On March 9, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan...

On March 9, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) claimed that one out of every five persons convicted in the country is sentenced to death, ranking Pakistan as having one of the world's highest death sentence rates. Presenting the HRCP's "State of Human Rights in 1998" report, Chairwoman Asma Jehangir said that a total of 433 people, including 49 child-convicts, had been awarded the death penalty in 1998, adding that the number of convicts hanged during the year was twenty-one. She said she was particularly concerned over the Government's tendency to extend a mandatory death sentence to an increasing number of offenses.