At least 20 people executed in China to mark UN anti-drug day

It has been reported that at least 20 people have been executed in China to mark UN anti-drug day, June 26th

It is, of course, also UN day in support of victims of torture, yet the ultimate form of cruel inhuman and degrading punishment is the most visible celebration of (the clearly ill-conceived) UN anti-drug day.

Here you can see a video of four people being sentenced to death. Three Chinese and one Nigerian national, Osonwa Okey Noberts.

China again executes drug offenders to mark UN Anti-Drugs Day

EIGHT DRUG TRAFFICKERS EXECUTUTED IN CHINA AMID INTENSIFIED CRACKDOWNS

[photo: A Chinese policeman guards an illegal trafficker at a detention cell in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.]

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Eight people who had been sentenced to death for drug production and trafficking were executed Thursday in China amid intensified crackdowns ahead of the annual international anti-drug day, which falls on Friday.

The Supreme People's Court said six Chinese nationals, five men and one woman, were executed Thursday morning. They were involved in four cases of drug production, trafficking or selling.

The court did not disclose the locations of these executions. The death penalty is usually imposed by local courts and subject to review and approval by the Supreme People's Court.

The six were Wang Xilin, Lu Gang, Zhou Zhenjun, Wang Li, Li Ersa and Yan Chaomin, the court said at a press conference. In their cases, more than 400 kilograms of various drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine, were manufactured, trafficked or sold.

Also Thursday, trafficker Tian Yulai was executed in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province. In Quanzhou City, in east China's Fujian Province, Liu Huiyang was executed. He was convicted of manufacturing narcotics in 2005.

In addition to the eight cases above, the Liaoning Provincial Supreme People's Court in northeast China said Thursday that two men convicted of heading a gang that smuggled drugs from Myanmar into China were executed in May.

Liu Fuying and Sun Yulong were convicted last August by the court for transporting 8 kg of heroin in their bodies on trips from Myanmar to Liaoning from 2002. Another member of their gang, Liu Yuwen, was given the death penalty with a two-year suspension.

The death penalties imposed on the eve of the annual International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking was an apparent move by China to demonstrate its determination to crack down on drug-related crimes.

Zhang Jun, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, said China still faced a grave challenge in anti-drug campaigns because of the worsening situation globally.

Courts across China handled 14,282 drug-related cases between January and May, up 12 percent over the same period last year. In these cases, 6,379 people were convicted and received severe penalties, ranging from five years' imprisonment to capital punishment, Zhang told the reporters.

He said judicial authorities would continue to give tough sentences to those convicted of drug crimes, particularly leaders of drug smuggling rings, repeat offenders, armed and violent drug dealers, or members of transnational crime groups.

"The Supreme People's Court will approve drug-related death penalties without hesitation if they are sentenced by local courts in line with the right criteria," he said.

In general, China's highest court has become increasingly cautious in upholding death sentences from lower courts in order to ensure fair trials.

But Zhang said the nation needed to take strict measures to keep drug traffickers at bay, as drug crimes had become more rampant and sophisticated in the past two years.

"Many unconventional methods are used in drug trafficking, such as hiding narcotics inside the human body or international parcels. Many new types of drugs have also emerged. All this makes anti-drug struggles more challenging," Zhang said.

Heroin accounted for 75.42 percent of all seized narcotics in China in 2007, while methamphetamine, commonly known as "Ice", accounted for 12.55 percent. The proportions shifted to 65.88 percent and 20.44 percent in 2008.

New drugs made from easily-obtained chemicals would make the situation more difficult and require constant crackdowns, Zhang said.

"We have seen rising numbers of people in drug trafficking gangs in recent years. Their activities tend to be more and more professional," said Wu Yanjun, an official with the Liaoning Provincial Supreme People's Court.

Courts in the province handled 1,054 drug cases from June last year to May, involving 1,797 people. The number of cases was 60 percent more than the previous comparable period, and the number of people involved was up 90 percent, Wu said.

Statistics from Chinese customs also indicated a rise of drug trafficking cases this year.

Customs discovered 198 cases so far this year, up 15.9 percent from a year earlier, with 278 suspected traffickers. In these cases, 430 kg of drugs were seized.

Police authorities in Beijing said Thursday that the amount of seized drugs in the January-May period reached 211.5 kg, three times the figure in the same period last year.

Beijing police have intensified checks on international air travelers and cargo because these were increasingly used as trafficking channels, said Xie Yongzhi, an anti-drug officer with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security.

Police departments in other big cities including Guangzhou and Shanghai also reported a rise of drug cases this year.

SOURCE: Xinhua 25 June 2009

UPDATE: AFP now reports that at least 20 people have been executed, with a similar number of death sentences handed down and hundreds of people put on trial.

Ending the Death Penalty for Drug Offenses -- Now Is the Time, Say Human Rights, Harm Reduction Groups

from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #591, 6/26/09

In April, two Thai citizens, Sureeya Wuttisat, 45, and Asan Tong, 47, were sentenced to death in Malaysia after being convicted of trafficking about 40 pounds of marijuana. The sentence may be an outrage, but it is not a fluke. At least 16 countries in Asia apply the death penalty for some drug offenses, and an equal number in the rest of the world, including the United States, do, too.

Today is the United Nations' International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, and in recent years, China has taken to marking it by executing drug offenders. This year, China got off to an early start, killing six people for drug offenses yesterday. Last year, Indonesia joined China in the gruesome festivities, as it, too, put drug offenders to death.

This year, a consortium of human rights and harm reduction organizations are using UN anti-drug day to challenge the resort to the death penalty for drug offenses. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Harm Reduction Association, and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) have joined together to call on Asian governments to end the death penalty for drug offenses.

The groups say they do not know how many people are sentenced to death or executed because many countries in the region do not make available information on the death penalty. But a perusal of the archives of the anti-death penalty group Hands Off Cain shows that so far this year, a minimum of 69 people have been executed for drug offenses and 14 more sentenced to death.

If these publicly available accounts accurately reflect who is being sentenced to death or executed and where, Iran is by far the leading drug war executioner. (Reports from China, the other likely drug execution leader, are rare.) So far this year, Iran has executed at least 59 people for drug offenses, with China reporting eight, and Saudi Arabia two. During this same period, seven people have been sentenced to death for drug offenses in Malaysia, six in China, and one in Vietnam.

The executions and death sentences come even as the world moves toward restricting or abolishing the death penalty. Last year, only 25 countries carried out executions. And they come despite any evidence that they have any impact on drug trafficking or consumption. As the UN itself noted in 1988, 1996, and 2002, "research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment. Such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. The evidence as a whole gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis."

Counties using the death penalty for drug offenses are also violating UN human rights standards. The UN holds that the death penalty should be imposed only as an "exceptional measure" for "the most serious crimes" where "there was an intention to kill which resulted in the loss of life."

Building on a campaign to end the death penalty for drug offenses by the IHRA's HR2 (harm reduction and human rights), ADPAN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the IHRA are using UN anti-drug day to appeal to Asian governments to:

* Introduce an immediate moratorium on executions with a view to the abolition of the death penalty in line with UN General Assembly resolution 62/149 and 63/168 on "moratorium on the use of the death penalty";
* Commute all death sentences, including for drug offenses;
* Remove provisions within their domestic legislation that allow for the death penalty for drug offenses;
* Abolish the use of mandatory sentencing in capital cases;
* Publicize statistics on the death penalty and facts around the administration of justice in death penalty cases; and
* Use the occasion of Anti-Drugs Day 2009 to highlight public health policies that have proven effective in reducing drug-related harms.

"The problem with the death penalty for drug offenses is that it plainly violates international law," said Human Rights Watch's Rebecca Schleifer. "The UN rapporteur has made it clear that the death penalty for drug offenses violates international human rights law."

In many countries with the death penalty for drug offenses, Schleifer noted, judicial processes are faulty and due process is lacking. In some of them, including Malaysia and Singapore, the death penalty is mandatory in some drug cases, again a violation of international standards for fair trials.

Not only does the death penalty for drug offenses not deter potential offenders, it works against reducing the harms of drug use, Schleifer said. "Our work has found time and time again that excessive punishments and repressive drug law enforcement actually drive people away from life-saving health services," she observed.

"The movement against the death penalty is one that has been long fought and one that is clearly moving in the direction of international abolition," said IHRA's Rick Lines, the author of a 2007 IHRA report on the death penalty for drug offenses. "Yet for many years, the specific issue of the death penalty for drugs has been largely invisible, both within the drug reform movement and the anti-death penalty movement. But now we are seeing a shift in that, with many more people and organizations speaking out, not only on the basis that the death penalty for drugs violate international law, but also that it epitomizes an enforcement-centered approach to drug policy that is a failure in every respect."

Today's joint statement is significant, said Lines, because it brings together major international human rights and harm reduction organizations. "This shows the potential of the death penalty issue to build bridges and working relationships between these two important movements," he said. "That will only enhance the prospects for policy and legislative change. Clearly, no government is likely to change policy before people start making those demands. We now hear those demands becoming louder and more focused."

"Government attitudes do change," said ADPAN's Andrew de Cruz, citing the abolition of the death penalty in Burundi and Togo in the last few weeks, Vietnam's reduction in the number of death penalty offenses, and changes in death penalty practices in China. He might well have also cited Iran, which despite its high number of drug executions, has hinted that it wants to reduce executions overall.

"For these changes to continue it is important to ensure we convey the messages that the death penalty violates human rights and that it does not help deter crime," de Cruz said. "When it comes to drug offences, we can make further arguments that the death penalty for drug offenses is illegal under international human rights law, and that it has actually been counterproductive to policies known to help prevent some of the harmful health consequences of drugs to individuals and societies."

Applying pressure to individual countries is only part of the campaign, said Schleifer. "We would like all of the UN human rights agencies as well as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to speak out definitively against the use of the death penalty as a violation of international law," she said. "Last year, UNODC came close when it talked about asking states to reconsider the use of the death penalty for drug offenses, but we would like to see them step up and recognize what international law says."

Last year, the UN General Assembly issued a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, Schliefer noted. "We would like to see the UN repeat that," she said. "Not just the General Assembly, but also UNODC joining publicly."

The campaign against the death penalty for drug offenses is well underway, but it still has a long way to go. If you are reading these words on UN anti-drug day, you know that the ritual state murders to mark it have already begun.

Security, development and human rights should be our primary concerns on World Drug Day

A slightly edited version of this piece is currently on The Guardian's Comment is Free section and open for comments.

I'd not have chosen the headline I must say. Nice song and all, but not exactly what I was getting at.




Reframing the drug debate:
On UN anti-drug day, security, development and human rights should be our primary concerns

Tomorrow is World Drug Day intended “to inspire people to act against drug abuse and trafficking.” Yesterday, to mark the event, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which spearheads the campaign, launched its annual World Drug Report. If past years are any indication, however, this launch will not be the only event that hits the news. Last year, Indonesia marked the day by executing two Nigerians by firing squad. Since the early 1990s, China has chosen June 26th to carry out multiple death sentences, sometimes en masse, often in public. (IHRA, along with ADPAN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called upon all governments in Asia to end the death penalty for drug offences)

These executions lead us, on World Drug Day, to ask serious questions of drug policies. About their aims, directions and about the harms caused to security, development and human rights by our laws, policies and activities. There are many other such observances throughout the year, intended to remind us of specific issues crucial to these “pillars” of the international community.

December 10th, of course, is Human Rights Day. November 16th is World Day for Tolerance. March 21st is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. August 9th is the International Day for the World’s Indigenous People. On these days we may reflect upon violent drug crackdowns, the hundreds of thousands of drug users confined to coercive drug treatment centres, extrajudicial killings, skyrocketing prison populations with massively over-represented black and ethnic minority groups, and the indigenous peoples of the Andean region, legislated out of the traditional use of their sacred coca plant by the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

World Health Day is celebrated on April 7th when it is worth remembering that 80% of the world’s population has insufficient access to opiates for pain relief. The fact that this is caused, in part, by overly restrictive narcotics laws, is shameful. Aerial fumigation campaigns to eradicate illicit crops may come to mind on May 21st and 22nd on the Day for Cultural Diversity and Dialogue for Development, and World Day for Bio-diversity. On World AIDS day, December 1st, ask why so many people continue to contract HIV through unsafe injecting, when we have known for two decades how to prevent it through needle and syringe exchange and opioid substitution therapy. Ask why the international community could not agree to support these interventions in the political declaration adopted at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March to set the next ten years of international drug policy.

The question of security is particularly pertinent right now. The World Drug Report describes as “catastrophic” the “the current disregard of the security threat posed by organized crime”. It states clearly, however, that international drug control itself is responsible, one of “several unintended consequences, the most formidable of which is the creation of a lucrative black market for drugs and the violence and corruption it generates”. Instead of calling for fundamental change, this revelation is used as justification for more of the same.

On the positive side, the World Drug Report is critical of human rights abuses and calls for a greater focus on the right to health of drug users. This is very welcome, but is nigh on impossible when so many people are criminalised because of drugs.

The UN itself is not to blame, however. It is nation states that are responsible. June 26th is a microcosm of the misguided approach to international drug policy that is damaging to human security, a barrier to sustainable development and has resulted in a range of human rights abuses. Under the guardianship of the UN, it is one that is counter-productive to the very reasons the organisation was established. Those reasons, reflected in Article 1 of the UN’s Charter, are to maintain peace and security, find solutions to economic and social problems, and to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. June 26th, by the way, is also the day the UN Charter was signed in 1945.

It is time to start counting the costs of drug control in terms of security, development and human rights. Without this, the current approach will remain self-justifying and therefore self-perpetuating. Later, on September 21st, International Day for Peace, and on October 17th, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, perhaps we may think about getting our priorities straight.

***

Speaking of priorities, I'm currently reading "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better", an excellent book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. This graph from the book, and available on their website www.equalitytrust.org.uk provides considerable food for thought. According to the preface, the book was almost called "Evidence-Based Politics"...imagine.

A Drug Free Sweden?

A new film by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), made in co-operation with our friends at the Swedish Drug Users Union has been produced and is well worth a watch.

The myths about Sweden's drug policies are legion, some of them currently doing the rounds in response to my recent article on the Guardian website.

Some particularly interesting moments in this film are:

Henrik Tham, Criminologist, referring to Sweden as a "hawk", siding with the wrong states in the drug war.

The head of European Cities Against Drugs seeing no problem with human rights and restrictive drug policies, but seemingly stuck for anything to add after that

And the head of RNS, Per Johansson, making a harm reduction analogy (motorcycle helmets) to justify criminalising drug use.

INPUD Statement at UNAIDS PCB meeting, Geneva

This week in Geneva, the Program Coordinating Board (PCB) of UNAIDS is meeting. On the agenda is a discussion on HIV prevention among injection drug users, and there is debate taking place to try and urge explicit support for the term 'harm reduction' in the UNAIDS action points coming out of the session.

During the debate this morning, the International Network of People who Use Drugs made an excellent intervention, which was perpared by Mat Southwell and Erin O’Mara and read out during the plenary session by Mat.

The text of the INPUD statement is below.

'Thank you chair and fellow participants in this UNAIDS PCB and thank you Christian for your clear report. I have the privilege to speak on behalf of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), a global movement of current and ex drug users.

We would like to extend our thanks to Michel Sidibe for his leadership, vision and humanity. You cannot underestimate the impact when international leaders, such as Michel and Michel Kazatchkine from Global Fund, talk with compassion and understanding about our community. We offer ourselves as partners in our collective march towards Universal Access and Human Rights.

We would like to thank DfID for providing INPUD with its first seed funding and we call on other countries to support our community at a country, regional and global level to take part in the planning and delivery of HIV prevention and treatment, and discussions about wider harm reduction strategies.

We thank the Dutch Government for organising the donors conference earlier this year and we thank UNAIDS for the interim funding that has been key to INPUD’s engagement as an international partner. We thank the World AIDS Campaign, and the International AIDS Alliance, for funding our participation in this meeting, and we note the financial constraints that prevent meaningful representation of people who use drugs from the developing world.

People who use drugs, and our organisations, are part of the solution not the problem. Too often, we are blamed for the policy failures of drug control. In fact, our community has consistently developed and championed public health strategies that improve the health and welfare of our, and the wider, community. For example, the world’s first needle exchange was run by a drug user organisation in Holland, back in 1982, as a response to Hepatitis B. Needle exchange is now a cornerstone of HIV prevention strategies with people who inject drugs.

We call on UN agencies to develop an integrated response to the HIV and Hepatitis C pandemics that are decimating our community. We also call for a more holistic engagement in harm reduction around drug use that recognises the need to also work with non-injecting populations, people who use stimulant drugs, and those at risk of overdosing.

We welcome the new UNODC and WHO programme that will champion Universal Access to Effective Treatment options. We welcome Dr Gerra’s willingness to engage with our community and his public opposition to the use of cruel and degrading practices that occur in the name of drug treatment. We call for research into effective treatments, both psycho-social and medical, for people who use stimulant drugs.

Most people who use drugs, and live with HIV and Hepatitis C, are still unable to access treatment options due to stigma and discrimination. The absence of Opiate Substitution Therapies also makes it harder for people who use drugs to achieve the stability required to access Anti-Retro Viral and Interferon treatments.

We are clearly entering a new chapter with strong and humane leadership from UNAIDs and other key international agencies. People who use drugs must be part of the assessment of the UNAIDS Outcomes. The inclusion of our voices in the planning and review of services is likely to lead to better value for money and more effective outcomes. We believe that interventions with people who use drugs should aim to enable our community members to live full, effective and empowered lives so we can truly be part of the solution rather than being framed as the problem.'

For more information on INPUD's activities, see the new INPUD blog.

Don't End Treatment That Works - Op Ed by Human Rights Watch

Click the image to read this excellent op-ed by Rebecca Schleifer and Megan McLemore from Human Rights Watch on medication assisted therapy in Puerto Rican prisons.

* Please note that "Jose" in this piece is a pseudonym.