Amnesty International issues annual review of the death penalty worldwide

“2015 saw a dramatic rise in the number of people executed – at least 1,634 – the highest recorded by Amnesty International since 1989,” says AI’s annual report on the death penalty in 2015.

“Countries used various methods to kill: hanging, shooting, lethal injection, beheading. They did this with cold efficiency, driving the number of executions up by more than half, compared to 2014. Nearly 90% of these happened in just three countries: Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. But these figures exclude China, where numbers remain a state secret. While this spike in executions cast a long shadow across the year, there were still glimmers of hope. Four countries expunged the death penalty from their law books for good so that today, more than half of all countries in the world have turned their backs on this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” Amnesty International said.

Speaking of the regional trends in Europe and Central Asia, Amnesty International stresses that Belarus remains the only country in the region to use the death penalty. While no executions were recorded in 2015, at least two new death sentences were imposed during the year, says the review.

On 18 March Siarhei Ivanou was sentenced to death by the Homel Regional Court for a murder committed in August 2013.

On 20 November, the Hrodna Regional Court sentenced to death Ivan Kulesh for “committing murder with particular cruelty”, theft and robbery.

At least three people were on death row at the end of 2015.