Saudi Arabia has executed greater than 100 foreigners this yr, in accordance with an AFP tally indicating a pointy improve which one rights group stated was unprecedented.
The newest execution, on Saturday within the southwestern area of Najran, was of a Yemeni nationwide convicted of smuggling medicine into the Gulf kingdom, the official Saudi Press Company reported.
That delivered to 101 the variety of foreigners executed to this point in 2024, in accordance with the tally which is compiled from state media experiences.
That is nearly triple the figures for 2023 and 2022, when Saudi authorities had put to demise 34 foreigners annually, in accordance with AFP tallies.
The Berlin-based European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) stated this yr’s executions had already damaged a document.
“That is the biggest variety of executions of foreigners in a single yr. Saudi Arabia has by no means executed 100 foreigners in a yr,” stated Taha al-Hajji, the group’s authorized director.
Saudi Arabia has confronted persistent criticism over its use of the demise penalty, which human rights teams have condemned as extreme and out of step with efforts to melt its forbidding picture and welcome worldwide vacationers and buyers.
The oil-rich kingdom executed the third highest variety of prisoners on this planet after China and Iran in 2023, in accordance with Amnesty Worldwide.
In September, AFP reported that Saudi Arabia had carried out its highest variety of executions in additional than three a long time, surpassing its earlier highs of 196 in 2022 and 192 in 1995.
Executions have continued at a fast clip since then and totalled 274 for the yr as of Sunday, in accordance with AFP’s tally.
– ‘Execution disaster’ –
Foreigners executed this yr have included 21 from Pakistan, 20 from Yemen, 14 from Syria, 10 from Nigeria, 9 from Egypt, eight from Jordan and 7 from Ethiopia.
There have been additionally three every from Sudan, India and Afghanistan, and one every from Sri Lanka, Eritrea and the Philippines.
Saudi Arabia in 2022 ended a three-year moratorium on the execution of drug offenders, and executions for drug-related crimes have boosted this yr’s numbers.
There have been 92 such executions to this point this yr, 69 of them of foreigners, in accordance with the AFP tally.
Diplomats and activists say that overseas defendants normally face the next barrier to honest trials, together with the correct to entry court docket paperwork.
Foreigners “are probably the most weak group”, stated Hajji of the ESOHR.
Not solely are they usually “victims of main drug sellers” but additionally “subjected to a sequence of violations from the second of their arrest till their execution,” he stated.
Saudi Arabia is infamous for beheading these convicted of capital crimes, though official statements have a tendency to not point out the tactic of execution.
The excessive variety of executions undercuts statements by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who instructed The Atlantic in 2022 that the dominion had eradicated the demise penalty apart from homicide circumstances or when a person posed a risk to many lives.
Jeed Basyouni, who heads Center East anti-death penalty advocacy for the NGO Reprieve, stated persistent drug arrests have been “perpetuating the cycle of violence”.
The general variety of executions was on observe to exceed 300 for the yr, she famous.
“That is an unprecedented execution disaster in Saudi Arabia,” stated Basyouni.
“Households of overseas nationals on demise row are understandably terrified that their liked one will probably be subsequent.”
