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Saudi Arabia releases Murtaja Qureiris, as soon as the youngest political prisoner within the kingdom — ESOHR

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His case was first highlighted in an exclusive CNN report revealed in 2019, which detailed how Saudi authorities arrested Qureiris when he was 13, three years after he was accused of taking part in a motorbike protest in the course of the 2011 Arab Spring on the age of 10.

After virtually 4 years in pre-trial detention, earlier than his 18th birthday, he was offered with a cost sheet recommending the demise penalty.

Prosecutors alleged that Qureiris belonged to “an extremist terror group” and dedicated violence throughout protests, together with allegedly serving to assemble Molotov cocktails. Qureiris denied all the allegations towards him.

He was 10 years previous when he allegedly dedicated no less than one of many acts in his cost sheet. He was charged with accompanying his activist brother, Ali Qureris, on a motorbike trip to a police station within the japanese Saudi metropolis of Awamiya, the place Ali allegedly threw Molotov cocktails on the facility.

Saudi Arabia introduced in 2020 that as a part of a royal decree it could abolish the death penalty for people who dedicated crimes as minors. Anybody who acquired a demise sentence after being convicted of crimes they dedicated as a minor would obtain a jail sentence of now not than 10 years in a juvenile detention facility, in response to a press release from the state-backed Human Rights Fee (HRC) on the time.

In 2019, at age 18, Qureiris was convicted and sentenced to jail, although the Saudi authorities didn’t announce the cost or prices on which he was convicted. A supply aware of the matter advised CNN on the time that he was formally spared the demise penalty.

CNN has reached out to the Saudi authorities for remark.

A supply aware of the matter advised CNN in 2019 that Qureiris was set to be launched in 2022.

Worldwide stress began mounting on the dominion and a number of worldwide rights teams condemned his detention after CNN reported on Qureiris’ case. In 2019, the Austrian parliament voted to shut a Saudi-backed middle for interfaith dialogue, in protest towards the detention of Qureiris.

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