UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on authorities to halt executions and restore a moratorium on the death penalty.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on December 26 that Ban had phoned Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif earlier that day to appeal for an end to the use of capital punishment in Pakistan.
Sharif lifted the moratorium on the death penalty after the Pakistani Taliban raided a school in Peshawar on December 16, killing 151 people, 142 of them were children.
Six people convicted on terrorism charges have been hanged since then. None of them were involved in the Peshawar school massacre.
Sharif pledged that "all legal norms would be respected" but did not say the moratorium on the death penalty would be restored.
Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on December 21 there were some 500 prisoners convicted on terrorism charges and Pakistan would start executing them in the coming weeks.
