Saudi court sentences stateless Palestinian poet to death
Reports from Electronic Intifada and Arabic Literature. The petition is the third item.
Chris Dercon L, the outgoing director of the Tate Modern with Ashraf Fayadh in London where he curated the underground exhibition Mostly Visible, in March 2013 to coincide with the Jeddah Art Week, organized by Sotheby’s. Photo by Instagram.
Palestinian poet sentenced to death by Saudi court
By Maureen Clare Murphy, Electronic Intifada
November 4, 2015
A Saudi court has sentenced to death the Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, convicted of several blasphemy-related crimes.
Fayadh, described by The Guardian as a “leading member of Saudi Arabia’s nascent contemporary art scene,” was first arrested at a café in the southern city of Abha, where he resides, in August 2013.
Human Rights Watch, in its statement condemning the 17 November ruling, said that “religious police went to the café after a man reported that Fayadh had made obscene comments about God, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Saudi state. The man also alleged that Fayadh passed around a book he wrote that allegedly promoted atheism and unbelief.”
Fayadh was held for a day and then released.
Blasphemy charges
But he was arrested again in January 2014 and, according to Human Rights Watch, charged with “blaspheming ‘the divine self’ and the Prophet Muhammad; spreading atheism and promoting it among the youth in public places; mocking the verses of God and the prophets; refuting the Quran; denying the day of resurrection; objecting to fate and divine decree; and having an illicit relationship with women and storing their pictures in his phone.”
The organization notes that Fayadh denied the charges during his trial, which consisted of six hearings held between February and May 2014. Three defense witnesses also contested the testimony of the man who reported Fayadh to the religious police, and said that he went to the authorities following a personal dispute with Fayadh.
Fayadh told The Guardian that the complaint was made after an argument with another artist about contemporary art.
Fayadh was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes, according to Human Rights Watch, but the court rejected the prosecutor’s request for the death penalty.
That was reversed after the prosecutor appealed the sentence.
“The case moves next to the appeals court. The sentence must be approved by the appeals court and the Supreme Court,” the group stated.
The oil-rich kingdom regularly executes people for even nonviolent offences, such as drug possession, often in public beheadings.
Executions
Saudi Arabia has executed more than 150 people so far this year, according to Human Rights Watch.
It has one of the highest rates of executions in the world.
In September, a court upheld the death sentence against Ali al-Nimr, who was arrested for participating in protests when he was 16. The sentence “stipulates that al-Nimr should be beheaded and that his headless body should be strung up for public display,” according to Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle.
There may also be a political dimension to Fayadh’s case.
His supporters told The Guardian that the poet is being “punished by hardliners for posting a video online showing the religious police … lashing a man in public.”
Months before his first arrest, Fayadh curated the underground exhibition Mostly Visible, to coincide with the Jeddah Art Week organized by Sotheby’s.
“Our goal was to show the contrast, the other side, the real side of how art can be,” Fayadh wrote at the time, “simple, authentic, with little funding and lots of self-effort, with the soul of teamwork, inspired by our own culture, our own lifestyle, issues and concerns, and raising the level of awareness of our society by drawing the attention to the social, popular and genuine culture.”
The photo at the top of this page, found on Fayadh’s Instagram account, shows him with Chris Dercon, the outgoing director of the Tate Modern in London, at the exhibition.
Fayadh also co-curated a show at the Venice Biennale, a major international art event, that same year.
Stateless Palestinian
His supporters told the New York Times that Fayadh’s role in promoting the nascent contemporary art scene in Saudi Arabia also may have put him in ill favour with the religious police. Though he was born in the Gulf country, his status as a stateless Palestinian made him an especially vulnerable target, they say.
An online petition in support of Fayadh created a day after the death sentence ruling has gained 16,000 signatures.
One hundred Arab intellectuals have also called for the poet’s release.
English language translations of Fayadh’s work have been published on the Arabic Literature (in English) blog.
One Year Without Charges: Poet Ashraf Fayadh
By MLYNXQUALEY, Arabic Literature (in English)
January 06, 2015
Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh was arrested by Saudi authorities on January 1, 2014 — charged with “insulting the Godly self and having long hair” — and has yet to face trial:
For the last year, Fayadh has been detained in the Saudi city of Abha without clear legal charges beyond having “ideas that do not suit the Saudi society,” based on a reader’s complaint about Fayadh’s 2008 poetry collection, Instructions Within.
The poet was also detained in the summer of 2013 after a Saudi citizen filed a complaint with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, accusing Fayadh of having “misguided and misguiding thoughts.” At that time, Fayadh was released. But then, on New Year’s Day, he was re-arrested.
Last February, a hundred Arab writers and thinkers signed a petition condemning “these acts of intimidation targeting Ashraf Fayadh as part of a wider campaign inciting hate against writers and using Islam to justify oppression and to crush free speech.”
Many Saudis and others expressed solidarity on Twitter.
But after an initial hubbub around Fayadh’s arrest, there has largely been silence. In an effort to raise the volume again, activist-scholar Mona Kareem has started a translation movement. Emirati commentator Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi has translated the first section, “Asylum” from Fayadh’s Instructions Within:
Asylum: To stand at the end of a queue..
To be given a morsel of bread.
To stand!: Something your grandfather used to do.. Without knowing the reason why.
The Morsel?: You.
The homeland: A card to put in your wallet.
Money: Papers that carry images of Leaders.
The Photo: Your substitution pending your return.
And the Return: A mythological creature … from your grandmother’s tales.
End of the first lesson.
Amnesty international : Save the palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh
The petition Click this headline to sign.
20,803 signers at the time of posting. Let’s reach 30,000
Why this is important
Amnesty International
Fayadh is being sentenced to death after had been jailed for more than 22 months in the Saudi city Abha without clear legal charges beyond “insulting the Godly self” and having “ideas that do not suit the Saudi society.” These charges are based on the complaint of a reader’s interpretation of Fayadh’s 2008 poetry collection titled, Instructions Within. This is not the first time that Saudi authorities have arrested Ashraf Fayadh.
The poet has been detained before after a Saudi citizen filed a complaint with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice accusing Fayadh of having “misguided and misguiding thoughts.” Fayadh was bailed out of jail at the time, only to get arrested again.
According to sources close to Fayadh, the poet has been denied both visitation and legal representation rights.We condemn these acts of intimidation targeting Ashraf Fayadh as part of a wider campaign inciting hate against writers and using Islam to justify oppression and to crush free speech. We express our solidarity with Fayadh, hoping to increase support for the poet as well as pressure to release him. Our efforts should come together to ensure the proliferation of free speech and personal freedoms. We specifically call on Saudi intellectuals to express solidarity with Fayadh against Takfiris’ intimidation practices meant to silence poets, writers, and artists like him.Let the flag of creativity fly free and remain innovative.Remaining silent towards Fayadh’s detention is an insult to knowledge, literature, culture, and thought as well as to freedom and human rights.