14 DAY TRIAL // Just yesterday, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Civil Service posted a rather macabre ad informing people that the country was in dire need to hire 8 new executioners and that everybody was welcome to apply for the job openings.
The ad even comes complete with a job description saying that, if hired, applicants would be required to publicly behead people sentenced to death or leave those convicted of lesser offenses without a limb or two. Yup, we're talking amputations.
The ad announcing these job openings goes on to detail that, under the country's current laws, the newly hired executioners would be viewed as religious functionaries, seeing how they would be working for religious courts.
Not at all surprisingly, applicants are not expected to have any kind of experience or special training. They simply must be ready and willing to kill people for a living. Kind of like hitmen, except they would be working for the government.
Not to mislead, the ad makes it clear that these so-called religious functionaries entrusted with doing away with criminals should not expect an impressive paycheck at the end of the month. Instead, they would be at lower end of the civil service pay scale.
There's been a surge in executions in Saudi Arabia in recent months
Last year, authorities in this country in Asia ordered the execution of as many as 88 people convicted of drug offenses, rape, murder, adultery or witchcraft, human rights non-governmental organization Amnesty International says.
Since the beginning of 2015 until now, however, a total of 85 people have been publicly murdered in Saudi Arabia. The country's officials are yet to explain this surge in executions. Many believe that it has something to do with King Salman's coming to power.
In 2014, when it ordered the death of 88 people, Saudi Arabia landed the third position in a top listing countries by number of executions. It was outranked by China and Iran and followed by Iraq and the US, in this order, DM informs.
For the time being, it is unclear whether anybody has so far applied for the executioner job openings listed by Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Civil Service this past Monday. On second thought, it's safe to assume the country won't have to wait very long to find suitable applicants.