the Falun Dafa Information Center revealed that, in response to public exposure, officials in China had begun a massive, deadly campaign to destroy evidence of concentration camps holding practitioners of Falun Gong; at the camps, the Falun Gong were killed after having their organs extracted for sale.

a Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh, convicted ‘Bulbul of Jhautali’ and sentenced him to death for killing his wife.

an Iranian man convicted of murder was hanged in southern Kerman province.

the European Union welcomed Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's decision to commute the sentences of dozens of inmates on death row.

a court in Moga, in the Indian state of Punjab, sentenced to death a woman exactly a month after burning her daughter-in-law to death in a fit of rage.

an Iranian man convicted of murder was publicly hanged in southern Kerman province.

the number of homicides in Houston, Texas, rose nearly 25 % during the first 3 months of 2006, compared with the same period last year, despite a multimillion-dollar police effort in the city's most crime-ridden areas, the Houston Chronicle reported.

the Council of Europe's envoys urged Russia to fulfill its pledge to abolish the death penalty as it prepared to take over the rotating presidency in the continent's top human rights body.

a Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced five militants from an Al-Qaeda-linked group to death for a 2002 attack on a prison van which killed a policeman and a prisoner.

Algeria’s new criminal code, approved by the council of ministers and currently under parliamentary scrutiny, still included references to the death penalty, reported AGR news agency.

a court in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region sentenced to death 12 members of militant group Ansar al-Islam for numerous killings and explosions, an Arbil judiciary official said.

responding to intense public criticism over the high rate of executions, China's apex court established three new criminal tribunals to review certain types of death sentence passed by provincial courts.