ExecutedToday.com

Last year on this date, to the impotent howls of human rights groups, five men were beheaded in Jizan, Saudi Arabia and then “crucified.” “In Saudi Arabia, the practice of ‘crucifixion’ refers to the court-ordered public display of the body after execution,” Amnesty UK noted, “along with the separated head if beheaded. It takes place in a public square to allegedly act as a deterrent.”

Jizan is a city being developed as a deep water shipping depot by Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia’s extreme southwest corner near Yemen; this was the ethnicity of the executed men as well. According to the Saudi Interior Ministry, brothers Khaled, Adel and Qassem Saraa as well as Saif Ali al-Sahari and Khaled Showie al-Sahari comprised a gang who carried out robberies in various different cities. They beat and strangled to death at least one man.

ExecutedToday.com

Oklahoma Botches Execution

A botched execution that used a new drug combination left an Oklahoma inmate writhing and clenching his teeth on the gurney Tuesday, leading prison officials to halt the proceedings before the inmate's eventual death from a heart attack.

Clayton Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of the state's new three-drug lethal injection combination was administered. Three minutes later, though, he began breathing heavily, writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow.

The blinds were eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber, and the state's top prison official eventually called a halt to the proceedings. Lockett died of a heart attack a short time later, the Department of Corrections said.

"It was a horrible thing to witness. This was totally botched," said Lockett's attorney, David Autry.

More at Huff. Post

Iranian Poet and Activist Hashem Shaabani Executed

Hashem Shaabani, was executed on January 27th by the order of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. From Radio Free Europe: An Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal reportedly had sentenced the poet to death, along with 14 others, last July on charges that included “waging war on God.”

Press reports said Shaabani was hanged after his sentence was approved by President Hassan Rohani. In a statement on February 5, Freedom House said Shaabani was subjected to severe torture and interrogation during his three years in prison.

Human Rights Voices also reports on the execution, writing: To those who knew him, Hashem Shaabani was a man of peace and understanding struggling to extend spaces of individual freedom within the despotic Khomeinist system…In one of his letters from prison, made available to use through his family, Shaabani says he could not have remained silent against ‘hideous crimes against Ahvazis perpetrated by the Iranian authorities, particularly arbitrary and unjust executions.’ He adds “I have tried to defend the legitimate right that every people in this world should have which is the right to live freely with full civil rights. With all these miseries and tragedies, I have never used a weapon to fight these atrocious crimes except the pen.’”

The Poetry Foundation

'Obama is an enemy combatant and should be executed'

Voters in Republican Rep. Jim Bridenstine’s Oklahoma district may look meek and mild, maybe even sweet, but their opinions of President Obama reveal nothing but a battleground “take-no-prisoners” attitude.

One lady, for example, said there needs to be changes in the Senate so “we can impeach the S-O-B.” Said another: “He’s not president as far as I’m concerned. … Should be executed. He’s an enemy combatant.” She complained that Congress is doing nothing, and that “allows this moron to make decisions.” “He has no authority. None.”

The video was uploaded just this week, but it’s unclear when the meeting was held, and the congressman’s office was unable to provide details immediately. At one point the congressman references “back in April 2013,” and it appears to be winter, so likely it was recorded in the past few months. The congressman had been documenting Obama’s “lawlessness.”

“He picks and chooses which laws to enforce or not enforce. He does it by decree. … He uses foreign bodies. He uses the United Nations,” Bridenstine said.

WorldNetDaily

Iranian man granted mercy by victim’s family during execution

A man sentenced to death for murder in Mashad, northeastern Iran, was granted mercy at the very last moment just as he was being hung from the scaffold.

According to Iranian Mehr news agency, Vahid Zare had been charged with killing a young person doing his military service. He was granted mercy by the victim’s family when he started choking, seconds after the executioner pulled the gallows from beneath his feet.
Once the members of the victims’ family confirmed that they were pardoning the culprit, the officials took Zahe down and sent him to the hospital.

hurriyet daily news – pictures here

Texas executes 'mentally impaired' inmate

US Supreme Court rejected arguments that Marvin Wilson was too mentally challenged to qualify for death penalty.

A Texas man convicted of killing a police informant has been executed after the US Supreme Court rejected arguments that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for the death penalty. Marvin Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead late on Tuesday, 14 minutes after his lethal injection began at the state prison in Huntsville. He was convicted of fatally shooting a police drug informant nearly 20 years ago in Beaumont.

Wilson's attorneys had argued that he should have been ineligible for capital punishment because of his low IQ. They cited the US Supreme Court ruling that banned capital punishment for the mentally impaired. In their appeal to the high court, his attorneys pointed to a psychological test conducted in 2004 that pegged Wilson's IQ at 61, below the generally accepted minimum competency standard of 70.

Al Jazeera - Huffington Post

Obama authorized covert support for Syrian rebels

President Barack Obama has signed a covert directive authorizing U.S. support for Syrian rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces, U.S. officials told CNN on Wednesday. The secret order, referred to as an intelligence "finding," allows for clandestine support by the CIA and other agencies. It was unclear when the president signed the authorization for Syria, but the sources said it was within the past several months.

CNN.com

Operation Product

Pictures have emerged from executions by Dutch military in the then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).

Operation Product, (1947/1948) was the first of two major Dutch military offensives against the Republic of Indonesia during the Indonesian National Revolution. It took place following Dutch assertions that Indonesia cooperated insufficiently in the implementation of the Linggadjati Agreement, which had been ratified on March 25, 1947 by the lower chamber of the Dutch parliament. This police action was also influenced by a Dutch perception that the Republic had failed to curb the influence of Indonesian Chinese, Indonesian Indians and the rising Indonesian Communist Party.

Operation Product, directed by General Simon Spoor, was intended to occupy economically important areas of West and East Java, leaving Yogyakarta, seat of the Republican government, alone because of the high costs that the fighting was expected to incur. On July 21, the Dutch deployed three divisions in Java and three brigades on the less-densely populated Sumatra. The operation resulted in the occupation of large parts of Java and Sumatra, with the Republican army (TNI) offering only weak resistance.

Wikipedia

Saudi Arabia to execute 25 Indonesian maids for alleged crimes

The Saudi Arabian regime has ruled to execute 25 Indonesian maids working in the kingdom over alleged crimes, a report says.

According to a report published by Lebanese Ad-Diyar Arabic daily on Sunday, 22 other Indonesian maids have been acquitted and deported from the kingdom.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government plans to send a delegation to Riyadh for negotiations over the death sentences. Indonesian Embassy officials in Riyadh say six of the maids sentenced to death worked in the capital. About 1,700 Indonesian nationals are in prison in Saudi Arabia, the Indonesian Embassy says.

PressTV

Amnesty alarmed by execution surge

Executions around the world soared last year with countries like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia resorting to the death penalty more often, Amnesty International has said in a new report.

The rights group said on Tuesday that at least 676 people were executed in 20 countries in 2011 compared with 527 executions in 23 countries in 2010, a 78 per cent increase. Executions in the Middle East rose by almost 50 per cent last year to 558, the group said. Methods of execution used around the world included beheading, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.

However, Amnesty said China executed more people than the rest of the world put together. Data on the death penalty in China is a state secret and Amnesty International no longer publishes a figure for Chinese executions, but it said they were in the thousands.

Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary-general, said that when Amnesty was launched in 1961 only nine countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, whereas last year only 20 countries carried out executions.

Al Jazeera English

Troy Davis Executed

Huffington Post

The Long, Murderous Arm of the Law Has Killed Troy Davis 
Let us not mince words: The state of Georgia just murdered Troy Davis. The state coroner will list homicide as his cause of death. But he wasn’t the first and, sadly, he won’t be the last person slaughtered in the name of U.S. law and order. There are today dozens more people scheduled to be killed by states, according to Amnesty International. Their likely deaths represent the ultimate act of perversity in a system that destroys untold thousands of primarily black and brown lives every day. - Alternet

10 reasons why he should not be executed on The Guardian

Rick Perry in the spotlight as Texas sets to work on controversial executions

Rick Perry, the frontrunner to become the Republican candidate in next year's US presidential election, has just hours left to prevent a man being put to death in Texas in a case in which the jury was told the prisoner was a danger to the public – and should therefore be executed – because he was black.

Duane Buck is one of four men scheduled to die by lethal injection in Texas, where Perry is governor, over the next eight days – an exceptional rate even in this execution-happy state. At Buck's sentencing hearing, the jury that set his punishment was informed by a psychologist that black people had a higher rate of violent behaviour, a statement used by the prosecution as its key argument against giving him an alternative penalty of life imprisonment.

On Tuesday night, another hotly contested case is scheduled to reach its climax with the execution of Steven Woods, who was sentenced to death for a double murder, even though an alleged accomplice later confessed to having pulled the trigger.

More on The Guardian – Also see Scheduled Executions on Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Iranian web programmer faces execution on porn charges

A 35-year-old Iranian web programmer is facing imminent execution in connection with developing and promoting porn websites, charges that his family insist are trumped up.

Saeed Malekpour, a permanent resident of Canada who was arrested in October 2008 after his arrival in Tehran, is convicted of designing and moderating adult content websites, acting against the national security, insulting and desecrating the principles of Islam, and agitating the public mind.

Speaking from Toronto, Malekpour's wife, Fatemeh Eftekhari, said her husband has been informed of the verdict and has been transferred to solitary confinement for the sentence to be administered if the supreme court sanctions it. She says her husband was a web programmer who had written photo uploading software that was used in a porn website without his knowledge.

Human rights groups have expressed alarm over a sharp increase in the use of capital punishment in Iran. According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI), 121 people have been hanged between 20 December 2010 and 31 January this year. An ICHRI report published in mid-January said that Iran has hanged an average of one person every eight hours since the beginning of the new year.

Full article on The Guardian

Free Saeed Malekpour on Facebook - The Case of Saeed Malekpour: Web Developer Jailed Since 2008

US to use animal drug in execution

A man on Oklahoma's death row for the 2001 slaying of his cellmate is believed to be the first US inmate set to be executed using a sedative commonly used to euthanise animals.

John David Duty is set to die at 0000 GMT on Friday at the Oklahoma state penitentiary in McAlester. A federal appeals court earlier this week upheld a judge's ruling that allows the state to substitute
pentobarbital for sodium thiopental, an anaesthetic normally used in the state's lethal injection formula.

A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental led Oklahoma to alter its three-drug cocktail.

Attorneys for Duty, 58, and two other death-row inmates challenged the state's decision to use pentobarbital, arguing during a November federal court hearing that it had not been done before in executions and could be inhumane.

Al Jazeera