Saudi Arabia beheads 92nd person in 2016
Saudi Arabia has beheaded one of its citizens sentenced to death for murder, bringing to 92 the number of such executions since the start of year.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement that the man, identified as Mohsen al-Dosari, was beheaded on Tuesday. He had been found guilty of stabbing to death another Saudi man following a dispute.
The latest beheading brings to 92 the number of the people executed across the kingdom so far in 2016.
In the most stunning case, Saudi Arabia executed on January 2 Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr along 46 other people in defiance of international calls for the release of the prominent Shia cleric and other jailed political dissidents in the kingdom.
According to an AFP count, Saudi Arabia carried out 153 executions, including 71 foreign nationals, in 2015. This number of executions in terms of annual basis in Saudi Arabia has been unseen since 1995.
In January 2015, Saudi Arabia publicly beheaded Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim, a Muslim woman from Myanmar, by sword in the holy city of Mecca.
A secretly-filmed footage of the execution showed Basim being dragged into a street and held down by four police officers.
“I did not kill, I did not kill,” she was heard shouting repeatedly.
Basim then screamed as a sword-wielding man struck her neck. Second and third blows completed the beheading and authorities swiftly removed her body from the road.
Saudi officials execute convicts by sword and then dangle their corpses from a helicopter for the public to see.
Saudi authorities say the executions reveal the kingdom’s commitment to “maintaining security and realizing justice.”
Riyadh has been under fire for having one of the world’s highest execution rates. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Saudi regime to abolish its "ghastly" beheadings.
Muslim clerics have also denounced Riyadh for executing suspects without giving them a chance to defend themselves.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi rule.
In summer 2015, Saudi Arabia, with an appalling human rights record, was appointed to head an important panel at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The panel is assigned with conducting interviews and short-list experts who would then be nominated to examine specific human rights challenges.
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