World Death Penalty News — Report: Saudi Arabia Carries Out 800^th Execution Under King Salman

NEWS (4/​14/​20) — Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has car­ried out its 800^th exe­cu­tion under the five-year reign of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, accord­ing to reports by the human rights groups European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Reprieve. The groups say the exe­cu­tion rate is near­ly dou­ble the rate in the five years pre­ced­ing Salman’s assump­tion of lead­er­ship in the Kingdom in 2015. From 2009 to 2014, Saudi Arabia car­ried out a total of 423 executions.

The 185 exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia in 2019 were the most in any cal­en­dar year since Reprieve and ESOHR began track­ing exe­cu­tions in the Kingdom. They includ­ed the April 23, 2019 mass exe­cu­tion of 37 peo­ple in which six pris­on­ers who were juve­niles or chil­dren who had par­tic­i­pat­ed in pro-democ­ra­cy activ­i­ties were put to death. At least 13 more pris­on­ers remain on Saudi Arabia’s death row for alleged offens­es com­mit­ted as juveniles.

“For all the rhetoric of reform and mod­erni­sa­tion, Saudi Arabia is still a coun­try where speak­ing out against the King can get you killed,” said Reprieve Director Maya Foa in a writ­ten state­ment to the media.