Amnesty International’s recent yearly review of capital punishment usage, which was made public last week, documented a global execution tally in 2023 at 1,153 – a record high since 2015. This bleak figure is merely a glimpse into the vastness of governmental approved executions, with countries like China, North Korea and Vietnam not disclosing their own execution statistics, classifying them as state secrets. Additionally, intentional civilian killings in military conflicts, such as in Ukraine, Palestine, and Sudan, are not factored into the Amnesty’s figures.
The principal contributors to the 2023 execution count were Iran with a staggering 853, followed by Saudi Arabia with 172. Somalia and the United States also had meaningful figures with 38 and 24 cases, respectively.
Different countries resort to capital punishment for various motives and crimes, both real and perceived. In areas like Vietnam and other southeast Asian nations, drug traffickers often face capital punishment. The death penalty could be invoked for homicide cases in the United States, albeit with a disproportionate impact on the poor and non-white demographic.
In Iran, however, the death penalty is routinely utilized for ludicrous quasi-offences such as “waging war against God”, essentially a euphemism for government opposition. Capital punishment primarily serves as a tool of fear, facilitating the political-religious elite to maintain the democratic opposition in a state of fear and impotence.
Upon examining the Amnesty report, a slightly reassuring note is the continuous reduction in number of countries still employing the death penalty. There were no court-ordered executions in Europe last year, and likewise in Canada, Central or South America. In Africa, only two nations conducted executions.
While the exact impact of public sentiment on this brutal practice remains uncertain, the annual reports from Amnesty serve a valuable role by assembling and spotlighting this grim data.