Sheikh Nimir al-Nimir was executed Saturday along with 46 others, including three other Shiite dissidents and a number of Al Qaeda militants.
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In Saudi ally Bahrain, police used tear gas to disperse dozens of youths from the majority Shiite population protesting the executions.
US Calls In Iran, Saudis To Reduce Tensions
Amnesty International criticised Nimr’s arrest for being part of a campaign by the Saudi authorities to quash all dissent. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was “deeply dismayed” by the executions and called again for an end to the death penalty.
Tensions between revolutionary, mainly Shi’ite Iran and Saudi Arabia’s conservative Sunni monarchy have run high for years as they backed opposing forces in wars and political conflicts across the Middle East, usually along sectarian lines.
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Yemen’s Houthi rebels also denounced the execution on their website, and the Lebanese Supreme Shiite Council, the country’s top Shiite religious authority, called it a “grave mistake”.
Several Sunni clerics also came out to condemn Nimr’s execution, which looked likely to strain a recent attempt at diplomatic rapprochement between the two countries. “The only thing he did was public criticism”.
Greens co-leader James Shaw said it’s inappropriate for this country to be giving Saudi Arabia preferential treatment by way of a trade deal.
In the UAE, the Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador, Mohammad Reza Fayyad, to protest at Iranian intervention in Saudi Arabia’s sovereign affairs and the attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad.
Kashmiri protesters condemned the Al Saud family and chanted slogans against the United States and Israel, which are regarded as the main supporters of the Saudi regime.
Hours later, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said 40 people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in the embassy attack and investigators were pursuing other suspects, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.
The worldwide rights group Amnesty global said the 47 executions demonstrated the Saudi authorities’ “utter disregard for human rights and life” and called Sheikh Nimr’s trial “political and grossly unfair”.
“It is unjustifiable”, he said in a statement.
Smoke rises from Saudi Arabia’s embassy during a demonstration in Tehran Jan. 2, 2016.
“We believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations remain essential in working through differences and we will continue to urge leaders across the region to take affirmative steps to calm tensions”.
The official Saudi Press Agency listed Nimr’s name among 47 people who were executed on Saturday morning in the capital Riyadh and 12 other cities. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and others spent significant time trying to bring the countries to the negotiating table and they both sat together at talks aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the civil war. Al-Abadi tweeted Saturday night that he was “shocked and saddened” by al-Nimr’s execution, adding that “peaceful opposition is a fundamental right”.
The four Shi’ites had been convicted of involvement in shootings and petrol bomb attacks that killed several police during anti-government protests from 2011-13.
Mogherini said she and Zarif had agreed that no effort should be spared by all parties to keep the situation under control and to prevent sectarian tensions from escalating. Executions in Saudi Arabia rose sharply after King Salman was named to the throne last January and the kingdom executed 153 people in 2015, almost twice as many as in the previous year. In Iraq, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi wrote on Twitter that he was “shocked” and “saddened” at al-Nimr’s execution.
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The angry demonstrators demanded an end to the ongoing Saudi crimes against Shia Muslims, and called on the worldwide community to take notice of the ongoing human rights violations across the kingdom.
