INDEX

Harm Reduction International has monitored the use of the death penalty for drug offences worldwide since our first ground-breaking publication on this issue in 2007. This report, our eleventh on the subject, continues our work of providing regular updates on legislative, policy and practical developments related to the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a practice which is a clear violation of international law.
The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2021 found that: 1) 35 countries still retain the death penalty for drug offences 2) At least 131 people were executed for drug offences in 2021 – a 336% increase from 2020. However, due to a severe lack of transparency, if not outright censorship, this is only a partial picture. This figure likely represents only a fraction of all drug-related executions carried out globally.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offenses

Cuba has maintained a de facto moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty since its last reported execution in 2003. In 2010, Cuba’s Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of Cuba’s last remaining death row inmate. As of the date of this report, there is no record of an individual currently sentenced to death. Although a de facto moratorium is in place, Cuba has not committed to a de jure abolition of the death penalty, citing national security concerns.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Cuba
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

This report provides an update to the coauthors’ report at the List of issues stage and responds to the State party’s responses to the Committee’s questions in the List of issues that touch on the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Iraq

Kenya has not carried out any executions since the late 1980s. Nonetheless, Kenya continues to hand down the death penalty as a sentence in criminal cases. Accordingly, this report recommends that the Committee Against Torture recommend that Kenya formally abolish the death penalty, commute the sentences of all persons on death row, and revise laws to remove capital punishment from the list of principal sentences. Kenya should further take steps to prohibit introduction of evidence obtained through torture and ill-treatment in criminal proceedings and to ensure that all persons at risk of being sentenced to death have access to well-qualified legal counsel with adequate funding for a thorough pre-trial investigation. Kenya should ensure that no person is removed to a country where they may be at risk of being sentenced to death, and should take concrete steps to ensure that conditions of detention for persons under sentence of death comply with the Nelson Mandela Rules.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

Detention conditions for women in Malawi are crowded, and women in prisons are not given adequate food and nutrition. Specifically, many prisons only serve people with one meal a day, often consisting of a maize meal (nsima) and peas or beans. Overcrowded conditions are a particular concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, when risk of transmission of the disease is high. Prison conditions in Malawi amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Women in death penalty proceedings in Malawi lack access to qualified legal representation. Defense advocates in Malawi who are assigned to capital cases often lack relevant experience. In at least one case, a lawyer failed to raise the complete defense of self-defense in representing a woman who killed her husband as a result of a long history of domestic abuse. Had the defense been raised, it is possible that the woman would not have been sentenced to death. Moreover, women from poor and marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by the death penalty because when they are accused of crimes, they are often unable to understand the charges against them because they are illiterate and cannot read the complaint against them. They are also unable to retain private counsel.

Women who face extensive gender-based violence are disproportionately affected by the death penalty in Malawi, including those who seek to protect themselves against their abusers. Long histories of gender-based violence can result in complex trauma and can exacerbate psycho-social or intellectual disabilities, yet sentencing courts fail to take these nefarious effects into account as factors in mitigation of a death sentence.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Malawi
• Themes list Women

Qatar had been maintaining a de facto moratorium on executions since 2000, but courts continued to sentence people to death. In 2020, however, Qatar executed a Nepali migrant worker by firing squad. Qatar’s death penalty practices are not in compliance with the Covenant. Qatar does not limit the death penalty to the most serious crimes, it is not taking steps toward a de jure moratorium on executions or ratification of the Second Optional Protocol, and it does not ensure that defendants in capital cases have a fair trial. Recent history suggests that a migrant worker may be more likely to be sentenced to death and executed for killing a Qatari national, as opposed to a non-citizen. Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable in the context of the country’s criminal legal system.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Qatar

The death penalty in the USA in 2021 was defined by two competing forces: the continuing long-term erosion of capital punishment across most of the country, and extreme conduct by a dwindling number of outlier jurisdictions to continue to pursue death sentences and executions.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

Salam for Democracy and Human Rights (Salam DHR)’s report was published on October 10, 2021, to mark the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty. The Death Penalty in Bahrain: A system built on torture, provides accessible and abridged information regarding the development of the death penalty in Bahrain.

This report examines how executions have expanded in both their criteria and implementation since the Arab Spring in 2011 and how this practice contradicts the Government of Bahrain’s (GoB) promises of reform made following the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) that same year. Instead, the Bahraini State continues to rely on confessions coerced under torture and threats as a method of permanently silencing poliIcal prisoners. The nation’s internal mechanisms of accountability have repeatedly proven themselves to be ineffective in remedying this situation and are possibly complicit. Considering these findings, and in support those who have been victimized, Salam DHR officially recommends that the GoB abolishes the death penalty, among other reforms.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Bahrain
• Available languages عقوبة الإعدام في البحرين : نظام مبني على التعذيبLa Peine de Mort à Bahreïn: Un Système Construit sur la Torture

One of every 15 women in prison — amounting to more than 6,600 women — is serving a life sentence and nearly 2,000 of these have no chance for parole. Another 52 women in the U.S. are awaiting execution. Many women serving extreme sentences were victims of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse long before they committed a crime.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Women

This report addresses Uganda’s compliance with its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women with respect to the death penalty. The report examines and discusses Ugandan death penalty laws and cases where women are sentenced to death row in Uganda, primarily for murder.

This report recommends that Uganda adopt a number of key recommendations to better align its death penalty practices with Uganda’s obligations to women under the Convention. These steps, among other things, include: (1) abolishing the death penalty and in the interim, limiting the death penalty to only the most serious crimes of intentional killing of another human; (2) ensuring proper gender-sensitive training in the judicial system and protecting women in conflict with the law when gender-based violence is involved; (3) developing and implementing programs to prevent gender-based violence and discrimination; and (4) ensuring fair access to counsel to women sentenced to death or at risk of being sentenced to death.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Uganda
• Themes list Women