www.bbc.com Saudi Arabia put to death 184 people in 2019 – a record number for the kingdom – despite a decline in executions worldwide, Amnesty International says.
The number of executions also doubled in Iraq to 100 last year, while Iran remained the second most prolific executioner after China, with 251.
However, global confirmed executions decreased for the fourth consecutive year to 657 – 5% less than in 2018.
It was the lowest recorded figure of the past decade, according to Amnesty.
The human rights group’s tally does not include China, where the number of executions – believed to be in the thousands – remains a state secret.
It also notes that other countries, including Iran, North Korea and Vietnam, hide the full extent of their use of the death penalty by restricting access to information.
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“The death penalty is an abhorrent and inhuman punishment; and there is no credible evidence that it deters crime more than prisons terms. A large majority of countries recognize this and it’s encouraging to see that executions continue to fall worldwide,” said Clare Algar, Amnesty’s senior director for research.
“However, a small number of countries defied the global trend away from the death penalty by increasingly resorting to executions.”
