A/HRC/15/19 seven cases reported by foreign media. In Thailand, two people sentenced to death for drug trafficking were executed in August 2009, the first executions to take place in the country since 2003. In Taiwan Province of China, four men on death row were executed in April 2010, the first executions to be carried out since 2005; in May 2010, the Constitutional Court rejected a petition aimed at halting plans to execute the remaining 40 death row inmates. In Viet Nam, 59 people were sentenced to death in 2009 and 9 were executed. In 2009, in Singapore, at least six death sentences were passed and one execution was carried out. 21. In the United States of America, 52 people were executed in 2009, while 9 men who had been sentenced to death were found innocent and released.7 A total of 29 people were executed between 1 January and 18 June 2010, including one man executed on 18 June by firing squad in the State of Utah. 22. Although the House of Representatives in Belarus set up a parliamentary working group to draft proposals for the establishment of a moratorium in June 2009, death sentences continued to be imposed in the country during the reporting period. According to reports, in March 2010, two prisoners sentenced to death for murder were executed, the only executions to take place in Europe during the reporting period. 23. One person was reportedly executed in Botswana in December 2009. In the Sudan, in January 2010, six people were executed for their role in violent clashes between police and people living in internal displacement camps. In March 2010, two men were executed for murder and looting. IV. International developments 24. On 18 December 2008, the General Assembly adopted resolution 63/168 entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”. In the resolution, the Assembly welcomed the decisions taken by an increasing number of States to apply a moratorium on executions and follow the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty. It also welcomed the report of the Secretary-General and the conclusions and recommendations contained therein. The Assembly requested the Secretary-General to report to the Assembly at its sixty-fifth session on the implementation of the resolution. In a note verbale addressed to the Secretary-General dated 12 February 2009 (A/63/716), 53 States Members of the United Nations expressed, inter alia, their “persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention to existing stipulations under international law”. 25. The eighth quinquennial report of the Secretary-General on capital punishment and the implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty (E/2010/10) was submitted to the Economic and Social Council at its substantive session of 2010 in accordance with Council resolutions 1745 (LIV) and 1990/51, and decision 2005/247. The report was also submitted to the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its nineteenth session, and to the Human Rights Council, in accordance with its decision 2/102. The report reviews in detail the use of and trends in capital punishment, including the implementation of the safeguards, during the period 2004–2008, and confirms a very marked trend towards the abolition and restriction of the use of capital punishment in most countries. The report refers to recent authority for the view that capital punishment violates the right to life (para. 137), and draws attention to 7 GE.10-15029 World Coalition against the Death Penalty, “Towards a universal moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, February 2010; Amnesty International, The death penalty in 2009. 7