Right Groups Condemn Saudi Mass Executions as ‘Brutal’ Display of ‘Autocratic Rule’

Prominent international human rights groups and defenders on Tuesday condemned Saudi Arabia’s recent execution of 81 people in a single day and called on the fundamentalist monarchy to enact a moratorium on capital punishment and commute the death sentences of all condemned prisoners.

As Common Dreams reported, Saturday’s executions are believed to have been the largest mass killing in the modern Saudi kingdom’s 90-year history. More than half of those put to death were members of the minority Shi’ite Muslim community.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said the men – among them seven Yemenis and a Syrian – were executed for alleged crimes ranging from murder to the nebulous charge of “monitoring and targeting officials and expatriates.”

Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said in a statement on Tuesday that “Saudi Arabia’s mass execution of 81 men this weekend was a brutal show of its autocratic rule, and a justice system that puts the fairness of their trials and sentencing into serious doubt.”

“The shocking callousness of their treatment is compounded by the fact that many families found out about their loved ones’ deaths just like the rest of us, after the fact and through the media,” he added.

Saudi authorities’ execution of 81 men on March 12, its largest mass execution in years despite promises to curtail death penalty. 41 men were from the Shia Muslim minority, & it is highly unlikely any of those executed received a fair trial. https://t.co/VOUzh1xs1ppic.twitter.com/Rd82U6WkSC

— Michael Page (@MichaelARPage) March 15, 2022

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Monday said that “some of those executed were sentenced to death following trials that did not meet fair trial and due process guarantees, and for crimes that did not appear to meet the most serious crimes threshold, as required under international law.”

The former Chilean president asserted that “implementation of death sentences following trials that do not offer the required fair trial guarantees is prohibited by international human rights and humanitarian law and may amount to a war crime,” while reiterating that “the death penalty is incompatible with fundamental tenets of human rights and dignity, the right to life, and the prohibition of torture.”

“I am concerned that Saudi legislation contains an extremely broad definition of terrorism, including nonviolent acts that supposedly ‘endanger national unity’ or ‘undermine the state’s reputation,'” Bachelet added. “This risks criminalizing people exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”

According to Amnesty International, the 81 executions carried out by Saudi Arabia exceeded the country’s 2020 total of 27 by 300% in one fell swoop. The human rights group says that the fundamentalist monarchy ranked fifth in global executions in 2020 after China, Iran, Egypt, and Iraq.

81 individuals executed in a single day.

An appalling escalation in #SaudiArabia’s use of the death penalty and its disregard for the right to life.https://t.co/HMEZkNRg4d

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) March 15, 2022

“This execution spree is all the more chilling in light of Saudi Arabia’s deeply flawed justice system, which metes out death sentences following trials that are grossly and blatantly unfair, including basing verdicts on ‘confessions’ extracted under torture or other ill-treatment,” Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement Tuesday.

“Such a shocking number of deaths also reveals Saudi Arabia’s lack of transparency in death penalty cases since we know that the number of trials resulting in prisoners being placed on death row is always significantly higher than what is publicly reported,” she added. “Many individuals today in Saudi Arabia are at imminent risk of execution.”

Boris Johnson must cancel his trip to Saudi Arabia and condemn the largest mass execution in the country’s history.

Sign the petition.?? https://t.co/gxE4yjPS4c

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) March 14, 2022

Despite having one of the world’s worst overall human rights records, the United States and other democracies remain staunch supporters of the Saudi regime. United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson is scheduled to visit the kingdom this week, where he will reportedly push for an increase in oil production amid supply disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In an implicit rebuke of the celebrity-laden, multibillion-dollar global Saudi public relations effort that HRW calls “image laundering,” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink and author of Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection, said in a statement Monday that last weekend’s mass executions “should dispel any views that Saudi’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is any type of ‘reformer.'”

Do you know that 81 people were executed by the Saudi regime on Saturday? Where is the global outcry? pic.twitter.com/hVk42cWbOS

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) March 15, 2022

“As the U.S. is imposing massive sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine,” Benjamin added, “it is pandering to Saudi Arabia despite its brutal seven-year war on Yemen and this outrageous execution of 81 people in a single day.”

Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace. This originally appeared at CommonDreams and is reprinted with the author’s permission.