{"id":22830,"date":"2024-02-07T15:29:47","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T15:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reprieve.org\/uk\/?p=22830"},"modified":"2024-02-08T09:54:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T09:54:34","slug":"saudi-arabia-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reprieve.org\/uk\/2024\/02\/07\/saudi-arabia-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia has failed to improve its human rights record \u2013 it\u2019s time UN members call for a suspension on the use of the death penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Six years ago, United Nations members gave Saudi Arabia 258 recommendations on how they could improve respect for human rights in the 2018 Universal Periodic Review (UPR)<\/a>. In that time, Saudi Arabia has made little to no progress in implementing the recommendations it accepted in 2018 \u2013 particularly concerning its use of torture and the death penalty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of the next UPR cycle, we teamed up with the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights<\/a> (ESOHR), MENA Rights Group<\/a>, ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty)<\/a>, The Freedom Initiative<\/a> and ALQST for Human Rights<\/a>, to submit a stakeholder report to the UN evidencing these failings. You can read it here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2018, Saudi Arabia accepted 199 of the 258 recommendations given by the UN\u2019s UPR.
Some of the recommendations Saudi Arabia accepted include:

\u00b7 Becoming a party to human rights treaties;
\u00b7 Restricting the use of the death penalty to the most serious crimes;
\u00b7 Abolishing the death penalty for child defendants; and
\u00b7 Guaranteeing fair trial rights for people facing death sentences.

But despite promises to abolish the death penalty for child defendants and for non-lethal offences, Saudi Arabia is still using the death penalty liberally.

Our client, Hussein abo al-Kheir<\/a>, was executed in March 2023 for drug related offences.

Our clients, Abdullah al-Howaiti<\/a>, Abdullah al-Derazi and Youssef al-Manasif, who are all child defendants, are all still at risk of execution.

Saudi Arabia has a long way to go to improve human rights in the country. Reprieve calls on all States to recommend that Saudi Arabia immediately establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its complete abolishment.

You can read the submission in full here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n