Saudi Arabia And The Murder Of Sheikh Al-Nimr -By Charles Onunaiju

For a region that is already in a dangerous ferment, Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabist regime has added an acutely inflammable content to it. Already mired in the conflict in Yemen, where the United Nations Special Envoy has accused Riyadh of indiscriminate targeting of civilian infrastructure and population, Riyadh’s execution of 47 people including the venerable 56-year-old Islamic cleric, Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr, at the beginning of the New Year would only worsen the situation there.

Already, the restive region is on the boil again. From Iran, where an irate mob has set the Saudi embassy in Tehran on fire, triggering a hasty and hard line Riyadh response of cutting diplomatic relations with Iran to the Saudi Eastern Province, where its own minority Shia have taken to street protests to denounce the killing.

Sheikh Al-Nimr was arrested after being shot in the leg in 2012 and held in detention and according to reports was repeatedly tortured while in a Saudi jail and following his wife’s death, there were calls for the authorities to release him to attend the funeral. This was refused. According to Amnesty International, the charges laid against Al-Nimr of “disobeying the ruler”, inciting sectarian strife and “encouraging, leading and participating in demonstration”, were mostly based on evidence from his sermons and interviews.

Amnesty noted that it viewed these activities as representing the right to free speech and that the cleric did not advocate violence. Al-Nimr has himself repeatedly denounced violence. Following the outbreak of protests mostly by youths in 2011 at which the Saudi police used live bullets on protesters, he called for calm. He remarked then, “The Saudi authorities depend on bullets, and killings and imprisonment. We must depend on the roar of the word, on the words of justice”, and further explained that, “we do not accept the use of firearms. It is not our practice. The weapon of the word is stronger than the power of bullets.”

However, it is the power of words that roared from his sermons that frightened the Saudi establishment that after a kangaroo trial, Al-Nimr was sentenced to death on October 15, 2014 by the specialised criminal court on charges of “seeking foreign meddling in Saudi Arabia, “disobeying its rulers and taking up arms against security forces. The charge of taking up arms against the security forces is largely considered as bogus as there was no evidence he was leading an armed opposition against the Saudi authorities. Amnesty International stated that the death sentence was “part of campaign by the authorities in Saudi Arabia to crush all dissent, including those defending the rights of the kingdom’s Shia Muslim community.

In March 2015, the Saudi Arabian appeal court upheld the death sentence and on October 25, the Supreme Court also upheld the death sentence. But according to his brother, this happened because the Sheikh’s lawyers and family were not informed of the trial at the Supreme Court and never had legal representation.

Al-Nimr had been a strong voice that had consistently criticised the heavy-handed, authoritarian rule of the Saudi authorities and had been openly calling for elections to be held in the kingdom. His simplicity and immense popularity especially among the youths added enormous credibility to his political views and religious sermons.

However in death, the roar of words which was Sheikh Al-Nimr’s chief weapon would hurt the Saudi establishment even the more.

Choosing to assassinate him along with mostly Al-Qaeda jihadists would do nothing to taint the reputation of the venerable preacher and advocate of peaceful political reforms.

Coming in the heels of a UN International Conference to find a negotiated settlement to the Syrian conflict, which has spanned four years and has killed up to a quarter of a million people and displaced millions more, the Saudi authorities that have not hidden their preference for a regime change in Damascus, may be laying landmine that would drag down any prospect of negotiated settlement in Syria. It is very unlikely that the Saudi authorities are under any illusion about the potential destabilising effects of Al-Nimr’s killing, whose consequences could drag the Syrian conflict to the back burner. The murder of a tolerant Islamic cleric who called for elections could have been carried out on behalf of the deranged Islamic State, who to all intents and purpose would be the greatest beneficiary of explosive sectarian ferment in the region. The Saudi establishment has a knack for extreme and panicky response to issues relating to the Syrian conflict to which it is a key proxy player. Two years ago, when Washington refused to militarily engage in the Syrian war to overthrow the President Bashar Al-Assad regime, the Saudi regime withdrew from its seat at the UN Security Council, claiming that it was assailed by Washington’s cold feet to bomb out the Baathist regime in Damascus.

As the prospects of a negotiated political settlement brightened with a resolution to that effect, sponsored by Russia and the US, Riyadh may opt to drive a wedge by stirring turmoil in the region, prone to over-react to sectarian provocations. The timing of Al-Nimr’s execution has all the trappings of a political landmine, laid to obstruct the train of International mediation of one of the region’s brutal conflicts.

Already, anger is spreading in the region and the prospects of a violent backlash can interrupt the planned international conference on the Syrian conflict.

Iran, a key player in the Syrian conflict and the wider region, has always featured in Saudi’s calculated belligerency in the region. In killing the cleric, Iran is clearly expected by the Saudis to enter the fray and surely Tehran has. Even though Tehran has distanced herself from the excess and unruly behaviour of some protesters who set the Saudi Embassy in Tehran ablaze, it has nonetheless condemned the killing in the strongest terms, with the Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, invoking “divine vengeance” against the Saudis.

The Saudi authorities killed Al-Nimr on the same day it announced the end of its ceasefire in Yemen; meaning it will resume the indiscriminate devastation of its poor neighbour, whose previously rickety infrastructure has been reduced to rubble.

Saudi Arabia cannot continue to behave as if it is not bound by international law and other civilised norms of international behaviour. Its western patrons and Gulf allies should caution it, reminding Riyadh that once a fire is set off, it does not discriminate whom it burns, including the arsonist. If ISIS is now being boxed at the corner and the Syrian conflict now has its brightest chance of negotiated settlement, Riyadh should shape up to integrate into process or stand out but should constitute further obstacle to the renewed international vigour to help the region.

– Onunaiju is a journalist based in Abuja