CHINA LAST year executed more people than the rest of the world combined, according to Amnesty International, which this week urged Beijing to disclose the number of executions it carries out.
The human rights group said “thousands were executed in China in 2009 – the exact number is considered a state secret.
“The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place,” said Colm O’Gorman, executive director of Amnesty International Ireland.
“If this is true, why won’t they tell the world how many of their own people they put to death every year?”
In its report last year, Amnesty said China had executed at least 1,718 people in 2008, nearly three-fourths of the 2,390 executions worldwide that year.
According to the 2009 report, at least 714 people were executed in 17 other countries, with the worst offenders after China being Iran with at least 388 executions (about one-third of which were carried out in the seven weeks following the country’s disputed presidential election in June), Iraq with at least 120, Saudi Arabia with at least 69 and the US with 52.
“These people were shot, hanged, beheaded, poisoned, electrocuted and stoned to death,” said Mr O’Gorman. “Many of them were executed after grossly unfair trials or as a way to silence political opponents. You are still far more likely to be executed if you are poor or from an ethnic, religious or racial minority. But the world is rejecting this most fundamental violation of human rights as it did before with slavery and apartheid. The shrinking number of death penalty states are more and more isolated in the global community.”
In 2009, for the first time since Amnesty International began collating such figures, there were no executions in Europe. Belarus is the only European state that still retains the death penalty. The former Soviet republic reportedly executed two men earlier this month.
Last year, Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty, joining the ranks of more than 90 countries that have taken capital punishment off the statute books
There were no executions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and Mongolia, among others, for the first time in recent years.
The US was the only country in the Americas to execute anyone in 2009, according to the Amnesty report, which said the total number of 52 executions was the highest in three years. Nearly half the executions were carried out in Texas, while New Mexico officially banned the death penalty.
Earlier this month, Amnesty’s Irish chapter relaunched its death penalty network at its annual conference.
“By getting involved in our death penalty network, people in Ireland can help save lives and ensure that the worldwide momentum towards abolition is irreversible,” Mr O’Gorman said.