In the first half of 2022, the execution rate in Saudi Arabia returned to pre-Covid 19 levels, and is on track to exceed the record high of 186 executions in 2019. In the period of January-June 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 120 people, marking an 80% increased on executions throughout the year of 2021. By June, Saudi Arabia had executed more people in 2022 than in 2020 and 2021 combined. This high rate of executions comes despite the pause in executions during the Islamic Holy month of Ramadan in April. If Saudi Arabia continues to execute people at the same pace during the second half of 2022, they will reach an unprecedented number of executions, exceeding the record high of 186 executions in 2019.
Due to the lack of transparency in the Saudi Arabian justice system, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) were unable to monitor most of these execution cases until after they had taken place.
This briefing paper provides an overview of the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year.
NATIONALITIES AND OFFENCES
According to ESOHR’s monitoring, 101 of the individuals executed during the first half of 2022 were Saudi nationals. The other 19 individuals were foreign nationals, including: 9 Yemeni nationals, 3 Egyptian nationals, 2 Indonesian nationals, 1 Ethiopian national, 1 Myanmar national,1 Jordanian national, 1 Palestinian national, and 1 Syrian national.
The three categories of crime and punishments in Saudi Arabia are: qisas (retributive), ta’zir (discretionary) and hudud (mandatory). Despite commitments by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman to end the use of the death penalty for discretionary offences, of the executions in 2022, 72 individuals were tried and executed for discretionary offences. Of these executions, 41 individuals were killed on charges relating to the exercise of fundamental rights, including attending pro-democracy protests. 16 of the 72 executions for discretionary offences were carried out on charges related to murder.
Seven of the executions for discretionary offences were related to terror-related charges. Saudi Arabia’s broad counterterrorism laws have been criticized by the UN, who has repeatedly called on Saudi Arabia to reform its Law for Combatting Terrorism and its Financing, which “entail that a range of speech and association activities protected under international human rights law is characterized domestically as ‘terrorism’”. As discretionary offences are rarely codified in domestic law, the punishment is applied at the judge’s discretion. The use of uncodified laws, which is common in Saudi Arabia, is problematic—there is an inability to predict the punishment, no limits to the discretionary powers of the judge, and inconsistency between verdicts for similar fact patterns indicating arbitrariness in prosecuting and sentenced.
Along with these executions under discretionary offences, 11 individuals have been executed for charges related to murder, categorized as qisas.
The category of offences for the other 37 executions are unknown, further reflecting the lack of transparency in Saudi Arabia’s justice system.
MASS EXECUTION
On 12 March 2022, Saudi Arabia beheaded 81 persons in a mass execution, marking the largest mass execution in its history.
Despite the Saudi Ministry of Interior asserting that the executed men were “terrorists” holding “deviant beliefs, ESOHR’s analysis found that of the 81 executions:
- 58 of the 81 men (over 70%) were executed for non-lethal offences;
- 41 men (over 50%) were executed for their participation in pro-democracy protests;
- The bodies of the executed were not returned back to their families.
At least three of the executed men had reported credible claims that they were tortured. Aqil al-Faraj, Mohammed al-Shakhouri and Assad Shubbar were among the 41 men identified as executed for their attendance at protests. The UN previously found that Mohammed and Assad’s death sentences were unsafe owing to credible reports that they were tortured into ‘confessing’, and denied a fair trial at the Specialised Criminal Court.
The mass execution exemplifies the opacity in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system - 69 of the 81 men executed were unknown to human rights groups. As such, it is impossible to gauge the full extent to which international human rights law is complied with in the application of the death penalty.
Current situation::
The numbers of executions carried out during the first half of 2022 confirm that the Saudi Arabia’s pledges to reform its use of the death penalty were empty promises. Due to the opaque criminal justice system, it is impossible to ascertain the full extent of the death row population in Saudi Arabia. However, through ESOHR’s monitoring indicates that there are at least 32 individuals at risk of execution or the death penalty. According to ESOHR, at least five of the individuals at risk are child defendants. This includes Abdullah al-Howaiti, who is at risk of execution following the Criminal Court of Tabouk’s decision to sentence him to death for a second time. Abdullah is at risk despite the Supreme Court’s decision in November 2021 to overturn his first death sentence. The Public Prosecutor is also calling for the death penalty against other child defendants, including Hassan Zaki al-Faraj and Youssef al-Manasif.
The Saudi Human Rights Commission (SHRC) announced, in January 2021, that there is death penalty moratorium on executions for drug related offences. However, thre is no indication that this alleged moratorium exists outside of this tweet. Laws have not been amended to prohibit the issuance of the death penalty for drug offences nor have the death sentences of individuals been commuted, such as in the case of the Jordanian national Hussein Abu al-Kheir, who remains at risk of execution for drug offences.
In addition to child defendants, two young Bahrainis are at risk of imminent execution despite the reliance on torture-tainted confessions. Furthermore, the Public Prosecutor is also demanding the death penalty for individuals that peacefully exercised their freedom of expression in the cases of Sheikh Hassan Farhan al-Maliki and Sheikh Salman Alodah.
The first half of 2022 showed that Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty continues unabated. Broken promises of reform by Saudi Arabia regarding their use of the death penalty is commonplace and this year has been no exception.