Lifting the moratorium

Hanging of these men who are likely to welcome death anyway is unlikely to alter the security paradigm as a whole

Newton’s Third Law of Motion says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton’s Law has to a degree been superseded by Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, but the principle holds true in ordinary life as well as the world of theoretical physics. The lifting of the moratorium on those sentenced to death for terrorist offences may be seen as a Newtonian reaction to the massacre in Peshawar on December 16, but this in turn is going to have a reaction if carried through — and there is every indication that it will be.



The Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, has now signed the death warrants of a handful of men convicted of terrorist offences, and they may be executed at 3pm on Friday, December 19. A list of prisoners on death row has been sent to Inspectors General of Police in every province by the Ministry of the Interior. The mercy petitions of most were rejected by former president Pervez Musharraf, and petitions relating to those who were not presented to the former ruler will be presented to President Mamnoon Hussain, who in the circumstances is most unlikely to grant them. There are potentially countless mercy petitions to be presented dating between 2007 and 2011, with there being hundreds of prisoners sentenced to death in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa alone.

What the government and the security apparatus needs to be cognisant of is the expected backlash that the country and its citizens could face once the executions of militants on death row start taking place. The TTP and their affiliates will likely trigger some sort of violent reaction and the authorities need to put in place measures to deal with such an eventuality effectively. The hanging of these men who are likely to welcome death anyway is unlikely to alter much within the security paradigm as a whole, and may even contribute to an erosion of security nationwide as supporters of the hanged men react to their death. However, public support for the executions is running high. The question of whether Pakistan will derive benefit rather than satisfaction from them remains, hanging.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th,  2014.

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