UN rapporteur concerned over ‘disturbing’ Saudi executions
The United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has expressed concern about a surge in the number of executions carried out by Saudi Arabia, denouncing the trend as "very disturbing."
"It is certainly very disturbing that there is such a fast pace of executions at the moment," Christof Heyns said in a telephone interview with AFP on Wednesday from South Africa.
If the rate of beheadings committed by Riyadh “continues at this pace,” the number of executions will double or become more than two times the figures recorded last year in the country.
The UN expert further described Saudi Arabia's use of the death penalty as “just so way out of line" with the decreasing trends in the number of executions reported worldwide, adding, "So this is going in the opposite direction. It's going against the stream."
The remarks came on the same day that the number of beheadings across the kingdom hit 89, compared to 87 recorded during all of 2014.
Saudi Arabia beheaded Fahd bin Hussein Daghriri, who was convicted of murder, in the southern region of Jizan on Wednesday, the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The country faces criticism from human rights groups for executions carried out for non-fatal crimes. The London-based rights group, Amnesty International, says Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates across the globe.
Muslim clerics have also slammed Riyadh for indicting and then executing suspects without giving them a chance to defend themselves.
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