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Entries tagged with “Saudi Arabia”

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May 30, 2024

Amnesty International Global Report (2023): Lowest Number of Countries Carried Out Highest Number of Recorded Executions in Nearly a Decade, Driven by Iran (74% of Total)

According to Amnesty International’s annu­al death penal­ty report for 2023, 16 coun­tries car­ried out the 1,153 known exe­cu­tions last year, con­sti­tut­ing the low­est num­ber of exe­cut­ing coun­tries on record with the orga­ni­za­tion but the high­est record­ed exe­cu­tion num­bers since 2015. The 31% glob­al increase in record­ed exe­cu­tions is attrib­ut­able to the 48% rise in exe­cu­tions in Iran (at least 853 exe­cu­tions), which account­ed for 74% of record­ed exe­cu­tions world­wide. Saudi Arabia came in sec­ond with…

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International

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May 17, 2023

Amnesty International Global Report: Recorded Executions Highest in Five Years Reflects Increases in the Middle East and North Africa

According to an annu­al death penal­ty report by Amnesty International, 2022 saw the high­est num­ber of record­ed exe­cu­tions since 2017, pri­mar­i­ly due to increas­es in just a hand­ful of coun­tries in the Middle East and North Africa. The report also not­ed a slight decrease in the num­ber of new­ly imposed death sen­tences world­wide. In its report, Amnesty says use of the death penal­ty in sev­er­al coun­tries con­tin­ues to vio­late inter­na­tion­al law with pub­lic exe­cu­tions, exe­cu­tions of juve­niles or those…

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International

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Dec 05, 2022

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…

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International

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Juveniles

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Apr 14, 2020

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

NEWS (4/​14/​20) — Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has car­ried out its 800th 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…

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International

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Mar 06, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Afghanistan, China, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United States, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe

In the after­math of Idaho’s failed exe­cu­tion of Thomas Creech and Texas’ exe­cu­tion of Ivan Cantu on February 28, the European Union released a state­ment express­ing its regret and reit­er­at­ing its unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty.. “[The death penal­ty] is a vio­la­tion of the right to life and fails to act as a deter­rent to crime. It rep­re­sents the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment that makes mis­car­riages of jus­tice irre­versible,” said the state­ment. “[W]e are con­cerned by the fact that the number…

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International

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Apr 03, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and United States

Georgia’s exe­cu­tion of Willie Pye – the state’s first in more than four years – gar­nered crit­i­cism from the European Union. ​“Although the European Union and its 27 Member States oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cir­cum­stances, we are espe­cial­ly con­cerned about the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Mr. Pye giv­en his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and issues regard­ing the qual­i­ty of his legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” said the EU’s let­ter to the state’s Board of Pardons and Parole in sup­port of Mr. Pye’s clemency…

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International

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Nov 01, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Algeria, Belarus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam

On October 23, 2023, 38 indi­vid­u­als were sen­tenced to death for the mob killing of Jamal Ben Ismail, who had been mis­tak­en­ly iden­ti­fied as the arson­ist respon­si­ble for the August 2021 fires that killed 90 peo­ple in the north­west region. Despite the death sen­tences, all pris­on­ers will be resen­tenced to life impris­on­ment due to the nation­wide mora­to­ri­um in place since 1993 when the last executions…

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Human Rights

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International

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Methods of Execution

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Feb 07, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Ghana, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe

The January 25, 2024 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Smith in the state of Alabama with nitro­gen gas received wide­spread inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion. The European Union reit­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and called the exe­cu­tion method a ​“par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.” The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stat­ed: ​“I deeply regret the exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite seri­ous con­cerns that this nov­el and untest­ed method of…

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Human Rights

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International

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Jan 24, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Yemen

The University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al human rights non­prof­its, recent­ly launched a data­base of for­eign nation­als sen­tenced to death or exe­cut­ed from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2021 in Asia and the Middle East. They found that Saudi Arabia leads the Middle East in sen­tenc­ing for­eign nation­als to death (385 peo­ple) and drug-traf­fick­ing (283), close­ly fol­lowed by mur­der (257), are the top crimes for which for­eign nation­als in the region are…

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Human Rights

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International

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Sep 06, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, and Vietnam

On August 4, a South Korean nation­al con­vict­ed of drug-traf­fick­ing was exe­cut­ed in China, accord­ing to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who added dur­ing a press con­fer­ence that this exe­cu­tion was ​“unre­lat­ed to the cur­rent bilat­er­al rela­tions” between the two nations. This was the first time a South Korean nation­al was exe­cut­ed in China for drug-traf­fick­ing since 2014, when four were executed. …

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Human Rights

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International

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Jun 05, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe

On May 7, 2024, Harm Reduction International (HRI) released a spe­cial glob­al overview report on the use of the death penal­ty for drug offens­es, which is a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law because drug offens­es do not meet the ​“most seri­ous” crimes thresh­old. HRI found that by the end of 2023, there were 34 coun­tries which still retained the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed offens­es; Pakistan was the only coun­try to recent­ly elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for such offens­es – the first coun­try in more…

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International

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Oct 12, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Vietnam

October 10, 2023 marked the 21st World Day Against the Death Penalty. Regarding this year’s theme, ​“The Death Penalty, an Irreversible Torture,” Raphaël Chenuil Hazan, exec­u­tive direc­tor of France-based abo­li­tion­ist group EPCM, said ​“Today, we no longer need to demon­strate to any­one that the death penal­ty is a sophis­ti­cat­ed form of tor­ture, both in the phase of sen­tenc­ing or inves­ti­ga­tion (where phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture is often used to obtain con­fes­sions), where the ele­ments of a…

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Human Rights

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International

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May 01, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Uganda, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe

Missouri’s April 9th exe­cu­tion of Brian Dorsey, despite wide­spread sup­port for his clemen­cy, once again gar­nered con­dem­na­tion from the European Union, which described it as a ​“inhu­man and degrad­ing prac­tice.” The EU’s state­ment high­light­ed the lack of the death penal­ty as a deter­rent and the irre­versibil­i­ty of the pun­ish­ment, not­ing that 197 death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed. ​“The EU con­tin­ues to call for the uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty and for States, that maintain…

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International

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Aug 02, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore

On July 25, 2023, Ghana’s par­lia­ment vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Although the death penal­ty would remain in the con­sti­tu­tion for acts of trea­son, the new law would remove the death penal­ty as pos­si­ble pun­ish­ment for mur­der, geno­cide, pira­cy, and smug­gling. The cur­rent 176 death row pris­on­ers, includ­ing six women, would have their sen­tences com­mut­ed to life in prison. Last year sev­en peo­ple were sen­tenced to death despite Ghana not hav­ing car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since…

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International

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Jul 05, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: China, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and UAE

A total of 68 exe­cu­tions have occurred in Saudi Arabia this year, with more than 20 exe­cu­tions relat­ing to ter­ror­ism charges occur­ring since ear­ly May, accord­ing to Agence France-Presse. On July 3, five men, includ­ing one Egyptian nation­al, were exe­cut­ed for a dead­ly attack on a house of wor­ship in the Al-Ahsa gov­er­norate, result­ing in five dead and sev­er­al injured. On June 25, two Yemeni nation­als were exe­cut­ed on ter­ror­ism charges, and on June 12, three Saudi men were exe­cut­ed for the…

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International

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Jun 07, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: Zimbabwe, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Iran, and Saudi Arabia

On March 23, Zimbabwe’s par­lia­ment passed a new ​“Patriotic Bill” which car­ries the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence for non-vio­lent crimes in vio­la­tion of the ​“most seri­ous crimes” inter­na­tion­al legal stan­dard. The law will pun­ish cit­i­zens whose activ­i­ties ​“will­ful­ly dam­age the sov­er­eign­ty and nation­al inter­est of Zimbabwe,” includ­ing boy­cotts, sanc­tions, and any act con­sid­ered ​“sub­ver­sion” by the state. Depending on the offense, pun­ish­ments include a loss of cit­i­zen­ship, heavy fines,…