Amnesty International, a human rights watchdog group, released a report today detailing numbers and trends in state-sanctioned executions worldwide.  According to the report, China led the world in executions with 470, down substantially from the 1,010 killed in the previous year.  However, the group believes the number executed to be much higher as the country's government does not actually publish these statistics.  The US-based organization “Dui Hua Foundation” estimates that 6,000 people were executed in China last year, based on reports from Chinese officials. 

Iran maintained the the second-highest number of executions and the most per capita, with 377 killings that included a man stoned for adultery. 

The number of American executions fell to its lowest level in about 15 years, putting it fifth in the world with 42, behind Saudi Arabia (143) and Pakistan (135).

The report also noted some disturbing trends, such as the fact three countries -- Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia -- put people under the age of 18 to death, the youngest a 13-year-old executed in Iran in April.

Amnesty also reported that many countries continued to execute people for crimes not commonly considered criminal, or after unfair procedures. Among them:

• Ja'Far Kiani, father of two, was stoned to death for adultery in Iran in July.
• A 75 year-old North Korean factory manager was shot by firing squad in October for failing to declare his family background, investing his own money in the factory, appointing his children as its managers and making international phone calls.
• Mustafa Ibrahim, an Egyptian national, was beheaded in Saudi Arabia in November for the practice of sorcery.
• Michael Richard was executed in Texas, USA, on 25 September after a state courthouse refused to stay open an extra 15 minutes to allow the filing of an appeal based on the constitutionality of lethal injections. Richard's attorneys had been unable to file the appeal on time because of computer problems; problems they had already brought to the court's attention. The US Supreme Court then refused to stop the execution. Earlier in the day, however, it had agreed in a Kentucky case to review the lethal injection issue, a decision that led to a de facto moratorium on all other lethal injection executions around the country. The Supreme Court's ruling is expected later this year.