Saudi Arabia has executed six Iranians sentenced to death for drug trafficking, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) announced this Wednesday 1is January. They were executed in Dammam, in the east of the kingdom, for “smuggled hashish” in Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, without specifying the date of the execution.
Saudi authorities launched a campaign to combat drugs in 2023, with a series of raids and arrests. Executions of traffickers have increased there since the end of a moratorium on this crime two years ago. In 2024, 117 people were executed for drug trafficking in the country, according to an AFP count based on official data. In total, 338 executions took place in the country in 2024, a record: twice as many as the previous year.
Saudi Arabia is the country which executed the most prisoners in the world in 2023 after China and Iran, according to Amnesty International, which has been counting executions in this country since 1990 following a rigorous application of Islamic law. Riyadh's application of the death penalty is regularly criticized by human rights groups who consider it excessive and out of step with the kingdom's efforts to present a modern and reformist image internationally. According to Riyadh, the death penalty is necessary for “maintain public order” and it is only applied if “the accused have exhausted all remedies”.
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