Two Saudis were beheaded on Tuesday for drug trafficking and murder, official media reported, bringing to 82 the number of executions this year. The sentence against Abdulrahman bin Bakheit al-Lugmani was carried out in the western city of Mecca, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. He had been convicted of smuggling a large ...

1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison. That’s the punishment Saudi Arabia handed to Raif Badawi, 31, a blogger and writer, for creating an online space promoting secularism, and questioning the country’s religious establishment. The Saudi government ordered that Badawi receive 50 lashes every Friday for 20 weeks, and video of the first round of lashes on Jan. 9 sparked ...

On the surface, the political transition in Saudi Arabia following the death of the much-revered King Abdullah has proceeded without a hitch. Salman, a half-brother of the former king, is the new ruler, while the recently named deputy, Crown Prince Muqrin, the youngest surviving son of Saudi Arabia’s founder, has moved up in line to the throne. But in Riyadh, as elsewhere, ...

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and U.S. President Barack Obama tackled a range of sensitive regional issues Tuesday during Obama’s one-day visit to Riyadh, as the Saudi monarch highlighted his country’s stance that Iran should not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. The two leaders touched on the volatile situation in Saudi Arabia’s neighbor Yemen, where Shiite Houthi rebels have ...

Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned the killing in North Carolina of three American Muslim college students as a “heinous terrorist” act, and called for an end to incitement against Muslims. The statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency also condemned as a “terrorist” act the recent attacks that killed two people in Denmark, one at a panel discussion that ...