News / Saudi Arabia

Disabled Saudi detainee transferred to solitary confinement for execution

Saturday, 15 July 2017 12:38 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 15 July 2017 12:42 PM ]

This file photo shows disabled and imprisoned Saudi man Munir al-Adam, who has been sentenced to death on charges of attending anti-regime protests.

An international human rights group says Saudi officials have moved a disabled man sentenced to death for attending an anti-regime protest into solitary confinement in preparation for his execution.

The UK-based Reprieve stated that Saudi authorities have not given a reason for the transfer of partially deaf and blind Munir al-Adam, which took place on June 22.

The group said Adam's family had not been allowed to visit him, noting that the disabled man is believed to be held in a cell for 24 hours a day without outdoor exercise breaks.

Reprieve director Maya Foa said the 23-year-old steel cable worker could be executed at any moment without his family being notified.

“There’s usually no date and no location given. The system is incredibly secretive and opaque, which adds to the distress for the families of those involved,” she added.

In May, the Saudi Specialized Criminal Court upheld the death sentence for the Saudi man, who has impaired sight and now cannot hear in one ear at all as a result of being badly beaten by regime forces.

The ruling was passed days after US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia, where he met with a number of Arab leaders.

Reprieve had called on Trump to raise the issue of human rights during the trip, but the US president simply shunned the matter.

Adam was sentenced to death in a secretive trial in the Specialized Criminal Court last year. He was charged with “attacks on police” and other offences during anti-regime protests in the Shia-populated Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia in April 2012.

Saudi Arabia has been facing protests since 2011, when a wave of uprisings and revolutions hit dictatorial Arab monarchies in the Middle East and North Africa.

Human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized Britain and the United States for giving the Saudi regime an easy pass on perpetrating human rights abuses on its own people.

Saudi Arabia executed a record 158 people in 2015 and another 153 people last year, according to Amnesty International.

A June report by Reprieve found that 41 percent of those executed in the oil-rich kingdom in 2017 were killed for non-violent acts such as attending political protests.

UN experts have called for an end to executions for non-violent offences.

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