JERUSALEM // The sister of a Palestinian artist and poet sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for purported blasphemy has appealed to King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to spare his life.
Raeda Fayadh insists her younger brother Ashraf, 32, who faces execution as an apostate, is a believing Muslim and innocent of any wrongdoing.
"I plead with King Salman to pardon my brother. I call on the minister of justice and the minister of interior, whom we all know are just, to look and see that there is no case here,'' she told The National in a phone interview from her home in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.
Ashraf Fayadh, a member of the British-Saudi art organisation Edge of Arabia, was sentenced to death on November 17 in a verdict that has prompted renewed scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
The kingdom has executed 152 people in 2015, its highest toll in a decade.
Mr Fayadh, who was born in Saudi Arabia to parents from Gaza, denied the charges. However, he expressed repentance for anything in his sole poetry book, Instructions Within, published in 2008, that religious authorities may have deemed insulting.
According to Human Rights Watch, Mr Fayadh was first arrested in the southern town of Abha in 2013 at a cafe after a man reported to authorities he had made obscene comments about god, Prophet Mohammed and the Saudi state.
After his arrest, the religious police found photos on his phone of him with several women who had participated in an exhibit in Jeddah he had curated. He was eventually charged with blasphemy and having illicit relationships with women.
In May 2014, he was convicted of both and sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes but the judge rejected sentencing him to death for apostasy, according to Human Rights Watch. However, prosecutors appealed the ruling and last week the previous sentence was overturned and he was sentenced to death for apostasy, with one month to lodge an appeal.
“We are not apostates,” said his sister Raeda, a lecturer at Al Quds Open University in Gaza. “We are Muslims and people who believe in God.”
Ashraf, she said, had played a role in the conversion of two non-Muslim friends.
She said their father suffered a stroke after hearing of the death sentence and that she has been taking tranquillisers since learning of it. Still, she believes the Saudi justice system is fair and “our family is hopeful”, she said.
According to Amnesty international, Ashraf has been denied access to a lawyer throughout his detention.
The Palestinian Authority’s cabinet on Sunday also called on Saudi Arabia to pardon Mr Fayadh.
“We appreciate Saudi Arabia’s standing by our people and our cause,” the statement said. Saudi Arabia provides the PA with US$20 million (Dh73.4m) a month for its budget, according to the Saudi embassy in Washington.
A Palestinian petition signed by what organisers said were 4,000 artists, writers, academics and media people was more direct, accusing those behind the death sentence of taking “a narrow view of literature and culture which puts freedom in the darkness”.
West Bank poet Faris Sabaneh, one of the organisers of the petition, said: “I read his book and there is nothing bad about Islam or God.”
The Emirati social commentator Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi sharply condemned the death sentence, according to The Guardian, saying: "Such an abhorrent death sentence against an artist and member of the cultural community is an irreconcilable step with regards to Saudi's cultural ambitions. I hope that the Saudi authorities intervene to save this young man's life."
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
