We must do better

Imagine what a 14-year-old boy standing alone in a courtroom goes through as he is told he is to die – his short life ended at the gallows before it has really begun. Imagine the feelings of this child’s parents as they wait for news in their Azad Kashmir village about what awaits their youngest child. Imagine the helplessness imposed on them by their poverty. Now consider what young Shafqat Hussain must have gone through since 2004, locked away in a cramped, over-crowded death cell at the Karachi Central Jail for a crime we he says he did not commit – and was forced to confess to. Shafqat, granted a last minute presidential reprieve past midnight on Wednesday as he was prepared for execution (to be held just hours later), highlights the inadequacies of our justice system. While President Mamnoon Hussain accepted a clemency petition from Shafqat’s family and NGOs, delaying his execution – reportedly for 72 hours – on the basis of new evidence, we should be asking why this information had not emerged over the past decade and a half.And we should be even more concerned over what this says about our justice system and our state. The fact is that there is general apathy towards the need for justice. Even on Wednesday night – with the clock ticking away – only a handful of activists stood on the streets of Islamabad to demand that the life of an innocent young man not be taken away by the state of Pakistan. There has been little real outcry over the glaring loopholes in the judicial system that brought Shafqat so perilously close to death early Thursday and on at least one other occasion before this. The civil society in Pakistan, barring a few brave and dedicated people, mostly chose to ignore Shafqat’s case, while the media picked up the story more forcefully only on Wednesday night. More physical protests and civil society activism could have led to more pressure on the authorities to investigate and review Shafqat’s case.
We should be asking

how a child was sentenced to death by an Anti-Terrorism Court without anyone drawing attention to his age. Pakistan’s laws, notably the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance of 2000, bar the award of the death penalty to juvenile offenders. It is also a fact that Shafqat’s state-appointed lawyer apparently failed to point out that virtually no evidence existed against him in the case he was sentenced for. His conviction came essentially on the basis of his own confession; this confession should never have counted considering it came after nine days of brutal police torture that Shafqat says he was put through. There is also a dangerous precedent when it comes to trying such cases as under the ‘terrorism’ umbrella. The government’s stated policy of executing ‘terrorists’ should not lead to cases such as Shafqat’s – who even jail authorities had publically acknowledged was not ever affiliated with any terrorist organisation – being handed over to the ATCs. That Shafqat was made part of the ATC points to a glaring flaw in our judicial system. We should also be taking a broader look at this system; at the discrimination that exists in favour of the rich who are able to use bribery, nepotism, better lawyers and in some cases the Qisas and Diyat law in their favour, paying blood money to escape death. Shafqat was not able to do this. He lacked the means to determine whether or not justice is truly meted out. The facts being discussed now should have emerged many years ago and prevented so many years of a life from being wasted. Justice will be delivered only when the legal procedure is followed. For now, Shafqat remains behind bars – once again waiting for a decision on his life.