The Lahore High Court on Monday sought reports from ministries of foreign affairs, interior, and overseas Pakistanis and human development within two weeks about statistics of Pakistani citizens detained in jails of Iran.
Justice Project Pakistan, working for the rights of prisoners, asked the court to direct the federal government to make immediate and forceful representations on behalf of Pakistani citizens on death row in Iran to ensure their repatriation. The organization's counsel stated before the court that in August 2017, Iran's parliament approved a bill that amended its drug-trafficking laws to curtail the application of death penalty to drug offenders.
The amendment was likely to commute sentences of around 5,300 prisoners currently on death row in Iran, she said, adding that a significant number of these were believed to be Pakistani nationals. She said the government of Pakistan must urge the host government to provide Pakistani citizens the remedy to which they are entitled under the amended law.
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