Dozens of Saudi Political Prisoners Await Death by Beheading
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Saudi Arabia is despotic family-owned oil-rich territory more than a legitimate country – the Arab world’s most ruthless regime.
According to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), 51 political prisoners in the kingdom await beheadings, following sham court proceedings – flagrantly violating fair trial standards.
Forced confessions when obtained are extracted by torture, rendering them null and void under international law.
Human rights and other activists, pro-democracy champions, and anyone critical of regime policies face arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution – most often by public beheadings, symbolic of Saudi barbarism.
Washington, Britain, other EU countries, and most others are silent about horrendous KSA high crimes.
The UK-based Reprieve human rights group calls the kingdom “one of the five top executing countries in the world for more than a decade” – most often imposed for “protest-related offenses” and other forms of activism.
Britain has been complicit with the kingdom by supplying arms, along with training Saudi security forces “in investigation techniques that could lead to the arrest, torture and sentencing to death of peaceful protesters, and that these projects have been undertaken without proper safeguards,” Reprieve explained.
So-called reforms in the kingdom are pure illusion. War of aggression in Yemen, political imprisonments, torture, public executions, and other flagrant human rights abuses are appalling breaches of fundamental international laws.
According to ESOHR, 51 Saudi political prisoners await execution – eight individuals arrested and imprisoned as minors for peacefully protesting and chanting slogans critical of KSA policies.
Trials when held are farcical, guilt by accusation automatic, justice always denied.
Twelve Saudi prisoners face execution on phony charges of spying for Iran. According to ESOHR, accusations against these individuals aren’t acceptable under international laws, norms and standards.
ESOHR monitors flagrant Saudi judiciary violations, depriving targeted individuals of “their right to a fair trial and accepts charges obtained under torture.”
Death sentences are also common for alleged offenses too minor to matter, minors as vulnerable as adults.
Human rights activist Israa al-Ghomgham may be the kingdom’s first woman publicly executed political activist, capital punishment imposed on women earlier for other reasons.
Arrested in December 2015 for so-called “anti-establishment activities,” she likely faces death for courageous activism, the outcome of her trial and for others predetermined before begun.
According to ESOHR, “the call of the public prosecution for a death sentence for the detainee is a dangerous indicator that the trial outcome will lead to a death penalty sentence being issued because the Saudi mechanisms involved in the prosecution process are not independent and serve the needs of King Salman directly.”
“Israa is being subjected to an unfair trial (for human rights activism), which uses flawed laws and can be regarded as a ‘show trial’ ” with no legitimacy.
She “called for fundamental and basic civil and political rights, such as peaceful assembly and expression…the release of prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders, (along with) expressing her peaceful opinions on social media platforms.”
She and her husband Seyyed Musa Ja’afar Hashem were arrested and detained at the same time.
Throughout over 32 months in brutalizing detention, she was denied the right to counsel, receiving it only after her father petitioned for donations to cover legal expenses.
She faces death by beheading for doing the right thing. The kingdom is notorious among Arab country as the most cruel, barbarous and lawless, its high crimes ignored in the West.
An October hearing will decide whether her death sentence will be carried out – virtually certain under a tyrannical system showing no mercy.
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