Amnesty International has presented its latest annual report on the death penalty in the world. According to the organization, the number of executions has decreased by 25%. However, China continues to be a source of concern, with more executions than all other countries combined.

According to Amnesty International , official figures show that 527 people were executed last year. A year earlier, the number of executed people was 714. The number of countries in which death sentences were carried out increased by 4, to 23. This is despite the fact that over the past ten years the death penalty has been abolished in practice or by law in 31 countries. The largest number of executions, according to Amnesty International, occur in Asia and the Middle East.

China continues to be the leader in the number of death sentences carried out, although the organization admits that it does not have accurate data. “Thousands of executions are believed to have been carried out in China in 2010, but China continues to keep its execution secret,” Amnesty International said in its report. Iran is in second place: 252 people were executed there, including 5 women and one teenager. In addition, according to unofficial data from Amnesty International, another 300 people were executed in Iran. Next in the number of executions are North Korea (60), Yemen (53), the United States (46) and Saudi Arabia (27). In many cases, the death penalty was imposed for drug-related crimes.

According to a report by Amnesty International, 110 people were sentenced to death in the United States last year, a third less than in the 1990s. Let us remember that the United States continues to be the only country in America where the death penalty is practiced. True, the authorities of individual states are gradually abandoning it. Thus, Illinois became the 16th state to abolish the death penalty (in March). A moratorium on the death penalty with a view to its subsequent abolition was also introduced in Mongolia, and Gabon abolished it altogether. The only European country that continues to execute its prisoners is Belarus. Last year, two people were shot there and three more were sentenced to death.

The most commonly used types of capital punishment are beheading, electric chair, hanging, lethal injection and firing squad. There were no recorded executions by stoning, although prisoners were sentenced to this method of punishment in Iran, Nigeria and Pakistan. In total, according to Amnesty International, at the end of 2010 the number of people sentenced to death around the world amounted to 17.8 thousand people.

Tamila Jojua

There are officially fewer executions around the world