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World News Archive from 2009
- Archive
of World News
See all CADP World News links and excerpts
from the years 2000 | 2001 | 2002
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- Asia:
Death Penalty Lessons from Asia
Concerns about the concentration of state
power and its misuse are as prominent a
theme in anti-death penalty rhetoric in
Asia as they are in the West, and the most
important feature of Asian nations that
predicts their level of execution is not
culture or crime rate but rather the nature
of the political regime. Only authoritarian
governments execute with any frequency
in Asia.
(10/19/09, DPIC Update)
- Australia: Calls for Death Penalty Abolition
Worldwide
The father of one of the Bali Nine, will
help launch a petition in the south eastern
Australian city of Melbourne today calling
for the worldwide abolition of the death
penalty. The Bali nine are a group of young
Australians, some sentenced to death by
an Indonesian court, for trying to smuggle
more than eight kilos of heroin out of
Indonesia in 2005. Lee Rush is the father
of 23 year old Scott Rush, who faces execution
and he says capital punishment is not the
answer to crime. (8/9/09, Australia Network
News)
- China:
Execution of Drug-Smuggling Briton Condemned
The British government condemned China's execution of a British national Tuesday
on drug smuggling charges. "I ... am appalled and disappointed that our
persistent requests for clemency have not been granted," Prime Minister
Gordon Brown said. "I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment
was undertaken." (12/29/09, CNN.com)
- Ecuador Seeks Return of Florida Death
Row Inmate
Ecuador is demanding the return
of one of their citizens from Florida's
death row because they maintain he was
taken from Ecuador illegally. The inmate,
Nelson Serrano Saenz, is a dual citizen
of the U.S. and Ecuador. Ecuador says he
should have never been taken from their
country by Florida officials, calling the
arrest a "kidnapping" and accusing
the U.S. government of physical maltreatment
of Serrano as well. Ecuador does not have
the death penalty and will not extradite
fugitives who face the punishment in other
countries. ''The issue is not his guilt
or innocence,'' said Deputy Ecuadorean
Interior Minister Franco Sanchez. ''This
is called a kidnapping, not an arrest.''
(4/13/09, DPIC Update)
- Egypt: Death Penalty Debate Rages as
Hundreds Await Gallows
CAIRO - June has been dubbed "the
month of executions" and 2009 "the
year of mass executions" by Egyptian
newspapers and analysts amid debate about
abolishing capital punishment. More than
200 death sentences have been handed down
since the beginning of the year, including
68 in June alone, according to official
sources at the justice ministry. There
are usually about 80 people executed each
year.
(6/28/09, The National)
- Europe: The Status of the Death Penalty
The OSCE (Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe), the world's largest
regional security organization comprised
of 56 States including the U.S., recently
published a 2009 Background Paper on The
Death Penalty in the OSCE Area. ... The
2009 paper highlights the changes in
status of the death penalty in participating
OSCE states. Of the 56 countries, only
the U.S. and Belarus retain an active
death penalty.
(11/2/09, DPIC Update)
- Japan Executes Four Death-Row Inmates
Japan executed four convicted killers on
death row on Thursday, the government said,
marking the first set of executions in
the country since October 2008. All four
men were hanged, Japan's primary method
of execution, the Justice Ministry said.
... The executions represented blatant
human rights violations, said Amnesty International
spokesman Makoto Teranaka. "Japan
is going against the rest of the world
by increasing the pace of executions, at
a time when other countries are slowing
their pace." ... The vast majority
of executions occur in a handful of nations:
the United States, China, Iran, Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International
said. (1/29/09, CNN.com)
- Kenya: President Commutes 4,000 Death
Sentences
The President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, announced
on August 3 that he is commuting the death
sentences of everyone on the country's
death row to life imprisonment. The President
cited the wait to face execution of the
more than 4,000 death row inmates as "undue
mental anguish and suffering." No
one has been executed in Kenya for 22 years.
The President said he was following the
advice of a constitutional committee. Mr.
Kibaki has directed government officials
to study whether the death penalty has
any impact on fighting crime and he appealed
to Kenyans to engage in a national debate
on the issue, suggesting the government
may be preparing the ground for a repeal
of the death penalty.
(8/10/09, DPIC Update)
- Iran: Executions Spike Around Election
LONDON, England (CNN) - There was an "alarming
spike" in the number of Iranian executions
between the disputed June 12 presidential
election and Wednesday's inauguration of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term,
Amnesty International reported Friday. "In
just over 50 days, we recorded no less that
115 executions. That is an average of more
than two each day," said Irene Khan,
secretary-general of the human rights watchdog. "This
represents a significant increase, even compared
to the appallingly high rate of executions
that has been so long a feature of the human
rights scene in Iran," Khan said in
Amnesty International's report. (8/7/09,
CNN.com)
- Mexico: Pope Praises Abolition of Death
Penalty
Emphasizing
the importance of protecting human life,
Pope Benedict XVI congratulated the
government of Mexico for its decision
in 2005 to eliminate the death penalty.
...
Governments must enact laws and
public policies that "take into
account the high value that a human
being has at every moment of existence," the
pope said. "In this regard, I welcome
with joy the initiative of Mexico, which
in 2005 eliminated its capital punishment
legislation... ." (7/10/09,
Catholic News Service)
- USA: Former State Department Official
Urges President to Implement Ruling of
World Court
John Bellinger, who served as legal adviser
to the State Department from 2005 to 2009,
has called on President Obama to assist
in the review of the death penalty cases
of foreign nationals who were denied rights
under the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations. The U.S. has ratified the Vienna
Convention and the Protocol that provides
for resolution of disputes in the International
Court of Justice in the Hague (ICJ). Mexico
brought a suit to this court on behalf
of its citizens on death row in various
states because the U.S. had not provided
the defendants with access to their consulates
at the time of their arrest. The ICJ held
that the cases of the Mexican nationals
should be reviewed before any executions
went forward. President George W. Bush
ordered state courts to review the cases,
but this order was ultimately blocked in
the U.S. Supreme Court. (7/27/09, DPIC Update)
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