A new annual report released by Amnesty International calls sub-Saharan Africa a “beacon of hope” amid a decline in executions worldwide.
Twenty countries across sub-Saharan Africa have now abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Just two countries in the region, Somalia and South Sudan, carried out executions last year.
Executions worldwide dropped again in 2017, with at least 993 recorded in 23 countries. That’s down 4 percent from the year before and down 39 percent from 2015.
At least 2,591 death sentences were recorded in 53 countries last year, down from a record high of 3,117 the year before, the London-based human rights organization said.
The numbers don’t include the thousands of executions and death sentences that Amnesty International believes have occurred in China, where they are considered a state secret.
With the progress in Africa, “the isolation of the world’s remaining executing countries could not be starker,” said the organization’s secretary general, Salil Shetty.
Other challenges remain, the report says, including in sub-Saharan Africa: Both Botswana and Sudan reportedly resumed executions this year.
And early this year, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said he will sign the first death warrants in nearly two decades to create fear among criminals, vowing to “hang a few.”
But Amnesty International expresses concern over the continued use of the death penalty for drug-related offences, with 15 countries last year imposing death sentences or carrying out executions. Drug-related executions were recorded in China, Iran, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, where “drug-related beheadings rocketed from 16 percent of total executions in 2016 to 40 percent in 2017.”
