Execution of death row prisoners suspended for Ramadan

dimeji akinloye 17:05 - 18 June 2015

A supporter of political party Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), holds a sign with others to condemn the attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School in Peshawar, during a rally in Lahore December 21, 2014.

Ramadan is the most revered month of the Islamic lunar calendar in which Muslims fast.

An Interior Ministry official in Pakistan has said no death row inmate will be executed in the Holy month of Ramadan.

Speaking on condition of anonymity in Islamabad on Thursday, June 18, the official said nobody will be sent to the gallows during the Ramadan, giving numbers of hanged death row prisoners in 2015 as 170.

Pakistan has been executing convicts since lifting a six-year moratorium on the death penalty after December's massacre of school children by gunmen with the extremist Islamist Taliban.

The pace of the hangings has drawn widespread criticism from the United Nations, European Union and international rights groups with all calling for a reinstatement of the moratorium.

On Tuesday, June 16, the authorities hanged a man who was convicted of murder at the age of 15.

Another death row inmate, whose family insisted he was a teenager at the time of his conviction is awaiting the gallows after his appeals were rejected by the Supreme Court.