Rights groups condemn Saudi Arabia execution of minority individual for crimes committed as a minor News
Luke Richard Thompson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Rights groups condemn Saudi Arabia execution of minority individual for crimes committed as a minor

Amnesty International has condemned Saudi Arabia’s execution of Jalal Labbad, who was accused of crimes allegedly committed when he was a minor. Bissan Fakih, Amnesty International’s Middle East campaigner, said: “Saudi Arabia’s execution of Jalal Labbad is deplorable and underscores the devastating toll of the authorities’ ruthless use of the death penalty in complete disregard of one of the most absolute prohibitions to its use.”

Labbad, a member of the Shi’a minority in Al-Qatif, had participated in protests against the treatment of the community when he was about 17 years old. He was first arrested in 2017 at the age of 21 and charged with offenses he allegedly committed as a child. Reports indicate that he was tortured during detention, hospitalized due to frequent fainting, low blood pressure, and severe swelling in his right thigh, and was also denied access to legal counsel. In 2022, he was sentenced to death, and the Supreme Court later upheld his sentence. On August 21, he was executed.

The execution contradicts assurances given by the Saudi Human Rights Commission to Amnesty International in May 2023 that “the application of the death penalty on juvenile for ta’zir crimes has been completely abolished”. Labbad was convicted for ta’zir, crimes in Islamic law for which no specific penalty is prescribed in the Quran or Hadith.

The death penalty for crimes committed by individuals under the age of 18 is explicitly prohibited under customary international law, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is also recognized as a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also condemned Labbad’s execution, describing it as part of a “disturbing escalation” of unlawful executions that not only violate international human rights law but also undermine protections for religious freedom.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, calling it the ultimate violation of the right to life and a cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment.

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