Two die during Saudi Arabia protest at Shia cleric arrest

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Monday July 09, 2012 20:59

by pat c

Where is the UN? Where is Clinton? Where is NATO? Where are the Sanctions? Where are the international conferences in support of the Saudi Shia people? Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, a dictatorship, but it doesn't bother those who are out destabilise Syria. Actually Saudi Arabia is arming and bankrolling the Syrian fundamentalists.

Two men have been killed in Saudi Arabia during a protest against the arrest of a prominent Shia cleric.

Activists said Akbar al-Shakuri and Mohammed al-Filfil were shot by police while attending a demonstration in Qatif, a city in Eastern Province.

The interior ministry said there had been no clashes with police, and that the incident was being investigated.

Protesters carrying portraits of Sheikh Nimr Baqir Al-Nimr

Earlier, officials had said the cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was hurt in a car accident as security forces chased him.

The interior ministry said Sheikh Nimr was an "instigator of sedition" and would be interrogated after receiving treatment for a leg injury.

Ten days ago, the cleric said in a speech that he was confident his arrest or killing would be a "motivation" for more widespread demonstrations demanding reforms, an end to sectarian discrimination and the release of political prisoners.

The oil-rich Eastern Province is home to a Shia majority that has long complained of marginalisation at the hands of the Sunni ruling family. ...

Shia activists and websites reported that the two men had been killed when police opened fire to disperse a demonstration on Riyadh street in Qatif, where hundreds of people were photographed marching.

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Comments (3 of 3)

Rights groups demand Saudi activist trial transparency

Tue Aug 07, 2012 19:19

Good to see HRW, AI & FDL defending Saudi activists. But where is Clinton? Why isn't she foaming at the mouth about this? Where are the sanctions? Full text at link.

Human Rights groups have asked Saudi Arabia to monitor activists’ trials to evaluate how the monarchy deals with the opposition in the country amid the ongoing Arab Spring unrest.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International together with Front Line Defenders, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Alkarama, a Swiss organization focusing on Arab countries, and the Gulf Center for Human Rights have sent a letter to the Saudi Justice Ministry expressing their desire to be present and monitor court hearings of four human rights advocates.

The non-profits also state that watching the trials would aid their understanding of how the conservative Islamic theocracy handles such cases.

Writer Mikhlif al-Shammari, attorney Walid Abu al-Khair and Professors Abdullah al-Hamid and Mohammad al-Qahtani face charges of cooperating with international rights organizations, tainting state’s reputation and fostering protests, reports Reuters.

"These individuals have, over the past years, advocated greater respect for the human rights of people in Saudi Arabia. They now find themselves facing criminal charges stemming from their human rights activities," the letter sent to Justice Minister Mohammed al-Issa says. Human rights attorneys have criticized the government’s will to give fair representation to their clients and access to see them.

just when we thought..

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party

Tue Jul 10, 2012 15:02

..George Orwell was fiction...Big Bro hit the household god in the corner(where we keep the antipodean Neighbours at remote arms-length).

When i was bookill, fado fado, the conversation was about how the Germans could claim to be unaware of the horrors being perpetrated in their name.

It becomes clearer when you witness the refined Goebbelisation of corporate capital with its selective domes of silence and never-ending cycles of circuses and 'exciting' products brought to us by our pillaging economic masseurs at the expense of looted resources from the war-industry's targets.

The moral grandstanding of C**ton with her trail of wreckage and drone shoot-to-kill escalation illustrates just how deply implicated our media are in this neo-fascistic PNA(TO)C reich-building.

good to see an article mentioning saudi rather than syria/Iran/russia/china/north korea

by lefty

Tue Jul 10, 2012 13:15

It's good to see an article mentioning the REAL undemocratic states in the middle east that are ignored by the corporate media and US because they are "untouchable"

No sanctions, no "no fly zones", no "friends of saudia arabia" orwellian meetings plotting sanctions and the sending of weapons over the borders, no eamonn gilmore, no black clad snipers sent in to randomly shoot people on both sides of a religious or ethnic faultline from the rooftops until the place boils over, no nothing.

We want to keep getting our oil from the fat rich ferrari driving princes and despots in saudi so who gives a fuck about human rights. "Assad is evil though, and must go (but the rebels are all little winged angels)" and "Iran are plotting the nuclear destruction of the planet" despite having NO nuclear weapons.

And many people still believe this narrative spewing from their tvs

You couldn't make this shit up!!

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Two die during Saudi Arabia protest at Shia cleric arrest

Comments (3 of 3)