Watchdog

In its new report, “Death Sentences and Executions in 2009,” Amnesty International cites Iran as one of the worst offenders worldwide in imposing the death penalty.

According to the report, Iran executed 388 people in 2009, placing it second only to China, where the number of executions is not revealed but is thought to be in the thousands.

Iran’s use of capital punishment exceeds Iraq, with 120 executions last year, Saudi Arabia with at least 69, and the United States with 52.

The rights group notes that Iran conducted at least 14 executions in public, and used capital punishment “extensively” to silence opponents and to send a political message.

Executions spiked in the turbulent period after the contested presidential election last June, when many hundreds of political activists and oppositionists were arrested, Amnesty International said. “In Iran, 112 executions were known to have taken place in the eight-week period between the presidential election on 12 June and the inauguration of Mahmud Ahmadinejad for a second term as President on 5 August,” the report said.

Amnesty International says the true number of executions in Iran is likely to be higher than the official statistic.

According to the rights group, the majority of executions in Iran came after trials that violated international laws and standards pertaining to the death penalty.

--Golnaz Esfandiari

The leader of Kyrgyzstan's opposition Fatherland (Ata-Meken) party and a former speaker of parliament, Omurbek Tekebaev, has met with investigators in neighboring Kazakhstan in connection with the December killing of a prominent Kyrgyz journalist, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

Tekebaev told RFE/RL that he went to the Kazakh town of Qorday on March 27-28 to discuss the case of Gennady Pavlyuk, who was thrown from a building in Almaty on December 16 with his arms and legs bound. He died in a hospital six days later.

Pavlyuk had met with Tekebaev in Bishkek to discuss possible cooperation with Tekebaev's opposition party before he left for Almaty.

Tekebaev told RFE/RL that the Qorday investigators showed him pictures of five suspects they believed might have been involved in Pavlyuk's murder.

He said he recognized one of them, whom he identified as an employee of Kyrgyzstan's State Service of National Security (GSNB).

GSNB spokesman Rysbek Bykyn-uulu told RFE/RL that Kazakh authorities have not contacted the GSNB regarding the investigation into Pavlyuk's death.