Mother of condemned Saudi man seeks US aid

Young al-Nimr facing death in Saudi Arabia (facebook)

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr’s mother, Nusra al-Ahmed, seeks Obama’s help to release her son. Al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 after participating in Shiaa-supporting protests in 2011. He was 17 years old at the time he was arrested which violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Al-Nimr who’s facing beheading and crucifixion was found guilty of a long list of crimes including sedition, breaking allegiance to the king, rioting, using petrol bombs against security patrols, robbing a pharmacy and more. His family denied all of these charges.

His mother said in her first interview with foreign media that this ruling against her son is “backwards in the extreme”. When she visited him after his arrest, she alleged he had been tortured. “When I visited my son for the first time I didn’t recognize him. I didn’t know whether this really was my son Ali or not. I could clearly see a wound on his forehead. Another wound in his nose. They disfigured it. Even his body, he was too thin.”

She urges Obama to intervene before her son is beheaded and his decapitated body hung from a cross in public. “Obama is the head of this world and he can, he can interfere and rescue my son … He would be rescuing us from a great tragedy.”

Amnesty International and human rights group Reprieve have called for clemency for al-Nimr. While other figures such as talk show host Bill Maher and British Prime Minister David Cameron have weighed in with demands for Saudi Arabia to reconsider its judicial system. While other like Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, urged the US president to step in immediately.

In response, a senior Obama administration official said the US is “deeply concerned” by the case. “We call on the Government of Saudi Arabia to respect universal human rights and its international obligations as well as to ensure fair and transparent judicial proceedings that afford requisite fair trial procedures and safeguards in this and all cases,” the Obama administration official said.

Saudi ambassador to the UN Abdallah al-Mouallimi told the BBC’s Newsnight that in al-Nimr’s case, the “legal process has not been exhausted,” but asked the world to not interfere in the country’s internal affairs. Mouallimi said the kingdom would uphold the UN charter on human rights. “The application of sharia law as far as human rights is concerned the highest form of human rights,” he said, adding: “We believe that we are holding ourselves to the highest standards. If that doesn’t please someone here or there, that’s their problem not ours.”