Saudi Arabia Kills 180 People by Letting Their Heads Roll

In 2019, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia kills 180 people in execution for various crimes by literally letting heads roll.

In a new report by Amnesty International, reveals quite a number of executions in Saudi Arabia. For 2019, many were sentenced to die by beheading based on charges of terrorism, the date was April 23 when the most numbers of beheading were reported.

The laws of Saudi Arabia do sharply differ with western law, one example is beheading as a death sentence by no other means. For westerners, the idea of death sentence is quite different from what capital offense is.

In one instance, the public beheading of 36 people by western standards is too cruel, even if they were labeled as terrorists. Normally there would be a chance for the accused to stand a chance but the law in KSA is strict when it comes to certain offenses.

It is worthy to note that China and Iran did execute more people than in the KSA with only 20 countries that are responsible for other instances of capital punishment..

Despite the indignation over aspects on how the KSA convicts felons and sentences them, they only followed close to China and Iran in how many were executed, despite appearances.

How many were executed by the KSA authorities

Many of the executions carried out by the Saudis where dependent on what kind of offense, the individuals were charged with. Record show that many were given the death sentence for drug offenses, many of the sentence persons were foreign nationals who broke the law of KSA. They were killed by getting their heads lopped off.

The total number of people who were executed via beheading is 184. All these executions have been happening for a long time. Although, there are instances that some were given amnesty, which is a rare occurrence.

Who gets the death sentence?

Meting out of the death sentence can be for several reasons like non-violent offences that may seem strange to western observers. Some of these offences seem old world but they are still considered like apostasy, sorcery, and adultery. Facts were noted by the U.S. State Department in 2019 as an assessment of Saudi Arabia's human right record. By contrast, these are the rare cases that involve politically active religious minorities.

A number of the 88 Saudi citizens that were sentenced to death last year were part of the repressed Shia Muslim minority. With a closer look at the statistics, from the 37 people whose life ended by execution on April 23, only 5 were Shiites.

Identities of the executed

One of those who were executed was a minor, Abdulkareem al-Hawaj, under the age of 18 when he protested against the government. The royal family is an ultra-conservative form of Sunni Islam and disallows access to lawyers. Confessions can convict these sentenced individuals, which was the thought of human rights organizations.

Another person who was sentenced to die was Hussein al-Mossalem. When examined, he had several broken bones and a fractured leg while in solitary, said Amnesty.

"The death penalty is an abhorrent and inhuman punishment," said Clare Agar, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, and policy.

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