A Palestinian poet and leading member of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art scene Ashraf Fayadh was sentenced to death for renouncing Islam on Tuesday.
The poet, who has curated art shows in Jeddah and at the Venice Biennale, said he did not have legal representation, and was given 30 days to appeal against the ruling. He had originally been sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes by the general court in Abha in May 2014. But his appeal was dismissed and he was retried last month, in which a new panel of judges ruled that his “repentance” would not prevent his execution.
“For one and a half years,” said Kuwaiti migrant rights activist Mona Kareem, “they promised him an appeal and kept intimidating him that there’s ‘new evidence’.”
Fayadh’s friends and supporters are of the opinion that he is being punished for posting a video online in which the religious police (mutaween) in Abha were captured lashing a man in public. Kareem agreed saying “Some Saudis think this was revenge by the morality police.”
Kareem also believes that Fayadh, who was born in Saudi Arabia, has been targeted because he is a Palestinian refugee. He was originally arrested in 2013, but was released on bail within 24 hours. The police arrested him again in January 2014, confiscated his ID and detained him at a police station till his transfer to the local prison 27 days later. They originally tried to prove his poetry was atheist propaganda- which in his own words was “just about me being [a] Palestinian refugee … about cultural and philosophical issues” When they failed to prove this allegation, they began berating him for smoking and having long hair.
Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch, said:
“This case is yet another black mark on Saudi Arabia’s dismal human rights record in 2015, which includes the public flogging of liberal blogger Raif Badawi in January and a death sentence for Ali al-Nimr, a Saudi man accused of protest-related activities allegedly committed before he was 18 years old.
“If Saudi Arabia wishes to improve its human rights record it must release Fayadh and overhaul its justice system to prevent all prosecutions solely for peaceful speech – especially those that result in beheading.”
