The Irish Times view on the Amnesty report on the death penalty: collating the depressing statistics

Amnesty International’s latest annual survey of the use of the death penalty, published last week, reported that the number of executions worldwide in 2023 reached 1,153, the highest figure since 2015.

The statistic is depressing enough in itself, yet in terms of state-sanctioned killings this is the tip of the iceberg. In some states, like China, North Korea or Vietnam, the figures for executions are not published, being regarded as a state secret. Nor, of course, does Amnesty’s figure include the huge number of civilian deaths caused by military action, in Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan or other conflict zones.

By far the greatest proportion of executions last year was in Iran (853), followed by Saudi Arabia (172). There were also significant numbers in Somalia (38) and the United States (24).

State-sanctioned execution is carried out for a variety of motives and imposed for a variety of crimes and supposed crimes. In Vietnam and other parts of southeast Asia drug traffickers often face the death penalty. In the US it is a possible punishment for homicide, though one which tends to fall with greater statistical frequency on the poor and the non-white.

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In Iran, however, capital punishment is frequently imposed for absurd pseudo-offences like “waging war against God”, which means little more than opposing the government. It is used principally as a weapon of terror, enabling the political-religious elite to keep the democratic opposition in a state of fear and powerlessness.

If there is any comfort to be taken from the Amnesty report it is that the number of states still imposing the death penalty continues to decline. There were no judicial killings anywhere in Europe last year, nor in Canada or Central or South America. In Africa only two states carried out executions.

The effectiveness of the pressure of public opinion on those who persist in this barbarous practice is uncertain, but Amnesty’s annual reports serve a useful purpose in collating and highlighting the depressing evidence.