The executions in Saudi Arabia doubled this year compared to the previous year, according to statistics released by the AFP.  

A Saudi national and a citizen of Jordan were detained by Saudi Arabia and executed after being found guilty of smuggling illegal amphetamine tablets in Al-Jawf region, according to WAS.  

The number of executions in Saudi Arabia in the year 2022 increased to 138 as a result of these two executions, according to statistics compiled by Agence France-Presse using official data.  

In 2021, Saudi Arabia carried out 69 death sentences. At the height of the Coronavirus outbreak in Saudi Arabia in 2020, there were 27 executions, and 187 people were put to death in 2019.

The two executions come just one week after Saudi Arabia announced the execution of two death sentences against drug traffickers from Pakistan; this was the nation's first execution involving drugs in almost three years.  

Meanwhile, Amnesty International argued that the recent executions in Saudi disrespected the statement on drug-related crimes made public by the Saudi Human Rights Commission in January 2021.  

In an earlier report, Amnesty International urged to halt executions in Saudi. The Kingdom has sentenced two Bahraini men, Jaafar Mohammad Sultan and Sadeq Majeed Thamer, to death.  

In January, the Saudi court ratified the death sentence on both the young men who were arrested on May 8, 2015, on King Fahd Causeway. Later, the Saudi authorities charged them with "preparing to blow up the bridge linking to Bahrain," but they refuted these claims and slammed them as politically motivated.  

Last March, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people in one day on charges of terrorism, which led to widespread international condemnation.  

Last October, Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in the Arabian Peninsula (CDHRAP) investigated the dangerous human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, after increase in the issuance of death sentences by the Riyadh Criminal Court against Saudi nationals.  

This committee published a statement announcing that the Riyadh Criminal Court has issued death sentences for a group of citizens just for expressing their opinions through social networks or for participating in peaceful marches, demanding freedom of speech, justice and social equality.  

This committee emphasized that the continuous issuance of these arbitrary sentences proves the falsehood of the Saudi government's claims of respecting human rights and abolishing the death sentence.  

Minor Executions in Saudi

This committee stated that Yusuf al-Manasaf, Abdul Majid al-Nimr, Javad Qariris, Fadel al-Safwani, Ali al-Mabiyouq, Muhammad al-Bad, Muhammad al-Faraj, Ahmed al-Indig, Hassan Zaki al-Faraj and Ali al-Sabiti, who were all children and minors, have been executed in the group death sentences.  

The CDHRAP explained that the Saudi judicial system issued another death sentence, which included Saud Al Faraj, Jalal El Bad, Abdullah Al Razi, Haider Al Tahifa, Hossein Abul Khair, Sadiq Thamer, Jafar Sultan, Ahmed Al Abbas, Hossein Al Faraj, Manhal Al Rabh, Hossein Al Ebrahim, Al Sayed Ali Al Alavi, Hossein Adam, Ebrahim Abu Khalil Al Howaiti, Shadli, Ahmed Mahmoud Al-Howaiti and Atallah Musa Mohammad Al-Howaiti.  

The committee emphasized that enslavement of people under the oppression of an autocratic government through the political judicial system and unfair trials in which there is no transparency reveals the crimes and violations of the Saudi regime against its nationals.  

This committee urged the international community and human rights organizations across the globe to act seriously and quickly, in order to stop this massacre and the gross assault on the lives of citizens, carried out under false accusations.  

So far, the Saudi government has issued hundreds of death sentences and despite all the promises made to stop such punishments, it is issuing more severe sentences day by day.  

Moreover, in November, the Yemeni media revealed a footage showing "mass grave containing dozens of African victims killed by Saudi border guards." 

One of the reasons that encourages the Saudi regime to violate human rights and increase the number of executions of political and ideological prisoners is the silence of the international community against these crimes and massacres, the failure to deal with them and not sanctioning the Saudi government.