Philippine President Gloria Arroyo ordered prison authorities to commute the sentences of 280 people on death row to life imprisonment.

a 15-year-old schoolboy has been sentenced to death accused of murder, government-run websites announced.

Hands Off Cain President and MEP Marco Pannella deposited a question to the European Parliament regarding the violation of human rights and religious repression perpetrated in China commencing with the case of Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer who for years has taken up the case of those fighting government abuse, censorship and freedom of speech.

an Indonesian court sentenced to death three men from an indigenous tribe on the remote Seram island, north of Maluku province, for ritual killings.

Iran’s Supreme Court upheld a death by hanging sentence against two teenagers in Tehran, the official state news agency reported.

a military court sentenced nine men, including al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to death for a plot to carry out a chemical attack on the kingdom.

Pakistani national Akthar Hussain, 70, on death row in the UAE, was to walk out a free man after receiving a pardon from the family of his Indian victim.

an Indonesian court sentenced two young Australian men to die by firing squad for attempting to smuggle heroin from the resort island of Bali, verdicts that could strain ties with Canberra.

the National Council of Resistance of Iran reported that a number of political prisoners, among them supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), had disappeared, according to family members and other prisoners.

Russia should abolish the death penalty in the near future, presidential council for civil society and human rights development Chairman Ella Pamfilova said.

Vietnam is considering abolishing the death penalty for nine different crimes, including smuggling, fraud, counterfeiting and bribery, state-controlled media reported.

two persons were put to death and eight people received life sentences in Belarus in 2005, Valyantsin Sukala, chairman of the Supreme Court, told reporters in Minsk.