Executions worldwide drop 25%; US in top 5 (VIDEO)

The number of executions worldwide dropped by 25 percent in 2010, reported Amnesty International, while expressing concern that China continues to hand down more unrecorded death sentences than any other country.

China executed "thousands" of people in 2010, according to an annual report on the issue released Monday by the London-based rights group, which noted that Beijing keeps the figures secret. Iran killed at least 252 according to the report, North Korea at least 60, Yemen at least 53, the United States 46, and Saudi Arabia at least 27.

Although 23 countries carried out executions in 2010, four more than in 2009, the total number of recorded executions fell from at least 714 in 2009 to at least 527 in 2010, according to the Amnesty report.

"China is believed to have executed thousands in 2010 but continues to maintain its secrecy over its use of the death penalty," the Amnesty report said. "China used the death penalty in 2010 against thousands of people for a wide range of crimes that include non-violent offenses and after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards."

The United States carried out the fifth-highest number of executions in 2010, with a total of 46, CNN reported, citing the Amnesty report. Sixteen states have abolished the death penalty, including Illinois in 2011.

The level of public support for capital punishment in the U.S. had stayed steady over the past decade, CNN reported, citing a Gallup poll. For five out of the last 10 years, 64 percent of Americans have backed the death penalty in cases of murder, while about three in 10 oppose executions.

In a setback for Amnesty's campaign for abolition, meanwhile, the death penalty returned to the European continent after an execution-free 2009, with two executions in Belarus.

Execution methods included beheading, electrocution, lethal injection, stoning, hanging and shooting, with the last two methods the most popular, the report said.

The Amnesty report expressed alarm that many death sentences handed down in 2010 were for drug offenses, including more than half of the death sentences in Malaysia.

It also cited Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates for executing people under the age of 18.

Salil Shetty, the group's secretary general, said: "While executions may be on the decline, a number of countries continue to pass death sentences for drug-related offenses, economic crimes, sexual relations between consenting adults and blasphemy — violating international human rights law forbidding the use of the death penalty except for the most serious crimes."

Meanwhile, 31 countries abolished the death penalty, bringing the total to 96.

"In spite of some setbacks, developments in 2010 brought us closer to global abolition," Shetty said, AFP reported.

The Amnesty report noted China had taken steps to remove the death penalty from a number of offenses in its criminal code.

— Freya Petersen