A total of 15 went to the gallows on Tuesday, the most in a single day since executions restarted in the wake of a Taliban massacre at a school, and a further four on Thursday, officials said,
One execution took place in the southwestern province of Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and the rest in Punjab, Pakistain's most populous province.
Punjab prisons chief Farooq Nazir said he did not have details of individual cases and charges, but most of the 18 executed in the province had been convicted of murder and had been on death row for between eight and 10 years.
| Dawn has details of the second day's hangees here. |
The Justice Project Pakistain, a human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
law firm, said their latest count of executions so far was 99. A tally by AFP puts the total at 95.
A moratorium on the death penalty had been in force since 2008, but executions were restarted in December after Talibs bumped off 154 people, most of them children, at a school in the restive northwest.
The moratorium was initially lifted only for those convicted of terrorism offenses, but in March was extended to cover all capital offenses.
The European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, the United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
and human rights campaigners have all urged Pakistain to reinstate the moratorium.
Critics say Pakistain's criminal justice system is marred by police torture, poor legal representation for victims and unfair trials.
Human rights group