Saudi Arabia strongly rejects the comparisons and points out that it has a judicial appeals process with executions ultimately aimed at combating crime. It cited the Interior Ministry for the information.
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The cleric’s name was among a list of the 47 carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
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Numerous publications, including the leading British newspaper The Guardian, mistakenly referred to al-Nimr as an Iranian cleric.
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Haitham al-Jubouri, another lawmaker, said that the execution of Nimr represents the beginning of the end of the ruling family (in Saudi Arabia).
Al-Nimr, had been a vocal critic of Bahrain’s monarchy, which forcibly suppressed protests in 2011 with the help of Saudi troops.
He told Reuters: “Sheikh Nimr enjoyed high esteem in his community and within Muslim society in general and no doubt there will be reaction”. And Iran summoned Saudi Arabia’s charge d’affaires in Tehran on Saturday to protest the execution.
She reiterated the EU’s “strong opposition” to the death penalty, especially mass executions.
Berlin’s human rights envoy, Christoph Straesser, was also critical. “Appalled by reports about recent executions in #Saudi”.
In Iraq, prominent Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for “angry demonstrations”, but said protests should be peaceful. “Saudi will not pass through this maelstrom”.
Iran and Saudi have been vying for leadership in the Muslim world since Iran’s 1979 revolution, which elevated to power hard-line Shiite clerics.
“It is the minimum to show honesty in dealing with human rights”, called Larijani for Westerners’ condemnation of the executions. “What is the use of having a Saudi embassy in Iraq?” the armed group said in a statement. The Saudi embassy in Baghdad, which had been closed for almost 25 years, was reopened on Friday.
Islamic State called on Saturday on supporters to attack Saudi soldiers and police in revenge for the executions of militants, in a message on Telegram Channel, a prominent vehicle for the group’s backers, the SITE monitoring group reported.
Reprieve says the 47 people whose execution was announced Saturday include four Shiite dissidents.
“The execution of a prominent minority representative testifies to a panic that makes a mockery of the government’s argument that (Saudi Arabia) is a “stability partner”, said the Greens foreign affairs spokesman Omid Nouripour, born in Iran.
Bahrain police fired tear gas at several dozen people protesting al-Nimr’s execution, an eyewitness said. He then went on to “unflinchingly” denounce the Saudi government and its actions against the Shiite minority in the kingdom.
At least 157 people were put to death past year, a big increase from the 90 people killed in 2014.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned the execution of Nimr by Saudi Arabia.
He says the family has not yet been asked to pick up the body but that a funeral would be held as soon as possible. Bahrain, which has a Shia majority, had its own peaceful uprising against the monarchy in 2011, which was violently crushed by a Saudi invasion, backed by the U.S.
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The group added that those who carry the “moral and direct responsibility for this crime are the United States and its allies who give direct protection to the Saudi regime and cover its crimes against its (Saudi) people and people of the region”. More security forces were also deployed that year to contain protests in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich east, where al-Nimr rallied youth who felt disenfranchised and persecuted.
