China 

On June 21, 2024, China announced that courts, pros­e­cu­tors, pub­lic, and state bod­ies should use the death penal­ty against Taiwan sep­a­ratists. The state-run Xinhua news agency report­ed that the new guide­lines rec­om­mend severe­ly pun­ish[ing] Taiwan inde­pen­dence diehards for split­ting the coun­try and incit­ing seces­sion crimes in accor­dance with the law, and res­olute­ly defend nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, uni­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty.” Critics say that the vague­ness of the legal lan­guage in the new guide­lines mean that many acts could now con­sti­tute death-eli­gi­ble crimes, with for­mer Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu telling Deutsche Welle that approx­i­mate­ly 90% of Taiwan’s pop­u­la­tion could now be crim­i­nal­ized. In response to these new guide­lines, Taiwan insti­tut­ed a trav­el warn­ing, urg­ing its cit­i­zens against unnec­es­sary trav­el” to main­land China, Hong Kong, and Macau. China respond­ed in a state­ment, encour­ag­ing Taiwanese to arrive in high spir­its and depart well con­tent.” In an exclu­sive, Reuters report­ed on July 4 that sev­er­al for­eign multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies are eval­u­at­ing the risks for Taiwanese employ­ees in China, with some staff already accept­ing the option to relo­cate. James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based part­ner at the Perkins Coie law firm, told Reuters that The com­pa­nies are still con­cerned that there may be some grey areas such as whether a benign social media post or vot­ing for a par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal par­ty or can­di­date in Taiwan elec­tions could be inter­pret­ed as engag­ing in pro-inde­pen­dence activ­i­ties.”  

Democratic Republic of the Congo 

More than 53 peo­ple have been charged for par­tic­i­pat­ing in an attempt­ed coup on May 19, in which armed men attacked the home of the econ­o­my min­is­ter and then occu­pied the office of the pres­i­dent until their leader, U.S.-based American-Congolese politi­cian Christian Malanga, was killed by secu­ri­ty forces. Among those charged with offens­es pun­ish­able by death are six for­eign nation­als, includ­ing three Americans — Marcel Malanga, son of Christian Malanga, high school friend Tyler Thompson, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun. The DRC lift­ed its mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty in March. 

India 

Three new crim­i­nal laws, effec­tive July 1, has increased the num­ber of death-eli­gi­ble offens­es from 11 to 15, includ­ing offens­es that fail to meet the inter­na­tion­al legal thresh­old of a most seri­ous crime;” for exam­ple, the new pro­vi­sion makes the gang rape of a women under 18 a death-eli­gi­ble offense, align­ing it with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and makes mob lynch­ing a death-eli­gi­ble offense.  

Iran 

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), at least 249 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed in the first six months of this year. 147 of the exe­cu­tions were for drug-relat­ed charges, which is a 30% decrease when com­pared to the same peri­od last year. IHRNGO explains that ahead of pres­i­den­tial and par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, the num­ber of exe­cu­tions some­times decrease in order to encour­age polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion but warns of an imme­di­ate and dras­tic increase that often fol­lows elec­tions. 

On June 15, 2024, Sweden released con­vict­ed war crim­i­nal Hamid Nouri in exchange for two Swedish nation­als impris­oned in Iran – Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi. Mr. Floderus, an EU diplo­mat, was accused of spy­ing for Israel and detained in Iran in April 2022. At the same time, Sweden was pros­e­cut­ing Mr. Nouri, uti­liz­ing the prin­ci­ple of uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion, for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 1988 sum­mer mas­sacres in Iran, which result­ed in 5000 exe­cut­ed dis­si­dents, accord­ing to 2018 fig­ures from Amnesty International. Mr. Nouri was sen­tenced to life in July 2022, and the appeals court upheld the ver­dict in December 2023, when Mr. Floderus’ tri­al for cor­rup­tion on earth” began. The Swedish Supreme Court affirmed Mr. Nouri’s con­vic­tion on March 6, 2024. Although Mr. Floderus and Mr. Azizi, a dual Swedish-Iranian nation­al who was detained in November 2023 and sen­tenced to five years in February, were released in the Oman-medi­at­ed pris­on­er swap, Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian expert on dis­as­ter med­i­cine detained since 2016 was not includ­ed; Swedish broad­cast­er SVT aired an audio mes­sage from Mr. Djalili, who said Mister prime min­is­ter, you decid­ed to leave me behind under huge risk of being exe­cut­ed. You left me here help­less. Why not me? After 3,000 days.” Following the exchange, pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sweden. The deci­sion by the Swedish gov­ern­ment to return Hamid Nouri, a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal against human­i­ty, to Iran in exchange for hostages marks a dan­ger­ous prece­dent with far-reach­ing con­se­quences,” wrote activist and fam­i­ly mem­ber to a vic­tim of the 1988 mas­sacre Lawdan Bazargan. By nego­ti­at­ing Nouri’s return, Sweden has com­pro­mised the integri­ty of inter­na­tion­al jus­tice and sig­naled that polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions can over­ride judi­cial out­comes.” 

On June 22, 2024, the Supreme Court over­turned dis­si­dent rap­per Toomaj Salehi’s death sen­tence, imposed in April, and ordered a retri­al. The Court also ruled that Mr. Salehi’s pre­vi­ous sen­tence of six years and three months vio­lat­ed Iran’s mul­ti­ple-offens­es rules, and was in excess of the legal pun­ish­ment,” accord­ing to Mr. Salehi’s lawyer Amir Raisian. A state­ment by the Index on Censorship states: Whilst the Supreme Court’s deci­sion is an impor­tant cor­rec­tion to Salehi’s cru­el and unlaw­ful treat­ment, it is crit­i­cal that his rights are prop­er­ly respect­ed. Salehi’s case has been returned to Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court for resen­tenc­ing. Even a short­er peri­od of impris­on­ment would be an injus­tice: Salehi has done noth­ing oth­er than to call for his, and oth­er Iranians’, fun­da­men­tal rights to be respect­ed. He must be free to con­tin­ue his music and seek the nec­es­sary med­ical care he needs fol­low­ing his impris­on­ment, free of any con­tin­ued impris­on­ment, harass­ment or per­se­cu­tion.” 

On July 4, 2024, labor rights activist Sharifeh Mohammadi was sen­tenced to death on charges of armed rebel­lion against the state.” The 45-year-old has been held in soli­tary con­fine­ment since she was arrest­ed in December 2023, and accord­ing to human rights groups, has been sub­ject to psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal tor­ture.  

Saudi Arabia 

As of June 25, 2024, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) has doc­u­ment­ed 84 exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia. Transparency in offi­cial data has decreased, ESOHR notes, with the type of ver­dict in 19 exe­cu­tions con­cealed, most of these occur­ring in the Specialized Criminal Court in ter­ror­ism cas­es. Despite a 2018 Juvenile Law pro­hibit­ing the exe­cu­tion of minors, ESOHR has warned of the immi­nent exe­cu­tion of two minors, Jalal Labad and Abdullah Al-Derazi, who have been sen­tenced to death in unfair tri­als, denied ade­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and sub­ject to tor­ture. 

Tanzania 

In over­turn­ing the death sen­tences of Nzigiyimana Zabron, a Burundi nation­al, and Dominick Damian, a Tanzanian nation­al, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has once again ordered Tanzania to elim­i­nate the manda­to­ry death penal­ty from its stat­ues in the next six months. The Court found that the manda­to­ry death penal­ty pre­scribed under Section 197 of Tanzania’s Penal Code con­sti­tutes an arbi­trary depri­va­tion of the right to life” and is in vio­la­tion of Article 4 of the African Charter to allow judi­cial offi­cers dis­cre­tion at sen­tenc­ing. Moreover, the Court found the method of hang­ing to be a form of tor­ture and cru­el, inhu­man and degrad­ing treat­ment” in vio­la­tion of Article 5 of the Charter. Tanzania last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 1995

Citation Guide
Sources

Additional Resource: Execution Monitor, Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide

China 

Yuchen Li, Should Taiwan’s sep­a­ratists’ fear death penal­ty in China?, DW, July 92024

Laurie Chen, Exclusive: Firms weigh remov­ing Taiwan staff from China after death penal­ty threat, Reuters, July 4, 2024; Vishwam Sankaran, China encour­ages Taiwanese vis­its amidst threat of exe­cu­tions, The Independent, June 29, 2024; Reuters, China tells Taiwanese to vis­it in high spir­its’, despite exe­cu­tion threat, Reuters, June 28, 2024; Hayley Wong, Taiwan rais­es trav­el risk warn­ings for main­land China, Hong Kong and Macau over new anti-sep­a­ratist rules, South China Morning News, June 27, 2024; Reuters, China threat­ens death penal­ty for diehard’ Taiwan sep­a­ratists, Reuters, June 21, 2024; Jennifer Staats and Naiyu Kuo, Taiwan’s New President Faces Tensions with China and Domestic Division, United States Institute of Peace, June 62024

Democratic Republic of the Congo 

Richard Luscombe, How two Utah school friends end­ed up fac­ing death penal­ty in Congo, The Guardian, June 14, 2024; Agence France-Presse, US cit­i­zens face charges pun­ish­able by death’ in alleged coup attempt in Congo, The Guardian, June 7, 2024; Ange Adihe Kasongo, US, British cit­i­zens among sus­pects on tri­al in Congo after thwart­ed coup, Reuters, June 82024

India 

Some key pro­vi­sions of India’s new crim­i­nal laws, Reuters, July 8, 2024; Ben Joseph, India’s new crim­i­nal code increas­es death penal­ty crimes, UCA News, July 2, 2024; TOI News Desk, Three new­ly-enact­ed crim­i­nal laws to come into effect from July 1, Times of India, February 292024

Iran 

IHRNGO Warns of New Wave of Post-Election Executions: at Least 249 Executions in 6 Months in Iran, Iran Human Rights, July 3, 2024; IHRNGO Calls for Urgent International Action to Free Sharifeh Mohammadi, Iran Human Rights, July 9, 2024; Female labor activist sen­tenced to death in Iran, Iran International, July 4, 2024; Iran Sentences Labor Activist To Death Amid Rights Groups’ Outcry, Radio Free Europe, July 10, 2024; Outcry sparked over death sen­tence of Iranian labor activist, Iran International, July 5, 2024; Annabelle Timsit and Nilo Tabrizy, Iran’s top court over­turns death sen­tence of anti-regime rap­per, Washington Post, June 23, 2024; Youssef Taha, Iranian rap­per’s death sen­tence over­turned, BBC, June 23, 2024; Iran’s supreme court over­turns death sen­tence giv­en to Toomaj Salehi, Index on Censorship, June 22, 2024; Niklas Pollard and Johan Ahlander, Sweden and Iran exchange pris­on­ers in break­through deal, Reuters, June 15, 2024; Dearbail Jordan, Iranian con­vict­ed of war crimes freed in Swedish swap, BBC, June 15, 2024; Iranians in Stockholm Rally Against Release of War Criminal, Iran International, June 17, 2024; Sweden’s Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From Iranian Jailor, Iran International, March 7, 2024; Lawdan Bazargan, A Dangerous Precedent: Sweden’s Mistake in the Hamid Nouri Case, Iran International, June 16, 2024; Supreme Court Overturns Death Sentence of Toomaj Salehi, Iran International, June 222024

Saudi Arabia 

Minors Threatened with Imminent Execution, ESOHR; Saudi Arabia Evades Promises by Concealing the Type of Sentence and Manipulating It: Executing Al-Muhaishi with Haraba Penalty, ESOHR, June 25, 2024; Death Sentences In Saudi Arabia: A Crossroad Of Violations Doubles The Victims And The Tragedy, ESOHR, June 52024

Tanzania 

BOB KARASHANI, African court gives Tanzania ulti­ma­tum to scrap death penal­ty, The East African, June 62024