Under the title, “Bloodshed and Lies: The Kingdom of Executions in the Era of Mohammed bin Salman,” the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights and Reprieve issued a joint report that spoke of Saudi Arabia’s flagrant violation of the right to life.
The report indicated that between 2010 and 2021, Saudi Arabia executed at least 1243 people, making it one of the most rampant executioners in the world.
The figures analyzed by the report show that Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty has drastically increased since 2015. This escalation has taken place on the watch of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, who acceded the throne on 23 January 2015, and his son, Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman. The annual rate of executions has almost doubled since King Salman and Mohammed bin Salman came to power in 2015. From 2010-2014 there was an average of 70.8 executions per year. From 2015-2022 there was an average of 129.5 executions per year – a rise of 82%. The six bloodiest years of executions in Saudi Arabia’s recent history have all occurred under the leadership of Mohammed bin Salman and King Salman (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022).
Based on data collated by Reprieve and the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (“ESOHR”), this report exposes Saudi Arabia’s worst abuses of the right to life, in violation of international treaties that Saudi Arabia has voluntarily ratified. The report finds multiple egregious human rights violations resulting from the continued use of the death penalty against child defendants, women and foreign nationals and for non-lethal offences.
The report shows that Saudi Arabia’s application of the death penalty is riddled with discrimination and injustice and that the Saudi regime has been lying to the international community about its use.
Saudi Arabia still regularly executes child defendants and sentences child defendants to death, despite proclaiming internationally that it has ended this practice. Saudi Arabia disproportionately executes foreign nationals, including high numbers of female domestic workers and low-level drug offenders. A claimed moratorium on executions for drug offences has been nullified by the resumption of executions for drug offences in November 2022.
The report made it clear that the death penalty is routinely used for non-lethal offences and to silence dissidents and protestors, despite promises by the Crown Prince that executions would only be used for murder. Fair trial violations and torture are endemic in death penalty cases, including the torture of child defendants.
Saudi Arabia’s executions are shrouded in secrecy. The regime refuses to publish its death penalty data, despite the repeated exhortations of the United Nations (“UN”) and fails to notify families of executions or return bodies. This lack of transparency enables Saudi Arabia to cover up its abuses and impedes other states and organisations in their efforts to hold it to account.