Saudi authorities executed 356 folks in 2025, based on an AFP tally, setting a brand new report for the variety of inmates put to demise within the kingdom in a single yr.
Analysts have largely attributed the surge in executions to Riyadh’s ongoing ‘battle on medication’ launched lately – with lots of these first arrested solely now being executed, following authorized proceedings and convictions.
Official information launched by the federal government mentioned 243 folks have been executed in drug-related instances in 2025 alone, based on AFP’s tally.
The figures from 2025 mark the second consecutive yr Saudi Arabia has set a brand new report for executions, after authorities executed 338 folks in 2024.
Saudi Arabia resumed executions for drug offences on the finish of 2022, after suspending using the demise penalty in narcotics instances for round three years.
The Arab world’s largest economic system can also be one of many largest markets for captagon, a bootleg stimulant that was Syria’s largest export below deposed chief Bashar al-Assad – based on the United Nations.
Assad was ousted from energy in December 2024.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends a gathering in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia executed the third highest variety of prisoners on the planet in 2023 after China and Iran , based on Amnesty Worldwide (a person kneels moments earlier than being beheaded in Saudi Arabia)
Since launching its battle on medication, the nation has elevated police checkpoints on highways and at border crossings, the place tens of millions of tablets have been confiscated and dozens of traffickers arrested.
Foreigners are largely bearing the brunt of the marketing campaign to this point.
The Gulf kingdom has confronted sustained criticism over its use of the demise penalty, which rights teams have condemned as extreme and in marked distinction to the nation’s efforts to current a contemporary picture to the world.
Activists say Riyadh’s continued embrace of capital punishment undermines the picture of a extra open, tolerant society that’s central to de facto chief Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Imaginative and prescient 2030 reform agenda.
Saudi Arabia is spending massive on vacationer infrastructure and prime sports activities occasions such because the 2034 soccer World Cup because it tries to diversify its oil-reliant economic system.
Authorities within the kingdom, nevertheless, argue the demise penalty is critical to take care of public order and is just used in spite of everything avenues for attraction have been exhausted.
Amnesty Worldwide started documenting executions in Saudi Arabia in 1990.
Figures courting from earlier than then are largely unclear.
