Headlines

Report: Global Executions Hits 9-Year High, Led by Middle East

APR 8 2025·Updated APR 9 2025

Story

Above: Amnesty International offices in Hong Kong on Oct. 25, 2021. Image credit: Photo by ISAAC LAWRENCE/Contributor/AFP via Getty Images

The Facts

Global executions reached 1,518 in 2024, marking a 32% increase from 2023 and the highest recorded figure since 2015, with Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia accounting for 91% of all known executions worldwide, according to a new report from Amnesty International.
The Telegraph
guardian
Of known executions, Iran led the surge, executing at least 972 people in 2024, followed by Saudi Arabia and Iraq, which quadrupled its number of reported executions, with at least 345 and 63, respectively.
Amnesty International
Middle East Eye
Per the report, China remains "the world’s lead executioner" in 2024, but official figures could not be ascertained as they remain state secrets. Similar restrictions prevented Amnesty International from providing concrete data for Vietnam and North Korea.
Amnesty International
Daily Mail
The report showed that 42% of all recorded executions in 2024 were carried out for drug-related offenses, amounting to 637 executions, a 25% increase from 2023, despite international human rights laws that restrict capital punishment to the "most serious crimes."
Amnesty International
In their report, Amnesty International stressed that their findings were only "a minimum figure that only partially describes the true extent of states' resort to executions during the year."
Amnesty International
Only 15 countries carried out executions in 2024, the lowest number on record for the second consecutive year, while 145 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice, with more than two-thirds of U.N. member states voting in favor of a resolution calling for a moratorium on capital punishment.
Amnesty International
The Telegraph

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

The death penalty remains a necessary tool for maintaining public order and punishing the most serious crimes, especially those of such severity that no other form of punishment is suitable. It's an act of simple justice that prevents recidivism, closes the cycle of violence, and allows society to move on.

Richardhanania

The Reflector

Narrative B

Capital punishment is a barbaric practice with no place in today's world. Not only is it the ultimate denial of a person's inalienable human rights, but it also fails to deter crime and disproportionately impacts disadvantaged groups while being increasingly weaponized in tyrannical states against political dissidents and minorities.

Amnesty International