Justice at risk as Pakistan

rushes convicts to the

gallows
By Shaimaa Khalil
BBC News, Islamabad

Pakistan's government has been at pains in the last week to

show that it can tackle militancy.
After a daylong meeting with the country's main political parties,
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said military courts would be set up
for the speedy trial of suspected terrorists.
Speaking in a television broadcast, Mr Sharif said Pakistan was in
an "extraordinary situation" that needed "extraordinary actions".
The Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar which
left 152 people dead, most of them children, shocked the nation
and put the political and military leadership in a very tough spot.
A day after the massacre, the military intensified its offensive in
North Waziristan. The prime minister lifted a moratorium on the
death penalty. Six militants have already been hanged.
Pakistan's interior minister has said 500 people are due to be
executed in the next few weeks.
One of them is a man who was convicted as a minor in 2004.
Shafqat Hussain was 14 when he was allegedly tortured into
confessing to murder, and sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism
court.
He was eventually charged with involuntary manslaughter - but
remained on death row. Now his family has been told that he could
be executed any day.
Shafqat, who is the youngest of seven children, comes from a poor
family from Kail sector on the Line of Control with Indianadministered Kashmir.

He left home for Karachi in search of a job more than a decade

ago. His parents have not seen him since.
Sobbing, Shafqat's mother said they could not afford to go to
Karachi to visit him. His sister, Sumaira, told BBC Urdu's Haroon
Rashid that she had borrowed the clothes she was wearing to the
interview.
"I can't imagine that my obedient and humble brother can commit a
crime. He was so young," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.
She said the family had only one request: "Please, please let's
redo the trial."

At the scene: The BBC's Haroon Rashid in

Muzaffarabad
Shafqat Hussain's elder brother, Manzoor, recalls visiting him in
prison in 2011.
"Police took three of his fingernails out. He still has cigarette marks
on his body," he says.
"When I asked him about torture in custody, he started shivering
and wet his pants. He put both his hands on his head and starting
crying, saying, 'Don't ask, I can't tell you what they did'."
"This is how they made him confess a crime he says he never
committed."
I met Shafqat's devastated family in Muzaffarabad, the main town
of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The news that hangings were to
be resumed after the Peshawar school attack has started giving
them sleepless nights again.
Shafqat's 80-year-old mother Makhni Begum, his sister Sumaira,
and brother Manzoor, wept throughout the hour that I spent with
them.
Makhni Begum said she has not met her youngest son since he
left for Karachi in search of a job. "I have almost lost my eyesight

because of crying, I have lost my mind because of my son's

ordeal," she said. "My life is ruined."
Shafqat's legal team say his case had nothing to do with militancy.
They told the BBC they presented evidence to the Sindh High
court which showed Shafqat had confessed under duress, and that
he was a minor at the time of conviction.
But the appeal was rejected and now his lawyers say they will go
to the supreme court.
Opponents of the revival of the death penalty say grave injustices could
be committed in the rush to punish

Shafqat's lawyer is Sarah Belal, a barrister and director of Justice

Project Pakistan, a non-profit human rights law firm.
She said his case was "a perfect example of how the AntiTerrorism Act and the subsequent terror courts have failed to
punish the people they were formed to target".
"Instead, people like Shafqat, too poor and vulnerable to defend
themselves, bear the brunt," she added.

'Act of vengeance'
Shafqat's case is not the only one. Lawyers here say that of the
500 people set to be executed in the next few weeks, at least 200
are not terror-related cases.
Both the political and military leadership are under huge pressure
to stand up to militants but there are worries that in this wave of
executions, the proper legal measures are not being followed.
The government has been accused of a knee-jerk reaction to the
Peshawar school attack

Human rights watch have criticised the move, saying it will not
combat terrorism and will only perpetuate a cycle of violence.
The EU regretted Pakistan's decision to lift the moratorium and
expressed hopes it would be reinstated at the earliest opportunity.

"It's a kneejerk reaction by the government to appease the

masses," Shahzad Akbar, a legal fellow at the human rights
organisation, Reprieve, said.
"But it doesn't do anything about terrorism," he added. "Instead,
those who've been victims of miscarriages of justice are now on
execution lists."
"The government is trying to tell people that they are fighting
terrorism, but I think this is just an act of vengeance."