Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, United States, and Vietnam

Democratic Republic of the Congo 

On September 13, 2024, 37 peo­ple, includ­ing three Americans, who were ​“charged with ter­ror­ism, mur­der, crim­i­nal asso­ci­a­tion and ille­gal pos­ses­sion of weapons, among oth­er charges” for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in an attempt­ed coup in May were con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by a mil­i­tary court. Richard Bondo, lawyer for the three Americans, filed an appeal on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. Mr. Bondo argues that since the DRC is a mem­ber of the Treaty of Rome, the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in March was ille­gal; rather than lift­ing the mora­to­ri­um, par­lia­ment should have cho­sen an alternative punishment. 

Iraq 

On September 25, AFP report­ed the hang­ing of 21 peo­ple, includ­ing one woman, on ter­ror­ism-relat­ed charges in Nassiriya, mark­ing the largest mass exe­cu­tion report­ed this year, accord­ing to Amnesty International Iraq. Earlier in April, 13 men were exe­cut­ed in Nassiriya on ter­ror­ism-relat­ed charges, dubbed ​“over­ly broad and vague” by Amnesty International, which marked the first record­ed mass exe­cu­tion since November 2020. As of October 1, 2024, the Cornell Center for the Death Penalty Worldwide has record­ed at least 94 exe­cu­tions in Iraq, sur­pass­ing the at least 16 exe­cu­tions report­ed by Amnesty in 2023. Echoing con­cerns voiced in June by the United Nations, the European Union released a state­ment on September 27 express­ing ​“its deep con­cern over the recent increased appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sen­tences in Iraq, includ­ing cas­es of sev­er­al exe­cu­tions in one sin­gle day. Over 8 000 pris­on­ers are report­ed­ly on the death row in Iraq as of today.” 

Iran 

There have been at least 72 exe­cu­tions record­ed by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) in September, bring­ing the year­ly total to 478 exe­cu­tions. Of the 72 exe­cu­tions iden­ti­fied by IHRNGO, only 5, or 7%, were report­ed by offi­cial sources, demon­strat­ing a con­tin­ued lack of trans­paren­cy. In September 35 exe­cu­tions were for drug-relat­ed crimes and 35 were for qisas, or ret­ri­bu­tion-in-kind, typ­i­cal­ly for inten­tion­al killings. Since Masoud Pezeshkian assumed office on July 30, there has been a post-elec­tion surge with at least 179 exe­cu­tions, or an aver­age of almost three exe­cu­tions a day. 

On September 30, 2024, two unnamed men were pub­licly hanged in Khomein, mark­ing the sec­ond and third pub­lic exe­cu­tions of the year. They were sen­tenced to death for mohare­beh (enmi­ty against god) and efsad-fil-arz (cor­rup­tion on earth) for armed rob­bery that took place on December 15, 2020. The first pub­lic hang­ing of 2024 occurred on August 26, and there were sev­en pub­lic hang­ings in 2023. ​“Public hang­ing is an inhu­mane, cru­el and degrad­ing act that not only vic­timis­es [sic] the defen­dant but also the gen­er­al pub­lic,” said IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. ​“The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must con­demn this bar­bar­ic pun­ish­ment in the strongest terms. We will wit­ness more pub­lic exe­cu­tions if the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty doesn’t show an appropriate response.” 

September 16, 2024, marked two years since 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini died while in cus­tody of the moral­i­ty police, an event which ignit­ed the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” move­ment. In recog­ni­tion of the two-year anniver­sary, sol­i­dar­i­ty protests were held world­wide. To dis­cour­age protests with­in Iran, increased secu­ri­ty was present across many cities, and Ms. Amini’s fam­i­ly was barred by author­i­ties from leav­ing their home and vis­it­ing the bur­ial site. According to Iran International, strikes were held in at least 11 cities in Western Azerbaijan and Kurdistan provinces, with busi­ness own­ers clos­ing their doors in sol­i­dar­i­ty. As part of the ongo­ing ​“No Execution Tuesday” prison hunger strike move­ment, 34 female pris­on­ers in Evin prison announced that their strike that same week was in ​“com­mem­o­ra­tion of the sec­ond anniver­sary of the ​‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ move­ment and the killing of Mahsa (Jina) Amini.” Ahead of the anniver­sary, the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran released an update on September 13 call­ing on author­i­ties to ​“halt all protest-relat­ed exe­cu­tions and to put in place a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty, with a view to its abo­li­tion.” The update states: ​“State author­i­ties have increas­ing­ly invoked the use of the death penal­ty against women activists and scaled up exe­cu­tions against oth­ers who had expressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the ​‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ move­ment.” According to IHRNGO, there have been at least 1,425 exe­cu­tions record­ed in the two years since Ms. Amini’s death, near­ly two times high­er than the num­ber of exe­cu­tions record­ed in the two years pri­or to the start of the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” move­ment. ​“The death penal­ty is the Islamic Republic’s most impor­tant tool to cre­ate soci­etal fear with the aim of sup­press­ing protests and pre­vent­ing fur­ther protests,” said Mr. Amiry-Moghaddam. Amnesty International voiced sim­i­lar con­cerns, explain­ing that the gov­ern­ment has ​“inten­si­fied their use of the death penal­ty to silence dissent.” 

Saudi Arabia 

The Saudi Press Agency has report­ed at least 198 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed thus far this year, the high­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions since 2022 when 196 exe­cu­tions were record­ed. ​“Saudi Arabia’s author­i­ties are pur­su­ing a relent­less killing spree dis­play­ing a chill­ing dis­re­gard for human life while pro­mot­ing an emp­ty-word­ed cam­paign to rebrand their image,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. Executions for drug-relat­ed crimes have increased this year, with more than 50 car­ried out so far. The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) has crit­i­cized the gov­ern­ment for its increased lack of trans­paren­cy, not­ing that infor­ma­tion that was pre­vi­ous­ly avail­able, such as the court issu­ing the sen­tence, is now being with­held from the pub­lic. ​“Despite repeat­ed offi­cial promis­es, includ­ing state­ments by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about halt­ing exe­cu­tions for crimes that do not involve killing, the European Saudi Organization doc­u­ment­ed 30 exe­cu­tions for polit­i­cal charges or alleged mem­ber­ship in ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions, none of which involved mur­der,” said ESOHR in a state­ment. ​“International law advis­es coun­tries that still enforce the death penal­ty to lim­it its use to the most seri­ous offens­es, such as mur­der.” Along with crit­i­cism from inter­na­tion­al human rights groups, the European Union released a state­ment voic­ing con­cern over the ​“seri­ous increase in exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia over the last four months this year, includ­ing exe­cu­tions for drug related offences.” 

Taiwan 

Following a legal chal­lenge by 37 death row pris­on­ers, the Constitutional Court of Taiwan ruled on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on September 20, 2024. It decid­ed that the death penal­ty was con­sti­tu­tion­al for the ​“most seri­ous crimes,” such as inten­tion­al killings but man­dat­ed that the gov­ern­ment amend cer­tain pro­ce­dur­al rules with­in the next two years to bet­ter pro­tect defen­dants’ due process rights. Although the deci­sion did not go as far as to restrict the death penal­ty for those with men­tal and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, in line with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, the Court found that cur­rent pro­vi­sions fail to ade­quate­ly pro­tect these vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions and until exist­ing pro­vi­sions meet con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dards death sen­tences for these pop­u­la­tions may not be car­ried out. According to Jurist News, the Kuomintang par­ty argued that the exist­ing sys­tem ade­quate­ly pro­tects defen­dants’ rights and by ​“tight­en­ing stan­dards, the court effec­tive­ly abol­ished the death penal­ty with­out legislative consent.” 

The deci­sion was met with dis­ap­point­ment from the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty. ​“If the Constitutional Court had upheld its role as a defend­er of human rights, and pro­claimed that the death penal­ty is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, it could have led the soci­ety beyond the instinc­tive reac­tions of revenge and intim­i­da­tion, bro­ken the cycle of hatred, and aug­ment­ed pos­si­ble means of heal­ing. This hope was regret­tably proven false today,” it said in a state­ment. Similarly, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International rec­og­nized that some progress had been made in the nation’s path towards abo­li­tion, despite the Court fail­ing to abol­ish the prac­tice entire­ly, and called upon the gov­ern­ment to imme­di­ate­ly impose a mora­to­ri­um. ​“Today’s deci­sion is a small step for human rights in Taiwan. The Constitutional Court has rec­og­nized the fun­da­men­tal flaws of the death penal­ty and strength­ened human rights pro­tec­tions for those on death row. Yet the death penal­ty remains on the books for sev­er­al offences. This marks a start in Taiwan’s jour­ney towards abo­li­tion, and we must ensure it does not stop here,” said E‑Ling Chiu, Director of Amnesty International Taiwan. 

United States 

Five states (South Carolina, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama) car­ried out five exe­cu­tions from September 20 to September 26, cul­mi­nat­ing in the 1600^th exe­cu­tion since 1976. Ahead of the mile­stone, Amnesty International USA Researcher Justin Mazzola crit­i­cized the U.S. as a glob­al out­lier for retain­ing ​“the ulti­mate cru­el, inhu­man and degrad­ing pun­ish­ment” that is ​“too flawed to fix.” He wrote: ​“All exe­cu­tions, no mat­ter the method, are a vio­la­tion of human rights, and states should move towards abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty instead of using resources to dream up and imple­ment cru­el ways of killing some­body.” Alabama’s exe­cu­tion of Alan Miller using nitro­gen hypox­ia, a new­ly devised exe­cu­tion method that has only been used once before ear­li­er this year, marked the 1600^th exe­cu­tion. Mr. Miller had pre­vi­ous­ly sur­vived a botched exe­cu­tion attempt in on September 22, 2022, a top­ic of con­cern dis­cussed in the UN Secretary-General’s report on the ques­tion of the death penal­ty, recent­ly released dur­ing the 57^th reg­u­lar ses­sion of the Human Rights Council. ​“The Human Rights Committee regret­ted the lack of infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the United States of America on alle­ga­tions of the use there of untest­ed lethal drugs to exe­cute pris­on­ers and on report­ed cas­es of excru­ci­at­ing pain caused by the use of those drugs and botched exe­cu­tions,” said the report, which also high­light­ed the lack of safe­guards for those with psy­choso­cial dis­abil­i­ties and the dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact on those of African descent. 

At the 1508^th Meeting of the Committee of Ministers, the European Union sim­i­lar­ly crit­i­cized the United States, as well as Japan, for its out­lier sta­tus as a reten­tion­ist state. ​“The EU con­tin­ues to regret that the USA and Japan, observ­er mem­bers of the Council of Europe, con­tin­ue to apply the death penal­ty, deeply laments the exe­cu­tions in some US States since April 2024, and joins the appeal to pro­mote an open and demo­c­ra­t­ic debate with the aim of abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and to remain engaged with the Council of Europe on this issue,” said the statement. 

Vietnam 

On September 24, 2024, Former chief accoun­tant of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Nguyen Hoang, was con­vict­ed of embez­zling more than 152 bil­lion dong, or 6.2 mil­lion USD, from March 2009 to February 2023. Mr. Hoang admit­ted fault, explain­ing that he used the stolen funds for per­son­al use and gam­bling. Earlier this year, Truong My Lan, chair of real estate com­pa­ny Van Thinh Phat, was sen­tenced to death in the nation’s largest ever finan­cial fraud case.