Daily Times

Pakistan is once again in the hot seat. And Nawaz Sharif is the man who put it there. That the latest shenanigans have nothing to do with corruption but everything to do with the tightening of the hangman’s noose — may or may not offer the embattled Prime Minister little relief.

Today, the UN Human Rights Committee is in the driving seat. Meaning that it is reviewing Pakistan’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The country ratified this treaty back in 2010, some thirty years after it came into force. True to form, Pakistan’s first review is five years behind schedule.

The death penalty tops the list of UN areas of concern. And with good reason.

In the year since PM Nawaz returned the guillotine to Pakistan (2014) — the country was ranked number three in the world for executions.

According to the Justice Project Pakistan, executions went up by 300 percent in the last year. Thus Pakistan’s assurances of imposing the death penalty for “the most serious crimes only” and not for anyone below the age of 18 clearly fall short.

Which leads us to the response of those participating in the UN review and their reinforcing the notion of extreme-circumstance-sanctioned killing.

We say one is either in favour of the death penalty or one is not. There is no middle ground. No grey area. No ’but’.

We say this, too, to members of Pakistan’s civil society who, after, the APS tragedy supported the government in its reintroduction of capital punishment. We understand that when the big hurly burly macho men of ISIS massacre children — the natural response is to lash out. But here is where the state has to adopt the role of grown-up when it comes to the social contract between citizenry and state. Because we cannot help but ask: was innocent blood spilled because the state wasn’t playing executioner?

No. The reason is far simpler. It is about getting our priorities right. In the same way that having the largest growing nuclear stockpile has not reportedly kept us safe from the dreaded destabilising “foreign hand” — so, too, will killing ‘indiscriminately’ do nothing to keep us safe from the terrorist threat. If the political leadership — including those in the opposition who supported the extension of the state’s license to kill — is serious about putting Pakistan’s house in order, it would do well to start at the beginning and not the end. Meaning a renewed focus on intelligence gathering as well as a definitive crackdown on banned militant outfits might be a good enough place to start.*

Published in Daily Times, July 14^th , 2017.