Amnesty Int’l: Execution of convicts in 2015 highest in 25 years

Amnesty International reports that 2015 saw a dramatic rise in the number of people executed – at least 1,634 – the highest recorded by Amnesty International since 1989.

 

Countries used various methods to kill: hanging, shooting, lethal injection, beheading. They did this with cold efficiency, driving the number of executions up by more than half, compared to 2014.

 

Of all executions recorded in 2015, 89% were carried out in just three countries: Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan ranked among the top five executioners for the first time since 2008. The Middle East and North Africa region accounted for the vast majority of all recorded executions thanks largely to Iran and Saudi Arabia. For the second year in a row, both countries carried out the highest number of executions in the region.

But these figures exclude China, where numbers remain a state secret.

 

While this spike in executions cast a long shadow across the year, there were still glimmers of hope. Four countries expunged the death penalty from their law books for good so that today, more than half of all countries in the world have turned their backs on this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

 

Executions in Saudi Arabia shot up by 76% compared to 2014; at least 158 people were put to death in 2015. Meanwhile, Iran executed at least 977 people, mainly for drug-related crimes.

 

Iran continued to execute juvenile offenders – those aged under 18 at the time of the alleged crime – in violation of international law. Along with Maldives and Pakistan, it also sentenced juvenile offenders to death in 2015.

 

Countries continued to flout other aspects of international law, putting to death people with mental or intellectual disabilities, as well as those charged with non-lethal crimes. Apart from drug-related offences, people were executed for crimes such as adultery, blasphemy, corruption, kidnapping and “questioning the leader’s policies”.

 

The number of countries that executed people rose – from 22 in 2014 to 25 in 2015. At least six countries resumed executions: Bangladesh, Chad, India, Indonesia, Oman and South Sudan.

 

At least 1,998 people were sentenced to death in 2015 and at least 20,292 prisoners remained on death row at the end of the year.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now