WITH JAPAN last year, for the first time in 19 years, carrying out no executions (though it still retains the death penalty) the US became the only advanced democracy and the only member of the G8, to execute prisoners. Hardly a badge of honour or of civilisation, its 43 executions ranked it fifth in the world league. All told, according to Amnesty International’s latest tally, at least 676 people were legally put to death in 20 countries in 2011, up on 2010 courtesy of a 50 per cent surge in the Middle East, specifically Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
China executed more people than the rest of the world put together, although the true extent of its use of the death penalty remains a state secret. Iran executed at least 360 people, many of them under harsh new anti-drug laws, and two states, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates, resumed the death penalty in 2011.
Around the world, Amnesty says, some 18,750 people were still on death row at the end of the year, while capital offences ranged from murder and treason to non-violent crimes like adultery, sodomy and religious offences such as apostasy or “treason against God” in Iran, blasphemy in Pakistan, “sorcery” in Saudi Arabia, trafficking in human bones in the Republic of Congo, and economic crimes in China including selling fake drugs or tainted foods, or illegal organ transplantation.
There are signs of progress, albeit slow. When Amnesty International was founded in 1961 only nine countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, now more than two-thirds of states are abolitionist in law or practice. One of the dividends of the Arab Spring has been the willingness of Morocco to enshrine last year a right-to-life clause in its new constitution, while in sub-Saharan Africa Sierra Leone declared an official moratorium on executions and Nigeria confirmed its own. China has made noises about reducing the number of capital offences.
In the US the issue rumbles on incrementally. Illinois became its 16th abolitionist state, and in November Oregon’s governor announced that he would not allow any further executions during his time in office. Maryland and Connecticut are close to a ban, while 800,000 Californians have petitioned for abolition to be on the state ballot in November. But Texas governor Rick Perry was cheered at a Republican debate in September when he defended his signature on 234 execution warrants over 10 years as being the “ultimate justice”. Opinion remains intransigent, and politicians, largely silent.