700 executions outlined in Amnesty report

MORE than 700 people were executed in 18 countries last year and at least 2,000 people were sentenced to death, Amnesty International’s annual global report on the death penalty has found.

Among the worst offenders were Iran with at least 388 executions, Iraq with at least 120, Saudi Arabia with at least 69 and the USA with 52.

The report, Death Sentences and Executions in 2009, reveals that at least 714 people were executed in 18 countries last year. At least 2,000 people were sentenced to death across 56 countries.

However, the figuresexclude the thousands of executions that took place in China, where information on the death penalty remains a state secret.

China is named as the world’s number one state killer, with the report stating that Chinese authorities executed more people than the rest of the world combined.

China remains the world’s most active, and secret, executioner. In a challenge to China’s secrecy, Amnesty International has decided not to publish its own figures for executions in China for 2009. Estimates based on the available information grossly under-represent the actual number the state killed or sentenced to death.

“The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place,” Amnesty International Ireland’s executive director, Colm O’Gorman, said. “If this is true, why won’t they tell the world how many of their own people they put to death every year?

“These people were shot, hanged, beheaded, poisoned, electrocuted and stoned to death,” he said. “Many of them were executed after grossly unfair trials or as a way to silence political opponents. You are still far more likely to be executed if you are poor or from an ethnic, religious or racial minority.”

However, the number of people being executed globally is falling. For the first time, there were no reported executions in Europe. Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty and there were no executions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Mongolia and others for the first time in recent years.

Amnesty International Ireland has relaunched its death penalty network to enable people in Ireland to help prevent executions around the world.

“The shrinking number of death penalty states are more and more isolated in the global community,” Mr O’Gorman said.

“By getting involved in our death penalty network people in Ireland can help save lives and ensure that the worldwide momentum towards abolition is irreversible.”