Rights groups condemn new record number of executions in 2025

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

According to UK-based campaign group Reprieve, which tracks executions in Saudi Arabia and whose clients have been sentenced to death, at least 347 people have been executed this year; The total number in 2024 was 345.

It was stated that this was “the bloodiest year of executions in the kingdom since monitoring began”.

The last prisoners executed were two Pakistani citizens convicted of drug-related crimes.

Those killed this year include a journalist and two young men who were children when they allegedly committed protest-related crimes. Five were women.

But most, about two-thirds, were convicted of non-fatal drug-related crimes, which the UN said were “incompatible with international norms and standards,” according to Reprieve.

More than half of them were foreign nationals executed in the kingdom as part of the “war on drugs”.

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

“Saudi Arabia now operates with complete impunity,” said Jeed Basyouni, Reprieve’s head of capital punishment for the Middle East and North Africa. “This almost makes a mockery of the human rights system.”

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

Ms Basyouni described it as a “brutal and arbitrary crackdown” in which innocent people and those on the margins of society were caught.

Tuesday saw the execution of Issam al-Shazly, a young Egyptian fisherman who was arrested in Saudi territorial waters in 2021 and said he was forced into drug trafficking.

Reprieve says 96 of the executions were linked to marijuana alone.

“It seems like it almost doesn’t matter who they execute, as long as they send a message to society that there is a zero-tolerance policy no matter what they talk about — whether it’s protests, freedom of expression or drugs,” Ms. Basyouni said.

There has been a rise in drug-related executions since Saudi authorities ended an unofficial moratorium in late 2022. This step was described as “deeply regrettable” by the UN human rights office.

Speaking anonymously to the BBC, relatives of men sentenced to death on drug charges spoke of the “terror” they are now living through.

One of them told the BBC: “The only time of the week I sleep is on Fridays and Saturdays because there are no executions on those days.”

According to Reprieve, cellmates witness people with whom they have shared prison life for years being dragged to their deaths, kicking and screaming.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman, who became crown prince in 2017, has profoundly transformed the country in the past few years, loosening social restrictions while also silencing criticism.

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

But the kingdom’s human rights record remains “abysmal” and the high level 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.

“Continuing these executions has cost Mohammed bin Salman and his officials nothing,” said Joey Shea, who researches Saudi Arabia for Human Rights Watch. “Entertainment events, sporting events, all of these continue to happen without any real repercussions.”

According to Reprieve, families of those executed are often not informed in advance, their bodies are not delivered, or they are not informed of where they will be buried.

Saudi authorities do not disclose the method of execution, but it is believed to be either beheading or firing squad.

Dr. UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. In a statement sent to the BBC, Morris Tidball-Binz called for an immediate moratorium on executions in Saudi Arabia, as well as “full compliance with international safeguards (including effective legal aid and consular access for foreign nationals), prompt notification of families, return of bodies without delay, and the publication of comprehensive execution data to enable independent review.”

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

In 2011 and 2012, they protested the government’s treatment of the Shiite Muslim minority and attended the funerals of people killed by security forces. They were convicted of terrorism-related charges and sentenced to death after what Amnesty International said were grossly unfair trials based on “confessions” tainted by torture. UN human rights experts had called for the release of these people.

The UN also condemned the execution in June of journalist Turki al-Jasser, who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to death on charges of terrorism and treason for his articles.

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

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

Last December, UN experts wrote a letter to Saudi authorities expressing concern about a group of 32 Egyptians and one Jordanian national sentenced to death on drug charges and their “alleged lack of legal representation.” Most of the group have since been executed.

A relative of a man executed earlier this year said he was told people were being “taken away like goats” to be killed.

The BBC contacted Saudi officials for a response to the allegations but received no response.

But in a January 2025 letter responding to concerns raised by UN special rapporteurs, they said Saudi Arabia “protects and promotes” human rights and its laws “prohibit and punish torture.”

“The death penalty is imposed only for the most serious crimes and in extremely limited circumstances,” the letter stated. “This document will not be delivered or executed until judicial proceedings are completed in the courts at all levels.”