\n<\/p>\n
A young man faces imminent execution in Saudi Arabia for attending protests and funerals when he was aged 15 to 17, say human rights groups, in the latest example of the kingdom\u2019s surging use of the death penalty for non-violent crimes.<\/p>\n
Youssef al-Manasif was arrested in 2017 and accused of crimes including joining demonstrations for religious freedom by the Shia minority and attending funerals that the Saudi authorities deem to be protests. He was convicted and sentenced to death by the specialised criminal court, a secretive tribunal set up for terrorism-related cases.<\/p>\n
The charity Reprieve says Manasif was tortured and coerced into signing a false confession and only met his state-appointed lawyer for the first time in 2022 \u2013 five years after his arrest.<\/p>\n
Manasif\u2019s death sentence has now reportedly been upheld by the Saudi supreme court, which was likely to be his last hope of avoiding execution.<\/p>\n
His family have not spoken in public about the case and could face harassment or arrest if they do so. \u201cThere is nothing they can do now but wait,\u201d said Duaa Dhainy, a consultant for Reprieve and the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia has seen what activists describe as a \u201chorrifying\u201d surge in executions under the rule of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Last year saw a record 356 people put to death in the country. Most of those executed are foreigners convicted of minor and non-violent drug crimes.<\/p>\n
At least 17 people, who were children at the time of their alleged offences, have been executed in Saudi Arabia since 2015, according to Reprieve.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree abolishing the death penalty for children in 2020, stating that individuals would not be sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors.<\/p>\n
However, it has since upheld the death penalty in a number of cases involving child defendants. In April, it executed Ali al-Subaiti, along with his uncle, Mustafa al-Subaiti, <\/strong>for non-lethal \u201cterrorist\u201d offences committed when he was 12 years old.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/span>Free newsletter |<\/span>Every fortnight<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Sign up to Global Dispatch<\/span><\/p>\n Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features, opinion and photography, curated by our global development team<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The UN\u2019s independent human rights experts have previously expressed concerns about Manasif\u2019s case. It said Saudi Arabia should immediately halt planned executions of people convicted of offences allegedly committed when they were under 18.\n <\/p>\n \u201cThey are using execution as a tool to show how powerful they are and how they can threaten anyone who does not follow their rules,\u201d Dhainy said of the Saudi regime. \u201cWe think he should be treated as a minor and not sentenced to death as his charges relate to when he was under 18.\u201d<\/p>\n Human Rights Watch said executing Manasif for a non-violent crime committed as a minor would be \u201can unconscionable new low\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A young man faces imminent execution in Saudi Arabia for attending protests and funerals when he was aged 15 to 17, say human rights groups, in the latest example of the kingdom\u2019s surging use of the death penalty for non-violent crimes. Youssef al-Manasif was arrested in 2017 and accused of crimes including joining demonstrations for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[12717,17724,25391,1541,494,11191],"class_list":{"0":"post-52475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-arabia","9":"tag-execute","10":"tag-funerals","11":"tag-man","12":"tag-protests","13":"tag-saudi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}