The Truth About Peacock Blue by Rosanne Hawke

Author:Rosanne Hawke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2015-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

Free Peacock Blue

To see a world where freedom,

peace and justice reign

Sign petition here

Target: 25,000

Children in Jails

Did you know that the age of criminal responsibility in Pakistan was seven years of age until last year? Now it’s twelve, except for terrorism cases. However, the penal code does say that nothing done by a child between 7 and 12 years is an offence if they have not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequence of their conduct. But who is the judge of whether a child is culpable or not?

In our newspaper this week I read of a nine-month-old baby being arrested along with his grandfather and other family members for attempted murder in Pakistan, throwing rocks at gas company officials. Yes, I can hear your exclamations of disbelief. Maybe the age of the baby is why the story actually made it into our Australian news. His grandfather bottle-fed the baby while answering questions from reporters. He said the charges were fabricated because a rival party wanted the accused evicted from their land. Does this sound familiar?

Last year there were over 1400 children in Pakistani jails. Only 165 were convicted, the rest were under trial, their families being too poor to pay the bail price. Pakistani prison rules state children should be accommodated separately from adults in different jails; they should play sports, and be rehabilitated. However, there is one juvenile jail in the whole nation, and both Karachi and Hyderabad have a Youthful Offenders Industrial School but the rest of the children are kept in adult district and central jails.

Very few girls are arrested, so can you imagine where Peacock Blue is being kept? The juvenile jail will be for boys. She’s probably in an adult jail, maybe in a cell with women. Only one prison has a separate dormitory for Christians, so that they won’t be persecuted by other prisoners. So what could be happening to Peacock Blue? Her arrest and imprisonment is a disgrace. Help free Peacock Blue now. Sign the petition here or write a letter to the Pakistani High Commissioner or the Governor of the Punjab.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.