The number of executions documented worldwide increased by around 20 percent in 2021 compared to the previous year.

According to annual figures published by the human rights organization Amnesty International on Tuesday, at least 579 death sentences have been carried out in 18 countries.

The increase was therefore primarily due to Iran.

There, the number of executions rose by 28 percent from at least 246 in 2020 to at least 314 in 2021.

The number of recorded death sentences even grew by almost 40 percent compared to the previous year to at least 2,052 in 56 countries.

According to Amnesty, the countries with the highest known number of executions are China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The number of unreported cases in China is particularly high

The statistics do not include thousands of death sentences that Amnesty International believes were handed down and carried out in China.

China remained the country in which the most executions took place worldwide.

Both the secrecy in North Korea and Vietnam and the limited access to information in other countries have continued to hamper a full assessment of global developments.

Of the 579 people known to have been executed in 2021, 24 (four per cent) were women - eight in Egypt, 14 in Iran and one each in Saudi Arabia and the US.

Iran and Saudi Arabia kill significantly more than 2020

The Secretary General of Amnesty International Germany, Markus Beeko, criticized that the small group of incorrigible states "that persist in these cruel and inhumane killings, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, which carry out state executions in the have expanded significantly over the last year".

This trend continued in the first months of 2022.

In March, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people in a single day.

The number of executions in Iran was the highest since 2017. 132 people were executed for drug-related offences.

That corresponds to 42 percent of executions and a nearly five-fold increase compared to the 23 executions that took place in 2020, Amnesty writes.

In Iran, the death penalty has also been used disproportionately against members of ethnic minorities on vague charges such as "enmity against God" and as a means of political repression, Amnesty writes.

Amnesty cites one reason for the significantly higher number of executions in some countries that restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic have been completely or partially lifted and alternative processes have been introduced.

These countries included Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

In Singapore, on the other hand, an execution-free year was reported for the second year in a row.

In 2022, however, Singapore resumed executions.

Amnesty International reports that despite setbacks, positive developments show that the trend is still towards abolition.

Although the number of executions increased overall, the global total remained at a historically low level.