The Death Penalty: In Search of Official Statistics
299 death sentences have been executed in Belarus since 1985, the BelaPAN news agency reports. The figure is based on the agency’s own estimations and the data provided by the Amnesty International human rights group. However, the official number of executed has not yet been made public.
On 12 May representatives of the ‘Human Rights Activists against the Death Penalty’ campaign addressed the Interior Minister, the Prosecutor General and Chair of the Supreme Court with inquiries about the actual number of death sentences passed and executed in Belarus between 1990 and 2009.
‘The Department for Execution of Punishments of the Interior Ministry says it cannot give us such data, redirecting us to the Supreme Court. The Court, in turn, said all the information on the death sentences, including the executed ones, can be obtained from the Ministry of Justice. We sent an inquiry to the Ministry of Justice, but have not received a reply so far,’ says the campaign’s coordinator Iryna Toustsik.
