the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission...

the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission welcomed the announcement by the new government of Pakistan to commute death sentences to life imprisonment of thousands of prisoners. The AHRC hopes that the government of Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani will abolish the law which allows capital punishment by hanging, it said in a statement. The prime minister also directed the Ministry of Interior to send a summary to the president for the conversion of capital punishment into life imprisonment. Around 7,379 persons will benefit by the commuting of their death sentences. AHRC urged the prime minister to immediately withdraw the amendment from the constitution with regard to the death sentence introduced by an army general at the behest of fundamentalists.