Capital Punishment in Pakistan

       In 2007 the “UN moratorium on death plenty” resolution was presented by EU. This resolution gets a lot of favor from majority of countries .They consider it as a promotion and protection of human rights. While on 18 December Pakistan has voted against this resolution.

Pakistan has been facing a lot of problems for its law of capital punishment. It is one of the biggest hurdles in the way of signing extradition treaties with the countries that do not have the law of capital punishment. The United Kingdom is one of the examples. According to the resources Pakistan and United Kingdom were close in signing an extraordinary treaty but the law of capital punishment has blocked its way.

Recent Government of Pakistan is showing a lot of interest in this matter. According to the sources President Asif Ali Zardari is taking a keen interest in this matter and wants to resolve this matter. The government of Pakistan has introduced a bill in parliament which converts death plenty into life imprisonment.

Now, the question is that is it legal to convert death plenty into life imprisonment? Can Pakistan afford to abolish this law?

Well, the universal declaration of Human Rights, adopted by united national general assembly in December 1948 gives each person right to live. According to the article 5

“No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, in human or degrading        treatment of punishment”.

So, according to this the death plenty is violating these rights. However, a few states like Tobago, Trinidad with draw from this human right conversation. According to them

“The death plenty is not a human right issue”.

Yes, it’s not a human right issue. It’s a punishment for taking some one life. Nothing can bring a person life back and its murder should be given proper punishment.

How a government could make a law to remove death plenty or capital punishment just for the sake of their own benefit? Do they have a right to do that?

Certainly they do not have any right to remove this punishment. It’s the individual who can decide to forgive his murder or to give him or her punishment. It’s the responsibility of the government to take written statement from its citizen whether they want to forgive or want to give punishment. Some time families or guardians can take ransom for the murder of someone and gave forgiveness.

Can this ransom bring the life of the dead person who is dead?

According to the UNIVERSAL DECLERATION OF HUMAN RIGHT Article 8, clause (a) and (b) it is stated that.

1. Everyone has a right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. . There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Now, by abolishing the death plenty we are violating these two human rights, so death plenty is not a human right issue.

The government of Pakistan has decided to convert death plenty into life imprisonment. Does Pakistan have enough money to spend on geriatric care?

Pakistan is facing a lot of economic problems and it cannot afford to spend a lot amount of money on its prisoners while its economy is facing a lot of problem. In Pakistan, people do not have three time meal through legitimate earning. Does this country have an opportunity to care for its criminals?

Government of Pakistan should spend this money on the welfare of its people rather than protecting its criminals.

I agree that criminals are also human beings. They have certain rights which must be fulfilled but do, they really deserve them. Does anyone have any humanity left after killing a person? Can Pakistan afford the abolishment of capital punishment?

Pakistan has to face a lot of social problems by abolishing the death plenty. Currently Pakistan is facing worst terrorism and ever rising crimes. The target killing has been increased in the past five years .The capital city police officer in Quetta Mir Zubair Mehmood told this to journalist that Quetta is one of the city highly affected by terrorism and violence in a recent bomb blast almost 150 people were killed. Those perpetrator who are responsible for this they deserve nothing but death.

How can we show mercy to them? How can we abolish death plenty for them? Just because they are human and every human has a right to live. But do they have any humanity left by killing 150 people in a city?

How those effected families will survive if we do not give proper punishment to those terrorist? People will stop trusting the law and order of the country. They will take law in their own hand make judgment according to their own wish and thus will imbalance law situation will start in a country.

If death plenty is removed from Pakistan. People will simply try to take revenge for the murder of their beloved ones. If people did not get fair decision from the court there will be a huge amount of killing outside the court some people will also lose their life in stopping them. Thus the killing rate will go worse.

By converting death plenty into life imprisoned the fear of killing someone will be removed from the society. Taking some one life will simply means going into the prison for forever. Who knows that they will stay there for forever?

The security agencies arrested a number of terrorist. But they set them free due to certain loop holes and weak law and order system of our country.

The only solution to this problem is deal with such tyrants with an iron fist. Hang a few of them the others will draw a lesson.

One of a very famous political leader Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated publicly and her killers are not found yet. This shows the weakness of our system .If we find out her murders and did not hang them. This will become a tradition of killing such great personality without any fear. Can our nation forgive her murders?

Ander Behring Breivik, is a mass murderer in Norway he kill 79 people in his madness. He gets the maximum punishment of 21 years in jail. According to the Norwegian law, he will be eligible for release in 2033 at the age of 53.Does this person deserve to live after taking 79 lives? Who is going to give the grantee that he won’t kill any one when he comes back? What was the fault of those who die because of him?

America is one of the few countries and the only western country in the world that still got death plenty. They highly support death plenty as the crime rate of America is very high and they can’t afford the removal of death plenty as it is totally against theirs national interest. So why Pakistan is converting death plenty into life imprisoned when a super power country like America can’t afford it?

Although there have been a great demand for abolishing death plenty from the international community’s but we can’t ignore our ground realities. The western countries had not faced terrorism the way Pakistan has. Pakistan cannot make a move that goes against its national interest.

Every country has a set of social and political circumstances with in which it operates. The death penalty differs from state to state and it should not be generalized in holistic terms .Pakistan has a very different social and political circumstances from other countries and it has to operate within its dynamics. The removal of death plenty is not in the favor of Pakistan.

Why should Pakistan remove death plenty? Just for signing a few treaties with western countries? Pakistan is an Islamic country does our Islam allow us to do such act? Certainly not Islam is the only religion in world that gives a lot importance to hakook ul ibbad (human rights).Allah Almighty says,

“I will forgive my rights but I cannot forgive the right of my man”

This shows that how much importance Islam has given to the rights of its men .Even Allah Almighty is not willing to forgive the rights of its men. Then how could the government of Pakistan abolish the death plenty? Is it ethical to remove this death plenty? Does Pakistan really need to remove the death plenty or it’s another agenda of making Pakistan weak?

and in the last I want to ask, if my killer is not given punishment is that is justice with me? who will give justice to me after I’m killed???