‘Staggering’ Iran toll drives up global executions: Amnesty

PARIS – Iran put to death more than 2,150 people in 2025, a “staggering” increase that pushed recorded worldwide executions to their highest level since 1981, Amnesty International said on May 18.

Amnesty said it had confirmed the executions of at least 2,707 people globally in 2025. Of these cases, 2,159 were in Iran, a figure more than double that of 2024, Amnesty said.

But the Britain-based rights group said that, as in previous years, its total “does not include the thousands of executions” that it believed were carried out in China, the world’s most prolific user of the death penalty, because of “state secrecy” over the data.

Amnesty said the figure of at least 2,707 people executed in 2025 – including in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Yemen, Singapore and the US – represented an increase of more than two-thirds from the previous year.

“This trend was strongest in countries where the authorities have tightened their grip on power by restricting civic space, silencing dissent and displaying disregard for protections established under international human rights law and standards,” it said.

In particular, the “staggering increase in recorded executions in Iran” came as the authorities “intensified their use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression and control”, particularly after the June 2025 war with Israel.

Amnesty and other rights groups have noted that Iran is stepping up its use of the death penalty again in 2026 following January protests and the war against Israel and the US, with executions on charges linked to the protests and membership in banned groups.

The group said the known total of 2,159 executions carried out in Iran in 2025 – a considerably higher figure than that published by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights non-governmental organisation earlier in 2026 – “constituted the highest figure on record since 1981” in the country. It was also the highest globally since that year.

The trend was reflected – albeit on a lesser scale – elsewhere in the region.

Saudi Arabia in 2025 carried out at least 356 executions, surpassing its already record-high figure of at least 345 in 2024, it said.

Executions in Kuwait almost tripled, from six in 2024 to 17.

In Egypt, they nearly doubled, from 13 to 23.

In Yemen, the yearly figure rose by more than a third, from at least 38 to at least 51, it added.

In the US – the only country in the Americas to have carried out executions in 2025 – the “unprecedented rise” in executions in Florida to 19 drove the national total to 47, the highest figure since 2009, it said.

The Singapore authorities carried out 17 executions, the highest number in the country since 2003, it added.

China’s “state secrecy” over its use of the death penalty “pointed to an intentional use of the death penalty to send a message that the state would not tolerate threats to public security or stability”, Amnesty said.

“Amnesty International continues to consider China as the world’s leading executioner.” AFP