Executions quadrupled last year in Saudi Arabia, where the majority of those put to death were poor, foreign workers, Amnesty International said.
More than half the 1,839 people executed in Saudi Arabia in the past 23 years were foreigners from developing nations such as Somalia and Sudan, the London-based human rights group said in a report today. Those condemned usually lack family support or ties to influential Saudis who have arranged for many citizens of the kingdom to be spared, Amnesty said. Their countries are unlikely to intervene and ask for pardons, the organization added.
``The implication is that Saudi Arabian authorities effectively discriminate on national or ethnic grounds when carrying out executions,'' according to the 54-page report titled Affront to Justice: The Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia.
As a result, Saudi Arabia is one of the world's most prolific users of the death penalty, Amnesty said. At least 158 people were executed in the kingdom last year, up from 39 the year before, the group said. Saudi Arabia doesn't release official statistics and the Interior Ministry declined to comment on the report.
The examples include Sabri Bogday, a Turkish man, married with one child, who was sentenced to death on March 31. He was convicted of apostasy following trial proceedings of which very little is known, Amnesty said. A 39-year-old Indian woman living in Had City, whose name was undisclosed, was arrested in 2005 on adultery charges and sentenced to death by stoning.
The death penalty is invoked for apostasy, or the abandonment of religious faith, adultery, rebellion and highway robbery, a term referring to violent criminal acts against people or property.
Secretive System
The ``sharp rise'' in executions can't be fully explained because Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system is so secretive, Amnesty said. The number of executions began to increase following the kingdom's extension of the death penalty in 1987 to cover drug offenses, it said.
In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly called on states to restrict the use of the death penalty to the ``most serious crimes,'' with the aim of abolishing it. The punishment remains legal in 68 countries, though not all of them use it. The U.S., Libya, China, and Japan are among nations that carried out executions in the past two years.
Saudi authorities introduced changes in 2000 to improve criminal-court procedures and the role of lawyers. The government also set up two groups to promote and protect human rights and has begun to cooperate with the UN's human rights mechanisms, Amnesty said.
Youths, Women
Still, Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries to execute people for crimes committed when they were under 18. It is also one of the few states in the world with a high rate of executions for women, the group said.
Trials are often held in secret, and foreigners wouldn't understand proceedings because they're routinely denied access to a lawyer, according to the report. Confessions are usually extracted through torture, ranging from electric shocks to nail- pulling and beatings, it said.
Saudi authorities, who say the death penalty is justified under Islamic Sharia law, argue that execution is a deterrent to crime and mention the country's low rate of reported crime. They haven't produced statistics to support this claim, Amnesty said.
The organization said it was concerned at the prospect of a further increase in executions after the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on Oct. 1. Saudi authorities had suspended executions during Ramadan. A total of 71 people were executed in Saudi Arabia this year before Ramadan, Amnesty said.
A Filipino was one of two people beheaded in the kingdom today, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the Interior Ministry. He was accused of strangling a Saudi after an argument, AFP said.
