RIYADH (Dispatches) – Human rights groups and activists denounced Saudi regime’s execution of a Shia youth despite worldwide appeals for a reprieve.
On Tuesday, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced that the death sentence against Mustafa bin Hashem bin Issa Al Darwish, 26, had been carried out in the Eastern Province.
Rights groups condemned the execution, saying Darwish had been subjected to “prolonged detention, flawed trial, torture and forced confession”.
The victim had been sentenced to death over alleged participation in peaceful protests against the regime in Riyadh when he was only 17 years old.
“By carrying out this execution the Saudi Arabian authorities have displayed a deplorable disregard for the right to life,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
“He is the latest victim of Saudi Arabia’s deeply flawed justice system which regularly sees people sentenced to death after grossly unfair trials based on confessions extracted through torture.”
Britain-based campaign group, Reprieve, said Saudi authorities had not informed Mustafa’s family about his execution and they found out “by reading the news online.”
Reprieve said the Shia youth had been placed in solitary confinement and tortured in detention.
“Once again the Saudi authorities have shown that their claims to have abolished the death penalty for children are worthless,” said Ali al-Dubaisi, director of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR).
“The cruelty of this execution, without warning, for the crime of joining protests as a teenager, is the true face of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia -- not the endless empty promises of reform.”
British Minister for International Trade Ranil Jayawardena met with Nayef Falah Mubarak al-Hajraf, the secretary-general of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in Saudi Arabia on the same day the kingdom executed the young man.
Darwish’s relatives had called on British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to raise the case during his visit to the kingdom last week.
In a statement following Raab’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the UK Foreign Office claimed that the minister had “raised human rights concerns, notably around justice reform and freedom of media expression.”
However, Maya Foa, director of UK-based campaign group Reprieve, said, “It is not enough for Saudi Arabia’s partners to ‘raise human rights issues’, as British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab reportedly did on his recent visit to the kingdom.”
“They need to raise specific cases, and make clear that executions for childhood crimes will not be tolerated. Otherwise, Abdullah al-Howaiti, arrested aged 14 and sentenced to death at 17, could be next,” added Foa, who was speaking after Darwish’s execution.
Western countries have long been accused of turning a blind eye to the kingdom’s dire human rights record.
The country has carried out 26 executions so far this year, according to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights.