More than two-thirds of all countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, Amnesty International reports. But some countries, including the United States, still carry out executions.
More than half of the world’s population lives in 58 countries where the death penalty is retained by their legal system.
At least 778 executions were reported in 22 countries in 2013, according to Amnesty International’s 2014 report on death penalties. That is 96 more than in 2012, according to a Sept. 15 story in The Times of India. “With at least 369 executions in the year, Iran leads the list,” the newspaper reported.
For centuries, civilizations have justified the use of various methods to perform executions. Even as early as the Roman Empire, death penalty sentences were carried out by crucifixions, drowning, beatings, burning a person to death, impalements and hangings.
According to the report, the oil-producing country of Saudi Arabia sent more than 79 prisoners to their death, followed by the U.S. with 39 executions. Other countries that reported the death penalty include Somalia, “where at least 34 judicial executions took place” in 2013. Iraq ordered more than 169 inmates to death.
The global figures for Sudan and Yemen show that more than 10 prisoners were executed in each country in 2013. Even though China has one of the largest populations on earth, the country classifies its death penalty as a state secret. However, the report said it is believed that “thousands of convicts” were sent to their death.
“The report also shows that at least 1,925 people were sentenced to death in 57 countries in 2013.” In that same year, 23,392 inmates were on Death Row globally. “The method of execution range from beheading, hanging, lethal injection to shooting.”
Amnesty International reported 98 countries have abolished capital punishment for all crimes. Most of these are in Western Europe and the Americas. Seven countries, including Brazil, Chile and Kazakhstan, have abolished it for “ordinary crimes.” In “these countries, death penalty can only be given for exceptional crimes such as crime committed under military law or under exceptional circumstances.”
The report identified 35 countries as abolitionist in practice. However, they “retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes, but there have been no executions in the past 10 years.”
Worldwide studies show in most cases, that persons sentenced to death are generally from an economically and socially backward section of society, Amnesty International wrote.
Opponents say, “It is possible for innocent people to get executed because of unfair and discriminatory application of the death penalty,” the report adds. In many cases, poor defendants don’t have resources to hire good attorneys to represent them, the report said.
“Many studies have suggested that there is no evidence to show that capital punishment has any affect on murder rates,” the report noted. There are critics who believe an execution is a denial of human rights and it “sends the wrong message, that killing is acceptable under certain circumstances.”
