CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Pistan Tops With 8000 Awaiting Executions

THE year barely seems like it has begun and it’s already proving to be a deadly one.
While the fate of condemned Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan remains on hold, Indonesia has come under the spotlight over its ongoing use of the death penalty.
But this week another country attracted headlines when it announced 8000 prisoners on death row would soon be executed.
Pakistan has lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases after restarting executions for terrorism offences in the wake of a Taliban school massacre.
The interior ministry has directed provincial governments to proceed with hangings for prisoners who have exhausted all avenues of appeal and clemency, a move which has been widely
condemned by human rights groups.
Pakistan has hanged 24 convicts since resuming executions in December after Taliban militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in the restive northwest in December last year by Pakistani Taliban splinter group Tehreek-e-Taliban.
The partial lifting of the moratorium only applied to those convicted of terrorism offences, but officials said it has now been extended.
Authorities claim there are around 1000 condemned prisoners around the country whose appeals and clemency petitions have failed.
Until December’s resumption of executions, there had been no civilian hangings in Pakistan since 2008.
Only one person was executed in that time — a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012.
Human rights campaign group Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process.
Meanwhile Human Rights Watch said the decision was a huge step backwards.
Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the moratorium puts thousands of lives at risk.
“Government approval of a potential nationwide execution spree is a knee-jerk reaction to a terrible crime rather than a considered response to legitimate security concerns.”
Pakistan has one of the world’s largest populations of prisoners facing execution, and the country’s law mandates capital punishment for 28 offences, Human Rights Watch said.
These include murder, rape, treason, and blasphemy.
Meanwhile 44 people have already been put to death in Saudi Arabia in what Amnesty is calling an “unprecedented spike” in the death penalty.
It said the secretive Kingdom was well on track to far surpass its previous annual execution records after three more men were put to death on Wednesday, which is four more times the
number of people executed compared to the same time last year.
The men — a Saudi Arabian, a Yemeni and a Syrian national- were all executed for drug-related offences.
Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, said the “unprecedented spike in executions constitutes a chilling race to the bottom
for a country that is already among the most prolific executioners on the planet.”
“If this alarming execution rate continues, Saudi Arabia is well on track to surpass its previous records, putting it out of step with the vast majority of countries around the world
that have now rejected the death penalty in law or practice.”
According to Amnesty, Saudi Arabia has regularly been among the world’s top five executioners.
Saudi executed more than 2000 people between 1985 and 2013 alone, figures provided by the human rights group reveal.
Trials in capital cases are often held in secret and defendants are given no or insufficient access to lawyers.
Most executions are done by beheading and many take place in public and in some cases decapitated bodies are left lying on the ground in public squares as a “deterrent”.
While it may sound barbaric, the death penalty isn’t just limited to Asia and the Middle East.
The United States has also come under scrutiny in recent days following the news that Utah will bring back executions by firing squad.