Saudi Arabia Reneges on Pledge to End Death Penalty for Drug Crimes; Execution Spree Draws Condemnation from UN and Human Rights NGOs

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a coali­tion of more than 30 non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions have con­demned the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a series of exe­cu­tions for drug crimes car­ried out in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. Human rights orga­ni­za­tions report­ed that Saudi author­i­ties exe­cut­ed 20 men in November for drug offens­es — 12 of them for­eign nation­als — after sud­den­ly lift­ing a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions for defen­dants con­vict­ed of drug-related crimes.

In a November 22, 2022 state­ment issued on behalf of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, spokesper­son Liz Throssell called the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for drug offens­es ​“incom­pat­i­ble with inter­na­tion­al norms and stan­dards.” The Saudi’s actions, she said, were ​“deeply regrettable.” 

“We call on the Saudi author­i­ties to adopt a for­mal mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed offences, to com­mute death sen­tences for drug-relat­ed offences, and to ensure the right to a fair tri­al for all defen­dants, includ­ing those charged with such offences, in line with its inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions,” she said.

In January 2020, Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Commission issued an offi­cial state­ment assert­ing that the Kingdom had put in place a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed crimes, but Saudi author­i­ties nei­ther amend­ed the nation’s Drugs and Narcotics Control Law or set form any guide­lines on how the mora­to­ri­um would be effec­tu­at­ed. The Kingdom’s resump­tion of exe­cu­tions for drug crimes after a hia­tus of two years reneged upon a pledge pre­vi­ous­ly made by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman that ​“we are get­ting rid of [the death penal­ty] in its entire­ty” except where ​“some­one has killed anoth­er per­son or threat­ens the lives of many people.”

Two lead­ing human rights groups, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Harm Reduction International, released an open let­ter co-signed by 34 oth­er NGOs decry­ing the Saudi’s resump­tion of drug exe­cu­tions ​“sud­den­ly and with­out warn­ing.” The orga­ni­za­tions urged the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) ​“to take all pos­si­ble steps to halt the spate of drug-related executions.”

“[D]rug offences do not meet the thresh­old of ​‘most seri­ous’ crimes to which the death penal­ty must be restrict­ed pur­suant to inter­na­tion­al stan­dards,” the NGOs wrote, ​“and … the death penal­ty for drug offences also con­tra­dicts inter­na­tion­al drug con­trol law, as indi­cat­ed by UNODC and the INCB.”

The Saudi gov­ern­ment has repeat­ed­ly made pledges to reform its death penal­ty sys­tem, which the groups said ​“is shroud­ed in secre­cy,” only to equiv­o­cate about imple­ment­ing the reforms and lat­er resum­ing the prior practices. 

Amnesty International not­ed in April 2020 that ​“Saudi Arabia has for years flout­ed inter­na­tion­al law pro­hibit­ing the use of the death penal­ty against peo­ple below the age of 18 at the time of the crime.” After promis­ing in February 2020 to end the use of the death penal­ty against juve­niles, the nation’s ter­ror­ism court then upheld death sen­tences imposed upon five alleged offend­ers between the ages of 14 and 18. Amnesty said the teens were all ​“detained incom­mu­ni­ca­do and in soli­tary con­fine­ment for up to nine months,” ​“denied access to a lawyer dur­ing their pre-tri­al deten­tion,” and four of them were sub­ject­ed ​“to tor­ture and oth­er ill-treat­ment to extract ​‘con­fes­sions.’” In May 2022, UN human rights experts crit­i­cized the Saudi gov­ern­ment for con­tin­u­ing to pur­sue exe­cu­tion of a man who was 14 years old at the time of his alleged crime. ​“The impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty on chil­dren is absolute­ly pro­hib­it­ed under inter­na­tion­al law,” the experts said.

The num­ber of indi­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly fac­ing exe­cu­tion on drug charges is dif­fi­cult to deter­mine, the NGOs said, because “[t]he Saudi government’s han­dling of the death penal­ty is shroud­ed in secre­cy.” Nonetheless, they wrote, ​“track­ing by ESOHR con­firms that dozens of detainees are cur­rent­ly on death row for drug offens­es, with for­eign nation­als (includ­ing migrant work­ers) and indi­vid­u­als from vul­ner­a­ble socioe­co­nom­ic back­grounds over­rep­re­sent­ed. All of them are now to be con­sid­ered at immi­nent risk of execution.”

According to the ESOHR, as of November 25, at least 147 peo­ple had been exe­cut­ed in Saudi Arabia in 2022. The orga­ni­za­tion at least 54 peo­ple were cur­rent­ly await­ing exe­cu­tions, includ­ing eight charged with offens­es com­mit­ted as juveniles.