Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe

On May 7, 2024, Harm Reduction International (HRI) released a spe­cial glob­al overview report on the use of the death penal­ty for drug offens­es, which is a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law because drug offens­es do not meet the ​“most seri­ous” crimes thresh­old. HRI found that by the end of 2023, there were 34 coun­tries which still retained the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed offens­es; Pakistan was the only coun­try to recent­ly elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for such offens­es – the first coun­try in more than a decade to do so. At least 467 exe­cu­tions for drug offens­es were con­firmed in five coun­tries (China, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore), mark­ing a 44% world­wide increase from 2022 and com­pris­ing 42% of the world­wide exe­cu­tion total. At least 375 death sen­tences were con­firmed to have been imposed in 16 coun­tries, mark­ing a 20% increase from the year pri­or. There are at least 3000 peo­ple under sen­tence of death for drug-relat­ed offens­es in 19 coun­tries. A lack of trans­paren­cy in sev­er­al reten­tion­ist coun­tries means that the num­bers of exe­cu­tions, death sen­tences, and death row pris­on­ers are like­ly an undercount. 

Amnesty International also pub­lished its 2023 death penal­ty annu­al report in May. Sixteen coun­tries car­ried out 1,153 known exe­cu­tions last year, con­sti­tut­ing the low­est num­ber of exe­cut­ing coun­tries on record with the orga­ni­za­tion but the high­est record­ed exe­cu­tion num­bers since 2015. To learn more, see DPIC’s sum­ma­ry. 

China 

On May 28, 2024, Bai Tianhui, for­mer gen­er­al man­ag­er of China Huarong International Holdings, a state-owned asset man­age­ment firm, was sen­tenced to ​“death, depri­va­tion of polit­i­cal rights for life, and con­fis­ca­tion of all per­son­al prop­er­ty” for accept­ing 1.1 bil­lion yuan ($151 mil­lion) in bribes from 2014 to 2018. In exchange for these bribes, Mr. Bai report­ed­ly used his posi­tion to aid with project acqui­si­tion and financ­ing. Although Mr. Bai coop­er­at­ed with author­i­ties, the court would not pro­vide a lighter sen­tence due to the sever­i­ty of his crime, which was said to be ​“par­tic­u­lar­ly per­ni­cious, caus­ing seri­ous loss­es to the inter­ests of the state and the peo­ple.” Mr. Bai’s for­mer super­vi­sor, Lai Xiaomin, was sim­i­lar­ly con­vict­ed of bribery ($247 mil­lion), embez­zle­ment ($3.46 mil­lion), and bigamy and sen­tenced to death in 2021; Mr. Lai was exe­cut­ed a month fol­low­ing sen­tenc­ing, mark­ing the first exe­cu­tion of a state offi­cial for cor­rup­tion since 2011. 

Iran 

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), there have been at least 240 exe­cu­tions in 2024. From April 17 to May 15, at least 103 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed, 63 of whom were exe­cut­ed on drug-relat­ed charges. Following a typ­i­cal slow­down in exe­cu­tions dur­ing Norouz (Persian New Year) and Ramadan, the last two weeks of April expe­ri­enced a sharp increase with at least 63 exe­cu­tions car­ried out. ​“In the last two weeks [of April], the Islamic Republic has exe­cut­ed one per­son every five hours with­out any polit­i­cal cost,” said IHRNGO Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

Amnesty International has expressed con­cern for the lives of eight indi­vid­u­als under sen­tence of death in con­nec­tion with ​“Woman, Life, Freedom” protests that occurred from September to December 2022. ​“The author­i­ties have severe­ly vio­lat­ed their fair tri­al rights and sub­ject­ed many to tor­ture and oth­er ill-treat­ment, includ­ing beat­ings, elec­tric shocks and sex­u­al vio­lence. Concerns of fur­ther protest-relat­ed exe­cu­tions are mount­ing amid an ongo­ing exe­cu­tion spree,” states Amnesty. Among those eight under sen­tence of death is dis­si­dent rap­per Toomaj Salehi, who was sen­tenced to death in April. His case con­tin­ues to gar­ner wide­spread inter­na­tion­al sup­port, with more than 100 artists, writ­ers, and human rights activists, includ­ing Sting and Coldplay, sign­ing onto the Index on Censorship’s let­ter call­ing for his release. Four U.S. Congressional Representatives (Rep. Young Kim (R), David Troone (D), Mike Lawler (R), and Adam Schiff (D)) have intro­duced the TOOMAJ Act which would impose sanc­tions on judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and inves­ti­ga­tors of the Revolutionary Courts who ​“are involved in sham tri­als, tor­ture, and inhu­mane treat­ment and sen­tenc­ing of Iranian pro­test­ers and political dissidents.”

Malaysia 

On May 28, 2024, a three-judge pan­el at the Federal Court reduced the death sen­tence for 50-year-old, Japanese nation­al Mariko Takeuchi, who was con­vict­ed of drug-traf­fick­ing, to a 30-year prison term, includ­ing time served since her arrest in 2009. Ms. Takeuchi was con­vict­ed of traf­fick­ing 3.5 kilo­grams of metham­phet­a­mines, the first Japanese per­son sen­tenced to death for drug-traf­fick­ing in the coun­try. Ms. Takeuchi’s lawyer, Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, said that she could be released as ear­ly as 2029 fol­low­ing good behav­ior, which for­gives one-third of a prison term. Her sen­tence, which was pre­vi­ous­ly upheld on appeal in 2015, was re-reviewed under the judi­cial reforms passed last July. Similarly, Teh Kim Hong’s death sen­tence was reviewed and com­mut­ed to a 40-year prison term to run con­cur­rent­ly from the time of arrest in 2008; Mr. Teh, who was a hair­styl­ist, was con­vict­ed of kid­nap­ping and killing a salesperson.

Nigeria 

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Act (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which makes import­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing hard drugs (e.g., cocaine, hero­in) death-eli­gi­ble offens­es, was passed in the Senate and now awaits approval in the House of Representatives. The House Deputy spokesper­son, Philip Agbese, says he expects the leg­is­la­tion will pass. During a media per­son­nel train­ing, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Country Representative, Oliver Stolpe, crit­i­cized the bill, empha­siz­ing that “[t]here is no proof of the effec­tive­ness of [the] death penal­ty.” He explained the UN’s stance of being ​“prin­ci­pal­ly and cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly against” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and high­light­ed the use of a 2018 nation­al drug use report, the most recent car­ried out. He stat­ed: ​“The drug use sur­vey of 2018 remains as far as I can tell the most cit­ed study in the media, this data is out­dat­ed and I think a very crit­i­cal ques­tion that media could ask at that point is real­ly well, how can we still refer to 2018 data to describe today’s lev­els of drug use?”

Saudi Arabia 

According to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), there were 55 exe­cu­tions car­ried out in the first four months of the year, con­sti­tut­ing a 189% increase from the same peri­od in 2023 and sig­nal­ing ​“anoth­er bloody year.” While 35 indi­vid­u­als were sen­tenced to death for mur­der, 20 were con­vict­ed for non-seri­ous crimes such as ​“cov­er­ing up crimes, par­tic­i­pat­ing in ter­ror­ist cell for­ma­tions, endan­ger­ing nation­al uni­ty, and under­min­ing soci­etal secu­ri­ty.” The spe­cial­ized crim­i­nal court for ter­ror­ism tried 19 of these 20 cas­es. ESOHR has expressed con­cern over the trans­paren­cy of gov­ern­ment fig­ures, not­ing that sen­tences were omit­ted in these 20 cas­es – a first since 2004. ​“ESOHR believes that the hid­ing of the type of sen­tence in offi­cial state­ments regard­ing exe­cu­tions, like­ly puni­tive ​“Taazir” in nature, is a new tac­tic adopt­ed by the Saudi gov­ern­ment to evade and deny its promis­es, and a deceit­ful attempt to con­ceal the truth rather than abol­ish the punishment.”

On May 11, 2024, Saudi Arabia car­ried out its first drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tion since August 2023. Syrian nation­als Emad Mahmoud Hussein and Mustafa Mahmoud Hussein, who were con­vict­ed of smug­gling banned amphet­a­mine pills, were executed.

Zimbabwe 

During May, pub­lic hear­ings were held for Death Penalty Abolition Bill H.B. 5. The Parliamentary Legal Committee, which had pre­vi­ous­ly raised con­cerns over the tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion of the bill, with­drew their adverse report and sub­mit­ted a new, non-adverse report fol­low­ing the hear­ings which addressed these con­cerns; to avoid a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment, the bill will now amend exist­ing law to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty as poten­tial pun­ish­ment for all crimes. Legislator Edwin Mushoriwa, who intro­duced the bill last November, was hope­ful that ​“Zimbabwe [could] enact a Death Penalty Abolishment Act as ear­ly as June. We are on the verge of abol­ish­ing the death penalty.”