In a striking escalation, Saudi authorities have drastically increased the use of capital punishment this year, with rights groups accusing the monarchy of wielding the death penalty to suppress opposition.
From early January through August, at least 241 individuals have been put to death, according to data from the advocacy group Reprieve. A significant portion of these—162 cases—involved convictions for drug-related offenses that did not result in fatalities. More than half of those executed were foreign nationals.
The rapid pace of enforcement was starkly illustrated in the first week of August, when 22 people were executed, marking the highest weekly total since March 2022, when a single day saw 81 executions.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented this trend, with Middle East researcher Joey Shea describing it as a “weaponization of the justice system” to carry out a “terrifying number” of state-sanctioned killings. Shea characterized the surge as definitive proof of the “brutally autocratic rule” under the current leadership.
The report highlights the case of journalist and blogger Turki al-Jasser, executed on June 14. Arrested in 2018 on charges of “terrorist crimes,” including “destabilizing the security of society and the stability of the state,” he became the first journalist executed in the kingdom since the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Al-Jasser had previously exposed alleged corruption and human rights abuses tied to the royal family.
HRW said al-Jasser’s case illustrates a broader pattern of using death sentences to silence dissent. Similar examples include political analyst Abdullah al-Shamri, executed in February 2024, and retired teacher Muhammad al-Ghamdi, initially sentenced to death for peaceful online expression before his sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison.
Prosecutors are also reportedly seeking the death penalty for prominent Islamic scholar Salman al-Awda and reformist thinker Hassan Farhan al-Maliki, based on their political statements.
Abdullah Alaoudh, senior director for countering authoritarianism at the Middle East Democracy Center, condemned the practice, stating that behind closed doors, peaceful activists and journalists are being executed following politicized trials. He called these state-sanctioned killings an “assault on basic human rights and dignity” that cannot be ignored internationally.