News / Politics

Tehran street housing Saudi embassy renamed ‘Nimr’

Sunday, 03 January 2016 6:20 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 10 January 2016 3:56 PM ]

Iranian protesters hold up the new street sign bearing the name of the executed Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr in the Iranian capital, Tehran, January 3, 2016. (Photo by ISNA)

The street housing the Saudi Arabian embassy in the Iranian capital, Tehran, has been renamed “Nimr Baqir al-Nimr” in protest at the outspoken Shia cleric’s execution by Saudi Arabia.

The Tehran Islamic City Council on Sunday ordered that the Boustan St. be renamed Ayatollah Nimr Baqir al-Nimr St., the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported.

Also on Sunday, hundreds of protesters marched throughout the Iranian capital, raging against the execution.

The clergyman was executed a day earlier alongside 46 other people, whom the kingdom’s Interior Ministry said had been found guilty of involvement in “terrorism.”

Sheikh Nimr had been arrested in 2012 in the Qatif region of Saudi Arabia’s Shia-majority Eastern Province, which was the scene of peaceful anti-regime demonstrations at the time. He had been charged with instigating unrest and undermining the kingdom’s security. He had rejected the charges as baseless.

In 2014, a Saudi court sentenced the clergyman to death, provoking widespread global condemnations. Back then, the UK-based rights body Amnesty International called the sentence “appalling,” saying the verdict should be quashed since it was politically motivated.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he is “deeply dismayed” by the execution, calling on the Riyadh regime to commute all death sentences handed down in the kingdom.

Riyadh continues to face strong criticism by international human rights organizations for failing to address the human rights situation in the country. The rights groups say Saudi Arabia has persistently implemented repressive policies that stifle freedom of expression, association, and assembly.

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