Saudi Arabia, for years one of the world’s most prolific executioners, dramatically reduced the number of people put to death last year, following changes halting executions for non-violent drug-related crimes, according to the government’s tally and independent observers.

The Saudi government’s Human Rights Commission said on Monday it documented 27 executions in 2020.

That is compared to an all-time high of 184 executions the year before as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

The change represents an 85% reduction in the number of people put to death last year, compared to 2019.

“The sharp decrease was brought about in part by a moratorium on death penalties for drug-related offences,” the Saudi rights commission said.

The commission said the new law ordering a stop to such executions came into effect sometime last year.

The new directive for judges does not appear to have been published publicly and it was not immediately clear whether the law was changed by royal decree, as is typically the case.

The AP previously reported that Saudi Arabia last year also ordered an end to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors and ordered judges to end the controversial practice of public flogging, replacing it with jail time, fines or community service.

The force behind these changes is 34-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has the backing of his father, King Salman.

In an effort to modernise the country, attract foreign investment and revamp the economy, the prince has spearheaded a range of reforms curtailing the power of ultraconservative Wahhabis, who adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam that many Saudis still practise.

For years, the kingdom’s high rate of executions was in large part due to the number of people executed for non-lethal offences, which judges had wide discretion to rule on, particularly for drug-related crimes.

Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia third in the world for the highest number of executions in 2019, after China where the number of executions is believed to be in the thousands, and Iran.

Among those put to death that year by Saudi Arabia were 32 minority Shiites convicted on terrorism charges related to their participation in anti-government protests and clashes with police.

While some crimes, such as premeditated murder, can carry fixed punishments under the Saudi interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, drug-related offences are considered “ta’zir,” meaning neither the crime nor the punishment is defined in Islam.

Discretionary judgments for “ta’zir” crimes led to arbitrary rulings with contentious outcomes.

The kingdom has long been criticised by independent rights groups for applying the death sentence for non-violent crimes related to drug trafficking.

Many of those executed for such crimes were often poor Yemenis or low-level drug smugglers of South Asia descent, with the latter having little to no knowledge of Arabic and unable to understand or read the charges against them in court.

Saudi Arabia carries out executions mainly by beheading and sometimes in public.

The kingdom had argued that public executions and those of drug traffickers serve as a deterrent to combat crime.

“The moratorium on drug-related offences means the kingdom is giving more non-violent criminals a second chance,” the president of the government’s Human Rights Commission, Awwad Alawwad, said.

He said the change represents a sign the Saudi justice system is focusing more on rehabilitation and prevention rather than solely on punishment.

According to Human Rights Watch, there were just five executions for drug-related crimes last year in Saudi Arabia, all in January 2020.

Human Rights Watch deputy middle east director Adam Coogle said the decrease in executions is a positive sign, but that the Saudi authorities must also address “the country’s horribly unfair and biased criminal justice system that hands down these sentences.”

“As authorities announce reforms, Saudi prosecutors are still seeking the death penalty for high-profile detainees for nothing more than their peaceful ideas and political affiliations,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia must immediately end all executions and death sentences for non-violent crimes.”

Ethiopia has released thousands of prisoners as a new prime minister reverses decades of security abuses. No-one knows how many were tortured.

But some of those torture victims are now talking openly – to the media, to their relatives and to their friends – about what happened to them after they were jailed, in many cases for protesting against the government.

Their stories raise a hard question for the government: how will it address the injustices committed by security forces behind prison walls?

Since coming to power in April, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, 41, has made peace with Eritrea, ended a state of emergency, freed political prisoners and announced plans to sell shares in state-owned firms to promote growth and create jobs.

Abiy acknowledges that many prisoners suffered abuses, which he has denounced as acts of “state terrorism”.

He has not, however, announced plans to investigate abuses committed by the security forces or set up a process for victims to seek redress. But he has preached forgiveness.

“I call on us all to forgive each other from our hearts. To close the chapters from yesterday, and to forge ahead to the next bright future through national consensus,” Abiy said in his inaugural address.

Rights groups that have documented the torture – from psychological torment to the use of water and ceiling hooks – say there must now be a greater focus on justice.

“Despite all the reforms, there have yet to be any detailed commitments regarding investigations into abuses or justice for victims,” said Maria Burnett of Human Rights Watch.

Since late 2015, when protests against ethnic marginalisation and inequality began, tens of thousands of people were detained, according to Human Rights Watch.

The attorney general’s office and government spokesman Ahmed Shide did not respond to calls and messages requesting comment.

“WE NEED HELP”

Those who spent years imprisoned and were recently released say they are cautiously hopeful.

“I never expected such changes were possible as long as the EPRDF (ruling coalition) remained in power. But even now we don’t know what will come of all this,” said Keyfalew Tefera, 33, who says his legs were amputated in a prison hospital after security forces shot him in 2006 when he was passing by a student protest.

Keyfalew, who studied plant science before he was detained, says his suffering should not be forgotten.

“I’m still a prisoner. I left half my body in there, I have no legs,” he said, in an interview in a friend’s living room. His mother and father died during his 12 years in prison. “I don’t consider myself free.”

Another former prisoner, Mesfin Etana, 43, spent 16 years behind bars for alleged membership in the Oromo Liberation Front, a group removed from the government’s banned list of “terrorist” groups in June.

No evidence against him was produced by authorities, he said, but after six years in prison, a court gave him a life sentence.

He told Reuters that he was repeatedly stripped naked and sexually humiliated by warders during a five-month stint at Maekelawi, a detention centre shut down after Abiy took office.

He cannot afford treatment for health problems that are mainly related to torture. It is not only physical injuries he is confronting.

Before Mesfin’s arrest in 2002, he was a trader and shop owner and was preparing to marry his fiancée Zinash.

He was released on July 4. One of the first things he did was call Zinash, to find she had married another man at her family’s insistence.

“It was very sad,” he said of their conversation.

He was happy to be alive, but without earnings from his business, his family had fallen into poverty.

“We don’t want revenge, but we need help,” he said.

“We would be happy if the government returned what we used to have,” he said, adding that he felt justice was important to prevent the country from “going backward”.

PAST CRIMES

Due process for victims will require overhauling the institutions that failed Ethiopians in the past, some argue.

“A lot of work needs to be done because the judiciary has been disgraced,” said lawyer Wondimu Ebsa, who represented hundreds of prisoners and opposition leaders in trials he decried as a mockery of justice.

Many of his clients have been freed but they are struggling.

“They don’t have money for food, they can’t get work,” he said. “So many of them are living in worse conditions than they were in prison.”

Ethiopia’s constitution requires the state to compensate torture victims, he said, because the government failed to protect them from harm.

Concerns that past crimes may be papered over were raised by an encounter in Zimbabwe earlier this month that went viral on social media.

Former prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who resigned in February and was in Harare observing elections, met Ethiopia’s exiled former Marxist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam.

During Mengistu’s 17 years in power, millions of Ethiopians died of famine amid “Red Terror” purges. In 2007, he was sentenced in absentia to life in prison, but Zimbabwe declined to extradite him.

“This photo (of Hailemariam and Mengistu) … is confounding,” Ethiopian law professor Awol Allo wrote on Twitter. “It is fantastic that our government is talking about love, forgiveness and reconciliation but does that mean we are prepared to give a free-for-all, no-questions-asked, amnesty?”