Saudi commission announces change to death penalty

Kindly Share This Story

Women protest outside the Saudi consulate in New York on 1 June 2019 to protest against the trials of three clerics in Saudi ArabiaImage copyright
Getty Images

Image caption

Saudi Arabia executed 184 people in 2019, compared to 149 in 2018, according to Amnesty

Saudi Arabia will no longer impose the death penalty on people who committed crimes while still minors, the country’s Human Rights Commission says.

The announcement, citing a royal decree by King Salman, comes two days after the country said it would ban flogging.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – which Riyadh has signed – says capital punishment should not be used for offences carried out by minors.

Activists say Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s worst human rights records.

They say freedom of expression is severely curtailed and critics of the government are subject to what they say is arbitrary arrest.

A record 184 people were executed in the kingdom in 2019, according to human rights group Amnesty International. At least one case involved a man convicted of a crime committed when he as a minor, the rights group has reported.

In a statement published on Sunday, Awwad Alawwad, president of the state-backed commission, said a royal decree had replaced executions in cases where crimes were committed by minors with a maximum penalty of 10 years in a juvenile detention centre.

“The decree helps us in establishing a more modern penal code,” Mr Alawwad said.

It was unclear when the decision – which was not immediately carried on state media – would come into effect.

The kingdom’s human rights record has remained under intense scrutiny, despite recent changes, following the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, while many civil rights and women’s rights activists remain in prison.

Earlier this week, the most prominent Saudi human rights campaigner died in jail after a stroke which fellow activists say was due to medical neglect by the authorities.

Read More

READ MORE:  Coronavirus updates: New Zealand eases lockdown as it 'eliminates' virus
By Famous Reporters

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

No widgets found. Go to Widget page and add the widget in Offcanvas Sidebar Widget Area.