In 2025, Saudi authorities executed at least 356 people, setting a new national record for the highest number of executions in a single year since monitoring began. This follows a similar surge in 2024, when 345 people were executed, marking two consecutive years of escalating capital punishment in the country. Human Rights Watch called on governments to pressure Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s authorities to halt all executions.
The surge in executions was largely driven by the application of the death penalty for nonlethal drug offenses, particularly affecting foreign nationals. Nongovernmental organizations Reprieve and the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) reported that 240 of those executed were convicted of nonlethal drug-related crimes, with 188 being foreign nationals. Among these, 98 people were executed solely for offenses involving hashish.
Executions also included individuals convicted for crimes allegedly committed as children. Abdullah al-Derazi, who was 17 at the time of the alleged offenses in 2012, and Jalal al-Labbad, who was 15 at the time of his alleged offenses, were both executed despite international prohibitions against executing minors. Both men reportedly endured torture while in detention. Several others accused of committing crimes as minors remain at imminent risk of execution.
Concerns were also raised over the execution of Turki al-Jasser, a journalist who exposed corruption within the Saudi royal family, highlighting the use of the death penalty to suppress dissent. International human rights law, including the Arab Charter on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, prohibits executing individuals for crimes committed as children and restricts the death penalty to the “most serious crimes” in exceptional circumstances.
Human Rights Watch condemned the ongoing use of capital punishment in Saudi Arabia as inherently cruel, irreversible, and prone to arbitrariness and error. The organization emphasized that international actors, including celebrities and corporations, should reconsider associations with Saudi Arabia in light of the country’s record-breaking execution numbers in 2025.
