four gun smugglers were sentenced to death at the first trial by a local court in northwest China's Qinghai Province.

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev called for constitutional amendments that would abolish the death penalty and strip future presidents of immunity from prosecution after they stepped down from office.

the way executions are carried out in Luzira Upper Prison, Uganda, has a devastating effect on both the prison personnel and the other death row inmates, a report by the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) said.

the European Union severely criticised Iran's human rights record, saying its performance on the death penalty, freedom of expression and religious liberty had deteriorated.

the Russian parliament should ratify a document abolishing the death penalty in Russia by the end of 2005, said Chairman of the State Duma Civil, Criminal, Arbitration, and Procedural Law Committee Pavel Krasheninnikov.

the US Supreme Court declined to review the case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, a California death-row inmate whose attorneys argued that the prosecutor had engaged in racial discrimination in selecting the jury for his trial.

the state-run daily Iran wrote "The Judiciary in Shahriar sentenced to death a 17-year-old, named Hamid."

Europe's leading human rights watchdog pleaded with the United States and Japan to end capital punishment, arguing their example would force others to follow.

the UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking as Presidency on behalf of the EU, issued the following statement to mark the World Day against the Death Penalty.

Turkey’s Parliament passed the Protocol No. 13 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concerning the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances.

Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis expressed hope that Russia would ratify the sixth protocol to the European Convention of Human Rights.

a Pakistani military court sentenced four air force staff to death and two to life in jail on for their involvement in an al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.