Public beheadings are taking place twice daily in Saudi Arabia. A total of 45 beheadings have been carried out in the desert kingdom this year, according to an AFP tally.
Human Rights Watch expressed alarm at the surge in the number of executions in Saudi Arabia, where some 19 people were beheaded between August 4 and 20 alone. HRW said eight of those executed had been convicted of non-violent offences such as drug trafficking and 'sorcery', and described the use of the death penalty in their cases as 'particularly egregious'.
As most death penalty constitutes beheading, executions are done in public. In some cases, severed head and bodies were left to decompose in public squares to warn others from committing crimes. People are beheaded because of petty crimes.
The death penalty in Saudi Arabia does not follow legal parameters to the extent that it is almost hard to believe, Amnesty International said. In 2013, they also beheaded three teenagers under the age of 18. Those who have mental disabilities are not excluded from death penalty.
"People are tortured into confessing to crimes, convicted in shameful trials without adequate legal support and then executed is a sickening indictment of Saudi Arabia's state-sanctioned brutality", a Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme, Boumedouha, said in a statement.
On August 18, two sets of brothers were beheaded after being beaten and deprived of sleep for them to confess their crimes. Their families were told not to contact any human rights organizations. Lawyers for the brothers told Amnesty International that authorities prefer to shut the families up, rather than stop its grotesque execution.
Even foreign nationals are not excused from the death penalty. In fact, 50 percent of the 2,000 people executed from 1985 to 2013 were foreign nationals.
Saudi Arabia's Justice Minister Mohammed Al Eissa, has defended tough Sharia punishments such as beheading, cutting off hands, and lashing, claiming they "cannot be changed" because they are enshrined in Islamic law. "These punishments are based on divine religious texts and we cannot change them," he said recently during a speech in Washington, USA.
The Australian Government has advised Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Saudi Arabia as the authorities detain and prosecute people at the mere suspicion of being a terrorist.
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