Kounteya Sinha & Anahita
Mukherji, TNN | Apr 1, 2015, 06.35AM IST
LONDON/MUMBAI: Indian courts sentenced 64 people to death in 2014, making India
one of the top 10 in a list of 55 countries where such sentences were handed
out last year.
India was also one of seven
countries that had executed people on 2013, but carried out no executions in
2014, Amnesty International's Death Penalty Report 2015 released on Tuesday
noted.
The figures from India mirror
worldwide data, which shows a 22% decrease in executions in 2014 compared with
the previous year, but a 28% increase in death sentences when compared with
2013.
While at least 607 people were
executed worldwide in 2014, 2,466 were sentenced to death. Three countries —
Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia — were responsible for 72% of the 607 recorded
executions.
The figure for executions
represents the minimum number of people executed, as data on the death penalty
is a state secret in Belarus, China and Vietnam, while little or no information
was available from countries like Syria and North Korea.
Though China does not release
official figures for the death penalty, Amnesty International monitored
executions in the country and found them to be more that the rest of the world
put together.
Amnesty has taken a clear stand
against the death sentence. "Governments using the death penalty to tackle
crime are deluding themselves. There is no evidence that the threat of
execution is a greater deterrent to crime than any other punishment,"
Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty said.
"Governments must stop
justifying judicial killing on the notion that it has a unique deterrent
effect," added Amnesty's death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio.
The Death Penalty Research
Project of the National Law University (Delhi) found 270 people in India were
currently on death row, while eight had their mercy petitions rejected in 2014.
The 64 new death sentences handed
out in India last year were for murder and, for the first time since the 2013
amendment to the criminal law, for rape by repeat offenders.
"In India, as with a lot of
other countries, violence against women has been used to justify the death
penalty. And yet, study after study across the world shows that there is no
proof that death penalty is a greater deterrent for crime than
imprisonment," said Shailesh Rai, senior policy advisor at Amnesty
International India.
He said handing out death
sentences is mere tokenism, and evades the real problem which can only be
solved through judicial and police reforms.
"The conviction rate for
rape in India is 27% and this is only for cases that make it to the trial
stage. Only one in 100 cases of sexual violence are reported. When the
certainty of punishment is so low, increasing the severity of punishment at the
end of a long and tedious process makes for a false argument in support of the
death sentence."
The execution of Afzal Guru, points out Rai, is an instance where the death
penalty was used as a political tool, rather than a tool for criminal justice.
India hanged him in secret in February 2013.
In a landmark judgment in January
2014, the Supreme Court commuted the death sentences of 15 people — 13 on the
grounds of an inordinate delay in hearing their mercy petitions, and two on the
grounds of mental illness.
The judgment noted that an
"undue, inordinate and unreasonable delay in execution of death sentence
amounted to torture".
The Asia-Pacific region recorded
a decline in the number of death sentences in 2014 compared with the previous
year, largely because Bangladesh recorded a very high number of death sentences
in 2013.
Pakistan lifted a six-year
moratorium on executing civilians after the attack on a Peshawar school.
Incidentally, the US is the only country in the Americas to carry out
executions.
From 1995 to 2014, Amnesty
recorded a 66% increase in the number of countries abolishing the death
penalty, from 59 to 98.
During this period, there has
also been a nearly 50% decline in the number of countries carrying out
executions, which came down from 41 to 22.
Death Sentence And Executions
2014: Amnesty International report
Executions took place in 22
countries in 2014, the same number of countries as in 2013
At least 607 executions were
carried out worldwide, a decrease of almost 22% compared with 2013. (China not
included, doesn't share data)
At least 2,466 people are known
to have been sentenced to death in 2014, a 28% increase compared with 2013
(largely because of Egypt/Nigeria)
7 countries, including India that
executed convicts in 2013 did not do so in 2014
While the government of India
scheduled several executions in 2014, none were carried out
Over 64 people in India sentenced
to death in 2014
270 people in India were under
the sentence of death and that eight people had their mercy petitions rejected
in 2014
Pakistan lifted 6-year moratorium
on the execution of civilians in the wake of the Peshawar school attack.
Commutations or pardons of death
sentences recorded in 28 countries including India.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/India-one-of-top-10-nations-where-death-sentences-were-handed-out-last-year/articleshow/46764947.cms [last
accessed 09 April 2015]
