Amnesty reports record 2,707 executions worldwide in 2025, Iran accounts for majority

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Over 2,700 executions have been recorded across 17 countries in 2025, global rights monitor Amnesty International reported on Monday, noting that the figure is the highest since the organization’s inception in 1981 and adding that Iran accounts for the overwhelming majority of executions.

“Executions in 2025 soared to the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 1981, with 2,707 people executed across 17 countries,” the organization’s Death Sentences and Executions 2025 report said, adding that the rise “was down to a handful of governments determined to rule by fear” and censuring Iranian authorities as “the main drivers behind the spike,” after executing “at least 2,159 people - more than double its 2024 figure.” 

Iran has for decades been accused by rights monitors of using the death penalty as a systematic tool of political repression and social control, especially against marginalized groups - such as ethnic minorities, impoverished drug couriers, and low-level users - and dissidents to assert absolute dominance over populations that are most likely to protest. 

The United Nations human rights chief in late April said he was “appalled” by a surge in executions in Iran, which has left at least 21 people executed since the outbreak of the six-week Iran war in late February, for their “alleged membership in opposition groups, and two on espionage charges.”

Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated, “I am appalled that - on top of the already severe impacts of the [Iran-Israel-US] conflict - the rights of the Iranian people continue to be stripped from them by the authorities in harsh and brutal ways.”

He noted that even in times of war, “core, non-derogable rights - such as protection against arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial - must be respected absolutely at all times,” urging Iranian authorities to “halt all further executions, establish a moratorium on the use of capital punishment, fully ensure due process and fair trial guarantees, and immediately release those arbitrarily detained.”

Turk further censured Iranian authorities over the arrest of some 4,000 people during the same period.

For its part, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) highlighted that “individuals from ethnic and religious minorities, including Baha’is, Zoroastrians, Kurds, and Baluch Iranians, have been at particular risk” of execution by Iranian authorities.

Beyond Iran, Amnesty International further recorded 356 executions in Saudi Arabia, 47 in the United States, and 23 in Egypt, while Kuwait and Singapore carried out 17 each.

According to the monitor, “overall executions [in 2025] rose by 78%, after at least 1,518 executions were recorded in 2024,” while it added that “the 2025 total does not include the thousands of executions that Amnesty International believes continued to be carried out in China, which remained the world’s leading executioner.”

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, remarked that “this alarming spike in the use of the death penalty is due to a small, isolated group of states willing to carry out executions at all costs, despite the continued global trend towards abolition.”

She added that “this shameless minority are weaponizing the death penalty to instill fear, crush dissent and show the strength state institutions have over disadvantaged people and marginalized communities.”