02 January 2013 :
At least 5,679 executions were carried out in 18 Nations in 2009.China: approximately 5,000
Iran: at least 402
Iraq: at least 77
Saudi Arabia: at least 69
United States: 52
Yemen: at least 30
Sudan: at least 9
Vietnam: at least 9
Syria: at least 8
Japan: 7
Egypt: at least 5
Libya: at least 4
Bangladesh: 3
Thailand: 2
North Korea: at least 1
Botswana: 1
Singapore: 1
It is possible that executions were carried out in Malaysia in 2009, although none were officially reported.
Furthermore, it would appear that no executions were carried out in 2009 in the following 9 countries which all carried out executions in 2008: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus (although it carried out two executions in the first months of 2010), Indonesia, Mongolia (which has since put a moratorium on executions into effect), Pakistan, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Somalia and the United Arab Emirates.
Thailand, on the other hand, took up the practice of capital punishment once again in 2009 after having stopped in 2008.
In 2010, in Palestine, the Hamas Government in Gaza took it upon itself to resume executions (5) after a de facto moratorium that had lasted five years. Taiwan also took up executions (4) again after a five year suspension.
Source: Hands Off Cain
In bold: liberal democracies1 (3) that carried out executions (60) in 2009
In italics: changes (5) with regard to 2008
1 The classification “liberal democracy” is based on the rigorous analytic standards employed by Freedom House in its Freedom in the World 2010 report on the state of political rights and civil liberties around the world (www.freedomhouse.org).
