According to Amnesty International, there are sixty-eight countries that retain the death penalty and carry out executions. But even this
number is misleading. In reality, the vast majority of the world’s executions are carried out by seven nations: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Pakistan, Yemen, and Vietnam.
Many Americans know that the nations comprising Europe (except Belarus) and South America are abolitionist. But how many are aware that of the fifty-three nations in Africa only four ( Uganda, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan) carried out executions in 2005? Even in Asia, where many nations have long insisted that the death penalty is an appropriate and necessary sanction, there are signs of change. The Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006, and the national bar associations of Malaysia and Japan have called for a moratorium on executions.
2019-03-06 Keith Tharpe and the Death Penalty’s Racist Roots
2007-11-07 The Global Debate on the Death Penalty
.
progressiveissuesblog 