French President Emmanuel Macron must “do everything” to prevent the execution of seven young Saudis during his Friday meeting with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, says Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard, to whom this meeting “leaves an extremely bitter taste in the mouth”. “The timing is all the worse because there are seven young people at risk of execution any day now,” she said in a telephone interview with the Agency. France-Presse.
“The French president should do everything so that (they) are not executed, but released, because they were minors at the time of their so-called crimes,” she continued, adding that the youngest d between them was twelve years old at the time of the facts with which he is charged. Another, 15 years old at the time of the alleged events, was found guilty in particular of “having sought to disrupt the social fabric and national cohesion, and of having participated in and incited sit-ins and demonstrations which disrupt state cohesion and security,” according to Amnesty.
Six of the seven death row inmates, who have exhausted all avenues of appeal, belong to the Shia minority, victims of “grossly unfair trials on the basis of vague and broad charges linked to their opposition to the government”, says the defense NGO human rights. Emmanuel Macron, “who seems to enjoy the company of the Saudi prince”, must “intervene to save their lives”, because “we cannot condemn people to death for their opinion”, laments Agnès Callamard.
The French president is due to discuss with Mohammed bin Salman on Friday the major geopolitical issues of the moment – Ukraine, Iran, Lebanon, Syria… He had already aroused the indignation of human rights defenders after receiving less than a year ago, in July 2022, “MBS” in Paris.
Emmanuel Macron is “the main architect of the relegitimization of the Saudi prince since 2018” and the assassination of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which was attributed to him by American intelligence, denounced Ms. Callamard, to whom this treatment “leaves a taste extremely bitter in the mouth”. These French steps “reinforce the feeling of impunity” of the prince, she was indignant.
“The situation in Saudi Arabia is not improving in terms of rights protection contrary to the image this prince is trying to project by buying football clubs, golf clubs and cultural events with billions. That’s with the prince’s ceremonial clothes. But underneath, it’s all bare. Below is violence, violations, the multiplication of the use of the death penalty, “criticized Agnès Callamard.
Saudi Arabia carried out 196 executions in 2022, seven times more than in 2020, a record for thirty years, according to Amnesty.
