After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation carried out the death penalty intermittently, with up to 10 or so officially a year. In 1996, pending Russia's entry into the Council of Europe, a moratorium was placed on the death penalty, which is still in place as of 2023.
The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation envisages the death penalty for five crimes: murder with aggravating circumstances, assassination attempt against a state or public figure, attempt on the life of a person administering justice or preliminary investigations, attempt on the life of a law-enforcement officer, ...
China is the world's most active death penalty country; according to Amnesty International, China executes more people than the rest of the world combined each year.
At least four countries – China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Singapore – carried out executions for drug-related offences which totalled 325 at the end of 2022. Death sentences imposed by states decreased from 2,052 in 2021 to 2,016 in 2022, according to Amnesty.
During the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in November 1917, the government of Soviet Russia decreed the abolition of death penalty. Later in February 1918, death penalty was reinstated.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty for murder in Japan, and is applied in cases of multiple murder or aggravated single murder. Executions in Japan are carried out by hanging, and the country has seven execution chambers, all located in major cities.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in China. It is commonly applied for murder and drug trafficking, and is a legal penalty for other offenses. Executions are carried out by lethal injection or by shooting.
MORATORIUM ON THE USE OF THE DEATH PENALTY
Australia opposes the death penalty, in all circumstances and for all people. Australia's opposition to the death penalty is a long-standing, bipartisan policy position. All jurisdictions in Australia abolished the death penalty by 1985.
Traditionally, beheading has been the main method of execution in Saudi Arabia - the executions used to take place in public - with the names of those killed, and the charges they faced, published on government websites.
Hanging is the only common method of execution in 21st-century Iran, usually carried out in prison. Compared to other countries that use hanging (such as Japan or Malaysia) with a complex gallows designed to drop the condemned and break the neck, Iran's gallows are very simple and inexpensive.
In their dialogue with Amnesty International, the North Korean authorities have always insisted that the death penalty is rarely imposed, only in extremely serious cases, and that it is not applied in political cases. According to the authorities, the last execution took place in 1992.
The Human Rights Act formally abolished the death penalty in the UK. This means that a public official, including the police or courts, cannot execute someone or sentence them to death as punishment for something they have done. This applies in all circumstances, including during peacetime and times of conflict.
The Penal Execution Code specifies that the execution is to be carried out "privately by shooting".
The death penalty in Canada was abolished on December 10, 1998. On that date, all remaining references to the death penalty were removed from the National Defence Act – the only section of the law that, since 1976, still provided for execution under the law.
Capital punishment in Germany has been abolished for all crimes, and is now explicitly prohibited by constitution. It was abolished in West Germany in 1949, in the Saarland in 1956 (as part of the Saarland joining West Germany and becoming a state of West Germany), and East Germany in 1987.
Section 316 of the Criminal Procedure Code states that the death penalty in Singapore is to be conducted by hanging. Hangings always take place at dawn and are conducted by the long drop method. The Singapore government has affirmed its choice of execution by hanging in favour of other methods.
On December 26, 1862, following the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, the federal government hanged 38 members of the Dakota tribe in Minnesota. It was the largest mass execution in United States history.
Life imprisonment is the most severe penalty now available in Australia, and, currently, about 5 percent of the total prison population in Australian correctional institutions are serving an indeterminate life sentence. However, the average term of incarceration for these prisoners is about 13 years.
Passage of the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act ended all capital punishment in New Zealand. The Cook Islands, which based its statutes on New Zealand law, formally retained the death penalty for treason until it was abolished in 2007.
The History of Capital Punishment in Australia
The last person to be executed in Australia was Ronald Ryan. Ryan was 'hanged by the neck until he was dead' at Pentridge Prison, Victoria in 1967.
Developments. In February 1998, then-president Kim Dae-jung enacted a moratorium on executions. This moratorium is still in effect as of 2023. Thus, executions in Korea are considered to be abolished de facto.
The method of execution is hanging for civilian convictions, and by firing squad for convictions by commissioned military personnel at the time of duty. The Grand Mufti of Egypt Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam, is responsible under Egyptian law for reviewing all death sentences in Egypt.
In April 1993, capital punishment was officially abolished in Hong Kong. Since then, life imprisonment has been the most severe punishment in Hong Kong.