Pakistan : The Meaning of a Moratorium

par Tariq Ramadan

Covered or not by the media, cases of questionable judgements, summary trials and executions continue throughout the world and in particular in the Islamic majority countries.

At the international level, denunciations follow a shifting geometry depending on whether the country in question is rich or an ally of the West. Hypocrisy is general and the Islamic world remains silent confining itself to defending its record (or to back tracking) when the political and/or media pressure is too strong. One does not seem interested in justice and human dignity… In the West as well as in the Islamic world up to China, human rights seem to become a pretext, a game at the service of politicking and management of well understood national interests. A that level of general cynicism, the naivety of some people is a fault and no longer a mitigating circumstance.

We have heard today that Mirza Tahir Hussain, who was to be executed by the end of this month, has seen his execution postponed on President Pervez Musharraf’s order. This move is without doubt due to the coincidence with Prince of Wales’ visit to Pakistan. Voices were heard from all over the world asking to save Mirza Tahir Hussain : yet with no success.

His guilt is still doubtful. He was once acquitted and then, after an appeal, condemned to death by the Islamic judiciary authorities. Mirzan Tahir Hussain being also a British national, his case has drawn some political pressure from the West to prevent the execution. The response of the officials consisted in saying that this was impossible on pain of “giving the impression” that the Pakistani justice was bending to the Western requests. “Impression” has had precedence over law.

Here we are in a very pernicious situation. The West, on one hand, reacts only if its citizens are involved or when the countries in question are poor or among the enemies (but never when it comes to petromonarchies or allied dictatorships). On the other hand, we witness the Islamic majority countries, which either bend to the Western pressure or, precisely, refuse to do so in the name of national independence and dignity or, simply, to save face. Through this hypocritical and politicking game, few lives are spared but, all things considered, children, women and poor people are still badly treated, tortured and executed in silence for they are not lucky enough to be either Western citizens or from a country that may be interesting from a regional or international geostrategic viewpoint.

It is intolerable! It is urgent to get out of this vicious circle that transforms lives in simple elements of political influence’s calculation. Far from such sad considerations, it is urgent that the Muslim consciences throughout the world call, in the name of their religion, its principles and its universal requirement of justice, to an immediate stop to these executions. We need to enforce an immediate moratorium and to open a thorough debate on the necessary reforms to be promoted within the contemporary judiciary systems. Far from the media spotlights, children, women and men suffer the worst treatments - up to the capital punishments - and the Islamic world remain silent while everybody knows that the judiciary systems are failing, that children, women and men are sometimes judged without having a lawyer, without the slightest respect of the fundamental rights, sometimes simply as an example or after a trial’s parody.

To call for a moratorium (on capital punishments as well as on corporal punishments and stoning - a recent case in Afghanistan went with no publicity for the revelation would have tarnished the image of the liberating American policy in the region) is to give ourselves the means to open a debate far from the current political games and calculations. It means, above all, to put an immediate end to injustices and to prevent people being executed in silence.

It means as well to call upon the Pakistani government not only to postpone Mirza Tahir Hussain’s execution but to decide a commutation of sentence while reconsidering the very troubling elements related to this very judgement. Finally, it means that it should be dealt the same way with all the accused people in Pakistan and in the Islamic world who are waiting to be executed while they are very often tortured and with nobody knowing what and who condemned them and how and if they were even judged!

Would it not be a sufficient reason to enforce a moratorium and to open the debate we have been asking for for so many years now? How many dead people should we count to ask ourselves if it is worth thinking of it?

But our lack of concern is terrifying.

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