While talking about Noor Mukaddam and Dua-e-Zahra cases many YouTubers (almost all of them are good people who fought and are fighting brilliantly) insisted that the actual criminals be put to death.
A couple of organizations, specially WAF, opposed this and felt that a life sentence with no release be set for them. I, naturally, agreed with his … having been always opposed to the death penalty. But the YouTubers sited this and criticized WAF and said they should stick to women's rights, etc.
SORRY!
Death by the State is not a real sentence at all:
It is just vengeance!
The man who photographed a hundred kids and raped them was given a sentence of being killed by the State. Compare that with another person who killed a friend in a dispute over a card game. He, too, was also given the same sentence. Does that make sense? All the State has done is to 'help' the people who wanted some serious action … not just justice. And so they went right ahead and killed these two.
I would have the two given life sentences and had them work really hard in prisons … and face the looks and dangers they face from other criminals. All through their lives.
Things are looking better each day and more people, including police members and organizations around the world asking States to stop this nonsense, It is true that there were problems hundreds o years or even thousands of years in the past that there was no other answer. No jails; no psychiatrist; no understanding of mental disease; no gun laws. Well, the USA has none so far … and you can see how many deaths take place every year.
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There is now an ever-growing case against the death penalty. Read the linked item and see what it says.
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The lawgivers, too, have a strong case
against death penalty.
“I think that the only purpose for the death penalty, as I see it, is vengeance – pure and simple vengeance. But I think vengeance is a very personal feeling and I don’t think it is something that civilized government should engage in .…”
–Janet Reno, Former Attorney General of the United States [1]
“The death penalty does little to prevent crime. It’s the fear of apprehension and the likely prospect of swift and certain punishment that provides the largest deterrent to crime.”
–Frank Friel, Former Head of Organized Crime Homicide Task Force, Philadelphia [2]
“Take it from someone who has spent a career in Federal and state law enforcement, enacting the death penalty … would be a grave mistake. Prosecutors must reveal the dirty little secret they too often share only among themselves: The death penalty actually hinders the fight against crime.”
–Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, Manhattan, NY [3]
“I am not convinced that capital punishment, in and of itself, is a deterrent to crime because most people do not think about the death penalty before they commit a violent or capital crime.”
–Willie L. Williams, Police Chief, Los Angeles, CA [4]
For more details on the above, read this.
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There is another matter, related again to our otherwise wonderful YouTubers, but also to some Müllās and others. They seem to think that some of the support of Dua-e-Zahra is coming from a group that is Western-minded and wants to pullout country's morals into a really low sexual level. Their objection is to the slogan that has been carried by many young and old honest woman (and supported by some men).
This was not what the slogan meant. It didn't say that she can have sex wherever, whenever she wanted to. It was a protest. True that it started in the West against the non-Abortion groups, but it has carried on to other parts of the world, including Pakistan.
Abortions are illegal in Pakistan or require both parents to agree. The women felt that having the abortion was their choice and certainly not the man's choice. Imagine if the child was a result of rape (even marital rape). Imagine if the child had a bad disease or was incomplete.
I always remember an Officer of mine at sea saying "My wife can die in an abortion as long as the baby could be saved". He added, "I can marry again."
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One of the things I hear often is that these two cases are Laws and they must be followed. This means that people
think Law and Justice are the same things.
Really?
Think of Hitler's Germany and the millions of Jews and others killed: That was The Law … but it wasn't Justice. Think of South African the Aperthadian Era. The Blacks had to walk on one side of the road and the Whites on another side. That was The Law … but it wasn't Justice. Think of written (and unwritten) Laws: Look at Modi's India. That was The Law … but it wasn't Justice.
May our people become human beings soon.
i hope the campaign succeeds in stimulating further action of this sort. i think the only way the augean stable that is karachi can be cleaned is by a torrent of a river being ultimately formed, drop by drop, through the peaceful rejection of violence and terror and corruption and selfishness and self-service.
Comment by kinkminos — October 30, 2007 @ 7:00 pm