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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS