We know that, together, we can end the death penalty everywhere.
We are making tremendous progress – today, 23 states in the U.S. and two-thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty. Join us.
For 45 years, Amnesty International has been campaigning to abolish the death penalty around the world. When Amnesty started its work in 1977, only 16 countries had totally abolished the death penalty. Today, that number has risen to 108 – more than half the world’s countries.
All people have the right to live, and we all have the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. These are human rights that people have, regardless of whether they have been convicted of crimes. The death penalty violates these basic rights.
The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception – regardless of who is accused, the nature or circumstances of the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution. Amnesty International believes than the death penalty should be abolished, once and for all.
The death penalty is too flawed to fix.
Number of countries that executed people in 2020 (including the U.S.).
Total number of executions in the U.S. in 2021
Number of states in the U.S. that have abolished the death penalty.
number of states in the US with a death penalty that have not carried out an execution in at least 10 years.
Rocky Myers has been on Alabama’s death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, AL, for nearly half his life. Serious flaws have affected his case including racial and class bias, inadequate legal representation, and allegations of police pressure and misconduct. Join Amnesty International in urging Alabama Governor, Kay Ivey, to intervene and immediately review Rocky Myers’ case, as well as all those on the state’s death row, with a view to commuting their death sentences.
Recorded executions in 2022 reached the highest figure in five years, as the Middle East and North Africa’s most notorious executioners carried out killing sprees, Amnesty International said today as it released its annual review of the death penalty.
“The draft Anti-Terrorism Act categorically fails on every human rights benchmark. If the Biden administration values the rights of the Sri Lankan people, they need to send a clear message to President Ranil Wickremesinghe that this law must be overhauled entirely or scrapped altogether.”
Paul O’Brien, Amnesty International USA A macabre ritual, incompatible with human dignity but enacted over one and a half thousand times in the USA in the past four and a …
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Furman v. Georgia ruling, which temporarily outlawed executions in the USA, Amnesty International reminds President Biden and the federal authorities of the urgent need to meet his promise to work for permanent eradication of the death penalty. Justin Mazzola, Deputy Director, Research, at Amnesty International USA, said:
2021 saw a worrying rise in executions and death sentences as some of the world’s most prolific executioners returned to business as usual and courts were unshackled from Covid-19 restrictions, Amnesty International said today in its annual review of the death penalty.
Today, an Oklahoma District Court held a hearing on the preliminary injunction to halt upcoming executions scheduled from October 2021-February 2022 for four people on the state’s death row.
The unprecedented challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic were not enough to deter 18 countries from carrying out executions in 2020, Amnesty International said today in its annual global review of …
You can download the letter here
Saudi Arabia executed a record number of people in 2019, despite an overall decline in executions worldwide, Amnesty International said in its 2019 global review of the death penalty published …
Global executions fell by almost one-third last year to the lowest figure in at least a decade, Amnesty International said in its 2018 global review of the death penalty published …