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Amost 1,700 were executed last year, Amnesty reports

At least 1,699 people were executed in 39 countries in 1983, and the true figure could be much higher because of secret executions, Amnesty International said Tuesday. The Nobel Prize-winning human rights group said China, Iran, and Iraq had the most known executions last year, accounting for 1,399, or 82 percent, of the total.

Amnesty said it opposes the death penalty ''as the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment and as a violation of the right to life.''