Saudi Arabia executed the highest number of prisoners in recent years in 2019, a year that saw the kingdom come under intense scrutiny over its human rights record, a new report says.
In total, 184 people were executed last year, including 90 foreign nationals, according to a report by the legal charity Reprieve. Of those executed, 82 had been executed for smuggling narcotics and 57 for committing murder, according to Reprieve’s execution tracker.
There has been a rise in executions since 2015, when the charity began keeping records of the executions, which are officially announced by the Saudi government. By comparison, 88 people were executed in 2014, with that number nearly doubling to 157 executions a year later. That number remained steady until last year, when 184 people were executed, 35 more people than in 2018.
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