Amnesty International warns of a worrying rise in executions around the world
Between a punishment for public deterrence and a tool for repressing dissent and minorities, the pace of executions escalated in 2021 in alarming ways, according to Amnesty International’s annual report.
In an annual statement on its official website, the rights organization said: The year 2021 witnessed a worrying rise in executions and death sentences, as some of the world’s most heavily executed countries have returned to the previous era in terms of the use of punishment, after courts were freed from the chains of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In its annual review of the death penalty, the rights group said at least 579 executions were carried out in 18 countries last year, a 20% increase from the 2020 total.
The bulk of this increase was recorded in Iran, which has announced the largest number of executions on its territory in four years, executing at least 314 people compared to 246 in 2020.
The organization attributed the order to an increase in executions linked to drug-related cases, which it described as a flagrant violation of international law prohibiting the use of the death penalty for crimes other than those involving murder.
The number of executions in Saudi Arabia has more than doubled since 2020, and around 90 people have been sentenced to death under martial law in Burma.
The organization said: “2021 witnessed a worrying rise in executions and death sentences, as some of the world’s most heavily executed countries have returned to the previous era in terms of the use of punishment, after the courts were freed from the chains of COVID-19”.
It noted that judicial authorities in 56 countries had sentenced 2,052 people to death, with the largest increases in death sentences in Bangladesh, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt and Pakistan.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said: “Instead of taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by the moratoriums on the death penalty in 2020, a minority of States have shown a disturbing enthusiasm for choosing the death penalty rather than effective solutions to crime, demonstrating a blatant disregard for the right to life, even in the midst of urgent and ongoing global human rights crises”.
