According to a new report issued by Amnesty International, the United States is among four coun­tries that car­ried out the vast major­i­ty of the 3,797 exe­cu­tions around the world in 2004. Amnesty’s report states that the nations car­ry­ing out the most exe­cu­tion­ers last year were China (3,400), Iran (159), Vietnam (64), United States (59), Saudi Arabia (33), Pakistan (15), Kuwait (9), Bangladesh (7), Egypt (6), Singapore (6), and Yemen (6). The report notes that the increase in exe­cu­tions in China is part­ly due to a new way of esti­mat­ing such exe­cu­tions since the gov­ern­ment does not pub­licly release this data. The use of the death penal­ty declined in the U.S. in 2004 com­pared to 2003.

Five nations aban­doned the death penal­ty in 2004 (Bhutan, Greece, Samoa, Senegal, and Turkey), bring­ing the total num­ber of coun­tries that have abol­ished the death penal­ty in law or prac­tice to 120. A third of those coun­tries have aban­doned the death penal­ty in the past 15 years, a trend that Amnesty International says shows a ​“con­tin­ued move clos­er to the uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Only 76 coun­tries retain and use the death penal­ty, but few of those nations car­ry out exe­cu­tions each year. ​“The death penal­ty is cru­el and unnec­es­sary, does not deter crime, and runs the risk of killing the wrong­ly con­vict­ed, ” the report con­cludes.

(The (London) Independent, April 4, 2005, and ​“Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty,” Amnesty International, April 2005). See Amnesty’s Report and DPIC’s International Death Penalty.

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