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:
“I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)