Death penalty intro

"It has been a long and difficult road to finally convince the Mongolian authorities to abolish this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. We faced many challenges along the way, but never lost hope."

Our campaigner in Mongolia on the historic abolition of the death penalty in the country.

In the first six months of 2015, Saudi Arabia has executed more people than in all of last year.

The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to claim they only use the death penalty for the ‘most serious crimes’, and only after thorough judicial proceedings. We don't agree.

Shafqat was 14 when he was sentenced to death, after he was tortured into 'confessing' a crime. During 2015 had five executions set, but there were concerns about his age and 'elegibility' for execution.

A decade after he was sentenced to death, Pakistan hanged Shafqat, after resuming executions across the country.

Myuran Sukumaran has been on death row in Indonesia for ten years for drugs charges. He is due to face a firing squad. To help raise awareness of his case, we hosted an exhibition of his paintings from death row. Here you can see some of the artworks included.

Treating execution like an operating procedure may make it more palatable to the executioners - and in wider society.

A number of American states have sought alternative methods to lethal injection as the drugs dry up. But is death by firing squad, nitrogen gas or the electric chair any more or less barbaric than lethal injection? And does it matter?

ThankGod spent nearly two decades on death row in Nigeria. He told us that every night he had the same nightmare - a guard would open the prison cell door and walk ThankGod to the room where he would be executed.

Eventually, ThankGod's nightmare became reality - but miraculously, he has survived to tell his story of his time on death row.

By the start of this year, nearly 20,000 people were awaiting execution - many more people than the previous year. So who are the worst offenders? And what about the countries executions are a secret?

We aim to record all executions and death sentences around the world - unfortunately the death penalty remains very much alive.

Hamed was hanged along with five other men in Iran. All of them were executed for the vague crime of 'enmity against god'; each was a Sunni Muslim from Iran's Kurdish minority.

Before Hamed was hanged in March this year, he snuck out a letter detailing his experience on death row, awaiting execution every day.

Raif Badawi is now known worldwide as the blogger Saudi Arabia flogged for advocating free speech, but he is just one of many people punished for exercising their human rights in the Kingdom.

We list some of the rights denied by King Salman's regime in Saudi Arabia today.

"They told me that they would kill me right there and would cover my grave with cement."

Saman was just 17 when he was arrested. Tortured by police till he couldn't bear it any more, threatened with beatings by the judge at his trial, 22-year-old Saman has been appallingly mistreated - and now his execution is imminent.

Saman Naseem awaits execution any day. Just 17 when he was arrested in Iran for being a member of an opposition group, he was sentenced to death after an unfair trial and torture in detention.

Ask the Iranian authorities not to execute Saman, and instead review his case and investigate his claims of torture.

70-year-old British grandfather Mohammad Asghar is currently awaiting execution in Pakistan for 'blasphemy'.

We are calling on the government of Pakistan to release Mohammad immediately, and let him return home to his family in Edinburgh, where he can receive medical support for his paranoid schizophrenia.

Last year, filmmaker Will Francome set out across America to record ten stories investigating what it was like to be innocent and on death row.

Now Will's going back to look at how the death penalty affects everyone it touches - the families, lawmakers, police - and the choices the US makes when it keeps executing.

Half a century since the last hanging in Britain and public support for the death penalty is falling. The death penalty is a relic of the past. Here's why we should continue to campaign to keep it that way.

Arizona executed Joseph Wood using a secret cocktail of drugs. Wood had filed a legal case over the unknown contents of the injection, but it was overturned. After being injected, he convulsed and gasped for two hours before he eventually died.

Surely it's time for America to review its tortuous capital punishment system?

Six weeks after she was sentenced to be hanged for apostasy, Meriam Ibrahim, a 27-year-old mother in Sudan, has been freed from death row.

Over a million people around the world joined our call to Sudan to free Meriam - including a quarter of a million people in the UK. Thank you. You have been heard, and Meriam's death sentence has been overturned.