Saudi Arabia Executes Man for Joining Anti-Government Protests as a Minor

October 22, 2025 | 01:58 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Saudi authorities announced on Monday, October 19, 2025, that they had executed a man named Abdullah al-Derazi, who had been sentenced to death for participating in anti-government protests.

According to The New Arab and Middle East Eye, human rights groups and UN experts stated that Al-Derazi took part in demonstrations when he was still a minor in 2011.

The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) confirmed the execution, reporting that Al-Derazi, a Saudi national from the Eastern Province, had been convicted on terrorism charges.

“The death sentence was carried out on Abdullah al-Derazi, a Saudi national, in the Eastern Province,” the official SPA reported on Monday.

UN human rights experts had called for his release in April, arguing that his detention was arbitrary and that he had merely exercised his right to peaceful protest against the government’s treatment of the Shia Muslim minority.

Amnesty International reported that Al-Derazi was sentenced to death along with eight others for participating in the 2011 protests in the Eastern Province. Human rights advocates condemned the execution, calling it a violation of international law.

“His family learned about the execution through social media” said Duaa Dhainy, a researcher at the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) in Berlin. She added that the family was not given a chance to bid farewell, was never officially informed by authorities, and had not received Al-Derazi’s body.

Saudi Arabia continues to have one of the world’s highest execution rates. The country has carried out at least 300 executions since the beginning of 2025, according to official reports. In 2024, the figure reached 338, a number likely to be exceeded this year.

Al-Derazi was arrested in 2014 and tried three years later in Saudi Arabia’s Special Criminal Court, which handles terrorism cases.

He faced charges related to protests held in 2011 and 2012, during which he was accused of targeting security forces and throwing Molotov cocktails. He was found guilty in August 2018 and sentenced to death.

At the time of the alleged offenses, Al-Derazi was 17 years old. Under international human rights law, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Saudi Arabia has signed, the execution of individuals for crimes committed as minors is strictly prohibited.

According to the UK-based human rights group Alqst, Al-Derazi was held in solitary confinement for months after his arrest without access to his family or a lawyer.

During that period, he reportedly suffered burns, broken teeth, and knee injuries requiring medical treatment. He was only provided legal representation when his trial began.

Al-Derazi told the court that his confession had been extracted through torture.

“Bear in mind that I was beaten and tortured by various means while I categorically rejected in their presence all the baseless accusations made against me,” he said during the trial, as quoted by Alqst.

He recounted that an officer once approached him while blindfolded, telling him he would be released if he fingerprinted several documents.

“One of them came to me while I was blindfolded and told me they had found me not guilty, and he was going to get me to put my fingerprint on a set of documents for my release."

“Because I was young and had no understanding of these matters I believed him and put my prints on some papers, trusting that I had been acquitted and they were going to release me, not suddenly hand me over to the [General Investigations Directorate],” he continued.

Rights groups said his family only learned about his execution through the media. The authorities did not allow them to see his body.

In 2020, Saudi authorities announced that a royal order had been issued to abolish the death penalty for juvenile offenders following international scrutiny.

However, several cases since then have shown that executions of individuals convicted of crimes committed as minors have continued.

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