Ten Years Behind Bars, Now the Gallows? Saudi Prosecutors Reportedly Want Cleric al-Tarifi Dead

Some people are simply hard to please. Having kept Abdul Aziz al-Tarifi locked up for more than a decade, Saudi prosecutors have reportedly decided that the next logical step is to kill him. The claim comes from ALQST, a Saudi human rights organization, which says the prosecution has requested the death penalty for the prominent preacher and hadith scholar.

ALQST sounded the alarm on Wednesday. According to the group, the 50-year-old cleric remains in al-Ha’ir Prison in Riyadh, where he is held in solitary confinement. That arrangement offers a generous amount of quiet time for reflection, though not much of anything else.

The organization acknowledged that its information has gaps. It said it lacks sufficient detail about the latest court hearings and cannot confirm whether prosecutors are still seeking his execution.

Clarification from Riyadh has, predictably, not arrived. The Saudi authorities have neither confirmed nor denied ALQST’s report on the prosecution’s demand, in keeping with a long and proud tradition of saying as little as possible.

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Al-Tarifi’s troubles began in April 2016, when he was arrested. ALQST links the arrest to social media posts in which he took aim at Al-Arabiya, the Saudi-owned television channel, and at certain government policies. As it turned out, his detention was only the warm-up. A broader crackdown soon followed, and a large number of the kingdom’s religious figures were caught up in it.

ALQST framed the case within wider worries about Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty and its prosecution of clerics and government critics.

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As a reference point, the group cited Turki al-Jasser, a Saudi journalist whose execution was announced by the authorities after he had spent years in detention. Officials said he had been convicted of crimes including treason, espionage and financing terrorism. Rights groups saw things differently. They condemned the secrecy surrounding the case and connected his prosecution to his work as a journalist and his activity online.

ALQST also highlighted two prominent religious figures whose cases are still unfolding: Salman al-Awda and Hassan Farhan al-Maliki. Prosecutors, it said, have sought death sentences for both.

Nor does the roster end there. According to ALQST, prosecutors have previously called for the execution of preachers Awad al-Qarni and Ali al-Omari as well.