Death row comparisons

The BBC love to tell us how many people are on DEATH ROW in the US and how barbaric the practice of state sanctioned killing is. They seem less keen on covering stories such as this from Reuters: "LAGOS (Reuters) - Six people convicted by Islamic sharia courts in a northern Nigerian state are awaiting death by stoning, while 46 others are waiting for amputation, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported on Friday. The men on death row in Bauchi state include a 52-year-old sentenced in 2004 for getting his teenage step-daughter pregnant and another who was sentenced in 2002 for having sex 13 times with his friend's wife, the agency said. The report did not say how many people were facing such penalties in 11 other northern Nigerian states that have criminal courts using sharia law. Such data is not collated centrally...."


Death by stoning, that sounds pleasant - take a read of this earlier piece for a fuller flavour of this practice.



I went to Google and did a search on "death penalty", the first two and the fifth sites returned were US centric and are anti-the US carrying out such a penalty. So I went to Wikipedia for some bare figures.

In 2006, the last year that they have figures for, the US executed 53 people from a population of 303 million. Not a massive number and thankfully the US are the worst offenders, they must be because the BBC only criticise them. Of course you will not be surprised to learn that that is not the case.

The Sudan executed at least 65 people from a population of 39 million - a rate around 10 times higher.

Iraq executed at least 65 people from a population of 27 million - but that is almost entirely due to the US lead invasion, which was illegal and only about oil, Halliburton, Dick Chenie....... sorry I came over all BBC speak for a moment

Pakistan executed 82 people from a population of 162 million - that's more than twice the rate of the US.

Iran executed 177 from a population of 70 million - that's more than 12 times the rate of the US's.

Top of the heap is China who executed at least 1,010 people from a population of 1.321 billion - that's a rate almost five times that of the USA.


Strange how the BBC seem to concentrate on the US rather than China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan or Sudan. One could almost believe they had an axe to grind...