Saudi Arabia has executed more than 300 people in 2024, according to an AFP tally, after four executions announced on Tuesday brought the kingdom’s total to a level that far exceeds the highest known annual figures.
The death penalty was carried out against three people convicted of drug trafficking and another of murder, the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing the Interior Ministry.
This brings the total number of executions during the year to 303, according to the count based on state media reports.
The Gulf monarchy had enacted the death penalty 200 times by the end of September, according to the same official data count, indicating a rapid pace of executions in recent weeks.
Saudi Arabia executed the third largest number of prisoners in the world in 2023 after China and Iran, according to Amnesty International.
Previously, the record number of executions in a single year in the country had been 196 in 2022, said the London-based human rights group, which began recording annual figures in 1990.
Taha al-Hajji, legal director of the Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), condemned the “dizzying speed” of executions in 2024, calling it “incomprehensible and inexplicable.”
Human rights activists had previously warned that Saudi Arabia could exceed 300 executions this year, with one execution recorded almost every day.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has overseen more than 1,450 executions since taking office in 2015.
Saudi Arabia executed the third largest number of prisoners in the world in 2023 after China and Iran, according to Amnesty International (man kneels moments before being beheaded in Saudi Arabia)
The Kingdom has also been criticized for cracking down on freedom of expression after Saudi artist Mohammed al-Hazza, 48, was recently sentenced to more than two decades in prison for political cartoons that allegedly insulted the kingdom’s leadership. of the Gulf.
Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Over the past two years, the Saudi judiciary has “convicted and handed down long prison sentences to dozens of people for their expression on social media,” human rights groups Amnesty International and ALQST said in April.
Saudi officials say the defendants committed terrorism-related crimes.
“The case of Mohammed al-Hazza is an example of the suppression of freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia, which has not spared anyone, including artists,” Sanad’s director of operations, Samer Alshumrani, told AFP.
“This is supported by Saudi Arabia’s politicized and non-independent judiciary.”
Al-Hazza’s sentencing came days after Saudi Arabia was denied a seat on the UN Human Rights Council in October.
The Saudi government has continued to try to present itself as a reformed country that has made progress on gender equality and human rights despite a shocking rate of executions and a crackdown on freedom of expression.
Since assuming the role of Crown Prince in 2015, Salman has overseen more than 1,450 executions and, despite a moratorium on the use of the death penalty for minor crimes in 2020, instances of capital punishment reached a monthly record of 41 in August. .
The brutal regime has also given several women long prison sentences, often during secret trials, after they were caught using social media to advocate for more rights and freedoms for women.
One of those women, Manahel al-Otaibi, 30, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “terrorist crimes” after a Saudi Arabian fitness instructor posted messages about female empowerment online.
Manahel al-Otaibi, 30, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for posting about female empowerment on social media.
Saudi Arabia has an impressive record on gender equality (File Image)
In October, Manahel told her family that she had been stabbed in the face with a sharp pen and needed stitches, but when her family tried to report the attack to the Saudi government’s Human Rights Commission, they were allegedly ignored.
However, Saudi Arabia was elected in March to chair a UN commission aimed at promoting gender equality and empowering women.
To the dismay of human rights groups around the world, Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the UN, Abdulaziz Alwasil, was elected president of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in an unopposed race in the group’s annual meeting in New York.
She was even backed by a group of Asia-Pacific states on the commission, despite her nation’s notorious record on gender equality, which human rights groups were quick to point out.
Louis Charbonneau, UN director for Human Rights Watch, said at the time: ‘Saudi Arabia’s election as chair of the UN Commission on the Status of Women shows a shocking disregard for women’s rights. all over the world.
‘A country that imprisons women simply because they defend their rights has no business being the face of the UN’s main forum for women’s rights and gender equality.
“The Saudi authorities should demonstrate that this honor is not completely undeserved and immediately release all detained women’s rights defenders, end male guardianship and guarantee women’s full right to equality with men.”
Saudi lawmakers passed a law in 2022 that claims to have increased the “personal status” of women in the nation.
But the law explicitly says that a woman must obtain permission from a male guardian to marry.
It also says that a wife must obey her husband in a “reasonable manner” and states that her husband’s financial support depends on her “obedience.”
A husband may withdraw financial support for reasons including refusing to have sexual relations with him, living in a matrimonial home, or traveling with him without a “legitimate excuse.”