A government authority in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia revealed that authorities significantly reduced the implementation of death penalty executions during the past year.
The authority attributed this partly to an undeclared halt on executions for drug-related crimes, "which provides more non-violent criminals a second chance." Meanwhile, the human rights group "Reprieve" warned that the number could rise this year, adding that "the decline can be partially attributed to lockdown measures due to the COVID-19 outbreak from February to April, during which the government did not carry out any executions due to restrictions imposed to control" the coronavirus.
