World press review on corporal punishment in the Middle East (April 11, 2013)

The Washington Post published an article on which countries execute the most prisoners based on the Amnesty International’s latest report on capital punishment.

"As the report points out, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Yemen remain the biggest users of capital punishment. We don’t even know how many people China executes each year — those numbers are considered state secrets," the article says.

The numbers from Iraq are particularly alarming: "Amnesty confirmed at least 129 executions there in 2012 (up from 68 in 2011), including some “batch” executions of as many as 34 people in one day. Many of the executions appear linked to Iraq’s post-Saddam transitions — the former dictator’s bodyguard was among those executed this year, and the country’s former foreign minister and deputy prime minister are on death row".

Among the Western countries, the U.S. remains the biggest executioner. "The U.S., on the other hand, executed 43 people in 2012, which — as the report notes several times — puts the country at odds with both its neighbors and much of the Western world," the article concludes.