Saudi Arabia Is Executing a Person Every Two Days on Average
According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 175 people in the past year, as the rate of beheadings soars under King Salman.
In this 2012 photo, former Saudi King Abdullah, right, talks with Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (Tribes of the World / CC BY-SA 2.0)
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.
Read more here.
–Posted by Roisin Davis
Your support is crucial…With an uncertain future and a new administration casting doubt on press freedoms, the danger is clear: The truth is at risk.
Now is the time to give. Your tax-deductible support allows us to dig deeper, delivering fearless investigative reporting and analysis that exposes what’s really happening — without compromise.
During this holiday season, stand with our courageous journalists. Donate today to protect a free press, uphold democracy and ensure the stories that matter are told.
TD Original
The language is always evolving, but will mainstreaming evermore hypersensitive euphemisms for “death” really keep the Grim Reaper at bay?
Film
An octogenarian filmmaker turns his camera down life’s homestretch.
TD Original
Can the “death positive” movement help fix our dysfunctional relationship with the inevitability of human demise?
Belief & Religion
Beginning as a response to environmental trauma, proponents of the trend seek to bring ritual back to a culture that has growingly become "grief-illiterate."
Race
When developers found graves in the Virginia woods, authorities helped erase the historic black cemetery.
With 17 times as many new infections outside China as in it, Italy and Iran close schools; travel and events are canceled; and markets yo-yo.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.