RIGHTS: Executions Begin to Decline

By Sabina Zaccaro Reprint | | Print |

Sabina Zaccaro

ROME, Apr 29 2007 (IPS) - Three people were hanged in Japan Friday, one was executed in the United States a day earlier. Not good news for those campaigning for abolition of the death penalty.

Three people were hanged in Japan Friday, one was executed in the United States a day earlier. Not good news for those campaigning for abolition of the death penalty.

“The execution of the three people in Japan and one in Texas shows that even if significant steps have been taken towards abolition of capital punishment worldwide, the death penalty is still very much in the picture in 2007,” Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan told IPS.

Yoshikatsu Oda, sentenced for a murder in 1990, Masahiro Tanaka, four times killer, and Kosaku Nada, who killed twice during a robbery, were hanged in Japan Friday, the day Amnesty launched its 2006 report in Rome.

The hangings came as stark reminder of the reasons for a continuing campaign against the death penalty, even if the position improved last year compared to 2005.

According to Amnesty, 1,591 executions were carried out in 2006, compared with 2,148 in 2005. A total of 3,861 people were condemned to death, down from 5,186 the previous year.

Amnesty International chose Rome to release the report because the Italian government is spearheading a campaign at the United Nations for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, Khan said. But that is not the only reason.

The Italian government is expected to rally a global coalition against the death penalty. “I have personally asked Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to invite in Rome those like- minded abolitionist states, and take the lead to build a global government coalition against capital punishment, similar to the one already existing among NGOs,” Khan said.

Amnesty International, which is campaigning for a universal moratorium on executions, welcomed the European Parliament move for a resolution on a universal moratorium on capital punishment.

“But the resolution, important as it is, must not become another piece of paper,” Khan said. “It has to be a concrete instrument to reduce significantly the number of executions and helping those people who are waiting on the death row.”

And the moratorium must not be a European initiative only, she said. “Other countries must get involved, particularly those of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The condition to getting a majority vote is a wider diplomatic strategy, also at a regional level, something now missing.”

Khan said she is confident that “like-minded countries” will respond to the Italian government call. “I think that there is sufficient cohesion of different views among these states that can bring them together, and I understand that the Italian government has been having bilateral discussion with some of them.

“It is important to have a multilateral discussion forum now to bring these people together, convene the governments, so that they can get more dynamic as a group to push these issues. I’m confident that nations which have abolished death penalty or are near to abolishing death sentences around the world will welcome this multi-party approach.”

The Amnesty report says only six countries – Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, the U.S. and China – were responsible for 91 percent of all executions carried out in 2006.

Iraq became one of the world’s top executioners after it reintroduced capital punishment in 2004, the Amnesty report says. No executions were reported in 2004 in Iraq, and only three the following year. But the figure rose to 65 in 2006.

Iran’s executions almost doubled in 2006 compared to the previous year with at least 177 people put to death, including four child offenders. Twenty-three minors are still on the death row in Iran.

However, “in the first months of 2007 Iran has started a discussion over the possibility to exclude children from capital sentences,” Khan said.

Pakistan joined the list of top executioners with at least 82 reported executions. Sudan executed at least 65 persons, but Amnesty said it has reason to believe that the number is higher.

Fifty-three were executed in the United States, the only country in the Americas to have carried out executions since 2003. But the U.S. had the lowest number of executions in three decades last year.

The great majority of executions last year were as before carried out in China. The official numbers are a state secret in China. Amnesty says at least 1,010 people were executed last year, but that the real number could be between 7,000 and 8,000.

“The good news is that even China has launched a review of the death penalty process, and we hope that the coming pressure for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will contribute to this process,” Khan said.

In Africa, four countries carried out executions in 2006, while in Europe only Belarus still applies the death penalty, the Amnesty report notes.

“Only Asia and the Middle East remain largely unmoved by the worldwide trend away from the use of the death penalty,” Amnesty said.

“The most significant achievement over recent months has been abolition of the death penalty in the Philippines, which led to the biggest sentence conversion in the history, with 1,200 sentences to death converted into detention,” Paolo Pobbiati, president of Amnesty International Italy told IPS.

“Executioners must recognise that the international trend towards abolition is an unstoppable one, and they are destined to international isolation.”