[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 26



PHILIPPINES:

'Weekly' executions under Duterte - Dino


Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte will reimpose the death penalty and implement 
it weekly if he is elected president, erstwhile PDP-Laban presidential bet 
Martin Di???o said Wednesday.

Di???o, the current chairman of Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, said 
in case Duterte wins, the latter will reimpose the death penalty 6 months into 
his presidency and have weekly executions of convicts of heinous crimes.

"Once na nanalo siya, itong death penalty ay [restored] within six months. 
Kapag ito ay na-restore na, we will implement it weekly," he said.

"Gusto niya magkaroon ng atmosphere ng katahimikan."

Duterte, after months of blowing hot and cold about his presidential bid, said 
over the weekend that he is finally gunning for the country's top post.

Duterte, known for his heavy handed approach on criminals, has attracted 
Filipino voters clamoring for an iron-fist leadership. However, not everyone is 
happy with his demeanor and spotty human rights record.

(source: ABS-CBNnews.com)






MALDIVES:

Maldives initiates final appeal in death sentence over MP's murder


Prosecutors filed for final appeal Thursday the death sentence handed to 
Hussain Humam over the brutal murder of former Ungoofaru MP Dr Afrasheem Ali.

Regulations on death penalty that came into effect last year require the 
prosecution to exhaust the appeal process -- the High Court and Supreme Court 
-- even if the convict wishes to not file for appeal.

High Court had on September 7 upheld the death sentence handed to Humam.

The prosecutor general's (PG) office forwarded the case to the Supreme Court 
Wednesday to initiate the final stage of appeal after Humam failed to appeal 
the sentence against him within the appeal window.

Humam was found guilty of the MP's murder and sentenced to death in January. He 
later appealed the sentence.

A 5-member High Court bench had heard the closing arguments from both the 
defence and the prosecution on August 16.

The bench unanimously backed the Criminal Court's verdict Monday afternoon.

The defence during the closing argument had maintained that Humam's initial 
confession had been made under duress and the retraction of his earlier 
statement should have stood.

They also argued that the trial had been shrouded by doubt as the state had 
failed to present an eyewitness to the actual crime.

However, the prosecution had stressed that the lower court???s ruling had not 
only been based on the confession but also on the strong forensic evidence 
linking Humam to the murder.

The judges had raised doubts over the defence's claims of Humam's psychological 
state. The defence, however, insisted that no test had been done so far despite 
several requests.

Afrasheem was found brutally stabbed to death on the stairway of his apartment 
building in October 2012.

Criminal Court had acquitted Ali Shan of Hicoast in Henveyru district of 
Afrasheem's murder.

Maldives has recently adopted a series of new rules and regulations and is 
currently drafting a law on death penalty.

The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on Sunday allowing death sentences and 
public lashing rulings issued by lower courts to be appealed automatically at 
the High Court.

In a circular, the Supreme Court said if the defendant fails to appeal death 
sentences and public lashing verdicts within 10 days, the court that had 
initially issued the verdict should forward the relevant documents to the High 
Court. The appellate court would have 7 days to notify both the defendant and 
the prosecution of the appeal and during that period should take the necessary 
steps to begin appeal proceedings, it added.

The new rules follow similar guidelines issued by the apex court early this 
month.

The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on November 8 giving a month-long 
window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed 
by High Court.

According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court 
verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day 
period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the 
prosecution.

The guidelines, included in a circular signed by Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, 
did not specifically mention sentences of death and public lashing. However, it 
says that High Court rulings that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court 
had to be appealed within 30 days, including public holidays.

Under local laws, the only sentences that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme 
Court are death sentences and public lashing verdicts.

Judicature Act earlier granted a 90-day period, excluding public holidays, to 
appeal rulings by any court.

However, the Supreme Court had in January annulled that clause and issued new 
guidelines under which rulings issued by lower courts had to be appealed at the 
High Court within 10 days and appeal over High Court verdicts needed to be 
filed at the Supreme Court within 60 days.

Meanwhile, the government has included funds in the proposed state budget for 
next year to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to 
carry out the death penalty.

The state budget for next year, which was approved by the parliament on Monday, 
includes MVR4 million to build an execution chamber. However, the correctional 
service was not immediately available for comment.

Maldives adopted a new regulation last year under which lethal injection would 
be used to implement the death penalty.

However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been 
refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital 
punishment.

Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be 
ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by 
the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the government announced on November 16 that it was in the process 
of drafting legislation on implementing death penalty.

Attorney General Mohamed Anil told reporters that the bill being drafted by his 
office would expand on the already existing regulations on death penalty. The 
bill would include procedures on conducting murder investigations, filing 
charges in such cases and conducting proceedings in murder cases, he added.

There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has 
exhausted the appeal process thus far.

(source: haveeru.com)






CARIBBEAN:

EU won't punish Caribbean countries over death penalty, says official


Secretary General of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, Dr 
Asunta Cavaller, has described the death penalty as "cruel, inhumane and 
degrading" even as the European Union said it would not punish Caribbean 
countries that refuse to abolish the death penalty.

Speaking at the Caribbean Regional Conference on the Abolition of the Death 
Penalty that ended here on Tuesday, Cavaller agreed that abolishing the death 
penalty does not mean those found guilty of heinous crimes will not be 
punished.

"By doing this you run the risk of executing innocent people. It targets those 
who are marginalised, ethnic minorities and people who don't have access to 
defence lawyers or are denied a fair trial; it alienates the right to life and 
human dignity," she said, adding that there was no evidence that the death 
penalty resulted in fewer crimes.

"The death penalty has not proven to be a deterrent. Here in the Caribbean, 
many countries that retain the death penalty are the ones with the highest 
crime rates," she said.

The two-day conference was organised by the European Union, in co-operation 
with the British High Commission and the International Commission against the 
Death Penalty.

Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman, who addressed the opening of the 
conference, acknowledged that the matter was indeed controversial, but gave no 
indication that Georgetown would be supportive of abolishing the death penalty.

He said Guyana welcomed what he described as a "thought-provoking conference".

"Are we ready to take that step and do we have the political will? These are 
the questions that need to be answered in the near and medium-term future," 
Trotman said, adding that while the death penalty remains law here, there is an 
unspoken moratorium in effect where it was not applied in sentencing for over 2 
decades.

He told the conference of the move by the Parliament several years ago to 
remove the mandatory death sentence for people convicted of murder.

EU Ambassador to Guyana, Jernej Videtic, said the abolition of the death 
penalty remains one of the main human rights issues for the EU, and welcomed 
the decision by Suriname in this regard.

Head of the Political Division at the EU embassy in Guyana, Derek Lambe, told a 
news conference that Europe would not punish any Caribbean country that fails 
to abolish the death penalty.

"There is no question that the EU would carry out sanctions or halt development 
aid or anything like that against any country that didn't abolish the death 
penalty; we don't work that way, we work in a spirit of partnership with 
countries in the Caribbean," he said.

Lord Nanit Dholakia of the UK All Parliamentary Committee on the Abolition of 
the Death Penalty told the conference that there was no evidence anywhere in 
the world that proved that by establishing the death sentence it has reduced 
crime.

He called on civil society to press their governments to abolish such laws. He 
also urged governments not to hide behind public opinion on this matter, but 
lead public opinion.

(source: Jamaica Observer)



SAUDI ARABIA:

Saudi Arabia's Next Terrible Move


2 reports in local Saudi Arabian media reveal that a mass execution is planned 
to take place in that nation in a few days. The prisoners are not named, but 
one report states that more than 50 individuals are to be executed and that all 
of them are from the eastern part of the country, and another explains that all 
of the prisoners have been charged with terrorism.

Both of these statements describe Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the young man who was 
arrested when he was a teen; his uncle, Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr; and Ali Saed 
Al-rebeh, Mohammed Faisal al-shyookh, Dawood al-Marhoon, Abed allahhassan 
al-Zaher, Ali Mohammad al-Nimr, and Mohammad Suwaymil. Each was charged with 
terrorism and they all are from the east.

Ali Adubisi, the Director of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights 
in Berlin (ESOHR) published a brief article earlier today in which he explained 
his findings: "These 52 individuals are all to be executed based on 
terrorism-related charges. The group comprises a mix of individuals, who will 
all be executed across different regions of the kingdom in a single day. We do 
not have full details of all the 52 individuals." He added that 2 of the 
articles he had seen were quickly taken down, but one remains standing. (If 
those who can read Arabic, here is the link: Okaz. ESOHR reports the number as 
52; Reprieve, the human rights watchdog group, reports 55.

Adubisi has been in regular contact with the families of the prisoners, so he 
has one other detail that outside news sources do not have: "All the activists 
have recently been given an unexplained medical examination." He adds: "Medical 
examinations are common in the lead up to an execution."

The Saudi Arabian government considers its Eastern region to be a hotbed of 
insurgency. This stems from sectarian differences between the people who live 
there and the rest of the country. Shiekh al-Nimr and the 6 underage defendants 
are all from that region and are considered terrorists because they were 
considered possible activists. Silencing activists is the Saudi Arabian 
government's way of preventing future change.

Almost every prisoner sentenced to die in Saudi Arabia is beheaded, a method 
that I have seen argued online (chillingly) as being more humane than the 
American method of lethal injection (which I am also vehemently against). There 
are videos online, several videos, that are purported to show a genuine 
judicial beheading in Saudi Arabia. I have not seen if these have been verified 
as real or if they even could be real. To me, every method of judicially 
administered death is chilling. Some prisoners in Saudi Arabia are executed by 
firing squad. Others are stoned. Most are beheaded. All are dispatched in 
public; almost all punishments in Saudi Arabia, corporal and capital, are 
delivered in public, as if they are an entertainment.

Only the nations of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and Qatar have beheading as a 
legal means of execution; Saudi Arabia is the only nation that actually employs 
the method.

As Ali Adubisi reported, he does not know the stories of the other 45 
individuals. He adds, "Such a mass execution is an uncommon move by the Saudi 
authorities and signals a new approach to the implementation of the death 
penalty." He also reports that conditions for each of the 7 prisoners has 
deteriorated in the last 2 weeks: the recent torrential rains in Saudi Arabia 
flooded the prisons, the condemned men's cells flooded also, but none of them 
were moved to dry cells or even given towels to dry themselves.

I recently wrote about a death-row prisoner in Saudi Arabia, Hussein Abu 
al-Khair. I reported last week:

Hussein Abu al-Khair was arrested in 2014 after he was pulled over by police. 
They charged him with smuggling drugs across the border between Jordan and 
Saudi Arabia. According to his sister, Zeinab Abdle, he was told by the police 
that they were arresting him for drug smuggling even though they did not 
inspect the vehicle. Why look for something you are not going to find when 
officially you have found it already?

Zeinab described what followed in a letter to me: "He was detained and was 
tortured for 12 days by being hung up-side down by the ankles with the help of 
thick chains. He was beaten with sticks, hands and other methods. He has been 
spat on, insulted and shamed through insults. His body has been hung with his 
legs and hands stretched out as he was being hurt. When his body and spirit 
were broken, he was forced to sign a false declaration saying that he admitted 
to smuggling drugs into Saudi Arabia. From this moment on, he was thrown into 
the Tabook jail awaiting his trial."

He was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to death.

I asked Zeinab earlier today if she or her sister have been able to speak with 
Hussein Abu al-Khair in recent days. She told me that her sister has spoken 
with him. It seems likely, but we do not know this definitively, that he is not 
among the 52 that ESOHR reported on today. He was not charged with terrorism, 
and he is not originally from the eastern portion of Saudi Arabia; he is 
Jordanian.

Saudi Arabia is in a bloodthirsty moment in its history, something that usually 
comes from desperation.

(source: mark Aldlrich, thegadabouttown.com)

************

Saudi Arabia To Sue Twitter User Who Called Poet's Death Sentence 'ISIS-Like'


Saudi Arabia's justice ministry plans to sue a Twitter user who compared the 
death sentence handed down on Friday to a Palestinian poet to the punishments 
meted out by Islamic State, a major government-aligned newspaper reported on 
Wednesday.

"The justice ministry will sue the person who described ... the sentencing of a 
man to death for apostasy as being `ISIS-like'," the newspaper Al-Riyadh quoted 
a source in the justice ministry as saying.

The source did not identify the Twitter user or the possible penalty.

On Friday, a Saudi Arabian court sentenced Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh to 
death for apostasy - abandoning his Muslim faith - according to trial documents 
seen by Human Rights Watch.

Fayadh was detained by the country's religious police in 2013 in Abha, in 
southwest Saudi Arabia, and then rearrested and tried in early 2014.

Saudi Arabia's justice system is based on Islamic Sharia law, and its judges 
are clerics from the kingdom's ultra- conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni 
Islam. In the Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia, religious crimes, including 
blasphemy and apostasy, incur the death penalty.

In January, liberal writer Raif Badawi was flogged 50 times after he was 
sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for blasphemy last year, 
prompting an international outcry. Badawi remains in prison, but diplomats say 
he is unlikely to be flogged again.

In 2014, a Saudi court in Riyadh sentenced three lawyers to up to eight years 
in jail after they criticized the justice ministry on Twitter.

The charges were dropped in early 2015 after King Salman inherited the throne 
from his brother.

"Questioning the fairness of the courts is to question the justice of the 
Kingdom and its judicial system based on Islamic law, which guarantees rights 
and ensures human dignity", Al-Riyadh quoted the justice ministry source as 
saying. The ministry would not hesitate to put on trial "any media that 
slandered the religious judiciary of the Kingdom," it said.

Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry or other officials could not immediately be 
reached for comment.

(source: Reuters)






EGYPT:

Death penalty reduced to life imprisonment for Seychellois trio convicted of 
drug trafficking in Egypt following 'intensive diplomatic representations'


The Seychellois trio who were facing death row in Egypt, after being found 
guilty of drug trafficking, have had their sentence commuted to life 
imprisonment.

According to a statement issued by State House on Wednesday evening, the 
decision was taken by the Egyptian President, Abel Fattah El-Sisi, "as a result 
of intensive diplomatic representations at the highest levels."

The 3 men, Ronny Norman Jean, Yvon John Vinda and Dean Dominic Loze, were 
sentenced to death by execution on April 7, 2013.

This followed their arrest on April 22, 2011 by Egyptian police aboard a boat 
near the Red Sea coastal town of Marsa Alam with 3 tonnes of cannabis on board.

Jean, Vinda and Loze, were together with the skipper and owner of the vessel, a 
British national identified as Charles Raymond Ferndale, who was also sentenced 
to death.

On October 15 last year, the Egyptian Court of Cessation rejected their appeal 
and upheld the death penalty.

The Seychelles government had been engaging with the Egyptian authorities for 
quite a while to find a way for the death sentence to be commuted to a less 
severe punishment of life in jail.

Seychelles is a not a country that applies the death penalty and the Indian 
Ocean archipelago is a strong advocate for the abolition of this practice 
worldwide.

"President James Michel has, in his direct appeals to his Egyptian counterpart 
on several occasions, played a strong and proactive role in ensuring the 
Seychellois in Egypt are spared the death sentence," reads the State House 
statement issued on Wednesday.

"From the onset of the trial President Michel had tasked the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs and Transport of the Republic of Seychelles to ensure that the 
Seychellois nationals are given legal assistance to defend themselves within 
the Egyptian judicial system, treated humanely and with dignity, facilitated 
contact between their family members as well as dispatching diplomats to Egypt 
on a regular basis to hold talks with their Egyptian counterparts and meet with 
the detainees."

For the families of the 3 men since travelling to Egypt to see their loved ones 
on November 4 last year, they had been awaiting the outcome of negotiations 
between the governments of Egypt and Seychelles, on the fate of the 3 convicts.

Speaking to SNA, in a phone interview this morning, Nola Loze, the mother of 
Dean Loze, said she was given the latest news about the convicts' situation by 
President Michel himself.

"I am very happy. I was informed yesterday while I was at work... I fell to my 
knees," said Loze.

The last time the lady who is from Anse Boileau, a district on the Western 
Coast of the Seychelles main island of Mahe had seen his son was in November 
last year.

Since that time she says that she has been receiving regular updates through a 
priest who is used to visiting inmates, at the prison where the 3 Seychellois 
nationals are being detained.

While the Egyptian President has allowed for the death sentences to be commuted 
to life imprisonment this does not mean the 3 Seychellois will be returning to 
Seychelles immediately.

According to the State House statement the island nation's ambassador 
accredited to Egypt, Joseph Nourrice is in Cairo to discuss the next step with 
the Egyptian authorities.

Discussions will be focussing on a possible 'prisoner exchange agreement' to 
allow the 3 men to serve their life sentences in Seychelles.

It is to be noted that the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi issued a 
decree in November last year that would allow foreign prisoners in Egypt to be 
repatriated to their country of origin to serve their sentences.

(source: seychellesnewsagency.com)






PAKISTAN:

A silent church ignores a wave of executions in Pakistan----Hundreds put to 
death since moratorium lifted, but church officials say little


Pakistan is close to achieving a notorious new milestone of becoming one of the 
world's top executioners, with almost 300 inmates already put to death this 
year and thousands more waiting.

According to figures from Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission, 295 
people have been hanged in the country - a new record - since December last 
year.

Amnesty International, however, puts the toll of executed inmates at 299.

Abdul Basit, a paraplegic man who was convicted of murder, could have become 
the 300th, but his Nov. 25 execution was delayed at the 11th hour after the 
Pakistani president intervened.

This was the 3rd time that an execution warrant had been issued for Abdul 
Basit, who was first scheduled to be hanged on July 29.

Despite being unable to stand and being reliant on a wheelchair, jail 
authorities are adamant about carrying out his inhuman and unlawful hanging.

"The hanging of a wheelchair-bound prisoner simply cannot be conducted in a 
humane and dignified manner as required by Pakistani and international law. 
Proceeding with Abdul Basit???s execution in the circumstances will offend 
against all norms of civilized justice," the rights group's chairwoman, Zohra 
Yusuf, said in a statement.

The outspoken group has taken a principled approach to defending the rights of 
Pakistan's death row prisoners. If only the local church would do the same.

Pakistan lifts moratorium

Pakistan's record on executions this year is all the more astounding given that 
prior to December 2014, the country had not carried out any executions in 6 
years.

But Islamabad lifted its moratorium on the death penalty shortly after Taliban 
militants stormed a school in Peshawar, killing 150 people - including 130 
schoolchildren.

The horrific attack shocked the nation and triggered countrywide protests and 
demands to rein in the Taliban's campaign of terror and violence.

As media and public pressure grew, the Pakistani military and political 
leadership rushed to restore capital punishment and announced the establishment 
of controversial military courts to fast-track the trials of terror suspects.

Initially, the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif opted to execute only 
terror convicts, but pressure from Islamist parties and clergy convinced 
authorities to order executions for all kinds of death row convicts - a move 
that drew condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty 
International and other groups.

Rights watchdogs say the government is ignoring its responsibilities to reform 
the legal system. They say that the circumstances that prompted the suspension 
of capital punishment in the first place have not changed after 6 years, and 
that the deeply flawed criminal justice system continues to pose the threat of 
wrongful convictions.

Rights groups also argue that there is no evidence to suggest any correlation 
between the death penalty and reducing crime rates.

When compared to 2014 statistics, Pakistan???s nearly 300 executions this year 
would put it near the top of an unfortunate list. This year, Saudi Arabia has 
executed at least 151 people, while Iran has put to death almost 700, according 
to Amnesty.

Death row

According to the Justice Project Pakistan, a Lahore-based nonprofit law firm 
that helps marginalized people in the legal system, more than 8,000 people are 
currently on death row. Pakistan???s government, on the other hand, says there 
are 6,000.

Asia Bibi, a Catholic mother of four, is among those who have been handed the 
death sentence after her disputed conviction for blasphemy. Bibi's final appeal 
is pending before the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Among those who have already been executed are Aftab Bahadur Masih, a Christian 
man who was arrested in 1992 in a case involving the murder of a woman and her 
2 sons.

According to the Justice Project Pakistan, Bahadur was only 15 years old at the 
time of his arrest - too young to face the death penalty. The Catholic Church 
in Pakistan had made an unsuccessful appeal for clemency to Pakistani President 
Mamnoon Hussain.

In August, Pakistan executed Shafqat Hussain, convicted of killing a child in 
2004. His lawyers claimed he was 14 when found guilty and his confession was 
extracted by torture, but officials say there is no proof he was a minor when 
convicted.

Church response disappointing

In September this year, Pope Francis called for the global abolition of the 
death penalty in his address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

"The golden rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend 
human life at every stage of its development," Francis said in his speech to 
Congress.

"This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at 
different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced 
that this way is the best, since every life is sacred."

Despite Pope Francis' clear and unambiguous stance on capital punishment, the 
Catholic Church in Pakistan has failed to take a stand against the record 
numbers of executions in the country this year.

Apart from an appeal for clemency for Bahadur, neither the church nor the human 
rights arm of its bishops??? conference, the National Commission for Justice 
and Peace, has issued even a single statement on the death penalty.

In fact, 2 senior officials from the commission told ucanews.com that they 
personally supported the government's move to resume capital punishment, 
reasoning it would help solve the country's long-standing terrorism woes. The 2 
officials, however, asked not to be named.

Although some clergymen individually opposed the executions in media 
interviews, there has been a muted and disappointing official response from the 
church, to say the least.

It is high time that the Catholic Church in Pakistan took a principled stance 
against capital punishment. It would be in line with international laws, and 
indeed in line with the views of Pope Francis himself.

(source: Zahid Hussain is a Pakistani journalist covering human rights and 
issues affecting minorities----ucanews.com)

****************

Execution spree


Due to a timely intervention by President Mamnoon Hussain, a disabled murder 
convict was given a fourth stay of execution for 2 months just hours before he 
was due to be hanged. Abdul Basit, 43, a convict paralysed from the waist down, 
was scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday morning, November 25 when a 
presidential decree halted the execution. He was convicted of murder in 2009 
and contracted tubercular meningitis in prison in 2010. Earlier, his execution 
was harrowingly postponed thrice on medical grounds and concerns about how a 
wheelchair-bound man would mount the scaffold. Authorities acknowledge that as 
Abdul Basit was unable to stand on the gallows, it was impossible to carry out 
the execution according to prison rules. This particular case brings to the 
forefront a sorry state of affairs of the justice system in Pakistan where even 
the disabled cannot escape the merciless procedure of hanging after conviction. 
Although the execution has been stayed again, what about the agony he and his 
family have been passing through? This is an additional punishment for a 
disabled convict who has become a victim of the faulty justice system in the 
country. It has also raised questions about the standard of human rights and 
the concerned authorities??? ability to fulfil moral obligations. In fact, a 
flawed justice system, unfair trials and notoriety of the police for 
fabricating cases through torture have made the whole judicial procedure a 
murky phenomenon. It is a result of this failed system that cruel and unusual 
punishment is being meted out to a convict irrespective of his physical 
disability.

Another terrible aspect is that the government has virtually been on an 
execution spree since the lifting of a moratorium on the death penalty. 
Convicts are being executed on an almost daily basis. According to Amnesty 
International, Pakistan has executed 299 people since the death penalty was 
controversially reinstated following a Taliban mass killing at a school in 
Peshawar last December. The Amnesty figures suggest Pakistan is on track to 
become one of the world???s top executioners in 2015. Hangings were initially 
reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but in March 2015, they were 
extended to all capital offences. At a time when the death penalty is being 
abolished in most countries, Pakistan is using this centuries old punishment as 
deterrence against crimes. In reality, the death penalty has failed to prove a 
deterrent against crime and terrorism. The time has come for the government to 
reform the judicial system. Instead of relying on cruel punishment, there is a 
need to introduce a reform culture in society where criminals could be treated 
as human beings. Remember, no society can succeed without equity, justice and 
fair play.

(source: Editorial, Daily Times)