Amnesty International Global Report (2023): Lowest Number of Countries Carried Out Highest Number of Recorded Executions in Nearly a Decade, Driven by Iran (74% of Total)

According to Amnesty International’s annu­al death penal­ty report for 2023, 16 coun­tries car­ried out the 1,153 known exe­cu­tions last year, con­sti­tut­ing the low­est num­ber of exe­cut­ing coun­tries on record with the orga­ni­za­tion but the high­est record­ed exe­cu­tion num­bers since 2015. The 31% glob­al increase in record­ed exe­cu­tions is attrib­ut­able to the 48% rise in exe­cu­tions in Iran (at least 853 exe­cu­tions), which account­ed for 74% of record­ed exe­cu­tions world­wide. Saudi Arabia came in sec­ond with 172 exe­cu­tions – a slight decrease from the 196 exe­cu­tions the pre­vi­ous year – account­ing for 15% of the known glob­al total. Following these two nations was Somalia (at least 38 exe­cu­tions), which account­ed for exe­cu­tions in sub-Saharan Africa more than tripling, the United States (24 exe­cu­tions), and Iraq (at least 16 executions). 

The num­ber of new death sen­tences increased by 20% to 2,428 in 2023, the high­est total since 2018; how­ev­er, dif­fi­cul­ties access­ing infor­ma­tion across coun­tries makes annu­al com­par­isons dif­fi­cult. 52 coun­tries hand­ed down new death sen­tences, rep­re­sent­ing no change in the total num­ber of coun­tries from the year pri­or, although the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of coun­tries dif­fered slight­ly with five coun­tries with death sen­tences in 2022 hav­ing none in 2023 and five oth­ers imposed death sen­tences in 2023 after a hia­tus. Commutations or par­dons occurred in 27 coun­tries, as well as 9 exon­er­a­tions that occurred in Kenya (5), the U.S. (3), and Zimbabwe (1). 

Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2023 explains that record­ed fig­ures for exe­cu­tions and death sen­tences rep­re­sent a min­i­mum, with actu­al fig­ures like­ly high­er due to a lack of trans­paren­cy in cer­tain coun­tries. Regarded as the world’s lead­ing exe­cu­tion­er, China, which is esti­mat­ed to exe­cute thou­sands annu­al­ly, clas­si­fies cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment num­bers as a state secret, as do North Korea and Vietnam. In its report, Amnesty explains that the use of the death penal­ty in sev­er­al coun­tries con­tin­ues to vio­late inter­na­tion­al law with pub­lic exe­cu­tions, exe­cu­tions of juve­niles or those with men­tal or intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, exe­cu­tions for crimes oth­er than inten­tion­al killing, unfair tri­al pro­ceed­ings, and coerced con­fes­sions obtained under tor­ture or ill-treatment. 

In line with 2022, there was an increase (30%) in exe­cu­tions in the Middle East and North Africa region, pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by Iran. Iran account­ed for 80% of exe­cu­tions in the region and drove up the glob­al exe­cu­tion total. ​“The huge spike in record­ed exe­cu­tions was pri­mar­i­ly down to Iran,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. ​“The Iranian author­i­ties showed com­plete dis­re­gard for human life and ramped up exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed offences, fur­ther high­light­ing the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry impact of the death penal­ty on Iran’s most mar­gin­al­ized and impoverished communities.” 

Executions for drug-relat­ed offens­es, which do not meet the inter­na­tion­al ​“most seri­ous crimes” thresh­old and are there­fore unlaw­ful, saw a dra­mat­ic 89% increase from 2022 and con­sti­tut­ed 56% of all known exe­cu­tions in Iran. In fact, Amnesty report­ed that 545 of the 853 record­ed exe­cu­tions were unlaw­ful as they were car­ried out for offens­es oth­er than inten­tion­al killing; aside from drug-relat­ed offens­es, peo­ple were unlaw­ful­ly exe­cut­ed for offens­es such as rob­bery, espi­onage, pos­ses­sion of arms, or acts of resis­tance. At least sev­en peo­ple were exe­cut­ed for par­tic­i­pat­ing in nation­wide protests, includ­ing six who par­tic­i­pat­ed in ​“Women, Life, Freedom” protests from September to December 2022. The Baluch minor­i­ty were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ed amongst those exe­cut­ed, account­ing for 20% of all exe­cu­tions despite com­pris­ing only 5% of Iran’s pop­u­la­tion. Sixty-one per­cent of exe­cu­tions result­ed from ver­dicts hand­ed down by the Revolutionary Courts, while 37% of exe­cu­tions stemmed from ver­dicts hand­ed down by criminal courts. 

Worldwide efforts towards abo­li­tion con­tin­ued, with abo­li­tion bills reviewed in the par­lia­ments of Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, and Zimbabwe. The elim­i­na­tion of the manda­to­ry death penal­ty in Malaysia was enact­ed, as was Pakistan’s elim­i­na­tion of the death penal­ty for drug-related offenses.