Saudi Arabia’s execution of more than 2,000 people over the last decade in many cases violates Saudi and international law and belies the government’s claims of reform, 36 groups including Human Rights Watch said today. The following is their statement: As of early April 2026, the number of executions carried out by Saudi Arabia since King Salman bin Abdulaziz’s accession to the throne on January 23, 2015—and the subsequent appointment of his son, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, on June 21, 2017—has surpassed 2,000, according to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), marking a stark escalation in the use of capital punishment under their rule.
Judges reject a challenge that argued it was cruel and degrading Malaysia's top court has ruled that the use of caning as a form of punishment is constitutional, while dismissing a plea from prisoners seeking relief from the punishment imposed on them. In a 2-1 majority decision, the Malaysian Federal Court ruled that the use of whipping or caning did not fall within the ambit of a cruel, oppressive and degrading punishment in the constitutional sense, Bernama reported on April 22. It is not the function of the court to act as a moral arbiter or a 'super-legislature' in the guise of constitutional interpretation, Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, one of the judges, said.