17 people executed for 3 days in Saudi Arabia, mainly for drug crimes

The Saudi authorities killed two people on Monday to reach 17 executions in three days, state media said, since the conservative kingdom accelerated towards a record number of Executives This year.

Two Saudi were executed for “terrorist crimes,” said the official Saudi press agency, after 15 people, mostly foreigners, were presented for drug crimes on Saturdays and Sundays.

It is the fastest rate of capital punishment since March 2022, when 81 people were executed In a single day for crimes related to terrorism, causing a generalized conviction. In 2016, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people in what had been the largest mass execution in the country since 1980.

Thirteen of those who killed themselves on Saturday and Sunday were convicted of Hashish smuggling and another for cocaine smuggling.

Saudi Arabia, one of the most prolific users in the world of death penalty, has carried out 239 executions so far this year. The conservative country is ongoing to exceed 338 last year, the highest from the public records documented for the first time in the early 1990s.

This year’s executions include 161 for drug crimes and 136 foreigners, according to an News official data count.

Jeed Basyouni of the Reprieve Rights Group last week pointed out a “significant increase in executions for drugs related to hashish, with foreign citizens representing most of these executions.”

“This is particularly worrying given the global trend to decriminalize possession and use of hashish,” he told News.

Analysts link the peak with the “war on drugs” of the kingdom launched in 2023, and many of the first arrested are now executed after legal procedures.

Saudi Arabia resumed executions for drug crimes at the end of 2022, after suspending the practice for about three years. He says that he only carries out death sentences after the defendants have exhausted all the amendment routes, and that the executions aim to guarantee security and deter drugs.

The country executed 46 people alone in June, mostly foreign nationals, including 37 for drug -related crimes, which is an average of more than an execution related to drugs every day, according to an international amnesty report published last month. Last year, Saudi Arabia carried out a 345 execution record, the group said.

“We are witnessing a truly horrible trend, with foreign citizens who kill themselves at a surprising pace for crimes that should never take the death penalty,” said Kristine Beckerle, deputy regional director of Amnesty International for the Middle East and North Africa, in a statement.

Activists say that the continuous hug of capital punish 2030 Reform Agenda.

• Death penalty
• Capital punishment
• Saudi Arabia