A joint report by the NGO Reprieve and the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) published on Tuesday indicated that the average number of executions per year in the Arab country before the appointment of Bin Salman as crown prince was 71, a figure which in the last seven years has risen to 130.
“More than 1,000 people have been executed since Mohamed bin Salman and his father came to power in 2015, including children, protesters, vulnerable female domestic workers, suspected drug traffickers, and people whose only ‘crime’ was exercising freedom of expression. ”, denounced the NGOs.
According to the data on executions compiled by the organizations since 2010, the six “bloodiest” years in Saudi Arabia were between 2015 and 2019, in addition to 2022. In 2022, precisely 81 people were executed in a single day, more than half of who were accused of participating in demonstrations. The total number of executions that year rose to at least 147.
Most women executed were foreigners
On the other hand, NGOs denounced that at least 15 children have been executed since 2013, despite the fact that Saudi Arabia abolished the death penalty for minors.
They also pointed out that almost three quarters of the women executed between 2010 and 2021 were foreigners, of which 56% were domestic workers, as is the case of the Indonesian Tuti Tursilawati, executed in 2018 after beating her employer with a stick when he tried to rape her.
“Legal decisions (in Saudi Arabia), especially around the death penalty, are made behind closed doors, publication of court documents is prohibited, charges are changed and court sessions are indefinitely postponed,” the NGOs said about the opacity of the Saudi judicial system.
Thus, they recalled that Saudi Arabia “does not comply with the United Nations requirements on the use of the death penalty, so the real number (of executions) could be higher.”