The last two years remain those with the lowest number of executions reported since 2010, but they are on the rise in particular in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Burma.
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The number of death sentences has increased “worrying rise” in 2021, alerted the NGO Amnesty International in its annual report, Tuesday, May 24. The human rights group recorded at least 579 executions in 18 countries last year, up nearly 20% from 2020.
More than half of the executions recorded were in Iran: the Islamic republic recorded 314 capital punishment executions last year. A number on the rise partly due to drug cases, “in flagrant violation of international law”according to the NGO.
After a sharp drop in 2020 in Saudi Arabia, the use of the death penalty there doubled in 2021 with 65 executions. That number is already exceeded in 2022, as the kingdom executed 81 people in a single day on “terrorism” charges. Finally, the organization highlights the case of Burma, where “an alarming increase in the use of the death penalty has been recorded” since the military coup with nearly 90 death sentences, “what is widely perceived as a campaign targeting opponents and journalists”.
The last two years remain those with the fewest executions of capital punishment reported since 2010. But Amnesty specifies that its record excludes “the thousands of people sentenced to death and executed in China”as well as in North Korea and Vietnam, due to data access restrictions.
The organization also explains that “Covid restrictions that had delayed court proceedings have been lifted in many parts of the world”, with sharp increases in the number of death sentences in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The NGO notes despite everything that the death penalty is abolished in law or in fact in more than two thirds of the States, Kazakhstan and Sierra Leone having been added to the list last year.