On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence.
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China led world executions in 2007
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- China executed at least 470 people last year -- more than any other country in the world, according to an annual report on the death penalty by the human rights group Amnesty International.
The group said that five countries carried out 88 percent of all known executions worldwide: China (470 people), Iran (317), Saudi Arabia (143), Pakistan (135) and the United States (42).
Exact figures for how many people were put to death in China are difficult to come by because the country considers the death penalty a "state secret," Amnesty said.
"As the world and Olympic guests are left guessing, only the Chinese authorities know exactly how many people have been killed with state authorization," the group said.
Last year, China reformed the way capital cases are handled, with the Supreme Court deciding all cases. This led to a drop in the number of executions, with "half of the cases changed to a reprieve in the end," according to an article last week in China's state-run news agency, Xinhua.
In December, the United Nations General Assembly called for a global end to the death penalty. But for now, the Amnesty report said, many countries continued to execute people for offenses that trigger much less severe sentences in other countries.
In Iran, for example, a father of two was stoned to death for adultery. An Egyptian national was beheaded in Saudi Arabia for practicing sorcery. And a factory manager in North Korea was shot by a firing squad because he appointed his children as managers and made international phone calls.
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Amnesty International on Wednesday criticized Iraqi authorities for carrying out the death sentences of 13 men on the same day, saying the prisoners were denied fair trial, and expressed concern that many others had been executed in secret. A total of 13 prisoners were executed in Dhi Qars Nasiriyah central prison on Monday, and scores more have been executed since April 10, said the Amnesty report citing activists and lawyers of the death row prisoners.
Today is the 9th anniversary of the deaths of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, executed by firing squad in Indonesia, alongside 6 other people. We remember them, along with every person who has died at the hands of a retributive state, and the families and friends left mourning them. May they rest in peace.
According to the Iranian state-media reports, at dawn on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, a young woman named Shahnaz was hanged in Qezel-Hesar prison in Karaj. Shahnaz had been held in prison for three years. She is the fifth woman hanged in Iran in 2024.
On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence.
For the first time in at least five years, Supreme Court justices last week issued dissents from the Court’s denial of review in two capital cases on the same day. Both cases involved official misconduct. One alleged that Texas prosecutors illegally struck 13 women from Dillion Compton’s jury because of their gender.
Aware that only the use of terror and force keeps it in power, the Cuban regime makes it clear that if necessary, it will not hesitate to kill. HAVANA TIMES – Inflation, misery, the lack of medicine, and power outages, which were the triggers for previous demonstrations, are worsening daily in Cuba. Given the possibility that these protests may occur again, the regime has threatened the death penalty for those who participate in demonstrations considered “illegal.”
A group of high profile political prisoners in Iran have denounced the death sentence handed down to dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi, calling it a sign of Iran's "inhuman nature and deep corruption." Earlier this week, an Iranian revolutionary court sentenced the outspoken artist to death for his songs supporting the nationwide protests of 2022, charges that his lawyer, Amir Raeisian, claims he had previously been acquitted of.
Iraq has passed a sweeping anti-LGBT law that criminalises same-sex relationships and could see gay people sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted The law, which was passed by Iraq’s parliament on Saturday, purports to “protect Iraqi society from moral depravity and the calls for homosexuality that have overtaken the world”.
On the morning of Tuesday, April 30, 2024, four prisoners, including a woman, were executed in Birjand prison. The identity of the executed woman has not been determined. The other three prisoners were Mahmoud Gergij, Mohammad Shah Bakhsh and Mehdi Eshterak, from Sistan and Baluchistan province.
