Pakistan's new administration has ended a moratorium on executions.
Interior Ministry spokesman Umer Hameed said on July 4 that the new government "has decided to deal with all cases of execution on merit."
He added that "there will be no general amnesty for the convicts waiting for execution."
Under the previous government led by President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party, a 2008 presidential order imposed a moratorium on the death penalty.
The freeze expired on 30 June.
Amnesty International, which opposes capital punishmen in any instance, has called the development a "shocking and retrograde step."
It called for an immediate restoration of the moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
The organization estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row.
Most of them have exhausted the appeals process and could now be executed.
Interior Ministry spokesman Umer Hameed said on July 4 that the new government "has decided to deal with all cases of execution on merit."
He added that "there will be no general amnesty for the convicts waiting for execution."
Under the previous government led by President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party, a 2008 presidential order imposed a moratorium on the death penalty.
The freeze expired on 30 June.
Amnesty International, which opposes capital punishmen in any instance, has called the development a "shocking and retrograde step."
It called for an immediate restoration of the moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
The organization estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row.
Most of them have exhausted the appeals process and could now be executed.
