Saudi Arabia ends death penalty for minors and flogging
Saudi Arabia’s decision to curb its use of the death penalty has raised hopes that a young man sentenced to die for taking part in anti-government protests will be spared execution.
Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 at the age of 17 for his role in protests inspired by the Arab Spring and received the death penalty.
But on Sunday, Saudi officials said they would no longer execute those who committed crimes while they were minors - defined in the kingdom as those under the age of 18.
“Instead, the individual will receive a prison sentence of no longer than 10 years in a juvenile detention facility," said Human Rights Commission president Awwad Alawwad in a statement.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia said it would also effectively abolish flogging as a punishment for criminals.
The reforms reflect a push by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, to modernise the ultra-conservative kingdom, which has long been associated with a fundamentalist strain of Wahhabi Islam.
The kingdom has one of the world's highest rates of execution, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking facing the death penalty.
Saudi Arabia executed at least 187 people in 2019, according to a tally based on official data, the highest since 1995 when 195 people were put to death.
It is not clear if the latest ruling by King Salman bin Abdulaziz will be applied retrospectively, but human rights groups renewed calls for the release of at least 13 Saudi prisoners currently on death row for alleged “terrorist” crimes committed as children.
They include Ali Mohammed Baqir Al-Nimr who was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to death along with other teenagers who participated in short-lived political demonstrations in the east of the country that were inspired by the Arab Spring.
According to a court judgment, Al-Nimr, while aged 17, "encouraged pro-democracy protests [using] a BlackBerry" mobile phone as members of Saudi’s repressed Shia Muslim minority came onto the streets to demand reform and equal rights.
He was allegedly tortured and forced to sign a confession while being denied access to a lawyer, human rights groups say. Two other protesters, Dawood al-Marhoun and Abdullah al-Zaher, were also convicted for similar offences, while they were aged 16 and 17, and sentenced to death.
Another prisoner, Murtaja Qureiris, now aged 20, is also threatened with the death penalty for crimes he allegedly committed when he was just 10 years old.
These included leading a demonstration of 30 children on bicycles and throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station after his brother was killed by Saudi forces in a protest in 2011.
Political protests are often considered “terrorist offences” in the Kingdom, which has a harsh record on repressing dissenters, despite recent claims of reform under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned Saudi Arabia’s gratuitous use of the death penalty, including for prisoners who have claimed to be chained, beaten and electrocuted before “confessing” to crimes under duress.
Among 800 executions since 2015, a total of 185 people were executed in the Kingdom last year, including three men who were children at the time of their offences, according to the campaign group Reprieve.
Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, welcomed the move to limit the death penalty but added: “These will be nothing more than empty words as long as child defendants remain on death row. "
