Over the past two years, the number of deaths has increased sharply in the world. The Supreme Commissioner of the UN Human Rights, Folker, said this at a meeting of the Human Rights Council dedicated to the topic of eradication of the death penalty.
“A number of countries claim that this topic is purely in the zone of their national sovereignty, however, from my point of view, the death penalty is incompatible with a respectful attitude to human dignity and the right to life,” the Supreme Commissioner said.
The Turk added that this punishment “has no place” in the 21st century. Among the countries that are most often resorting to the death penalty in recent years, the UN representative classified Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and the United States of America.
According to the latest UN data, in 2023 in 16 countries, 1153 death sentences were carried out, which is 31 percent more than a year earlier, and is the highest indicator over the past eight years.
“The next jump followed the increase in the number of executions by at once by 53 percent from 2021 to 2022,” said the Supreme Commissioner, adding that these numbers do not take into account China, where, according to him, there is no transparent information and statistics on death penalty.
In this regard, the Turk urged the Chinese authorities to reconsider his policy in favor of the abolition of the death penalty.
Although the crimes related to drugs do not belong to the “most serious crimes” in accordance with international law, they account for more than 40 percent of the death penalty – the largest indicator since 2016.
“This share has also increased sharply in the last two years, and almost all these executions have been held in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Folker Turk explained.
Despite the global growth in the number of deaths, an increasing number of countries, mainly in the global south, cancel this practice.
Today, 113 states have completely abandoned the death penalty. These include Zimbabwe, where President Emmerson Mnngagva at the end of 2024 approved the law on the termination of death sentences, as well as 26 other countries of Africa.
The Turk urged countries to move towards the complete abolition of the death penalty, introduce a moratorium and make sure that the death penalty was applied only for the most serious crimes.
Speaking to the members of the Human Rights Council, the General Prosecutor of Zimbabwe Virginia Mabiza explained that the death penalty in her country was introduced by colonial rulers in the 18th century and was preserved after the country’s independence in 1980.
According to her, in 1999, more than 56 percent of the population of Zimbabwe spoke to maintain the death penalty. In the period from 1980 to 2005, 105 convicted criminals were executed in the country.
“Since then, not a single death sentence has been executed in Zimbabwe,” said the Prosecutor General.
Virginia Mabiza noted that a wide circle of crimes was punished earlier by the death penalty, including a conspiracy and an attempt to rob. Since 2013, to the highest degree of punishment in Zimbabwe, they were sentenced only for committing the murder.