Dawood al-Marhoon to spend another birthday on death row in Saudi Arabia

Today is Dawood al-Marhoon’s  25th birthday. It’s his sixth on death row in Saudi Arabia.  Dawood  was just a 17 year old boy when he was arrested for allegedly participating in an anti-government protest. He was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his ‘confession’. Ultimately Dawood was sentenced to death by beheading. He could be executed at any moment, without prior notification.
As a teenager, Dawood was sociable and popular. He loved playing football and computer games. He excelled in his studies, and dreamed of pursuing his love for technology and computers by studying a degree in engineering. Thousands of young Saudis took to the streets demanding reform across the Kingdom in Arab Spring protests from February 2011, – Dawood was allegedly one of them.
He was questioned by Saudi police and asked to “spy” on protesters. After he refused, Saudi security forces arrested him from the Dammam Central Hospital, where he was undergoing treatment for an eye injury sustained in a traffic accident. Saudi forces surrounded the hospital and arrested him as he prepared for surgery.
Dawood was transferred to a juvenile offenders’ facility, where he was held incommunicado for nearly two weeks. During this time, he was tortured and abused. While still a child, he was beaten and kicking, trampled, and verbally abused. At least one interrogation session lasted for 18 hours.
The Saudi authorities tortured him for weeks and refused to allow him to communicate with anyone on the outside world. For two weeks, Dawood’s family had no idea where Saudi authorities were holding him, and he was prevented from speaking to a lawyer.
The investigators made him sign a blank document that would later contain his confession to the crime of attending anti-government protests, and association with fellow young protester Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr..
He was held for one year and four months before being transferred to the General Department of Investigations headquarters in Dammam. All access to legal counsel was denied during this period.
On 21 October 2014, after a total of seven hearings he was sentenced to death by beheading by Saudi Arabia’s widely criticized Specialized Criminal Court (SCC).
Throughout his time in detention and during his trial, Saudi authorities prevented Dawood from speaking with a lawyer. Reprieve understands that the Public Prosecution requested death by crucifixion.
The decision was appealed but the lawyers were not informed of any further trial proceedings. On 29 September 2015, the SCC confirmed the death sentence of death by beheading against Dawood.
In late September 2015, the Saudi authorities transferred Dawood from Dammam prison to Riyadh’s Al-Hayir prison, where he is being kept in solitary confinement with other people facing execution. Secrecy surrounding Saudi’s execution practices prevents the family or the prisoner from receiving prior notification of when the execution will be carried out, so Dawood could now be executed at any time.
The human rights crisis in Saudi Arabia is getting worse despite promises of reform. In 2019, there was a total of  184 executions in the Kingdom. There has been an exponential rise in executions in the kingdom since 2015.  

Saudi Arabia systematically discriminates against its minority citizens and to whomever is deemed a threat to the regime. Of those who are targeted by the Saudi police are political activists, Shia, women’s rights activists, and critics of the monarchy. More recently, 37 people were executed for allegedly spying for Iran and participating in anti-government demonstrations in the year 2019, 
including at least three who were children at the time of their alleged offences, just like Dawood

It is important to condemn the alarming escalation in the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, and the unjust actions practiced, which clearly violate international fair trial standards, to extract confessions from their prisoners. The Saudi government must immediately release Dawood and provide him compensation for his unjust imprisonment, as well as release all prisoners on death row arrested and charged on spurious political charges. Dawood's situation is urgent.Many others, too numerous to be named, have also been sentenced to death on ambiguous charges and following unfair trials. The reality is, more and more violations of the right to life will occur without action.  Let's not forget them .
Saudi Arabia continues to use the death penalty as a tool of repression for non-violent and political activities, with children among the many executed. This systematic and flagrant disregard for basic human rights and respect for the rule of law must be addressed by the international community.Global pressure must be applied to convince Saudi Arabia to uphold international human rights standards, and place a moratorium on any further death sentences and executions. Such actions , as both Reprieve and Amnesty International /have noted, are a brazen violation of international human rights law. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
Take action here :- https://act.reprieve.org.uk/page/content/saudiexecutions