Saudi Arabia Sets New Record in Executions by Beheading in 2014

On Wednesday, January 1, Saudi Arabia executed a Pakistani national by beheading for trafficking 'large amounts' of heroin. According to the Associated Press, the country carried out 83 executions by beheading in 2014, setting a new record for this method of execution over the past five years. The report states that most of those beheaded in Saudi Arabia were accused of drug-related crimes. Amnesty International claims that Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with the highest execution rates in the world. According to this international organization, Saudi Arabia executed 79 people in 2012 and 2013, and 82 in 2010 and 2011. The country also had 69 executions in 2009. Amnesty International has not published a report on China, which has the highest number of executions in the world, but aside from this country, the highest execution rates in 2014 were related to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The report adds that the number of executions in China is a confidential matter that is not disclosed, but it is expected that thousands of Chinese were executed in 2014. Saudi Arabia enforces Islamic laws, including the death penalty for crimes such as rape, apostasy, witchcraft, murder, and drug trafficking. The country has faced criticism for executing individuals for these types of crimes for years. The report does not provide statistics on the number of executions in Iran, but monitoring organizations, including Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, state that the trend of issuing death sentences in Iran has been increasing over the past decade, rising from 99 cases in 2004 to 687 cases last year.