Faces of some of the 81 men Saudi Arabia says it executed on Saturday - more than during the whole of last year.
Reprieve UK which campaigns against the death penalty has launched a
petition demanding that Prime Minister Boris Johnson cancel his visit to
Riyadh this week to, as Reprieve put it in a tweet “beg for their oil to replace Russian gas.…He cannot trade oil for blood in our name.”
Reprieve has also raised the case of a Saudi, convicted as a
juvenile, sentenced to death who then had the sentence overturned before
it was reinstated on 3 March. Abdullah al-Howaiti
got the death sentence for murder that happened during a jewellery
robbery in 2017 when he was 14. Despite having an alibi – CCTV footage
proving he was nowhere near the scene of the robbery - and saying that
he was tortured into confessing, the presiding judge ignored those pleas
and reinstated the death penalty. Al-Howaiti was not amongst those
executed on Saturday, although one who was was said to have been 13 at
the time of his alleged crime.
The Saudis had announced with much fanfare in 2018 that they had
banned the death penalty for those committing crimes as juveniles.
However, somewhat overlooked are two important exceptions: qisas, that is crimes such as murder and hudud, offences considered against the rights of God such as adultery and apostasy.
The capricious nature of the Saudi court system, and its cruelty, is evident in another case, that of the blogger Raif Badawi.
In 2012 he was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1000 lashes for
calling for human rights and reform in the kingdom. He received 50
lashes but after video of the lashing went viral that portion of the
sentence was dropped. However, after serving the full ten year sentence
and upon his release on 11 March he was slapped with a ten year travel ban which will prevent him from seeing his wife and children who fled to Canada and gained asylum shortly after his arrest.
The travel ban is the same as that imposed on the women’s rights
activist Loujain al-Hathloul who also was placed on probation for three
years on her release from prison in February 2021. As her sister Lina,
who lives outside the kingdom, told us in our recent podcast:
She's not allowed to speak about what happened to her in prison.
She's not allowed to speak about the prison conditions. And she's not
allowed to commit the crimes she was accused of, which is basically her
activism. Her charges mentioned the fact that she was demanding women's
rights. So everything that's in her charges she's not allowed to do
anymore, which is basically silencing her. And she's under a
travel ban. And the travel ban is also on my family. It's not only on
Loujain. We live in a constant state of fear. We don't know when a
potential arrest could take place.
On 8 March the crown prince decreed a Personal Status Bylaw
guaranteeing significant rights for women that will come into force in
2022. In announcing the bylaw MbS said that it will “address all the
problems that families and women are experiencing.” It is a bitter irony
for Loujain al-Hathloul and other activists that rights they bravely
campaigned for and which led to their imprisonment are now given by fiat
whilst they continue to pay a heavy price.
Undoubtedly, the reforms the prince is imposing are empowering Saudi
women. But the key takeaway is that change has not come from grassroots
protests. It is top down. As Arab News put it: “The personal status law was adopted following efforts led and directly supervised by the crown prince.”
Meanwhile MbS is powering on with his mega-projects. At the beginning of March he announced Trojena
described as a year-round tourist destination with amongst other
attractions “a ski village, ultra-luxury family and wellness resorts, a
wide range of retail stores and restaurants, in addition to sports
activities, including a ski slope, water sports and mountain biking.”
He has already launched, under the auspices of his Misk Foundation, the Mohammed bin Salman non-profit city.
While claiming his city as a world first, he said it “will host
academies, colleges, ‘Misk Schools’, a conference centre, a science
museum, a creative centre offering a space to support the ambitions of
innovators in sciences and new generation technology such as AI, IoT and
Robotics.”
Nor is MbS (who in addition to all his other portfolios is the
kingdom’s defence minister) ignoring opportunities in the weapons
industry. Last week the kingdom held its first international arms show
under the auspices of the General Authority for Military Industries
(GAMI.) The crown prince in his Vision 2030 overhaul of the economy has
called for 50% of the kingdom’s massive defense spend to be retained
within Saudi Arabia. GAMI says that the show generated US$2.13 billion
worth of deals with domestic and international partners.
Mohammed bin Salman’s critics speak of hubris and arrogance as he
drives forward relentless change and stamps his vision on the kingdom.
It cannot be denied change needed to happen. But Saturday’s mass
executions underlines the lengths to which he is prepared to go to
ensure that no one challenges the vision he is forcing into reality and
the naked display of absolute power he is using to do so.