Amnesty: Saudi Arabia executed a record number of people in 2019

Saudi Arabia executed a Kingdom-record number of people last year - 184 - according to a report released by Amnesty International.

This is despite the global number of executions in 2019 falling by five per cent on the previous year to 657, the lowest figure of the past decade.

Amnesty’s report does not include information for China however, where the number of people executed - believed to be in the thousands - is a state secret.

Iran had the world’s second-highest number of executions in 2019 with at least 251, while Iraq saw their number double to at least 100.

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The Amnesty report suggests the increase in Iraq’s numbers is largely down to the execution of those accused of being members of Islamic State.

Information for Vietnam and North Korea, like China, was not available, with both countries refusing to divulge their numbers of people sentenced to death.

In Saudi Arabia, their record of 184 is an increase on 149 in 2018. 178 of the people executed in the Kingdom were men and six were women. More than half of whom were foreign nationals.

According to Amnesty most of the executions in the Kingdom were for drug-related offences and murder, but also reported, “an increased use of capital punishment as a political weapon against dissidents from the country’s Shi’a Muslim minority.”

Thirty-seven people - 32 of them Shi’a men - were sentenced to death and executed in April 2019 on “terrorism” charges. Amnesty say their trials involved “confessions extracted through torture.”

Clare Algar, Amnesty International's senior director for research, advocacy and policy, said Saudi Arabia's increase in executions is "an alarming development."

She said: “Saudi Arabia’s growing use of the death penalty, including as a weapon against political dissidents, is an alarming development.

“Also shocking was the massive jump in executions in Iraq, which nearly doubled in just one year.

“In countries from Belarus to Botswana and Iran to Japan, executions were being carried out without any advance notice to the families, lawyers or in some cases the individuals themselves.

“The death penalty is an abhorrent and inhuman punishment, and there is no credible evidence that it deters crime more than prisons terms.

“We are calling on all states to abolish the death penalty. There needs to be international pressure on the world’s last remaining executioners to end this inhuman practice for good.”

Amnesty’s report showed 20 countries carried out the death penalty last year, including 22 executions in the US.

Worldwide, 106 countries have abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes, and 142 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.