The 2 Egyptian inmates ate a routine final meal in a jail in northern Saudi Arabia, unaware they’d be sentenced to dying for drug offences the next morning.
His sudden killing this month prolonged a current wave of drug-related executions in Saudi Arabia, after authorities ended a moratorium on the dying penalty for such crimes lower than two years in the past.
The circumstances have sparked outrage amongst rights teams and unfold concern at Tabuk jail close to the Jordanian border, the place inmates stated greater than 50 defendants have been sentenced to dying for drug trafficking and concern their executions might come at any time.
“We don’t know who might be focused. Perhaps it is going to be me or my finest pal,” explains Mohammed, a 40-year-old Egyptian who ran a lodge in Riyadh earlier than being arrested in 2015 for receiving a cargo of furnishings that turned out to be full of medication. “We’re not given advance discover to say goodbye to our family members and even to arrange ourselves psychologically,” Mohammed explains by tears on the telephone from the Tabuk detention centre.
Since Could, Saudi Arabia has executed 28 folks on drug-related expenses, in accordance with a tally based mostly on official statements, in contrast with simply two in all of 2023.
Authorities think about executions to be appropriate with the Sharia legislation—the Islamic authorized code based mostly on the teachings of the Koran—and essential to “preserve public order.”
