Saudi Arabia releases young man on death row
Saudi officials have released Ali al-Nemer, a young man who was sentenced to death by a Saudi court a few years ago.
Ali al-Nemer was arrested in 2012 during a protest by Shiites. He was 17 at the time.
Ali al-Nemer was sentenced by a Saudi court to be beheaded in public. Voices were raised around the world against the Saudi court's decision.
Ali al-Nemer is the nephew of Shiite leader Sheikh Baqir al-Nimr, who was sentenced to death in 2016 for undermining national unity.
Ali al-Nemer has been in prison for almost 10 years since his arrest.
Saudi Arabia is one of the countries in the world with the highest number of executions.
During Saudi Arabia's presidency of the G20, 40 people were executed from January to July.
Sheikh Baqir al-Nemer was considered a major supporter of the 2011 Arab Spring-affected protests in Saudi Arabia's northern province. Protests in the province were led by local Shiite clerics who have long complained of mistreatment by Saudi Arabia's Sunni monarchy.
Ali al-Nemer was arrested in February 2012 during a similar protest. He was later convicted of "disobedience to the ruler", chanting slogans against the state and assaulting police.
Ali al-Nemer denied the allegations and told the court that police had forced him to confess to the crime. In the same court, two other youths, Abdullah al-Zahir and Dawood al-Marhoon, aged 15 and 17, respectively, told the court that they too had been forced to sign a confession.
The court had sentenced the three youths to death.
The three young men were upheld despite appeals for mercy from their families and human rights groups.
Earlier this year, the Saudi Commission on Human Rights announced that the death sentences of the three young men had been commuted to 10 years in prison.
The commission cited a 2018 law that reduced the sentences of these young people, under which juvenile offenders could not be sentenced to death for certain crimes.
Ali al-Nemer was released from prison on Wednesday, but Abdullah al-Zahir and Daoud al-Marhoon are still in prison.
Maya Fawa, director of Reprio, a charity working to abolish the death penalty, called Ali al-Nemer's release a "clear sign of improvement" and said people in Saudi Arabia were still being executed for childhood crimes. Is.
Another man, Mustafa al-Darwish, was sentenced to death in June this year, even though he was 17 years old at the time of his arrest. Mustafa al-Darwish had told the court that he had been forced to sign a confession.
Similarly, 19-year-old Abdullah Al-Hawati, who was arrested on charges of stealing jewelery and firing on a police officer when he was 14 years old, has also been sentenced to death.He is now on death row.