as many as 41,500 healthy people who practice Falun Gong became involuntary victims of organ transplants and murdered between 2002 and 2005, according to a report that was presented before the U.S. Congress.

islamic radicals carried out their second public execution in less than a month amid fears of increasing extremist violence in Somalia.

Rwanda's ruling party will push for a law abolishing the death penalty in the east African state, a senior party official said. Outlawing capital punishment would clear the way for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and western countries to extradite genocide suspects to Rwanda.

the judiciary has suspended the hanging of Kobra Rahmanpour "while it waits for the husband's family to pardon her," said in an interview her attorney, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi.

a woman sentenced to death in Vietnam for smuggling heroin and detained in isolation became pregnant and would thus have her sentence commuted to life imprisonment, her lawyer said.

a prominent UAE human rights activist has called for the abolition of the death penalty in the UAE, on the fourth annual World Day Against the Death Penalty.

a resolution was deposited at the Chamber of Deputies’ Foreign Commission asking the government to “fully and immediately put into action” the motion established in Parliament last July 27 to present at the ongoing UN General Assembly a resolution for a UN moratorium on executions, with view to complete abolition of the death penalty.

a group of European Parliamentarians sent a letter to the European Council and to EU Ministers asking they support a moratorium on executions at the UN General Assembly.

the Chamber of Deputies approved the first reading of the law repealing all references to the death penalty in Italy’s Constitution.

an Egyptian human rights organization has called for the abolition of capital punishment, on the fourth annual World Day against the death penalty.

the government should commit itself to presenting a resolution for a moratorium on executions at the ongoing UN General Assembly, even without unanimous support from the European Union. At a press conference held in Rome, Hands Off Cain appealed to the Italian government to respect the motion calling for such action approved by the Chamber of Deputies last July 27.

Jordan’s top appeals court commuted the death sentence of two convicted Islamists over a millennium bomb plot.