Can The Saudi Regime Become Modern by Executing Minors?
By
Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
16 June
2021
Saudi
Regime Not Just Cuts up Journalists like Khashoggi, But Also Tortures and Kills
Minors like Mustafa Hashem
Main
Points:
• Saudi regime has executed a minor for his
alleged involvement in terrorism.
• It lied to the UN human rights council that
it will no longer execute children.
• The West and U.S are silent over this
crackdown on dissent.
• Those who project MBS as the harbinger of
Islamic reform, must understand that a genuine reform cannot come about without
a certain degree of freedom for its citizens.
----
Mustafa Hashem al-Darwish, 26, was beheaded yesterday amid worldwide
appeals for a reprieve. (Photo courtesy: The Times)
----
The Saudi
regime not just cuts up journalists like Khashoggi, but is also fond of
torturing and killing minors. Mustafa Hashem was recently executed on terrorism
related charges. More specifically, he was charged with participating in
protests against the Saudi government, killing a police officer and conspiring
to detonate a bomb. The way the Saudi justice system works, it is very
difficult to independently verify each of these charges. But given the
propensity of the regime to equate any anti-government activity as terrorism
and sedition, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that he was killed
simply because of his participation in protests.
His family
claims that he was detained in 2015 but released only to be arrested later
because an ‘objectionable’ photo was found on his phone. Human rights groups
across the world have condemned this execution and have pointed out that Hashem
was a minor when he was arrested. They have pointed out that the Saudi
government had committed that they will not execute minors but would rather
commute all such cases to imprisonment. As late as 2021, the Saudis were
stating before the UN Human Rights Council that ‘anyone who commits a
death-eligible crime as a child will be subject to a maximum sentence of ten
years in a juvenile detention’. Clearly then, the Saudis were lying because
they did not adhere to their own promise. Or it could be that their definition
of what constitutes a child differs from that of the United Nations. After all,
according to Islamic law, the mark of adulthood is puberty. Who can forget that
the Pakistani terrorists justified their killing of school children in 2014 by
quoting various hadiths which equated adulthood with the onset of puberty?
The defence
of the Saudi establishment is that Hashem had confessed to being involved in
terror activities. Coming from a totalitarian regime, no one should take this
at face value. The fact is that Hashem was placed in solitary confinement and
beaten so brutally that he lost consciousness several times. It was only to
make the torture stop that he confessed to the charges against him. This is
borne by the fact that he recanted his confession in court and told the judge
that he did so because he was tortured. But then the sadist regime had already
made up its mind to kill him and all his pleas fell on deaf ears. One wonders
if there is any sense of the justice left in the country when it executes a
teenager simply for participating in a protest. The regime did not even have
the civility to inform the family of his death; they found it out through an
online news portal.
One does
not know which photo Hashem had on his phone which riled the Saudi government
so much. But the more important question no one is asking is how the Saudi
police hacked into his phone to retrieve that photo? Which technology did they
use? We know that only one country-Israel- has this capability and is more than
willing to share it with its ‘friends’. The new found friendship between Israel
and Saudi Arabia now makes perfect sense because it gives the latter access to
technology through which it can monitor and surveille its own people. The
Saudi-Israel friendship is nothing but an attempt to put together a new
apparatus of coercion for Saudi people as the regime is fearful that sooner or later,
the Arab Spring will also come to them.
The Saudi
Prince, popularly known as MBS, is trying to convince the world that he is
ushering in liberal changes in the kingdom. Recently, he ‘allowed’ Muslim women
to perform Hajj without a male guardian. Hailed as a revolutionary moment, this
would place the Saudis in the 10th century rather than make it a modern
country. Any modern civilized society makes way for difference of opinion but
the Saudi monarchs are terribly afraid of their people finding a voice. It is
this fear that is making them execute people without any remorse. In 2019, the
Saudi government executed 37 citizens which included 34 Shias, in a mass
execution for alleged terrorism related crimes. Of these, 6 were confirmed
cases of child execution. Back in 2016, the regime had executed 47people in one
day, again on terrorism related charges. The paragons of human rights, the
liberal west, have maintained continued silence on the atrocities committed by
the Saudi state on its own people. It is shameful that the Saudi regime has not
even earned a censure from these countries for its crackdown on dissent of any
form.
Those who
see a ray of hope in MBS forget that genuine reform in the kingdom cannot come
without trusting its own people. Citizens have to be taken on board and wide
discussions must precede any viable change which is being planned. MBS cannot
continue to bulldoze any criticism of his regime while at the same time
proclaim himself to be the harbinger of a new dawn in the Islamic emirate. This
is sheer hypocrisy and the sooner his propagandists see this the better it will
be for the future of that country.
----
Arshad
Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-society/saudi-execution-modern/d/124980
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