Talk:Capital punishment by country

Mongolia abolished the death penalty

Could someone update the article and map?

Sources: http://www.worldcoalition.org/ADPAN-welcomes-Mongolias-decision-abolish-death-penalty-in-law.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.117.128 (talk) 14:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC) Have edited and hope the reviewer will leave it in peace, last time I had thought they had written the ranks were the titles in Mongol history which is the basis and international raison d´être of Mongolia and the reviewer though seemed to show that I had thought the titles were the ranks. Now the utopian, Buddhist abolition of the capital penalty in Mongolia led to the mass genocide that is current and repetitive and has ended the Mongol nation of Mongolia for which Mongolia was created an independent state, a member of the United Nations. This even has destroyed by genocide Mongol communities and lineages abroad and Mongol descent prized and loved by discriminated and suppressed families and persons, even a reason for living of the suicidal. Previous Buddhism had caused the end of Mongol power. This shows an error of realism, and the need for the Confucian concept of "recompense injury with justice and kindness with kindness" of the Analects which the Mongols in history preceding the Middle Ages had thought bufoonery, or they had thought all a vehicle of repetitive parroting fit to the now genetically proven chimpanzee species race of China, but the species is created to know the laws of nature, and there may verily be the Creator guiding them. Now as to the need for capital justice it is upon those nations that have in their entire membership perpetrated the crime of genocide against their own populations, and then pretended to be those nations, even in their entirety, it should apply to Mongolia for the murder in genocide of the entire Mongol people nation for which Mongolia was created and constituted a state. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.137.218.203 (talk) 09:28, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Map Update

Thank you to whoever replaced the map. Kiribati and Guinea also need to be changed to blue, as they have both abolished capital punishment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.37.172 (talk) 16:04, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Kiribati as well as the Northern Mariana Islands still need to be changed to blue — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoyNickNorse (talk • contribs) 13:21, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Guinea abolished the death penalty

Could someone update the article and map?

Sources: https://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/guinea-new-criminal-code-drops-death-penalty-but-fails-to-tackle-impunity-and-keeps-repressive-provi https://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.ca/2016/07/guinea-new-criminal-code-drops-death.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.117.128 (talk) 10:13, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Also update the map for the Republic of the Congo and Nauru.

Sources: http://www.worldcoalition.org/Congos-Presidential-Election-Strengthens-the-Controversial-New-Constitution-that-Abolished-Capital-Punishment.html http://www.ambafrance-fj.org/Nauru-updates-its-Criminal-Code-abolishes-Death-Penalty-and-Decriminalize — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.118.166 (talk) 22:32, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Major Numerical Error

Please note that the table under "Executed per Capita" seems to say that the US population is much larger than China. Perhaps someone who knows the right numbers can fix this. (There are several similar errors.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.246.216.28 (talk) 15:57, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Yep some of these numbers are clearly wrong. Nearly 1 billion people in Bangladesh? More people in Indonesia than China? How did it get to this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ezrado (talk • contribs) 22:24, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

It also states that there are over 444,000,000 people in Iran. This chart needs revision: the numbers are clearly way off the mark, and it should also incorporate additional sources.64.222.111.148 (talk) 05:32, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

In the table of executions by country by year, China is listed with: China Execution: 1,000+ Executions / million people: 0.402 This seems to imply that there are ~2500000000 people in China?

I fixed the last issue, the rest seems to have been fixed too. Gap9551 (talk) 21:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Why 4 categories?

I get the distinction between military and civil use, but I can't understand why "hasn't been used in 10 years" is relevant. Except as a political tactic to paint the death penalty as aberrant. For example, if Nauru uses the death penalty at US per capita rates, it would only execute once every 100 years, statistically. And that's exactly what the separate "10 year" category does, is shuffle the small users into a separate category to make use appear rarer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.18.24.66 (talk) 03:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

The anti-death penalty side want to promote a narrative that abolishment is a historical inevitability. So rather than using more neutral practicing, non-practicing, and moratorium countrie, they use retentionist, abolishonost, and abolitionist in practice. Then few supposedly abolishonist-in-practice countries did revert to "retentionist", which is rather linguistically inconvenient because these countries should have be described as retentionist instead during abolitionist-in-practice period. To save this precious anti death penalty narrative, they decided to split "abolitionist in practice for sure" and "abolitionist in practicr, maybe" categories.

This would also fall apart when even one country in "abolitionist-in-practice for sure" would end moratorium. Also, if one single abolitionist country revert using death penalty then the entire narrative would fall apart. This Wikipedia article is political article so it get usual mix of biases. Vapour (talk) 20:18, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Britain

Neither Jersey nor Bermuda are part of the UK. Overseas territories don't count and it's misleading. If they're to be included give them their own entities. The last execution in the UK was in 1964 and the year of (total) abolition was 1998! 62.252.24.130 (talk) 12:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Older comments

Suggestion: add a list of which countries still execute children and the mentally retarded. It should be a short list.

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30. Iraq (Suspended in April 2003 after 2003 invasion; reinstated August 2004)

10. Israel (1962, 1954) - only one execution (Adolf Eichmann), which counted as an extraordinary crime

Should the caveats exist for Iraq and Israel? Someone could put such information being of equal relevance for every nation. To provide such information for only two select cases is biased.

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Removed from article: China

Iraq

Iran

USA

Saudia

This list is neither complete nor English. Also why can't this information be in the death penalty article. --rmhermen

Let the list complete, help it to complete, and put it back in the death penalty article. This kind of information has its place here. 62.212.103.37

Axel, I made the change to follow most closely the Amnesty info, in that countries on list 2 are more abolicionist than countries in list three. In particular, at least one of the countries would be in list their list 3 had it not abolished death penalty for common crimes recently.--AN

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What an ugly looking article. Can't we lower case the country names and put them into a bulleted list?! -- Zoe

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Please, go ahead. It's the result of dirty cut and paste.AN

I've de-uglified it a bit. --Brion

Thanks, Brion. I didn't feel like tackling it.  :-) -- Zoe

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I moved this page to "Use of death penalty worldwide". The new title is much less of a mouthful than the old one, although it is slightly less descriptive of the article content. -- SJK

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What does a numbered list provide here? The countries are just in alphabetical order. --Brion 00:01 Sep 11, 2002 (UTC)

Readers can be interested about the number of abolitionist countries, retentionist countries, etc. This is an easy way to see it. -- Juan M. Gonzalez 00:18 Sep 11, 2002 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning in this article that although the United States as a whole has not abolished the death penalty, 12 states and the District of Columbia have abolished it. --soulpatch

...though the federal government may still execute people for federal crimes committed in those states. --Brion

The federal government can even execute people in states that do not have the death penalty for federal crimes commited in that state or another. --rmhermen

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As a prereq. for admission to the EU, Turkey is expected to abolish the death penalty for all crimes this year: its government signed a protocol. The change has to be approved by the parliament. Keep an eye on http://www.mfa.gov.tr for news of ratification. Once that is done Turkey can be moved to the list of countried that have abolished de jure. 209.149.235.241 00:02, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Should we make a distinction between countries which really have abolished the death penalty, and countries which use it anyway despite their official pronouncements? I don't think relying on Amnesty International as a single source is a good idea. They've always been soft on totalitarian countries and rarely bothered to follow up on reports of huge numbers of exterminations (see genocide, democide, mass murder).

For example, if Cambodia kills one million people for non-conformance to goverment policy, is that capital punishment, genocide, crimes against humanity, or what? The classification system used lets this slip between the cracks. The genocide article can't call it "genocide" because it was only politicaly, not aimed at wiping out an ethnic group. And I guess the capital punishment article won't say anything unless their are court records showing that the people were convicted first.

A lot of so-called human rights groups are phonies. They trump up a lot of cases against free world contries but ignore crimes that are hundreds or thousands of times worse. This is way beyond holding America to a higher standard. It's about pure hypocrisy: not holding your political cronies to ANY STANDARD AT ALL. --Uncle Ed 16:30, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Czech Republic / Slovakia

Re Qertis's revert of my edit: you cannot logically claim that the Czech Republic and Slovakia conducted last executions in 1989 and abolished the death penalty in 1990, because neither country existed until 1993. The execution and abolition referred to happened in Czechoslovakia, which is why Czechoslovakia is relevant. The short explanation I added is in the same category as that given for Germany in the same list. Cambyses 14:43, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The last edit by Kulkuri seems fine to me. Qertis

Execution of minors

Removed this sentence from the legal form of punishment list:

Only Somalia and the United States allow the execution of minors

Actually, a number of the countries on the list execute minors (i.e. persons under age of 18). Somalia and USA are the only countries not to have ratified the UN convention on rights of the child, which bars execution of minors. However, some of the other countries which have ratified the convention have reserved exceptions to Article 37 (the ban on minor executions) and other have ratified the convention without reservation but continue with minor executions anyway. Ellsworth 20:36, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Amnesty International indicates 83 Abolitionist countries for all crimes NOT 86

The Amnesty International website on the death penalty states that there are 83 abolitionist countries and 13 abolitionist countries for ordinary crimes only. Their website was recently updated in January 2005 so I think wikipedia's article is incorrect in saying 86 abolitionist and 12 abolitionist for ordinary crimes. Check out Amnesty's website: http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-countries-eng

What is the point of this article?

As it stands, it's a simple mirror of Amnesty International's list. You may agree with their advocacy, but they are an advocacy group, and I haven't been able to find more information about their "classification scheme" for which crimes are "common" and which are "exceptional." In most of the U.S., capital punishment is reserved for the most heinous murder or for treason, so lumping it in the same category as Sudan, which executes people for being gay is POV; it seems to be contrived especially for the purpose of pointing to the U.S. and saying, "See? You're as bad as Sudan!" which is good and effective for an advocacy group but not really for an encyclopedia.

I think we should come up with our own classification for the list and trust Wikipedians with the knowledge of particular countries' laws to update it using verifiable sources other than (just) Amnesty International. Demi ^T/_C 00:03, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)

Personally I think that some form of this list has a place on Wikipedia. It includes more than just a list of countries as we also have dates that are sometimes hard to find elsewhere. We also have several countries that aren't on the Amnesty list as they are self-governing territories. And on a more personal level I think that the death penalty is slightly more important than half the cruft that lurks around here.

We could just divide the countries into a list of "Has death penalty" and "Doesn't have death penalty" but then this also suffers from the same POV of lumping say Nauru, which has hasn't executed anyone since 1968 and the United States which has executed 13 people in 2005 [1]. And of course the US becomes complicated as this doesn't take into account individual states and then a federal level. Evil Monkey∴Hello 01:39, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Such a binary categorization would also have the effect of showing less information than what's there now. And of course the subject of the death penalty is important. The cure is probably more information, not less. In fact--what about this: let's keep the existing categories for now, but instead of just a bulleted list with the occasional note of detail, have a table with columns for "law provides death penalty," "last executed," "number executed," "crimes eligible" and "notes?" Then, when sufficient detail exists in the table, better categorizations might suggest themselves.

Are you serious, I find these sorts of tables and maps very uesful, see List of countries with mains power plugs, voltages & frequencies for a similar one. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:23, 2005 Apr 9 (UTC)

This seems like a good task for Wikipedians since there's likely someone who knows these pieces of information for most of the countries on the list. Until better information is available, we can use the information from AI and approximate, so for example:

Country	Death Penalty?	Last Execution	Number executed (2004)	Crimes Eligible for Death Penalty	Notes
Nauru	Yes	never	0		No executions since independence in 1968
United Kingdom	No	1964	0		Abolished in 1998
United States	Yes	2005	59	Generally only premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances. Federal death penalty for certain murders as well as treason, espionage and major drug trafficking	Not all states have the death penalty, though federal law provides for it in all states
Saudi Arabia	Yes	2004 or later	33	Many violent and nonviolent offenses including murder, apostasy, drug offenses, witchcraft and sexual misconduct.

That's just a brief table to sketch the idea (I'm not very good with tables I'm afraid). Perhaps the whole table could be together, alphabetically, and the rows color-coded as the map is; or each category could be broken out with separate tables, as it is now.

Another piece of information that might be useful is method of execution. Nearly all of the U.S.'s executions were by lethal injection while Saudi Arabia's were by beheading, for example [2].

Anyway, thanks a lot for the discussion!

Demi ^T/_C 17:02, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)

An excellent idea! Alphabetically may be a good idea as if you are looking for a particular country it saves you looking through four different categories. An important thing will of course be sources for all information especially number executed and the laws. I think we can just Amnesty for the basic info (ie I don't think they are lying about which countries do and do not have the death penalty). Another thing that should probably happen in the page be moved to Use of capital punishment worldwide to move it into line with the Capital punishment in the United States, Capital punishment in the United Kingdom pages. I've had a go below at the table. The colours probably need to be toned down a bit (need someone with some experience with html colours. Perhaps the methods could come under notes as most countries will only use one form. Evil Monkey∴Hello 23:00, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Country	Death Penalty?	Last Execution	Number executed (2004)	Crimes Eligible for Death Penalty	Notes
Nauru	Yes	never	0		No executions since independence in 1968
Saudi Arabia	Yes	2004 or later	33	Many violent and nonviolent offenses including murder, apostasy, drug offenses, witchcraft and sexual misconduct.
United Kingdom	No	1964	0		Abolished in 1998
United States	Yes	2005	59	Generally only premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances. Federal death penalty for certain murders as well as treason, espionage and major drug trafficking	Not all states have the death penalty, though federal law provides for it in all states

Color Key:
Blue	Abolished for all crimes
Green	Abolished for Ordinary Crimes
Orange	Abolitionist in Practice
Red	Legal Form of Punishment

The table and key look great. The only thing I'd add (under the color key) is that these are the categories "according to Amnesty International" or something similar. I do think (part of) the eventual goal will be to come up with our own categories, which might number more or less than Amnesty's, but let's use these for now. I might take a whack at the article over the weekend if I have time--otherwise it might be a while. Demi ^T/_C 23:50, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)

I just thought of something. The color-filled cells might end up looking kind of neon in a big table with all the countries in it--hard on the eyes. What if, instead, we used a nice big circle next to the "Yes" or "No?" I've edited the table above accordingly (and used the colorblind-friendly colors from Image:Death Penalty World Map.png too. Demi ^T/_C 00:14, 2005 Apr 9 (UTC)

Oh, and the rename would be good, too. Actually I think they should all refer to "death penalty" since "capital punishment" has the air of euphemism about it to me; but it makes sense to use the same term in the article titles. Demi ^T/_C 00:29, 2005 Apr 9 (UTC)

crimes in US-states

this website contains a list of the crimes punishable with the death panelty in order of states... maybe someone can put them as a footnote to the US? I have no idea how to do that.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=144&scid=10

map

did anyone noticed that the map and the list are nor compatible? Armenia for instance is listed as death-penalty-free but is colored green in the map... maybe someone could change these errors...

Well, I did change it, but as my account is too new to Wikimedia Commons, they would not let me overwrite the file. Someone please help change that. My version is over at Death Penalty World Map1.png. Thanks, Anarkial 06:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

If countries with no executions for at least 10 years are in the abolished in practice category, Cameroon, Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines should all be in that category. With more detail about the most recent execution, a few more might belong to that category as well (Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Dominica). Could someone familar with creating Wikipedia maps adjust this accordingly please? SimonX (talk) 17:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

People's Republic of China

In China capital crimes are: murder (art. 232), rape (art. 236, general rape, not only rape of children), kidnapping (discretionary, but mandatory if the hostage is killed), endangering national security (art. 113 punished by death any act of endangering national sucurity, no only crimes elencated above), arson (art 115), breaches a dam (art. 115), causing explosion (art.115), spread poison (art. 115), causing destructions (art. 115), using dangerous methods to harm public secutity, especially if the death or injury of another is caused (art 115), sabotage of facilities (art. 119), sabotage of infiammable equipment (art. 119), jailbreak, teaching criminal methods, using cult or fedual superstition to harm legal order, violence, causing injury or wounding (art. 232), theft of public or private property or habitual theft, speculation, production, selling or expostition of pornographic material, smuggling of precious metal (art. 151), smuggling of rare species or rare species product (art 151), smuggling of cultural relics (art. 151), smuggling with evasion of over 500.000 yuan (art. 153), attempted murder and other attempted crimes, manslaughter, hooliganism (not deleted), causing trouble, possession, selling or manufacturing gun, ammunition or explosives, piracy, pimping, human trafficking, killing rare species, crimes against cultural relics and other crimes. Francesco

"Only in the constitution"

I believe that the notices "Only in the constitution" next to many of the countries are misleading. I don't know whether or not the constitution of (for example) Russia mentions death penalty; even if it does, death penalty is not only in the constitution: it wasn't abolished from the criminal law, it is just not being carried out [3]. - Mike Rosoft 00:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Russian Constitution does; it says Capital execution could be set by federal law as an exceptional means of punishment for hardest crimes against life, in condition that accused has right to be treated by lay people (sorry my bad English). Execution in Chechnya was done nod by Russia, but by independent Ichkerian authorities; its mention here is arguable. KonstKaras 18:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Biocide?

Tajikistan lists (correctly from the source) biocide as a capital offence... Rich Farmbrough. 22:38, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia lists biocide solely as a material used to kill things (okay - I'm paraphrasing!). The act of biocide would presumably mean the termination of the life of any living thing, without exception. Presumably the inhabitants of Tajikistan incur the death penalty hundreds of times every day. The source may cite the term, but that is no reason to propogate the ludicrous misnomer. Please, what is meant by biocide in this context? Let someone who knows change the offending term to a generally understood one. Thanks. King Hildebrand 12:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Turkmenistan

It's abolished by their constitution, but that is meaningless. The leader has people executed for speaking badly about him. 64.131.176.162 01:50, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Can someone verify this?

I have discovered that in Switzerland you may ONLY be executed during wartime and ONLY if you have commited high treason (in other words, only if you have tried to kill a government member and have succeded/failed in doing so or if you have spied against Switzerland). Can some verify this information? User talk:Booksworm Booksworm 16:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Booksworm,

you asked this question before and as it seems you don't believe me here is the link to the Swiss "Strafgesetzbuch" which has a life term for "most heinous murder":

http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/311_0/index.html

Another link about death penalty in Switzerland is http://www.todesstrafe.ch/ where it says that the death penalty in military law was abolished. Since 1. January 2000 the death penalty is constitutionally forbidden. Sorry its all in German but as you are a citizen of the world ... ;-) (And sorry i can only falsify ...)

--Susu the Puschel 23:25, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

hey that is not true 24.16.35.160 (talk) 02:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I just want to point out one thing. Norway has not stepped totally away from death penalty. In the time of war, it is still allowed. Could someone fix this (I don't know so much about editting Wikipedia :) ) 217.149.124.183 17:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Where did you get that from?

Please see (e.g.)

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-countries-eng

http://www.handsoffcain.org/bancadati/schedastato.php?idstato=8000061&idcontinente=20

http://www.norway.org/News/archive/2003/200305capitalpunishment.htm

--Susu the Puschel 15:18, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

this info is totally outdated! 24.16.35.160 (talk) 02:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Israel

Israel has the civil death penalty for two crimes. One is the special law under which Eichmann was tried and executed. This law still exists and in principle could be used again. There is no "only in wartime" requirement. The other is in Section 99 of the Crimes Act: "A person who, with intent to assist an enemy in war against Israel, commits an act calculated so to assist him, is liable to the death sentence or to imprisonment for life." This crime does specifically state "in war" but to interpret that you have to realise that Israel considers itself to have been continuously at war from the day of its creation until today. So for example this law could be used (in principle) to execute someone who sold state secrets to Syria. Some in the Israeli government wanted to use it against Mordechai Vanunu, but he was charged with a non-capital offense instead. In summary, the situation with Israel is that the death penalty is very rare, but it still exists as a penalty that could be used today in principle. Incidentally, the article linked to says "in military law, the death penalty for murder has been imposed but never implemented" but that is quite wrong. In a very famous incident in June 1948, a soldier Meir Tubiansky was executed for "spying for the British" after a summary court-martial. I don't know if there have been other military executions (such things tend to be kept secret). 17:25, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Granted, but if death penalty is only an option for treason and crimes against humanity, it constitutes "only for exceptional crimes" (at least, according to Amnesty International [4]). I have attempted to clarify the table. - Mike Rosoft 19:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. McKay 23:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

United States

"Federal law provides the death penalty for drug trafficking, although no prosecution has ever been brought under that provision." Is it really true, and if so, wasn't it effectively abolished by the Supreme Court decision that rape cannot be punished with death? - Mike Rosoft 09:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

See 18 U.S.C. 3591(b). That was enacted I believe by the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994, well after Coker v. Georgia. That case held that rape was not a serious enough offence to justify the death penalty; but is large scale drug trafficking a sufficiently serious offence to justify it? Well, its hard to say which way the Supreme Court would go on that question, until they actually are presented with one. I think the assumption is that the law is probably unconstitutional -- part of the evidence which the court considered was the paucity (compared with murder) of laws providing for the death penalty for rape, and the paucity of prosecutions/sentences/executions, which would be the same case here -- in any case, the assumption of unconstitutionality at least in part explains the absence of prosecutions. But that sets up a catch-22 -- so long as its assumed to be unconstitutional, prosecutors won't seek the death penalty; but so long as they don't seek the death penalty, there will be no cases for the Supreme Court to consider, so there won't be a ruling on whether it is unconstitutional or not. (I swear I have answered this before.) --SJK 13:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

South Korea

The modification of the 'picture'(worldwide map) is needed. In south korea, the last excution was held in 1997, so ten years ago. And I am quite sure that there wouldn't be more excution in our lifetime although the abolition will not be done soon. So it's 'Abolitionist in Practice' for South korea, not 'Legal Form of Punishment'. - 06 july 2006.

• If the last execution in South Korea took place in 1997, it is less than ten years ago. You should wait until the next year. But I agree that it will have to be recategorized; contrary to what you say, we may see abolition of death penalty fairly soon (see [5]). - Mike Rosoft 19:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• guys, I know a lot about south korea, they use firing squad and hanging as their execution methods. 24.16.35.160 (talk) 02:36, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Careful with sources

Please note that the overuse of Amnesty sources may contradict WP:NPOV. Stifle (talk) 00:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Amnesty International may offer a useful way to categorize countries, but I believe we don't have to be a slave to their exact system, otherwise we risk just being an AI mirror site. Specifically, I propose a change to the "abolitionist in practice" category. According to the AI site:

Countries which retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes such as murder but can be considered abolitionist in practice in that they have not executed anyone during the past 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions. The list also includes countries which have made an international commitment not to use the death penalty.

(emphasis added)

The bolded part I think strays into the realm of judgement call. I propose that countries that have had no executions in the last 10 years and/or countries that have issued a statement (or similar) to not use the death penalty be placed in this category. This would make it clearer who should and shouldn't be in the category. Others appear to have similar feelings(see the Caribbean and Swaziland comments below).

What does everyone think of this?SimonX (talk) 15:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Australia

Australia has not used the death penalty since 1967, but it is still possible to be used for treason. There has been talk that David Hicks may recieve it if he is tried there.

I've seen that claim mentioned once or twice in the media, but I suspect it's mistaken. At the federal level, the Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 (the relevant section of which is viewable here) is quite explicit: "A person is not liable to the punishment of death for any offence." The state-level laws also seem to be fairly solid. Also, Australia has ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which requires that "each State Party shall take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction" (and explicitly addresses the issue of federal versus state law, too, saying that "the provisions of the present Protocol shall extend to all parts of federal States without any limitations or exceptions".) Assuming that the Australian government isn't going to blatantly lie about what its published laws say, I think we can assume that they've abolished the death penalty. The other sources I've seen (Amnesty International and so forth) indicate that the death penalty does not exist in Australia for any crime. (Perhaps the mistake is based on the fact that one state, New South Wales, did indeed retain the death penalty for treason for thirty years after it abolished the death penalty for murder). I see that Evil Monkey has amended the page back, anyway. -- Vardion 02:20, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I think part of the confusion may be that, as I understand, when abolishing the death penalty they did not amend the text of every extant piece of legislation which provided for it, they simply passed a general provision that "whenever a law provides for the death penalty, treat it as if it provided for life imprisonment instead." They did this because they wanted to abolish it for everything, but did not want to have to identify every ancient piece of legislation (remembering that British legislation, including centuries old legislation, up to a certain date is part of Australian law until a State or Federal parliament repeals it). Thus, a number of (esp. old) laws providing for the death penalty did remain in force, but read in conjunction with the later law they no longer provided for the death penalty even if their texts still said that they did. --SJK 13:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Updated Asia page

I updated Iraq in the Asia page, because I have news that Taha Yassin Ramadan was executed by hanging today. More info on this link here.--Angeldeb82 20:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Guys, Bangladesh does not execute homosexuals. They put them in prison for ten years.24.16.35.160 (talk) 02:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

New Chart?

#	Country	Last Execution	Abolished in	Notes
	Algeria	August 1993		Treason and espionage; attempts to change the regime or actions aimed at incitement; destruction of territory, sabotage to public and economic utilities; massacres and slaughters; participation in armed bands or in insurrectionary movements; counterfeiting; murder; acts of torture or cruelty; kidnapping; aggravated theft
	Angola		1992 (by Constitution)
	Benin	1987		Armed robbery ; Murder ; traffickers involved in "labor exploitation"
	Botswana	19 September 2003		Murder; Treason; Attempt on the life of the head of state; Mutiny; Desertion in the face of the enemy
	Burkina Faso	1988		Treason
	Burundi	2000 or later		Murder
	Cambodia Cameroon	January 1997		Secession; espionage; incitement to war
	Cape Verde	1835	1981 (by Constitution)
	Central African Republic	1981		Treason; espionage; charlatanism; witchcraft; assassination; murder
	Chad	2003		Murder
	Comoros	1996 or later
	Democratic Republic of the Congo	2003
	Republic of the Congo	1982
	Côte d'Ivoire	None since independence	2000
	Djibouti	None since independence	1995
	Egypt	2004 or later		Rape, only if accompanied by kidnapping of the victim. Murder. Treason. Organized Drug Trafficking.
	Equatorial Guinea
	Eritrea
	Ethiopia
	Gabon	1981
	The Gambia	1981		Treason. Abolished 1993 but was reinstated by Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council in August 1995
	Ghana	1993		Murder; Treason; Armed robbery
	Guinea-Bissau	1986	1993 (by Constitution)
	Guinea	2001		Murder
	Kenya	1984		Murder and armed robbery
	Lesotho
	Liberia	1995	September 16, 2005	Liberia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, completely abolishing the death penalty
	Libya	2005		High treason; attempt to forcibly change the form of government; premeditated murder
	Madagascar	1958
	Malawi	1992
	Mali	1980
	Mauritania	1987		Sodomy; Apostasy (Although apostasy is a capital offense there are no recorded executions for it).
	Mauritius	1987	1995
	Morocco	1993		Terrorism. An abolition law project is being presented to the Parliament of Morocco in spring 2007. Main article: Human rights in Morocco § Capital punishment
	Mozambique	1986	1990 (by Constitution)
	Namibia	1988	1990 (by Constitution)
	Niger	1976
	Nigeria	2001		Sodomy . Each of the 36 states have their own laws. In the north of the country the legal system used is Sharia (Islamic law)
	Rwanda		1998	Genocide
	São Tomé and Príncipe	None since independence	1990 (by Constitution)
	Senegal	1967	10 December 2004
	Seychelles	None since independence	1993 (by Constitution)
	Sierra Leone	1998		Treason; Murder; Aggravated robbery. Under the Special Court for Sierra Leone the death penalty is not a punishment for war crimes
	Somalia	2 May 2006		After the breakdown of de jure government, most regions reverted to Islamic law
	Somaliland
	South Africa	31 January 1991	1997	On 25 May, 2005 the Constitutional Court ordered that all remaining death sentences in the country be set aside and the prisoners resentenced. This last execution occurred in the internationally unrecognised Black "homelands". The last execution in Pretoria Central Prison was on November 14 1989.
	Sudan	2004		Sodomy; Waging war against the state; Apostasy; Prostitution; Treason; Acts which may endanger the independence or unity of the state; Murder; Armed robbery; Weapons possession and smuggling
	Eswatini	1983		Murder ; treason
	Tanzania	1994		Murder; Treason
	Togo	1978		Premeditated murder; plots against the security of the State
	Tunisia	1991		Murder; violence and aggression; attacks against the internal security of the State; attacks against the external security of the State
	Uganda	2003		Treason; Terrorism; Murder; Rape; Defilement; Aggravated robbery; Aggravated kidnapping. On June 14, 2005 the Constitutional court ruled that although the death penalty was constitutional, its use as a mandatory punishment for certain crimes was not.
	Western Sahara	1976		The Constitution of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic explicitly outlaws the death penalty; Article 13, from the 1991 revision reads "The death penalty is banned" (translated into English from the Arabic.)
	Zambia	1997		Murder; Aggravated robbery; High treason. President Levy Mwanawasa stated in 2004 that "For as long as I remain President, I will not execute a death warrant."
	Zimbabwe	June 2003		Treason; Murder; Mutiny

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mnw2000 (talk • contribs) 14:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

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--Xls 14:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC) DUDE, THAT IS TOTALLY OUTDATED. 24.16.35.160 (talk) 02:48, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

References

A few reference pages are not currently available, and should be removed or updated.

There are a few reference pages currently not available. They occured 404 errors when I visited them. The content of this article should never have unavailable pages as references. They should be removed (and remove the related content at the same time) or updated, as soon as possible.

I do not currently have a list of unavailable reference pages, but I am sure the reference list needs checking. The list of unavailable reference pages will be posted here by me as soon as I have time, but I don't gurantee I will have time for this. I also urge the administrators to check these pages.

--Knightk 03:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Rwanda (update needed)

Rwanda abolished capital punishment two days ago. [6] Someone familiar with the chart needs to update it. - Am86 17:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hungary

The last execution was in 1980 when Imre Soós was executed by hanging for several murders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.225.127.130 (talk) 09:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Swaziland

Swaziland seems to be a bit difficult to classify. For example [7] mentions that a number of people are on death row and the last execution was in 1983. It also suggests the government is reluctant to carryou out executions for fear of the outcry. However it's not quite clear what's the longest someone has been on death row. On the other hand, this [8] rather old reference and not really reliable admitedly says they are looking for a hangman or perhaps planning to amend the law to allow lethal injections. (Of course perhaps this was a ploy by the government to satisfy those wanting the death penalty.) This hardly sounds like a country that doesn't practice the death penalty. It appears our current classification system is based on AI's system. Should we perhaps provide an additional category 'uncertain' where the country has does not have either a clear moratorium (including things like the president or whoever refusing to sign orders) or a clear statement indicating they won't practice the death penalty but hasn't carried out an execution in a while either. Alternatively at least mention it in the table. A better reference is needed in any case Nil Einne 23:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

That being the case, there are also several other nations in the same situation but many are following the method done under AI. I'm sure if AI is contacted on this, they may give a better reason as to why it's listed as such. That-Vela-Fella 14:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

American Human Rights Convention

The American Human Rights Convention forbids the enactment and/or extention of the death penalty, thus making illegitimate to impose the penalty to new crimes or to re-enact it once it has been abolished (even partially). This means that there is an important constraint to the American states to apply the death penalty and that sould be mentioned. Of course this is only the case for those states who are part of the convention, which excludes the USA and other countries such as Cuba, but includes Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Chile.

I believe that the European Human Rights Convention doeas the same.--Wgarciamachmar (talk) 18:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Some mention could be added or just linked to the articles under American Convention on Human Rights (mostly in the 2nd protocol) & the European Convention on Human Rights has already been mentioned (listed under it's protocols 6 & 13). That-Vela-Fella (talk) 23:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

you don't need that. The last death sentence in Cuba was in 2003. That's the only evidence that you need to show. Amurdad (talk) 16:54, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Tables!

OK, maybe this is my homework, but I'm not asking you to do it for next weekend... Anyway, wouldn't it also it be useful to also have a table to tell which countries use capital punishment for a given crime? --212.149.216.233 (talk) 18:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It would be useful, but I have no time to make it. By the way, the color-coded column will not sort.--Jusjih (talk) 03:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Pakistan no longer has death penalty

Death penalty in Pakistan has apparently been abolished, not sure if its de facto or de jure.

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=12678&size=

http://www.handsoffcain.info/news/index.php?iddocumento=10313597

Sparten (talk) 18:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been followin this issue over the past week, and its still not clear whether they're talking about an abolition in law, or simply a mass-commutation of sentences to celebrate Benezair Bhutto's birthday. Its also not clear whether the changes have actually been finalised yet (Cabinet approval is not the same as pardons being issued or a law being passed), or how far they go (they're stil talking about special provisions for spies), so it might be better to hold off on this for a while. --IdiotSavant (talk) 23:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

They intent to do away with the death penalty. Parliament has passed the relevent legislation, Musharrafs signature is going to make that official (I think it is still retained for treason). The commutation of sentences is a seperate issue, abolition won't affect penaltys already awarded, so it needs commutation.

Incidentally from 1972 to 1978 Pakistan did not have a death penalty.

Sparten (talk) 04:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

If its retained for treason (as opposed to treaosn by the military in time of war), then its not abolished, merely limited. But it would obviously result in a much shorter list in the "notes" column. Anyway, change it when its signed off by the President; should only take a few days, right? --IdiotSavant (talk) 05:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Argentina

Seems like someone had jumped the gun by changing its status & on the map! After checking as to why the update was not also done on the AI & Hands of Cain websites, I looked at the source given here as to the reason. When translated into English, I was surprised to see that it was only the 'deputies' that made and approved the change in the "Code" and that it was awaiting for the Senate to make it into law! To date I have not found any source stating that it was already done so. Till that time has come, I'll revert the status back. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 02:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Found a source now that it just passed on Aug. 6, but will be in force in 6 months time. Will change the status & note the time period. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 18:49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Italy

Should the last executionn be in 1946?--AJ44 (talk) 19:25, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Why, if the last time it was done was in 1947, as shown here: Capital punishment in Italy? That-Vela-Fella (talk) 20:03, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It was on march 4, 1947, at 07.45 a.m, by a firing squad, in Turin. Three men were executed having murdered ten persons in Villarbasse, an hamlet near Turin. This was the last execution in Italy. --Dedofreg (talk) 13:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The death penalty was valid until 2007, in 1994 only the punishment was replaced by life sentence but it was still allowed per Article 27 of the Constitution until the article changed into "death penalty is prohibited". Egon20 (talk) 08:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

References

Caribbean Islands

For some reason some Caribbean Islands are in red, when the death penalty in the countries have not been used in 10 years. Shouldn't they be in Orange?--Villa88 (talk) 21:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

August 2004 or May 2005?

I'm getting confused! Amnesty International USA claims that Iraq's death penalty was reinstated in August 2004, but sources say it was reinstated in May 2005! Which date of the death penalty reinstation in Iraq is correct? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:42, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

British Abolishment Date

Britan did not ratify the Abolition untill 2003. So why is it 1998?--Villa88 (talk) 23:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm perhaps the best bet would be to do what entries like Switzerland has and list both 1998/2003. 1998 is when it was abolished, 2003 just made sure we cant change our minds about it with out leaving the council of europe or breaching its rules. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Beluras situation

I found the link were it says, "Beluras will eventually abolish the Death Penalty". Here is a link to the site [9]--Villa88 (talk) 23:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It gave no time frame as how soon that would happen, just that it didn't need to be done by a referendum. I seen that site before, but unless concrete steps are taken, nothing soon would be changed. Being the last one in Europe will have a lot of pressure put on the state to follow the rest of the continent one day. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 11:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, it says it will be chosen by vote, so the abolishment can happen anytime.--Villa88 (talk) 00:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 11:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Jumping the gun?

After reading the source concerning Burundi's recent activities, it only mentions that the lower parliament had approved to abolish the death penalty, yet I have not seen it officially become law by the Senate & President agreeing to it in any online source. Even the AI site has not listed the nation as an abolitionist state yet too. So until it's official, it should not be dated to have been abolished already. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 13:58, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Israel/PA

I couldn't help but notice some clear bias when comparing the Israel and Palestinian Authority sections. The Israel section referred to Meir Tobianski as a "traitor" even though he was later exonerated. Meanwhile, the PA section contained some POV material (presented within quotation marks, but not given any context) and information on extrajudicial killings by Hamas. I have corrected all of these issues. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.231.6.65 (talk) 15:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The PA (Judea and Samaria) and Hamas (Gaza) execute homosexuals in public by inverted hanging.

Timor-Leste

It says that the death penalty was abolished in East Timor in 1999. East Timor did not gain independence until 2002. Someone please find the real date. Reenem (talk)

That is the correct date, since the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor took control in 1999 & as stated here at AI's site. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 19:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

AI or Hands off Cain

There seems to be an unilateral edit of the figures that do not match with those shown on the Amnesty International website & those from the Hands Off Cain numbers. Those numbers conflict with the previous up-to-date ones on the AI site that are also sourced, while those from HoC are not the most recent as claimed by the editor. The HoC site states (updated to: April 28, 2009). Those numbers from AI on it's website was last updated on June 1, 2009 8:02:31 AM (from page info). If the HoC site is valid, then a note in the article could be added to it rater than changed to be in conflict with the other website numbers. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 15:57, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The source said it updated the same day automatically. It is in contradiction with itself: it said that some countries such as Guyana and Antigua are retentionist although there were no executions during the last decade. The words "child offenders" are NPOV, and the number of execution (2580) is unreliable because AI said herself that is below the reality. 90.29.211.25 (talk) 20:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Again you changed it unilaterally from what it had been for months & without any input from others. The source from HoC is not based from any other aside from it's own. Please refrain from doing any more changes until it can be verified, otherwise an admin/mod would look into this matter.

I would also point out another website that uses AI & not the HoC for it's source, that being on InfoPlease. If you read the sentence on the last line, it said at LEAST, meaning the minimum based from various sources AI has gotten. Also the words "child offenders" although were fine, but it was more clear to what you had, thus left as is now. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 22:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

In 2008 AI recorded at least 1718 executions in China, while Hand off cain recorded 5000 ones. That's funny!Cristiano Toàn (talk) 03:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is, because AI used official sources made available, yet they also state the number would be much more, closer to what HoC stated unofficially.That-Vela-Fella (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Never?

I noticed that some countries have 'never' listed for date of last execution. I removed the one for Bosnia and Herzegovina and replaced it with 'none since independence.' Then I noticed a lot more nations had 'never.' So I decided to bring the issue here... Anyone have any thoughts?

I think that 'never' gives almost an unfair characterization over other listings - surely some form of execution took place there at some point, but there are simply no records, etc... Pr0me7heu2 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC).

I was thinking it would be fine for those places to instead have N/A (to either signify Not Applicable OR Not Available) to make it not only as a general reference to cover it but also neutral. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 23:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Togo

Togo abolished the death penalty on the 23rd of june, 2009. I have changed the colour of the table to mark it as an abolitionist nation. --Île_flottant~Floating island (talk) 11:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Lists of countries

Template:Lists of countries has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Cybercobra (talk) 07:09, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

In some countries such as Barbados, Guyana, Saint Lucia, Lesotho, Dominica, Sierra Leone have more than 10 years without a death penalty carried out. So you should take them in "de facto abolish" group Cristiano Toàn (talk) 13:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"De facto abolitionist" requires not just an absence of executions, but a government policy of doing so. Secondly, the classification is by Amnesty International, so wejust go with what they say (otherwise, it would be Original Research, which is apparently a Bad Thing on Wikipedia) --IdiotSavant (talk) 20:38, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I added in further clarity as to what places fall under that category with additional info from the AI site, it stating "and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions". That-Vela-Fella (talk) 08:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Capital punishment in Eritrea

The last known excution in Eritrea was carried out in 1989 when Eritrea is a part of Ethiopia. So the Eritrea's last execution cell is "none since independent" raplace blank cell because Eritrea de jure declare indepenpdent from Ethiopia in 1991. Cristiano Toàn (talk) 00:28, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

True, it should state that it's last one was in 1989, even though it wasn't fully independent yet. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 09:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Capital punishment in Liberia and Tajikistan

The last known excecution in Liberia and Tajikistan was carried out in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Up to now, two above countries have not yet spent over ten yaers of monatorium, so sort these countries in "retentionist"Cristiano Toàn (talk) 14:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

From what the descriptions states, it's OR a moratorium is in place, no matter if it's less than 10 years or more. So for Tajikistan, it's correct as the note on it explains. Now as far as Liberia is concerned, it did abolish it, but since the law was brought back for it last year, it has yet to be used in practice. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 08:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Guyana

Funny. the article says Guyana is red while the article on List of most recent executions by jurisdiction says Guyana is orange. Could someone clarify that? L'Etoile D'Ours —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.14.146.92 (talk) 11:27, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Amnesty International wrong in classification

I don't know the AI classifies both Barbados and the US in "retentionist countries". No execution were known in barbados since October 1984, while US have executed people every year since then and approx. 1000 people were carried out in this period. That is funny!Cristiano Toàn (talk) 16:51, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Not really, given that Barbados has less than 1/1000 inhabitants than the US. If they had had just one execution during this period, they would have been "worse" per capita than the US...--Roentgenium111 (talk) 01:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles

Could somebody add Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles? Even though they aren't independent countries, they are countries with their own independent capital punishment legislation, the Netherlands Antilles took until March 2010 to abolish the death penalty completely, while Aruba has been a complete abolitionist by constitution since its (incomplete) independence.ThW5 (talk) 11:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

if we were to make an article titled "capital punishment in the Netherlands Antilles", we are gonna have to make that article into a historical document because the Netherlands Antilles no longer exists. 24.16.35.160 (talk) 02:34, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Map mistake

In the world map, Russia should be coloured orange, not blue, according to the claims in the article. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 20:48, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

No it should be green because it is used in limited circumstances 24.16.35.160 (talk) 02:32, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Algeria

This article says capital punishment was abolished in Algeria in November of 2010, which hasn't happened yet. Anyone clear this up? Czolgolz (talk) 03:13, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Myanmar

The only capital crime in Myanmar is high treason. It is eventually not a ordinary crime. Thus the status of Myanmar is "abolitionist in ordinary crime"Cristiano Toàn (talk) 09:48, 18 June 2010 (UTC).

Mongolia

I have updated Mongolia from red to orange as it has a current moratorium on capital punishment. Hands Off Cain has re-categorized it also. Wllmevans (talk) 20:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Map Inconsistencies

There are inconsistencies between the map and the main body for Bolivia, Sierra Leone, Lesotho and now Mongolia. I have commented on each in turn on the map discussion page but feel the map is wrong in each case rather than the main article.Wllmevans (talk) 20:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Gabon

On 15 Feb 2011 Hands Off Cain was reporting that Gabon has abolished the death penalty. The President signed the change into law in Feb 2010 but the news was only released yesterday. This needs to be updated. Wllmevans (talk) 20:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Jamaica

I have updated Jamaica from red to orange as no executions have taken place since 1988. Hands off Cain supports this change of status. Wllmevans (talk) 19:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Guatemala

I have updated Guatemala from red to orange as no executions have taken place since 2000. Hands off Cain currently records Guatemala as having a moratorium on capital punishment. Wllmevans (talk) 19:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Updated Article Lead in Summary Totals

I have updated these to reflect the position of each state within the body of the article. The figures I replaced were taken from an Amnesty International summary that is from 2009 and is now very out of date - why Amnesty haven`t got around to updating this is anyones guess. Hands off Cain have a more up to date global summary which is current to June 2010 - but this Wikipedia page need not be constrained by this - we can update as information comes in and be the most up to date reference - which is after all what Wikipedia should strive to be. Also I have clarified which states we are counting - ie the 193 UN members or Observers (to latter to catch the Vatican). For some reason Amnesty in their summary figures include two non-independent territories (Cook Is & Niue - but ignore countless others) and two non-UN limited recognition states (Taiwan & Palestine but ignore the other 8 such states). Hands Off Cain in their figures also count a couple of non-independent Territories (Bermuda & Cook Is) and two non-UN limited recognition states (Taiwan & Palestine). So each are counting a sligtly different 197 'states'. Neither organisation`s scope is particularly logical or consistent - so please keep this in mind when comparing this pages figures with any new updated figures from Amnesty or Hands Off Cain. At least Wikipedia can be consistent and logical in terms of what state entities our summary figures cover. We could of course add an additional summary outlining the position of the 10 Non-UN Limited Recognition States - but logically we should include all of them not just two - most of them are already in the body of the article anyway. I do not think this page should concern itself too deeply with non-state territories which are probably best dealt with in articles covering capital punishment within specific countries. Anyway grateful for any comments or thoughts. Wllmevans (talk) 23:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Table Suggestions

Does anyone else feel the table would be more useful as a single unit instead of separate tables for each continent? One mass table could include a "Continent" column, in case readers wanted to view the information organized in such a manner...

Does anyone else feel that the "Freedom Status" column is irrelevant to the subject of this article? The only purpose that I can see is to draw a POV correlation between a country's "Freedom Status" and its use or abolition of capital punishment. The "Freedom Status" is a completely different unrelated subject....

Useful additions to the table might include (for countries who maintain the death sentences) number of executions in the past year, and in the current year; and the same numbers expressed as a percentage or a per cent mille of that country's total population. For example, China and the USA are at the top of the list. But they also have the world's largest and third largest populations respectively.

Lastly (apart from the tables), I suggest that citing a very politically motivated and biased organization such as Amnesty International in the article's first paragraph paragraph creates an unbalanced POV in the article. Should the article to be centered on by-country use of capital punishment, or should it be based on opposition to the death penalty? I would suggest the former.

What say the masses? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lacarids (talk • contribs) 21:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Comments on the Table Suggestions above.

1. Merge all the Tables. DISAGREE. I like geographical split - there do seem to be a very distinct regional attitudes towards capital punishment, and to be able to view the data in regional tables allows flexible and discreet comparison with regional neighbours, as well as allowing regional analysis/commentary before each table. It would be more unwieldy on one huge table. Having said this I think there are too many tables and would like to see North & South America merged into a unified Americas table. And Asia and Oceana merged into an Asia-Pacific table.

2. Remove Freedom Status. DISAGREE. This column provides factual information on the nature of the governments in each country and at the very least can answer the often asked question about which democracies (free coutries) still practice the death penalty. I do not think it completely unconnected - a wide ranging freedom index based on political and civil rights is at least in the same ball-park as the specific human rights issue of capital punishment. There does in any case seem to be a correlation between freedom within countries and the likelihood of countries practicing the death penalty - whether there is a causal link is another question. But I do feel that including this data is more factual than POV. There is no commentary within the article about this so readers can make up there own minds.

3. Useful Additions - AGREE. I like your three suggested new columns - number of executions in the in the current year; number of executions in the previous year; and number of executions per population. Space might be a issue but definately worth looking into.

4. Removing Opening Amnesty International Reference - AGREE. Amnesty International perhaps should not be in the opening line as it could give the impression that the article is unbalanced - which in general I do not think is the case. Perhaps a more neutral phraseology could be used along the lines of 'State usage of Capital Punishment is usually broken into the four categories set out below' I assume your suggestion is not to jetison the rather useful and widely used four category system - which I would certainly not support.

I would be interested to know what other feel on these topics too..........62.25.109.197 (talk) 18:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Remove Freedom Status - have to agree it is very distracting in the table doesnt appear to be relevant to the subject and is clearly not a Neutral POV. MilborneOne (talk) 16:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

There are some serious issues with this Executed per capita table:

• The population count is sometimes multiplied by the number of years, sometimes sums of individual year's numbers and at least in the case of PR China is simply put the current one (1/6 of the analogous estimate for other countries on the list). Is there any consensus on how this is supposed to be?
• The data for Total executed column: isn't it better referenced with the font (spreadsheet) the newspaper gives, rather than the newspaper itself? Pqnlrn (talk) 20:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Running total

The running total implies that 24+2=27, at one point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.71.46 (talk) 10:41, 30 March 2011 (UTC) This is in the paragraph entitled "Abolition Chronology". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.71.46 (talk) 12:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

     Row for year 1980 missing entirely.  I have corrected this.  Thank you for pointing it out!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.197 (talk) 09:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC) 

Jersey

Just a quick note - Jersey is a Crown Dependency and is not part of the United Kingdom. The UK abolished the death penalty for all remaining offences in 1998 by an ammendment to the Human Rights Bill that removed such punishment from millitary law. 129.11.77.198 (talk) 17:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

This article does not at present contain seperate entries for non-independent, non-UN status entities such as colonies, autonomous regions, or crown dependencies. In Jersey`s case you are right to state that it is not a part of the UK - but it is not an independent state and ultimate responsibility for its laws rests with the British Crown. A case could be made for including non-state entities, but it should be agreed through this discussion forum before any changes are made. It should also be applied consistently - Jersey is not a special case, there are perhaps dozens of similar entities in the world. Tackling the thorny issue of how to define which should and should not be included is part of the reason why they are not in the article in the first place. All the statistics in this article use the 'UN status' benchmark for inclusion which at least has the advantage of being straightforward and consistent and I for one think should remain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.137.36.230 (talk) 12:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Method of application

I suggest we put also the method of application of the death penalty for each country. - Eduardo Sellan III (talk) 19:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Independent Nations

I noticed three de facto independent but internationally unrecognized nations in the list, namely Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. I believe they should be treated differently, as "None since independence" phrase does not hold well for them. 212.156.122.30 (talk) 02:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Those cases alone should rather state "None since declared independence", so as to put them in the proper context. As well, the map would need to be updated soon, as some had changed statuses below. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 06:02, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Libya

The section about Libya is outdated since they had a constitution change, so it shouldn't have the red colour until the retention or abolition of the death penalty is announced by the National Transitional Council — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjl87 (talk • contribs) 12:12, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Alaska

It is ironic that one of the largest red areas of this map is a part of the United States (the State of Alaska) that abolished the death penalty decades ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.237.44.157 (talk) 06:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Issues

The article, although escaping tags, has a serious POV and/or OR slant, as well as outdated information. I have read the talk comments but at this point can only speculate if it is, or is not, because of Amnesty International information.

• 7 (4%) retain it for crimes committed in exceptional circumstances (such as in time of war). This may be worded to look better or some other reasons but "in time of war" can mean a Constitution is suspended so can nullify this anyway. If the source uses this then at least it should be referenced or taken out as OR.
• 48 (25%) permit its use for ordinary crimes, but have not used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions, or it is under a moratorium. A tag could be inserted after "and are believed", which as is, is plain old speculation.

"If" a country has the death penalty, and there is no current moratorium, then de facto abolitionist states by not having carried out executions for ten years, only serves to make it look better for Amnesty International or those against the death penalty. De facto is that it hasn't thus far happened but de facto is that it could any day if it is "still on the books" or as stated, there is no moratorium.

• According to the article math; 97 (50%) have abolished it, 97 (50%) have not abolished it. There is an undetermined number of countries that may or may not have a moratorium. Algeria is listed as "currently under a moratorium", but the next line states. "A project of abolition is being tabled in Parliament in Algeria by Louisa Hanoune and Ahmed Ouyahia since the summer of 2008.", that is a little out of date since I am sure the summer of 2008 has past.
• There is a big nice colored table listed under the section "Abolition chronology" that serves what purpose? A running total and how many in a specific year! This could be incorporated into the tables above it "if" a running total or how many countries in a certain year are deemed necessary for inclusion.
• There are a host of bare URL's that I will tend to when I can. Otr500 (talk) 00:51, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

ROC

I noticed that the ROC (on Taiwan) was removed from the tables, presumably as a "limited recognition state." This approach has some severe issues, because if we apply the same criteria the mainland Chinese authority, the DPRK, and the ROK should also be removed.

This doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. Kiralexis (talk) 17:46, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Color bias in capital punishment chart?

I noticed that the colors used to mark countries that have abolished capital punishment are blue or green (positive colors), while the colors used to mark countries which still actively use capital punishment are orange and red (negative colors). Doesn't this subtly imply a bias against capital punishment, something which violates Wikipedia's neutral POV guideline? 2602:306:250B:7679:1570:49A1:9E77:8FE9 (talk) 09:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I see it as just a color coded way to tell countries apart from each others in their stand on the subject. If one thinks it should be changed to a more "neutral" coloring scheme, so be it but then so to would the map need to change to make it match. Many I'm sure don't see it as a big problem & so it has been for many years, but if others have suggestions or willing to do the task, then have a try at it.That-Vela-Fella (talk) 20:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit problem

For some reason, someone has the notion that if a country had signed on or became a party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that the country automatically becomes abolitionist and thus edit to reflect it so. That is technically not true, since the protocol is for aiming to abolish capital punishment, thus making that said country be under a promise or moratorium until it makes laws to effectively abolish it partially (as used only in time of war) or completely. So until those countries that recently did sign/join the protocol made the changes internally, the changes done here should remain as they were. I (or another that sees this as being correct) will revert them back in a few days unless someone can show this as being wrong.That-Vela-Fella (talk) 21:06, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Germany

I have edited the entry for Germany to be consistent with the rest of the table - for examples of treating successor states, see the West and South Slavic states. A new constitution and a new state -> a new date. It made Germans look better compared to others, not just Slavs. If you think of reunification as GDR territory joining the German state, then you can push the abolishment as far as 1949, but then you will get a strange fact that there were exectutions after that, the last in 1981. Muflon 83 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:02, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Current Germany is not a successor state of GDR (that country ceased to exist in 1990 without a legal successor). The current Germany has been the same country since 1949 (no succession occurred in 1990 nor in 1957 (Saarland)) and in 1990 simple enlarged its territory by absorbing the territory of then already legally dissolved GDR and also the territory of Berlin (the whole city was until that point under legal occupation by the US, France, the UK and the Soviet Union and was not legally part of either Germany nor GDR). Therefore GDR should not be mentioned in the chronological table at all (Tuscany and other historical countries without legal successors are not there either and neither is Saarland). None of this should be up to a debate here because that issue has been solved since before the reunification even happened by legally binding international treaties (2+4 treaty of Moscow etc), Basic Law of Germany, other legal sources etc. And there are Wikipedia articles relating to this issue (for example the article about the reunification itself) that leave no doubt.92.63.48.182 (talk) 04:36, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Ecuador's "capital punishment in Ecuador link

Seems pretty pointless to even have the "Capital Punishment in Ecuador" Wiki page, and definitely no need to link to it. The entire page is like 2 sentences, written by someone who doesn't appear to speak English as their first language. It simply says something to the effect of "There is no death penalty in Ecuador, due to the Constitutional language." Not very helpful, and doesn't expand on the info the viewer can see on this page. Jus' sayin... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.128.79 (talk) 04:58, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I've redirected the page here for now. DoctorKubla (talk) 06:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Portugal never reinstated full death penalty!

Where a country has abolished, re-instated, and abolished again (e.g. Philippines, Switzerland, Portugal) only the later abolition date is included.

This is ridiculous and a phantasy, Portugal never re-instated full death penalty and abolished it again. Death penalty for political crimes was abolished in 1852, civilian crimes were abolished in 1867 and they were never reintroduced in any future Constitution. The 1911 Constitution abolished all kinds of death penalties in article 22º (that is, the remaining death penalty for military crimes is abolished while all the others are confirmed).

Yes, i'm aware that the military death penalty for high treason was reinstated in 1916, during the special time period of the First World War, but only for that reason, not for civilian or political crimes. The amendment of September 1916 clearly says that the death penalty can never be re-established in any case, with the exception of a war against a foreign country and only if it is indispensable, and only in the theatre of war.

This exception was maintained in the following Constitution of 1933 and abolished in 1974. Actually, and as far as i know, was only applied once in 1917 and there is no full evidence of it. Besides that, the last time Portugal fought wars against a foreign country was in the First World War (well, Colonial Wars are different types of war)!

Full death penalty has been illegal in Portugal since 1852.

This is trying to cover up that fact that and i think it should be changed because it's a huge mistake. Yes, Portugal is tiny and all, but like i said above, this is ridiculous --Good Hope Phanta (talk) 19:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit conflict

Column header for table in 'Abolition chronology' is not simply accurate but unutterably confusing for the readers. My edit to rectify was reverted without explanation by Kutsuit. Can you explain why do you think this column header shall not be better worded than "per year"! --» nafSadh did say 05:54, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, it's pretty self-explanatory. I changed it a little bit. Does it make more sense now? --Kutsuit (talk) 11:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

It was not self-explanatory, as it took more than a while to understand what the header meant. It is better now; though consider using, "Countries that year" or "Number of countries" or "Country count" which might make more sense. Note that, the word 'per' often relates to average. --» nafSadh did say 01:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Dependencies

"Wikipedia:Country - A country is a region identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with sets of previously independent or differently associated peoples with distinct political characteristics."

Since dependencies are countries, they should be included in this chart, especially where the criminal code is different from the mother country. Otherwise he list is incomplete and deceptive. I will undo the deletions and revert the page in a few days, unles someone can come up with a good reason not to. 24.108.58.1 (talk) 18:45, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

United Kingdom

From what I gather in the United Kingdom Capital punishment was effectively abolished in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) in 1965 and Northern Ireland in 1973 which was makes the date the United Kingdom abolished capital punishment for ordinary crimes 1973. The final date the last crimes were removed from the book was 1998 which is the year the United Kingdom fully abolished capital punishment. C. 22468 Talk to me 02:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Why is Russia in the Europe section?

Why? ScienceApe (talk) 00:02, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Abolitions in 2003, 2011, 2013, 2014?

I am starting to question the accuracy of this article. I believe it should be a redirect to a more accurate page about which country has the death penalty & which ones do not. Maybe an Amnesty International page or something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:601:8C00:EE:8BD:566E:7E1C:64E (talk) 05:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Chad

Chad only has the death penalty for terrorism, ie war crimes, thus it should be coloured green. 24.108.58.49 (talk) 00:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Diannaa (talk) 21:50, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Map

Someone deleted the map on the commons page, and a bot came by and cleaned up the entire section. If anyone has the same map, could you please reupload it, and, if possible, also edit it to have the changes to reflect Congo, Nauru, and Guinea abolishing capital punishment? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.37.172 (talk) 24:44, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Ya it turned a lot of nations that abolished it back to orange like Mongolia and a lot that havent used it for 10 years back to red. i have a map but its a microsoft paint version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleach143 (talk • contribs) 04:35, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Zoophilia and same sex intercourse

Do we really need these ridiculously huge charts detailing that no one has been recently executed for the former and less than half a dozen for the later? Those two charts are longer than the rest of the article. Czolgolz (talk) 19:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Mongolia abolished the death penalty

Could someone update the article and map?

Sources: http://www.worldcoalition.org/ADPAN-welcomes-Mongolias-decision-abolish-death-penalty-in-law.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.117.128 (talk) 14:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Cuba should not be red on the map

Cuba is shown as red on the map, but has commuted all death sentences, and the last execution was over 10 years ago. It should be coloured orange. Various other countries which have not executed anyone in years are shown as red on the map and should also be orange.

Outdated map?

The colors of the countries on the map of Capital Punishment Worldwide needs to be changed to fit the article's current information. I am not sure how to use the map coloring program, so I would appreciate it if someone who knows how to use it could update the map.

Gdeblois19 12:42, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps submit a request at WP:GL/MAP. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:00, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

The main issue at present is that the map shows Benin as "abolitionist in practice", while the death penalty was abolished completely in 2016 according to the table. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.102.190.78 (talk) 21:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Chad abolitionist for ordinary crimes only?

Chad abolished the death penalty for all crimes except for terrorism. This should make Chad abolitionist for ordinary crimes only (colored green), but my edits keep getting reverted back to red. I think this constant edit warring should be settled in the talk page. Should Chad be colored red or green?

Gdeblois19 16:13, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Amnesty International standards

These changes are contrary to Amnesty International standards because they include as "abolitionist in practice" countries who have not carried out any executions in the last ten years, but are not "believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions". Harry1835 (talk) 11:32, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

It's pretty silly to describe countries which have not conducted an execution this century as retentionist, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.38.210.183 (talk) 12:57, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Doing otherwise is an original research. Harry1835 (talk) 13:54, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Benin

Despite Benin having abolished executions last year, they are still shown as "abolitionist in practice" on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.102.190.78 (talk) 00:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

The map is probably outdated. I'm not sure how to edit it, so I'd suggest submitting an edit request. Gdeblois19 16:36, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Partially recognized states?

Amnesty International lists the death penalty status for partially recognized states such as Somaliland and Abkhazia that are not included on this article. Should we add another section for these countries? Gdeblois19 15:10, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Colour coding

The colours on the chart do not match the actual practise of the country. Many countries that haven't executed anyone for 12 or 15 years are still coloured red instead of brown. I'm going out for lunch, I'll fix this when I get back unless someone can think of a reason why not. 24.108.58.49 (talk) 19:52, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

You should simply have read the near earlier discussion "Amnesty International standards" or just the article itself that always describes "abolitionist in practice" countries as those who have not carried out any executions in the last ten years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions. Harry1835 (talk) 12:35, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Update map - Guinea abolished for all crimes

According to this source https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ACT5066652017ENGLISH.pdf, Guinea abolished for all crimes in 2017 and should be blue on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.38.227.57 (talk) 01:17, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Countries categorized as 'very high' on Human Development Index

I was just going through the article, and it surprised me to see a "Countries categorized as 'very high' on Human Development Index" category. While I understand the information given by showing countries laws by ordered by geographical location, this HDI category seems quite arbitrary to me. It seems to me that this division should highlight the case that apart from the US, many other industrialized nations have death penalty in use, which belongs more to the general articles dealing with Capital punishment or Capital punishment in the United States imo. While political discussions are important on Wikipedia, they should not take place on list articles. If there is another reason why this category is there, I would be happy to be corrected. --Robi313 (talk) 03:11, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Number of Abolitionist countries

In the beginning of the article the number of abolitionist countries is 106, in the figure legend to the map the number is 104 and in the Abolition chronology list the number is 105. Ought to be fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.13.239.186 (talk) 11:30, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Visual Bias is Striking

In terms of how the visuals are presented, the bias is quite striking.

Countries who have it are presented in the boldest RED color possible, while everyone else is shown in softer shades of nearly-pastel colors. This is very far from the unbiased presentation of objectively cited information that I've come to appreciate from this site. 204.139.85.151 (talk) 12:44, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The death penalty was not restored in the Philippines, because the bill was already dead

I learned in 2017 (i think), that the restoration of the death penalty in the Philippines failed to pass in the Senate. According to Franklin Drilon, the bill was dead.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/04/27/1689114/death-penalty-dead-senate-drilon Rdp060707 (talk) 14:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Formatting

The formatting for the list section of this article could be improved. Perhaps have each continent under a different subheading, right now the "By Continent" section is a nightmare to navigate on mobile.

I am confused about Turkmenistan

It is an authoritarian nation run by a brutal dictator. Surely, it would have capital punishment. Could someone explain this to me? Sarsath3 (talk) 18:35, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

This is only based on laws passed by the central government of each country, probably in part for good press, which is then taken up by Anglo human rights groups & media outlets. For all we know, extrajudicial killings in some abolitionist countries could be occurring at a higher rate than capital punishment in other retentionist countries. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

One reason is there are some authoritarian countries without capital punishment, and some democratic countries with it. The US, Japan, Botswana, Taiwan, and India are five liberal democracies that execute. On the other hand, many authoritarian countries do not have capital punishment, with a few examples being Angola, Azerbaijan, Burundi, Cambodia, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, and Rwanda. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 18:23, 30 April 2021 (UTC) Also, as Donkey Hot-day said, there can be extrajudicial killings in some abolitionist or abolitionist in practice countries, i.e. Myanmar. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 01:47, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Countries with Mixed Laws

Should there be some sort of distinction in the colouring and classification of countries where some jurisdictions are retentionist, but others are abolitionist, or other such combinations? The general rule seems to be to paint the country the colour of its most severe jurisdiction, but, as I see it, has two main issues: First by it overlooks the difference between federal/national governments and the governments of sub-national divisions - is it right to say a "country" is retentionist when in reality, the national government has a moratorium, and only a few states/regions have the death penalty? Second it may bring unwanted political bias to recognise the death penalty status of unrecognised break-away states as an indication of national government policy. E.g. the Myanmar government does not carry out executions, but Wa State does, however Myanmar does not formally recognise Wa State's right to do this - they are simply pragmatically unable to enforce Burmese laws there.

Is there some way to make custom two-coloured striped bands? Or should we just increase the colour palate to show more options? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shachekar (talk • contribs) 14:58, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I've been asking myself the same question too, especially since it seems to be more probable than not that the federal govt. of the United States is poised to abolish the penalty. It would be quite misleading to keep the country as just red or just blue since you would still be able to be sentenced to death in certain states while being immune from capital punishment in other places within the same. I have attached that version within this response. Personally, I think that we should update the map to, at the very least, display the status between the several states since again it may seen be impossible to be executed for a crime in some parts of the United States while the possibility of the same will be real in others.

~ Fluffy89502 (talk) 05:10, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree. I think it would be good to have different states in the US, for example, colored differently depending on status. I think it would also be good for the states not colored red to have red stripes, due to the federal death penalty, which applies to all states. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 09:36, 17 April 2021 (UTC) If and when the federal death penalty is abolished, of course, then there should be no red stripes. The US in that case should probably be put in a separate capital punishment category. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 09:46, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I strongly agree with you, I prefer an actual United States's Status. Egon20 (talk) 08:05, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

The death penalty applies throughout the United States under federal law. Since it is possible to be put to death by the state in any location in the United States, then it is appropriate that the entire country be shown as subject to the death penalty. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 06:06, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Numbers

Dark4tune and a couple of other editors have made several changes to this article which aren't referenced; and also have deleted existing references. Are we comfortable with these changes? It seems like they should be reverted until references can be provided. -- Mikeblas (talk) 21:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mikeblas: Reversing their edits until references are provided would be the responsible thing to do. ~ Fluffy89502 (talk)

Confused about Zimbabwe for example

So I noticed some nations like Zimbabwe but there are a few others are marked as Red yet it says they haven’t had someone put to death like in Zimbabwe’s case sense 2005? If I’m reading what it says correctly? So wouldn’t that mean it basically should be Orange (Abolished in practice and not Red sense that’s been 10 years? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleach143 (talk • contribs) 21:38, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Amnesty International's full criteria for a country being Abolitionist In Practice is "have not executed anyone during the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions." Some Retentionist countries haven't executed for over a decade, but they don't have a moratorium that has been in place for a long period of time. Out of the 55 Retentionist countries, 19 haven't executed for at least 10 years. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ACT5066652017ENGLISH.pdf Map at bottom of page: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 01:43, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Lebanon

Lebanon needs to be changed from orange to red on the map, because it is classified as retentionist by Amnesty International. Here is Amnesty International’s map at the bottom of this page: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 07:26, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done By the way if you would like to edit .svg files, you can use some free software called Inkscape. Changing colours of countries on maps is relatively simple using the select and colour picker functions. Cheers, Del_Usion23 (talk) 18:42, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Left wing bias

Why do you choose the color "red" for countries using the death penalty as a form of punishments for criminals?

62.226.88.241 (talk) 20:43, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Malawi

Malawi should now be orange on the map, due to a perfected opinion now stating the full court never struck down capital punishment. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/malawi-supreme-court-retreats-from-opinion-that-declared-the-death-penalty-unconstitutional

JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 23:12, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Difference between shooting and firing squad

In many of the table entries for Africa, the method of execution is listed as "shooting, firing squad" whereas some only have shooting and some only have firing squad. What is the difference between these two? (i haven't read the rest, only Africa up until now) Astrobot3000 (talk) 02:15, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Data contradiction

The article states that 27 countries abolished capital punishment in practice, while the map data says 26. Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 23:52, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

I have now fixed this. Malawi didn’t actually abolish capital punishment in law, because the Supreme Court clarified it didn’t actually strike it down. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 00:06, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Adding colors for countries that have death penalty for doing nothing wrong?

Most countries that retain the death penalty only apply it to people who are convicted of genuinely bad things (or rebellion against the state or drug trafficking which are debatably right or wrong), so it's definitely less problematic than the countries who have the death penalty for absurd reasons. This includes 11 muslim countries (Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan) who have capital punishment for blasphemy, apostasy, homosexuality or adultery, and North Korea for watching South Korean media. Additionally, 2 muslim countries who are de facto abolitionist (Maldives, Brunei) also allow capital punishment for the above reasons. It would be informative to put the first 12 countries in dark red, and the latter 2 in dark orange. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.211.106.31 (talk) 03:05, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Abolished in Malawi?

Capital punishment in Malawi reads "Capital punishment has been abolished in Malawi. The country permanently abolished the death penalty by a Malawian Supreme Court ruling in 2021.". However, Malawi section of Capital punishment by country#Africa 2 considers as "abolished in practice", not "abolished in law for all crimes". Which information is actually correct? I think the info should be corrected. --Hatto (talk) 07:17, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Malawi Supreme Court abolished death penalty in 2021 but then reversed their deicison later: [10]. Borysk5 (talk) 11:42, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

@Borysk5: So, should I correct Template:Capital punishment as well? Malawi is listed as one of "abolitionist countries". --Hatto (talk) 12:35, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Sure. Borysk5 (talk) 18:43, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Should countries without a moratorium that had no executions in the last 10 years really count as "abolitionist in practice"?

While I agree that countries that have a moratorium that's in place for at least a decade, should not count as retentionist (such as South Korea, Algeria, Tajikistan, Kenya, or Brunei), countries that have had no executions in the last decade but have no moratorium on executions (such as Lebanon, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, or Democratic Republic of the Congo), should count as fully retentionist as these countries have no rules in place that prevent executions, and as result executions can happen any moment. For example Wikipedia classified Qatar as "de facto abolitionist" until the first execution in 17 years occurred a few weeks ago. The same thing happened in Nigeria where no executions occurred for 11 years from 2002 to 2013, and also in the Gambia where no executions happened for 17 years from when capital punishment was restored in 1995 till 2012. India and Thailand narrowly missed an execution-free decade that would have led to Wikipedia classifying them as "de facto abolitionist". India had no executions from 1995 to 2004 and Thailand from had none from 2009 to 2018. Also most of the countries that have both no moratorium and no executions in the last decade, do not have a total high population, therefore if countries like Lebanon or Zimbabwe had populations of 1 billion or even of 50 to 100 million, executions would be occurring. Given examples such as Qatar, Nigeria, or the Gambia, an at least 10 year execution and moratorium free period, is really very biased number that not even Amnesty International has coined.--Otis the Texan (talk) 00:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, most of this seems to just be based on the classifications of one Amnesty report, which could use attributing, esp. for the lede section. Also grouping countries like Myanmar, and the Philippines (or even Laos) as abolitionist despite the known reported executions going on there makes the statistics either highly dubious or meaningless. Not to mention the statement asserting "the 'large' majority of countries have either abolished or discontinued the practice"...in reality, it is likely only a slim majority who have truly discontinued the practice.

On another note, where are the execution rates per capita? There are at least a few accepted sources (https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/singapore-report-exposes-highest-execution-rate-world https://www.britannica.com/topic/capital-punishment/Capital-punishment-in-the-early-21st-century https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Executions-per-million https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/27/rouhani-zarif-state-department-human-rightsiran-wins-world-record-for-most-executions-per-capita/) showing partial statistics. Rating an article 'B-Class' doesn't seem to mean much nowadays... Leo Kinnaman (talk) 09:17, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Agreed here, at the very least per-capita rates should be included. (And to me, it seems like any long-time editor can rate articles to whatever class they please, so I wouldn't put much weight into article classes.) Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree. The figure for the Abolitionist in Practice category is correct (28), but the map colors all countries orange that haven’t executed in 10 years, regardless of whether they are classified as Abolitionist in Practice or Retentionist by Amnesty International. For instance, most Caribbean countries are classified as Retentionist by AI, but the map on this page colors them orange. Amnesty International classifies countries as Abolitionist in Practice if they haven’t executed in 10 years and they are believed to have an established practice or policy against carrying out executions. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ACT5066652017ENGLISH.pdf JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 06:28, 16 February 2021 (UTC) I removed the map until it is fixed to reflect this. This was fixed with the country charts, so it would be good to change the map. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 19:35, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Somebody has now fixed the map. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 17:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Otis the Texan: I moved your post on Capital punishment by country to the bottom of the page, by the way. New posts are actually supposed to go there. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 04:06, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Map needs update for Central African Republic and Zambia

The Central African Republic passed a bill abolishing the death penalty. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/zambia-central-african-republic-move-to-abolish-death-penalty https://www.pgaction.org/news/car-death-penalty.html https://www.ecpm.org/en/la-republique-centrafricaine-devient-le-24e-etat-africain-a-abolir-la-peine-de-mort/ JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 04:01, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Commons images update

Apparently, the capital punishment has been abolished in Central Africa, Zambia, and Malaysia, so I think you should update commons:File:Capital punishment in the world.svg and commons:File:CapPun Trend.png in the article, but I don't know how to do that. Can someone please update them for us? --Hatto (talk) 03:14, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I would change the map myself, but I don't know how to. I think Malaysia only abolished mandatory capital punishment, though. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 03:58, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Format

Why the hell did you remove my formatting and remove the collapsable arrow? It’s extremely For called to read the article when you have to scroll ridiculous amount to get to the next section. 2601:446:600:1A50:80D2:CF28:A36B:449D (talk) 01:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Capital punishment in Niue into Capital punishment by country

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was do not merge. The article was significantly expanded. IdiotSavant (talk) 09:26, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

---

Little Content and likely never will be more than No capital punishment Slywriter (talk) 12:52, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, one or two sentences should be merged into Capital punishment by country, in more information were included (with more sources) ten it might qualify for a standalone. Hughesdarren (talk) 21:42, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Oppose - I've expanded the article with details of the (non) operation of the death penalty under colonial rule.--IdiotSavant (talk) 01:32, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

And to update this: its now a start-class article. IdiotSavant (talk) 10:57, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed merge of Capital punishment in Palau into Capital punishment by country

Not notable for standalone Slywriter (talk) 12:53, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, one or two sentences should be merged into Capital punishment by country, in more information were included (with more sources) ten it might qualify for a standalone. Hughesdarren (talk) 21:42, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Capital punishment in Grenada into Capital punishment by country

Very short article and arguably not notable enough for standalone. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:28, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, one or two sentences should be merged into Capital punishment by country, in more informations were included (with more sources) ten it might qualify for a standalone. Hughesdarren (talk) 21:41, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Oppose - I have now expanded the article some more, with some more information and sources. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 01:06, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Myanmar should be changed to red on the map

Myanmar recently carried out its first executions since 1988. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/07/myanmar-first-executions-in-decades-mark-atrocious-escalation-in-state-repression/ https://apnews.com/article/myanmar-terrorism-democracy-aung-san-suu-kyi-government-and-politics-ca87f032cb6c7407b1d776574f15c5a8 https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-07-25/myanmar-executes-nld-lawmaker-3-other-political-detainees JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 09:58, 25 July 2022 (UTC) Could someone change Myanmar to red on the map, please? I would, but I don't know how to. JoeSmoe2828 (talk) 21:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn't Cuba be brown?

Cuba hasn't executed anyone in nineteen years, and the last death sentences were commuted in 2010. Wouldn't brown be more accurate than red on the map? <IP> 01:19, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Map is no longer accurate - Death penalty applies throughout the US.

At some point, the map has been changed to suggest that there are parts of the United States that do not have capital punishment, or that there has been no capital punishment in some parts for more than 10 years. This is not correct, as the federal death penalty applies throughout the US, and there were several federal executions at the end of 2020. I don't know where the previous map has gone, which correctly showed that the death penalty applies throughout the US, so I can't replace it. I've therefore deleted the map as inaccurate. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: I brought back the previous map and started a discussion about it here. If you disagree with the map about anything, you can comment there or edit the map here, but please don’t remove it from the article. Brainiac242 (talk) 16:49, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Brainiac242: Thank you for doing that. Wasn't aware of that discussion option in that other wiki-place, for articles here. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 16:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Burj khalifa charts

Just wanted to see if anyone else has an opinion on these towering charts? I understand the desire to be thorough in the Info column, but is the trade off for formatting and readability worth it? I am a noob when it comes to the tools on wiki - can this info be presented in a better way? As it stands, the usability even on large monitors poor. Considering the majority of page views are mobile, I can't imagine many would tolerate the format long enough to view more than a couple countries.

I realize I am not providing any solutions but was hoping to get some other views. I'm totally new to Wikipedia editing btw so if I'm approaching this completely the wrong way just let me know. Brownpharmdoc (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Abolition Chronology mistake

I was looking at the number of sovereign states that have abolished the death penalty and for 1998 it lists 7 but there are only 6 countries listed. Could someone please clarify this? Also discovered the same thing again for 2002. That means only 111 nations have abolished capital punishment. Tom950 (talk) 19:58, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Zambia, Equatorial Guinea, and Ghana

Zambia, Equatorial Guinea and Ghana have actually only partially abolished the death penalty. Could someone edit the map, please? I would, but I don't know how to.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ACT5065912023ENGLISH.pdf

https://amp.france24.com/en/africa/20230726-ghana-s-parliament-votes-to-outlaw-the-death-penalty Discord3838 (talk) 08:07, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Done. May take a bit to go through the system, though. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capital_punishment_in_the_world.svg

By the way, the easiest way to edit it (for the future) is to download the map from the link I pasted above, open it with a vector graphics editor such as Inkscape or Photos, click on a country and change the RGB values to the correct colour. Opening it with a raster editor (such as Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.net etc.) will save it as a PNG file, not SVG.

Thanks. Aydenholtonvlogs (talk) 00:45, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

What is an "ordinary crime"?

This term is used throughout the article, but as far as I can tell, it's never been defined. What is an "ordinary crime" for the purposes of this article? It's important that the term be defined, and have the same meaning througout the article. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:48, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I've added a "clarification needed" tag, for every use of the term "ordinary crime" in this article, to highlight that the term is used throughout the article, but is never defined. What is the definition of "ordinary crime", and where does it come from? Does every country in the world have the same definition of "ordinary crime", as the article seems to imply? That would be highly unusual, if close to 200 sovereign states, with great variation in their legal systems, all use the term "ordinary crime" to have the same meaning. Alternatively, is this definition found somewhere in academic literature on the death penalty? If so, that academic source needs to be cited, backed up by a reliable source. Or is it just a term that the editors on this page have made up, unrelated to any academic literature, and lacking a reliable source? This needs to be clarified. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 03:45, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

"Judicial homicide"

An IP editor keeps adding "judicial homicide" to the opening line. There is no reference to that term in the article, and no citation in support. Given the lack of any source, it strikes me as a breach of NPOV. I've reverted twice and now am explaining the reason for the revision here on the Talk page. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:51, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

America and the death penalty

For the United States can make a map by state rather then having all of the U.S in red, many states have abolished the death penalty and there is currently a Federal moratorium on the death penalty. Comrade-Colonel23 (talk) 20:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

The test for adding a moritorium to the map is that it has been at least 10 years since there was an execution. The most recent federal exécution was in 2021. As well that same year the US Attorney General appealed a case which set aside the death penalty for the surviving Boston Marathon bomber. The Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the accused was subject to the death penalty. Given these developments, it is premature to change the map. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 02:59, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

As well, this article is about countries that retain the death penalty. So long as the death penalty is used in the United States, whether at the state or federal level, the United States is a country that retains the death penalty. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 12:32, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

United States

President Biden is likely to commute the 40 men on federal death row to life imprisonment in his last month in office. The map might need to be changed soon. It also varies by state in the United States Executions are rare outside of southern states with only one this decade. 136.37.105.109 (talk) 16:33, 14 December 2024 (UTC)