In Tehran, a large crowd upset over the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr gathered outside the Saudi embassy and chanted anti-Saudi slogans.
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Iran president condemns Saudi execution, embassy attack
Sheikh Nimr was executed along with 46 others on Saturday, including three other Shiites and dozens of Al Qaeda members. Sheikh Abdul-Amir Kabalan, said, “This is a crime at a human level and will have repercussions in the coming days”.
Shia Islamic leaders on Sunday have stepped up their condemnation of the Saudi execution of the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, urging a robust response from Riyadh’s western backers, who are yet to fully address the issue.
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Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for further protests on Sunday.
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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein said it was not clear those killed were granted effective legal defence, while the scale of the executions was very disturbing “particularly as some of those sentenced to death were accused of non-violent crimes”.
His killing signals a renewed determination in Riyadh to undermine opposition and reform movements at home and overseas highlighted by Saudi Arabia’s bloody intervention in Yemen, its support of the Egyptian military dictatorship as well as its promotion of sectarianism in places like Nigeria, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Despite the focus on Nimr, the executions seemed mostly aimed at discouraging jihadism in Saudi Arabia, where dozens have died in the past year in attacks by Sunni militants.
Official Saudi media presented the jihadist Zahrani and the Shi’ite Nimr as equivalents – “inciters of violence and terrorism” as Sunday morning newspapers described them.
Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia announced on Saturday that it has executed 47 people in a single day on terrorism-related charges, including the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr who was a vocal critic of the government and the Saudi monarchy. “The execution of (imam) Nimr Baqr al-Nimr reinforces our current concerns about the growing tension…in the region”, he said.
“Besides the Shia Saudi citizens, a Saudi court convicted the 43 others on charges of working with Al Qaeda”.
Sheikh Nimr was a central figure in 2011 Arab Spring-inspired peaceful protests in the eastern parts of the Sunni-ruled Saudi Arab. He raised voice against atrocities on Shia minority community in his country.
The Saudi press, regulated by the government and required by the country’s constitution-like charter to “strengthen national unity”, exists under a perpetual state of self-censorship.
Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry said the executed men were convicted of adopting the radical “takfiri” ideology, joining “terrorist organisations” and implementing various “criminal plots”.
Also among those executed was a convicted terrorist involved in a 2004 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah that left nine dead.
He said Iran was required to protect foreign diplomatic institutions.
Forty people were arrested and investigators were pursuing other suspects, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.
And on Sunday, he tweeted, “Doubtlessly, unfairly-spilled blood of oppressed martyr #SheikhNimr will affect rapidly & Divine revenge will seize Saudi politicians”.
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Saudi Arabia says that by condemning the execution, Iran has “revealed its true face represented in support for terrorism”.
