Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Uganda, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe

United States

Missouri’s April 9^th exe­cu­tion of Brian Dorsey, despite wide­spread sup­port for his clemen­cy, once again gar­nered con­dem­na­tion from the European Union, which described it as a ​“inhu­man and degrad­ing prac­tice.” The EU’s state­ment high­light­ed the lack of the death penal­ty as a deter­rent and the irre­versibil­i­ty of the pun­ish­ment, not­ing that 197 death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed. ​“The EU con­tin­ues to call for the uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty and for States, that main­tain the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, to imple­ment a mora­to­ri­um and move towards abo­li­tion, in line with the world­wide trend,” the statement said. 

Democratic Republic of the Congo 

Last month the DRC lift­ed its decades-long mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. President Félix Tshisekedi defend­ed this deci­sion on a recent vis­it to France, explain­ing in a press inter­view that ​“Although the Democratic Republic of Congo wants to be res­olute­ly com­mit­ted to respect for human rights and to the rule of law, it can­not afford the lux­u­ry of any pas­siv­i­ty when its secu­ri­ty and that of its pop­u­la­tion is threat­ened.” Firmin Yangambi Libote, a for­mer death row pris­on­er, Congolese lawyer, and President of non­prof­it Paix Sur Terre (Peace on Earth) told EPCM, an inter­na­tion­al death penal­ty abo­li­tion group, that the DRC’s deci­sion was a ​“sig­nif­i­cant set­back.” He elab­o­rat­ed, ​“This deci­sion has noth­ing to do with com­bat­ing impuni­ty or strength­en­ing the capac­i­ties of the Congolese armed forces.” 

Iran 

On April 24, 33-year-old dis­si­dent rap­per Toomaj Salehi was sen­tenced to death by the Isfahan Revolutionary Court. Lawyer for Mr. Salehi, Amir Raeisian, said: ​“In a move that is unprece­dent­ed in its kind, Branch One of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court did not imple­ment the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Toomaj’s 2022 case, it sen­tenced Toomaj Salehi to the max­i­mum sen­tence for efsad-fil-arz charges, the death penal­ty.” The deci­sion has been met with wide­spread inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion, with UN experts, pro­tes­tors across the world, and 80 Iranian-Kurdish fam­i­lies who have lost loved ones dur­ing the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” protests call­ing for Mr. Salehi’s release. 

Mr. Salehi was orig­i­nal­ly charged on October 29, 2022 as part of the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” protests that ensued fol­low­ing the death of Mahsa Jina Amini while in cus­tody of the moral­i­ty police. In July 2023, he was sen­tenced to a prison term of six years and three months by the Supreme Court. On November 18, 2023, Mr. Salehi was released on bail after 252 days in soli­tary con­fine­ment. A few days after pub­lish­ing a YouTube video in which he men­tioned the ill-treat­ment and tor­ture he sus­tained, Mr. Salehi was rear­rest­ed on November 30 for ​“pub­lish­ing false infor­ma­tion and dis­turb­ing the pub­lic mind,” charges the Isfahan Revolutionary Court has ruled is with­in the juris­dic­tion of the Isfahan Criminal Court to decide. Prior to the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” move­ment, Mr. Salehi had been arrest­ed in 2018 and 2021 for his music. 

As of May 1, 2024, Norway-based Iran Human Rights report­ed that at least 171 exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out in the coun­try since the begin­ning of this year. 

Japan 

On April 15, 2024, the Osaka District Court dis­missed a law­suit filed by two death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers chal­leng­ing the prac­tice of noti­fy­ing pris­on­ers only a few hours before their sched­uled exe­cu­tion and seek­ing $142,000 in dam­ages for men­tal suf­fer­ing due to the uncer­tain­ty. The peti­tion­ers argued that by fail­ing to pro­vide pris­on­ers with ade­quate notice, they were unable to object to the sched­uled exe­cu­tion before it occurred, there­by vio­lat­ing their rights to due process grant­ed under Article 31 of Japan’s Constitution. According to the Asahi Shimbun, the peti­tion­ers also argued that the short notice vio­lat­ed their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to human dig­ni­ty under Article 13. 

Presiding Judge Noriko Yokota said that the plain­tiffs ​“are in a posi­tion to accept the exe­cu­tion accord­ing to the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion on death penal­ty,” and denied them com­pen­sa­tion, but did not rule on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of same-day exe­cu­tion noti­fi­ca­tions, which has con­sis­tent­ly drawn wide­spread inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism. Previously, pris­on­ers were pro­vid­ed a few days of notice, but that pol­i­cy was changed after some pris­on­ers com­mit­ted sui­cide fol­low­ing knowl­edge of their sched­uled exe­cu­tion date. According to the Asahi Shimbun, Japan had 109 death row pris­on­ers at the end of March 2024. 

Russia 

An April 2024 tele­phone sur­vey car­ried out by Russian Field, an inde­pen­dent poll­ster, found that 53% of par­tic­i­pants were in favor of rein­stat­ing the death penal­ty, 39% are opposed, and 7% found the ques­tion dif­fi­cult to answer. Of the 1,631 respon­dents, sup­port for the death penal­ty was more like­ly among respon­dents liv­ing in small towns or vil­lages, men, and old­er aged indi­vid­u­als. The crimes of pedophil­ia (57%), mur­der (56%), and ter­ror­ism (46%) gar­nered the most sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Lifting the 28-year mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty has become a sub­ject of pub­lic debate fol­low­ing the March attack on Crocus City Hall. 

Saudi Arabia 

On April 29, 2024, 27 inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions released a joint state­ment express­ing ​“grave con­cern” for the con­tin­ued exe­cu­tion of minors despite ​“Saudi Arabia’s nar­ra­tive that it has halt­ed juve­nile death sen­tences.” In par­tic­u­lar, the let­ter rais­es con­cern for the immi­nent exe­cu­tion of Yousif Al-Manasif and Ali Al-Mubaiouq, who were con­vict­ed large­ly on the basis of their own con­fes­sions and sen­tenced to death for crimes com­mit­ted from the age of 14 to 17; the Specialized Criminal Court of Appeal upheld their death sen­tences this month and referred their case to the Supreme Court for final review. ​“If the Saudi lead­er­ship gen­uine­ly wants to be seen as a rights-respect­ing coun­try, it needs to imme­di­ate­ly halt all exe­cu­tion orders and com­mute all death sen­tences, includ­ing the egre­gious cas­es of al-Manasif and al-Mabyook,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. 

On April 22, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) raised con­cern over these two juve­niles and the lives of six oth­er minors at risk of exe­cu­tion. ​“ESOHR believes that Saudi Arabia’s pre­vi­ous prac­tices of exe­cut­ing sen­tences with­out noti­fy­ing fam­i­lies, com­bined with a lack of trans­paren­cy, make it impos­si­ble to pre­dict the time­frame between the refer­ral of a case to the Supreme Court, its con­fir­ma­tion, and the exe­cu­tion time. However, the cas­es pre­vi­ous­ly mon­i­tored con­firm that the lives of the eight minors are in immi­nent dan­ger,” said the report. 

Taiwan 

In response to a peti­tion filed by 37 death row pris­on­ers, the Constitutional Court heard five-hours of oral argu­ments regard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty on April 23, 2024. Lawyers for the peti­tion­ers and anti-death penal­ty activists argued that the death penal­ty vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al ​“right of exis­tence” and the prin­ci­ple of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty, as there is a lack of evi­dence to sup­port a deter­rent effect, and it vio­lates the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Taiwan cod­i­fied into domes­tic law in 2009. Lawyers for the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) coun­tered that the con­sti­tu­tion allows for ​“restric­tions” to the ​“right of exis­tence” and the ​“depri­va­tion of life” is pro­por­tion­al for seri­ous crimes and can be con­sid­ered one such restric­tion; the MOJ also inter­pret­ed the ICCPR to encour­age lim­it­ing, but not abol­ish­ing, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The MOJ point­ed to a 2024 opin­ion poll they com­mis­sioned show­ing 80% sup­port for the death penal­ty amongst the pub­lic; the lawyers for the peti­tion­ers high­light­ed that an MOJ poll in 2008, which men­tioned replac­ing the death penal­ty with life with­out parole, gar­nered 56% in favor of abo­li­tion. The MOJ also argued that the Constitutional Court should not make this deci­sion, as it should be under the purview of the leg­isla­tive branch. The Court could make a deci­sion with­in three months, with a two-month exten­sion avail­able if needed. 

Uganda 

On April 3, 2024, the Constitutional Court upheld the Anti-Homosexuality Act, passed last year, which allows ​“aggra­vat­ed homo­sex­u­al­i­ty” to be pun­ished with a death sen­tence, but void­ed cer­tain pro­vi­sions. The court said that the Act was ​“over­whelm­ing­ly passed on the basis of those views of the Ugandan people’s par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives, who would know the sen­ti­ments of the peo­ple that they rep­re­sent on the sub­ject,” there­fore not in vio­la­tion of any par­lia­men­tary rules or pro­ce­dures, and the court did not find it to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al as an exist­ing colo­nial era rule had already crim­i­nal­ized homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. The court did void cer­tain pro­vi­sions that were ​“incon­sis­tent with [the] right to health, pri­va­cy and free­dom of reli­gion,” and said that mem­bers of this com­mu­ni­ty should not face dis­crim­i­na­tion when seeking medication. 

“… Uganda’s Constitutional Court has come down on the side of hate, vio­lence, and dis­crim­i­na­tion instead of stand­ing up for fun­da­men­tal rights for all,” said Larissa Kojoué, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. ​“The rul­ing will have a detri­men­tal impact on all Ugandans, includ­ing LGBT peo­ple, fam­i­lies, and com­mu­ni­ties who con­tin­ue to suf­fer the stig­ma that the Anti-Homosexuality Act enshrined into law.” 

Vietnam 

Truong My Lan, chair of real estate com­pa­ny Van Thinh Phat, was sen­tenced to death on April 11, 2024, after being found guilty of com­mit­ting $12.5 bil­lion in fraud – the nation’s largest ever finan­cial fraud case. The court also direct­ed her to com­pen­sate Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB) $26.9 mil­lion for the $27 mil­lion loss expe­ri­enced under her 10-year con­trol. According to state media VnExpress, the judg­ment explained that her actions ​“not only vio­late the prop­er­ty man­age­ment rights of indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions but also push SCB into a state of spe­cial con­trol; erod­ing people’s trust in the lead­er­ship of the Party and State.” According to the Associated Press, a for­mer State Bank of Vietnam offi­cial accused of accept­ing $5.2 mil­lion in bribes, as well as anoth­er 84 alleged accom­plices, are also being prosecuted. 

Zimbabwe 

In hon­or of 44 years of inde­pen­dence, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa grant­ed clemen­cy to 4,000 pris­on­ers on April 18, 2024. Among those pris­on­ers grant­ed clemen­cy were death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers whose death sen­tences had been com­mut­ed and who had already served at least 20 years. Female pris­on­ers, juve­nile pris­on­ers, and blind or oth­er­wise dis­abled pris­on­ers who had served a third of their term were released, as well as pris­on­ers 60 years of age or old­er who had served a tenth of their term. Death row pris­on­ers who had served at least 10 years had their sen­tences com­mut­ed to life in prison. 

The National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs and the Senate’s Thematic Committee on Human Rights have sched­uled pub­lic hear­ings from May 6 to May 10 to dis­cuss a death penal­ty abo­li­tion bill that was intro­duced last year.