About this site
World Execution Record is a daily record of who has been executed around the world. It exists to keep, one by one, the executions that can be confirmed from a published source. This page sets out what is recorded here, what is deliberately left out, and how the numbers should be read.
Who runs this site
| Editor | Ryo Kashiwagi |
|---|---|
| Based in | Gifu, Japan |
| Started | September 2026 |
| Updated | Daily, at around 03:30 Japan Standard Time |
| Affiliation | An individual record. Not connected to any organisation, political party or religious body. |
What is recorded
Only executions that were actually carried out after judicial proceedings, and that can be confirmed from a published source. Every entry links to the source used to confirm it.
What is not recorded
- Murder cases, suspects, arrests, and defendants on trial. Writing about people whose guilt has not been established risks doing them serious harm. This is not a site about crimes.
- Images of bodies, of executions, or of crime scenes. Out of respect for the dead and their families. This site works only in text and figures.
- Rankings and league tables of countries. This is not a place for comparing states against one another.
- Arguments for or against capital punishment. Neither side is argued here. What is written down is what happened.
How the counting works
- Figures are the smallest number that can be confirmed from a source. Where several organisations report the same execution, it is counted once. Nothing is inflated by estimate.
- Dates are converted to Japan Standard Time. Where a country publishes the time of death — as the United States does — the local time is converted. An execution carried out on a Monday evening in the eastern United States therefore appears here under Tuesday.
- Where no time is published — Iran and Saudi Arabia, among others — the local date is used as it stands.
- Where no name is published, only the number of people is recorded.
- Where sources disagree — for instance on the charge — both accounts are given.
The limits of this record
“No record for today” does not mean that no one was executed.
Around 80 per cent of the world's executions take place in Iran, and the Iranian authorities announce only about one in ten of them. The rest are confirmed over days or weeks by human rights organisations working through families and prison sources. The record here therefore always grows after the fact.
China, North Korea and Vietnam treat their execution figures as state secrets and publish nothing. China is believed to execute thousands of people a year, but because no source can confirm them, not one of those executions appears here. The figures on this site are a fraction of what is actually carried out.
Sources consulted
The following are checked every day. The link on the right of each record is the source used to confirm that particular execution.
- Hengaw Organization for Human Rights — Iran; daily reports with names, ages and prisons
- Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) — Iran; detailed case reporting
- Iran Human Rights Monitor — Iran; monthly reports
- Saudi Press Agency (SPA) — official Ministry of Interior announcements
- Death Penalty Information Center — the United States
- Central Narcotics Bureau — Singapore
- Hands Off Cain — worldwide
- National press. Times of death in the United States come from AP and local reporting; executions in Japan come from the press conference held by the Minister of Justice.
Corrections
Errors are corrected when they are found. Records are not removed; a note is kept that the entry was corrected. The same applies where a source later revises its own account.
Disclaimer
The contents of this site are compiled from published sources, but their accuracy and completeness are not guaranteed. Sources may themselves be wrong, or may be revised later. The editor accepts no liability for loss arising from use of this site, or for the contents of external sites linked from it.