Fewer countries use death penalty, but sentences surge

UNITED NATIONS — The death penalty is steadily receding into the dustbin of history in most countries around the world. But in a handful of countries where it is still used, the number of people sentenced to death have surged recently, and a few countries that had stopped sentencing people to death have resumed the practice in what they call cases of terrorism.

The countries among the most active executioners are regional rivals: Saudi Arabia and Iran, and China and the United States.

They are in a minority of nations. All told, 105 countries have abolished the death penalty, with Suriname and Mongolia the latest to scrap it altogether. According to the United Nations, 60 other countries allow for the death penalty but have not carried out an execution in a decade, making them what the U.N. calls “de facto abolitionists.” Only 28 countries have retained capital punishment on their law books and used it in the last 10 years.

But even as the number of countries using capital punishment has declined, there has been a rise in the number of convicts sentenced to death. Amnesty International’s latest report found at least 2,466 people had been sentenced to death in 2014, a 28 percent increase from 2013.

Some countries have returned to using capital punishment after suspending the practice for many years. Jordan and Pakistan executed several citizens in 2014 in terrorism cases. That year, Egypt, on more than one occasion, sentenced several hundred citizens to death, many of them supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood who had participated in violent political protests in which a single police officer was killed.