Iran drives global executions in 2025 to highest level in 44 years

Amnesty International said Iran executed more than 2,150 people last year in a “shocking” increase that pushed the global number of recorded executions to its highest level since 1981.

In a report, the rights group said it had confirmed more than 2,707 executions in 17 countries worldwide in 2025, including 2,159 carried out in Iran.

The Britain-based organization noted that, as in previous years, the total does not include the “thousands of executions” believed to have been carried out in China — the world’s leading executioner — due to what it described as state secrecy surrounding official data.

Amnesty said the 2,707 recorded executions in 2025, including in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Yemen, Singapore and the United States, marked an increase of more than two-thirds compared with the previous year.

The organization attributed the “massive rise in recorded executions in Iran” to authorities intensifying the use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression and control, particularly following the June 2025 war with Israel.