Iran summons Saudi envoy over execution of Iranians

Iran on Sunday summoned Saudi Arabia’s charge d’affaires in Tehran after the Gulf kingdom executed three Iranians convicted of drug trafficking, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported. They had tried to introduce in the country, by the sea, a large quantity of hashish, said the Interior Ministry in Riyadh.

Rights group Amnesty global sounded alarm bells Monday over a spike in executions in Saudi Arabia, where at least 151 people have been put to death this year.

“The use of the threat of executions as a tool to punish and intimidate political dissidents by the Saudi Arabian authorities is an appalling abuse of power”, Lynch added.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Ghashghavi said that when the Iranians were originally arrested four years ago, Iran attempted to provide them with legal counsel but were prevented from doing so by Saudi Arabia.

While no specific date has been announced for a new round of talks, France has said the second round of the discussions in Vienna would be held in the Austrian capital in two weeks’ time.

Saudi Arabia also continues to impose death sentences on and execute people below 18 years of age, in violation of the country’s obligations under global customary law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Due to disputes over several regional crises, relations between Saudi and Iran are at their lowest for years as well as the deaths of 464 Iranian pilgrims in Mecca in September in a stampede at the annual hajj pilgrimage. In 2012, an estimated 18 Iranians were executed for the same crime.

However, according to Middle East Monitor, which acquired the video, those beheadings took place in western Saudi Arabia in the city of Jeddah, while the three Iranians were executed in eastern Saudi Arabia.