Thaindian News

London, March 30 (DPA) The death penalty is still used as a political weapon in many countries including China, Iran and Sudan, a report released Tuesday by human rights organisation Amnesty International said.
“Even as world opinion and practice shift inexorably towards abolition, the extensive and politicised use of the death penalty continues,” it said.

China executed more people than the rest of the world put together in 2009, Amnesty said. The country “refused to divulge exact figures … although evidence from previous years and a number of current sources indicates that the figure remains in the thousands.”

The majority of executions carried out were in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Methods included “hanging, shooting, beheading, stoning, electrocution and lethal injection,” the report said.

The report also accused Saudi Arabia and Iran of executing juvenile offenders “in violation of international law.”

But overall the world continued a trend towards the abolition of the death penalty in 2009, Amnesty said.

For the first year since the organisation started keeping records, no executions were carried out in Europe and two countries - Burundi and Togo - abolished the death penalty.

“These successes follow decisions by the UN General Assembly in 2007 and 2008 to call for a global moratorium on executions as a first step to total abolition,” Amnesty said.