Amnesty puts Iraq among world’s biggest executioners
Noose (representational photo)
In a report released on Tuesday, the London-based organization said Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan joined China as world’s top five executioners.
“Excluding China, 87% of all executions took place in just four countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan,” according to the organization.
Amnesty said 1,032 people were executed in 23 countries in 2016, a drop from 2015’s recorded count of 1,634 executions in 25 countries worldwide.
“The fall in executions worldwide is largely driven by drops in Iran (down 42% from at least 977 to at least 567) and Pakistan (73%, from 326 to 87),” the report said.
It said that Iraq was among countries where confessions before death sentences were extracted by force. “In many countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, the proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards. In some cases this included the extraction of ‘confessions’ through torture or other ill-treatment, including in Bahrain, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.”
It said, however, that the executions rate dropped during 2016 in In the Middle East and North Africa by 28%, but Iran and Saudi Arabia remained among the top executioners.