5 reactions to the execution of Akmal Shaikh

The Sadness

There can be no more poignant summary of the sadness felt by many at the outcome of the campaign to save Akmal Shaikh than this statement issued by Reprieve UK on behalf of his surviving family:

STATEMENT ISSUED ON  BEHALF OF THE FAMILY OF AKMAL SHAIKH

We are deeply saddened, stunned and disappointed at the news of the execution of our beloved cousin, Akmal. This was carried out this morning despite repeated requests for clemency and a proper appraisal of Akmal’s mental state.

We are astonished at suggestions that Akmal himself should have provided evidence of his own fragile state of mind. We find it ludicrous that any mentally ill person should be expected to provide this, especially when this was apparently bipolar disorder, in which we understand the sufferer has a distorted view of the world, including his own condition. That this was regarded as sufficient grounds for refusal by the judicial authorities to order any mental health assessment is shocking to us.

(Photo Courtesy of AP Photos : http://www.daylife.com/photo/04r9b6c5GF03S?q=soohail+shaikh)

Despite our own and other pleas, the Chinese authorities have maintained their refusal to investigate Akmal’s mental health. We are comforted that the authorities have confirmed that Akmal has been buried in accordance with his own and his family’s wishes.

On behalf of the family we thank the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, as well as all the other Ministers and officials for their efforts which were sadly ignored by the Chinese authorities.

Finally, we now request the media to kindly respect the family’s privacy and allow us the space to grieve.

--- SOOHAIL and NASIR SHAIKH
Cousins of Akmal Shaikh, on behalf of the Shaikh family

The Fury

The Guardian Newspaper was expressing fury at the notion Akmal would be executed at al, and unleashed it in full this morning with a headline focusing on the outrage felt by those who have worked hard for and supported his reprieve.

The language used throughout this piece reflects the frustration, ire and sadness felt by British leaders and campaigners alike. The BBC during the course of the evening had described the conversation yesterday between Foreign Office representatives and Chinese oficals as 'a frank exchange of views', which, they conceded, was a metaphor for a full-on argument. China's record on Human Rights is not good, and the widespread exposure of this case has done nothing to further their reputation.

The BBC have provided a short collection of responses to the execution here.

The Bile

Despite its full and fair coverage of the Akmal Shaikh story this morning, the Daily Mail is also guilty of having allowed the online publication of this utterly repugnant piece by columnist Leo McKinstry. He states

"The British government, with its prattle about human rights, likes to think a refusal to use capital punishment is a badge of a civilised society. The truth is the willingness to execute dangerous criminals is a sign of compassion. It means a government is determined to protect the vulnerable and maintain morality."

 

He concludes by saying

"There is nothing barbaric about the death penalty. The real barbarism lies in refusing to punish criminals."

Demonstrating once again, as so many proponents of capital punishment do, that he has missed the point. No-one is saying that drug trafficking is not evil and reprehensible. No-one is saying crime should go unpunished. His sophistry also displays utter ignorance - that anyone could suggest that there is nothing barbaric about the death penalty has clearly done no meaningful research on the matter whatsoever. 

It never ceases to amaze me that a matter which seems so instinctive to myself can be so twisted by hatred by others.

I apologise to all here and now for driving traffic to the Daily Mail website. As we all know the stance of the Daily Mail is to drive circulation through whatever editorial means possible. If in doubt, scan the Wikipedia entries concerning the Daily Mail and founder Viscount Rothermere and his successors to form your own opinion of how they play on hatred to secure their business objective.

If anything we should go out of our way to ignore the rag and make it hurt.

For further bile, if you have the stomach, simply take a look through the comments made in response to Reprieve's video footage 'Final Plea for Akmal Shaikh'. In my mind this is nothing more than desecration of a tombstone. Unbelievable. I wonder how those gainsayers would react if Reprieve were to leap to the defence of them, or one of their friends or relatives in international jeopardy?

The Chinese Response

There has been no official response to or report of the execution yet across Chinese news channels. However the sense is one of stubborn and righteous indignation:

In Beijing the Chinese government said it resisted any interference in its judicial affairs. "We express strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British reaction," said Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokeswoman. "We hope the British side will face this case squarely and not put new obstacles in the way of relations between Britain and China."

(Source: The Guardian)

Comment on articles and Youtube footage included Chinese viewpoints, defensive of their country's action and taking the view that Akmal Shaikh was first and foremost a drug trafficker.

The impact

In the words of the Guardian, "experts said the long-term impact would be small...."

"The two sides are just posturing for their own citizens," said Wu Qiang of Tsinghua University. "Akmal Shaikh is only an isolated case. Unless the UK raises the issue to the EU level I don't think there will be big influence on relations."

I like to think there is an impact of a different kind. We simply cannot overlook the social web influence factor any more. Last night, several of us on Twitter tried and failed to get the #SaveAkmal hashtag to trend (i.e. reach the list of top topics currently being mentioned in the community.). But with every high-profile case of this kind we obtain a little more awareness of the inhumanity and irrationality of Capital Punishment. Today, the name Akmal Shaikh has reached the volumes required in Twitter for it to trend. It all helps!!

It is my fervent hope that the ultimate impact of the doomed campaign to save Akmal Shaikh wil be another baby-step towards the eventual elimination of the Death Penalty in every nation.

If you oppose the Death Penalty, please consider following @TheOptimismClub on Twitter and joining the Facebook Group

 

Murder in China and the Birth of The Optimism Club

Picture courtesy of Getty Images - http://www.daylife.com/photo/0gc28hF30P6zw

Tonight has been energising, exhausting and emotional. While a band of sturdy campaigners have stood an actual vigil for the reprieve of Akmal Shaikh outside the Chinese Embassy in London this evening, I've been proud to keep my own personal vigil of sorts online, in the company of a whole crowd of Tweeters determinedly plugging the #SaveAkmal hashtag.

At time of writing, we still do not know if the Chinese have actually gone through with the Sentence of Death they confirmed at 2.30 am. We're all watching various news sources which cautiously suggest it must have happened. But still no official word. Which gives rise to the last strand of hope that the ultimate clemency may have been granted. Who knows right now. Poor Akmal. Poor Akmal's family. Poor China. But, y'know what? It's not in vain. Energy doesn't vanish, it is simply transformed.

The hope and the tentative positivity displayed this evening showed me that there can always be optimism. And that optimism drives an energy and a force of its own. And that with a medium like the social web at our disposal, we can create the domino effect. We can target and challenge death penalty issues wherever we feel they might have most effect. I truly believe this. So tonight will see the birth of @TheOptimismClub. The tweeters who were standing virtually united to promote the cause of Akmal Shaikh in his tragic final hours (we assume) are by default some of the founding members of that group. 

There are a whole lot of haters and vicarious murderers out there - the black-aura'd 'hang-em-high' gang. But I for one won't stop opposing capital punishment until I die.

The Optimism Club gives me a channel to focus on my death penalty interests separately from my regular Twitter ID and invite contribution from others who want to challenge the death penalty's persistence worldwide. Gonna be a task and a half. And now it's 4 a.m. so more on this anon... Comments are welcome!

British woman donates savings to save Akmal Shaikh

I wouldn't normally copy and paste a Press Release in its entirety but time is running out for Akmal Shaikh, so am posting this here for expediency as it's not yet up on the Reprieve site

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Dec. 28, 2009)

EXECUTION DATE: TUESDAY, 10.30AM (2.30AM GMT)

 

 

 

British woman offers her savings for a reprieve for Akmal Shaikh;  British government place new evidence developed today before Chinese authorities.

     

Akmal Shaikh’s execution is set for 10.30am on Tuesday morning, Urumqi time (2.30am GMT).  It is now less than nine hours away.

 

Meanwhile, a British woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, has offered her savings (£8,235) to the Chinese government, for donation to a Chinese charity of their choosing, if they will spare Akmal’s life.  She does not know Akmal, but has had close experience with bipolar disorder, the illness that afflicts him, and recognizes how it could easily have led him to his current predicament. She made her kind offer to the Chinese government, through Reprieve.

 

“I know that manic episodes can give a person a sense of invulnerability, and that this leads a person to do crazy things that they would not consider when they are stable,” said the anonymous donor, in a letter to Reprieve. “It also makes the person vulnerable to the exciting ideas suggested by others. Anyone looking at the pathetic ‘pop song’ written by Mr Shaikh, and hearing of his hopes that this would somehow bring world peace, must agree that he was not rational when he agreed to carry the suitcase with these drugs in it. Asking for compassion for this man obviously does not imply that one condones drug smuggling in any way.  Compassion is the most important human virtue.”

 

Meanwhile, Dr Peter Schaapveld, the forensic psychologist who has generously donated his time towards the case, has reviewed the new evidence, issuing a further medical opinion:

 

“The new information just received by Reprieve and which I have now read, confirms the view that Mr. Shaikh was clearly suffering from a severe mental disorder. These witnesses who knew him well have given specific examples of behaviour which are only explained by mental disorder.  What is more these examples occur at the material time; that is the time immediately preceding the actions that led to his arrest and death sentence.   It is therefore all the more urgent that consideration be given to mental health issues in the case which would in any legal system in the world lessen the severity of a court's sentence.  I can only ask along with his legal team and the family that this be done.”

 

The British government has made additional submissions to the Chinese authorities seeking clemency, including the statements of four witnesses who came forward to Reprieve today corroborating Akmal Shaikh’s mental illness, and the photographs submitted by journalist-photographer Luis Belmonte that so dramatically illustrate his illness.

 

“This anonymous British woman illustrates the Christmas spirit far better than our habitual consumerism," said Reprieve's director Clive Stafford Smith. “Let us hope that her kindness finds its due reciprocation from the Chinese authorities.”

 

For more information the primary contact at Reprieve is Sally Rowen (sally.rowen@reprieve.org.uk 020 7427 1099/ 07773 348833) or Clive Stafford Smith (clivestaffordsmith@mac.com).  

 

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Notes for Editors:

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives.  Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 25 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

 

Reprieve’s current casework involves representing 33 prisoners in the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, working on behalf of prisoners facing the death penalty, and conducting ongoing investigations into the rendition and the secret detention of ‘ghost prisoners’ in the so-called ‘war on terror.’

 

 

Reprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Tel: 020 7353 4640

Fax: 020 7353 4641

Email: info@reprieve.org.uk

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

 

Reprieve is a charitable company limited by guarantee; Registered Charity No. 1114900 Registered Company No. 5777831 (England) Registered Office 2-6 Cannon Street London EC4M 6YH; Chair: Lord Bingham; Patrons: Alan Bennett, Julie Christie, Martha Lane Fox, Gordon Roddick, Jon Snow, Marina Warner

It's important to stay elfie at Christmas

When the daily diet will hardly stave off 

scurvy, when all around you are tempting you with yet another newly-opened box of chockies, when the family have a seemingly bottomless appetite for sausage rolls, leftovers + chips,  and it seems ungrateful not to indulge in all the alcoholic miscellany that you never normally touch in the course of the year... what about a nice run in the snow on Christmas Day morning to do some bloat-offsetting?

With this thought in mind, the family Brown set off at 8.20 am on Christmas morning, our two cheerful elves in tow, to Basingstoke Parkrun. Kindly volunteers led by Rachel Elliott had agreed to set up and run the regular 5km course (using coloured route markers instead of white, to stand out against the snow). There was a wonderful turnout of people dressed for the occasion - about 50 in total including Santas, Rudolph, a turkey and a Christmas pudding, and elves.

It was jolly chilly, and the snow had compacted to ice with a slush layer on top, making running (especially corners) pretty treacherous going. I set off at a waddle - eventually toddling into the finish in 43rd position, and agreeing with everyone that it had been 'pretty horrible'. But we then set about some mutual congratulation and celebration with some rum and Baileys brought by us, and some panettone, crunchy mince pies and chocolate crunchy tiffin brought along by others. And so it was the perfect start to a festive interlude of gluttony and sloth.

OK - so I have lapsed back into idleness for a few days now - but with Frimley Lakeside 8 mile looming in 4 weeks and the Reading Half-Marathon in March 2010, I need to swiftly get back into some long-distance waddling. Starting tomorrow.

Race Report: Grim Challenge or Grin Challenge?

Oh dear, only 3 weeks late writing up my report of the race of the year. I ran, I waded, I crawled, I survived... the GRIM CHALLENGE 2009. This was a departure from the races I've achieved so far this year in being more of a X-Country style event; and for me, at 8 miles, the longest distance I would have covered to date on unpredictable terrain, was never going to be about doing a time.

In the event, I came way down the field, with a time of around 1 hr 49 mins, and a finishing position of 2464 - in contrast to my friend Mark who came an amazing 77th out of the field of 2800 runners. So no, this was NEVER about a time, for me it was just about getting round - and I MADE it!

So many of my friends and colleagues think I am crazy to have tried it and I have earned their admiration and respect. They can't imagine how anyone would want to engage in such discomfort. The 10km races were one thing, training for my first half-marathon in 2010 another, but... freezing cold tracts of water, gooey mud, hills and cargo nets?

Miles of smiles

The clue is in the smiles. See the picture of me, here, taken by the official course photographer at around the 5-mile mark? Well, this time last year I was perusing the race pictures and website following my husband and two of his mates taking part. They had said how much they'd enjoyed the run, and I was struck by how many of the participants were laughing in the photographs. It was either the shared rictus of mass hysteria or else - gadzooks, these people were actually enjoying their self-inflicted torture and taking it less than seriously. I was also conscious that while husband, and his friends had all finished the course in respectable times under an hour and twenty, there were many, many other finishers still pouring (literally) across the finish line at times far in excess of this. It got me to thinking that, as a novice runner last year, there was a possibility I might be able to run 8 miles - or an hour and a half non-stop - by the same time this year. And if that were the case, maybe I should be buying into some of those happy, muddy, pink-legged vibes too?

Also - just look at how many people enter this thing year on year! The organisers run it over two days due to the sheer number of entrants (almost 6000). The 2009 event took place on 5th and 6th December.  We were glad we'd chosen the Saturday (5th) version because it bucketed it down with rain in the week running up to the event, letting up a bit for the Saturday, but re-soaking the already churned-up course for the Sunday participants during the night after we'd finished. The other reason, of course, being that by running on the Saturday we were giving ourselves and our mates time to go out and celebrate in time-honoured fashion with a proper session around the pubs of Farnham afterwards.

The shape of the race

There were six of us who'd registered together, myself and Geoff, Carol and Mark and Maria, and James who couldn't make it on the day due to calendar blunders. Here I am with Maria and Carol before the race, looking cheerful, feeling nervous... a bit like that moment on a rollercoaster as it chugs to the top of the first apex and you're thinking 'Er.... remind me why I wanted to do this?' It was a first time for all three of us. We all set off from our position towards the back of the pack, leaving the guys to forge on ahead. We'd agreed to run our own races rather than try and stick together - which was best for all of us, not least because Maria managed to finish almost twenty minutes ahead of me, and Carol ten minutes ahead! I much prefer to set and manage my own pace when running. Maybe I'd do better trying to keep up with other people but distance running has so much personal psychology involved - it's much better run as a solitary activity. I did, however, spend much of the race believing I was still ahead of Carol which kept me going all the way, thinking 'Crikey, I could come in ahead of Carol here!' Of course, she had somehow edged ahead of me early on and I hadn't seen her but it acted as great motivation all the while, thinking she was on my heels!

The course wended its way in a convoluted fashion around Aldershot's Army tank training area, with a mixture of sand, rubble, leaf, mud and heather underfoot. The first section was varied terrain, with some gentle hills, and a descent towards the half way mark and the famous series of puddles and mudpits that the GRIM is famous for. The picture taken here is courtesy of Keith Baxter (http://twitpic.com/s8u11).

My favourite section, and it turned out, the favourite bit for many of us, was the 5 to 7 mile bit, which somehow, seems to be very fast-paced. I felt like I was flying along that bit, passing quite a few people and with sustained momentum. Almost like a long, gradual downhill with gravity on your side - although I swear it wasn't all downhill. I shared comments and giggles with people all the way round at various points, and was grateful to a lady who gave me encouragement at around 6 miles as we hit a few uphill hairpins. We agreed that 'what goes up must come down' and were rewarded in due course. The big surprise was after 6 miles - where naturally, you are thinking 'Woohoo! Only 2 miles to go!'.... and I can tell you this was the LONGEST 2 miles in the world! All of a sudden the course took off across a raggedly duned area with a series of ups and downs. This did well to counter the accusations I'd heard of the previous year's course being monotonous for much of the final 4 miles. But it was a bit of a shock to the system to be kept physically guessing at that stage. The nasty steward at around 7 miles told fibs too. He said 'Only about ten minutes to go, and it's all flat now'. Groan. Right before the end in the Grim there is a section that looks like a swamp, with spikey thin tree stumps coming up out of the water, and a long gulley with water along the bottom to follow several hundred yards up to the final loop.  In the swamp was an abandoned St John Ambulance vehicle tilted downward in the mire - I can't imagine what possessed the driver to think s/he should attempt to drive along there. It gave me something to ponder, anyhow, as I mentally grumbled the last two miles feeling distinctly longer than that. 

The last few hundred yards of the Grim take runners in a long loop past the spectators and waiting familes, through one last silly puddle before the finishline. 

Here I am wading through. I realised about here that Carol and Maria were waiting with the guys cheering me on to the finish, but 

what the hell, by this time I was exhausted, my 

knees were complaining rather a lot, and all I wanted was that dry towel I knew Geoff had in the rucksack for me.

Just why it seemed so long became quickly apparent when Mark told us his GPS watch had measured the overall course at 8.79 miles! No wonder the final few miles hurt.

Here's Carol finishing the race, and with Maria waiting for me to finish. The smiling faces tell a story, don't they? 

The sense of personal triumph, of being part of a community of nutters, and yeah, probably of relief of the whole thing being over, all contribute to making the GRIM an event worth attempting, in spite of the obstacles and hardships. I've already said I'll do it again next year (instead of the Vegas Half Marathon which was the same weekend and which my friend Marjory completed and enjoyed this year, and sounds most amusing). Hmmm. GRIM 10, or Las Vegas half? Which would you go for?

Sending a life-sized hug for Xmas

In a recent post I asked what you could send for Christmas to a man on Death Row, and you may recall me having said that in fact in the case of my penfriend 'B', all the guy really wants in the world is a hug from his mum?

Well, I came up with the idea of making my friend an almost-hug for Christmas. I thought it would fit all the criteria listed here for things that can't be sent. The only risk is that the mailroom for his facility may not allow an item that is considerably larger than A4 and slightly unusual to be given to him. We'll see. In the meantime I took photographs, as a record of how my family and myself set about making a 'hug' to send over to him, as a gesture that was the closest thing I could come up with to the real thing.

We used Xmas wrapping paper - so that we could get one long continuous section, and so that it would be lightweight. And one side would be snowflakes and Christmas trees. But wrapping paper is frail and so this did mean we had to be careful at every stage not to perforate or tear it.

So my husband drew around my outline, and then we set about decorating the 'hug' with messages, Christmas sketches and cartoons. I encouraged my daughters to graffiti it with anything they liked, really. 

This of course meant some annotation and friendly bickering between them on paper, but it all added to the character of the piece. Everyone was humble about their drawing ability, but we all had a go. We decided to each do a self-portrait too. I never set out to cover the entire outline with colour - I didn't want to either overload the paper with ink and risk it tearing, nor to discourage everyone with too much work to do; this was supposed to be a pleasurable exercise after all, not a chore.

Finally, I cut out the shape of the hug. It's a 'me' made from paper that represents the thoughts and friendship of our family.

The added poignancy of this gift is that my penfriend's 'house', as he calls his cell, is less than 6 ft (one armspan) wide. Here's how he described it to me in a letter after he recently moved accommodation:

"I don't think I'm going to make it out to yard today. This is unfortunate for me because I need to work out. These houses over here are too narrow to work out in. I guess I could take my mattress off my rack and work out up on here... It's a little cramped because I have such wide shoulders. The cell is very long and narrow.

I'd guesstimate 5 x 12. My arm span from finger tip to finger tip is 6'0. Everyone's is their exact height I guess. Anyway from my left finger tips to my right elbow/forearm is the width of the walls...."

As you can see from this photograph, a room-width of less than a double-armspan is not large at all. Claustrophobic? Try it. Stand with your fingertips touching a wall near you. Reach out with the other arm. Now imagine being able to touch another wall with your elbow. Then imagine a metal shelf for a bed also occupying that room-width. Comfy?

Well, the hug was folded carefully and posted to the United States last week. It should arrive in time for Christmas but there's no telling how long it will remain in the mailroom, or even if it will pass inspection.  We worry it won't - but at least I have the photos as a record of making the hug and what it looked like in the end. If I haven't heard that our gift has arrived by mid January then I will be able to send these photos to B so he can see what we had in mind.

Oh - we also sent my penfriend  some cash via JPay for him to spend on commissary, plus a year's subscription to BBC History magazine as this is a subject of real interest to him, and he has a young mind which needs stimulation. The magazine could spark some areas of specialist interest in due course - I hope so, and will be glad to provide him with further learning material if that's something he wants to do.

Happy Christmas B - and to his family - and to everyone on Death Row or facing Life Without Parole. And a Happy Christmas and thank you to those who have befriended condemned prisoners and who take time to remember that they are human beings too.

And my wishes for peace to the friends and families of the victims of prisoners on Death Row. 

I am Troy Davis!

...and so are you. So is everyone. We are ALL Troy Davis. It's along the same lines as 'I am Spartacus' (if you're a Kirk Douglas fan) or 'I am Brian' (if you prefer the Monty Python angle). A kind of 'one for all and all for one' pledge of friendship and comradeship. But with a vital difference; and vital is the pivotal word. Troy Davis will NOT be allowed to die. Troy Davis has paid more than enough for a crime he did not commit; twenty years on Georgia's Death Row and 3 near-executions attest to that. If Troy's forthcoming hearing fails and he is subsequently murdered by the State, then truth, justice and a piece of all of us will have died alongside him. It is an unspeakably fragile relief then, that through the undinting campaigning efforts of his sister and other supporters, and with death-penalty-qualified pro bono legal help finally onside, Troy now has a chance to contest not just the evidence against him, but effectively to set a precedent which could challenge American constitutional law.

'Where is the Justice for Me?' : An evening with Martina Davis-Correia in London

 

November 25th 2009, the eve of Thanksgiving, and once again I 

was back at the Amnesty Human Rights Action Centre in London, this time to hear from Martina Correia, whose brother Troy Davis has spent the last 20 years facing execution for the murder of Police officer Mark Allen McPhail in 1989. Accompanying Martina, were her son, Troy's 15-year-old nephew, De'Jaun, and 

Richard Hughes, drummer with top UK band Keane. Richard, a long-time human rights supporter has been campaigning publicly on behalf of Troy and earlier this year, travelled to the United States to visit Troy in prison along with a small delegation from the UK including Amnesty's Kim Manning-Cooper and UK

Photo: Jesse Quin

parliamentary representative Alistair Carmichael MP. It was good to have Richard tell us a little of his visit, and to introduce Martina and De'Jaun. The story which resonates with me from Richard's retelling, is the story of Troy getting to walk on grass for the first time in over 15 years, shortly before his last sickeningly close stay of execution in 2008. Just seeing a blade of grass, let alone touching one, is a minor miracle. You can hardly imagine, can you, how that must feel? As Richard says in his article in the Amnesty magazine (November/December 2009 issue), one of the debilitating facets of life imprisonment (and there are many, so many cruelties and barbarisms associated with Death Row - but that again is another blogpost-in-waiting), is that after years of walking only on concrete, prisoners' knees start to fail. 

There is much background available describing the progress of Troy's case, and the groundbreaking evidence of 7 out of 9 recantations of eyewitness testimony, plus 9 new instances of evidence against the real primary suspect for the murder. There's a wealth of material around this case that I could include in this post, but I won't. Just search online: there are a host of websites set up to campaign for Troy and support his family and seek his reprieve. 'Innocence Matters' is a slogan heard repeatedly and determinedly in connection with Troy's case. For Martina, and for Troy, it is one thing for the courts to award him freedom on the grounds of technical innocence: what really needs to happen is for an outcome of actual innocence be granted to the man. It makes me ponder the validity of the word 'pardon'. Surely the granting of a pardon implies the convicted person actually did something wrong and is being forgiven for it? In this case, as with many other proven and suspected miscarriages of justice so callously enacted by the State (and I refer to Britain's past as well here, alongside all nations who have at some time sanctioned capital punishment), it is the State who owes an apology to the exoneree, not the other way round. The pardon should be granted by the individual to the Courts and the system which by a failure of the legal process has denied justice, not only to the wronged convict, but to the family of the victim too. This was a point which Martina made repeatedly, as did Richard: Troy's case is as much about the disrespect paid to Officer McPhail's memory and to his family as it is to the Davises. How can they ever attain any kind of peace or respite from what happened until the true villain is brought to justice?

We also heard on Wednesday from Troy's nephew, De'Jaun, an amazingly charismatic and confident young man, who has previously addressed an audience of several thousand at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The film clip that Amnesty played of that speech brought tears to several people's eyes and yes, I was there also, rummaging for my tissue and surreptitiously wiping away my tears. De'Jaun, or 'Dada' as the gang affectionately call him, has experienced a lifetime of prison visits, and is the epitome of a well-adjusted young man, who told us with awe, about his Uncle Troy's words of guiding wisdom which have encouraged him to work hard and behave well.

Here's a photograph of me with Martina and De'Jaun.

The highlight of the evening for me though has to be the phone call that Amnesty's Kim Manning-Cooper arranged while the guests were still milling around and speaking with Martina, De'Jaun and Richard. Later on, with only a handful of people still in the building, we eventually heard from Troy himself, on the other end of a phone line in Georgia, and were able to shout hello and let him know we were all rooting for him. A moment of magic - especially for me, who have yet to hear the voice of my penfriend far away in his own concrete box. I hope that will happen one day soon.

And the upshot of the evening, my friends: can there be any more compelling case against the death penalty than the risk of executing an innocent man? 

Race Report: Pine Ridge 10km

Wot a Mug!

22nd November 2009

Just taken part in my 5th 10km race (this year, and ever..). The character of each race I've run this year has been very different, and turning up to the inaugural Pine Ridge event (run by InMotion Sport, who also organise the GRIM events), I was expecting a flattish undulating run through woodland, and given how much more running I am doing these days, was harbouring vague hopes of scoring my best time over the distance. Fat chance!

Nooo.. sadly my PB still stands at the time I did in York in August - that was a nice flat road-race from the racecourse to the City centre along the river and back. Look - here's me in the local free paper (in the sunglasses, white vest)! Every inch the Paul Radcliffe, Nawwwwt!

Pine Ridge is quite different: peaty, boggy, sandy and strewn with tree roots. The route led from the middle of nowhere back to the same spot via a long circuit across commonland, over a footbridge spanning the A3, into woodland on the other side and up narrow spongy paths to the highest point of the race on Ockham Common. This included, at the summit of the (pine?) ridge, a steepish hill with steps cut into the path. This was also roughly the half-way point. It was nice to be told that it was downhill from there! Other hazards included fallen trees, and I had to do my 3-day eventing impression a few times to leap, colt-like over trunks of silver birch and fir, or stumps lurking insidiously at the edges of the track. Not to mention the water hazards, which as we will see, were to become both more and less significant in the latter part of the course.

* * * *

There were over 850 race entrants, according to the main website, and the organisers had to close registrations early because of over-subscription. Luckily, with the woodlands adjacent to RHS Wisley as the venue, on a cold damp November Sunday, there was plenty of parking available. There were portaloos next to the car park, which my hubby and friends availed themselves of. It was still 45 minutes short of the race so I decided to report to the start and collect my race chip. We set off following the trail of people streaming onto the common land next to Wisley village. And walked. And walked. And became more puzzled as to where the start may be... Eventually we met people heading back in the opposite direction and obviously hoping to hit the loos again before race time. After 15 minutes I was getting worried I wouldn't have enough time to squeeze in that last vital wee. A lot of blokes obviously had the same idea and were opting for the wayside bushes and tree trunks! Ah well, if necessary, I would just have to do the same!! It was a VERY long walk to the start - at least a kilometre. When we arrived, and had collected our chips (the RFID cardboard tag type with the twisty wire ties), my friend Carol and I decided to head in the direction of the 'Toilets' sign, in the opposite direction form the one we'd just come. We joked that it would probably end up leading us back to the car park again. It didn't... but it DID lead a further kilometre or so along boggy tracks, up hill and round bends until we reached the oasis of green tardises. We had to jog back and just made it to the start before the off.

* * *

So, the route was as described above, but I haven't mentioned the best bits yet! Apart from the slightly challenging terrain, the topnote of the day was the weather. What had begun as dull, middling but mild November, with a slightly playful breeze, turned into an adventure of an epic nature. OK well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but it was a fun set of climactic conditions: shortly after the halfway point, the rain started and I had to take my specs off (when will they invent rainproof ones?). This made it harder to spot the tripping hazards and I had to watch my step carefully. The rain didn't continue to whinge down though, oh no... it picked up. I didn't mind - it's nice and cooling when you're running. But after a while, it turned from jagged rain into water cannon, and then into hailstones. Joy! My fellow runners and I were giggling as we went, fellow lunatics on a quest with no purpose other than to finish. And shortly thereafter, with my running shirt plastered to my body, my pants squelching and my running shoes waterlogged, I decided not to bother skirting the puddles any more and plough straight through. With thunderclaps sounding overhead, I managed to speed past about three people pussy-footing round the bogs. I did go knee-deep at one point in a deceptively deep bit of quagmire, but amazingly managed not to slip or fall.

* * * *

Ultimately, I got round without walking; I was last of our small group of friends who were there and crossed the line on a clock time of 1hr 8. I felt GREAT! It was such a different race to the norm, and I knew it would be good practice for the GRIM in a fortnight's time. Chip time will be just over 1 hr 6 but that's OK. It's about the same as I did for Mortimer in much more clement conditions, it's better than I did at Alice Holt with its nasty hills; and I've got til next York to try and get under the 1 hr target I've set myself this year.

* * * *

I like the runners' mugs that were handed out ('Run Forest' - see above). We also got nice green 'Pine Ridge' T-shirts which were marginally more tasteful than the ones you usually get. But best of all, coming away plastered in blackish mud, freezing cold and with knees intact and no blisters was strangely satisfying. I remarked to my husband that I'd probably come about 700th in the race, and as he encouragingly replied 'Yeah, but that's ahead of about 59 and a half million other British people'. Fair point!

:-)

post scriptum: Results now in and I came 594th out of 686 with a chip time of 1 hr 7:14. The only way is UP!

The winning time was 36:35.

The slowest finisher finished in 1 hr 31:24

What do you give the man who has virtually nothing for Christmas?

I'm planning some surprises for my penfriend for Christmas. Now this isn't an easy thing to achieve. Consider the list of items that will not get past the prison mailroom. Here is the list from the State Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation as to what cannot be sent in. Quite right too, it's not a holiday camp after all for goodness' sake! (In spite of the claims made in this article about the luxuries of Death Row; NOT true, btw, I can guarantee!)

• No tattoo patterns or gang logos



• No factory or handmade jewellery, clothing or food items



• No glitter, stickers, address labels (other than the blue airmail sticker on the envelope)



• No letters with perfume, powder, lipstick or oil stains on the envelope or letter



• No glued, plastic, metal or laminated items



• No cancelled checks, copies of cheques, copies of money orders, birth certificates, marriage licence, Photo IDs, deeds or credit card applications



• No hand-painted art (children's drawings are allowed as long as they are not in wax)



• No cotton paper or tracing paper



• No musical greeting cards



• No lipstick, hair (human or animal) or unknown substance (body fluid)



• No mail piece or item unable to be searched without destroying it



• No unapproved mail from other State Correctional Facilities



• No third party mail between individuals



• No obscene materials, this includes, but is not limited to, material containing sexually explicit images, defined as images that depict frontal nudity, whether in the form of personal photographs, drawings, magazines or any other pictorial format

There is also a long list of topics which are disallowed in correspondence: incitement to commit crime, codes, maps and directions, descriptions of how to make weapons etc.

I was amused by "Contains illustration, explanations and/or descriptions of how to sabotage or disrupt computers, communications or electronics". Better not send any Windows Vista instruction manuals then, lol!

So you can see from this how trying to come up with something fun and/or quirky is a bit of a challenge. I regularly send prints of photographs, printouts from web-pages, and have ordered books and magazines for my friend from publishers. These are allowed, though I cannot send in books or magazines myself. This Christmas, given the list above, there'll be no baseball caps, knitted sweaters, glittery cards or phials of bodily fluids then. But it's important for me to ensure that this year, he has something. I have a couple of mystery ideas which I'll let you know about once I've investigated some more... feeling all smiley at the thought of surpising my penpal with something meant just for him which meets all the criteria of the mailroom censors.

And all this in spite of the fact that this guy would be most happy if he could only get a hug from his mom.

* * * * *

On another note, I am hoping soon to have some content in this blog from my penfriend himself. He said I could use his first name, but I'd rather not. Let's call him 'B'.

Three wishes that Governor Rick Perry could grant this week

I refer you all to today's blogpost from Texas Moratorium Network: "Three Executions in Three Days in Texas, starting today"



Well - I went and did as TMN requested and contacted Governor Rick Perry to beg for clemency in the case of all three men. The web form for email submission was not exactly designed for non-US residents; I guess the Governor's Office cares little for the opinion of those who will never have the right to vote for him, but ho-hum. I made up an address and phone number (well, actually, I used the address for the Hilton in Austin), but used my genuine email address. Here's a photo of him. He looks like a nice guy, doesn't he? The kind who would listen, who might feel some compassion and have the gumption to do something because it is right? Maybe? Ha. Feels a bit like throwing a snowball into the ocean, for all the impact it is likely to have but I'm glad I did it anyway. Here's what I wrote:



Dear Governor Perry,
Although I have been able to complete this webform in full honesty as it does not allow for addresses outside of the USA to be entered, I nonethless wanted to take this opportunity to contact your office via the swiftest means possible. I am a resident of the United Kingdom, but with a strong personal interest in a matter which affects us all as citizens of the world. I have given my real name and email address.

I am aware of the impending executions of Texas inmates Gerald Eldridge, Danielle Simpson and Robert Thompson in the coming 3 days and I want to ask you, as a fellow human being, to consider clemency in the case of all three men. I am not a voter of course, but an observer and commentator on what is happening around the world in matters of the Death Penalty. The facts tell us that Gerald does not have the IQ to have fully understood the severity or outcome of his crime, that Danielle has volunteered to be executed because the burden and conditions of waiting on death row make it unbearable for him to live any more - but rather than take his own life he will 'allow' you to go ahead and murder him (which effectively makes him a martyr); and that Robert himself never committed the murder for which he has been condemned. But aside from the individual tragedies that mean none of these men should have their lives taken from them in this way, there is a more general reason for asking you to consider making the clearsighted, compassionate and informed choice this week to spare these men. In the eyes of most of the world, the death penalty is seen as barbaric and in contravention of human rights, whatever a perpetrator's alleged crime. The USA is increasingly exposed as one of the last bastions persisting in taking the life of a human being in the name of justice. As you know in your own state, the financial burdens are calling the matter into question; and at federal level, the nation is under pressure to desist in the hypocrisy of decrying human rights aberrations elsewhere in the world while ignoring and perpetuating the mess and questionable justice that is the capital punishment system within its own borders.

Mr Perry, you have a chance to do something different this week. Be bold, send a message to the world that Texas is progressive and ready to reinvest in humane justice. Please, please, give these three men the reprieve that they least expect at the moment their faith in humanity reaches its lowest and most feeble spark. Show them what goodness is. Please spare them.

With kindest regards


Kathy



There is a detailed document outlining the history, roles and procedures open to State Governors in considering clemency upon the final gubernatorial appeal (love that word... gubernatorial...) to be found here (pdf document, 15 pages). I admit I haven't had a chance to read it all through yet, it kind of needs a printing off to really absorb. But it confirms it is within Perry's remit to grant last-minute reprieves and commutations (but not pardons) without explicit recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

"Governor, upon the recommendation
of the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles (appointed
by Gov.), has the authority to
remit fines and forfeitures, grant
reprieves, commutations and
pardons" (table, page 14 of 15)

The next three days are going to be gut-wrenching, my friends.

Say it loud and say it often, but above all say it with panache!

I just wanted to acknowledge a couple of really excellent articles I have read in the past couple of days, disparaging the Death Penalty.

It is time to abolish the Death Penalty

This News Junkie Post by Gilbert Mercier is spot on and makes some excellent points.

I was originally going to write a post for my blog called 'When is it OK to commit murder?' in order to set out my take on execution being no better than sheer State-sanctioned murder, but Gilbert puts it perfectly in his opening para:

"The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is a premeditated and cold blooded killing of a human being by a state. This cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is done in the name of justice. It is barbaric and violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of human rights."

And the photograph (shown here) he uses sums it up brilliantly. In  fact I am going to use that on my blog homepage (can't see any copyright restrictions?) It shows a bumper sticker with the legend 'Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?'

He also makes the point that America can hardly take an international stance on human rights when it has its own backyard situation to explain. I was thinking this very thing recently when friends on Twitter decrying the human rights situ in Iran were begging for foreign nations to openly criticise the Iranian government for allowing the execution of minors to go ahead (amongst the rest of the human rights abominations practised in that country). Apparently Britain and France etc were very swift in doing this, but for some reason it was taking the US Congress some time to come out and make a public international declaration against Ahmadinejad and the actions of his "judiciary". Hardly surprising given the domestic tolerance of the death penalty and everything that is despicable in relation to that. I would personally say that the USA is over the line, not close to it, on the matter of human rights. In another post I want to set down some thoughts about 'cruel and unusual punishment'; I can think of more than a few ways that the United States exact this on their condemned prisoners and their families and the families of victims.

Look, NOBODY deserves to die*, nobody. FFS, death comes soon enough to us all in any case. 'An eye for an eye' is barbaric, outdated, uncivilised and irrelevant outside of Bible-driven reactionary culture. And in any case it belongs to the dimension of Religion, not State issues. No-one would deny that the most dangerous members of society need to be incarcerated for the protection of that society; nor would they deny that in most cases, rehabilitation and 'corrective' atonement is not appropriate; nor would we deny that leniency has failed the public in the past - where people paroled too soon have succumbed to recidivism and lives have been lost or ruined as a result. Perhaps, too, there is a case for making punishment fit the crime. But punitive measures should NEVER be irreversible - for the obvious reason that even one innocent person wrongly executed or maimed makes the system inhumane and untenable; and neither should they result in cruelty as defined by international standards of human rights.

I truly, truly believe that every living person has value. It is most probably a lack of sense of that value which has led people into the lifestyles which has resulted in their criminal act (but that's a whole different matter). It is my belief that penal reform should embrace incarceration with relevance, irrespective of a person's crime. Killers should pay by having their freedom removed, by being denied access to common luxuries, and by being obliged while in confinement to work in some way which both proves their value and makes restitution both to their community and to the families of their victims.

But anyway - this is a whole different thing and I am straying from what I wanted to say next. Which was to point my readers to the other excellent article I stumbled across recently - by Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle. A wonderfully sardonic set of observations around the cost of maintaining a system of execution by lethal injection for even one individual vs the funding it would take to get a bunch of under-privileged youngsters through a college education. As usual the comments in response to the article are a mix of support and callous unswerving ignorance, but we can't do more than ask for debate and keep, keep, keep repeating the manifold reasons why the death penalty is just WRONG.

The Lethal Injection College Fund

Pure class! Go read it in full here.

An excerpt:

"Here's my simple and semi-obvious idea: what if Washington D.C. had taken the same $30 million, and instead of killing a single remorseless criminal, created upwards of 600 full-ride college scholarships for lower-income or minority students, at 50 grand each?

In other words, for every criminal a given state is seeking to execute -- like, for example, the Fort Hood killer, who they say might well be eligible for the death penalty -- we take the same tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and send hundreds of kids through college instead, kids who otherwise would never have been able to afford it and in fact might've ended up on the streets or in prison.

We'll call it the Lethal Injection College Fund. It shall, by its very existence, do nothing less than completely transform the ugly American revenge impulse into something celebratory and optimistic. We shall transmute a brutal crime into a glimmer of hope and possibility. From dark to light. From excrement, flowers. From our most violent nightmares, a hint of grace. What a thing."

Cor, indeed, what a thing, bless ya Mark!

* I admit, I am struggling with the issue of immediate reactive self-defence and the defence of others. I think this may be the only time when it may be OK to kill - when all else fails in terms of stopping someone from killing you. The same might also apply for cases of severe cruelty and provocation if all else failed. However I can also see that there would always be an argument for stopping any such threat by causing injury rather than death...?