Posts Tagged ‘human rights’
Amnesty report blasts Saudi death penalty
The Guardian reports this morning:
Poor foreign workers bear the brunt of “the stark horror” of Saudi Arabia’s secretive death penalty system, Amnesty International said today, with a Saudi citizen up to eight times more likely to escape execution through a “blood money” payment than a foreigner.
Foreign nationals, mostly Asians and Africans, who face capital trials in the conservative kingdom are frequently unable to understand court proceedings if they are not Arabic speakers, are often not represented by a lawyer and are routinely held for long periods in harsh conditions and coerced into false confessions.
“The process by which the death penalty is imposed and carried out is harsh, largely secretive and grossly unfair. Judges, all men, have wide discretion and can hand down death sentences for vaguely worded and non-violent offences.”
Six Somalis who were publicly beheaded in 2005 had been arrested in 1999, convicted for robberies and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and flogging. Neither they nor their relatives were aware of their death sentences. The men only discovered that they were to be killed on the morning of their executions.
A Saudi executioner prepares to behead a convicted drug dealer in Jeddah in this 1985 image. Photograph: Rex Features
“The process by which the death penalty is imposed and carried out is harsh, largely secretive and grossly unfair. Judges, all men, have wide discretion and can hand down death sentences for vaguely worded and non-violent offences.”
Saudi authorities reject criticism of the death penalty and beheading, saying it is a humane method sanctioned in Islam and that its application of Islamic Sharia law ensures justice for all residents of the country. Convicts are drugged beforehand.
The last execution took place earlier this week.
Saudi Arabia beheads citizen for murder
There are death penalties in the West as well, of course, but they’re, well, quieter. And thankfully they are slowly being taken out of the law books. We’re not keen on bashing Arab societies for things everyone else does – this execution is only the 68th this year in Saudi Arabia – but this is still a bad practice that has to be stopped everywhere.
International Herald Tribune reports:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: Saudi authorities have announced the beheading of a citizen convicted of murdering a fellow Saudi.
The Interior Ministry says Masaed bin Attiya al-Ruwayli was convicted of murdering Ahmed al-Anzi by beating him and then shocking him to death with electricity.
Al-Ruwayli was executed in the northern town of Arar.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery can be executed.
According to an Associated Press count, Sunday’s executions bring to 68 the number of people beheaded this year in the kingdom. Last year, 137 people were beheaded, up sharply from 38 in 2006.
