Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore

Ghana

On July 25, 2023, Ghana’s par­lia­ment vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Although the death penal­ty would remain in the con­sti­tu­tion for acts of trea­son, the new law would remove the death penal­ty as pos­si­ble pun­ish­ment for mur­der, geno­cide, pira­cy, and smug­gling. The cur­rent 176 death row pris­on­ers, includ­ing six women, would have their sen­tences com­mut­ed to life in prison. Last year sev­en peo­ple were sen­tenced to death despite Ghana not hav­ing car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 1993. 

The par­lia­ment mem­ber behind the bill, Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, told the Guardian, ​“I have seen first­hand that the death penal­ty does not bring a sense of jus­tice or clo­sure to the fam­i­lies of crime vic­tims, and nei­ther does it deter offend­ers. I have also seen that those sen­tenced to death tend to be vul­ner­a­ble indi­vid­u­als from deprived back­grounds, who have often expe­ri­enced deep per­son­al trau­ma. It was my view that we as a nation were bet­ter than this. I intro­duced these bills because I want­ed the courts to cease impos­ing an inhuman punishment.” 

*[This sec­tion was updat­ed on May 30, 2024 to reflect new infor­ma­tion pub­lished in Amnesty International’s annu­al death penal­ty report (p. 37). The President Nana Akufo-Addo con­veyed to par­lia­ment in November that he must refuse these bills as they were intro­duced as pri­vate mem­bers bill despite the con­sti­tu­tion requir­ing these types of bills to be intro­duced by or on behalf of the President in Parliament. This bill had not become law by the end of 2023.]

China  

On July 13, 2023, a Chinese kinder­garten teacher who was con­vict­ed of the 2019 poi­son­ing of 25 of her stu­dents, one of whom died after 10 months of treat­ment, was exe­cut­ed. Ms. Wang, age 40, had pre­vi­ous­ly poi­soned her hus­band with the same sub­stance, though he sur­vived with mild injuries. The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in China each year remains a state secret. 

On July 10, 2023, a 25-year-old man was arrest­ed for a knife attack at a kinder­garten, result­ing in the death of six peo­ple: one teacher, two par­ents and three stu­dents. The inci­dent trend­ed on Weibo, a Chinese social media plat­form, with some users sup­port­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and oth­ers ques­tion­ing the secu­ri­ty of schools as sim­i­lar inci­dents at pri­ma­ry schools have become more com­mon in recent years. ​“It’s out­ra­geous to do this to chil­dren who have no pow­er at all. How many fam­i­lies will be destroyed by this… I sup­port the death penal­ty,” one Weibo user wrote. 

Malaysia 

The Court of Appeal in Malaysia reversed a death sen­tence for a Kenyan woman con­vict­ed of traf­fick­ing illic­it drugs and sen­tenced her to 12 years in prison retroac­tive­ly start­ing from her time of arrest in 2016. Last month, Malaysia elim­i­nat­ed the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for 11 criminal offenses. 

Singapore  

In vio­la­tion of the inter­na­tion­al ​“most seri­ous” crime stan­dard, Singapore hanged two peo­ple in the same week for drug-relat­ed charges in July. Mohammed Aziz Hussain, age 56, was exe­cut­ed for traf­fick­ing 50 grams (1.75 ounces) of hero­in, and Saridewi Djamani, age 45, was exe­cut­ed for traf­fick­ing about 31 grams (1 ounce) of hero­in — she was also the first woman to be exe­cut­ed in 19 years. UN Human Rights Office spokesper­son Seif Magango con­demned the exe­cu­tions and urged the imme­di­ate impo­si­tion of a moratorium. 

Singaporean law man­dates the death penal­ty for those con­vict­ed of traf­fick­ing more than 500 grams (17.6 ounces) of cannabis and 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of hero­in. Since the resump­tion of exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed charges in March 2022, 15 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed accord­ing to a joint state­ment issued from human rights groups. 

In response to the exe­cu­tion, Amnesty International’s death penal­ty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said, ​“The author­i­ties in Singapore must stop their unlaw­ful and increased resort to exe­cu­tions in the name of drug-con­trol. There is no evi­dence that the death penal­ty has a unique deter­rent effect or that it has any impact on the use and avail­abil­i­ty of drugs.” 

Kuwait  

On July 27, five men were exe­cut­ed in Kuwait, includ­ing three for pre-med­i­tat­ed mur­der, one on drug-relat­ed charges, and one for facil­i­tat­ing logis­tics for the 2015 sui­cide bomb­ing of a Shia Imam al-Sadeq mosque, which killed 26 and injured over 200. Among those exe­cut­ed were a Kuwaiti nation­al, an Egyptian nation­al, a Sri Lankan nation­al, and two referred to only as ​“ille­gal res­i­dents,” which is often used to describe the nation’s desert nomads, known as the Bidun or Bidoon. 

The exe­cu­tions drew con­dem­na­tion from the UN Human Rights Office spokesper­son, Seif Magango, as well as Amnesty International. Rawya Rageh, Amnesty International’s Interim Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: ​“The Kuwaiti gov­ern­ment has now exe­cut­ed a dozen peo­ple in less than a year, claim­ing a ​‘tough on crime’ approach that pan­ders to people’s worst instincts.” Kuwait had pre­vi­ous­ly paused exe­cu­tions from January 2017 to November 16, 2022. 

Saudi Arabia  

With his case before the Supreme Court, death row pris­on­er Saud al-Faraj, age 42, has been on hunger strike for at least 10 days. He was con­vict­ed in 2022 of par­tic­i­pat­ing in 2011 anti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions in Qatif, a Shiite-major­i­ty province, as well as run­ning a ter­ror­ist cell and killing a police offi­cer. Mr. Faraj, a busi­ness­man and father, has long claimed his inno­cence, stat­ing that his con­fes­sion was obtained through tor­ture, sup­port­ed by trans­fers to and from the prison hos­pi­tal in between inter­ro­ga­tion ses­sions. Sources told the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) that Mr. Faraj request­ed inves­ti­ga­tion into his ill-treat­ment and was sub­se­quent­ly beat­en and placed into soli­tary con­fine­ment, lead­ing to his hunger strike. Mr. Faraj’s fam­i­ly has raised con­cern over the lack of trans­paren­cy regard­ing court proceedings. 

61 indi­vid­u­als have been exe­cut­ed in Saudi Arabia dur­ing the first-half of 2023. Among those exe­cut­ed were 15 for­eign-nation­als and two women. 27 or 44% of exe­cu­tions were ta’zir exe­cu­tions, mean­ing dis­cre­tion was left to the state or judge because of a lack of spe­cif­ic pun­ish­ment in Islamic law or when the require­ments for oth­er sen­tences were not met. In its sub­mis­sion for Saudi Arabia’s Universal Periodic Review, Human Rights Watch high­light­ed the nation’s use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against minors and those con­vict­ed of non-vio­lent drug-related charges. 

Mauritania  

A 19-year-old high school stu­dent was arrest­ed on blas­phe­my charges for alleged­ly dis­re­spect­ing the Prophet Mohammad in a mock bac­calau­re­ate exam paper; if found guilty, she could be sen­tenced to death with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of appeal. In recent years, the coun­try has inten­si­fied their blas­phe­my laws by elim­i­nat­ing the clause allow­ing offend­ers to escape death if they repented. 

Pakistan 

On July 28, 2023, the Pakistani fed­er­al gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed the Supreme Court with assur­ances that indi­vid­u­als con­vict­ed of involve­ment in recent May 9^th protests would not face death and request­ed addi­tion­al time to con­sid­er grant­i­ng appeals for mil­i­tary court deci­sions. According to Reporters with­out Borders, jour­nal­ists Wajahat Saeed Khan and Shaheen Sehbai have been accused of ​“abet­ting mutiny,” which car­ries the death penal­ty as possible punishment. 

Earlier in May, two Christian teenagers, age 18 and 14, were arrest­ed on blas­phe­my charges for alleged­ly dis­re­spect­ing the Prophet Muhammad; blas­phe­my charges car­ry a pos­si­ble sen­tence of death in Pakistan. 

Bangladesh 

Mia Mohammad Mohiuddin and Jahangir Alam were exe­cut­ed on July 27 for the 2006 mur­der of University Professor S Taher Ahmed, bring­ing the total exe­cu­tion count for the year to three. Amnesty International’s death penal­ty expert Chiara Sangiorgio stat­ed: ​“The recent exe­cu­tions and the per­sis­tent use of the death penal­ty in Bangladesh shows the Government’s con­tin­ued cal­lous dis­re­gard for the right to life.” 

The International Crimes Tribunal sen­tenced four Bangladeshi politi­cians to death for crimes against human­i­ty that occurred dur­ing the 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan. Established in 2009, the Tribunal has been crit­i­cized for not adher­ing to fair tri­al stan­dards and has sen­tenced 135 peo­ple to death so far. 

Iran 

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights, 61 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in July bring­ing the total this year to 423 exe­cu­tions. Of those exe­cut­ed, 11 were from the Baluch minor­i­ty, three were Afghan nation­als, and four were women. A lit­tle more than half, or 32 peo­ple, were exe­cut­ed on drug-relat­ed charges, 19 for mur­der, six for rape, and four for moharabeh, or wag­ing war against God. 

On July 5, 2023, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran deliv­ered their find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions at the 53^rd ses­sion of the United Nations Human Rights Council. They report­ed that ​“Since November, at least 26 indi­vid­u­als have report­ed­ly been sen­tenced to death in con­nec­tion with the protests and dozens more have been charged with or face offences car­ry­ing the death penal­ty.” They alleged that sev­en exe­cu­tions were car­ried out after unfair tri­als, includ­ing con­fes­sions obtained through torture. 

There were devel­op­ments in the cas­es of two rap­pers, Toomaj Salehi and Saman Yasin, who had faced the death penal­ty in con­nec­tion to 2022 protests. After 252 days of soli­tary con­fine­ment, Mr. Salehi was sen­tenced to 6 years and 3 months in prison. He was pre­vi­ous­ly charged with crimes pun­ish­able by death but was acquit­ted. His lawyer, Reza Etemad Ansari, men­tioned that Mr. Salehi is banned from leav­ing the coun­try and per­form­ing music-relat­ed activ­i­ties for two years. Mr. Yasin, who was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to death and then grant­ed appeal in December, was recent­ly trans­ferred to a psy­chi­atric facil­i­ty and report­ed­ly inject­ed with an unknown sub­stance, which alleged­ly result­ed in his uncon­scious­ness for 24 hours and impaired vision for two days. Currently await­ing retri­al, Mr. Yasin released an audio mes­sage short­ly before being trans­ferred that reit­er­at­ed his inno­cence, not­ing his inabil­i­ty to select coun­sel or meet with appointed counsel. 

The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, called for the death penal­ty for those who alleged­ly burned the Quran in Sweden and request­ed trans­fer of those European cit­i­zens to Iran in a July 22 tweet.