Death Penalty

Both Saudi Arabia and Iran have been busy executing drug offenders recently, but now the Saudis are taking some heat from Syria over their treatment of Syrian drug offenders.

Judges in Algeria, Pakistan, and Syria have handed down death sentences to drug offenders so far this month, some of them for marijuana trafficking offenses, but Vietnam's president commuted the death sentence of a Vietnamese-born British citizen. His three Vietnamese accomplices are still facing execution.

One man gets a death sentence for drinking in Iran, another for selling hash in India, and Saudi Arabia keeps up the pace, executing two traffickers last week.

Saudi Arabia executed more drug offenders this week, and Vietnam sentenced more to death. But in a rare move, China commuted the death sentences of two Ugandan women.

Some 32 countries have laws on their books allowing for the death penalty for drug offenses. A new report details the situation and lays the groundwork for a campaign to stop it.

Iran rang in the new year by hanging three drug offenders, and Vietnam sentenced eight more to die.

Even as the UN General Assembly condemned the death penalty this week, China condemned one man to death for methamphetamine trafficking and Malaysia condemned another to death for having less than two pounds of marijuana.

Vietnamese courts have handed down death sentences to 35 drug traffickers in the past two weeks as the Southeast Asian nation makes a serious bid to be the world's leading executioner of drug offenders. Iran killed some too.

The use of the death penalty against drug offenders continues apace in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Iran executes six, Vietnam upholds one death sentence, and Vietnamese prosecutors seek 11 more.

Two more drug offenders were executed last week in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is in a de facto contest with Iran, Indonesia, and Malaysia to see who is the world's leading killer of drug law violators.