Saudi Regime Reneges on Vow to Stop Executing Minors: Rights Groups

Date: 18 January 2021 - 21:15

News ID: ۸۶۶۴۵

RIYADH (Dispatches) – Five Saudi minors have yet to have their death sentences revoked, according to two rights groups, nine months after the kingdom’s so-called Human Rights Commission (HRC) announced an end to capital punishment for juvenile offenders.
The regime-backed HRC in April cited a March royal decree by King Salman stipulating that individuals sentenced to death for crimes committed while minors will no longer face execution and would instead serve prison terms of up to 10 years in juvenile detention centers.
The statement did not specify a timeline, but in October, in response to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), it said the decree had come into force immediately upon announcement.
The decree was never carried on state media nor published in the official gazette as would be normal practice.
In December, state news agency SPA published a list of prominent "events” of 2020 featuring several royal decrees, but the death penalty order was not included.
Organizations including anti-death penalty group Reprieve, HRW and the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) as well as a group of U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns that loopholes in Saudi law could still allow judges to impose the death sentence on juvenile offenders.
One of the five has appealed and eight face charges that could result in execution, said the groups, who follow the cases closely.
Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record came under global scrutiny after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, is one of the world’s top executioners, rights groups say.
Its de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known internationally as MbS, enjoyed strong support from U.S. President Donald Trump.
But President-elect Joe Biden, who takes over in the White House later this week, has described the kingdom as a "pariah” for its rights record and said he would take a tougher line.
In 2018, after assuming his post in a palace coup that ousted the previous crown prince, MbS pledged to minimize the use of the death penalty as part of sweeping social reforms.
But in 2019, a record number of about 185 people were executed, according to the rights groups.
Saudi Arabia has no civil penal code that sets out sentencing rules, and no system of judicial precedent that would make the outcome of cases more predictable based on past practice.