Human rights groups have sharply condemned Saudi Arabia in the days since it executed 47 prisoners, including the reported beheading of an influential Shiite cleric.
Such brutal executions, which in Saudi Arabia can include beheading, firing squad and even crucifixion, often follow dubious trials and arbitrary charges, according to Geoffrey Mock, the Middle East country specialist for Amnesty International USA.
"The Saudi judicial system simply fails to meet international standards," Mock said, citing unfair trials, confessions extracted under torture, arbitrariness, and restricted access to defense attorneys.
"They’re defining opposition to the government as terrorist activity. While the Saudis are saying they’re doing [executions] to protect the nation, it’s clear that at least the sheikh was not guilty,” Mock said, “The death penalty in the name of counter-terrorism is bing used to squash political opposition in Muslim civil society.”
Saudi Arabia generally ranks third in the world for the most executions, following China and Iran. Last year, it executed at least 151 people -- a figure Mock said was the kingdom's largest in recent years -- mostly for non-violent drug offenses.
Saudi Arabia imposes capital punishment on juveniles, and inflicts the penalty disproportionately on the poor, migrants and foreigners, according to Amnesty International. Death penalty crimes include blasphemy, drug use and sorcery.
The execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr has been the catalyst for a diplomatic breakdown between Saudi Arabia and Iran, where Shiites like Nimr are the Muslim majority. Mock called the source of conflict between the two countries a "great irony."
"They're two of the world leaders of the death penalty and executions," Mock said.
Saturday's mass execution was Saudi Arabia's largest since the 1980s, punctuating decades of high-profile deaths.
2016: 47 Prisoners Executed, Including Anti-Government Cleric
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Shiekh Nimr was executed Jan. 2, less than two years after he was convicted in a closed trial on vague charges that included being disloyal to the ruling family. The Shiite cleric was critical of the Saudi government for its marginalization of the minority Shiite population.
2015: Burmese Woman Beheaded In Mecca
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Muslim pilgrims pray at the Masjid al-Nabawi (The Prophet's Mosque), where the tomb of Prophet Mohammad is located, in Medina, Saudi Arabia on September 28, 2015.
Burma native Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim was publicly beheaded in the holy city of Mecca for sexually abusing and murdering her young step-daughter.
Basim was reportedly dragged through the street screaming and held down by four police officers. In a video of the execution, since removed from YouTube, Basim is heard yelling, "I did not kill! I did not kill!" She was reportedly not sedated, as is common practice, and was struck with three blows before she was beheaded.
2011: Migrant Maid Beheaded
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Indonesian workers shout slogans during a protest against the alleged abuse of Sumiati, an Indonesian worker in Saudi Arabia, outside the Parliament, Jakarta, Indonesia on Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2010. Sumiati arrived in Saudi Arabia a high-spirited 23-year-old, eager to start work as a maid to help support her family back home. Four months later, Sumiati was Indonesia's poster child for migrant abuse, alone and staring vacantly from a hospital bed, her face sliced and battered.
Ruyati binti Satubi, an Indonesian maid, was beheaded in June 2011 after she confessed to fatally stabbing her employer. Family said the 54-year-old grandmother was repeatedly abused by her boss, while human rights groups argued that her own government had failed to provide a legal defense to spare her the death penalty. Indonesia enacted a national ban on domestic workers working in Saudi Arabia in response.
2012: Lebanese TV Host Executed For 'Sorcery'
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Setting up a mock gallows with a dummy on a rope, about 25 Lebanese human rights activists protest outside the Saudi embassy in Beirut on April 1, 2010 against capital punishment as Lebanon's envoy to Riyadh said he has yet to be informed of a Saudi decision to behead a Lebanese former TV presenter convicted of sorcery, which was expected to be carried out this week. Ali Sabat, a 46-year-old father of five, was arrested in May 2008 by the religious police in Medina, where he was on a pilgrimage. According to Amnesty International, he was sentenced to death by a Medina court in 2009 for practising 'sorcery' because he 'gave advice and predictions about the future' on a Lebanese television programme. Arabic writing on placard (R) reads: 'Don't Kill.
The former host of a popular Lebanese call-in show was put to death in 2010 for sorcery, one of the many executions carried out each year on charges of witchcraft.
Ali Hussain Sibat performed as a kind of psychic on his show by predicting the future and giving his audience advice, according to CNN. Sibat was lured into an undercover sting operation and arrested by Saudi religious police during a visit to the kingdom on a religious pilgrimage.
2008: Syrians Beheaded For Drug Smuggling
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In this Monday, April 21, 2008 file photo, a Syrian boy holds up a photo of a beheading, at a rally in downtown Damascus, Syria to protest Saudi Arabia?'s beheading of two Syrians after being charged with drug trafficking. Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in the country in two decades, according to several advocacy groups that monitor the death penalty worldwide.
Firas Faisal al-Aghbar and Firas Hussein Maktabi, both Syrian men, were beheaded in 2008 for smuggling hallucinogenic drugs into the ultra-conservative country. Though the execution and circumstances are not in themselves exceptional in Saudi Arabia, they represented a trend of executing people, particularly foreigners, for non-violent drug offenses.
Last year, 43 percent of those executed had been convicted of smuggling drugs, ranging from heroin to marijuana, according to an analysis by British news site, Middle East Eye. Three-quarters of the drug offenders who were executed were non-nationals.
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Saudi Women's Struggle For Equal Rights
Saudi Women's Struggle For Equal Rights
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King Abdullah grants women right to vote and run in the 2015 municipal elections. The decision is hailed as a breakthrough, but the local councils are toothless and operate in the shadow of provincial governments led by powerful members of the ruling Al Saud family.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia delivers a speech to the Saudi Shura Council, or advisory assembly, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP Photo)
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King Abdullah grants women right to vote and run in the 2015 municipal elections. The decision is hailed as a breakthrough, but the local councils are toothless and operate in the shadow of provincial governments led by powerful members of the ruling Al Saud family.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia delivers a speech to the Saudi Shura Council, or advisory assembly, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP Photo)
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The king appoints 30 women to the top advisory body, the Shura Council. The body cannot legislate and its male-dominated chamber has so far not taken up a request by three female members to discuss the issue of allowing women to drive.
In this March 29, 2010 file photo, Saudi women visit the Saudi Travel and Tourism Investment Market (STTIM) fair in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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In a first, Saudi Arabia sends two female athletes to the 2013 Olympics in London. But they were criticized by conservatives for performing sports in front of a mixed gender audience. Aspiring female athletes in the kingdom struggle to find access to training facilities.
In this Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012 file photo, Saudi Arabia's Sarah Attar waves before competing in a women's 800-meter heat during the athletics in the Olympic Stadium at the 2012 Summer Olympics, London. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
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The government rolls out a law penalizing domestic abuse, including neglect. A state-backed advertisement shows a woman in a traditional black face veil with a bruised eye peering through, encouraging society to speak out against abuse. The law does not address the guardianship system that grants male family members authority over their female relatives, and often the abuser is their guardian. Two Saudi women activists who helped a Canadian mother allegedly abused by her Saudi husband were sentenced to 10 months in jail for "inciting a woman against her husband."
An advertisement released August 2013 by King Khalid Foundation represents Saudi Arabia's first campaign against domestic violence.
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A law on the books since 2006 is finally implemented, allowing women to work as sales' clerks in female apparel and lingerie stores. Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric, Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, spoke out against the Labor Ministry's decision in a sermon just before the law was applied, saying it contradicts Islamic law. The kingdom's religious establishment follows a strict interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism.
Fully-veiled Saudi women shop at a lingerie store in the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah on January 2, 2012. From this week, only female staff will be able to sell women's lingerie in Saudi Arabia (AMER HILABI/AFP/Getty Images)
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The Labor Ministry allows women to work in certain sectors without first obtaining their guardian's approval. Still, the decrees mandate that female workers not interact with men, reinforcing strict gender segregation, according to Human Rights Watch. Some private sector workplaces remain exempt from these decrees.
Saudi female journalists attend a men's Asian Handball Championship match between Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Jeddah on January 31, 2012. Female journalists were recently allowed to cover sporting events despite strict segregation of the sexes outside the home that is enforced by the kingdom's powerful religious police which means that women are effectively barred from many jobs and social activities. (AMER HILABI/AFP/Getty Images)
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Women are given licenses to practice law. The four women with permits will face conservative male judges who have wide discretion to remove a lawyer from a case before them.
Two women walk on campus at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) on October 13, 2009, in Thuwal, 80 kilometers north of Jeddah. (Omar Salem/AFP/Getty Images)
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Private schools are officially allowed to hold sports activities for girls, and physical education is required as part of the curriculum. Sports centers around the country are almost entirely for men only, female gyms are costly and public schools have yet to implement physical education for girls.
Members of a Saudi female soccer team practice at a secret location in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabias official press agency says the Education Ministry has allowed private female schools to hold sports activities within the Islamic Sharia laws. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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A ban on women riding bicycles and motorbikes is lifted. Females must be accompanied by a male guardian, usually a husband or son, and only ride in restricted areas.
A veiled Saudi women rides a motorbike in the tourist town of Aley, east of Beirut on July 23, 2008. (JOSEPH BARRAK/AFP/Getty Images)
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Official reports suggest women will be allowed to attend soccer matches in a new stadium in 2014. The women will be segregated from the men in sections for families.
A Saudi fully veiled woman waves a flag with the picture of Saudi King Abdullah prior the start of Saudi Arabia match against Kuwait in the 21st Gulf Cup in Manama, on January 12, 2013. (MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images)
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