The same can be said about the electric chair and lethal injection. Is the fight about capital punishment or is it about mass terrorism? If it is about capital punishment then all forms of it must be condemned everywhere, including here in America. If it is about terrorism then we must look at the intention and the selection of subjects. If there is confusion about whether or not the deal questions are in fact the same or where the boundary between them is, still ask the latter two questions: intention and selection of subjects.
ISIS has documented executions for none other reasons than race, nationality, religion or occupation. The selection of subjects is limited to whomever they can get their hands on in terms of any human being who is different from them, the intention is scare off and demoralize any and all differing societies from interacting with ISIS in any way other than in submission. This is Terrorism.
Saudi Arabia may very well be a different story. I cannot speak to them in their entirely since I do not have access to that nation's history of capital punishment. But this one instance alone of Al Nimr and his followers is ambiguous. It does select one specific group of religious adherents which makes the execution suspicious, but not unilaterally terroristic. Al Nimr's supporters world wide, as well as various documents, claim that this now deceased cleric was non-violent and that may very well be the case. However, he is supposedly documented as demanding the inclusion of the Saudi government among those governments forcibly ousted from power during the Arab Spring. That period saw much violence in the overthrows of the Egyptian, Libyan and other governments. The demands for Saudi inclusion in such overthrows would be tantamount to Treason even in the United States which is punishable by the death penalty.
Comparing the Saudi government to ISIS is a very wide stretch that appears to not be supported by the facts of the situation.
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