Around 1,634 people were executed by 25 countries last year only, as per Amnesty International (AI).
Amnesty International (AI) Death Penalty Report 2015-16
- The number shows an disturbing 54 per cent increase over the previous year.
- The rise is the highest number the AI has recorded for a single year after 1989.
- Mainly the executions happens in China, where the data is kept as a state secret.
- Pakistan alone accounted for 326 of them (the highest recorded by AI).
- The Asia-Pacific region had 367 people subjected to the death penalty which implies that there has been a ten-fold rise since 2014.
- West Asia and North Africa had a 26 per cent increase in executions, despite having an addition of the eight countries that imposed the capital punishment in 2014.
- Even as Iran accounted for 82 per cent of executions in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia alone had death penalty total rising by 76 per cent over 2014 with 158 executions being the highest since 1995.
- The U.S For the seventh year in a row, has been the sole country to have conducted executions whereas the numbers were the lowest since 1991.
- Four additional countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2015 thus making the total number of abolitionist states of death penalty to 102.
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