Saudi Arabia executed 37 people: Here is who they were
Tehran (KNA): A Shia academic, a disabled protester and a number of detained minors were among 37 people that Saudi Arabia executed in its recent mass execution on "terrorism" charges, a new report has revealed.
Human rights groups state that at least 33 out of the 37 individuals executed on Tuesday were from Saudi Arabia's persecuted Shia minority, the Middle East Eye reported Thursday.
Dcuments obtained by the CNN show that many of the executed individuals had "repeatedly" told the Saudi court that, in a bid to save their lives, they had been forced to accept confessions their torturers had written for them.
In one case, one of the defendants affirmed loyalty to the Saudi kingdom in hopes of getting leniency from the court, only to be executed later on.
The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) claimed that "the death penalty was implemented...on a number of culprits for adopting extremist terrorist ideologies and forming terrorist cells to corrupt and disrupt security as well as spread chaos and provoke sectarian strife."
Reports detailing the lives of a number of the protesters, however, reveal a strikingly different account behind the recent mass executions.
Mohammed Al-Attiyah
Among the victims were popular Shia cleric and dean of the English department at Jeddah university Mohammed al-Attiyah.
Human Rights Watch asserts that al-Attiyah was one of the 11 men similarly charged and executed by the court for "planning with an Iranian intelligence element…to establish a company to spread Shia activities [in the Eastern Province]."
This is while the Shia cleric was known as a "promoter of unity between the different sects" in the Saudi kingdom.
Al-Adam was already partially blind and deaf at the time of his arrest when he was only 18 years old, according to European Saudi Organization For Human Rights (ESOHR).
The group added that Adam had been punished for exercising his "fundamental human rights such as freedom of assembly" and was executed after making a confession under duress.
"Saudi Arabia consistently fails to abide by the strict criteria which safeguards substantive and procedural requirements with relation to the death penalty for retentionist states," ESOHR said.
Source: Press TV