Mar 12, 2015 | News
Pakistan’s decision to fully reinstate the death penalty puts at imminent risk of execution more than 500 people on death row who have exhausted all avenues of appeal, with another 8000 facing death penalties, said the ICJ today.
“The total abandonment of the moratorium on the death penalty is a disaster for human rights in Pakistan,” said Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s Asia director. “We fear a major acceleration in the flow of executions we have seen over the past few months—none of which do anything to protect the rights of the Pakistani people.”
25 people have been executed since 16 December 2014, when Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in cases of capital punishment related to terrorism. The decision to partially lift a six-year unofficial moratorium on executions was in response to an attack on a school in Peshawar, killing 150 people, almost all of them children. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
In January, Pakistan also amended the Constitution and the Army Act, 1952, empowering military courts to try civilians for terrorism related offences.
“The Pakistani people face a very real threat from terrorist attacks, but there is no indication that the death penalty will decrease this threat,” said Zarifi. “Instead, the government is targeting hundreds of people on death row whose convictions had nothing to do with terrorism-related offenses.”
In Pakistan, capital punishment is prescribed for 27 different offences, including blasphemy, sexual intercourse outside of marriage, kidnapping or abduction, rape, assault on the modesty of women and the stripping of women’s clothes, smuggling of drugs, arms trading and sabotage of the railway system. Many of these crimes do not meet the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’ stipulated by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Pakistan ratified the ICCPR in 2010. Article 6 of the ICCPR, guaranteeing the right to life, requires that states restrict capital punishment to only the ‘most serious crimes’. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has clarified that in the context of the death penalty, the definition of the ‘most serious crimes’ is limited to those cases in which there was an intention to kill, which resulted in the loss of life.
In December 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, that emphasizes that that the use of the death penalty undermines human dignity and that calls on countries that maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium on its use with a view to its abolition. An overwhelming majority of 117 UN Member States voted in favor of the call for a worldwide moratorium on executions, as a step towards abolition of the death penalty.
Pakistan should reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty, with a view to definitively abolishing the practice in law,” said Zarifi.
ICJ opposes capital punishment in all cases without exception. The death penalty constitutes a violation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
Contact
Sam Zarifi, ICJ Asia Pacific Regional Director (Bangkok), t: +66 807819002; email: sam.zarifi(a)icj.org
Reema Omer, ICJ International Legal Advisor for Pakistan (London), t: +447889565691; email: reema.omer(a)icj.org
Mar 3, 2015 | Advocacy
In advance of the Brussels Conference on implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights, our shared responsibility, the ICJ and nine other NGOs issued a statement on the Conference’s draft Declaration.
The statement welcomes a number of aspects of the draft Declaration, which addresses the need for more effective implementation of the Convention and the full, rapid execution of European Court of Human Rights judgments.
It raises concerns at several elements of the draft Declaration, including recommendations to the Court which could undermine its independence, and the lack of recognition of the role of civil society in the effective execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (photo).
Europe-NGO Statement on Brussels Draft Declaration-Advocay-2015-ENG (full text in PDF)
Mar 3, 2015 | Advocacy
Thirteen human rights organizations, including the ICJ, call on the United Arabe Emirates government to release the activists jailed following the UAE 94 trial.
On the second anniversary of the start of the mass “UAE 94” trial that imprisoned dozens of government critics and reform activists in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including prominent human rights defenders, judges, academics, and student leaders, a coalition of 13 organizations calls on the UAE government to release immediately and unconditionally all those imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association following this grossly unfair trial, as well as those who remain detained or imprisoned for publicizing concerns about it.
The organizations also call on the authorities to ensure that the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment that the individuals were subjected to prior to and following their trial are promptly, independently, impartially and thoroughly investigated, that those responsible are held to account, and that the victims have access to effective remedies and to reparation.
The organizations share the serious concerns raised since 2011 by several UN human rights bodies and human rights organizations regarding the UAE government’s continuing pattern of harassment, secret, arbitrary and prolonged incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, and unfair trials targeting activists and those critical of the authorities, as well as its increasing use of national security as a pretext to clamp down on peaceful activism and to stifle calls for reform.
The space for dissent in the UAE is increasingly shrinking. The repression has been entrenched with the enactment in 2012 of the cybercrimes law, which the government has used to silence social media activists and others who support and defend freedom of expression online, and the enactment of the 2014 counter-terror law.
The vague and overly broad definition of terrorism in the 2014 law, which treats a wide range of activities, including those protected by human rights standards, as amounting to terrorism, may be used to sentence human rights defenders or critics of the government to lengthy prison terms or even death.
The organizations call on the UAE government, which currently is a member of the UN Human Rights Council, to adhere to its obligations to uphold human rights at home, including respecting the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, and to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.
The full statement can be found here in English and Arabic:
United Arab Emirates-Release activists convicted at the UAE94 trial-Advocacy-2015-ENG (full text in PDF)
United Arab Emirates -Release activists convicted at the UAE94 trial-Advocacy-2015-ARA (full text in PDF)
Read also:
UAE: Fear that Anti-Terrorism Law will be used to curtail human rights and target human rights defenders, Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Front Line Defenders, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, 13 December 2014,
Mass convictions following an unfair trial: The UAE 94 case, an ICJ report, October 2013,
United Arab Emirates: ICJ condemns blatant disregard of the right to a fair and public trial, ICJ, 12 March 2013
Feb 27, 2015 | News
The Nepali government must fully implement yesterday’s decision of the Supreme Court rejecting the possibility of amnesties for perpetrators of serious human rights abuses during the country’s civil war, said today the ICJ.
The decision, by a three-person special constitutional bench, composed of Justice Kalyan Shrestha, Justice Baidhya Nath Upadhyay and Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana, struck down the amnesty provision of the Commission on Investigation of Disappeared Persons, Truth and Reconciliation Act 2014 (TRC Act) promulgated last May 2014.
The Court also ruled that only the judiciary, and not the Commissions established by the TRC Act, can determine the criminality of any violations committed in the context of the country’s decade-long conflict.
“Nepal’s Supreme Court has once again firmly reasserted the right of the victims of human rights violations to seek justice,” said Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s Asia Director. “This bold and principled decision should finally end the cynical attempts by politicians from all Nepal’s major parties, as well as the military, to legislate impunity and shield themselves from accountability.”
The decision distinguished between the jurisdiction of the courts and the criminal justice system, and the non-judicial reconciliation and truth-seeking mechanisms established by the TRC Act.
In the months before the decision, the government had essentially frozen the prosecution of claims already before various courts, and had blocked the filing of First Information Reports (FIRs) by victims trying to lodge new complaints.
“Now, the government must not only remove obstacles to these cases, it must commit itself to prosecuting such claims,” Zarifi added. “The Government must immediately take all necessary steps to implement the court ruling including to ensure criminal investigation of FIRs, and address the concerns raised by the victims on the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance.”
This is the second time that the Nepali Supreme Court has rejected the amnesty scheme introduced by the Nepali government.
On 2 January 2014, the Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional the Ordinance on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC Ordinance).
However, the Government effectively ignored the Court order and introduced a slightly modified version of the 2013 Ordinance replicating almost all of the provisions of the TRC Ordinance, including many of its problematic aspects, such as the ‘amnesty’ provision.
“The Government, with the help of the international community, must now dedicate itself to meeting the promise of the political parties to provide justice, truth and reparations to the victims and survivors of the conflict,” said Zarifi. “Only doing so will help end the country’s cycle of impunity.”
Contact:
Sam Zarifi, ICJ Asia Pacific Regional Director (Bangkok), t: +66 807819002; email: sam.zarifi(a)icj.org
Feb 3, 2015 | News
The ICJ condemns yesterday’s decision of the Giza Felonies Court to confirm the death sentences of 183 individuals that had been simultaneously imposed in one mass trial.
The charges include murder, mutilation and attempted murder and relate to an attack on a police station in Kerdasa that took place in August 2013.
According to the ICJ, the trial has involved a litany of violations of fair trial rights, including denying many of the accused the right to legal counsel, denying the right to a public hearing, refusing to allow defence witnesses to testify, prohibiting the cross-examination of prosecution witnesses by defence counsel, and failing to produce credible evidence as to the individual guilt of each accused.
“Once again, Egypt’s judiciary has abdicated its fundamental responsibility to uphold the rule of law and human rights, instead resorting to unfair mass trials and death sentences as a technique to suppress dissent and to crack down on critics of the military and Government,” said Said Benarbia, Director of the ICJ MENA Programme.
“Egypt’s judiciary must act independently, impartially, with integrity and as a check against the Executive’s arbitrary powers and policies, not as a tool to implement them,” he added.
The imposition of death sentences following unfair mass trials constitutes a gross violation of Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law, including those relating to the right to life, the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and fair trial rights.
The ICJ opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances as a violation of the right to life and a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
The UN General Assembly has repeatedly, by a large majority, called for a moratorium on its use.
Even those states that retain the death penalty have acknowledged that any imposition of the death penalty through a process that fails to meet the most stringent fair trial standards, inherently violates the right to life.
Contact:
Said Benarbia, ICJ Director of the ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, t: 41 22 979 38 17, e: said.benarbia(a)icj.org
