[Tee tiong huat]

Three U S. aircraft carriers now in Middle East ahh.
Hoot...Ahh.

While More people were executed in 2024 than in any other year over the past decade, a huge increase in executions in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Amnesty Intl’s annual report on the use of the death penalty, the number of countries carrying out executions was lowest on record, it had confirmed 1,518 executions globally in 2024, a 32% increase over the previous year and the highest since the 1,634 carried out in 2015. The real total was far higher, Amnesty added, because its figure did not include thousands believed to have been executed in China, the world’s biggest executioner, or North Korea and Vietnam. Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which accounted for 91% of executions worldwide, were responsible for the increase. Iraq almost quadrupled its executions from at least 16 to at least 63 and Saudi Arabia doubled its yearly total from 172 to at least 345.

Iran executed 119 more people than in 2023, raising its tally to at least 972 – a figure that included 30 women and represented 64% of the global total. All known executions in Iraq were for terrorism offences, while about half of those in Iran were for drug-related offences. Other countries executions increased included Egypt (from eight in 2023 to 13 last year); Spore, where executions nearly doubled (from five to nine) &
Yemen, where the total more than doubled from at least 15 to at least 38. The total 25 executions in US was one more than in 2023 & most since 2018. The period studied covers Joe Biden’s last year in office. His successor, Donald Trump, has said he aims to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty as a tool to protect people “from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters”.

Only 15 countries were known to have executed people in 2024, the lowest on record for the second year running, Amnesty said, adding that 113 countries were now fully abolitionist and 145 had abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. The campaign organisation also noted that several countries had legally limited their use of the death penalty, and that for the first time, more than two-thirds of all UN member states had voted in favour of a resolution on a moratorium. Amnesty International’s secretary general, said it was clear countries that retained death penalty were an “isolated minority”. She added that tide was turning against “a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”.