Human rights groups have expressed outrage at a spree of executions in Saudi Arabia. Inmates convicted of drug offenses are increasingly facing the death penalty in the Islamic Kingdom and are often given no warning about when their executions will take place. Saudi Arabia has executed 28 people convicted on drug smuggling charges since May, compared to just two last year.
How such executions are carried out is not known, but the Kingdom is notorious for beheading its prisoners. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced a moratorium on execution in March 2022, but it was short-lived, and death penalty sentences resumed in November of the same year.
Rights campaigners say prisoners in Saudi are frequently denied the right to a legal defense or access to attorneys. The European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights also notes that most convicts are foreigners and that among the 50 people awaiting execution in Tabuk General Prison, 36 are non-Saudi nationals. Thirty-four of Tabuk’s condemned prisoners are from Egypt, and most are convicted of bringing narcotics into Saudi Arabia.
Walid al-Baqi and Youssef Khudair, two Egyptian nationals, were executed on August 13 following a conviction for smuggling cannabis and amphetamines, and earlier this year, Saudi authorities carried out their largest mass execution since 2022. Seven men were killed after the Specialised Criminal Court accused them of betraying the country and threatening its stability.
Seven Yemenis and a Syrian were among 81 people executed together in 2022 for a variety of crimes, reportedly including “extremism.” Human rights group Reprieve said many of Saudi’s “extremists” are merely political dissidents who are executed without being afforded basic rights.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time, Michelle Bachelet, condemned Saudi’s collective executions, saying they did not conform to “international human rights and humanitarian law and may amount to a war crime.”
Saudi Arabia carries out more executions than any other country in the world and is the only remaining nation that still uses beheading as its preferred method. The death penalty applies to numerous crimes, including blasphemy, adultery, sorcery, witchcraft, and “waging war on God.”
