Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attending the 40th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit being held in the Saudi capital Riyadh on December 10, 2019. BANDAR AL-JALOUD / SAUDI ROYAL PALACE / AFP
Executions in Saudi Arabia nearly doubled during the reign of King Salman and his son Mohammed, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, according to two human rights organizations.
The number of executions in the Gulf monarchy has risen from an average of 70.8 per year between 2010 and 2014 to 129.5 per year since the current king came to power in 2015, report says published on Tuesday by the British organization Reprieve and the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR).
More than 1000 death sentences
In total, the current power has applied more than 1,000 death sentences, according to these NGOs, which claim to have cross-checked official figures with investigations and interviews conducted with lawyers, family members and activists. The report mentions 147 executions last year, a tally consistent with the count made by AFP from government announcements.
Last March, Saudi Arabia, one of the countries with the highest use of the death penalty, announced the execution of 81 people in a single day for crimes related to terrorism, sparking an international outcry. The ultra-conservative kingdom has undergone major reforms in recent years under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
A regime more than bloody
But these reforms have been accompanied by a relentless crackdown on political dissent, according to human rights activists. There “Saudi capital punishment machine grinds up children, protesters, vulnerable female domestic workers, unwitting drug mules, and people whose only ‘crime’ is possessing banned books or talking to foreign journalists“, denounced Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve.
According to the report, the bloodiest six years for executions in recent history have occurred under the current regime. Since 2013, at least 15 people have been put to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Also according to the same source, 31 women were executed between 2010 and 2021, including 23 foreigners and 13 domestic workers. The 58-page report also speaks of torture “systemicand procedural violations, including cases of unfair trials and child torture.
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