Saudi Arabia Is Executing a Person Every Two Days on Average

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has executed at least 175 people in the past year, according to Amnesty International. The rate of beheadings is soaring under King Salman. As a new report released by the rights group reveals, those killed include children and people with mental disabilities. Beheading is the method in most executions; some of the condemned are put before firing squads.

From The Independent:

The kingdom killed 102 convicted criminals in the first six months of 2015 alone, putting it on course to beat its 1995 record number for the calendar year of 192. Those killed included children under the age of 18 at the time of the offence, and disabled people.

Amnesty, which alongside the AFP news agency keeps a record of the number of people the Saudi government kills, said the execution rate suddenly surged in August last year and continued to rise under the new King Salman from January.

According to a new 44-page report released by the charity [August 25], at least 2,208 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since January 1985.

Nearly half of those, 48.5 per cent, were of foreign nationals, who Amnesty said suffer disproportionately under the Saudi justice system because of a combination of xenophobic prejudice and a lack of Arabic to understand proceedings.

More than one in four – 28 per cent since 1991 – have been for drug-related offences, and death sentences were also given for other crimes not considered the “most serious” – or even illegal at all – under international standards. They include adultery, “apostasy”, witchcraft and sorcery.