Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - China carried out almost 90 per cent of the world's executions last year, putting at least 5,000 people to death, according to an activist group campaigning to end capital punishment.

China is one of 60 countries that still have the death penalty, group Hands Off Cain said in a report released at the weekend. It said other governments carried out more than 500 executions.

In China people are executed for crimes ranging from murder and rape to tax fraud and petty theft.

With 154 deaths, Iran had the second-highest number of known executions worldwide last year. Iraq executed at least 113 people before former president Saddam Hussein's government was toppled on April 9 last year.

Activists complain that prisoners can often be sentenced to death for offences that were not capital crimes when they were committed. Convicts have reportedly been executed for offences committed when they were as young as 16.

Last week, state media reported that a draft legislative amendment had been submitted to the People's Court Organisation Law to seek to strip local courts of the power to impose the death penalty without referring cases to the Supreme People's Court.

• china
• death
• penalty
• human
• rights
• comunism
• religious
• freedom