badri@ur-helheim.UUCP (Badri Lokanathan) (12/06/85)
This morning, B.B.C. broadcast the news that two people were going to be hanged IN PUBLIC in India. They are the husband and the mother-in-law of a woman who was allegedly burnt to death (another dowry related bride - burning case.) I am appalled by this decision. I thought that putting a person / persons to death in public was a thing of the past in India. I am aware that certain countries in the middle east still continue this practice. But I am ashamed of the fact thay such a decision was taken in India. The death penalty itself is a controversial issue, let alone carrying out in public. I agree that the crime deserves maximum punishment, but this decision is barbaric and deserves condemnation.
mani@uwvax.UUCP (Mani Subramanian) (12/08/85)
> This morning, B.B.C. broadcast the news that two people were going to be > hanged IN PUBLIC in India. They are the husband and the mother-in-law of a > woman who was allegedly burnt to death (another dowry related bride - burning > case.) > I am appalled by this decision. I thought that putting a person / persons to > death in public was a thing of the past in India. I am aware that I do believe that public hanging is NOT one of the penalties provided for by the Indian Penal code, and is hence illegal. If the report is accurate, it is certain to be challenged (both by the convicted and by civil-liberties organizations) in Indian courts. It is really more likely that some sessions judge really wanted to make a public issue of this case (and what it represents) rather than a public example of it. No judge can be unaware that such a sentence would cause a huge public outcry in India. The case is probably similar, in this respect, to the recent case in this country of the judge who sentenced some men convicted of rape to castration.
velu@eneevax.UUCP (Velu Sinha) (12/09/85)
In article <456@uwvax.UUCP> mani@uwvax.UUCP (Mani Subramanian) writes: >> This morning, B.B.C. broadcast the news that two people were going to be >> hanged IN PUBLIC in India. They are the husband and the mother-in-law of a >> woman who was allegedly burnt to death (another dowry related bride - burning >> case.) >I do believe that public hanging is NOT one of the penalties provided for by >the Indian Penal code, and is hence illegal. If the report is accurate, it >is certain to be challenged (both by the convicted and by civil-liberties >organizations) in Indian courts. > The Indian Supreme Court has put a hold on the execution after some lawyer made exactly the aruguement posted above... The court will decide by Dec 13 as to the sentence, and how it will be carried out. The Public excution WILL NOT take place, according to the latest reports from the Supreme Court.
rama@ut-ngp.UUCP (rama) (12/10/85)
Badri, in response to your feelings and to the numerous others who seem to be aghast at the public hangings. My own opinion is exactly opposite of the general feeling on the net. I think that it is long overdue. Both the bride burning cases in question were situations where the bride was doused with kerosene and set afire. When you try and think of the nature of punishment, please cast a thought to the crime and to the person upon whom it was perpetrated. Indian women go through a tremendous amount of abuse, in terms of beatings, insults, and death. The most common way of killing is by dousing with kerosene and setting afire. It is time that the death penalty is enforced; and if it be done publicly, maybe it will have an impact on those who kill. Public hangings necesarily raise a rather uncivilized picture, and tend to raise grotesque spectres in peoples minds. Well, before one's sensibilities are offended at the nature of the punishment, one's sensibilities ought to be offended at the nature of the crime. This is not to say that you are condoning the crime, because you are not, and you say so. It merely is a difference of opinion regarding the nature of punishment.
swami@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU (12/11/85)
Isn't capital punishment always in public in all countries?
I think it is questionable whether it is more merciful to sentence a person
to 99 years imprisonment than to kill them. I felt this strongly when recently
I saw on TV the case of a woman who had tortured her neighbour's child to
death. After 20 years in prison, she was pleading with the parole board that
she had reformed and begged to be let free. There were widespread protests
that such a person shouldn't be released, that now other parents wouldn't feel
safe with this woman loose. (The parole board in a 3-2 decision let her go.)
swami@a.cs.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4, pur-ee, convex}!uiucdcs!swami
"i am so full of good intentions, i MUST be on the road to hell"akhanna@bbncc5.UUCP (Atul Khanna) (12/13/85)
In article <141700063@uiucdcsb> swami@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU writes: > >Isn't capital punishment always in public in all countries? Not in the US. >I think it is questionable whether it is more merciful to sentence a person >to 99 years imprisonment than to kill them. Well, the former is reversible, which, in my mind, makes it infinitely more merciful than the latter. -- Atul C Khanna BBN Communications Corporation, Cambridge MA
das@orstcs.UUCP (das) (12/13/85)
/***** orstcs:net.nlang.indi / ut-ngp!rama / 12:28 pm Dec 10, 1985*/
Subject: Public Hanging In India
Indian women go through a tremendous amount of abuse, in terms
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of beatings, insults, and death.
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Is this a generalization, on what basis are you putting in this "fact" ?
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das@orstcs
{...,hp-pcd}!orstcs!dasdas@orstcs.UUCP (das) (12/13/85)
/***** orstcs:net.nlang.indi / ut-ngp!rama / 12:28 pm Dec 10, 1985*/
Subject: Public Hanging In India
Indian women go through a tremendous amount of abuse, in terms
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
of beatings, insults, and death.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is this a generalization, on what basis are you putting in this "fact" ?
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das@orstcs
{...,hp-pcd}!orstcs!dasjeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) (12/14/85)
> > Isn't capital punishment always in public in all countries? > > swami@a.cs.uiuc.edu It certainly isn't in the United States. Nor should they be. Although public execution might deter capital crime, it would also appeal to sadists. There are quite a few sick people around, and the thought of one panting and drooling while watching someone being electrocuted or hanged makes me ill. Also, one must question what effect it would have on people's feelings about death and revenge. I think it would make people even more self-righteous than they already are, and more inclined to violent revenge when they think they have been wronged. It is well known that violent crime increases immediately after a widely-publicized prize-fight; evidently, watching real violence makes people more inclined to it themselves. Public execution would probably have even more effect on people, because it would be done by the state (with whom many citizens identify) against hated criminals. Finally, from George Orwell's column, "As I Please", from November 15, 1946: "There is one question which at first sight looks both petty and disgusting but which I should like to see answered. It is this. In the innumerable hangings of war criminals which have taken place all over Europe during the past few years, which method has been followed - the old method of strangulation, or the modern, comparatively humane method which is supposed to break the victim's neck at one snap? "A hundred years ago or more, people were hanged by simply hauling them up and letting them kick and struggle until they died, which might take a quarter of an hour or so. Later the drop was introduced, theoretically making death instantaneous, though it does not always work very well. "In recent years, however, there seems to have been a tendency to revert to strangulation. I did not see the news film of the hanging of German war criminals at Kharkov, but the descriptions in the British press appeared to show that the older method was used. So also with various executions in the Balkan countries. "The newspaper accounts of the Nuremburg hangings were ambiguous. There was talk of a drop, but there was also talk of the condemned men taking ten or twenty minutes to die. Perhaps, by a typically Anglo-Saxon piece of compromise, it was decided to use a drop but to make it too short to be effective. "It is not a good symptom that hanging should still be the accepted form of capital punishment in this country. Hanging is a barbarous, inefficient way of killing anybody, and at least one fact about it - quite widely known, I believe - is so obscene as to be almost unprintable. "Still, until recently we did feel rather uneasy on the subject, and we did have our hangings in private. Indeed, before the war, public execution was a thing of the past in nearly every civilised country. Now it seems to be returning, at least for political crimes, and though we ourselves have not reintroduced it as yet, we participate at second hand by watching the news films. "It is queer to look back and think that only a dozen years ago the abolition of the death penalty was one of those things that every enlightened person advocated as a matter of course, like divorce reform or the independence of India. Now, on the other hand, it is a mark of enlightenment not merely to approve of executions but to raise an outcry because there are not more of them. "Therefore it seems to me of some importance to know whether strangulation is now coming to be the normal practice. For if people are being taught to gloat not only over death but over a peculiarly horrible form of torture, it marks another turn on the downward spiral that we have been following ever since 1933." -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..." {amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff {ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff
chandra@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU (12/15/85)
I understand your position. I don't think that it is civilized to adopt and eye for an eye policy and do it publicaly. I'm afraid that a lot of people will go to the hangings just out of curiosity and to get a thrill. People will be buying tickets to go the hangings before long. Some people might even cheer. Like the beheading in Europe of the 14-15 centuries. Should children also be exposed to such shows? It raises more problems than it solves. navin uiucuxc