The number of executions around the globe in 2025 surged to the highest recorded figure in 44 years, a new Amnesty International report said. Source: Catholic Review.
The May 17 report, titled Death Sentences and Executions 2025, comes soon after a recent video message from Pope Leo XIV marking 15 years since the abolition of the death penalty in his home state of Illinois.
It also comes after the United States Department of Justice said in court filings it would seek the death penalty for the man charged with the fatal shootings of two people outside a May 21, 2025, event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.
Amnesty International recorded executions of 2,707 people across 17 countries in 2025, the highest number recorded by the group since 1981. However, the group cautioned that its tally does not include what it believes to be thousands of executions carried out in China, adding that the country therefore remained the world’s top executioner.
“This alarming spike in the use of the death penalty is due to a small, isolated group of countries willing to carry out executions at all costs, despite the continued global trend towards abolition,” Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said in a statement.
“From China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia to Yemen, Kuwait, Singapore and the USA, this shameless minority are weaponising the death penalty to instil fear, crush dissent and show the strength state institutions have over disadvantaged people and marginalised communities.”
Excluding China, the report estimated that Iranian authorities, the main drivers behind the spike, executed at least 2,159 people, more than double their 2024 figure.
Saudi Arabia carried out at least 356 executions; Kuwait and Singapore carried out 17 each; Egypt carried out 23.
The U.S., meanwhile, carried out 47.
According to the report, 46 per cent of all known executions worldwide were attributed to drug-related offenses.
The Catholic Church’s official magisterium opposes the use of capital punishment, considering it inconsistent with the inherent sanctity of human life and advocates for the practice’s abolition worldwide.
The late Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify the Church’s teaching that capital punishment is morally “inadmissible” in the modern world and that the Church works with determination for its abolishment worldwide.
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Global executions surge to highest recorded figure in 44 years, Amnesty International report says (By Kate Scanlon, OSV News via Catholic Review)
