For the World Day Against the Death Penalty

This post is being made for the World Day Against the Death Penalty, and is a slightly edited (rearranged, dead links removed, URLs shown, internal matters removed) version of an email Amnesty International Australia sent out on this.

I also wish to provide some links on a couple of related topics:

So-called “honour” killings of women

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Honor_killing&oldid=980100981#In_national_legal_codes

LGBTIQ+ people

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capital_punishment_for_homosexuality&oldid=979266644
• https://www.humandignitytrust.org/lgbt-the-law/map-of-criminalisation/?type_filter=death_pen_applies
• All Out: https://allout.org/en

 

World Day Against the Death Penalty - 10^th October 2020

The World Day Against the Death Penalty is an important moment to shine a light on the continuing injustice of the death penalty. When Amnesty International started campaigning against the death penalty in 1977, only 16 countries had abolished it. Today, 106 countries have abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes and 142 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Together we have had an impact and we will continue to challenge this injustice until it is abolished for everyone, everywhere.

For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Day_Against_the_Death_Penalty.

 

Why does Amnesty International oppose the death penalty?

The death penalty violates the most fundamental human right – the right to life. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

The death penalty is discriminatory. It is often used against the most vulnerable in society, including the poor, ethnic and religious minorities, and people with mental disabilities. Some governments use it to silence their opponents. Where justice systems are flawed and unfair trials rife, the risk of executing an innocent person is ever present.

When the death penalty is carried out, it is final. Mistakes that are made cannot be unmade. An innocent person may be released from prison for a crime they did not commit, but an execution can never be reversed.

Read more here: https://www.amnesty.org.au/campaigns/end-the-death-penalty/

 

What do we want to achieve with our activities?

• Educate people about the ongoing injustice of the death penalty
• Inspire people to challenge this injustice by taking action
• Garner media attention at a local, regional and national level 
• Inject human rights messages into social media conversations
• Put global pressure on the authorities to act

 

Example Case 1: Yemen - Four journalists in Yemen face the death penalty, simply for telling the world the truth about suffering in Yemen.

Akram, Abdelkhaleq, Hareth and Tawfiq were just doing their job when they were detained and charged with "spying" and “creating several websites on the internet and social media.”

The first court session took place on 9^th December 2019; lawyers were allowed to attend that session; but were subsequently barred from attending all the other court sessions, including the last one on 11^th April 2020 when the Sana’a based Specialised Criminal Court sentenced the four journalists to death. Without access to effective legal representation during arrest, detention, trial and post-trial, due process cannot be guaranteed.

They have now been detained, alongside six other journalists, for five years. Abdelkhaleq’s family say that other detainees have heard him screaming as he was being tortured.

Every day, journalists around the world face intimidation, imprisonment and violence, for reporting on human right violations. No-one should ever be sentenced to death, let alone for just for doing their job.

The Huthi de facto authorities recently pardoned Hamid Haydara, a prisoner of conscience also sentenced to death. If we pressure the authorities, the same can happen for Akram, Abdelkhaleq, Hareth and Tawfiq.

We want to ramp up the pressure on the Huthi de facto authorities to immediately quash their death sentences, and release all ten journalists.

See the relevant Urgent Action at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde31/2139/2020/en/

Background on Yemen

• https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/yemen/
• https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/

 

Example Case 2: Iran - Stop The Execution Of Protesters In Iran

In an alarming rise in the use of the death penalty against protesters, dissidents and members of minority groups in Iran, three protesters face execution after grossly unfair trials.

Amirhossein Moradi, Mohammad Rajabi and Saeed Tamjidi were sentenced to death in connection with the nationwide protests that took place in November 2019. Iran’s judiciary spokesperson accused them of being “riot leaders”.

Mohammad Rajabi and Saeed Tamjidi have said they were kicked, hung upside down and repeatedly beaten. Amirhossein Moradi has said that interrogators tortured him through beatings, electric shocks and standing on his chest. He also reported painful kidney problems as a result of the torture. Despite this, he has been denied medical care. His “confessions”, which he has said were given under torture, were used as evidence by the court to convict all three.

These death sentences form part of a wider trend of arrests and the use of the death penalty against dissenting voices in Iran.

The death sentences of Amirhossein Moradi, Mohammad Rajabi and Saeed Tamjidi has sparked domestic and international condemnation against the use of the death penalty. With enough support, we can pressure the Iranian authorities to quash the death sentences of these protesters.

A useful video: https://www.facebook.com/amnesty/videos/286525059224062/

See the relevant Urgent Action at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/1888/2020/en/

For those in Australia, communication could also be sent to:

His Excellency Mr Fereidoun Haghbin,
Ambassador of Iran,
Ambassador of Iran,
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
PO Box 705,
Mawson, ACT 2607
Email: amb.office@iranembassy.org.au

 

Background on Iran

• https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/

 

What can you do?

Amnesty has some suggestions on what people can do - see below.

Mobilise the media to raise awareness on the issue of the death penalty. With the World Day Against the Death Penalty being a key date as well as the individuals at risk being journalists, think about how you can work with your local media to bring attention to this issue. ●        Letters to the Editor ●        A profile showing you writing letters for this case ●        Radio interview ●        Ask journalists to upload a video of solidarity to their social media with @amnestyoz #nodeathpenalty

Take Action - coordinate a letter writing campaign and/or ask people who aren’t already aware to sign a petition in support. Remember one of our key goals with our activities is to educate people and move people to action, particularly those not already engaged. Think about how you can reach people not already committed to this issue - e.g., your community networks, hosting a stall or petition blitz (respecting COVID-19 restrictions).

Organise an event (virtual or in person). It can take the shape of a panel conversation, virtual action taking session or even a virtual film screening. The 2017 film “Guilty” is now available online via Amazon Prime and iTunes

Contribute to changing the conversation on social media  #nodeathpenalty @amnestyoz

 

Sustainable Activism and Self Care

Activists work because they care deeply about people and want to create a world where everybody’s human rights are protected. This can put activists in a place where their deep drive to change the world impacts their mental health. Activist burnout and vicarious trauma can happen and it’s important to keep a look out for the signs in yourself and in activists you campaign alongside.

Check out https://www.amnesty.org.au/self-care-well-being/, which explores how we can take care of ourselves as activists and what you can do to make sure your activism is sustainable. 

 

Why we should care about . . . the US Vice-Presidential debates

To those of us living outside its borders, the United States of America (USA) is a very strange place at times.

One of the most consistently strange aspects, to me, has been the way it winds up with a President (POTUS, for President of the United States).

In the rest of the world, where monarchy and similar systems of inheritance of political power have been replaced (see here for a useful list), choosing a leader is basically along the lines of some sort of variation of direct vote.

Not so the USA.

Their “founding fathers”, as they term them (and yes, they were all male), argued about this - as with just about every other aspect of developing their Constitution, and came up with a system where voters would choose electors, who would all then trot off and do the choosing on behalf of everyone else.

This system was fairly quickly stymied by the entirely foreseeable development of political parties, and changes to the Electoral College process started, with some significant changes over the next century or so, including the Electoral College voting for a specific Vice-President, state-wide voting for electors (with a trend towards the “winner-takes-all system from around 1804), leading eventually, through a series of twists and turns, to what the USA currently has.

(On twists and turns, until the second half of the 19^th Century, Presidential candidates did not do any campaigning.)

At some stage, the concept of a “faithless elector” started to evolve - someone who was sent to vote for the person who that elector’s state had chosen, but voted instead for someone else.

So, think of a past US President you didn’t like.

Got one? There’s a list here (or here, if you prefer) for you, if you wish.

I’ll look up their national anthem so I can hum a few bars while you decide . . .

OK, here’s the thing: if we ignore unwritten conventions (which for half a century I’ve been saying, to paraphrase the warning about verbal contracts, aren’t worth the paper they’re written on - something the USA’s 45^th president has demonstrated), public outcry, and political pressures, that past President could conceivably not have been elected if all the electors decided to choose someone else.

Annoying, huh?

OK, so here’s the thing: now think of a past US President you liked, and reflect on the fact that the same could have happened there - if there had been an unthinkable (for a definition of unthinkable, consider #45’s election) mass rebellion by the electors, that President may not have been elected.

Terrifying, huh?

The way to an electoral college at the USA’s constitutional convention was:

• firstly, to rule out, out of fear that Congress, if it chose the President, could be too “chummy” (aka corrupt), selection by Congress, and
• secondly, out of fear that voters would not be adequately informed about candidates, rule out direct election,

leaving everyone flailing around like an octopus trying to ice skate, looking for a third option . . . and the electoral college was born.

(On that second step, I wonder if any of it was fear of black people and people of colour gaining a future right to vote? Gerald  Horne, writing  in “The Counter-Revolution of 1776”, argues quite eloquently for the view that the United Kingdom’s increasingly likely abolition of slavery was seen as an economic threat by the colonies, and thus slavery was a key, unwritten perhaps, driver in the movement for independence from the UK. Given their limited world view, that probably didn’t enter any part of their white supremacist minds.)

At least the issue of faithless electors may have been ruled out - for this election, at any rate.

Current concerns inside the USA are discussed here (that link is worth a look - it’s not only about robbing the people of their agency, although the argument in support of the Electoral College on the basis that it protects minorities has been shown to be utter nonsense by long standing discrimination, culminating in the BLM movement and current protests).

Attempts for further reform or abolition continue. I personally consider that it is high time that the now VERY backward and utterly unexceptional system of indirect voting was replaced by direct voting. (Even tinpot despots running fake elections don’t try to pretend to have such an absurd system.)

And while you’re at it, get rid of the voting on a workday rubbish - it doesn’t demonstrate commitment to voting, it just makes poorer people (particularly those with a long commute) less likely to be able to vote.

On top of all that, as some people warned back in 1789 (the convention to write a Constitution for the USA really was a very contentious event [see Charles Mee’s “Genius of the People” for an interesting and informative account], and there were arguments for and against in the media afterwards - for instance, in Anti-Federalist Papers No. 70 and 74), the USA could be said to have wound up with a system of basically electing a monarch.

(I find the continued use of “President” after leaving office disturbing, although I am less concerned about the pension after Truman wound up in such dire straits after he left the Presidency - that was a major vulnerability. Looking at the extent of weirdness around all this, I have to wonder: are there some sort of fumes from Yellowstone that affect most people in the USA who are in or have political power - or write laws/Amendments?)

The notion of term limits is, in my opinion, a good thing, although I am also favourably inclined towards Chile’s system of letting Presidents have an unlimited number of terms, but not two consecutive terms.

That, in my opinion, would reduce the focus on re-election that can potentially limit the effectiveness of the last half year - or longer - of a US President’s term, so that their exercise of their considerable and increased power would be less distracted.

So, ignoring the vagaries of the “electoral college” and the rest of the USA’s election systems for the moment, the USA will shortly elect its “King for a Day . . . and 3 years and 364 More Days”.

Naturally, there’s plenty of discussion in the media lately on the pros and cons of each side - there’s even been some (more) discussion on the USA’s 25^th Amendment to their Constitution, which allows for the Vice-President to take power when the USA’s President is incapacitated - provided the President was able to write and sign a letter before being incapacitated . . . unless someone is prepared to invoke the not-used-to-date Section 4, which means the incumbent does not always have to sign a letter, but invoking that Section requires a major political process.

Section 3 of that Amendment, the Section most people seem to be familiar with (which requires the aforementioned letter), has been invoked in 1985, 2002, and 2007, and has been considered several times.

What is more concerning, given the current election, is the age of one candidate, and the poor health of the other. That means there is a good chance that one of the Vice-Presidents may become President over the next four years.

So far, that has happened nine times - for four assassinations and four natural deaths, and one resignation:

• Tyler’s succession after Harrison consolidated the notion of the Vice-President attaining power after the death of a President;
• Andrew Jackson sabotaged Abraham Lincoln’s legacy (recovered, to some extent, by Grant, but Grant had also to undo the damage Jackson had caused);
• on the other hand, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman probably did reasonably, after they came to power; but . . .
• Lyndon Johnson destroyed his attempt to wipe out poverty and address other problems in the USA when he increased US involvement in Viêt Nám, including introducing combat troops - a step I consider (based on his visit there in 1951) it is likely Kennedy would have avoided; and
• Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon.

Transfer of power to a Vice-President after a President has died or left office has happened, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, and it could happen again.

In that case, the Vice-President, who seems to be normally treated with disdain by many, becomes one of the world’s most significant and powerful individuals, leader of a nation with an outsized influence in the world, an influence that has been of increasing concern over the last four years.

Given that, it is worth caring a little about who the USA’s Vice-Presidential candidates are, what sort of people they are, how they are likely to behave, and what their thoughts and likely policies are (they won’t necessarily be the same as the President’s).

It is indeed worth caring about US Vice-Presidential debates - always.