5 executions a day Iran and Saudi Arabia execute more people than ever before
The Iranian authorities executed at least 1,500 people in 2025. Executions also reached an all-time high in Saudi Arabia.
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- The number of executions reached a new high in Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2025.
- According to a human rights organization, at least 1,500 people were executed in Iran last year.
- In Saudi Arabia, 356 people were given the death penalty.
According to a human rights organization, at least 1500 people were executed in Iran last year. This is the highest number in the past 35 years, the Norway-based organization Iran Human Rights (IHR) announced on Thursday. The head of the human rights organization, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spoke of an "unprecedented" increase and a "very worrying" development.
In 2024, the IHR had counted at least 975 executions in Iran. The organization has not yet published its final statistics for 2025, but says it has been able to verify at least 1,500 executions so far. More than 700 executions were in connection with drug-related offenses.
New wave of protests in Iran
The number of executions has risen since the outbreak of protests in Iran in September 2022, said Amiry-Moghaddam. The wave of protests was triggered by the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was taken into police custody. Amini had been arrested for an alleged violation of the dress code.
The number of executions has risen from more than 500 in 2022 to more than 800 in 2023 and 975 in 2024, Amiry-Moghaddam added. "The Iranian authorities use the death penalty as a tool to sow fear," Amiry-Moghaddam emphasized. The aim of the executions is to prevent new protests. The protests these days show that this has not been successful.
Protests have been taking place in Iran for a few days against the desolate economic situation in the country. The spontaneous demonstrations started on Sunday at Tehran's largest cell phone market. Initially, it was mainly traders who demonstrated, but then numerous students from at least ten universities in the country and people in many other cities joined the protest movement.
More executions in Saudi Arabia for drug use
The number of executions also reached a new high in Saudi Arabia in 2025. Last year, 356 people were executed there, according to a count by the AFP news agency based on figures from the Saudi Arabian authorities. The death penalty was carried out for 243 people in connection with drug offenses alone.
The number of executions in Saudi Arabia has thus reached a new high for the second year in a row. In 2024, 338 people were executed, compared to 170 in 2023.
Observers explain the sharp rise in the number of executions with the "war on drugs" that began in the kingdom a few years ago. Saudi Arabia resumed executions for drug offenses at the end of 2022. Previously, the imposition of the death penalty in these cases had been suspended for around three years.
Saudi Arabia is one of the most important markets for the stimulant drug Captagon. According to the UN, Syria had become the main producer of Captagon in the Middle East under the now ousted Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad.
Saudi Arabia is one of the countries in the world where the death penalty is imposed most frequently. According to human rights organizations, only China and Iran have more executions than Saudi Arabia.
