Pakistan must immediately halt execution of child
offender Shafqat Hussain – UN rights experts urge
GENEVA (5 June 2015) – A group of United Nations human
rights experts* today urged the Pakistani authorities to halt the execution of
Shafqat Hussain, who was convicted for a crime reportedly committed as a child.
The execution is scheduled for 9 June 2015.
Mr. Hussain was first due to be executed in March 2015,
but the execution was stayed while the authorities conducted an inquiry into
his age at the time of the crime and on allegations of torture during his
interrogation.
His lawyers claim that Mr. Hussain was 14 years old when
he was arrested and tried, and that his confession was obtained after being
tortured for at least nine days while in police custody in 2004. He was
convicted and sentenced to death for kidnapping and involuntary manslaughter.
“To proceed with Mr. Hussain’s execution without proper
investigation into the allegation that his confession was coerced under
torture, and in spite of evidence that he was a child at the time of his
alleged offence and of his possible innocence would be utterly unacceptable and
in flagrant contravention of Pakistan’s national and international
obligations,” the UN experts warned.
“Under Pakistani law and articles 6 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and 37.1 the Convention on the Rights of
the Child, the death sentence cannot be imposed on a defendant who was under 18
at the time of the crime,” the experts recalled. “Testimonies obtained under
torture are also inadmissible.”
The independent experts expressed further alarm at reports
that Mr. Hussain “did not receive a fair trial and that the state-appointed
lawyer never raised the fact that he was a child at the time of the alleged
offence, nor did he introduce any evidence or call any witnesses in his
defence.”
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in charge of the
inquiry determined that Mr. Hussain was not a child at the time of the killing.
However, the legitimacy of the inquiry was contested as claims emerged that the
agency was not the appropriate body to conduct the inquiry and by reports of
intimidation of witnesses and confiscation of evidence during the inquiry.
Despite these claims, the Islamabad High Court set a new execution date for 9
June 2015.
The experts stressed that “international law, accepted as
binding by Pakistan, provides that capital punishment may only be imposed
following trials that comply with the most stringent requirements of fair trial
and due process, or could otherwise be considered an arbitrary execution.”
“In light of reports that the trial against Mr. Hussain
and the FIA inquiry fell short of such standards, we call once again upon the
Pakistani authorities to ensure a fair retrial of Shafqat Hussain, and to
immediately halt the scheduled execution,” they added.
140 prisoners have been executed in Pakistan since the
moratorium was lifted in December 2014 and reports indicate that over 8,000
people are currently on death row, of whom several hundred may have been
sentenced for crimes they committed as children.
The UN human rights experts urged the Pakistani
authorities to reinstate the death penalty moratorium, carry out serious
investigations into all cases of children in death row across the country, and
ensure a prompt and impartial investigation into all alleged acts of torture.”
(*) The experts: Christof Heyns, UN Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Juan E. Méndez, UN Special
Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment; Gabriela Knaul, UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges
and lawyers; and Benyam Mezmur, current Chairperson of the UN Committee on the
Rights of Child.
ENDS
The UN human rights experts are part of what is known as
the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the
largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights, is the general name
of the independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms of the Human Rights
Council that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in
all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis;
they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are
independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual
capacity. Learn more, log on to:
Summary executions:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Executions/Pages/SRExecutionsIndex.aspx
Independence of the judiciary:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Judiciary/Pages/IDPIndex.aspx
The Committee on the Rights of the Child is the body of
18 independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child by its State parties. It also monitors the Optional
Protocols to the Convention, on involvement of children in armed conflict and
on sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; as well as a
third Optional Protocol which will allow individual children to submit
complaints regarding specific violations of their rights. Learn more:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/CRCIndex.aspx
UN Human Rights, Country Page – Pakistan:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AsiaRegion/Pages/PKIndex.aspx
For more information and media requests, please contact
Brenda Vukovic (+41 22 917 9635 / bvukovic@ohchr.org) or write to eje@ohchr.org
For media inquiries related to other UN independent
experts:
Xabier Celaya, UN Human Rights – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917
9383 / xcelaya@ohchr.org)
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