DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has put six Iranians to death for drug trafficking, the interior ministry said on Wednesday, after a year in which it carried out a record number of executions, according to a tally of official reports.

The six were executed in Dammam, on the Gulf coast, for having “clandestinely introduced hashish” into the kingdom, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency without specifying when.

Iran summoned the Saudi ambassador to hear a “strong protest” against the “unacceptable” violation of “the rules and norms of international law”, the foreign ministry in Tehran said.

“Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Tehran was summoned,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that Tehran conveyed its “strong protest” against Riyadh’s action, which it described as “unacceptable” and a violation of “the rules and norms of international law”

Tehran summons Riyadh’s envoy over the executions

Saudi Arabia carried out at least 338 executions in 2024, sharply up on the 170 recorded in 2023 and the highest number in decades. Human rights group Amnesty International, which has been documenting executions in the kingdom since the 1990s, has said the previous highs were 196 in 2022 and 192 in 1995.

Convicted drug traffickers made up at least 117 of those put to death last year, agency’s tally showed.

There has been a flurry of executions of convicted drug traffickers since the kingdom ended a moratorium on the use of the death penalty for drug offences two years ago.

In 2023, the authorities launched a highly publicised anti-drugs campaign involving a series of raids and arrests.

Saudi Arabia has become a major market for the addictive psychostimulant captagon, which was produced in huge quantities in Syria during the civil war which culminated in the overthrow of longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad last month.

In September, more than 30 Arab and international human rights groups denounced the “sharp increase” in executions of people convicted on drug charges.

‘Sharp increase’

Foreigners made up 129 of the 338 people executed in 2024, another record. They included 25 Yemenis, 24 Pakistanis, 17 Egyptians, 16 Syrians, 14 Nigerians, 13 Jordanians and seven Ethiopians.

In March 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people in a single day for “terrorist crimes”, sparking international outrage. Only China and Iran executed more people than Saudi Arabia in 2023, according to Amnesty, which has yet to publish its 2024 figures.

The Saudi authorities say the death penalty is necessary to maintain public order and is only used after all avenues for appeal have been exhausted.

The kingdom severed relations with Iran in 2016 after its diplomatic missions in Tehran and second city Mashhad were attacked by protesters angered by the execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Diplomatic ties were restored in March 2023, after a rapprochement brokered by China.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2025