Egypt nearly doubled its recorded executions in 2025 and handed down 492 death sentences, Amnesty International said in its annual report on death sentences and executions published on May 18, 2026.
Egypt executed 23 people last year, up from 13 in 2024, according to the report. One woman was among those executed. In 2025, 492 people, including women, were sentenced to death, a 35% increase from 365 in 2024. At least 12 death sentences were imposed for drug-related offenses, accounting for 2% of Egypt’s recorded total.
In 2025, thousands of people in Egypt were referred to trial on terrorism-related charges—some carrying the death penalty—including through mass proceedings, the report said.
Egypt was also named among countries where death sentences were imposed after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards.
The figures place Egypt among the limited group of states still carrying out executions. Globally, Amnesty recorded at least 2,707 executions in 2025, the highest number it has documented since 1981, excluding the thousands it believes were carried out in China, where death penalty data remains classified.
Egypt was one of 17 countries known to have carried out executions in 2025. It was also one of three African Union member states that executed people, alongside Somalia and South Sudan, and one of seven Arab League states, alongside Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the UAE, and Yemen.
Amnesty said its Egyptian death sentence figures were provided by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) and that it also consulted the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF). However, they added that they could not provide a credible estimate for the number of people under sentence of death in Egypt, listing it among countries where they believed high numbers of prisoners were on death row, but reliable figures were unavailable.
Across the Middle East and North Africa, at least 2,611 executions were recorded in 2025, up from at least 1,442 in 2024. Iran and Saudi Arabia accounted for 96% of the regional total, with at least 2,159 executions in Iran and at least 356 in Saudi Arabia.
Findings indicate that governments in the region used the death penalty to repress dissent and respond to actual or perceived national security threats, while punitive drug policies also drove executions and death sentences.
Kuwait recorded 17 executions, almost triple the previous year’s figure, while Yemen recorded at least 51, up from at least 38, and the UAE carried out three executions. Iraq’s executions were largely on hold after legal amendments allowed for case reviews, while Lebanon’s Council of Ministers supported a bill to abolish the death penalty.
Of the region’s recorded executions, 1,240, or 47%, were for drug-related offenses, which do not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” under international law.
In Saudi Arabia, 240 executions were for drug-related offenses, including foreign nationals. Among those executed was Egyptian fisherman Essam Ahmed, who was executed in December after what the report described as a “grossly unfair trial” for nonviolent drug-related offenses.
The report also cited expanding death penalty legislation in the region. Algeria introduced the death penalty for some drug-related offenses, Kuwait widened the scope of drug trafficking cases punishable by death, and Israel recently passed a law to expand and facilitate the use of the death penalty against Palestinians.
