Riyadh — The oppressive Al Saud regime in Saudi Arabia is preparing to execute a young Shia man who was arrested at the age of 15 for participating in demonstrations and attending funerals.
Youssef al-Manasif was detained in 2017 and accused of joining protests by the persecuted Shia minority, as well as attending funerals that Saudi authorities arbitrarily classified as political demonstrations.
He was convicted and sentenced to death by the regime’s Specialised Criminal Court (SCC), a secretive tribunal notorious for rubber-stamping political charges under the guise of counter-terrorism. According to recent reports, the Saudi Supreme Court has now upheld his death sentence, effectively extinguishing his final domestic legal avenues and bringing him closer to the executioner’s block.
The UK-based human rights charity Reprieve has strongly condemned the ruling, revealing that Manasif was subjected to severe torture and coerced into signing a false confession. Furthermore, he was denied adequate legal representation, only meeting his state-appointed lawyer for the first time in 2022—a staggering five years after his initial arrest.
This impending execution is the latest in a horrifying surge in the use of the death penalty for non-violent offenses under the de facto rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Last year alone, the Saudi regime executed a record 356 people.
The case also highlights the glaring hypocrisy of the Saudi monarchy regarding international human rights commitments. In 2020, Riyadh issued a royal decree claiming to abolish the death penalty for juveniles, stating that individuals would not be executed for crimes committed while they were minors. However, the regime has blatantly violated its own decree, with Reprieve noting that at least 17 individuals who were children at the time of their alleged offences have been executed since 2015.
United Nations independent human rights experts have previously raised serious alarms over Manasif’s case, demanding that Saudi Arabia immediately halt all planned executions of individuals convicted of offences allegedly committed before they turned 18. Despite mounting international condemnation, the Al Saud regime continues its brutal campaign of repression against its own citizens, particularly the marginalised Shia minority.
Reference: PressTv