Ivan Cantu, a 50-year-old Hispanic man, was executed in Texas on 28 February 2024. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for a double murder committed in November 2000. An independent investigation raised serious questions about the reliability of the state’s case against him. Final...

Figures recorded by Amnesty International during the first six months since Malaysian courts were granted sentencing discretion depict a significant decrease in the number of death sentences imposed or upheld. However, the cases identified also gave rise to concerns that systemic flaws and...

Responding to the double public executions by the Taliban yesterday, Livia Saccardi, Amnesty International’s interim Deputy Regional Director for South Asia, said: “We oppose all executions as a violation of the right to life. The Taliban has been repeatedly carrying them out publicly which is a...

The Huthi de facto authorities must urgently halt planned executions and end the persecution of people based on their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, said Amnesty International, after two Huthi-run courts in Yemen sentenced more than 40 individuals either to death, flogging...

Responding to a move by Zimbabwe’s cabinet to back abolition of the death penalty, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, Khanyo Farisè, said: “Zimbabwe has taken the right step towards ending this abhorrent and inhuman form of punishment that has no place in...

Kurdish man Reza Rasaei, from the Yaresan religious minority, is at imminent risk of execution in relation to the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising after the Supreme Court rejected a request for judicial review on 16 January. His death sentence was issued following a grossly unfair trial that relied on...

Tortured protester Abbas Deris is at grave risk of execution after the Supreme Court rejected his request for a judicial review in January 2024. He was sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial in relation to the November 2019 nationwide protests. His lawyers have submitted a special appeal...

Fatma al-Arwali, a 34-year-old woman human rights defender, is at risk of execution after the Huthi-controlled Specialized Criminal Court in Sana’a, Yemen, convicted her of ‘aiding an enemy country’ and sentenced her to death on 5 December 2023 following a grossly unfair trial. Since her arrest in...

What made you become an attorney and what is the job like? I have wanted to be a lawyer since I was five years old. My mother has it documented in a journal. Of course, I think the next year I wanted to be a teacher, then a circus performer, then a journalist, and so […]

After the public review of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group report on Saudi Arabia, should serve as a blueprint for minimum measures the Saudi authorities must take to abide by their obligations under...

Ivan Cantu, a 50-year-old Hispanic man, is scheduled to be executed in Texas on 28 February 2024. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for a double murder in November 2000. A recent independent investigation conducted has compounded questions about the adequacy of his legal...

Kenneth Smith, 58, was executed in Alabama on 25 January 2024, pronounced dead at 8.25pm local time. This was the state’s second attempt to execute him, the first attempt by lethal injection in 2022 having failed. This time, the state used the new method of nitrogen hypoxia. He was sentenced to...