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March 5th, 2013 
David Schulberg the 3rd
“We are urging the King to halt immediately the executions, and calling
on the the authorities to investigate the seven men’s allegations that they
were tortured and otherwise ill-treated.
Saudi authorities regularly order beheadings and other forms of death sentence
for rape and murder, and while armed robbery can also attract the ultimate
penalty it is employed more rarely.
Crucifixion is occasionally ordered as an extra humiliation – and warning –
even where the method of initial execution is beheading.
Abha is in the country’s far south-west, and more conservative than other
parts of the kingdom such as Jeddah. Without a written legal code, judges in
Saudi Sharia courts have wide flexibility to impose verdicts and sentences.
The Washington-based Institute of Gulf Affairs, which is also campaigning
against the sentences, claims that people from the south of the country are
regarded as second-class citizens and regularly receive harsher punishments
as a form of deterrence against unrest.
One of the seven men, Nasser al-Qahtani, used a smuggled phone to tell the
Associated Press from his cell that he was only 15 at the time of the crime.
“I killed no one,” he said. “I didn’t have weapons while
robbing the store, but the police tortured me, beat me up and threatened to
assault my mother to extract confessions that I had a weapon with me while I
was only 15. We don’t deserve death.”
He said the judge at his trial took no notice of the torture claims.
“We showed him the marks of torture and beating, but he didn’t listen,”
he said. “I am talking to you now and my relatives are telling me that
the soil is prepared for our executions tomorrow.”
In a statement, Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East director of Human Rights
Watch, said: “It will be outrageous if the Saudi authorities go ahead
with these executions.
“It is high time for the Saudis to stop executing child offenders and
start observing their obligations under international human rights law.”
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