Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Afghanistan, China, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United States, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe

United States

In the after­math of Idaho’s failed exe­cu­tion of Thomas Creech and Texas’ exe­cu­tion of Ivan Cantu on February 28, the European Union released a state­ment express­ing its regret and reit­er­at­ing its unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty.. “[The death penal­ty] is a vio­la­tion of the right to life and fails to act as a deter­rent to crime. It rep­re­sents the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment that makes mis­car­riages of jus­tice irre­versible,” said the state­ment. “[W]e are con­cerned by the fact that the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the US increased last year, as 24 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in five states despite a steady, over­all decline of the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the US since 2020. The EU calls for states that main­tain the death penal­ty to imple­ment a mora­to­ri­um and move towards abo­li­tion, in line with the worldwide trend.” 

Afghanistan 

In the span of just five days, three pub­lic exe­cu­tions were car­ried out in sports sta­di­ums. On February 22, 2024, Syed Jamal and Gul Khan, who were con­vict­ed of mur­der in sep­a­rate inci­dents, were shot repeat­ed­ly by their vic­tims’ rel­a­tives as thou­sands watched in Ghazni. On February 26, 2024, Nazar Mohammad was shot five times by the mur­der victim’s broth­er in a sta­di­um in Sheberghan. Mr. Mohammed’s exe­cu­tion marks the fifth pub­lic exe­cu­tion since the Taliban seized pow­er in August 2021; the first occurred in December 2022 and the sec­ond in June 2023, with both instances the sub­ject of international condemnation. 

“We are appalled by the pub­lic exe­cu­tions of three peo­ple at sports sta­di­ums in Afghanistan in the past week,” said UN Human Rights spokesper­son Jeremy Laurence. ​“Public exe­cu­tions are a form of cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment or pun­ish­ment. Such exe­cu­tions are also arbi­trary in nature and con­trary to the right to life pro­tect­ed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Afghanistan is a State par­ty. They must cease immediately.” 

Amnesty International also called upon the ​“Taliban de-fac­to author­i­ties” to ​“halt all exe­cu­tions.” Interim Deputy Regional Director for South Asia, Livia Saccardi, said in a state­ment: ​“We oppose all exe­cu­tions as a vio­la­tion of the right to life. The Taliban has been repeat­ed­ly car­ry­ing them out pub­licly which is a gross affront to human dig­ni­ty as well as a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al laws and stan­dards and can­not be tolerated.”

China 

Chinese-Australian pro-democ­ra­cy activist Yang Hengjun, who was found guilty of espi­onage and giv­en a sus­pend­ed death sen­tence on February 5, 2024, has decid­ed to forego an appeal. A state­ment from the 57-year-old’s fam­i­ly and close friends express­es sup­port and pro­vides rea­son­ing for his deci­sion. ​“First, there are no grounds to believe that the sys­tem that enabled Yang’s sus­tained tor­ture and fab­ri­cat­ed the charges against him is capa­ble of rem­e­dy­ing the injus­tice of his sen­tence,” said the state­ment pub­lished on Capital Punishment Justice Project. ​“Second, com­menc­ing an appeal would only delay the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ade­quate and super­vised med­ical care, after five years of inhu­mane treat­ment and abject med­ical neglect.” The state­ment requests that Mr. Yang be released on med­ical parole or trans­ferred to Australia. As it stands, Mr. Yang’s sus­pend­ed death sen­tence could be con­vert­ed to a life sen­tence or fixed-term sen­tence after two years if no oth­er seri­ous crimes are committed. 

Iran 

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) pub­lished its 2023 report on March 5, 2024. 2023 saw the sec­ond high­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions in more than 20 years with at least 834 peo­ple exe­cut­ed, mark­ing a 43% increase from the pri­or year. Executions for drug-relat­ed charges rose by 84%, from 256 to 471, con­sti­tut­ing more than half (56%) of the total num­ber of exe­cu­tions last year. There were sev­en pub­lic hang­ings in 2023, about triple the amount in 2022, eight exe­cu­tions of pro­test­ers, and at least two con­firmed cas­es – three more are under­go­ing con­fir­ma­tion by IHRNGO – where juve­niles were exe­cut­ed in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. For the first time in 10 years, two men were exe­cut­ed on blas­phe­my charges and one on adultery charges. 

“Instilling soci­etal fear is the regime’s only way to hold on to pow­er, and the death penal­ty is its most impor­tant instru­ment,” said IHRNGO direc­tor, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. ​“Increasing the polit­i­cal cost of the exe­cu­tions by inter­na­tion­al pres­sure can slow down the regime’s killing machine. The incon­sis­ten­cy in the inter­na­tion­al community’s reac­tion to the exe­cu­tions in Iran is unfor­tu­nate and sends the wrong sig­nal to the author­i­ties.” Executions in Iran spiked dur­ing the month of May (115), when nation­wide protests for International Workers’ Day and National’s Teachers Day typ­i­cal­ly occur, and fol­low­ing the onset of the war in Gaza, when the aver­age num­ber of dai­ly exe­cu­tions rose from 2 to 3 – 4. The report notes that ​“the exe­cu­tions in the sec­ond half of the year failed to elic­it the same lev­el of con­dem­na­tion and back­lash” and was ​“espe­cial­ly evi­dent after the onset of the war in Gaza.” 

Arrested dur­ing the Women, Life, Freedom move­ment, Kurdish-Iranian dis­si­dent rap­per Saman Yasin, who con­tin­ues to wait for a retri­al grant­ed in December 2022, addressed the judi­cia­ry in an open let­ter post­ed to his Instagram account. The let­ter com­plains about the cur­rent ​“lim­bo” and pleads with the judi­cia­ry for clar­i­ty on his case, which has been marred by numer­ous claims of tor­ture and vio­la­tions of his right to due process. ​“I ask you to exe­cute me. I can­not endure impris­on­ment and uncer­tain­ty for a crime that nei­ther you nor I know. … My life has been shat­tered, you have robbed me of my phys­i­cal and men­tal well-being, sub­ject­ed me to an arti­fi­cial exe­cu­tion and tak­en me to the psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal,” wrote Mr. Yasin. ​“What is left for you to do to me that you have not already done? Take my life too – end it! For 18 months I have been worn down by your false promis­es and lies. I am tired, put an end to it all!” As of March 6, 2024, there have been 85 exe­cu­tions report­ed by IHRNGO. 

Qatar 

Eight Indian for­mer naval offi­cers, who were orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced in October 2023, were released from prison after hav­ing their death sen­tences con­vert­ed into prison sen­tences. ​“The Government of India wel­comes the release of eight Indian nation­als work­ing for the Dahra Global com­pa­ny who were detained in Qatar. Seven out of the eight of them have returned to India. We appre­ci­ate the deci­sion by the Amir of the State of Qatar to enable the release and home-com­ing of these nation­als,” said the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in a state­ment pub­lished on February 12, 2024. 

Saudi Arabia 

Five Pakistani nation­als were exe­cut­ed for com­mit­ting mur­der dur­ing an armed rob­bery. According to The Daily Jang, the Pakistan’s gov­ern­ment has expressed its regret over the deci­sion and has demand­ed the case be reviewed. 

Five Yemeni nation­als – Hassan Fatini, Ibrahim Ali, Abdullah Darwish, Abdullah Majari and Hamoud Shuai – charged with mur­der and rob­bery of fel­low Yemeni nation­al Ahmed al-Aradi were exe­cut­ed, accord­ing to the offi­cial Saudi Press Agency. A day pri­or to the announce­ment, sev­en were exe­cut­ed for ​“estab­lish­ing and financ­ing ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions.” According to AFP, there have been 34 exe­cu­tions so far in 2024, a fig­ure that has increased giv­en the addi­tion­al exe­cu­tions that were car­ried out after publication. 

On February 10, the Saudi Press Agency report­ed the exe­cu­tion of Hassan bin Thabit Al-Hazouber, like­ly result­ing from a Taazir pun­ish­ment, where sen­tences are sole­ly at the judges’ dis­cre­tion, accord­ing to the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR). In its state­ment, ESOHR explains that Mr. Al-Hazouber was charged with ​“shield­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with a deceased ter­ror­ist, as well as meet­ing with him while being aware of his crim­i­nal schemes,” though the offi­cial Saudi Press Agency state­ment failed to dis­close sen­tenc­ing specifics as is gen­er­al­ly typ­i­cal indi­cat­ing ​“Saudi Arabia is mov­ing towards more ambi­gu­i­ty regard­ing the exe­cu­tion of pun­ish­ment and the sur­round­ing infor­ma­tion.” ESOHR warns: ​“The ambi­gu­i­ty and lack of trans­paren­cy in deal­ing with infor­ma­tion about sen­tences, along with intim­i­da­tion and coer­cion prac­ticed against fam­i­lies to pre­vent any doc­u­men­ta­tion of cas­es and vio­la­tions, may indi­cate a mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of violations.” 

Singapore 

35-year-old Bangladeshi nation­al Ahmed Salim was exe­cut­ed on February 28, 2024 in the nation’s first exe­cu­tion for mur­der since 2019 and its first exe­cu­tion this year, accord­ing to a Singapore Prison Service spokesper­son. Mr. Salim, whose peti­tion for pres­i­den­tial clemen­cy was unsuc­cess­ful, was con­vict­ed of stran­gling his for­mer fiancée, Indonesian nation­al Nurhidayati Wartono Surata, in 2018. 

Vietnam 

On February 6, 2024, President Vo Van Thuong com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of five pris­on­ers to life impris­on­ment. President Thuong sim­i­lar­ly com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 18 pris­on­ers to life in prison terms in late December 2023. Human rights activists and lawyers alike have warned that these actions should not be viewed as indica­tive of an improv­ing human rights record. ​“Every year, Vietnam hands out hun­dreds of death sen­tences to drug traf­fick­ers and mur­der­ers,” told vet­er­an Hanoi-based lawyer Nguyen Van Dai to Radio Free Asia (RFA). ​“If all the death inmates were exe­cut­ed, the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty would pil­lo­ry Vietnam. So they find inmates who were sen­tenced to death for less heinous crim­i­nal acts and grant them amnesty.” California-based activist Nguyen Ba Tung of the Vietnam Human Rights Network shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments with RFA, stat­ing, ​“The gov­ern­ment retains the death penal­ty as a way to men­ace the peo­ple. At the end of the year, or on spe­cial hol­i­days, they let the pres­i­dent grant an amnesty to show that they are ​‘humane.’ But inter­na­tion­al human rights groups can see through this act.” 

Yemen 

On February 1, 2024, 13 stu­dents were sen­tenced to death on charges of ​“spread­ing homo­sex­u­al­i­ty,” while three oth­ers were sen­tenced to flog­ging by the court of first instance in Ibb in south­ern Yemen. An anony­mous source told the Associate French Press that anoth­er 35 peo­ple have been detained on homo­sex­u­al­i­ty charges in Ibb. A lit­tle more than a week pri­or, a crim­i­nal court in Dhamar in north­ern Yemen sen­tenced nine indi­vid­u­als to death, sev­en to be exe­cut­ed by ston­ing and two by cru­ci­fix­ion, on sim­i­lar charges of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, spread­ing immoral­i­ty, and immoral acts. 

UN experts and Amnesty International raised con­cerns about the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Fatima Al-Arwali, head of the Habitat Organization for Human Rights Development and the for­mer head of the Yemen office of the Women’s Leadership Union. Ms. Al-Arwali who was detained since August 2022 and sen­tenced to death on charges of ​“espi­onage and aid­ing hos­tile par­ties,” was sched­uled for a February 21 exe­cu­tion in Tahrir Square in Sana’a, accord­ing to reports obtained by the UN. ​“Al-Arwali’s death sen­tence appears to vio­late fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples and rules of inter­na­tion­al law and must not be car­ried out,” said a state­ment by 15 UN Special Rapporteurs. ​“We remain con­cerned about cred­i­ble alle­ga­tions of Fatima Al-Arwali’s ill-treat­ment in deten­tion, includ­ing gen­der-based vio­lence, and seri­ous vio­la­tions of due process guar­an­tees and the right to a defence dur­ing her tri­al,” the experts said. It is unclear whether the exe­cu­tion has been carried out. 

Zimbabwe 

Following the cabinet’s sup­port of a death penal­ty abo­li­tion bill on February 6, 2024, the par­lia­ment has con­tin­ued to debate the details of the bill. ​“The way for­ward is that the Bill will be going for a sec­ond read­ing stage in the National Assembly very soon. Currently we are engag­ing the Parliamentary Legal Committee to iron out some issues they raised in their report,” leg­is­la­tor Edwin Mushoriwa, who ini­ti­at­ed the par­lia­men­tary dis­cus­sion on the bill last year, told NewsDay. In their report, the Parliamentary Legal Committee has said that the bill needs to be removed and replaced with a Constitutional Amendment Bill or reworded.