The report revealed that at least 1,634 people were executed in 25
countries in 2015, which is over 50% increase from the 2014 figure.
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Richard Branson transfast
British billionaire, Richard Branson has called for the abolition of death penalty across the world following the Amnesty International global report on death sentences and executions, which was released on Tuesday, April 6, 2016.
The
report revealed that at least 1,634 people were executed in 25
countries in 2015, which is over 50% increase from the 2014 figure.
Branson described
the capital punishment as "inhumane and should have no place in any
society. Those are non-negotiable beliefs."
According
to the report, which shows that the 2015 statistics is the highest
recorded by Amnesty in the last 25 years, nearly 90 per cent of the
executions carried out last year were just in three countries – Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.
Al
though it is believed that China execute more people more than the
three countries, it is not included in Amnesty's number of recorded
executions because the country does not release official figures on
capital punishment.
Giving a US case study and
lamenting the erroneous conviction of innocent persons, Branson said
over 150 death-row inmates in the US have been freed in the last
decades.
He said: "It doesn’t take much to understand how fraught with problems the death penalty is. Last year, I wrote about the case of Richard Glossip in the US state of Oklahoma,
a man widely believed to be innocent of the crime he was sentenced to
die for. Richard came within minutes of lethal injection, and is still
facing an uphill battle proving his innocence against a criminal justice
system that hates admitting error.
"More
than 150 death-row inmates in the US have been exonerated and freed in
the last decades, but many only after decades on death row, fighting
unethical prosecutors, incompetent lawyers and politicians who presume
the public wants them to pull the trigger or flip the switch.
"I hope a new generation of political leaders will take a clear-eyed view of this problem.
"I can’t say it often enough. It’s time to abolish the death penalty for good, in the US and around the world."
In
what appears to be a glim of hope and progress, the report said four
countries abolished death penalty for all crimes and expunged it from
their law books in 2015.
The countries include Republic of Congo, Fiji, Madagascar and Suriname.
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