Blog 12: Human Rights on Capital Punishment in Pakistan

My blog this week deals with controversy and uproar with human right groups concerning an execution in Islamabad, Pakistan. Some human rights groups have denounced the country decision made this week that involved carrying out its first execution in four years. They claimed that it was a worrying step backward in this country. Until then, the country had been adhering to an informal moratorium concerning capital punishment.

The execution took place on Thursday at a jail located in the central Punjab city of Mianwali. Muhammad Hussain, a former solider, was executed by hanging. He was sentenced to death in 2009 for fatally stabbing one of superiors over a personal dispute. He pleaded both to the country’s military and the civilian leadership, but both claims were denied, and therefore the sentence was carried out.

While human rights groups are in an uproar, the Pakistani claimed that the country’s moratorium on executions applies only to civilian justice, and not military court. Since Hussain was a former solider and military court for the venue for his conviction, they believe that the moratorium was upheld.  However, Zohra Yusuf, chairwomen of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan was quoted by saying, “The government had vowed its commitment to the right to life and desisted from executing anyone….Despite this setback, HRCP still retains hope that the government will not abandon its pledge to work towards the abolition of the death penalty in Pakistan.” Another human rights activist, Polly Truscott, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific program was quoted by saying, “The death penalty is no less offensive to human dignity and the right to life, just because the person to be killed happens to be a soldier.”

With this information presented the question of human rights vs. legal issues come into play. While on one hand the Pakistani government did claim that they would no longer execute, there was no hold or law on military based executions. I’m not claiming which side is right or wrong, because in a debate over capital punishment, can either side really be right; or for that matter, wrong? I do believe that both sides had solid reasons, and opinions to back up their point of view.

 What shocked me was that later in the article it claimed that more than 8,300 people were currently on death row in Pakistan, but they claimed a moratorium on capital punishment. I did find it interesting that there last execution, which was carried out in November 2008, was the result of a military court verdict.  

http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-human-rights-groups-decry-pakistans-first-execution-in-four-years-20121116,0,481035.story