Jeed Basyouni is the Head of MENA death penalty projects at Reprieve.
What's worse than being sentenced to death? For Youssef al-Manasif, a Saudi citizen arrested for alleged childhood crimes, it is a second death sentence. Youssef's original conviction rested on a torture-tainted confession for offences which included the apparently unforgiveable crime of attending protests when he was just 15 years old. Last year, Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court overturned Youssef's death sentence, but he was soon tried and convicted again, based on the same so-called "evidence."
It is within this context that U.S. President Donald Trump will welcome de facto Saudi leader and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to Washington on Nov. 18. For victims of the Saudi regime's brutal crackdown on dissent, the further cozying of relations between Washington and Riyadh sends a terrifying signal: The authorities can execute and kill with impunity, and international partners will look the other way.
As disturbing as Youssef's ordeal is, it is but a drop in the ocean for Saudi Arabia. Last year, the Kingdom executed 345 people, smashing its previous grim record of 196 executions in a calendar year. Riyadh looks set to break that record not long after MBS's trip to the United States.
The crackdown is ongoing. Indeed, just days before an appeals court upheld Youssef's death sentence, authorities executed Jalal al-Labbad, another young man tortured into confessing guilt for so-called "terrorism" offences. The crime in question was the same as Youssef's: attending protests when he was a child.
Rights advocates are grappling with an execution crisis that continues to escalate and shows no sign of stopping. Reprieve's landmark report, released in 2023, documented that Saudi Arabia's execution rate nearly doubled in MBS's first seven years in power. Since then, the figures have reached unimaginable heights.
Prior to 2015, Riyadh executed an average of 71 people per year. This year, the Kingdom is on pace to execute almost 400. Or to put it another way, under King Salman and MBS, the rate of executions has increased fivefold. Most executions are for non-violent offenses.
Last year, the Kingdom executed 345 people, smashing its previous grim record of 196 executions in a calendar year.
- Jeed Basyouni
Executions for childhood crimes have risen drastically under the crown prince, alongside those of women, foreign nationals and people charged with non-lethal offences. The number of mass executions has also climbed. Reformers, religious leaders and journalists have repeatedly been arrested en masse. The list of violations committed by Saudi authorities is endless and relentless.
In 2018, U.S. intelligence concluded that the crown prince personally approved the murder and dismemberment of journalist and DAWN founder Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul—an act of horror that shocked the world. For a moment, global outrage placed bin Salman on defense: World leaders condemned the murder, arms deals were suspended and Riyadh's reputation plummeted.
However, the pressure quickly dissipated and executions skyrocketed again. Today, dissenters of any kind—no matter how trivial—pay the ultimate price.
In October 2024, Saudi Arabia—in an effort to further advance the ongoing shift in its reputation—had the nerve to bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council elections, despite the record pace of killings. In fact, the Kingdom set a new high for executions just one week before the vote to grant it a seat on the council. Thankfully, in a rare rebuke to the Gulf state, a plurality of nations rejected its candidacy.
Each number represents a life, no matter how normalized or accepted on the grounds of realpolitik these executions become.
- Jeed Basyouni
At the time of this writing, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 322 people in 2025. Reprieve's monitoring shows authorities have shifted from mass executions—like the killing of 81 people in a single day in March 2022—adopting a steadier pace by carrying out frequent executions with smaller groups to avoid international headlines. A staggering 183 foreign nationals have been executed, mainly Egyptians, Pakistanis, Somalis and Ethiopians. Foreign nationals are especially vulnerable to due process and fair trial violations.
Given the death count, it is easy to lose sight of these individuals. But each number represents a life, no matter how normalized or accepted on the grounds of realpolitik these executions become.
On Aug. 19, the Court of Appeals upheld Youssef al-Manasif's death sentence in a remote session, denying him and his lawyer the chance to attend. Once a boy who loved art and horses while dreaming of becoming a mechanic, Youssef has now spent nearly a decade in one of the world's most secretive and unforgiving prison systems. The Supreme Court's earlier decision to overturn his conviction—only for it to be reinstated—delivered his family a cruel false hope.
He is not alone. Saudi Arabia has executed at least 13 child defendants since 2015. Abdullah al-Derazi was the latest, executed on Oct. 20, without notice, marking yet another child killed for allegedly attending protests. As a boy, Abdullah loved birds and raised them at home—his favorite was a nightingale—and he dreamed of one day becoming a lawyer. Those dreams died with him.
Abdullah al-Howaiti, a boy tortured into confessing to a crime he could not have committed when he was only 14, has also seen his overturned death sentence reinstated. He could be next.
Riyadh uses the death penalty as a weapon to suppress dissent—real or perceived—attacking basic notions of freedom of expression, especially concerning those who champion democracy and human rights. Dr. Salman Alodah faces the death penalty for charges that include "sarcasm and mockery of the government's achievements" after he tweeted about Saudi Arabia's blockade on Qatar. Hassan al-Maliki could also face the death penalty for owning books without the proper permissions and for social media posts. Both Alodah and al-Maliki are respected scholars—Alodah was also a popular TV presenter—and still face the prospect of this heinous fate.
When Reprieve released its 2023 report, we described the Saudi authorities as "one of the most rampant executioners in the world." Today, inconceivable as it is, they are far worse. Mohamed bin Salman oversees hundreds of executions per year. The behaviour of his regime sows terror among the population, and he has crafted an inherently cruel, opaque and arbitrary justice system for just that purpose.
As these unspeakable acts unfold, the crown prince has invested in a glossy global image, courting tourism, bolstering business and developing an ever-closer relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of what will be a highly choreographed trip to Washington. Reality, however, is starkly different: The crown prince is not the progressive reformer he pretends to be. By treating him as such, including by inviting him to major state summits while increasingly ignoring his human rights abuses, the international community is complicit in every one of these horrifying executions.
