Pakistan Performs 150 Executions in 6 Months, Beats Saudi Arabia

Pakistan has executed approximately 150 “criminals” over the past six
months amidst concerns that those executed may have been tortured into
making false confessions, reports The Independent. Saudi Arabia has
executed at least 90 over the same time period while the US has executed
14.

Human rights organisation Reprieve last Thursday marked
Pakistan’s 150th execution since the lifting of the moratorium on
executions. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif partially lifted the moratorium
on executions linked to terrorism following the December 2014 Taliban
attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School, which left at least 140 dead,
mostly school children.

The moratorium was lifted completely on
March 10, leaving 8,500 prisoners on death row — one of the largest
death row populations in the world — up for execution. The report says
ministers in Pakistan plan to execute hundreds more despite concerns
over “forced confessions” from international organisations.

Many
of those on death row were believed to have been juveniles at the time
of their offence — a breach of Pakistani and international law as
Pakistan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights that forbids minors being sentenced to death or
executed. A 2013 study of 30 Pakistani death row prisoners conducted by
Reprieve and the Justice Project Pakistan found that 10 percent of
prisoners were arrested and sentenced to death as minors.

The study infers that according to these findings, there might be at least 800 child offenders among the 8,261 on death row.