Saudi Arabia executed 356 people in 2025, according to an AFP tally released on Thursday, marking the highest number of executions recorded in the kingdom in a single year.
Analysts have linked the surge to Riyadh’s ongoing “war on drugs,” launched in recent years, with many of those arrested early in the campaign now reaching the end of legal proceedings.
Official government data cited by AFP shows that 243 of the executions in 2025 were for drug-related offenses. The total also represents the second consecutive year in which Saudi Arabia set a new execution record, after authorities put 338 people to death in 2024.
The Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights confirmed the 356 executions and noted that, for the first time, more foreigners than Saudi citizens were executed in a single year.
Saudi Arabia resumed executions for drug offenses at the end of 2022, following a roughly three-year suspension of the death penalty in narcotics cases.
As part of its anti-drug campaign, Saudi Arabia has expanded police checkpoints on highways and border crossings, seizing millions of pills and arresting dozens of traffickers. Foreign nationals have borne much of the impact so far.
The Gulf kingdom continues to face international criticism over its extensive use of capital punishment, which rights groups say contradicts its efforts to project a modern, reform-driven image. Activists argue that the continued executions undermine the narrative of a more open society central to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 agenda.
Amnesty International began documenting executions in Saudi Arabia in 1990, though figures from earlier years remain unclear.