Pakistan Press International (22 March 2008)


ISLAMABAD, March 22 (PPI): The former Federal Minister for Human Rights Ansar Burney on Friday thanked the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, for accepting his appeal to the Supreme Court and ordering for the formation of at least one bench for hearing of cases involving death sentences.

Ansar Burney said that after his meeting with the Chief Justice recently, he was sure that the Supreme Court would form such a bench and he thanked the Chief Justice for taking this action in the greater interest of human dignity and human rights.

According to the Ministry of Human Rights, there are several thousand condemned prisoners languishing in death cells across the country. Many have had their appeals pending in courts for 10 to 30 years; some have become mentally disabled due to long years of confinement in death cells like in hell; while many others had become physically disabled and had their arms or legs amputated because of the conditions of their confinement.

Some condemned prisoners had even crossed the age of 100. In most death cells in Pakistan, there was a capacity for 3 prisoners, however in reality, there were between 6 to 12 prisoners in each cell. There was no drainage and the prisoners would eat in the same place where they excrete. The prisoners were kept in their cells for the majority of a day, only allowed out for 30 minutes out of 24 hours in the more strict prisons.

Ansar Burney said that due to the large number of prisoners per cell, many prisoners had no place to sleep or stretch. For that reason, a large number of such prisoners had developed physical disabilities. Many have had their arms or legs amputated because of these disabilities or diseases developed due to their confinement in these death cells. Because of the condition of such prisoners and the large number of years many of them had already spent in death cells while their appeals were pending before courts or the President, the former Federal Minister for Human Rights Ansar Burney had appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take action on this issue.

Mr. Burney argued that if someone has already spent over a life sentence in a death cell, which was far worse than normal prison; or that person has become mentally or physically disabled due to the conditions in which we placed him; how then can we hang such a person after already inflicting such great punishment on him.

He said that it would be against the law of the country, it would be immoral and most importantly it would be un-Islamic to hang such prisoners. The Ministry of Human Rights had also sent appeals to the President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf to halt all hangings in the country till the Ministry could complete an investigation and present its findings and recommendations to the President. In this regard,

Ansar Burney said that he hoped the President would soon accept the appeal in the greater interest of human rights and justice. Ansar Burney also demanded with the President Pervez Musharraf and coming new government and its Prime Minister to convert death sentences into life imprisonment of such prisoners who have already completed equal to their life sentences in death cells. He demanded that all such condemned prisoners sentences that are in death cells for more than ten years should be converted into life imprisonment.

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