more than 300 executions in 2024, an absolute record

The number of executions in Saudi Arabia in 2024 is more than 300, according to a count from Agence France-Presse (AFP) updated Tuesday, December 3 following announcements from the Saudi Interior Ministry. Four people, convicted of common law crimes, were put to death, the ministry announced in press releases, bringing the number of executions to 303 since the start of the year.

In 2023, Saudi Arabia had executed 170 people, according to an AFP count based on official data. According to the NGO Amnesty International, which has been counting executions since 1990 in this rich Gulf monarchy which follows a rigorous application of Islamic law, the kingdom is the country which has executed the most prisoners in the world in 2023, after China and Iran. Previously, the record number of executions in a single year in the country was 196 in 2022 and 192 in 1995, according to Amnesty.

Taha Al-Hajji, legal director of the Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, called the 2024 executions a“incomprehensible and inexplicable”condemning the « vitesse » to which they were carried out.