UNITED NATIONS--Egypt and Nigeria
accounted for well over 1,000 of the death
sentences announced last year, more than
a third of the world's total, Amnesty
International has announced in its latest
annual report on the death penalty.

The London-based human-rights group
April 1 expressed alarm at the 28-percent
jump in death sentences, with 2,466
people in 55 countries condemned to
death in 2014 and at least 607 people
executed in 22 countries.

Neither of those numbers is complete, as
North Korea's isolationist stance means
that no estimate is available from
Pyongyang. Amnesty International also
doesn't report numbers for China, where
such information is considered a state
secret. The Dui Hua Foundation, a U.S.-based prison-research group, has
estimated 2,400 executions were carried
out in China in 2014.

Amnesty International also said it was
unable to confirm whether judicial
executions took place last year in Syria,
where civil war has raged for four years.

The countries with the most recorded
executions last year were Iran with at
least 289, Saudi Arabia with at least 90,
Iraq with at least 61 and the United States
with at least 35, the rights group said. In
Iran, hundreds more executions were
"not officially acknowledged" and the
total could be as high as 743, the
organization said.

Once again, the United States was the only
country in the Americas to execute people
in 2014, the report said. Texas and
Missouri each carried out 10 executions.
Other U.S. states that put people to death
were Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and
Oklahoma.

The overall number of global executions
last year dropped almost 22 percent from
2013.

"The numbers speak for themselves: The
death penalty is becoming a thing of the
past," said Amnesty International
Secretary-General Salil Shetty.

But Shetty condemned the use of death
sentences as a way to fight crime or
"terrorism."

Nigeria announced 659 death sentences,
mostly for murder and armed robbery,
but a military court in December
sentenced to death 54 soldiers who had
been accused of refusing to join
operations against the extremist group
Boko Haram. The soldiers testified that
they had not been properly equipped to
go after Boko Haram, which has since
pledged allegiance to the Islamic State
group.

Nigeria's higher number of death
sentences, up from 141 the year before,
was also a result of more complete data
offered by authorities.

Egypt announced at least 509 death
sentences last year, many of them in the
mass trials that have been held since the
ouster of Islamist President Mohammed
Morsi in 2013. The practice has brought
international criticism. In one case in
December, 188 people were sentenced to
death in the killing of 11 police officers.

In the United States, at least 72 death
sentences were announced last year.

Amnesty International also expressed
concern about countries that resumed the
practice of executions, including Pakistan,
which reinstated the death penalty in
December after a Pakistani Taliban attack
on a school killed 150 people, most of
them children.

"An alarming number of countries that
used the death penalty in 2014 did so in
response to real or perceived threats to
state security and public safety posed by
terrorism, crime or internal stability," the
new report said....

ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201504030015

When did Nigeria last executed a prisoner? I don't think anybody has been executed since 99.