Pakistan continues to execute children

[manglasiva]

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Pakistan among five countries that execute children

NEW YORK: Five countries, led by Iran, account for all executions of children in the world, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, urging an end to the practice.

Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen are the only countries that continue to impose the death penalty on people younger than 18 when they committed a crime. The United States outlawed execution of juvenile offenders in 2005.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the United Nations, which holds its annual General Assembly next week, to pressure for greater protections for children.

'We are only five states away from a complete ban on the juvenile death penalty,' said HRW's Clarisa Bencomo. 'These few holdouts should abandon this barbaric practice so that no one ever again is executed for a crime committed as a child.' All states have ratified or acceded to treaties ensuring that children are not sentenced to death, HRW said, but the five in question allow the punishment in certain cases.

According to the HRW website, in Pakistan, the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance of 2000 bans the death penalty for crimes committed by persons under 18 at the time of the offense, but authorities have yet to implement it in all territories. With only 29.5 percent of births registered, juvenile offenders can find it impossible to convince a judge they were children at the time of the crime. Pakistan executed one such juvenile offender, Mutabar Khan, on June 13, 2006.

According to AFP, Iran executed 26 of the 32 juveniles put to death since January 2005. Iranian law allows such penalties for girls of at least nine and boys of 15 or older, the report said. Six juvenile offenders have been executed there this year, the report said.
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Pakistan among five countries that execute children

 

[skeptic9]

This kind of topics are like 'Hindus worship rats' topics, I hope you're not brining this out for sake of a point scoring debate match.

These same HR groups don't give a effingF about children killed in Palestine by IDF or Jewish run Eastern European child prostitution rings nor about the child labors in our very own country.

I can assure you SA internet users (our populace as a whole) lacks the maturity to discuss these topics.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

This kind of topics are like 'Hindus worship rats' topics, I hope you're not brining this out for sake of a point scoring debate match.

These same HR groups don't give a effingF about children killed in Palestine by IDF or Jewish run Eastern European child prostitution rings nor about the child labors in our very own country.

I can assure you SA internet users (our populace as a whole) lacks the maturity to discuss these topics.

How does the murder of children relate to the worship of rats?

It is a human rights issue and human rights abuse whether of children being sentenced to the death penalty in Pakistan or child slave labour in India or killing of Kashmiris by IDF or killing of protestors in China or murder of Hindus in Bangladesh must be discussed in a mature manner by mature citizens of all nations in SA. Sweeping the dirt under the carpet does not cleanse the room

 

[Kompromat]

if this is a practice then it must be stoped

 

[skeptic9]

How does the murder of children relate to the worship of rats?

Dude.

I can understand why you'd ask this question. Actually they aren't. And also they aren't topics that Indians and Pakistanis should "discuss" in forums called Pakistan Defence. This is how they are related.

 

[AliFarooq]

Taller and older




When Khadr appeared at a hearing at Guantanamo Bay on June 4, 2007, he was five years older and eight inches taller than when he was captured.

Raised in a fundamentalist Muslim family in Toronto, the child of Egyptian and Palestinian parents, Omar Khadr was only 15 when he was taken into custody and transported to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo. Those who witnessed his capture say Khadr looked even younger than that.

The Pentagon alleges that after a July 2002 attack by U.S. soldiers on a suspected al-Qaeda compound, Khadr threw a grenade that killed one of the soldiers, Sgt. Christopher Speer, and wounded another.

Khadr's defence team has argued that he was a child soldier and should be treated as a victim.

He was to have been arraigned at that June 2007 hearing on five war-crime charges, including murder, spying and providing material support for terrorism. But in a surprise move, the military judge overseeing the special tribunal threw out the charges on a technicality, leaving Khadr's fate in limbo.

The Court of Military Commission Review overturned the judge's ruling a few months later and reinstated the charges.

Subsequent hearings focused on Khadr's status — whether he was an "unlawful enemy combatant," a critical legal designation — and on a witness account that cast doubt on the U.S. military's official version of events that led up to his capture.

Khadr's saga took another twist after U.S. President Barack Obama was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2009. The new president issued orders to prosecutors that legal proceedings against Khadr and 244 others at the base in Cuba be put on hold, pending a review. A judge responded with a 120-day halt to Khadr's war crimes trial.

But three months later, the judge presiding over Khadr's military commission proceedings issued an order that the hearings were to go ahead on June 1.

If Khadr eventually does go to trial and is convicted, he faces a long fixed term in a federal prison — perhaps in the U.S., perhaps in Canada. But even if acquitted, he could be facing an indefinite, perhaps longer term locked up because the U.S. has classified him as an enemy combatant in what is an open-ended war on terror.
The case

Prosecutors do not have a witness who saw Khadr throw the grenade, but the Pentagon says he was the only al-Qaeda fighter left alive and the only person who could have thrown the grenade.

However, a U.S. soldier who took part in the battle said in sworn testimony that two al-Qaeda fighters were alive after the fatal grenade attack.

Even if prosecutors can't prove that Khadr threw the grenade, he could still be found guilty if they show that he was an "unlawful combatant" on the battlefield, that is, not a member of a uniformed state armed group.

His defence lawyers will try to show that he was a child soldier and not a willing member of the insurgent group.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Dude.

I can understand why you'd ask this question. Actually they aren't. And also they aren't topics that Indians and Pakistanis should "discuss" in forums called Pakistan Defence. This is how they are related.

Well if Indians and Pakistanis and Asians in general are going to sugar coat their discussions with each other on forums then there really is no purpose in having such forums. I was banned from an Indian Defence Forum for going to the aid of Pakistan when insults were being heaped on that nation. I notice that this forum is more liberal even tho I was recently banned for a short period (thanks Taimi ). But my point being if we had to sugar coat all the wrongs happening in our subcontinent then what is the purpose of spending time here ? We are here to exchange information and to learn so says the forum.

 

[humblehobbes]

i thought only Sand dune did this kinda reporting from year old or even decade old news stuff

 

[skeptic9]

But my point being if we had to sugar coat all the wrongs happening in our subcontinent then what is the purpose of spending time here ? We are here to exchange information and to learn so says the forum.

Sugarcoating?

No my friend, all I was trying to imply was that such threads never reach any meaningful end and only create distraction and bad blood (unless this is what the OP wants to achieve). Because we (both Indians and Pakistanis) are too sacred in our minds to be wrong. We never accept our mistakes and try to offset our negatives by finding an equivalent negative from the other side. This is what this thread is destined to do.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Sugarcoating?

No my friend, all I was trying to imply was that such threads never reach any meaningful end and only create distraction and bad blood (unless this is what the OP wants to achieve). Because we (both Indians and Pakistanis) are too sacred in our minds to be wrong. We never accept our mistakes and try to offset our negatives by finding an equivalent negative from the other side. This is what this thread is destined to do.

Well then I am sorry but my stance remains unaltered. Passing the death sentence on a minor is a human rights abuse. If it is reallt being applied in Pakistan then hopefully influential Pakistanis will take that up now that there is a civilian government in place. Pakistan being an Islamic Republic, I am certain that the Islamic scriptures do not condone the killing of a minor. A poster in another thread once recited a verse from the Q'uran where the Prophet (PBUH) once admonished some muslims for attacking the children of non believers.

 

[AliFarooq]

Well then I am sorry but my stance remains unaltered. Passing the death sentence on a minor is a human rights abuse. If it is reallt being applied in Pakistan then hopefully influential Pakistanis will take that up now that there is a civilian government in place. Pakistan being an Islamic Republic, I am certain that the Islamic scriptures do not condone the killing of a minor. A poster in another thread once recited a verse from the Q'uran where the Prophet (PBUH) once admonished some muslims for attacking the children of non believers.

It has already taken it up, There are only some areas in pakistan where minors are put on trial as adults.

The case of Omar Khurd is a really controversial case, in the USA. He was only 15 when he commited teh crime but according to him and some eye witnesses he did not throw the case.

Its been 5 years, since he was captured and has in gutanamo bay since then. Its funny these human right groups do not raise these kind of cases to U.N attention.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

It has already taken it up, There are only some areas in pakistan where minors are put on trial as adults.

The case of Omar Khurd is a really controversial case, in the USA. He was only 15 when he commited teh crime but according to him and some eye witnesses he did not throw the case.

Its been 5 years, since he was captured and has in gutanamo bay since then. Its funny these human right groups do not raise these kind of cases to U.N attention.

USA has one set of laws for naturlised Americans and another set for immigrants and foreigners. If an American kid is apprehended for placing a bomb in some country in Asia, the USA and the rest of the west will demand that human rights and Geneva Convention rules apply to that kid. In the case of foreigners apprehended by the USA however including kids a different stance applies. I am not really interested in the USA and other western nations in my outlook as I have no connection to those nations. Hopefully the Pakistani justice system will ensure that those cases are attended to

 

[AliFarooq]

USA has one set of laws for naturlised Americans and another set for immigrants and foreigners. If an American kid is apprehended for placing a bomb in some country in Asia, the USA and the rest of the west will demand that human rights and Geneva Convention rules apply to that kid. In the case of foreigners apprehended by the USA however including kids a different stance applies. I am not really interested in the USA and other western nations in my outlook as I have no connection to those nations. Hopefully the Pakistani justice system will ensure that those cases are attended to

It should matter, if your a human rights fanatic, all such cases should matter, what im trying to say is he was captured at age of 15, he should have been tried as an child soldier, but instead they are trying to try him as an adult. The reason why they are trying to try him as an adult os because according to them he was old enough to know what he was doing.

In iran 15 years is when you can be tried as an adult, that is an reasonable age.

I only found one thing disturbing in the article was a 9 year old girl can be tried as an adult in iran, now that is wrong, and this is worth discussing.

 

[dabong1]

Pakistan executed one such juvenile offender, Mutabar Khan, on June 13, 2006.

It seems Mutabar Khan killed five people and thought his age would be the excuse that would stop him from getting punished.If his old enough to go around killing people then surley his old enough to understand what he has done and face the consequences.

 

[skeptic9]

USA ...................Geneva Convention rules apply to that kid. ................

balony

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/08/informants-accuse-blackwater-founder-murder-crimes/