ITALY: Amnesty calls for international coalition against the death penalty

Amnesty International welcomes a drop in the number of executions but urges the six countries responsible for most of them -- including the United States -- to join a worldwide ban. The human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Friday (April 27) welcomed a drop in the number of executions worldwide in 2006 but urged the six countries responsible for most of them -- China, Iran, Iraq, the United States, Pakistan and Sudan -- to join the global trend. In a report published on Friday and presented at a news conference in Rome by Secretary-General Irene Khan, Amnesty said Amnesty said the Philippines last year joined the 99 countries that have banned the death penalty for ordinary crimes. "'Of the 25 countries that carried on executions last year, only six of them, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, United States and China, were responsible for over 90 percent of the executions," she said. "There are vast geographical regions in the world that are execution-free or almost so. In Europe, only Belarus continue to use death penalty, in America, both North and South, the United States is the only country to carry out executions since 2003, in Africa, including North Africa, only six countries executed in 2006." The London-based human rights group presented its annual report on capital punishment in Italy, which wants a U.N. moratorium on the death penalty. Although the United Nations opposes capital punishment, the death penalty still exists in nearly 70 countries. With 20,000 people estimated to be on death row across the world, Khan called for a universal moratorium. Amnesty's data showed the number of executions world-wide fell to 1,591 last year from 2,148 in 2005. "China continues to be the world's top executioner," Khan said. "And China does not publish its death penalty statistics and it applies death penalty to a wide range of crimes, including bribery and corruption. The data we have managed to collect, by monitoring public reports, indicate that at least 1010 people were executed during 2006, but we believe the true figure is closer to 7000 to 8000,". Iran's executions doubled to at least 177 people, Pakistan put at least 82 people to death and Sudan at least 65 but probably many more. Iran and Pakistan broke an international ban on executions of children well. The United States executed 53 people. Iraq's human rights minister told the U.N. Human Rights Council in March that Baghdad, which re-introduced the death penalty in 2004, could as a first step limit it to extreme cases like genocide and crimes against humanity. Khan had talks in Rome with Prime Minister Romano Prodi, whose government has backed EU calls for a U.N. moratorium.

ITN Source | April 28, 2007

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