The Wire

Amnesty International released a report yesterday showing that that the number of countries carrying out the death penalty has halved in the last 20 years, but still at least 2000 people were executed in 22 countries last year. 80 per cent of those executions took place in China, but also the United States features in the top four list, together with Iran and Saudi Arabia. Amnesty’s Anti-Death-Penalty Coordinator Tim Goodwin says there are currently 20,000 people on death row around the world, waiting for their own governments to kill them.