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California | San Quentin begins prison reform - but not for those on death row

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California is transferring everyone on death row at San Quentin prison to other places, as it tries to reinvent the state's most notorious facility as a rehabilitation centre. Many in this group will now have new freedoms. But they are also asking why they've been excluded from the reform - and whether they'll be safe in new prisons. Keith Doolin still remembers the day in 2019 when workers came to dismantle one of the United States' most infamous death chambers.

Saudi Arabia performs 84th beheading in 2015

Public beheading in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani national sentenced to death for drug smuggling on May 17.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said that brings to 84 the number of executions in the kingdom this year.

The ministry said in a statement that Iftikhar Ahmed Mohammed Anayat was found guilty of attempting to traffic heroin into Saudi Arabia in balloons concealed in his stomach. 

He was executed in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

The ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for its use of the death penalty despite criticism from human rights watchdogs.

Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia among the world's top three executioners in 2014.

Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy, homosexuality, and armed robbery are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic Shari'a law.

Source: Agence France-Presse, May 17, 2015

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