The number of global executions recorded last year reached its highest level in forty-four years, surpassing 2,700 people, Amnesty International announced today. According to the human rights organization’s latest annual report, the total number of state-sanctioned executions climbed to 2,707 globally.
This staggering figure does not account for the thousands of secret executions believed to have taken place in China, a nation that Amnesty International maintains is the world’s most prolific executioner.
This confirmed total represents a drastic and alarming seventy-eight percent increase compared to the previous year, when 1,518 executions were recorded worldwide. It also marks the highest annual toll documented by the non-governmental organization since 1981, when 3,191 people were executed.
The dramatic global surge was primarily driven by Iran, which recorded its highest execution numbers in decades by putting at least 2,159 people to death.
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The report accused Iranian authorities of weaponizing the death penalty following flagrantly unfair trials to instill widespread fear and crush public dissent against the regime. Executions in Iran accounted for nearly eighty percent of all globally recorded instances contained within the report. Furthermore, Amnesty International noted that state secrecy in North Korea and Vietnam severely impaired its ability to determine reliable minimum figures for those regimes.
Saudi Arabia and the United States were also highlighted for alarming increases in their application of capital punishment over the past year. Saudi authorities surpassed their previous record by executing 356 people, including 240 individuals killed for non-violent drug offenses. Meanwhile, the United States saw an unprecedented spike driven largely by Florida, which executed nineteen people, contributing significantly to a national total of forty-seven executions.
