Released this week, DAVID ADAMS takes a look at the latest Amnesty International report on the use of the death penalty around the world…
Last year saw a decrease in the use of the death penalty with the number of executions 37 per cent lower than in 2015, according to Amnesty International’s annual survey.
Noting that its data doesn’t include the estimated thousands of executions carried out in China – believed to be more than the rest of the world combined – or those in North Korea due to a lack of access to figures, the global human rights organisation recorded 1,032 executions in 2016, 602 fewer than in 2015 – a year which saw the highest number of executions since 1989.
DECLINING NUMBERS: A map of Amnesty’s findings for 2016 which showed a significant decline in executions from the previous year but which still doesn’t include data from countries such as China. PICTURE: Amnesty International.
“The majority of states no longer condone the state taking human life. With just four countries [Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan] responsible for 87 per cent of all recorded executions – the death penalty is itself living on borrowed time.”
– Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International.
While Iran accounted for 55 per cent of all recorded executions carried out last year, the Middle Eastern nation did see a decline in the use of the death penalty with the number of executions dropping 42 per cent in 2016 compared to 2015 (from at least 977 to at least 567).
Execution numbers also fell significantly in Pakistan (down 73 per cent, from 326 executions to 87) as well as in Indonesia (down to four in 2016), Somalia (to 14), and the US which, with 20 executions, did not feature among the world’s top five executioners for the first time since 2006, falling to seventh on the list.
Despite this decrease, however, the number of executions carried out in 2016 remained higher than the average for the previous 10 years while the number of death sentences handed down reached a record high of more than 3,000.
Iraq more than tripled the number of executions authorities carried out (at least 88) while Egypt (with at least 44) and Bangladesh (with 10) doubled theirs. New information about the number of executions in Vietnam revealed the South-East Asian nation was carrying out executions at a higher rate than previously thought with information published by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security showing that some 429 people were executed between 8th August, 2013, and 30th June, 2016, at an average rate of 147 a year.
Executions were recorded in 23 different nations during 2016, two less than in 2015. They included the resumption of executions in Belarus, where at least four were carried out, and Palestine, where three were reported, after a year’s hiatus while the first executions were carried out in Botswana and Nigeria since 2013. Six countries – Chad, India, Jordan, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Yemen – did not carry out executions in 2016 despite doing so in 2015. Amnesty said it was unable to confirm whether judicial executions took place in Libya, Syria and Yemen.
Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International, said that the figures showed “just a handful of countries are still executing people on a large scale”.
“The majority of states no longer condone the state taking human life. With just four countries [Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan] responsible for 87 per cent of all recorded executions – the death penalty is itself living on borrowed time.”
Mr Shetty also hit out at China, saying that while the Chinese government has recognised it is “a laggard in terms of openness and judicial transparency”, it nonetheless “persists in actively concealing the true scale of executions”. “It is high time for China to lift the veil on this deadly secret and finally come clean about its death penalty system,” he said.
RECORDED EXECUTIONS IN 2016
1. China – Estimated thousands
2. Iran – At least 567
3. Saudi Arabia – At least 154
4. Iraq – At least 88
5. Pakistan – At least 87
6. Egypt – At least 44
7. US – 20
8. Somalia – 14
9. Bangladesh – 10
10. Malaysia – 9
Source: Amnesty International
He also described the data from Vietnam as “truly shocking”. “This conveyor belt of executions completely overshadows recent death penalty reforms. You have to wonder how many more people have faced the death penalty without the world knowing it.”
Amnesty said that the extent of the use of the death penalty in Malaysia was also revealed for the first time with data presented to parliament showing nine people were executed last year while more than 1,000 people remain on death row.
And noting that the use of the death penalty in the US is “at its lowest level since the early 1990s”, Mr Shetty said this “steady decline” in the use of the death penalty in the US is “a sign of hope for activists who have long campaigned for an end to capital punishment”. “The debate is clearly shifting.”
Amnesty also expressed concern over moves to reintroduce the death penalty in The Philippines.
Elsewhere, the report showed that some 3,117 people received death sentences in 55 countries during 2016, a significant increase on the 1,998 sentenced to death last year and above the former record high of 2,466 reported in 2014. This was despite a decline in the number of countries where death sentences were handed down – from 61 in 2015 to 55 last year.
The new sentences take to at least 18,848 people the number of people living under a death sentence at the end of last year.
In other positive developments, meanwhile, Amnesty reported that two further countries – Benin and Nauru – abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2016 while Guinea abolished the death penalty for “ordinary crimes” and “significant steps” toward abolition were also taken in Chad and Guatemala.
This means that more than two-thirds of all nations – 141 – are abolitionist either in law or practice.
The report also shows that commutations or pardons for people under a death sentence were recorded in 28 countries last year while at least 60 people in nine countries were exonerated.
