At least 527 people were executed worldwide last year, down from 2009 in 714, although China is believed to have executed thousands more, human rights group Amnesty International said.
Beijing is said to have executed far more people than the rest of the world combined. The figure obtained by Amnesty does not include figures related to China, where they are kept as state secrets, the group said.
At least 23 countries carried out judicial executions in 2010, four more than in 2009, Amnesty said in its annual report last year.
China has abolished the death penalty for 13 non-violent crimes including smuggling of historical relics and offenses related to tax evasion, but the death penalty will continue to apply for 55 other offences, Chinese news reports said last month.
"A number of countries continue to carry out the death penalty for drug offences, economic crimes, consensual adult sex and blasphemy, under international human rights law that prohibits the imposition of the death penalty except for the most serious crimes," it said. in the statement of Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty.
Of the 527 executions recorded in 2010, at least 252 were carried out in Iran, at least 60 in North Korea, at least 53 in Yemen, 46 in the US, at least 27 in Saudi Arabia, at least 18 in Libya and at least 17 in Syria, it said. is Amnesty, stating that only a few countries have published official figures.
Methods from beheading to shooting
The methods of execution in 2010 were beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and firearms.
At least 2,024 new death sentences were handed down in 67 countries in 2010 and at least 17,833 people were sentenced to death worldwide at year's end, the group said.
About 8,000 prisoners were on death row in Pakistan in 2010 despite Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's announcement in 2008 that all death sentences should be commuted to life imprisonment.
At the end of 2010, over 3,200 people were awaiting the death penalty in the US.
After 2009, when for the first time there were no registered executions in Europe and the former Soviet Union, Belarus carried out two executions in 2010.
Most of the death sentences last year, 365, were carried out in Pakistan, while at least 279 people were sentenced to death in Iraq, 185 in Egypt and at least 151 in Nigeria.
Despite the increase in the number of countries carrying out executions in the past year, Amnesty International said there is a clear global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty.
The number of countries that have abolished the death penalty in law or practice increased from 108 to 139 in 2001.
Gabon abolished the death penalty from its legislation in 2010 and at the end of the year Lebanon, Mali, Mongolia and South Korea were considering proposals to abolish the death penalty.
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