RIYADH
\nSaudi Arabia executed 81 men including seven Yemenis and one Syrian on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in the kingdom\u2019s biggest mass execution in decades.
\nThe number dwarfed the 67 executions reported there in all of 2021 and the 27 in 2020.
\nOffences ranged from joining militant groups to holding \u201cdeviant beliefs\u201d, the ministry said in a statement.
\n\u201cThese individuals, totalling 81, were convicted of various crimes including murdering innocent men, women and children,\u201d the statement read.
\n\u201cCrimes committed by these individuals also include pledging allegiance to foreign terrorist organisations, such as Daesh, al-Qaeda and the Houthis,\u201d it added.
\nThe ministry did not say how the executions were carried out.
\nThe men included 37 Saudi nationals who were found guilty in a single case for attempting to assassinate security officers and targeting police stations and convoys, the statement added.
\nThe mass execution is likely to bring back attention to Saudi Arabia\u2019s human rights record at a time when world powers have been focused on Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.
\nRights groups have accused Saudi Arabia of enforcing restrictive laws on political and religious expression and criticised it for using the death penalty, including for defendants arrested when they were minors. read more
\n\u201cThere are prisoners of conscience on Saudi death row, and others arrested as children or charged with non-violent crimes,\u201d Soraya Bauwens, deputy director of anti-death penalty charity Reprieve, said in a statement.
\n\u201cWe fear for every one of them following this brutal display of impunity,\u201d she added.
\nSaudi Arabia denies accusations of human rights abuses and says it protects its national security through its laws.
\nThe state SPA news agency said the accused were provided with the right to an attorney and were guaranteed their full rights under Saudi law during the judicial process.
\nThe kingdom executed 63 people in one day in 1980, a year after militants seized the Grand Mosque in Makkah, according to state media reports.
\nA total of 47 people, including prominent Shi\u2019ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, were executed in one day in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RIYADH Saudi Arabia executed 81 men including seven Yemenis and one Syrian on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in the kingdom\u2019s biggest mass execution in decades. The number dwarfed the 67 executions reported there in all of 2021 and the 27 in 2020. Offences ranged from joining militant groups to holding \u201cdeviant beliefs\u201d, the ministry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-249396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n