Amnesty report shows executions on the rise worldwide
March 27, 2014: The number of known executions around the world rose almost 15 percent
in 2013, and the United States was among the five countries putting the most people
to death, a new report says.
The Amnesty International report released Wednesday
comes shortly after a stunning decision this week by an Egyptian court to sentence
to death 529 alleged supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood after a two-session trial.
The London-based rights group has called the action "grotesque."
The new report
said the 778 judicial executions in 22 countries the group was able to count last
year don't include the thousands of people put to death in China, where such information
is a state secret. China's foreign ministry referred a question about its executions
last year to the justice ministry, which did not respond to phone or fax.
Last
year's global increase is due in part to more executions in Iran and Iraq, followed
by Saudi Arabia, the report said. The number of officially acknowledged executions
in Iran was at least 369, but the rights group said "credible sources" reported 335
more. The group said Iraq executed at least 169 people. Executions in chaotic Syria
and Egypt could not be confirmed.
Amnesty International is blunt about its
stance on the issue. "We oppose the death penalty in all cases, without exception,"
Jose Luis Diaz, the group's representative at the United Nations, told reporters Wednesday.
"It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment."
He also criticized
this week's sweeping decision in Egypt, which he called "in recent history the largest
number of death sentences handed down by a court at a single instance."
The
Amnesty International report counted more than 23,000 people on death row worldwide
as of the end of 2013. It also counted at least 1,925 people sentenced to death in
57 countries last year, up from the year before. Amid the bleak numbers, the rights
group pointed out that a small number of countries — about one in 10 — carry out executions,
and 140 countries are against the death penalty either in law or actions.
"The
overall data demonstrate that the trend is still firmly towards abolition," the report
said. "Excluding China, almost 80 percent of all known executions worldwide were recorded
in only three countries: Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia." Both Europe and Central Asia
had no reported executions, the first time since 2009.