Death Sentences and Executions in 2021

Anne Parry
Founder member of the Valpolicella branch of the Movimento Federalista Europeo

Amnesty International’s latest report on death sentences and executions for 2021 makes for mixed reading. It is depressing to read that there has been a rise in the number of known death sentences of almost 40% since the last report in 2020, and a 20% increase in global executions, but if we look at the figures over the last decade there has been a slight fall in the number of executions overall and a rise in the number of countries that have abolished the death penalty since 2010.  Part of the recent rise in the number of executions may be due to factors related to the pandemic, which have slowed down procedures in courts throughout the world; it is to be hoped that the trend towards fewer executions will be confirmed in future years.

In their report, Amnesty divides the world into 5 regions: the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The report is only as accurate as the information Amnesty has been able to obtain, and we must be careful to remember that it does not include the thousands of executions and death sentences that were carried out in countries where secrecy prevails, particularly in China.

Methods of execution, included hanging, shooting, lethal injection, and beheading

In 2021 there were no records of executions by electrocution or stoning.

Use of the death penalty in violation of international law

Amnesty recorded many cases of violation of international law, including public executions (Yemen), executions for crimes committed by people under the age of 18 (Iran and Yemen), execution of people with disabilities, unfair trials, ‘confessions’ extracted through torture, and death sentences imposed in absentia.

Women executed and sentenced to death

24 women were among the 579 people known to have been executed in 2021 (4%), but the figure is likely to be higher. There is an active movement to ban the death penalty in Tunisia, where women make up 6% of those sentenced to death. Their crimes are more often acts of self-defence from domestic abuse and sexual violence than men’s, and they are more frequently subject to unfair trials. But even for those countries where figures were available, in most cases it was not possible to obtain a breakdown by gender. Amnesty International confirmed that of the 67 women they know who have been sentenced to death, 48 are in the USA.

Regional reports

Americas

In the USA, the number of executions continued to decline in 2021, reaching the lowest number on record since 1988. The federal administration under President Biden established a temporary moratorium on executions in July.  However, the Trump administration put three people to death in four days, just before leaving office on 20 January. Mississippi and Oklahoma executed people for the first time in 2012 and 2015 respectively, and in Alabama the state built a method for nitrogen gas execution, and officials wrangled over the fate of prisoners on death row affected by Covid-19, in one case seeking to make the man being executed wear a mask to prevent the spread of the disease. The rest of the Americas region remained execution-free for the 13^th consecutive year.

Asia Pacific

Secrecy in China, North Korea and Viet Nam made it impossible to assess the true number of state killings in the region, which Amnesty believes to be in the thousands. It was not possible to confirm information relating to the judicial use of the death penalty after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021.

Europe and Central Asia

As expected, there were no executions in Europe in 2021 (apart from the case of Viktar Paulau in Belarus). 

Middle East and North Africa

Iran accounted for 60% of the executions recorded in the region, and recorded executions also rose sharply in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, while they dropped in Iraq.

The number of people executed in Egypt in 2021 fell slightly, but the number of people sentenced to death by Egyptian courts in 2021 was much higher than in the report for 2020 and was the highest number of death sentences that Amnesty International recorded worldwide in 2021.

In Iran, the number of executions recorded by Amnesty rose by 28% compared to the previous year, largely due to an increase in executions for drug-related offences, but the overall figure is believed to be higher.

The parliament in Sierra Leone unanimously passed the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act on 23 July 2021.

Sub Saharan Africa

The overall number of recorded executions more than doubled as a result of rising numbers in two countries: Somalia and South Sudan.  

There was progress towards the abolition of the death penalty in several countries, including Sierra Leone, Ghana and the Central African Republic.

The role of Europe and the EU in the abolition of the death penalty worldwide

The death penalty was abolished by the European Convention on Human Rights Protocol No. 6 introduced in 1983 and signed by all 47 members of the Council of Europe, and ratified by all but one (Russia).

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union echoes the ECHR in underlining the inalienable right to life in Article 2 - Right to life:

• Everyone has the right to life.
• No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.

The EU is actively engaged in pursuing the abolition of the death penalty in the world using a range of strategies described in the article The death penalty and the EU's fight against it [1] .  The latest Amnesty report is a stimulus to continue this work with the aim of bringing to an end this cruel punishment. Apart from the risk of judicial errors, any form of execution involves torture and as such is unacceptable, but above all the death penalty denies the values that abolitionists hold dear: the right to life, the value of life, and the dignity of human beings.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2019/635516/EPRS_ATA(2019)635516_EN.pdf