The Death Penalty Worldwide - Status Report

The vast majority of executions worldwide are in regimes of either majority Muslim countries (Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, UAE, Oman) or Communist countries (China, North Korea, Vietnam). 

Of the top 11 countries that execute people, #8 is the U.S. and #9 is South Sudan are exceptions to this rule. Botswana, Belarus, and Japan are also exceptions (although none of these countries carries out large numbers of executions and Belarus is arguably residually communist). The Roman Catholic Church meanwhile is firmly opposed to the death penalty.

So, why does the GOP which is frequently anti-Muslim and anti-Communist, and has many Catholic members, like the death penalty so much?

Iran is more democratic than most people think that it is, but it still adheres to barbaric practices and executed more people each year than any country than China.

On a per capita basis, Iran with 88 million people, executes more people than China, which has about 1,400 million people (assuming that China executed fewer than 9,259 people last year, which is probable but hard to determine with certainty due to state secrecy).

Yusef Mehrdad and Sadrullah Fazeli Zare were arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to death in April 2021 for running online “anti-Islam groups and channels,” Mizan said. Authorities convicted both after they were found to be members of a Telegram channel titled “Critique of Superstition and Religion,” according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

From CNN.

Iran executed at least 582 people last year, a 75% increase on the previous year . . . The vast majority of the executions – at least 544 – were of people accused of murder and drug-related offenses, said the report.

From CNN.

Capital punishment was used by 6 of 50 U.S. states in 2022. They were Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. According to this source:

Here are the 10 states with the most executions since 1976:

1. Texas - 574
2. Oklahoma - 116
3. Virginia - 113
4. Florida - 99
5. Missouri - 92
6. Georgia - 76
7. Alabama - 69
8. Ohio - 56
9. North Carolina - 43
10. South Carolina - 43