“The death penalty is a barbarism disguised as justice,” said Mexican activist and writer Carlos Monsiváis. Under that deception, 15 countries killed their prisoner citizens in 2024, according to the Annual Amnesty International (AI) report released on Tuesday. In total, 1,518 people have been killed, which represents 32% more than a year earlier (1,153 cases in 2023) and the worst figure since the black year of 2015 (then there were 1,634). And that we talk about estimates, because there are countries like China, North Korea or Vietman that are a real black hole of secrecy and it is impossible to know how many executions have carried out, the same as Syria or Palestine, in this case because they live open conflicts. There are thousands, surely, says the dossier.
In addition to the formidable number, amnesty analysis uncovers two draft trends: the accumulation of death sentences in a handful of countries and the rise in the imposition of these penalties for non -lethal crimes, such as drug trafficking.
Thus, only Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq accumulate 91% of last year’s deaths alone. In total, these three countries carried out the “shocking figure” of 1,380 registered executions. Iraq almost quadrupled his executions (from at least 16 to at least 63) and Saudi Arabia doubled his annual total (from 172 to at least 345), while Iran executed 119 people more than the previous year (from at least 853 to at least 972), a figure that represents 64% of the total known executions. Yemen, fifth in the list, doubled his figures (from 15 to 38); In Somalia they dropped 11% (up to 34); In the United States it reached 25 (24 in 2023, with four states that have resumed these penalties and examples such as Alabama, which has tripled executions); In Egypt they have grown 62% (up to 13). They close the Sinpapur list with nine, Kuwait with six, Oman with three and Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria and Vietnam, without exact data.
The most common methods used to end the life of inmates are decapitation (Saudi Arabia), hanging (Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Singapore, Syria), lethal injection (China, United States, Vietnam), firearms (Afghanistan, China, North Korea, Oman, Somalia, Yemen) Joined).
The fact that these murders have been approved in 15 countries, the lowest figure registered to date for the second consecutive year, “indicates the tendency to leave behind this cruel, inhuman and degrading penalty,” says Agnès Callalard, general secretary of Amnesty International, clinging to a burning nail, one of the few positive conclusions of the report. “The death penalty is an abominable crime that has no place in today’s world. Although secrecy continued to surround the scrutiny in some countries that we consider responsible for thousands of executions, it is evident that the states that maintain the death penalty are an isolated minority,” he says.
In Europe, the closest territory to Spain, remains the only country in Europe that makes use of the death penalty, with a fierce persecution against political dissent and critical press. Russia and Tayikistan still maintain a moratorium on executions.
Archive image of a manifestation in Istanbul (Türkiye), against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini and favor of women’s rights in Iran.
Amnesty has resorted to official data, sentences, forgives and switches of penalties, family sources, lawyers, media and NGOs to be able to prepare their report. Thanks to this work, he also found that in last year 2,087 new death penalties were issued, 14% less than in the previous 12 months. They were issued in up to 46 nations, a number that considerably exceeds that fortnight that the sentences have led to the end. In 2024 it was recorded that three countries – Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda – had imposed death sentences after a parenthesis without them. Only convictions were switched away or indulted in 18 countries.
The organization in defense of human rights denounces the use of these penalties in a “dangerous and dehumanizing” way, and gives as an example the new president of the United States, who on January 20, in his inauguration, already repeatedly said that in his understanding capital penalty is an instrument to protect the population “of violent rapists, murderers and monsters.” It promotes, they say, “the false speech according to which the death penalty has a special deterrence effect against crime,” also.
If taking life to a person is not serious enough, AI also focuses on how, with “constant human rights violations.” As an example, there are public executions, in view of all, the murder of minors (processed with laws of adults) and people with disabilities, the lack of fair judgments or legal representation, the confessions achieved through torture, processing of accused in absentia (not present at the trial) or civilians by Military Courts, the application of this penalty in unintentional or non -lethal crimes, its use against ethnic or religious minorities, with accusations of blasphemy or apostasy, and in processes for sexual relations (infidelities, homosexuality), or the stubborn in processing citizens by laws of security, betrayal or terrorism, which multiply.
What is pursued
The AI report highlights that, beyond that security discourse that Trump uses to defend the death penalty, it is usual to be used “to silence defenders and defenders of human rights, dissidents, protesters, political opponents and ethnic minorities.” In Iran, for example, it has served to pursue the woman’s movement, life and freedom, emerged in 2022 at the hands of the Ayatolás Moral Police, which went from defending the rights of the Iranians to become a general cry against the regime.
“Those who dare to question the authorities are exposed to the cruelest of punishments, especially in Iran and Saudi Arabia, where the death penalty is used to silence those who are brave enough to raise their voice,” says Callalard, who expressly dita Riyadh, the great friend of the West in the Middle East. “The Saudi authorities continued to use the death penalty as a weapon to silence the political dissent and punish the citizenship of the Shiite minority of the country that supported the” anti -government “protests between 2011 and 2013. In August, the authorities executed Abdulmajeed to the NIMR for crimes of terrorism related to their adhesion to Al Qaeda, despite the fact that the initial judicial documents made reference to their participation in their participation in their participation protests, “the report exposes.
Nguyen Tuong Van’s body, after being executed in the Changi prison (Singapore) for drug crimes, December 2, 2005.
The increase in executions due to drug trafficking cases is notable, not always on a large scale. 42% of the 2024 executions were carried out illegally for drug -related crimes. At least 637 executions have had to do with these crimes in Saudi Arabia (122, 35%of its total annual), China (impossible to know how many), Iran (505, 52%) and Singapore (8, 89%). There are states like Nigeria, Maldives and Tonga who want to reintroduce executions for this type of crime. According to international human rights law and norms, says Amnesty, the use of the death penalty must be restricted to “the most serious crimes”, and impose death sentences for drug crimes “does not meet this requirement.”
“Drug -related executions abounded in Saudi, China, Iran, Singapore and, although it was not possible Agnès Callalard.
The leaders who promote the death penalty for drug -related crimes “propose ineffective and illicit solutions,” he insists. “It must be exhorting and encouraging states that study the possibility of introducing capital punishment for drug -related crimes, such as Maldives, Nigeria and Tonga, for human rights to occupy a central place in their drug policies.”
The advances (that there are)
Although the document is bleak, Amnesty does not stop recording that there are advances in this fight, a flank in which the organization is one of the most fighting on the planet. Currently, there are 113 countries that are totally abolitionists and 145 have abolished the death penalty in the law or in practice.
Some advances have also been registered in the last year analyzed: in 2024 a law that abolished the death penalty for common crimes, for the first time, more than two thirds of the UN member states voted in favor of the tenth resolution of the UN General Assembly on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, the reforms in matters of death in Malaysia also allowed the number of death in the death of the death. Execution would be reduced by more than 1,000 …
In addition, thanks to the “campaign work”, it was achieved that the Japanese Hakamada Iwao – who spent almost five decades waiting for execution in his country – was acquitted last September. In March of this 2025, Rocky Myers – a black man condemned to death in Alabama despite the serious deficiencies observed in the procedures – was pardoned after the requests of his family, his legal team, a former former, local activists and the international community. Before leaving the White House, the outgoing president of the USA, commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 people sentenced to death at the federal level, in addition.
“Things are changing. It is only a matter of time that the world is free from the darkness of the gatibulous,” Calllald concludes.
