아시아 12/03/27 North ‘keeps on executing’ - Amnesty International releases annual report on capital punishment

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North ‘keeps on executing’

Amnesty International releases annual report on capital punishment

ucanews.com staff, Seoul
Korea
March 27, 2012

The press conference

North Korea carried out at least 30 executions last year, while the number of inmates on death row in the South increased by one, according to an annual Amnesty International (AI) report published today.

However because of a lack of information coming out of North Korea, the report noted that many more executions have likely taken place.

“In January 2011, more than 200 officials were detained by the State Security Agency in a move to consolidate the leadership succession of Kim Jong-un,” the report said, raising concerns that some, if not all of them, have been executed.

“Public executions, including those in political prison camps, are believed to have taken place throughout the year,” despite its penal code banning the practice, the report added.

Meanwhile, although the South has maintained its moratorium on executions, it did hand down one new death sentence in 2011, the AI report said.

A soldier was sentenced to death by a military court after he killed four fellow marines in a shooting rampage last July.

This took the number of condemned prisoners in the country to 60.

South Korea last carried out the death penalty in 1997 when 23 people were executed. Bills seeking the abolition of capital punishment are still pending in the National Assembly.

Amnesty International classifies the South as “abolitionist in practice,” but the constitutional court ruled last year that capital punishment is still constitutional.

This has given other countries cause for concern, said Park Jin-ok, from Amnesty International Korea.

He said after the upcoming general election on April 11, “we will urge the new lawmakers to try their best to make the country ‘abolitionist under law’.”