AI report on the death penalty in India

Amnistía Internacional publicou hai uns días un informe de máis de duascentas páxinas sobre a pena de morte na India.

O informe leva por título “The Death Penalty in India: A lethal lottery. A study of Supreme Court judgments in death penalty cases 1950-2006″. Copio un extracto da súa versión abreviada:

India stands poised between the global trend to end the death penalty and those nations that continue to execute. Like many of the diminishing number of nations that still apply the death penalty, over the last two decades, India has reduced the number of executions carried out.

The Indian judiciary has ruled that the death penalty for murder must be restricted to the “rarest of rare” cases, but this instruction has been contradicted by the legislature increasing the number of offences punishable by death. The death penalty is mandatory under two of the relevant laws, including for drug-related offences. Death sentences have been imposed on people who may have been children at the time of the crime, and on people suffering from mental illness. There are grave concerns about arbitrariness and discrimination in the processes that lead to people being sentenced to death. Such factors would render India’s use of the death penalty to be in violation of international laws and standards. [...]

In the past three decades, great strides have been made towards a world free from executions. In 1980 only 25 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes. That figure now stands at 91, with a further 11 countries having abolished the death penalty for “ordinary” crimes (but retained it for offences such as treason or under military law). Thirty-three countries are considered by Amnesty International to be “abolitionist in practice” in that they retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes such as murder but have not executed anyone during the past 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions, meaning that a total of 135 of the world’s nations have turned their back on capital punishment in law or practice.

The worldwide trend towards abolition is strong and clear. Outside China, an execution is becoming an increasingly rare event. Vast swathes of the world are now execution-free. In Africa only five countries executed in 2007; Belarus is the only European country that continues to use the death penalty; and the USA is the sole country in the Americas to have carried out any executions since 2003. [...]

It is a shocking fact that most death sentences handed down in India are based on circumstantial evidence alone. In the absence of forensic facilities, the testimony of witnesses is crucial, but there is widespread acknowledgement of the use by police and prosecution of stock or professional witnesses. [...]

A number of cases examined in the present study illustrate how innocent persons have been sentenced to death on the basis of false and fabricated evidence, often used in manipulated investigations and prosecutions, with investigating and prosecuting agencies acting in collusion. The object is often to protect influential offenders. The study revealed a number of capital cases in which confessions appear to have been procured forcibly. The Supreme Court’s acceptance of evidence that might not have been given voluntarily in a number of cases tried under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act 1987 (TADA) is a matter of particular concern. [...]

Enlace relacionado:

• Coalición Mundial contra a Pena de Morte