China, Iran and Saudi Arabia

“Only China and Iran executed more people during that period”, the organization says.

These “executions take place within the context of a judicial system that is not independent from the authority of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and therefore subject to direct political interference”, it said.

“I think the most alarming thing is that China continues to give thousands of people death sentences per year and execute thousands and yet we don’t know the extent”. However, though the 37% year-on-year fall was welcomed by Amnesty, the organisation warned that the numbers remain historically high, and 2016 also saw 3,117 people sentenced to death – the highest number of death sentences ever recorded in a single year by the organisation.

The data for Asia Pacific does not, however, include figures for China, which remains the world’s top executioner.

Egypt doubled the number of executions it carried out from 22 in 2015 to 44 a year ago.

But Amnesty says the majority of executions in Iran were for crimes that did not meet the worldwide standard of “most serious crimes”.

Amnesty also says many death penalty convictions in Iran are thought to have been issued by judicial officials on the basis of confessions obtained through the use of torture. “We are presuming that there is a very high number of unreported and undetected cases”.

The finding comes after the controversial execution of a farmer last November. The group said it believes China executed thousands, but it didn’t offer a more precise estimate due to a lack of accurate information.

The countries like Iran and North Korea have carried out public executions, the report added.

In comparison, Pakistan recorded a significant dip of 73 per cent in the number of executions.

Britain has been accused of “damping down” its criticism of regimes that practice the death penalty because it is desperate to secure trade deals after it leaves the European Union, Amnesty International claims.

Amnesty International has called on China to be transparent about the number of people it puts to death, saying less than a tenth of capital punishment cases were registered in the national court database.

China guards data relating to the death penalty like a state secret. The report from Viet Nam’s Ministry of Public Security does not contain a breakdown of figures for 2016. “This is deliberately misleading”, Secretary General of Amnesty International Salil Shetty said. Diplomats also encourage countries to reduce the number of offences that result in the death penalty.

Support for the death penalty in the United States fell to 49 percent, the lowest in more than four decades, according to a 2016 survey by the Pew Research Centre.

Amnesty noted that lawyers for the defendants claimed that vital evidence was omitted during their trials. As part of this, the county’s top court must now approve death sentences handed out by lower courts. Death penalty was imposed or implemented for drug-related offences in a number of countries. But the death penalty was only abolished completely in 1992.

Hanging is carried out in 14 countries and is the most common method of execution.

Amnesty collects its statistics using official figures, media reports and information passed on from individuals sentenced to death and their families and representatives.