Why is Pakistan about to hang 500 innocent men? Death penalty reimposed following school massacre, but many fear that hundreds of innocents will be killed

Following the recent terrorist attack in Pakistan, Pakistani officials have announced that they intent to execute roughly 500 people on death row, who are accused of being militant Islamists.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The move follows the attack on December 16 in Peshawar province at at army-run school-the deadliest attack in Pakistan's history-which killed 149 people, including 133 children.

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After the attack, and amid rising public anger over the continued and constant attacks by radical Muslims, Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, ended Pakistan's six-year-long moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for cases which are terrorist related.

"The entire nation needs to realize that we are in a state of war," said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

"This isn't a routine war, this isn't a war fought on borders. Your enemies are inside your country, they have sympathizers, they have protectors."

A senior government official said of the decision that the: "Interior ministry has finalized the cases of 500 convicts who have exhausted all the appeals, their mercy petitions have been turned down by the president and their executions will take place in coming weeks."

Already, six militants have been hanged since December 19, five of which were involved in a failed 2003 plot to assassinate Pakistan's leader. The sixth was involved in an attack on Pakistani military headquarters in 2009.

While hanging these men has soothed some of the population's anger against the constant threat of terrorism, much of the international community is criticizing the move. The United Nations and various human rights groups-including Human Rights Watch-have said the decision should be reconsidered, especially as there is evidence that only 22% of all death row inmates who are being sentenced to death in this series of executions have even a basic link to terrorism.

Special anti-terrorism laws are often used to prosecute non-terrorists, and Pakistan's rather flawed justice system means that many innocent men sit on death row, which means this series of hangings may just be an exorcise in flawed vengeance.

This is because Pakistani law classifies any crime that creates "a sense of fear or insecurity in society" as a terrorist act.

In the case of Shafqat Hussain, a prisoner who was sentenced to death at the age of 14 for abducting and killing a 7-year-old girl in 2004.

Hussain said he only confesed to the murder after being tortured by Pakistani police over nine days, and did not actually commit the crime.

Nevertheless, the Justice Project Pakistan group, a law firm that specializes in human rights cases, says that Hussain will soon be hanged, despite the fact that he recants his original plea forced from him while under durress.

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