UN experts call on Saudi Arabia to halt imminent executions amid sharp rise

United Nations human rights experts have called on Saudi Arabia to halt the planned executions of three foreign nationals, amid a significant spike in the Kingdom’s use of the death penalty in recent years.

According to two UN Special Rapporteurs – Morris Tidball-Binz, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Alice Jill Edwards, the Special Rapporteur on torture – three Egyptians were executed by Saudi authorities on Tuesday this week, with two more Egyptian nationals and a Jordanian national due to be executed imminently.

The reported upcoming death sentences come as the Kingdom’s executions this year have risen to over 300 people, a record increase in the penalty amid a general rise in the practice in recent years.

In a statement, the experts stated that “Executions of foreign nationals appear to be increasingly taking place without prior notification to death row inmates, their families or their legal representatives.”

The Rapporteurs highlighted that foreign nationals in particular “are often in a situation of vulnerability, and need specific measures [to] be taken to ensure they have access to their legal safeguards from the moment of arrest, during interrogations and throughout judicial proceedings.”

Calling on Riyadh to take immediate steps to abolish the death penalty for crimes outside intentional killing, the UN Rapporteurs stressed that the “execution of sentenced persons whose guilt has not been established beyond reasonable doubt constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life”.

Read: Saudi Arabia has executed more than 100 foreigners in 2024