Amnesty records 37% decline in number of executions globally

PanARMENIAN.Net - Amnesty International in a report released on Tuesday, April 11 said it recorded 1,032 executions worldwide last year -- a 37-percent decline from 2015.

In 2015, Amnesty said worldwide executions had reached 1,634 -- the highest recorded since 1989.

The statistics exclude China which Amnesty said executes more people than the rest of the world combined but keeps the precise numbers secret.

US death penalty sentences fell to a historic low last year and executions also dropped sharply, contributing to a global slump of over a third from 2015, AFP reports.

The number of death sentences handed down in the US, 32, was the lowest since 1973 and the number of executions, 20, meant the country is now no longer among the world's five biggest executioners.

Salil Shetty, secretary general of the London-based international human rights watchdog, said the US decline was "a sign of hope for activists who have long campaigned for an end to capital punishment".

"The debate is clearly shifting," he said in the group's annual global review of the death penalty, which showed a 37 percent decline overall.

Amnesty said it was "a clear sign that judges, prosecutors and juries are turning their back on the death penalty as a means of administering justice".

The report also noted sharp drops in the number of executions in Iran -- down 42 percent to at least 567 -- and Pakistan -- down 73 percent to 87.

There were also fewer executions in sub-Saharan Africa, although the number of death sentences handed down more than doubled to 1,086, largely due to a rise in Nigeria to 527 from 171.