"Saudi Arabia has executed 48 people since the beginning of 2018,” the US-based
rights group said in a report published late Wednesday.
"Many more people convicted of drug crimes remain on death row following
convictions by Saudi Arabia’s notoriously unfair criminal justice system.”
The ultra-conservative kingdom has one of the world’s highest rates of
execution, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery
and drug trafficking facing the death penalty.
Rights experts have repeatedly raised concerns about the fairness of trials in
the kingdom, governed under a strict form of Islamic law. The government says
the death penalty is a deterrent for further crime.
"It’s bad enough that Saudi Arabia executes so many people, but many of them
have not committed a violent crime,” said HRW’s Middle East director Sarah Leah
Whitson.
"Any plan to limit drug executions needs to include improvements to a justice
system that doesn’t provide for fair trials.”
HRW says Saudi Arabia has carried out nearly 600 executions since the beginning
of 2014, more than a third of them in drug cases.
Last year, nearly 150 people were put to death in the kingdom, where convicts
are beheaded using a sword.
Source:France24