China, Iran and US top capital punishers

A total of 1,146 people were executed in 28 countries last year, with China, Iran and the United States topping the list of nations that use the death penalty, Amnesty International said.

The human rights watchdog released its survey in Geneva to coincide with the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission, which it urged “to move to end all executions”.

“The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and a flagrant denial of the right to life,” Amnesty said.

The 2003 figure was a decrease from 1,526 in 2002 and from almost double that figure the year before, when China was engaged in a crackdown on crime and alone executed at least 2,468 people, it said.

“The large number of executions are actually carried out by a very small number of countries,” Amnesty spokeswoman Judit Arenas said.

“Eighty-four percent of the executions in 2003 were carried out by only four countries.”

During 2003 China is known to have executed 726 people, but the true figure was believed to be much higher, Arenas said.

Iran was in second place with at least 108 executions, followed by the United States with 65, Vietnam with 64 and Saudi Arabia with 50, she said.