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	UN rights chief condemns multiple executions in Iraq by Navi Pillay High Commissioner for Human Rights   19 April 2013   The United Nations human rights chief has condemned the rampant use of the death penalty by the Iraqi Government, which executed 21 people earlier this week, stressing the country’s justice system is still not functioning adequately and should not carry out capital punishment at all.   The High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay described the Iraqi justice system as “too seriously flawed to warrant even a limited application of the death penalty, let alone dozens of executions at a time.”   The Government has executed 33 individuals in the past month, and the ministry of justice announced that a further 150 people may be executed in the coming days. A total of 1,400 people are believed to be currently on death row, and 129 people were executed in 2012 alone.   “Executing people in batches like this is obscene,” Ms. Pillay said. “It is like processing animals in a slaughterhouse. The criminal justice system in Iraq is still not functioning adequately, with numerous convictions based on confessions obtained under torture and ill-treatment, a weak judiciary and trial proceedings that fall short of international standards. The application of the death penalty in these circumstances is unconscionable, as any miscarriage of justice as a result of capital punishment cannot be undone.”   The Government maintains that it only executes individuals who have committed terrorist acts or other serious crimes against civilians, and have been convicted under an anti-terrorism law passed in 2005. However, Ms. Pillay expressed concern about one of the articles of the law, which broadens the scope of terrorism-related acts.   Ms. Pillay called on the Government “to halt executions, conduct a credible and independent review of all death row cases and disclose information on the number and identity of death row prisoners, the charges and judicial proceedings brought against them, and the outcome of the review of their cases.”   Prisoners convicted on terrorism-related charges are apparently unable to exercise the right to seek pardon or commutation of their sentences, as prescribed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Ms. Pillay noted that the presidential authority to pardon or commute death sentences is hardly ever exercised.   “I am the first to argue there must never be impunity for serious crimes. But at least if someone is jailed for life, and it is subsequently discovered there was a miscarriage of justice, he or she can be released and compensated,” she said.   Ms. Pillay said she was pleased that one part of Iraq – the Kurdistan Region – is already upholding an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty, and urged the central Government to follow suit and heed the repeated calls by the international community to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolish the death penalty in accordance with repeated UN General Assembly resolutions. She added that around 150 countries have now either abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, or introduced a moratorium. Visit the related web page
	Migrant Workers gunned down in Greece by AP & agencies   April 18, 2013   Twenty-eight migrant workers were gunned down in Greece on Wednesday after demanding back pay owed to them on a farm they had worked on for several months.   Up to 28 out of a total of 200 mostly Bangladeshi immigrant workers who came under fire were hospitalized following the incident, although no one was killed. Seven of the workers remained hospitalized on Thursday.   Three Greek nationals, said to be the workers'' supervisors, were involved in the shooting, which took place on a strawberry farm in Nea Manolada, though many details of the case are still unclear.   "Before the shootings, there was an altercation between the foreign workers and the three foremen over six months'' outstanding wages," police spokesman Christos Parthenis said. "After that the three fugitives left the spot, and returned shortly later holding two shotguns and a handgun, and opened fire on the crowd."   The three shooters are still at large. However, the owner of the strawberry farm where the shooting occurred was arrested on Thursday as the "moral instigator" of the shootings. Another was arrested for sheltering two of the three presumed perpetrators overnight, police said.   "They keep telling us that we will get paid in a month, and this has been going on for more than a year," one of the workers involved in the protests told Greek Skai. "We don''t talk about it because we are afraid that we will be killed or kicked out."   Manolada has become known as an area prone to violence against migrant workers, The Greek Reporter reports:   Last year, two Greek men were arrested for beating a 30-year-old Egyptian, jamming his head in the window of a car door and dragging him for around one kilometer.   In 2008, migrants working on farms in New Manolada, known for its strawberries, went on a four-day strike to protest poverty wages and squalid living conditions. Several activists have called on consumers at home and abroad to boycott Manolada strawberries. A social media campaign was launched on Twitter under #bloodstrawberries.   According to Associated Press, political parties and trade unions expressed shock across Greece and about 100 people took part in a protest by labor groups outside the Labor Ministry in Athens.   "The injuries suffered by protesting farm workers in Manolada are being condemned in the most absolute manner by the entirety of Greek society,” government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said in a statement.   The national PAME union stated that the incident was only the latest in a long history of abuse of migrant workers in Greece:   Growers and landowners have operated with cover from the government and justice for years, creating a hell-hole with slavery labor conditions   Modern slaves in Manolada work in stifling conditions, pay rent to their exploiters and are lodged in sheds without water and electricity.   The country''s main labor union, GSEE, also described conditions at Manolada as a modern form of slavery:   The criminal act in Manolada ... shows the tragic results of labor exploitation, combined with a lack of control [by the government labor inspectorate]   In Manolada, and particularly in the strawberry plantations, a sort of state within a state has been created.
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