* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat
of Amnesty
International *

9 April 2002
ACT 50/005/2002
60/02


During 2001 over 3,048 people were executed in 31
countries,
Amnesty International said today. The figure was more
than twice
the total of 1,457 executions recorded in 2000.

Releasing its statistics for the number of
worldwide
executions carried out during 2001, Amnesty
International called
on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to
take strong
action against the death penalty at its annual session,
currently
in progress in Geneva, and to establish a universal
moratorium on
executions.

"The Commission on Human Rights, currently
sitting in
Geneva, will hopefully soon pass another strong
resolution
reiterating its call for an immediate worldwide
moratorium on
executions and urging states to respect international
standards,
including the ban on executing child offenders. The UN
should
take the lead and take firm and positive measures to
protect
those facing the death penalty."

Amnesty International stressed that the figures
released
today only include cases known to the organization. "It
is
impossible to give a complete total because many
countries
deliberately keep the true numbers of those executed
secret,
belying the supposed deterrent value of the death
penalty," the
human rights organization said.

Amnesty International also recorded over 5,265
people who
were sentenced to death in 68 countries during 2001.

"Many cases were in blatant violation of
international
standards on the application of the death penalty,"
Amnesty
International said. "Prisoners were sentenced to death
following
unfair trials. In violation of international law, there
were
executions of child offenders -- people convicted of
crimes
committed when they were under the age of 18." Three
such
executions were recorded in 2001 - in Iran, Pakistan
and the USA.

The dramatic increase in worldwide executions was
due to
the intensified use of the death penalty in China after
the
government launched a national "strike hard" campaign
against
crime. Between April and July 2001 alone at least 1,781
people
were executed in that country -- more than the total
number of
people executed in the rest of the world in the
previous three
years. Many of those condemned to death could have been
tortured
to extract confessions. Condemned prisoners were often
shacked
and humiliated by being paraded in public.

Amnesty International recorded 139 executions in
Iran,
but the true number was believed to be much higher. In
Saudi
Arabia, 79 executions were reported. Sixty-six people
were
executed in the USA, down from 85 in 2000.

"The figures for China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and
the USA
accounted for 90 per cent of all known executions in
2001,"
Amnesty International said.

"Yet there has also been progress towards
abolition. By
the end of the year, 111 countries had abolished the
death
penalty in law or practice, three more than at the end
of the
previous year."

During 2001, Chile abolished the death penalty for
peacetime offences. Turkey adopted a constitutional
amendment
reducing the scope of the death penalty.

Amnesty International welcomed the decision by the
President of Pakistan in December 2001 to commute the
death
sentences of approximately 100 child offenders.

Additionally, during 2001 Bosnia-Herzegovina and
the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have ratified the Second
Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political
Rights (ICCPR) -- a treaty providing for the total
abolition of
the death penalty -- bringing the number of state
parties to the
Second Optional Protocol to 46.

"The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman
and
degrading punishment and a violation of the right to
life,"
Amnesty International said. "Protecting the right to
life is an
international responsibility."

For more information, please contact Judit Arenas + 44
7778 472
188 or visit
http://web.amnesty.org/rmp/dplibrary.nsf/index?openview.

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