Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shi’ite Muslim cleric and dozens of al Qaeda members on Saturday, signalling it would not tolerate attacks, whether by Sunni jihadists or minority Shi’ites, and stirring sectarian anger across the region.
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The Bahraini authorities have expressed support for the actions of Saudi Arabia after Riyadh executed a prominent Shiite cleric, the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
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He said Nimr’s execution “merely shows the extent of irresponsibility and impudence”.
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Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn said it was “profoundly wrong” to carry out the death sentence against Shiite Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was among 47 people executed.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s Sunni ruling leaders have become increasingly agitated by Nimr as he was an outspoken supporter of the Arab Spring-inspired protests in 2011 against the government and the marginalization of the Shiite minority.
The Shia Personal Law Board will hold protest in Lucknow and Mumbai on January 4 and outside Saudi Embassy in Delhi on January 7.
In the Iranian holy city of Qom, seminary students protested against Saudi Arabia’s execution of Nimr, the Mehr news agency reported.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Aabadi Tweeted Saturday night that he was “shocked and saddened” by al-Nimr’s execution, adding that, “peaceful opposition is a fundamental right”.
All those executed were Saudis, except for an Egyptian and a Chadian.
On Saturday, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced that Sheikh Nimr along with 46 others, who were convicted of being involved in “terrorism” and adopting a “Takfiri” ideology, had been put to death.
A Saudi lawyer in the eastern region of the kingdom told The Associated Press that in addition to al-Nimr, three other Shiite political detainees were executed Saturday.
The worldwide human rights group Reprieve said it showed the Saudi government was “continuing to target those who have called for domestic reform in the kingdom”.
The execution was described as a “grave mistake” by the Supreme Islamic Shia Council in Lebanon and a “flagrant violation of human rights” by Yemen’s Houthi movement.
Saudis carry a poster in May demanding freedom for jailed Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
It says one of the dissidents, Ali al-Ribh, was 18 when he was arrested in 2012, and another, Mohammed al-Shuyokh, was 19.
Fuad Ibrahim, a UK-based Saudi writer and researcher, described Sheikh Nimr’s execution as the start of a new, darker chapter between Saudi’s Shia citizens and their government.
But in the eyes of the Saudi police and the court that convicted him late in 2014, the 56-year-old was an instigator of shooting and bombing attacks against the authorities on behalf of Riyadh’s main regional rival, Shi’ite Iran.
“Al-Nimr is now gaining popularity locally, particularly with young people, as his words appeal to those disaffected by the general economic malaise experienced by Saudi Arabia’s lower classes”, read a classified U.S. State Department cable made public in 2010 by Wikileaks regarding a 2008 meeting between the sheikh and a U.S. official.
The simultaneous execution of 47 people on security grounds was the biggest mass execution for such offenses in Saudi Arabia since the 1980 killing of 63 jihadist rebels who seized Mecca’s Grand Mosque in 1979.
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However, Sheikh Nimr’s brother, Mohammed al-Nimr, said he hoped any response would be peaceful.
