Jun 7, 2019 | News
The ICJ today condemned the impending moves to subject three prominent Saudi clerics to an inevitably unfair trial on dubious charges that might result in sentences of death and arbitrary execution.
According to credible media reports citing Saudi government sources, Salman al-Odah, Ali Al-Omari and Awad al-Qarni, three prominent Saudi clerics, will almost certainly be convicted, sentenced to death and executed soon after Ramadan.
The media reports follow last April’s mass executions of 37 people, and the crucifixion of one them, following their conviction and sentencing to death for similar “terrorism” related charges.
The ICJ calls for the clerics’ release unless they can be charged with a recognizable criminal offence consistent with the rule of law, and tried before a competent, independent, and impartial court that ensures fair trial rights.
“Saudi Arabia is abusively resorting to terrorism related charges, unfair trials, and sentences of death followed by arbitrary execution to permanently silence perceived critical voices,” said Said Benarbia, the ICJ’s MENA Programme Director.
“Instead of perpetuating egregious violations of the right to life, Saudi authorities must administer justice fairly and in accordance with international law and standards,” he added.
One of the defendants, Salman al-Odah, was charged by prosecutors in September 2018 with 37 offences, including “belonging to a terrorist group: the Muslim Brotherhood,” “stirring public discord and inciting people against the ruler,” “calling for change in government,” “supporting Arab revolutions,” “possessing banned books” and “describing the Saudi government as a tyranny.”
The ICJ fears that Salman al-Odah may be subject to these charges simply for exercising his protected right to freedom of expression.
Together with the other two clerics, Salman al-Odah faces trial before the specialized criminal court, an exceptional court that fails to ensure respect of fair trial rights and that has been used to try those suspected of committing terrorism related offences, political activists, and human rights defenders.
The ICJ is concerned that since their arrest in September 2017, the clerics have allegedly been subject to incommunicado detention and prolonged solitary confinement for months. Such treatment amounts to torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, prohibited under international law.
Carrying out executions following proceedings that fail to scrupulously observe international fair trial standards always amounts to an arbitrary deprivation of life.
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 ICJ underscores that the United Nations General Assembly, by an overwhelming majority, has repeated called on States that retain the death penalty to impose an immediate moratorium on executions with a view to abolition.
The ICJ calls on the Saudi authorities to immediately move toward abolishing the death penalty and impose an immediate moratorium on executions.
Background
The clerics’ detention and ongoing trial are part of a broader crackdown on activists and dissidents since September 2017, including through politicized judicial proceedings and trumped up charges under the 2014 Royal Decree.
The Decree criminalizes as terrorism offences acts that do not involve serious violence, including acts that aim to suspend the enforcement of the Constitution or some of its articles, as well as any acts that undermine the State’s prestige and standing.
Such broad definitions have effectively been used to criminalize the legitimate and peaceful exercise of human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, and the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs.
The 2014 Royal Decree also allows the Minister of Interior to order the arrest of any person suspected of committing terrorism related offences, and for those arrested to remain in pre-trial detention for up to six months and to be prohibited from communicating with their family members for up to three months. Those arrested cannot be released pending trial without the authorization of the Minister of Interior or someone authorized by him.
Such conditions contravene international standards on the rights to liberty and to a fair trial.
Saudi Arabia-Death penalty-News-2019-ARA (Arabic version, in PDF)
Mar 28, 2019 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
Today, the ICJ and Adalah for Rights and Freedoms (Adalah) filed a submission to the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review in advance of its review of Egypt’s human rights record in November 2019.
In their submission, the ICJ and Adalah drew the the attention of the Working Group on the UPR to the following concerns:
- arbitrary arrests and detentions and systematic use of pre-trial detention;
- the systematic use of torture, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance;
- the imposition of death penalty following unfair trials; and
- the politicization of the judiciary and the use of courts as a tool of repression.
The ICJ and Adalah called on the Working Group and the Council to urge the Egyptian authorities to :
- End the practice of holding detainees incommunicado;
- End all other forms of arbitrary detention;
- Comprehensively reform the pre-trial detention framework, including by ensuring that resort to it is exceptional, and that such detention may be ordered only when it is determined on the basis of evidence that it is necessary, proportionate and reasonable in the circumstances of the individual case;
- Ensure that pre-trial detention is not mandatory for all individuals charged with a particular category of felony or misdemeanor, or based on the potential sentences for the offences alleged;
- Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED);
- Enact a crime of enforced disappearance in the Egyptian Criminal Code consistent with article 2 of the CED;
- Amend article 126 of the Criminal Code with a view to enacting a crime of torture consistent with article 1 of the CAT;
- Accept independent monitoring of detention facilities by allowing independent observers immediate access to detainees and prisoners, and to that end, accede to the Optional Protocol to the CAT;
- Implement all the recommendations of the CAT following its article 20 inquiry;
- Amend Egyptian law and abolish the use of the death penalty;
- Pending abolition, implement an immediate moratorium on all executions and on the imposition of capital punishment, including in cases of involving intentional killings;
- Pending abolition, ensure that proceedings in death penalty cases conform to the highest standards of judicial independence, competence and impartiality, and strictly comply with all fair trial rights;
- Pending abolition, ensure that the right to appeal in death penalty cases include review of both the factual and the legal aspects of the case by a higher ordinary, independent and impartial tribunal;
- Pending abolition, provide for the right of individuals convicted in death penalty cases to seek a pardon, commutation of sentence or clemency.
- Ensure that all convictions in death penalty cases that followed unfair trails are quashed;
- End Executive interference in judicial affairs;
- Limit the jurisdiction of military courts to trials of military personnel only for breaches of military discipline; and
- Abolish Emergency State Security Courts.
Egypt-Adalah_ICJ UPR-Advocacy-Non Legal Submissions-2019-ENG (full text of submission, in PDF)
Feb 15, 2019 | News
The International Court of Justice will hold public oral hearings in India v. Pakistan (Jadhav case) from 18 to 21 February 2019. Before they commence, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has published a briefing paper to clarify the key issues and relevant laws raised in the case in a Question and Answer format.
The case concerns Pakistan’s failure to allow for consular access to an Indian national, Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, detained and convicted by a Pakistani military court on charges of “espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan.”
India has alleged that denial of consular access breaches Pakistan’s obligations under Article 36(1) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), to which both States are parties.
Pakistan has argued, among other things, that the VCCR is not applicable to spies or “terrorists” due to the inherent nature of the offences of espionage and terrorism, and that a bilateral agreement on consular access, signed by India and Pakistan in 2008, overrides the obligations under the VCCR.
ICJ’s Q&A discusses the relevant facts and international standards related to the case, including: India’s allegations against Pakistan; Pakistan’s response to the allegations; the applicable laws; and the relief the International Court of Justice can order in such cases.
Contact:
Frederick Rawski (Bangkok), ICJ Asia Pacific Regional Director, e: frederick.rawski(a)icj.org
Reema Omer (London), ICJ International Legal Adviser, South Asia t: +447889565691; e: reema.omer(a)icj.org
Additional information
While the case at issue is limited to denial of consular access under the VCCR, it engages other critical fair trial concerns that arise in military trials in Pakistan.
The International Commission of Jurists has documented how Pakistani military courts are not independent and the proceedings before them fall far short of national and international fair trial standards. Judges of military courts are part of the executive branch of the State and continue to be subjected to military command; the right to appeal to civilian courts is not available; the right to a public hearing is not guaranteed; and a duly reasoned, written judgment, including the essential findings, evidence and legal reasoning, is denied.
The case also underscores one of inherent problems of the death penalty: that fair trial violations that lead to the execution of a person are inherently irreparable.
Download the Q&A:
Pakistan-Jadhav case Q&A-Advocacy-Analysis brief-2019-ENG
Feb 12, 2019 | News
The ICJ has called on Sri Lanka’s President, Maithripala Sirisena, to retract his recent pronouncement that executions would resume in the country notwithstanding a moratorium on capital punishment that has lasted 43 years. The last execution was carried out in Sri Lanka in 1976.
“Resuming executions would be an egregious violation of Sri Lanka’s obligations under international human rights law, a serious threat to human rights in the country, and it would be inconsistent with the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty,” said Frederick Rawski, ICJ’s Asia-Pacific Director.
Speaking in Parliament last week, President Sirisena vowed to resume executions of those convicted of “drug offences” as early as within the next two months.
The ICJ considers any resumption of executions in Sri Lanka as constituting a violation of international law and an appalling disregard for the international human rights system as a whole.
“At least 150 countries have now either abolished the death penalty or instituted an official or unofficial moratorium. There is a growing understanding around the world that the death penalty is an unacceptable assault on rights and dignity,” Fredrick Rawski added.
The ICJ opposes the death penalty in all circumstances – as it constitutes a violation of the right to life and its imposition constitutes per se cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.
The Human Rights Committee, the Treaty Body supervising the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), by which Sri Lanka is bound, has recently made clear in its General Comment 36 on Right to life that, “it is contrary to the object and purpose of Article 6 [of the ICCPR, which enshrines the right to life] for States parties to take steps to increase de facto the rate and extent in which they resort to the death penalty”, and that, “States parties that are not yet totally abolitionist should be on an irrevocable path towards complete eradication of the death penalty, de facto and de jure, in the foreseeable future. The death penalty cannot be reconciled with full respect for the right to life, and abolition of the death penalty is both desirable and necessary for the enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights.”
Moreover, the UN Human Rights Committee has made it clear that the imposition of the death penalty for “drug offenses” is incompatible with the Covenant.
The UN General Assembly has adopted repeated resolutions, most recently in December 2018, by overwhelming majority in calling for all retentionist States to observe a an immediate moratorium with a view to abolition.
It must be noted that Sri Lanka voted in favor of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the 2018 UN GA Resolution. This commitment should not be reversed, but upheld in practice instead, the ICJ says.
The ICJ calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to reject the resumption of executions and to do away with the death penalty once and for all. Instead of planning on resuming executions, the Sri Lankan authorities should focus on effective, evidence-based approaches to crime prevention in manners that conform to international human rights law and standards, such as formulating policies and legislation that address the underlying social and economic causes of criminality, which are also vital to ensuring stability and the rule of law.
The ICJ also urges Sri Lanka to immediately ratify the 2nd Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which obligates State Parties to take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty.
Sep 10, 2018 | News
Today, the ICJ condemned the mass convictions of some 739 defendants, 75 of whom were sentenced to death, by the Cairo Criminal Court, in connection with a sit-in protest at Raba’a Al Adaweyya square in August 2013.
The ICJ deplored that the convictions had followed a grossly unfair trial and called on the Egyptian authorities, including the prosecutorial authorities, to take immediate steps to quash them.
The ICJ said that as an immediate matter the death sentences, issued in contravention of Egypt’s international legal obligations, must be vacated.
In addition to the death sentences, another 658 individuals were sentenced either to life imprisonment or to five to 15 years’ imprisonment, including journalists and others monitoring the sit in, many of them in high security facilities.
The accused were convicted of offences including “killing police officers,” “taking part in an illegal assembly,” “joining an illegal group,” and “vandalism and other acts of violence” following dispersal of a sit-in protest at Raba’a square.
The convictions follow a grossly unfair trial in which rights of the accused to a presumption of innocence and to legal counsel, among others, were violated and many accused were arbitrarily detained.
“The trial, with its industrial-scale convictions and blatant disregard of basic fair trial guarantees, is yet another example of how Egypt’s judiciary is being used by the military and the executive to crush freedom of expression, assembly, and association; silence any and all critical voices, and intimidate witnesses of human rights violations,” said Said Benarbia, Director of the ICJ’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
The trial was marred by a litany of fair trial violations. A presumption in favour of pre-trial detention was routinely applied.
Of the 739 defendants tried, all 320 arrested were held in pre-trial detention for more than five years, protestors and protest monitors alike.
For example, photo journalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, known as “Shawkan”, was arrested while covering the Raba’a dispersal and was in pre-trial detention throughout the trial.
The Cairo Criminal Court convicted the defendants without making individual findings of guilt or relying on credible evidence, violating the presumption of innocence.
Four hundred and nineteen defendants were tried in absentia—a number of whom may have been sentenced to death—without the opportunity to mount a meaningful defence.
Charges such as “joining an illegal group” were also blatantly unfounded insofar as they targeted journalists and others reporting on the sit in.
“The convictions are unreliable and ought to be quashed. Those convicted solely for the legitimate and peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly must be immediately and unconditionally released,” added Benarbia.
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.
It has previously called on Egypt to respect repeated Resolutions by the UN General Assembly for all retentionist States to impose an immediate moratorium on the death penalty with a view to abolition.
Under international standards, proceedings in death penalty cases must conform to the highest standards of judicial independence, competence and impartiality, and must strictly comply with all fair trial rights.
The ICJ previously documented how the Egyptian Judiciary has consistently failed to conform to these standards, and has instead been using the administration of justice as a tool of repression.
The ICJ has underscored that International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party, protects the rights to liberty, to a fair trial, to life, to freedom of expression, to freedom of assembly, and to an effective remedy against violations of human rights.
The ICJ is particularly concerned that impunity continues to prevail over the gross human rights violations committed by armed and security forces in the course of the dispersal.
In this regard, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet noted the contrast between Saturday’s decision and Egypt’s adoption of Law 161(2018) in July, which effectively immunized security forces from prosecution for offences committed between 3 July 2013, the date of the military coup, and January 2016.
The High Commissioner further warned that “justice must apply to all” and that immunizing security personnel by such a law only “promotes impunity, and undermines the faith of the Egyptian people in the Government’s capacity to deliver justice for all.”
“It is a measure of the absolute subordination of the judiciary to the will of the military and executive that not a single person has been held accountable for the unlawful killings of hundreds of protesters, and that those arrested and prosecuted in the context of the dispersal are convicted and sentenced to death and cumulatively thousands of years’ of imprisonment,” Benarbia said.
Egypt-Rabaa Ruling-News-webstory-2018-ENG (full text, PDF)
