Death Penalty News

South Carolina-based journalist Jeffrey Collins observed back-to-back executions in 2025 after the state revived the death penalty following a 13-year pause Jeffrey Collins has watched 14 men draw their final breaths. Over 25 years at the Associated Press, the South Carolina-based journalist has repeatedly served as an observer inside the state’s execution chamber, watching from feet away as prison officials kill men who were sentenced to capital punishment. South Carolina has recently kept him unusually busy, with seven back-to-back executions in 14 months.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); December 31, 2025: As 2025 draws to a close, Iran is ending the year with more reported executions than in any other year since the late 1980s. While the final execution numbers for 2025 are still being verified, a process made arduous by Iran’s lack of judicial transparency, the available evidence already shows that more than 700 of the at least 1,500 people executed, were for drug-related offences. Those executed are overwhelmingly from the most marginalised sectors of Iranian society, including people living in poverty, ethnic minorities, foreign nationals and individuals with little or no access to effective legal defence.

Analysts attribute increase to kingdom’s ‘war on drugs’ as authorities kill 356 people by death penalty Saudi authorities executed 356 people in 2025, setting a new record for the number of inmates put to death in the kingdom in a single year. Analysts have largely attributed the increase in executions to Riyadh’s “war on drugs”, with some of those arrested in previous years only now being executed after legal proceedings and convictions. Official data released by the Saudi government said 243 people were executed in drug-related cases in 2025 alone, according to a tally kept by Agence France-Presse.