Helmut Melzer
While the number of executions continues to decline around the world, death sentences are being carried out steadily or increasingly in some countries. Despite major challenges in the face of the corona pandemic, 18 countries continued executions in 2020. This is shown by the annual report on the use of the death penalty, the Amnesty International recently published.
Globally, the number of recorded executions for 2020 is at least 483 - the lowest number of executions recorded by Amnesty International in at least a decade. In stark contrast to this positive trend are the numbers in Egypt: there were three times as many executions in 2020 as in the previous year. The US administration under President Trump also began carrying out executions at the federal level again in July 2020 after they had been suspended for 17 years. Ten men were executed in just six months. India, Oman, Qatar and Taiwan resumed executions last year. At least one man was sentenced to death and executed in China after authorities announced they would crack down on crimes that undermine measures to combat COVID-19.
123 states now support the UN General Assembly's call for a moratorium on executions - more states than ever before. There is growing pressure on the rest of the countries to join this path. The trend towards abandoning the death penalty continues worldwide. “While there were still countries adhering to the death penalty in 2020, the overall picture was positive. The number of recorded executions continued to decline - which means that the world continues to move away from the cruelest and most humiliating of all punishments, ”says Annemarie Schlack.
A few weeks ago, Virginia became the first southern state in the United States to achieve this Death penalty away. In 2020, the death penalty was also abolished in Chad and the US state of Colorado, Kazakhstan committed itself to abolition under international law, and Barbados implemented reforms to lift the compulsory use of the death penalty.
As of April 2021, 108 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. 144 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or in practice - a trend that cannot be reversed.
Photo / Video: Shutterstock.
