Executions on the rise around the world

A spike in the number of executions recorded worldwide saw more people put to death last year than at any point since 1989, according to a new report from human rights group Amnesty International.

The total number of reported executions rose to at least 1,634 people in 2015, an increase of more than 50 per cent over the previous year.

"The rise in executions last year is profoundly disturbing," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary general. "Not for the last 25 years have so many people been put to death by states around the world."

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The world's "top five executioners" have been named as China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US, The Guardian says. However, Amnesty's report does not include figures from China nor North Korea, where records of executions are kept secret.

"Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have all put people to death at unprecedented levels, often after grossly unfair trials," Shetty added. Together, those three countries account for 89 per cent of executions listed in the report.

Iran put 977 people to death in 2015, mostly for "drug-related offences", said the human rights group, while Pakistan executed 326 people.

The country lifted its seven-year moratorium on the death penalty to "allow executions for terrorism-related offences" following the Taliban massacre in Peshawar in December 2014, CNN reports.

Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty's death penalty expert, told CNN that global unrest is a leading factor in the rise. "Many governments' responses to evolving security threats is leading to the unravelling of human rights protections around the world," she said.

But it isn't all bad news for anti-death penalty campaigners. "Four countries – Fiji, the Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Suriname – abolished the death penalty for all crimes, reinforcing the long-term trend towards abolition," the Guardian reports, while Mongolia is also in the process of implementing a new criminal code outlawing execution.