ISLAMABAD - Former Supreme Court Bar Association President Asma Jehangir has questioned why hanging of Bangladesh National Party leaders has become more important for the government than executions of its own citizens.
BNP leaders, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mojaheed, were hanged in Bangladesh last week. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Sunday murder of humanity and revenge against ‘Pakistanism’ should come to an end.
Asma Jehangir, a Pakistani lawyer and also a founding member as well as ex-chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was talking to media persons on the Supreme Court premises.
She condemned the hanging of the BNP leaders and said the executions would widen the divide in Bangladesh. “All human rights activists, including the HRCP, had expressed concern over the unfair trial of the BNP leaders in Bangladesh,” she added. Asma said the Pakistan government should take up the issue of unfair trial first in the country and then death penalty of Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia and other countries.
The former head of the SCBA said since the government had lifted moratorium on death sentence, many death-row prisoners had been hanged.
Asma said if death sentence was really a big concern for the government, it should first abolish it in Pakistan. She said nobody was raising voice against the death sentences awarded by the military courts.
The human rights activist said nobody had raised the issue of burning the worship place and factory of Ahmadis in Jhelum district.