Worldwide Monthly Roundup: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Vietnam

Saudi Arabia 

According to num­bers report­ed by Agence France-Presse, Saudi Arabia exe­cut­ed 303 peo­ple in 2024 — the nation’s high­est ever total, and cur­rent­ly the sec­ond high­est known exe­cu­tion total world­wide for this year. November alone saw the exe­cu­tion of more than 100 for­eign nation­als, near­ly triple the num­ber in each of the past two years. UN human rights experts expressed con­cern fol­low­ing the December 3 exe­cu­tion of three Egyptian nation­als, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to halt the pend­ing exe­cu­tions of anoth­er three for­eign nation­als. ​“Foreign nation­als are often in a sit­u­a­tion of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and need spe­cif­ic mea­sures be tak­en to ensure they have access to their legal safe­guards from the moment of arrest, dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tions, and through­out judi­cial pro­ceed­ings, includ­ing access to con­sular assis­tance,” said the UN experts. 

Of the 303 exe­cu­tions so far this year, 103 were for drug-relat­ed charges. According to UN experts, for­eign nation­als rep­re­sent 75% of those exe­cut­ed for drug crimes. ​“These num­bers reflect the esca­lat­ing blood­shed since King [bin] Salman and his crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, came to pow­er. They also con­firm the fal­si­ty of all the claims of reform and change that bin Salman has raised for years,” Duaa Dhainy, senior researcher at the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), told Middle East Eye. At least 1,115 exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out under King bin Salman. 

China 

On November 27, 2024, three Americans detained in China, includ­ing Mark Swidan, detained in 2012 and sen­tenced to death in 2019, were released as part of a pris­on­er exchange with the United States. A US National Security Council spokesper­son told CNN: ​“Thanks to this Administration’s efforts and diplo­ma­cy with the PRC, all of the wrong­ful­ly detained Americans in the PRC are home.” 

On November 26, 2024, a tri­al court in Shandong Province sen­tenced for­mer Bank of China chair­man Liu Liange to death for accept­ing an esti­mat­ed 121 mil­lion yuan (about $17 mil­lion) in bribes and bad loans worth 3.32 bil­lion yuan (about $466 mil­lion). Since he ​“truth­ful­ly con­fessed” and because most of the mon­ey and prop­er­ty were recov­ered, it is pos­si­ble for Mr. Liu’s sen­tence to be con­vert­ed into a life term if he com­mits no oth­er over the next two years. 

On November 6, 2024, the Ministry of State Security announced a for­mer state agency employ­ee with access ​“a large num­ber of state secrets” dur­ing his employ­ment was sen­tenced to death for leak­ing clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion to for­eign intel­li­gence agen­cies and ​“seri­ous­ly endan­ger­ing China’s nation­al secu­ri­ty.” The Ministry said the con­demned man was ​“weak in char­ac­ter and could not resist the temp­ta­tion of mon­ey, became a ​‘pup­pet’ con­trolled and used by the other party.” 

Iran 

According to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, there have been 798 exe­cu­tions in Iran as of December 1, 2024. With at least 310 exe­cu­tions in the past two months, ​“the Islamic Republic has begun the most exten­sive wave of exe­cu­tions in Iranian pris­ons in the last two decades,” accord­ing to Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. Norway-based IHRNGO report­ed that there were at least 144 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in November, a slight decrease from October. More than half of those exe­cut­ed (78) were for non-seri­ous offens­es: 72 exe­cu­tions were for drug-relat­ed offens­es and six for rape. Only 4% of exe­cu­tions in November were report­ed by offi­cial sources; IHRNGO ver­i­fied and record­ed the rest. 13 Baluch and nine Kurds were among the those exe­cut­ed, in keep­ing with long term trends tar­get­ing these groups. 

November also saw a wave of new death sen­tences imposed in Iran, pri­mar­i­ly for polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, eth­nic minori­ties, and foreign nationals. 

• On November 13, six ​“Women, Life, Freedom” pro­tes­tors accused of fatal­ly-injur­ing an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) mem­ber were sen­tenced to death. Prior to any legal pro­ceed­ings, the tor­ture-taint­ed con­fes­sions of four of the defen­dants were televised. 
• Kurdish polit­i­cal pris­on­er Varisheh Moradi was sen­tenced to death on charges of armed rebel­lion, the third female polit­i­cal pris­on­er to be sen­tenced to death on such charges this year. In recent weeks, five oth­er Kurdish men have been sen­tenced to death on charges of ​“espi­onage for Israel,” accord­ing to Human Rights Watch. 
• Four Baluch polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were also sen­tenced to death on charges of armed rebel­lion, accord­ing to IHRNGO. 

On November 6, 2024, the United Nations’ Third Committee expressed con­cern about the dis­pro­por­tion­ate appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty to minori­ties and women. The Resolution notes that exe­cu­tions of women this year has reached the ​“high­est num­ber of report­ed exe­cu­tions of women since 2013.” According to IHRNGO, as of November 29, 2024, 24 women have been exe­cut­ed this year. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesper­son Esmail Baghaei crit­i­cized the UN Resolution, call­ing it a form of ​“polit­i­cal pres­sure on independent nations.”

Singapore 

Since the resump­tion of exe­cu­tions in March 2022 (post-COVID), Singapore has car­ried out 25 exe­cu­tions, accord­ing to Agence France-Presse. Four men con­vict­ed of drug offens­es were exe­cut­ed in November 2024. On November 15, a 39-year-old Malaysian nation­al and 53-year-old Singaporean nation­al were hanged. On November 22, Rosman bin Abdullah, age 55, was hanged. United Nations experts raised con­cern over Mr. Abdullah’s psy­choso­cial dis­abil­i­ties and his­to­ry of sub­stance abuse, explain­ing that it seems he did not have ​“access to pro­ce­dur­al accom­mo­da­tions, includ­ing indi­vid­u­alised assis­tance, for his dis­abil­i­ty dur­ing his inter­ro­ga­tion or trial.”

On November 29, dual Singaporean-Iranian nation­al Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad was exe­cut­ed after his request for a stay was denied by the Court of Appeals and despite appeals from the Iranian gov­ern­ment, promi­nent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, and inter­na­tion­al bod­ies. Hours after Iran’s own exe­cu­tion of 12 peo­ple for drug and mur­der charges, for­eign min­is­ter Abbas Araghchi spoke to Singaporean coun­ter­part Vivian Balakrishnan con­vey­ing respect for the nation’s sov­er­eign­ty but ​“urg[ing] recon­sid­er­a­tion” of Ms. Rahimi’s immi­nent exe­cu­tion on ​“human­i­tar­i­an grounds,” accord­ing to the IRNA news agency. Mr. Merhzad was arrest­ed at age 20 for the pos­ses­sion of 31 grams of diamor­phine and 77 grams of metham­phet­a­mine. At the time, he was com­plet­ing his manda­to­ry mil­i­tary ser­vice in Singapore and strug­gling with PTSD and anx­i­ety, accord­ing to IranWire. 

UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Morris Tidball-Binz called on Singapore to halt Mr. Mehrzad’s exe­cu­tion, reit­er­at­ing that exe­cu­tions for drug-crimes vio­late inter­na­tion­al law as ​“only crimes of extreme grav­i­ty involv­ing inten­tion­al killing meet the thresh­old for appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty and that manda­to­ry death sen­tences are inher­ent­ly over-inclu­sive and unavoid­ably vio­late human rights law.” 

Vietnam 

On December 3, 2024, a court upheld the death sen­tence of Truong My Lan, a real-estate tycoon con­vict­ed of embez­zling bil­lions in the nation’s largest ever fraud case. However, her death sen­tence could still be com­mut­ed to a life term in the future if Ms. Lan were to repay three-quar­ters of the embez­zled funds. According to state-run news out­let VietnamNet, pros­e­cu­tors argued that death was jus­ti­fied, call­ing the impact of Ms. Lan’s actions and the amount embez­zled ​“unprece­dent­ed[.]” 

Ms. Lan, the for­mer chair of real estate com­pa­ny Van Thinh Phat, was sen­tenced to death on April 11, 2024, for com­mit­ting $12.5 bil­lion in fraud with a total loss of $27 bil­lion, or about six per­cent of the nation’s 2023 GDP, to Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank. Separately, she was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life on October 17 for fraud­u­lent prop­er­ty appro­pri­a­tion, 12 years for laun­der­ing more than $18 bil­lion, and eight years for ille­gal­ly trans­fer­ring $1.5 bil­lion out of the coun­try and receiv­ing $3 bil­lion from abroad.