Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 peopleincluding seven Yemenis and one Syrian sentenced on various charges, including terrorism, espionage and murder, in the kingdom’s largest mass execution in decades, the Home Office said. The number dwarfs the 67 executions reported there in all of 2021 and the 27 in 2020.
In a statement, the Saudi Interior Ministry said the convicts, most of they are Saudi nationals, also included those who held “deviant beliefs”, those who targeted locations of worship and government buildings, and those who “spied for terrorist organizations like the Houthis, al-Qaeda and Daesh in Yemen.”
The statement also names mentioned, nationalities and crimes committed by the accused who were executed. However, the statement did not specify how the executions took place out.
the men included 37 Saudi nationals who were found guilty in one case for attempting to assassinate security guards and targeting police stations and convoys, the statement added. Mass execution is likely to bring back pay attention to human rights in saudi arabia record at a time when world powers have been concentrated on Russia invasion of Ukraine.
Rights groups have accused Saudi Arabia of enforce restrictive laws on political and religious expression and criticism for using the death penalty including for defendants arrested when they were minors.
“There are prisoners of consciousness on Saudi death line, and others arrested as children or billed with non-violent crimes”, Soraya Bauwens, assistant director of anti-death penalty Charity Reprieve, said in A declaration.
“We are scared for all one of them following this brutal display of impunity,” she said. added.
Saudi Arabia denies the charges of human rights abuses and says he protects son national security by its laws.
Its state news agency, SPA, said on Saturday the men executed on Saturday had the right to a lawyer and were assured of their full rights under Saudi law during the legal process.
The kingdom executed 63 people in one daytime in 1980, a year after militants seized the Grand Mosque in Makkah, depending on the state media reports.
A total of 47 people including prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, were executed in one daytime in 2016.
‘Violation of basic human rights, international law’
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned Saudi Arabia’s execution as a “violation of basic principles of human rights and international law”, the Iranian state media reported Sunday.
“This inhumane act was in violation of basic principles of human rights and international law, and contrary to human principles and accepted legal procedures,” a ministry spokesperson quoted by the state media.
Iran also has decided to temporarily suspend son secret Baghdad-brokered talks aimed at defusing years-long tensions with son regional rival, Saudi Arabia, a day after the Saudi mass execution.
According to a report published by the United Nations expert on human rights in Iran in 2019, the previous year had experienced increasing restrictions on the right to liberty of continuous expression and violations of the right to life, liberty and a fair trial in the country, including 253 reported executions of adults and children.
The report indicates that although the number of executions was at its lowest since 2007, it “remains one of the highest in the world.”
