Out of his tree

While reading the local paper the other day, I came across an article which stood out from the usual rice or weather related stories. It stated that a woman, Astini, from Surabaya had been executed for the murder of three girls, whom she had preceded to cut into small pieces and then deposited their remains over a wide area. This was obviously a very distressing case and unusual, in that the perpetrator was a woman. Astini was 51 years old and married with 3 children. She offered no defence for her actions, pleading guilty in 1996 saying she was angry with the three victims who frequently came to her house collecting debts.

The method of execution in Indonesia is death by firing squad, the squad consisting of twelve men, six of whom carry live bullets and aim for the heart. The girls in my office said that the death penalty is rarely carried out in Indonesia and they believe the method to be more humane than in Malaysia where hanging is the preferred option. This was Indonesia's fourth execution since August last year and before that, only two people had been executed since 1995. The offences which carry this most final of sentence are murder and drug trafficking.

On discussing the news story with our neighbours they told us about a local chap who is currently on death row for murder. He murdered his wife, child and sister-in-law and then went on the run. He ran only as far as the tallest tree in the area, which he proceeded to climb while still carrying the murder weapon, a machete. Meanwhile the local police and army leapt into action and combed the area to no avail. It seems that climbing a tree as a means to avoid detection is not such an unusual idea, so it wasn't long before everyone started looking upwards in their search and found their suspect clinging to a particularly tall tree. On seeing the machete, the police felt the retrieval of the suspect was more of an army matter so stood back. The army was convinced it was the responsibility of the police, so stood back too. After much prevarication it was decided safer and easier all round to make camp at the base of the tree and wait. After all, the suspect was without food or water, so they figured he would climb down when he was hungry. The villagers, on the other hand, felt a more proactive approach was needed, so they started a fire at the foot of the tree. This being a particularly tall tree, the man was able to climb a bit higher and avoid the heat and smoke.

After a couple of days the lack of food and drink seemed to take effect and eyewitness accounts state that the man tried to make his escape either by attempting to leap from one tree to another or by leaping from the tree to the ground, over the waiting police and army, maybe with some vain hope that he would get a running start. Either way, he hit the ground hard and broke his leg.

He is currently residing in jail awaiting an execution date.

Obviously this isn't meant to make light of the crime committed, but locally, the manner of this individual's attempted escape and the subsequent 'Laurel and Hardy' means of capture has meant it has become the stuff of folklore.

However, just in case we run a way with the idea that Indonesia is particularly brutal, lets review some facts about the death penalty:

In 2000, 88 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA.
America is approaching its 900th execution since it resumed judicial killing in 1977.

International human rights treaties prohibit anyone under 18 years old at the time of the crime from being sentenced to death. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child all have provisions to this effect.

Seven countries since 1990 are known to have executed prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime - Congo (Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA and Yemen. The country which carried out the greatest number of known executions of child offenders was the USA (15 since 1990), accounting for more than half of child executions worldwide. Yemen has since outlawed the practice (as did China in 1997).

Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice with more than three countries a year on average abolishing the death penalty for all crimes in the past decade.

Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 1996, concluded: "Research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment and such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. The evidence as a whole still gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis..." (Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, revised edition, 1996, p. 238, paragraph 328)

As long as the death penalty is maintained, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.
The Governor of the US State of Illinois, George Ryan, declared a moratorium on executions in January 2000. His decision followed the exoneration of the 13th death row prisoner found to have been wrongfully convicted in the state since the USA reinstated the death penalty in 1977.

Announcing the moratorium, Governor Ryan said: ''I cannot support a system which, in its administration, has proven so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life... Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate.''

(statistics courtesy of Amnesty International)

Comments

[Steve]

I am a little late commenting on this, but anyway, On the subject of the death penalty, first I want to say I most strongly disagree with this practice. But, I would like to point out that your comments appear to be disproportionately critical of the USA. Taking the number of executions world wide last year at approx. 3,700, China was responsible for 3,400+ of these. The USA executed 59 people or 1.6% of the total. What is of more interest in the USA is that more than half of these executions took place in one state, Texas. So you may criticize the USA for its stance, but even if you were to get them to stop, which may happen sooner than anyone thinks, 98.5% or 3641+ would still have been executed by other countries.
Why is it you didn’t comment on the fact that a large number of the executions in China were ‘made to order’, to provide organs for the growing transplant program in China.

[Beth]

Of course Steve is right about the relative numbers of executions in China and USA. In fact the league table for 2004 is as follows:

1 China 3,400*

2 Iran 159*

3 Vietnam 64*

4 United States 59*

5 Saudi Arabia 33*

6 Pakistan 15*

7 Kuwait 9*

8 Bangladesh 7*

9= Egypt 6*

= Singapore 6*

= Yemen 6*

*Minimum

While I accept that China certainly does perform many more executions than the USA, that does not in itself absolve the USA, or make the statistics any more palatable. Just consider the company in which America finds itself. China’s human rights record is appalling, but, and I mean this as no defence, China does not hold itself up as a beacon of liberty for the world to follow.

Furthermore, there are over 3,500 people on ‘Death Row’ in the US, who exist in a macabre limbo somewhere between life and death. This, combined with the gratuitously gruesome termination methods, is a particular type of cruelty that satisfies the uncivilised urge for retribution, which should have no place in a modern, free society.

So, I take your point about the fact that before we condemn the US we should deplore China, but surely you ignore the fact that the world has indeed become a worrying place if we are no longer expected to hold America to the highest possible standard.