By Osoro Nyawangah, LONDON
England
The number of executions recorded worldwide last year jumped to the highest level since 2015, with a sharp rise in Iran and across the Middle East, Amnesty International said in a report released Wednesday, May 29.
The figure represents a 30%
increase when compared
to the year before., and was the highest recorded by Amnesty since
2015, when 1,634 people were known to have been executed.
The number of countries that
carried out the executions in 2023 was the lowest on record at 16, according to
the UK-headquartered NGO.
"The lowest number of
countries on record carried out the highest number of known executions in close
to a decade," Amnesty said in its annual report on the death penalty and
executions.
The human rights monitor
attributed the "alarming” jump in executions to Iran, where numbers saw a
nearly 50% rise when compared to 2022. Iranian
authorities executed at least 853 people last year, compared to 576 in
2022.
"The Iranian authorities showed
complete disregard for human life and ramped up executions for drug-related
offences, further highlighting the discriminatory impact of the death penalty
on Iran's most marginalized and impoverished communities," Agnes
Callamard, Amnesty's secretary-general, said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia, Somalia and
the United
States made up the other four countries with the highest number of
executions last year.
In the US, executions rose for the second consecutive year, from 18 to 24, all carried out by five states using lethal injections.
The report notes that the
real number of executions is likely higher. Amnesty attributed
this due to the classification of such data as confidential in
countries like China, where "thousands of people" allegedly executed
not included in the calculations.
"China has yet to publish
any figures on the death penalty; however, available information indicates that
each year thousands of people are executed and sentenced to death,” it said,
renewing its call for data.
Amnesty said "little or
no information" was available on other countries, especially Belarus
and North Korea, "due to restrictive state practice" there.
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