ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Tuesday said the reports stating that Pakistan had voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on executions a day earlier were mistaken.
“Pakistan, in accordance with its consistent policy, voted against the General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on execution, with a view to abolishing the death penalty,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Faisal said in a tweet. He clarified that Pakistan’s vote was ‘inaccurately recorded’ in favour of the resolution ‘due to technical issues’. “The Permanent Mission of Pakistan has taken up this matter with the UN Secretariat to put the record straight,” he said. “The vote will be corrected as soon as office hours begin in New York,” he added.
The Amnesty International, which opposes the use of death penalty, had reported on Monday that Pakistan was among four UN members which changed their vote to support the resolution. The other three countries were Dominica, Libya and Malaysia.
A record 121 of the UN’s 193 member states voted in favour of the seventh resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of death penalty, at the UNGA plenary session in New York, according to Amnesty. While 35 countries voted against the resolution, which was proposed by Brazil, 32 others abstained.
The Pakistan People’s Party government had imposed a moratorium on the capital punishment after coming to power in 2008. The moratorium was, however, lifted by the Nawaz Sharif-led government through an executive order after the 2014 terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. The decision was endorsed by parliament through 21st Constitutional Amendment in January 2015.Since then, Pakistan has executed almost 500 prisoners. The number accounted for 13 per cent of the total executions carried out globally between 2015 and 2017.
Published in Daily Times, December 19th2018.
