Almost 2,400 people were executed last year, including more than 1,700 in China alone, but the world moved closer toward abolishing the death penalty, Amnesty International said yesterday.
A total of 2,390 people were put to death in 25 countries last year and five states — China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US — accounted for 93 percent of the executions, the group said in an annual report.
But Amnesty saw positive signs in the UN’s adoption of a second resolution calling for a moratorium on abolishing the death penalty, saying it “consolidates three decades of steady progress towards complete abolition.”
The rights group noted that the UN General Assembly’s vote in December prompted the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to urge African states that retain the death penalty to move toward scrapping it.
Amnesty also noted that only 25 of the 59 countries that retain the death penalty actually carried out executions last year, although at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death.
This “indicates that there is increasing consolidation of majority international consensus that the death penalty cannot be reconciled with respect for human rights,” it said.
However, Amnesty said that despite the progress, “tough challenges remain,” especially in Asia, which carried out more executions than the rest of the world put together.
China alone executed at least 1,718 people, with Iran second with 346, followed by Saudi Arabia with at least 102 and the US with 37.
While the US still carried out executions “consistently,” the number of people put to death there last year was the lowest since 1995.
“There is increasing evidence that the USA itself is slowly turning away from the death penalty,” Amnesty said.
It also expressed particular concern about Iran, saying the Islamic republic “continued to execute prisoners who were under 18 at the time of the alleged offense, in flagrant violation of international law.”
Belarus meanwhile was the only country in Europe still to carry out the death sentence, executing four people last year.
Meanwhile, the number of executions worldwide increased significantly last year, with China responsible for almost three-quarters of them.
Last year’s figures show a marked increase from 2007, when the total stood at 1,252, Amnesty said.
Although there has been a trend in recent years for the abandonment of the death penalty, 25 countries executed people last year. Amongst the countries that have increased their rate of executions was Japan, which carried out 15, the highest number for more than 30 years. There were also at least 8,864 death sentences handed down in 52 different countries.
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