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| Stay death sentences, Burney pleads to Zardari |
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Sunday, January 04, 2009
By Mazhar Tufail
ISLAMABAD: The Ansar Burney Trust International chairman has requested President Asif Ali Zardari to stay death sentences until the government takes a final decision on fate of death row inmates.
Ansar Burney, also an expert adviser/member of the United Nations Human Rights Council Advisory Committee and a former federal minister for human rights, made the appeal in a letter addressed to the president.
Referring to his previous letter, dated October 10, 2008, regarding the conversion of the death penalty of all condemned prisoners into life imprisonment, Burney recalled Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s address to the National Assembly on June 21, 2008.
In a major policy statement, the prime minister had assured the Lower House the Ministry of Interior would soon be sending to the Presidency a proposal recommending the conversion of all death sentences into life imprisonment.
The rights campaigner also referred to Federal Minister for Law, Justice and Human Rights Farooq Naek’s statement during a visit to the Kot Lakhpat Jail (Lahore) on October 6. The minister had said the proposal was also currently under consideration of the Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights.
“Once again, he announced on January 2, 2009, that the summary for converting death sentences into life imprisonment has been sent to the Ministry of Interior,” Burney said in his letter, dated January 2, 2009.
When forwarded to the Presidency by the current government, the proposal would translate into a huge humanitarian gesture that would potentially save the lives of thousands of human beings, he observed. Up to 65 per cent of the condemned prisoners facing death sentences were innocent, he claimed.
“Even some of the condemned prisoners have been in death cells—for more than 20 years. During this period of injustice, some of them have become mentally ill, tuberculoses patients, crippled and even physically worst,” the ex-minister added.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
