Reuters reports that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is advertising in hopes of hiring eight new “executioners” to carry out “an increasing number of death sentences, usually done by public beheading.”

According to the report:

No special qualifications are needed for the jobs whose main role is “executing a judgment of death” but also involve performing amputations on those convicted of lesser offences, the advert, posted on the civil service jobs portal, said.
A downloadable PDF application form for the executioner jobs, available on the website carrying Monday’s date, said the jobs were classified as “religious functionaries” and that they would be at the lower end of the civil service pay scale.

The “religious functionaries” description is accurate. Saudi Arabia is governed by Islamic law, sharia, which endorses decapitation, the “lesser” severing of limbs, and other draconian punishments.

As I recounted last year, the West was shocked in August when jihadists from the Islamic State (or ISIS) beheaded three Western journalists, but during the same month – with virtually no news coverage – the Saudi government beheaded eight of its prisoners.