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Secret government order allowing MI5 law-breaking revealed
The intelligence agencies have helped to foil a number of terrorist attacks. Previously secret instructions issued by ministers confirm MI5 agents are authorised to engage in law-breaking, human rights campaigners have claimed. The intelligence watchdog has been told to keep under review guidance on use of agents “who participate in criminality” and in what cases it can be permitted. The…
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#"The public and Parliament are still being denied the guidance that says when British spies can commit criminal offences and how far th#"We are a long way from having transparency"#&039;Greater good&039; A 2016 report by the Intelligence Services Commissioner#a post which has since been merged into the IPC#Although MI5 has never openly admitted infiltrating extremist groups#But they called for full disclosure of the rules governing the activities of MI5 agents#Campaigners welcomed the publication of a ministerial "direction" to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner about the Security Serv#commonly known as MI5#Far-right &039;moving increasingly online&039; What does Brexit mean for Britain&039;s spies?#human rights campaigners have claimed#In a short written statement to Parliament#it may be justified for operational reasons and in the "greater good" - although it recommended that MI5 should have to meet a pub#It said that although such activity could never be made lawful#its director has said the ability of agents to "work close" to potential offenders has helped to prevent terrorist attacks#its director Maya Foa said#MI5#No 10 said it was instructing Lord Justice Fulford#Reprieve called for the guidance to be published#Reprieve said it was the first time ministers had acknowledged the existence of the guidance but they needed to publish it in full immediate#saying the public deserved to know about illegal activity being undertaken in the name of national security#Secret government order allowing MI5 law-breaking revealed#suggested there may be occasions where agents engage in criminal activity in order to gather necessary intelligence "for example member#The intelligence agencies have helped to foil a number of terrorist attacks#The intelligence watchdog has been told to keep under review guidance on use of agents "who participate in criminality" and in wha#the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC)#The Investigatory Powers Commissioner welcomed the government&039;s decision to "make public my oversight of this sensitive area of wo#The ministerial order was made public following a long-running legal battle#The order has remained secret since it was first written into law in 2014#to "keep under review the application of the security service guidelines on the use of agents who participate in criminality and the au#warning authorised crime was the "most intrusive power" possible
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Home Office loses case over stripping citizenship without notice after challenge by alleged Isis member #ٹاپسٹوریز
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Home Office loses case over stripping citizenship without notice after challenge by alleged Isis member
The Home Office has lost the latest stage of a court battle over stripping people of their British citizenship.
The Court of Appeal found it was unlawful to remove people’s nationality without giving proper notice, after a challenge by a woman who allegedly joined Isis in Syria.
The woman, who can only be identified as D4, is being held in the same Syrian camp as Shamima Begum and did not find out her British citizenship had been removed for 10 months.
The High Court previously ruled that the decision to remove her British citizenship was “void and of no effect“ because she was not notified, but the Home Office appealed the judgment.
In a ruling delivered on Wednesday, Lady Justice Whipple said: “There may be good policy reasons for empowering the home secretary to deprive a person of citizenship without giving notice, but such a step is not lawful under this legislation.
“If the government wishes to empower the secretary in that way, it must persuade parliament to amend the primary legislation. That is what it is currently seeking to do under the Nationality and Borders Bill … it is for parliament to decide.”
The bill, which is currently being considered by parliament, would remove the requirement to give notice of citizenship deprivation if the home secretary “does not have the information needed to be able to give notice”, it would “not be reasonably practicable” or was not in the interests of national security of “in the interests of the relationship between the UK and another country”.
Reports of previous cases have sparked diplomatic rows, seeing countries including Bangladesh reject the possibility of accepting alleged terrorists as citizens.
Isis members are believed to make up a significant proportion of at least 150 people who have had their British citizenship removed for the “public good” since 2014.
Figures have only been released up until the end of 2019. An annual report containing the information has not been published by the government for almost two years, and there has been no reason given for the delay.
A report by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, said the deprivation of citizenship “has been a major part of the United Kingdom’s response to those who have travelled to Isis-controlled areas”.
Shamima Begum reads Home Office letter revoking her British citizenship
Mr Hall has warned of an “inadequate level of independent review” of the power and its effects and asked for it to be brought into his remit, but the request was refused by the government.
A government-commissioned review warned in 2016 that removing extremists’ citizenship left them free to continue terrorist activity abroad, prevented monitoring and encouraged the “dangerous delusion that terrorism can be made into a foreign problem”.
The legal charity Reprieve accused the government of “cynically attempting to circumvent the courts” with the Nationality and Borders Bill.
Director Maya Foa added: “It would render this ruling moot, making a mockery of the rule of law. Ministers should change course and recognise that depriving people of their citizenship without even telling them is an affront to British principles of justice and fairness.”
The proposed changes to the law, which already permits the home secretary to remove people’s British citizenship for the “public good” if they are deemed eligible for a different nationality, have sparked protests and allegations of discrimination.
The Court of Appeal said the bill would “have the effect of disapplying the notice requirement in certain circumstances”, but that notice currently has to be given.
Lady Justice Whipple said the parliamentarians that brought in the original 1981 British Nationality Act “deliberately structured the process for depriving someone of their citizenship to include minimum safeguards for the individual”.
She added: “The 1981 Act does not confer powers of such breadth that the home secretary can deem notice to have been given where no step at all has been taken to communicate the notice to the person concerned, and the order has simply been put on the person’s Home Office file.”
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Lord Justice Baker agreed with the judgment but Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, dissented and argued that the current law did not require notice to be given.
Lord Justice Baker noted that the grounds for removing someone’s British citizenship had been extended several times in recent decades, “but the requirement to give notice has always been an integral part”.
The court heard that D4 has been detained in the al-Roj camp since January 2019 alongside other women and children caught while leaving Isis territory.
In December that year, a minister removed her UK citizenship but she was not formally informed until October 2020, after her solicitors asked the government to repatriate her and were refused.
D4 then appealed to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and started judicial review proceedings in the High Court.
The law states that the government “must give the person written notice” of a citizenship deprivation decision, providing reasons for it and notifying them of their right to appeal.
In 2018, the Home Office changed regulations setting out how notice can be given if someone’s whereabouts are unknown, there is no address to send documents to and they do not have a lawyer.
Under the new rules, notice of a decision to revoke someone’s citizenship was “deemed to have been given” to the person in question if the Home Office made a record of it and put it on their file.
Giving his judgment at the High Court last year, Mr Justice Chamberlain remarked: “As a matter of ordinary language, you do not ‘give’ someone ‘notice’ of something by putting the notice in your desk drawer and locking it. No-one who understands English would regard that purely private act as a way of ‘giving notice’.”
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The House of Commons rejected an amendment that aimed to limit the kind of crimes that can be authorised under a new law.
The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill went on to pass its third reading by 313 votes to 98, sending the unamended legislation off to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.
It would allow public authorities, ranging from police and MI5 to HMRC and the Food Standards Agency, to authorise agents and informants to commit crimes while undercover.
An amendment tabled by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer would have stopped the authorisation of serious offences including causing death or bodily harm, torture, violating the sexual integrity of a person and detention. It was defeated by 317 votes to 256 on Thursday. (15/10/2020)
Labour whipped its MPs to abstain from the vote, prompting a flurry of resignations from Labour frontbenchers from the left of the party - including shadow financial secretary Dan Carden, who resigned his post ahead of the debate.
He told the Commons the bill “paves the way for gross abuses of state power against citizens” and accused the government of taking the Labour leadership “for a ride” with loose assurances.
Maya Foa, director of the legal charity Reprieve - which brought the legal challenge against MI5 - said: “Without limits on the crimes agents can commit this bill is wide open to abuse - and history suggests this will result in terrible harm.
“We are hopeful the House of Lords will amend this legislation to make clear MI5 cannot say what is and isn’t lawful, nor authorise torture, murder, or sexual violence.”
#politics#uk politics#jeremy corbyn#keir starmer#spy cops bill#chis bill#covert human intelligence sources bill#diane abbott#zarah sultana#british politics#britpol#labour party#conservative party#WOWWWW UK WTF
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Saudi Arabia commutes death sentences of 3 men jailed as minors | Human Rights News
Three men sentenced to death for joining 2012 protests as teens have their sentences converted to 10 years in jail.
Saudi Arabia has commuted the death sentences of three men who were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests as minors, in the latest attempt by the kingdom to improve its human rights record.
The country’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) said in a statement on Sunday that Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher had been “re-sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment” and that the time they had already served would be taken into account, setting their release date for 2022.
The move comes after the kingdom ended last April the use of the death penalty on people who were legal minors at the time of the crime, with exception of cases involving the counter-terror law.
The Saudi Human Rights Commission has issued the following statement: pic.twitter.com/OWlKppELjH
— HRC International (@HRCSaudi_EN) February 7, 2021
The three young Saudis, all belonging to the minority Shia community, were younger than 18 when they were arrested on “terrorism”-related charges during a pro-democracy protest in 2012.
“Excellent news for Ali al Nimr, sentenced to death in KSA for attending a pro-democracy protest when he was just 17,” Maya Foa, director of Britain-based campaign group Reprieve, said on Twitter.
Excellent news for Ali al Nimr, sentenced to death in KSA for attending a pro-democracy protest when he was just 17. Thanks to @jonsnowC4 and @Channel4News for raising the case with Cameron in 2015. @ESOHumanRightsE @reprieve https://t.co/TaJ58CSGnD
— Maya Foa (@mayafoa) February 7, 2021
Saudi Arabia, which holds one of the highest capital punishment rates in the world, last year saw “drastic” reduction in the number of executions. According to the HRC, 27 people were executed in 2020, an 85-percent drop on the previous year.
The HRC also said last April that Saudi Arabia was abolishing court-ordered floggings.
The absolute monarchy has come under increasing scrutiny for its human rights record, especially following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, its de facto ruler, Saudi Arabia has detained activists, religious leaders and royal family members in a sweeping crackdown on dissent over the last three years.
Joe Biden criticised Saudi Arabia over its human rights record before being elected the US president last November.
Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=17870&feed_id=32774
#Arabia#commutes#death#Human#HumanRights#jailed#men#MiddleEast#minors#News#Rights#Saudi#SaudiArabia#sentences
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A US healthcare giant has accused the state of Arkansas of effectively lying to it over the sale of a pharmaceutical drug that the Republican governor had been poised to use in a historic killing spree of eight prisoners in 11 days.
The medical supply company McKesson has become the first private company in US legal history to sue a death penalty state for the misuse of its products in executions. Its unprecedented action has succeeded – for now – in frustrating the ambition of the Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, to stage what critics have called a “conveyor belt” of death.
The governor had scheduled a series of double executions in the Arkansas death chamber in the Cummins Unit near Pine Bluff, starting on Monday and ending on 27 April, in what would have been the most intense burst of killing in the US for at least 50 years. But late on Friday a state court, responding to McKesson’s allegations, put all the executions on hold.
On Saturday a federal court also entered the dispute, ordering its own injunction in response to a legal challenge placed by all the condemned prisoners. The inmates had argued that the rush to hold so many executions in such a short time risked subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment.
McKesson pulls no punches in its legal complaint, directly accusing the Arkansas department of corrections of misleading it in order to buy a batch of vecuronium bromide that the company distributes in the US on behalf of manufacturer Pfizer. Vecuronium is widely used in hospitals to relax patients’ muscles before surgery, but it has also become a standard element of the cocktail of three drugs that makes up lethal injection protocols.
Last July, the complaint alleges, the Arkansas prison service contacted McKesson to order 10 boxes each containing 10 vials of 20mg of vecuronium. The state official did not mention the drug was to be used to kill prisoners. On the contrary, McKesson states, the order was made in such a way as to seem like a routine request to restock supplies, to the extent that the shipping address given was the prison’s healthcare facility as a way “to mask things further”.
The medical director’s license was quoted during the phone call, just as it would be when a prison orders everyday equipment such as surgical gloves, syringes and stethoscopes. When the company asked for the boxes to be returned, having discovered their intended use, the state refused.
The corrections department “led McKesson to believe that the order was placed at the request of, or for the benefit of, the physician and would be used for a legitimate medical purpose”, the complaint says.
McKesson’s intervention has had a dramatic and immediate impact. On Friday night a state judge, Wendell Griffen, imposed a temporary restraining order on all the executions scheduled between now and the end of April, tearing down Hutchinson’s plans.
The state struck back, appealing the restraining order to the highest court in Arkansas and setting up an epic legal tussle. The state is also expected to appeal the injunction imposed on Saturday by a federal district court, which means that the final outcome of the battle may not be known until it reaches the US supreme court.
Should that happen, the most powerful judges in the country will be asked to adjudicate over an existential question that has been building in force over many years: should pharmaceutical drugs that are created to save lives be used to end them?
Maya Foa of Reprieve, a human rights group that has been influential in exposing the duplicity of death penalty states over drug purchases, said: “Pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesalers make medicines to save and improve the lives of patients, and the use of these drugs in executions goes against everything these firms stand for.”
The dispute brings to a head a legal collision that has been pending since at least 2010, when the UK government unilaterally imposed export controls on several drugs used in US executions. The following year the European Union similarly moved to block exports, and at the same time individual drug manufacturers in America adopted stringent distribution controls designed to prevent their products falling into the executioners’ hands.
With the resulting dearth of supply, death penalty states turned to ever more extreme measures to try to secure the drugs. The Arkansas governor’s wild scheme of killing eight prisoners in 11 days was in itself an expression of desperation – Hutchinson made clear he was rushing the procedures in order to use up a batch of the sedative midazolam before it expired at the end of April.
Other states have been accused of using misleading tactics to bypass distribution controls. Texas audaciously obtained lethal injection drugs by pretending they were needed by a prison hospital unit that had been closed for many years.
In 2011, prison officials in Ohio attempted to acquire the barbiturate pentobarbital by posing as representatives of a mental health department.
“When you call them to see if they will sell to us make sure you say we are the department of mental health, do not mention anything about corrections or what we use the drug for,” one official said.
Now it is Arkansas’ turn to be under the spotlight, and with as powerful an adversary as McKesson the stakes could not be higher. Having intended to carry out would be the most intense burst of US executions in half a century, Hutchinson may find that his legacy falls in the opposite direction.
#abolish capital punishment#abolish the death penalty#Arkansas mass execution#8in10#Arkansas Death Penalty#McKesson#Arkansas stay of execution
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Nebraska resorts to fentanyl in execution, despite appeal from pharma
Nebraska is to become the first US state to use the opioid fentanyl in an execution – after an appeals court threw out a legal challenge from the German drug maker Fresenius Kabi.
The court gave the go ahead yesterday for Nebraska to execute Carey Dean Moore on the grounds that it is the “will of the people”, The Guardian reported.
This is Nebraska’s first execution in 21 years after 61% of the voters in the state voted to reinstate the death penalty two years ago, after the state government abolished it.
Moore has been on death row for four decades for the 1979 murders of two cab drivers in Omaha.
Fentanyl was implicated in more than 20,000 overdose deaths in 2016 alone – but Nebraska has opted to include it in the lethal injection cocktail for its first execution in 21 years after struggling to buy pharmaceuticals for use in the procedure.
Many pharma companies have set up special distribution arrangements for certain drugs to prevent their use in lethal injections.
Moore said he wishes to die and is among the longest serving prisoners on death row in the US.
He will be given the sedative Valium alongside fentanyl, a combination that is often found in drug overdose deaths – both drugs suppress breathing.
Fresenius accuses Nebraska of obtaining the other two drugs in the cocktail illegally – a muscle relaxant and potassium chloride to stop Moore’s heart and a muscle relaxant.
The company takes no position on the death penalty but said contracts with distributors bar sales for use in capital punishment.
There is a risk of grave harm to its reputation, the company said, because the state has not properly stored the drugs, which could lead to botched an painful execution.
The human rights charity Reprieve has been campaigning against the death penalty, and has criticised the lethal injection as a form of torture.
Lethal injections usually consist of three components – an anaesthetic to send the subject to sleep, before a paralytic agent (such as pancuronium bromide) is administered to prevent thrashing during the final dose of potassium chloride to stop the heart.
But the charity has raised concerns that the injection can be seen as a form of torture, as subjects can experience extreme levels of pain should the first injection not work properly.
The charity’s director Maya Foa has described the lethal injection as “the chemical equivalent of burning at the stake”.
Photograph: Ken Piorkowski
The post Nebraska resorts to fentanyl in execution, despite appeal from pharma appeared first on Pharmaphorum.
from Pharmaphorum https://pharmaphorum.com/news/nebraska-resorts-to-fentanyl-in-execution-despite-appeal-from-pharma/
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Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Record, Raises Number of Beheadings by 70%, Lack of Basic Freedoms for Women and Girls | Global Research
Neuer Beitrag veröffentlicht bei https://melby.de/saudi-arabias-human-rights-record-raises-number-of-beheadings-by-70-lack-of-basic-freedoms-for-women-and-girls-global-research/
Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Record, Raises Number of Beheadings by 70%, Lack of Basic Freedoms for Women and Girls | Global Research
Featured image: Protesters of the beheading of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia stage a mock beheading. (File photo)
In its latest report published Saturday, the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) said executions by the Saudi government in the first quarter of 2018 increased by 72 percent.
The report also showed that a number of foreign nationals also face capital punishment in Saudi Arabia.
ESOHR released its report amid widespread criticism of Saudi Arabia over its terrible human rights record, including the censorship of free speech, indiscriminate incarceration of citizens with no due process, and lack of basic freedoms for women and girls.
The Saudi government refrains from providing any official statistics for people on death row but the organization confirmed that 42 people are expected to be imminently executed, including 8 individuals who were minors at the time of the offense.
The anti-death penalty rights group Reprieve said in March that Saudi Arabia’s execution rate has increased since Mohammed bin Salman was appointed crown prince in 2017. The group said 133 executions have taken place in the eight months since his appointment last June, compared with 67 in the eight months before.
Maya Foa, the group’s director, said,
“The doubling of executions under the new crown prince reveals that, beneath his glossy public image, Mohammed bin Salman is one of the most brutal leaders in the kingdom’s recent history.”
In its report, ESOHR denounced the Saudi regime’s execution of people for alleged offenses that are not even against the international law and said the convicts have simply attended peaceful demonstrations, exercised freedom of speech or practiced their religious rites.
The Riyadh regime has been rejecting all requests for visits by special independent rapporteurs of the United Nations since 2008, the report added.
Concern is growing about the increasing number of executions in Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities say the executions reveal the Saudi government’s commitment to “maintaining security and realizing justice.” The country has come under particular criticism from rights groups for the executions carried out for non-fatal crimes.
According to the London-based rights group Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Saudi regime to abolish its “ghastly” beheadings.
In the most stunning case of executions in 2016, Saudi Arabia executed on January 2 Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr along 46 other people in defiance of international calls for the release of the prominent Shia cleric and other jailed political dissidents in the kingdom.
In July 2017, human rights group Amnesty International called on Saudi Arabia to halt the executions of 14 individuals who were sentenced to death following a “grossly unfair mass trial” as part of the kingdom’s “bloody execution spree.”
“By confirming these sentences Saudi Arabia’s authorities have displayed their ruthless commitment to the use of the death penalty as a weapon to crush dissent and neutralize political opponents,” said Amnesty’s director of campaigns for the Middle-East, Samah Hadid.
The 14 individuals were convicted over charges of “armed rebellion against the ruler” by, among other things, “participating in shooting at security personnel, security vehicles,” “preparing and using Molotov Cocktail bombs,” “theft and armed robbery” and “inciting chaos, organizing and participating in riots.”
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Saudi Arabia’s ambitious young crown prince has said he will lead his country back to “moderate Islam” as he announced plans for a vast new £380 million economic development zone. Prince Mohammed bin Salman told investors gathered in Riyadh that his economic modernisation plans would go hand-in-hand with with political reforms to guide the conservative kingdom away from severe Wahhabi Islam. "We are returning to what we were before - a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world," the 32-year-old prince said. "We will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today," he added. "We will end extremism very soon." The prince's pledge is a challenge to Saudi's conservative clerics and came as he announced plans for NEOM, a new economic zone that will stretch across Saudi’s borders into neighboring Egypt and Jordan. The zone will be 26,500km square, making it bigger than Wales and significantly larger than neighbouring Middle Eastern states like Israel, Lebanon or Kuwait. The prince made the announcement at an investor conference in Riyadh Credit: AFP PHOTO / FAYEZ NURELDINEFAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty Images The project is the latest announcement from Prince Mohammed, who is pushing aggressively to modernise the kingdom and wean it off its dependence on oil as part of his Vision 2030 plan. He laid out a vision of a futuristic economic zone where robots may outnumber humans, drones will carry passengers and omnipresent high-speed internet will be known as “digital air”. Saudi has announced a string of reforms in recent months, including plans to allow women to drive, but it remains one of the world’s most socially conservative societies. Prince Mohammed’s modernising plans have been applauded by many western leaders but some analysts are sceptical that he will be able to push through economic and political changes on the scale he is talking about. Earlier this year, the royal family backed away from plans to cut benefits for state employees in the face of public anger - a sign of how difficult it may be to reform Saudi Arabia’s oil-based economy. Last week, Saudi authorities said they were forming a council of Islamic scholars who would counter violent interpretations of the Koran and the hadith - a set of lessons learned from the life of the prophet Mohammed. The government has also eased restrictions on the use of video messaging applications like Skype and Whatsapp. The investment conference itself was intended as a symbol of modernity and dubbed by some observers as “Davos in the Desert”. Men and women sat together at the event and it was attended high-profile figures like Tony Blair and Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund. “This initiative is something you couldn’t have imagined happening in Saudi Arabia even a few years back,” said Mr Blair, who praised the direction of Prince Mohammed’s reforms. His comments were criticised by Reprieve, a British human rights group, which called Mr Blair’s praise “spectacularly tone deaf” in light of Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record. “The Saudi government has executed hundreds of people in the past few years – including protesters and children,” said Maya Foa, Reprieve’s director. Prince Mohammed became heir to the throne in June at the expense of his older cousin, the powerful interior minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayaf, who was stripped of his title as crown prince. His father, King Salman, is 81 and in poor health and Prince Mohammed is widely seen as the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia. He serves as the country’s defence minister and has wide powers to manage its economy. The prince has led the country’s war in neighboring Yemen, which has seen more than 10,000 people killed. The UN recently blacklisted the Saudi-led military coalition for killing and injuring hundreds of children in the conflict.
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Saudi Arabia defends decision to execute 14 Saudi Shiites
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, August 5, 2017
CAIRO--Saudi Arabia is defending its decision to execute 14 minority Shiites--whose verdicts sparked criticism in the United States and Europe--declaring in a rare public statement that their trials were conducted fairly.
The men were arrested for their involvement in demonstrations in 2011 and 2012 during the Arab Spring revolts and were later sentenced to death in a secretive counterterrorism court, according to human rights activists and the men’s relatives, who also say that some of the men were tortured and forced into making false confessions.
The group included a teenager who was arrested at the airport before boarding a flight to visit a university in Michigan, and a youth who is half-deaf and nearly blind, activists said.
Shiites in the Sunni-majority kingdom have long complained of discrimination and harassment by authorities.
Last month, the kingdom’s highest court upheld the death sentences, clearing the way for the executions to take place any day now.
A spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Justice, Mansour al-Ghafari, said in a statement released Friday that the trials met international standards for fairness and due process and that the “defendants enjoy full legal rights.” All of them had access to lawyers and all court hearings were in the presence of the media and human rights observers, Ghafari said.
In a response Saturday, a prominent human rights group said the Saudi government’s statement made several false claims and was “at odds with assessments by the U.N. and rights groups.”
“Saudi Arabia’s attempts to justify these 14 unlawful executions are appalling,” said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, an advocacy group based in Britain. “This statement is a serious mischaracterization of the trial process against the 14 men.”
At least one defendant was never permitted to see a lawyer, and in another defendant’s case, no evidence against him was presented at trial, said Reprieve.
Officials with the United Nations last year said the secretive counterterrorism court “raises serious concerns about its lack of independence and due procedure.”
Ghafari said the death sentences were handed down only “for the most dangerous crimes.” Saudi officials in state media have claimed that the 14 men were arrested on terrorism-related charges. But activists say the Saudi government continues to conduct executions for alleged nonviolent crimes.
Some of the 14 men were convicted of using cellphones to organize protests and of using social media, according to Reprieve.
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By Kody Fairfield
A student from Saudi Arabia, arrested 5 years ago, is potentially facing beheading for his alleged participation in a pro-democracy rally.
Mujtaba Al-Sweikat was only 17 when he was arrested at the King Fahd International Airport in 2012 for allegedly attending a pro-democracy rally earlier in the same year. The Free Press explains that Al-Sweikat was at the airport because he had been accepted to attend Western Michigan University.
According to Reprieve, an international human rights group with offices in New York and London, Al-Sweikat’s application was confirmed as was his acceptance letter, which was obtained by the Free Press.
Western Michigan also confirmed Al-Sweikat had been accepted to the university in 2013, but never attended, explained the Free Press.
“We were stunned to learn, for the first time today, of this situation,” Western Michigan spokeswoman Cheryl Roland said in a statement to the Free Press. “It is not unusual for an admitted student to opt out of enrolling at the last minute, so we had no idea there was such a troubling reason behind this student’s failure to come to campus.”
Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, has called the situation “extremely worrying,” and a “breach of international law.”
“The increasingly brutal Saudi Arabian regime has ramped up executions for protest-related offences in recent days, and this latest move is extremely worrying,” said Foa, according to the Free Press. “Mujtaba was a promising 17-year-old boy on his way to study in Michigan when he was arrested, beaten, and later sentenced to death on the basis of a ‘confession’ extracted through torture. He now faces the imminent threat of beheading along with 14 others, including at least one other juvenile and a young disabled man.”
Foa and Reprieve are have since urged action from US President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to “use their close ties to Saudi Arabia to make clear that these egregious abuses must stop — and the imminent executions be immediately stayed,” reports the Free Press.
The Free Press also reports that the American Federation of Teachers also urged Trump to get involved.
“Saudi Arabia’s threat to behead its own citizens for attending an anti-government protest is an unthinkable and despicable violation of international law and basic humanity,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement, reports the Free Press. “This group includes two youths — one of whom, Mujtaba’a al-Sweikat, was at the airport coming to the United States to attend college when he was arrested — a man with disabilities, and 11 other people. People must have a right to speak and associate freely. Should these executions occur, Saudi Arabia should be considered a pariah nation by the world.
“We implore President Trump, as the standard-bearer for our great nation, to do everything in his power to stop the atrocities that may otherwise take place in Saudi Arabia.”
The university itself has also joined the calls for action saying, “The AFT information makes it clear that the critical national political figures with influence in such a situation are informed,” Roland said. “We join the AFT in urging them to use that influence to ask the Saudi government to exhibit compassion,” according to the Free Press.
Reprieve explains, per the Free Press, that during Al-Sweikat’s detention, he has been withheld from legal counsel, and has been forced to sign a confession statement. His refusal to do so allegedly resulted in brutal beatings and torture.
The Free Press and Reprieve explain that Al-Sweikat and others were sentenced to death by Saudi Arabia’s controversial Specialised Criminal Court, which, although established to hear terrorism cases, has been used by authorities to silent dissent through the use of the death penalty.
Four others were executed July 12 for similar protest-related charges, according to the Free Press.
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Drugmakers don’t want their medicines used in spate of Arkansas executions
Manufacturers of drugs often used for lethal injections have asked a judge to stop them from being used in states plan to execute seven men in 11 days
Two drugmakers have asked a judge to stop the use of their medicines for executions in Arkansas, which plans to kill seven men over 11 days before the states supply of a lethal injection drug expires.
Fresenius Kabi USA and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturers of two drug compounds often used for executions in the US, filed amicus briefs in district court in Arkansas on Thursday. When the medicines could be used to protect life, they are instead being used to end it, attorneys for the companies wrote in court documents.
Both corporations have policies to prevent supplies of their drugs ending up in the service of executions, for instance barring distributors from selling to prisons or delivering drugs to other middlemen.
It appears that these controls have been bypassed, the attorneys wrote, adding that unauthorized medicines were more likely to be adulterated due to improper handling, for example, the failure to maintain proper temperature levels during storage and transport.
Fresenius Kabi manufactures potassium chloride, the drug that prison officials use to stop the heart, and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals manufactures midazolam, the controversial sedative that Arkansas has in short supply. Midazolam has been at the center of a series of botched executions in which prisoners struggled at length before dying, and a handful of states have abandoned the sedative. In January, a judge in Ohio blocked the states use of the drug.
Both companies said they had no record of direct or indirect sales to the Arkansas department of correction.
The only conclusion is that these medicines were acquired from an unauthorized seller in violation of important contractual terms that the manufacturers relied on, the attorneys wrote.
More significantly, the use of the medicines for lethal injections creates a public-health risk by undermining the safety and supply of lifesaving medicines, the lawyers added. The use of the medicines in lethal injections runs counter to the manufacturers mission to save and enhance patients lives.
The lawyers also noted that the European Union had strict regulations for products that can be used for capital punishment, meaning that Arkansas actions could convince officials to reduce the supply of medicines for fear of indirectly abetting executions.
Neither the office of Arkansass governor, Asa Hutchinson, nor the states department of corrections immediately replied to phone calls or an email.
Neither corporation took any position on capital punishment itself. The third drug that Arkansas intends to use for the execution, vecuronium bromide, appears to have been made by Hospira, a subsidiary of Pfizer. Executives at the drug giant have said they oppose the use of their drugs in executions, but a spokesperson for the corporation did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Arkansas has a strict secrecy law surrounding its execution procedures, and has refused to say how it acquired the drugs it intends to use. The state has conceded in court that it persuaded a third-party supplier to resell drugs, despite the terms of its contract.
Arkansas deliberately engineered a breach in these companies contracts in order to obtain these drugs, undermining the interests of the healthcare industry and putting public health at risk, said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, a human rights-focused not-for-profit organization.
The companies are understandably appalled at the prospect of their medicines being used in Americas largest mass execution since the civil rights era, she added.
Should the state execute the seven men between 17 and 27 April, it would be the most executions within a few days since the supreme court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Read more: http://ift.tt/2odqD4I
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Bahrain executes three Shia men in first death sentences since 2010
UK urged to loosen ties with Gulf nation after killing of three Shia Muslims as protesters claim confessions extracted under torture
Britain is facing calls to loosen its ties with Bahrain after three Shia Muslim men convicted of killing an Emirati police officer and two Bahraini police officers in a 2014 bomb attack were executed.
The death sentences on Sunday were the first to be carried out in Bahrain since 2010, and protesters claimed that confessions were extracted under torture.
There were street protests in Bahrain following the executions, the first of Bahrainis since 1996, and it remains to be seen how the UK Foreign Office reacts. Britain opposes the death penalty and says it has been working to improve Bahrains human rights record.
Maya Foa, the director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: It is nothing short of an outrage and a disgraceful breach of international law that Bahrain has gone ahead with these executions. The confessions were extracted through torture and the trial was an utter sham.
It would be shameful if the UK continued to support Bahrains security apparatus and interior ministry in the face of such terrible abuses.
Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, tweeted:
Dr Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard)
#Bahrain executed Abbas al-Samea, Ali al-Singace, Sami Mushaima. Torture, unfair trial + flimsy evidence: these are extrajudicial killings
January 15, 2017
The executions came less than a week after the countrys highest court confirmed the punishment against Abbas al-Samea, 27, Sami Mushaima, 42, and Ali al-Singace, 21. The court found there was no evidence of coercion in the case documents.
The three men had been charged with organising, running and financing a terrorist group [al-Ashtar Brigade] with the aim of carrying out terrorist attacks. They were also accused of possession and planting of explosives with the intention to kill.
Mushaima is said to be largely illiterate, while Samea was arrested three hours after the bombing incident. It is also claimed by their supporters that Samea was subjected to beatings, electric shocks, and deprivation of food and water.
State news agency BNA said the men were executed by firing squad in the presence of a judge, a doctor and a Muslim cleric. When their families went to see the men for the last time, they were subjected to police intimidation, it is claimed.
The Arab spring demonstrations led by Bahrains Shia majority were crushed by the Sunni-ruled government with help from its Gulf Arab neighbours in February 2011.
In the past year, Bahrain has instituted a crackdown on Shias imprisoning the most senior rights campaigner, closing the main opposition group, al-Wefaq, and revoking the citizenship of the communitys spiritual leader.
Over the past four years, the UK has spent millions training Bahraini police and helping with the independent police ombudsman. The UK insists it is working to improve the judicial and police system, but critics say the money has turned largely into a front so Britain can expand a naval base in Bahrain largely funded by Manama.
UK signs deal to expand naval presence in Bahrain
The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, issued a statement on Sunday, which said: The UK is firmly opposed to the death penalty and it is our longstanding position to oppose capital sentences in all circumstances. The Bahraini authorities are fully aware of our position and I have raised the issue with the Bahraini government.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy called on Britain to institute a complete arms ban until human rights changes have been implemented. He said Bahrain was becoming a security threat to the region.
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from Bahrain executes three Shia men in first death sentences since 2010
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Bahrain executes 3 over police bombing, triggering protests
Middle East
Bahrain executes 3 over police bombing, triggering protests
Bahrain on Sunday carried out its first executions since an Arab Spring uprising rocked the country in 2011, putting to death three men found guilty of a deadly bomb attack on police. The executions of the Shiite men drew swift condemnation from human rights groups and sparked intense protests by opponents of the Sunni-ruled government, who see the charges as politically motivated. Activists allege that testimony used against the condemned men was obtained through torture. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in several predominantly Shiite communities to protest the executions.
It is nothing short of an outrage — and a disgraceful breach of international law — that Bahrain has gone ahead with these executions...The death sentences handed to Ali, Sami and Abbas were based on 'confessions' extracted through torture, and the trial an utter sham.
Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, International human rights organization
Abbas al-Samea, Sami Mushaima and Ali al-Singace were found guilty in 2015 of killing two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer deployed to bolster the country's security forces in a bomb attack the previous year. A court upheld their death sentences last Monday. The executions followed a spike in protests in solidarity with the convicted men. The rallies at times turned violent as youth hurled projectiles and petrol bombs while police responded with birdshot and tear gas, witnesses said. The sound of gunfire could be heard into the night. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Bahrain's public prosecution said the death sentences were carried out by firing squad. Photos shared by activists purporting to show the bodies of the men showed a tight grouping of multiple gunshot wounds to the heart.
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Saudi king names son as new crown prince, upending the royal succession line
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Kareem Fahim, Washington Post, June 21, 2017
CAIRO--Saudi Arabia’s King Salman elevated his 31-year-old son on Wednesday to become crown prince, ousting his nephew in a seismic shift in the royal succession line that could have deep ramifications for the oil-rich monarchy and the broader Middle East.
In a series of royal decrees, published in the Saudi state news agency, the monarch stripped Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of his position. A powerful figure who as interior minister oversaw the kingdom’s security and counterterrorism operations, he was in line to inherit the throne. He was relieved of all his positions, according to the decrees.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the new crown prince, will also become the kingdom’s deputy prime minister while retaining his control of the Defense Ministry and other portfolios. The decree all but confirms him as the next ruler of this key U.S. ally and the Arab world’s largest economy.
The surprise announcement marks the first time since Saudi Arabia’s first ruler, King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, that a Saudi monarch has designated his own son rather than a brother as his heir apparent. And it’s only the second time since the kingdom’s founding in 1932 that a grandson of Ibn Saud has been named crown prince, and its potential future king. It also consolidates power within King Salman’s family, while weakening the influence of the families of his brothers and their sons.
The change arrives at a critical time for the Sunni Muslim kingdom as it grapples with the economic fallout from declining oil prices and a costly military campaign it leads against Shiite rebels in neighboring Yemen. The kingdom is also heading a bloc of Arab nations that has launched a controversial campaign to isolate the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, accusing it of supporting and financing terrorism.
The ascension of Mohammed bin Salman, along with other recent appointments made by his father, caps a shift to a younger generation of leaders within the ruling family, one that could usher in economic and social change to a nation where it’s still illegal for a woman to drive, where cinemas are banned and coffee shops are segregated. The young prince is already promoting a plan to create jobs for women and modernize a society where nearly two-thirds of the population is under 30 and women make up 22 percent of the workforce.
“We’ve seen the shift of power coming for some time, and the steady centralization of power under King Salman and the purview of his son,” said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf State Institute in Washington.
Regionally, she added, the crown prince’s rise almost certainly means the continuation of “a more assertive Saudi policy abroad and a strong alliance with the UAE in pursuing those policies,” toward their shared goals of rolling back Iranian influence and stronger action against independent political Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood--a longtime target of the Emirati government.
Even as deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman--popularly known as MBS--was given immense powers by his father. As defense minister, he runs the Saudi campaign in Yemen. As the head of an economic council, he has overseen efforts to revamp the kingdom’s energy policies and build a diverse economy that will sustain itself long after its oil reserves are gone.
Unlike Mohammed bin Nayef, who was famous and well-admired in Washington for leading the kingdom’s operations against al-Qaeda, Saudis barely knew Mohammed bin Salman before his father became monarch in January 2015. And many Saudis and analysts were surprised when the king gave his son expansive powers despite the presence of more experienced and qualified candidates.
There did not immediately to be any outward signs of resistance within the monarchy to the long-anticipated changes, which came after Mohammed bin Salman had likely “built the alliances he needed, to affect the transfer of power,” Diwan said.
Less than an hour after the announcement, most members of the Saudi royal family supported the decision, Saudi state television reported, erasing any remote fear of a challenge to the new crown prince. And just to be certain, King Salman ordered all senior-ranking royals to pledge their allegiance to his son at a ceremony set for Wednesday night in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city and the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad.
The most likely resistance would come from those around Mohammed bin Nayef, who publicly pledged his loyalty in a televised encounter that was played on a loop on Saudi television on Wednesday. In the seemingly well-choreographed moment, Mohammad bin Salman is seen shaking Nayef’s hand, then bowing, at once a sign of respect and continuity.
“Within ruling families, there are a lot of struggles that take place before transitions,” Diwan said. “Once the transition is set, there is this bandwagoning effect.”
The announcement arrives during the last week of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and days before Muslims celebrate Eid, the festive holidays marking the end of the fast.
The crown prince’s rise, some analysts say, has been in the works for several months. In April, a cascade of royal decrees led to key appointments of young royals loyal to the Mohammed bin Salman, mostly into sensitive diplomatic and national security positions. Among them was Prince Khaled, the crown prince’s 28-year-old younger brother, who was made ambassador to the United States and a half brother who was named minister of state for energy. Meanwhile, Mohammed bin Nayef’s relatives and loyalists were quietly replaced with the prince’s supporters in the Interior Ministry and intelligence apparatus.
“Besides representing a stunning push for Mohammed bin Salman, the royal decrees also promoted a younger generation, both in the royal family and the state apparatus,” wrote Joseph Bahout, an analyst at the Carnegie Institute’s Middle East Center, in a May post. “This new generation’s loyalty is by all accounts to the rising prince.”
The consolidation of power toward the new crown prince included moves to undermine Mohammed bin Nayef by limiting his access to the king through the royal court, and, in recent days, removing prosecutorial power from the Interior Ministry.
Ever since his father came to power, Mohammad bin Salman has been brash, outspoken and ambitious. Unlike many Saudi princes who attended elite western universities, the crown prince was educated in Saudi Arabia and does not speak fluent English. But his homegrown credentials have made him popular among many Saudis, especially its youth.
He clearly has the ear of his father and Saudi Arabia’s business community. He was put in charge of one of the kingdom’s most pressing problems: reimagining its role and finances in an age of lower oil prices and a global emphasis on renewal energy.
In 2016, he unveiled a post-petrodollar plan that including selling off some of the oil giant Saudi Aramco and creating a sovereign wealth fund to rival those of neighbors Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
But the blueprint also brought complaints from a society accustomed to cradle-to-grave largesse from the Saudi state. Among the belt-tightening measures was a cut in subsidies for gasoline and electricity. He tried to trim state salaries and bonuses, as well, but was forced for reverse the move amid high-level grumbling.
Even as he seeks to reimagine Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman is careful about not antagonizing the kingdom’s ultraconservative religious authorities. They are, perhaps, his main obstacles to achieving his stated goal of liberalizing the kingdom’s culture and creating more opportunities for its young generations.
Apart from his high profile visits to foreign capitals, the new crown prince is perhaps best known outside the region as the architect of Saudi Arabia’s faltering and bloody military intervention in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has led an Arab military coalition seeking to restore the Yemeni government to power after it was ousted by the Houthi rebels.
But more than two years later, the Saudis have failed to defeat the rebels or restore the government. The coalition they lead has is accused of killing thousands of civilians in one of the bloodiest aerial bombing campaigns in the region’s recent history. A catalogue of misery in the country now includes a cholera epidemic that has sickened more than 150,000 since April.
And assessments of the crown prince as a “reformer,” by the kingdom’s standards, did not mean that he would deviate from policies that have been condemned by human rights advocates as brutal, including mass executions. “The reality is Prince Mohammed has stood alongside and publicly defended the King as young men have been tortured and executed for peacefully protesting,” Maya Foa, the Director of Reprieve, an international human rights group.
The changes to the Saudi power structure, with all the attendant drama, did nothing to fundamentally alter the nature of what is the one of the region’s most stifling absolute monarchies, where the public has no say in who holds high office, and dissenting voices are silenced or jailed.
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Drugmakers don’t want their medicines used in spate of Arkansas executions
Manufacturers of drugs often used for lethal injections have asked a judge to stop them from being used in states plan to execute seven men in 11 days
Two drugmakers have asked a judge to stop the use of their medicines for executions in Arkansas, which plans to kill seven men over 11 days before the states supply of a lethal injection drug expires.
Fresenius Kabi USA and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturers of two drug compounds often used for executions in the US, filed amicus briefs in district court in Arkansas on Thursday. When the medicines could be used to protect life, they are instead being used to end it, attorneys for the companies wrote in court documents.
Both corporations have policies to prevent supplies of their drugs ending up in the service of executions, for instance barring distributors from selling to prisons or delivering drugs to other middlemen.
It appears that these controls have been bypassed, the attorneys wrote, adding that unauthorized medicines were more likely to be adulterated due to improper handling, for example, the failure to maintain proper temperature levels during storage and transport.
Fresenius Kabi manufactures potassium chloride, the drug that prison officials use to stop the heart, and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals manufactures midazolam, the controversial sedative that Arkansas has in short supply. Midazolam has been at the center of a series of botched executions in which prisoners struggled at length before dying, and a handful of states have abandoned the sedative. In January, a judge in Ohio blocked the states use of the drug.
Both companies said they had no record of direct or indirect sales to the Arkansas department of correction.
The only conclusion is that these medicines were acquired from an unauthorized seller in violation of important contractual terms that the manufacturers relied on, the attorneys wrote.
More significantly, the use of the medicines for lethal injections creates a public-health risk by undermining the safety and supply of lifesaving medicines, the lawyers added. The use of the medicines in lethal injections runs counter to the manufacturers mission to save and enhance patients lives.
The lawyers also noted that the European Union had strict regulations for products that can be used for capital punishment, meaning that Arkansas actions could convince officials to reduce the supply of medicines for fear of indirectly abetting executions.
Neither the office of Arkansass governor, Asa Hutchinson, nor the states department of corrections immediately replied to phone calls or an email.
Neither corporation took any position on capital punishment itself. The third drug that Arkansas intends to use for the execution, vecuronium bromide, appears to have been made by Hospira, a subsidiary of Pfizer. Executives at the drug giant have said they oppose the use of their drugs in executions, but a spokesperson for the corporation did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Arkansas has a strict secrecy law surrounding its execution procedures, and has refused to say how it acquired the drugs it intends to use. The state has conceded in court that it persuaded a third-party supplier to resell drugs, despite the terms of its contract.
Arkansas deliberately engineered a breach in these companies contracts in order to obtain these drugs, undermining the interests of the healthcare industry and putting public health at risk, said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, a human rights-focused not-for-profit organization.
The companies are understandably appalled at the prospect of their medicines being used in Americas largest mass execution since the civil rights era, she added.
Should the state execute the seven men between 17 and 27 April, it would be the most executions within a few days since the supreme court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Read more: http://ift.tt/2odqD4I
from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2pzQC7l via Viral News HQ
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