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Rights group says Pakistan among leading executioners

Rights group says Pakistan among leading executioners | iNFOnews.ca
FILE - In this Wednesday Oct. 19, 2016 file photo, Leaders of Pakistani religious groups sit on a stage during a rally demanding hanging of a Christian woman Aasia Bibi, who was arrested on blasphemous charges, in Lahore, Pakistan. A rights group says Pakistani authorities have executed an average of 3.5 prisoners a week since lifting a moratorium on death penalty following the 2014 Taliban attack on a school that killed 150 people, nearly all of them children.(AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary, File)

ISLAMABAD – A rights group says Pakistan has executed 464 prisoners since it lifted a moratorium on capital punishment after a Taliban attack on a school in late 2014.

The Justice Project Pakistan, which is opposed to capital punishment, says Pakistan now has the fifth highest rate of executions in the world, after China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The group says Pakistan has executed 44 people this year, around the same rate as the previous year, in which 87 people were executed.

Pakistan halted executions in 2008 due to pressure from rights groups but reinstated capital punishment after militants attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, killing some 150 people, mostly children.

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Abbey Westbury

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