Saudi Arabia plans to execute Shia youths on charges UN deems 'arbitrary'

Middle East Eye

05-02-2025

Saudi Arabia is planning to execute five young Saudi Arabian Shia citizens and one Shia businessman on charges the United Nations has deemed arbitrary and which campaigners and legal experts say are racially motivated.
The five young Shia men were all minors when they participated in peaceful demonstrations in al-Qatif, in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, in 2011 and 2012.
They also attended the funerals of Shia citizens killed by Saudi security forces or police for participating in demonstrations.
Abdullah al-Derazi, Jalal al-Labbad, Yusuf Muhammad Mahdi al-Manasif, Jawad Abdullah Qureiris and Hassan Zaki al-Faraj were all prosecuted as terrorists, with at least one of them charged under a counter-terrorism law - branded "vague" by rights groups - introduced in 2017 by the then newly appointed Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Al-Derazi and al-Labbad have had their death sentences confirmed. Al-Manasif, Qureiris and al-Faraj are on trial once again, though Middle East Eye understands that the Saudi public prosecutor is still demanding the death penalty. The hearings are ongoing and the end point remains unknown.
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The businessman, Saud al-Faraj, also participated in the demonstrations of 2011 and 2012, held to protest the kingdom's ongoing mistreatment of its Shia minority during the first wave of the so-called Arab Spring, and attended the funerals of some of those killed by the Saudi state.
All six Shia Saudi Arabians have been sentenced to death and could be executed at any time. All are "tazir" cases, in which a Saudi judge can hand down their own sentence that is not based on law.
UN's arbitrary verdict
On 18 December, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a subsidiary of the United Nations made up of independent human rights experts, concluded that the young Shia men were being held arbitrarily – and that their death sentence was arbitrary.
The UN group reached the same conclusion in the case of al-Faraj.
The Working Group had communicated with Saudi authorities about the five minors, writing to them on 17 July 2023.
On 13 September, the Saudi Human Rights Commission, which presents itself as being independent of the state but is in fact part of it, replied. Sources familiar with the text told Middle East Eye that it was 30 pages long, did not refute any of the claims made and was mostly comprised of explanations of the laws of Saudi Arabia.
'Together the cases are the first time where the UN has given a statement that there is systemic discrimination against Shias within the framework of the death penalty,' Falah Sayed, a human rights officer at the MENA Rights Group, told Middle East Eye.
'The UN is becoming more open on this,' Sayed said. 'It's quite groundbreaking.'
Five categories are considered when determining whether a detention or charge is arbitrary. One of those is only applicable to refugees and minors.
The UN Working Group found that the six Shia men facing the death penalty met the criteria for all the other categories: there was no legal basis for their arrest or the death penalty charge, the detention was the result of their exercise of freedom of expression, they did not receive a fair trial, and their incarceration was related to them belonging to a Shia minority.
'The cases are the first time where the UN has given a statement that there is systemic discrimination against Shias within the framework of the death penalty'
- Falah Sayed, MENA Rights Group
Duaa Dhainy, a researcher and advocacy associate at the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), which was formed in Berlin in 2014 by exiled Saudi Arabian activists, told MEE that Saudi Arabia had already carried out 45 executions in 2025.
Two of those executed were from the kingdom's Shia minority. Dhainy spoke about an ever-growing atmosphere of repression in Saudi Arabia, even as Mohammed bin Salman pushes through eye-catching measures intended to signal to the West that the kingdom is 'opening up'.
A wide range of international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have condemned the 'countless abuses' taking place under the crown prince, dubbed 'the man who bought the world' by HRW.
In many cases involving civilians in Saudi Arabia detained by the authorities, the UN and other monitors do not know about a case until the suspect has been executed.
'The trials are secret,' Dhainy said. 'They threaten families and civil society in Saudi Arabia.' This fear means that no-one says anything, and so people are arrested, trialled, sentenced and executed without anyone knowing.
'Even the family doesn't know when the execution is,' Dhainy told MEE.
Between January 2016 and February 2024, ESOHR tracked 229 executions carried out by Saudi Arabia, with sentences issued by the specialised court and resulting in mass executions.
Of those executed, 93 of the targeted individuals were from al-Qatif, in the kingdom's Eastern Province. While those targeted from al-Qatif make up roughly 40 percent of the executions, the city's population accounts for less than two percent of Saudi Arabia's.
Six Shia men on death row
Abdullah al-Derazi was 16 when he participated in demonstrations in in al-Qatif, which were held in the wake of the Arab Spring to protest the treatment of Saudi Arabia's Shia minority.
In December 2012, he attended the funeral of Ahmad Mattar, a fellow Shia citizen who had – like others at the time – been killed by Saudi police officers and security forces.
On 27 August 2014, members of the Tarout Island police severely beat al-Derazi, then aged 18, before arresting him on the streets of al-Qatif.
'The trials are secret. They threaten families and civil society in Saudi Arabia... Even the family doesn't know when the execution is'
- Duaa Dhainy, European Saudi Organization for Human Rights
For three months, he was held and questioned in the Tarout police station before being transferred to Dammam prison run by Saudi Arabia's secret police, the Mabahith.
His family did not know where he was. He could not communicate with the outside world. He was, according to the UN group's verdict, 'put in solitary confinement for about six months, during which he was beaten, burned with cigarettes and psychologically tortured.'
On 20 August 2017, al-Derazi's trial began before Saudi Arabia's Specialised Criminal Court, which tries suspected terrorists and human rights activists. It is in this court that Saudi Arabians have been sentenced to death for tweets.
Al-Derazi was appointed a lawyer by the state after his trial began. He told the judge that he had been tortured, but this was not investigated and in February 2018 he was sentenced to death, a sentence that was upheld in Auguest 2022.
Like al-Derazi, al-Labbad, al-Manasif, Qureiris and al-Faraj were all also tortured by Saudi authorities.
This torture included beatings, electrocution on all parts of the body, waterboarding, being tied to a chair and beaten until passing out, and being stomped on with military boots.
All five young Shia men are currently held in Dammam prison, which is run by the Mabahith.
The businessman
Born in 1980, businessman Saud al-Faraj also participated in the demonstrations of 2011 and 2012 in eastern Saudi Arabia protesting the treatment of the Shia minority, who are often treated as an enemy within by the kingdom's authorities.
Saudi Arabia executions: Qatif protester among dozens in imminent danger Read More »
In November 2019 government authorities asked him to collaborate with them – a request he declined. Two weeks later, government forces raided one of al-Faraj's company's warehouses and confiscated construction equipment, according to the UN report.
Then, on 2 December 2019, the businessman and his family returned home to find tanks in their street. All the doors of their home had been shot at and the house had been searched.
Saudi authorities said they had found explosives and heavy weaponry in the house, but produced no material evidence.
Al-Faraj and his family moved to one of his warehouses, but a few weeks later this was raided and the Shia businessman was brutally beaten and arrested.
Since then, al-Faraj has been tortured, sexually harassed, had members of his family threatened and been forced into writing a false confession.
He has been held in solitary confinement and been charged with a litany of 'terrorist' offences.
He is still in Dammam prison and is still facing the death penalty.