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Cairo, Dec 4 (EFE).- Saudi Arabia has carried out 304 executions so far in 2024 – including seven women -, an unprecedented record in the country, a representative of the nonprofit European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) told EFE on Wednesday.

“Those executed so far are 187 Saudis and 117 foreigners,” said Taha Al Hajji, a legal adviser to the ESOHR, which tracks executions in the kingdom, adding that seven of them were women.

Among the most recent executions, which occurred Tuesday, were those of three Egyptians imprisoned in Tabuk prison, which has another 27 Egyptian nationals on death row, he added.

According to Al Hajji, the number of executions for drug-related cases so far this year is 105, representing over one-third of the total.

In November 2022, Saudi Arabia carried out the first executions for drug-related crimes in nearly three years, reversing a moratorium on executions for such offenses announced by the Saudi Commission on Human Rights in 2021.

Despite repeated promises to limit the use of the death penalty, the Saudi authorities have increased executions while systematically violating international fair trial standards and safeguards for defendants, according to Amnesty International (AI).

The authorities have also used the death penalty to silence political dissent, punishing citizens of the country’s Shia minority who supported the “anti-government” protests between 2011 and 2013, AI underlined.

In 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 196 people, which was then the highest annual number of executions recorded in the country in the last 30 years, according to the nonprofit. EFE