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

Saudi Arabia 

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 killing of a secu­ri­ty offi­cer and terrorism charges.

Earlier in June, Amnesty International raised con­cern over the immi­nent exe­cu­tion of sev­en men who were under 18 at the time of the alleged crime, includ­ing one who was 12 years of age. Previous leg­isla­tive reforms in 2018 and 2020 exempt juve­niles from the death penal­ty and the Saudi Human Rights Commission recent­ly reit­er­at­ed this posi­tion in a May 2023 let­ter to Amnesty International. Six men, who are from the Shiite minor­i­ty, were con­vict­ed on ter­ror­ism-relat­ed charges and the sev­enth for rob­bery. Urging an imme­di­ate halt to the exe­cu­tions, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director, Heba Morayef, said ​“Executing peo­ple who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime they have been con­vict­ed of, or for crimes not involv­ing inten­tion­al killing, or after unfair tri­als includ­ing on the basis of con­fes­sions obtained by tor­ture or oth­er ill-treat­ment vio­late international law.”

Malaysia

In Malaysia, the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 went into effect on July 4. The law, which removes the death penal­ty as manda­to­ry pun­ish­ment for 11 cap­i­tal offens­es, pro­vides dis­cre­tion to judges to impose death or alter­na­tive­ly life impris­on­ment of 30 to 40 years and a min­i­mum of 12 slash­es, accord­ing to MalayMail.

Iran

According to Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), at least 354 peo­ple, includ­ing six women, have been exe­cut­ed in the first half of 2023 – a 36% increase from the same peri­od in 2022. Of these 354 exe­cu­tions only 43, or 12%, were report­ed by offi­cial media; the remain­ing exe­cu­tions were ver­i­fied by IHRNGO through two inde­pen­dent sources. The 206 exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed charges rep­re­sent a 126% increase from the first six months of 2022 when 91 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed on drug-relat­ed charges. Five pro­tes­tors were exe­cut­ed in Karaj and Isfahan. 71 Baluch peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed, rep­re­sent­ing 20% of all exe­cu­tions even though Baluch peo­ple com­prise only 2 – 6% of the pop­u­la­tion. IHRNGO Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam explained, ​“The death penal­ty is used to cre­ate soci­etal fear and pre­vent more protests. The major­i­ty of those killed are low-cost vic­tims of the killing machine, drug defen­dants who are from the most marginalised communities.”

China

The Guangdong High People’s Court upheld a death sen­tence for 22-year-old Wen Qingyun, who drove his car into a crowd on January 11, result­ing in ​“mul­ti­ple deaths, injuries and prop­er­ty loss­es,” accord­ing to China Daily.

For International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the Supreme People’s Court of China dis­closed 10 drug-relat­ed cas­es, includ­ing the exe­cu­tion of two crim­i­nals in August 2022 for man­u­fac­tur­ing, trans­port­ing, and sell­ing 5,126.4 kilo­grams of Methcathinone, a new drug that can cause per­ma­nent brain dam­age or death, and which is ille­gal in China. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate not­ed the effec­tive­ness of their anti-drug pol­i­cy as demon­strat­ed through a 33% decline over the past five years in pros­e­cu­tion of drug-related crimes.

United Arab Emirates

After requests by Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in April, the United Arab Emirates grant­ed human­i­tar­i­an par­dons to two Filipino pris­on­ers on death row for drug traf­fick­ing on June 22.

Egypt

On June 14, 22-year-old Mohammed Adel was exe­cut­ed for the June 2022 killing of fel­low Mansoura University stu­dent Nayera Ashraf over a reject­ed mar­riage pro­pos­al – the first in a series of sim­i­lar killings against women in the lat­ter part of 2022. The stab­bing, which was caught on video, occurred at the uni­ver­si­ty sur­round­ed by bystanders who tried to help. The fam­i­ly of Mr. Adel told the media they were seek­ing to halt the exe­cu­tion and trans­fer Mr. Adel to a mental hospital.

Japan

On June 5, the Supreme Court upheld a death sen­tence for Toshihiko Iwama, 49, who was con­vict­ed of con­spir­ing to hire a hit man in the Philippines to kill two men in 2014 and 2015. The two vic­tims were exec­u­tives at a firm in which Mr. Iwama was a large share­hold­er, and their deaths would have result­ed in sub­se­quent insur­ance pay­outs for the company.