Post by carolinem on Mar 24, 2009 17:15:20 GMT -5
The world is moving nearer to ending the use of capital punishment, Amnesty International says, despite its latest report revealing a mixed picture.
In its annual survey the group says 2,390 people were put to death in 2008, up from 1,252 in 2007. And 8,864 were sentenced to death, up from 3,347.
Of 25 nations using the death penalty in 2008, China was the most prolific.
But Amnesty said it was encouraging that just 59 nations retained the death penalty and so few actually used it.
The group's secretary general, Irene Khan, said such punishments as beheading, stoning and electrocution "have no place in the 21st Century".
Despite the rise in executions during 2008, she said there were reasons to be optimistic.
"The good news is that executions are only carried out by a small number of countries, which shows that we are moving closer to a death-penalty free world," she said.
'Worrying instances'
The group highlighted decisions by Argentina and Uzbekistan to abolish the death penalty in 2008.
And the fact that Belarus was the only European nation to carry out executions was also interpreted positively.
But Ms Khan said the "bad news" in the report, entitled Death Sentences and Executions in 2008, was that hundreds of people continued to suffer.
The report said China used lethal injection and shooting to execute at least 1,718 people.
But Beijing does not publish data on the death penalty.
Of the top-six countries in Amnesty's list, only the US (37) publishes statistics on the penalty's use.
The figures for the others are estimates based on what Amnesty has verified through media reports, rights groups and official statements.
Other groups frequently give much higher figures.
The other worst-offending nations on the list are Iran (346), Saudi Arabia (102), Pakistan (36) and Iraq (34).
Amnesty also highlighted "worrying instances" of some nations bucking a long-term trend away from the death penalty.
St Kitts and Nevis carried out the first execution in the Caribbean for five years, the group's report said.
And Liberia introduced capital punishment for robbery, terrorism and hijacking.
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AFP: Executions in US a regional phenomenon: Amnesty
Hosted by Executions in US a regional phenomenon: Amnesty
4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Amnesty International USA said in an annual report to be published Tuesday that capital punishment in the United States has become regional and fairly isolated event, with Texas accounting for roughly half of all executions.
"Only nine of the 36 states that retained the death penalty in 2008 actually carried out executions, and the vast majority of these executions took place in one region: the South," the US section of the London-based human rights group said in a statement.
"Texas accounted for, in essence, half (18 of 37) of the US executions in 2008," it added. And the southern state has carried out 12 of the 20 nationwide executions so far this year.
Other states including Virginia (east), Tennessee (south), Alabama (south), Ohio (north) and Oklahoma (south) also allow lethal injections -- the preffered method of execution, but in much smaller numbers.
New Mexico, also in the south, last week abolished capital punishment in its territory.
"Executions in the United States are increasingly a regionally isolated phenomenon," said Amnesty's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign director Sue Gunawardena- Vaughn.
"Elsewhere, concerns about cost, the possibility of executing the innocent and racial bias have led to a significant decline in support for capital punishment", she added.
While US opinion polls for years have shown a two-thirds support for lethal injections, this year the financial crisis has stressed the 10-to-one cost of execution compared to life imprisonment and made 10 states also consider its abolishment.
Anti-death penalty activists are hoping these states can tip the balance to more than half of the 50 states abolishing capital punishment in order to legally trigger its review on a national level.
In 2008, 2,390 people were executed around the world, nearly 75 percent of them in China, the Amnesty report said.