العربية
Saudi Arabia should immediately quash the death sentences of 14 members of the Shia community for protest-related crimes, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint report on Tuesday, June 6, 2017.
The Court of Appeal of the notorious Specialized Criminal Court upheld the sentences in May 2017, after they were handed down a year ago on June 1, 2016, following a grossly unfair trial of 24 Saudi Shia citizens. The Specialized Criminal Court is Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism tribunal.
“The rise in death sentences against Saudi Arabian Shia is alarming and suggests that the authorities are using the death penalty to settle scores and crush dissent under the guise of combating ‘terrorism’ and maintaining national security,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
“The sham court proceedings that led to death sentences for 38 Shia men and boys brazenly flout international fair trial standards,” said Lynn Maalouf, director of research at Amnesty International in the Middle East. “The sentences should immediately be quashed.”
“Death sentences based on coerced ‘confessions’ violate international human rights law and are a repugnant yet all-too-common outcome in security-related cases in Saudi Arabia,” Maalouf said. “These death penalty trials fail to meet even the most basic requirements for due process.”
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch oppose the death penalty in all cases without exception. The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment and unique in its finality. It is inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.