China, Middle East dominate 2020 list of top executioners: Report

Amnesty International’s annual review shows general decrease in number of global executions in 2020, but 18 countries continued the practice. In its annual global review of the death penalty, Amnesty International said that the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus pandemic contributed to a trend of decline in global executions between January and December 2020. Commenting on the findings, Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said in a statement: “As the world focused on finding ways to protect lives from COVID-19, several governments showed a disturbing determination to resort to the death penalty and execute people no matter what.” “The death penalty is an abhorrent punishment and pursuing executions in the middle of a pandemic further highlights its inherent cruelty,” Callamard said, adding that many people on death row were unable to access in-person legal representation under these conditions, which is considered “a particularly egregious assault on human rights”. After China, four Middle Eastern countries – Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – accounted for 88 percent of all known executions in 2020, said the report. Lowest in decade The total number of known global executions in 2020 was at least 483, said the report, which marked the lowest number of executions recorded by Amnesty in at least 10 years.