Following an attack on over 140 schoolchildren in Pakistan in 2014, Pakistan reversed its anti-execution laws and has quickly become one of the leading executioners in the world. Since the reversal of the moratorium, 496 people have been executed and at least 4,668 people are currently awaiting execution in Pakistan. There are many problems with the criminal justice system in Pakistan, including torture by police, confessions used to convict crimes rather than evidence, defense lawyers who are unable to visit their clients, and a general resistance from the public to fair trials for serious crimes. Today, execution is a punishment for 27 crimes in Pakistan, including rape, drug offenses, and murder, as this is the rule under Islamic Law. Yet there are also an overwhelming number of cases similar to that of the Ghulam brothers, sentenced to death for murder in 2005, who waited for 10 years on death row, and on October 6, 2016, were finally found innocent due to a miscarriage of justice- but had already been executed a year earlier. In addition to the execution of innocent people, blasphemy is an incredibly strict offense in Pakistan. Asia Bibi, a Christian woman, engaged in an argument over a water vessel with two Muslim women in 2009 and was convicted of blasphemy. Now, after almost a decade, her case is still making its way through the legal system. Some far-right groups such as the\u00a0Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan are threatening to hold protests until Bibi becomes the first person hanged for blasphemy in Pakistan.\u00a0 As Aslam, the Ghulam brothers’ nephew, said: “Under Islamic law, a murderer should be killed. But when you cannot guarantee justice, when you are not even able to keep track of those who you have executed and on what basis, then how can you have the death penalty? Those that are killed, they cannot be returned to life. The law has acquitted them – but they are gone.”<\/p>\n
I found this article really concerning- I think the sheer number of people currently on death row- not to mention those who have been innocently executed- is terrifying, and must make it very difficult to live peacefully in Pakistan. I was also shocked by the fact that blasphemy is such a huge offense even in today’s day and age, as well as the fact that the majority of people in Pakistan aren’t interested in extending the right to a fair trial\/ending executions. Although I understand the religious reasons behind this, I think that for human rights’ reasons, Pakistan needs to at the very least restructure their legal system, if not reinstate their moratorium on executions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following an attack on over 140 schoolchildren in Pakistan in 2014, Pakistan reversed its anti-execution laws and has quickly become one of the leading executioners in the world. Since the reversal of the moratorium, 496 people have been executed and at least 4,668 people are currently awaiting execution in Pakistan. There are many problems with the criminal justice system in… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2175,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions\/2175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}