The breakneck speed of executions in China combined with the sparse data availability has led Amnesty International to say in its annual report on government-sanctioned killings that the “thousands of people who were believed to have been executed in China in 2011” could not be included in its study.
In its report Death Sentences and Execution 2011 , Amnesty says at least 20 countries are known to have carried out executions. Even the world's newest country, South Sudan, is on the list.
While this is a reduction from 2010, when 23 countries were reported to have implemented death sentences, and from a decade ago when 31 countries were known to have carried out executions, there has been an increase in the number of executions. At least 676 executions have been carried out worldwide in 2011, says Amnesty.
This is an increase on the 2010 figure of at least 527 executions worldwide and the increase was in significant measure due to an “increase in judicial killings in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia”.
Though the use of the death penalty remained in decline at a global level, Amnesty in particular scolded the U.S. for staying “in its dubiously bad place on this fundamental human rights issue”. The U.S. is the only country in the western hemisphere or the G8 to kill its prisoners, the report notes, and is also responsible for the fifth highest number of known executions in the world — behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
With a large proportion of all U.S. executions occurring in the State of Texas, the study argues that if Texas is an independent country, it will be ranked seventh, between North Korea and Somalia, as it carried out 13 executions last year.
Indian scene
Regarding India, the report notes that for the seventh consecutive year the country did not carry out any execution, though at least 110 new death sentences were imposed in 2011, putting the total number of people believed to be under sentence of death at the end of 2011 between 400 and 500.
While India carries out death sentences in the “rarest of rare” cases, the report suggests that Indian laws are being tightened so that more crimes are becoming punishable by death.
“In December 2011, the Indian Parliament approved legislation making acts of terrorism aimed at sabotaging oil and gas pipelines punishable by death, in cases where the act of sabotage is likely to cause death of any other person. During the same month in the western state of Gujarat a law making the production and sale of toxic alcohol punishable by death came into force,” said the Amnesty report.
