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| Ali Mohammed al-Nimr |
US president urged to rescue Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, sentenced to be beheaded and crucified for allegedly attending anti-government protests
The mother of a teenage Saudi protester sentenced to crucifixion has begged Barack Obama to intervene to save her son’s life.
In her first interview with foreign media, Nusra al-Ahmed, the mother of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, whose case has reverberated around the world, described the intended punishment as “savage” and “backwards in the extreme”.
Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Reprieve, the US talkshow host Bill Maher and the British prime minister, David Cameron, have all weighed in with calls for clemency to stop Nimr, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, from being beheaded and then crucified.
The death sentence comes as the oil-rich state faces increasing diplomatic scrutiny over the severity of its penal system and as it takes over the chair of the UN human rights council.
Asked how she was coping knowing that at any moment her son could be put to death following the Saudi supreme court’s rejection of his appeal, Ahmed said: “For other people every hour is composed of 60 minutes, but for me every hour is 60 beats of pain.”
She said her son had been detained sometime after joining Shia demonstrators in the eastern coastal city of Qatif seeking equal religious rights in the Sunni-majority country.
The official charges levelled against Nimr included attending a protest, using his phone to encourage further support for the demonstrations and possessing a gun, an accusation which the family strongly denies.
Source: The Guardian, October 14, 2015
Saudi juvenile's mother appeals to Obama
The mother of a juvenile set to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia has appealed to President Obama to save her son.
Speaking to the Guardian in an interview published today, Nusra al-Ahmed, the mother of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, said that "Obama can interfere and rescue my son … To rescue someone from harm, there is nothing greater than that. My son and I are simple people and we don’t carry any significance in this world but despite that, if he [Obama] carried out this act, I feel it would raise his esteem in the eyes of the world. He would be rescuing us from a great tragedy.”
Ali's sentence of 'crucifixion' - beheading followed by the public display of his body - was recently upheld, after his arrest and torture in 2012 for attending protests. Another juvenile arrested at protests, Dawoud al-Marhoon, also faces beheading.
Asked last month what the US Government's view was on Ali's case, a State Department spokesperson said the US had 'concerns', but failed to condemn the sentence.
Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at human rights organization Reprieve, said: “Saudi Arabia’s planned executions of Ali al-Nimr and another juvenile, Dawoud al-Marhoon, have rightly caused a global outcry. But the response of the US – the Saudis’ closest ally – to these outrages has been woefully inadequate. The beheading of these two boys, who were arrested and tortured for merely attending protests, would be a grotesque miscarriage of justice. President Obama must listen to the call from Ali’s desperate family, and step in now to urge the Saudis to change course.”
- Nusra al-Ahmed's interview with the Guardian can be seen here.
- The US State Department spokesperson's comments can be seen here.
Source: Reprieve, October 14, 2015
Related content:
- Execution caught on video in Saudi Arabia, Emirates 24/7, June 3, 2012
- Saudis behead, crucify Sudanese man for robbery, rape and murder, Apr 21, 2012
- Saudi Arabia executes Burmese woman; secret filming reveals medieval, barbaric punishment, January 12, 2015
