ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Pakistan government has rejected
calls by the UN and the European Union (EU) to revive moratorium on execution
of convicts, a media report said.“Capital punishment for terrorists did not violate international law,” Dawn quoted a Pakistan government spokesperson as saying on Sunday.
“Pakistan respects the international community, but the
country is passing through extraordinary circumstances, which demand
extraordinary measures to be taken,” a government spokesman said, referring to
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s conversation with Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif on December 25 in which the UN chief called for halting executions.
The EU too had called for halting executions. The spokesperson said that a “peaceful Pakistan is in the
best interest of the world”.Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam tweeted: “Pakistan is cognisant of its obligations under UN Human Rights Conventions/Covenants. Execution of terrorists violates no international law.”
On Dec 25, Sharif assured Ban Ki-moon that all legal norms
would be respected while handing down sentences to terrorists and during the
execution of the sentences.Pakistan lifted the moratorium on executions following Dec 16 Peshawar school carnage by Taliban, in which over 140 people, most of them schoolchildren, were killed.
So far six people, convicted of attacks on army headquarters and the former president Pervez Musharraf, have been executed.
Pakistan has some 8,000 death-row inmates awaiting execution. But the government says that moratorium has only been lifted in terrorism cases.
The number of those convicted in terrorism-related offences is about 170.
Source: IANS
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