the Nigeria Police Forces were indicted as major perpetrators in a rising incidence of unlawful killings in the country, with over 2,980 people killed in 2004, a figure which represented a 400 per cent increase over a corresponding figure of 756 extra-judicial deaths in preceding year, 2003.

Lu Lei, a teacher convicted of raping 32 girls under the age of 14, was executed in southwest China a day before the country marked its annual Teacher's Day.

British Interior Minister Charles Clarke told EU lawmakers that it was necessary to rethink the European Convention of Human Rights on the ban on extraditing people to countries where they risked torture and execution.

the Sudanese government has executed prisoners who were minors at the time of their arrest, Human Rights Watch said.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian vowed to the abolish death penalty so that Taiwan could become a country founded on the basis of human rights.

Mohammad Panj-Bini and Esmail Mohammadi, twoiranian Kurdish activists, were hanged in a prison in the town of Orumieh, northwest Iran, for their opposition to the Iranian regime, opposition websites reported.

a court in Iran sentenced a woman to 100 lashes and 15 years jail time and an Afghan man to execution on charges of murder, Persian-language websites reported.

Iraqi MPs debated sweeping anti-terror legislation that would make even crimes such as vandalism subject to the death penalty in a bid to quell the raging insurgency.

ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "confessed" to releasing orders for executions and a campaign against Kurds in which thousands of people are said to have been killed, President Jalal Talabani said.

Saudi Arabia executed Jameel bin Abdullah bin Safar al-Fahmy, a Saudi man convicted of murdering a compatriot after a feud.

the Iranian authorities’ executed the Kurdish political prisoner Ismayil Muhemedi, his brother was reported as telling local media.

Houshang Bameri, an Iranian man convicted of murder and armed robbery was hanged in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.