Following President Donald’s Trump recent visit to Saudi Arabia, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross came under fire for his tone-deaf remarks in which he lauded the lack of public protest he witnessed while in the country.
A report published by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on Tuesday offers a worrying explanation for why public dissent is so hard to find in the oil-rich kingdom.
“Court documents show that all defendants, including the 14 sentenced to death, were held in pretrial detention for more than two years before their trial began.”
—Human Rights Watch
In what Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch called a ploy to “settle scores and crush dissent under the guise of combating ‘terrorism,'” Saudi Arabia is reportedly set to execute 14 protestors following trials rife with inequities and abuse.
“Court documents show that all defendants, including the 14 sentenced to death, were held in pretrial detention for more than two years before their trial began,” noted Human Rights Watch. “In nearly all the trial judgments analyzed, defendants retracted their ‘confessions,’ saying they were coerced in circumstances that in some cases amounted to torture, including beatings and prolonged solitary confinement. The court rejected all torture allegations without investigating the claims.”
The death sentences were upheld by Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court, which is responsible for trying terrorism cases. Human Rights Watch characterized the court as “notorious,” and concluded that any ruling it disseminates should be rejected.
Of those set to be executed, four were deemed guilty of crimes committed when they were teenagers. All 14 are Shiites, a persecuted religious minority in the kingdom. The report notes that there are 38 Saudi Shiites “currently sentenced to death.”
“The sham court proceedings that led to death sentences for 38 Shia men and boys brazenly flout international fair trial standards,” Lynn Maalouf, the director of research at Amnesty International in the Middle East, said in a statement. “The sentences should immediately be quashed.”