Saudi Arabia Has Executed 134 People This Year

According to a new report, 134 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia in 2019 alone.

If the execution rate continues on this trajectory, the death toll for 2019 will exceed all previous recorded totals of executions in the country.

The figures were presented at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, from a report presented by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, at an event hosted by international legal action charity The Death Penalty Project.

According to Baroness Kennedy’s report, titled A Perverse and Ominous Enterprise: The Death Penalty and Illegal Executions in Saudi Arabia, ‘So far this year, the authorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia) are known to have carried out at least 134 executions. Of these, 37 were political activists killed en masse on 23 April 2019 following lengthy periods of detention in solitary confinement, subjection to torture, and grossly unfair trials.’

While in 2018, a total of 149 people were reportedly executed, with 46 still on death row by the end of the year.

The Death Penalty Project says at 24 people are ‘at imminent risk of execution’, with prominent political figures, clerics and human rights defenders on the list.

RELATED | Execution caught on video in Saudi Arabia

The report also states six of the people executed this year were children at the time of their arrest. Under international law, sentencing someone under the age of 18 to death is illegal.

Presenting the report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Baroness Kennedy said:

I have been very concerned about the way in which Jamal Khashoggi’s murder is being presented to the world as being some sort of rogue activity and not part of systemic human rights abuses inside Saudi Arabia.

The point of this Report is to highlight the extent to which there has been a dramatic escalation of human rights violations by Saudi Arabia. The cruelty of the system is so great… I really hope you will all take this Report to heart, and ensure that something can be done globally.

Jamal Khashoggi was a journalist for The Washington Post and a prominent Saudi dissident. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown, though it is alleged he was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, in a premeditated attack carried out by Saudi nationals.

Baroness Kennedy’s report states the rise in numbers of executions should be seen ‘in the context of the extrajudicial execution’ of Khashoggi.

The report also states:

Saudi Arabia’s recent use of the death penalty should be viewed in the context of systemic and egregious human rights violations, including the widespread use of arbitrary arrest and detention (particularly since late 2017) to target political opponents and silence dissent.

In an interview with TIME, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke about reducing the number of people executed in the country.

He said:

I believe until today the United States of America and a lot of states, they have capital punishment. We’ve tried to minimize that so we have clear laws that we can change, like if a person kills a person, they have to be executed in our law. But there are few areas that we can change it from execution to life in prison.

His Majesty, the King, doesn’t wake up and just sign whatever he wants to sign. He works by the law, by the book. So there are laws also how the king functions as a king or as a prime minister.

So we are working for two years through the government and also the Saudi parliament to build new laws in that area. And we believe it will take one year, maybe a little bit more, to have it finished.

Members of the UN Human Rights Council, and The Death Penalty Project, however, are calling for more immediate changes to the laws, investigations into the violations of international laws, and the temporary prohibition on all uses of the death penalty.

They are also calling for diplomatic and political pressure from the international community, such as objecting to Saudi Arabia hosting 2020’s G20 summit, and for Saudi Arabia to publish ‘comprehensive, reliable and up to date’ information about the identities of people on death row and the reasons why they have had the death penalty imposed.

Source: unilad.co.uk, Staff, September 16, 2019

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Saudi Arabia executed 356 people in 2025, highest number on record

Analysts attribute increase to kingdom’s ‘war on drugs’ as authorities kill 356 people by death penalty Saudi authorities executed 356 people in 2025, setting a new record for the number of inmates put to death in the kingdom in a single year. Analysts have largely attributed the increase in executions to Riyadh’s “war on drugs”, with some of those arrested in previous years only now being executed after legal proceedings and convictions. Official data released by the Saudi government said 243 people were executed in drug-related cases in 2025 alone, according to a tally kept by Agence France-Presse.

Oklahoma board recommends clemency for inmate set to be executed next week

A voting board in Oklahoma decided Wednesday to recommend clemency for Tremane Wood, a death row inmate who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next week at the state penitentiary in McAlester. Wood, 46, faces execution for his conviction in the 2001 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a migrant farmworker, at an Oklahoma City hotel on New Year's Eve, court records show. The recommendation was decided in a 3-2 vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, consisting of five members appointed by either the governor or the state's top judicial official, according to CBS News affiliate KWTV. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt will consider the recommendation as he weighs whether to grant or deny Wood's clemency request, which would mean sparing him from execution and reducing his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Georgia parole board suspends scheduled execution of Cobb County death row prisoner

The execution of a Georgia man scheduled for Wednesday has been suspended as the State Board of Pardons and Paroles considers a clemency application. Stacey Humphreys, 52, would have been the state's first execution in 2025. As of December 16, 2025, Georgia has carried out zero executions in 2025. The state last executed an inmate in January 2020, followed by a pause due to COVID-19. Executions resumed in 2024, but none have occurred this year until now. Humphreys had been sentenced to death for the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown, who were fatally shot at the real estate office where they worked.

Burkina Faso to bring back death penalty

Burkina Faso's military rulers will bring back the death penalty, which was abolished in 2018, the country's Council of Ministers announced on Thursday. "This draft penal code reinstates the death penalty for a number of offences, including high treason, acts of terrorism, acts of espionage, among others," stated the information service of the Burkinabe government. Burkina Faso last carried out an execution in 1988.

USA | Justice Department Encourages New Capital Charges Against Commuted Federal Death Row Prisoners

On Dec. 23, 2024, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. commuted the sentences of nearly all federal death row prisoners, sparing 37 men from execution. Just 28 days later, on Jan. 20, 2025, newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order encouraging state and local prosecutors to pursue new charges against those same prisoners, reopening the possibility of capital punishment in state courts.

Singapore | Prolific lawyer M Ravi, known for drug death-penalty cases, found dead

Ravi Madasamy, a high-profile lawyer who represented death-row inmates and campaigned against capital punishment, was found dead in the early hours, prompting a police investigation into an unnatural death KUALA LUMPUR — Prolific Singapore lawyer Ravi Madasamy who tried to save Malaysian drug traffickers from the gallows found dead in the early hours with police investigating a case of unnatural death. Lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam, who had previously represented 56-year-old Ravi in court and described him as a friend, said he was deeply saddened by the news.

M Ravi, the man who defied Singapore regime's harassment, dies

M Ravi never gave up despite the odds stacked against him by the Singapore regime, which has always used its grip on the legal process to silence critics. M Ravi, one of Singapore's best-known personalities who was at the forefront of legal cases challenging the PAP regime over human rights violations, has died. He was 56. The news has come as a shock to friends and activists. Singapore's The Straits Times reported that police were investigating the "unnatural death".

The US reporter who has witnessed 14 executions: ‘People need to know what it looks like’

South Carolina-based journalist Jeffrey Collins observed back-to-back executions in 2025 after the state revived the death penalty following a 13-year pause Jeffrey Collins has watched 14 men draw their final breaths. Over 25 years at the Associated Press, the South Carolina-based journalist has repeatedly served as an observer inside the state’s execution chamber, watching from feet away as prison officials kill men who were sentenced to capital punishment. South Carolina has recently kept him unusually busy, with seven back-to-back executions in 14 months.

Iran | Executions in Shiraz, Borazjan, Ahvaz, Isfahan, Ardabil, Rasht, Ghaemshahr, Neishabur

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); December 23, 2025: Mahin Rashidi, Abbas Alami, Naser Faraji, Tohid Barzegar and Jamshid Amirfazli, five co-defendants on death row for drug-related offences, were secretly executed in a group hanging in Shiraz Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, four men and a woman were hanged in Shiraz (Adel Abad) Central Prison on 17 December 2025. Their identities have been established as Mahin Rashidi, a 39-year-old woman, Abbas Alami, 43, Naser Faraji, 38, Tohid Barzegar, 51, and Jamshid Amirfazli, 45, all Kashan natives.

California | Convicted killer Scott Peterson keeps swinging in court — but expert says he’s not going anywhere but his cell

More than two decades after Laci Peterson vanished from her Modesto, California, home, the murder case that captivated the nation continues to draw legal challenges, public debate and renewed attention. As the year comes to a close, Scott Peterson, convicted in 2004 of murdering his pregnant wife and their unborn son Conner, remains behind bars, serving life without the possibility of parole. His wife disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002, and a few months later, the remains of Laci and Conner were found in the San Francisco Bay.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog