Saudi Arabia: Executions for drug crimes

By Human Rights Watch

Saudi Arabia has executed 48 people since the beginning of 2018, half of them for nonviolent drug crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Many more people convicted of drug crimes remain on death row following convictions by Saudi Arabia’s notoriously unfair criminal justice system.

Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman said in an interview with Time magazine on April 5, that the Saudi authorities have a plan to decrease the number of executions, but that they would not limit executions to people convicted of murder. Nearly all executions in Saudi Arabia that are not for murder are for non-violent drug crimes. The prince said the country would consider changing the penalty from death to life in prison in some cases, but not in murder cases.

“It’s bad enough that Saudi Arabia executes so many people, but many of them have not committed a violent crime,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Any plan to limit drug executions needs to include improvements to a justice system that doesn’t provide for fair trials.”