Entries tagged with “Amnesty International”

Issues

Aug 27, 2024

68 Human Rights Organizations Express Support for Iranian Prisoners’ ​“No Death Penalty Tuesdays” Abolition Movement Entering Its 31st Week

Amidst a con­tin­ued post-elec­­tion exe­cu­tion surge and increased sup­pres­sion of peace­ful prison protests, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and 67 human rights orga­ni­za­tions across four con­ti­nents expressed their sup­port for the ongo­ing​“No Death Penalty Tuesdays” week­ly hunger strike move­ment cur­rent­ly span­ning 17 Iranian pris­ons across the coun­try. The August 27, 2024 state­ment, pub­lished a day after the first pub­lic hang­ing of the year,​“call[ed] for an…

Issues

Jun 05, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe

On May 7, 2024, Harm Reduction International (HRI) released a spe­cial glob­al overview report on the use of the death penal­ty for drug offens­es, which is a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law because drug offens­es do not meet the ​“most seri­ous” crimes thresh­old. HRI found that by the end of 2023, there were 34 coun­tries which still retained the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed offens­es; Pakistan was the only coun­try to recent­ly elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for such offens­es – the first coun­try in more…

Issues

May 30, 2024

Amnesty International Global Report (2023): Lowest Number of Countries Carried Out Highest Number of Recorded Executions in Nearly a Decade, Driven by Iran (74% of Total)

According to Amnesty International’s annu­al death penal­ty report for 2023, 16 coun­tries car­ried out the 1,153 known exe­cu­tions last year, con­sti­tut­ing the low­est num­ber of exe­cut­ing coun­tries on record with the orga­ni­za­tion but the high­est record­ed exe­cu­tion num­bers since 2015. The 31% glob­al increase in record­ed exe­cu­tions is attrib­ut­able to the 48% rise in exe­cu­tions in Iran (at least 853 exe­cu­tions), which account­ed for 74% of recorded executions…

Issues

Oct 12, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Vietnam

October 10, 2023 marked the 21st World Day Against the Death Penalty. Regarding this year’s theme,​“The Death Penalty, an Irreversible Torture,” Raphaël Chenuil Hazan, exec­u­tive direc­tor of France-based abo­li­tion­ist group EPCM, said​“Today, we no longer need to demon­strate to any­one that the death penal­ty is a sophis­ti­cat­ed form of tor­ture, both in the phase of sen­tenc­ing or inves­ti­ga­tion (where phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture is often used to obtain…

Issues

May 17, 2023

Amnesty International Global Report: Recorded Executions Highest in Five Years Reflects Increases in the Middle East and North Africa

According to an annu­al death penal­ty report by Amnesty International, 2022 saw the high­est num­ber of record­ed exe­cu­tions since 2017, pri­mar­i­ly due to increas­es in just a hand­ful of coun­tries in the Middle East and North Africa. The report also not­ed a slight decrease in the num­ber of new­ly imposed death sen­tences world­wide. In its report, Amnesty says use of the death penal­ty in sev­er­al coun­tries con­tin­ues to vio­late inter­na­tion­al law with public executions,…

Issues

Time on Death Row

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Mar 20, 2023

INTERNATIONAL: Longest Serving Death Row Prisoner in the World Has Case Reversed

On March 13, 2023 in Japan, Tokyo’s High Court grant­ed a retri­al for Iwao Hakamada, a for­mer box­er known as the​“longest serv­ing death row” pris­on­er in the world. He was con­vict­ed of mur­der in 1968. Hideaki Nakagawa, Director of Amnesty International Japan, described the rul­ing as a​“long-over­­due chance to deliver some…

Issues

Dec 28, 2022

Zambia Becomes 25th Sub-Saharan African Nation to Abolish Death Penalty

Fulfilling a pledge made while cam­paign­ing for office, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema on December 23, 2022 signed leg­is­la­tion abol­ish­ing the nation’s death penal­ty (pic­tured). Zambia’s repeal of its colo­­nial-era cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law made it the 25th sub-Saharan nation in Africa to abol­ish the death penal­ty. The new law also removed the offense of crim­i­nal defama­tion of the President from…

Issues

Dec 05, 2022

Saudi Arabia Reneges on Pledge to End Death Penalty for Drug Crimes; Execution Spree Draws Condemnation from UN and Human Rights NGOs

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a coali­tion of more than 30 non-gov­­ern­­men­­tal orga­ni­za­tions have con­demned the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a series of exe­cu­tions for drug crimes car­ried out in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. Human rights orga­ni­za­tions report­ed that Saudi author­i­ties exe­cut­ed 20 men in November for drug offens­es — 12 of them for­eign nation­als — after sud­den­ly lift­ing a mora­to­ri­um on executions…

Issues

Jun 12, 2022

Malaysian Government Pledges to End Mandatory Death Penalty

The cab­i­net of the gov­ern­ment of Malaysia announced on June 10, 2022 that it had reached agree­ment to abol­ish the nation’s manda­to­ry death penal­ty laws and sub­mit leg­is­la­tion to par­lia­ment to pro­vide judges dis­cre­tion to impose oth­er penal­ties for cap­i­tal crimes. Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the cab­i­net also agreed to study pro­pos­als to sub­sti­tute sen­tences for those cur­rent­ly on death row for offences carrying…

Issues

May 23, 2022

Western Democracies, Human Rights Groups Denounce Belarus’ Use of Death Penalty to Target Political Opponents and Anti-War Activists

The U.S. State Department and the European Union have joined human rights and pro-democ­ra­­cy advo­cates in con­demn­ing the expan­sion of the death penal­ty in Belarus to include non-lethal​“attempt­ed acts of ter­ror­ism,” call­ing the mea­sure an act of repres­sion against oppo­nents of the nation’s auto­crat­ic regime and its assis­tance to the Russian inva­sion of neighboring…

Issues

Nov 15, 2021

Death-Row Prisoners in Japan Sue Over Same-Day Notice of Executions

Two Japanese death-row pris­on­ers have filed a law­suit alleg­ing that the country’s long-crit­i­­cized prac­tice of noti­fy­ing pris­on­ers of their exe­cu­tion the same day they are to be put to death is​“inhu­mane” and violates the…

Issues

Apr 21, 2021

Amnesty International Global Report: Executions Worldwide Fewest in a Decade, Death Sentences Fall More Than One Third in 2020

Fewer exe­cu­tions were car­ried out across the world in 2020 than at any time in a decade and new death sen­tences fell by more than a third, accord­ing to a new report by Amnesty International. It was the third con­sec­u­tive year in which con­firmed exe­cu­tions reached a 10-year low, and the sixth year in a row in which con­firmed executions declined,…

State & Federal Info

Federal Death Penalty

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Feb 09, 2021

More Than 80 Civil Rights and Advocacy Organizations Urge President Biden to End Federal Executions

A coali­tion of 82 civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions have called on President Joe Biden to hon­or his cam­paign promise of​“ensur­ing equal­i­ty, equi­ty, and jus­tice in our crim­i­nal legal sys­tem” by tak­ing exec­u­tive action to end fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. The groups, led by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, asked Biden to com­mute the sen­tences of every­one on fed­er­al death row, dis­man­tle the federal death…

Issues

Apr 25, 2019

Saudi Arabia Condemned for Mass Execution of 37 People, Including Juveniles, After Unfair Trials

In an action con­demned by the United Nations and human rights groups as a fla­grant vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, Saudi Arabia behead­ed 37 peo­ple, includ­ing juve­nile offend­ers, in six sep­a­rate loca­tions on April 23, 2019. It was the nation’s largest mass exe­cu­tion since January 2016. Most of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed were mem­bers of the Shi’a Muslim minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty. The human rights advo­cates blast­ed Saudi offi­cials for targeting politically…

Issues

Aug 28, 2018

Amnesty International Issues Report on the Death Penalty in Florida

A new report by Amnesty International says Florida​’s approach to redress­ing the near­ly 400 uncon­sti­tu­tion­al non-unan­i­­mous death sen­tences imposed in the state has deep­ened its sta­tus as an out­lier on death-penal­­ty issues by​“add[ing] an extra lay­er of arbi­trari­ness to [the state’s] already dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and error-prone capital…

Issues

Apr 01, 2015

Amnesty International Reports Worldwide Decline in Executions

Executions around the world declined by 22% last year, accord­ing to Amnesty International​’s 2014 annu­al report on death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions. The report — released on April 1 — indi­cates that an esti­mat­ed 607 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed world­wide in 2014, com­pared to 778 in 2013. The glob­al totals do not include exe­cu­tions in China, where data on the death penal­ty is con­sid­ered a state secret. On a region­al lev­el, Amnesty report­ed notable declines in…

Issues

Foreign Nationals

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Apr 01, 2003

Amnesty International: Violation of the Rights of Foreign Nationals Under Sentence of Death

More than 60 for­eign cit­i­zens rep­re­sent­ing 22 nation­al­i­ties are under sen­tence of death in the United States of America (USA). In vir­tu­al­ly every case, the arrest­ing author­i­ties failed to noti­fy detained for­eign­ers of their right to com­mu­ni­cate with their con­sular rep­re­sen­ta­tives. As a con­se­quence, for­eign nation­als con­front­ed by an unfa­mil­iar legal sys­tem were tried and sen­tenced to death with­out the ben­e­fit of the cru­cial sup­port from the…