Pakistan sanctions the death penalty for 27 offences

Pakistan sanctions the death penalty for 27 offences, including blasphemy, stripping a woman in public, terrorist acts, sabotage of sensitive institutions, sabotage of railways, attacks on law enforcement personnel, spreading hate against the armed forces, sedition and cybercrimes.
The law against blasphemy was introduced in Pakistan under the dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq in 1985. The law prescribes the death penalty for anyone insulting the prophet Mohammed, other prophets or the sacred scriptures. No blasphemy convict has yet been executed in the Islamic republic and most death sentences for blasphemy are overturned on appeal by higher courts, but at least 32 people awaiting trial or acquitted of blasphemy charges have been slain in jails or police stations by religious fanatics.
Not only Christians, but also the nation’s Shiite Muslim minority has been victimized by extremist Sunni Muslim groups for years. Members of the smaller Ahmadi sect, viewed by most Pakistanis as traitors to Islam because they revere another prophet in addition to Muhammad, have been frequent victims of suicide bombings, kidnappings and other attacks.
Besides being used as a tool to bully Christians, Ahmadis or other minorities, the law against blasphemy is often used by some Pakistanis embroiled in property disputes. Usually, evidence in blasphemy cases is scant, apart from the accounts given by the accusers.
Asia Bibi’s case gained notoriety because it involved a woman sentenced to death. But since then there have been other lesser-known cases, including 3 in 2011 and 2 in 2012.
The controversial Islamic Hudud [Koranic punishment] Ordinances - passed in 1979 as part of Zia ul-Haq’s Islamisation programme - deal with adultery and fornication (Zina) offences, crimes related to theft, alcohol and drug consumption, and false accusations in court (Qazf). One of the most controversial provisions states that a woman must have four male witnesses to prove rape or face a charge of adultery herself. Men and women found guilty of adultery face stoning or 100 lashes.
On December 1, 2006, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf signed into law a bill amending the country's Islamic rape legislation. The bill places rape laws under Pakistan's British-influenced penal code and scraps the harsh conditions placed on rape victims. The amended law would drop the death penalty for people found to have had sex outside of marriage, though they still would be subject to a five-year prison term or $165 fine.
Judges also will be able to choose whether to try a rape case in a criminal court or Islamic court.
Despite the 2006 law, in remote areas of the Country where tribal and feudal systems still dominate, the tribal jury (jirga) continues to operate as the people’s recourse to the law – instead of the police – for resolving inter-tribal disputes and questions of “honour.” Under tribal codes, women are seen as men's property and an allegation of unfaithfulness is punished by death. A woman suspected of having extramarital relations is declared a kari (sinful) and tribal honour requires a family member to kill her.
By the Criminal Laws Amendment Act of 2006, honor killings are to be treated as aggravated killings but in practice, honor killings may be treated more leniently than murder. The government-appointed National Commission on the Status of Women said the law was a weak one as it did not cover the crime fully, but nevertheless a step in the right direction. The law was changed after a prolonged protest by women's and human rights groups.
According to the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan in the name of ‘honour.’
Under the Hudud laws death is the only punishment for those found guilty of gang rapes involving at least two or more perpetrators. These laws include judicial amputation for theft and armed robbery and flogging for alcohol and drug consumption. They apply without exception to all parts of Pakistan and override all other legislation, including that relating to children. The smuggling of more than 1 kilo of heroin involves the death sentence.
Most death sentences since 1997 have been handed down by special anti-terrorist courts set up by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif's government to combat growing terrorist attacks in the country. The jurisdiction of these courts gradually evolved to cover political charges and cases involving gang rape and violence against children. These courts hold trials within seven days. Convicted persons have to appeal within seven days, and the appeal must also be heard and decided within a week. These provisions contravene Article 14(3)(b) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which entitles any person charged with a criminal offence to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence. Murder carries the religiously stipulated retributive penalty, where the punishment corresponds in kind and degree to the crime, unless the victim’s family waives the penalty, usually for a payment of diya. In practice, hanging rather than harm in kind is the punishment for murder.
Prisoners in Pakistan, especially those on death row, live in cramped, overcrowded cells and often face abuse. In Punjab alone, at least 5,260 convicts are on death row in 30 jails. But there are only 812 death row cells to house them. The death row cells are usually small rooms that measure 9x12 feet, have attached toilets and are cordoned off by walls that are approximately three feet high. On occasions, as many as 12 inmates have to crowd into one cell, charge rights groups. A survey by the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, an advisory body to the government, says three to six prisoners are usually kept in a single death cell.
Pakistan is well-known for its part in executing minors. On June 13th 2006, Mutabar Khan was executed at the Central Prison of Peshawar after his conviction for murder in 1998. Mutabar was 16 years old at the time of his arrest in 1996. On June 6th, the Minister of the Interior granted a stay of 15 days and two days later the family of the victim conceded to the payment of “blood money,” but reneged, thus hastening the execution of Mutabar.
On July 1, 2000 the military government promulgated the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 (JJSO) abolishing the death penalty for children under 18 years of age. The law also barred juveniles from being tried as adults and accorded them legal assistance at the expense of the state.
In December 2001, President Pervez Musharraf issued a new decree commuting all juvenile death sentences to life terms. The decree was notified in the official gazette and acquired the force of law on December 13, 2001.
These steps did not do away with the juvenile death penalty completely however.
Other minors are still not being given legal assistance despite the obligation posed by the JJSO.
Moreover, the Ordinance was not retroactive and immediately applicable to the whole of Pakistan except Provincially-Administered Tribal Areas (Pata).
On December 6, 2004 the High Court in Lahore (Punjab) decided to revoke the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), which the Court reportedly found to be "unreasonable, unconstitutional and impracticable". The decision would do away with juvenile courts, and children would again be tried under the same procedure as adults. But the federal government and a non-governmental organization working on child rights filed appeals against the Lahore High Court judgment.
In 2008, Pakistan executed at least 36 people, and at least 159 people were sentenced to death. A significant rise from 2007, when 134 convicts were executed and 309 were given death sentences.
The major turnabout in the practice of the death penalty started in 2008. On 21 June Prime-Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani declared his intentions to commute the death sentences of all prisoners to life imprisonment, during the Fifty-fifth anniversary celebration of the birth of Benazir Bhutto, as a tribute to the leader of his Pakistan People’s Party who was slain in a bombing and shooting attack outside an election rally in December 2007. On 3 July, the Pakistani Federal Cabinet formally approved a proposal of commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment providing relief to some 7,000 prisoners all over the Country. The decision was made at a meeting of the Federal Cabinet held with Prime-Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani.
The Pakistan Law Ministry strongly opposed the federal cabinet approving the commutation of the death penalties of 7,000 convicts to life terms, claiming the decision was a violation of Islamic laws. Sources in the Prime Minister Secretariat said that the PM was advised against the commutation of death sentences by the Law Ministry, which said it would also be a violation of the decisions of the Supreme Court. The President, in the Law Ministry’s view, has no right to commute a death sentence awarded under Hudud and Qisas laws. Similarly, even some categories of capital punishment given in murder cases, registered under Tazir laws (man-made laws), could not be pardoned or commuted to life term without the consent of the heirs of victim.
In April 2009, the Lahore High Court abolished the death sentence for women and children under trial for narcotics charges. In June 2009, the Supreme Court of Pakistan advised Courts to observe extreme care when choosing to award the death penalty.
On 2 November 2012, informed sources told Dawn newspaper the government was planning to introduce a bill in parliament which would convert death penalty into life imprisonment. The sources said that President Zardari was taking keen interest on the issue and wanted to see the conversion of capital punishment into life imprisonment before the end of the Pakistan People’s Party government in March 2013. “A recent party meeting decided in principle to go ahead with the bill,” a source said, adding that its coalition partners had also been taken into confidence over the issue. President’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said: “The government is considering converting death sentence into life imprisonment and is taking appropriate legislative measures for the purpose.” He said the Prime Minister had constituted a committee comprising Minister for Interior, Minister for Law, Attorney General and representatives of provincial governments to make recommendations. When contacted, Attorney General Irfan Qadir the committee had not yet presented its recommendations to the government.
On 15 November 2012, a Pakistani soldier was hanged at a jail in Mianwali city, Punjab province, early in the morning, after all his appeals for mercy were rejected. Muhammad Hussain was condemned to death in 2009 for murdering his senior officer Havaldar Khadim Hussain in 2008 when they were on leave.
His hanging ended a de facto moratorium on executions that had been observed since December 2008. Since then, every three months the President's Office had issued a letter which had put a stay on all capital punishment – a routine that had been in operation for the last few years.
The dead body of the convict was handed over to his heirs.
Muhammad Hussain was tried in the military court in Okara Cantonment, which sentenced him to death on 12 February 2009.
Human rights activists says that the critical factor in Hussain's case was the fact that he was convicted by a military court. They believe that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari may have been unwilling to stay the execution because this case involved the military.
As of 31 December 2011, there were more than 8,300 prisoners sentenced to death on Pakistani death row, probably the largest death-row population in the world, according to the Report “State of Human Rights in 2011,” published in March 2012 by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The death row prisoners constituted over 10 percent of the prison population in the Country. The highest number (6,175) of death penalty convicts from any region in Pakistan was in Punjab, amounting to more than 11 percent of the overall prison population. There were 852 women in the prisons in Punjab, 27 of them were on death row.
In 2012, 242 new death sentences were imposed. As many as 313 people, including six women, were sentenced to death by various courts in 2011, over half of them (161) were convicted of murder. Others faced charges such as drug trafficking, kidnapping for ransom and rape. Three persons were given capital punishment for blasphemy.
At least 356 death sentences were imposed in 2010 and at least 276 in 2009.
On 11 December 2012, Pakistan's Supreme Court sought details of all prisoners on death row in jails across the country in response to a petition that raised the issue of pending mercy petitions. A three-judge bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali issued the directive in response to the constitutional petition filed by Yaqoob Bhatti, a prisoner. The bench was told by a lawyer during proceedings that a total of 6,355 prisoners were on death row while 896 appeals were filed in the Supreme Court and another 27 in the Federal Shariah Court. The lawyer asked the court to direct authorities to make a clear decision about the fate of such prisoners. A Deputy Attorney General requested the bench to grant him time so that he could assist it with all relevant details. The bench adjourned the matter.
On 30 October 2012, Pakistan was reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council. On 14 March 2013, in its response to the recommendations received, Zamir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said that there was no national consensus on the repeal of blasphemy laws and the repeal of the death penalty was a matter for Parliament.
On December 20, 2012, Pakistan voted against the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.