HANDS OFF CAIN

Who We Are

Founded in Brussels in 1993 by the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty, Hands Off Cain (HOC) is a league of citizens and parliamentarians for the Universal Moratorium on Executions; the name “Hands Off Cain” is inspired by the book of Genesis, which includes not only the phrase “an eye for an eye” but also “And the Lord set a sign upon Cain, lest any finding him should smite him”. Its objective was to obtain a Moratorium on executions in the world, in view of the definitive abolition of the death penalty. Regarding this objective, which is of huge human and civil importance, Hands Off Cain has managed to mobilise parliaments, governments and public opinion around the world. On December 18, 2007, the approval of a resolution for a moratorium on executions by the UN General Assembly was, without a doubt, a milestone in the struggle to abolish the death penalty worldwide, and represented for Hands Off Cain a historical achievement. However, it wasn’t just the success of the Moratorium at the United Nations, which capped off the conclusion of more than fifteen years of commitment on the part of Hands Off Cain and the Nonviolent Radical Party in working towards this objective at the international level. From 1993 to today, about 60 countries have abandoned the practice of the death penalty, 20 of which have done so in the last five years, that is, after the re-launching of the initiative at the United Nations.

Pro-Moratorium Campaign Perspectives after the Success at the U.N.

The UN vote drew a line for countries, both in the dream of nonviolence and in the administration of justice. Now is the moment to double the effort and accelerate the process and Hands Off Cain has established two priority fronts, two objectives for its initiatives in meeting the request of the United Nations for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. The first is to abolish “State Secrets” concerning the death penalty, because many countries, mostly authoritarian, do not provide information on its application and the lack of information available concerning public opinion is a direct cause of higher numbers of executions. Towards this end, the Secretary General of the United Nations should institute the position of a special envoy, whose job it is, not only to monitor the situation and to push for increased transparency within the systems of capital punishment, but also to continue to persuade those who still maintain the death penalty to arrive, through moratorium, at the definitive abolition of the death penalty worldwide. The second is to spread the word of the Resolution throughout the world and organize political, legislative and public events in countries that still practice the death penalty. After the approval, on December 21, 2010, by the United Nations’ General Assembly of a new Resolution for the universal moratorium on capital punishment, Hands Off Cain is lobbying to forward the concrete application of the U.N. position in countries that still practice the death penalty, to arrive, through moratorium, at the definitive abolition of the death penalty worldwide. Starting with Africa, which is the continent where there is the largest number of de facto abolitionist countries and where, in recent years, there have been significant steps towards the abolition of the death penalty. Rwanda, Burundi, Gabon, Togo and Benin completely eliminated the death penalty, and especially in the first two of these countries, abolition took on an extraordinary symbolic value, as well as legal and political value, being lands where, perhaps, the endless cycle of vengeance and the eternal drama of Cain and Abel was played out most truly and tragically. HANDS OFF CAIN The Death Penalty Worldwide (as of 27 November 2012)

The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for more than ten years, was again confirmed in 2011 and the first eleven months of 2012. There are currently 154 Countries and territories that, to different extents, have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 100 are totally abolitionist; 7 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 42 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. Countries that have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years or Countries which have binding obligations not to use the death penalty). On the other hand, there are 44 Countries retaining the death penalty worldwide. However, retentionist Countries have gradually declined over the last few years: in 2009 there were 45, 48 in 2008, 49 in 2007, 51 in 2006 and 54 in 2005.

In 2011, executions were carried out in 19 Countries, compared to 22 in 2010, 19 in 2009 and 26 in 2008. In 2011, there were at least 5,000 executions, compared to at least 5,946 in 2010, at least 5,741 in 2009 and at least 5,735 in 2008. The decline of executions compared to previous years is justified by the significant drop in executions in China, estimated to be down from about 5,000 in 2010 to about 4,000 in 2011. In 2011 and in the first eleven months of 2012, there were no executions in 4 Countries where executions were carried out in 2010: Bahrain, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Malaysia. On the other hand, 7 Countries resumed executions: Afghanistan (2) and United Arab Emirates (1) in 2011; Botswana (1), Japan (3), Gambia (9), Pakistan (1) and India (1) in 2012. In the United States of America, no “abolitionist” State reintroduced the death penalty, but Idaho, with 1 execution in 2011 and 1 in 2012, resumed executions after a 17 years de facto moratorium dating back to 1994.

Once again, Asia tops the standings as the region where the vast majority of executions are carried out. Taking the estimated number of executions in China to be about 4,000 (about a thousand less than in 2010), the total for 2011 corresponds to a minimum of 4,931 executions (98.6%), down from 2010 when there were at least 5,855 executions. In the Americas, the United States of America was the only Country to carry out executions (43) in 2011. In Africa, in 2011, the death penalty was carried out in 4 Countries (in 2010 there were 6) – Somalia (at least 11), Sudan (at least 7), South Sudan (5), Egypt (at least 1) – where there were at least 24 executions. In 2010 there were at least 43 executions, in 2009 at least 19 as in 2008 and compared to 26 in 2007 and 87 in 2006 on the entire continent. In Europe, the only blemish on an otherwise completely death penalty-free zone continues to be Belarus, where two men were put to death for homicide in 2011 while another two men were executed in 2012. IRAQ One of the world’s top executioners

The death penalty can be imposed in Iraq for around 48 crimes, including a number of non-fatal crimes such as – under certain circumstances – damage to public property. After the fall of Saddam Hussein on 9 April 2003, the death penalty was suspended by the Provisional Authority of the Coalition. It was reintroduced after the transfer of power to Iraqi authorities on 28 June 2004. On 8 August, a little more than a month after it came to power, the Iraqi interim government, led by Iyad Allawi, approved a law that reintroduced the death penalty for homicide, kidnapping, rape and drug-trafficking. On 30 May 2010, the Iraqi Council of Ministers extended the application of the death penalty for economic crimes to the stealing of electricity. Ratifying the death sentence is one of the prerogatives of Iraq’s head of State, as stipulated in article 73 of the constitution. The current president, Jalal Talabani, has always spoke out against the fact that his Country uses the death penalty, stressing it was time to turn the page on Iraq’s history of capital punishment. “I think that the page of executions needs to be turned, except concerning the crimes committed at the cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and crimes against Shiite pilgrims and holy sites,” Talabani said. The president, who was reappointed in November 2010 in a power-sharing pact that ended more than eight months of political paralysis, during his first term, declined to confirm some court execution orders but without preventing the hangings going ahead as the two vice presidents at the time, a Shiite and a Sunni, were able to authorize them in his place. But their mandate has not been renewed. On 13 June 2011, President Talabani appointed his first deputy minister Khudayr al-Khuzaie to sign death penalty verdicts and, on 19 August, he appointed his second deputy minister Tareq al-Hashemi to do the same.

The Death Penalty under Nouri al-Maliki, an echo of Saddamite Baathist Terror

The hangings are carried out regularly from a wooden gallows in a small, cramped cell of al- Kadhimiya Prison, in Saddam Hussein’s old intelligence headquarters at Kadhimiya, a Shia district of Baghdad. The condemned prisoners in Kadhimiya are said to include rapists and murderers as well as insurgents awaiting the same summary justice they mete out to their own captives. On 30 December 2006, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged for crimes against humanity in the same “secure” unit at Kadhimiya where Nouri al-Maliki’s people, in an echo of Saddamite Baathist terror, now hang their victims. The same end, in the same place, befell other exponents of the deposed regime: Barzan al-Tikriti, Awad Hamed al-Bandar and Taha Yassin Ramadan, executed in 2007. Illicit videos of Saddam Hussein and Barzan al-Tikriti’s executions later became public. Saddam’s body could be seen on a hospital trolley, his head twisted at 90 degrees. Barzan was beheaded by the noose. On 25 January 2010, Ali Hassan al-Majid, the cousin of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was executed for crimes against humanity. On 7 June 2012, Saddam Hussein’s trusted personal secretary, Abed Hamid Hamoud, was executed by hanging, the Justice Ministry said. Hamoud was the latest in a series of former senior regime officials who have been executed by Iraq’s new rulers since the toppling of Saddam. His body was to be handed over to his family, officials said. Hamoud, a distant cousin of Saddam, was captured by U.S. forces in June 2003, three months after the invasion. At the time, he was No. 4 on the list of wanted regime officials, after only Saddam and sons Qusay and Uday. He was known as the ace of diamonds on the U.S. deck of cards that ranked leaders of Saddam’s government. Hamoud, in his mid-50s, was executed for persecuting members of the Shiite opposition and religious parties that were banned under Saddam, a court official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hamoud had also been among 15 high-profile defendants tried for their role in the brutal crushing of a Shiite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War. As Saddam’s presidential secretary, Hamoud controlled access to the Iraqi president and was one of the few people he is said to have trusted completely, U.S. officials said in 2003. Like Saddam, Hamoud was from the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit. On 10 June 2012, the Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), an independent research and media organization based in Montreal, reported on its website (www.globalresearch.ca) that “shocking details have emerged from an impeccable source (not named for obvious reasons)” of the execution on 7 June, in Baghdad, of Abed Hamid Hamoud, President Saddam Hussein’s former personal secretary and aide. “What you have not heard”, states the commentator, “is that (Mr Hamoud) was led to his execution whilst under the impression that he was going for a medical check-up. The Iraqi government didn’t even notify his family or relatives or make arrangements with them to deliver his body.” A chilling observation on America and Britain’s “New Iraq” is that the Maliki government is “… so intent on revenge that they have waived the formalities of telling a person they were taking him to his execution.” Deep concern is expressed for the fate of both Tareq Aziz and Sadoun Shakir in the light of this appalling act. They were sentenced at the same Court hearing. Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki’s Press Secretary stated earlier this year that they would execute Tareq Aziz, “… and now that they are done with the formalities, there is nothing to stop them. “The world must know what these people have done and what I am sure they will do, God forbid, in the near future,” concludes our contact bleakly, pleading that pressure be brought to “stop what they are planning to do” in the case of Tareq Aziz, Sadoun Shakir and many others. Hamoud was sentenced to death 26 October 2010 with former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tareq Aziz and former intelligence chief Sadoun Shakir, over the persecution of Islamic parties under Saddam’s regime, heightening fears for their imminent execution.

At Third Place on the Podium of Inhumanity

In 2012, Iraq has come in third in the bid for the highest number of executions and, along with China and Iran, finds itself atop the loathsome awards podium of the champion Executioner-States of the world. Executions began in August 2005, after Iraq lifted the moratorium on the death penalty established in 2003 by the Provisional Authority of the Coalition. Since then and until 11 November 2012, at least 475 executions were carried out, most of them related to acts of terrorism. In 2012 (as of 11 November) there were at least 132 executions, all by hanging. They were a significant and worrying increase compared to the previous year when at least 68 people were executed, and amount to more than a quarter of all convicts who have been put to death after dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted in the U.S.-led war. As of 31 December 2011, at least 1,300 people were on death row, according to Amnesty International.

On 24 January 2012, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed shock at Iraq’s execution of 34 people in a single day on 19 January, and called on the Country to institute an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty. “Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day,” Navi Pillay stated in a news release. “Given the lack of transparency in court proceedings, major concerns about due process and fairness of trials, and the very wide range of offences for which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq, it is a truly shocking figure,” she added. The High Commissioner also urged the Government “to halt all executions and, as a matter of urgency, review the cases of those individuals currently on death row.” “Most disturbingly,” said Ms. Pillay, “we do not have a single report of anyone on death row being pardoned, despite the fact there are well documented cases of confessions being extracted under duress.” On 27 January 2012, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton expressed concern about the increasing use of the death penalty in Iraq. “The increase in executions in the last months clearly goes against the worldwide trend towards the abolition of the death penalty,” she said in a statement. The EU called on Iraq to cease carrying out executions and to introduce a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, with a view to its abolition. The 27-member European bloc urged Iraq to adhere to minimum international standards for the use of the death penalty. “The death penalty should only be imposed for the most serious crimes, and in the case of clear and compelling evidence. It should never be used in cases where convictions were based on confessions that may have been coerced, and an effective right to appeal must be ensured,” added the statement. On 4 April 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “concerned by the continued and increased implementation of the death penalty” in Iraq. “I urge the Iraqi authorities to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty,” he said. Haider al-Saadi, the spokesman for the Iraqi Justice Ministry, said the death penalty is the best way for the Iraqi government to ease the suffering of the victims' families. "The criminals in Iraq are not like the ones in Switzerland or other European Union countries or any others," he said. "Iraq today is facing the most dangerous terrorists in the world."

The “War on Terror”

In October 2005, the Iraqi Parliament approved a new anti-terrorism law that provides for the death penalty for “whoever commits... terrorist acts,” as well as for “anyone who instigates, prepares, finances and fosters the conditions for terrorists to commit this type of crime.” Is considered a terrorist act every violence or threat of sectarian discord and civil war through citizens’ arming as well as their instigation and financing to arm each other, according to Article 4 of 2005’s Anti-Terrorism Law. Furthermore, the terrorism law offered amnesty and anonymity to al-mukhbir al-sirri, secret informers who report alleged terrorist activities. Those reports contributed to the detention of thousands of Iraqis. This has created a weak judicial process, with the detention of many Iraqis sentenced to death shortly after being arrested. Iraq’s government has also received criticism for televising many confessions of those who committed acts of terrorism. It’s difficult to find out under what conditions those confessions were given. The fact is that detainees are sometimes tortured and forced to confess crimes or terrorist acts during pre-trial interrogations, confessions they later denounce in court. However, such confessions are highly publicized and regularly broadcast on the State-funded TV channel, a practice which strongly undermines the rule of law and the right to a fair trial. In June 2011, the State TV broadcast confessions of members of an armed group who admitted to having massacred participants in a wedding party, after raping several women and the bride. Members of the armed group were sentenced to death in about a week after the television confessions, an insufficient time for adequate investigation, proper legal representation or an appeal.

On 9 March 2006, the first condemnations were carried out under the new anti-terrorism law. Since then, the vast majority of executions that are performed every year in Iraq affects people convicted of crimes related to terrorism. In 2012, as of 11 November, Iraq executed at least 132 people, almost all for offenses related to terrorism. On 19 January 2012, 34 people, including two women, were executed early in the morning for terrorism-related offences, announced the State-owned Al-Iraqiya TV channel, quoting a statement by the Ministry of Justice. On 24 January, the spokesman of the justice ministry, Haidar al-Saadi, confirmed to AFP in Baghdad that the executions took place, without elaborating. On 31 January 2012, Iraq executed 17 men in one day, the justice ministry said, bringing to at least 51 the number in January 2012. The Justice Ministry said the accused had been convicted of terrorism, armed robbery, kidnapping and murder. “The Ministry of Justice is moving forward in carrying out fair punishment for criminals spilling Iraqi blood,” Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari was quoted as saying. On 7 February 2012, 14 people were executed, most of them Al-Qaeda members, a senior justice ministry official said on 8 February. “Fourteen Iraqis were executed in Baghdad yesterday,” the official said, asking not to be named. They included Abu Talha who headed an Al-Qaeda affiliate, Islamic State of Iraq, in the northern city of Mosul and the provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin, the official said. “They were convicted of terrorism and other crimes committed in 2006 and 2007.” He added that the executions were compliant with anti-terrorism and penal codes. On 20 February 2012, four people, two of them convicted of terrorism-related charges and the others convicted of murder and kidnapping, were hanged in the morning, a justice ministry official told AFP. All four were Iraqis, the official said. Between 27 and 29 August 2012, Iraq executed 26 people convicted of terror-related charges, including a Syrian and Saudi national, a justice ministry spokesman said. The death sentences were carried out after the Iraqi Presidency Council approved the penalty verdicts for all the convicts. On 27 August, "the justice ministry carried out 21 executions against those condemned of terrorism charges, including three women," Haidar al-Saadi, spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, said in statement. He did not give any further details. On 29 August, Iraq executed five other convicted prisoners over similar charges of terrorism crimes, the Ministry of Justice announced. On 31 August, the spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Justice confirmed that Saudi citizen Mazin Masawee was executed by hanging, ending speculation about his fate. Haydar Al-Sadi told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that Masawee together with 25 other prisoners, charged with terrorism, were transferred on 27 August to the condemned cell and they were hanged separately over a period of three days. There were Jordanians and Syrians among the prisoners. Masawee was arrested on 4 August 2010 for allegedly joining a terrorist group which blew up a police station in Baghdad and was sentenced to death, the spokesman said. Prison sources said Arab prisoners, especially Saudis, started a hunger strike following the execution of Masawee. They called for Iraqi authorities to stop executions and release prisoners who were wrongly accused of terrorist activities without strong evidence. Talal Al-Zawbaee, an MP from the Iraqiya List, also called upon the Ministry of Justice to stop the executions. At a press conference, he wondered why the executions were taking place just days before the Parliament was going to vote on a public pardon law. “This is unprecedented and unheard of in the Iraqi history. It puts the government in a tight position vis-à-vis the human rights reports made by global organizations.” Between 4 and 8 October 2012, Iraq executed 26 more people convicted of terror-related charges. On 4 October, Iraq hanged six people, including one of the 23 inmates who were recaptured after a prison breakout in Tikrit the week before. Of the 102 prisoners who escaped from the jail north of Baghdad, 47 had been sentenced to death as members of Al-Qaeda front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, the interior ministry said at the time. On 7 October, eleven people were executed, among them ten Iraqis and one Algerian convicted of terrorist activities. On 8 October, Iraqi authorities carried out six more death sentences, bringing to 23 the number of people executed in a week. "The justice ministry carried out six executions against convicts against whom final verdicts were issued and approved by the presidency," the ministry said in a statement on its website. Four of the convicts had been tried on anti-terror charges, while two were found guilty of kidnappings and murders, it said. On 11 November 2012, Iraqi authorities executed 10 prisoners – nine Iraqis and one Egyptian – for terrorism convictions, the Ministry of Justice announced. "The Iraqi Justice Ministry carried out the executions by hanging 10 inmates after it was approved by the presidential council," the ministry said in a statement.

Top Secret Death

The death penalty has been in force in the Iraqi legal system since 1921, following the foundation of the Iraqi State in 1920. Its field of application had been increasingly extended since the taking of power by the Baath party in 1968 and since 1979, the year marking the beginning of Saddam Hussein’s presidency. Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay reportedly signed around 10,000 execution orders. From 1998 to 2001, 4,000 people were executed according to a report presented to the UN Commission on Human Rights by the Special Rapporteur on Iraq, Andreas Mavrommatis, on 1 April 2002. After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime on 9 April 2003, the death penalty was suspended by the Provisional Authority of the Coalition. It was reintroduced on 8 August 2004, after the transfer of power to Iraqi authorities on 28 June 2004. Iraq executed at least 132 people in 2012 (as of 11 November). However, these numbers could be much higher, because there are no official statistics available and news published by national papers do not report all the facts. According to most observers, secret executions are being carried out in Iraq in the prisons run by Nouri al-Maliki’s “democratic” government. On 1 September 2009, Agence France Presse reported a government source indicating that the number of executions being carried out may be much higher than previously thought. “There is an average of 10 executions per week because of the security situation” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “More than 800 people are awaiting the death penalty.” A police officer at Al-Adalah prison in Kadhimiya where executions are carried out said “10 to 15 executions are carried out every seven to eight days, the majority of them terrorists.” All death sentences must be confirmed by the Court of Cassation, after which they are referred to the Presidential Council, composed of the President and the two Vice-Presidents, for ratification and implementation. All prisoners whose death sentences have been ratified by the Presidential Council are transferred to the 5th section (al Shuba al Khamisa) of al-Kadhimiya Prison in Baghdad before they are executed. This section of the prison is under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, while the other sections are under the control of the Ministry of Justice. There is no public record of these killings in what is now called Baghdad’s “high-security detention facility” but there have been hundreds since America overthrown Saddam’s regime. In many cases, it seems, the Iraqis neither keep nor release any record of the true names of their captives or of the hanged prisoners. In February 2011, Human Rights Watch uncovered, within the Camp Justice military base in Baghdad, a secret detention facility controlled by elite security forces who report to the military office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Beginning on 23 November 2010, Iraqi authorities transferred more than 280 detainees to the facility, which was controlled by the Army’s 56th Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Service. The same elite divisions controlled Camp Honor, a separate facility in Baghdad where detainees were tortured with impunity. Detainees said interrogators beat them; hung them upside down for hours at a time; administered electric shocks to various body parts, including the genitals; and repeatedly put plastic bags over their heads until they passed out from asphyxiation. On 14 March 2011, the Justice Ministry announced that it would close Camp Honor after a parliamentary investigative committee found evidence of torture during a spot inspection of the facility. Human Rights Watch has since received credible information that elite forces may still hold and interrogate detainees at Camp Honor. Between 27 and 29 August 2012, Iraq executed 26 people convicted of terror-related charges, including a Saudi, a Syrian and three Iraqi women. The executions were announced with no details about the names or trials of those who were killed, drawing widespread international denunciation. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, investigator on arbitrary executions, described the government-sanctioned executions as "arbitrary killing" that is "committed behind a smokescreen of flawed legal processes." He warned that the "continued lack of transparency about the implementation of the death penalty in Iraq, and the country's recent record, raise serious concerns about the question of what to expect in the future." COUNTRY STATUS ON THE DEATH PENALTY (as of 27 November 2012)

Abolitionist: 100 Albania, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Benin, Bermuda*, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Czech Republic, Colombia, Cook Islands*, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia (The former Yugoslav Republic of), Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Norway, Netherlands, New Zealand, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City* and Venezuela. Abolitionist for Ordinary Crimes: 7 Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Fiji, Israel, Kazakhstan and Peru. De Facto Abolitionist (countries that have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years or countries which have binding obligations not to use the death penalty; date of last known execution in parenthesis): 42 Antigua and Barbuda (1991), Bahamas (2000), Barbados (1984), Belize (1985), Brunei Darussalam (1957), Burkina Faso (1988), Cameroon (1988), Central African Republic (1981), Comoros (1997), Congo (1982), Dominica (1986), Eritrea (no death penalty since independence in 1993), Ghana (1993), Grenada (1978), Guinea (2001), Guyana (1997), Jamaica (1988), Kenya (1987), Laos (1989), Lesotho (1995), Liberia (2000), Madagascar (1958), Malawi (1992), Maldives (1952), Mauritania (1987), Morocco (1993), Myanmar (1988), Nauru (no executions since independence, 1968), Niger (no executions or death sentences since 1976), Papua New Guinea (1957), Saint Lucia (1995), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1995), Sierra Leone (1998), South Korea (1997), Sri Lanka (1976), Suriname (1982), Swaziland (1982), Tanzania (1994), Tonga (1982), Trinidad and Tobago (1999), Tunisia (1991) and Zambia (1997). Retentionist Countries Observing a Moratorium on Executions: 5 Algeria, Guatemala, Mali, Russia and Tajikistan. Retentionist: 44 Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Botswana, Chad, China, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gambia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian National Authority*, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan*, Thailand, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe. Source: Hands Off Cain Underlined: countries (2) which have binding obligations not to use the death penalty In bold: liberal democracies1 (7) that retain the death penalty In italics: changes (4) with regard to 2011 * Non-UN member States 1 The classification “liberal democracy” is based on the rigorous analytic standards employed by Freedom House in its Freedom in the World 2012 report on the state of political rights and civil liberties around the world (www.freedomhouse.org) EXECUTIONS IN 2011

At least 5,000 executions were carried out in 19 countries and territories in 2011.

China: about 4,000 Iran: at least 676 Saudi Arabia: at least 82 Iraq: at least 68 United States: 43 Yemen: at least 41 North Korea: at least 30 Vietnam: at least 17 Somalia: at least 11 Sudan: at least 7 Bangladesh: at least 5 South Sudan: 5 Taiwan*: 5 Palestinian National Authority (Gaza Strip)*: 3 Afghanistan: 2 Belarus: 2 Egypt: at least 1 Syria: at least 1 United Arab Emirates: 1

In 2011 and the first six months of 2012, no executions were reported in 4 countries – Bahrain, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Malaysia – that carried out executions in 2010. On the other hand, 7 countries took up the practice of capital punishment once again in 2011 and 2012: Afghanistan (2) and United Arab Emirates (1) in 2011; Botswana (1), Japan (3), Gambia (9), Pakistan (1) and India (1) in 2012.

Source: Hands Off Cain

In bold: liberal democracies1 (2) that carried out executions (48) in 2011 In italics: changes in 2011 (2) with regard to 2010

* Non-UN member States

1 The classification “liberal democracy” is based on the rigorous analytic standards employed by Freedom House in its Freedom in the World 2012 report on the state of political rights and civil liberties around the world (www.freedomhouse.org).