Amnesty’s report does not include the thousands believed to have been convicted and executed in China. Many are also believed to have been executed in North Korea and Vietnam.
“China, North Korea and Vietnam continued to hide their use of the death penalty behind a web of secrecy. But the little we could see is, as before, cause for great concern,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, in a press release.
The number of reported executions must also be seen as a minimum for several other countries, Amnesty writes. In Saudi Arabia, executions have increased dramatically since 2020, when 27 people were executed. Last year, that number landed at 65, and in March this year, 81 people were executed in a single day.