Amnesty International: Death Sentences Increased by 28% in 2014

The NGO highlighted in its annual article that the number of death sentences issued last year increased in light of mass sentencing in countries such as Egypt and Nigeria “in the context of internal conflict and political instability.”

Thus, the number of death sentences worldwide in 2014 reached 2,466 cases, 28 percent more than during 2013, in part due to sentences issued in cases of terrorism and other serious crimes.

“Governments using the death penalty to tackle crime are deluding themselves. There is no evidence that shows the threat of execution is more of a deterrent to crime than any other punishment,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty.

Regarding the actual carrying out of death sentences, the article explained that although China does not provide reliable data (and Amnesty estimated that there were over a thousand executions last year in the Asian country), at least 607 executions were known to have been carried out in 2014, compared to 778 in 2013, with a drop of more than 20 percent.

Iran was ranked as the second highest incidence of execution, with 289 officially confirmed executions, and at least 454 unrecognized cases, followed by Saudi Arabia with at least 90 executions, Iraq with an estimated 61, and the United States, which executed 35 people.