Death Penalty News

NAIROBI, June 22 (Reuters) - Mohamed Ali doesn't believe gay Africans exist. He says homosexuality is a Western invention imposed on the continent. Openly gay Africans are liars seeking visas to the West or money from rights groups, he adds. Ali is a member of Kenya's parliament. He is desperate to follow neighbour Uganda by unleashing a sweeping legislative crackdown on LGBT people. Even if he happened to be sick in intensive care, he would ask to be dragged to parliament to approve it. "I will ask them to take me to vote for that, to kick them out, kick LGBT people out of Kenya completely," he said. Weeks after Uganda enacted one of the most draconian anti-LGBT laws on Earth, Kenya could be poised to follow suit with a similarly formulated bill that punishes gay sex with prison or even death in some cases, according to a draft of the law and two lawmakers backing it in parliament.

Sub-Saharan African countries have seen a 67% fall in capital punishment, from 33 in 2021 to just 11 last year, and a 20% drop in death penalty sentences, from 373 to 298 over the same period, Amnesty International (AI) said in its latest report. South Sudan executed five people - down from nine in 2021 - and Somalia, which in 2021 carried out 21 executions, only had six last year. Botswana which had executed one person in 2021, didn't conduct any last year. In the whole African continent, recorded death sentences decreased by 20%, from 373 in 2021 to 298 in 2022.  Death sentences recorded in 16 countries last year, down three from 2021.  According to the report, the 20% drop in recorded death sentences was due to notable reductions in the following countries in 2022 compared to 2021:  Botswana (6 to 1); Cameroon (4 to 0); Democratic Republic of the Congo (81 to 76); Malawi (11 to 0); Mali (48 to 8); Somalia (27 to 10); Sierra Leone (23 to 0); South Sudan (10 to 4); Sudan...

The three Middle Eastern countries account for 80% of all recorded executions last year An Amnesty International annual review published on Thursday documented a rise in global state executions in 2021 with at least 579 executions known to have been carried out across 18 countries last year⁠ – an overall 20% increase from 2020⁠. The report concluded that Iran accounted for the biggest portion of the increase, executing at least 314 people – up from at least 246 in 2020 – which is the nation’s highest execution count since 2017. This was due, in part, to a marked escalation in drug-related executions. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia more than doubled its number of executions to 65 from 27 the year prior – a grim trend that continued in 2022 with the execution of 81 people in a single day in March. The two Middle Eastern countries, along with Egypt , accounted for 80% of all known executions in 2021. Significant increases from 2020 were also seen in Somalia , South Sudan and Yemen . “After th...

The number of states voting for UN resolutions on halting executions worldwide continues to grow, signalling that consensus is building towards ending the death penalty once and for all, Amnesty International said today. The plenary session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) today adopted a resolution on a moratorium on executions, with a view to fully abolishing the death penalty, after 123 states voted in favour. In 2007, the 1st time a resolution on a moratorium for executions was adopted by UNGA, only 104 states voted in favour. “Countries which still practice the death penalty must treat this as a wake-up call - state sponsored executions have no place in the modern world, or in any society committed to upholding human rights,” said Rajat Khosla, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Research, Policy and Advocacy. “This resolution brings us one step closer to consigning the death penalty, the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, to the history books. We call on st...

Following the South Sudan Court of Appeal’s decision on 14 July to quash the death sentence imposed on Magai Matiop Ngong because he was a child at the time of the crime, and to send his case back to the High Court to rule on an appropriate sentence, and his removal from death row on 29 July, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa, Deprose Muchena said: “We welcome the Court of Appeal’s decision to quash Magai Matiop Ngong’s death sentence because under South Sudan and international law a child cannot be sentenced to death.  Magai is one of the lucky ones.  At least two other people, who were children at the time of the crime, have been executed in the country since May 2018; their lives extinguished as well as all the hopes their families had for them. "The South Sudanese government must fully comply with national and international laws which prohibit the use of the death penalty against anyone below 18 years of age at the time the cr...

Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Egypt are amongst the nations who carry out the greatest number of executions around the globe in 2019, a report by Amnesty International exposed the other day. The organisation’s 2019 international evaluation of the death sentence mentions that Saudi Arabia carried out a record number of 184 individuals in 2019. Neighbouring Iraq almost doubled the number of executions throughout the exact same duration while in Egypt 32 capital punishment were brought out. World’s leading executioners 1.China 2.Iran 3.Saudi Arabia 4.Iraq 5.Egypt 6.United States 7.Pakistan 8.Somalia 9.South Sudan 10.Yemen According to the report, Iran kept its position as the nation with the 2nd biggest number of executions on the planet after China, with a record 251 executions. Amnesty stated although the number of executions in China is approximated at thousands, the precise figure stays unidentified because the nation con...

As the world battles the deadly COVID-19 virus, countries across sub-Saharan Africa have taken a number of measures aimed at stopping the spread of the virus in their territories. However, while efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic are a stark reminder that the right to life is important and must be protected, a new report by Amnesty International on the global use of the death penalty in 2019 shows that some governments in sub-Saharan Africa do not consistently seek to protect the right to life. In fact, in some instances they actively strive to violate it by sentencing people to death or executing them. Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan In 2019, four countries in the region – Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan – carried out executions in their territories despite a 5% reduction in known executions in the world. Amnesty International confirmed one execution in Botswana, one in Sudan, 11 in South Sudan and 12 in Somalia. These four countries are increasi...

April 21 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia executed a record 184 people in 2019 while capital punishment generally declined in the rest of the world, human rights group Amnesty International said Tuesday. Iraq , South Sudan , and Yemen joined Saudi Arabia as nations where the use of the death penalty significantly increased last year even as world as a whole saw a 5 percent decline, Amnesty said in its annual review of capital punishment. "The death penalty is an abhorrent and inhuman punishment; and there is no credible evidence that it deters crime more than prisons terms," said Clare Algar, Amnesty International's senior director for research, advocacy and policy. "A large majority of countries recognize this and it's encouraging to see that executions continue to fall worldwide." RELATED |  Saudi Arabia has doubled its use of the death penalty since King Salman came to the throne, with 800 executions carried out in five years China remained the top...

The execution of Mooketsi Kgosibodiba by the Botswana Government this week in Gaborone, has opened old wounds and deepened public discourse on the death penalty in the country. On one hand, some observers and quite a considerable number of Batswana still believe in death penalty and take every opportunity to support the State to withhold it. Such insists that the only deserving justice for murderers is to be executed as evidence by their notion and justification: “an eye for an eye.” However, speaking to Weekend Post this week, a renowned attorney who has done murder cases for years expressed his dissatisfaction against the latest development of killing by the State - despite calls to abolish the practice. He asserted to this publication that “this government is cruel… How does the State even find it fit and just normal to kill during the month of Jesus Christ? I find it interesting.” Although regarded as a secular State, Botswana is predominantly Christian. The prominent la...

The use of the death penalty – the world’s ultimate cruel punishment – has decreased in sub-Saharan Africa according to the Death Sentences and Executions 2018 report by Amnesty International. This is good news for sub-Saharan Africa and an indication that the region continues to turn against the death penalty. Of the 29 countries in sub-Saharan Africa that still retain the death penalty in law, only four – Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan – carried out executions in 2018. Although Botswana and Sudan resumed executions last year, having not carried out any in 2017, the overall number of known executions in the region went down from 28 in 2017 to 24 in 2018. This drop was mainly due to Somalia, which usually carried out the highest number of executions in sub-Saharan Africa, executing less people last year than it did in 2017. The presence of these four countries on the list of executing countries in the region is not surprising as they are notorious adherents to the ...