Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Tanzania

China 

On June 21, 2024, China announced that courts, pros­e­cu­tors, pub­lic, and state bod­ies should use the death penal­ty against Taiwan sep­a­ratists. The state-run Xinhua news agency report­ed that the new guide­lines rec­om­mend ​“severe­ly punish[ing] Taiwan inde­pen­dence diehards for split­ting the coun­try and incit­ing seces­sion crimes in accor­dance with the law, and res­olute­ly defend nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, uni­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty.” Critics say that the vague­ness of the legal lan­guage in the new guide­lines mean that many acts could now con­sti­tute death-eli­gi­ble crimes, with for­mer Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu telling Deutsche Welle that approx­i­mate­ly 90% of Taiwan’s pop­u­la­tion could now be crim­i­nal­ized. In response to these new guide­lines, Taiwan insti­tut­ed a trav­el warn­ing, urg­ing its cit­i­zens against ​“unnec­es­sary trav­el” to main­land China, Hong Kong, and Macau. China respond­ed in a state­ment, encour­ag­ing Taiwanese to ​“arrive in high spir­its and depart well con­tent.” In an exclu­sive, Reuters report­ed on July 4 that sev­er­al for­eign multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies are eval­u­at­ing the risks for Taiwanese employ­ees in China, with some staff already accept­ing the option to relo­cate. James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based part­ner at the Perkins Coie law firm, told Reuters that ​“The com­pa­nies are still con­cerned that there may be some grey areas such as whether a benign social media post or vot­ing for a par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal par­ty or can­di­date in Taiwan elec­tions could be inter­pret­ed as engag­ing in pro-independence activities.” 

Democratic Republic of the Congo 

More than 53 peo­ple have been charged for par­tic­i­pat­ing in an attempt­ed coup on May 19, in which armed men attacked the home of the econ­o­my min­is­ter and then occu­pied the office of the pres­i­dent until their leader, U.S.-based American-Congolese politi­cian Christian Malanga, was killed by secu­ri­ty forces. Among those charged with offens­es pun­ish­able by death are six for­eign nation­als, includ­ing three Americans — Marcel Malanga, son of Christian Malanga, high school friend Tyler Thompson, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun. The DRC lift­ed its mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty in March. 

India 

Three new crim­i­nal laws, effec­tive July 1, has increased the num­ber of death-eli­gi­ble offens­es from 11 to 15, includ­ing offens­es that fail to meet the inter­na­tion­al legal thresh­old of a ​“most seri­ous crime;” for exam­ple, the new pro­vi­sion makes the gang rape of a women under 18 a death-eli­gi­ble offense, align­ing it with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and makes mob lynch­ing a death-eligible offense. 

Iran 

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), at least 249 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed in the first six months of this year. 147 of the exe­cu­tions were for drug-relat­ed charges, which is a 30% decrease when com­pared to the same peri­od last year. IHRNGO explains that ahead of pres­i­den­tial and par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, the num­ber of exe­cu­tions some­times decrease in order to encour­age polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion but warns of an imme­di­ate and dras­tic increase that often follows elections. 

On June 15, 2024, Sweden released con­vict­ed war crim­i­nal Hamid Nouri in exchange for two Swedish nation­als impris­oned in Iran – Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi. Mr. Floderus, an EU diplo­mat, was accused of spy­ing for Israel and detained in Iran in April 2022. At the same time, Sweden was pros­e­cut­ing Mr. Nouri, uti­liz­ing the prin­ci­ple of uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion, for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 1988 sum­mer mas­sacres in Iran, which result­ed in 5000 exe­cut­ed dis­si­dents, accord­ing to 2018 fig­ures from Amnesty International. Mr. Nouri was sen­tenced to life in July 2022, and the appeals court upheld the ver­dict in December 2023, when Mr. Floderus’ tri­al for ​“cor­rup­tion on earth” began. The Swedish Supreme Court affirmed Mr. Nouri’s con­vic­tion on March 6, 2024. Although Mr. Floderus and Mr. Azizi, a dual Swedish-Iranian nation­al who was detained in November 2023 and sen­tenced to five years in February, were released in the Oman-medi­at­ed pris­on­er swap, Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian expert on dis­as­ter med­i­cine detained since 2016 was not includ­ed; Swedish broad­cast­er SVT aired an audio mes­sage from Mr. Djalili, who said ​“Mister prime min­is­ter, you decid­ed to leave me behind under huge risk of being exe­cut­ed. You left me here help­less. Why not me? After 3,000 days.” Following the exchange, pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sweden. ​“The deci­sion by the Swedish gov­ern­ment to return Hamid Nouri, a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal against human­i­ty, to Iran in exchange for hostages marks a dan­ger­ous prece­dent with far-reach­ing con­se­quences,” wrote activist and fam­i­ly mem­ber to a vic­tim of the 1988 mas­sacre Lawdan Bazargan. ​“By nego­ti­at­ing Nouri’s return, Sweden has com­pro­mised the integri­ty of inter­na­tion­al jus­tice and sig­naled that polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions can over­ride judicial outcomes.” 

On June 22, 2024, the Supreme Court over­turned dis­si­dent rap­per Toomaj Salehi’s death sen­tence, imposed in April, and ordered a retri­al. The Court also ruled that Mr. Salehi’s pre­vi­ous sen­tence of six years and three months vio­lat­ed ​“Iran’s mul­ti­ple-offens­es rules, and was in excess of the legal pun­ish­ment,” accord­ing to Mr. Salehi’s lawyer Amir Raisian. A state­ment by the Index on Censorship states: ​“Whilst the Supreme Court’s deci­sion is an impor­tant cor­rec­tion to Salehi’s cru­el and unlaw­ful treat­ment, it is crit­i­cal that his rights are prop­er­ly respect­ed. Salehi’s case has been returned to Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court for resen­tenc­ing. Even a short­er peri­od of impris­on­ment would be an injus­tice: Salehi has done noth­ing oth­er than to call for his, and oth­er Iranians’, fun­da­men­tal rights to be respect­ed. He must be free to con­tin­ue his music and seek the nec­es­sary med­ical care he needs fol­low­ing his impris­on­ment, free of any con­tin­ued impris­on­ment, harass­ment or persecution.” 

On July 4, 2024, labor rights activist Sharifeh Mohammadi was sen­tenced to death on charges of ​“armed rebel­lion against the state.” The 45-year-old has been held in soli­tary con­fine­ment since she was arrest­ed in December 2023, and accord­ing to human rights groups, has been sub­ject to psy­cho­log­i­cal and physical torture. 

Saudi Arabia 

As of June 25, 2024, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) has doc­u­ment­ed 84 exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia. Transparency in offi­cial data has decreased, ESOHR notes, with the type of ver­dict in 19 exe­cu­tions con­cealed, most of these occur­ring in the Specialized Criminal Court in ter­ror­ism cas­es. Despite a 2018 Juvenile Law pro­hibit­ing the exe­cu­tion of minors, ESOHR has warned of the immi­nent exe­cu­tion of two minors, Jalal Labad and Abdullah Al-Derazi, who have been sen­tenced to death in unfair tri­als, denied ade­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and sub­ject to torture. 

Tanzania 

In over­turn­ing the death sen­tences of Nzigiyimana Zabron, a Burundi nation­al, and Dominick Damian, a Tanzanian nation­al, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has once again ordered Tanzania to elim­i­nate the manda­to­ry death penal­ty from its stat­ues in the next six months. The Court found that the manda­to­ry death penal­ty pre­scribed under Section 197 of Tanzania’s Penal Code ​“con­sti­tutes an arbi­trary depri­va­tion of the right to life” and is in vio­la­tion of Article 4 of the African Charter to allow judi­cial offi­cers dis­cre­tion at sen­tenc­ing. Moreover, the Court found the method of hang­ing to be ​“a form of tor­ture and cru­el, inhu­man and degrad­ing treat­ment” in vio­la­tion of Article 5 of the Charter. Tanzania last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 1995.