Amnesty International’s most recent death penal­ty report, ​“The Death Penalty Worldwide: Developments in 2005,” revealed a sub­stan­tial drop in record­ed exe­cu­tions around the world, as well as a grow­ing num­ber of nations that have aban­doned the death penal­ty. According to the report, four nations account­ed for 94% of the 2,148 record­ed exe­cu­tions car­ried out around the world in 2005, a total that is sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than the 3,797 exe­cu­tions record­ed in 2004 (how­ev­er, in many coun­tries the exact num­ber of exe­cu­tions is unknown). Those four nations are China (1,770), Iran (94), Saudi Arabia (86), and the United States (60). Only 22 coun­tries car­ried out exe­cu­tions in 2005, down from 25 in 2004. This is the fourth straight year this fig­ure has dropped and it has halved in the last 20 years.

Noting that 20,000 peo­ple are await­ing exe­cu­tion world­wide, Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen stat­ed, ​“The death penal­ty is cru­el and unnec­es­sary, does not deter crime and often comes after tor­ture, false ​‘con­fes­sions’ and deeply unfair tri­als.”

Amnesty’s report also not­ed that a grow­ing num­ber of nation’s are turn­ing against the death penal­ty, and that con­cerns about wrong­ful con­vic­tions have spurred renewed efforts to aban­don cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for all crimes. The group report­ed that two pris­on­ers were released from death row in the United States in 2005 after evi­dence of their inno­cence emerged. ​“There is a glob­al tide against the death penal­ty which has left us with just the hard­ened coun­tries still using it,” said Amnesty International researcher Piers Bannister.

(The Scotsman, April 20, 2006). Read Amnesty International’s report ​“The Death Penalty Worldwide: Developments in 2005.” See International Death Penalty.

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