Lobbying Against Death Penalty in Pakistan
For many years, as a human rights lawyer and expert on the Pakistani legal system and well aware of its flaws, Burney has campaigned to both the Pakistani Supreme Court and the various Presidents of Pakistan to commute the death sentence of all condemned prisoners in Pakistan into life imprisonment.
Per investigations by Burney and his organisation, many condemned to death in Pakistan are in fact either innocent – victims of false testimonies or circumstances; or now mentally and physically disabled due to their decades long confinement in harsh and inhumane conditions within Pakistani prisons.
As a direct result of Burney’s petitions, the current President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari has instructed the various branches of the Pakistani government to provide advice on the possibility of converting all death sentences in Pakistan into life imprisonment and is expected to make a decision to the issue soon.
Read more about this topic: Ansar Burney
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or penalty:
“‘Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one’s bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The penalty may be removed, the crime is eternal.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)