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France 24
2 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
War against captagon: Why is Saudi Arabia executing drug dealers on a massive scale?
Those found guilty of drug trafficking face the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Of a total of 217 executions since the start of 2025, 144 have been put to death for drug-related offences. If the pace of executions continues, this year's total will surpass that of 2024, when 338 people were executed in the kingdom – the most since 1990. At the heart of this crackdown is the illegal amphetamine-like drug captagon, very much in demand in the Middle East. And Saudi Arabia, the Arab world 's largest economy, is one of its main consumers, according to the UN. Captagon: Rich consumers, poor dealers Captagon has become popular among wealthy young people in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, and is sold mainly by poor, immigrant dealers. Saudi Arabia executed 37 people for drug-related offences in June, Amnesty International reported this month. Of these, 34 were nationals from Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria. 'We are witnessing a truly horrifying trend, with foreign nationals being put to death at a startling rate for crimes that should never carry the death penalty,' said Kristine Beckerle, Amnesty's deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. Human rights activists argue that capital punishment is detrimental to the image of tolerance and modernity that the kingdom seeks to project. And it seems to know this. Following the global outcry over the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Riyadh needed to do something to "polish' its international image, says Karim Sader, a political scientist and consultant specialising in the Gulf states. So it instituted a 33-month moratorium on executions for drug offences. It resumed these executions in November 2022, and Sader says the recent surge in executions is largely due to the backlog that resulted from the suspension. But the deaths of these foreign immigrant dealers 'will attract far less media coverage than Saudi dissidents' sentenced to death for political reasons, he says. 'The war on drugs justifies everything' Domestic political concerns are the main rationale behind the current crusade against captagon, Sader says. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is concerned that Saudi society 'will be corrupted by the scourge of drugs' and he wants to avoid this, 'even if it means using brutal means and shocking international organisations – especially Western ones". "The war on drugs justifies everything," Sader says. Taking a hard line is also politically expedient, given that the crown prince – who initiated a modest opening up of Saudi Arabia's authoritarian Islamic society – also has to contend with the 'conservative fringes' of Saudi society. For them, drug-related crimes should be punishable by death, Sader says. "The Saudi authorities hope that by hitting hard enough, they will succeed in dissuading drug trafficking," he says. The director of public security, Mohammed al-Bassami, in June reported "tangible positive results, with hard blows dealt to traffickers and smugglers", according to the influential Saudi daily Okaz. But Sader suggests that a successful anti-drug campaign must be multi-pronged. "We know that in the face of the drug challenge, repression alone is not enough," he says. The fall of Assad in Syria, the end of captagon in Arabia? In the fight against captagon, sometimes called the "poor man's cocaine", Riyadh can count on at least one regional ally: Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's interim president. The day his rebel forces seized power in Damascus in December 2024, al-Sharaa referred to captagon in his victory speech. 'Syria has become the biggest producer of captagon on Earth,' he said. 'And today, Syria is going to be purified by the grace of God.' During Syria's 14-year-long civil war, captagon became the country's most important export, according to an investigation by The New York Times. Syria was producing 80 percent of the world's captagon by 2023. It became so prevalent that some Arab countries agreed that year to normalise relations with President Bashar al-Assad if he promised that Syria would stop flooding the region with the drug. Captagon production came to be the main source of revenue for Syria, a country shattered by war and hit hard by international sanctions. And Assad's closest allies – his brother Maher, in particular – were among the main beneficiaries of the multi-billion-dollar drug trade, which transformed Syria into a sort of 'narco-state'. Six months after the fall of Assad, the transitional Syrian authorities announced in June that all captagon production facilities had been seized. Meanwhile in Lebanon, Hezbollah – which has also profited from captagon trafficking – has been considerably weakened by the war with Israel. But while these trends might curtail the traffic in captagon, they are unlikely to bring an end to it. "The fall of Assad and the weakening of Hezbollah will help to stop captagon being trafficked to Saudi Arabia,' Sader says. 'But we will never be able to stop 100 percent of it.'
Boston Globe
03-07-2025
- Boston Globe
Places I won't be visiting
As a subscriber to The Wall Street Journal, I have been carpet-bombed with ' I can think of thousands of reasons why I don't want to visit Saudi Arabia, starting with the government-ordered killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and ending with the slender chance that I would run into Jared Kushner riding an Uber camel across the fiery sands. Advertisement Earlier this year, Advertisement Noodling around on the internet, I tripped across A friend of mine, after reading By way of tourism oddities, I recently spotted a London taxicab tricked out with a 'Greetings from New Jersey' livery, courtesy of the Garden State's travel board. I have no idea how many Londoners are hopping the pond to savor the delights of the American Dream I wonder why. The State Department's Advertisement While traveling in Ireland last week, I encountered a mammoth 'For decades, the U.S. … has been seen as a synonym of freedom, of wide-open spaces, of a shared system of values and open arms,' Der Spiegel writes. 'Now, though, under President Donald Trump, all that has changed. The U.S. is becoming a no-go area for tourists.' Soon we will be as alluring a tourist destination as Saudi Arabia — heady company indeed. Alex Beam's column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him
Washington Post
23-06-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
A distinctly Saudi flavor permeates the Club World Cup at Audi Field
At a soccer tournament struggling to build an American audience, the Saudi influence was impossible to miss. It showed in the hundreds of Al Hilal fans who took over the east and south stands at Audi Field for the Saudi Arabian team's scoreless draw with Austria's Red Bull Salzburg in the Club World Cup on Sunday night. It showed in a pregame video advertisement for the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, which is a sponsor of the tournament. And it showed in a sign outside the stadium featuring a picture of slain Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Daily Mail
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Saudi journalist is executed 'after years of torture' for writing a TWEET - in first high-profile killing of a reporter since Jamal Khashoggi
A prominent Saudi journalist who was arrested in 2018 and convicted on terrorism and treason charges after tweeting against the government has been executed. Turki Al-Jasser, who was in his late 40s, was put to death on Saturday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, after the death penalty was upheld by the nation's top court. Authorities had raided Al-Jasser's home in 2018, arresting him and seizing his computer and phones. It was not clear where his trial took place or how long it lasted, but he is believed to have been tortured during his seven-year imprisonment, The Guardian reports. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Saudi authorities believed that Al-Jasser was behind a social media account on X which exposed human rights violations by officials and the royals. Al-Jasser was also said to have posted several controversial tweets about militants and militant groups. CPJ's program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna condemned the execution and said the lack of accountability allows for continued persecution of journalists in the kingdom. It comes after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was slaughtered in 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. In the months that followed, conflicting narratives emerged over how he died, and Saudi officials said the journalist was killed in a 'rogue operation' by a team of agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that the Saudi crown prince ordered the operation but the kingdom insists the prince was not involved in the killing. 'The international community's failure to deliver justice for Jamal Khashoggi did not just betray one journalist,' Martinez de la Serna said, adding it had 'emboldened de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to continue his persecution of the press.' 'Al-Jasser's 'execution once again demonstrates that in Saudi Arabia, the punishment for criticizing or questioning Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is death,' said Jeed Basyouni, head of the Middle East and North Africa section at Reprieve, an international anti-death penalty advocacy group. Basyouni added that Al-Jasser was tried and convicted 'in total secrecy for the 'crime' of journalism.' Al-Jasser ran a personal blog from 2013 to 2015 and was well-known for his articles on the Arab Spring movements that shook the Middle East in 2011, women's rights and corruption. Saudi Arabia has drawn criticism from human rights groups for its numbers and also methods of capital punishment, including beheadings and mass executions. In 2024, executions in Saudi Arabia rose to 330, according to activists and human rights groups, as the kingdom continues to tightly clamp down on dissent. Last month, a British Bank of America analyst was sentenced to a decade in prison in Saudi Arabia, apparently over a since-deleted social media post, according to his lawyer. And in 2021, a dual Saudi American national, Saad Almadi, was arrested and later sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on terrorism-related charges stemming from tweets he had posted while living in the United States. He was released in 2023 but has been banned from leaving the kingdom.
Time of India
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Tweet that cost a life: After Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi journalist's online dissent ends in execution
Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser was executed for criticizing the government on social media, drawing comparisons to the Jamal Khashoggi case. Al-Jasser's execution, the first high-profile case since Khashoggi's murder, highlights the severe consequences of dissent in Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities tracked him down through infiltrated Twitter accounts, leading to his arrest, imprisonment, and eventual execution for treason. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Was the Saudi's journalist really executed just for tweeting? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Why was Turki al-Jasser arrested? How did Saudi authorities track anonymous Twitter users? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Could the Crown Prince have stopped the execution? Why is this being compared to the Jamal Khashoggi case? FAQs Another Saudi journalist has paid the ultimate price for challenging the kingdom. In yet another barbarous case, a journalist died, just like Jamal Khashoggi Turki al-Jasser , once a vocal critic on social media, has been executed after years in prison. His story is a horrific reminder of how dissent can turn deadly in authoritarian the criticism of the government apparently came at a humongous cost of life. Since the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Turki al-Jasser's passing represents the first high-profile journalistic assassination. This gut-wrenching story underscores the peril of defying overly strict to a report by The Guardian, the chillingly prophetic tweet from Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser in 2014 read, "The Arab writer can be easily killed by their government under the pretext of 'national security.''Turki Al-Jasser was executed in Riyadh on Saturday, according to the Saudi interior ministry, for charges that included "high treason by communicating with and conspiring against the security of the Kingdom with external individuals,' as quoted in a report by The who is believed to have been in his 40s, was executed after seven years of imprisonment. He was also tortured while he was detained, as per a Al-Jasser was likely arrested by Saudi authorities in 2018 after being identified as the author of a well-known anonymous Twitter account that accused the Saudi royal family of corruption and human rights abuses, according to a number of dissidents and analysts keeping tabs on his press freedom group Reporters Without Borders claims that al-Jasser founded the news website Al-Mashhad Al-Saudi (The Saudi Scene), which regularly covered topics like Palestine and women's it was the account on X, that is believed to have incited Saudi authorities and led to his detention as part of a broader crackdown on dissent. The administration believed that his and other anonymous Twitter accounts were part of an illogical plot to topple the Saudi has two accounts on Twitter. According to Abdullah Alaoudh, senior director for countering authoritarianism at the Middle East Democracy Center, "he was even more satirical and vocal with the other account, which was targeted by the Saudi government, even though he was outspoken under his real name."After Saudi agents infiltrated the company in 2014-2015, the Saudi government was able to access the true identities and IP addresses behind thousands of anonymous Twitter accounts. In connection with the conspiracy, the Department of Justice charged a Saudi national and two former Twitter was the first journalist to be sentenced to death and executed in Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman's rule, according to Reporters Without Borders. He was also the second journalist to be executed globally since crown prince had the legal right to step in and stop al-Jasser's execution, according to legal experts. Every execution is subject to king or crown prince approval under Saudi al-Jasser's execution was the first high-profile Saudi murder of a journalist since Saudi agents in 2018 assassinated Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a Washington Post columnist, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. According to a 2020 intelligence assessment by then-President Joe Biden, MBS approved the was reportedly identified as the creator of a critical anonymous Twitter account and later executed for "high treason."Saudi agents infiltrated Twitter and obtained user data, allowing them to identify anonymous dissidents such as al-Jasser.
