UN rights experts urge Riyadh to stop child executions

The experts also voiced concern over the fate of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was arrested during an anti-government protest

A group of human rights experts affiliated with the United Nations has called on the Saudi regime to stop executing children, saying Riyadh must abide by the terms of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The experts also voiced concern over the fate of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was arrested during an anti-government protest in Qatif, Eastern Province, back in 2012 when he was only 17 years old. Nimr was later convicted of alleged criminal activities and handed down a death penalty by Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court last May.

The rights activists further slammed resorting to torture to extract confessions from prisoners in Saudi jails, stressing that any such confessions “are unacceptable and cannot be used as evidence before court.”

The experts also referred to the increasing number of executions in the kingdom, urging the Riyadh regime “to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.”

Riyadh has been under fire for having one of the world’s highest execution rates. Under the Saudi law, apostasy, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape and murder carry the death penalty.