Rights groups condemn new record number of executions in 2025

Saudi Arabia has surpassed its file for the variety of executions carried out yearly for a second yr in a row.

No less than 347 folks have now been put to dying this yr, up from a complete of 345 in 2024, based on the UK-based marketing campaign group Reprieve, which tracks executions in Saudi Arabia and has shoppers on dying row.

It stated this was the “bloodiest yr of executions within the kingdom since monitoring started”.

The newest prisoners to be executed have been two Pakistani nationals convicted of drug-related offences.

Others put to dying this yr embody a journalist and two younger males who have been youngsters on the time of their alleged protest-related crimes. 5 have been girls.

However, based on Reprieve, most – round two thirds – have been convicted of non-lethal drug-related offences, which the UN says is “incompatible with worldwide norms and requirements”.

Greater than half of them have been overseas nationals who seem to have been put to dying as a part of a “warfare on medicine” within the kingdom.

The Saudi authorities haven’t responded to the BBC’s request for touch upon the rise in executions.

“Saudi Arabia is working with full impunity now,” stated Jeed Basyouni, Reprieve’s head of dying penalty for the Center East and North Africa. “It is virtually making a mockery of the human rights system.”

She described torture and compelled confessions as “endemic” throughout the Saudi prison justice system.

Ms Basyouni known as it a “brutal and arbitrary crackdown” through which harmless folks and people on the margins of society have been caught up.

On Tuesday, a younger Egyptian fisherman, Issam al-Shazly, was executed. He was arrested in 2021 in Saudi territorial waters and stated he had been coerced into smuggling medicine.

Reprieve says 96 of the executions have been solely linked to cannabis.

“It virtually appears that it would not matter to them who they execute, so long as they ship a message to society that there is a zero-tolerance coverage on no matter situation they’re speaking about – whether or not it is protests, freedom of expression, or medicine,” stated Ms Basyouni.

There was a surge of drug-related executions because the Saudi authorities ended an unofficial moratorium in late 2022 – a step described as “deeply regrettable” by the UN human rights workplace.

Talking anonymously to the BBC, kinfolk of males on dying row on medicine fees have spoken of the “terror” they’re now dwelling in.

One informed the BBC: “The one time of the week that I sleep is on Friday and Saturday as a result of there aren’t any executions on these days.”

Cellmates witness folks they’ve shared jail life with for years being dragged kicking and screaming to their dying, based on Reprieve.

The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman – who turned crown prince in 2017 – has modified the nation profoundly over the previous few years, loosening social restrictions whereas concurrently silencing criticism.

In a bid to diversify its economic system away from oil, he has opened Saudi Arabia as much as the skin world, taken the spiritual police off the streets, and allowed girls to drive.

However the kingdom’s human rights file stays “abysmal”, based on the US-based marketing campaign group Human Rights Watch, with the excessive stage of executions a significant concern. Lately, solely China and Iran have put extra folks to dying, based on human rights activists.

“There’s been no price for Mohammed bin Salman and his authorities for going forward with these executions,” stated Joey Shea, who researches Saudi Arabia for Human Rights Watch. “The leisure occasions, the sporting occasions, all of it’s persevering with to occur with no repercussions, actually.”

In keeping with Reprieve, the households of these executed are often not knowledgeable upfront, or given the physique, or knowledgeable the place they’ve been buried.

The Saudi authorities don’t reveal the strategy of execution, though it’s believed to be both beheading or firing squad.

In a press release despatched to the BBC, the UN’s particular rapporteur on extrajudicial, abstract or arbitrary executions, Dr Morris Tidball-Binz, known as for a direct moratorium on executions in Saudi Arabia with a view to abolition,.

He additionally pressed for “full compliance with worldwide safeguards (together with efficient authorized help and consular entry for overseas nationals), immediate notification of households, the return of stays at once and the publication of complete execution knowledge to allow unbiased scrutiny”.

Among the many Saudi nationals executed this yr have been Abdullah al-Derazi and Jalal al-Labbad, who have been each minors on the time of their arrest.

That they had protested towards the federal government’s therapy of the Shia Muslim minority in 2011 and 2012, and took part within the funerals of individuals killed by safety forces. They have been convicted of terrorism-related fees and sentenced to dying after what Amnesty Worldwide stated have been grossly unfair trials that relied on torture-tainted “confessions”. UN human rights specialists had known as for his or her launch.

The UN additionally condemned the execution in June of journalist Turki al-Jasser, who had been arrested in 2018 and sentenced to dying on fees of terrorism and excessive treason primarily based on writings he was accused of authoring.

“Capital punishment towards journalists is a chilling assault on freedom of expression and press freedom,” Unesco’s Director-Basic, Audrey Azoulay, stated.

Reporters With out Borders stated he was the primary journalist to be executed in Saudi Arabia since Mohammed bin Salman got here to energy, though one other journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered by Saudi brokers on the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Final December, UN specialists wrote to the Saudi authorities to precise concern over a bunch of 32 Egyptians and one Jordanian nationwide sentenced to dying on medicine fees, and their “alleged absence of authorized illustration”. Since then, many of the group have been executed.

A relative of 1 man put to dying earlier this yr stated he had informed her that folks have been being “taken like goats” to be killed.

The BBC has approached the Saudi authorities for a response to the allegations however has not obtained one.

However in a letter dated January 2025 – in reply to issues raised by UN particular rapporteurs – they stated Saudi Arabia “protects and upholds” human rights and that its legal guidelines “prohibit and punish torture”.

“The dying penalty is imposed just for essentially the most critical crimes and in extraordinarily restricted circumstances,” the letter said. “It’s not handed down or carried out till judicial proceedings in courts of all ranges have been accomplished.”