Executions have soared in Saudi Arabia amid widen­ing pur­suit of polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed death sen­tences, mass death penal­ty tri­als, and use of the death penal­ty against female activists, accord­ing to a European-based Saudi human rights orga­ni­za­tion. In its 2018 Death Penalty Report: Saudi Arabia’s False Promise, issued January 16, 2019, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) said Saudi Arabia con­duct­ed at least 149 exe­cu­tions in 2018, more than dou­ble the num­ber con­duct­ed in 2013, con­tin­u­ing a four-year surge the group asso­ciates with the ascen­sion of King Salman to the throne in January 2015. Half of those exe­cut­ed were for­eign nation­als, includ­ing 33 from Pakistan and women from Ethiopia and Indonesia. ESOHR report­ed that the Saudi gov­ern­ment con­cealed at least one exe­cu­tion and failed to announce the exe­cu­tion of the Indonesian woman, and the human rights group expressed con­cern that the actu­al num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the coun­try may be higher. 

The Saudi roy­al fam­i­ly has sought to deflect inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism of its esca­lat­ed use of the death penal­ty by point­ing to the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment by the United States and oth­er coun­tries. In an April 2018 inter­view with TIME mag­a­zine, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman deflect­ed a ques­tion on whether the Kingdom would reduce the num­ber of pub­lic behead­ings and exe­cu­tions in his coun­try, say­ing: ​“I believe until today the United States of America and a lot of states, they have cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. We’ve tried to min­i­mize [its use],” he said, and sug­gest­ed that the monar­chy was work­ing with the Saudi par­lia­ment on an ini­tia­tive to change pun­ish­ments for some offens­es from exe­cu­tion to life in prison. The ESOHR report, how­ev­er, said bin Salman’s state­ment ​“is not reflect­ed in the death penal­ty sta­tis­tics of 2018. Execution rates have sky rock­et­ed [sic] in the last four years [and] do not indi­cate any attempts to ​‘min­imise’ or ​‘reduce’” death penalty use. 

ESOHR’s report cat­a­logues an inten­si­fied use of ​“polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed death sen­tences … against an increas­ing spec­trum of gov­ern­ment crit­ics,” includ­ing human rights advo­cates, non-vio­lent cler­ics, and oth­er polit­i­cal oppo­nents. It lists among the polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed death sen­tences the case of Israa al-Ghomgham, the first female activist to face exe­cu­tion in Saudi Arabia for non-vio­lent human rights-relat­ed work. Al-Ghomgham was detained in December 2016 dur­ing a raid on her home. Her case is being pros­e­cut­ed in Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court, which was estab­lished to address acts of ter­ror­ism. However, Oliver Windridge – an inter­na­tion­al human rights lawyer who has writ­ten briefs sup­port­ing al-Ghomgham – says that its ​“focus appears to have moved from ter­ror­ist sus­pects to human rights defend­ers and anti-gov­ern­ment pro­test­ers.” The ESOHR report describes the ter­ror­ism charges against al-Ghomgham as ​“trumped up” and the tri­al pro­ceed­ings as ​“gross­ly unfair.” UN human rights experts also have con­demned the pros­e­cu­tion, say­ing that “[m]easures aimed at coun­ter­ing ter­ror­ism should nev­er to be used to sup­press or cur­tail human rights work.” 

ESOHR says that 59 Saudi pris­on­ers are cur­rent­ly at risk of immi­nent exe­cu­tion, includ­ing eight who were minors at the time of their pur­port­ed crimes and twelve men con­vict­ed of spread­ing the Shia faith and alleged­ly spy­ing for Iran. 

(2018 Death Penalty Report: Saudi Arabia’s False Promise, European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, January 16, 2018; Haley Ott, U.S. lawyers ​“pay­ing atten­tion” as female Saudi activist Israa al-Ghomgham due in court, CBS News, January 14, 2019; TIME, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Talks to TIME About the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s Plans and President Trump, TIME, April 5, 2018.) See International and Women.

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