Iran Executed ‘Staggering’ Number Of People In 2025, Amnesty Says

02:27 18.5.2026

Iran executed a “staggering” 2,159 people in 2025, Amnesty International reported on May 18, helping to push the global figure to the highest level since 1981.

London-based Amnesty said at least 2,707 people were executed globally last year, although death sentences carried out in China were not included in the figure.

Amnesty said that “thousands of executions” were carried out in China, the world’s most prolific user of the death penalty, although details are uncertain due to “the state secrecy” over data in the communist nation.

Amnesty said the 2025 global figure — including executions in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Yemen, Singapore, and the United States — represented an increase of more than two-thirds from the 2024 total.

“This trend was strongest in countries where the authorities have tightened their grip on power by restricting civic space, silencing dissent and displaying disregard for protections established under international human rights law and standards,” it said.

In particular, the “staggering increase in recorded executions in Iran” came as authorities “intensified their use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression and control,” particularly after the June 2025 war with Israel.

Amnesty and other rights groups have said Tehran is intensifying its use of the death penalty after mass antigovernment street protests in January and following the outbreak of war against Israel and the United States.

Amnesty said the known total of 2,159 executions carried out in Iran in 2025 “constituted the highest figure on record since 1981” in the country. It was also the highest one-nation figure since that year.

Because of the difficulty in obtaining concrete information, other groups have provided differing figures on the number of executions in Iran.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGOearlier this year said at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran last year.

Tehran has acknowledged executing 30 people so far in 2026.

Saudi Arabia last year carried out at least 356 executions, above its record-high figure of at least 345 in 2024, Amnesty said.

Executions in Kuwait rose from six in 2024 to 17. In Egypt, they went from 13 to 23. In Yemen, the yearly figure rose from at least 38 to at least 51, it added.

In the US, Amnesty said an “unprecedented rise” of executions in Florida — to 19 — brought the national total to 47, highest since 2009.

With reporting by AFP

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