My brother is at risk of execution due to charges related to my younger brother, who is one of the activists who participated in the demonstrations and expressed their opinion. My brother was arrested along with hundreds of others, after the demonstrations that took place in the Qatif region in the country, as a hostage to force my other brother to surrender himself.
Our suffering as a family started from the moment he was arrested. He was tortured and ill-treated in prison, and he was denied the right to defend himself and to communicate with his family and abroad.
He was held in solitary confinement for months, prevented from seeing a doctor despite his illness, and forced to sign confessions after torture, after which he was sentenced to death, and he is currently on the lists of those threatened. The life of my brother and hundreds of other young men stopped at the moment they were arrested, and tragedies befell their families and society.
Fear accompanies my family every moment, for the life of her detained son and the lives of her other children outside prison. Defending my brother and his rights is a crime that endangers the rest of the family.
Saudi Arabia not only violates the rights of prisoners and issues arbitrary sentences, but also uses these penalties to intimidate us as families, intimidate society, reject detainees, and prevent them from defending their rights and addressing their stories. The Saudi government has dealt with members of an entire society as criminals, and attached charges to them, because some of them expressed their opinion and demanded legitimate rights.
We have been threatened dozens of times not to communicate with human rights organizations, so today I cannot show my voice and my image for fear of retaliation for my family, and although I am sure that silence does not eliminate the danger to my brother's life, the fear of further retaliation prevents me from appearing in public. The authorities carried out the largest execution in their history, killing eighty-one men, after their recent promises to reduce the severity of executions.
Saudi Arabia deprives young men of their rights, uses arbitrariness and executions on young men, and imposes silence on an entire society, so that they serve as an example to everyone who tries to speak and express, at a time when it pays millions abroad to beautify its image.
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*كلمة علي أشتر (عن لسان أخ أحد الضحايا المهددين بالإعدام) في المؤتمر السنوي الثالث لضحايا الانتهاكات في المملكة العربية السعودية الذي عقد بتاريخ 9و 10 ديسمبر 2022.