Advisers to the United Nation's Human Rights Council have appealed to the Saudi Arabian government to stop the “unlawful” execution of Ashraf Fayadh, a poet and artist of Palestinian origin. Fayadh was sentenced to death for apostasy by a court in Abha, southern Saudi Arabia, last month.
Fayadh was first arrested in August 2013 and then rearrested and tried in January 2014. He was detained for allegedly passing around a book of his own poetry that promoted atheism and after a witness said he had heard the artist make blasphemous remarks in a café. According to a UN statement, the witness's testimony had been discarded in the original trial for being motivated by animosity. In May last year, Fayadh was sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes, but this 17 November, an appeals court ruled that Fayadh be executed for apostasy. He was allowed one month to appeal the sentence.
In a statement sent to the Saudi regime yesterday (3 December), Christof Heyns, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said it appears Ashraf is about to be executed “on the basis of seemingly unreliable evidence”. He said: “This has to be deplored as an arbitrary and thus unlawful execution.”
David Kaye, special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said in the same statement that the sentence has had “a widespread chilling effect across all of Saudi society.”
The six human rights experts who supported the letter also expressed their concern over reports that Fayadh did not have legal counsel during the judicial proceedings, in violation of international law.
Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty has raised international alarm. According to the BBC, the Middle Eastern kingdom has executed more than 150 people so far this year. Saudia Arabia currently chairs a panel of independent experts on the UN's Human Rights Council.
