Saudi Arabia plans to execute Shia youths on charges UN deems 'arbitrary'

Saudi authorities are planning to execute five young men from the Shia-populated Qatif region and one Shia businessman on charges that the United Nations has described as "arbitrary", and which rights activists and legal experts say are racially motivated. 

The five young Saudi Arabian Shia citizens were all minors, when they took part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Qatif, eastern province, in 2011 and 2012. 

They also attended the funerals of Shia citizens, who participated in anti-government rallies and were killed at the hands of Saudi security forces.

Abdullah al-Derazi, Jalal al-Labbad, Yusuf Muhammad Mahdi al-Manasif, Jawad Abdullah Qureiris and Hassan Zaki al-Faraj were all prosecuted over trumped-up allegations of involvement in terrorist activities.

Derazi and Labbad have had their death sentences confirmed. Manasif, Qureiris and Faraj are on trial once again, though the Saudi public prosecutor is still demanding the death penalty.

The hearings are ongoing and the final point remains unclear.

The businessman, identified as Saud al-Faraj, also participated in the demonstrations which were held to protest Riyadh’s mistreatment of the Shia community. 

All six Shia Saudi Arabians have been sentenced to death and could be executed at any time.

On December 18 last year, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a subsidiary of the United Nations made up of independent human rights experts, concluded that the young Shia men were being held arbitrarily, and that their death sentence was arbitrary.  

The UN group reached the same conclusion in the case of Faraj. 

Saudi Arabia executes 3 young Shia men from Qatif

Saudi authorities have executed three young men from the Shia-populated Qatif region in the kingdom over trumped-up charges.

The UN Working Group also found that there was no legal basis for arrest or the death penalty charge against the six Shia men facing the death penalty, the detention was the result of their exercise of freedom of expression, they did not receive a fair trial, and their incarceration was related to them belonging to the Shia religious community.

According to Duaa Dhainy, a researcher and advocacy associate at the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), Saudi officials have already carried out 45 executions in 2025.

Ever since Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader in 2017, the kingdom has ramped up arrests of activists, bloggers, intellectuals, and others perceived as political opponents, showing almost zero tolerance for dissent even in the face of international condemnations of the crackdown.

As a result, Muslim scholars have been executed and women’s rights campaigners have been put behind bars and tortured as freedoms of expression, association, and belief continue to be denied.

Between January 2016 and February 2024, ESOHR tracked 229 executions carried out by Saudi Arabia. The sentences were issued by the so-called Specialized Criminal Court and resulting in mass executions.

Of those executed, 93 of the targeted individuals were from Qatif.

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