101 foreigners executed in Saudi Arabia this year, reason why expats are being punished more

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is a Gulf country where thousands of people, including Malayalees, board flights in search of work. Many Indian expatriates have been working in Saudi Arabia for years. Although it is a country that welcomes expatriates with open arms, Saudi Arabia does not allow any compromise in following the laws. This year alone, Saudi Arabia has executed 101 foreigners.

This is the first time in the country's history that so many people have been sentenced to death in a single year. This is three times the number of executions carried out in 2023 and 2022. Various human rights organizations have criticized Saudi Arabia for increasing the number of executions.

Most of these executions are for drug-related crimes. Taha Al-Hajji, legal director of the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights, pointed that foreigners in Saudi Arabia are the most vulnerable. Foreigners are victims of many major drug dealers. Taha Al-Hajji said they have to suffer many human rights violations from the time they are arrested for such crimes to the time they are executed. Anti-death penalty group Jeed Basyouni said Saudi Arabia is facing an unprecedented execution crisis.

According to an AFP tally, 21 Pakistanis, 20 Yemenis, 14 Syrians, 10 Nigerians, nine Egyptians, eight Jordanians, eight Ethiopians, three each from Sudan, India and Afghanistan, and one each from Sri Lanka, Eritrea and the Philippines have been executed in Saudi Arabia this year.

International organizations such as Amnesty International rank Saudi Arabia as the third-largest executioner of prisoners, after China and Iran. The high number of executions this year contradicts the claims of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In an interview with The Atlantic in 2022, Prince Salman stated that the country had abolished the death penalty, except in cases such as murder.