Saudi Arabia has removed the flogging of its criminal justice system, a punishment widely criticized by international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The ultra-conservative kingdom is regularly accused of human rights violations by NGOs which denounce, among other things, this penalty applicable in the case of murder, violation of " public order " or even extramarital relationships.
"The Human Rights Commission welcomes the recent decision of the Supreme Court to eliminate flogging as a potential penalty"Awad Al-Awad, the chairman of the commission, a government agency, said in a statement Friday evening. "Following this decision, previous flogging sentences will be replaced by prison terms and fines", he added. "This reform is a significant step forward" human rights, he said.
The exact date of the decision to abolish the flogging has not been specified. It was not made public but was reported by several local media, including the government newspaper Okaz, citing "High placed sources". According to Okaz, the Supreme Court ordered the courts not to apply the flogging sentence " never " and be content "Other sentences", such as imprisonment or fines.
Increased repression against discordant voices
Since Mohammed Ben Salman became crown prince in 2017, Saudi Arabia has been singled out for criticism by human rights organizations. The economic and social openness promoted by Prince Mohammed has been accompanied by increased repression against discordant voices, both within the royal family and among intellectuals and activists.
His image as a reformer was greatly tarnished by the murder of the Saudi journalist and government critic, Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated at his country's consulate in Istanbul in 2018. A crime that caused an international outcry.
NGOs on Friday announced the death in prison in Saudi Arabia of a stroke, a prominent Saudi human rights activist, Abdallah Al-Hamid, who was serving an 11-year sentence. "Broken allegiance" to the king, "Incited to disorder" and sought to destabilize state security, according to Amnesty International.
The case of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been the most emblematic in recent years. Defender of freedom of expression, he was sentenced in 2014 to 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison for "Insult" to Islam. In 2015, he won the Sakharov Prize for freedom of mind, awarded by the European Parliament which had called for his release. "Immediate".
Beyond the lashes, the massive use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia is also denounced by NGOs. "Saudi Arabia executed a record number of people in 2019, despite a general drop in executions worldwide", regretted Amnesty in its report on the death penalty in the world, published this week. "Saudi authorities killed 184 people last year, the highest number Amnesty has ever recorded in a single year in the country", she said.
