Hanging with a vengeance

Concerned over the spree of hangings in Pakistan, the UN urged it to re-impose the moratorium on hanging. It took note of the fact that those who are minors, below 18 at the time of their alleged crime, are also being hanged

Forty-eight hangings in the last three months in Pakistan, including a dozen on a single night of March 17, have brought forth an urgent appeal by the United Nations to end capital punishment.Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a moratorium on hanging after six years on December 17, a day after Pakistani Taliban gunmen attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar and killed 134 students and 19 adults.

At first, the government said only militants would be executed. But by mid-March, it emerged that officials had quietly widened the policy for all prisoners on death row whose appeals had been rejected. The hangings carried out are those of people convicted for crimes other than terrorism.Militancy/terrorism has only been a ruse. Actually, Mumtaz Qadri’s conviction by an anti-terror court for killing former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was upheld by the high court, but he was cleared of the charge of being a terrorist. In effect, he would remain on death row, but with terrorism charge dropped, can appeal to the Supreme Court, to the President for mercy. He may not be hanged.

“The UN is concerned at the government’s recent announcement that it has now withdrawn its moratorium on the death penalty for all cases, not only those related to terrorism,” the world body said in a statement. There are an estimated 8,000 Pakistanis on death row. Reports say the federal government has asked the provincial governments to update their data. Urging the government to re-impose the moratorium on hanging, the UN expressed concern at the hanging spree and took note of the fact that those who were minors, below 18, at the time of their alleged crime, were being hanged. One of those hanged included Mohammed Afzal who, according to Amnesty International, was only 16 when convicted. Vast majority of those in prison, whether under sentence of death or not, are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The hanging of Shafqat Hussain was stayed by the court after his mother Makhni Begum appealed to the President. He was 15 when he was convicted in 2004 for the kidnapping and murder of a seven-year-old boy in an apartment building of Karachi where he worked as a security guard. Dawn newspaper said in an editorial: “It seems, the bloodlust of the terrorist has met its match in the bloodlust of a wounded nation. No one with a modicum of awareness can deny that the criminal justice system in Pakistan is deeply flawed and hence profoundly weighted against the poor and marginalised segments of society.

“From the filing of an FIR, the investigation of a crime, the trial and appeals process, to the conditions of incarceration — the outcome of every step is often directly co-related to the financial and/or political clout of the parties involved. While one result of this broken justice machinery is that some crimes go unpunished, the other side of the coin is that many accused do not get a fair trial. Their defence is often in the hands of state-appointed counsel, who are overburdened, underpaid and usually not the brightest stars in the legal fraternity,” the newspaper said.

Human rights groups say convictions in Pakistan are highly unreliable because its antiquated criminal justice system barely functions, torture is common and police are mostly untrained. Convicts with no connection with terrorism are being hanged even as militant groups defy the State and target the religious minorities and smaller Muslim groups.Citing Qadri’s case, Najam Sethi writes in his editorial in The Friday Times: “the definition of a “terrorist” in the Anti-Terrorist Act is focused squarely on “religious” cause and effect: “Terrorism means the use or threat of action where the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a religious, sectarian or ethnic case …involves serious violence against … a public servant”.

When those arrested for targeting minorities are arrested and tried, slogans are shouted in court and flower petals are showered on under trials. Leading the defence team of lawyers for Qadri is a former chief justice of Lahore High Court.Sethi writes: “two Christian churches in Youhanabad, a working class suburb of Lahore last week in which fifteen people lost their lives is part of an orchestrated campaign of attacks on sects and minorities like the Shias, Hindus, Christians, Hazaras, Ahmedis, etc, by “Islamists” with the help of avowedly sectarian agendas.

“During 2012-14, there were 108 attacks on Shias (736 killed), 14 attacks on Hindus (2 killed), 54 attacks on Christians (135 killed), 50 attacks on Ahmedis (27 killed). From 1989 to 2015, there were 2979 sectarian attacks in which 5059 persons were killed and 9713 injured. “ No cout has pronounced death sentence on those responsible and no hanging has taken place. But, in order to reassert its writ, the government has resorted to carry out hangings of those convicted of ‘lesser’ crimes, thus pandering to populist demands based on emotion and fear. It is not surprising that executions are being welcomed by the public.

By Mahendra Ved