A drawing raising awareness of Ali al-Nimr's case. Image by Gianluca Costantini.
A Saudi court has endorsed the death sentence of 21-year-old Ali al-Nimr for “participating in demonstrations against the government, attacking the security forces, possessing a machine-gun and armed robbery,” the daily Okaz reported on September 14.
When al-Nimr was initially arrested on February 14, 2012, he was 17 years old. He was taken to the General Directorate of Investigations (GDI) prison in Dammam, in the Eastern Province. Al-Nimr's case was then transferred to the Ministry of Interior, according to his father, political activist Mohammed al-Nimr. The Specialized Criminal Court in Jeddah initially sentenced al-Nimr to death on May 27. According to news reports, al-Nimr will first be beheaded, and then have “his body strapped to a cross to rot.”
“The court seems to have based its decision on signed ‘confessions’ which Ali al-Nimr claims were extracted under torture and other ill-treatment, and has refused to look into this allegation,” Amnesty International said in a report released in 2014.
The accused's father criticized the media coverage of the trial.
The Saudi media reported on the court hearings of #Ali_AlNimr & uncle #SheikhNimr to push their narrative made up of scenarios & accusations
— محمد النمرm. alnemer (@mbanalnemer) September 12, 2015
The daily news outlet Okaz mentioned in its report that Ali is the nephew of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Saudi Shiite cleric who has been detained since July 2012, who is also sentenced to the death penalty and had led protests in Qatif at the height of the Arab spring in 2011.
Mohammed al-Nimr, Ali’s father, has been actively tweeting about the details of the case, drawing attention to human rights issues and due process violations.
The appeals & high court have endorsed the Death penalty sentence for young #Ali_AlNimr &his case transferred to Ministry of Interior #Saudi
— محمد النمرm. alnemer (@mbanalnemer) September 11, 2015
During #Ali_AlNimr investigation, the investigator wrote a scandalous statement & took Ali's thumb threatening to stamp with his fingerprint
— محمد النمرm. alnemer (@mbanalnemer) September 11, 2015
#Ali_AlNimr lawyer was not able to sit with his client in court &the investigation bureau refused judges sentence & pushed for death penalty
— محمد النمرm. alnemer (@mbanalnemer) September 11, 2015
Young men like #Ali_AlNimr should be in school & not in prison or in courts which lack minimum standards of due process. #Qatif #Saudi
— محمد النمرm. alnemer (@mbanalnemer) September 11, 2015
Eman al-Hakeem, a Saudi lawyer, chided the actions of children's rights advocates in the case:
يعلم المدافعين عن الحقوق بأمر الطفل #علي_النمر لكنهم اختاروا الصمت أولا لأنهم طائفيون وثانيًا لأنهم جبناء.
— إيمان الحكيم (@__EMAN_) September 13, 2015
Child rights defenders know about Ali al-Nimr's case, but they chose to be silent because they are, first, sectarians, second, cowards.
Waleed Sulais, human rights activist, tweeted:
ادعو هيئة حقوق الانسان ان تنظر في الإجراءات التي تمت ضد #علي_النمر من لحظة القبض عليه الى صدور الحكم ورفع تقرير بذلك الى الديوان الملكي .
— وليد سليس (@WaleedSulais) September 14, 2015
I call on the Human Rights Commission to consider the procedures carried out against Ali al-Nimr from the moment he was arrested to the sentence and report it to the Royal Court.
He added:
مصادقة حكم الإعدام على #علي_النمر مرحلة خطرة بكل المقاييس ان يُقتل شخص قبض عليه وهو طفل ولم يقم ب “أشد الجرائم خطورة”التي يحكم فيها بالإعدام
— وليد سليس (@WaleedSulais) September 14, 2015
The approval of Ali al-Nimr's death sentence is a dangerous phase by all standards: to kill a person who was arrested as a child and has not made the “most serious crimes” which led to death.
Fatima Kareem shared a video on Twitter showing al-Nimr arguing with police who were threatening to shoot at him. He was filming them as they were looking into his house:
In the video Ali said: I don't have anything, just my camera. You're looking at my house which is the reason why I'm recording.
al-Nimr's execution will be carried out as soon as the Saudi King ratifies the sentence.
According to Amnesty International “Saudi Arabia is one of the most prolific executioners in the world, putting more than 2,200 people to death between 1985 and 2015. Between January and the end of August 2015, it executed at least 130 people, almost half of them for offences that do not meet the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’ for which the death penalty can be imposed under international law.”
