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In 2024, Saudi Arabia broke a sad record. In more than thirty years, it had never executed so many people.
198 people in total. A calculation made by AFP based on official media. In 2023, after Iran and China, Saudi Arabia is the country that has executed the most prisoners in the world, indicates the media Midi Libre , repeating the count of the NGO Amnesty International.
On Saturday, Amnesty International denounced the Saudi authorities, accusing them of “engaging in a murderous madness”. Its Secretary General, Agnes Callamard, believes that Riyadh (the capital of Saudi Arabia) is showing a real and frightening “contempt for human life while waging a meaningless campaign to restore its image”. She also urged the Gulf monarchy to “immediately establish a moratorium on executions and to order that those sentenced to death be retried in accordance with international standards, without resorting to the death penalty”.
Jeed Basyouni, Middle East director of the NGO Reprieve, which fights against the death penalty, says that this record clearly demonstrates that “Saudi Arabia has given up on pretending to reform its use of the death penalty.” Before concluding with a cause-and-effect link: while the West has reduced the pressure, Riyadh feels “free to behave as it wishes.”
Based on AFP’s count, Saudi Arabia executed 52 people convicted of drug-related offences and 32 for terrorism in 2024. While the figures prior to 1990 are unclear, the largest mass execution was in March 2022, when 81 people were put to death in one day, Midi Libre points out . And Riyadh argues that the death penalty is absolutely essential to “maintaining public order”, with it only being applied on condition that the “accused have exhausted all appeals”.
