article_snippet.sent: In the patently unfair, open air trial that followed, 55 people were found guilty of a range of offenses linked to violent attacks in China's northwestern Xinjiang region and jailed.
article_snippet.sent: Three were sentenced to death.
article_snippet.sent: The public mass sentencing was part a China's "Strike Hard" campaign against unrest in Xinjiang, a campaign the government claims was launched to combat "terrorism" and "separatism.
article_snippet.sent: But it was also indicative of a trend that was starkly evident last year around the world -- governments using the death penalty in a misguided, and often cynical, attempt to tackle crime and terrorism.
article_snippet.sent: More than 60 people have been put to death since, and Pakistan has threatened to send thousands more death row prisoners to the gallows.  
article_snippet.sent: Iran and Iraq executed people for "terrorism," and other countries expanded the scope of capital crimes in Iran and Iraq penal codes.
article_snippet.sent: In a year when abhorrent summary executions by armed groups were branded on the global consciousness as never before, governments are governments resorting to more executions in a knee-jerk reaction to terrorism.
article_snippet.sent: In Indonesia, authorities announced plans to execute mainly drug traffickers to tackle a public safety "national emergency.
article_snippet.sent: Six people have already been executed this year.
article_snippet.sent: A sharp spike in death sentences recorded in 2014 -- up more than 500 on this year -- can also be attributed to governments using the death penalty as a political tool.  
article_snippet.sent: The rise was largely because of developments in Egypt and Nigeria, where courts imposed hundreds of death sentences in the context of internal political instability or crime and armed conflict.