[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 17


PAKISTAN:

Pakistan's return to the death penalty: 'knee-jerk' or necessary?



Pakistan is at the centre of an international debate over its decision to 
reinstate the death penalty and widen its application beyond those convicted of 
terrorism.

The trend worries human rights groups who say non-terror related cases are 
being fast-tracked in a country that has a weak judicial system and one of the 
highest number of death row inmates in the world - estimated to be more than 
8,000, or 10 % of the total prison population, according to the Human Rights 
Commission of Pakistan.

On Tuesday, Pakistan executed 12 death row inmates - the most single-day 
hangings since the country partially restored the death penalty in the wake of 
a high-profile attack on a school last December.

And on Thursday, Pakistan is to carry out a controversial death sentence that 
is sure to cause international outrage.

Shafqat Hussain's lawyers say he was 14 at the time of his arrest 10 years ago 
for the kidnap and killing of a child. His lawyers argue that Pakistan's laws 
prohibit the death sentence for juveniles and that his confession to the 
killing happened after 9 days of police torture.

Mr. Hussain's supporters have taken to social media and are tweeting under the 
hashtag #SaveShafqat and calling for a stay of execution and retrial.

"Shafqat Hussain has now spent 11 years on death row on charges that have 
nothing to do with terrorism. He was not a militant; he worked, during his 
brief spell of freedom in Karachi, as a caretaker at an apartment building. He 
impacts national security in no way," said Fatima Bhutto, a Pakistani author 
and niece of late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in New York Times op-ed 
Tuesday.

Pakistan's return to the death penalty started last December following a deadly 
attack by militants.

The attack on an Army-run school in Peshawar - a city frequently targeted by 
the Pakistan Taliban - left more than 150 dead. Most of the victims were 
school-age children. The attack sparked national outrage and was described by a 
senior government adviser as Pakistan's "mini 9/11."

It also resulted in a change in government policy to partially reintroduce the 
death penalty - overturning a complete ban in place since 2008.

Under new rules, those already convicted of terror-related offences would see 
their death sentences carried out. Also, a constitutional amendment in January 
this year removed the right to a civilian trial for terror suspects and instead 
empowers military-run courts to carry out speedy trials.

Together, the changes represent a move by the government of Prime Minister 
Nawaz Sharif to take decisive steps and tackle the militancy that has plagued 
the country.

But, earlier this month, the partial reinstating of the death penalty was 
extended to all death penalty offences - a move that has alarmed human rights 
groups and more than 8,000 death row inmates. Of those, about 1,000 have had 
their court appeals and clemency requests rejected.

Pakistan's death row population may only be surpassed by China, which, 
according to Amnesty International, recorded 7,003 death sentences in 2008 
alone. But grasping annual death sentences and executions in China is difficult 
because the information is considered a state secret.

In global death penalty data that excludes China, 3 countries - Iran, Iraq and 
Saudi Arabia - accounted for 80 % of the 778 global executions in 2013. 
Pakistan does not appear on the list of 2013's top 10 countries because the 
moratorium was still in effect. But that will likely change now.

According to Reuters, 27 people have been executed since death penalty was 
reinstated - most of them militants. But of the 12 men hanged across Pakistan 
on Tuesday, most were convicted of murders during robberies and family 
disputes, according to the Dawn News web site. "This shameful retreat to the 
gallows is no way to resolve Pakistan???s pressing security and law and order 
problems," said Amnesty International's Rupert Abbott following Pakistan's 
decision to resume execution for death penalty crimes.

"The use of the death penalty is always abhorrent, but it raises additional 
concerns in a country like Pakistan where trials are routinely unfair," he 
added.

There are 28 offences under Pakistani law that carry the death penalty - 
including rape, murder, blasphemy and treason. Human rights groups say that 
many of Pakistan's death row inmates are poor, have little or no access to 
legal aid, or have faced police treatment that includes torture.

Human Rights Watch has described the full reintroduction of the death penalty 
as a hasty and "ill-conceived" response to the school attack in Peshawar last 
December. "Government approval of a potential nationwide execution spree is a 
knee-jerk reaction to a terrible crime rather than a considered response to 
legitimate security concerns," said Phelim Kine, the group's deputy Asia 
director.

(source: The Globe and Mail)

**********

Pakistan Carries Out Largest Mass Execution Since Lifting Death Penalty Ban



Pakistani officials on Tuesday executed 12 people in the country's 
single-largest day of executions since a moratorium on the death penalty was 
lifted in December, officials said.

The executions are sure to raise concerns over due process and proper oversight 
of the country's troubled criminal justice system, which rights groups say 
often does little to protect defendants.

Authorities at different jails in the country's largest province of Punjab 
hanged 10 people Tuesday who had been sentenced to death in murder cases, said 
the provincial Home Minister Shuja Khanzada. He said authorities planned to 
execute more convicted criminals in the coming weeks. "We have started a 
process, and it will continue," he told The Associated Press.

The superintendent of the main jail in the southern port city of Karachi, Qazi 
Nazir, said they executed 2 convicted murderers and handed the bodies over to 
their families.

Late last year, Pakistan's prime minister lifted the death-penalty moratorium 
specifically for terrorism-related cases after a December Taliban attack on a 
school in Peshawar killed 150 people, most of them children. Last week, in a 
controversial step, the government completely lifted the death-penalty ban for 
all cases. Human rights groups estimate Pakistan has roughly 8,000 prisoners on 
death row.

One of the most closely watched execution cases is that of Shafqat Hussain, who 
family members say was 14 when he was sentenced to death by a court in Karachi 
for the murder of a seven-year-old boy. Hussain's family proclaims his 
innocence and Justice Project Pakistan, the legal group handling his case, says 
Hussain was tortured into making a false confession. Hussain is scheduled to be 
hanged on March 19.

Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen shot and killed a former lawyer for the 
Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. find Osama bin Laden.

The lawyer Samiullah Khan Afridi was assassinated Tuesday in the northwestern 
city of Peshawar before fleeing, senior police officer Shakir Khan said.

The lawyer was killed months after he announced that he will no longer be 
representing Dr. Shakil Afridi Afridi, who was convicted in May 2012 of 
"conspiring against the state" by giving money and providing medical treatment 
to militants, not for helping the CIA track down bin Laden.

The lawyer left Pakistan in November after receiving threats from militants; 
Khan said the lawyer recently came back from abroad.

A spokesman for the Taliban-linked Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group, Ahsanullah Ahsan, 
claimed responsibility for the killing in a telephone call to The Associated 
Press from an unidentified location.

Dr. Afridi, ran a vaccination campaign in the northwestern city of Abbottabad 
as a cover for a CIA-backed effort to obtain DNA samples from a home where 
Osama bin Laden was later killed during a 2011 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs.

(source: Huffington Post)