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Church urges Pakistan to renew moratorium on death penalty

Call comes after eight convicts go to gallows in Punjab
Church urges Pakistan to renew moratorium on death penalty
Published: July 30, 2015 08:34 AM GMT
Updated: July 30, 2015 07:35 PM GMT

The Catholic Church in Pakistan has urged the government to reinstate its moratorium on the death penalty a day after eight more convicts were executed in Punjab province on July 29. 

Some 188 people have been hanged in Pakistan since the lifting of a six-year moratorium on capital punishment in December last year following a massacre at a Peshawar school in which 145 people were killed, 132 of them children.

Rights groups, the United Nations and the Church have criticized the move, saying most executions fall short of international norms. Trials often do not follow due process, they say.

“We strongly oppose capital punishment, especially so since the legal system in Pakistan is flawed," said Cecil Chaudhry, executive director of National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), the Pakistan Church’s human rights body.

"The Catholic Church values human sanctity and believes nobody should have the right to take life," he added. 

He lamented the execution of Aftab Bahadur Masih, a Christian death row inmate who was hanged just before the start of Ramadan last month despite serious doubts about his age. The dead man’s family says Masih was just 15 when he was alleged to have committed murder.

The Church’s call to halt executions echoed a similar appeal made by the United Nations shortly before the eight convicts were put to death on July 29.

The UN also called for Pakistan to commute without delay the sentences of those awaiting execution. Over 8,000 people are currently on death row across the country.

“The death penalty is an extreme form of punishment and, if used at all, should only be imposed for the most serious crimes, after a fair trial that respects the most stringent due process guarantees as stipulated in international human rights law,” said Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

“I reiterate my previous call to Pakistan to continue the moratorium on actual executions and to put in place a legal moratorium on the death penalty, with a view to its abolition,” he said.

The Special Rapporteur also drew attention to the case of Shafqat Hussain, whose trial, he says, fell short of international standards. Convicted for a crime reportedly committed as a child, Hussain is scheduled to be executed on August 4.

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