First execution carried out in five years

Pakistan has carried out its first execution in over five years, sparking criticism from human rights activists.
Jail official Abdullah Khan Niazi said that the authorities hanged Muhammad Hussain early on Thursday morning in Mianwali.
Hussain was an army soldier and a resident of Langarwala Pul of Sahiwal. He was sentenced to death in 2009 after he killed his senior officer Havaldar Khadim Hussain in 2008 while they were on leave. This was the country’s first execution during the tenure of the present government. President Asif Zardari had placed an unofficial moratorium on executions after he was elected and every three months the Presidency issues a letter through respective home departments, staying all executions.
But Niazi said that the president and the head of the Army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had rejected Hussain’s mercy petition.
Sources said Hussain’s last meeting with his family members was very emotional with extreme expressions of grief and mourning that also moved some of the officials present. Zaman Khan, an official at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, criticised the execution and said that the government needed to be uniform in its policies.
France calls for Pakistani govt to initiate debate on abolishing death penalty: France on Thursday condemned the execution in Pakistan of Mohammed Hussain, “execution which de facto puts an end to the moratorium on death penalty observed for the past five years by the Pakistani government”.
In a statement, a spokesperson of the French embassy in Pakistan said the decision constituted a step backward in the evolution of Pakistan towards greater respect for human rights.
The statement said France was mindful of the fact that more than 7,000 people were currently on the death row in Pakistan, therefore it said France called for the Pakistani government to re-establish without delay a moratorium and initiate a debate on the abolition of death penalty, considered a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. As recalled by French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius, launching the French campaign in favour of the death penalty’s universal abolition on the October 10, France reaffirmed its determined and continuous opposition to death penalty in all places and in any circumstances.