riyadh, saudi arabia
Reuters
—
In recent decades, Saudi Arabia has abolished the death penalty, despite de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman’s assertion in 2022 that the death penalty would be abolished except for murder cases this year under a vision of a new open kingdom. A total of 330 people were executed.
The country is spending billions of dollars to transform its reputation for strict religious restrictions and human rights abuses into a tourism and entertainment hub under the Vision 2030 plan launched by the crown prince, also known as MBS.
The latest number of executions, compiled by human rights NGO Repriv based on execution announcements and verified by Reuters, is a significant increase from last year’s total of 172 and 2022’s total of 196. Reprieve says this is an all-time high.
“This reform is built on a house in the sand built on a record number of executions,” said Gide Bashoni, who works at Ripley Eve.
Saudi Arabia denies the accusations of human rights abuses and says its actions are aimed at protecting national security.
More than 150 people have been executed this year for non-lethal crimes, according to a tally that human rights groups say violates international law.
The executions were mainly related to drug smuggling charges, amid a flurry of amphetamine-like arrests from Syria under ousted President Bashar al-Assad. The charge is commonly used against people who take part in anti-government protests, human rights groups say.
This includes more than 100 foreigners from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The Saudi government communications agency did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters about execution figures.
After seizing power in a palace coup in 2017, MBS faced international condemnation for his crackdown on opposition and the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Saudi Arabia maintains that Khashoggi’s murder was carried out by a group of rogue groups, but MBS said that because it happened under Khashoggi’s watch, he bears ultimate responsibility.
After Khashoggi’s death, Western governments largely avoided Saudi Arabia. US President Joe Biden, who said while running for president in 2020 that he intended to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah,” visited the kingdom in 2022 and exchanged fists with MBS.
Human rights groups have accused the country of sentencing minors to death and using torture to extract confessions.
For decades, executions by sword beheading took place weekly in public squares in Saudi Arabia. Today, that same area is occupied by cafes and restaurants, with little trace of its bloody past.
“Repression is increasing, but we are not seeing it,” said Dana Ahmed, MENA researcher at Amnesty International.
Relatives of death row inmates, who did not want to be named due to safety concerns, told Reuters they face difficulties in the Saudi legal system.
Relatives of one of the foreigners arrested on drug charges said he was simply fishing near the coast and had no lawyer or representative in Saudi Arabia.
Another defendant’s family said they had not heard any evidence against him despite attending criminal court for more than three years.
Reuters could not independently verify the account.
MBS told The Atlantic in a 2022 interview that Saudi Arabia had abolished the death penalty except in murder cases, but said he had no power to change the death penalty because according to the Quran, it is a death penalty.
