This year's executions include 21 from Pakistan, 20 from Yemen, and 14 from Syria, while three each from Sudan, India and Afghanistan, and one each from Sri Lanka, Eritrea and the Philippines
The UN human rights office is expressing concerns about reports that Iran has executed 29 people over two days this week, with the rights chief decrying an alarmingly high number" of executions in such a short period of time. The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday it has verified 38 people were executed in July, bringing the total number of executions to at least 345 this year mostly for drug offenses or murder including 15 women. Imposing the death penalty for offenses not involving intentional killing is incompatible with international human rights norms and standards, rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told a U.N. briefing Friday. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Trk is extremely concerned about reports that, in the space of two days this week, Iranian authorities reportedly executed at least 29 people across the country, she said. This represents an alarmingly high number of executions in such a short period of time. Throssell
The number of executions recorded worldwide last year jumped to the highest level since 2015, with a sharp rise in Iran and across the Middle East, Amnesty International said in a report released on Wednesday. The human rights group said it recorded a total of 1,153 executions in 2023, a 30 per cent increase from 2022. Amnesty said the figure does not include thousands of death sentences believed to have been carried out in China, where data is not available due to state secrecy. The group said the spike in recorded executions was primarily driven by Iran, where authorities executed at least 853 people last year, compared to 576 in 2022. Those executed included 24 women and five people who were children at the time the crimes were committed, Amnesty said, adding that the practice disproportionately affected Iran's Baluch minority. "The Iranian authorities showed complete disregard for human life and ramped up executions for drug-related offences, further highlighting the ...
Iran executed on Monday four men convicted of planning sabotage and alleged links with Israel's Mossad secret service, state media reported. The official IRNA news agency said the men were convicted of planning to target a factory in 2022 belonging to Iran's defense ministry and involved in missile and defense equipment in the central city of Isfahan. The operation was allegedly engineered by Mossad and the four were trained by the Israeli agency in an African country before entering Iran, it said. The four were identified as Iranian nationals: Mohammad Faramarzi, Mohsen Mazloum, Vafa Azarbar and Pejman Fatehi. The execution was carried out after the country's Supreme Court upheld their death sentences, handed down by another court in September. The report did not say how the death sentences were carried out, but in Iran it's usually by hanging. In 2022, Iran said its intelligence agents had dismantled a group linked to Mossad that had allegedly planned terror operations inside Ira
Iran is carrying out executions "at an alarming rate," putting to death at least 419 people in the first seven months of the year, the United Nations chief said in a new report. That's a 30 per cent increase from the same period in 2022. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report to the U.N. General Assembly on the human rights situation in Iran that seven men were executed in relation to or for participating in nationwide protests, sparked by the September 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was picked up by the morality police for her allegedly loose headscarf in violation of Iran's Islamic dress code. In all seven cases, information received by the U.N. human rights office consistently indicated that the judicial proceedings did not fulfil the requirements for due process and a fair trial under international human rights law, Guterres said. Access to adequate and timely legal representation was frequently denied, with reports of coerced confessions, which may hav
Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen. The Alabama attorney general's office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Smith. Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used. Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to pass out and die, according to the theory. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. Critics have likened the untested method to human experimentation. Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia. Alabama has been working for several years to develop the execution method, but has disclosed little ab
Attorney General R Venkataramani has written to the Centre on setting up a committee of experts to examine the prevalent mode of execution of death row convicts by hanging in the country, the Supreme Court was apprised on Tuesday. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was told by senior advocate Sonia Mathur, appearing for the Centre, that a letter has been written by the attorney general for India to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on setting up of the panel and seeking its suggestions to be submitted in the court on the issue. Mathur also said that the topmost law officer was unavailable and travelling and hence the hearing may be deferred. List it on a Friday after two weeks, the CJI said. Earlier, the top court was apprised by the Centre that it was considering setting up a committee of experts to examine the prevalent mode of execution of death row convicts by hanging. The attorney general had said there were processes
Singapore has executed a man accused of coordinating a cannabis delivery despite clemency petitions and protests. Here is a list of nations with the harshest drug laws
Iran said it executed two men Saturday convicted of allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer during a demonstration, the latest executions aimed at halting the nationwide protests now challenging the country's theocracy. Iran's judiciary identified those executed as Mohammad Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, making it four men known to have been executed since the demonstrations began in September over the death of Mahsa Amini. The judiciary's Mizan news agency said the men had been convicted of killing Ruhollah Ajamian, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's volunteer Basij Force, in the city of Karaj outside of Tehran on Nov. 3. The Basij have deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases have fought back. It wasn't immediately clear which court heard the two men's cases. However, Iran's internationally criticized closed-door Revolutionary Courts have handed down two of the death sentences. Activists say at least 16 people have been sentence
The execution comes as other detainees also face possible death penalty for their involvement in the protests
Government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun was cited as saying the decision to carry out the hangings was confirmed after legal appeals by the four were rejected.
Saudi Arabia was for years one of the world's most prolific executioners
The US Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, cleared the way for her execution after overturning a stay by the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals
Four more federal executions, including one Friday, are planned in the weeks before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration
Sixteen convicts have been executed in the country in the past three decades, including Yakub Memon, Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab.
The plea claimed that there is further new evidence which shows that the state has concealed certain facts in the case from the court
The bench said pendency of proceedings, initiated by the convicts or involving them at various fora is untenable in law as a ground for staying execution
India has carried out four executions since 2004, the last having been in 2015
The five inmates who will be executed soon at a federal facility in Indiana included Daniel Lewis Lee, a member of a white supremacist group, who murdered a family of three, including an eight-yr-old
Qadri said he killed Taseer over the politician's vocal and vehement opposition to blasphemy laws of the country