In First 4 Months of the Year, Saudi Arabia Beheaded 48

Human Rights Watch is calling on Saudi Arabia to fix its "notoriously unfair criminal justice system" after revealing that over the past four months, 48 people have been executed in the country. Half of those people were put to death over non-violent drug charges, the group says. Rights experts are also concerned that, as HRW says in a statement, Saudi Arabia's justice system "doesn't provide for fair trials." Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is carried out via beheading, the Guardian reports. The country has executed almost 600 people since 2014, and more than a third of those were drug cases. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently suggested the country may change the penalty for certain crimes other than murder to life in prison rather than execution. (More Saudi Arabia stories.)