§ Lynne JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has collated on the number of executions per 100,000 population in the five countries with the highest rates of judicial executions in each of the last three years. [114878]
12W
§ Mr. RammellVerifiable information on the numbers of executions which take place around the world is not available as not all countries publish such figures. We use statistics collected by Amnesty International which we regard as one definitive source of information on death penalty cases. Amnesty International do not publish a league table of figures covering every country in the world though their research and ours suggests that capital punishment continues to be implemented in about 30 countries. We also believe that the true number of executions world-wide is significantly higher than the number of recorded cases.
According to available statistics in 2000, 88 per cent. of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA. In 2001 and 2002, 90 per cent. and 84 per cent. respectively of all known executions took place in the same four countries. We believe that Singapore has the highest per capita number of recorded executions in the world, with 13 executions per million. China has the highest overall recorded number of executions, with at least 1,060 executions in 2002.