www.stopchildexecutions.com

4 juveniles to be executed

If they have committed a crime, they deserve it.

Lucifercus (not verified)

If you are concerned about a human rights situation anywhere in the world (including UK) you can contact amnesty via their website at: www.amnesty.org

You can also search by issue or the country. UK: //www.amnesty.org/en/region/europe-and-central-asia/western-europe/uk

Regardless the issues that you are bringing up is irrelevant to the subject of child executions in Iran nor justify it but it simply is a distraction to it.

If you feel strongly about an isuue , it would be a good idea to start a campaign or join one or write a blog about the subject of your interest which are not relevant to the 4 youth that facing execution in Iran now. 

Thanks!

Thanks for the posting.

URGENT CALL by Amnesty

on behalve of the social situation of youth and youth-justice in the united kingdom.
Over 12,000 children are remanded into custody every year in Britain, yet half do not receive prison sentences. In a weekly five-part series Press TV reports on the growing trend for youth imprisonment in the UK.

Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s there was a significant reduction in the use of custody for children, including those on remand, as a direct result of the policies of the then Conservative Government. Consequently 14-year-old boys and 14 to 16-year-old girls were excluded from prison remand.

Further lobbying resulted in prison remands for 15 and 16-year-old boys to also be abolished in 1991. Instead, direct remands into local authority secure units were introduced, based on the need to protect the public from “serious harm”. The aim of these units was on attending to the physical, emotional and behavioural needs of the young people remanded therefore focusing on rehabilitation rather than imprisonment.

However, due to a lack of suitable accommodation, the Government failed to fully implement this change pending the expansion of local authority secure units by the department of health. Therefore in 1991 there were only 290 approved secure places for children but 1,263 children remanded into prison custody.

This led to a damaging loophole in the system with a perverse result. Prior to its abolishment, any child under 17 years of age could only be remanded in custody if the local authority had applied to the court for a certificate of unruly character or a secure accommodation order. This ensured that the child had come to the notice of the local authority services as well as the courts, and that both had agreed that custody was the last and only resort.

But with the abolishment of this rule the courts had the power to remand directly into local authority units. The failure to provide enough units resulted in the courts remanding directly into prison custody - the only accommodation available - without recourse to the local authority.

Before this was amended an event occurred that was to change everything. On the afternoon of 12 February 1993, two-year-old Jamie Bulger was abducted and murdered by two ten-year-old boys. The murder of a child by two other children caused an immense public outpouring of shock, outrage and grief.

Both boys were sentenced to life and ordered to serve a minimum of 10 years behind bars. But the popular press and sections of the public felt that the sentence was too lenient. The Sun newspaper handed a petition bearing 300,000 signatures to the then home secretary, Michael Howard, in a bid to increase the minimum sentence.

In 1995, bowing to increasing pressure, the two boy's minimum period to be served was increased to 15 years. However two years later, the Court of Appeal ruled that Michael Howard's decision was unlawful and the home secretary lost the power to set minimum terms for life-sentence prisoners under the age of 18 years. Subsequently in 2002, the home secretary lost complete power of this for any life-sentence prisoner.

In the wake of this tragic event a more punitive approach to dealing with young people involved with the criminal justice system was discernible, with public and political perceptions of youth crime affected by media reports of 'bail bandits' and 'persistent' young offenders.

In the same month, in what was effectively a policy U-turn, the Prime Minister John Major said that society should 'condemn a little more and understand a little less' while the future prime minister Tony Blair, then shadow home secretary, said Labour would be “tough on crime as well as the causes of crime”.

Corkey says: “The murder of Jamie Bulger onset the legislative changes that have made custody more readily available, and the harsher sentencing and remand decisions that have characterised the treatment of young people who break the law since the early 1990s.”

It is ironic that the reaction and change bought about from the devastating loss of one innocent child's life, would ten years later be denying the innocence of many others.

This change in mood continued throughout the decade despite a change in Government in 1997. Labour introduced the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to establish the overall framework for the delivery of youth justice services and the youth justice board and young offending teams were formed.

But the focus remained on imprisonment rather than rehabilitation. For example the Act abolished the principle of Doli Incapax, which literally translates as “incapable of crime”, a test of maturity required in the case of children aged between 10 and 13. This centuries old protection for children had required the Crown Prosecution Service to prove that the child had known that their actions had been seriously wrong. But now 10-year-old children were being treated the same way as adult offenders.

In the coming years, there were two further major law changes that cemented this change in attitude. In 2001 the criteria to be met prior to a secure remand were substantially relaxed. This has resulted in children being remanded to secure units or young offender institutes for “imprisonable” offences, only because they committed an offence on bail or while remanded to local authority accommodation.

Whereas before a child was only remanded into custody in those cases where it was necessary to protect the public from “serious and imminent danger” it could now be used to “prevent the likelihood of further offences”. It seemed that the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” was slowly diminishing.

Judge John Samuels QC admits: “There is a real psychological pressure not to grant bail when the reasons for doing so are recorded and may be published if the defendant, while on bail, commits further offences. The new acts, while enshrining the principle of a presumptive entitlement to bail, formulate exceptions to that entitlement in language which makes it sufficiently broad to cover a multiplicity of circumstances with relative ease.”

The latest Criminal Justice Bill in November 2003 went even further. The new legislation actually reversed the presumption in favour of bail in certain cases. Now, instead of requiring the courts to justify their use of prison, the onus falls on defendants to prove that they should not be remanded in custody.

Higham says: “Those with chaotic lives or previous convictions will find it virtually impossible to persuade the courts that they present no further risk and should be granted bail. Prison is no longer a place for criminals, but for the mentally ill and desperate in society, who often end up remanded in custody.
Every body who wants get active is welcome. Just call on AI, immediately.