DUBAI: More than 100 foreigners, primarily convicted of drug-related offenses, have been executed by Saudi Arabia so far this year, marking a dramatic rise that one rights organization called “unprecedented.”
According to AFP estimates, this is nearly three times the number for 2023 and 2022, when Saudi authorities executed 34 foreigners found guilty of various offenses annually.
21 foreigners from Pakistan, 20 from Yemen, 14 from Syria, 10 from Nigeria, 9 from Egypt, 8 from Jordan, and 7 from Ethiopia were among those put to death this year. Additionally, there were one each from Sri Lanka, Eritrea, and the Philippines, and three each from Sudan, India, and Afghanistan.
This year’s executions have already shattered a record, according to the European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), based in Berlin. This is the most foreigners that have been executed in a single year. The group’s legal director, Taha al-Hajji, stated that Saudi Arabia has never executed 100 foreigners in a single year.
Pakistanis made up the majority of those put to death, followed by Yemenis and Syrians.
According to an AFP report in September, Saudi Arabia executed more people overall than it had in over thirty years, topping its previous highs of 196 in 2022 and 192 in 1995. Since then, the number of executions has increased quickly, and as of Sunday, there had been 274 for the year.
Saudi Arabia has received constant criticism over its use of the death sentence, which human rights groups have decried as disproportionate and out of line with efforts to soften its forbidding image and encourage international tourists and businesses.
According to Amnesty International, the kingdom executed the third-highest number of inmates worldwide in 2023, after China and Iran.
According to the official Saudi Press Agency, a Yemeni national convicted of smuggling drugs into the Gulf kingdom was executed on November 16 in the southwest part of Najran. According to the count, which is based on stories from official media, that increased the total number of foreigners executed in 2024 to 101.
A moratorium
The number of executions for drug-related offenses has increased this year since Saudi Arabia lifted a three-year ban on the practice in 2022.
This year, there have been 92 such executions, 69 of which involved foreigners.
Foreign defendants typically face greater obstacles to fair trials, including the opportunity to view court papers, according to diplomats and activists. According to Hajji of the ESOHR, foreigners “are the most vulnerable group.”
They are “subject to a series of violations from the moment of their arrest until their execution,” he added, in addition to frequently being “victims of major drug dealers.”
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, told The Atlantic in 2022 that the country had abolished the death penalty except in cases of murder or where a person constituted a threat to many lives. However, the consistently high number of executions contradicts his claims.
