Saudi Arabia executed over 180 people in 2019, surpassing the record it made for executions, based on Amnesty International's latest global assessment of the highly-debated death penalty.
The report by the international human rights group, which disclosed an overall global drop in executions, was made public this week.
Amnesty stated that authorities in the Kingdom executed 184 people last year for crimes that ranged from drug-related crimes to murder, a rise from 149 from the previous year.
Saudi Arabia has placed six women and 178 men under the death penalty in 2019, Amnesty said, with over 50 percent of the people executed coming from foreign countries.
The London-headquartered human rights group Reprieve bared this month that the Kingdom had conducted its 800th execution since Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz assumed power in 2015, and that the number of executions has doubled under his reign.
Amnesty disclosed that it had recorded 789 executions under the king as of last week. The Ministry of Interior of Saudi Arabia did not reply to a request for comment on the nation's death penalty data.
According to Amnesty Internationals senior director for research, Clare Algar, the death penalty is an "abhorrent and inhuman punishment, and that there's no credible proof that it deters crime more than jail terms." A huge majority of nations, Algar explained, recognize this and "it is encouraging to see that executions continue to drop globally."
In Iraq, the number of people executed was up from 52 in 2018 to at around 100 last year, Amnesty said, where most were alleged to being part of the dreaded group, ISIS.
In Iran, at least 251 people were placed on death penalty in 2019, Amnesty reported, but that is actually a modest drop compared from the previous year.
In South Sudan, authorities have reportedly executed around 11 people in 2019, the biggest figure recorded since the nation declared independence in 2011.
Bangladesh and Barrain also resumed their executions after a one year time out. In Yemen, authorities have executed around seven people last year, compared to around four from the year before.
Globally, the total number of executions were down for the fourth consecutive year, easing from 690 to 657. This is the lowest recorded figure in the past 10 years, Amnesty added.
Saudi Arabia's justice system is hazy and the figures of those who have been put on death penalty over the years differs slightly, as do the records of human rights organizations as to which year had the biggest number of executions before 2019. Amnesty said it began releasing yearly reports on executions in 2008.
