Concerns and fears over the lives of detainees sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia on drug charges are escalating, with a sharp increase in executions during the last four months of 2024, reaching 30 executions by August 22.
Information received by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights indicates heightened tension in Tabuk General Prison, where 7 executions for drug charges have taken place since the beginning of the year, while the remaining executions were distributed across prisons in Al-Jouf, Riyadh, Medina, and Mecca. Tabuk Prison houses dozens of inmates sentenced to death for drug cases, including at least 34 Egyptians, along with individuals from other nationalities, including Jordanians and Syrians.
The rising fears among the sentenced prisoners intensified after the Ministry of Interior announced the execution of two Egyptian citizens by discretionary punishment on August 13, 2024. According to the statement, Walid Al-Baqi and Youssef Khudair faced charges of smuggling quantities of hashish and amphetamines. This execution raises the number of Egyptians executed for drug charges to three, with the remaining nationalities distributed as follows: 6 Syrians, 7 Saudis, 6 Nigerians, 4 Pakistanis, 3 Jordanians, and 1 Sudanese.
The year 2024 witnessed a 1400% increase compared to 2023, which saw only two executions on drug-related charges. These numbers come in addition to the intermittent suspension of executions for such offenses and official government promises to halt them, further heightening concerns among prisoners.
According to official data, Saudi Arabia halted executions for drug charges from January 2020 to November 2022 without an official announcement. In January 2021, the head of the official Human Rights Commission stated that this suspension was to give detainees charged with non-violent offenses another chance. In March 2022, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that executions were limited to murder cases.
Despite this, Saudi Arabia resumed executions in November 2022 without any reason, carrying out 20 executions for drug charges within a single month. In 2023, two executions were carried out, but then the executions were halted again for 9 months, from August 2023 to May 2024.
ESOHR notes that there are no official figures on the number of individuals sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. However, data indicates that there are hundreds of individuals sentenced for drug cases from various nationalities in different criminal prisons across the country. Along with the lack of transparency in official dealings, sentenced prisoners confirm that the absence of justice, lack of trust in the judicial system, and fear of retaliation prevent them from speaking out or publicizing their cases.
Despite this, ESOHR documented common violations faced by several Egyptian nationals sentenced to death for drug cases in Tabuk Prison, which houses more than thirty such individuals. These violations include the lack of any role by the Egyptian consulate or embassy in their cases, denial of their right to adequate defense, failure to appoint lawyers for them, dismissing their pleas in court, and subjecting them to torture and ill-treatment.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights believes that the fact that Saudi Arabia has exceeded 150 executions since the beginning of 2024—the highest recorded number since monitoring began 20 years ago—shows the kingdom’s determination to proceed with this punishment despite all the violations it entails and the promises made by official bodies.
ESOHR considers the rapid pace of executions in recent months, the terror faced by those sentenced for drug charges, and the fluctuating official stance between halting and resuming executions as a form of manipulation that exacerbates the psychological torture they endure. This also reveals a particularly harsh aspect of the death penalty that Saudi Arabia continues to implement on a large scale.