I had been dreading this news for years. Abbas had been in prison since he was arrested in June 2013 for the “crime” of calling for unity among all denominations and faiths in Saudi Arabia: Sunni, Shia, Sufi and Christian. The Saudi government fabricated charges of espionage against him for his beliefs, and ultimately killed him because of them. He was arrested on his way home from work, and after a search of our house, in front of our children, taken to Al-Ha’ir Prison and put in solitary confinement for two months.
Officers there tortured him—blindfolding, beating, and threatening him until he signed a false confession. My husband was a good man and a wonderful father. This is how Saudi Arabia treats hundreds of innocent people.
For three years, Abbas was kept in prison without being told why. Then the charges were finally announced and we were told that his case was going before the Specialized Criminal Court. The government had had three years to prepare for trial—Abbas and the others in his case were given three weeks, without access to attorneys.
My husband told the court that his signed confession was the result of torture, but—as is common practice in Saudi Arabia—the court ignored this.
In 2016, two days after the celebrations of Mawlid al-Nabi where the birth of Mohammed is commemorated, the court announced the death sentence against Abbas and 14 other men in his case.
Our family lived in constant fear that his execution would be carried out. We sought help from every institution in Saudi Arabia—the National Institution for Human Rights, the Council of the Crown Prince, the Ministry of Interior, the prison administrations for Al-Ha’ir and Al-Thaban, the General Directorate of Prisons, the General Directorate of Investigations in Jeddah. I even sent requests for pardon to the Royal Court, but these were rejected.
In despair, I reached out to human rights organizations outside of Saudi Arabia, and to the United Nations. Finally, someone listened—the UN repeatedly stated that my husband’s execution should be stopped—in July 2017, February 2018, and March 2018—and called attention to his torture and unfair trial. These calls were ignored by the Saudi government, who beheaded my husband with no regard for his human rights.
On Nov 7, 2018 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) declared Abbas’s detention to be arbitrary and unlawful, because he was detained without a warrant, tortured, and convicted in an unfair trial. It also sent the Saudi government a letter about Abbas in March 2019 asking for information about his arrest and imprisonment. The authorities killed my husband, and only then replied.“The imposition and execution of the death sentence resulting from such a blatant miscarriage of justice cannot but shock the conscience of humanity,” the UN experts wrote.
The Saudi regime continues to deny my husband his rights, even after his unlawful death. The day after his execution, I went to the prison to ask for his body so that we could bury him. The prison sent me to the Ministry of Interior, who sent me back to the prison, who re-directed me to the Ministry, who sent me to the Presidency of State Security… who sent me back to the prison. Nobody will even tell me where my husband’s body is being kept.
Authorities made me promise not to hold a funeral, threatening to arrest my children if we did. They stationed officers outside my home, to ensure that we did not mourn publicly – for fear that Abbas would become a martyr. Saudi Arabia has taken my husband, and now won’t let us grieve. My children and I want to bury him and pay our respects. We deserve that much.
Zakia Albakheet lives in Saudi Arabia with her four children.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
