Death penalty: Top 5 countries to execute the most people

According to Amnesty International’s annual Death Sentences and Executions report, at least 527 people were executed in 23 countries in 2010, plus thousands in China. The number of people executed worldwide since 2007 is more than 2,500. Here are the five countries registering the most executions since 2007.

- Geoff Johnson, Contributor

2. Iran

After carrying out more than 300 executions a year in 2007, 2008, and 2009, Iran executed at least 252 people in 2010 and at least 1,303 since 2007. A large percentage of Iranian executions are punishment for drug-related offenses. Seventeen members of Iran’s Kurdish minority are also on death row for what the report called “political offenses.”

Iran is also one of the few remaining countries to sentence people to death by stoning – the punishment for “adultery while married.” While no one was executed by stoning in 2010, at least 14 people were sentenced to it at the end of the year.