Saudi Arabia: Executions Rise

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/02/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-executions-rise.html

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Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in the kingdom in two decades, according to several advocacy groups that monitor the death penalty worldwide. Coinciding with the rise in executions is the number of people executed for nonlethal offenses that judges have wide discretion to rule on, particularly for drug-related crimes. The human rights group Amnesty International said in November that at least 63 people had been executed since the start of 2015 for drug-related offenses. That figure accounted for at least 40 percent of the executions in 2015, compared with less than four percent for drug-related executions in 2010. Amnesty said Saudi Arabia had exceeded its highest level of executions since 1995, when 192 were recorded.