A new report released by Amnesty International reveals that the world is moving away from capital punishment. Amnesty’s annual report showed that only 59 nations retain the death penalty, and of those nations, only 25 used it in 2008. Among the nations still employing the death penalty, China was the most prolific with 1,718 executions, followed by Iran with 346, Saudi Arabia with 102, United States with 37, Pakistan with 36, and Iraq with 34. Argentina and Uzbekistan abolished the death penalty in 2008 and Belarus was the only European nation to carry out executions. The number of verified executions in China in 2008 was an increase from 2007, but the report does not consider the verified executions in China to be a true picture of the total executions for either year. Amnesty’s “Death Sentences and Executions in 2008” report may be found here.

(“Death penalty ‘closer to demise’,” BBC News, March 24, 2009). See International and Studies. The number of executions in the U.S. in 2008 marked a 14-year low and a 62% drop from 1999. In 2008, 95% of the executions in the U.S. were in the South. In 2009, there have been 20 executions to date, a pace faster than last year’s, as many cases received stays of execution last year after the de facto moratorium on lethal injections was lifted. So far, 100% of the executions have been in the South.

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