Capital punishment in 2015
Amnesty International (AI), in its
latest Death Penalty Report 2015-16, has said that at least 1,634 people were
executed by 25 countries last year alone.
Highlights of the latest report:
- The report notes that these numbers show an alarming 54% increase over the previous year. Significantly, the rise also represents the maximum number the group has recorded in a single year since 1989.
- Most executions take place in China, where such data remains a state secret. Barring information from Beijing, the Asia-Pacific region saw 367 people subjected to the death penalty — more than a ten-fold rise from 2014. Pakistan alone accounted for 326 of them.
- West Asia and North Africa saw a 26% rise in executions, even if there was no addition to the eight countries that resorted to the punishment in 2014. While Iran accounted for 82% of executions in the region, for Saudi Arabia, the total rose by 76% over 2014.
- For the seventh year running, the U.S. remained the lone country in the Americas to have executed convicts. But the numbers were the lowest since 1991.
- Four more countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2015, taking the tally of abolitionist states to 102.
