By Dorina Lisson (ACADP)
Public beheadings are taking place twice daily in Saudi Arabia. The Justice Minister Mohammed Al Eissa, has defended tough Sharia punishments such as beheading, cutting off hands, and lashing claiming they; "cannot be changed because they are enshrined in Islamic law. These punishments are based on divine religious texts and we cannot change them," he said recently during a speech in Washington, USA

A total of 22 people were legally beheaded in Saudi Arabia between August 4-22, 2014. Another man charged with drug-trafficking was beheaded on August 25, and became the 23rd person beheaded this month of August, 2014.

As most death penalty constitutes beheading in Saudi Arabia, executions are done in public. In some cases, severed head and bodies were left to decompose in public squares to warn others from committing crimes. People are beheaded because of petty crimes.

The death penalty in Saudi Arabia does not follow legal parameters to the extent that it is almost hard to believe, Amnesty International said. In 2013, they also beheaded three teenagers under the age of 18. Those who have mental disabilities are not excluded from death penalty.

"That people are tortured into confessing to crimes, convicted in shameful trials without adequate legal support and then executed is a sickening indictment of Saudi Arabia's state-sanctioned brutality", a Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme, Boumedouha, said in a statement.

On August 18, two sets of brothers were beheaded after being beaten and deprived of sleep for them to confess their crimes. Their families were told not to contact any human rights organizations. Lawyers for the brothers told Amnesty International that authorities prefer to shut the families up, rather than stop the grotesque executions.

Foreign nationals are not excused from the death penalty—50 percent of the 2,000 people executed from 1985 to 2013 were foreign nationals.

Foreigners should reconsider their need to travel to Saudi Arabia as the authorities detain and prosecute people at the mere suspicion of being a terrorist.