[Salon] In Saudi Arabia justice is absent, impunity is rife

In Saudi Arabia justice is absent, impunity is rife Summary: as the campaign to polish the image of Mohammed bin Salman continues to gather pace, the crown prince has suffered a setback at the UN; even so the pace of executions continues unchecked with 2024 the bloodiest year yet. We thank Taha al-Hajji for today’s newsletter opinion piece. He is the legal director of the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) which is a partner organisation of Reprieve. Taha previously worked as a lawyer in Saudi Arabia defending clients, including children, at risk of execution. He now lives in exile. Saudi Arabia is executing people at a record rate. In July and August alone there were 80 executions. At the time of writing there have already been 215 executions this year making 2024 the bloodiest in the Kingdom's modern history. A 2023 report by Reprieve and ESOHR showed that since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to power with his father King Salman in January 2015, the annual rate of executions has doubled. Thus far, their regime has executed 1,459 people. Saudi authorities frequently carry out executions at opportunistic moments to temper international outrage: whilst the world is consumed with the horror in Gaza, the Kingdom is clearing its overflowing prisons with a bloodbath. The death penalty crisis under the reign of Mohammed bin Salman is intensifying. A win for human rights, a setback for the Saudi authorities On 9 October UN member states voted to elect five new members to the Human Rights Council. Saudi Arabia was fighting for a seat alongside five other candidates including Qatar. Numerous human rights groups campaigned against the Saudis. With 117 votes the kingdom finished last behind the Marshall Islands. Qatar secured 167 votes. Still, the ease with which Saudi Arabia has put people to death while bidding for a seat on the Council is a clear indication that the Saudi authorities care little for what the international community think of them. In fact, Saudi Arabia’s unchecked pursuit of protesters, women’s rights defenders, and social media influencers has created a climate of absolute impunity for the Crown Prince at the painful expense of its citizens. In 2020, member states rejected Saudi Arabia’s bid to join the Council. Four years later the Saudis were back. But since 2020 things have gotten worse, not better: 196 executions in 2022, including 81 men killed on a single day, then 172 executions in 2023. Total executions in Saudi Arabia 2010-2021 [photo credit: Reprieve] The statistics are important, but it’s essential we don’t get lost in them. People on death row have families who live in agonising fear, not knowing when they will receive news of their loved ones’ death, if indeed they hear at all. One child defendant, Abdullah al-Derazi, was in a coma for two weeks as a result of the torture inflicted upon him during his interrogation, to force him to sign a confession. He could be executed at any moment. Youssef al-Manasif was tied to a staircase in a police station and kicked by passing officers. He is now on death row for allegedly attending protests when he was a child. A third child defendant, Abdullah al-Howaiti, was arrested and tortured when he was 14, and forced to participate in his brother’s torture to coerce him into a confession. Gaslighting the international community Saudi authorities have a history of gaslighting the international community when it comes to their human rights abuses. In April 2020, Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Commission had announced a ‘Royal Decree’, supposedly to “abolish the use of the death penalty for minors”. In October 2020, the SHRC issued a public statement on Twitter claiming, “no one in Saudi Arabia will be executed for a crime committed as a minor.” In February 2021, the Saudi officials reiterated to the UNHRC that “anyone who commits a death eligible crime as a child" will be subject to “a maximum sentence of 10 years in a juvenile institution." The Royal Decree has never been made public, abolishing the death penalty for child defendants has not been implemented, and the Saudi authorities continue to lie about it, including at the UNHRC during the adoption of Saudi Arabia’s Universal Periodic Review report. In 2021, a year after Saudi Arabia repeated its commitment to the UNHCR, Mustafa al-Darwish was executed for so-called “crimes” that took place when he was just 17 years old. Detained for non-lethal protest related offences, he was placed in solitary confinement and beaten until he lost consciousness, then forced to sign a confession to make the torture stop. His family received no notice before he was put to death. On the morning of the UN Human Rights Council vote, Saudi Arabia once again lied to the UN when it told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that it reserves the death penalty for the most serious crimes. It is worth noting that we have recently passed the six-year anniversary of the torture and murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a heinous crime which US intelligence has determined was approved by Mohammed bin Salman and carried out by a team of 15 Saudi agents. The murder sent shockwaves across the world and six years on it stands as a reminder that justice is absent and impunity is rife in the kingdom. The past few years have also been difficult for those of us who are exiles trying to continue our work on these cases. Civil society is shrinking and even those who are abroad are not safe. It’s more difficult than ever to monitor the situation. Minors whose cases we monitored closely have been executed, religious scholars and university professors face the spectre of death and our friends are imprisoned for their activism. We hear promises from the Saudi Arabia authorities and talk of legal reforms. We were optimistic when the Royal Decree was announced in 2020, which was supposed to halt death sentences against minors, and when Muhammad bin Salman committed to ending the death penalty for non-lethal offences. But in the end, all we have seen is increasing restrictions on individuals. Families are prevented from communicating with us, arbitrary sentences have been issued and death sentences given out to political detainees, child defendants and others. Gathering information and defending those sentenced to death is becoming more and more difficult but more important than ever, as the government desperately attempts to launder its image. Since Saudi Arabia’s last bid to join the Human Rights Council four years ago, there has been no progress on human rights violations. As executions increase at an alarming rate, and blood continues to run through the prisons, it is a small victory but victory nonetheless that once again their bid has been turned away.