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Show Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 Page 14 World&Nation Amnesty decries Malaysia rison canines KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Caning of convicts and asylum seekers in Malaysian prisons has reached "epidemic proportions" and is often inflicted so severely that flesh is torn off the body, Amnesty International said Monday. The London-based human rights group said the practice amounts to torture and should be abandoned. However, prison officials defended the whippings as lawful. Malaysian courts mete out caning — a remnant from British colonial laws — to punish severe offenses such as rape, robbery, drug possession and corruption. Up to 24 strokes are given with a thick rattan stick. Since 2002, caning has also been used to punish immigration offenses, such as illegally entering the country. Amnesty estimated that some 10,000 people are caned each year, many of them illegal immigrants. Amnesty interviewed dozens of convicts earlier this year for its 50page report "A Blow to Humanity — Torture by Judicial Caning in Malaysia." Prisoners told Amnesty they were lined up and watched or heard one another's caning. The cane "shreds the victim's naked skin, turns the fatty tissue into pulp, and leaves permanent scars that extend all the way to muscle fibers. Blood and flesh splash off the victim's body, often accompanied by urine and feces," the report said. Supri Hashim, an official with Malaysia's Prison Department, rejected the accusation of torture, saying the whippings are carefully supervised by prison authorities and attended by doctors. "The role of the Prison Department is to enforce and execute any sentence passed by the court ... based on Malaysian law," he told The Associated Press. Malaysia says caning is a deterrent. Neighboring Singapore also canes criminals and vandals regularly, citing the same reason. Amnesty said the practice could cause long-term disabilities and trauma. "Caning in Malaysia has hit epidemic proportions," Amnesty's Asia-Pacific director Sam Zarifi said in a statement. "In every case that we examined, the punishment amounted to torture, which is absolutely prohibited under any circumstances." It said many of the foreigners sentenced to caning did not get legal representation or understand the charge. Those who are caned are tied to a scaffold while wearing only a loincloth. Specially trained officers are paid a bonus for each stroke, the report said. "They don't tell you what day you'll be whipped. You just know your number is coming closer," the report quotes a Malaysian caned for heroin possession. "I felt like an animal (when tied to the scaffold). I was shaking with fear," the report quotes a refugee from Myanmar. Many asylum-seekers are caned for having illegally entered Malaysia. Such caning is administered under criminal laws that are separate from Malaysia's Islamic laws, which also prescribe whipping for religious offenses. But Islamic caning is largely symbolic and administered with a thin stick. Two stabbed in brawl Wore game Texas judge to hold hearing on death penalty law PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Dozens of fans brawled in a Rose Bowl parking lot before the Southern California-UCLA football game Saturday, leaving two men stabbed, two police officers with minor injuries and three men arrested, authorities said. About 40 fans of both schools fought at about 4:20 p.m. in a grassy part of Brookside Golf Course that the stadium uses for event parking, Pasadena police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls said. One person was stabbed in the cheek and the other was stabbed in the back during the melee some three hours before the crosstown-rivalry game between the Bruins and Trojans was set to start, Qualls said. Both were taken by ambulance to Huntington Memorial Hospital. He described their condition as stable. One officer was treated for a sprained hand, the other for a sprained ankle, and both were released, Qualls said. Arturo Cisneros, 44, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. Steven Radu, 27, and Joshua Elder, 23, were arrested for investigation of assault on a police officer. They were being held in Pasadena City Jail. Police did not know if any of the men had retained attorneys. The names of the victims were not released. USC later beat the Bruins for the 11th time in 12 games, 28-14. It was not immediately clear what sparked the brawl, but police said the school rivalry and tailgate party drinking were major factors. "The fans are pretty passionate about their ir football teams," Qualls said. USC fan Michael Lane of Los Angeles said he was tailgating with friends in the lot when the melee broke out around him. "People from USC and UCLA were fighting against each other," Lane said. "It was bottles being thrown and different things happened ... I saw a person come out with a bloody face." Qualls said that the last time the annual rivalry game was held at the Rose Bowl in 2008, there were about 50 arrests, but he didn't think any of them were for assault. "It doesn't happen at normal college football games," he said. The brawl occurred before most fans or either team had arrived at the Rose Bowl, but thousands of tailgating fans spent most of the day gathered around RVs or barbecues in quiet Arroyo Seco, waiting for the late kickoff dictated by television coverage. UCLA's rivalry with USC is among the most intense in college football, pitting two schools separated by just 13 miles between USC's downtown campus and UCLA's Westwood address. The rivalry divides fans from every section of Los Angeles, sometimes even splitting families. UCLA was overshadowed while the Trojans won seven straight Pac-10 titles during the past decade. Saturday's USC victory in the 80th meeting between the teams was for nothing but civic pride, with the Bruins failing to qualify for a bowl game and USC banned from the postseason by NCAA sanctions. PACK H EAT WITH CACHE HREIRHS CACHE VALLEYS ONLY DEDICATED FIREARMS STORE Concealed Firearm Permit Classes •Ammunition • Holsters Night Sights Installed •Yes, We Do Trades! • Gun Cleaning Reloading Supplies • Bench made Knives • Scopes • Pellet Guns (43) 753-2606 Downloading Go lapGops is what we do best. The Utah SGaGesman 42 E. 2200 N., STE. U, N. UM AN WWW.CACIIEFIREARMS.COM HOUSTON (AP) — In the deeply Republican questioned since several fire experts found serious state that has executed more convicts than any fault in the arson findings that led to his convicother and the county that has sent the most to tion. death row, an unusual legal proceeding will begin Jones was convicted in the 1989 killing of a this week: A Democratic judge will hold a lengthy liquor store owner during a robbery near Point hearing on the constitutionality of the death penBlank, about 75 miles north of Houston. His 2000 alty in Texas. execution was called into question after a new State District Judge Kevin Fine surprised many DNA test showed a hair that had been the only Texans last spring when he granted what is usually piece of physical evidence linking him to the crime a routine and typically rejected defense motion and scene didn't belong to him. ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. Green's attorneys say they plan to bring up the Following a torrent of criticism from Willingham and Jones cases at the hearing. They Republican Gov. Rick Perry and other Texans, claim the state's death penalty procedures violate Fine clarified his ruling, saying the procedures the the Eighth Amendment right to freedom from state follows in getting a death sentence are unconcruel and unusual punishment because they crestitutional. Then Fine rescinded his ruling and ate a "substantial risk" that innocent people are ordered the hearing, which starts Monday, saying wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. he needed more information before making a final Harris County prosecutors, who unsuccessfully decision. tried to get Fine removed from the case, declined to Most Texans consider the death penalty a fitcomment before Monday's hearing. But in a petiting punishment for the worst kind of crimes, and tion filed last month, they asked the Texas Court Harris County has sent more inmates to the lethalof Criminal Appeals to stop the hearing, saying injection gurney than any other in Texas. But, antiFine doesn't have the authority to declare the state's death penalty activists have created serious doubt death penalty law unconstitutional and higher recently about whether two men were wrongly courts have previously rejected Eighth Amendment executed. challenges to capital punishment. He declined to be interviewed for this story, Prosecutors said Fine has shown "antagonism but he's said that he's taken notice of recent death against the death penalty" and a jury should decide row exonerations and his ruling will "boil down Green's fate. to whether or not an innocent person has actually The appeals court is dominated by Republicans been executed." and led by a chief judge who was disciplined for But Fine also has said he has no personal interclosing the court promptly at 5 p.m. while a death est in the death penalty, he believes the death row inmate tried unsuccessfully to file an appeal penalty is constitutional and the hearing will be hours before he was executed. But it denied the limited to issues related to Green's case. The hearprosecution's motion, saying it couldn't act until ing, which could last up to two weeks, is expected Fine ruled. to include testimony that Green's attorneys say will Anti-death penalty groups have lauded Fine, show how flaws in such things as eyewitness identi- while those in favor of capital punishment call him fication, confessions and forensic evidence have led misguided. to wrongful convictions. "It's appropriate that a Harris County judge is Green's attorneys say the hearing is not a refstepping up and saying we need to take a time out erendum on whether Texas should have a death and look at the system," said Scott Cobb, president penalty. of the Texas Moratorium Network, a group that "We don't say a state doesn't have the right to advocates for a suspension of executions in the have a death penalty," attorney Casey Keirnan said. state. "We're saying the way we do it in Texas under our Harris County has sentenced 286 people to statute is unconstitutional." death since Texas resumed executions in 1982, and The debate over possible wrongful executions 115 of those have been executed. in Texas has been fueled by the cases of Cameron Dudley Sharp, a death penalty expert from Todd Willingham and Claude Jones. Houston who has worked with crime victims' Willingham was put to death in 2004 after groups, described Fine as irresponsible and prebeing convicted of burning down his home in dicted that if he rules the death penalty is unconCorsicana in 1991 and killing his 2-year-old daugh- stitutional, the decision would likely be overturned ter and 1-year-old twins. His execution has been on appeal. 55 East 2000 North North Logan 755-9997 COMPLETE CAR CARE www.tunex.com WE DO IT ALL! 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