news blogDeath penalty: China challenged to end executions secrecy
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Posted: 30 March 2010 China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, USA top execution table Amnesty International has today challenged China to reveal how many people it executes, as the organisation published a new report on the global use of capital punishment. The report, Amnesty’s annual survey of the death penalty worldwide, showed that at least 714 people were executed in 18 countries last year, while at least 2,001 people were sentenced to death in 56 countries. But the organisation stressed that it’s likely that there were thousands of executions in China alone. Download the report (PDF) Information on the death penalty is a state secret in China and rather than publish its own incomplete figures for the country Amnesty is calling on China to end its habitual secrecy over the punishment by publishing official data. Amnesty International Interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone said: “The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place. If this is true, why won’t they tell the world how many people the state put to death? “The death penalty is cruel and degrading, and an affront to human dignity.” Amnesty’s report, Death Sentences and Executions in 2009, shows that after China the worst offending countries were Iran (at least 388 executions), Iraq (at least 120), Saudi Arabia (at least 69) and the USA (52). (A full list is available). Last year, says Amnesty, there were actually fewer countries than ever using the death penalty - 18 - but also clear signs that countries such as China, Iran and Sudan used capital punishment to send political messages, to silence opponents or to promote political agendas. For example, in Iran there were at least 112 executions in an eight-week period between the disputed presidential election of 12 June and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidential inauguration on 5 August. Earlier this month a senior North Korean finance official was reportedly executed by firing squad after apparently being blamed for currency reform failures. In 2009, says Amnesty, there were numerous executions after grossly unfair trials. In China a British man Akmal Shaikh was executed for alleged drug smuggling after an unfair trial process that refused to consider claims he was suffering from a mental illness. Meanwhile, both Iran (5) and Saudi Arabia (2) executed child offenders (those below the age of 18 at the time of the alleged offence), despite this being banned in international law. In Iran at least 139 child offenders (four female, 135 male) are currently under death sentences, one of them - Mohammad Reza Haddadi - was 15 at the time of his alleged offence. Overall, Amnesty’s report emphasises that 2009 saw a continued trend toward global abolition of the death penalty. The number of countries that have removed capital punishment for all crimes rose to 95, after Burundi and Togo completely abolished the penalty. Last year was also the first ever year that Amnesty recorded no executions whatsoever in the whole of Europe. However, last week Belarus - the only remaining executioner in Europe - executed two prisoners, only informing relatives after the fact. Meanwhile, across the whole of the Americas, the USA was only country in 2009 to resort to capital punishment and even there the number of new death sentences (106) was the lowest since the country resumed executions in 1977. Claudio Cordone added: “Fewer countries than ever before are carrying out executions. As it did with slavery and apartheid, the world is rejecting this embarrassment to humanity. We are moving closer to a death penalty-free world, but until then every execution must be opposed.”
2009 at a glance:
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