On 12 March 2022, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia carried out the mass execution of 81 men, including 7 Yemenis, 1 Syrian and 37 Saudi nationals on terrorism related charges and for holding deviant beliefs. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights understood that 41 were minority Shia Muslims who had participated in anti-government demonstrations calling for greater political participation in 2011–2012. [1] Rights groups accused the government of adopting restrictive regulations against religious expression and political beliefs, as well as criticising its use of the death sentence, even for children arrested, and citing the execution as a violation of human rights. [2]
The execution was the largest carried out in the kingdom in recent years. There is no mention of how these executions were carried out. [3]
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Saudi Arabia. [4] Execution is usually carried out by beheading with a sword or occasionally by shooting in public. Despite having signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, [5] Saudi Arabia executed offenders who were juveniles at the time of the crime up until 26 April 2020. [6] In January 2022, there were at least 43 detainees threatened with execution, including 12 minors. [7]
In recent years, the kingdom has carried out a number of mass executions of civilians convicted for terrorism, most notably a mass execution of 47 convicts in 2016 and another one of similar scale in 2019. [8] [9]
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet noted the extremely broad Saudi definition of terrorism, which generically includes nonviolent persons in opposition to the ruling government in addition to those espousing atheism or any religion other than Wahhabi Islam. [10] [1]
On 12 March 2022, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia carried out the execution of 81 men on charges of loyalty to foreign terrorist organizations and holding deviant beliefs, as Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on the same day. [11] The interior ministry claimed in a statement, the crimes perpetrated by these men include committing loyalty to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and the Houthi movement and murdering innocent people. 37 of those executed were Saudi nationals who were convicted of one count of trying to assassinate government employees, smuggling weapons into the country, and targeting police stations, vital economic locations, and convoys. The SPA did not report on how they were executed. [12] [13] According to the SPA report, the charged were supplied with the right to a lawyer and their full rights under Saudi law during the judicial process. [3]
These mass executions were carried out as the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, claimed that the country was reforming the judiciary and restricting the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. [14] According to The New York Times, the war in Yemen, the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist in a Saudi consulate in 2018, the execution of minors, and a crackdown on dissent have thwarted Saudi Arabia's efforts to create a clean image in recent years. [13]
Human rights groups condemned the executions. [13] Ali Adubusi, head of the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights said: "These executions are the opposite of justice". [15] There were no charges that deserve the death penalty under the benchmarks that Saudi Arabia has made public. Some of the executions were only accused of participating in rights protests. [13] Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud said that the country was reforming the judiciary and restricting the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. [16]
On 23 December 2022, The Daily Telegraph stated in a letter to James Cleverly signed by MPs the party including David Davis (British politician), Hilary Benn, Peter Bottomley, Andy Slaughter and Alistair Carmichael: Saudi Arabia may carry out a mass execution during the Christmas. The kingdom carried out executions during the festive and New Year periods as did it 2016 and 2020 when it is more difficult for the international community to react quickly. [17]
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime, usually following an authorised, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods, including hanging, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, electrocution, and gassing.
Capital punishment, also called the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as a punishment for a crime. It has historically been used in almost every part of the world. By the 2010s, many countries had either abolished or discontinued the practice. In 2022, the five countries with the highest number of people executed were, in descending order: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States of America.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an Islamic absolute monarchy in which Sunni Islam is the official state religion based on firm Sharia law. Non-Muslims must practice their religion in private and are vulnerable to discrimination and arrest. While no law requires all citizens to be Muslim, non-Muslim foreigners attempting to acquire Saudi Arabian nationality must convert to Islam. Children born to Muslim fathers are by law deemed Muslim, and conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy and punishable by death. Blasphemy against Sunni Islam is also punishable by death, but the more common penalty is a long prison sentence; there have been 'no confirmed reports of executions for either apostasy or blasphemy' in the 21st century.
Human rights in Saudi Arabia are a topic of concern and controversy. The Saudi government, which mandates both Muslim and non-Muslim observance of Islamic law under the absolute rule of the House of Saud, has been accused of and denounced by various international organizations and governments for violating human rights within the country. The authoritarian regime ruling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is consistently ranked among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Belarus. At least one execution was carried out in the country in 2022.
Capital punishment exists in Saudi Arabia, with most executions in the country being carried out by decapitation (beheading) – Saudi Arabia being the only country in the world to still use the method. In 2022, recorded executions in Saudi Arabia reached 196, the highest number recorded in the country in 30 years.
Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia.
The Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) is a non-Sharia court created in Saudi Arabia in 2008 that tries suspected terrorists and human rights activists. On 26 June 2011, the court started trials of 85 people suspected of being involved in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the 2003 Riyadh compound bombings and in September 2011 another 41 al-Qaeda suspects appeared in the court. In the same year, the court held trial sessions of human rights activists, including co-founder Mohammed Saleh al-Bejadi of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) and Mubarak Zu'air, a lawyer for long-term prisoners, and Khaled al-Johani, who spoke to BBC Arabic Television at a protest in Riyadh, thus becoming known as "the bravest man in Saudi Arabia". The court convicted 16 of the human rights activists to sentences of 5–30 years' imprisonment on 22 November 2011.
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, also known by his initials MBS or MbS, is Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. He is also the chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs and the chairman of the Council of Political and Security Affairs. He is considered the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, being deemed as such even before his appointment as prime minister in 2022. He was minister of defense from 2015 to 2022. He is the seventh son of King Salman.
Capital punishment in Islam is traditionally regulated by the Islamic law (sharīʿa), which derived from the Quran, ḥadīth literature, and sunnah. Crimes according to the sharīʿa law which could result in capital punishment include apostasy from Islam, murder, rape, adultery,Homosexuality, etc. Death penalty is in use in many Muslim-majority countries, where it is utilised as sharīʿa-prescribed punishment for crimes such as apostasy from Islam, adultery, witchcraft, homosexuality, murder, rape, and publishing pornography.
Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr is a Saudi Arabian former political prisoner who participated in the Saudi Arabian protests during the Arab Spring as a teenager. He was arrested in February 2012 and sentenced to death in May 2014, having previously awaited ratification of his sentence by King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which was to be carried out by beheading and crucifixion. Ali's trial was considered unfair by Professor of Human Rights Law Christof Heyns, and Amnesty International, as well as French President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who called for the execution to be stopped.
On January 2, 2016, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 47 imprisoned civilians convicted of terrorism in 12 provinces in the country. Forty-three were beheaded and four were executed by firing squads. Among the 47 people killed was Shia Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. The execution was the largest carried out in the kingdom since 1980. Nimr al-Nimr was sentenced to death by the Specialized Criminal Court on 15 October 2014 for "seeking 'foreign meddling' in Saudi Arabia, 'disobeying' its rulers and taking up arms against the security forces". His execution was condemned by religious and political figures and human rights groups. The Saudi government said the body would not be handed over to the family. Al-Nimr was very critical of the Saudi Arabian government, and called for free elections in Saudi Arabia.
Nimr Baqir al-Nimr was a Shia cleric and critic of the government in Saudi Arabia, who was beheaded on 2 January 2016, one of 47 people executed that day for terrorism offenses. Others executed included Sunnis who had been convicted of involvement in terror attacks linked to al-Qaeda which took place in 2003. News of the killings triggered international demonstrations, and condemnation by nations, supranational organizations, and human rights groups.
The 2017–2020 Qatif unrest was a phase of conflict in the Qatif region of Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, between Saudi security forces and the local Shia community, that arose sporadically starting in 1979, including a series of protests and repression during the 2011–12 Saudi Arabian protests.
Israa al-Ghomgham is a Saudi Arabian human rights advocate. She is especially known for her documentation of the 2017–18 Qatif unrest.
The European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) is a Europe-based human rights organisation for documenting and promoting human rights in Saudi Arabia.
On 23 April 2019, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 37 imprisoned civilians who had been convicted, 21 on the basis of confessions allegedly obtained under coercion and torture, for terrorism-related allegations in six provinces in the country. Fourteen of the people executed had been convicted in relation to their participation in the 2011–12 Saudi Arabian protests in Qatif, mostly on the basis of torture-induced confessions. The executions were carried out by beheading, and two of the bodies were left on public display. According to Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry the convicts were all Saudi nationals. Thirty-two of those executed belonged to the country's Shia minority.
Murtaja Qureiris is a Saudi Arabian activist and member of the minority Shia. Qureiris was accused by the Saudi Government of joining a "terror group" and "sowing sedition", and was arrested in September 2014, when he was 13. According to The Guardian, he has been periodically held in solitary confinement. The Saudi authorities have not publicly commented on any details about his case, although in 2018, Saudi prosecutors suggested that they would pursue the death penalty. In June 2019, Amnesty International asked Saudi Arabia to rule out the death penalty for Qureiris and other teenagers who were arrested in 2014.
Hussein Abu al-Khair was a Jordanian citizen who was imprisoned and subsequently executed in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of drug smuggling using a confession allegedly obtained under torture. Al-Khair's trial and execution were criticised by human rights organisations.
Awad bin Mohammed Al-Qarni is a prominent reformist law professor in Saudi Arabia who was arrested and condemned to death for offenses including owning a Twitter account and using WhatsApp to share messages deemed "hostile" to the kingdom.
