Amnesty International releases its annual report on the death penalty

Amnesty International today published their annual Death Penalty Report, calling for China to end the secrecy surrounding sentencing and executions.

Protesting the continuing refusal by Chinese officials to publish official figures for executions, Amnesty decided not to include an estimate of those killed. Amnesty’s rationale is that such calculations “grossly under represent” the actual number the state has killed or sentenced to death.

China’s wall of secrecy in death penalty cases is something Reprieve has experienced with the execution of British national Akmal Shaikh in December 2009, despite significant evidence of mental illness. Reprieve’s attempts to pursue the appropriate channels for redress and clemency for Akmal faltered in the face of a legal system which was frustratingly opaque.

Even now, the Chinese Embassy in London refuses to meet with Akmal’s family to answer questions about his execution and burial.

Claudio Cordone, Amnesty International's Interim Secretary General, said today:

"The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place. If this is true, why won't they tell the world how many people the state put to death?"

112 executions in 56 days

Iran is also criticised for executing 112 people in an eight week period: between the presidential election on 12 June and the inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his second presidential term on 5 August. In total, Iran executed 388 people in 2009.

Like China, there is worrying evidence that the death penalty is utilized in Iran not against criminals, but as a weapon against political dissidents and opponents of the regime.

Along with Saudi Arabia, Iran also executed people who were under 18 at the time of the alleged offence, an act illegal under international law.

A feeling of progress

However, the Amnesty report does recognise some positive progress.

The number of countries which have abolished the death penalty now stands at 95 after Togo and Burundi abolished its use in 2009.

In Kenya, the government oversaw one of the largest mass commutations of sentences when 4,000 people had their death sentences commuted to imprisonment.

And 2009 was the first year when no executions took place in Europe, although Belarus executed two people in March of this year.

"Fewer countries than ever before are carrying out executions,” said Claudio Cordone today:

“As it did with slavery and apartheid, the world is rejecting this embarrassment to humanity. We are moving closer to a death penalty free world, but until that day every execution must be opposed."