Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Ghana, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe

United States

The January 25, 2024 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Smith in the state of Alabama with nitro­gen gas received wide­spread inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion. The European Union reit­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and called the exe­cu­tion method a ​“par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.” The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stat­ed: ​“I deeply regret the exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite seri­ous con­cerns that this nov­el and untest­ed method of suf­fo­ca­tion may amount to tor­ture, cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment.” A January 30 state­ment by four United Nations experts con­demned the exe­cu­tion, called for a ban on nitro­gen hypox­ia as an exe­cu­tion method, and urged for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in the U.S. and world­wide. The state­ment said: ​“The use, for the first time in humans and on an exper­i­men­tal basis, of a method of exe­cu­tion that has been shown to cause suf­fer­ing in ani­mals is sim­ply out­ra­geous. … Alabama’s use of Kenneth Smith as a human guinea pig to test a new method of exe­cu­tion amount­ed to uneth­i­cal human exper­i­men­ta­tion and was noth­ing short of State-sanctioned torture.”

China 

On February 5, 2024, 57-year-old Yang Hengjun, a Chinese-Australian pro-democ­ra­cy activist, was found guilty of espi­onage and giv­en a sus­pend­ed death sen­tence, which is con­vert­ed to a life sen­tence or fixed-term sen­tence after a two-year reprieve if no oth­er seri­ous crimes are com­mit­ted. ​“We have con­veyed, first­ly, to China our dis­may, our despair, our frus­tra­tion, but to put it real­ly sim­ply, our out­rage at this ver­dict,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who met with the Chinese ambas­sador the same day the sen­tence was hand­ed down, explained in a state­ment that “[t]he Australian Government has advo­cat­ed for Dr. Yang with China at every oppor­tu­ni­ty, and at the high­est lev­els,” and expressed its com­mit­ment ​“to press for Dr. Yang’s inter­ests and wellbeing.” 

Two peo­ple who were sen­tenced to death for throw­ing two chil­dren – age two and one – out a 15^th-floor bal­cony were exe­cut­ed on January 31, 2024. Zhang Bo, the father of the chil­dren, and his girl­friend Ye Chengchen, who saw his chil­dren from his first mar­riage as an ​“obsta­cle” and ​“bur­den on their future life togeth­er,” were sen­tenced to death in 2021 for the 2020 mur­ders. On the same day, 30-year-old Wu Xieyu was exe­cut­ed; he was sen­tenced to death in 2021 for killing his moth­er with a dumbbell. 

Ghana 

On January 25, 2024, six peo­ple, includ­ing three sol­diers, were found guilty of high trea­son and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit high trea­son and sen­tenced to death-by-hang­ing. Prosecutors said the six, who were arrest­ed in 2021, were plot­ting a coup ahead of the 2020 elec­tions. Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame said the con­vic­tion, which is the first trea­son con­vic­tion since 1966, ​“sends a strong sig­nal to the nation that to desta­bi­lize or orga­nize to over­throw the con­sti­tu­tion will not be coun­te­nanced and will be tak­en quite seri­ous­ly.” Defense lawyers are plan­ning to appeal the deci­sion to the Supreme Court, accord­ing to BBC News. Although Ghana abol­ished the death penal­ty for mur­der, geno­cide, pira­cy, and smug­gling in July 2023, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment remains in the con­sti­tu­tion for acts of trea­son. The last exe­cu­tion was car­ried out in 1992. 

Iran 

In an open let­ter, 25 human rights orga­ni­za­tions expressed their con­cern over United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif’s February 2 to 5 vis­it to Iran, high­light­ing issues with the tim­ing, con­text and nature of the vis­it. The vis­it is sched­uled sev­er­al weeks pri­or to the start of the 55^th ses­sion of the Human Rights Council, where the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, estab­lished fol­low­ing the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, and UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran will deliv­er reports. The January 29 let­ter states, ​“While we val­ue diplo­mat­ic engage­ment as com­ple­men­tary to reg­u­lar mon­i­tor­ing, pub­lic report­ing and inves­ti­ga­tion work, we also know that Iranian author­i­ties, in line with their con­sis­tent posi­tion, defend­ed pub­licly time and again at the Human Rights Council, will play diplo­mat­ic engage­ment against account­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms.” The let­ter fur­ther explains that although ​“issues of the death penal­ty and of the rights of women and girls need urgent atten­tion,” a vis­it now is unlike­ly to be pro­duc­tive as demon­strat­ed by the aggres­sive rate of exe­cu­tions in spite of inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism (i.e. accord­ing to the UN, there were at least 834 exe­cu­tions, the high­est num­ber in eight years, in 2023), the refusal to dis­cuss issues relat­ing to the death penal­ty and aspects of women’s rights dur­ing their uni­ver­sal peri­od­ic review in October 2023, cen­sor­ship of free speech relat­ing to these issues, and per­se­cu­tion of activists. The let­ter pro­pos­es mod­i­fy­ing the vis­it to include ​“a strong mon­i­tor­ing com­po­nent” and ​“access to inde­pen­dent civ­il soci­ety actors” and ​“human rights defend­ers.” In an exclu­sive email state­ment to Voice of America on February 5, U.N. rights office spokesper­son Ravina Shamdasani con­firmed the vis­it, acknowl­edged the con­cern sur­round­ing the vis­it, and pro­vid­ed reas­sur­ance that ​“the vis­it will not under­mine our approach in terms of report­ing and advocacy.” 

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), at least 72 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in Iran in January. On January 29, four Kurdish polit­i­cal pris­on­ers – Mohsen Mazloum, Pejman Fatehi, Vafa Azarbar, and Hajir Faramarzi in Ghezelhesar – were exe­cut­ed on charges of moharabeh (wag­ing war against god) and efsad-fil-arz (cor­rup­tion on earth). According to state news IRNA, they were arrest­ed in June 2022 for alleged­ly plot­ting an attack on a Defense Ministry’s fac­to­ry involved in pro­duc­ing equip­ment and espi­onage links to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. 

Japan 

Forty-five-year-old Shinji Aoba was sen­tenced to death by Kyoto District Court on January 25, 2024. Mr. Aoba, who had set fire to the Kyoto Animation stu­dio in 2019 over alleged pla­gia­rism claims, was con­vict­ed of killing 36 peo­ple – Japan’s worst mass killing in at least two decades. Judge Keisuke Masuda deter­mined that Mr. Aoba was ​“nei­ther insane nor men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent at the time of the crime” and con­clud­ed that “[t]he lia­bil­i­ty of tak­ing the lives of 36 peo­ple is extreme­ly grave, so there is no rea­son for the death penal­ty to be avoid­ed.” Japan, along with the United States, are the only G7 coun­tries to retain use of capital punishment. 

Saudi Arabia 

During the United Nation’s Human Rights Council’s Fourth Universal Periodic Review of Saudi Arabia, 33 coun­tries made rec­om­men­da­tions relat­ing to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includ­ing restric­tions on the appli­ca­tion (i.e. exempt­ing minors) and/​or abo­li­tion of the prac­tice entire­ly. Hala Al-Tuwaijri, pres­i­dent of Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Commission, explained dur­ing the January 22, 2024 ses­sion that the nation has ​“max­i­mum coop­er­a­tion and seri­ous­ness in deal­ing with the mech­a­nism.” In high­light­ing the nation’s progress, she specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty for juve­niles under a ​“his­tor­i­cal reform in the field of juve­nile jus­tice,” despite the law per­mit­ting death sen­tences for minors in cer­tain cas­es, the con­tin­ued exe­cu­tion of minors dur­ing the review peri­od, and eight pris­on­ers cur­rent­ly sen­tenced to death for crimes com­mit­ted as minors, accord­ing to the European Saudi Organisation on Human Rights (ESOHR). ESOHR described Ms. Al-Tuwaijri’s speech ​“as an affir­ma­tion of the offi­cial role of the Human Rights Commission in white­wash­ing Saudi Arabia’s image,” adding that ​“the rec­om­men­da­tions result­ing from this mech­a­nism should not be influ­enced by the manip­u­la­tion and mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed by the [Saudi Arabian Human Rights] com­mis­sion.” Echoing sim­i­lar con­cerns, Amnesty International’s Middle East Researcher Dana Ahmed stat­ed: ​“Saudi Arabian author­i­ties must seize the review’s rec­om­men­da­tions as a wake-up call to end their most egre­gious human rights vio­la­tions, includ­ing the relent­less crack­down on free­dom of expres­sion, the sen­tenc­ing of child offend­ers to death, and the tor­ture and ill-treat­ment of migrants. The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty should not be hood­winked by any promis­es of change by Saudi Arabia, but instead exert their col­lec­tive influ­ence to ensure cru­cial rights reforms take place in the country.” 

On January 31, 2024, four Ethiopian nation­als, who were sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of a Sudanese nation­al, were exe­cut­ed. On January 30, Awn Hassan Abu Abdullah, who was accused of engag­ing in ter­ror­ist-relat­ed activ­i­ties, was exe­cut­ed. The Specialized Criminal Court, which has a his­to­ry of tar­get­ing activists accord­ing to ESOHR, sen­tenced Mr. Abu Abdullah to death on vague charges that were not dis­closed to the pub­lic. According to ESOHR, ​“the arrest, tri­al, and exe­cu­tion of Awn Abu Abdullah are like­ly relat­ed to his legit­i­mate activ­i­ties, such as express­ing opin­ions and par­tic­i­pat­ing in gath­er­ings, rais­ing con­cerns about his poten­tial expo­sure to Saudi Arabia’s prac­tices of tor­ture, ill-treat­ment, and unfair trials.” 

Vietnam 

On January 22, 2024, nine peo­ple were sen­tenced to death for drug-traf­fick­ing; they were con­vict­ed of traf­fick­ing 231lbs of metham­phet­a­mine and hero­in into Vietnam from 2021 to ear­ly 2022. In Vietnam, being con­vict­ed of traf­fick­ing 100 grams or more of hero­in, metham­phet­a­mine, cocaine, or amphet­a­mine car­ries a death sen­tence. According to the Ministry of Public Security, 2023 saw an increase in both the num­ber of drug-traf­fick­ing sus­pects arrest­ed (15%) and the num­ber of cas­es (10%). 

Zimbabwe 

On February 6, 2024, Zimbabwe’s cab­i­net has sup­port­ed a bill intro­duced last November to abol­ish the death penal­ty. ​“In view of the need to retain the deter­rent ele­ment in sen­tenc­ing mur­der­ers, it is expect­ed that the new law will impose lengthy sen­tences with­out vio­lat­ing the right to life,” said Information Minister Jenfan Muswere. The bill still needs to be passed by parliament. 

Zimbabwe, which last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 2005, inher­it­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from their time as British colony. According to data from Amnesty International, four sub-Saharan African nations – Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan – have car­ried out at least 109 exe­cu­tions from 2018 – 2022; in 2022, two sub-Saharan African nations, Somalia and South Sudan, car­ried out at least 11 exe­cu­tions. According to the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, Somalia has car­ried out at least 7 exe­cu­tions so far this year.