Human rights group condemns record number of executions by 2025

Saudi Arabia has surpassed its record for annual executions for the second year in a row.

At least 347 people have died this year, up from the 2024 total of 345, according to Reprieve, a UK-based campaign group that tracks Saudi Arabia’s executions and has clients on death row.

It said this year was “the bloodiest year of executions in the kingdom since surveillance began.”

The most recently executed prisoners were two Pakistani nationals convicted of drug-related offences.

Other people executed this year include a journalist and two young men accused of protest-related crimes. Five were women.

But according to Reprieve, most – about two-thirds – were convicted of non-lethal drug-related offenses, which the United Nations said were “incompatible with international norms and standards.”

More than half of these people were foreigners, believed to have died as part of the kingdom’s ‘war on drugs’.

Saudi authorities did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment on the increase in executions.

“Saudi Arabia now enjoys complete impunity,” said Jeed Basyouni, head of Reprieve’s death penalty department for the Middle East and North Africa. “It is at the level of making a mockery of the human rights system.”

She described torture and forced confessions as “endemic” in the Saudi criminal justice system.

Mr. Bashoni called it a “cruel and arbitrary repression” that preys on innocent people and marginalized members of society.

On Tuesday, Issam al-Shazly, a young Egyptian fisherman, was executed. He was arrested in Saudi waters in 2021 and said he was forced to smuggle drugs.

According to the probation report, 96 of the executions were linked solely to hashish.

“It seems to matter little to them who they execute, as long as it sends a message to society that there is a zero-tolerance policy on any issue they talk about, whether it’s protests, freedom of expression or drugs,” Bashoni said.

Drug-related executions have surged since Saudi authorities ended an unofficial moratorium at the end of 2022. The United Nations human rights office described the move as ‘deeply regrettable’.

Relatives of a man on death row on drug charges spoke anonymously to the BBC about the ‘horror’ they are currently living through.

One person told the BBC: “The only time I sleep during the week is Friday and Saturday because there are no executions on those days.”

According to Reprieve, cellmates watched as people they had spent years in prison with were dragged away, kicking and screaming, to their deaths.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, who became crown prince in 2017, has fundamentally transformed the country over the past year, easing social restrictions while quelling criticism.

He opened Saudi Arabia to the outside world to diversify its economy away from oil, removed religious police from the streets and allowed women to drive.

But the kingdom’s human rights record remains ‘abysmal’ and its high rate of executions is a major concern, according to US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch. Only China and Iran have killed more people in recent years, according to human rights activists.

“These executions cost nothing to Mohammed bin Salman and his authorities,” said Joey Shea, who researches Saudi Arabia for Human Rights Watch. “Entertainment events, sporting events, everything continues to happen without any impact.”

According to Reprieve, families of executed people are typically not informed in advance, are not given their bodies, or are told where they are buried.

Saudi authorities did not reveal the method of execution, but it is believed to be beheading or firing squad.

In a statement to the BBC, Dr Maurice Tidball-Binz, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions, called for an immediate moratorium on executions in Saudi Arabia to abolish it.

He also called for “full compliance with international safeguards (including effective legal assistance and consular access for foreigners), prompt notification of families, repatriation of remains without delay, and comprehensive disclosure of execution data to enable independent investigations.”

Among the Saudi nationals executed this year were Abdullah al-Derazi and Jalal al-Labbad, who were both minors at the time of their arrest.

They protested against the government’s treatment of the Shia Muslim minority in 2011 and 2012, and attended funerals of people killed by security forces. They were found guilty on terrorism-related charges and sentenced to death after what Amnesty International said was a grossly unfair trial that relied on “confessions” laced with torture. UN human rights experts called for their release.

The United Nations also condemned the June execution of journalist Turki al-Jasser, who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to death on charges of terrorism and high treason based on his writings.

“The death penalty for journalists is an appalling attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press,” said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay.

Reporters Without Borders said he was the first journalist to be executed in Saudi Arabia since Mohammed bin Salman took power, while another journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was killed by Saudi agents in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Last December, UN experts wrote to Saudi authorities expressing concern about 32 Egyptians and one Jordanian sentenced to death on drug charges. Most of the group has since been executed.

A relative of a man executed earlier this year said people had told her they were being “led like goats” to be killed.

The BBC approached Saudi authorities for a response to the allegations but did not receive a response.

But in a letter sent in January 2025 in response to concerns raised by the UN special rapporteur, they said Saudi Arabia “protects and defends” human rights and that its laws “prohibit and punish torture.”

“The death penalty is to be imposed only for the most serious crimes and in very limited circumstances,” the letter said. “This document will not be delivered or executed until judicial proceedings have been completed in all levels of the courts.”