The Impossible Defense of an Accused ‘Atheist’ the Saudis Want to Behead

by Creede Newton

In Saudi Arabia the number of writers and bloggers facing the whip and the sword—and even crucifixion—is growing. Sound a bit like ISIS? Many think so.
GAZA STRIP — It’s been a bad year for Saudi Arabia’s public image. An unusually large number of death sentences and executions have sparked outrage from rights groups and activists across the world.

The latest controversy comes from the case of Ashraf Fayadh, a 35-year-old Palestinian poet whose death sentence was handed down for charges of apostasy on Nov. 17.

Now, in a strange twist, a Palestinian human-rights lawyer in the besieged Gaza Strip will do his best to save Fayadh’s life. But Raji Sourani, Fayadh’s representative and a veteran human-rights crusader, isn’t quite sure how to do it. He began an interview with The Daily Beast by admitting it’s his “first time dealing directly with the Saudi Arabian legal system.”

Sourani does know that he won’t have access to Fayadh. “Our only contact is through his sister and mother in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “His other sister is here [in Gaza]. She’s the one who asked for my assistance.”

Sourani says that the charges against the poet are baseless and motivated by a personal dispute with another Saudi over a European soccer match. “He was arrested in 2013, then again in 2014, and that time he was sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes.”

The repeated arrests, followed by a new judge being appointed to the case who decided Fayadh was promoting atheism (through a collection of poems that weren’t even published in Saudi Arabia), seems fishy to Sourani.

Also, Fayadh was accused of having inappropriate relations with women, a charge supported by the fact that Fayadh had some photos on his phone of female friends and colleagues he had met while attending cultural events throughout the world.

What’s more, Fayadh has denied that he’s anything but an athiest.

“I am not an atheist and it is impossible that I could be,” he told the Associated Press. “The judgment against me was based on the testimony of this student… The terminology I am condemned for is not even in the book, but the accusation against me was based on wrong interpretations for some of the poems.”

Sourani, the experienced lawyer and founder of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, says that the next step is to write Fayadh’s appeal, and to reach out to Saudi officials, including King Salman.

Sourani recognizes that appealing to the king may seem like a suspiciously extrajudicial move for the head of a human-rights organization to make, but he points to Article 50 of the Saudi constitution, which says that “The King, or whoever deputizes for him, is responsible for the implementation of judicial rulings.”

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