The people on death row
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On death row live the people who have been sentenced and are waiting to be executed. The wait can last years or decades, often in isolation, with a date that arrives or is put off again and again. It is a punishment inside the punishment, and in many countries the number of people held there is the hardest figure of all to obtain.
This page collects the news on the people on death row, on the conditions they are held in, and on the numbers the association is able to document.
Latest news
- JANUARY 1, 2001PakistanDEATH PENALTY
In the year 2001 (till November) 45 people were executed...
In the year 2001 (till November) 45 people were executed and the country's death row population was raised by another 591 convicts
- JANUARY 1, 2001NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
The death penalty is provided for by the Criminal Code...
The death penalty is provided for by the Criminal Code and the legislation on civil disturbances for armed robbery, murder, treason, and offenses against the State
- JANUARY 1, 2001JamaicaDEATH PENALTY
Jamaica is a British Independent Territory that retains...
Jamaica is a British Independent Territory that retains the death penalty, but for which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the final court of appeal
- JANUARY 1, 2001Trinidad & TobagoDEATH PENALTY
Trinidad and Tobago is a British Independent Territory...
Trinidad and Tobago is a British Independent Territory for which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council remains the last court of appeal
- JANUARY 1, 2001KyrgyzstanDEATH PENALTY
A new Penal Code entered into force in January 1998...
A new Penal Code entered into force in January 1998 and reduced the number of capital crimes, also replacing the death penalty with a maximum of 30 years
- DECEMBER 28, 2000LouisianaDEATH PENALTY
Two innocents men released from death row
Two innocents men released from death row
- DECEMBER 15, 2000FloridaDEATH PENALTY
Frank Lee Smith, who had been convicted of a 1985 rape...
Frank Lee Smith, who had been convicted of a 1985 rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl, and who died of cancer 11 months ago while still on death row, was cleared of these charges according to an aide to Florida Gov
- DECEMBER 3, 2000JapanDEATH PENALTY
Amnesty International leader Pierre Sane renewed the...
Amnesty International leader Pierre Sane renewed the group's call for Japan to abolish the death penalty and also criticized the country's treatment of death-row inmates
- NOVEMBER 20, 2000SwitzerlandDEATH PENALTY
Death row inmate and street gang co-founder Stanley...
Death row inmate and street gang co-founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams has been nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize
- AUGUST 24, 2000South KoreaDEATH PENALTY
The government was to pardon more than 30,000 convicts...
The government was to pardon more than 30,000 convicts in order to promote national reconciliation on the anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule
- AUGUST 9, 2000South KoreaDEATH PENALTY
Justice Ministry officials said that more than 40 prisoners...
Justice Ministry officials said that more than 40 prisoners on death row were to have their terms lightened to life sentences in honor of "National Liberation Day
- JUNE 30, 2000PhilippinesDEATH PENALTY
Mariano Santiago, chairman of the Kidney Patient Association...
Mariano Santiago, chairman of the Kidney Patient Association of the Philippines (KPAP) board of trustees, said his group would ask the House of Representatives to allow death row inmates and other convicts to donate their organs in exchange for commutatio
- JUNE 28, 2000DominicaDEATH PENALTY
The High Court judge Dunbar Cenac sentenced Mwanga...
The High Court judge Dunbar Cenac sentenced Mwanga Freeman, 24, and Leroy Langford, 31, to hang for the 1998 murder of Ossie Charles, 38
- JUNE 21, 2000JapanDEATH PENALTY
The families of two victims of convicted killer Toshihiko...
The families of two victims of convicted killer Toshihiko Hasegawa asked the Justice Ministry to commute his death sentence to life in prison
- MAY 22, 2000AlgeriaDEATH PENALTY
Inmates sentenced to death and awaiting execution at...
Inmates sentenced to death and awaiting execution at Batna's Tazoult prison entered their second day of hunger strike to complain against detention conditions
- MAY 15, 2000PhilippinesDEATH PENALTY
Senator Loren Legarda urged the Department of Foreign...
Senator Loren Legarda urged the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) to look into the cases of three female Filipino workers facing execution overseas, for offences committed in their host countries
- APRIL 17, 2000PakistanDEATH PENALTY
Some 50 children on death row may be the immediate...
Some 50 children on death row may be the immediate beneficiaries of the military government's plan to scrap the obsolete juvenile justice system and bring it in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Pakistan is a signatory
- APRIL 14, 2000PhilippinesDEATH PENALTY
Senator Loren Legarda asked for the commutation of...
Senator Loren Legarda asked for the commutation of the death sentences of 13 convicts who are more than 70 years old, or about to turn 70 this year, saying the death penalty law precludes the execution of convicts over 70 for humanitarian reasons
- MARCH 31, 2000EswatiniDEATH PENALTY
Marwick Khumalo, a Swazi MP for Lobamba demanded to...
Marwick Khumalo, a Swazi MP for Lobamba demanded to know whether the dozen people on death row were ever going to face the hangman
- MARCH 29, 2000IndiaDEATH PENALTY
Six eminent Tamil writers appealed to the President...
Six eminent Tamil writers appealed to the President and Tamil Nadu Governor to grant clemency to death row convict [identified only as] Govindasamy who was still awaiting execution in a Coimbatore jail sixteen years after having committed a crime
- MARCH 24, 2000PhilippinesDEATH PENALTY
President Estrada declared an 11 month moratorium on...
President Estrada declared an 11 month moratorium on 18 out of 959 death convicts awaiting execution by lethal injection out of respect for the world-wide celebration of the Jubilee Year
- MARCH 3, 2000United StatesDEATH PENALTY
Former counterculture guru Ira Einhorn, sheltering...
Former counterculture guru Ira Einhorn, sheltering in France to avoid serving a life term for murdering his girlfriend in America, said he was a symbol of all death row inmates in the U
- FEBRUARY 18, 2000South KoreaDEATH PENALTY
A group of 92 South Korean legislators presented a...
A group of 92 South Korean legislators presented a bill to the National Assembly that called for capital punishment sentences to be abolished and be replaced with life terms in prison sentences
- FEBRUARY 2, 2000Congo - KinshasaDEATH PENALTY
According to Amnesty International, nineteen other...
According to Amnesty International, nineteen other prisoners were executed in and around Kinshasa between January 28 and February 2, 2000
- JANUARY 25, 2000UgandaDEATH PENALTY
President Yoweri Museveni was under mounting pressure...
President Yoweri Museveni was under mounting pressure from church groups and human rights activists to pardon the 271 inmates on death row at the Luzira Maximum Prison, outside the capital city of Kampala
- JANUARY 14, 2000FloridaDEATH PENALTY
The electric chair has ended its days as Florida's...
The electric chair has ended its days as Florida's sole means of execution after a decade that sometimes saw macabre spectacles in the state's death chamber
- JANUARY 9, 2000United StatesDEATH PENALTY
Fashion giant Benetton joined Italy's offensive against...
Fashion giant Benetton joined Italy's offensive against the death penalty with its 2000 advertising campaign called "We, On Death Row
- JANUARY 5, 2000BahamasDEATH PENALTY
Death row inmate John Higgs, 51, killed himself while...
Death row inmate John Higgs, 51, killed himself while under suicide watch
- JANUARY 5, 2000PhilippinesDEATH PENALTY
Briton Albert Wilson, 47, who was on death row for...
Briton Albert Wilson, 47, who was on death row for child rape, was freed after the Supreme Court squashed his conviction
- JANUARY 4, 2000NigeriaDEATH PENALTY
The Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo granted a...
The Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo granted a pardon to convicts waiting more than 20 years for execution