INDEX

Despite an execution this month, Amnesty International’s latest annual report on the death penalty shows Belarus did not kill any prisoner last year, meaning Europe and Central Asia was execution-free for the first time since 2009. This achievement bolsters local abolitionists – despite the risks they face in their activism.

The UN has renewed the mandate of its special rapporteur on Iran as a new IHR/ECPM annual report exposes rising execution numbers since increased engagement between President Rohani and the West.

Iraq emerges as the country with the fastest-growing number of executions in Amnesty International’s new annual report on the death penalty. The World Coalition’s submission for Iraq’s upcoming UN human rights review calls for a moratorium on abusive executions.

“China’s position is to retain the death penalty, but strictly and prudently limit its application according to law,” said the world’s top executioner after it rejected all 20 UPR recommendations to curb capital punishment.

From UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to abolitionist and retentionist government ministers and World Coalition members, participants to a recent discussion on the death penalty placed the issue high on the international agenda.

After a House committee passed a bill abolishing capital punishment on 11 February, State representative Renny Cushing explains the next steps as the World Coalition’s Steering Committee prepares to meet in New Hampshire in April.

Several hundred activists, experts and political leaders met in Beirut at the end of January to push the abolitionist cause with the Lebanese authorities and organise their movement at the national level.

On 21 January, India’s Supreme Court formally banned the execution of mentally ill prisoners and in doing so highlighted why this year’s World Day against the Death Penalty, which is dedicated to issues of mental health, is so important.

After weeks of debates, Tunisia has adopted a new Constitution. As expected by local abolitionists, the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) passed a text allowing capital punishment on 26 January 2014.