Saudi Arabia Executes Three in a Single Day, Pushing Political Executions in 2025 Beyond 40 Cases

On Tuesday, 23 December 2025, Saudi authorities carried out the execution of three citizens in the Eastern Province: Hussein bin Haidar bin Alawi Al-Qallaf, Mohammed bin Ahmed bin Saud Al-Hamad, and Hassan bin Saleh bin Mahdi Saleem.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Interior, the three were executed under taʿzīr (discretionary punishment) on charges described as terrorism-related, including the killing of a security officer and injuring another. However, the ruling was a discretionary execution rather than qisas (retributive justice)—a distinction that raises serious questions about the nature of the evidence and the integrity of judicial procedures, especially since, under Islamic legal principles, proven murder cases are ordinarily subject to qisas, not taʿzīr.

SANAD Human Rights Organization stresses that the Saudi judicial system has frequently issued death sentences in politically charged cases or cases based on coerced confessions extracted under torture, amid a lack of transparency and the absence of fair trial guarantees. Saudi Arabia also has a well-documented record of using “terrorism” charges to eliminate critics and opponents, including cases documented by SANAD involving executions linked to peaceful expression—among them the execution of journalist Turki Al-Jasser in June over tweets attributed to an anonymous account.

This same-day mass execution comes amid an unprecedented escalation in executions throughout 2025, with more than 40 politically motivated executions recorded so far, including the execution of a journalist, according to SANAD’s monitoring—reflecting the continuation of a repressive approach and an intensification of lethal punitive policies.

SANAD Human Rights Organization strongly condemns the implementation of discretionary death sentences against the three citizens and affirms that these rulings constitute a blatant violation of justice and human rights, particularly in the absence of fair and public trials. SANAD holds Saudi authorities fully responsible for the ongoing policy of political executions and the dangerous misuse of counterterrorism laws to silence dissent. The organization calls on the United Nations, international organizations, and the international community to take urgent action and exert pressure on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to halt these practices and to guarantee the right to life and fair trial for all detainees in Saudi Arabia.