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For Immediate Release
January, 04 2016, 07:15am EDT
Contact:
Reprieve’s London office can be contacted on: communications [at] reprieve.org.uk / +44 (0) 207 553 8140. Reprieve US, based in New York City, can be contacted on Katherine [dot] oshea [at] reprieve.org / +1 917 855 8064.
Fresh Concerns for Saudi Juveniles After Mass Execution
LONDON
Three Saudi juveniles remain at grave risk of execution, international human rights NGO Reprieve has warned, as fresh details emerged of the cases of several young protestors who were executed on Saturday.
Ali Saeed al-Rebh and Mohammad Faisal al-Shioukh, two protestors who were teenagers when they were arrested in 2012, were among 47 prisoners executed across Saudi Arabia on Saturday (2nd). They were killed alongside a third young man, Mohammad Suweimal, and the prominent activist Sheikh Nimr.
It's now been revealed that Ali, who 18 at the time of his arrest, was in school when he was arrested by police officers for attending protests. He was later subjected to torture, including being burnt with cigarettes and beaten, before being sentenced to beheading in the in the country's secretive Specialized Criminal Court (SCC). The charges that included helping to organise demonstrations with a mobile phone and attending an address given by Sheikh Nimr.
Mohammed, who was 19 when he was arrested, was convicted in the same court on charges including chanting against the Saudi government and painting anti-establishment graffiti on walls. A 'confession' he signed after being beaten with electric cables and batons was used to secure his death sentence.
Following Saturday's mass execution, three juveniles are still awaiting execution - Ali al-Nimr, Dawoud al-Marhoon and Abdullah al -Zaher. All three, who are held in solitary confinement, were tortured into signing statements that were used to convict and sentence them to death in the SCC. Speaking last month, Abdullah al-Zaher's father, Hassan al-Zaher, said that the court process had been so secretive that the family had been unable to follow the progress of their son's trial. He appealed to the international community to "please help me save my son from the imminent threat of death."
Speaking yesterday, Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood said the UK government had "expressed our disappointment" at the executions to the Saudi authorities, adding that ministers would "continue to raise" the cases of the juveniles.
Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, which is assisting the juveniles, said: "With the executions of young protestors who were tortured and convicted in secret trials, the Saudi authorities have demonstrated utter contempt for the rule of law, basic human rights and their international obligations. There are now serious concerns that juveniles Ali al-Nimr, Dawoud al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher could be next in line for the swordsman's blade. Saudi Arabia's closest allies - the UK and the US included - must do all they can to bring an end to this wave of killings."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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102 House Democrats, Including Jeffries, Help GOP Send Crypto Bill to Trump's Desk
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More than 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives helped Republicans send what would be the country's first major cryptocurrency law to the desk of President Donald Trump, despite warnings that the legislation would not only further his corruption, but also "expose our financial stability, national security, and consumer protections to greater risk."
All but a dozen voting Republicans and 102 Democrats—including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.)—supported the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which last month passed the Senate 68-30, with support from 18 Democrats.
If signed by the president, as is expected, the bill would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, which are pegged to the value of existing assets such as the U.S. dollar. The Trump family's World Liberty Financial has issued the stablecoin USD1.
@housedemocrats.bsky.social Shame on all of you. You have no foresight and no backbone.
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— Jodi Jacobson (@jljacobson.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 5:52 PM
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Leading House Democratic opposition to the GOP's package is Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who warned last week that "these bills would make Congress complicit in Trump's unprecedented crypto scam."
As Politico detailed Thursday:
Waters and other Democrats called for presidential ethics provisions to be added to the bills, pointing to the Trump family's business entanglements in the crypto industry. Trump and his sons have stakes in several crypto ventures, including a company they launched last year that issues a stablecoin and could benefit from the GENIUS bill that is now awaiting the president's signature.
But a growing bloc of the party has joined Republicans in lining up behind the digital asset industry's Washington agenda, a sign of crypto firms' ascendance as a political force. Companies in the crypto sector have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into influence efforts, and a mountain of super [political action committee] money is threatening to target lawmakers who stand in the way of the industry's goals.
After Thursday's vote, Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, declared that "today, House members piled venality onto perversion onto corruption. In approving this crypto-enabling bill, Congress surrendered to the onslaught of crypto political spending and legitimized the world's biggest Ponzi scheme."
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RM @repmaxinewaters.bsky.social slams Republicans’ UNSTABLE Act:“The UNSTABLE Act creates the appearance of a federal framework for #stablecoins, but it does not provide the Federal government with the full authority it needs.” | tinyurl.com/5t2skxvnWATCH: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQWy...
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— U.S. House Committee on Financial Services - Democrats (@ushousefsc.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 1:23 PM
In addition to sending the GENIUS Act to Trump, the House advanced two other crypto bills on Thursday: the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which would create a regulatory framework for digital asset markets, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
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Some states have also expanded Medicaid to include noncitizens not covered by the federal program. However, that money comes from state budgets rather than the federal one.
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The outlet reported that the family of one of the men who is listed on the flight manifests but whose name has never been reported or acknowledged by the Trump administration, has been protesting his disappearance in his home country of Venezuela.
Keider Alexander Flores Navas' mother, Ana Navas, said in a TikTok video in March that she suddenly stopped hearing from him the day the deportation flights took off—and then saw him in a photo of prisoners at CECOT.
@diariovea 🔵 Ana Navas: Mi hijo no figura en la lista de secuestrados, sé que está en El Salvador por una foto. 🔵 Keider Flores Navas es uno de los venezolanos trasladados a El Salvador. Su madre sabe que está allá por una fotografía en la que lo reconoció. 🔵 Señaló que tiene más de dos semanas y media sin poder hablar con su hijo. #elsalvador #eeuu #venezuela #migrantes #fyp ♬ sonido original - Diario VEA
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called the news of the flight manifests "a horror story."
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