November 14, 2002	Thursday	Ramazan 8, 1423

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QUETTA, Nov 13: Lawyers of the city on Wednesday marched through the streets of the provincial capital and demanded of the US authorities to pardon Aimal Kasi or convert his death sentence into life imprisonment.

The protest march was organized by the Balochistan Bar Association and led by its president Ali Ahmed Kurd. The protesting lawyers later staged a demonstration in front of the press club where it was addressed by the leaders of the lawyers community.

The protestors were carrying placards inscribed with anti-Us slogans and many were also inscribed with the demands of his release or converting the death sentence into life imprisonment.

Mr Kurd said that the lawyers of the city were protesting against the Kasi’s death sentence considering it inhuman and injustice.

“Death sentence is inhuman and in violation of the human rights,” he said, adding that even half of the population of the US was against the death sentence while the Europe was against it too.

He requested US President Gorge W. Bush and the governor of Virginia to cancel the death sentence of Mr Kasi and convert it into life imprisonment.

He also appealed to the US society and international human rights organizations to pressurize the US government to put off the death sentence.

Mr Kurd strongly criticized the Pakistan government for handing over Mr Kasi to the United States in the absence of prisoners exchange agreement between the two countries.

“With the implementation of the death sentence hatred would increase against the US specially in Muslim world,” The BBA chief said.

He urged the US to show tolerance and pardon Mr Kasi as did the Americans with the Japanese prisoners during the Second World War.

People from all walks of life and leaders of various political parties had also demanded of the US authorities to convert Kasi’s death sentence into life imprisonment if it could not pardon him.

The secretary general of the Balochistan National Party (BNP- Mengal), Habib Jalib Baloch, said that Mr Kasi was not tried in an open court and was also not provided proper facilities to defend himself in the court of law. “In my opinion the trial was not fair,” he claimed.

The leaders of the Kasi Tribes Coordination Committee have criticized the US government for awarding death sentence to him and demanded that it should be cancelled.

Arbab Jamil Kasi, chairman of the committee, criticizing the US said that it should change the vindictive and discriminative policies against the Muslims.

He said that the US was a terrorist country and was responsible for the deaths of millions of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim states.

Another member of the Kasi tribe, Abdul Razaq Kasi, expressed concern over the silence of the nationalist forces and other human rights organizations on the issue.