AMNESTY International recorded 483 executions in 18 countries during 2020, which was a decrease of 26 per cent on 2019 and the lowest number in the last decade.
This sharp decrease is largely attributed to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pope Francis has led the Church’s stance against the death penalty in recent years.
In 2018, the Vatican announced it had formally changed the Catechism on the death penalty, calling it “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”.
The Church teaches the death penalty is “inadmissible” in all cases.
Human dignity is not lost “even after the commission of very serious crimes”, the catechism says.
Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti ratified the Church’s position against the death penalty and called on Catholics to advocate for the abolition of the practice worldwide.
Records showed China remained the world’s leading executioner.
The true extent of China’s execution program remained unknown because the data is classified as a state secret.
It was reported last year’s recorded executions excluded “thousands of executions believed to have been carried out in China”.
Most international estimates suggest China executes more people each year than all other countries combined.
Typically, China uses the death sentence on cases of murder and drug charges, which are usually carried out by lethal injection or gun shot.
However, there are concerns about mass deaths taking place in concentration camps currently detaining millions of Uyghur Muslims as part of a state-led genocide.
Most recorded executions took place in China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – in that order.
Executions were mostly carried out on men with 16 women recorded among the 483 executions.
India, Oman, Qatar and Taiwan resumed executions in 2020 while there were no recorded executions in Belarus, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore and Sudan, despite having done so in 2019 and 2018.
At the end of 2020, 108 countries, which represents 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.
At least 28,567 people were known to be under sentence of death.
Three people were executed for crimes that occurred when they were below 18 years of age in Iran.
