0 Shares 0



0

0







The reverberations of Saudi Arabia's mass execution of 47 people including prominent Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday was known to the regime, as hours before the mass killings, security services received an order to cancel holidays and up readiness for an angry response, revealed a secret document obtained by The Independent.

The Saudi regime knew the action would spark an international outcry, and Riyadh was fully aware of this possibility, ordering its forces to stay on full-alert.

Saudi human rights campaigners had leaked the secret document which The Independent has seen. Marked ‘very urgent’, the document was sent to unit chiefs in the regions where the executions took place.

It ordered employees to cancel holiday plans and exercise "maximum precaution."

The human rights group Reprieve, according to the source, said the letter proves the political nature behind the deaths.

"This letter shows the level of preparation the Saudi authorities went to ahead of Saturday, having predicted the outrage that would follow their politically-motivated executions of protesters," Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, told The Independent.

“If the Saudi government really wants to prove itself on the international stage, it must stop torturing and executing protestors, and commit to fair, transparent trials.”

The Saudi government's decision to execute 47 people in a single day has drawn considerable criticism, particularly given that one of those individuals was Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric.

A new analysis from Eurasia Group joined the rights group Retrieve in criticizing Saudi’s wrongdoing, attributing the Saudi government's actions to its own waning influence.

"Saudi Arabia is in serious trouble, and they know it," Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, told Business Insider.

The analysis pointed out that "The Saudi Kingdom faces a growing risk of destabilizing discord within the royal family this year, and its increasingly isolated status will lead it to act more aggressively across the Middle East this year.

"More generally, expect an isolated and domestically weaker kingdom to lash out in new ways."

Saudi Arabia had come under fire for its increased reliance on capital punishment. Sentences are often handed down without fair trials.

Last year, Saudi Arabia executed 151 people. Such brutal executions, which in Saudi Arabia can include beheading, firing squad and even crucifixion, often follow dubious trials and arbitrary charges, according to Geoffrey Mock, the Middle East country specialist for Amnesty International USA.

Moreover, Amnesty International on Saturday said that Nimr has been “executed to settle political scores”. Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director, Philip Luther, was quoted by AFP as saying that “Nimr’s trial was both politicized and grossly unfair, because the international standards for fair trial were grossly flouted”.

Nimr, 56, promoted peaceful protest among his followers. He had been held since 2012, prompting a high-profile campaign for his release backed by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and Amnesty International.

Muhammad al-Nimr, the cleric’s brother, whose son Ali is also a political prisoner, appealed for calm, saying the late ayatollah would have wanted only peaceful protests.