Is the world becoming more violent - or are we just becoming more aware?

'Thankfully, countries that execute belong to a small and increasingly isolated minority.'

Videos of ISIS executions, local shootings and Boko Haram killings have splashed headlines every day for the past few years. Everyone knows who ISIS is and has something to say about gun control as the death toll rises with each passing day - but what do the numbers say?

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to Daily Mail, the number of executions rose by 50 percent last year to 1,634 people. The number of executions in 2015 was the highest since 1989 and were recorded across the globe.

This number does not include the thousands believed to have been slaughtered by their own government in China and death penalty data is "treated as a state secret" in Beijing, Vietnam and Belarus.

An alarming 89 percent of the total executions took place in Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia alone.

This year, Saudi Arabia has made headlines for its record-breaking number of executions and continues to grow.

Of the 2015 data, Amnesty secretary general Salil Shetty stated: "The rise in executions last year is profoundly disturbing. Not for the last 25 years have so many people been put to death by states around the world. Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have all put people to death at unprecedented levels, often after grossly unfair trials. 

"This slaughter must end. Thankfully, countries that execute belong to a small and increasingly isolated minority."

Shetty later stated, "In 2015 governments continued relentlessly to deprive people of their lives on the false premise that the death penalty would make us safer."

James Lynch, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director, agreed then explained Western countries have been  building "commercial ties and trade missions" with Middle Eastern countries, but admitted "human rights ha[ve] been absolutely left in the margins."

Lynch continued, explaining half of the people executed in Saudi Arabia were foreigners, mostly migrant workers who did not speak Arabic and who were offered little to no legal assistance.

Despite the soaring number of executions, the majority of the world's countries have abolished the death penalty entirely, which may lower 2016's execution statistics. Unfortunately, if Saudi Arabia continues on its warpath, those statistics may not see a reasonable difference.

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