Daily Times

Sir: Pakistan ranks among the countries that issue the highest number of death sentences per year and currently has over 7,000 prisoners on death row. The rationale behind capital punishment has always been that it would deter transgressors from committing offences. But an HRCP report has shown that the crime rate in Pakistan has actually gone up in the past few years.

Apart from its ineffectiveness in preventing crime, the death penalty is fundamentally unjust because of the inherent infallibility of judgement in most cases as it cannot always be determined beyond doubt whether a crime was actually committed, and this may result in the punishment of an innocent. Moreover, in Pakistan, torture is often used to extract “confessions” and evidence from an individual, which has made human rights activists pose the viable possibility of capital punishment being used as a political tool by the state. However, even if for a moment we suppose that a person has committed a murder for which he is being sentenced to death, the contradiction that then arises is how a state can attempt to establish a sense of justice by reciprocating the exact crime for which the person is being punished in the first place.
Amid all this, our media’s role has been preposterous, with shouts of “lynch him, lynch him!” at every transgression reported instead of stressing the importance of carrying out a thorough investigation. As a result, over the years public opinion has been drawn in support of capital punishment. I urge the Government of Pakistan to abolish death penalty and to give the chance of a free and fair trial to people already on a death row to mark the World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10th, 2009.
ZAINEB MAJOKA
Lahore