Death sentences and executions are always dark news. Despite global advocacy against lethal punishment, though, the use of executions has skyrocketed once again.
A new Amnesty International report found that the number of executions around the world in 2024 hit the highest level in a decade, a grim tally that came as leaders weaponized the death penalty “under the false pretense that it would improve public safety or to instill fear among the population.”
The total number of executions has risen, but the number of countries implementing death sentences has actually remained the same. That’s because, in part, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia were behind 91% of the recorded executions last year.
Altogether, authorities in 15 countries across the world executed more than 1,500 people in 2024. In many cases, the authorities targeted protesters and specific ethnic groups, and there was an increase in executions stemming from drug-related crimes.
The true number of executions, in fact, might be far higher. Amnesty believes that China, the “world’s lead executioner,” has executed thousands of people, as have North Korea and Vietnam. On top of that, war and instability in Palestine and Syria mean Amnesty was unable to pin down an accurate number of executions in those countries.
As far as countries where a tally was possible, Iran led the number of executions, killing at least 972 people and accounting for nearly two thirds of the world’s executions.
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Meanwhile in Iraq, the number of executions the country’s authorities carried out quadrupled when compared with the previous year. In Saudi Arabia, the annual total doubled.
In those countries and elsewhere in the Middle East, authorities used the death penalty to “silence human rights defenders, dissidents, protesters, political opponents, and ethnic minorities.”
Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, said: “Those who dare challenge authorities have faced the most cruel of punishments, particularly in Iran and Saudi Arabia, with the death penalty used to silence those brave enough to speak out.”
The United States didn’t get off the hook, either. The number of executions the US has carried out since the COVID-19 pandemic has steadily risen, but more concerning to Amnesty was President Donald Trump’s frequent assertions that the use of the death penalty will keep the population safer.
“His dehumanizing remarks promoted a false narrative that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect on crime,” the report pointed out.
Worrisome though the trend is, the report did sound off a note of optimism. At least 113 countries around the world are “fully abolitionist,” while 145 have ditched the death penalty “in law or in practice.”
Zimbabwe, for instance, signed into law a ban on the death penalty for “ordinary crimes” last year, and legal reforms in Malaysia meant that sharply reduced the total number of people who could potentially face the risk of execution.
The way Amnesty’s Callamard put it, organizing has gone a long way toward stigmatizing the use of executions. “When people prioritize campaigning for an end to the death penalty,” Callamard said in the report, “it really does work.”
