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Srinagar, May 24, 2013 (PPI-OT): The European Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution on the secret execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru and its implications in occupied Kashmir.
The resolution debated, voted and unanimously passed at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg condemned the execution of Afzal Guru by India in New Delhi’s Tihar jail on February 9, this year, and deplored that his wife and other family members were not informed of his imminent execution and burial at the jail.
It called upon the Government of India to return Guru’s body to his family. It regretted the killing of three young Kashmiris due to use of brute force by the Indian forces on peaceful protesters during the demonstrations against execution. It also asked the Indian forces to exercise restraint in the use of force against peaceful protesters.
The resolution pointed out that India sent Afzal Guru to gallows despite the fact that Indian and international human rights organisations had raised serious questions about the fairness of Afzal Guru’s trial. It added that New Delhi at different international fora including the UN General Assembly had agreed to halt the death penalty.
It added that the submission made in July 2012 by 14 retired Indian Supreme Court and High Court judges to the President of India had also asked him to commute the death sentences of 13 prisoners on the grounds that those sentences had been erroneously upheld by the Supreme Court over the previous nine years.
The resolution urged the Indian authorities to maintain adherence to the highest national and international judicial standards in all trials and judicial proceedings, provide the necessary legal assistance to all prisoners and persons facing trial, and as a matter of urgency, not to approve any execution order in the future. It stressed the Government and Parliament of India to adopt legislation introducing a permanent moratorium on executions, with the objective of abolishing the death penalty in the near future.
The resolution reiterated its long-standing opposition to the death penalty under all circumstances, and once again called for an immediate moratorium on executions in those countries where the death penalty is still applied.
The European Parliament also instructed its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, the UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN General Assembly, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the President, Government and Parliament of India.
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