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Summary: Fewer countries than ever before are carrying out executions. While 58 countries retained the death penalty in 2009, only 18 actually used it. Amnesty International's campaign started in 1977 when 137 countries still had capital punishment. But it’s not all good news – there are some glaring exceptions to this positive trend.
The Big One: China In China, information on the death penalty is a state secret – so we can’t know how many people were executed there. We believe it's likely to have been thousands. The death penalty applies to approximately 68 offences. Trials are often grossly unfair – in December, Briton Akmal Shaikh was executed after the court refused to consider evidence that he was mentally ill. The Child-Killer: Iran Iran has no qualms about executing child offenders. At least 139 child offenders are currently under death sentences. The authorities also use capital punishment as a political tool to silence opposition. There were at least 112 executions between the disputed presidential election of 12 June and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inauguration on 5 August. Europe’s Last Executioner: Belarus Belarus remains the only European country to retain the death penalty. There were no executions in 2009 making it the first year since Amnesty started keeping records that Europe was execution-free. But earlier this month, Andrei Zhuk and Vasily Yuzepchuk were put to death – with their relatives only informed after the event. When Andrei Zhuk’s mother tried to deliver a food parcel on 19 March, it was returned by the prison authorities, who told her that the two men “had been moved”. She was told not to come looking for her son any more, but to wait for official notification from the court. On 22 March, she was informed that both men had been shot. Further information
pdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/AI_Death_Penalty_2009.pdf