The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is one of the most

controversial and hotly debated topics in the world. Proponents of the death
penalty often view it as an unpleasant, but necessary way to keep society safe
from those who commit the most heinous crimes. Opponents of the death
penalty often equate it with murder, point out that it does not lower homicide
rates, and feel the ends cannot justify the means—especially when so many
individuals are wrongly convicted. Whether a person deems the death penalty
morally acceptable or not depends heavily on one's personal moral code, as
well as their political stance.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, more than 70% of the
world's countries have abolished capital punishment in law or practice. As of
July 2022, the most recent countries to outlaw the death penalty are Kazakhstan
and Papua New Guinea, whose laws abolishing capital punishment went into
effect on 29 Dec 2021, and 22 Jan 2022 respectively. Malaysia is expected to
follow suit later in 2022.

The list of nations that have abolished or suspended capital punishment is

growing. Data from Amnesty International states that at the end of 2021, 108
countries (and growing) had abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes,
144 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice, 28 countries
had effectively abolished the death penalty by not executing anyone in the past
10 years, and 55 countries still retained the death penalty for ordinary crimes.

Countries that Permit the Death Penalty (Amnesty

International 2021)*:
Key:

 Legal — Death penalty is legal and in use.

 Suspended — Death penalty is legal, but no executions have taken place
in at least 10 years.
 Extreme Only — Death penalty is legal, but only used in extreme cases
such as war crimes.
 Abolished — Death penalty is prohibited in all cases.

Country Type Country Type Country Type

extreme
Afghanistan legal Guyana legal Peru
only
Algeria suspended India legal Puerto Rico legal
Antigua and
legal Indonesia legal Qatar legal
Barbuda
Bahamas legal Iran legal Russia suspended
Saint Kitts and
Bahrain legal Iraq legal legal
Nevis
extreme
Bangladesh legal Israel Saint Lucia legal
only
 Saint Vincent
Barbados legal Jamaica legal legal
& Grenadines
Belarus legal Japan legal Saudi Arabia legal
Belize legal Jordan legal Sierra Leone abolished*
Botswana legal Kazakhstan abolished* Singapore legal
extreme
Brazil Kenya suspended Somalia legal
only
Brunei suspended Kuwait legal South Korea suspended
extreme
Burkina Faso Laos suspended South Sudan legal
only
Cameroon suspended Lebanon legal Sri Lanka suspended
Central African
suspended Lesotho legal Sudan legal
Republic
extreme
Chile Liberia suspended Syria legal
only
China legal Libya legal Taiwan legal
Comoros legal Malawi suspended Tajikistan suspended
Cuba legal Malaysia legal Tanzania suspended
Dominica legal Maldives suspended Thailand legal
DR Congo legal Mali suspended Tonga suspended
Trinidad and
Egypt legal Mauritania suspended legal
Tobago
extreme
El Salvador Morocco suspended Tunisia suspended
only
Equatorial
legal Myanmar suspended Uganda legal
Guinea
United Arab
Eritrea suspended Niger suspended legal
Emirates
Eswatini suspended Nigeria legal United States legal
Ethiopia legal North Korea legal Vietnam legal
Western
Gambia legal Oman legal rare
Sahara
Ghana suspended Pakistan legal Yemen legal
Grenada suspended Palestine legal Zambia suspended
extreme Papua New
Guatemala abolished* Zimbabwe legal
only Guinea

* Note: Sierra Leone and Kazakhstan passed laws abolishing capital

punishment in 2021, but neither law took effect in time to change the countries'
statuses on the Amnesty International 2021 list. Similarly, Papua New Guinea
abolished the practice in January 2022. These countries should appear as
"abolished" on the eventual 2022 list, and as such, have been updated here.

Death sentence data are often unofficial and

underestimated
Illuminating as its data may be, Amnesty International emphatically cautions that
many of the report's numbers are best-guess minimum estimates, and that the
true numbers of executions, death sentences, and "death row" prisoners are
actually much higher. This is due to the fact that several countries refuse to
disclose detailed execution-related data, which makes it impossible to
determine a precise count of executions and death sentences.

For example, China is known to execute thousands of people every year,

making it the world's most prolific executor by a vast margin. However, specific
information about these executions is considered a state secret and is not
released to the public. As such, while it is known that China likely puts more
people to death than the rest of the world combined, even experts can only
speculate as to the full scope of China's use of capital punishment.

Moreover, while China may be the most obvious example of data secrecy, it is
far from alone. Many other countries withhold or at least filter data on capital
punishment, including North Korea, Vietnam, Syria, and Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan (since August 2021).

In another concerning development, several countries known to obscure death

sentence data have also been accused of applying the death sentence in ways
that violate international law. These include sentencing individuals to death for
lesser crimes, such as drug offenses, and cases in which the defendants are
underaged, demonstrably mentally ill, or given an unfair trial.

The declining use of the death sentence

Amnesty International's 2021 year-end report noted that 579 executions had
been recorded worldwide, spread across 18 countries. While this total is 20%
higher than the number of executions in 2020, it is worth noting that 2020's
executions were slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic and were the lowest since
at least 2010. Overall, the worldwide use of capital punishment has trending
sharply downward since its peak of approximately 1,600 known executions in
2015.

While the number of countries that executed individuals in 2021 (18, the lowest
number on record) remained unchanged from 2020, the number of people
sentenced to death rose. 2020 saw 1,477 new death sentences issued, but that
number rose to 2,052 death sentences issued in 2021. This resulted in a year-
end total of some 28,670 individuals known to be living under a sentence of
death. Moreover, 82% of these individuals were held in just nine countries: Iraq
(8,000+), Pakistan (3,800+), Nigeria (3,036+), USA (2,382), Bangladesh
(1,800+), Malaysia (1,359), Viet Nam (1,200+), Algeria (1,000+), and Sri Lanka
(1,000+).

Top 10 Countries that Conducted the Most

Executions in 2021 (Amnesty International)
 1. China — 1000+
2. Iran — 314+
3. Egypt — 83+
4. Saudi Arabia — 65
5. Syria — 24+
6. Somalia — 21+
7. Iraq — 17+
8. Yemen — 14+
9. United States — 11
10.South Sudan — 9+

Profiles of countries that use the death penalty

China

The Chinese government continues to be the world's leading executioner.

Although the country's precise execution totals are a closely guarded state
secret, they are estimated to be in the thousands annually. Unlike the United
States, where death penalty cases are made public and execution dates are
announced, the Chinese judicial system requires all death penalty executions to
remain private and confidential. Even the families of the executed individuals
are often not informed until after the execution has occurred.

China still employs firing squads to carry out the death penalty, a method that
has fallen out of favor in most nations in favor of more ethical and reliable
methods. The one other form of execution that Chinese officials can legally
invoke is death by lethal injection, which is seen as more humane and painless
than a gunshot in most other nations.

Iran

Precise totals for executions in Iran can be difficult to obtain, as some 88% of
Iranian executions are carried out in secret. However, current estimates point to
at least 246 executions in 2020 and at least 314 in 2021—including at least four
individuals who were minors at the time of their crimes, which is a violation of
international law.

Iran is also often accused of extracting forced confessions through torture, and
is frequently criticized for applying the death sentence to less serious crimes.
For example, an estimated 40% of executions in 2021 were for drug-related
crimes, and another 4% were for religious offenses.

Egypt

Executions in this African country increased greatly in frequency after the 2011
revolution, and particularly since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took office in
2014. Many human rights organizations accuse the Egyptian governmenet of
using executions, which are often conducted in secret after unfair trials and
confessions obtained through torture, as a means of suppressing political
dissent among the populace.

Iraq

Another of the world's most frequent and secretive executors, Iraq is known for
having overly vague and broad anti-terrorism laws—which require the convicted
be sentenced to death. Similarly to the situation in Iran, the Iraqi legal system
does not confine use of the death penalty to the most serious crimes. Instead,
perpetrators of such crimes as smuggling of automobiles or antiquities, the
theft of official government documents, army desertion, or "organizing for the
purpose of pimping" may find themselves awarded with the death penalty.
Another similarity to Iran is the tendency for convictions in Iraq to be based
upon confessions obtained through force and torture. Most executions in Iraq
are carried out by hanging.

Saudi Arabia

The only country known to have carried out an execution by beheading in 2020,
Saudi Arabia executed a reported 27 people in 2020—a significant reduction
compared to the previous five years, in which a minimum of 146 people per
year were executed. This reduction was attributed to several factors: the
COVID-19 pandemic, the removal of the death penalty for drug-related
offenses or against subjects who were underaged at the time of their crime,
and the theory that the king declined to carry out executions while Saudi Arabia
hosted the G-20 summmit.

Whatever the true reason for the decline, it appears to have been short-lived.
Saudi Arabia executed 65+ people in 2021, then sparked international furor in
March of 2022 with the mass execution of 81 people, the largest mass
execution in the country's known history. As with many other execution-prone
countries, the Saudi legal system is frequently criticized for its lack of
transparency, its tendency to waive the rights of those on trial, and its use of
torture to extract confessions.

Japan

As in China, execution dates in Japan are not announced to the public

beforehand. Moreover, the timeline is also withheld from the inmates
themselves until 1-2 hours before the execution is set to occur. Once an
inmate has been executed, prison officials inform the public that the event has
taken place.

The only method of execution used in Japan is hanging, and the subjects are
blindfolded and adorned in a hood before the trap door is released to initiate
the execution. Japan has hung 131 Death Row inmates between 1993 and
2021, but only six from 2019-2021. Most cases of the death penalty in Japan
involve multiple murders. The few rare exceptions have been instances in which
the criminal killed only one person, but the nature of the act was considered
severe enough to warrant the death penalty.

South Korea

The method of execution employed in South Korea varies according to the

crime. In most cases, executions are carried out via hanging with a rope.
However, if a criminal has been found guilty of criminal activity that affected the
country's military in some way or another, they are subject to death by firing
squad. This is a very violent and messy method which is considered a
nonviable form of execution in many other countries.

As of late 2021, the number of prisoners on Death Row in South Korea was
sixty people. Despite this number, the most recent execution in South Korea
occurred in December 1997. Since that time, the only deaths among convicts
on Death Row have been due to suicide or illness.

The United States

The death penalty was reenacted in the U.S. in 1976, and the U.S. has
performed roughly 1,543 executions since that time. The overwhelming leader
in executions is Texas, with 573 through 2021, followed by Oklahoma with 116
and Virginia with 113. For the past 12 years for which data is available (2009-
2020), the U.S. has been the only country in the Americas to subject criminals
to the death penalty.

An increasing number of U.S. states have abolished the death penalty, the
latest (and 23rd in all) being Virginia on July 01, 2021. As of February 2022, the
death penalty is legal in 27 of the 50 US states. Executions in the U.S. are
carried out on a state level, although the federal government also participates in
capital punishment when necessary.

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 629 prisoners per
100,000 residents. This equates to more than 2 million prisoners in the United
States. As of January 2022, 2,463 prisoners were currently sitting on Death Row
in either national or state facilities in the United States, predominantly in
California (692), Florida (330), and Texas (199). Prisoners often wait years,
even decades on death row as their cases wind through the appeals process
and other channels of bureaucracy.

Since 1976, the United States has employed five different methods of executing
Death Row inmates. The overwhelming majority of executions are performed via
lethal injection, which is the default method in nearly every state. However,
electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squads may still be used on
occasion.
Countries with Death Penalty 2022

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a state-sanctioned

practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime. The sentence ordering
that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death
sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A
prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned
and is commonly referred to as being "on death row".

Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes, capital
offences, or capital felonies, and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but
commonly include serious crimes against the person, such as murder, mass
murder, aggravated cases of rape (often including child sexual abuse),
terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
genocide, along with crimes against the state such as attempting to overthrow
government, treason, espionage, sedition, and piracy, among other crimes.
Also, in some cases, acts of recidivism, aggravated robbery, and kidnapping, in
addition to drug trafficking, drug dealing, and drug possession, are capital
crimes or enhancements.

Etymologically, the term capital (lit. "of the head", derived via the Latin capitalis
from caput, "head") refers to execution by beheading,[1] but executions are
carried out by many methods, including hanging, shooting, lethal injection,
stoning, electrocution, and gassing.

As of 2022, 55 countries retain capital punishment, 109 countries have

completely abolished it de jure for all crimes, 7 have abolished it for ordinary
crimes (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and
24 are abolitionist in practice.[2][3] Although most nations have abolished capital
punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where the
death penalty is retained, such as China, India, parts of the United States,
Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Japan, and Taiwan.[4][5][6][7][8]

Capital punishment is controversial in several countries and states, and

positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region. Amnesty
International declares that the death penalty breaches human rights, stating "the
right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment."[9] These rights are protected under the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948.[9] In the
European Union (EU), Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the
European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment.[10] The Council of
Europe, which has 46 member states, has sought to abolish the use of the
death penalty by its members absolutely, through Protocol 13 of the European
Convention on Human Rights. However, this only affects those member states
which have signed and ratified it, and they do not include Armenia and
Azerbaijan. The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, throughout the
years from 2007 to 2020,[11] eight non-binding resolutions calling for a global
moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.[12]

Contents
 1 History
o 1.1 Ancient history
o 1.2 Ancient Greece
o 1.3 Ancient Rome
o 1.4 China
o 1.5 Middle Ages
o 1.6 Enlightenment philosophy
o 1.7 Modern era
o 1.8 20th century
o 1.9 Contemporary era
 2 History of abolition
 3 Contemporary use
o 3.1 By country
o 3.2 Modern-day public opinion
o 3.3 Juvenile offenders
o 3.4 Methods
o 3.5 Public execution
 4 Capital crime
o 4.1 Crimes against humanity
o 4.2 Murder
o 4.3 Drug trafficking
o 4.4 Other offences
 5 Controversy and debate
o 5.1 Retribution
o 5.2 Human rights
o 5.3 Non-painful execution
o 5.4 Wrongful execution
o 5.5 Volunteers
o 5.6 Racial, ethnic and social class bias
o 5.7 International views
o 5.8 Religious views
 6 See also
 7 Notes and references
o 7.1 Notes
 7.1.1 Explanatory notes
 7.1.2 References
o 7.2 Bibliography
 8 Further reading
  9 External links
o 9.1 In favour
o 9.2 Opposing
o 9.3 Religious views

History

Anarchist Auguste Vaillant about to be guillotined in France in 1894

Execution of criminals and dissidents has been used by nearly all societies
since the beginning of civilizations on Earth.[13] Until the nineteenth century,
without developed prison systems, there was frequently no workable alternative
to ensure deterrence and incapacitation of criminals.[14] In pre-modern times
the executions themselves often involved torture with cruel and painful
methods, such as the breaking wheel, keelhauling, sawing, hanging, drawing,
and quartering, burning at the stake, flaying, slow slicing, boiling alive,
impalement, mazzatello, blowing from a gun, schwedentrunk, and scaphism.
Other methods which appear only in legend include the blood eagle and brazen
bull.

The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history. Most
historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death
penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishments for
wrongdoing generally included blood money compensation by the wrongdoer,
corporal punishment, shunning, banishment and execution. In tribal societies,
compensation and shunning were often considered enough as a form of
justice.[15] The response to crimes committed by neighbouring tribes, clans or
communities included a formal apology, compensation, blood feuds, and tribal
warfare.

A blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes

fails or an arbitration system is non-existent. This form of justice was common
before the emergence of an arbitration system based on state or organized
religion. It may result from crime, land disputes or a code of honour. "Acts of
retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and
demonstrate to enemies (as well as potential allies) that injury to property,
rights, or the person will not go unpunished."[16]
In most countries that practise capital punishment, it is now reserved for
murder, terrorism, war crimes, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice.
In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, fornication, adultery, incest,
sodomy, and bestiality carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as
Hudud, Zina, and Qisas crimes, such as apostasy (formal renunciation of the
state religion), blasphemy, moharebeh, hirabah, Fasad, Mofsed-e-filarz and
witchcraft. In many countries that use the death penalty, drug trafficking and
often drug possession is also a capital offence. In China, human trafficking and
serious cases of corruption and financial crimes are punished by the death
penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death
sentences for offences such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and
mutiny.[17]

Ancient history

The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883). Roman

Circus Maximus.

Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done

in a religious context and compensation system. Compensation was based on
the principle of substitution which might include material (for example, cattle,
slaves, land) compensation, exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the
blood debt. Settlement rules could allow for animal blood to replace human
blood, or transfers of property or blood money or in some case an offer of a
person for execution. The person offered for execution did not have to be an
original perpetrator of the crime because the social system was based on tribes
and clans, not individuals. Blood feuds could be regulated at meetings, such as
the Norsemen things.[18] Systems deriving from blood feuds may survive
alongside more advanced legal systems or be given recognition by courts (for
example, trial by combat or blood money). One of the more modern
refinements of the blood feud is the duel.
Beheading of John the Baptist, woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld, 1860

In certain parts of the world, nations in the form of ancient republics,

monarchies or tribal oligarchies emerged. These nations were often united by
common linguistic, religious or family ties. Moreover, expansion of these
nations often occurred by conquest of neighbouring tribes or nations.
Consequently, various classes of royalty, nobility, various commoners and
slaves emerged. Accordingly, the systems of tribal arbitration were submerged
into a more unified system of justice which formalized the relation between the
different "social classes" rather than "tribes". The earliest and most famous
example is Code of Hammurabi which set the different punishment and
compensation, according to the different class or group of victims and
perpetrators. The Torah/Old Testament lays down the death penalty for murder,
[19]
kidnapping, practicing magic, violation of the Sabbath, blasphemy, and a
wide range of sexual crimes, although evidence suggests that actual executions
were exceedingly rare.[20]

A further example comes from Ancient Greece, where the Athenian legal system
replacing customary oral law was first written down by Draco in about 621 BC:
the death penalty was applied for a particularly wide range of crimes, though
Solon later repealed Draco's code and published new laws, retaining capital
punishment only for intentional homicide, and only with victim's family
permission.[21] The word draconian derives from Draco's laws. The Romans also
used the death penalty for a wide range of offences.[22]

Ancient Greece

The Death of Socrates (1787), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
City.

Protagoras (whose thought is reported by Plato) criticizes the principle of

revenge, because once the damage is done it cannot be canceled by any
action. So, if the death penalty is to be imposed by society, it is only to protect
the latter against the criminal or for a dissuasive purpose.[23] "The only right that
Protagoras knows is therefore human right, which, established and sanctioned
by a sovereign collectivity, identifies itself with positive or the law in force of the
city. In fact, it finds its guarantee in the death penalty which threatens all those
who do not respect it."[24][25]

Plato, for his part, saw the death penalty as a means of purification, because
crimes are a "defilement". Thus in the Laws, he considered necessary the
execution of the animal or the destruction of the object which caused the death
of a Man by accident. For the murderers, he considered that the act of
homicide is not natural and is not fully consented by the criminal. Homicide is
thus a disease of the soul, which must be reeducated as much as possible,
and, as a last resort, sentence to death if no rehabilitation is possible. [26]

According to Aristotle, for whom free will is proper to man, the citizen is
responsible for his acts. If there was a crime, a judge must define the penalty
allowing the crime to be annulled by compensating it. This is how pecuniary
compensation appeared for criminals the least recalcitrant and whose
rehabilitation is deemed possible. But for others, the death penalty is necessary
according to Aristotle.[27]

This philosophy aims on the one hand to protect society and on the other hand
to compensate to cancel the consequences of the crime committed. It inspired
Western criminal law until the 17th century, a time when the first reflections on
the abolition of the death penalty appeared. [28]

Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, the application of the death penalty against Roman citizens
was unusual and considered exceptional. They preferred alternative sentences
ranging, depending on the crime and the criminal, from private or public
reprimand to exile, including the confiscation of his property, or torture, or even
prison, and as a last resort, death. A historic debate, followed by a vote, took
place in the Roman Senate to decide the fate of Catiline's allies when he tried
to take power in December −63.then Roman consul, argued in favor of the
killing of conspirators without judgment by decision of the Senate (Senatus
consultum ultimum) and was followed by the majority of senators; among the
minority voices opposed to the execution, we mainly count that of Julius
Caesar.[29] It was quite different for foreigners who were considered inferior to
Roman citizenship and especially for slaves, who were considered as movable
property.

China

Although many are executed in the People's Republic of China each year in the
present day,[30] there was a time in the Tang dynasty (618–907) when the death
penalty was abolished.[31] This was in the year 747, enacted by Emperor
Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756). When abolishing the death penalty Xuanzong
ordered his officials to refer to the nearest regulation by analogy when
sentencing those found guilty of crimes for which the prescribed punishment
was execution. Thus depending on the severity of the crime a punishment of
severe scourging with the thick rod or of exile to the remote Lingnan region
might take the place of capital punishment. However, the death penalty was
restored only 12 years later in 759 in response to the An Lushan Rebellion.[32] At
this time in the Tang dynasty only the emperor had the authority to sentence
criminals to execution. Under Xuanzong capital punishment was relatively
infrequent, with only 24 executions in the year 730 and 58 executions in the
year 736.[31]

The two most common forms of execution in the Tang dynasty were
strangulation and decapitation, which were the prescribed methods of
execution for 144 and 89 offences respectively. Strangulation was the
prescribed sentence for lodging an accusation against one's parents or
grandparents with a magistrate, scheming to kidnap a person and sell them into
slavery, and opening a coffin while desecrating a tomb. Decapitation was the
method of execution prescribed for more serious crimes such as treason and
sedition. Despite the great discomfort involved, most of the Tang Chinese
preferred strangulation to decapitation, as a result of the traditional Tang
Chinese belief that the body is a gift from the parents and that it is, therefore,
disrespectful to one's ancestors to die without returning one's body to the
grave intact.

Some further forms of capital punishment were practised in the Tang dynasty,
of which the first two that follow at least were extralegal.[clarification needed] The first
of these was scourging to death with the thick rod[clarification needed] which was
common throughout the Tang dynasty especially in cases of gross corruption.
The second was truncation, in which the convicted person was cut in two at the
waist with a fodder knife and then left to bleed to death.[33] A further form of
execution called Ling Chi (slow slicing), or death by/of a thousand cuts, was
used from the close of the Tang dynasty (around 900) to its abolition in 1905.

When a minister of the fifth grade or above received a death sentence the
emperor might grant him a special dispensation allowing him to commit suicide
in lieu of execution. Even when this privilege was not granted, the law required
that the condemned minister be provided with food and ale by his keepers and
transported to the execution ground in a cart rather than having to walk there.

Nearly all executions under the Tang dynasty took place in public as a warning
to the population. The heads of the executed were displayed on poles or
spears. When local authorities decapitated a convicted criminal, the head was
boxed and sent to the capital as proof of identity and that the execution had
taken place.[33]

Middle Ages
The breaking wheel was used during the Middle Ages and was still in use into
the 19th century.

In medieval and early modern Europe, before the development of modern

prison systems, the death penalty was also used as a generalized form of
punishment for even minor offences.[citation needed]

In early modern Europe, a massive moral panic regarding witchcraft swept

across Europe and later the European colonies in North America. During this
period, there were widespread claims that malevolent Satanic witches were
operating as an organized threat to Christendom. As a result, tens of thousands
of women were prosecuted for witchcraft and executed through the witch trials
of the early modern period (between the 15th and 18th centuries).

The burning of Jakob Rohrbach, a leader of the peasants during the German
Peasants' War.

The death penalty also targeted sexual offences such as sodomy. In the early
history of Islam (7th–11th centuries), there is a number of "purported (but
mutually inconsistent) reports" (athar) regarding the punishments of sodomy
ordered by some of the early caliphs.[34][35] Abu Bakr, the first caliph of the
Rashidun Caliphate, apparently recommended toppling a wall on the culprit, or
else burning him alive,[35] while Ali ibn Abi Talib is said to have ordered death by
stoning for one sodomite and had another thrown head-first from the top of the
highest building in the town; according to Ibn Abbas, the latter punishment
must be followed by stoning.[35][36] Other medieval Muslim leaders, such as the
Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad (most notably al-Mu'tadid), were often cruel in
their punishments.[37][page needed] In early modern England, the Buggery Act 1533
stipulated hanging as punishment for "buggery". James Pratt and John Smith
were the last two Englishmen to be executed for sodomy in 1835.[38] In 1636
the laws of Puritan governed Plymouth Colony included a sentence of death for
sodomy and buggery.[39] The Massachusetts Bay Colony followed in 1641.
Throughout the 19th century, U.S. states repealed death sentences from their
sodomy laws, with South Carolina being the last to do so in 1873.[40]

Historians recognize that during the Early Middle Ages, the Christian
populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the
7th and 10th centuries suffered religious discrimination, religious persecution,
religious violence, and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim
officials and rulers.[41][42] As People of the Book, Christians under Muslim rule
were subjected to dhimmi status (along with Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics,
Mandeans, and Zoroastrians), which was inferior to the status of Muslims.[42][43]
[44]
Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination
and religious persecution in that they were banned from proselytising (for
Christians, it was forbidden to evangelize or spread Christianity) in the lands
invaded by the Arab Muslims on pain of death, they were banned from bearing
arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in
order to distinguish themselves from Arabs.[43] Under sharia, Non-Muslims were
obligated to pay jizya and kharaj taxes,[42][43][44] together with periodic heavy
ransom levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund
military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income
to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and
these financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam.
[43]
Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children
to the Muslim rulers as payment who would sell them as slaves to Muslim
households where they were forced to convert to Islam.[43] Many Christian
martyrs were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their
Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert
to Islam, repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to
Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.[41]

Despite the wide use of the death penalty, calls for reform were not unknown.
The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar Moses Maimonides wrote: "It is better
and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single
innocent man to death." He argued that executing an accused criminal on
anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of
decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to
the judge's caprice". Maimonides's concern was maintaining popular respect
for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more threatening than errors
of omission.[45]

Enlightenment philosophy

While during the Middle Ages the expiatory aspect of the death penalty was
taken into account, this is no longer the case under the Lumières. These define
the place of man within society no longer according to a divine rule, but as a
contract established at birth between the citizen and the society, it is the social
contract. From that moment on, capital punishment should be seen as useful to
society through its dissuasive effect, but also as a means of protection of the
latter vis-à-vis criminals.[citation needed]

Modern era
Antiporta of Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments), 1766 ed.

In the last several centuries, with the emergence of modern nation states,
justice came to be increasingly associated with the concept of natural and legal
rights. The period saw an increase in standing police forces and permanent
penitential institutions. Rational choice theory, a utilitarian approach to
criminology which justifies punishment as a form of deterrence as opposed to
retribution, can be traced back to Cesare Beccaria, whose influential treatise
On Crimes and Punishments (1764) was the first detailed analysis of capital
punishment to demand the abolition of the death penalty.[46] In England Jeremy
Bentham (1748–1832), the founder of modern utilitarianism, called for the
abolition of the death penalty.[47] Beccaria, and later Charles Dickens and Karl
Marx noted the incidence of increased violent criminality at the times and
places of executions. Official recognition of this phenomenon led to executions
being carried out inside prisons, away from public view.

In England in the 18th century, when there was no police force, Parliament
drastically increased the number of capital offences to more than 200. These
were mainly property offences, for example cutting down a cherry tree in an
orchard.[48] In 1820, there were 160, including crimes such as shoplifting, petty
theft or stealing cattle.[49] The severity of the so-called Bloody Code was often
tempered by juries who refused to convict, or judges, in the case of petty theft,
who arbitrarily set the value stolen at below the statutory level for a capital
crime.[50]

20th century

Mexican execution by firing squad, 1916

In Nazi Germany there were three types of capital punishment; hanging,
decapitation and death by shooting.[51] Also, modern military organisations
employed capital punishment as a means of maintaining military discipline. In
the past, cowardice, absence without leave, desertion, insubordination, shirking
under enemy fire and disobeying orders were often crimes punishable by death
(see decimation and running the gauntlet). One method of execution, since
firearms came into common use, has also been firing squad, although some
countries use execution with a single shot to the head or neck.

50 Poles tried and sentenced to death by a Standgericht in retaliation for the

assassination of 1 German policeman in Nazi-occupied Poland, 1944

Various authoritarian states—for example those with Fascist or Communist

governments—employed the death penalty as a potent means of political
oppression.[citation needed] According to Robert Conquest, the leading expert on
Joseph Stalin's purges, more than one million Soviet citizens were executed
during the Great Purge of 1937–38, almost all by a bullet to the back of the
head.[52][better source needed] Mao Zedong publicly stated that "800,000" people had
been executed in China during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Partly as a
response to such excesses, civil rights organizations started to place increasing
emphasis on the concept of human rights and an abolition of the death penalty.
[citation needed]

Contemporary era

By continent, all European states but one have abolished capital punishment;
[note 1]
many Oceanian states have abolished it;[note 2] most states in the Americas
have abolished its use,[note 3] while a few actively retain it;[note 4] less than half of
countries in Africa retain it;[note 5] and the majority of countries in Asia retain it.
[note 6]

Abolition was often adopted due to political change, as when countries shifted
from authoritarianism to democracy, or when it became an entry condition for
the EU. The United States is a notable exception: some states have had bans
on capital punishment for decades, the earliest being Michigan where it was
abolished in 1846, while other states still actively use it today. The death
penalty in the United States remains a contentious issue which is hotly debated.

In retentionist countries, the debate is sometimes revived when a miscarriage of

justice has occurred though this tends to cause legislative efforts to improve
the judicial process rather than to abolish the death penalty. In abolitionist
countries, the debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders
though few countries have brought it back after abolishing it. However, a spike
in serious, violent crimes, such as murders or terrorist attacks, has prompted
some countries to effectively end the moratorium on the death penalty. One
notable example is Pakistan which in December 2014 lifted a six-year
moratorium on executions after the Peshawar school massacre during which
132 students and 9 members of staff of the Army Public School and Degree
College Peshawar were killed by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan terrorists, a group
distinct from the Afghan Taliban, who condemned the attack.[53] Since then,
Pakistan has executed over 400 convicts.[54]

In 2017, two major countries, Turkey and the Philippines, saw their executives
making moves to reinstate the death penalty.[55] In the same year, passage of
the law in the Philippines failed to obtain the Senate's approval. [56]

On 29 December 2021, after a 20-year moratorium, the Kazakhstan government

enacted the 'On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the
Republic of Kazakhstan on the Abolition of the Death Penalty' signed by
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as part of series of Omnibus reformations of
the Kazak legal system 'Listening State' initiative.[citation needed]

History of abolition
See also: Use of capital punishment by country § Abolition chronology

Emperor Shomu banned the death penalty in Japan in 724.

In 724 AD in Japan, the death penalty was banned during the reign of Emperor
Shōmu but the abolition only lasted a few years.[57] In 818, Emperor Saga
abolished the death penalty under the influence of Shinto and it lasted until
1156.[58] In China, the death penalty was banned by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang
in 747, replacing it with exile or scourging. However, the ban only lasted 12
years.[57] Following his conversion to Christianity in 988, Vladimir the Great
abolished the death penalty in Kievan Rus', along with torture and mutilation;
corporal punishment was also seldom used. [59]

In England, a public statement of opposition was included in The Twelve

Conclusions of the Lollards, written in 1395. Sir Thomas More's Utopia,
published in 1516, debated the benefits of the death penalty in dialogue form,
coming to no firm conclusion. More was himself executed for treason in 1535.

Peter Leopold II abolished the death penalty throughout Tuscany in 1786,

making it the first nation in modern history to do so.

More recent opposition to the death penalty stemmed from the book of the
Italian Cesare Beccaria Dei Delitti e Delle Pene ("On Crimes and Punishments"),
published in 1764. In this book, Beccaria aimed to demonstrate not only the
injustice, but even the futility from the point of view of social welfare, of torture
and the death penalty. Influenced by the book, Grand Duke Leopold II of
Habsburg, the future Emperor of Austria, abolished the death penalty in the
then-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the first permanent abolition in
modern times. On 30 November 1786, after having de facto blocked executions
(the last was in 1769), Leopold promulgated the reform of the penal code that
abolished the death penalty and ordered the destruction of all the instruments
for capital execution in his land. In 2000, Tuscany's regional authorities
instituted an annual holiday on 30 November to commemorate the event. The
event is commemorated on this day by 300 cities around the world celebrating
Cities for Life Day. In the United Kingdom, it was abolished for murder (leaving
only treason, piracy with violence, arson in royal dockyards and a number of
wartime military offences as capital crimes) for a five-year experiment in 1965
and permanently in 1969, the last execution having taken place in 1964. It was
abolished for all offences in 1998.[60] Protocol 13 to the European Convention
on Human Rights, first entering into force in 2003, prohibits the death penalty in
all circumstances for those states that are party to it, including the United
Kingdom from 2004.

In the post-classical Republic of Poljica, life was ensured as a basic right in its
Poljica Statute of 1440. The short-lived revolutionary Roman Republic banned
capital punishment in 1849. Venezuela followed suit and abolished the death
penalty in 1863[61] and San Marino did so in 1865. The last execution in San
Marino had taken place in 1468. In Portugal, after legislative proposals in 1852
and 1863, the death penalty was abolished in 1867. The last execution in Brazil
was 1876; from then on all the condemnations were commuted by the Emperor
Pedro II until its abolition for civil offences and military offences in peacetime in
1891. The penalty for crimes committed in peacetime was then reinstated and
abolished again twice (1938–1953 and 1969–1978), but on those occasions it
was restricted to acts of terrorism or subversion considered "internal warfare"
and all sentences were commuted and not carried out.

Abolition occurred in Canada in 1976 (except for some military offences, with
complete abolition in 1998); in France in 1981; and in Australia in 1973
(although the state of Western Australia retained the penalty until 1984). In
South Australia, under the premiership of then-Premier Dunstan, the Criminal
Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA) was modified so that the death sentence was
changed to life imprisonment in 1976.

In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution

that throughout the world, it is desirable to "progressively restrict the number of
offences for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the
desirability of abolishing this punishment".[62]

In the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, on
18 May 1846.[63] The death penalty was declared unconstitutional between 1972
and 1976 based on the Furman v. Georgia case, but the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia
case once again permitted the death penalty under certain circumstances.
Further limitations were placed on the death penalty in Atkins v. Virginia (2002;
death penalty unconstitutional for people with an intellectual disability) and
Roper v. Simmons (2005; death penalty unconstitutional if defendant was under
age 18 at the time the crime was committed). In the United States, 23 states
and the District of Columbia ban capital punishment.

Many countries have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice.

Since World War II, there has been a trend toward abolishing capital
punishment. Capital punishment has been completely abolished by 108
countries, a further seven have done so for all offences except under special
circumstances and 26 more have abolished it in practice because they have not
used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established
practice against carrying out executions.[64]

Contemporary use
By country

Main article: Capital punishment by country

Most nations, including almost all developed countries, have abolished capital
punishment either in law or in practice; notable exceptions are the United
States, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. Additionally, capital
punishment is also carried out in China, India, and most Islamic states.[65][66][67]
[68][69][70]

Since World War II, there has been a trend toward abolishing the death penalty.
54 countries retain the death penalty in active use, 109 countries have
abolished capital punishment altogether, 7 have done so for all offences except
under special circumstances, and 25 more have abolished it in practice
because they have not used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a
policy or established practice against carrying out executions. [2]

According to Amnesty International, 18 countries are known to have performed

executions in 2020.[3] There are countries which do not publish information on
the use of capital punishment, most significantly China and North Korea.
According to Amnesty International, around 1,000 prisoners were executed in
2017.[71] Amnesty reported in 2004 and 2009 that Singapore and Iraq
respectively had the world's highest per capita execution rate.[72][73] According
to Al Jazeera and UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed, Iran has had the
world's highest per capita execution rate.[74][75] A 2012 EU report from the
Directorate-General for External Relations' policy department pointed to Gaza
as having the highest per capita execution rate in the MENA region.[76]

  Abolitionist countries: 109

  Abolitionist-in-law countries for all crimes except those committed under
exceptional circumstances (such as crimes committed in wartime): 7
  Abolitionist-in-practice countries (have not executed anyone during the past
10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of
not carrying out executions): 25
  Retentionist countries: 54
Number of abolitionist and retentionist countries by year
  Number of retentionist countries
  Number of abolitionist countries
Total executed
Country
(2021)[77]
 Iran 353
 Egypt 82
 Saudi Arabia 64
 Syria 37
 Somalia 22
 Iraq 21
 Yemen 17
 United States 11
 China 6+
 Bangladesh 3
 Botswana 3
 Japan 3
 South Sudan 1
 Vietnam Unknown
 North Korea Unknown

A map showing U.S. states where the death penalty is authorized for certain
crimes, even if not recently used. The death penalty is also authorized for
certain federal and military crimes.
  States with a valid death penalty statute
  States without the death penalty

The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly restrained in some

retentionist countries including Taiwan and Singapore.[78][better source needed]
Indonesia carried out no executions between November 2008 and March 2013.
[79]
Singapore, Japan and the United States are the only developed countries
that are classified by Amnesty International as 'retentionist' (South Korea is
classified as 'abolitionist in practice').[80][81] Nearly all retentionist countries are
situated in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.[80] The only retentionist country in
Europe is Belarus. During the 1980s, the democratisation of Latin America
swelled the ranks of abolitionist countries. [citation needed]

This was soon followed by the fall of Communism in Europe. Many of the
countries which restored democracy aspired to enter the EU. The EU and the
Council of Europe both strictly require member states not to practise the death
penalty (see Capital punishment in Europe). Public support for the death
penalty in the EU varies.[82] The last execution in a member state of the
present-day Council of Europe took place in 1997 in Ukraine.[83][84] In contrast,
the rapid industrialisation in Asia has seen an increase in the number of
developed countries which are also retentionist. In these countries, the death
penalty retains strong public support, and the matter receives little attention
from the government or the media; in China there is a small but significant and
growing movement to abolish the death penalty altogether. [85] This trend has
been followed by some African and Middle Eastern countries where support for
the death penalty remains high.

Some countries have resumed practising the death penalty after having
previously suspended the practice for long periods. The United States
suspended executions in 1972 but resumed them in 1976; there was no
execution in India between 1995 and 2004; and Sri Lanka declared an end to its
moratorium on the death penalty on 20 November 2004,[86] although it has not
yet performed any further executions. The Philippines re-introduced the death
penalty in 1993 after abolishing it in 1987, but again abolished it in 2006. [87]

The United States and Japan are the only developed countries to have recently
carried out executions. The U.S. federal government, the U.S. military, and 27
states have a valid death penalty statute, and over 1,400 executions have been
carried in the United States since it reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Japan
has 106 inmates with finalized death sentences as of July 26, 2022, after
executing Tomohiro Katō, who was charged with killing seven and injured ten in
Akihabara massacre in June 2008.[88]

The most recent country to abolish the death penalty was Kazakhstan on 2
January 2021 after a moratorium dating back 2 decades. [89][90]

According to an Amnesty International report released in April 2020, Egypt

ranked regionally third and globally fifth among the countries that carried out
most executions in 2019. The country increasingly became ignorant of
international human rights concerns and criticism. In March 2021, Egypt
executed 11 prisoners in a jail, who were convicted in cases of "murder, theft,
and shooting".[91]

According to Amnesty International's 2021 report, at least 483 people were

executed in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The figure excluded the
countries that classify death penalty data as state secret. The top five
executioners for 2020 were China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. [92]
Modern-day public opinion

The public opinion on the death penalty varies considerably by country and by
the crime in question. Countries where a majority of people are against
execution include Norway, where only 25% are in favour. [93] Most French, Finns,
and Italians also oppose the death penalty.[94] A 2020 Gallup poll shows that
55% of Americans support the death penalty for an individual convicted of
murder, down from 60% in 2016, 64% in 2010, 65% in 2006, and 68% in 2001.
[95][96][97][98]
In 2020, 43% of Italians expressed support for the death penalty. [99]
[100][101]

In Taiwan, polls and research have consistently shown strong support for the
death penalty at 80%. This includes a survey conducted by the National
Development Council of Taiwan in 2016, showing that 88% of Taiwanese
people disagree with abolishing the death penalty. [102][103][104] Its continuation of
the practice drew criticism from local rights groups.[105]

The support and sentencing of capital punishment has been growing in India in
the 2010s[106] due to anger over several recent brutal cases of rape, even
though actual executions are comparatively rare.[106] While support for the death
penalty for murder is still high in China, executions have dropped precipitously,
with 3,000 executed in 2012 versus 12,000 in 2002.[107] A poll in South Africa,
where capital punishment is abolished, found that 76% of millennial South
Africans support re-introduction of the death penalty due to increasing
incidents of rape and murder.[108][109] A 2017 poll found younger Mexicans are
more likely to support capital punishment than older ones. [110] 57% of Brazilians
support the death penalty. The age group that shows the greatest support for
execution of those condemned is the 25 to 34-year-old category, in which
61% say they are in favor.[111]

Juvenile offenders

See also: Category:Executed juvenile offenders

The death penalty for juvenile offenders (criminals aged under 18 years at the
time of their crime although the legal or accepted definition of juvenile offender
may vary from one jurisdiction to another) has become increasingly rare.
Considering the age of majority is not 18 in some countries or has not been
clearly defined in law, since 1990 ten countries have executed offenders who
were considered juveniles at the time of their crimes: The People's Republic of
China (PRC), Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Iraq, Japan,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States, and Yemen.[112]
China, Pakistan, the United States, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have since raised
the minimum age to 18.[113][114] Amnesty International has recorded 61 verified
executions since then, in several countries, of both juveniles and adults who
had been convicted of committing their offences as juveniles. [115] The PRC
does not allow for the execution of those under 18, but child executions have
reportedly taken place.[116]
Mother Catherine Cauchés (center) and her two daughters Guillemine Gilbert
(left) and Perotine Massey (right) with her infant son burning for heresy

One of the youngest children ever to be executed was the infant son of
Perotine Massey on or around 18 July 1556. His mother was one of the
Guernsey Martyrs who was executed for heresy, and his father had previously
fled the island. At less than one day old, he was ordered to be burned by Bailiff
Hellier Gosselin, with the advice of priests nearby who said the boy should burn
due to having inherited moral stain from his mother, who had given birth during
her execution.[117]

Starting from 1642 in Colonial America until the present day in the United
States, an estimated 365[118] juvenile offenders were executed by various
colonial authorities and (after the American Revolution) the federal government.
[119]
The U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under
the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v.
Simmons (2005).

In Prussia, children under the age of 14 were exempted from the death penalty
in 1794.[120] Capital punishment was cancelled by the Electorate of Bavaria in
1751 for children under the age of 11[121] and by the Kingdom of Bavaria in
1813 for children and youth under 16 years.[122] In Prussia, the exemption was
extended to youth under the age of 16 in 1851.[123] For the first time, all
juveniles were excluded for the death penalty by the North German
Confederation in 1871,[124] which was continued by the German Empire in 1872.
[125]
In Nazi Germany, capital punishment was reinstated for juveniles between
16 and 17 years in 1939.[126] This was broadened to children and youth from
age 12 to 17 in 1943.[127] The death penalty for juveniles was abolished by West
Germany, also generally, in 1949 and by East Germany in 1952.

In the Hereditary Lands, Austrian Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia within the
Habsburg monarchy, capital punishment for children under the age of 11 was
no longer foreseen by 1770.[128] The death penalty was, also for juveniles,
nearly abolished in 1787 except for emergency or military law, which is unclear
in regard of those. It was reintroduced for juveniles above 14 years by 1803, [129]
and was raised by general criminal law to 20 years in 1852[130] and this
exemption[131] and the alike one of military law in 1855, [132] which may have
been up to 14 years in wartime,[133] were also introduced into all of the Austrian
Empire.
In the Helvetic Republic, the death penalty for children and youth under the age
of 16 was abolished in 1799[134] yet the country was already dissolved in 1803
whereas the law could remain in force if it was not replaced on cantonal level.
In the canton of Bern, all juveniles were exempted from the death penalty at
least in 1866.[135] In Fribourg, capital punishment was generally, including for
juveniles, abolished by 1849. In Ticino, it was abolished for youth and young
adults under the age of 20 in 1816.[136] In Zurich, the exclusion from the death
penalty was extended for juveniles and young adults up to 19 years of age by
1835.[137] In 1942, the death penalty was almost deleted in criminal law, as well
for juveniles, but since 1928 persisted in military law during wartime for youth
above 14 years.[138] If no earlier change was made in the given subject, by 1979
juveniles could no longer be subject to the death penalty in military law during
wartime.[139]

Between 2005 and May 2008, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen
were reported to have executed child offenders, the largest number occurring in
Iran.[140]

During Hassan Rouhani's tenure as president of Iran from 2013 until 2021, at
least 3,602 death sentences have been carried out. This includes the
executions of 34 juvenile offenders.[141][142]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital
punishment for juveniles under article 37(a), has been signed by all countries
and subsequently ratified by all signatories with the exception of the United
States (despite the US Supreme Court decisions abolishing the practice).[143]
The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
maintains that the death penalty for juveniles has become contrary to a jus
cogens of customary international law. A majority of countries are also party to
the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (whose Article 6.5
also states that "Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed
by persons below eighteen years of age...").

Iran, despite its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was the world's largest
executioner of juvenile offenders, for which it has been the subject of broad
international condemnation; the country's record is the focus of the Stop Child
Executions Campaign. But on 10 February 2012, Iran's parliament changed
controversial laws relating to the execution of juveniles. In the new legislation
the age of 18 (solar year) would be applied to accused of both genders and
juvenile offenders must be sentenced pursuant to a separate law specifically
dealing with juveniles.[113][114] Based on the Islamic law which now seems to
have been revised, girls at the age of 9 and boys at 15 of lunar year (11 days
shorter than a solar year) are deemed fully responsible for their crimes. [113] Iran
accounted for two-thirds of the global total of such executions, and
currently[needs update] has approximately 140 people considered as juveniles
awaiting execution for crimes committed (up from 71 in 2007). [144][145] The past
executions of Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni and Makwan Moloudzadeh
became the focus of Iran's child capital punishment policy and the judicial
system that hands down such sentences.[146][147]

Saudi Arabia also executes criminals who were minors at the time of the
offence.[148][149] In 2013, Saudi Arabia was the center of an international
controversy after it executed Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker, who
was believed to have been 17 years old at the time of the crime. [150] Saudi
Arabia banned execution for minors, except for terrorism cases, in April 2020.
[151]

Japan has not executed juvenile criminals after August 1997, when they
executed Norio Nagayama, a spree killer who had been convicted of shooting
four people dead in the late 1960s. Nagayama's case created the eponymously
named Nagayama standards, which take into account factors such as the
number of victims, brutality and social impact of the crimes. The standards
have been used in determining whether to apply the death sentence in murder
cases. Teruhiko Seki, convicted of murdering four family members including a
4-year-old daughter and raping a 15-year-old daughter of a family in 1992,
became the second inmate to be hanged for a crime committed as a minor in
the first such execution in 20 years after Nagayama on 19 December 2017. [152]
Takayuki Otsuki, who was convicted of raping and strangling a 23-year-old
woman and subsequently strangling her 11-month-old daughter to death on 14
April 1999, when he was 18, is another inmate sentenced to death, and his
request for retrial has been rejected by the Supreme Court of Japan.[153]

There is evidence that child executions are taking place in the parts of Somalia
controlled by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). In October 2008, a girl, Aisha
Ibrahim Dhuhulow was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned
to death in front of more than 1,000 people. Somalia's established Transitional
Federal Government announced in November 2009 (reiterated in 2013)[154] that
it plans to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This move was
lauded by UNICEF as a welcome attempt to secure children's rights in the
country.[155]

Methods

Main article: List of methods of capital punishment

The Red Guard prisoners are being executed by the Whites in Varkaus, North
Savonia, during the 1918 Finnish Civil War.
The following methods of execution have been used by various countries: [156]
[157][158][159][160]

 Hanging (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria,

Sudan, Pakistan, Palestinian National Authority, Israel, Yemen, Egypt,
India, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, UAE, Zimbabwe, Malawi,
Liberia)
 Shooting (the People's Republic of China, Republic of China, Vietnam,
Belarus, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, North Korea, Indonesia, UAE, Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, and in the US states of Oklahoma and
Utah).
 Lethal injection (United States, Guatemala, Thailand, the People's
Republic of China, Vietnam)
 Beheading (Saudi Arabia)
 Stoning (Nigeria, Sudan)
 Electrocution and gas inhalation (some U.S. states, but only if the
prisoner requests it or if lethal injection is unavailable)
 Inert gas asphyxiation (Some U.S. states, Oklahoma, Mississippi,
Alabama)

Public execution

Main article: Public execution

A public execution is a form of capital punishment which "members of the

general public may voluntarily attend". This definition excludes the presence of
a small number of witnesses randomly selected to assure executive
accountability.[161] While today the great majority of the world considers public
executions to be distasteful and most countries have outlawed the practice,
throughout much of history executions were performed publicly as a means for
the state to demonstrate "its power before those who fell under its jurisdiction
be they criminals, enemies, or political opponents". Additionally, it afforded the
public a chance to witness "what was considered a great spectacle". [162]

Social historians note that beginning in the 20th century in the U.S. and western
Europe, death in general became increasingly shielded from public view,
occurring more and more behind the closed doors of the hospital. [163]
Executions were likewise moved behind the walls of the penitentiary. [163] The
last formal public executions occurred in 1868 in Britain, in 1936 in the U.S.
and in 1939 in France.[163]

According to Amnesty International, in 2012, "public executions were known to

have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia".[164] There
have been reports of public executions carried out by state and non-state
actors in Hamas-controlled Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen.[165][166]
[167]
Executions which can be classified as public were also carried out in the
U.S. states of Florida and Utah as of 1992.[161]
Capital crime
"Capital crimes" redirects here. For the novel, see Capital Crimes.

Crimes against humanity

Crimes against humanity such as genocide are usually punishable by death in

countries retaining capital punishment.[citation needed] Death sentences for such
crimes were handed down and carried out during the Nuremberg Trials in 1946
and the Tokyo Trials in 1948, but the current International Criminal Court does
not use capital punishment. The maximum penalty available to the International
Criminal Court is life imprisonment.[168]

Murder

Intentional homicide is punishable by death in most countries retaining capital

punishment, but generally provided it involves an aggravating factor required by
statute or judicial precedents.[citation needed] Some countries like Singapore and
Malaysia made the death penalty mandatory for murder, though Singapore later
changed its laws since 2013 to reserve the mandatory death sentence for
intentional murder while providing an alternative sentence of life imprisonment
with/without caning for murder with no intention to cause death, which allowed
some convicted murderers on death row in Singapore (including Kho Jabing) to
apply for the reduction of their death sentences after the courts in Singapore
confirmed that they committed murder without the intention to kill and thus
eligible for re-sentencing under the new death penalty laws in Singapore. [169]
[170]
In 2019 Malaysia considered abolishing the death penalty, but instead
abolished mandatory death sentences; any death sentence is now passed at
the judge's discretion.[171] In June 2022, Malaysian law minister Wan Junaidi
pledged to abolish capital punishment and replace it with other punishments at
the discretion of the court.[172]

Drug trafficking

Main article: Capital punishment for drug trafficking

A sign at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport warns arriving travelers that
drug trafficking is a capital crime in the Republic of China (photo taken in 2005)
In 2018, at least 35 countries retained the death penalty for drug trafficking,
drug dealing, drug possession and related offences.[173] People are regularly
sentenced to death and executed for drug-related offences in China,
Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Vietnam. [173] Other
countries may retain the death penalty for symbolic purposes. [173]

The death penalty is mandated for drug trafficking in Singapore and Malaysia,
though since 2013, Singapore ruled that those who were certified to have
diminished responsibility (e.g. Major depressive disorder) or acting as drug
couriers and had assisted the authorities in tackling drug-related activities, will
be sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death, with the offender liable to
at least 15 strokes of the cane if he was not sentenced to death and was
simultaneously sentenced to caning as well.[169][170] Notable drug couriers
include Yong Vui Kong, whose death sentence was replaced with a life
sentence and 15 strokes of the cane in November 2013.[174]

Other offences

See also: Capital punishment for non-violent offenses and Capital punishment
by country

Other crimes that are punishable by death in some countries include:

 Terrorism
 Treason (a capital crime in most countries that retain capital punishment)
 Espionage
 Crimes against the state, such as attempting to overthrow government
(most countries with the death penalty)
 Political protests (Saudi Arabia)[175]
 Rape (China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE,
Qatar, Brunei, etc.)
 Economic crimes (China, Iran)
 Human trafficking (China)
 Corruption (China, Iran)
 Kidnapping (China, Bangladesh, the US states of Georgia[176] and Idaho,
[177]
etc.)
 Separatism (China)
 Unlawful sexual behaviour (Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Brunei,
Nigeria, etc.)
 Religious Hudud offences such as apostasy (Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Afghanistan etc.)
 Blasphemy (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, certain states in Nigeria)
 Moharebeh (Iran)
 Drinking alcohol (Iran)
 Witchcraft and sorcery (Saudi Arabia)[178][179]
 Arson (Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania, etc.)
  Hirabah/brigandage/armed and/or aggravated robbery (Algeria, Saudi
Arabia, Iran, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Ethiopia, the US state of Georgia [180]
etc.)[181]

Controversy and debate

See also: Capital punishment debate in the United States

Death penalty opponents regard the death penalty as inhumane[182] and criticize
it for its irreversibility.[183] They argue also that capital punishment lacks
deterrent effect,[184][185][186] or has a brutalization effect,[187][188] discriminates
against minorities and the poor, and that it encourages a "culture of violence".
[189]
There are many organizations worldwide, such as Amnesty International,[190]
and country-specific, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), that
have abolition of the death penalty as its main purpose.[191][192]

Advocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, [193][194] is a good tool
for police and prosecutors in plea bargaining,[195] makes sure that convicted
criminals do not offend again, and that it ensures justice for crimes such as
homicide, where other penalties will not inflict the desired retribution demanded
by the crime itself. Capital punishment for non-lethal crimes is usually
considerably more controversial, and abolished in many of the countries that
retain it.[196][197]

Retribution

Execution of a war criminal in Germany in 1946

Supporters of the death penalty argued that death penalty is morally justified
when applied in murder especially with aggravating elements such as for
murder of police officers, child murder, torture murder, multiple homicide and
mass killing such as terrorism, massacre and genocide. This argument is
strongly defended by New York Law School's Professor Robert Blecker,[198] who
says that the punishment must be painful in proportion to the crime.
Eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant defended a more extreme
position, according to which every murderer deserves to die on the grounds
that loss of life is incomparable to any penalty that allows them to remain alive,
including life imprisonment.[199]

Some abolitionists argue that retribution is simply revenge and cannot be

condoned. Others while accepting retribution as an element of criminal justice
nonetheless argue that life without parole is a sufficient substitute. It is also
argued that the punishing of a killing with another death is a relatively unusual
punishment for a violent act, because in general violent crimes are not
punished by subjecting the perpetrator to a similar act (e.g. rapists are,
typically, not punished by corporal punishment, although it may be inflicted in
Singapore, for example).[200]

Human rights

Abolitionists believe capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights,

because the right to life is the most important, and capital punishment violates
it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture.
Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it "cruel, inhuman and
degrading punishment". Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate
irreversible denial of Human Rights".[201] Albert Camus wrote in a 1956 book
called Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion & Death :

An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life
as a concentration camp is from prison. [...] For there to be an equivalency,
the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of
the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that
moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is
not encountered in private life.[202]

In the classic doctrine of natural rights as expounded by for instance Locke and
Blackstone, on the other hand, it is an important idea that the right to life can
be forfeited, as most other rights can be given due process is observed, such
as the right to property and the right to freedom, including provisionally, in
anticipation of an actual verdict.[203] As John Stuart Mill explained in a speech
given in Parliament against an amendment to abolish capital punishment for
murder in 1868:

And we may imagine somebody asking how we can teach people not to inflict
suffering by ourselves inflicting it? But to this I should answer – all of us would
answer – that to deter by suffering from inflicting suffering is not only possible,
but the very purpose of penal justice. Does fining a criminal show want of
respect for property, or imprisoning him, for personal freedom? Just as
unreasonable is it to think that to take the life of a man who has taken that of
another is to show want of regard for human life. We show, on the contrary,
most emphatically our regard for it, by the adoption of a rule that he who
violates that right in another forfeits it for himself, and that while no other crime
that he can commit deprives him of his right to live, this shall.[204]
In one of the most recent cases relating to the death penalty in Singapore,
activists like Jolovan Wham, Kirsten Han and Kokila Annamalai and even the
international groups like the United Nations and European Union argued for
Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, who has been on
death row at Singapore's Changi Prison since 2010, should not be executed
due to an alleged intellectual disability, as they argued that Nagaenthran has
low IQ of 69 and a psychiatrist has assessed him to be mentally impaired to an
extent that he should not be held liable to his crime and execution. They also
cited international law where a country should be prohibiting the execution of
mentally and intellectually impaired people in order to push for Singapore to
commute Nagaenthran's death penalty to life imprisonment based on protection
of human rights. However, the Singapore government and both Singapore's
High Court and Court of Appeal maintained their firm stance that despite his
certified low IQ, it is confirmed that Nagaenthran is not mentally or intellectually
disabled based on the joint opinion of three government psychiatrists as he is
able to fully understand the magnitude of his actions and has no problem in his
daily functioning of life.[205][206][207] Despite the international outcry, Nagaenthran
was executed on 27 April 2022.[208]

Non-painful execution

Further information: Cruel and unusual punishment

A gurney at San Quentin State Prison in California formerly used for executions
by lethal injection

Trends in most of the world have long been to move to private and less painful
executions. France developed the guillotine for this reason in the final years of
the 18th century, while Britain banned hanging, drawing, and quartering in the
early 19th century. Hanging by turning the victim off a ladder or by kicking a
stool or a bucket, which causes death by suffocation, was replaced by long
drop "hanging" where the subject is dropped a longer distance to dislocate the
neck and sever the spinal cord. Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia
(1896–1907) introduced throat-cutting and blowing from a gun (close-range
cannon fire) as quick and relatively painless alternatives to more torturous
methods of executions used at that time.[209] In the United States, electrocution
and gas inhalation were introduced as more humane alternatives to hanging,
but have been almost entirely superseded by lethal injection. A small number of
countries, for example Iran and Saudi Arabia, still employ slow hanging
methods, decapitation, and stoning.

A study of executions carried out in the United States between 1977 and 2001
indicated that at least 34 of the 749 executions, or 4.5%, involved
"unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary
agony for the prisoner or that reflect gross incompetence of the executioner".
The rate of these "botched executions" remained steady over the period of the
study.[210] A separate study published in The Lancet in 2005 found that in 43%
of cases of lethal injection, the blood level of hypnotics was insufficient to
guarantee unconsciousness.[211] However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
2008 (Baze v. Rees) and again in 2015 (Glossip v. Gross) that lethal injection
does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.[212] In Bucklew v. Precythe,
the majority verdict – written by Judge Neil Gorsuch – further affirmed this
principle, stating that while the ban on cruel and unusual punishment
affirmatively bans penalties that deliberately inflict pain and degradation, it does
in no sense limit the possible infliction of pain in the execution of a capital
verdict.[213]

Wrongful execution

Main article: Wrongful execution

Capital punishment was abolished in the United Kingdom in part because of the
case of Timothy Evans, who was executed in 1950 after being wrongfully
convicted of two murders that had in fact been committed by his landlord, John
Christie. The case was considered vital in bolstering opposition, which limited
the scope of the penalty in 1957 and abolished it completely, for murder, in
1965.

It is frequently argued that capital punishment leads to miscarriage of justice

through the wrongful execution of innocent persons.[214] Many people have
been proclaimed innocent victims of the death penalty.[215][216][217]

Some have claimed that as many as 39 executions have been carried out in the
face of compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt in the
US from 1992 through 2004. Newly available DNA evidence prevented the
pending execution of more than 15 death row inmates during the same period
in the US,[218] but DNA evidence is only available in a fraction of capital cases.
[219]
As of 2017, 159 prisoners on death row have been exonerated by DNA or
other evidence, which is seen as an indication that innocent prisoners have
almost certainly been executed.[220][221] The National Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty claims that between 1976 and 2015, 1,414 prisoners in the
United States have been executed while 156 sentenced to death have had their
death sentences vacated.[222] It is impossible to assess how many have been
wrongly executed, since courts do not generally investigate the innocence of a
dead defendant, and defense attorneys tend to concentrate their efforts on
clients whose lives can still be saved; however, there is strong evidence of
innocence in many cases.[223]

Improper procedure may also result in unfair executions. For example, Amnesty
International argues that in Singapore "the Misuse of Drugs Act contains a
series of presumptions which shift the burden of proof from the prosecution to
the accused. This conflicts with the universally guaranteed right to be presumed
innocent until proven guilty".[224] Singapore's Misuse of Drugs Act presumes one
is guilty of possession of drugs if, as examples, one is found to be present or
escaping from a location "proved or presumed to be used for the purpose of
smoking or administering a controlled drug", if one is in possession of a key to
a premises where drugs are present, if one is in the company of another person
found to be in possession of illegal drugs, or if one tests positive after being
given a mandatory urine drug screening. Urine drug screenings can be given at
the discretion of police, without requiring a search warrant. The onus is on the
accused in all of the above situations to prove that they were not in possession
of or consumed illegal drugs.[225]

Volunteers

Main article: Volunteer (capital punishment)

Some prisoners have volunteered or attempted to expedite capital punishment,

often by waiving all appeals. Prisoners have made requests or committed
further crimes in prison as well. In the United States, execution volunteers
constitute approximately 11% of prisoners on death row. Volunteers often
bypass legal procedures which are designed to designate the death penalty for
the "worst of the worst" offenders. Opponents of execution volunteering cited
the prevalence of mental illness among volunteers comparing it to suicide.
Execution volunteers have received considerably less attention and effort at
legal reform than those who were exonerated after execution.[226]

Racial, ethnic and social class bias

Opponents of the death penalty argue that this punishment is being used more
often against perpetrators from racial and ethnic minorities and from lower
socioeconomic backgrounds, than against those criminals who come from a
privileged background; and that the background of the victim also influences
the outcome.[227][228][229] Researchers have shown that white Americans are more
likely to support the death penalty when told that it is mostly applied to black
Americans,[230] and that more stereotypically black-looking or darkskinned
defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death if the case involves a white
victim.[231] However, a study published in 2018 failed to replicate the findings of
earlier studies that had concluded that white Americans are more likely to
support the death penalty if informed that it is largely applied to black
Americans; according to the authors, their findings "may result from changes
since 2001 in the effects of racial stimuli on white attitudes about the death
penalty or their willingness to express those attitudes in a survey context." [232]

In Alabama in 2019, a death row inmate named Domineque Ray was denied his
imam in the room during his execution, instead only offered a Christian
chaplain.[233] After filing a complaint, a federal court of appeals ruled 5–4
against Ray's request. The majority cited the "last-minute" nature of the
request, and the dissent stated that the treatment went against the core
principle of denominational neutrality.[233]

In July 2019, two Shiite men, Ali Hakim al-Arab, 25, and Ahmad al-Malali, 24,
were executed in Bahrain, despite the protests from the United Nations and
rights group. Amnesty International stated that the executions were being
carried out on confessions of "terrorism crimes" that were obtained through
torture.[234]

On 30 March 2022, despite the appeals by the United Nations and rights
activists, 68-year-old Malay Singaporean Abdul Kahar Othman was hanged at
Singapore's Changi Prison for illegally trafficking diamorphine, which marked
the first execution in Singapore since 2019 as a result of an informal
moratorium caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier, there were appeals
made to advocate for Abdul Kahar's death penalty be commuted to life
imprisonment on humanitarian grounds, as Abdul Kahar came from a poor
family and has struggled with drug addiction. He was also revealed to have
been spending most of his life going in and out of prison, including a ten-year
sentence of preventive detention from 1995 to 2005, and has not been given
much time for rehabilitation, which made the activists and groups arguing that
Abdul Kahar should be given a chance for rehabilitation instead of subjecting
him to execution.[235][236][237] Both the European Union (EU) and Amnesty
International criticised Singapore for finalizing and carrying out Abdul Kahar's
execution, and about 400 Singaporeans protested against the government's
use of the death penalty merely days after Abdul Kahar's death sentence was
authorised.[238][239][240][206] Still, over 80% of the public supported the use of the
death penalty in Singapore.[241]

International views

Same-sex intercourse illegal:

  Death penalty for homosexuality
  Death penalty in legislation, but not applied
The United Nations introduced a resolution during the General Assembly's 62nd
sessions in 2007 calling for a universal ban.[242][243] The approval of a draft
resolution by the Assembly's third committee, which deals with human rights
issues, voted 99 to 52, with 33 abstentions, in favour of the resolution on 15
November 2007 and was put to a vote in the Assembly on 18 December. [244][245]
[246]

Again in 2008, a large majority of states from all regions adopted, on 20

November in the UN General Assembly (Third Committee), a second resolution
calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty; 105 countries voted in
favour of the draft resolution, 48 voted against and 31 abstained.

A range of amendments proposed by a small minority of pro-death penalty

countries were overwhelmingly defeated. It had in 2007 passed a non-binding
resolution (by 104 to 54, with 29 abstentions) by asking its member states for
"a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty". [247]

Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union affirms

the prohibition on capital punishment in the EU

A number of regional conventions prohibit the death penalty, most notably, the
Sixth Protocol (abolition in time of peace) and the 13th Protocol (abolition in all
circumstances) to the European Convention on Human Rights. The same is
also stated under the Second Protocol in the American Convention on Human
Rights, which, however, has not been ratified by all countries in the Americas,
most notably Canada[248] and the United States. Most relevant operative
international treaties do not require its prohibition for cases of serious crime,
most notably, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This
instead has, in common with several other treaties, an optional protocol
prohibiting capital punishment and promoting its wider abolition. [249]

Several international organizations have made the abolition of the death penalty
(during the time of peace) a requirement of membership, most notably the EU
and the Council of Europe. The EU and the Council of Europe are willing to
accept a moratorium as an interim measure. Thus, while Russia is a member of
the Council of Europe, and the death penalty remains codified in its law, it has
not made use of it since becoming a member of the council – Russia has not
executed anyone since 1996. With the exception of Russia (abolitionist in
practice) and Belarus (retentionist), all European countries are classified as
abolitionist.[80]
Latvia abolished de jure the death penalty for war crimes in 2012, becoming the
last EU member to do so.[250]

The Protocol no.13 calls for the abolition of the death penalty in all
circumstances (including for war crimes). The majority of European countries
have signed and ratified it. Some European countries have not done this, but all
of them except Belarus have now abolished the death penalty in all
circumstances (de jure, and Russia de facto). Poland is the most recent
country to ratify the protocol, on 28 August 2013.[251]

Signatories to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR: parties in dark

green, signatories in light green, non-members in grey

Protocol no.6 which prohibits the death penalty during peacetime has been
ratified by all members of the European Council, except Russia (which has
signed, but not ratified).

There are also other international abolitionist instruments, such as the Second
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
which has 90 parties;[252] and the Protocol to the American Convention on
Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty (for the Americas; ratified by 13
states).[253]

In Turkey, over 500 people were sentenced to death after the 1980 Turkish
coup d'état. About 50 of them were executed, the last one 25 October 1984.
Then there was a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Turkey. As a
move towards EU membership, Turkey made some legal changes. The death
penalty was removed from peacetime law by the National Assembly in August
2002, and in May 2004 Turkey amended its constitution to remove capital
punishment in all circumstances. It ratified Protocol no. 13 to the European
Convention on Human Rights in February 2006.[citation needed] As a result, Europe is
a continent free of the death penalty in practice, all states but Russia, which
has entered a moratorium, having ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European
Convention on Human Rights, with the sole exception of Belarus, which is not a
member of the Council of Europe.[citation needed] The Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe has been lobbying for Council of Europe observer states who
practise the death penalty, the U.S. and Japan, to abolish it or lose their
observer status. In addition to banning capital punishment for EU member
states, the EU has also banned detainee transfers in cases where the receiving
party may seek the death penalty.[citation needed]
Sub-Saharan African countries that have recently abolished the death penalty
include Burundi, which abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2009, [254]
and Gabon which did the same in 2010.[255] On 5 July 2012, Benin became part
of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), which prohibits the use of the death penalty. [256]

The newly created South Sudan is among the 111 UN member states that
supported the resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly that
called for the removal of the death penalty, therefore affirming its opposition to
the practice. South Sudan, however, has not yet abolished the death penalty
and stated that it must first amend its Constitution, and until that happens it will
continue to use the death penalty.[257]

Among non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Amnesty International and

Human Rights Watch are noted for their opposition to capital punishment. [258]
[259]
A number of such NGOs, as well as trade unions, local councils, and bar
associations, formed a World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2002.[260]

An open letter led by Danish Member of the European Parliament, Karen

Melchior was sent to the European Commission ahead of the 26 January 2021
meeting of the Bahraini Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al
Zayani with the members of the European Union for the signing of a
Cooperation Agreement. A total of 16 MEPs undersigned the letter expressing
their grave concern towards the extended abuse of human rights in Bahrain
following the arbitrary arrest and detention of activists and critics of the
government. The attendees of the meeting were requested to demand from
their Bahraini counterparts to take into consideration the concerns raised by the
MEPs, particularly for the release of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja and Sheikh
Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, the two European-Bahraini dual citizens on
death row.[261][262]

Religious views

Main article: Religion and capital punishment

The world's major faiths have differing views depending on the religion,
denomination, sect and/or the individual adherent. As an example, the world's
largest Christian denomination, Catholicism, has traditionally supported capital
punishment as a necessary evil, but in modern times opposes capital
punishment in all cases.[263][264] Both the Baháʼí and Islamic faiths support
capital punishment.[265][266]