Friday, April 19, 2013

UNHCR calls out executions, Niqash shows up BBC

2012 saw Nouri al-Maliki's government in Iraq execute at least 129 people.  Tuesday saw 3 men and 1 woman sentenced to death as well as 21 executions carried out.  Today United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has called out the executions:



GENEVA (19 April 2013) – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday condemned the execution of 21 individuals in Iraq earlier in the week, which brought the total to 33 in the past month, and said she was appalled by reports that the Ministry of Justice has announced that a further 150 people may be executed in the coming days.
She stressed that the justice system in the country was “too seriously flawed to warrant even a limited application of the death penalty, let alone dozens of executions at a time.”
“Executing people in batches like this is obscene,” Pillay said. “It is like processing animals in a slaughterhouse. The criminal justice system in Iraq is still not functioning adequately, with numerous convictions based on confessions obtained under torture and ill-treatment, a weak judiciary and trial proceedings that fall short of international standards. The application of the death penalty in these circumstances is unconscionable, as any miscarriage of justice as a result of capital punishment cannot be undone.”
A total of 1,400 people are believed to be currently on death row in Iraq, and 129 people were executed in 2012 alone.
The Government of Iraq maintains that it only executes individuals who have committed terrorist acts or other serious crimes against civilians, and have been convicted under the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 13 of 2005.
The High Commissioner said she is concerned at the broad scope and wide application of article 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, which envisages the death penalty for a wide range of terrorism-related acts, not all of which can be considered to meet the threshold of “most serious crimes” allowing for the imposition of the death penalty under international law.
Pillay said she is also deeply concerned at Iraq’s lack of compliance with its international human rights obligations in relation to the imposition of the death penalty, in particular under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iraq has been a State Party for more than 40 years.
The High Commissioner emphasized the need for transparency and stringent respect of due process. She called on the Government “to halt executions, conduct a credible and independent review of all death row cases and disclose information on the number and identity of death row prisoners, the charges and judicial proceedings brought against them, and the outcome of the review of their cases.”
The High Commissioner also expressed concern at the apparent inability of prisoners convicted on terrorism-related charges to exercise the right to seek pardon or commutation of their sentences, as prescribed in article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and questioned why the presidential authority to pardon or commute death sentences (granted by article 286 of the Criminal Procedure Code) is hardly ever exercised.
Pillay said she was pleased to note that one part of Iraq – the Kurdistan Region – is already upholding an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty, and urged the central Government to follow suit and heed the repeated calls by the international community to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to the abolition of the death penalty in accordance with repeated UN General Assembly Resolutions.* She pointed out that around 150 countries have now either abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, or introduced a moratorium.
“I am the first to argue there must never be impunity for serious crimes. But at least if someone is jailed for life, and it is subsequently discovered there was a miscarriage of justice, he or she can be released and compensated,” Pillay said.
*See GA resolutions 62/149 (2007), 63/168 (2009), 65/205 (2010) and 67/176 (2012).
ENDS
For more information or media enquiries please contact Rupert Colville (+ 41 22 917 9767 or rcolville@ohchr.org) or Cécile Pouilly (+41 22 917 93 10 / cpouilly@ohchr.org)
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Sky News noted yesterday that there had been 50 executions in Iraq so far this year.   Pravda also notes 50 executions so far this year.


Hey, how much money do you think the BBC spends on news each year?  Millions, billions?  Niqash operates on a very limited budget.  So why is it that, as noted yesterday, Jim Muir turns out a voter analysis that's nothing but horse race garbage that any idiot could have done but Niqash is able to explore the voters?  Niqash offers Mustafa Habib's "voters look for something else: are iraq’s sectarian politics over?," Daoud al-Ali's "hot or not: epidemic of puppy love for female politicians strikes karbala," Mohammed Hamid al-Sawaf and Naba al-Dawalibi's "power, influence, money, god: which will iraqi voters choose?," and Christine van den Toorn's "special ballot: were iraqi military forced to vote for al-maliki?"-- all of which qualify as analysis.  BBC offered hot air.  Let's note this from Mohammed Hamid al-Sawaf and Naba al-Dawalibi's article on female candidates using their own photos this go round in Karbala:
“If this female candidate won, it would be like a rose growing in the provincial council,” another of the school’s students, Samer Muayad, waxed poetic about his favourite poster. “I’m not that sure of her qualifications or her platform,” he admitted, “but I would bet on her beauty.”

Another of the students isn’t so keen. He feels the posters are indecent. “It’s an election campaign not a beauty contest,” Abbas Khalaf complains. “Political parties who have no real ideas are attracting voters using pictures of beautiful women. It’s a sign of the bankruptcy of these parties, and it’s just an attempt to improve their images.”

"In the past, political parties would never have published posters with women’s pictures on them for religious reasons,” says the teenager, who holds a rosary in his hand. “Today everything is different.”

And he’s right. Many of the most attractive female candidates do seem to be members of parties or groups, like the State of Law bloc, with relatively strong religious affiliations. Somewhat ironically the more secular and liberal parties haven’t posted a lot of pictures of their female candidates. 

One of the school’s teachers wades into the debate.

“Posters of beautiful women are not exactly a violation of the city’s traditions or its ethics,” Hamza Abdul Khaliq says. “This is a legitimate contest between male and female candidates. And in fact, it’s very courageous of the women here to challenge the societal norms. Anyone who has a problem needs to reconsider. After all, we’re not in Kandahar, boys.”

Whether the female candidates will all be taken as seriously as the schoolteacher thinks they should, is another question. A lot of Karbala’s locals have been making jokes about them.

Local cab driver, Nizar Hussein, happily blamed one of the posters for his traffic accident. “A driver, who was looking at the poster of one of the beautiful female candidates, hit my car," he explained. “We should blame her for this accident.”




And from Daoud al-Ali's report:
A recent electorate meeting held in Karbala, a Shiite Muslim dominated city, to benefit Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose party is also dominated by Shiite Muslim interests and whose candidates often focus on that, was seen as another sign that sectarian politics no longer held the sway they used to. Only a handful of supporters turned up.

 “Al-Maliki was really upset at the event’s organizers and he apparently even ordered that the head of his party there be fired, because he hadn’t been able to mobilise a very big crowd at the event,” a source told NIQASH.


Then again, maybe it was simply because during the campaigning for provincial elections, a lot of the parties had not put much emphasis on local issues and everyday problems. Iraq’s voters are disillusioned. 


“The people who are managing the candidates’ campaigns and creating political discussion around them haven’t paid much attention to local development,” al-Dujaili says.


12 of Iraq's 18 provinces vote tomorrow.  Niqash may be the only outlet outside of Iraq to offer any real journalism about the elections.


The following community sites -- plus Ms. magazine's blog, Adam Kokesh, The Diane Rehm Show, Pacifica Evening News, Susan's On the Edge and Antiwar.com -- updated last night and this morning:





Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee.  We'll close with this from Senator Patty Murray's office.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                     CONTACT: Murray Press Office
Thursday, April 18th, 2013                                                              (202) 224-2834
VETERANS: Murray Questions Secretary of Labor Nominee on Protecting Servicemembers
Sen. Murray questions nominee on how the Department of Labor can better serve and protect veterans and servicemembers
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) attended a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing on the nomination of Thomas Perez as Secretary of Labor.  At the hearing, the Senator asked Perez to elaborate on how he would address the needs of servicemembers and veterans in his new position. In his current position as the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, Perez has played a critical role in ensuring protections for veterans, from voting rights, to employment rights under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), to housing and mortgage protections.

“As a member of, and the past-Chair of, the Veterans Committee, I’ve fought long and hard to ensure that our country steps up to meet the needs of our servicemembers and veterans who sacrifice so much in defense of our nation,” Senator Murray said at the hearing. “Can you share with the committee how you’ll continue to address the needs of servicemembers and veterans as the Secretary of Labor?”
Watch the exchange HERE (Senator Murray begins speaking at 02:15:15)
###

Kathryn Robertson
Deputy Press Secretary 
Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510
202-224-2834


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