Iran leads record global executions in 2025, Amnesty International reports

Amnesty International’s annual report released today counted at least 2,707 executions worldwide in 2025, a 78% rise that marks the highest total since 1981. The figure excludes thousands of executions believed to have occurred in China, which the organization says conducts the most capital punishments globally.

Iran accounted for roughly 80% of the documented executions, with 2,159 people sentenced to death by hanging – double the number recorded the previous year. Nearly half of Iran’s death sentences were linked to drug‑law violations, and the overall use of the death penalty was described as “a tool of suppression and political control.”

The surge followed the 12‑day war between Israel and Iran in June, raising the number of executions from 654 before the conflict to 1,505 between July and December. Other countries reporting executions included Saudi Arabia (356), Yemen (51), the United States (47), Egypt (23), and Somalia, Singapore and Kuwait (17 each). Amnesty warned that the growing reliance on capital punishment serves to instill fear and crush dissent across the seventeen nations listed.