Amnesty Int’l calls for death penalty abolition
Amnesty International (AI) has reiterated its call for a total abolition of the death penalty and its replacement with life imprisonment in countries worldwide.
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Launching the 2016 Global Report in Accra yesterday, the acting Director of AI, Mr Frank Doyi, said the report covered the judicial use of the death penalty last year.
He said (AI) recorded executions in 23 countries, two fewer than in 2015 as the state of Belarus and authorities within the state of Palestine resumed executions last year after a year’s break, while Botswana and Nigeria carried out their first executions since 2013.
He stated that AI also recorded a 37 per cent decrease in the number of executions carried out globally in 2016 as against the previous year, but did not record executions in six countries, namely Chad, India, Jordan, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, though they carried out executions in 2015.
AI opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature of the circumstances of the crime, guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual or the method used by the state to carry out the execution.
Worldwide executions
“At least 1,032 people were executed and this was 602 fewer than in 2015 when the organisation recorded the highest of executions in a single year since 1989. Despite the significant increase, the overall number of executions in 2016 remained higher than the average recorded for the previous decade,” Mr Doyi stated.
He said the figures did not include the thousands of executions carried out in China, where data on the use of the death penalty remained classified.
Mr Doyi added that Iran alone accounted for 55 per cent of all recorded executions, and together with Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan, it carried out 87 per cent of the global total, with Iraq more than tripling its executions, while Egypt and Bangladesh doubled theirs.
Magnitude of penalty
The report mentioned the methods of executions as beheading, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.
According to the report, 3,117 people were sentenced to death in 55 countries last year.
Africa
The acting director said in sub-Saharan Africa, executions took place in five countries, one more than recorded in 2015; and added that the number of death sentences recorded rose sharply from 443 in 2015 to at least 1,086 in 2016 and this was largely due to a significant rise in Nigeria.
Ghana’s situation
Providing an update on the death penalty situation in Ghana, the International Board Chairman of AI, Dr Vincent Adzahlie-Mensah, said Ghana did not record any executions in 2016 although it recorded 17 death sentences, with seven of them being foreign nationals, five from Togo, one from Burkina Faso and one from Nigeria.
He stated that the number of condemned prisoners in Ghana stood at 148, with Nigeria topping the list with 1,979 people.