Global executions in 2024 at highest in nearly decade
Iwao Hakamada leaves in a wheelchair, surrounded by supporters, after attending a briefing held by the Shizuoka Bar Association following the finalization of his acquittal in a retrial, in Shizuoka’s Aoi Ward on Sept. 29, 2024
Over 1,500 executions were confirmed across 15 countries in 2024, hitting the highest level since 2015, human rights organization Amnesty International said in its annual report.
While the majority of the 1,518 executions were conducted in Middle Eastern countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, the number of states carrying out capital punishment dropped to a record low, the group said in the report released in early April.
The figure does not include “the thousands of people” believed to have been executed in China, where the data is classified as a state secret, Amnesty said. Executions in North Korea and Vietnam, believed to have been conducted “extensively,” were also excluded.
Japan did not carry out executions last year, although it retains the death penalty.Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq accounted for more than 90 percent of the confirmed executions, with their figures increasing from 2023 to 972, 345 and 63, respectively, as the death penalty was applied by the Iranian and Saudi authorities to punish dissent, the report said.
Other countries that saw an increase in executions included Egypt, Singapore, Yemen and the United States.
Among the total, 637 executions, or 42 percent, were carried out for drug-related offences, with the report saying the use of the death penalty must be restricted to the “most serious crimes” and drug-related offences do not meet that threshold.
Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven countries to still employ capital punishment. The European Union, which bars countries with the death penalty for joining, has been vocal in calling for Japan to review its stance.
The report also referred to the campaign in Japan for Iwao Hakamata, who was acquitted last year in a retrial after spending nearly half a century on death row over the 1966 murder of four members of a family.
“Despite the minority of leaders determined to weaponize the death penalty, the tide is turning. It’s only a matter of time until the world is free from the shadows of the gallows,” the group’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard said.
However Amnesty does not talk of Victims’ rights and the agony caused to his near and dear ones. WHY ???
