(London) Death sentences recorded a “worrying increase” in their number in the world in 2021 with the easing of restrictions linked to COVID-19, Amnesty International warned on Tuesday in its annual report, noting degradations in Iran , Saudi Arabia and Burma.
Posted yesterday at 7:15 p.m.
The London-based human rights group says it recorded at least 579 executions in 18 countries in 2021, up nearly 20% from the 483 recorded in 2020.
Despite this increase, the last two years remain those with the fewest reported executions of capital punishment since 2010. Amnesty, however, specifies that its tally does not include “the thousands of people who have been sentenced to death and executed in China”, but also in North Korea and Vietnam, due to data access restrictions.
Without counting these countries, more than half of the executions recorded in the world in 2021 were in Iran, the Islamic Republic having recorded 314 executions of capital punishment last year, a record since 2017 according to Amnesty.
This increase in Iran “is partly due to a marked increase in executions related to drug cases, in flagrant violation of international law”, notes the NGO.
After a sharp drop in 2020 in Saudi Arabia, the use of the death penalty (65 executions) there doubled in 2021 and will be even higher in 2022 after the execution in March of 81 people in a single day in this ultra-conservative kingdom.
“After a drop in (the number of) executions in 2020, Iran and Saudi Arabia stepped up the use of the death penalty again last year, including shamelessly violating international human rights law. humans,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty, in a statement.
2000 sentences handed down
“While COVID-19 restrictions that had once delayed court proceedings have been lifted in many parts of the world, judges have handed down at least 2,052 death sentences in 56 countries – an increase of almost 40% compared to 2020 – with significant increases in Bangladesh (at least 181), India (144) and Pakistan (at least 129),” notes Amnesty.
This organization also highlights the case of Burma, where “an alarming increase in the use of the death penalty has been recorded under martial law”, with civil cases tried in military courts.
“Nearly 90 people were arbitrarily sentenced to death there, several in absentia, in what is widely seen as a campaign targeting opponents and journalists,” Amnesty said.
The NGO nevertheless notes that more than two-thirds of countries have abolished the death penalty in law or de facto, the latest having been Kazakhstan and Sierra Leone last year.
Also in 2021, Virginia became the 23and Abolitionist American state, a decision that is all the more symbolic since this territory holds the record for the number of executions in American history and that no state in the former Confederate South had yet taken this step.