GENEVA - UN experts* today condemned Saudi Arabia's execution of Hassan Zaki al-Faraj, convicted for acts allegedly committed when he was a child and urged authorities in the country to immediately halt the imminent executions of Yusuf Muhammad Mahdi al-Manasif and Mohammad Labbad.
"We are appalled by Saudi Arabia's execution of al-Faraj," the experts said. "Executing a person for an offence committed as a child is absolutely prohibited under international law. It is an arbitrary deprivation of life."
The Saudi Ministry of Interior announced on 17 October 2026 that al-Faraj had been executed, alongside four other men. His family were reportedly given no advance notice.
"Keeping a family in the dark about the execution of their loved one, and withholding his remains, inflicts profound anguish and amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," the experts said. "We call on the authorities to immediately return al-Faraj's body to his family and to allow an independent medico-legal examination."
The charges against Al-Faraj included taking part in protests and funeral processions when he was 14 or 15 years old. He was reportedly tortured into a confession, held in solitary confinement for about three months and denied a lawyer for three years. He is the fourth person executed in Saudi Arabia for alleged childhood offences in just over a year.
The experts were gravely alarmed that al-Manasif and Labbad now face imminent execution, after their death sentences were reportedly upheld by the Supreme Court. Both were convicted in reprisal for taking part in peaceful protests against the treatment of the Shia minority in 2011 and 2012, when al-Manasif was 15 or 16 years old.
"Saudi Arabia must immediately halt their executions and quash their death sentences," the experts said.
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found the detention of all three men arbitrary and called for their release in Opinions No. 71(2024) and No. 60(2025).
The experts recalled that the Convention on the Rights of the Child categorically prohibits the death penalty for offences committed by persons under 18. They further stressed that imposing and carrying out the death penalty in breach of fair trial guarantees, including on the basis of confessions extracted under torture, is a violation of the absolute and non-derogable prohibition of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The 2020 Royal Decree, presented as ending death sentences for child offenders in ta'zir cases, has failed to stop these executions.
"Saudi authorities must immediately commute all death sentences, especially those imposed for crimes that do not meet the threshold of the 'most serious crimes' and offences committed by persons under 18," they said.
"We are deeply concerned by the use of vague counter-terrorism legislation to impose death sentences and by the reported targeting of members of the Shia minority. These cases must be retried in full compliance with international standards, and an immediate moratorium on executions established, with a view to abolishing the death penalty."
The experts have been in contact with the Government of Saudi Arabia about these cases.**
