The World - News from Oct. 5, 1988

Amnesty International, documenting human rights abuses by 135 governments, said people were tortured in one-third of the nations it reviewed. In its annual global survey, it accused scores of governments of kidnaping and killing opponents. The organization cited the scale of executions in several countries, saying 164 people--all but nine of them black--were hanged in Pretoria’s central prison in 1987, that China reported executing 132 and Iran 158 that year, while the United States executed 25 in 1987. The report said that in the United States, “evidence of racial discrimination in application of the death penalty was a matter of urgent concern.”