A Pardon From Saudi Arabia's King Might be the Last Hope for a Shiite Cleric Facing a Death Sentence

Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal against the death sentence passed this year on Shiite Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, placing him at risk of imminent execution.

Nimr's brother, Mohammed al-Nimr, told Reuters that the sentence had been upheld after hearings that took place without his lawyers or family members being given prior notice. His life now hangs on the possibility of a pardon from King Salman.

The prominent human rights activist and scholar has campaigned for reforms within Saudi Arabia. Nimr was shot four times and arrested in July 2012 during the height of the Arab Spring, and was detained for more than two years before being sentenced to death in October 2014. He has now been incarcerated for more than three years and he is currently detained in Al-Hair prison in Riyadh.

"We don't want anything to happen to him or to Ali or the other young men," Mohammed al-Nimr said. Political analysts who follow Saudi Shiite politics have warned that widespread protests may erupt if the executions are carried out.

More than 20 Shiites were killed in protests between 2011 and 2013 in the Shiite district of Qatif against sectarian discrimination and Riyadh's role in ending street demonstrations in Bahrain and the fate of previously detained local people.

According to Husain Abdulla, the executive director of Americans for Human Rights & Democracy in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia has executed more than 100 people in 2015 alone, despite international criticism.

"After more than a year and increased international pressure to stay the executions of a group of minors, Saudi Arabia has instead decided to move forward with the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr due to his peaceful calls for reform in the Kingdom," Abdulla said in a statement on Sunday.

In 2014, the country conducted a total of 87 executions, making it one of the top five countries to put people to death in 2014, according to Human Rights Watch figures. Among those executed last year, about half were Saudi. The remainder was from Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Burma, Chad, Eritrea, the Philippines, and Sudan, according to the BBC.

"If Saudi Arabia's international allies, including the US, takes its ownrhetoric seriously and believes that freedom of expression is a 'fundamental right for all' then it must publicly call on King Salman to stay Sheikh Nimr's execution."

Nimr had long been regarded as the most vocal Shiite leader in Qatif, willing to publicly criticize the Al Saud ruling family and call directly for elections. But he was careful to avoid calling for violence, analysts say. Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry still accused Nimr of being behind attacks on police alongside a group of other suspects it said were working on behalf of the kingdom's main regional rival, Shiite Iran.

Iran's deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview with state TV on Sunday that "the execution of Sheikh Nimr would mean Saudi Arabia facing a heavy cost."

The endorsement of Nimr's death penalty follows a previous decisions by the Saudi courts to uphold death sentences for three young activists, who were minors at the time of their arrest, which have sparked international outrage. One of these minors, Ali Al-Nimr, is Nimr's nephew, though it was announced Tuesday that he was spared from execution.

The kingdom's judiciary is composed of clerics of the strict Sunni Wahhabi school, which reviles Shiism as heretical and allows judges extensive scope to interpret Islamic law and pass sentences as they see fit.