According to the report, released on Thursday, China implemented “more death sentences than the rest of the world combined”. Amnesty believes thousands of executions and death sentences occurred in 2017 in China, where they are considered a state secret. China aside, executions worldwide dropped again in 2017, with at least 993 recorded in 23 countries – down 4% from 2016 and 39% from 2015. “The progress in sub-Saharan Africa reinforced its position as a beacon of hope for abolition,” the Amnesty International secretary general, Salil Shetty, said. Drug-related executions were recorded in China, Iran, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, where “drug-related beheadings rocketed from 16% of total executions in 2016 to 40” in 2017.

Source: The Guardian April 12, 2018 04:52 UTC