Death penalty for drug offences debated on BBC World Service

Yesterday, International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy co-founder, Rick Lines, was a guest on the BBC World Service programme, ‘World Have Your Say’.  The English language BBC World Service reaches an international audience of more than 40 million people. The hour long international call in programme addressed the question of whether drug traffickers should face the death penalty, this in the wake of the execution earlier this week of UK citizen Akmal Shaikh in China.

You can listen to an archived copy of the programme here.

Thailand: Convictions of Police in Drug Campaign Abuse a ‘First Step’ (Human Rights Watch)

(New York, December 14, 2009) – The conviction of eight police officers for crimes in anti-drug operations should be a catalyst for the Thai government to end police abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

On December 8, 2009, the Talingchan district court in Bangkok found Police Captain Nat Chonnithiwanit and seven other members of the 41^st Border Patrol Police (BPP) unit guilty of assault with weapons, illegal detention, and extortion. Each was sentenced to five years of imprisonment.

“The trial of Captain Nat and his team revealed just how casually police commit abuses,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This conviction needs to be followed up by clear action to put an end to police abuses once and for all.”

Nat and his BPP team were arrested in Bangkok in January 2008 for serious offenses committed over a period of three years. To date, 61 people have filed formal complaints that they or their family members were abused by BPP police under Nat’s command.

In the case that led to the convictions, Nat’s squad arbitrarily arrested Jutaporn Nunrod in Bangkok on February 8, 2007, and then took her to a “safe house” at the Green Inn Hotel. She was stripped half-naked, subjected to electric shock, severely beaten, and had a plastic bag placed over her head for two days in order to extract a confession that she was involved in drug trafficking. Jutaporn and her family were also forced to give cash and a gold necklace worth 100,000 Thai baht (US$3,000) to Nat.

Other victims of Nat and his squad claim they were subjected to electric shock, had plastic bags placed over their heads, and were severely beaten. Many also claimed they were forced to pay bribes in order to be released or to have lesser charges filed against them.

“These convictions were not an isolated case of rogue officers, but part of chronic problems in police operations that use violence and illegality to fight crimes,” said Pearson. “Police in Thailand have long had sweeping powers and have rarely faced punishment for often horrendous misconduct.”

Thailand saw the worst police abuses after then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched his notorious “war on drugs” campaign in 2003. During this campaign, Thaksin openly pushed police to adopt unlawful measures against drug traffickers.

“There is nothing under the sun which the Thai police cannot do,” Thaksin said on January 14, 2003, adding, “You must use iron fist against drugs traffickers and show them no mercy. Because drug traffickers are ruthless to our children, so being ruthless back to them is not a bad thing…If there are deaths among traffickers, it is normal.”

In January 2008, a special committee chaired by former Attorney General Khanit na Nakhon found that 2,819 people were killed in 2,559 murder cases between February and April in 2003 as part of Thaksin’s “war on drugs.” But despite many promises by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to bring those responsible for the “war on drugs” murders and related abuses to justice, no action has ensued. Many police officers implicated in this inquiry and follow-up investigations by the Justice Ministry’s Department of Special Investigation remain in office. Many have even been promoted. The failure to hold abusive police accountable makes it more likely that killings, torture, and extortion will happen again, especially in the context of drug suppression operations, said Human Rights Watch.

Thailand continues to face a boom in the use and trafficking of methamphetamines. For that reason, harsh measures against traffickers are politically popular. On December 3, Interior Minister Chavarat Charnvirakul launched a new nation-wide campaign, called “Clean and Seal.” This campaign will initially go on for three months and seek to thoroughly “clean up” 16,106 communities of drugs users and traffickers. While traffickers will be arrested and prosecuted, those caught using drugs will be sent to a rehabilitation program at military-style camps run by the Interior Ministry.

“Unrealistic targets set by politicians, combined with deep-rooted police brutality and impunity raise grave concerns about this ‘Clean and Seal’ campaign,” said Pearson. “To prevent his government from going down the same road as Thaksin, Prime Minister Abhisit should set a new standard by ensuring that abusers will be prosecuted.”

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Preliminary observations and recommendations on Mission to Australia

In his preliminary observations and recommendations following his 2009 mission to Australia, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Anand Grover, calls for ‘an increased and proactive focus on health promotion activities as well harm reduction interventions, such as needle and syringe exchange programmes, to address the preventive health needs of inmates of all cultural backgrounds.’ (page 3)

Sp Rapp for Health Press statement Australia – FINAL Dec 4

‘Court grants Malaysian drug runner’s application for stay of execution’ by Zul Othman, channelnewsasia.com

SINGAPORE: In what is possibly the first case of its kind, the High Court has granted a Malaysian drug runner’s application for a stay of his execution.

Yong Vui Kong, 21, was found guilty in November 2008 of trafficking 47g of heroin by Justice Choo Han Teck, who imposed the mandatory death sentence for offences involving more than 15g of heroin.

He was scheduled to be hanged on Friday.

Yong had previously made an application to appeal the sentence, but that was withdrawn before he appeared before the Court of Appeals. It is not known why he had decided to withdraw.

The ruling on Wednesday means Yong’s lawyer, Mr M Ravi, will now be given a chance to have the case heard before the Court of Appeals – the highest court in the Singapore justice system – on December 8.

On Tuesday, the lawyer made the application before Justice Woo Bih Li, arguing that until the appellant process had been exhausted, a person cannot be deprived of his life.

According to Mr Ravi, it is also now clear that the mandatory death penalty, particularly for cases not involving murder, is “contrary to international law because it is both arbitrary and cruel”.

In his opinion, it is also necessary to “preserve the status quo and protect his client from execution until the full Court of Appeal has heard his application for an extension of time and full appeal on the merits”.

Mr Ravi also called on Justice Woo to order “a stay of execution until the matter is heard by the full three Court of Appeal judges, as required by Section 30 of the Supreme Court Judicature Act”.

Despite protests from Deputy Public Prosecutor Jaswant Singh, Justice Woo agreed that Yong should be given the fullest opportunity to have his appeal heard as he was about to be executed.

During the two-week trial in 2008, Yong, then 19 years old, had told the court that he was unaware of the contents of the packages as he drove into Singapore, and that he was merely following the instructions of his boss in Johor Bahru to deliver items to people here.

The identity of Yong’s employer, who is said to be driving a Singapore-registered car at the time of the offence, is unknown.

After the hearing, Mr Ravi told MediaCorp that he felt that the outcome was “fair” and “encouraging”.

“It is important that the court carefully considers the death sentence … the accused was at that time young and naïve, so this is an opportunity for people like him to be rehabilitated,” the lawyer added.

- TODAY/sc

The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: A Violation of International Human Rights Law

This major 2007 report from the International Harm Reduction Association calls for an end to the use of the death penalty for drug offences around the world, and concludes that the on-going execution of drug offenders is a violation of international human rights law. The report emphasises how the harms faced by people who use drugs do not only include health harms such as HIV and hepatitis C infections, but also the effects of repressive law enforcement activities.

While the number of countries practicing capital punishment has steadily decreased over the past twenty years, the number of countries using the death penalty for drug offences has steadily increased. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – one of the main UN human rights treaties – states that the death penalty may only be applied to the “most serious crimes”.  Both the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions have stated that drug offences do not constitute “most serious crimes” – making executions for such offences a violation of international human rights law.

DeathPenaltyforDrugOffences – IHRA

We are now accepting submissions to the 2010 International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy

Submissions are now being accepted for the first edition of the International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy, scheduled for publication at the end of 2010.  Please see our Guidelines for Authors for details.