PARIS: Four states in the Middle East, led by Iran, made "ruthless and chilling" use of the death penalty in 2020 despite an overall decline during the Covid-19 pandemic, dominating the global toll of executions, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
The London-based rights group said it recorded 483 executions in 18 countries worldwide last year, a decrease of 26 percent from the 657 recorded in 2019 and the lowest number it has registered in the past decade.
Amnesty's report does not include China, which it said remains the "world's leading executioner," with thousands put to death each year but the data classified as a "state secret".
"The year 2020 was marked by a further global decline in the use of the death penalty, and while the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to reductions in the number of executions carried out and death sentences imposed, it also exacerbated the inherent cruelty of this punishment," Amnesty said.
Excluding China, its report found that 88 percent of all recorded executions took place in just four countries in the Middle East -- Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
"Throughout 2020 countries from the Middle East and North Africa displayed a ruthless and chilling persistence in carrying out plans to put people to death even during a year when most of the world was focussed on protecting people's lives from a deadly virus," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The number of executions recorded in the Middle East fell 25 percent, driven by a 85 percent drop in recorded executions in Saudi Arabia and a reduction in executions by more than half in Iraq.
However the report noted "a significant spike" in recorded executions in Egypt, which saw a more than threefold rise to 107 last year from 32 in 2019.
Iran carried out at least 246 executions, retaining its place as the most prolific user of capital punishment in the region, and the second worldwide after China.
Amnesty said that in Iran "the death penalty was increasingly used as a weapon of political repression against dissidents, protesters and members of ethnic minority groups."
Some of those executed during the year were members of Iran's Kurdish and Baluchi minorities, it said.
Meanwhile, Iran continued to use the death penalty against people who were below the age of 18 at the time of the crime in defiance of international law, it said, recording three such cases.
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