Sex workers face a struggle worldwide for labor rights and human rights. At the extreme end of the criminalization spectrum was the fate of the unidentified 35-year-old woman who, according to the Iranian newspaper Entekhab, “was partially buried in a hole at Tehran’s Evin prison and stoned to death Sunday.”
She had been arrested eight years before for acting in “obscene sex films,” which of course are as prevalent in Iran as everywhere else.
On this date in 2005, Glen James Ocha took a lethal injection on account of his tiny penis.
It’s true. Ocha on Ocober 5, 1999 picked up a Kissimmee, Fla., barmaid named Carol Skjerva and got her (consensually) into bed.
But Skjerva sent his manhood meter to half mast by busting on Ocha’s unimpressive junk and threatening to tell her boyfriend, who was probably the kind of guy who wouldn’t stand for another man rogering his girl with a mere gherkin.
It’s sad but true that we can’t all wear magnums, and probably most on the hung-like-a-mouse side of the spectrum would prefer not to broadcast the fact to the wide world. But here’s a tip it might have done Glen Ocha well to reflect upon: one good way of keeping strangers in the dark about the paltry dimensions of your John Thomas is not to get yourself arrested for strangling and beheading a woman who makes fun of the paltry dimensions of your John Thomas.
Adolescent chortling aside, this was obviously quite a horrible tragedy for Carol Skjerva, as well as the boyfriend (actually her fiance). Nor was genitalia the only compromised characteristic of the murderer, who was high on ecstasy at the time this all happened and had a history of psychiatric problems and suicidal ideation, all circumstances that comport well with Ocha’s decision to sit his victim’s decapitated head in his lap for a little post-mortem conversation.
This gentleman went right onto suicide watch in the prison, but they needn’t have worried: Ocha was more than ready to work within the system. He confessed to the murder, pled guilty at trial, and dropped all appeals past the minimum required by law, hastening his trip to Florida’s gurney. (Along the way he legally changed his name to Raven Raven.)
I would like to say I apologize to Carol Skjerva, the girl that I murdered, her family and her friends. This is the punishment that I deserve. I’m taking responsibility for my actions. I want everybody to know I’m not a volunteer but this is my responsibility I have to take.
(Meanwhile, he released a last written statement, reading “I unjustly took the life of Carol Skjerva. I have made my peace with my God and go now to face His judgment.”)
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Catholic just as Ocha was, said he was actually prepared to delay the execution out of respect to the April 2 passing of Pope John Paul II. Ocha, the determined volunteer, had no interest in any delay.
Pushing 70, the Kurd was a longtime pillar of the Iraqi Ba’ath party and had served in a variety of posts since it took power in 1968. For instance, he brought his management expertise to the Ministry of Industry: “I don’t know anything about industry. All I know is that anyone who doesn’t work hard will be executed.”
He was noted for his role in orchestrating Saddam Hussein’s terrifying 1979 internal purge.
While the first operations of America’s 2003 invasion took place on March 19, it was March 20, 2003 local time that the land invasion proper commenced. That made Ramadan’s execution a fourth-anniversary gift to the occupier’s preposterous foreign policy blunder.
Which was all too bad, since Ramadan had also floated a 2002 plan to avert conflict: have Saddam Hussein fight a duel with George W. Bush. Of course, the offer was declined. “An irresponsible statement,” replied the spokesman of a government that was at that moment engaged in a mendacious campaign to justify its coming aggressive war with creative fables about Iraq’s nuclear capacity.
Naw Kham (or Nor Kham), a Burmese Shan, ran a sizable gang of drug traffickers/paramilitaries/pirates, the Hawngleuk Militia, in the Golden Triangle.
In addition to heroin smuggling, this gang also shook down for protection money the many Chinese commercial shippers coming down the Mekong River, and wantonly raided shippers that held out on them. He was untouchable in his lawless zone (with the possible protection of Burmese military to boot) for more than a decade.
Times may have started passing Naw Kham by in the 2000s.*
China’s economic boom has driven more shipping, and a search for investment outlets for Chinese capital, both inevitably increasing its presence on the economically developing Mekong. Ultimately this had to come at Naw Kham’s expense.
He had hit Chinese shippers before to the annoyance of Beijing, but matters came to a head when the kingpin allegedly retaliated against the flouting of his “taxes” by massacring 13 Chinese sailors in 2011 on board two tightfisted merchantmen. (“Allegedly” because Naw Kham blamed the Thai military for this slaughter, and some people believe him.)
At any rate, China put the screws to the drug lord, not only pressuring Southeast Asian governments for his capture but directly hunting him with special forces. Early in 2012, Naw Kham was arrested and his gang broken up after a multinational manhunt; the leader was extradited from Laos to face Chinese justice with five of his associates.** The accused had little recourse but to throw themselves on the mercy of the court.
Executed with Naw Kham — and underscoring the multinational complexion of his outfit — were Hsang Kham (a Thai), Zha Xika (a Lao), and Yi Lai (stateless). The other two defendants received a suspended (reprieved) death sentence, and an eight-year prison term.
Naw Kham being led to an execution van on March 1, 2013. Two hours of footage of the “Mekong River murderers” walking their green mile was broadcast on CCTV News, although not the executions themselves.
The case isn’t entirely closed with his date’s executions, however. China is still pressuring Thailand to bring to book Thai troops whom China says colluded (at the very least) in the Mekong murders. The future direction of that investigation is quite unclear.
* China, Burma, Thailand, and Laos, inked a 2001 pact to regularize shipping on the Mekong. It contained no provision allowing for stateless narco-buccaneers.
** It’s noteworthy that this is a non-Chinese citizen being extradited to China for a crime not on Chinese soil.
It was reported that a year ago today, Islamic militants beheaded three in the South Yemen towns of Ja’ar (in the Abyan Governorate) and ‘Azzan (in the adjacent Shabwa Governorate) on charges of providing intelligence to help the U.S. to conduct drone strikes.
The executions were announced to the media by text message.
The ongoing shadow drone war in Yemen has steadily drummed that fractious Arabian peninsula state with missiles from flying death robots, piloted from afar (under separate command structures, little difference though that makes to those on the receiving end) by the CIA or the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command.
The deaths one year ago took place in the sunset of President Ali Abdullah Saleh‘s government, when much of southern Yemen was functionally controlled by militants for several months. The Obama administration significantly ramped up drone strikes in south Yemen from late 2011, and kept right on ramping throughout 2012.
For instance (and this was obviously not the strike being avenged by our February 12 execution in that same city), a May 2012 drone raid on Ja’ar was decried by locals who insisted that not one militant was among the dead.* “Our lives are valueless in the eyes of our government, and that is why civilians are being killed without a crime,” one man told CNN.
Then again, as this post goes to press, Americans have themselves had a bracing reminder of their own killability, courtesy of a leaked memo giving a partial glimpse of the Obama administration’s startlingly expansive assertion of the right to murder American citizens or whomever else on the unilateral say-so of somebody sufficiently senior.
A generation ago, the U.S. had explicit state policies abjuring assassination. Today, there are routine “Terror Tuesdays” at which the chief executive reviews proposed additions to an official kill list.** All of this is claimed as a power of a planetwide war that can never end, but in practice bears an uncomfortable resemblance to something our militants in Ja’ar and ‘Azzan would surely appreciate — extrajudicial execution.†
* Official story: two terrorists dead, “only” eight civilians; locals said around 17 to 26 killed, none of whom were terrorists. The U.S. has been accused of using Vietnam-era “body count” rules and claiming every military-aged male killed by a drone counts as a “militant.” (Contra Vietnam, Washington depresses rather than exaggerates the overall casualty counts.)
** Many drone attacks target not named individuals, but unknown people whose activities from drone or satellite surveillance are held to match a terrorist’s pattern.
† There’s even been a Congressional proposal for a secret court to decide who goes on the secret kill list.
In that December 13, 2001 strike, a team of five gunmen infiltrated the New Delhi government building and went to work. No government ministers were killed, but several police officers and a gardener died in the ensuing shootout before the militants were themselves shot dead. Some eighteen others were wounded.
The subsequent investigation led back to Kashmiri separatists, coordinating with the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Afzal Guru, a fruit seller and Jammu and Kashmir native, had found his way into that struggle years before via the Liberation Front founded by Kashmir separatist martyr Maqbool Bhat.
He was condemned for having conspired in the attacks, arranging the attackers’ weapons, and procuring the New Delhi safehouse where the gunmen organized.* (When searched, the place was found stocked with explosives.) Afzal Guru claimed that he was tortured into confessing and denied taking part in the conspiracy.
Though there’s been criticism of the trial’s fairness given the raw aftermath of the shocking attack, India’s Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence years ago:
The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, has shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender. The challenge to the unity, integrity and sovereignty of India by these acts of terrorists and conspirators can only be compensated by giving the maximum punishment to the person who is proved to be a conspirator in this treacherous act. The appellant, who is a surrendered militant and who was bent upon repeating the acts of treason against the nation, is a menace to the society should become extinct. Accordingly we uphold the death sentence. (from the judgment upholding Guru’s hanging, via this anti-execution pdf pamphlet)
However, actual execution of the death sentence stalled out during the condemned man’s post-appeals clemency petition. It was a sensitive political case, for Kashmir itself (whose towns are reported today to be fortified with added security details), and as a potential irritant to Hindu-Muslim relations and India’s own tense border with Pakistan. (In the weeks following the parliament attack, India and Pakistan had a dangerous military standoff which could easily have become a nuclear war.)
Plus, at the time, actual executions were an extreme rarity in India.
Those times might be changing. While it’s conceivable that Afzal Guru might have lived out his natural life in prison under an empty death sentence, the even more devastating “26/11″ plot in Mumbai in 2008 advanced an even more notorious Pakistan-backed terrorist incident to the front pages — and the front of the hanging queue. India broke an eight-year death penalty moratorium on November 21, 2012 when it hanged the Mumbai plot’s lone survivor, Ajmal Kasab.
To judge by nothing but the visible public clues, that execution might have pulled Afzal Guru to the gallows in its train, inasmuch as it ratcheted up the profile, and the perceived stakes, of Islamic terrorism in India. Guru’s hanging was being publicly demanded almost as a logical consequence as soon as Ajmal Kasab’s execution went public.
Kasab’s death also provided a logistical game plan for this date’s hanging: the entire operation arranged in secret, set up to go into immediate motion upon rejection of that long-neglected clemency brief, and the wider public to find out only after the fact.
Kasab and Guru were implicated in extraordinary crimes; it will be interesting to discover whether either the fact of their actual executions or the stealth with which they were conducted will pattern to the more humdrum common-criminal murderers and rapists also lying under sentences of death.
* Three others, SAR Geelani, Shaukat Hussain, and Afsan Guru (no relation), also stood trial for the conspiracy; the former two were condemned, but the sentences vacated on appeal, while Afsan Guru was acquitted outright. All three are free today, or at least are free of of legal jeopardy in this case.
That day, after an appetizer of conventional bombing, Iraqi jets dropped a cocktail of multiple chemical weapons — mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and VX, give or take — killing up to 5,000 people.
“It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame,” wrote the ethnically Iranian BBC correspondent Kaveh Golestan,* who arrived on the scene after the bombardment.
“It was a new kind of death to me. You went into a room, a kitchen and you saw the body of a woman holding a knife where she had been cutting a carrot. (…) The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl’s mouth and she died in my arms.”
The Halabja attack was the last of four separate death sentences Chemical Ali racked up after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and it was handed down just a week before he stood on the gallows. The larger Kurdish genocide campaign as a whole was a separate death sentence from Halabja; there were also two others for his brutal suppressions of Shia uprisings in the 1990s.
He met all his tribunals defiantly, refusing to enter a plea and then openly embracing the atrocities imputed him. “I am the one who gave orders to the army to demolish villages and relocate villagers,” he once spat in court. “I am not defending myself, I am not apologizing. I did not make a mistake.”
On this date in 2010, a former Communist Party of China (CPC) anti-corruption official was shot … for corruption.
Zeng, former secretary of the Chenzhou Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC and vice secretary of the CPC Chenzhou Municipal Committee, gorged on 31 million yuan ($4.7 million) in bribes from 1997 to 2006, doling out lucrative mining contracts and sinecures in exchange.
Although known in the Hunan coal-mining city as “a modern-day Heshen” — Chenzhou residents whose businesses had been widely subject to Zeng’s crude protection-racket shakedowns set off fireworks to celebrate his arrest — Zeng was all but impossible to dislodge.
Zeng bribed up to higher officials for protection as effectively as he squeezed those below. It’s just another piece of the graft so endemic in China that it’s frankly represented in popular literature. (And has often appeared on the execution grounds, too.)
“Officials, especially high-ranking ones, are basically not held accountable for paying bribes,” a journalist who wrote a book about Zeng told NPR. “This is because China’s judiciary is not independent enough.” Zeng wasn’t even charged with this crime — just extortion.
Zeng’s well-placed protectors defeated at least three investigations. He was only overcome by an order from the very top: President and Party Chairman Hu Jintao, who scribbled onto a secret report of Zeng’s antics,
“To Comrade Wu Guanzheng: Put more effort into investigating corruption in Chenzhou. Signed, Hu Jintao, July 19, 2006.”
Three months later, Zeng was under arrest.
The effects of power, corruption, privilege, and cutthroat economies did not go with him. After all, on the same date Zeng was put to death, officials elsewhere in Hunan province also announced the execution of one Chen Haitao for torching an airport shuttle bus. The blaze killed two and seriously injured three others.
Chen committed the arson to revenge society as he had “blamed his business failure on social injustice,” the court said in a statement.
On this day in 2001, 66-year-old Kojiro Asakura was executed by hanging at the Tokyo Detention House for the murders of almost an entire family eighteen years before.
In June 1983, he had killed Akira Shirai, age 45, and Shirai’s wife, one-year-old son and two daughters aged six and nine by beating them to death with a hammer and an ax. He then dismembered three of the bodies.
The only survivor was the family’s oldest daughter, age ten, who was away at summer camp at the time of the murders.
The motive for Asakura’s crimes lay in frustrations related to his job. A property assessor, he had bid successfully on the Shirai family’s house and land in Tokyo when they came up for public auction. He planned to resell the property at a profit, but the deal stalled when the Shirais refused to move out. Four months after the auction, they were still residing in the house illegally.
At his trial, the defense argued insanity or at least diminished capacity, pointing out that normal, sane people do not go on gruesome murder sprees. The court didn’t buy it.
Asakura was hanged on the same day as another Japanese multiple murderer, Toshihiko Hasegawa, who breathed his last at the Nagoya Detention House. These were the first executions in Japan in eleven months, and thirteen months more would pass before anyone else stepped up to the scaffold.
In Saudi Arabia, distinguished as the worldwide capital of beheading, a Pakistani named Mohamed Rafiq Myased and his daughter Abajan (or Apa-jan) were beheaded in Jeddah on this date in 2006 for smuggling drugs.
(Another Pakistani national lost his head in Jeddah 10 days later for the same crime; I’m uncertain whether the cases were related.)
It’s true. 
Pushing 70, the Kurd was a longtime pillar of the Iraqi Ba’ath party and had served in a variety of posts since it took power in 1968. For instance, he brought 
Naw Kham (or Nor Kham), a Burmese 
The subsequent investigation led back to Kashmiri separatists, coordinating with the Pakistani 
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