DEATH PENALTY. HANDS OFF CAIN PRESENTS DOSSIER

October 10, 2008: For the European Day Against Capital Punishment, Hands Off Cain presented a dossier entitled "The death penalty around the world - THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF THE FIRST NINE MONTHS OF 2008". The global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty continued in the first nine months of 2008, according to the association.
Today, there are 150 countries or territories that have abolished capital punishment in law or in practise. There are 47 retentionist countries, down from 49 in 2007. In the first nine months of 2008, the number of countries that actually held executions also decreased: 18, down from 26 in 2007.
In the first nine months of 2008 there were at least 5,454 executions, down from the at least 5,851 executions in 2007. This significant decrease was affected by the UN resolution on the Universal Moratorium on capital punishment on December 18, 2007.
Of the 47 countries still employing the death penalty, 38 are dictatorial, authoritarian or non-liberal regimes. In the first months of 2008, these countries held more than 99% of the global total of executions. Three authoritarian countries had the highest use of capital punishment in the first months of 2008, their positions unchanged from 2007: China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Four liberal democracies employed the death penalty in the first months of 2008 and held 45 executions in total, less than 1% of the global total: United States (24), Japan (13), Indonesia (at least 7) and Botswana (at least 1). Executions were also possibly held in Mongolia, even if this wasn't mentioned in official data.
Once again, Asia is the continent where almost all executions took place. In the first nine months of 2008, there were at least 5,410 executions on the Asian continent, 5,000 of them in China. This represents a net fall from the at least 5,782 executions in 2007.
In Africa, the death penalty was employed by only 4 countries in the first nine months of 2008 (compared to 7 in 2007), where at least 17 executions took place, compared to the at least 26 executions in 2007 and 87 in 2006.
In Europe, Belorussia continued to be the only exception in a continent otherwise totally free from the death penalty.
During 2007, 8 countries became abolitionist, and another 4 did so in the first nine months of 2008 (Uzbekistan, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sierra Leone and Argentina).
In the first nine months of 2008, Cameroon, Cuba commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment, Pakistan announced that this would occur and Trinidad and Tobago did so for those on death row for murder.
The United States was the only country in the Americas to hold executions in the first nine months of 2008: 24 (compared to 42 in 2007 and 53 in 2006). In 2007, New Jersey became the first American state in forty years to abolish the death penalty. The Supreme Court decided on the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection and this caused a suspension of executions in many states from September 2007 until May 2008. (Sources: HOC, 10/10/2008)