The world executed more people in 2025 than at any point since 1981, according to Amnesty International’s annual report on the death penalty. At least 2,707 executions were recorded, an increase of more than two-thirds on 2024. The rise was overwhelmingly driven by Iran, which carried out at least 2,159 executions, more than doubling its previous year’s total and accounting for 80 percent of all recorded executions globally. That figure does not include China, which Amnesty continues to regard as the world’s leading executioner, and where data on capital punishment remains a state secret. Nor does it fully capture North Korea or Vietnam, where information is severely restricted.

The pattern reflects a deliberate political logic. In Iran, the death penalty was deployed as an instrument of repression, particularly after Israeli military strikes in June 2025, with at least 11 men executed on espionage charges and two protesters killed following convictions relating to the 2022 Woman Life Freedom protests. Saudi Arabia exceeded its own record with 356 executions, 67 percent of them for drug-related offences, many involving foreign nationals tried without adequate legal representation. In the United States, Florida’s decision to execute 19 people pushed the national total to 47, the highest since 2009, driven by a political climate in which the death penalty has been repositioned as a tool of public safety messaging.

Nearly half of all recorded executions globally were for drug-related offences, a category that does not meet the threshold of the most serious crimes under international law. Some progress was noted: Vietnam abolished the death penalty for eight offences, the Gambia removed it for murder and treason, and Kyrgyzstan’s constitutional court blocked efforts to reintroduce it. But the overall direction in 2025 was toward severity. The 113 countries that have abolished the death penalty for all crimes now stand in sharper contrast than ever with the 17 that still use it.

Source: Amnesty International, Death Sentences and Executions 2025, Index ACT 50/0778/2026, May 2026; Le Monde/AFP, 17 May 2026