Reports of a stay being granted for Shoaib Sarwar have surfaced barely a day before he was to become the first civilian executed in over six years. The Rawalpindi court’s decision to hang the inmate more than a decade after he was pronounced guilty is rather strange. Pakistan has had an unofficial moratorium on the death sentence since 2008. Last year, when the Sharif government came into power, they scrapped the rule in an effort to come down harder on criminals and terrorists, only to reinstate it two weeks later after facing international pressure.
Shoaib Sarwar was pronounced guilty of the murder of Awais Nawaz in 1998 by a sessions court. According to Amnesty International, Pakistan has over 8000 inmates on death row, many of whom have exhausted their appeals, even in the Supreme Court. Some, like Shoaib Sarwar have even been refused the Presidential pardon, the last means of avoiding the death penalty according to the Constitution. Many are dangerous terrorists who have spent their lives murdering and planning murders both inside and outside of prison. This is not to say that one criminal is better than the other, but it does make one wonder why Shoaib Sarwar was singled out of thousands to be the one executed.
Reportedly, preparations for Shoaib Sarwar’s hanging on the 18th were already underway before the court issued a stay order on Monday. It has been 18 years since he was pronounced guilty; years he has spent in prison, already more than a life sentence. The threat of potential sanctions and a revocation of Pakistan’s GSP Plus status in the event of capital punishment, has been enough of a deterrent to stay the executioner’s hand in the past. But the law still has the provision of the death penalty for 27 crimes ranging from blasphemy to murders and drug related transgressions. If Shoaib Sarwar is executed, what then? Where do we really, officially stand on any of this? Is it only a matter of time and circumstance, before those languishing in jails for charges like blasphemy are shown the noose?