Below you’ll find breaking news as well as reports, updates on our campaigns, and victories.
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Report
Human slaughterhouse: Mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya prison, Syria
A chilling new report by Amnesty International exposes the Syrian government’s calculated campaign of extrajudicial executions by mass hangings at Saydnaya Prison. Between 2011 and 2015, every week and often twice a week, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells and hanged to death. In five years, as many as 13,000 people, most of them civilians believed to be opposed to the government, were hanged in secret at Saydnaya.
February 3, 2017
Press Release
Executing Dylann Roof Will Not Bring Justice
In response to the announcement that Dylann Roof was sentenced to death after being convicted in the shooting deaths of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, issued the following statement:
January 4, 2017
Report
Iran: Macabre propaganda videos feature forced ‘confessions’ of executed Sunni men
Iran’s authorities have used crude propaganda tactics to dehumanize death penalty victims in the eyes of the public and divert attention away from the deeply flawed trials that led to their death sentences, said Amnesty International in a new report published today.
November 15, 2016
Press Release
Indonesia: Halt chemical castration and expansion of the scope of death penalty
Indonesia’s authorities must immediately repeal provisions that allow sex offenders to be punished by forced chemical castration and even the death penalty, Amnesty International said today. “The sexual abuse of children is indescribably horrific. But subjecting offenders to chemical castration or executions is not justice, it is adding one cruelty to another,” said Papang Hidayat, Amnesty International’s Researcher on Indonesia. Chemical castration is a drug or hormone treatment to suppress sex drive. Imposing it by law without informed consent as a punitive measure would be a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. “Forced chemical castration is a violation of the prohibition…
October 13, 2016
Report
At least 20 states resort to death penalty in flawed anti-terror drive
Countries are increasingly resorting to the death penalty in a flawed attempt to combat terrorism-related crimes, Amnesty International said today in a new briefing ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty. At least 20 countries sentenced people to death or carried out executions for terrorism-related crimes last year (Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, Chad, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, UAE and the USA).
October 7, 2016
Press Release
Pakistan: Stop execution of death row prisoner with mental disability
Pakistan’s authorities must not execute Imdad Ali, a death row prisoner with a history of mental illness, Amnesty International said today.
September 26, 2016
Press Release
Bangladesh: Halt imminent execution of Mir Quasem Ali after unfair trial
The Bangladesh authorities must halt the imminent execution of a senior political leader who has been sentenced to death following a deeply flawed trial, Amnesty International said today. “The people of Bangladesh deserve justice for crimes committed during the War of Independence. The continued use of the death penalty will not achieve this. It only serves to inflame domestic tensions and further divide a society riven by violence,” said Champa Patel, Amnesty International’s South Asia Director. The Bangladesh Supreme Court today upheld the conviction and death sentence against Mir Quasem Ali, a key financier of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, after rejecting…
August 30, 2016
Press Release
Iraq: Executions will not eliminate security threats
The execution of 36 men in Iraq yesterday marks an alarming rise in the authorities’ use of the death penalty in response to the dramatic security threats the country is facing, said Amnesty International today. The men were convicted over the killing of 1,700 military cadets at Speicher military camp near Trikrit in June 2014, after a deeply-flawed mass trial which lasted only a few hours, and relied on “confessions” extracted under torture. “These mass executions mark a chilling increase in Iraq’s use of the death penalty,” said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International’s Middle East and…
August 22, 2016
Press Release
Hanging of teenager in Iran shows authorities’ brazen disregard for international law
A teenager was executed in Iran after being convicted of the rape of another boy, the first confirmed execution of a juvenile in the country this year.
August 2, 2016
Press Release
Delaware Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Unconstitutional
The Delaware Supreme Court ruled that the state’s death penalty as it currently stands is unconstitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Hurst v. Florida. The Hurst decision required that juries, not judges, must determine whether to impose the death penalty.
August 2, 2016
Press Release
Jokowi should not become the most prolific executioner in recent Indonesian history
The Indonesian authorities have told the relatives of 14 death row prisoners that they will execute them by firing squad tonight, Amnesty International has learned.
July 28, 2016
Press Release
Indonesia: The appointment of Gen. Wiranto as top security official shows contempt for human rights
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decision to make Gen. Wiranto Indonesia’s most powerful security official a mere day after Indonesia ordered the execution of 14 death row prisoners shows contempt for human rights, Amnesty International said today.
July 27, 2016