Saudi Arabia has banned flogging as a form of punishment, the State Human Rights Commission on Saturday announced, hailing a "major move forward" in the King and his influential son's reform plan, days after the death of a human rights activist in government custody.
The Kingdom's court-ordered floggings - often stretching to hundreds of lashes - have long sparked censure from human rights organizations.
The decision by the Saudi General Commission for the Supreme Court, legislated sometime this month, will impose jail sentences or fines as a replacement of the punishment, or a combination of both.
Flogging is a punishment in which the victim is subjected to extreme physical pain by being hit repeatedly with a stick or whip. It has been used to punish different types of crimes in the country.
Without a systematized structure of policies to align with the texts that establish the Islamic Law or Sharia, individual judges have the flexibility to translate religious documents and carry out their own punishments.
Some say the legal reforms overseen by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have resulted in no let-up in the conservative Islamic kingdom's obliteration of dissent, including through the application of the death penalty.
The state human rights body stated that the latest revision, which was made public by Saudi press including the pro-government Okaz newspaper, would ensure that no more convicts were punished through flogging.
Other forms of corporal or capital punishment - including beheading for murder and amputations for crimes like theft - have not yet been outlawed.
While some sectors will view the new reform as a further attempt by the de facto ruler Crown Prince bin Salman to promote the Kingdom as modernizing, critics have already underscored that the country's human rights record remains one of the worst in the world.
The king has rolled out ambitious social and economic reforms, authorizing women to drive and for entertainment and sports events to be held in the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia's termination of corporal punishment comes only days after the country's human rights record was again brought to the spotlight following news of the death as a result of stroke of leading activist, 69-year old Abullah al-Hamid, while in state custody.
Hamid was meted to an 11-year prison sentence in March 2013, campaigners said. He was a founding member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association.
Saudi Arabian authorities have registered a record 184 people to death in 2019, data provided by Amnesty International showed, on Tuesday.
