Has Pakistan gone too far?
Islam teaches us killing an innocent person is like
killing the entire humanity, would it also not be hanging one innocent person
would mean sending the entire humanity to the gallows?
In
its “Death Sentences and Executions Report 2015”, the Amnesty International
ranked Pakistan as the third most prolific executioner in the world. The
country stood right after China (the extent of whose executions are not known)
and Iran. Moreover, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia together accounted for
almost 90 percent of all the global executions recorded. While the Amnesty’s
data was only for the year 2015, it is noteworthy that Pakistan has since 2014
hanged at least 394 death row inmates. Lifting the six-year de facto moratorium
on death penalty, first in terror-related cases and, in March 2015, in all
capital cases, the government seemed quite convinced that capital punishment
was the only effective way to deal with the scourge of terrorism. Therefore,
when the moratorium was lifted, it was almost evident that the government of
Pakistan earnestly wanted to go after terrorists in a bid to deter them from
militancy. After following this policy for almost a year and a half now, a
quick glance at the data of executions carried out in Pakistan would show
whether this target was actually achieved.
As per the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan (HRCP), as many as 394 death row convicts have been hanged to date.
Out of these, 49 were tried by the Anti-Terrorist Courts (ATCs) and 12 by the
military courts. If this data is anything to go by, only around 10 percent of
those executed in Pakistan have been associated with terrorism, while 73
percent were ordinary murderers. All others remaining were involved in murder
after rape, murder after robbery or murder after kidnapping. Thus, the
Pakistani government’s assertion that the moratorium on death penalty was
lifted to tackle terrorism loses ground here.
Then again, it is a very unfortunate reality
that juveniles and people with disabilities were also amongst those executed.
Controversies came to the fore due to the trials of non-terrorism related cases
in ATCs and the condemnation of alleged juveniles to death — a case in point
being Shafqat Hussain’s who was allegedly sentenced to death when he was 15
years old and was hanged in August 2015. The Amnesty International also claimed
that a juvenile was among those executed earlier by the courts. Aftab Bahadur
Masih was hanged in June 2015 despite pleas from international human rights
groups that he was a juvenile when convicted of murder.
Apart from this, there have been cases where
the court-appointed lawyer does not even once meet the convict outside of
court, present evidence in his defence or properly challenge witness
statements. Submerged in their financial woes, the families cannot hire a
private lawyer, and very often lose the battle of life against poverty. A
paraplegic death row prisoner received a last-minute stay of execution in
September 2015 to the relief of many human rights activists in the country.
However, the news that the officials were uncertain of how to hang a man
incapable of standing up unsupported was sickening and painful, to say the
least.
When we talk about the national public
narrative on the issue, according to a Gilani Research Foundation Survey
carried out by the Gallup Pakistan in February 2016, almost 92 percent of
Pakistanis said they supported the rule of hanging terrorists. Out of those who
were in its favour, 64 percent opined that they supported it “a lot”, while 28
percent said they approved it “to some extent.” However, one must observe that
the primary question that this survey asked was whether people were for or
against “the rule of hanging terrorists.” Like the government, perhaps the
Pakistani public also believes that more and more executions can deter
terrorists. But is it true? Can people who know that they would ultimately be
blowing themselves up one day be really deterred by capital punishment? Of
course not, as either way they would consider themselves to be ‘martyrs’. In
their study titled “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment:
Evidence from a Judicial Experiment”,
Professors Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul R Rubin and Joanna M Shepherd of Emory
University concluded that each execution resulted in 18 fewer murders in the US
between 1977 and 1996. However, Shepherd revealed in another paper that shorter
waits on death row increased deterrence. In Pakistan, however, the judicial
system is notoriously slow, with cases frequently dragging on for years before
even being given the chance of hearing. Resultantly, these longer waits exhaust
the chances of any deterrent effect that the executions might have after all.
Furthermore, the broad definition attributed
to ‘terrorism’ in Pakistan is also part of the problem. Subsection (b) of
Section 6(1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, as amended in 2013, spells out
terrorism as the use or threat of action where it is “…to coerce and intimidate
or overawe the Government or the public…” or “…create a sense of fear or
insecurity in society.” It is very obvious that any murder can be deemed to
‘intimidate’ the public and ‘create a sense of fear’ in the neighbourhood. No
wonder, as per reports, more than one in 10 of every death row prisoner in
Pakistan is tried as a ‘terrorist’.
One would really want to ask at this juncture
whether the Pakistani society has developed a post-traumatic syndrome. Perhaps
the excessive killings that we have witnessed as a result of terrorism in our
country have made us alien to the very concept of humanity? Let us not forget
that a person never dies alone. While Islam teaches us that killing an innocent
person is like killing the entire humanity, would it also not be that hanging
one innocent person would mean sending the entire humanity to the gallows? Do
we trust the fairness of our police and the judicial processes so blindly that
we cannot even raise doubt over them?
Also, there is too much at stake here. Let us
not forget that though we might have been lucky with the EU’s first compliance
report on Pakistan’s Generalised System of Preferences-Plus (GSP+) status,
there will be a reassessment in 2017. Government simply cannot take the
implementation of the 27 international conventions non-seriously if it wants to
avail the GSP+ benefits beyond that date. With Pakistan’s Universal Periodic
Review (UPR) due in 2017 too, will it is not be a wise decision to start
putting our house in order now? Death penalty is sure to feature as a main
issue in the review process as are the hangings of the allegedly juvenile death
row convicts. Pakistan has ratified the International Convention on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child and
has, hence, committed not to impose death penalty on anyone who was a juvenile
at the time of the crime. It is vitally important that we start respecting our
commitments and rethinking our policies now rather than later making apologetic
defenses of our position. Pakistan has indeed gone too far in its policy of
executions and it is time we start doing more (or perhaps less) on the issue.
The
writer is Adviser on Political and Economic Affairs in a diplomatic mission in
Pakistan
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