Saudi Arabia executes 5 Ethiopians over drug-related charges, rights group says

Five Ethiopians were executed in Saudi Arabia this week on drug-related charges following a trial that allegedly did not follow due process and lasted a few minutes without a translator, according to Human Rights Watch.

The rights organisation said on Tuesday, July 29, that at least 79 other Ethiopians remain at imminent risk of execution on similar charges. It cited the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights, which said at least 116 people have been executed this year.

Human Rights Watch said the five were charged with possessing hashish, a type of cannabis.

“Saudi authorities are executing marginalised Ethiopian migrants after court hearings that sometimes barely last a few minutes without a lawyer or a translator,” said Joey Shea, senior Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. Many Ethiopians migrate to Gulf countries in search of work.

“Dozens of vulnerable migrants remain at risk of imminent execution after trials that were barely trials at all, in a system that treats their lives as disposable,” she said.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia in response to the report.

Saudi Arabia is one of several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, that can levy the death penalty on drug-related charges. The kingdom remains one of the world's top executioners behind China and Iran.

Last week, Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry said it remained “closely engaged” with Saudi authorities on matters affecting Ethiopians. The ministry said it was looking into individuals facing legal proceedings and judicial measures, but did not specify whether they included people sentenced to death for drug offences.

In May, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church appealed to Saudi authorities to halt the execution of Ethiopian nationals.

Tsehay Wolay, whose son Kidane Angesom was executed by Saudi authorities on April 21, said she heard the news through his cellmate.

“They murdered my son,” she lamented in an interview last month. “I can't even receive my son's corpse so I can bury him properly."

Kidane, 32, had stayed in Saudi Arabia for nine years, four of them behind bars. His mother never got to know what he was accused of.

“If they were going to kill him, why was all that suffering necessary?” his mother asked.

Human Rights Watch said Saudi Arabia's use of the death penalty is contrary to international human rights law, which upholds every human being's “inherent right to life” and limits the death penalty to “the most serious crimes.”