Don’t execute paralyzed prisoner, HRW asks Pakistan government

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – The Human Rights Watch on Monday opposed the execution of Abdul Basit, who is paralyzed from the waist down and demanded the government to halt the scheduled September 22 execution. According to a statement issued by the HRW, “Rather than confronting the inherent cruelty of capital punishment, Pakistani officials are puzzling over how to hang a man in a wheelchair,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should urgently commute Abdul Basit’s sentence.” Basit, a former administrator at a medical college, was sentenced to death in 2009, after being convicted of murder. He became paralyzed after contracting tubercular meningitis in 2010 while in the Faisalabad central jail.