The Death Penalty in 2005

Amnesty International has released a new report about the death penalty in 2005. The report can be accessed by clicking here, and it has many interesting statistics about the U.S. as well as other countries.

As their website reports:

In 2005

• at least 2,148 people were executed in 22 countries
• 94% of them were killed in China,, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA
• An additional 5,186 people were sentenced to death

However, despite the shocking figures, the trend towards abolition continues to grow: the number of countries carrying out executions has dropped for a fourth consecutive year; over the last twenty years, numbers have halved. Mexico and Liberia have most recently abolished the death penalty.

--Tom Hayes