Saudi Arabia Records the Highest Execution Rate in Its History in 2025
In 2025, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recorded the highest execution rate in its history, with authorities carrying out 356 executions, including 45 executions of a political nature, most notably the execution of journalist Turki Al-Jasser.
In September 2025, a United Nations expert panel condemned the execution of minor Jalal Labad, whose sentence was carried out on 21 August, criticizing the authorities for failing to notify his family of the execution date and stressing that the charges against him dated back to a period when he was a minor. The UN experts also called for the annulment of the death sentence against minor Abdullah Al-Darazi; however, Saudi authorities ignored these calls and executed him in October, making him the second minor executed in 2025.
In a related context, Human Rights Watch revealed the execution of political analyst Abdullah Al-Shammari in February 2024, after his identity had remained unknown for some time before it later became clear that he was the person executed. He was accused of “treason,” a vague charge that Saudi authorities have repeatedly used to punish dissidents and critics.
The year 2025 marked an extremely dangerous development with the execution of the first journalist in the country’s history. In June, Saudi authorities carried out the death sentence against Turki Al-Jasser after more than seven years of arbitrary detention, during which he was subjected to torture and an unfair trial based on fabricated charges linked to his legitimate exercise of freedom of expression and his use of a critical account on X (formerly Twitter).
During the same year, more than 290 executions were carried out under discretionary (taʿzir) rulings, indicating that the vast majority of death sentences were based on judicial discretion rather than clear legal standards or fair trial guarantees, amid the continued politicization of “terrorism” charges and their use to impose death sentences in politically motivated cases.
Amid this grave escalation, several prominent detainees remain at imminent risk of execution, including Dr. Salman Al-Awda, Dr. Awad Al-Qarni, Dr. Ali Al-Omari, and Dr. Hassan Farhan Al-Maliki. Prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty against them, while some have been held in solitary confinement since their arrest and deprived of their basic rights and fair trial guarantees.
