In 2024, the world recorded a record number of executions – Amnesty International

In 2024, at least 1518 people have been executed in 15 countries – the highest figure since 2015. Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are the main responsibility for the increase in the number of executions.

Source: annual report Amnesty International Human Rights Organization on Global Death of Death Penalty

Details: According to the report, 2024 was the year with a record number of fixed executions since 2015-at least 1634 people were executed. Human rights activists point out that the vast majority of execution took place in the Middle East.

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The report does not take into account thousands of probable executions in China, North Korea and Vietnam, where the death penalty is kept classified. In particular, China, according to human rights defenders, remains a country with the highest number of executions in the world.

Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are together responsible for more than 90% of well -known executions in 2024. Iran has executed at least 972 people-119 more than in 2023. Saudi Arabia doubled the number of executed (345 vs. 172 in the previous year), and Iraq increased the number of executions almost four times – from 16 to 63.

« The death penalty is a disgusting, inhuman and humiliating practice that has no place in the modern world, » said Amnesty International Agnes Kallarmar Secretary General.

In addition, more than 40% of death sentences in the world have been issued for drug crimes – despite the fact that international norms allow to apply the death penalty only for « the most serious crimes ». Such executions were especially widespread in Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and probably in Vietnam.

« Leaders who promote the death penalty as a tool for combating drugs or crime offer ineffective and illegal decisions, » Kallamar stressed.

In the Middle East, the death penalty was used to make human rights defenders, dissidents, protesters, political opponents and representatives of ethnic minorities.

In the United States, where President Donald Trump publicly supports the use of the death penalty, 25 people were executed in 2024.

At the same time, there have been positive shifts in a number of countries. Zimbabwe passed the law on the abolition of the death penalty for general crimes. Malaysia has reform that reduced the number of convicts to death by more than a thousand. For the first time, more than two-thirds of the UN member states have supported the General Assembly Resolution on the Global Moratorium on Death Punishment.