Human rights organisation warns against complacency and said more needed to be done to abolish death penalty.
At least 690 prisoners were executed in 20 countries in 2018, marking a 31 percent fall from at least 993 from the previous year, according to Amnesty International that reported the fewest deaths by capital punishment in at least a decade.
A total of 2,531 death sentences were also imposed in 54 countries last year, decreasing from 2,591 recorded worldwide in 2017 according to a report published on Wednesday by the UK-based rights group that hailed the significant decline in global executions.
As in previous years, China, where figures believed to be in the thousands are classified as a state secret, remained the most prolific executor, Amnesty said, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Iraq – accounting for 78 percent of total reported executions.
“It’s very encouraging that known executions were the lowest at the end of 2018, but it is challenging to define clear reasons for the decreases and whether these reductions will be sustained in the coming years,” Oluwatosin Popoola, Amnesty International adviser on the death penalty, told Al Jazeera
Executions in Iran dropped by 50 percent in 2018 following amendments to drug legislation that increased the minimum amounts of drugs for death penalty offences. The change meant executions were put on hold while cases were reviewed.
Iraq, which executed at least 52 people, and Pakistan, which put more than 14 to death, also showed a downward trend. Meanwhile, Somalia almost halved its executions from 24 in 2017 to 13 last year.
Amnesty’s report comes after London-based NGO Harm Reduction International (HRI) revealed a drop of 68 percent in executions worldwide for drug crimes from 288 to 91 in 2018.. Popoola said that “while the global figures of executions undoubtedly tell a positive story for 2018, there were also concerning developments which show that it’s not yet time to lift the pressure”.
“The death penalty continued to be used in many cases against international law and standards in the absence of a fair trial and for non-lethal crimes such as drug-related offences,” he said.Amnesty found increases in executions in Japan, Singapore, South Sudan, Belarus and the United States.
Methods of recorded executions included beheading in Saudi Arabia, electrocution in the US, and hanging, lethal injection and shooting in other countries.
Source: aljazeera.com
Sunday, April 26, 2026
