Worldwide executions highest since 1989 – Amnesty

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPDATED) – The total number of known executions worldwide rose by more than half last year to 1,634, the highest figure recorded since 1989, Amnesty International said Wednesday, April 6, as Pakistan sent 3 more men to the gallows.

The surge was largely fueled by Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, the London-based human rights organization said in its annual report on death sentences and executions worldwide.

The 1,634 figure does not include China, which is thought to have killed thousands of its own citizens.

Death penalty data is “treated as a state secret” by Beijing, Amnesty said, as it is by Vietnam and Belarus.

Recorded executions were up by 54% on 2014’s figure of 1,061.

Just 3 countries – Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – were responsible for 89% of the total of 1,634.

“The rise in executions last year is profoundly disturbing,” said Amnesty secretary general Salil Shetty.

“Not for the last 25 years have so many people been put to death by states around the world.

“Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have all put people to death at unprecedented levels, often after grossly unfair trials. This slaughter must end.”

Pakistan lifted a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty following a school massacre by Taliban insurgents in December 2014.

Initially it brought back hanging just for terrorist killings but later extended it to all capital crimes. 

It hanged 3 convicted murderers including a pair of brothers on Wednesday, a senior prisons official told AFP.

“Over the past year, Pakistan has vaulted to the number 3 spot for recorded state executions in the world – a shameful position no one should aspire to,” Champa Patel, director of Amnesty’s South Asia office, told AFP, adding the majority were not convicted of terror offenses.

Pakistan executed 326 people in 2015 while Saudi Arabia put 158 people to death.

Majority of countries abolitionist

Iran’s execution of at least 977 people is at odds with its opening up to the West after striking a deal with world powers last year on its nuclear ambitions, Amnesty said.

“Western countries are starting to build commercial ties and trade missions,” said James Lynch, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director.

“However, human rights has been absolutely left in the margins,” he told AFP. “That risks undermining all these efforts.”

For the first time ever, the majority of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. 

Fiji, Madagascar, Republic of Congo, and Suriname fully abolished the death penalty in 2015, taking the total number of countries to do so to 102.

In China, Amnesty said there were signs that the number of executions had decreased in recent years but it could not verify this.

In August 9 crimes were removed from the list of offenses punishable by death, bringing the total down to 43.

“Executing several thousand people a year is really very serious and China knows it would be the black sheep of the international community if it was to release the numbers,” Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty’s East Asia regional director, told AFP.

People were executed in 25 countries in 2015 by beheading, hanging, lethal injection, or shooting.

Amnesty said its reports indicated that 4 people in Iran and at least 5 in Pakistan were executed for crimes committed when they were aged under 18.

Worldwide, people were sentenced to death or executed for murder, drug-related offenses, corruption, armed robbery, adultery, aggravated rape, rape, apostasy, kidnapping, and insulting the prophet of Islam.

A total of 28 people were executed in the United States.

Forms of treason, including “acts against national security,” “collaboration” with a foreign entity, “espionage,” “questioning the leader’s policies,” participation in “insurrectional movement” were among those offenses worldwide punished with death sentences.

Amnesty recorded a drop in the number of death sentences imposed in 2015 compared to 2014, but said this was partly due to difficulties in corroborating data.

At least 1,998 people were sentenced to death in 61 countries.

At least 20,292 people worldwide were under sentence of death at the end of 2015. – Robin Millard, AFP / Rappler.com