Fatema Torabi, a teacher who fears being stoned to death in Iran after being accused of adultery there appealed to Scottish judges to save her.

South Korea's state human rights panel said it will investigate the case of a North Korean citizen who is allegedly on death row in the communist country.

the People's Court of Hanoi handed down the death penalty to three men convicted of trafficking heroin.

a judicial source stated that the previous week saw a man sentenced to death for murder executed by firing squad in Equatorial Guinea.

Majid Segound, 17-year old, and an unnamed 20-year old male were executed by hanging in Khorramabad, the capital of Iran’s Lorestan province.

it was reported that new British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, will make a personal plea to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to spare the life of Mirza Tahir Hussain, from Leeds, due to be hanged at dawn at the Adiala central jail in Rawalpindi on 1 June, his 36th birthday.

a federal jury ruled that a former state police investigator fabricated a confession that sent Earl Washington Jr. to death row for a rape and murder he didn't commit.

the fate of convicted murderer Took Leng How will be known within three months, as a last-ditch effort to spare him from the gallows reaches the President. Some 34,000 people have signed a petition against Took's death sentence, due to be submitted to President Nathan.

4 of the nation's top arson experts have concluded that the state of Texas executed a man based on scientifically invalid evidence, and they called for an official re-investigation of the case.

six nations with poor human rights records are among those that have been elected to a new Human Rights Council at the United Nations, although notorious violators that had belonged to the predecessor Human Rights Commission did not succeed in winning places.

on the election of the new Human Rights Council at the United Nations, Hands Off Cain Treasurer Elisabetta Zamparutti stated: “The presence of totalitarian regimes such as China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba amongst the nations elected as members of the new Human Rights Council risks damaging the authority and effectiveness of the body entrusted with improving the UN’s approach to human rights.

an Islamic court in Saudi Arabia has awarded capital punishment to two Indians for smuggling narcotics into the kingdom about two-and-a-half years ago, reports reaching from Damam said.