The guards stopped their prayers. Saudi Arabia has started the executions

Five Ethiopian men were executed in Saudi Arabia on Monday, July 27.

They were migrant workers. They were convicted of smuggling hashish and carrying qat, a mild stimulant leaf chewed across the Horn of Africa. They were Christians.

Human Rights Watch, which interviewed prisoners and relatives, says their court sessions lasted between three and twenty minutes. No lawyers. A translator present at two hearings out of three. Documents in Arabic they could not read, which they were made to sign anyway. Appeal letters handed to guards, with no way to know whether any court ever saw them.

Some of the men had waited more than three years to die.

Inside Khamis Mushait prison, being a Christian carried its own price. One prisoner told investigators what happened when the believers gathered: "If the Christians want to pray together, the police come and stop this." Another man had the cross pulled from his neck.

They could not pray together. Then they were killed for hashish.

Three Church of England bishops saw this coming. On July 24, three days before the executions, the bishops of Chelmsford, Southwark, and Winchester wrote directly to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. What they told him, and what they asked for, is where this story stops being one more grim wire item and becomes a test the world is currently failing.