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Capital punishment is declining across Asia: sociologist

Capital punishment is declining in most Asian countries and will likely disappear from the region, an expert said yesterday.

David Johnson, a University of Hawaii sociology professor, said the trend appeared to be linked to a shift away from authoritarian government.

“I think in the long run, probably the death penalty is going to disappear in Asia as it seems to be doing in many parts of the rest of the world,” said Johnson, who is visiting the Australian National University.

China last year executed more than 5,000 of its citizens, more than any other country. But that rate marks a substantial reduction in executions since that late 1990s, Johnson said.

Singapore was the world leader in applying the death penalty per capita in the 1990s. But from a peak of 76 executions in 1994, only two were killed last year.

Pakistan, — which has the world’s most populous death row with 6,000 condemned inmates — and Japan are the only Asian countries bucking the trend in recent years, Johnson said.

In June, Pakistan’s new democratic government proposed commuting all the country’s death sentences to life imprisonment.

The death penalty was most firmly entrenched in the region’s authoritarian regimes. But even those countries were using it less.

“The most dramatic execution decreases occurred in the rapidly developing democracies of South Korea and Taiwan, but declines have also occurred in nations such as India and Malaysia,” he said.

“When development and plural democracy take root in Asia, the decline of the death penalty usually comes sooner rather than later,” he added.

Johnson declined to say whether the trend reflected growing respect for human rights.

“I will say that the frame that regards the death penalty as a human rights issue has become more conspicuous and salient in Asia than it was in the past,” he said.

“And when you frame the death penalty as a human rights issue instead of a crime issue, you invite anxiety and concern and resistance to the death penalty because, after all, it’s a state killing,” he added.
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