Kuwait one of four countries to resume death penalty in 2017 – Global executions down

This news has been read 24566 times!

KUWAIT CITY, April 12: Kuwait is one of four countries which resumed the death penalty in 2017, according to the report released by Amnesty International on Thursday.

The human rights organization based in London revealed in its report that 84 percent of the executions in 2017 were carried out in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan. Besides Kuwait, other countries which resumed executions last year were Bahrain, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

The report added that the number of executions in the Middle East and North Africa decreased by one percent — from 856 in 2016 to 847 in 2017. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are the top three executing countries — 92 percent of executions in the region.

Iran reportedly executed 507 people or 60 percent of executions in the region, while Saudi Arabia executed 146 or 17 percent of executions in the region.

Amnesty International went on to say that 264 executions were carried out for drug-related cases or 27 percent of all recorded executions last year.

In 2017, around 619 death sentences were imposed in the region; lower than the number recorded in 2016 — 764 death sentences. Egypt imposed 402 death sentences and this is the highest in the region.

The report on the death penalty calls sub-Saharan Africa a “beacon of hope” amid a decline in executions worldwide. Twenty countries across sub-Saharan Africa have now abolished the death penalty for all crimes, Amnesty International says in the report released early Thursday.

Just two countries in the region, Somalia and South Sudan, carried out executions last year. Executions worldwide dropped again in 2017, with at least 993 recorded in 23 countries.

That’s down 4 percent from the year before and down 39 percent from 2015. At least 2,591 death sentences were recorded in 53 countries last year, down from a record high of 3,117 the year before, the London-based human rights organization said.

The numbers don’t include the thousands of executions and death sentences that Amnesty International believes have occurred in China, where they are considered a state secret. China remained the “world’s top executioner, the report said.

The United States remained the only country in the Americas to carry out executions, with 23 last year, up slightly from the year before. With the progress in Africa, “the isolation of the world’s remaining executing countries could not be starker,” said the organization’s secretary general, Salil Shetty. Even among those countries some “significant steps” were seen. In Iran, executions were down 11 percent and drug-related executions were reduced to 40 percent. In Malaysia, changes to antidrug laws now allow discretion in sentencing for drug trafficking crimes. But Amnesty International called “distressing” the continued use of the death penalty for drug-related offences, with 15 countries last year imposing death sentences or carrying out executions.

Drug-related executions were recorded in China, Iran, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, where “drug-related beheadings rocketed from 16 percent of total executions in 2016 to 40 percent in 2017.” The rights group also expressed concern that at least five people in Iran were executed last year for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18, with another 80 people with similar pasts still on death row. People with “mental or intellectual disabilities” were executed or faced a death sentence in the United States, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore and the Maldives.

Worldwide at least 21,919 people are known to be under a death sentence, Amnesty International said: “Now is not the time to let up the pressure.” Other challenges remain, the report says, including in sub-Saharan Africa: Both Botswana and Sudan reportedly resumed executions this year. And early this year, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said he will sign the first death warrants in nearly two decades to create fear among criminals, vowing to “hang a few.”

This news has been read 24566 times!

Related Articles

Back to top button

Advt Blocker Detected

Kindly disable the Ad blocker

Verified by MonsterInsights