A disabled Pakistani murder convict was given a fourth stay of execution late Tuesday just hours before he was due to be hanged, as rights activists slammed Islamabad for a executions spree on track to see 300 deaths in under a year. Abdul Basit, a paraplegic who was convicted of murder in 2009, was scheduled to be hung early Wednesday. His execution has already been harrowingly postponed several times after rights groups raised concerns about how a wheelchair-bound man would mount the scaffold. The presidency issued a statement late Tuesday saying the execution had been delayed for two months while President Mamnoon Hussain ordered an inquiry into Basit’s medical condition. The statement said the president had vowed that “human rights will be upheld”.”We also got confirmation from a jail staff,” she said, adding that the family hoped the stay would be extended beyond two months. Earlier, Basit’s sister Asma Mazhar had issued a plea to the president to spare her brother. This particular case brings to the forefront a sorry state of affairs of the justice system in Pakistan where even the disabled cannot escape the merciless procedure of hanging after conviction. Although the execution has been stayed again, what about the agony he and his family have been passing through? This is an additional punishment for a disabled convict who has become a victim of the faulty justice system in the country. It has also raised questions about the standard of human rights and the concerned authorities’ ability to fulfil moral obligations. In fact, a flawed justice system, unfair trials and notoriety of the police for fabricating cases through torture have made the whole judicial procedure a murky phenomenon. It is a result of this failed system that cruel and unusual punishment is being meted out to a convict irrespective of his physical disability. Another terrible aspect is that the government has virtually been on an execution spree since the lifting of a moratorium on the death penalty. Convicts are being executed on an almost daily basis. According to Amnesty International, Pakistan has executed 299 people since the death penalty was controversially reinstated following a Taliban mass killing at a school in Peshawar last December. The Amnesty figures suggest Pakistan is on track to become one of the world’s top executioners in 2015. 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 crimes. In reality, the death penalty has failed to prove a deterrent against crime and terrorism. The time has come for the government to reform the judicial system.
pk.shafaqna.com
