Saudi Arabia Set To Behead and Crucify Teenager For Attending Anti-government Protest At 15

The family of a Saudi teenager set to be beheaded
because he attended a protest when he was just 15
years old has pleaded for help.
Abdullah al-Zaher, now 19, was arrested in March
2012 after attending protests and is said to have
been beaten and then tortured into signing a
confession without being allowed to read it or
consult with his parents or a lawyer.
He faced a range of charges from ‘harbouring’
protesters, participating in demonstrations and
chanting slogans, to ‘concealing the offence of
incitement’, setting fire to a car, and throwing petrol
bombs.
Zaher was sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia’s
secretive Specialized Criminal Court in 2014 and his
sentence was upheld this year, according to the
human rights organisation, Reprieve.
The prosecutor requested that Zaher be crucified
after he is beheaded.
Zaher is currently in solitary confinement awaiting
execution, which it is feared could happen at any
time.
He is thought to be the youngest person at the time
of arrest to be given a death sentence in Saudi
Arabia.
Zaher’s father, Hassan al-Zaher told The Guardian,
‘Please help me save my son from the imminent
threat of death. He doesn’t deserve to die just
because he participated in a protest rally.’
He said Zaher had told him he had not thrown
Molotov cocktails or ‘anything similar’ at the protest.
Zaher’s father told The Guardian his son is popular
and peaceful and that he went to the protests not
really knowing what they were about.
‘He did not go there with the intention of fighting or
opposing the government, in his eyes it was just a
simple protest rally,’ he added.
Reprieve, which is assisting the juveniles, has asked
UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to intervene
in Abdullah’s case and those of Ali al-Nimr and
Dawoud al-Marhoon, who were also juveniles when
they were arrested at protests. –