Pakistan’s Parliament passed a resolution on Friday calling for the public hanging of convicted child killers and rapists, drawing a quick backlash from human rights organisations.
The non-binding resolution follows a spate of high-profile child sex-abuse cases that have provoked outrage and riots across Pakistan in recent years.
Child killers and rapists “should not only be given the death penalty by hanging, but they should be hanged publicly,” said Ali Muhammad Khan, Pakistan's Parliamentary Affairs Minister, who presented the resolution in the national assembly, or lower house.
“The Koran commands us that a murderer should be hanged,” Mr. Khan added.
Though a majority of lawmakers approved the resolution, Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari stressed it was not sponsored by the government. The resolution “on public hangings was across party lines and not a govt-sponsored resolution but an individual act. Many of us oppose it — our Ministry opposes this,” Ms. Mazari tweeted.
Child sexual abuses are rampant in Pakistan.
In October 2018, authorities hanged a child rapist in an infamous case in Kasur, near Lahore, that sparked nationwide protests. In that case, a six-year-old was raped and murdered by a 24-year-old man.
