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Saudi Arabia has executed more than 100 foreigners this year, according to an AFP tally, indicating a sharp increase that a rights group said was unprecedented.
The latest execution, on Saturday in the southwestern region of Najran, was of a Yemeni national convicted of smuggling drugs into the Gulf kingdom, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
That brought to 101 the number of foreigners executed so far in 2024, according to the tally, which is compiled from state media reports.
This is almost triple the figures for 2023 and 2022, when Saudi authorities put to death 34 foreigners each year.
The Berlin-based European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) said this year’s executions had already broken a record.
“This is the largest number of executions of foreigners in one year. Saudi Arabia has never executed 100 foreigners in a year,” said Taha al-Hajji, the group’s legal director.
Saudi Arabia has faced persistent criticism over its use of the death penalty, which human rights groups have condemned as excessive and out of step with efforts to soften its forbidding image and welcome international tourists and investors.
Foreigners executed this year have included 21 from Pakistan, 20 from Yemen, 14 from Syria, 10 from Nigeria, nine from Egypt, eight from Jordan, and seven from Ethiopia.
There were also three each from Sudan, India and Afghanistan, and one each from Sri Lanka, Eritrea and the Philippines.
Saudi Arabia in 2022 ended a three-year moratorium on the execution of drug offenders, and executions for drug-related crimes have boosted this year’s numbers.
There have been 92 such executions so far this year, 69 of them of foreigners.
Source: AFP
