By Justin Dorman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANA’A, Yemen– The humanitarian organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have pleaded with Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to save the life of Mohammad Abd al-Karim Mohammad Haza’a. Haza’a, who may have been a minor when he was convicted, has been sentenced to death, and is scheduled to be shot by firing squad tomorrow morning.

Haza’a was first found guilty of murder in August 1999 by the Court of First Instance in Taizz. He was only sentenced to imprisonment and a payment of blood money, known as diya, because Haza’a was found to be seventeen at the time the crime was committed.

Under international law, states are strictly prohibited from utilizing capital punishment as a sanction against a minor who has committed a crime. Where a convict’s age is disputed, a presumption will arise in favor of finding the convict a minor. Any action would be stayed contingent on an investigation into the truth.

Nevertheless, on appeal, the appellate court amended Haza’a’s sentence to the death penalty. Because the dissenting judge believed that Haza’a was a child when he committed the murder, the judge refused to sign onto the decision.

Despite the uncertainty, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Appeals Court in April of 2008. The Supreme Court made no effort to re-examine what Haza’a’s age was when he committed the murder.  

The child rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, Priyanka Motaparthy, has urged the president of Yemen not to allow the carrying out of Haza’a’s sentence, which Hadi had inherited from previous president, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s consent.

Haza’a was originally set to be executed last week. His death was delayed a week due to the persistent efforts of groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection, to stop the capital punishment, while evidence of his juvenile age exists.

If Haza’a is killed tomorrow, he will not be the first Yemeni minor to have been served with capital punishment. As a result of imprecise records and bad rulings, other minors have been sentenced to death. Currently, Haza’a is one of one hundred eighty criminals facing a death sentence for a crime committed by one when the criminal was a juvenile.

Other countries who have executed juveniles in the past five years include Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

For further information, please see:

Amnesty International – We Wish to Inform you That Tomorrow you Will be Executed – 8 March 2013

Human Rights Watch – Yemen: Halt Execution of Alleged Juvenile Offender – 8 March 2013

Yemen Post – In Response to Sejay’s Appeal, Taiz Court Suspends Death Penalty Against Juvenile – 27 February 2013

By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

JERUSALEM, Israel — The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) published a 22-page report last Wednesday claiming that the ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention centers “appears to be widespread and systematic.”

In its report, entitled “Children in Israeli Military Detention,” UNICEF estimates that about 700 children within the West Bank aged between twelve and seventeen were arrested by Israeli forces each year.  UNICEF says that this is a rate equivalent to “an average of two children each day.”  Figures provided for the month of January reveal that 233 children are currently in custody, and 31 of those children are below the age of sixteen.  However, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Prison Service said that currently, 307 Palestinian minors are in Israeli custody, 108 of them are serving a prison sentence.  The spokeswoman said that most of those children are between sixteen and eighteen, while the rest are under sixteen.

The report also stated that Israel is the only country in the world where children are systematically tried in military courts, deeming the practices as “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment.”   “Israel is the only place in the world where automatically, a child when he is under arrest, is put before a military tribunal,” said Jean-Nicholas Beuze, UNICEF’s regional advisor on child protection. “It does exist in other countries (but only) as an exception.”

The report states that the ill-treatment often begins with an arrest of the child, usually occurring in the middle of the night, then it continues through the prosecution and sentencing periods.  The report provides examples of abuse, such as “the practice of blindfolding children and tying their hands with plastic ties, physical and verbal abuse during transfer to an interrogation site, including the use of painful restraints.”  Children were rarely informed of their rights during questioning.

During questioning, the report states that minors are subjected to “physical violence and threats, are coerced into confessions, and do not have immediate access to a lawyer or family during questioning.”  UNICEF also pointed out that some cases existed where children suffered through prolonged exposure to the elements, and were not provided with an adequate amount of food, water, and did not had access to a toilet.

During the sentencing phase, children arrive to court shackled, are denied bail and imposition of custodial sentences, and are transferred outside of the occupied Palestinian territory to serve their sentences inside Israel.

UNICEF based its findings on more than 400 cases documented since 2009, legal papers and reports composed by both governmental and non-governmental groups, and through interviews with Palestinian minors, and Israeli and Palestinian officials and lawyers.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that ministry officials along with the Israeli military cooperated with UNICEF.   Palmor said that Israel wants to improve its treatment of Palestinian minors held in custody. “Israel will study the conclusions and will work to implement them through ongoing cooperation with UNICEF, whose work we value and respect,” he said.

For further information, please see:

Al Arabiya — Israeli Ill-Treatment of Palestinian Minors ‘Widespread, Systematic:’ UNICEF — 6 March 2013

Al Jazeera — Israel Accused of Abusing Detained Children — 6 March 2013

The Daily Star — Israel Ill-Treatment of Palestinian Minors ‘Systematic’: UN — 6 March 2013

The Jewish Press — UNICEF: Israel Treatment of Arab Minors in Custody Cruel and Inhuman — 6 March 2013

By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANAA, Yemen — Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a 30 page report last Monday, revealing the number of juveniles who currently face capital punishment in Yemen.  For their report, HRW interviewed five young men and a young woman on death row in Sanaa Central Prison, and also reviewed case files for nineteen other alleged juvenile offenders.

Titled “‘Look at Us with a Merciful Eye’: Juvenile Offenders Awaiting Execution on Yemen’s Death Row,” HRW urged President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to immediately reverse execution orders for three alleged juvenile offenders who had exhausted their appeals process and currently await an execution by firing squad.

The report also revealed that at least 22 juveniles were sentenced to death despite being under 18 years old at the time they allegedly committed the crime.  It also stated that at least fifteen men and women who claimed to be below the age of eighteen were executed in the last five years.

Human Rights campaigners criticize Yemen, who has one of the highest death penalty rates in the world, for increasingly jailing and executing people who committed crimes as children.  Campaigners also criticized Yemen for its failure to provide everyone with birth certificates, and for having a failing justice system.

Mariam al-Batah, a nineteen year old who is currently awaiting execution, was one of the prisoners mentioned in HRW’s report.  For three years, she has called Hodeida Central Prison, a crowded jail located in Yemen’s Western Coast, home.  She was sentenced to death for committing murder at the age of fifteen.  Her family came from a rural background, like 80% of Yemen’s estimated population, and failed to register a birth certificate for her, resulting in tragic consequences.  Al-Batah, who was married off at the age of twelve, killed the child of her husband’s first wife when the child released her from a room that her husband had locked her in.  She recalled rushing out of the room in a “disoriented and dizzy state,” and then violently hurled the child to the floor, killing it immediately.  When she could not produce a birth certificate before the court to prove she was younger than eighteen, she was sentenced to death.

Since 1994, Yemen’s penal code had banned the execution of juveniles.  Under Yemeni law, children fifteen years and younger can be tried as adults, but are only subject to a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment if found guilty of murder.  “Proving one’s age is a huge issue in Yemen in these cases,” said Priyana Motaparthy, a researcher for HRW. “But there is a second issue: even in cases when juvenile offenders and lawyers were able to produce strong evidence suggesting they were under eighteen for their alleged crime, judges and prosecutors have disregarded Yemeni law and called for death sentences.”

HRW said that President Hadi should review all death sentences where doubt exists that the defendant was at least eighteen years of age at the time the offense was committed, and to commute sentences when evidence of a defendant’s age is inconclusive or in conflict.

HRW says that Yemen is one of four countries in the Middle East where juveniles can still be face capital punishment.  The other three are Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

Al Jazeera — Yemen Unyielding on Child Executions — 4 March 2013

Human Rights Group — Yemen: Juvenile Offenders Face Execution — 4 March 2013

United Press International — HRW: Yemeni Government Urged to Stop Executing Youthful Offenders — 4 March, 2013

Yemen Post — HRW Urges new Government in Yemen to Stop Executions of Juveniles — 4 March 2013