Iraq now has the fourth-highest rate of executions in the world, according to this story reported from Reuters, via Yahoo! News:
LONDON (Reuters) - Iraq's use of the death penalty has risen rapidly since it was reinstated in mid-2004 and it now ranks as the country with the fourth-highest rate of executions in the world, Amnesty International said on Friday.
The London-based human rights group said in a report that
Iraq had sentenced more than 270 people to death since sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqis by the Americans in mid-2004. Of those, at least 100 have so far been executed.
Is this the fulfillment of W's "Freedom on the March" plan? More quotes and link just ahead . . .
Amnesty calls this "a grave and retrograde step."
More quotes:
"Iraq now figures among the countries with the highest numbers of executions reported in 2006," the group said. "Higher totals were recorded only in China, Iran and Pakistan."
and
Death sentences are frequently handed down after very brief trials in which defendants are poorly represented, seldom allowed to give evidence and are often tortured into making confessions that are then used against them.
Now go read the story for yourself, and seethe!