25 July 2006 :

Hands Off Cain presented the 2006 edition of the annual Hands Off Cain Report: “The Death Penalty Worldwide”. The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2005 and the first half of 2006. There are currently 142 countries that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 90 are totally abolitionist; 10 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 1 (Russia) is committed to abolishing the death penalty as a member of the Council of Europe and currently observing a moratorium on executions; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 37 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. no executions have taken place in those countries for at least ten years). The countries that retain the death penalty total 54, down from 60 in 2004 and 61 in 2003.
The trend towards abolition is confirmed also by the number of countries among those that retain the death penalty that actively practise capital punishment. In 2005, only 24 countries carried out executions. There were 26 countries in 2004 and 30 in 2003 where people were put to death. As a result, the number of executions has also decreased: 5,494 in 2005 down from 5,530 in 2004.
Asia tops the standings again as the region where the sheer majority of executions are carried out. Taking the number of executions in China to be at least 5,000, the total for 2005 corresponds to a minimum 5,413 executions. This is nevertheless a decrease compared to 2004, when 5,450 executions were registered.
America would be practically death-penalty free were it not for the 60 people put to death in the United States, the only country on the continent to execute anyone in 2005 (59 people were executed in 2004 and 65 in 2003).
In Africa, the death penalty appears to be falling into disuse. In 2005 only four countries put people to death – Uganda (8), Libya (6), Sudan (4) and Somalia (1) – where at least 19 executions are known to have taken place. The known total on the continent was 16 in 2004 and 60 in 2003.
In Europe, the only blemish on an otherwise completely death penalty-free zone is Belarus, where at least 2 people were put to death in 2005. Of the 54 countries worldwide that retain the death penalty, 43 are dictatorial, authoritarian or illiberal states. These countries were responsible for 5,420 executions, equal to 98.7% of the world total in 2005.
China alone carried out at least 5,000, or 91%, of the world total of executions. Iran put at least 113 people to death and Saudi Arabia at least 90. These were followed by: North Korea with at least 75; Pakistan at least 42; Vietnam at least 27; Jordan 15; Mongolia, Uganda and Singapore 8; Kuwait and Yemen at least 7; Uzbekistan 2.  
Many of these countries do not issue official statistics on the practice of the death penalty therefore the number of executions may in fact be much higher.
A closer look at these statistics points to the fact that the fight against the death penalty entails, beyond the stopping of executions, a battle for democracy, for the respect of the rule of law and for political rights and civil liberties.
The terrible podium of the world’s top executioners is again taken by three authoritarian states in 2005: China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.