Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran issued a joint report Sept. 10 charging that Iranian authorities are unlawfully executing protesters and political dissidents on a weekly basis.

Amnesty International warned Sept. 2 that plans by five European Union member-state governments for migrant "return hubs" in Rwanda and Uganda risk creating "cruel black holes for human rights." The statement came two days before the governments are to meet to review progress on the plans.

UN rights experts urged the Court of Algiers on April 28 to stop the trial of Mohamed Tadjadit, noting that the "reclassified" charges the prominent activist now faces are punishable by death. A poet and human rights defender, Tadjadit is associated with the Hirak movement, which first arose in 2019 in opposition to then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and has since evolved into a wider call for political change and greater freedoms.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warned April 1 that repression of freedom of expression across the Middle East has deepened significantly since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran commenced at the end of February.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) on March 30 denounced a proposed Israeli death penalty bill, which recently underwent a second and third reading in the Knesset, claiming it represents "an extreme escalation in Israel's genocidal policies against Palestinians."

Amnesty International on Feb. 27 pressed for Algerian authorities to ensure that the retrial of 94 people in the violent events of August 2021 in the Kabylie region complies with international human rights safeguards, emphasizing opposition to use of the death penalty and warning against any form of torture.

The UN Human Rights Office raised alarm Jan. 19 over a "sharp hike" in the number of executions globally in 2025. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk articulated the report's key concerns, stating:

My Office monitored an alarming increase in the use of the capital punishment in 2025, especially for offences not meeting the "most serious crimes" threshold required under international law, the continued execution of people convicted of crimes committed as children, as well as persistent secrecy around executions.

This threshold is established by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights. The increase primarily came from executions for drug-related offenses in a small number of retentionist states. These are countries that continue to retain capital punishment, as opposed to the growing number of abolitionist states. which do not employ the death penalty.