Executions as instruments of intimidation and fear
In 2025, Saudi Arabia carried out 356 executions — the highest in its modern history — as a reinvigorated war on drugs transformed judicial process into mass enforcement. The majority of those put to death were foreign nationals, many of them migrant workers caught in a crackdown that resumed capital punishment for narcotics offenses in 2022. This record arrives not in isolation, but against the backdrop of a kingdom simultaneously courting the world with tourism, football, and promises of reform — a tension that speaks to one of the oldest contradictions in statecraft: the desire to be seen as modern while wielding the oldest instruments of state power.
- Saudi Arabia executed 356 people in 2025 — surpassing its own 2024 record of 338 — with 243 of those deaths tied to drug convictions alone.
- For the first time, foreign nationals made up the majority of the executed, exposing a system where migrant workers, minors, and political dissidents bear a disproportionate share of the kingdom's harshest sentences.
- Human rights organizations are calling the numbers a direct contradiction of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 modernization agenda, describing the executions as tools of intimidation rather than justice.
- The kingdom shows no sign of slowing: border enforcement has tightened, trafficking arrests have multiplied, and officials continue to defend capital punishment as a necessary pillar of public order.
Saudi Arabia put 356 people to death in 2025, shattering its own record set just the year before. The driving force was the kingdom's intensified drug war: 243 of those executed had been convicted of narcotics offenses, many of them arrested during the early phases of a crackdown that resumed capital punishment for drug crimes in late 2022 after a three-year pause. Border controls tightened, trafficking arrests multiplied, and the judicial pipeline filled with cases that are now reaching their final conclusion.
For the first time in a single calendar year, foreign nationals made up the majority of those executed. The Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights noted that the condemned include migrant workers, minors, and political opponents — groups that researchers say are disproportionately exposed to the kingdom's harshest sentencing. One researcher described the executions as instruments of intimidation that cast a shadow over the entire population.
The record sits awkwardly alongside Saudi Arabia's sweeping modernization drive. The same government preparing to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup and investing heavily in tourism infrastructure is executing people at rates that draw sustained condemnation from Amnesty International and other monitors. Officials maintain that capital punishment is applied only after all appeals are exhausted and is essential to public order. Yet the gap between the kingdom's projected image — open, diversified, tolerant — and the reality of mass executions remains wide, with no indication that the pace will slow.
Saudi Arabia carried out 356 executions in 2025, the highest annual toll in the kingdom's modern history. The surge was driven overwhelmingly by drug-related convictions: 243 of those put to death were sentenced for narcotics offenses, according to a count by the AFP news agency. It marks the second consecutive year the kingdom has shattered its own execution records, having carried out 338 deaths in 2024.
The escalation is inseparable from Riyadh's intensified war on drugs, a campaign that began in earnest after the kingdom resumed capital punishment for drug crimes in late 2022, following a three-year suspension. Many of those now facing execution were arrested during the early phases of this crackdown and subsequently convicted through the judicial system. Police have tightened controls at borders and highways, seizing millions of pills and arresting dozens of traffickers in the process.
For the first time in a calendar year, the majority of those executed were foreign nationals, according to the Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights. Duaa Dhainy, a researcher with the organization, told AFP that the record numbers expose the hollowness of Saudi Arabia's stated commitments to human rights reform. She characterized the executions as instruments of "intimidation and fear for all," noting that the condemned include migrant workers, minors, and political opponents alongside drug offenders.
The kingdom's appetite for capital punishment sits uneasily alongside its broader modernization push. Saudi Arabia is the Arab world's largest economy and a major consumer market for captagon, an illicit stimulant that was Syria's principal export under Bashar al-Assad until his ouster in December 2024. Yet the same government that is pouring vast sums into tourism infrastructure and preparing to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup is simultaneously executing people at rates that draw sustained criticism from international human rights monitors.
Amnesty International and other organizations have long flagged the executions as excessive and at odds with the kingdom's Vision 2030 agenda, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's signature initiative to diversify the economy beyond oil and project a more open, tolerant society. Saudi officials defend capital punishment as necessary for public order and insist it is applied only after all appeals are exhausted. The tension between these two narratives—modernization and mass execution—remains unresolved, with no indication the kingdom intends to slow its pace of capital sentences.
Notable Quotes
These record numbers demonstrate that promises about human rights reforms in Saudi Arabia lack substance— Duaa Dhainy, European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights
The executions function as intimidation and fear directed at all segments of society, affecting migrant workers, minors, and political opponents— Duaa Dhainy, European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did executions spike so dramatically in 2025 specifically?
The numbers are tied directly to the drug war that Riyadh intensified after resuming capital punishment for narcotics offenses in late 2022. Many of those executed now were arrested in the early waves of that campaign and have been moving through the courts ever since.
And the fact that most are foreign nationals—does that change how we should read this?
It suggests the enforcement is not evenly distributed. Migrant workers and foreign traffickers are bearing the brunt of a policy that the government frames as necessary for public safety. That disparity is what human rights researchers are flagging.
How does this square with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and all the investment in tourism?
It doesn't, really. That's the contradiction activists are pointing to. You can't simultaneously market yourself as a modern, open destination and execute 356 people in a year. The two narratives are in direct collision.
What about the captagon angle—is that driving the policy?
Captagon was Syria's biggest export under Assad, and Saudi Arabia is a major market for it. So there's an economic and security dimension to the drug war beyond just law and order. But that context doesn't appear in the official justifications.
Do we know if these executions are actually reducing drug trafficking?
The source doesn't provide data on that. We know police have seized millions of pills and arrested many traffickers, but whether executions themselves deter supply or demand isn't addressed. The government claims the measures are necessary; critics say the numbers speak for themselves about the scale of the problem.