Saudis execute 47, including Shiite cleric
Protests erupt around the Middle East.
CAIRO — Protests erupted around the Middle East on Saturday following the execution in Saudi Arabia of a prominent Shiite cleric, igniting sharp new tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in a region already boiling with sectarian conflict.
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was one of 47 detainees put to death by sword and firing squad in the kingdom’s largest such mass execution since 1980. The death of the popular cleric, who had been a critic of the Saudi government’s often-harsh treatment of Shiites, touched off fury from Lebanon to Iran, with protesters storming and ransacking part of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and hurling Molotov cocktails at the consulate in the Iranian city of Mashhad.
Iran’s top police official, Gen. Hossein Sajedinia, told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency later Sunday that police had removed the protesters from the building and arrested some of them. He said the situation outside the embassy “had been defused.”
In Bahrain, where a Saudi-backed Sunni-minority monarchy is ruling a Shiite-majority population, scores of protesters took to the streets before police fired tear gas to disperse the angry crowds.
The execution for what Saudi officials said were terrorism-related offenses was quickly condemned by international human rights organizations, with Amnesty International accusing the Saudi government of using the death penalty — carried out in 157 cases during 2015 — to “settle scores and crush dissidents.”
The widening protests, along with Saudi Arabia’s defiant move to carry out al-Nimr’s October 2014 death sentence in the face of international condemnation, highlight increasing tension between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that has fueled civil conflict throughout the region.
The execution of al-Nimr comes at a time when Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of forces from 10 Sunni Muslim countries against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, even as the kingdom is providing financial backing for Sunni militias against the Shiite government of President Bashar Assad in Syria.
“The execution should be regarded in the context of this engagement. Saudi wants to show that not only is it fighting Shiites in neighboring countries, but also within its own borders,” said Egyptian political analyst Mustafa Labbad, director of Al-Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
In addition to the sectarian rivalry simmering across the region, Saudi Arabia has faced a wave of bombings and shooting attacks from Sunni extremists determined to overthrow the Saudi monarchy, which they have criticized as infected with corruption and beholden to Western allies such as the U.S.
“Security forces will waste no effort in combating anyone involved with these terrorist groups,” Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Turki said at a news conference after Saturday’s executions.
The ministry said 45 of those executed were Saudi nationals, with the other two coming from Egypt and Chad.
The most vociferous reaction to Saturday’s executions came from Tehran, in a sign of the increasingly hostile political rivalry between the two Persian Gulf power brokers.
“While extremists ... are threatening certain regional states, execution of a figure such as Sheikh (al-Nimr), who had no tool but speech to pursue his political and religious goals, shows ... irresponsibility,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Jaber-Ansari said.
The Saudi Embassy in Tehran and the Saudi Consulate in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, were attacked by what appeared to be Molotov cocktails before security forces intervened and formed protective rings around the sites.
Condemnations were also triggered in Lebanon, where the country’s Supreme Shiite Council called the mass execution a “grave mistake” and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is fighting Saudi-backed militias in Syria, called it a “heinous crime.”
In Iraq, Parliament member Khalaf Abdul Samad called for the closure of the newly reinstated Saudi Embassy in Baghdad, while former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said executing al-Nimr is a “crime that will overthrow the Saudi monarchy.”
Protests also erupted in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, scene of the 2011 demonstrations that formed the basis of al-Nimr’s conviction and home to a majority of Saudi Arabia’s Shiites, who account for up to 15 percent of the kingdom’s population.