Saudi execution surge ‘very disturbing’

DUBAI: A surge in executions by Saudi Arabia is “very disturbing” and bucks the global trend, a UN special rapporteur told AFP on Wednesday.
He spoke as the number of beheadings in the kingdom this year hit 89, compared with 87 during all of 2014. “It is certainly very disturbing that there is such a fast pace of executions at the moment,” Christof Heyns, whose mandate includes extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said in a telephone interview from South Africa.
“If it continues at this pace we will have double the number of executions, or more than double the number of executions, that we had last year.” Heyns, who submits annual reports to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly, said Riyadh’s use of the death penalty “is just so way out of line” with global trends where the number of executions and states which apply the death penalty is decreasing.