Sir Peter Bottomley MP

We can welcome more good news that the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia has overturned Abdullah al-Howaiti’s conviction, meaning he is no longer at immediate risk of execution.

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Abdullah was arrested as a 14-year-old, held incommunicado and tortured until he confessed to crimes he didn’t commit. Abdullah had an alibi; he was at the seafront 200km away from the scene of the crime when it took place. The judges knew this, nevertheless, they sentenced him to death.

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This has been a long campaign fought hard by Reprieve who I have been proud to support throughout this and many other campaigns over the course of many years. Most recently that of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a Saudi citizen whose death sentence for participating in protests when he was 17, whose death sentence was overturned last month.

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Despite the good news, Abdullah is not safe yet. The Public Prosecutor may request the death penalty again in the re-trial. I continue to support the hard-working team at Reprieve who fight such injustices daily.

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Human rights abuses happen every day across the world. It comes in all shapes and sizes: from institutional racism to political suppression.

It is our responsibility to fight injustice, stand up to racism and defend what is right.                                 

I am pleased to hear that Saudi Arabia has released Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a Saudi citizen who faced the death sentence for participating in protests when he was 17.

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This has been a long campaign fought hard by Reprieve who I have been glad to support on this and on many other campaigns.

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They continue to be a stalwart force for good in the battle against human rights atrocities worldwide: those on death row, those locked up without trial, those who are tortured and those targeted by illegal drones.

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Human rights abuses happen across the world, every day. It comes in all shapes and sizes: from institutional racism to religious persecution.

It is our responsibility to stand up for what is right and what is just.

I tabled an urgent question to the Foreign Secretary requesting that he use the United Kingdom’s constructive dialogue with Bahrain to raise the cases of two prisoners, Mohamed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa, who face the death penalty in Bahrain after they were tortured into signing a confession.

 

The UK funds a multi-million pound training programme for human rights in Bahrain. The increased use of death penalties, corporal punishment and torture over the past few years comes as a severe deterioration of the positive progress we had seen in Bahrain.

 

This UQ follows a letter I sent to the Prime Minister earlier in the year ahead of the final verdict.