ISLAMABAD: French Ambassador to Pakistan Nicolas Galey on Thursday welcomed a decision by Pakistan to reduce the number of grounds that could lead to a death penalty and continued moratorium on all executions.

Speaking at an event organised by the French Embassy in collaboration with Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), he said France, like other European partners and dozens of countries around the world, was firmly opposed to the death penalty in all places and circumstances.

Welcoming the dynamics of the movement in favour of universal abolition of death penalty, with four new countries joining it last year, he said the adoption in December 2022 by a historic number of 125 countries, of the United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a universal moratorium on the death penalty was “a real progress”.

Mr Galey, however, said that despite the progress, executions continue and in 2022, the number of executions reached its highest in five years. He said 883 people were executed in 20 countries — 53 per cent higher compared to the previous year.

“France deplores this trend and calls on these countries to observe a moratorium — like Pakistan since 2019 — with a view to definitively abolishing the death penalty,” he said.

Number of prisoners on death row in Pakistan swells to over 6,000

He termed the perceived exemplary nature of the capital punishment as an illusion and a lie, pointing out that the statistics show otherwise. He claimed many countries that practice capital punishment have a very high crime rate — sometimes among the highest in the world. He said on the other hand, the crime rate was considerably lower in the countries that abolished it.

Sarah Belal, the executive director of JPP, also said that every country’s journey towards compliance with international standards on the death penalty is tethered in their own socio-cultural context. The most important yet often overlooked step is understanding the contextual landscape within which executions have historically taken place in the country.

The highlight of the event was a short film, ‘Unfathomable’, the first in a series of films uncovering the lives of death-row prisoners in Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2023