Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and United States

United States

Georgia’s exe­cu­tion of Willie Pye – the state’s first in more than four years – gar­nered crit­i­cism from the European Union. ​“Although the European Union and its 27 Member States oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cir­cum­stances, we are espe­cial­ly con­cerned about the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Mr. Pye giv­en his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and issues regard­ing the qual­i­ty of his legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” said the EU’s let­ter to the state’s Board of Pardons and Parole in sup­port of Mr. Pye’s clemen­cy peti­tion, which was sub­se­quent­ly denied on March 19, 2024. Following the March 20 exe­cu­tion, the EU expressed regret, once again high­light­ing evi­dence of Mr. Pye’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. ​“The use of the death penal­ty for per­sons with such impair­ments is explic­it­ly pro­hib­it­ed by inter­na­tion­al stan­dards on the human rights of those fac­ing the death penal­ty,” said the state­ment. Mr. Pye’s exe­cu­tion not only vio­lat­ed inter­na­tion­al law but also state law and Supreme Court prece­dent (i.e. Atkins v. Virginia, 2002) pro­hibit­ing the death penal­ty for peo­ple with intellectual disabilities.

Afghanistan 

On March 23, 2024, Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, announced in an audio broad­cast aired on state tele­vi­sion that it will resume pub­licly ston­ing women to death for adul­tery. ​“You may call it a vio­la­tion of women’s rights when we pub­licly stone or flog them for com­mit­ting adul­tery because they con­flict with your demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. [But] I rep­re­sent Allah, and you rep­re­sent Satan,” said Mr. Akhundzada, accord­ing to The Guardian’s trans­la­tion of the broad­cast. ​“The Taliban’s work did not end with the takeover of Kabul, it has only just begun,” he said. 

Human rights groups crit­i­cized the dec­la­ra­tion, which vio­lates inter­na­tion­al human rights law. ​“Two years ago, they didn’t have the courage they have today to vow ston­ing women to death in pub­lic; now they do,” said Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan researcher at Human Rights Watch. ​“They test­ed their dra­con­ian poli­cies one by one, and have reached this point because there is no one to hold them account­able for the abus­es. Through the bod­ies of Afghan women, the Taliban demand and com­mand moral and soci­etal orders. We should all be warned that if not stopped, more and more will come.”

Democratic Republic of the Congo 

On March 13, 2024, the Ministry of Justice for­mal­ly lift­ed a mora­to­ri­um on use of the death penal­ty to allow for the death penal­ty in cas­es of trea­son, ter­ror­ism, and urban ban­dit­ry result­ing in death. ​“The government’s deci­sion to rein­state exe­cu­tions is a gross injus­tice for peo­ple sen­tenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo and shows a cal­lous dis­re­gard for the right to life,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa. ECPM (Ensemble con­tre la peine de mort), an inter­na­tion­al abo­li­tion­ist group, also crit­i­cized the move, warn­ing that the major­i­ty of the over 800 death row pris­on­ers (as of the begin­ning of 2024) are at risk of exe­cu­tion. The nation last car­ried out exe­cu­tions in 2003. 

India 

On March 6, 2024, five peo­ple were sen­tenced to death for the 2019 mur­der of politi­cian Rama Chandra Behera. According to pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor Aswini Kumar Mallick, the con­vic­tion was based on evi­dence in 94 doc­u­ments and the tes­ti­mo­ny of 54 wit­ness­es. The death sen­tence of Dinesh Paswan, who was con­vict­ed of the 2021 rape and mur­der of a three-year-old, was com­mut­ed to a 30-year term sen­tence by the Allahabad High Court on March 5. Project 39A, based at the National Law University in Delhi, found that 2023 had the high­est death row pop­u­la­tion in near­ly two decades, with 561 death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, and the impo­si­tion of 120 new death sentences. 

Iran 

Established by the United Nations Human Rights Council in November 2022 in response to the repres­sion of wide­spread ​“Women, Life, Freedom” protests, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFMI) pre­sent­ed its first report on March 8, 2024, stat­ing that ​“many of the seri­ous human rights vio­la­tions out­lined in the present report amount to crimes against human­i­ty.” The report’s rec­om­men­da­tions includ­ed urg­ing for a halt to all exe­cu­tions and releas­ing arbi­trar­i­ly detained prisoners. 

Despite a lack of trans­paren­cy and coop­er­a­tion from the nation, the report found that as of January 2024 at least 28 peo­ple had been sen­tenced to death in con­nec­tion to the protests, at least 9 of whom have been exe­cut­ed and at least 6 of whom are await­ing exe­cu­tion. The Mission found con­sis­tent vio­la­tions of defen­dants’ rights to fair tri­als and due process, repeat­ed calls from state offi­cials for expe­dit­ed pro­ceed­ings, and an absence of inves­ti­ga­tions into alle­ga­tions of tor­ture and/​or coerced con­fes­sions before pro­ceed­ing with exe­cu­tions. The report states that the 9 exe­cu­tions of pro­tes­tors ​“amount[ed] to unlaw­ful and arbi­trary depri­va­tion of their right to life and have vio­lat­ed the pro­hi­bi­tion against tor­ture and ill-treatment.” 

The Mission iden­ti­fied over 100 indi­vid­u­als who have been charged with death-eli­gi­ble offens­es, includ­ing crimes which do not meet the inter­na­tion­al legal thresh­old of a ​“most seri­ous” crime (i.e. inten­tion­al mur­der). Javad Rouhi, who was giv­en three death sen­tences for the crime of apos­ta­sy, is one such indi­vid­ual; all death sen­tences against Mr. Rouhi were over­turned, how­ev­er, Mr. Rouhi sub­se­quent­ly died in cus­tody fol­low­ing cred­i­ble alle­ga­tions of tor­ture, one of sev­er­al instances of deaths in cus­tody following torture. 

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights, polit­i­cal pris­on­ers across five pris­ons have been hunger strik­ing every Tuesday for eight con­sec­u­tive weeks in protest of the death penal­ty. The pris­on­ers released a state­ment on the eighth night, the eve of Persian new year, reit­er­at­ing their com­mit­ment to ​“protest the death penal­ty from behind bars in the com­ing year,” see­ing it as their ​“moral duty” to act and refer­ring to the prac­tice as ​“medieval” and ​“state mur­der.” As of April 1, there have been 98 exe­cu­tions report­ed by Iran Human Rights. 

Nigeria 

On March 26, 2024, Chinese nation­al Frank Geng-Quangrong was sen­tenced to death for killing his girl­friend, 22-year-old Ummukulsum Sani, in September 2022. ​“This is a sig­nal that who­ev­er is com­ing to a soci­ety should be pre­pared to com­ply with the extant laws of that soci­ety,” said Kano Justice Commissioner Haruna Dederi. Mr. Geng-Quangrong has three months to file for appeal. 

Pakistan 

On March 22, 2024, Aasiya Bibi was sen­tenced to death on 2021 changes of blas­phe­my for burn­ing pages of the Quran. On March 20, two women, age 23 and 24, were sen­tenced to death for the March 2022 killing of their reli­gious teacher, who they sus­pect­ed of blas­phe­my. On March 11, 22-year-old stu­dent Junaid Munir was sen­tenced to death for shar­ing blas­phe­mous con­tent via WhatsApp in 2022. 

Russia 

The March 22, 2024 attack on Crocus City Hall, which result­ed in at least 144 deaths accord­ing to state news agency RIA Novosti, has prompt­ed dis­cus­sions on pos­si­ble rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty as pun­ish­ment for the sus­pect­ed assailants, nine of whom have been detained as of March 29. Former pres­i­dent and prime min­is­ter Dmitri A. Medvedev has tweet­ed his sup­port, say­ing it’s ​“nec­es­sary” to kill them. Lower cham­ber of par­lia­ment mem­ber Maria Butina has sug­gest­ed that Belarus has the right to request extra­di­tion of the sus­pects since at least two of their cit­i­zens were also killed in the attack and could sub­se­quent­ly try them cap­i­tal­ly, as the only European nation to retain the death penal­ty. Although Kremlin spokesper­son Dmitri S. Peskov stat­ed that it would not cur­rent­ly engage in dis­cus­sion on restor­ing the death penal­ty, Vladimir Putin has pub­licly and repeat­ed­ly opposed the death penal­ty in the past, with state­ments as recent as 2022 and as far back as 2002. In a March 26 cer­e­mo­ny for young artists and edu­ca­tors, President Putin said it was ​“extreme­ly impor­tant … to rely on these val­ues of cre­ativ­i­ty, human­ism and mer­cy,” which RT has report­ed to be ​“wide­ly inter­pret­ed as a sig­nal to law­mak­ers and the pub­lic to tone down the calls for admin­is­ter­ing the death penal­ty.” Mikhail Vinogradov, founder and pres­i­dent of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, wrote in a piece pub­lished by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that ​“no dras­tic deci­sions are like­ly” regard­ing Russia’s death penal­ty or migration policy. 

Russia has main­tained a mora­to­ri­um for 28 years; it was first imposed by the Constitutional Court in 1999, which ruled that the death penal­ty could not be used until jury tri­als were imple­ment­ed; fol­low­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of jury tri­als in 2009, the court ruled that the mora­to­ri­um would remain in place, stat­ing that “[s]table guar­an­tees of the human right not to be sub­ject­ed to the death penal­ty have been formed and a con­sti­tu­tion­al and legal regime has emerged.” The court’s 2009 deci­sion abid­ed by Council of Europe’s rules, from which Russia was expelled in 2022. Some par­lia­men­tary pro­po­nents have argued that the Constitutional Court has the pow­er to restore the death penal­ty, while chair of the court, Judge Valery Zorkin, has stat­ed that the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­vid­ed right to life pre­vents the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty and restor­ing the death penal­ty would require constitutional changes. 

Saudi Arabia 

Using data from 229 exe­cu­tions car­ried out from the begin­ning of January 2016 to end of February 2024, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights found that 40% (93) of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed were from Al-Qatif, which con­sti­tutes 1.6% of the over­all pop­u­la­tion and has been the site of protests since 2011. The report con­cludes: ​“The nature of the charges and the course of the tri­als, along­side the vio­la­tions accom­pa­ny­ing arrests and inter­ro­ga­tions, clear­ly show that Saudi Arabia has used the death penal­ty over these years as a retal­ia­to­ry method, aim­ing to intim­i­date and fright­en the society.”