Amir Zia
The News
Dec 22, 2014
There is also a tiny lobby comprising pseudo-liberals and office bearers and activists of foreign-funded rights groups, who actively advocate scrapping the death penalty without taking into account Pakistan’s objective realities. They quote examples of this country and that country which abolished the death sentence, but fail to mention that none of them face the kind of terrorism and law and order challenges as does Pakistan.
Former president Asif Ali Zardari must have been greatly anguished to see the first two terror convicts being sent to the gallows on Dec 19. After all, he and his party went out of the way to place the controversial unconstitutional de-facto moratorium on the death penalty in 2008 to protect the lives of convicts found guilty of heinous crimes such as terrorism, mass killings, murders, child rape and abductions.
Zardari’s soft corner for the jail inmates is perhaps understandable because he himself spent a long time in prison on charges of corruption before managing to get off the hook as a result of a deal with the former military-led government.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who continued with Zardari’s policy, also seemed to be reluctant to remove this dichotomy in the legal system, which on paper authorises the judiciary to hand down death sentences but the executive blocks its implementation. Sharif, for reasons best known to him, continued with the ban on the implementation of the death penalty till the harrowing Dec 16 carnage at the Army Public School in Peshawar left him with no option but to partially surrender to the long-pending demand of the security forces and the majority of Pakistanis to allow the hanging of at least terror convicts.
Both the PPP and the PML-N failed to formally abolish the death sentence by amending the constitution for three reasons; first, public opinion overwhelmingly remains against any such move. Second, most top legal minds, including judges of the supreme and high courts, senior police officials and the armed forces firmly oppose any such change in the constitution. And third, because of fear of a backlash from the powerful religious forces, which see any such step against the tenets of Islam. Therefore, the past and present ruling parties just chose to live with this contradiction, which benefited the terrorists and the killers at the cost of victims and their families.
There is also a tiny lobby comprising pseudo-liberals and office bearers and activists of foreign-funded rights groups, who actively advocate scrapping the death penalty without taking into account Pakistan’s objective realities. They quote examples of this country and that country which abolished the death sentence, but fail to mention that none of them face the kind of terrorism and law and order challenges as does Pakistan.
In none of these countries have nearly 60,000 people lost their lives in terrorism-related incidents since 2002. None of them have bands of religious extremists, politically sponsored terror groups and criminal mafias forcing their citizens to live virtually on a knife’s edge. They also do not take into account the soaring crime rate and incidents of lawlessness in this land of the pure, which calls for tough measures on a war-footing. They also seem to be oblivious of the wide gap between social and economic development, literacy rate and income between us and them.
But how can these pseudo-liberals and so-called rights advocates see and comprehend the stark reality of Pakistan? They see Pakistan through the rose- tinted glasses of their small bubble where they queue up for foreign visas to attend international conferences for free, eye fat consultancy contracts and jobs in various NGOs or are content with the clout they can have in the right quarters here and abroad to advocate the agenda handed down to them by donors.
Even after the Peshawar school attack, many of them are out to confuse the issue of death penalty with their ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. In doing this they fail to mention that, despite its many flaws, Pakistan’s judicial system provides multiple opportunities to the accused and convicts to go for appeals at various stages of the trial.
The weakness of our judicial and prosecution system is not that it convicts an innocent, but that it allows hardened criminals and terrorists get away scot-free because of its many loopholes. Our higher and superior judiciary remains extra-vigilant in awarding death penalty, demonstrated by the small number of such decisions and which in fact remains one of the key complaints of the bosses in the police and the other law-enforcement agencies.
The government’s decision to partially lift the moratorium on the death penalty has come after a criminal delay of almost six years. During this period only one hanging occurred in 2012 and that too on the military’s insistence. The decision to reinstate the death penalty – a small step in the right direction – seems a knee-jerk government reaction to pacify public anger rather than a well-thought out strategy to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
The pertinent question remains: why did the respective governments of the PPP and the PML-N drag their feet on this important issue all these years? Was the threat of terrorism any less in the past than it is today? Was the blood of children and men, women, young and old not being shed in those bad old days? Were high-value sensitive defence and military organisations not being targeted and our soldiers and officers not being martyred?
From the beheading of our soldiers in Taliban captivity to all the killing sprees as a result of unrelenting suicide attacks and bombings at our places of worships, schools, markets, passenger buses across the country, there has been one barbaric atrocity after another. So many that we have lost count. And when all this was happening, our civilian leadership remained in the grip of senseless inaction.
The Taliban apologists within their ranks argued and pleaded for so-called – and futile – peace talks which only gave more time to the Al-Qaeda-inspired-and-linked foreign and local militants including the Taliban to rest, regroup and reorganise to carry out more such attacks. How can one forget and forgive Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan’s passionate performance on the floor of parliament after the killing of terrorist kingpin Hakeemullah Mehsud? If one believes his words at the time, Pakistan lost its only hope for peace with the killing of Mehsud. Many government stalwarts, Imran Khan and his PTI, the Jamaat-e-Islami, various factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam – they all stand guilty of acting as Taliban apologists rather than unconditionally supporting the armed forces and creating a counter ideological narrative to defeat the extremist mindset.
It is ironic to see the way the civilian leadership is attempting to take credit for the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan, for which the push came from Army Chief General Raheel Sharif and his top military leadership. Many of these civilian leaders reluctantly owned this operation, while others like Imran Khan chose to stay silent.
It was the force of circumstances which made them fall in line when Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched and yet again the dictates of time made them partially scrap the death penalty. We have yet to see the vision, initiative, determination and sense of purpose from the civil leadership in confronting the twin ghost of religious extremism and terrorism – the gravest existentialist internal challenge faced by the country.
It is only the armed forces that stand as our first and the last line of defence against the terrorist forces, which are trying to dismantle and wreck the state called Pakistan. All the rest remains a boring side-show full of clichéd statements, hollow claims and empty words.
The December 16 massacre of our children is our day of reckoning. Barren words fall short when we try to describe this tragedy. Mere statements offer no balm, no healing touch to the wounded souls of those parents, siblings and families who lost their loved ones at the hands of these barbarians. Many other similar, big and small, tragedies got erased from our collective conscience, but let’s keep this one alive and turn our grief into long-term sustained action. Let each of us play our role to defeat the extremist mindset – just as the armed forces are intensifying efforts against the terrorists. Pakistan is at war. Let’s make it win.
The News
Dec 22, 2014
There is also a tiny lobby comprising pseudo-liberals and office bearers and activists of foreign-funded rights groups, who actively advocate scrapping the death penalty without taking into account Pakistan’s objective realities. They quote examples of this country and that country which abolished the death sentence, but fail to mention that none of them face the kind of terrorism and law and order challenges as does Pakistan.
Zardari’s soft corner for the jail inmates is perhaps understandable because he himself spent a long time in prison on charges of corruption before managing to get off the hook as a result of a deal with the former military-led government.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who continued with Zardari’s policy, also seemed to be reluctant to remove this dichotomy in the legal system, which on paper authorises the judiciary to hand down death sentences but the executive blocks its implementation. Sharif, for reasons best known to him, continued with the ban on the implementation of the death penalty till the harrowing Dec 16 carnage at the Army Public School in Peshawar left him with no option but to partially surrender to the long-pending demand of the security forces and the majority of Pakistanis to allow the hanging of at least terror convicts.
Both the PPP and the PML-N failed to formally abolish the death sentence by amending the constitution for three reasons; first, public opinion overwhelmingly remains against any such move. Second, most top legal minds, including judges of the supreme and high courts, senior police officials and the armed forces firmly oppose any such change in the constitution. And third, because of fear of a backlash from the powerful religious forces, which see any such step against the tenets of Islam. Therefore, the past and present ruling parties just chose to live with this contradiction, which benefited the terrorists and the killers at the cost of victims and their families.
There is also a tiny lobby comprising pseudo-liberals and office bearers and activists of foreign-funded rights groups, who actively advocate scrapping the death penalty without taking into account Pakistan’s objective realities. They quote examples of this country and that country which abolished the death sentence, but fail to mention that none of them face the kind of terrorism and law and order challenges as does Pakistan.
In none of these countries have nearly 60,000 people lost their lives in terrorism-related incidents since 2002. None of them have bands of religious extremists, politically sponsored terror groups and criminal mafias forcing their citizens to live virtually on a knife’s edge. They also do not take into account the soaring crime rate and incidents of lawlessness in this land of the pure, which calls for tough measures on a war-footing. They also seem to be oblivious of the wide gap between social and economic development, literacy rate and income between us and them.
But how can these pseudo-liberals and so-called rights advocates see and comprehend the stark reality of Pakistan? They see Pakistan through the rose- tinted glasses of their small bubble where they queue up for foreign visas to attend international conferences for free, eye fat consultancy contracts and jobs in various NGOs or are content with the clout they can have in the right quarters here and abroad to advocate the agenda handed down to them by donors.
Even after the Peshawar school attack, many of them are out to confuse the issue of death penalty with their ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. In doing this they fail to mention that, despite its many flaws, Pakistan’s judicial system provides multiple opportunities to the accused and convicts to go for appeals at various stages of the trial.
The weakness of our judicial and prosecution system is not that it convicts an innocent, but that it allows hardened criminals and terrorists get away scot-free because of its many loopholes. Our higher and superior judiciary remains extra-vigilant in awarding death penalty, demonstrated by the small number of such decisions and which in fact remains one of the key complaints of the bosses in the police and the other law-enforcement agencies.
The government’s decision to partially lift the moratorium on the death penalty has come after a criminal delay of almost six years. During this period only one hanging occurred in 2012 and that too on the military’s insistence. The decision to reinstate the death penalty – a small step in the right direction – seems a knee-jerk government reaction to pacify public anger rather than a well-thought out strategy to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
The pertinent question remains: why did the respective governments of the PPP and the PML-N drag their feet on this important issue all these years? Was the threat of terrorism any less in the past than it is today? Was the blood of children and men, women, young and old not being shed in those bad old days? Were high-value sensitive defence and military organisations not being targeted and our soldiers and officers not being martyred?
From the beheading of our soldiers in Taliban captivity to all the killing sprees as a result of unrelenting suicide attacks and bombings at our places of worships, schools, markets, passenger buses across the country, there has been one barbaric atrocity after another. So many that we have lost count. And when all this was happening, our civilian leadership remained in the grip of senseless inaction.
The Taliban apologists within their ranks argued and pleaded for so-called – and futile – peace talks which only gave more time to the Al-Qaeda-inspired-and-linked foreign and local militants including the Taliban to rest, regroup and reorganise to carry out more such attacks. How can one forget and forgive Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan’s passionate performance on the floor of parliament after the killing of terrorist kingpin Hakeemullah Mehsud? If one believes his words at the time, Pakistan lost its only hope for peace with the killing of Mehsud. Many government stalwarts, Imran Khan and his PTI, the Jamaat-e-Islami, various factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam – they all stand guilty of acting as Taliban apologists rather than unconditionally supporting the armed forces and creating a counter ideological narrative to defeat the extremist mindset.
It is ironic to see the way the civilian leadership is attempting to take credit for the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan, for which the push came from Army Chief General Raheel Sharif and his top military leadership. Many of these civilian leaders reluctantly owned this operation, while others like Imran Khan chose to stay silent.
It was the force of circumstances which made them fall in line when Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched and yet again the dictates of time made them partially scrap the death penalty. We have yet to see the vision, initiative, determination and sense of purpose from the civil leadership in confronting the twin ghost of religious extremism and terrorism – the gravest existentialist internal challenge faced by the country.
It is only the armed forces that stand as our first and the last line of defence against the terrorist forces, which are trying to dismantle and wreck the state called Pakistan. All the rest remains a boring side-show full of clichéd statements, hollow claims and empty words.
The December 16 massacre of our children is our day of reckoning. Barren words fall short when we try to describe this tragedy. Mere statements offer no balm, no healing touch to the wounded souls of those parents, siblings and families who lost their loved ones at the hands of these barbarians. Many other similar, big and small, tragedies got erased from our collective conscience, but let’s keep this one alive and turn our grief into long-term sustained action. Let each of us play our role to defeat the extremist mindset – just as the armed forces are intensifying efforts against the terrorists. Pakistan is at war. Let’s make it win.
