discussing the death penalty in countries other than the US.
opinions?
here is a look at Japan's process, shown for first time. the red tape marks where people stand to be hanged, a trapdoor. they fall into a room below where they are pronounced dead. the little room with chairs is where they are informed of their impending executions, and speak with a chaplain.
the wall adjacent to hanging room shows the button that releases the trap door.
fascinating, first i ever knew of their protocol.
inmates are not told ahead of time when they will be executed, they get one hour notice. and relatives not told until after it's done.
more here from NY Times: HANGING
Post by: CNN's Brad Lendon
Japan reveals long-secretive execution process
Japan, one of the few industrialized countries with the death penalty, showed one of its execution chambers to the media for the first time Friday.
Reporters were shown the death chamber at the Tokyo Detention Facility, one of seven used across the country, according to a report in the Mainichi Daily News.
The unprecedented media access was ordered by Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who after witnessing the deaths of two condemned prisoners last month, said she wanted to have a national debate on capital punishment in Japan, Mainchi reported. Chiba has previously spoken against the death penalty.
Execution in Japan is carried out by hanging.
The chamber showed to the media on Friday had no noose suspended from the ceiling but showed a trap door outlined in red. The condemned fall to a room below the execution chamber where their deaths are confirmed.
Reporters were not shown that room out of "consideration for the inmates' family and wardens," according to the Mainichi report.
They did see other areas involved in the execution process, including the room where a button is pushed to release the trap door, a room where the condemned can get religious last rites or an entry room where inmates are told they are about to be executed.
In an accompanying article in Mainichi, prison officials described Japan’s execution process, long shrouded in secrecy.
The two men executed on July 28, Ogata Hidenori, 33, and Shinozawa Kazuo, 59, were the first put to death since the August 2009 elections in Japan, according to Amnesty International. The organization says 107 prisoners remain on death row in Japan.
well hanging beats stoning... stone-age 'justice'.
they won't kill her until ramadan ends sept. 9. only international outrage might preclude death by stoning, but they may still hang her. preventing her children and lawyer from visiting her does not bode well.
(CNN) -- The Iranian woman awaiting possible execution by stoning was denied visits from her family and attorney this week, just days after her lawyer's home was ransacked and searched.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's two children were turned away Thursday during visitation hours, her son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, told CNN Friday.
"They told me, 'Your mother doesn't want to see you,' and they wouldn't let me in," he said.
But later that night he received a call from his mother.
"The guards had told her, 'Your children didn't visit you today, they want nothing to do with you,'" Ghaderzadeh said.
Ashtiani's children have visited her every Thursday afternoon since she was convicted of adultery in 2006.
"This is the first time I was turned away," Ghaderzadeh said. "I don't know why they are acting this way."
"Our home phone number is tapped and being monitored. My cell phone is being monitored. They have control over everything. I don't know what they are thinking," Ghaderzadeh said.
If I ever needed the death penalty I would want to be taken apart alive by wild dogs, torn limb from limb by 4 horses, de-entrailed like William Wallace. Not shot in the head nor lethal injection. I want a slow death that last for days so that I can feel my wounds for the last time before I am set free from the chains of this mortal world.
I want to feel life inching from me slowly drip by drip. I want at least 2 hrs in agony where I can say free me from this earthly prison and make it stop.
I want the end of my life to be ripped from the womb of mortality like I was born, taken from my Mother in the heat of the night, with surprize and rudely awakened into this world from my happy place.
I want justice!
it's a wonder 99 lashes didn't kill her. i hope the international community can halt this stoning execution! barbarism!
TEHRAN, Iran — The lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned on an adultery conviction said Monday that he and her children are worried the delayed execution could be carried out soon with the end of a moratorium on death sentences for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
In an unusual turn in the case, the lawyer also confirmed that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her. Under Iran's clerical rule, women must cover their hair in public. The newspaper later apologized for the error.
With the end of Ramadan this week, the mother of two could be executed "any moment," said her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian.
The sentence was put on hold in July after an international outcry over the brutality of the punishment, and it is now being reviewed by Iran's supreme court.
Ashtiani was convicted in 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men after the murder of her husband the year before and was sentenced at that time to 99 lashes. Later that year, she was also convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned, even though she retracted a confession that she says was made under duress.
(CNN) -- A Somali militant group publicly executed two teenage girls Wednesday after accusing them of being spies for the Somali government, according to the group, eyewitnesses and a relative of one of the girls.
"Those two girls were evil and they were spies for the enemy (the Somali government), but the mujahedeen caught them and after investigation, they admitted their crime, so they have been executed," said Sheikh Yusuf Ali Ugas, commander of Al-Shabaab in Beledweyne, a town in central Somalia.
The teens were blindfolded with their hands behind their backs against a tree, and shot, according to a local journalist.
A resident of Beledweyne told CNN that Al-Shabaab called on the town's residents to come out and watch the execution.
"Hundreds of people came out to watch the execution," he said. "It was very bad ... the girls looked shocked and were crying but [no one] could help."
A relative of one of the teens denied they were spies.
"My cousin, Ayan Mohamed Jama, was just 16 years old and she was absolutely innocent," said the relative, who did not want their name used out of fear of retribution from Al-Shabaab. "And Al-Shabaab caught her and the other girl between El-gal and Beledweyne and simply accused them of what they were not."
The other girl, said the relative, was 15. Al-Shabaab refused their families' request to see the teens while they were in detention, "and they executed them at a public gathering, so this is inhumane and cruelty."
The El-gal area has been the scene of heavy fighting recently between Somali government forces and Al-Shabaab.
"Ayan didn't have any contact with the government and even in her life, she never had a mobile [phone] so we can't understand how she could be accused of being a spy," the relative said.
Last year, Al-Shabaab stoned a teenage girl to death in Kismayo, a town in southern Somalia.
Al-Shabaab is waging a war against Somalia's government in an effort to impose a stricter form of Islamic law, or sharia.
Somalia has not had a stable government since 1991, and fighting between the rebels and government troops has escalated the humanitarian crisis in the famine-ravaged country.
she could die tomorrow. they don't wait around for 20 years while appeals work their way through the judiciary.
(CNN) -- Authorities in Tehran, Iran, have given the go-ahead to execute a woman who initially was sentenced to death by stoning, according to an activist working on her behalf.
However, what method will be used to execute Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is unclear, said Mina Ahadi, spokeswoman for the International Committee Against Stoning. The execution could happen as soon as Wednesday, she said, citing information received from a source in Tabriz, Iran, who is close to Ashtiani's family.
Ashtiani initially was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. The Iranian government later said she was also convicted of murdering her husband, but her lawyer and family dispute that.
A letter from Tehran was delivered to the prison in Tabriz where Ashtiani is being held three days ago, Ahadi said, giving the go-ahead for Ashtiani's execution.
Jesus. they'll probably do it too, and they don't wait around.
Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan 'for blasphemy'
A Christian woman has been sentenced to hang in Pakistan after being convicted of defaming the Prophet Mohammed.
By Rob Crilly in Islamabad and Aoun Sahi in Lahore 5:36PM GMT 09 Nov 2010
Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother-of-five, denies blasphemy and told investigators that she was being persecuted for her faith in a country where Christians face routine harassment and discrimination.
Christian groups and human rights campaigners condemned the verdict and called for the blasphemy laws to be repealed.
Her supporters say she will now appeal against the sentence handed down in a local court in the town of Sheikhupura, near Lahore, Pakistan.
Ashiq Masih, her husband, said he had not had the heart to break the news to two of their children.
"I haven't told two of my younger daughters about the court's decision," he said. "They asked me many times about their mother but I can't get the courage to tell them that the judge has sentenced their mother to capital punishment for a crime she never committed." Mrs Bibi has been held in prison since June last year.
The court heard she had been working as a farmhand in fields with other women, when she was asked to fetch drinking water.
Some of the other women – all Muslims – refused to drink the water as it had been brought by a Christian and was therefore "unclean", according to Mrs Bibi's evidence, sparking a row.
The incident was forgotten until a few days later when Mrs Bibi said she was set upon by a mob.
The police were called and took her to a police station for her own safety.
Shahzad Kamran, of the Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan, said: "The police were under pressure from this Muslim mob, including clerics, asking for Asia to be killed because she had spoken ill of the Prophet Mohammed.
"So after the police saved her life they then registered a blasphemy case against her." He added that she had been held in isolation for more than a year before being sentenced to death on Monday.
"The trial was clear," he said. "She was innocent and did not say those words." Earlier this year, Pakistan's internet service providers were ordered to block Facebook to prevent access to supposedly blasphemous images.
Human rights groups believe the law is often used to discriminate against religious minorities, such as the country's estimated three million Christians.
Although no one has ever been executed under Pakistan's blasphemy laws – most are freed on appeal – as many as 10 people are thought to have been murdered while on trial.
Ali Hasan Dayan, of Human Rights Watch, said the blasphemy laws were out of step with rights guaranteed under Pakistan's constitution and should be repealed.
"It's an obscene law," he said. "Essentially the blasphemy law is used as a tool of persecution and to settle other scores that are nothing to do with religion.
"It makes religious minorities particularly vulnerable because it's often used against them."
the family is still waiting to know if mother will be hung.
Itan Wali, Pakistan (CNN) -- In this village in Pakistan's Punjab province a tearful 12-year-old girl ponders if the Pakistani government will soon hang her mother.
"Whenever I see her picture I cry," Isham Masih told CNN. "I want my mother back. That's what I'm praying for."
This month a Pakistani court sentenced Isham's mother, 45-year-old Asia Bibi, to death, not because she killed, injured or stole, but simply because she said something.
Prosecutors say Bibi, who is a Christian, broke Pakistan's strict blasphemy law by insulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad, a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment according to Pakistan's penal code.
The alleged incident happened in June 2009 when Bibi, a field worker, was picking fruit in a village two hours west of Lahore. Prosecutors say when Bibi dipped her cup into a bucket of drinking water during a lunch break, her co-workers complained the water had been contaminated by a non-Muslim.
Court records show the women got into a heated argument.
Mafia Satar said she was there and heard Bibi's insults.
"She said your Muhammad had worms in his mouth before he died," Satar told CNN, a crude way of saying Muhammad was no prophet.
The town cleric, Qari Muhammad Salim, reported the incident to police who arrested Bibi. After nearly 15 months in prison came her conviction and the death sentence.
"When I heard the decision my heart ached," Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih told CNN.
Masih denies his wife ever insulted Muhammad. He said death threats forced him and his daughters, one of them disabled, to flee their village.
Neither the Koran nor the prophet Muhammad's teachings in the Hadith call for the execution of blasphemers, but Islamic scholars and jurists from generations past included the death sentence when drafting Islamic law.
(11-18-2010, 02:58 PM)Lady Cop Wrote: Neither the Koran nor the prophet Muhammad's teachings in the Hadith call for the execution of blasphemers
That's bullshit. This is from two hadiths: Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875).
Uqba bin Abu Muayt (he was a "poet")
Uqba harassed and mocked Muhammad in Mecca and wrote derogatory verses about him (cf. Sura 83:13). He was captured during the Battle of Badr in AD 624, and Muhammad ordered him to be executed. 'But who will look after my children, O Muhammad?' Uqba cried with anguish. 'Hell,' retorted the Prophet coldly. Then the sword of one of his followers cut through Uqba's neck.
WOW! the former lover attended her hanging, and the victim's son pulled the chair out from under her feet!
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran on Wednesday hanged a former soccer player's mistress — known as a "temporary wife — who was convicted of murdering her love rival in a case that captivated the Iranian public for several years.
Shahla Jahed was hanged at dawn, after spending more than eight years in jail for the slaying of the player's wife, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Jahed had become what is known as a "temporary wife" of former soccer star Nasser Mohammad Khani. She was charged in 2002 with stabbing his wife, Laleh Saharkhizan, to death and convicted of murder in 2004 and again in 2009, after her appeal was denied.
Contracts with "temporary wives" are a legal way for Iranian men to have mistresses outside marriage, with the agreements lasting from between several hours to a few years.
Wednesday's death sentence was based on the Islamic law of "qisas" — or eye for an eye retribution.
International human rights groups, including Amnesty International, had campaigned for Jahed's punishment to be halted.
The IRNA report said that just before the hanging at Tehran's Evin prison, the 40-year-old Jahed prayed peacefully, then burst into tears and cries, shouting for her life to be spared.
The victim's son pulled the chair from under her feet as Jahed gasped for breath in the remaining moments of her life, the khabaronline.ir news website said. The former soccer striker, Khani, also attended the hanging.
brief video here, iran made the woman recreate murder. talk about self-incrimination! she is still under death sentence by hanging, i think this video is to justify it when they do it.
link to video: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-N...1585?f=rss
Sky News Online
A woman sentenced to be stoned to death in Iran for adultery has been filmed by state television confessing and re-enacting the murder of her husband.
State-run English language Press TV said its half-hour film was meant to show the other side of a story that has been misrepresented by international media.
But it may only serve to prompt yet more questions about human rights and press freedom in Iran.
Following an international outcry, Sakineh Ashtiani's sentence was suspended in September.
It is not clear why she had agreed to take part in the film.
It shows her acting out her alleged role in the murder of her husband, for which she faces possible hanging.
Ms Ashtiani is shown injecting her husband with a sedative before an actor playing her lover arrives to attach wires to his feet and neck and plug them into an electrical socket.
"He had decided to kill my husband by electrocuting him," she says in the interview.
The reconstruction is interspersed with actual photographs of the dead man, Ibrahim Abedzadeh, with vivid burns on his body. He was murdered in 2005.
Earlier this week, pictures from the video wrongly led to campaigners to believe Ms Ashtiani had been released.
Iran on Saturday hanged Iranian-Dutch woman Zahra Bahrami for selling and possessing drugs, dismissing repeated pleas by The Netherlands which had sought details about her case.
Bahrami's execution is the latest in a slew of hangings carried out by the Islamic republic in January. Her execution takes the total number of people hanged in Iran so far this year to 66, according to media reports.
"A drug trafficker named Zahra Bahrami, daughter of Ali, was hanged early on Saturday morning after she was convicted of selling and possessing drugs," the Tehran prosecutor's office said.
Bahrami, a 46-year-old Iranian-born naturalised Dutch citizen, was reportedly arrested in December 2009 after joining a protest against the government while visiting relatives in the Islamic republic.
(12-11-2010, 05:13 PM)Lady Cop Wrote: brief video here, iran made the woman recreate murder. talk about self-incrimination! she is still under death sentence by hanging, i think this video is to justify it when they do it.
link to video: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-N...1585?f=rss
Sky News Online
A woman sentenced to be stoned to death in Iran for adultery has been filmed by state television confessing and re-enacting the murder of her husband.
State-run English language Press TV said its half-hour film was meant to show the other side of a story that has been misrepresented by international media.
But it may only serve to prompt yet more questions about human rights and press freedom in Iran.
Following an international outcry, Sakineh Ashtiani's sentence was suspended in September.
It is not clear why she had agreed to take part in the film.
It shows her acting out her alleged role in the murder of her husband, for which she faces possible hanging.
Ms Ashtiani is shown injecting her husband with a sedative before an actor playing her lover arrives to attach wires to his feet and neck and plug them into an electrical socket.
"He had decided to kill my husband by electrocuting him," she says in the interview.
The reconstruction is interspersed with actual photographs of the dead man, Ibrahim Abedzadeh, with vivid burns on his body. He was murdered in 2005.
Earlier this week, pictures from the video wrongly led to campaigners to believe Ms Ashtiani had been released.
This re-enactment of the "crime" was riddled with flaws. The whole story they came up with didn't make sense and once they released this video it exposed there nonsense and how transparent their lies were. They have gone quiet on the subject of this woman.
Its pure evil what they are putting this woman through. They have arrested 2 german journalists who were trying to find out the truth about this story and they remain in jail in iran.
An Indonesian maid faces being beheaded in Saudi Arabia after murdering the employer she claimed had tried to rape her.
Darsem binti Dawud Tawar had pleaded self-defence when she went on trial accused of the fatal attack on her Yemeni boss.
Camapaigners are now desperately trying to raise half a million dollars in blood money to save her life.
They are asking for donations on TV and social networking sites like Facebook.
Darseem was found guilty at at Riyadh court in May 2009.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kusuma Habir said the victim's family agreed to pardon her if she came up with 530,000 dollars (£340,000) - known in Arabic as 'diyat' or blood money - by July.
She said they had already collected 265,000 dollars (£170,000), through social networking site campaigns, television ads and appeals by local officials.
Human rights groups have repeatedly highlighted the abuse of maids - many of them foreign nationals - in Saudi Arabia.
Alone and unprotected, a large number have complained of being abused by their employers.
Female workers are particularly susceptible to violent physical attacks and rapes.
But many travel to the desert kingdom every year as work and wages are more plentiful than there than in their home countries.
this one only got a caning. lucky woman. and they caned the man too! amazing!
Daily Mail
A woman flinches as she is about to be repeatedly caned for having an extramarital affair.
Irdayanti Mukhtar, 34, received nine lashes by Sharia Police for having a relationship with another man, even though she is said to be in the process of divorcing her husband.
The harsh punishment was meted out in front of a crowd of 200 people outside the Al Munawwarah Mosque in Jantho, Indonesia.
Brutal: An Indonesian official prepares to whip Irdavanti Mukhtar as another announces to the crowd what her punishment she will receive
The jeering crowd recorded the brutal beating on their mobile phones and camcorders and shouted for more beatings in the strict Muslim city.
Mukhtar had been sentenced to the punishment the previous day by a Sharia court where prosecutors said that she was guilty of being in 'close proximity' to another man.
Under Sharia law the offence carries a maximum beating of nine strokes with a cane or a minimum of three.
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