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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

India go back and clings to the death penalty

In a turnaround that worries activists the Indian authorities have hanged two Islamist prisoners aftereight years without executions , a move not just branded as electioneering. The gallows was the destination for a week of Kashmiri Afzal Guru, who Indian security apparatus had been linked with a 2001 attack against the national parliament in New Delhi, which killed eight policemen and five assailants. Last November I had suffered the same fate Mohamed "Kasab", the only terrorist captured alive during the attacks by Pakistani command almost five years ago in the city of Bombay, which killed 166 people .Both terrorist actions aroused a huge outcry in India, which was in the hand of the two neighboring Pakistan. In the first case, New Delhi deployed hundreds of thousands of troops on the border with Pakistan and spoke of nuclear war, the second, suspended the dialogue process with the same country in which rivals since the independence of both, in 1947. "Any leniency with the author of a terrorist attack on the Parliament would have been the wrong decision, "claimed after the last run the secretary general of the ruling Congress Party Digvijay Singh. Beyond the justifications, the deaths of Kasab and Guru have ended a long unofficial moratorium on the application of capital punishment in India, where the previous execution (of accused of raping and murdering a schoolgirl) had been in 2004. The last two presidents, Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil , had been reluctant to sanction death sentences, referred to only in cases "rarest of the rare" ("the most extraordinary among the extraordinary"), as crimes of violence or treachery special. Kalam Patil especially chose this punishment switch (which must be ratified by the Supreme Court and the Ministry of the Interior) for life sentences, which confirmed a trend in India in recent decades to abolish the death penalty. With the arrival this summer for President of Pranab Mukherjee , a heavyweight of the Congress Party, there has been, however, a change of attitude. "In the case of Kasab had a great public pressure and the feeling that something should be done justice. Though not support it, we get it," he reasoned this week the director of Human Rights Watch for South Asia, Meenakshi Ganguly. "With Guru also had pressure , but his case has raised much controversy, "the activist said, referring to concerns that many voices have been raised about the transparency of the judicial process that condemned him to the gallows. in a column in the newspaper The Hindu , the renowned writer Arundathi Roy said that "in the most crucial part of the trial, when evidence is presented and witnesses are examined ( ...) Guru was in solitary confinement and had no lawyers ." "Now that has been posted, I hope that our collective conscience is satisfied. Is the glass half empty blood or half full?" Said Roy. For Ganguly activist, doubts in the latter case "shows the need to resume the moratorium" because the selection of inmates undergoing the gallows factors come into play such as nationality, religion or type of crime are subject to "multiple interpretations" and by extension of discord"In the last 20 years, terrorism has been used to demonize Muslims . In many attacks that were blamed on Muslims, was tested after the authors were Hindus, "said activist meanwhile Shabnand Hashmi. The director of the organization's human rights defender Anhad wondered if the government will dare to apply the same punishment to criminals from another profile, such as the three Tamils ​​convicted of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Hashmi stressed that these decisions follows a need to placate critical main political opponent, the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), because "theelections are just around the corner (2014) "and concur them likely candidates for new both forces. And for the opposition party, which ruled the country between 1998 and 2004, "the executions are part of the culmination of a process" and in both cases the condemned "committed serious crimes against India and had a proper judicial process." "The moratorium was due to inaction, but have belatedly realized. If returned to power will mean that more executions, but simply to fulfill the law, "said BJP chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.

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