Executions in Saudi Arabia have almost doubled under Mohammed bin Salman‘s regime, despite the Crown Prince’s ‘reformist’ programme, Daily Mail says.
Capital punishment has soared in the past seven years in Saudi Arabia, with an average of 129.5 executions per year since Prince Mohammed came to power in 2015.
This marks an 82 per cent rise in the number of executions in Saudi Arabia compared to the period between 2010 and 2014 when there were 70.8 executions per year, according to a report by activist groups Reprieve and the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights.
Since 2013, at least 15 people have been executed for offences committed when they minors.
Eleven of the 15 executions were carried out after 2015.The last known child defendant executed was Mustafa al-Darwish in June 2021.
Born on 19 September 1994, al-Darwish was arrested in 2015 and was later charged on offences relating to his alleged participation in protests when he was 17 years old.
The report also looked into the increasing use of mass executions, such as the record number of 81 people executed on a single day in March of last year on a range of charges, including terrorism.
The UN’s High Commissioner Human Rights groups condemned the mass execution, saying that the regime had implemented ‘an extremely broad definition’ of terrorism that includes non-violent acts.
Apart from minors, at least 31 women were put to death from 2010 to 2021, including 23 foreign nationals and 13 who were domestic workers.
Saudi Arabia executed 147 people last year, while scores have endured torture and other human rights violations.
The country, which is one of the world’s leading executioners, announced 81 executions in a single day last March it said were for terrorism-related offences.
‘Every data point in this report is a human life taken,’ said Reprieve director Maya Foa.
‘The Saudi death penalty machine chews up children, protesters, vulnerable women in domestic service, unwitting drug mules and people whose only ‘crime’ was owning banned books or speaking to foreign journalists.’
Crown Prince Mohammed said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine that the kingdom had ‘got rid of’ the death penalty except for cases of murder or when someone ‘threatens the lives of many people’, according to a transcript published by state media last March.
But the six bloodiest years for executions in Saudi’s recent history have all occurred under the current leadership.
However, the BBC received a statement from the Saudi Embassy in London in response to an investigation into the death penalty, which said other countries around the world use the death penalty at their own discretion.
‘As we respect their right to determine their own laws and customs, we hope that others will respect our sovereign right to follow our own judicial and legislative choices,’ the statement said.
Abdullah al Oudah, whose father currently faces a death sentence, said in a statement shared with ABC News.
‘My father is possibly facing the death penalty any moment just because he called for peace and tweeted for reforms.’
