst kind of execution in the Qur’an, leaving it in the hands of others while there are many commands of milder punishments regarding other crimes in the Qur’an? Narrations and reports cannot replace the Qur’an. The importance of human life specified in Verse 32 of al-Ma’idah takes precedence. From another side, the narratives of stoning or other narratives quoting the Prophet who rejects killings accompanied with torture even for birds and insects, seeing them as the source of Almighty’s curse, are in evident contradiction to execution by stoning.

In addition the Mu’tazilites and Khawarej (two important sects in Islam) have from the beginning opposed stoning and their reasoning has been that at the outset of Islam stoning existed but the lashes verse voided this punishment. In addition, they argue such a punishment does not exist in the Qur’an and after the lashes verse the Prophet did not order the stoning of anyone. Of course some believe that even before Verse 2 of Nur, stoning as a punishment is not sanctioned.

Some interpreters and religious scholars have said that in stoning existed in the Qur’an but was voided (ibn Qadamah 7 and 156) and A’isha has been quoted to have said that stoning existed in al-Ahzab Sura but was dropped when Othman collected the verses of the Qur’an.

It seems that such a narration is completely false since first of all it is in clear contradiction to all other verses regarding the punishment for adultery. Secondly, its acceptance requires the acknowledgment that the Qur’an has been tampered with, a charge rejected by the majority of Muslims. Given the clear language of the Qur’an regarding the punishment for adultery and the authenticity and importance of the language of Qur’an about the importance of human life, how could we refer to a verse that neither exists nor its existence proven and merely rely on the words of some people who claim that such a verse did exist? Why doesn’t the existing language bring knowledge and proof or documentation while what is not in existence does?

Some, in order to give credibility to stoning in the face of lack of Qur’anic evidence, refer to the fact the caliphs engaged in stoning. But first of all their path (sunnah) cannot be considered the source of a command regarding the life of a human being. Secondly, according to Ayatollah Gharavi, that the caliphs engaged in stoning has not been proven. Thirdly, even if it was proven, the voiding of the holy book by the path of the caliphs is not proper. The sunnah, only if it is successively and with certainty related to the Prophet, can be considered a specification of a command and specification is different from voiding. Fourthly, such a specification can only limit the range of outcomes and exclude a person from the command. In other words, such specification can only delimit and not expand the command since the basic principle in Islam is not harshness and there are many verses and narrations associated with the religion that confirm this principle.

As such, the punishment of death for different kinds of adultery do not have Qur’anic backing and in various verses regarding prostitution and adultery there is merely reference to the indecency of the act and eternal torment associated with it and not capital punishment. In addition, as will be shown below, in traditional Islamic jurisprudence certain conditions have been specified that if not fulfilled, particularly since adultery is usually committed in private, punishment is irrelevant/useless. Another point is that this act has been identified by some as the right of God, which means that only God can unearth the true intentions behind it. With the exception of cases related to the immature and unwise, man cannot judge. This means that the excepted cases are not God’s right and create private rights.

Traditional Islamic Jurisprudence

Although stoning has no basis in the Qur’an but in traditional Islamic jurisprudence it is relied upon on the basis of ways of the Prophet (sunnah) in their many narrations and reports about the implementation of the sentence. Regulations regarding stoning in traditional Islamic jurisprudence are as follows. Each crime can be proven in two ways:

1. Sight
2. Confession

The proof of the crime of adultery through sight requires the fulfillment of certain conditions:

1. The accused must be married.
2. The accused must have access to the spouse.
3. The accused must be endowed with reason.
4. The accused must be mature.
5. The accused must be endowed with free will and engaged in the act without force.
6. The accused must be knowledgeable about the punishment.
7. The accused must be knowledgeable about the subject.
8. The claim to lack of knowledge about the punishment or subject in case the veracity of the claim is probable, without the existence of a witness, will be accepted upon the oath taken by the accused (Article 66, Civil Code)
9. Testimony of four men.
10. All four must be just.
11. Their justness must have been proven.
12. They must have witnessed the crime simultaneously.
13. They must testify simultaneously and if they did not witness the crime simultaneously or one testified later, all four are subject to lashes.
14. All the qualities and details of the testimony should be the same and if, for instance, one or two persons report from various places or angles, the crime is not proven.
15. The witnesses should testify willingly without any reservations.
16. Their testimonies should attest to them being witness to the act of adultery is its “completeness,” meaning that a thread cannot pass between the two bodies, so to speak.

All the 16 conditions must be fulfilled simultaneously for the crime to be proven. This is while the conditions of proof through sight (particularly the last one) are impossible to fulfill and indeed some religious scholars have considered such proof impossible. The question then arises regarding why such a harsh punishment has been forwarded at all. A possible answer is that in the past fourteen century, public opinion regarding the crime has been such that direct rejection of any punishment would not have been possible. Hence the Legislator has acted in such a way as to make the proof of the crime impossible and yet acknowledge the indecency of the act to which the society has been sensitive and say that if such a crime is proven, it is so abominable that it is deserving of such a punishment.

Bu the other way of proving the crime is confession. This approach is also as difficult since first no one voluntarily steps forward to confess to a crime that is considered so abominable in public opinion. Maturity, reason, free will, intent, and clarity are the five conditions for the veracity of the confession. Secondly, even assuming that a person confesses, the advice for the Islamic judge is to not accept the confession if possible. It is narrated that at the outset of Islam a man went to the Prophet and confessed to adultery. The Prophet rejected the confession, saying that he did not do such a thing. The man again insisted on his confession and the prophet again rejected his words, banished him, and assigned some individuals to investigate in his tribe and see if the man is endowed with reasonable faculties, hoping to use this excuse as a means to not implement the sentence. Everyone testified that he is endowed with reason. The man came back to the Prophet and insisted on his crime and finally the Prophet was forced to accept his confession. Assuming the veracity of the narration, this example shows that if exceptionally a person is found who confesses, as much as possible efforts should be made not to accept the confession. The key here is that the person must have confessed in a free environment, without force, and not in prison or under the pressure of interrogations or threats. As such on the basis of the mere fact that a person has confessed in an environment that is not free, we can question and reject the confession.

In addition, even if exceptionally a person is found that insists on his confession, a path for escape must be left open in the following ways:

1. The confession is null after denial. This means that whenever the person disavows his confession, the stoning sentence must be lifted (there are even narrations that suggest the ruler can pardon the adulterer without repentance).
2. In tradition Islamic jurisprudence the prevention of the sentence on the basis of any excuse is also allowed, as evidenced by Imam Ali’s words to a person sentenced to stoning that,” because you are young, there is no obstacle in showing mercy.”
3. If no excuses are found in preventing the sentence, then the lower part of the body should be placed in a pit in such a way so as to allow for the possibility of flight and if the person can get out, then he or she can no longer be punished.
4. Those who come to implement the sentence must be the most just among the pious.
5. They must not be polluted or in menstruation. This condition along the previous one overrules the condition of sufficient numbers for the implementation of the sentence.
6. Small stones must be used (perhaps in order for the person to be able to flee before serious injury).

Again it is important to reiterate that all these commands regarding stoning are based on the assumption of proof regarding a crime that according the discussed approaches in traditional Islamic jurisprudence cannot be proven

The viewpoint of Ayatollah Montazeri regarding adultery with a married woman can be considered a summary of the views expressed in traditional Islamic jurisprudence. In response to many inquiries by some followers as well as domestic and foreign human rights organizations and news outlets, he writes on 12 July 2007:

The sentence of stoning existed in the Torah in an extensive manner, but in Islam it only exists regarding adultery with a married woman under specific conditions and the way to prove it are: 1) Testimony of four just individuals who have witnessed the act with their own eyes, the realization of which is very unlikely; 2) The confession of the accused, repeated four times, in a free environment and atmosphere and not in prison or under pressure. And the implementation of the sentence immediately after the knowledge of the judge is problematic and what recently happened in Takistan is against the standards and if the individual after confession disavows the confession; the disavowal according Islamic jurisprudence is acceptable and in case of confession the individual has the right of flight and if he flees, his pursuit is not acceptable and if in a time or place the implementation of the sentence leads to the weakening of religion, its implementation must be avoided. Given the characteristics mentioned, in reality sentence of stoning is merely a scarecrow for people to abstain from a great sin.”

As such in traditional Islamic jurisprudence there is also no Qur’anic reasoning for stoning. The only reference is to the consensus of Islamic jurists and several narrations (not definite sunnah), with questions regarding both the realization of the consensus as well as the documented narrations. In any case, as it was mentioned above, some Islamic jurists do not consider reliance on narrations regarding the death sentence as acceptable.

Case Study

The stoning sentences implemented in Iran in the past few years have not only been against human dignity and human rights standards but also did not follow the legal standards of the traditional Islamic jurisprudence for the following reasons:

1. Individuals confessed under prison conditions and after abuse.
2. Their confessions were accepted easily and without much resistance.
3. Many of the individuals disavowed their confessions but the disavowals were not accepted.
4. There were many excuses and reasons that could have been used to null the sentence but attention was not given to these.
5. During the implementation of stoning the criteria of the presence of the most just, with due attention to purity, was not observed.
6. In many cases, officials of the government (in prison and among the police force) implemented the sentence.
7. It was observed that large stones, one of which sufficed for the killing, were used.
8. Individuals that were able to flee the pit were again placed in the pit in such a way to make flight impossible and be killed.

There are many examples of violations but here reference will only be made to the latest case of stoning in Takistan in the Qazvin province:

1. The woman who married Jafar (the man who was stoned) had run away from her husband who had forced her into prostitution in order to lead a more decent and healthy life.
2. This woman had filed for divorce from her previous husband.
3. The head of the judiciary had stopped the implementation of her stoning sentence and since this order was both legal and Islamic, it had enough weight to prevent his stoning as well.
4. Government officials participated in the implementation of the sentence.

The head of the Judiciary, using his legal authority, had ordered the stopping of the sentence implementation. As such the stoning of Jafar was effectively against the law and Islamic jurisprudence and could be considered intentional murder and deserving of punishment. If a student is charged for propaganda against the regime and imprisoned for just a slogan or a piece of writing that has very little impact, why shouldn’t an illegal and un-Islamic act that is used as evidence of murder against the Islamic Republic throughout the world not be punishable? If in the past, not on the basis of human rights standards but traditional Islamic jurisprudence, stoning was resisted and its implementers punished, today we would not be witnessing such illegalities. While today such harsh methods are used to confront the way women dress in the streets, very little sensitivity is shown to instances that deal with the lives and dignity of human beings. This shows that what is of concern is not really Islamic law but power. The government seems to perceive that since the basis for its legitimacy is religion, if some regulations are not implemented or are questioned, the basis for its political legitimacy is shaken and hence it cannot compromise and must go all the way even with sentences whose legality are questionable.

Interest of Islam

Let us assume that the strict regulations of traditional Islamic jurisprudence did not exist and proving adultery was easy, there is another principle that if the implementation of a command is not to the interest or benefit of Islam, it can be suspended. Ayatollah Khomeini, using the same principle, said that even prayer, which is one of the pillars of Islam, can be suspended because the main criterion is the interest of religion and not its commands. Of course the interest or expediency principle has been criticized for being temporary, requiring the return of the command when conditions change. But experience has shown that with major social changes the suspension of some commands on the basis of interest or benefit or Islam will not be temporary. Some interests such as those based on the achievements of human rights will be permanent.

A judge that is oblivious to the interest of the Islamic society and renders a judgment without taking it into account is not competent to judge. It is the truth and common interests that matter, not personal or trivial interests.

Legal Perspective

In studying many cases of adultery involving married women, I have found the main source to be the inadequacies of the legal system in Iran. In several cases, the forced marriages of daughters led to family murders and violence and in some other cases disobedience on the part of the wife and ultimately hidden or illicit relations with another man. In Iranian laws, the father’s agreement to marriage is required. This requirement can of course safeguard the rights of daughters in marriage but improper use of this requirement, particularly in rural areas and among the uneducated, has caused forced marriages for girls who at times are between 15 and 18 years old and forced to marry men of 50 or 60. In addition, lack of the right to divorce for women who are abused by their husbands forces them to put up with extremely difficult conditions. As a result, in recent years, for instance, we have been witness to a number of suicides in the Ilam Province. The large numbers of female suicides in Ilam (400 cases of self-burning, 300 of which were women) are largely caused by forced marriages, age difference between husbands and wives, and family violence.

The incident in Qazvin is another example. After fleeing from her first husband, Mokarameh files for divorce. Iranian courts usually do not respond to these divorce requests in the hope that with the passage of time a compromise is reached and there is no need for divorce. Accordingly, for several years Mokarameh’s request remains unanswered while in divorce cases the reasons for the filing for divorce, in this case her forced prostitution by her husband, should take priority. In reality, Jafar and Mokarameh could and should not have been convicted of adultery with a married woman essentially because her previous husband had forced her into prostitution and a man who forces his wife into such an unethical, illegal and un-Islamic situation essentially voids the marriage contract and the woman cannot be considered the legal and religious wife of the man.

The existence of such problems in the legal system of Iran, particularly regarding the rights of women, has created conditions for the emergence of many social problems. It could conceivably be said that some of the ones who commit family violence, flee, engage in honor killing or illicit relationships are themselves victims of a legal system in need of reform. Approaching the demand for reform politically only inhibits needed reforms. Some think that the acceptance of some legal reforms is backing down from the position of power. This is while there are disastrous consequences to the ignoring of legal reforms. At the same time, illogical approaches in the demand for legal reform that threaten those in power in ways that are not conducive to reform are also ultimately responsible in the prevention of necessary reform. There is a real need for dialogue, explanatory effort in convincing authorities regarding the need for the reform of the legal system and regarding women and children related laws.

Emotional Impact

Mokarameh, the woman sentenced to stoning in Qazvin, has four children from her previous husband and two from Jafar, one of whom is 11 years old. Eleven years has passed from the marriage of Jafar and Mokarameh, eight of which have been in prison awaiting execution by stoning. During this period, what has happened to their children? The young and innocent children who have no one to rely on and have to carry the heavy weight of their parents’ dishonored name? Can one expect these children to lead normal lives? The same situation applies to the parents of the convicted couple and their siblings? Think about similar heartrending and disastrous situations that have occurred many times over. Think about it for a second. If something similar happens to your family, what will happen? Do you think these events are occurrences that people are looking forward to or are willing to lay their lives for? Just think for a second about the incredibly destructive impact these sentences have on whole families? How could we easily pass by these painful incidences?

Historical and Sociological Perspective

Stoning, which prior to Islam was described in Judaic law and since it was mentioned in the Torah was implemented extensively, did not find its way into the Qur’an and was not affirmed by it. However, since it was among forceful societal traditions, its clear rejection was not possible. At the same time, stoning was prevalent in Europe, the United States, and Islamic societies for centuries after the outset of Islam. Stoning is among punitive laws that were prevalent throughout the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic societies until 18th century. In 17th century in some western societies capital punishment was handed out for adultery, including in the United States as reported by Alexis de Tocqueville. From the end of 18th century a new era identified by Durkheim as the age of reparation laws began, which today expands to half of the world. Under the previous age of punitive laws the objective was to impose pain, harm on the convicted, extracting vengeance, but in the new age the objective is to keep the criminal away from the society, preventing harm to the society, and also rehabilitating the criminal.

Islamic jurisprudence is also impacted by social conditions. According to Ayatollah Motahhari the fatwa of an urban Islamic jurist smells urban and the fatwa of a rural one smells rural. Accordingly, in the new age, stoning is not something popular or acceptable as evidenced by the refusal of people to be present at such events. And this is why many clear-sighted Islamic jurists consider it as detrimental to Islam. And it is on that basis that Ayatollah Shahrudi, the head of the Iran’s Judiciary, has ordered its suspension. What is astounding, however, is that the secretary for the Human Rights Headquarters of the Judiciary presents stoning as though is it among the integral commands of Islam, saying “we have to correctly justify stoning. We have made a revolution so that Islamic commands can be implemented…. We will never sacrifice Islam to the challenges related to human rights” (ILNA, 30 May 2007). Later he says, “Stoning is based on Islamic law and is not against or in opposition to any of the Islamic Republic’s international obligations.” (E’temad-e Melli, 15 July 2007).

Summing Up

Our criterion for judging stoning and other laws and commands is human rights. This criterion is based on a prior principle that human rights have no conflict with religion. In a prior juridical research which relied on the opinion of a well-known religious scholar, entitled Human Rights and Rights of the Pious, it was shown that the basis for Qur’anic thought is the belief in intrinsic human generosity and dignity. Hence Islamic jurisprudence or legal system must be formed on that basis. Although the implemented stoning sentences in recent years did not comply with the standards of traditional Islamic jurisprudence and even went against it, the point of this writing is to say that stoning has no Qur’anic basic, and is not to the interest of the society and Islamic principles We can and must abandon it as a punishment and its abandonment is in no way against religiosity or religion.

In many areas such as juridical commands and regulations regarding capital punishment, stoning, and minimum age for the criminal culpability for children we are in dire need of new interpretations (ijtihad). Islamic scholars who cannot practice new ijtihad regarding recent events and issues will disappear in history along with their ideas. The need is for the validation of human experience and beings and the reform of laws on that basis.

Death in Iran

2009-02-07T16:22:00.007+07:00

The killing goes on; in China, Singapore, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United States.
Thailand would be well out of it

Rule by a religious regime is autocracy. The papal states in Italy were notorious and the exercise of papal power led to a hatred of religion. Error has no rights and dissent is a moral crime. The State has the divine power of life and death over its inhabitants who are not citizens but subjects. The situation in present day Iran appears the same, as described by
German-Iranian writer Said:
"There are tendencies, sadly also fatal ones. Never has more alcohol been consumed, or more kids fallen into drug addiction. Nowhere in the Middle East are the mosques emptier than in Iran. This Islam, so vaunted as a panacea, cannot even get tomato prices under control. Those who came into power with their slogans against decadence and godlessness are now the reason why Islam is haemorrhaging believers. It is safe to say that Islam has never been more scorned in Iran than it is today."

Death Penalty in Thailand

2009-02-02T05:38:00.004+07:00

ไม่มีความจำเป็นต้องมีโทษประหารชีวิต
เดวิด ที จอห์นสัน (David T Johnson)
(Bangkok Post, January 29, 2009)
โทษประหารชีวิตกำลังหายไปจากโลกนี้ ในปี ค.ศ. 1970 มีประเทศเพียง 21 ประเทศเท่านั้นที่ยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิต ปัจจุบันจำนวนประเทศที่ยกเลิกคือ 134 หรือสามในสี่ของประเทศในโลกทั้งหมด
โทษประหารชีวิตลดลงในทวีปเอเชียด้วย ครึ่งหนึ่งของประเทศยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิต (เช่นในประเทศเขมร ภูฐาน และฟิลิปปินส์) หรือไม่ได้มีการประหารชีวิตมากว่า 10 ปีแล้ว (ประเทศลาวและพม่าไม่มีการประหารชีวิตมาตั้งแต่ปี ค.ศ. 1989)
ในบางด้าน ประเทศไทยดูเหมือนจะกำลังเข้าเป็นสมาชิกของกลุ่มยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิต ประเทศไทยมีโทษประหารชีวิตในกฎหมายและศาลก็ยังสั่งลงโทษประหารชีวิตผู้กระทำผิด แต่การประหารชีวิตเกิดขึ้นน้อยมาก ส่วนมากเนื่องจากพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวพระราชทานอภัยโทษกับผู้ที่ถูกลงโทษเกือบทั้งหมด
ไม่มีการประหารชีวิตในประเทศไทยเลยใน 13 จาก 21 ปีที่ผ่านมานี้ และการประหารชีวิตครั้งสุดท้ายจาการฉีดยาเกิดขึ้นมานานกว่า 5 ปีมาแล้ว
ในระหว่างการเดินทางไปประเทศไทยเมื่อไม่นานมานี้ ผมได้มีโอกาสพูดคุยกับข้าราชการและนักกฏหมายเกี่ยวกับโทษประหารชีวิต ส่วนใหญ่กล่าวว่าประเทศไทยควรจะยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตและคงจะยกเลิกในที่สุด แต่ยืนยันว่าในปัจจุบันประเทศไทยยังควรจะคงโทษนี้ไว้ด้วยเหตุผลสองประการ
ประการที่หนึ่งคือความคิดเห็นของประชาชน การสำรวจความเห็นพบว่าคนไทยส่วนใหญ่สนับสนุนโทษประหารชีวิต และข้าราชการบางคนกล่าวว่ารัฐบาลควรจะคงไว้ซึ่งโทษประหารชีวิตตราบใดที่เสียงส่วนใหญ่สนับสนุนเพราะว่าประชาธิปไตยควรจะตอบสนองต่อความต้องการของประชาชน
ประสบการณ์จากประเทศอื่น ๆ เสนอว่าความเห็นแบบนี้เป็นการคิดตื้น ๆ เกินไป ประเทศที่ยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตทุกประเทศดำเนินการแม้ว่าในขณะนั้นประชาชนส่วนใหญ่จะสนับสนุนโทษนี้ การ”นำแถว”แบบนี้เกิดขึ้นเมื่อประเทศยุโรปตะวันตกยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตหลังจากสงครามโลกครั้งที่สอง และกิดในลักษณะเดียวกันเมื่อประเทศยุโรปตะวันออกและยุโรปกลางยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตหลังการล่มสลายของสหพันธ์สาธารณรัฐโซเวียต
ถ้าผู้นำประเทศเหล่านั้นรอให้เสียงส่วนใหญ่ของประชาชนเปลี่ยนไปต่อต้านโทษประหารชีวิตก่อนจะดำเนินการ ประเทศในยุโรปส่วนใหญ่คงจะยังมีการใช้โทษประหารชีวิตอยู่ในปัจจุบัน
ในความเป็นจริง ทุกประเทศได้ยกเลิกโทษนี้แล้ว ยกว้นเพียงประเทศเดียวที่อยู่ภายใต้เผด็จการคือประเทศเบลารุส
เมื่อไรที่ประเทศไทยกำจัดโทษประหารชีวิตออกจากระบบ ประเทศไทยจะทำเช่นนั้นเพราะว่าผู้นำของปะเทศมองเห็นว่ามันเป็นสิ่งถูกต้องที่จะต้องทำไม่ว่าความเห็นของประชาชนจะว่าอย่างไรก็ตาม
ข้อคัดค้านข้อที่สองต่อการยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตในประเทศไทยก็คือความเชื่อที่ว่าโทษประหารชีวิตยับยั้งการกระทำผิดได้ดีกว่าการจำคุกเป็นเวลานาน แต่การคิดเช่นนี้แสดงชัยชนะของความเชื่อเหนือตัวเลข เพราะว่าโทษประหารชีวิตมีความเกี่ยวข้องกับการควบคุมการกระทำผิดพอ ๆ กับการขอฝนมีความเกี่ยวข้องกับดินฟ้าอากาศ
เราลองมาพิจารณาหลักฐานบางชิ้นดู
ในประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกาในปี ค.ศ. 2007 อัตราการเกิดการฆาตกรรมในรัฐที่มีการใช้โทษประหารชีวิตสูงกว่าในรัฐที่ไม่มีการใช้โทษนี้ถึง 42% ในเจ็ดทศวรรษที่ผ่านมานี้ อัตราการเกิดการฆาตกรรมของรัฐต่าง ๆ ของประเทศเป็นไปในทิศทางเดียวกันอย่างน่าสังเกตไม่ว่าจะมีการลงโทษประหารชีวิตกี่รายก็ตาม
ตั้งแต่ปี ค.ศ. 1976 เป็นต้นมา รัฐเท็กซัสได้ทำการประหารชีวิตนักโทษไปแล้วกว่า 250 ราย รัฐแคลิฟอร์เนีย 13 ราย และรัฐนิวยอร์คไม่มีการประหารเลย แต่อัตราคดีฆาตกรรมในรัฐทั้งสามคล้ายคลึงกันมากและเป็นไปตามแนวโน้มของประเทศ
ในภาพรวม รัฐของประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกาได้ประหารชีวิตนักโทษไปกว่า 1,000คนตั้งแต่ปี ค.ศ. 1976 ในขณะที่ประเทศแคนาดาไม่มีการประหารชีวิตมาตั้งแต่ปี ค.ศ. 1972 แต่ทว่าอัตราคดีฆาตกรรมของทั้งสองประเทศมีแนวโน้มคล้ายคลึงกันมากในทศวรรษที่ตั้งแต่นั้นมา โดยที่อัตราของประเทศแคนาดาเป็นแค่หนึ่งในสามของประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกาตลอดช่วงเวลาที่กล่าวถึงนี้
ความไร้ประสิทธิผลในการยับยั้งของโทษประหารชีวิตในบริบทของประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกาได้ถูกสะท้อนในความเห็นของผู้เชี่ยวชาญต่าง ๆ
มีการศึกษาค้นคว้าหนึ่งที่ถามความเห็นของนักอาชญาวิทยา 67 คนว่าการวิจัยที่มีอยู่สนับสนุนการอ้างว่าโทษประหารชีวิตยับยั้งการกระทำผิดหรือไม่ กว่า 80% ตอบว่าไม่
ในการสำรวจความคิดเห็นของหัวหน้าตำรวจ 386 คนทั่วประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกาพบว่าบางคนสนับสนุนโทษประหารชีวิตด้วยเหตุผลทางปรัชญา (เช่น เป็นการตอบแทนการกระทำผิด) แต่เกินกว่าสองในสามยอมรับว่าเป็นการยับยั้งที่ไม่ได้ผล
ผลการยับยั้งการกระทำผิดของโทษประหารชีวิตไม่มีให้เห็นในทวีปเอเชียด้วยเช่นกัน
ใน 50 ปีที่ผ่านมา อัตราคดีฆาตกรรมในประเทศญี่ปุ่นลดลง 80% ไม่มีประเทศอื่นที่มีการลดลงมากเท่านี้และการลดลงนี้ไม่สามารถจะอ้างได้ว่าสืบเนื่องมาจากนโยบายด้านโทษประหารชีวิตของประเทศญี่ปุ่นเพราะว่านโยบายนี้ได้ลดความรุนแรงลงมากหลังสงครามโลกครั้งที่สอง
หลักฐานที่น่าเชื่อถือที่สุดอาจจะมาจากประเทศฮ่องกงและสิงคโปร์ ประเทศที่เป็นเมืองขนาดใหญ่ที่คล้ายคลึงกันมากในหลาย ๆ ด้านทางสังคม, วัฒนธรรม, และเศรษฐกิจ
ประเทศทั้งสองนี้แตกต่างกันอย่างมากด้านนโยบายโทษประหารชีวิต การประหารชีวิตครั้งสุดท้ายในฮ่องกงเกิดขึ้นในปี ค.ศ. 1966 (หนึ่งปีหลังจากหระเทศอังกฤษหยุดการประหารชีวิต) และฮ่องกงยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตทางกฎหมายในปี ค.ศ. 1993
ในทางตรงกันข้าม สิงคโปร์ได้ชื่อว่าเป็นประเทศที่ใช้โทษประหารชีวิตอย่างจริงจังที่สุดในโลกประเทศหนึ่ง ในกลางทศวรรษ 1990 ประเทศสิงคโปร์ประหารชีวิตนักโทษต่อปีเป็นจำนวน 20 ถึง 25 เท่าของการประหารชีวิตในเมืองฮุสตัน ซึ่งเป็นเมืองในประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกาที่มีขนาดพอ ๆ กัน และเป็นเมืองที่มีการใช้กฎหมายประหารชีวิตอย่างจริงจังที่สุดในรัฐที่มีการใช้โทษประหารชีวิตจริงจังที่สุด(รัฐเท็กซัส)ของประเทศประชาธิปไตยที่มีการใช้โทษประหารชีวิตจริงจังที่สุดในโลก
สิงคโปร์มีการประหารชีวิตนักโทษ 76 รายในปี ค.ศ. 1994 ซึ่งมากกว่าการประหารชีวิตทั้งหมดของประเทศญี่ปุ่น(ซึ่งมีประชากรมากกว่า 30 เท่า) ในช่วงเวลา 30 ปีตั้งแต่ ค.ศ. 1997 ถึง 2006
แม้ว่านโยบายด้านโทษประหารชีวิตจะแตกต่างกันอย่างสิ้นเชิง อัตราคดีฆาตกรรมของสิงคโปร์และฮ่องกงเป็นไปในทิศทางเดียวกันตลอด 35 ปีที่ผ่านมา ยิ่งไปกว่านั้น แม้ว่าอัตราการประหารชีวิตในสิงคโปร์จะลดลงในสองสามปีที่ผ่านมา (มีการประหารชีวิตเพียงห้าครั้งในปี ค.ศ. 2006 และสองครั้งในปี 2007) แต่อัตราคดีฆาตกรรมกลับลดลงอย่างต่อเนื่อง
ถ้าไม่มีหลักฐานใด ๆ ที่จะแสดงว่าโทษประหารชีวิตยับยั้งคดีฆาตกรรมในสิงคโปร์ อะไรที่จะเป็นรากฐานของสมมุติฐานที่ว่ามันจะเป็นจริงในเมืองอื่น ๆ เช่นกรุงเทพ ฯ หรือเชียงใหม่ ที่ซึ่งโอกาสการรับโทษประหารชีวิตมีน้อยกว่าด้วยซ้ำ
ผู้ร่างนโยบายควรจะใช้ความจริงไม่ใช่ความเชื่อเป็นพื้นฐาน
ในส่วนที่เกี่ยวข้องกับโทษประหารชีวิต หลักฐานมีมากและชัดเจนว่าโทษนี้ไม่สามารถยับยั้งการกระทำผิดได้มากกว่าการจำคุกระยะยาว
สำหรับประเทศไทย ทั้งหมดนี้หมายความว่าความจำเป็นที่จะต้องควบคุมอาชญากรรมไม่ใช่สิ่งที่จะกีดขวางการยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิต ความเห็นของประชาชนก็ไม่ใช่เช่นกัน สิ่งเดียวที่ขวางยกเลิกสถาบันของการฆ่าโดยไม่จำเป็นนี้ก็คือจิตวิญญาณทางการเมือง
เดวิด ที จอห์นสัน เป็นศาสตราจารย์ทางสังคมศาสตร์ของมหาวิทยาลัยฮาวาย และเป็นผู้ร่วมแต่งหนังสือ (ร่วมกับ Franklin E Zimring) เรื่อง “The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia” ซึ่งได้ตีพิมพ์เดือนนี้โดยสำนักพิมพ์ Oxford University Press

The Next Frontier

2009-01-28T09:02:00.004+07:00

‘The Next Frontier – National Development, Political Change and the Death Penalty in Asia’
David T. Johnson and Franklin E. Zimring
Oxford University Press, 2009
522 + xviii pages, price 35 US$

‘Whether the death penalty is retained in law or practice is one of the prime indicators of the level of democratization and civilization of a country’
Kim Dae Jung, ex-President of Korea and Noble Prize Laureate, in Foreword to ‘The Next Frontier’

‘The Next Frontier’ is a handbook that contains an immense amount of data on the death penalty in Asia, usually updated to 2008, making it an essential reference work. For whom? Well, no doubt for scholars to whom the authors issue invitations to progress further in areas where they indicate topics of further interest. But the clear and accessible style render it of use to all those concerned with the death penalty, especially to those in government, legal personnel, and above all to activists engaged in the struggle to banish the death penalty from society. A Philippine lawyer who was involved with an association of the relatives of the condemned told me of the interest and ability of those with little formal education who were motivated to consult and use, on their own initiative, even scholarly works on the death penalty. The present work can add to the armoury of such involved persons.

The book consists of three parts and seven appendices. The first part considers ‘Issues and Methods’, providing an overall survey of the extent and practice of capital punishment in Asia. A second part consists of ‘National Profiles’ of the practice of the death penalty in Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. A final section draws lessons from the case studies, and comments on the pace of change and prospects for abolition in the region. Shorter summaries of the death penalty in North Korea, Hong Kong and Macao, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and India are consigned to appendices, as is a discussion of extrajudicial killing, which often surpasses the rate of judicial killing in Asia. While lacking the detail of the nation profiles, the appendices provide valuable and accurate summaries.

What Difference Does the Death Penalty Make?

2008-12-25T16:07:00.008+07:00

In Thailand, we are assured by Government officials that the death penalty is necessary to deter serious crime. Mostly unaware of the change of thinking which has led to a majority UN vote of 106 to 46 in favour of a universal moritorium on Capital Punishment, they adhere to a US support of the practice. Thai executioners have even learned the barbarous skill of lethal injection from US instructors, arguing that the replacement of the awful death by injected poisons is more humane than that inflicted by machine gun fire.
It has long been proposed that the true deterrence to crime is not execution but the probability of arrest and prosecution. States that abolish the death penalty do not fall apart, crime rates do not rise chaotically. A persuasive study has become available of the effect of abolition of the death penalty in Hong Kong in 1994 on Homicide Rates as displayed in the above statistical graph. Clearly there is no noticeable rise in homicide rate at the vertical line which marks the year of abolition.

The study on which this and the following item are based, was introduced to a meeting of BagFree by visiting Professor David T. Johnson of the University of Hawaii, author of a forthcoming book on the death penalty in Asia (Oxford University Press)

Effects of Abolishing the Death Penalty II.

2008-12-25T15:48:00.005+07:00

A Hardly Noticeable Difference

Singapore and Hong Kong are twin cities, comparable to each other in almost every way. While the population of Hong Kong is greater, population densities, population growth, levels of education, and per capita income are practically the same. However, Singapore believes that public security requires it to impose the death penalty at the highest rate in the world per million population. Hong Kong abolished the death penalty in 1994. The graph at the head of this post reveals that the death penalty has had no effect in reducing the rate of homicide in Singapore over that in Hong Kong, in the period since 1994. The knowledge that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent has lead the majority of the world's nations to abandon this barbarous practice. Perhaps the death penalty is retained by Singapore in support of a policy of social intimidation. At any rate it clings to a practice and mode of execution which it learned from its western colonial masters. Ironically, it now argues that abolition would be an imposition of western domination!

Execution of Bali Bombers

2008-11-11T06:57:00.003+07:00

On the morning of the 8th November the three men found guilty of the Bali bombings were executed simultaneously in Indonesia.
Relatives of the victims have different reactions to the executions.
In a BBC interview, Australian Brian Deegan spoke of the execution of the murderers of his son Joshua. Brian is a barrister and former magistrate in Adelaide, Australia.

He said that his son's death had been an event beginning and now ending in violence.
"Capital punishment should be forbidden. It is wrong, illegal. It has no utilitarian purpose and is an abject failure as a deterrence. Only vengeance is served"

"The murderers should be punished by life imprisonment". In his opinion the three appeared to be simpletons who put on a show of bravery for display.

What Buddhist monks really think about death penalty

2008-10-30T21:15:00.004+07:00

On 7th October we held the final of a series of seminars with Buddhist monks in Chachongsao Province, Thailand, on the death penalty. The following are comments of the monks taken from feedback forms.

“Buddhism does not support the death penalty, but concerning the abolition of the death penalty there must be a fixed standard which creates confidence that crime and the transgression of the human rights of others will decrease and be eliminated from world society. However there is no teaching in Buddhism which concerns the existence or non-existence of the death penalty. The important point therefore is what is acceptable to society as a suitable punishment.”

“The matter of the death penalty is a complex issue, and every position on the matter has its limitations. From the point of view of society the death penalty appears necessary or there will be no fear of wrong doing.
From a Buddhist viewpoint the death penalty should be abolished and be replaced by life imprisonment. Those already sentenced would not be executed but their human rights are restricted. Imprisonment is a restriction of independence and its form should measure the seriousness of the crime. It is a retribution for the crime committed.”

“Can we deduce some standard from the use of capital punishment in the past. There must be a clearly defined penalty for the most serious crimes, such as life imprisonment or other punishment.
Executions should be abolished, they serve no purpose. It is better to give an opportunity (for reform).
In the event that the death penalty is maintained, the law is the law, punishment is punishment. It is better that the authorities concentrate on other issues; education, the reduction of violence, the environment, the economy.”

“This project is of great importance in promoting abolition of the death penalty; capital punishment is absolutely incapable of reducing crime. Instead ethics and moral standards should be improved.
I believe that the death penalty should be abolished, its effects are bad rather than good. The effect on relatives of the executed person is devastating, I cannot stop pitying them. I devote my life to teaching Buddhism to solve the problems, but it is a difficult task.
The maximum sentence should be life imprisonment.”

“Another seminar should be organized to give more information on this matter”

“The arguments we have heard and the various viewpoints are consistent, but opposed in some ways. However, I agree that there should not be a death penalty. But my viewpoint is that before the death penalty is abolished altogether its application should be restricted so that the importance of life be fully realised. I would not like to see the death penalty looked on as a small matter. Before a final abolition it should be discussed from many angles and at many levels. If possible the decision should be made at a world level.”

“Buddhism should play a leading role in defining the human condition”

“While it is true that Buddhism does not support the death penalty, the people too should have a role in upholding the law.
• Some monks have a different viewpoint to others. If there is no standard, each one will think that his own opinion is correct and that of others is wrong; thus confusion arises and people cause hurt to each other.
• The good should be encouraged for the good are often at a disadvantage. ‘Severe punishment for great crime, lesser punishment for smaller crime’
• ‘All living creatures live according to their fate’

“The matter of Buddhism and the death penalty is a matter of fate, fate due to past deeds, the present and the future. To solve the problem of the death penalty we must deal with fate. Buddhist monks teach of fate, whether good or bad. Good action can overcome bad fate, and the question of the death penalty no longer remains. This is my opinion following the teaching of Buddha. In this matter one cannot appeal to rights. If we cooperate together to teach morality and its practice to the people so that they act well, the matter of abuse of human rights will no longer be relevant.”

“If the death penalty is abandoned there must be some substitute action, especially study. Morality must be included in the syllabus. One may speak about it, but its implementation is something else and human rights are invoked. Monks and teachers wish to teach their students to be good but they fail as they do not have a suitable syllabus. In fact we have such a syllabus but we do not have the opportunity to follow it. We are under the control of others who use their power for their own benefit. If we come into conflict with such private interests we can do nothing. For example, I teach mathematics but when I wish to teach the matter of religious practice I must do so outside the school, or try to organize a special camp. When the children do not attend they cannot be faulted. If there is no provision in the curriculum to teach moral duties, how can it be done?”

“This has been a very good seminar because it deals with an important aspect of humanity. If there is an opportunity I would like to participate again. May I confirm that the Buddhist religion is against the death penalty.”

“The subject matter is good but it is not suitable for monks and their disciples as it is not part of the monastic code“

“Buddhism does not agree with the execution of people”

“Buddhism teaches forgiveness, not the killing of people. It is therefore against the death penalty”

“In Buddhist teaching the killing of a living creature is prohibited. The death penalty is therefore excluded from Buddhism. Seminars such as this one should be organized on a wide scale for ordinary people, for government officials, for politicians, and for those who write the laws.”

“The content of this seminar is good, and I wish well to the organizers. Those who support the seminar are also very good. I would like to see knowledge on this issue being widely proclaimed in society”

“The subject matter of the seminar is good. The monks and novices derived knowledge on attitudes throughout the world. But it will take time for the death penalty to be rejected by society, greater study and more information are required”

“Shackling is necessary but the death penalty should be abolished because even though the condemned person has committed crime, reform should be allowed to occur”

“One must distinguish between punishment and religion, because the world is full of evil people”

“Buddhism should be the national religion, and designated as such in the Constitution. The death penalty should be abolished as it is against religion”

“Religion and worldly matters should be separate”

“An important basis of religion is the prohibition on killing of any creature. Such killing is a sin, whether it is of an animal or a person. Buddhism therefore is against the death penalty”

“It would be better to organize such a seminar for those having political power rather than for monks”

“Religion teaches people to be good and the forgiveness of those who do evil. Thus there should not be a death penalty”

“Concerning abolition of the death penalty, I believe that it will take time to bring about understanding in every part of society regarding the importance of being merciful and of extending kindness”

“The holding of this seminar is good. It should be repeated in temples where there are monks and novices”

“I agree with abolition of the death penalty. It has no part in Buddhism”

“If the death penalty is to be abolished the issue must be studied further by the people”

“If the death penalty is abolished, what punishment will be substituted? If there is not an appropriate punishment people will not be deterred from doing evil.”

“It is necessary to shackle prisoners to stop them escaping. As for the death penalty, it is in contradiction to Buddhism. But whether it is abolished or not is a matter of the law”

10th October 2008: World Day against Death Penalty

2008-10-12T08:20:00.003+07:00

European Union
Delegation of the European Commission to Thailand

Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner calls for continued effort to achieve universal abolition of death penalty
10th October 2008

On the occasion of the World and European Day against the Death Penalty European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner said: "I am proud of the EU's leading role in the international efforts to abolish the death penalty. Although over half the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, the global figures for its use remain much too high. I fully recognize the plight of victims of violent crime, but the death penalty is not the solution. On the contrary, it only serves to aggravate a culture of violence and retribution. The Commission is determined to work towards the universal abolition of the death penalty through all available diplomatic channels and as a leading donor in this field.
A culmination of the EU's efforts, actively supported by states from all regions of the world, was the adoption of the resolution on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty, by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2007.

EU encourages public debate, strengthening public opposition and putting pressure on retentionist countries to abolish the death penalty, or at least introduce a moratorium as a first step. The EU also acts against the death penalty in multilateral fora, such as the United Nations; a culmination of this effort was the resolution on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 18th December 2007. The EU's political commitment has been matched by substantial financial support for concrete projects, given that the death penalty is one of the priorities under the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR)
* 92 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes
* 10 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes
* 35 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice. They retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or practice of not carrying out executions.
This makes a total of 137 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Since 2005, ten countries have abolished the death penalty.

However, figures of death penalty application around the world still remain high. During 2007, at least 1,252 people were executed in 24 countries, and at least 3,347 people were sentenced to death in 51 countries. 88 per cent of all known executions took place in five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA. The EU's action, as the worldwide leader on the fight against death penalty, remains urgent and necessary.

Under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, more than 15 million euros have been allocated to support civil society projects since 1994, aimed at raising public awareness in retentionist countries through public education, outreach to influence public opinion, studies on how states' death penalty systems comply with international minimum standards, informing and supporting strategies for replacing the death penalty and efforts for securing the access of death row inmates to appropriate levels of legal support and training for lawyers.

For more information:
http://ec.europa.er/external_relations/human_rights/adp/index.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/worldwide/eidhr/index_en.htm