According to Amnesty International’s annual Death Sentences and Executions report, at least 527 people were executed in 23 countries in 2010, plus thousands in China. The number of people executed worldwide since 2007 is more than 2,500. Here are the 5 countries registering the most executions since 2007:
5. Pakistan
Pakistan made the Top 5 despite a moratorium on executions imposed by the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party that prevented the government from executing anyone in 2009 or 2010. In 2007, 135 people were executed and 36 were in 2008.
Despite the moratorium on executions, Pakistan continued to sentence people to death – 276 in 2009 and 365 in 2010 – and thousands of people remain on death row from previous sentences, as noted by Monitor correspondent Issam Ahmed.
4. United States
The US, the only country in the Americas to execute people in the past few years, executed 46 people in 2010, down from the 2009 total of 52 but still a notable increase from the 2008 total of 37. The US has executed a total of 177 since 2007.
Texas, Alabama, Ohio, Virginia, and Oklahoma are the states with the most executions since since 2007.
3. Iraq
Iraq executed at least 120 people in 2009, but Amnesty International has been unable to confirm how many were executed in 2010 – the 2010 tally is “1+,” meaning Amnesty only knows that at least one person was executed. That person was Ali Hassan Al-Majid, better known as “Chemical Ali,” who was hung on Jan. 24, 2010. Despite the lack of numbers in 2010, Iraq still has the 3rd most executions on the books since 2007, with at least 188 confirmed.
Iraq also sentenced more people to death in 2009 than any other country other than China and has sentenced at least 1,129 people to death since 2007.
2. Iran
After carrying out more than 300 executions a year in 2007, 2008, and 2009, Iran executed at least 252 people in 2010 and at least 1,303 since 2007. A large percentage of Iranian executions are punishment for drug-related offenses. Seventeen members of Iran’s Kurdish minority are also on death row for what the report called “political offenses.”
Iran is also one of the few remaining countries to sentence people to death by stoning – the punishment for “adultery while married.” While no one was executed by stoning in 2010, at least 14 people were sentenced to it at the end of the year.
1. China
China is far and away the global leader in terms of the number of people executed: It executed at least 470 people in 2007 and at least 1,718 in 2008. For 2009 and 2010, Amnesty's report only lists “thousands” because of the Chinese government’s stance that such statistics are state secrets. In 2010, China executed more people than the rest of the world combined, according to Amnesty International.
According to the Death Sentences and Executions report, a large number of China’s death sentences are for drug-related offenses.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 2011
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