Missionaries of the Sacred

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that called for a moratorium on the death penalty. Currently 56 states and territories still have the death penalty.

In 2008, 93% of executions occurred in five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States.

According to Amnesty International, at least 2,390 people were executed in 2008 (in 25 countries) and 8,864 were sentenced to death. In Iran, executions of prisoners who were under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged offence continued in 2008. Other concerns about the death penalty include lack of transparency of its use in some countries, including China, as well as the fact that many “confessions” used to prove guilt in capital cases were obtained through torture.