The number of executions carried out around the world jumped last year, largely due to a surge in use of the death penalty in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International said yesterday.
The rights group said at least 676 people were executed in 20 countries last year, compared with 527 executions in 23 countries in 2010, a 78 percent increase.
Confirmed executions in the Middle East rose almost 50 percent last year to 558, it said in an annual report on the death penalty.
Methods of execution used around the world included beheading, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.
However, Amnesty said China executed more people than the rest of the world put together. Data on the death penalty in China is a state secret and Amnesty International no longer publishes a figure for Chinese executions, but it said they were in the thousands.
Amnesty secretary-general Salil Shetty said that when Amnesty was launched in 1961, only nine countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, whereas last year only 20 countries carried out executions.
At least 1,923 people are known to have been sentenced to death in 63 countries last year, down from 2,024 in 2010, Amnesty’s report said.
At least 18,750 people were under sentence of death worldwide at the end of last year, including 8,300 in Pakistan, it said.
After China, most executions last year were carried out in Iran, where at least 360 people were put to death, compared with at least 252 in 2010; Saudi Arabia, with at least 82 executions last year, compared with at least 27 in 2010; and Iraq, with at least 68 executions compared with at least one in 2010, Amnesty said.
They were followed by the US, with 43 executions last year, down from 46 a year earlier, and Yemen, at least 41 executions last year, down from the 62 officially reported in 2010.
The US was the only country in the Americas and the only member of the G8 to execute prisoners last year, something Shetty described as “very shameful.”
North Korea followed with at least 30 executions, Somalia with 10, Sudan with at least seven, and Bangladesh and Vietnam with at least five each. They were followed by Taiwan and South Sudan with five each.
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