Pat Dollard

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HUMAN rights watchdog Amnesty International says executions are surging in Saudi Arabia and that the principal victims are poor migrant labourers and Saudis without connections.

The Saudi government “continues to execute people at an average of more than two a week,” the London-based watchdog said in a report.

Almost half of them are migrant labourers from poor and developing countries, it said.

“We had hoped that the much-heralded human rights initiatives introduced by the Saudi Arabian authorities in recent years would bring an end to, or at least a significant reduction in, the use of the death penalty,” said Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director Malcolm Smart.

“In fact, we have witnessed a sharp rise in executions of prisoners sentenced in largely secret and unfair trials, making the need for a moratorium more urgent than ever,” he said.

“The death penalty is carried out disproportionately and discriminately on national or ethnic grounds against poor foreign workers and Saudi Arabian nationals who lack the family or other connections that, fortunately, help others to be saved from execution,” Smart said.

Amnesty said it had failed to secure access to Saudi Arabia to pursue its findings further.
It said there was a sharp increase in executions in 2007, with at least 158 people put to death.
Amnesty recorded 71 executions to the end of August this year.

According to an AFP toll compiled on the basis of statements issued by the interior ministry, 75 executions had been carried out in Saudi Arabia as of October 13.

The statements show that last year a record 153 people were executed in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom, which applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty.

Amnesty said that defendants, particularly poor migrant workers from developing countries in Africa and Asia, often have no defence lawyer and are unable to follow the court proceedings which are in Arabic.

“The process by which the death penalty is imposed and carried out is harsh, largely secretive and grossly unfair,” Smart said.

Judges have “wide discretion and can hand down death sentences for vaguely worded and non-violent offences.”

Execution is usually by beheading, generally in public. “In some cases, crucifixion follows execution,” Amnesty said.

The watchdog said Saudi Arabia has a high rate of executions for women and is one of the few remaining countries to execute people for crimes they committed as minors, which it said was a breach of international law.

Smart called on Saudi Arabia to ban the death penalty for children, ensure fair trials and curtail judges’ powers in applying capital punishment.

(AFP)