- Apr 24, 2019
- 2 min read

UN human rights council member Saudi Arabia beheads 37 people.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded 37 people in a mass execution across the country for alleged terrorism-related crimes. Saudi officials and executioners even went one step further and publicly pinned the executed body and severed head to a pole as a warning to others. Amnesty International also confirmed these people were convicted “after sham trials” that relied on confessions extracted through torture. Amnesty International said 11 of the men were convicted of spying for Iran and sentenced to death after a “grossly unfair trial.” At least 14 others executed were convicted of violent offences related to their participation in anti-government demonstrations between 2011 and 2012. Among those put to death was a young man convicted of a crime that took place when he was 16 years-old, said Amnesty. “Today’s mass execution is a chilling demonstration of the Saudi Arabian authorities callous disregard for human life. It is also yet another gruesome indication of how the death penalty is being used as a political tool to crush dissent from within the country’s Shi’a minority,” said Lynn Maalouf Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International.

A public execution in Saudi Arabia.

This marked the largest number of executions in a single day in Saudi Arabia since Jan. 2, 2016, when the kingdom executed 47 people for terrorism-related crimes in what was the largest mass execution carried out by Saudi authorities since 1980. It brings the number of people executed since the start of the year to around 100, according to official announcements. Last year, the kingdom executed 149 people, most of them drug smugglers convicted of non-violent crimes, according to Amnesty’s most recent figures. Not a word of condemnation to this barbaric act was uttered by the leaders of the west and by the international community. This is not surprising seeing how the liberal western democratic countries such as Canada, France, Germany the UK and of course the US are all in bed with the Saudi king and the crown prince, selling them expensive western arms in tens of billions of dollars a year which are then used to blow up Yemeni kids school buses and for other war crimes agaiinst civilian populations and human rights violations. Of course the UN or its human rights council won't say a word concerning Saudi Arabia's gross violations of human rights, because Saudi Arabia is on the UN's human rights and Women's rights councils.