Saudi Arabia units executions report in 2025, placing 356 individuals to demise
The figures from 2025 mark the second consecutive year Saudi Arabia has set a new record for executions, after authorities executed 338 people in 2024 amid a deadly crackdown on drugs
Saudi Arabia has surpassed its record for the number of executions for the second year in a row, sparking outrage from human rights groups.
Some 356 people have been put to death by authorities in the Kingdom, a new record for the number of inmates killed in a single year, up from 338 executions in 2024.
The UK-based campaign group Reprieve, which tracks executions in Saudi Arabia and has clients on death row, said 2025 was the “bloodiest year of executions in the kingdom since monitoring began”.
Some analysts have attributed the rise to Riyadh’s “war on drugs” after the government resumed executions for drug offences at the end of 2022. It had previously suspended the use of the death penalty in narcotics cases for around three years.
More than half of them were foreign nationals who appear to have been put to death as part of the Kingdom’s crackdown on drug use.
Official data released by the Saudi government said 243 people were executed in drug-related cases in 2025. Some of those arrested in previous years only now being executed after legal proceedings and convictions.
But according to Reprieve, around two thirds were convicted of non-lethal drug-related offences, which the UN says is “incompatible with international norms and standards”, the BBC reports.
Others put to death this year include a journalist and two young men who were children at the time of their alleged protest-related crimes. Five were women.
The Gulf kingdom is one of the biggest markets for fenethylline, an illicit stimulant widely known under the brand name Captagon, which was Syria’s largest export under its former leader Bashar al-Assad, according to the UN.
Activists say Riyadh’s continued use of capital punishment undermines the image of a more open, tolerant society Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to push as part of his Vision 2030 reform agenda.
Jeed Basyouni, Reprieve’s head of death penalty for the Middle East and North Africa, said torture and forced confessions were “endemic” within the Saudi criminal justice system.
She told the BBC: “Saudi Arabia is operating with complete impunity now. It’s almost making a mockery of the human rights system.”
Authorities in the kingdom argue the death penalty is necessary to maintain public order and is only used after all avenues for appeal have been exhausted.
Amnesty International began documenting executions in Saudi Arabia in 1990. Figures dating from before then are largely unclear.
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump was slammed by the widow of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi for saying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “knew nothing” about the killing.
Saudi Arabia is spending big on tourist infrastructure and top sports events such as the 2034 football World Cup as it tries to diversify its oil-reliant economy, slammed by critics as an attempt to “sportswash” its global image.
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