Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: Zimbabwe, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Iran, and Saudi Arabia

Zimbabwe 

On March 23, Zimbabwe’s par­lia­ment passed a new ​“Patriotic Bill” which car­ries the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence for non-vio­lent crimes in vio­la­tion of the ​“most seri­ous crimes” inter­na­tion­al legal stan­dard. The law will pun­ish cit­i­zens whose activ­i­ties ​“will­ful­ly dam­age the sov­er­eign­ty and nation­al inter­est of Zimbabwe,” includ­ing boy­cotts, sanc­tions, and any act con­sid­ered ​“sub­ver­sion” by the state. Depending on the offense, pun­ish­ments include a loss of cit­i­zen­ship, heavy fines, impris­on­ment, and the death penal­ty – although the coun­try has not exe­cut­ed any­one since 2005 and had pre­vi­ous­ly indi­cat­ed a path towards abolition. 

In 2018, President Mnangagwa com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of those who had served more than 10 years on death row; how­ev­er, the same year five more were sen­tenced to death. In the fore­word to a 2020 report by Zimbabwean non-prof­it Veritas and University of Oxford Professor Carolyn Hoyle exam­in­ing the death penal­ty views of 42 opin­ion lead­ers in Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who him­self was pre­vi­ous­ly on death-row, wrote: ​“I believe [the death penal­ty] to be a fla­grant vio­la­tion of the right to life and dig­ni­ty. I wel­come this report, which shows that almost all Zimbabwean opin­ion for­m­ers are of the same mind.” Initiated by the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, and backed by the Centre for Legal Research and the Swiss Embassy, two weeks of nation­wide pub­lic debates began on March 29, 2023; Zimbabweans had mixed opin­ions on the issue. 

Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), the main oppo­si­tion par­ty, tweet­ed ​“Democracy is in dis­tress as a report from Parliament con­firms that the Patriotic Bill, which is con­sid­ered unlaw­ful and per­ilous, has been approved after amend­ing the Criminal Code.” 

According to the state-owned news­pa­per, The Herald, sup­port­ers of the new law see it as a way to reduce ​“bad­mouthing” of the coun­try abroad, which con­tribute to sanc­tions that hurt the economy.

Vietnam

After Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on his first offi­cial vis­it to the coun­try, clemen­cy was grant­ed to two Australians sen­tenced to death. ​“Australia very much wel­comed this. We make rep­re­sen­ta­tions on behalf of Australian cit­i­zens and we are very pleased that Vietnam has agreed to the request and we thank them for it,” Albanese said.

Singapore

On May 17, Singapore hanged a 37-year-old man con­vict­ed in 2019 for traf­fick­ing around 3.3 pounds of cannabis after efforts to reopen his case based on foren­sic evi­dence was dis­missed by the court with­out a hear­ing. Three weeks pri­or, Singapore hanged 46-year-old Tangaraju Suppiah for traf­fick­ing 2.2 pounds of cannabis, though he was not found in pos­ses­sion of the drugs.

South Korea

Proposed by the Ministry of Justice, a bill remov­ing the sun­set clause passed the cab­i­net and is await­ing par­lia­men­tary approval. The law would for­bid the exe­cu­tion of death row pris­on­ers after 30 years impris­on­ment and will be applied retroac­tive­ly. Although there are 59 pris­on­ers on death-row cur­rent­ly, South Korea has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 1997.

Iran

May marked the high­est num­ber of month­ly exe­cu­tions in Iran since 2015, with at least 142 exe­cu­tions. Two jour­nal­ists accused of non-vio­lent offens­es are being tried in secret and could face the death penal­ty. Nilofar Hamedi tweet­ed a pho­to of the par­ents of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in police cus­tody, hug­ging in the cor­ri­dor of the Kasra hos­pi­tal where Ms. Amini died. Elaheh Mohammadi cov­ered Ms. Amini’s bur­ial cer­e­mo­ny in Saqqez where 1,000 mourn­ers attend­ed. Both Ms. Hamedi and Ms. Mohammadi, who have been impris­oned for more than eight months, are accused of ​“col­lud­ing with hostile powers.” 

Saudi Arabia

On May 3, 2023, United Nations experts expressed alarm over the immi­nent exe­cu­tion of three Howeitat tribe mem­bers in vio­la­tion of the ​“most seri­ous crimes” inter­na­tion­al legal stan­dard. The UN experts stat­ed: ​“Despite being charged with ter­ror­ism, they were report­ed­ly arrest­ed for resist­ing forced evic­tions in the name of the NEOM project and the con­struc­tion of a 170km lin­ear city called The Line.” NEOM is a $500 bil­lion futur­is­tic megac­i­ty project of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.