On the eve of ‘World Day Against Death Penalty’ today the PPP has called for abolishing the death penalty. “Until the death penalty is abolished as a result of a larger public debate on the efficacy of death penalty in deterring crime the victims be given right to proper defence and protected against torture for extracting confession”, said a statement issued today by the President of the Human Rights Cell of the PPP former Senator Farhatullah Babar.
The number of crimes carrying the death penalty must be drastically decreased from the present 33 and juveniles and mentally challenged persons be spared from execution.
Legal and consular services to migrant Pakistani workers be ensured and the procedure for mercy petitions against executions streamlined, he said. He said that studies showed that Pakistan executed only the poorest and the most marginalized whose fair trial rights were often violated and convicts were tortured in the broken criminal justice system.
Highlighting it he said that sometime back two brothers accused of murder were acquitted by the Supreme Court after years on death row but only after they had been hanged.
