Executions worldwide grew by 53% in 2022 from a year earlier, with a notable rise in Iran and Saudi Arabia. In Tuesday’s annual report, Amnesty International said it also condemns Indonesia as having one of Asia’s highest numbers of new death sentences.
Amnesty said 70% of the implementation in the Middle East and North Africa was conveyed in Iran, where their numeral rose by 83% from 314 in 2021 to 576 in 2022. The number of achievements in Saudi Arabia will treble from 65 in 2021 to 196 in 2022.
It said notable increases compared to 2021 were also recorded in Kuwait, Myanmar, the Palestinian territories, Singapore and the United States. In all, 20 countries are familiar to have performed 883 people, compared to 579 in 18 countries in 2021.
It said that secrecy and confining state exercise continued to impair an accurate evaluation of the use of the death sanction in several countries, counting China, North Korea and Vietnam.
The class said 94% of 112 new death sentences in Indonesia in 2022 were found on drug-related offences categorized as crimes that did not require intentional killing and therefore did not meet the “most serious crimes” threshold under global law.
Amnesty recorded a slight 169 people sentenced to death in Bangladesh, the highest rate in Asia-Pacific, followed by India with 165 and Pakistan with 127.
Executions on the Rise, Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Spotlight
Indonesia has the death mulct for crimes such as murder, terrorism and drug trade, which it carries out by firing squad. Its last achievement was in July 2016, when three Nigerians and one Indonesian convicted of drug offenses were shot on the Nusa Kambangan prison island.
There are more than 450 death row patients in Indonesia, with convicted drug traffickers considered for around 60%, counting 88 foreign nationals from 18 countries.
According to the report, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Singapore carried out at least 325 implementations for drug-related offences, more than the number recorded in 2021.
Amnesty said the number of countries that eliminated the death punishment last year reached 112, including Papua New Guinea, Indonesia’s neighbour. Malaysia took steps toward improving the mandatory death sentences.
An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Tuesday extended former prime minister Imran Khan’s pre-arrest bail in two terrorism cases till May 19. The ATC Lahore allowed Khan’s plea to appear before it through a video link.
“ATC Lahore Judge Ijaz Ahmad Buttar said he was allowing the application of Khan for one-time attendance through video-link and extended his bail till May 19 in two cases of violence and attacks on police teams crust his Zaman Park Lahore residence in March,” a court formal told PTI after the hearing.
Barrister Salman Safdar, Khan’s counsel, told the court that his customer could not appear due to the law and order situation and threat to his life. Khan had already survived two attempts on his life, he said.
The judge, however, discharged the pre-arrest bail of six leaders of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in the same cases as they crashed to appear before the court.
The leaders are Fawad Chaudhry, Mian Mahmoodur Rashid, Hammad Azhar, Farrukh Habib, Senator Ijaz Chaudhry and Omar Ayub Khan. Most of them are in police care in connection with the attacks on the army installed after the arrest of Khan on May 9.
