The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has issued a comprehensive report ‘State of Human Rights in 2016’ with recommendations to the government of Pakistan to restore moratorium on death penalty. According to the report, Pakistan ranks as one of the highest executioners in the world, putting some 87 persons to death in 2016. The hanging of convicts has become almost an everyday occurrence throughout the country. The HRCP report brings to the forefront the sorry state of affairs of the criminal justice system here, as not all who are awarded the death penalty are guilty of first degree murder. The ineffectiveness of police FIRs, fabrication of cases, statements procured through torture, a weak legal mechanism, and unfair trials have placed the judicial system in murky waters. Pakistan ended a seven-year moratorium on death penalty after Taliban attackers gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014. Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but in March 2015 they were extended to all capital offences. At a time when the death penalty is being abolished in most countries, Pakistan is using this centuries’ old punishment as deterrence against criminal offences. In reality, the death penalty has failed to prove a deterrent against crime and terrorism. Pakistan needs to have solid reforms in its legal and judicial system, and instead of relying on capital punishment that is considered an inhuman act there is a need to introduce a culture of reform whereby criminals would be treated as sentient beings. No society can succeed without justice and fair play. In our country, for most, only the law of jungle prevails.
Hanging offenders will not bring peace to a terrorism-riddled Pakistan, or solace to those who lost their loved ones to an act of brutality — be it the act of an individual or terror-related. Pakistan must have a reform system based on human values of repentance, rehabilitation, compassion and forgiveness. That would be the best antidote to the pain suffered by victims while Pakistan fights a war to rid it of all who inflict pain on human beings making them nameless statistics of terrorism.
