GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations on Tuesday said it was "deeply distressed" by Saudi Arabia's public execution of 10 men, including eight Bangladeshi migrants, and called on the kingdom to stop using the death penalty.
Saudi Arabia said it executed eight Bangladesh nationals on Friday for their part in an armed robbery in which an Egyptian security guard was killed, the state news agency reported.
The U.N. said two Saudi nationals were also executed on the same day for other crimes.
"For eight people to be executed for one murder is a lot of people and that raises questions itself. Ten were executed on the same day, eight of them migrant workers," Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, told Reuters.
"The Bangladeshis were beheaded by sword in public."
The U.N. human rights office said it was trying to get more information on the Bangladeshi case, but confirmed that the men had lawyers and contact with their embassy.
"In terms of the whole case, whether it was fairly conducted, we don't really have enough information to make a comment," Colville told journalists earlier.
There were general concerns over whether foreigners received clear interpretation of proceedings in Saudi courts, he said.
Out of at least 58 people believed to have been executed in the OPEC oil giant this year, 20 were migrant workers, he added.
About 140 of the 193 member U.N. states are believed to have abolished the death penalty or introduced a moratorium on executions, he said.
"We call on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to join these states and establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty," he said.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
People around the world and in Taiwan will be celebrating the 9th World Day against the Death Penalty on 10 October by calling on governments still using the death penalty to stop executions and join the global trend toward abolition.
Some people will be carrying on the fight in the name of Troy Davis who, in spite of worldwide campaigns and support, was executed in the United States on 21 September 2011. In a conversation with Amnesty International shortly before his death, he reminded us “the struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me.”
Taiwan's resumption of executions runs counter to the
Taiwan’s Chiou Ho-shun may be one of these Troy Davises. Like Troy, he has spent more than 20 years on death row. Like Troy, there is also doubt in the case against him.
Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. The case against him primarily rested on witness testimony. Since his 1991 trial, seven of key nine witnesses recanted or changed their testimony, some alleging police coercion.
Chiou Ho-shun may not have the public profile of Troy Davis but his case is no less significant. He and his co-defendants say that they were held incommunicado for the first four months of their detention and they were tortured to make them confess to the kidnapping and killing of Lu Cheng and the murder of Ko Hung Yu-Lan. They later retracted their confessions.
In 1994, after an official investigation, two public prosecutors and 10 police officers handling the case were convicted of extracting confessions through torture.
The death penalty is irrevocable. Taiwan knows this all too well. In February this year President Ma Ying-jeou apologized for the execution of an innocent man in 1997, former air force private Chiang Kuo-ching.
More countries realize every year that the only way to ensure mistakes like this are not made is to abolish the penalty. 139 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. Of the remaining 58 retentionist countries, only 23 executed in 2010.
In 2010 more states than ever before voted at the UN in favour of a worldwide moratorium on executions. And in 2011, in the United States, Illinois became the 16th state to abolish the death penalty.
In Taiwan the four executions in 2010 and the five in 2011, stand in stark, disturbing contrast to the rising tide of world opinion in favour of abolition.
Countries that insist on using the death penalty continue to claim that they use it only in accordance with international law. But most of their actions blatantly contradict these claims.
It is often imposed after unfair trials and based on confessions extracted through torture. It is often used against political opponents, poor people, and other marginalized groups. It is sometimes even used against people who allegedly committed crimes when they were under 18 or who have significant mental impairments.
Worryingly, death sentences are handed down for acts such as fraud, sorcery, apostasy, drug-related offences or sexual relations between consenting adults, which fall far short of the legal threshold of ‘most serious’ crimes. In just the last year, death sentences were imposed for drug-related offences in China, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Yemen.
Taiwan also acts contrary to international law as it provides no procedure that would allow people under sentence of death to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence – a right recognized by International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Taiwan has legally committed to implement.
Taiwan was once considered a leader in the move to abolish the death penalty in Asia, but the recent executions are a step backwards. If Taiwan is really committed to ending executions, it should start by commuting the death sentences of all people currently threatened with execution.
The struggle for abolition does continue, in the name of Troy Davis, in the name of Chiang Kuo-ching and in the name of Chiou Ho-Shun and all others facing execution around the world.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday he'll not be deterred from seeking U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine, despite what he said was "tremendous pressure" to drop the request and instead seek to resume peace talks with Israel. Abbas spoke to reporters en route to the United Nations, where he is to seek U.N. membership for "Palestine" in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. The U.S. and Israel oppose Abbas' bid, saying a state can only be established through negotiations. Abbas has said that negotiations remain his preference, but that they must be based on the pre-1967 war frontiers and a halt of all Israeli settlement construction on occupied land. Abbas said Monday that even if Israel were to agree to those two demands, "we will go to the U.N. because there is no contradiction between negotiations and going to the U.N." Officials from the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., European Union, Russia and the United Nations — have been holding talks in recent days in hopes of persuading the Palestinians to drop the U.N. bid and instead resume peace talks with Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, right, is greeted by Hanan Ashrawi, left, legislator and activist, as he arrives at his hotel in New York, Monday, Sept. 19, 2011, to attend the 66th General Assembly session of United Nations, which begins Tuesday, Sept. 20. The United States and Europe scrambled Sunday, Sept. 18, for a strategy that would help avoid a showdown over whether to admit an independent Palestine as a new United Nations member. (AP Photo/David Karp)
The Palestinian leader said he came under "tremendous pressure" in recent days, but that the proposals for a new framework for talks were unacceptable. Full U.N. membership can only be bestowed by the U.N. Security Council, where the recognition bid could be derailed if fewer than nine of the 15 members vote in favor or if the U.S. uses its veto, as it said it would. Abbas said his plan, for now, is to go to the Security Council, but suggested that he might change tactics at the last minute and go for the lesser option of General Assembly approval of Palestine as a nonmember observer state. Chances for success are much higher in the General Assembly, which Abbas is to address Friday. "From now until delivering the speech at the General Assembly, we have no thought except going to the Security Council," he said. "Then, whatever the decision is, we will sit with the leadership and decide." Asked whether he was threatened by U.S. officials trying to stop him from seeking U.N. recognition, Abbas said: "It's not a matter of threats, but they (the Americans) said that things will be very difficult after September. ... We don't know to what extent. We will know later." He said he has not been told officially that U.S. aid to the Palestinians would be cut. For months, congressional Republicans and Democrats have threatened to cut off some $500 million in economic and security assistance if the Palestinians move forward with the U.N. bid. Abbas said he's not scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the General Assembly. Concerning the possibility of mass protests in the Palestinian territories, Abbas said the only violence might come from Israeli settlers. In recent months, there has been an upswing in attacks by settlers on Palestinians and their property, some of it as retaliation for attempts by Israeli troops to remove unauthorized settler outposts. "We will never return to an intifada (uprising). We will never return to violence," Abbas said. "All our people will do is demonstrate peacefully inside the (Palestinian) cities." Abbas, however, holds no sway over the Gaza Strip or its rulers from the violently anti-Israel group Hamas, which drove out forces loyal to Abbas during a power struggle in 2007.
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