[JURIST] A group of independent UN human rights experts on Friday called on [press release] Pakistan to reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty after reports of minors being sentenced to death. There are more than 8,000 people on death row in Pakistan, and the UN experts believe that many of them may have been sentenced for crimes they committed as children. The experts’ call came after Ansar Iqbal was executed this week by hanging. Iqbal was arrested and condemned to death for a crime committed when he was reportedly 15 years old. The experts said, “once again that by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Pakistan has accepted the legally binding obligation to ensure that death sentences will never be imposed on a defendant who was under 18 at the time of the crime.”

Pakistan’s use of the death penalty since December has received criticism throughout the world. When the six-year death penalty moratorium was lifted [JURIST report] last December, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the death penalty would only be applied to terrorism-related cases. However, in March the Pakistan Ministry of Interior lifted the country’s moratorium on the death penalty, permitting hangings for all prisoners [JURIST report] who have exhausted all possible appeals. Amnesty International called on Pakistan in January to end the increase in executions following the Peshwar school attack, and in February the rights group said that use of the death penalty in Pakistan is undergoing a “disturbing and dangerous” [JURIST reports] escalation after the execution of two men convicted of non-terrorism offenses. Also in March a judge in Pakistan’s Lahore District and Sessions Court sentenced [JURIST report] an offender to death for blasphemy. Additionally in March, Pakistani authorities hanged 12 men [JURIST report], the largest number of people executed in a single day since the moratorium was lifted.