Pakistan’s use of death penalty has failed to deter crime, says report

PRESS RELEASE: The death penalty in Pakistan is does not curb crime, is being used as a political tool and works as an overcrowding solution

— Justice Project (@JusticeProject_) July 6, 2017

The research, finds that until May 2017, a total of 465 prisoners have been sent to the gallows since Pakistan lifted the moratorium on executions in December 2014. This makes Pakistan the fifth most prolific executioner in the world, following China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Punjab has emerged as the overwhelming practitioner of the death penalty, accounting for 83 percent of executions, and 89 percent of death sentences in Pakistan. However, it has also witnessed only a 9.7 percent drop in murder rates from 2015-2016. Sindh, on the other hand, has viewed a drop of nearly 25 percentin the same time period – even though it carried out only 18 executions compared to Punjab’s 382. In fact, murder rates in Pakistan were already in decline before the moratorium was lifted, casting even more doubt on the already dubious relationship between the death penalty and reducing crime.

A closer look at the yearly trends of executions shows that Anti-Terrorism Courts accounted for only 16 percent of executions. In 2015, 65 people tried by ATCs were hanged but only 8 from Jan 2016 to May 2017. The majority of death sentences that have been carried out in that time have come from District and Sessions Courts, which do not have jurisdiction over terrorism cases.

The Government has sought to justify lifting the moratorium for all 27 death-eligible crimes by claiming it is necessary to deter terrorist threats to Pakistan. But the data indicates that the government is mostly hanging terrorists through military courts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and through ATCs in Sindh.

Another trend that has emerged is that the number of executions spike in the wake of a terrorist attack (in Punjab) that kills more than 5 people. This indicates that the use of executions, like the lifting of the moratorium, are often a reactionary step.

In Punjab, there is another worrying trend that indicates that executions are being used as a means to make room in prisons that are facing overcrowding. Currently, 25 of the 27 prisons in the province are significantly over capacity and the highest number of executions take place in the most overcrowded prisons.

Pakistan heads for its first U.N. review under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) next week on July 11, that obligates it to uphold and respect the right to life for all its citizens. Pakistan’s return to an executing State has been taken up in the list of issues framed by the Human Rights Council committee.

In just one year after the moratorium was lifted, Pakistan became the third most prolific executioner in the world. During that time, execution warrants for the mentally ill, physically disabled and juvenile offenders have been issued. More and more cases of wrongful executions have come to light since then. In October last year, the Supreme Court acquitted two brothers in Bahawalpur after they spent 11 years on death row, only to find they had already been executed the year before. Another prisoner was found innocent a year after he had been found dead in his cell. There are likely many more cases like this, considering a condemned prisoner will spend an average of 11.41 years on death row.