A death foretold

There are more and more reports overnight that Pakistans President Musharraf is about to declare a state of emergency in Pakistan, another worrying development in a country thats really suffering right now.

After the killings at the Red Mosque and an upsurge in suicide bombings - and even Barack Obama saying hed send forces into Pakistan to hunt down Osama Bin Laden - you have to wonder whether the countrys going into freefall.

Lets hope not. Apart from everything else, the countrys jails are already stuffed to the gills with people facing execution. Pakistan has the worlds biggest death row population with over 7,000 languishing there.

You may remember one man - Mirza Tahir Hussain, from Leeds - who spent 18 years waiting for the hangmans rope until he eventually got a pardon last year. See some of the BBC coverage on him - its really moving stuff.

Meanwhile, staying with executions (well this is a human rights blog!), theres a really urgent case of a teenager in Yemen whos going to be executed on Saturday.

Unless the Yemeni president stops it, this Saturday a 19-year-old man called Hafez Ibrahim is going to be taken out in public, made to lie face down on the ground and then be shot through the heart with an automatic rifle.

I dont know what youre doing on Saturday, but one thing you could so is check the internet for news of whether Hafezs death has been averted.

Lets face it, this clinical appointment with death aspect of the death penalty is just about its most disgusting quality.

Please send an urgent appeal to the Yemen embassy. It could stop this killing.