Saudi Arabia Carries Out Mass Execution of Five Political Detainees, Bringing Political Executions to 15 in 2026
On Saturday, 17 October 2026, Saudi authorities executed five political detainees in the Eastern Province, including Hassan Zaki Al-Faraj, who was sentenced to death over charges relating to acts allegedly committed when he was a minor. The others were Mohammed Munir Al-Zaher, Ali bin Abd Rab Al-Hussein Al-Sheikh, Redha Mohammed Al-Abu Abdullah, and Ali Hassan Al-Rabah.
The executions followed years of detention and trials marred by allegations of torture, coerced confessions, and a lack of fair-trial guarantees.
SANAD Human Rights Organization stresses that the Saudi government continues to fabricate charges and misuse counterterrorism laws to criminalize dissidents and protesters, turning political cases into security-related prosecutions used to justify death sentences, amid a lack of transparency regarding the evidence and circumstances underlying these rulings.
More concerning is that all five executions were carried out as ta’zir (discretionary) punishments, meaning they were based on judicial discretion and judges’ interpretations rather than qisas (retribution) or fixed punishments under Islamic law. This raises serious concerns about the misuse of judicial discretion to impose death sentences on political detainees based on accusations lacking adequate evidentiary standards and fair-trial guarantees.
Saudi authorities also disregarded an opinion issued by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which determined that Hassan Al-Faraj’s detention was arbitrary and called for his release and compensation.
With these executions, the number of politically motivated executions documented by SANAD Human Rights Organization has risen to 15 since the beginning of 2026. This represents a serious escalation and reflects the continued use of capital punishment by Saudi authorities as a means of political repression, despite repeated criticism and warnings from human rights organizations.
SANAD Human Rights Organization renews its call on Saudi authorities to immediately and completely halt all politically motivated executions and end the use of the death penalty as a tool of repression and elimination of political detainees.
SANAD also calls on the international community to intensify pressure on Saudi authorities and take serious, effective action to stop the ongoing executions, safeguard the right to life, and end continuing human rights violations.
