International monitoring groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say weaknesses in the Saudi justice system make convictions unsafe and point to the frequent use of execution for non-violent offences.
Saudi Arabia executes four people in one day, death penalties soar
Saudi Arabia
announced it had carried out four executions in different cities on
Wednesday morning, bringing the total number of judicial killings to 130
so far in 2015, a sharp rise on recent years.
Three executions were of Saudi nationals convicted of murder. They were executed in Asir Province, the city of Taif and al-Baha Province respectively . A Syrian man was executed in the northern province of al-Jawf for drug smuggling.
Most executions in Saudi Arabia are done by public beheading.
Analysts
say it is not clear why the number of executions in Saudi Arabia has
increased so much from last year, when 88 people were put to death, or
2013, when it executed at least 64 according to Human Rights Watch.
Last year, Saudi Arabia executed more people than any country except China and Iran.
Some
diplomats in Riyadh have said that judicial reforms, including the
appointment of more judges, have allowed a backlog of appeals cases to
be heard, leading to a short-term rise in executions. Others have argued
that regional instability may have led Saudi judges to impose more
draconian sentences.
International monitoring groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch
say weaknesses in the Saudi justice system make convictions unsafe and
point to the frequent use of execution for non-violent offences.
The
conservative kingdom, which uses sharia law, or Islamic law, and whose
judiciary is composed of clerics, denies its trials are unfair.
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