On
Death
Penalty,
Amnesty'd Like
Ban To Raise
It, Says US
Attacks
Not Judicial
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 26 --
When Amnesty
International
issued a
report on
2011 Death
Sentences and
Executions
under embargo
Monday, it
counted
43 executions
by the United
States.
Inner
City Press
asked AI's
Jose Luis Diaz
why this
didn't include
the situations
recently
described by
Attorney
General Eric
Holder in
which the US
reviews an
individual and
then kills
him, often
with a drone,
and if
Amnesty
considers
these judicial
executions.
He
replied,
"we've
requested the
US
administration
to provide
information on
these kind of
attacks, how
they are
decided and
executed.
There is a
lot of
opacity. We
don't consider
them judicial
executions."
Inner
City Press
asked the US
Mission to the
UN for its
response, two
and a half
hours
before the
embargo was to
expire: "Does
the US agree
or
disagree? Is
the US engaged
in
extra-judicial
executions?
What stance
will the US
Mission to the
UN take on the
UN General
Assembly death
penalty
resolution?"
While at press
time there not
substantive
answers to
these
questions, it
was said the
issues are
decided at the
legal division
of the State
Department in
Washington and
they may be
responding to
Amnesty's
report.
At
the UN, Jose
Luis Diaz
noted that the
death penalty
can be imposed
for example in
Saudi Arabia
for "sorcery,"
and for drugs
in ten
countries,
mostly in
Asia. Its
press release
noted that
that "foreign
national were
disproportionately
affected by
the use of the
death
penalty,
particularly
in Saudi
Arabia,
Malaysia,
Singapore and
Thailand."
UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon, whose
first
appearance
before the
Press at the
UN involved
him misstating
the UN's
position on
the death
penalty
with regard to
Saddam
Hussein, has
just passed
through
Malaysia,
Singapore and
Thailand on
his way to
Seoul. Inner
City Press
asked
Jose Luis Diaz
if Amnesty
International
thinks Ban
should have
raise
the death
penalty issue
in these
countries.
"We
would
like him to
raise it," he
replied.
Inner
City Press
asked, but
does Ban raise
it?
"I
don't
know," replied
Jose Luis Diaz
of Amnesty
International.
An
inevitable
contrast:
after first
refusing to
even summarize
its director
Ken
Roth's meeting
with Ban
Ki-moon, Human
Rights Watch
increasingly
declines to
criticize, or
even
defends,
Ban's
positions,
which have
culminated in
Ban
accepting
without
comment or
opposition an
alleged
war criminal
as his adviser
on
peacekeeping.
HRW said it
refused to
provide any
public summary
in order to
retain access.
Access to
what?
Access for
what? Watch
this site.
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