{"id":6649,"date":"2026-05-18T11:25:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T04:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/?p=6649"},"modified":"2026-05-18T11:58:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T04:58:51","slug":"global-executions-surge-to-highest-recorded-figure-in-44-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/news\/2026\/05\/global-executions-surge-to-highest-recorded-figure-in-44-years\/","title":{"rendered":"GLOBAL: Executions surge to highest recorded figure in 44 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Executions Skyrocket in 2025: What&#039;s Really Happening?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7N7eRk24iaw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Executions in 2025 soared to the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 1981, with 2,707 people executed across 17 countries, revealed the latest annual report from the human rights organization on the global use of the death penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The staggering rise recorded in the report <em>Death Sentences and Executions 2025<\/em>, was down to a handful of governments determined to rule by fear. Iranian authorities, the main drivers behind the spike, executed at least 2,159 people, more than double its 2024 figure. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia raised its execution tally to at least 356, using the death penalty extensively for drug-related offences. Executions in Kuwait almost tripled (from 6 to 17), while they near doubled in Egypt (from 13 to 23), Singapore (from 9 to 17), and the United States of America (from 25 to 47). Overall, executions rose by 78%, after at least 1,518 executions were recorded in 2024. 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\u2019s lead executioner.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong><em>\u201cThis 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. From China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia to Yemen, Kuwait, Singapore and the USA, this shameless minority are weaponizing the death penalty to instil fear, crush dissent and show the strength state institutions have over disadvantaged people and marginalized communities,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> said <strong>Agn\u00e8s Callamard<\/strong>, Amnesty International\u2019s Secretary General.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The resurgence of highly punitive approaches in the \u201cwar on drugs\u201d drove efforts to expand the use of the death penalty. This was reflected in the number of executions, with close to half (1,257 or 46%) of all known executions recorded for drug-related offences: in China (+), Iran (998), Kuwait (2), Saudi Arabia (240) and Singapore (15). Algeria, Kuwait, and the Maldives made legislative efforts to expand the scope of the death penalty to include drug-related offences.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government of Burkina Faso adopted a draft bill that included reinstating the death penalty for offences such as \u201chigh treason,\u201d \u201cterrorism,\u201d and \u201cacts of espionage\u201d, while the authorities in Chad established a commission to review matters related to the death penalty &#8211; including its reinstatement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-larger-font-size\" id=\"h-executions-carried-out-by-handful-of-countries-nbsp\">Executions carried out by handful of countries&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While executions surged, executing countries remain an isolated minority. China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, USA, Viet Nam and Yemen are the same 10 countries known to have carried out executions every year in the last five years and that have consistently shown disregard for safeguards established under international human rights law and standards.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Four countries resumed executions last year (Japan, South Sudan, Taiwan and United Arab Emirates), bringing the total number of executing countries to 17.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Progress was made elsewhere around the world, proving hope is stronger than fear.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No executions or death sentences were recorded in Europe and Central Asia. For the 17th consecutive year, the USA was the only country in the Americas to execute people, with close to half of all US executions carried out in Florida. Executions in Sub-Saharan Africa were confined to Somalia and South Sudan. Afghanistan was the only country in South Asia to pursue executions; Singapore and Viet Nam were the only countries known to do so in Southeast Asia. Tonga was the only country in the Pacific to retain the death penalty in law.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s time for executing countries to step into line with the rest of the world and leave this abhorrent practice in the past. The death penalty does not make us safer. Rather, it is an irreversible affront against humanity that\u2019s driven by fear, with utter disregard for international human rights law,\u201d said Agn\u00e8s Callamard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-larger-font-size\" id=\"h-the-flame-of-abolition-continues-to-burn\"><strong>The flame of abolition continues to burn<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When Amnesty International started its work against the death penalty in 1977, only 16 countries had abolished it. Today, that number has risen to 113 \u2013 more than half the world\u2019s countries, while more than two-thirds are abolitionist in law or practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Against a backdrop of predatory behaviours, fear and hate, some countries took steps demonstrating that, with continued pressure and determination, global abolition is within reach. Authorities in Viet Nam abolished the death penalty for eight offences, including drug transportation, bribery, and embezzlement, while Gambia abolished the death penalty for murder, treason and other offences against the state. In a historic move, the Governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, granted clemency to Rocky Myers \u2013 the first clemency granted to a Black person on death row in the state.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Lebanon and Nigeria, bills were introduced to abolish the death penalty, while the Constitutional Court of Kyrgyzstan declared attempts to reintroduce the death penalty as unconstitutional.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong><em>\u201cWith human rights under threat around the world, millions of people continue to fight against the death penalty each year in a powerful demonstration of our shared humanity,\u201d said Agn\u00e8s Callamard. \u201cTotal abolition is possible if we all stand strong against the isolated few. We must keep the flame of abolition burning bright until the world is entirely free from the shadows of the gallows.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For more information, a copy of the report, or to arrange an interview with a spokesperson, please contact:<\/strong> <a href=\"mailto:angela.singh@amnesty.org\">angela.singh@amnesty.org<\/a> or <a href=\"mailto:press@amnesty.org\">press@amnesty.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-larger-font-size\" id=\"h-death-penalty-in-2025-facts-and-figures\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/blog\/2026\/05\/death-penalty-in-2025-facts-and-figures\/\" id=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/blog\/2026\/05\/death-penalty-in-2025-facts-and-figures\/\">Death penalty in 2025 &#8211; Facts and figures<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/ACT5007782026ENGLISH.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of ACT5007782026ENGLISH.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-8abc4af1-d124-49e2-be79-8c82666c36b1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/ACT5007782026ENGLISH.pdf\">ACT5007782026ENGLISH<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/ACT5007782026ENGLISH.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-8abc4af1-d124-49e2-be79-8c82666c36b1\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"grid grid-5 post-list\"><article class=\"grid-item aimc-ignore\" aria-label=\"Article: Indonesia: Military Silences Dissent With Disinformation Campaigns Branding Activists And Journalists \u2018foreign Agents\u2019\" style=\"aiic:ignore;background-image: url('https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/316258-1468x710-1-640x400.jpg')\" tabindex=\"0\"><div class=\"grid-content\"><span class=\"grid-itemMeta\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/category\/news\/\" tabindex=\"0\">News<\/a><\/span><h3 class=\"grid-itemTitle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/news\/2026\/05\/indonesia-military-silences-dissent-with-disinformation-campaigns-branding-activists-and-journalists-foreign-agents\/\" tabindex=\"0\">Indonesia: Military silences dissent with disinformation campaigns branding activists and journalists \u2018foreign agents\u2019<\/a><\/h3><\/div><\/article><article class=\"grid-item aimc-ignore\" aria-label=\"Article: Hong Kong: Activists\u2019 Unjust Trial For Peaceful Tiananmen Commemoration Resumes\" style=\"aiic:ignore;background-image: url('https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/283598-1-1444x710-1-640x400.jpg')\" tabindex=\"0\"><div class=\"grid-content\"><span class=\"grid-itemMeta\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/category\/news\/\" tabindex=\"0\">News<\/a><\/span><h3 class=\"grid-itemTitle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/news\/2026\/05\/hong-kong-activists-unjust-trial-for-peaceful-tiananmen-commemoration-resumes\/\" tabindex=\"0\">Hong Kong: Activists\u2019 unjust trial for peaceful Tiananmen commemoration resumes<\/a><\/h3><\/div><\/article><article class=\"grid-item \" aria-label=\"Article: Death Penalty In 2025 &#8211; Facts And Figures\" style=\"aiic:ignore;background-image: url('https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/DP_2021_cover-1468x710-2-640x400.jpg')\" tabindex=\"0\"><div class=\"grid-content\"><span class=\"grid-itemMeta\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/category\/blog\/\" tabindex=\"0\">Blog<\/a><\/span><h3 class=\"grid-itemTitle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/blog\/2026\/05\/death-penalty-in-2025-facts-and-figures\/\" tabindex=\"0\">Death penalty in 2025 &#8211; Facts and figures<\/a><\/h3><\/div><\/article><article class=\"grid-item aimc-ignore\" aria-label=\"Article: Philippines: Confirmation Of Duterte Trial Offers Victims Prospect Of Long-awaited Truth And Justice\" style=\"aiic:ignore;background-image: url('https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/image-1468x710-1-640x400.jpeg')\" tabindex=\"0\"><div class=\"grid-content\"><span class=\"grid-itemMeta\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/category\/news\/\" tabindex=\"0\">News<\/a><\/span><h3 class=\"grid-itemTitle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/news\/2026\/04\/philippines-confirmation-of-duterte-trial-offers-victims-prospect-of-long-awaited-truth-and-justice\/\" tabindex=\"0\">Philippines: Confirmation of Duterte trial offers victims prospect of long-awaited truth and justice<\/a><\/h3><\/div><\/article><article class=\"grid-item \" aria-label=\"Article: Amnesty International Calls On States To Stop Predatory, Anti-rights Order From Taking Hold In Pivotal Moment For Humanity\" style=\"aiic:ignore;background-image: url('https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/\u0e23\u0e27\u0e21\u0e23\u0e39\u0e1b\u0e19\u0e34\u0e17\u0e23\u0e23\u0e28\u0e01\u0e32\u0e23-640x400.png')\" tabindex=\"0\"><div class=\"grid-content\"><span class=\"grid-itemMeta\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/category\/news\/\" tabindex=\"0\">News<\/a><\/span><h3 class=\"grid-itemTitle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/news\/2026\/04\/amnesty-international-calls-on-states-to-stop-predatory-anti-rights-order-from-taking-hold-in-pivotal-moment-for-humanity\/\" tabindex=\"0\">Amnesty International calls on states to stop predatory, anti-rights order from taking hold in pivotal moment for humanity<\/a><\/h3><\/div><\/article><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Executions in 2025 soared to the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 1981, with 2,707 people executed across 17 countries, revealed the latest annual report from the human rights organization on the global use of the death penalty. The staggering rise recorded in the report Death Sentences and Executions 2025, was down to a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":6653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1585],"location":[1589],"resourceType":[],"topic":[1633],"class_list":["post-6649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","location-world","topic-death-penalty"],"datePosted":"May 18, 2026","mlpRelationships":{"1":18555,"2":6649},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resourceType?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=6649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}