Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia

Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is a legal punishment, with most executions in the country being carried out by decapitation (beheading) – Saudi Arabia being the only country in the world to still use the method.^[1] In 2022, recorded executions in Saudi Arabia reached 196, the highest number recorded in the country for any year over the last three decades.^[2]

Death sentences are almost exclusively based on the system of judicial sentencing discretion (tazir), following the classical principle of avoiding Sharia-prescribed (hudud) penalties when possible.^[3] In recent decades, the government and the courts have increasingly issued these sentences, reacting to a rise in violent crime during the 1970s. This paralleled similar developments in the U.S. and Mainland China in the late 20th century.^[3] The performing of executions by decapitation (beheading), in public, led to a central square in the Kingdom's capital, Riyadh, being known in the West as "Chop-Chop Square".

The kingdom executed at least 158 people in 2015,^[4] at least 154 in 2016,^[5] at least 146 in 2017,^[6] 149 in 2018,^[7] 184 in 2019,^[8] 69 in 2020, and 196 in 2022.^[9] The drastic reduction in 2020 was due to a moratorium on death penalties for drug-related offenses^[10] as Saudi Arabia proposed ending the death penalty for these and other nonviolent offences.^[11][12] Additionally, on 26 April 2020, a royal decree ended the execution of people who were juveniles when they committed their crime.^[13][14] (Saudi Arabia had previously executed these people despite having signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child.)^[15] Nonetheless, there were 67 executions in 2021, more than doubling the previous year's, according to the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights. In January 2022, at least 43 detainees, including 12 minors, were threatened with execution.^[16] On March 12, 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people, seven of whom were Yemenis and one of whom was a Syrian,^[17] in the largest known mass execution in the history of the country.^[18]