Tag: Amnesty International

Amnesty Report: Israel’s Alleged Genocide in Gaza


Amnesty International publishes report alleging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

December 2024

Amnesty has published the results of a comprehensive study of Israeli actions in Gaza and has concluded that they amount to the crime of genocide and contrary to Article II of the Geneva Convention. This is essentially killing members of a group and causing serious physical or mental harm to a group. Genocide is distinguished from other forms of war crime by the concept of intent. The report is comprehensive and is over 300 pages long. It took into account a wide range of evidence including video, interviews, IDF footage, analysis of Israeli politician’s statements and other factors.

Amnesty International complemented these interviews with its analysis of visual and digital evidence. This included an extensive range of evidence like satellite imagery, video footage, and photographs. These were posted on social media or obtained directly by its researchers. It authenticated and, where possible, geolocated video footage and photographs. It reviewed an extensive collection of media reports, statements, reports and data sets published by UN agencies and humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups. It reviewed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials and official Israeli bodies, including spokespersons of the Israeli military and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit within Israel’s Ministry of Defense tasked with administering civilian matters in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

Judging intent is always difficult although there are many statements from politicians which are quite open on this point. Other factors include:

  • Attacks using a wide range of ordinances including 2,000 lb bombs. Some is wide area ordinance which clearly cannot be targeted,
  • many attacks are carried out between 11pm and 4am when people are asleep,
  • some attacks are carried out without warnings,
  • the buffer zone surrounding Gaza has been increased by 16% with explosive charges laid. This has seriously degraded the agricultural potential of this land,
  • waste water management systems and associated pipework has been destroyed,
  • the largest displacement of people (1.1 million) since the 1948 Nakba,
  • promises about allowing increased numbers of aid trucks have not been met.

The ferocity of the attacks and the scale of destruction in Gaza with a death now around 44,000 is horrifying. The report needs to be read in full to grasp the extent of the evidence which has been painstakingly assembled. It has many similarities to the UN report we posted a day or so ago.

Amnesty International sought to include a response from Israeli authorities to this report and the Israeli Foreign Ministry has said ‘The deplorable and fanatical organization Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies.’ It is a pity a more reasoned or forensic response is not available.

The US has also issued a statement disagreeing with Amnesty’s conclusions. It is also reported that Amnesty in Israeli does not support the conclusions, although according to Haaretz, there seem to be differences of opinion.

Readers will have to examine the copious evidence provided by both Amnesty and the UN to come to their own conclusions on this matter. The attack by Hamas on 7 October was a fearful act with 223 hostages taken and 1,200 killed some brutally. It was clearly a war crime. It caused immense shock in Israel who enjoyed massive military and security superiority. It can be argued that the country has the right to defend itself. The question here is whether the scale of destruction and the death toll of women and children is justified. Is the seizure of land proportionate? Are the forced displacements (sometimes several times over) and destruction of medical facilities and other infrastructure justified? Or does it, as this and other reports claim, amount to a deliberate attempt to crush an entire population?

A key question is proportionality. Has the response been proportionate? It would seem from the evidence it hasn’t been. Another question is effectiveness. Will it achieve security and peace with its neighbours? Unlikely. It will leave a legacy of bitterness which will erupt at some future time. The complete elimination of Hamas is impossible.

Most important of all is the moral dimension which seldom gets an airing. Western nations – most particularly the US but the UK as well – are shielding Israel and enabling it to continue the horror unabated. The notion of a ‘rules based order’ which came into being after WWII has been abandoned. Israel has gone to great lengths to prevent coverage from reaching our screens. It has banned both the UN and journalists from entering Gaza. Nevertheless, we have seen what is happening on our screens on a more or less daily basis. We cannot say we do not know. Is the Labour government compromised? It has a sizeable number of MPs, including the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who are members of Labour Friends of Israel. The group has declined to confirm who funds them. History will judge them harshly.

Sources: Amnesty International, Electronic Intifada, Share the World’s Resources; Guardian, Haaretz; Israel Foreign Ministry; Declassified UK; Labour Friends of Israel.

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Israel – Palestine conflict


Statement by the head of Amnesty UK

October 2023

We enclose verbatim, a statement by the chief executive officer of Amnesty UK concerning the conflict in Israel/Palestine.

We are horrified by the escalating violence in recent days and the mounting civilian death toll in Israel and Gaza, and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Hamas’s shocking summary killings and abductions of civilians displayed a chilling disregard for life and for international law. Deliberate attacks on civilians & hostage-taking are war crimes & cannot be justified under any circumstances. Hamas and other armed groups must end deliberate attacks on civilians, the firing of indiscriminate rockets, and hostage-taking. They must release civilian hostages immediately.

Relentless Israeli air strikes are now pounding Gaza, obliterating entire families and destroying whole neighbourhoods. Once again civilians in Gaza have nowhere to seek safety. The Israeli authorities’ illegal 16-year blockade on the Gaza Strip, a key part of its system of apartheid, means 2.2 million Palestinians are trapped, plunged into darkness, and without access to essential needs.

The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population by Israeli authorities amounts to a war crime – it is cruel and inhumane. 

Palestinian civilians are not responsible for the crimes of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, and according to international law Israeli authorities must not make them suffer for acts they have played no role in and cannot control.  

Families and survivors deserve justice.

As the situation is so fast moving, Amnesty is publishing the latest developments via publications on the press releases page of the AIUK website, which you can see here https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases. 

In solidarity, 

Sacha Deshmukh
Chief Executive Officer
Amnesty International UK
 
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Human Rights and poverty


June 2023

Poverty a key element in depriving people of their rights

One of the criticisms of human rights and those who seek to promote them is the proliferation of what is regarded as a ‘right’. One such critic is Prof Eric Posner who has argued that the numbers and proliferation of rights makes them less and less effective. Others have joined in including the current Home Secretary who cites Posner in her various criticisms of human rights and how they are applied in the UK. On examination, much of what is termed ‘proliferation’ is in reality a refinement of a basic right often in the light of current circumstances. The world of social media and electronic communications with its contingent threat to the rights of individuals due to increased surveillance by states and others, would not have been anticipated by the drafters of the UN Declaration after the war. Increasing corporate power and globalisation has enable firms to move or outsource their manufacturing operations to countries with limited or no regard to the rights of their workers.

In its summer 2023 magazine, Amnesty International focuses on poverty as a key human rights issue. As James Griffin notes in his book On Human Rights (OUP, 2008) rights have little value unless people have the means to exercise them. Article 17 gives people the right to own property for example which is of little significance to those unable to get a mortgage, increasingly a concern for young people today. The government’s own statistics on poverty paint a dire situation in what, after all, one of the richest countries in the world. 11 million are in relative poverty before housing costs and 14.4 million after housing costs and there are 2.9 million children in poverty according to the report. We can argue about definitions (and these are explained in the report) but the fact remains that those who cannot afford to eat three meals a day and have to resort to food banks, who live precarious lives with low paid, uncertain jobs, or on zero hours contracts, are not going to be able to exercise many of their rights. Poverty is thus a key underlying factor.

It is one of the problems of a legally based system of rights. The law is only of comfort to those who can afford to gain access to it. For the vast majority it is expensive, extremely uncertain and of little direct value. Tackling poverty means addressing the ideas and politics which are the root causes of the problem.

Amnesty is part of a group ‘The Growing Rights Instead of Poverty Partnership‘ GRIPP. In a report it says ‘[It] reveals how the UK government has created a system that keeps communities poor, ill, divided and isolated then blames them for the conditions they are living in.’ It was submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). The government would argue that they have introduced a variety of schemes to tackle poverty but fact remains that very large numbers of people are struggling. Recent rises in food prices – which hit the poorest the hardest as they spend a large proportion of their budget on food – rising interest rates and energy prices will have made matters worse for many. Article 25 of the UN Declaration says that ‘everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and wellbeing.’

What is clear about poverty in the UK is how regionally disbursed it is. There are extremely prosperous areas and by contrast, large areas and numbers of communities where there is widespread deprivation. No one can argue that all those in such areas are somehow deficient or are responsible for their collective disadvantage. Clearly it is a systemic issue and a matter of political will or lack of it. Politicians have spoken about the problem and action has been promised, most recently with the levelling up programme. It does not seem to make a difference. The result is a significant number of people and shamefully, young people, who for no fault of their own, have significantly reduced life chances, health outcomes and opportunities mostly to do with poverty.

Poverty is thus a key factor in individual’s ability to secure a range of rights which, for the more prosperous, is taken for granted.

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Amnesty’s annual death penalty report published


Amnesty’s annual death penalty report for 2021 has just been published

The introduction to the report is reproduced here. The full report is available from this link.

Amnesty International recorded 579 executions in 18 countries in 2021, an increase of 20% from the 483 recorded in 2020. This figure represents the second lowest number of executions recorded by Amnesty International since at least 2010. Most known executions took place in China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria – in that order.

China remained the world’s leading executioner – but the true extent of its use of the death penalty is unknown as this data is classified as a state secret; the global figures for executions and death sentences therefore exclude the thousands of people that Amnesty International believes to have been sentenced to death and executed in China. Figures for North Korea and Viet Nam, which are believed to have extensively resorted to executions, were also not included in the global executions figure, as secrecy and lack of access to independent information made it impossible to assess trends.

Amnesty International recorded 24 women among the 579 people known to have been executed in 2021 (4%), in the following countries: Egypt (8), Iran (14), Saudi Arabia (1) and USA (1).

Belarus, Japan and UAE resumed executions. Amnesty International did not record any executions in India, Qatar and Taiwan, having done so in 2020.

Iran executed at least 314 people (up from at least 246 in 2020), their highest number of executions since 2017, reversing year-on-year declines since then.

Recorded executions in Saudi Arabia rose sharply, from 27 to 65, an increase of 140% percent.

Despite these increases, the 2021 global executions figure constitutes the second-lowest figure recorded by Amnesty International since at least 2010. For the second consecutive year, the number of countries known to have executed people was the lowest the organization has recorded. In 2019, 2020 and 2021 Amnesty International recorded 657, 483 and 579 executions respectively.

In July, Sierra Leone’s parliament unanimously adopted an Act which abolishes the death penalty for all crimes.  Kazakhstan adopted legislation in December abolishing the death penalty for all crimes, which came into effect this year.  Papua New Guinea embarked on a national consultation on the death penalty, which resulted in the adoption of an abolition Bill in January 2022, still to come into force. The Government of Malaysia announced that it would table legislative reforms on the death penalty in the third quarter of 2022.

At the end of 2021, more than two thirds of the world’s countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice.  108 countries, a majority of the world’s states, had abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes and 144 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice.  55 countries still retained the death penalty.

Amnesty International recorded commutations or pardons of death sentences in 19 countries: Bangladesh, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, UAE, USA, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Amnesty International recorded seven exonerations of people under sentence of death in four countries: Bahrain (1), Kenya (1), USA (2) and Zambia (3).

Amnesty International recorded 2,052 death sentences imposed in 56 countries, up 39% from at least 1,477 in 54 countries in 2020.

Ethiopia, Guyana, Maldives, Oman, Tanzania, and Uganda handed down death sentences having not done so in 2020, while the reverse was true of Bahrain, Comoros, Laos and Niger.

At the end of 2021, at least 28,670 people were known to be under sentence of death. Nine countries held 82% of the known totals: Iraq (8,000+), Pakistan (3,800+), Nigeria (3,036+), USA (2,382), Bangladesh (1,800+), Malaysia (1,359), Viet Nam (1,200+), Algeria (1,000+), Sri Lanka (1,000+).

The following methods of execution were used across the world in 2021: beheading, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.

Four people were executed for crimes that occurred when they were below 18 years of age: in Iran (3) and Yemen (1).  Amnesty International believes that other people in this category remained on death row in Maldives, Myanmar and Iran.

At least 134 executions for drug-related offences were known to have been carried out in two countries (China and Iran), an increase of 346% from 2020 (30). Information on Viet Nam, which is very likely to have carried out such executions, was unavailable.

Death sentences were known to have been imposed after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards in countries including Algeria, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Singapore and Yemen.

The Salisbury group collects information from around the world and publishes a report each month. The most recent report can be accessed here and others by searching the site or via a search engine.

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Sixtieth Anniversary!


Amnesty International celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and the local group braved the inclement weather to take a group shot to mark the occasion. The Salisbury group was established a few years after AI was formed and is still going strong. The need for human rights organisations is even stronger than ever with many examples around the world of people’s rights being infringed.

In Yemen there is the continuing war and bombing of civilians continues unabated; the genocide of Rohingya in Burma (Myanmar); Syria; wars in the Horn of Africa are just some examples.

In the UK we remain concerned at government attempts to stifle freedoms of assembly, the Judiciary and their long term desire to curtail or abolish the Human Rights Act.

If you live in the south Wiltshire area and would like to join us, you would be very welcome.

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Amnesty’s annual report: UK element


Aspect of the annual report detailing the UK government’s actions regarding human rights of UK subjects

The government response to COVID-19 raised human rights concerns, including in relation to health, immigration policies, domestic abuse and housing. Instances of racial discrimination and excessive force against protesters by the police were documented. Northern Ireland made progress on same-sex marriage and abortion, but full accountability for past violations remained unrealized. New licences for military exports to Saudi Arabia resumed. Bills on counter-terrorism and overseas military operations endangered  human rights.  Extradition proceedings against Julian Assange threatened the right to freedom of expression. The full report can be accessed from this link (pdf).

BACKGROUND

On 31 January, the UK left the European Union and began an 11-month transition period.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, parliament granted far-reaching emergency powers to the UK and devolved governments for up to two years, subject to parliamentary renewal every six months. Lockdowns implemented to slow the spread of the virus severely restricted freedom of movement, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to privacy and family life.

At least 74,570 people died in the UK as a result of COVID-19 in 2020. The economic impact of the pandemic caused widespread hardship, particularly for those in insecure employment and people subject to immigration controls.

In May and June, Black Lives Matter protests drew attention to systemic racism and discrimination against Black people.

RIGHT TO HEALTH

The UK death toll due to COVID-19 represented one of the highest death rates from the virus in Europe. Health and other essential workers reported shortages of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) to minimize their risk of contracting COVID-19. By 25 May, 540 deaths involving COVID-19 had been registered among social care and health workers. The authorities violated the right to health and right to life of older people resident in care homes, including by failing to provide adequate PPE and regular testing, discharging infected or possibly infected patients from hospitals to care homes and suspending regular oversight procedures.

In June, an official investigation found that people of Black and Asian ethnicity were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. In particular, Black and Asian health workers were significantly over-represented among COVID-19 related deaths of health workers.

The government resisted calls from over 70 organizations to immediately launch an independent public inquiry into its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that an inquiry would take place at an unspecified time in the future.

DISCRIMINATION

In March, a review of the so-called “Windrush scandal” was published. The review identified serious failings in the government’s treatment of the Windrush generation, who settled in the UK as British nationals from the Caribbean and other Commonwealth countries before 1973 but who, along with some of their descendants, were later treated as if they had no permission to be in the UK. Although the government promised to act on the far- reaching recommendations of the review, the proposed changes failed to address the root causes of the scandal, including the racism embedded in nationality and immigration laws and policies.

Discrimination in the exercise of police powers continued to be a concern. Data on fines issued for non-compliance with the COVID-19 related lockdown revealed that Black and Asian people were disproportionately fined. In May, during the first national lockdown, police in London conducted a record number of stop and searches: 43,644, of which 10,000 targeted young Black men. Racial disproportionality specifically against Black people continued to feature heavily across various policing issues, including the use of force and of Taser. Police figures published in 2020 showed that Black people were up to eight times more likely to have Taser used against them than White people in 2018/19. High-profile cases of Taser use against Black people in London and Manchester, including one case in the presence of a child, highlighted this issue.

FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY

In June, police used excessive force against Black Lives Matter protesters in London, including the confinement of people to a narrow space (“kettling”) and the use of horses to disperse crowds. Police issued approximately 70 infringements of COVID-19 restrictions to peaceful protesters at Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Belfast and Derry-Londonderry and initiated criminal investigations against the organizers, relying on COVID-19 related enforcement powers that came into force on the eve of the protest. In December, the Northern Ireland Policing Board found policing of the protests to have been “potentially unlawful”, while the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland found it to have been “unfair” and “discriminatory”.

REFUGEES, ASYLUM-SEEKERS AND MIGRANTS
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government failed to adequately modify immigration policies and practices to safeguard public health. People continued to be held in immigration detention for the purposes of removal from the UK, despite the heightened risk of infection in detention and obstacles to effecting removal. Asylum claims were required to be made in person.

Statutory exclusions or restrictions on access to employment, welfare, accommodation and health care for people subject to immigration control undermined their ability to protect themselves from the virus and maintain an adequate standard of living. The government resisted widespread calls to suspend the “no recourse to public funds” policy, which restricts access to benefits for many migrants, during the pandemic.

Parliament passed a new immigration law in November which granted exceptionally broad legislative powers to the Home Secretary and ended free movement rights under EU law. Children entitled to British citizenship continued to be prevented by government policy and practice from registering their entitlement. Children of EU nationals became particularly at risk because of their loss of free movement rights in the UK.

RIGHT TO HOUSING

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government introduced some measures, albeit only short-term, to protect the right to housing. It suspended court proceedings for evictions in England and Wales from 27 March until 20 September and temporarily increased the minimum notice period prior to eviction for most tenants.

By September, 29,000 rough sleepers and other vulnerable people had been supported into accommodation during the pandemic, according to official figures. Homelessness charities reported a sharp increase in demand for their services since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

RIGHTS OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER AND INTERSEX (LGBTI) PEOPLE

In February, the first same-sex marriages took place in Northern Ireland after the success in 2019 of a long-running campaign for marriage equality. Religious same-sex marriages were permitted from September, and the conversion of existing civil partnerships was allowed from December.

Amid growing transphobic rhetoric and fear-mongering in the media, the government’s proposed amendments to the outdated Gender Recognition Act in England and Wales fell short of human rights standards. A second consultation to reform gender recognition law in Scotland ended in March.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS

There was an increase in reported cases of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government lacked a fully coordinated plan to tackle the foreseeable risk of domestic violence during the pandemic and failed to provide sufficient and timely emergency funding for frontline services. None of the additional funding was ring-fenced for specialist services for ethnic minority women, despite an increase in referrals to these services. Migrant women whose immigration status excludes them from most government benefits faced compounded challenges in obtaining support for domestic violence.

The Domestic Abuse Bill lacked provisions to ensure safety and access to justice for migrant women. The bill did not meet the government’s stated intention of bringing domestic legislation in line with the Istanbul Convention, which the UK had yet to ratify.

The criminalization of sex work and denial of sex workers’ labour rights meant that they were particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and related measures. The government maintained a five-week waiting period for social security payments, despite previously acknowledging that it was a factor in some women resorting to sex work.

SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

After the decriminalization of abortion in 2019, regulations governing the provision of abortion services in Northern Ireland took effect on 31 March. The government allowed both abortion pills to be taken at home during the COVID-19 pandemic in all regions of the UK except Northern Ireland, where a local temporary service providing early medical abortions began in April, allowing one abortion pill to be taken on health and social care premises, and the second one at home.

Whilst abortion services in Northern Ireland were legal and running to varying degrees, by year’s end the authorities had yet to formally commission abortion services that were adequately resourced, sustainable and fully accessible to all who need them.

NORTHERN IRELAND – LEGACY ISSUES

In March, the government issued proposals to address the legacy of the conflict in Northern Ireland which were not compatible with human rights standards and departed from commitments made in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement and subsequent government statements and agreements. The proposals would limit prosecutions of those suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law and human rights violations and abuses during the decades-long conflict.

The government refused to launch a public inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane, a Belfast lawyer killed in 1989, despite a 2019 Supreme Court ruling, which found that his murder was not effectively investigated in line with human rights standards.

IRRESPONSIBLE ARMS TRANSFERS

The UK resumed issuing licences for military exports to Saudi Arabia in July, after a court ruling in June 2019 required the government to suspend new licensing of military equipment to Saudi Arabia.

In response to the excessive use of force against US Black Lives Matter protesters, members of parliament and several organizations, including Amnesty International, called on the UK to suspend exports of crowd control equipment, such as tear gas and rubber bullets, to US law enforcement agencies. In September, the government stated that it had re-assessed export licences of such equipment to the USA in response to these events and concluded there was “no clear risk” of misuse.

STATE OVERREACH

The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill proposed a major overhaul of the sentencing regime for counter-terrorism offences, including the removal of some key safeguards on the use of already concerning administrative control measures known as Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs). The proposed changes included lowering the standard of proof for the imposition of a TPIM.

IMPUNITY

In March, the government proposed a new law which would seriously restrict prosecutions for offences committed by British soldiers overseas, including torture and other ill-treatment as well as other crimes under international law. The proposed law would create a “presumption against prosecution” after five years.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Hearings to consider a US extradition request for Julian Assange began in February and resumed in September. Assange remained detained at Belmarsh prison and faced prosecution in the USA for the publication of disclosed documents as part of his work with Wikileaks. Amnesty International called on the USA to drop the charges and on the UK to halt his extradition to the USA where he would face a real risk of serious human rights violations.

Annual Report

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Amnesty 2020 video


View Amnesty International’s review of 2020 – a tumultuous year by any reckoning.

Video

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Amnesty’s annual report on the death penalty


The report by Amnesty on the use of the death penalty around the world in 2019 is now available

Update: 10 May  A report from India commenting on Amnesty’s report can be read here. 

There was a small decrease in executions in 2019 Amnesty International reports amounting to 657 executions in 20 countries, a decrease of 5% compared to 2018 (at least 690). This is the lowest number of executions that Amnesty International has recorded in at least a decade. At the end of 2019, 106 countries (a majority of the world’s states) had abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes, and 142 countries (more than two-thirds) had abolished the death penalty in law or practice.  The following are some of the key points taken from the full Amnesty report.  Looking at the picture overall, there has been slight progress around the world if we exclude China.

Most executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt – in that order.

China remained the world’s leading executioner – but the true extent of the use of the death penalty in China is unknown as this data is classified as a state secret.  The global figure of at least 657 excludes the thousands of executions believed to have been carried out in China.

Excluding China, 86% of all reported executions took place in just four countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt.

Bangladesh and Bahrain resumed executions last year, after a hiatus in 2018.  Amnesty International did not report any executions in Afghanistan, Taiwan and Thailand, despite having done so in 2018.

Executions in Iran fell slightly from at least 253 in 2018 to at least 251 in 2019.  Executions in Iraq almost doubled from at least 52 in 2018 to at least 100 in 2019, while Saudi Arabia executed a record number of people from 149 in 2018 to 184 in 2019.

Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Zimbabwe either took positive steps or made pronouncements in 2019 which may lead to the abolition of the death penalty.

Barbados also removed the mandatory death penalty from its Constitution.   In the United States, the Governor of California established an official moratorium on executions in the US state with biggest death row population, and New Hampshire became the 21st US state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes.

Gambia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan continued to observe official moratoriums on executions.

At least 26,604 people were known to be under sentence of death globally at the end of 2019.

The following methods of execution were used across the world in 2019: beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.

At least 13 public executions were recorded in Iran. At least six people – four in Iran, one in Saudi Arabia and one in South Sudan – were executed for crimes that occurred when they were below 18 years of age.  People with mental or intellectual disabilities were under sentence of death in several countries, including Japan, Maldives, Pakistan and USA.

Death sentences were known to have been imposed after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards in countries including Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Viet Nam and Yemen.

Amnesty International 2019 Death Penalty report  (pdf)

The group cannot meet at present of course but if you would like to join then we hope to be back in action as soon as restrictions are lifted and it is safe to do so.  Keep and eye out on this page or on Twitter and Facebook for notice of our events.  Comments here are always welcome.

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