ADPAN Resources
A Deadly Distraction
Why the Death Penalty is not the Answer to Rape in South Asia
Joint report by Eleos Justice, Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network and the South Asia Middle East Network.
Since 2010, persons convicted of rape offences were executed in at least 9 countries, including India and Pakistan. Moreover, public protests against the rape epidemic, which led governments to introduce capital rape laws, illustrates the need to shine a spotlight in South Asia.
The report examines the use of the death penalty for rape in four South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and explores ways that anti-death penalty activists can challenge this concerning trend.
Download it here: English
The Clemency Process in East and Southeast Asia
How stringent are clemency processes in the East and Southeast Asia region? What countries have seen to be more lenient in granting clemency? What are the current issues that surround the processes in these countries?
In our newest release, ADPAN’s latest report breakdown what the clemency processes are like in the region, ranging from information regarding the procedures and laws governing retentionist countries in the region to discussions of contentious issues that have arisen in the processes and suggestions of reform.
Download it here: English
ADPAN Country Report 2021
ADPAN Country Report on the Death Penalty in Asia Pacific, covering East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia.
Download it here: English
Guidebook on the Death Penalty, Pardon Petition and Clemency Process in Malaysia
This guidebook was published with the intention to provide supporting resources for anti-death penalty activists and family members of death row inmates. The contents are summarized for easy reading and quick references.
Other languages will be made available soon!
Download it here: English | Malay | 中文 | Tamil
ADPAN Country Report: Malaysia
Reform in Limbo
ADPAN is launching our first thematic country report on the death penalty. The report covers the key developments related to the death penalty in Malaysia and detailed information on individuals on death row. The report can be downloaded below
EN: Country Report Malaysia Reform in Limbo.
ADPAN’s World Day Against the Death Penalty
On 10 October 2020, the 18th World Day Against the Death Penalty, ADPAN calls for the right to legal counsel to be provided to all individuals facing capital offences charges and individuals sentenced to death
10 October marks the World Day Against the Death Penalty, a global day of action which sees actors from all walks of life and many countries join together to say NO to the death penalty.
We take a closer look at Access to Counsel including case studies in many of the countries in the ADPAN network including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand & Vietnam
Please find ADPAN’s 18th World Day Against Death Penalty Newsletter here.
Please view the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty’s video Right to Legal Representation for Those Facing Death Penalty (subtitled) here
For more resources to mark World Day Against the Death Penalty, check out the official World Day Against Death Penalty webpage here
ADPAN’s Webinar on Online Harassment
On Thursday 24 September 2020, ADPAN hosted a webinar on how to manage and protect yourself against online harassment. This event featured Dr Aim Sinpeng as the guest speaker.
Dr Aim Sinpeng
Dr Aim Sinpeng is Lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations and Co- Founder of the Sydney Cyber Security Network at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on digital politics in Southeast Asia, especially issues of online political participation, hate speech, misinformation, and foreign interference. Her current projects funded by Facebook and Australia’s Department of Defence examine issues of hate speech detection, effectiveness of counter misinformation strategies, and mapping networks of foreign interference on YouTube and Facebook. She is the author of Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age (University of Michigan Press, 2020) and Digital Media and Disinformation in Southeast Asia, with Ross Tapsell (forthcoming, ISEAS Press).
To view the slideshow for this event, please click here.
Drug offences & the death penalty in Malaysia: Fair Trial Rights and Ramifications
Natalia Antolak-Saper, Sara Kowal, Samira Lindsey, Ngeow Chow Ying, Thaatchaayini Kananatu, 2020
There are approximately 1280 people currently on death row in Malaysia.
A majority of these people have been convicted of drug-related offences. Many face socio-economic disadvantage, nationality and language barriers.
Harm Reduction International, Monash University and the Anti-Death Penalty Asian Network (ADPAN) have come together to investigate how the Malaysian criminal justice system affords people charged with drug-related capital offences access to justice and fair trial rights, from the stage of arrest through to death row.
Drug Offences and the Death Penalty in Malaysia: Fair Trial Rights and Ramifications
To view the launch event, click here
Isolation and Desolation: Conditions of detention of people sentenced to death Malaysia
Carole Berrih and Ngeow Chow Ying, 2020
Launched on 29 April 2020, this report is derived from a fact-finding mission carried out in Malaysia from July 2019 to February 2020 by ADPAN and ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty). It was led by an ADPAN member and two lawyers from the Malaysian Bar Council, who conducted semi-directive individual interviews with death row prisoners, relatives of people sentenced to death, faith-based organisations providing religious counselling in prison, lawyers and psychiatrists in Malaysia. Carole Berrih, the author of the report, accurately uses all the accounts collected and puts them in the context of the country’s criminal and penitentiary systems.
This report is part of the “Fact-Finding mission on death row” collection which aims to make an assessment of the living conditions on death row in various countries across the world. The goal is both to report on the reality of death row and to engage public opinion.
Produced by ADPAN and ECPM (IEDHR Project)
Isolation and Desolation: Conditions of detention of people sentenced to death Malaysia
Dehumanized: The prison conditions of people sentenced to death in Indonesia
Carole Berrih and KontraS, 2019
Launched on 10 October 2019 – World Day Against Death Penalty, this report is derived from a fact-finding mission carried out in Indonesia from December 2018 to May 2019 by KontraS and ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty). It was led by three KontraS members who conducted semi- directive individual interviews with death row prisoners, prison directors and wardens, and lawyers in Indonesia. Given that the investigation team could not be deployed in all the prisons that house people sentenced to death, they selected eight prisons which represent different types of prison. Other interviews were conducted by the author of the report, Carole Berrih, Director of Synergies Coopération, with relatives of people sentenced to death and lawyers. Carole Berrih accurately uses all the accounts collected and puts them into context within the country’s criminal and penitentiary systems.
This report is part of the “Fact-Finding mission on death row” collection which aims to make an assessment of the living conditions on death row in various countries across the world. The goal is both to report on the reality of death row and to engage public opinion.
Produced by KontraS, with ECPM and ADPAN (IEDHR Project)
Dehumanized: The prison conditions of people sentenced to death in Indonesia
Unfair Trials Report
On 6 December 2011 the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network launched two major reports that explain why unfair convictions are so common in Asia-Pacific, where governments execute more people than the rest of the world combined, and details the stories behind the statistics.
The death penalty, even with the most stringent fair trials safeguards in place, will inevitability claim innocent victims. It is meaningless to speakof the permissibility of an unfair trial – the right to a fair trial is an ancient one and in more recent years has been codified in international human rights law binding on all UN member states.
Despite the infallibility of any justice system, but given that the death penalty exists a right to a fair trial for those facing the death penalty is crucial and key to establishing safeguards the rights of the defendant but to serve the ends of justice as a whole.
The possibility of the state taking the life of someone in error following an unfair trial is real in the Asia Pacific region, where 95% of the population reside in jurisdictions that retain and use the death penalty. Safeguards for fair trial are being violated in law and practice in a number of countries throughout the Asia Pacific region. While proponents of the death penalty talk about the need to strengthen law and order and provide justice for victims of crime, evidence shows that justice in capital trials is often illusory and the law undermined in practice.
Nine individuals on death row are profiled in the ‘Unfair Trials’ Reports. Read the cases of Leng Guoquan (China), Devender P. Singh (India), Hakamada Iwao (Japan), Reza Shah (Malaysia), After Bahadur (Pakistan), Yong Vui Kong (Singapore), Chiou Ho-shun (Taiwan), Zulfiqar Ali (Indonesia) and Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke (Indonesia) below:
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