According to an annual death penalty report by Amnesty International, 2022 saw the highest number of recorded executions since 2017 , primarily due to increases in just a handful of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The report also noted a slight decrease in the number of newly imposed death sentences worldwide. In its report, Amnesty says use of the death penalty in several countries continues to violate international law with public executions, executions of juveniles or those…
Executions across the globe fell 5 % worldwide in 2019 to the fewest in more than a decade, despite a record number of executions in Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International reported in the human rights organization’s Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions in…
As China awaited a decision on whether Canada would extradite a top Chinese businesswoman to the U.S. on criminal charges, a Chinese court upheld a controversial death sentence imposed on a Canadian man, further escalating tensions between the two…
In the aftermath of Idaho’s failed execution of Thomas Creech and Texas’ execution of Ivan Cantu on February 28 , the European Union released a statement expressing its regret and reiterating its unequivocal opposition to the death penalty.. “[The death penalty] is a violation of the right to life and fails to act as a deterrent to crime. It represents the ultimate punishment that makes miscarriages of justice irreversible,” said the statement. “[W]e are concerned by the fact that the number…
On June 21 , 2024 , China announced that courts, prosecutors, public, and state bodies should use the death penalty against Taiwan separatists. The state-run Xinhua news agency reported that the new guidelines recommend “ severely punish[ing] Taiwan independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession crimes in accordance with the law, and resolutely defend national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity.” Critics say that the vagueness of the legal language in the new…
The Aprajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, which outlines the death penalty for rape resulting in the victim’s death or “ vegetative state,” was adopted by the West Bengal government in eastern India on September 3 , 2024 . Under international law, it is unlawful to prescribe the death penalty for a crime not meeting the “ most serious” crime (e.g., intentional murder)…
Methods of Execution
The January 25 , 2024 execution of Kenneth Smith in the state of Alabama with nitrogen gas received widespread international condemnation. The European Union reiterated its commitment to abolishing the death penalty and called the execution method a “ particularly cruel and unusual punishment.” The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated: “ I deeply regret the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite serious concerns that this novel and untested method of…
The University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, in collaboration with several human rights nonprofits, recently launched a database of foreign nationals sentenced to death or executed from January 1 , 2016 to December 31 , 2021 in Asia and the Middle East. They found that Saudi Arabia leads the Middle East in sentencing foreign nationals to death ( 385 people) and drug-trafficking ( 283 ), closely followed by murder ( 257 ), are the top crimes for which foreign nationals in the region are…
On August 4 , a South Korean national convicted of drug-trafficking was executed in China, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who added during a press conference that this execution was “ unrelated to the current bilateral relations” between the two nations. This was the first time a South Korean national was executed in China for drug-trafficking since 2014 , when four were executed. …
On May 7 , 2024 , Harm Reduction International ( HRI ) released a special global overview report on the use of the death penalty for drug offenses, which is a violation of international law because drug offenses do not meet the “ most serious” crimes threshold. HRI found that by the end of 2023 , there were 34 countries which still retained the death penalty for drug-related offenses; Pakistan was the only country to recently eliminate the death penalty for such offenses – the first country in more…
October 10 , 2023 marked the 21 st World Day Against the Death Penalty. Regarding this year’s theme, “ The Death Penalty, an Irreversible Torture,” Raphaël Chenuil Hazan, executive director of France-based abolitionist group EPCM , said “ Today, we no longer need to demonstrate to anyone that the death penalty is a sophisticated form of torture, both in the phase of sentencing or investigation (where physical and psychological torture is often used to obtain confessions), where the elements of a…
On November 7 , Chinese media reported that former primary school principal Zhang Longji was executed via lethal injection for raping five girls, age 8 – 12 , and sexually molesting 17 girls, age 8 – 14 . Sun Deshun, former president of China CITIC Bank Corporation Limited, who was convicted of accepting $ 1 billion yuan ($ 137 million) in bribes, was given a suspended death sentence by the Intermediate People’s Court in Jinan on November 10 . If no new crimes are committed during the two-year…
On July 25 , 2023 , Ghana’s parliament voted to abolish the death penalty. Although the death penalty would remain in the constitution for acts of treason, the new law would remove the death penalty as possible punishment for murder, genocide, piracy, and smuggling. The current 176 death row prisoners, including six women, would have their sentences commuted to life in prison. Last year seven people were sentenced to death despite Ghana not having carried out an execution since…
A total of 68 executions have occurred in Saudi Arabia this year, with more than 20 executions relating to terrorism charges occurring since early May, according to Agence France-Presse. On July 3 , five men, including one Egyptian national, were executed for a deadly attack on a house of worship in the Al-Ahsa governorate, resulting in five dead and several injured. On June 25 , two Yemeni nationals were executed on terrorism charges, and on June 12 , three Saudi men were executed for the…