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For Immediate Release
April, 19 2016, 09:45am 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
Obama Must Raise Juvenile Executions on Saudi Arabia Trip
President Obama must use a trip to Saudi Arabia this week to help three Saudi juveniles who face execution after they were arrested for attending protests, international human rights organization Reprieve has said.
Mr Obama is due to travel to Saudi Arabia today (19th) on what is expected to be the last visit of his Presidency. The trip comes amid concerns for the fate of Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher, who face execution on charges relating to their attendance at protests in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province in 2012. All three were children when they were arrested, and were forced under torture to sign 'confessions' that led to their conviction in the country's secretive Specialized Criminal Court.
Speaking in December last year, a US State Department spokesperson said the Administration was "concern[ed]" by Ali Al-Nimr's case, and called on Saudi Arabia "to respect universal human rights and its international obligations." However, it is not clear whether the US has raised the juveniles' cases directly, and Saudi Arabia has since executed a number of other minors, as part of a mass execution of 47 prisoners in January. Among them was Ali Al-Ribh, who was arrested in school in the wake of the 2012 protests.
Last year, Ali al-Nimr's mother Nusra al-Ahmed called on President Obama to secure her son's release, telling the Guardian: "My son and I are simple people and we don't carry any significance in this world but despite that, if he [Obama] carried out this act, I feel it would raise his esteem in the eyes of the world." She added, "He would be rescuing us from a great tragedy."
Research by the human rights organization Reprieve last year revealed that 72 per cent of those facing execution in Saudi Arabia were convicted of non-violent offenses, such as political protest. The first quarter of 2016 saw a record number of executions in the country, Reprieve has found, with 84 prisoners killed - setting the Kingdom on course to double its 2015 executions total.
Commenting, Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said:
"President Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia comes amid a huge surge in repression in the Kingdom. Scores of prisoners - including young people arrested at protests - have been executed, after being tortured into 'confessions' and put through shockingly unfair trials. It's too late to save Ali al-Ribh and the other juveniles killed in January, but the President can, and must, urge the Saudi authorities to commute the sentences of Ali al Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher, and release them - before they suffer a similar fate."
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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