Judicial executions dropped sharply in 2006, but at least 19 000 people remained on death row at the end of the year, Amnesty International said in its annual report published on Friday.
A total of 1 591 people were executed, most of them in China, down from 2 148 in 2005, the London-based rights group said.
Amnesty unveiled the report in Italy, whose government is spearheading a campaign at the United Nations for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.
The vast majority of the world’s executions occur in China, where 1051 were carried out last year, according to unofficial figures, ”although the true figures were believed to be about 7 000 to 8 000”, Amnesty said.
”The world is moving towards abolition of the death penalty”, even if 25 countries carried out executions in 2006 compared with 22 in 2005.
After China, Iran was in second place with at least 177 executions, Pakistan with at least 82, Iraq and Sudan with at least 65 each and the United States with 53 in 12 states.
The US is the only country in the Americas that has carried out any executions since 2003, while many countries are abolishing the death penalty.
In Africa, four countries carried out executions in 2006, while in Europe, only Belarus still applies the death penalty, the 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.
”It is estimated that the number of individuals currently waiting for the state to end their lives — often living in the appalling prison conditions reserved for those on death row — was between 19 000 and 24 000 at the end of 2006,” it said.
More than 7 000 people are on death row in Pakistan, and another 3 250 men and 50 women in the United States as of the end of last year.
Many awaiting execution in Japan are between 75 and 81 years old, Amnesty said, adding: ”The irony of the death penalty is that the majority of condemned prisoners will never be executed — and a lifetime spent on death row is another example of the particular cruelty of this punishment.” — Sapa-AFP