[The incongruity of a demand
for clemency from a group that has killed thousands of civilians was not lost
on some Pakistanis. Neither was the timing: Mr. Muawiya’s threat came one week
before the prison authorities were set to hang two sectarian militants who had
killed a Shiite doctor in 2004.]
By Declan Walsh and Taha Siddiqui
 |
Max Becherer for The New York Times
“It is not for the weak-hearted, because one moment a person is alive, the next he is gone,"
said Sabir Masih, a prison hangman describing his job.
|
LONDON — The prison hangman
loitered in a Lahore graveyard, depressed and nursing a glass of vodka,
wondering when he would get back to work.
Once he had plenty to
keep him busy. Before the Pakistani government introduced a moratorium on
capital punishment in 2008, the hangman, Sabir Masih, dispatched about 200
prisoners at the gallows over a period of three years.
But since then, he has
been idle. Every day, he clocks into work at the Kot Lakhpat prison on the edge
of Lahore. Every month, he collects his $120 salary. But mostly, he spends his
time chatting with fellow Christians at the graveyard, where they furtively
smoke and drink out of view of conservative Muslims, for whom alcohol is
forbidden.
The moratorium, which
was introduced by President Asif Ali Zardari, had drained his sense of purpose,
he said.
“My job requires
courage,” said Mr. Masih, speaking among the gravestones, in a maudlin tone.
“It is not for the weak-hearted, because one moment a person is alive, the next
he is gone.”
But good news for Mr.
Masih — and bad news for the estimated 8,000 prisoners awaiting execution in
Pakistan — may be near.
Since coming to power in
June, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who favors capital punishment, announced a
review of the moratorium. And with Mr. Zardari set to end his tenure as
president on Sunday, executions could soon be reinstated.
“The moratorium was not
legal,” said Sartaj Aziz, the adviser to the prime minister on national
security and foreign affairs. “We are debating whether to continue the stay on
execution.”
Although the death
penalty enjoys some popular support in Pakistan, the possibility that it will
be reinstated has drawn sharp disapproval from an unlikely coalition of
critics, including jihadist commanders and business leaders, albeit for entirely
different reasons.
Human rights activists
and the International
Commission of Jurists argued that the manifest flaws in
Pakistan’s tattered judicial system meant that the innocent, as well as the
guilty, could go to the gallows.
In mid-August, one
Taliban commander, Asmatullah Muawiya, threatened to attack members of Mr.
Sharif’s party if the government carried out its plan to begin executing
imprisoned jihadists.
The incongruity of a demand
for clemency from a group that has killed thousands of civilians was not lost
on some Pakistanis. Neither was the timing: Mr. Muawiya’s threat came one week
before the prison authorities were set to hang two sectarian militants who had
killed a Shiite doctor in 2004.
Mr. Zardari, who has
used his powers to block nearly every hanging since 2008, let it be known in
private that he would not relent while still in office, human rights
campaigners said.
Under pressure, Mr.
Sharif agreed to extend the moratorium, but only until Mr. Zardari leaves
office. And he faces a clamor from other Pakistanis who favor a resumption of
executions, either for reasons of religious conviction, or out of sheer
frustration at the broken judicial system.
“The death penalty is part
of the Shariah and the Holy Koran,” said Shaukat Javed, a former police chief
of Punjab Province, where most death row prisoners are held. “Sooner or later,
we will have to start executing inmates.”
Under Pakistani law,
convicts sentenced to life imprisonment are often released after as little as
10 years. In some cases, the rich and influential can buy their way out of
jail. And militants with the Taliban and other banned groups, who have killed
thousands of civilians, are rarely convicted.
“We need to tighten the
law before we can talk about abolishing the death penalty,” said Mr. Aziz, the
government adviser. He added that the death penalty was still in use in India
and the United States, two countries from which Pakistanis are often loath to
accept lectures.
Before the freeze on
executions, Pakistan was one of the world’s most enthusiastic proponents of
capital punishment. About 27 offenses, including blasphemy and computer crimes,
are punishable by execution. The 8,000 Pakistanis on death row account for
about one-third of the world total, according to Amnesty International (although the group
does not have figures for China, which is thought to carry out the highest
number of executions).
Government officials say
they might permanently extend the moratorium on human rights and business
grounds — although critics believe they are equally influenced by fear of the
Taliban.
In a joint letter to Mr. Sharif and others on Aug. 16,
Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists said that a
resumption of executions would constitute “a major step back for human rights
in the country.” Human rights groups have also been sharply critical about the
quality of trial justice in Pakistan, and have raised concerns about the high
number of teenagers on death row.
In Islamabad on Aug. 27,
Ana Gomes, the head of a European Union trade delegation, warned that new
hangings would represent a “major setback” to Pakistan’s chance of obtaining
lucrative trade tariffs: a matter that is subject to a vote in European
Parliament in the coming weeks.
For Mr. Zardari, the
moratorium is personal and political. His father-in-law, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a
one-time prime minister and father of Benazir Bhutto, was executed under the
military dictator Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq in 1979.
Since then, Mr.
Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party has been staunchly opposed to capital
punishment. But he has faced private pressure from the military to resume
executions, resulting in one exception — that of Muhammad
Hussain, a soldier convicted on charges of murdering a senior
officer, who was hanged in November 2012 after a military trial.
In recent days, senior
rights activists have reported rumors that the incoming president, Mamnoon Hussain, who is to be sworn in on
Monday, would extend the freeze on executions.
Mr. Masih, the Lahore
hangman, hopes that the activists are wrong. Back at the Lahore graveyard, he
said that if hangings do resume, he anticipated a busy time clearing the
backlog. “I might have to hang three or four in a day,” he said.
Although his father and
grandfather had been hangmen, he said he found the job difficult at first. But
then he learned “not to think about it.”
Musing on his job, he
explained his technique for guiding condemned men through their last moments.
“After he is placed on
the trap door, I tell him that if he needs to pray, he should do it in his
heart,” he said. “Then I go to the lever and pull it.”
Declan Walsh reported from London, and Taha
Siddiqui from Lahore, Pakistan. Waqar Gillani contributed reporting from
Lahore.
