UNITED NATIONS: The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the Pakistani government to bring an end to the executions of all convicts and re-impose the country’s moratorium on the death penalty, the UN spokesperson’s office said.
On December 17, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a six-year moratorium on death penalty for those convicted for terrorism a day after the deadly attack on army public school in Peshawar that left 150 persons mostly children killed.
In a phone conversation held on Friday with the Pakistani premier, the UN secretary-general reiterated his condolences over the incident to the people and government of Pakistan.
The UN secretary-general “while fully recognising the difficult circumstances” the country now found itself in, urged the Pakistani government to reinstate the moratorium and bring executions to a halt, the UN spokesperson’s office noted.
Earlier this week, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein condemned Pakistan’s decision, particularly at a time when the international community is increasingly turning away from the use of the death penalty.
“No judiciary, anywhere, can be infallible,” Zeid said on December 22 and stressed that “no justice system, no matter how robust, can guarantee against wrongful convictions.”
On December 24, the European Union (EU) also said that it remains opposed to death penalty in all circumstances, and expressed hope that moratorium will be re-established in Pakistan.
“We believe that the death penalty is not an effective tool in the fight against terrorism,” the EU envoy to Pakistan Lars-Gunnar Wigemark said in a statement.
The EU envoy said that the EU delegation regrets the decision of the Pakistani government to lift the moratorium on executions which had been in place since 2008.
