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SAUDI-RIGHTS-POLITICS-EXECUTIONS
Saudi seeks death penalty for woman activist: campaigners
DUBAI, Aug 23, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor is seeking
the death penalty against five human rights activists, including, for the
first time a woman, campaigners say.
The five stand accused of inciting mass protests in mainly Shiite areas of
the Sunni-ruled kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province and human rights groups
charged that the execution threat was a calculated bid to stifle dissent.
It comes as Saudi Arabia takes an increasingly combative approach to
international criticism of its human rights record, imposing a raft of
sanctions against Canada after it spoke out earlier this month.
Female activist, Israa al-Ghomgham, who has documented the protests in
Eastern Province since they began in 2011, would be the first woman activist
to face the death sentence for rights-related work.
She was arrested at her home along with her husband in December 2015,
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in separate statements this
week.
“Israa al-Ghomgham and four other individuals are now facing the most
appalling possible punishment simply for their involvement in anti-government
protests,” said Samah Hadid, Amnesty International’s Middle East director of
campaigns.
“We are urging the Saudi Arabian authorities to drop these plans
immediately.”
Saudi officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
HRW said Ghomgham, her husband and the three other defendants face charges
that “do not resemble recognisable crimes”.
“Any execution is appalling, but seeking the death penalty for activists
like Israa al-Ghomgham, who are not even accused of violent behaviour, is
monstrous,” its Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said.
– ‘Horrifying message’ –
Amnesty said the unprecedented call for a death sentence against Ghomgham
was a clear attempt to scare other dissidents into silence.
“Sentencing Israa al-Ghomgham to death would send a horrifying message
that other activists could be targeted in the same way for their peaceful
protest and human rights activism,” Hadid said.
Amnesty says at least 12 other leading activists, including eight women,
have been arrested in the kingdom since May — just before the authorities
ended their decades-long ban on women driving.
Many of them had opposed both the driving ban and the wider system of
statutory male “guardians” for women — fathers, husbands or other relatives,
whose permission is required to travel or get married.
Earlier this month, Canada sparked fury in Riyadh by calling for the
“immediate release” of the detained activists, including award-winning
women’s rights campaigner Samar Badawi.
Saudi Arabia froze all new trade and investments, moved to pull out
thousands of Saudi students from Canadian universities and pledged to stop
all medical treatment programmes in Canada. State airline Saudia also
suspended flights to Toronto.
The ultra-conservative kingdom has one of the world’s highest rates of
execution, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed
robbery and drug trafficking facing the death penalty.
Human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about the fairness of
trials in the kingdom, an absolute monarchy governed under a strict form of
Islamic law. The government says the death penalty is an effective deterrent
against serious crime.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1743 hrs