Saudi Arabia has reportedly executed 12 people for drug-related charges in the past 10 days. One report states that some of them were decapitated with swords.
Up to 12 people, including three Pakistanis, four Syrians, two Jordanians, and three Saudis, have been sentenced to death after being jailed for non-violent drug-related crimes, according to The Telegraph.
In March of this year, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people convicted of a wide range of crimes, including murder and belonging to extremist groups, in the largest mass execution in the kingdom’s modern history.
The latest wave of executions comes almost two years after Saudi Arabia pledged to reduce such prison terms. It followed the 2018 assassination of US journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey by a Saudi death squad on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Also in 2018, the Saudi government attempted to minimize the death penalty by only executing those found guilty of murder or manslaughter.
