Justice Project Pakistan - Death Penalty Database

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a judgment reviewing the meaning and scope of the term 'terrorism' as defined in the Anti Terrorism Act, 1997 and recommended that Parliament bring changes to the current understanding of the term, which is "too wide".

The 59-page judgment was authored by Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa.

Saudi Arabia has already executed 134 people so far this year, six of whom were children when they were arrested, a new report has revealed.

The figures, given at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, come despite kingdom's pledge to reduce the use of the death penalty. In 2018, the country killed 149 people, with 46 left on death row by the end of the year. They include three children, political opponents, clerics, and human rights campaigners. Among those executed this year are three women and 51 who were facing drug charges that would be considered minor offences elsewhere in the world.

The Saudi Arabia government has apologised from the immediate release of under-trial Pakistani prisoners involved in drug smuggling.

Foreign ministry officials said Pakistani inmates would complete their trial according to the Saudi law and their release was not possible until their cases were concluded.

Out of the release of 2,100 Pakistani prisoners as was agreed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan earlier this year, only 563 could be released.

A Peshawar High Court bench on Monday ordered the provincial government to constitute a medical board for examining a prisoner who claimed to be suffering from a mental ailment and was unfit to stand trial in a murder case.

The single-member bench of Justice Mussarat Hilali ordered that the trial court should consider the case of the petitioner, Majid Khan, in the light of the report to be submitted by the medical board.

Saudi authorities have beheaded yet another Pakistani citizen, Mohammad Imran, in Shumaisi prison of Jeddah in blatant disregard for norms of justice. When the poor youth from Chichawatni traveled to Saudi Arabia in August 2011 for a labour job, he might have taken the foreign land as the proverbial greener pasture. Upon landing at the airport in Jeddah, however, he was arrested for drug crimes and sentenced to death unheard.

At least 690 prisoners were executed in 20 countries in 2018, marking a 31 percent fall from at least 993 the previous year, according to Amnesty International that reported the fewest deaths by capital punishment in at least a decade.

A total of 2,531 death sentences were also imposed in 54 countries last year, decreasing from 2,591 recorded worldwide in 2017 according to a report published on Wednesday by the UK-based rights group that hailed the significant decline in global executions.

As in previous years, China, where figures believed to be in the thousands are classified as a state secret, remained the most prolific executor, Amnesty said, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Iraq - accounting for 78 percent of total reported executions.

"It's very encouraging that known executions were the lowest at the end of 2018, but it is challenging to define clear reasons for the decreases and whether these reductions will be sustained in the coming years," Oluwatosin Popoola, Amnesty International adviser on the death penalty, told Al Jazeera.

It is difficult to ascertain the total number of death sentences awarded across Pakistan every year since the government does not collect and collate such data. The only statistics available pertain to military courts that have been authorised, under a constitutional amendment passed in 2015, to hear terrorism-related cases. Between January 2015 and May 2018, these courts have given the death sentence to 207 people. Out of these, at least 56 have been executed.