China still executes more people than anywhere else

By THE DATA TEAM

AMNESTY International released its annual report on death sentences and executions on April 12th. China topped the list again, by some way. Although the human-rights organisation stopped publishing China estimates in 2009 for lack of data, those available suggest thousands of people are executed annually. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan lag behind. While 56 countries still execute people for ordinary crimes, the punishment’s prevalence has fallen. Guinea and Mongolia abolished the death penalty last year, making it 106 countries that have done so in law; 36 more have abandoned it in practice. America bucked the trend, with a slight rise in 2017 (though numbers remain near historic lows)—some states, notably Arkansas, have resumed executions after years in hiatus. President Donald Trump’s recent musings on executing drug dealers raised Amnesty’s ire. It has long been lobbying emerging economies to end capital punishment for drug-related offences, which it says don’t meet the internationally agreed “most-serious crimes” threshold.