Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The number of executions recorded worldwide in 2022 was the highest in the past five years, the international human rights organization Amnesty International reports. According to the organization, the main reason is that several states in the Middle East have begun to use capital punishment more often.

Human Rights Defenders’ annual survey says that a total of 883 people were executed in 20 countries in 2022, up 53% from the year before.

Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt account for 90% of these death sentences.

The statistics do not include China, where thousands of people are believed to be executed every year. However, information about executions in China is classified, which does not allow human rights activists to accurately assess the number of death sentences in the country.

Amnesty International was also able to confirm that death sentences were carried out in North Korea, Vietnam, Syria and Afghanistan, but the data collected was insufficient to provide reliable minimum figures for executions in those states.

According to the report of the organization, the number of executions increased mainly due to Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The report says that 576 people were executed in Iran, up from 314 in 2021. 279 people were sentenced to capital punishment for murder, 255 for drug-related crimes, 21 for rape and 18 for "enmity against God" (another three people were executed for unknown crimes).

The category of those executed for "enmity against God" included two men who were detained in connection with anti-government protests that broke out in the Islamic Republic in September. A UN expert called their trials "arbitrary, brief and fictitious trials tainted with allegations of torture."

In Saudi Arabia, the number of executions tripled from 65 in 2021 to 196 in 2022, the highest number recorded by Amnesty International staff in the country in 30 years.

Of these, 85 were put to death after convictions for terrorism-related offenses and 57 for drug-related offenses, the report said. Executions for drug-related offenses appear to mark the end of a moratorium that has been reportedly in place since 2020.

On a single day in March 2022, Saudi authorities executed 81 people simultaneously. At least 41 of them are members of the Shiite minority, including two convicted of crimes related to their participation in anti-government protests.

Amnesty International has previously accused the Saudi judiciary of handing down death sentences following grossly unfair trials, including issuing verdicts based on "confessions" obtained under torture.

In Egypt, 24 people were executed last year. However, this is 71% less than in 2021, when 83 sentenced were executed.

Amnesty International also reported executions in Iraq (11), Kuwait (7), the Palestinian Territories (5), Yemen (4) and Syria (unknown).

Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard accused Middle Eastern states of violating international law and demonstrating a "blatant disregard for human life." allowing them to stop]”.

Statistics for other regions of the world include the United States, where 18 people were executed (in 2021 - 11). 11 people have been put to death in Singapore, where drug-related executions have resumed after a two-year hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic.

Amnesty International (also known as Amnesty, AI, Amnesty International, AI, Amnesty) is an international non-governmental organization founded in the UK in 1961, which aims to "undertake research and action aimed at preventing and stopping violations of the rights to physical and psychological integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, freedom from discrimination in the context of their work to promote human rights.”

In 2013, Amnesty International was a worldwide organization with about seven million supporters in almost every country and region of the world, including over two million members and over five million activists.