Haiti Orders Nightly Curfew After Weekend of Violence, Prison Break

This screen grab taken from AFPTV shows tires on fire near the main prison of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 3, 2024. (Photo by Luckenson JEAN / AFPTV / AFP)
This screen grab taken from AFPTV shows tires on fire near the main prison of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 3, 2024. (Photo by Luckenson JEAN / AFPTV / AFP)
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Haiti Orders Nightly Curfew After Weekend of Violence, Prison Break

This screen grab taken from AFPTV shows tires on fire near the main prison of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 3, 2024. (Photo by Luckenson JEAN / AFPTV / AFP)
This screen grab taken from AFPTV shows tires on fire near the main prison of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 3, 2024. (Photo by Luckenson JEAN / AFPTV / AFP)

Authorities have ordered a nighttime curfew trying to regain control of Haiti's streets after an explosion of violence during the weekend, including gunmen from gangs overrunning the country's two biggest prisons and freeing their inmates.
A 72-hour state of emergency began Sunday night, and the government said it would set out to find the killers, kidnappers and other violent criminals that it reported escaped from prison.
“The police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and apprehend all offenders,” said a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, who is serving as acting prime minister.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry traveled abroad last week to try to salvage support for bringing in a United Nations-backed security force to help stabilize Haiti in its conflict with increasingly powerful crime groups.
The emergency decree was issued after a deadly weekend that marked a new low in Haiti's downward spiral of violence. At least nine people had been killed since Thursday — four of them police officers — as gangs stepped up coordinated attacks on state institutions in Port-au-Prince, including the country's international airport and the national soccer stadium.

But the attack on the National Penitentiary late Saturday was a big shock Haitians, even though they are accustomed to living under the constant threat of violence, The Associated Press reported.
Almost all of the estimated 4,000 inmates escaped, leaving the normally overcrowded prison eerily empty Sunday with no guards in sight and plastic sandals, clothing and furniture strewn across the concrete patio. Three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance.
In another neighborhood, the bloodied corpses of two men with their hands tied behind the backs lay face down as residents walked past roadblocks set up with burning tires.
Among the few dozen that chose to stay in the prison are 18 former Colombian soldiers accused of working as mercenaries in the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Amid the fighting Saturday night, several of the Colombians shared a video pleading for their lives.



Iran Executed 975 People in 'Horrifying' 2024 Escalation, Rights Groups Say

Executions in Iran have surged in recent years - AFP
Executions in Iran have surged in recent years - AFP
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Iran Executed 975 People in 'Horrifying' 2024 Escalation, Rights Groups Say

Executions in Iran have surged in recent years - AFP
Executions in Iran have surged in recent years - AFP

Iran executed at least 975 people last year in a "horrifying escalation" of its use of capital punishment, two human rights groups said on Thursday.

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and French group Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said the figure was the highest since IHR began recording executions in Iran in 2008.

The figure "reveals a horrifying escalation in the use of the death penalty by the Islamic republic in 2024," they said in a joint report, accusing Iran of using the death penalty as a "central tool of political oppression".

"These executions are part of the Iran's war against its own people to maintain its grip on power," IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said, AFP reported.

"Five people were executed on average every single day in the last three months of the year as the threat of war between Iran and Israel escalated."

Last year's figure represented a 17 percent increase on the 834 executions recorded in 2023, the report said.

Of the 975 people executed, four people were hanged in public and 31 were women, also the highest figure for the past 17 years.

 

- Executions over protests -

 

Human rights groups, who say that Iran is the world's most prolific executioner after China, accuse the authorities of using the death penalty to sow fear among the public, particularly after nationwide protests broke out in 2022.

Capital punishment remains a key pillar of the sharia-based judicial system established after the 1979 revolution ousted the Western-backed shah.

Crimes punishable by death include murder, rape and drugs offences but also more vaguely worded charges like "corruption on earth" and "rebellion" which activists say are used against dissidents.

In recent years, executions have been carried out by hanging, mostly in prison yards but occasionally in public, though other methods remain on the statute books.

Two of last year's executions were in connection with the nationwide protests that erupted in September 2022 after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman arrested for an alleged breach of Iran's mandatory dress code.

Mohammad Ghobadlu, 23, was executed in January 2024 on charges of killing a police officer with a car during a protest in October 2022. Human rights groups have charged that his trial was deeply flawed, with judges ignoring evidence presented by the defense that he suffered from bipolar disorder.

Gholamreza Rasaei, 34, was executed in secret in August on charges of killing a Revolutionary Guard during a 2022 protest. Activists said his confession had been obtained by torture.

The rights groups said there was evidence Iran might have carried out more executions last year that they were unable to confirm for their report.

They said there were reports of an additional 39 executions in 2024 that they had been unable to corroborate through second sources.

Already this year, Iran has carried out at least 121 executions, according to IHR's count.