Reuters
Saudi Arabia has planned to execute more than 50 people guilty of
terrorism, in a single day.
The
information about executions was recently released in Saudi media, which said
that up to 55‘Al-Qaeda
terrorists’ and‘criminals’ from the town of Awamiyya will be
executed in the next few days. However, it hasn’t been specified when and how
exactly the executions will take place. Awamiya, in Eastern Province where the
authorities suppressed protests in 2011, has a predominantly Shiite population.
According to sources, the executions may be carried out after Friday prayers.
One of the prisoners is accused
of attempting to buy nuclear material in Yemen worth $1.5 million for use
inside Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi
plan has been slammed by Amnesty, which said that executing dozens of people “in a single day would mark a dizzying descent to yet
another outrageous low for Saudi Arabia.”
“Saudi
Arabia’s macabre spike in executions this year, coupled with the secretive and
arbitrary nature of court decisions and executions in the kingdom, leave us no
option but to take these latest warning signs very seriously,” said James
Lynch, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty
International.
This year
has seen a sharp increase in the number of executions in the Kingdom. About 150
people have already been put to death. This is already a 26-percent increase on
2014.
The number
of executions in 2015 is catching up with the Kingdom’s all-time annual record
of 192, which was documented by Amnesty International in 1995. The watchdog has
been scathing of the Kingdom’s human rights record, saying they “fall far
short” of global norms.
thebreakingtimes.com
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