Former president Asif Zardari on Saturday welcomed the government’s decision regarding informal suspension of executions and called for a thorough review of death penalty in the country.
Zardari asserted to review death penalty in the light of prevailing objective conditions on the one hand and religious obligations on the other.
“Continuing with rational policies of predecessors is a sign of wisdom and political maturity that must be encouraged and welcomed”, spokesperson quoted the former President as saying.
In a statement, spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said the former president expressed satisfaction over the decision and applauded that in deciding to continue with former government’s policy recent government was not deterred by the usual political compulsions and pressures, he added.
Babar said the proponents of death penalty often argued that Islam ordained the death penalty, adding that according to some clerics Islam provided for death punishment only for murder and ‘fasad-fil-arz’ (mischief in the land) but in Pakistan over two dozen offences carried death penalty.
This makes it necessary that the list of offenses carrying death penalty is reviewed, he said.
Babar said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would support the government in carrying out a review of the list of offenses carrying mandatory capital punishment. He said that capital punishment was irreversible and no remedy is available if later it was established that the executed person was innocent.
He added that the nation has still not recovered from the after effects of execution of Pakistan’s first elected premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto through dubious and politically-motivated proceedings.
