Saudi Arabia Puts 47 to Death, Including Prominent Shiite Cleric
BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia
executed 47 people convicted of terrorism-related offenses on Saturday,
including suspected members of Al Qaeda and a prominent cleric and
government critic from the country’s Shiite minority.
The executions, which were reported by the Saudi state news media, were the first of 2016 and followed a year in which at least 157 people were put to death, the most in two decades in the conservative Muslim kingdom.
While
most of those executed Saturday had been convicted of involvement with
Al Qaeda during a wave of attacks about a decade ago, they also included
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shiite cleric and outspoken campaigner
for Shiite rights.
Sheikh Nimr, who was arrested in 2012, had harshly criticized the Sunni monarchy of neighboring Bahrain
for its violent suppression of protests by its own Shiite population
after the start of the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. The Saudi
government accused him of fueling violent dissent among Saudi Arabia’s
Shiites, which he denied.
The
executions were carried out at a dozen sites across the kingdom; four
used firing squads, while the rest were beheadings, said Maj. Gen.
Mansour Turki, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry. While most
executions in Saudi Arabia are held in public squares, Saturday’s were
done inside prisons, General Turki said.
Sheikh
Nimr’s execution is likely to further exacerbate tensions between the
Saudi government, which is dominated by a Sunni royal family, and
Shiites across the region. Iran, a Shiite country and Saudi Arabia’s
main regional rival, had warned that executing Sheikh Nimr “would cost
Saudi Arabia dearly.”
A
spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Hossein Jaberi-Ansari,
condemened the execution. “It is clear that this barren and
irresponsible policy will have consequences for those endorsing it and
the Saudi government will have to pay for pursuing this policy,” he
said, according to the the Iranian Students News Agency.
The
cleric’s arrest, in July 2012, came as Saudi Arabia led a group of
regional monarchies in violently pushing back against the pro-democratic
activism and protests that swept the region during the Arab Spring.
The
Saudi government’s fears of unrest prompted it to intervene to prop up
the monarchy in Bahrain, which faced protests from a Shiite-led
pro-democracy movement. In Saudi Arabia, the focal point of protests was
in the oil-rich Eastern Province, where many Shiites live and often
complain of official discrimination by the Sunni monarchy.
Sheikh
Nimr, based in the Eastern Province town of Awamiyah, had long been a
fierce critic of the monarchy and played a leading role in the protests.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in the province after video emerged of
his arrest, which showed him bleeding while in custody. The government
said he had been injured in a shootout. Sheikh Nimr faced charges
including sedition and was sentenced to death in October 2014.
The
first reports of protests over the execution of Sheikh Nimr came from
Bahrain, where about 100 people demonstrated in the Abu Saiba district,
west of Manama, the capital, shortly after noon prayers. Riot police
fired tear gas at demonstrators who chanted against the ruling families
of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and held pictures of Sheikh Nimr, according
to a witness. Police stepped up patrols throughout the country.
The
executions Saturday came as Saudi Arabia seeks to battle accusations
that its justice system, which is based on a strict interpretation of Shariah law,
uses methods similar to those of the Islamic State extremist group.
Saudi officials bristle at such comparisons, saying that unlike the
Islamic State, which has made a trademark of its grisly videos of
executions of captives and members of religious minorities, their
government puts to death only people who have been convicted in court of
grave crimes.
In
2015, a year that began with the inauguration of a new monarch, King
Salman, Saudi Arabia executed at least 157 people, up from 90 in 2014.
Saudi officials have argued that the sharp increase, which was strongly
criticized by human rights groups, reflected not a change in policy but a
backlog of death sentences that had built up in the final years of the
previous monarch, King Abdullah.
No comments:
Post a Comment