Discuss What the Penalty Was and What Was Done to Make Sure It Wonã¢â‚¬â„¢t Occur Again
Overview
We know that, together, we can end the death penalty everywhere.
Every 24-hour interval, people are executed and sentenced to decease by the state as punishment for a diverseness of crimes – sometimes for acts that should non be criminalized. In some countries, information technology can be for drug-related offences, in others information technology is reserved for terrorism-related acts and murder.
Some countries execute people who were under 18 years erstwhile when the criminal offence was committed, others use the death sentence against people with mental and intellectual disabilities and several others apply the death sentence after unfair trials – in clear violation of international law and standards. People can spend years on expiry row, not knowing when their time is upwardly, or whether they volition encounter their families one terminal fourth dimension.
The death sentence is the ultimate brutal, inhuman and degrading penalty. Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception – regardless of who is defendant, the nature or circumstances of thecrime, guilt or innocence or method of execution.
Immunity International holds that the death penalty breaches human being rights, in item the right to life and the right to live costless from torture or barbarous, inhuman or degrading treatment or penalization. Both rights are protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United nations in 1948.
Over time, the international community has adopted several instruments that ban the utilize of the death sentence, including the post-obit:
• The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Ceremonious and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalization.
• Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Homo Rights, apropos the abolition of the death sentence, and Protocol No. thirteen to the European Convention on Man Rights, concerning the abolitionism of the death penalty in all circumstances.
• The Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Cancel the Death sentence.
Although international law says that the utilise of the death penalty must exist restricted to the the near serious crimes, pregnant intentional killing, Immunity believes that the death penalty is never the answer.
The death sentence is a symptom of a culture of violence, non a solution to it.
Execution Methods
• Beheading
• Electrocution
• Hanging
• Lethal injection
• Shooting
Juvenile Executions
The use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18 is prohibited nether international human rights police force, notwithstanding some countries still sentence to death and execute juvenile defendants. Such executions are few compared to the total number of executions recorded by Amnesty International each yr.
Notwithstanding, their significance goes across their number and calls into question the commitment of the executing states to respect international constabulary.
Since 1990 Immunity International has documented at least 152 executions of people who were below the age of eighteen at the fourth dimension of the crime in 10 countries: Mainland china, the Autonomous Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sudan, the USA and Yemen.
Several of these countries have inverse their laws to exclude the practise. Iran has executed more twice as many people who were below the historic period of eighteen at the fourth dimension of the crime every bit the other nine countries combined. At the fourth dimension of writing Islamic republic of iran has executed at least 102 of them since 1990.
Where practice most executions have place?
In 2020, most known executions took place in Prc, Iran, Arab republic of egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – in that order.
China remains the earth's tiptop executioner – only the true extent of the utilise of the death sentence in Cathay is unknown as this data is classified as a state cloak-and-dagger; the global effigy of at least 483 recorded in 2022 excludes the thousands of executions believed to have been carried out in China.
Excluding Red china, 88% of all reported executions took identify in only 4 countries – Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Kingdom of saudi arabia.
Executions per year
Amnesty International recorded at least 483 executions in 18 countries in 2020, downwards by 26% from 2022 (at to the lowest degree 657 executions). This effigy represents the lowest number of executions that Immunity International has recorded in at least a decade.
Death sentences per twelvemonth
Amnesty International recorded at to the lowest degree one,477 death sentences in 54 countries in 2020, a decrease of 36% from the total of 2,307 reported in 2019. At least 28,567 people were known to be under sentence of death globally at the end of 2020.
Reasons to abolish the capital punishment
It is irreversible and mistakes happen. Execution is the ultimate, irrevocable penalty: the take chances of executing an innocent person tin can never be eliminated. Since 1973, for case, more than 184 prisoners sent to death row in the USA accept later on been exonerated or released from death row on grounds of innocence. Others have been executed despite serious doubts about their guilt.
It does not deter crime. Countries who execute commonly cite the decease penalty every bit a way to deter people from committing crime. This merits has been repeatedly discredited, and at that place is no evidence that the decease penalty is whatever more than effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment.
It is oft used within skewed justice systems. In many cases recorded by Amnesty International, people were executed after being convicted in grossly unfair trials, on the basis of torture-tainted testify and with inadequate legal representation. In some countries death sentences are imposed every bit the mandatory punishment for certain offences, pregnant that judges are not able to consider the circumstances of the crime or of the defendant before sentencing.
Information technology is discriminatory. The weight of the death penalization is disproportionally carried by those with less advantaged socio-economical backgrounds or belonging to a racial, ethnic or religious minority. This includes having limited access to legal representation, for example, or being at greater disadvantage in their experience of the criminal justice organisation.
Information technology is used every bit a political tool. The authorities in some countries, for case Islamic republic of iran and Sudan, use the decease penalty to punish political opponents.
What is Amnesty doing to abolish the expiry penalisation?
For twoscore years, Immunity has been campaigning to cancel the death penalty around the world.
Amnesty monitors its use by all states to expose and hold to business relationship governments that go on to utilise the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. We publish a study annually, reporting figures and analysing trends for each country. Amnesty's latest report, Death Sentences and Executions 2020, was released in Apr 2021.
The organisation's work to oppose the expiry penalty takes many forms, including targeted, advancement and campaign based projects in the Africa, Asia-Pacific, Americas and Europe and Cardinal Asia region; strengthening national and international standards against its use, including by supporting the successful adoption of resolutions on a moratorium on the utilise of the death sentence past the United nations General Assembly; and applying pressure on cases that face up imminent execution. We also support actions and work by the abolitionist movement, at national, regional and global level.
When Amnesty started its work in 1977, only 16 countries had totally abolished the death sentence. Today, that number has risen to 108 – more than half the world'south countries. More than two-thirds are abolitionist in constabulary or practice.
CASE STUDIES
Saved from expiry row: Hafez Ibrahim
Thanks to Amnesty's candidature efforts, the execution of Hafez Ibrahim, from Republic of yemen, was stopped not once, just twice. Hafez, who was accused of a crime he insists he didn't commit, first faced a firing squad in 2005. He was taken to a small 1000 in a Yemeni prison and brought before a row of officers with rifles in hand. He thought that moment would be his last.
Just before he was about to exist shot, he was taken back to his prison cell, with no explanation. "I was lost, I did not understand what was happening. I later learned that Amnesty International had called on the Yemeni President to stop my execution and the message was heard," Hafez said.
In 2007, Hafez was about to exist executed again when he sent a mobile text message to Amnesty. "They are nearly to execute u.s.a.," Hafez said.
It was a message that saved his life. The message sparked an international campaign, persuading the President to cease the execution for a 2nd time.
Now Hafez is a lawyer helping juveniles who languish on decease row corridors across Yemen. "I owe my life to Amnesty. Now I dedicate that life to campaigning confronting the death sentence."
Activists on a mission: Souleymane Sow
Amnesty's work to cancel the death punishment is also bolstered past its incredible activists, who take it upon themselves to campaign against this abhorrent practise.
Souleymane Sow,has been volunteering with Amnesty International since he was a pupil in French republic. Inspired to make a difference, he returned to Guinea, set up a local group of Amnesty International volunteers and got to work. Their aim? To promote the importance of human rights, educate people on these issues and abolish the capital punishment. Forth with 34 NGOs, they finally achieved their goal last year.
"My colleagues and I lobbied against the decease penalization every day for five months. In 2016, Guinea's National Assembly voted in favour of a new criminal code which removed the death sentence from the list of applicative penalties. Last twelvemonth, they did the aforementioned in the military courtroom, too," said Souleymane.
"It was such an incredible achievement – and it showed the importance of people power. It was the first fourth dimension and then many NGOs had come up together to campaign on an issue. People said they were happy with our work and they could see that change is possible. Virtually of all, it inspired us to continue candidature."
The global view
Expiry sentences and executions 2007-2020
State names listed reflect nomenclature in April 2021
Related Content
Source: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
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